#those life drawing classes I took when I was a kid and then in college helped so much

[gurugirl]

The Ex | ex!harry

Summary: Harry's your ex-lover and you see him at a wedding after many years apart. You're both married but Harry proposes something that you have a hard time saying no to.

A/n: This will have a jucier, alternative ending but you'll only find it on Patreon! I consider this Tumblr version to be what happens in 'real life'. Enjoy!

Word Count: 3435

Warning: 18+ only, mentions of smut, emotional cheating, angst

You had no way of knowing he’d be there. But then again, he also had no clue that you would be there either.

You spotted one another right away. It was as if by magic something had drawn your eyes to his. He was already casting his gaze toward you, those soft green eyes taking you in as he held the hand of the woman to his right.

Your heart skipped a beat and looking at him again after all those years felt like there hadn’t been a day that aged him. He looked just as youthful and vibrant and handsome as ever. Dark curls placed carefully on top of his head in a flattering style, broad shoulders, a slender waist, and nicely fitted pants showing off what you remember being very sturdy and masculine thighs.

“Oh! Here are our seats!” Your husband, Les, spoke from your side and pulled at your hand, drawing your attention back to where it belonged.

You shook yourself of the direction your thoughts had been headed just before. What good did it do to remember how things were once upon a time? When you were young and in college, no kids or a career… things had been so different back then. And seeing your ex, the man you thought you’d marry, the one you thought would be by your side until you grew old and ugly…

“Are you okay, babe?” Les asked you with concern on his face.

“I’m fine… yeah! Just looking around and seeing a bunch of old faces. People I haven’t seen in years.”

You were at a friend’s wedding. Someone you, by some miracle, had stayed in touch with since high school. You had grown apart from Seria over the years but she still invited you to her wedding and you couldn’t imagine missing it even though you had to find an overnight sitter for your two kids and drive five hours to a different state to attend. Something told you it would be worth it.

You turned slowly to glance around the room again, your wine glass in hand and caught his eye again. The woman he was seated next to was as lovely as she was when you first met. You remembered her. She was in your senior graduating class. An acquaintance. Someone that Harry had grown close to but that you hadn’t gotten to know all that well. At first, her presence didn’t threaten you. But after you all graduated she and Harry became inseparable and he slowly began spending less time with you and more time with her. They had a lot in common, as you recall. They were both music majors, they’d write music together and play at bars in tiny scraped-together bands occasionally.

You found out on accident about how serious he was about her. No one thought you didn’t know.

You had visited a mutual friend’s apartment and stopped in for tea and a little chat. Sarah had a whiteboard hung up on her front door, facing the inside. People would write on it. Doodle pictures, scrawl their names in different colors, or just leave funny messages.

You didn’t take note of the whiteboard at first but when you sat down on Sarah’s couch you looked up at it and saw what had been written in black with red hearts all around.

harry + ginny = really good stuff

It took you a moment to let it all sink in after you saw that. You and Sarah made small talk but you couldn’t stop thinking about what was written on the whiteboard. And the hearts all around it told you it meant more than just something friendly. So you had to interrupt and ask, “Is that… my Harry?” You already knew the answer.

Sarah followed your gaze to the whiteboard and she let out a small gasp, “Oh! I forgot that was there. Are you okay about all this? I know it’s still fresh. You and Harry were together for years.”

“Am I okay about what? What’s fresh?” You began to feel yourself tremble and your heart was racing. You were suddenly having a hard time taking in any new information because it all came crashing down on you at that very moment. The reality of what was going on. You were the last to know about Harry and Ginny. He hadn’t even had the balls to break it off with you first.

You hardly remember leaving Sarah’s apartment after she told you that they’d been dating, and from what she said, rather openly. No one had bothered to talk to you about it. Everyone just assumed you knew.

Of course, you went directly to Harry’s apartment and found Ginny there already. They hadn’t been doing anything bad when you barged in. Ginny was on his couch with a notebook in hand and Harry was on the floor with a guitar in his arms.

He looked up at you from his spot on the floor and it’s like you blacked out. You can’t quite recall what was said but in the end, he wound up telling you the truth. That he’d fallen in love with Ginny and he was going to tell you soon but that he didn’t know how because he didn’t want to hurt you.

After that, you still saw Harry. He was part of your friend group and so it was inevitable that you’d run into him from time to time. After a couple of years, things were fine between you two and you’d met Les. You’d both moved on. Things had changed. And then you moved away with Les and you got pregnant, twice, and now six years later, here you were again looking at the man who once was your everything. He’d broken your heart but you were both so young and dumb back then that it was all but forgotten.

The past was the past, but you could still feel that small clench in your heart at how things had ended with Harry.

More drinks were drunk, snacks were served, and dancing commenced… the night was fun. Les was hilarious. He was an awful dancer but he insisted on taking you to the floor with him. You both laughed and swayed to the music in the crowded spot in the hall designated for dancing.

And as much fun as you were having you couldn’t stop thinking about or catching glimpses of Harry. It appeared he couldn’t get you off his mind either. It was rather flattering in a way. To have him looking at you from across the room. The subtle smiles and nods. You felt really good about keeping your distance, though. Even though at the very end of everything, you and Harry were on good terms and had been friendly, it had been so long. Too long. You felt there was no use in having a chat. Nothing good would come of it. You’d grown apart. Lives took separate paths. Old exes at a wedding had no good reason to catch up when you’d likely never see one another ever again. It was easier to stay away. Better for everyone.

Les ordered another round of whatever he’d been drinking and suddenly wasn’t feeling so hot. You both sat at your table with a couple of the other guests who were still there. Many were dropping like flies, as tends to happen at weddings. Luckily the hotel was connected to the reception hall so getting Les to your room was not that difficult.

You knew you should have stayed with him. Just called it a night and tucked in for your early morning back home to pick up your children. But against your better judgment, you decided on just one more drink.

The band was still playing, slower music than when you’d left. Most of the tables were empty as people mingled and danced slowly. You sat at the bar and searched the room for Harry. You figured he and Ginny had gone to their room, or back home depending on how far away they lived from the venue. It was nearly midnight. The band would wrap up in a half hour and that would be that.

You sighed and turned back to face the bar and sipped your last glass of wine of the night. You’d said your hellos to everyone you wanted to. Except Harry. Deep down you really did want to say hi to him but you knew better. There was something that was telling you to keep your distance and you were glad for it. Maybe it was subconscious or perhaps there were still feelings there after all this time. You knew the truth. But you weren’t ready to admit any of that to yourself.

“Hi, Sunshine.”

You felt a wave of heat and excitement thrum through your bones. It was him. He used to call you Sunshine. Sunny. Used to sing You Are My Sunshine to you every day.

You turned to see Harry taking the chair next to you at the bar, “Hi, Harry.”

You took him in. All of his handsome face. Those pink lips you used to nibble, the nose you used to smush yours into for wispy nose-tip kisses. His intense gaze was just as it had been all those years before. You wanted to reach your fingers out and stretch them over his jawline and feel the stubble on the pads of your fingers. He was so grown up. So unchanged and yet more mature. More handsome in some ways.

He drew his arm along the back of your chair and leaned in close as he spoke to you as if you two were a couple. As if nothing had ever come between you nearly 8 years prior, “You are more beautiful than I even remember, Sunny. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about you at least once.”

You hadn’t expected him to let that be his leading comment. The first thing spoken to you in so long. But Harry didn’t follow conventions or rules. He never had. So it shouldn’t have surprised you that his first comment to you was how he thought about you every day. You wondered if that was true. Because there were days you thought about Harry still too. It wasn’t every single day. Some days he didn’t cross your mind at all. But of course, you did often think of him.

“I doubt that, Harry. You’re still big on flattery, I see,” you smiled shyly and peeled your eyes away from his to sip your wine.

When his thigh brushed into yours you could smell his cologne. It was different than what he wore in college. It was more grown up. Smelled expensive. Smelled more like something Harry should wear, “I wrote a song about you not too long ago. Ginny doesn’t know, but it brought back a lot of old memories.”

His voice was soft and deep and the timbre traveled from your ear down to your neck and your bare shoulder. You swallowed thickly and dared to turn to look at him again, knowing he was too close. Knowing what this would look like if anyone were to see you two.

“Where is Ginny?”

Harry’s small grin widened and his eyes sparkled as he looked down at your lips and shook his head, “In our room. She was tired. Just like I imagine Les is in yours.”

You blinked and looked away. You were flying too close to the sun, you knew it. This was dangerous territory and Harry was orchestrating something very wrong. Something you’d only regret. But you weren’t doing anything to stop it. Maybe curiosity had you sticking around. Maybe it was for old time’s sake. Or maybe it was just that you missed him and missed this and missed the way things had been.

You didn’t know how to respond but your body was on fire. Harry’s warm leg was pressed into yours and his large frame practically had you caged in. You loved it.

“Look at me, Sunshine,” he whispered as he softly touched your chin and nudged your face toward his, “There we go. Remember that time we loaded up my old Bronco and drove straight through to San Francisco? Thought we were gonna find an apartment and live like hippies in the big city and just write and paint and make music and that’s how we’d make all our money?”

You laughed and nodded, “I do. But instead, your Bronco broke down in Oakland at 3 am and we had to stay the night in the back of your car and get a tow back home.”

Harry laughed through his nose as he nodded his head, eyes still pinned to yours, “Wish it would have worked out between us. I miss all the fun we used to have. Me and you.”

You opened your mouth to respond but you were stuck. He was laying it on thick. He was never one to beat around the bush. He hadn’t changed. It was part of what drew people to him. His magnetism. His confidence.

“Don’t you miss it, Sunny?” He brushed his knuckle over your wrist and you inhaled sharply. Just the smallest touch had you spiraling. You would have to fight your way out of his trance if you intended on not allowing this to go any further.

You shook your head and looked down at your lap, “I don’t know, Harry.”

“We’d stay up all night making love until the sun came up. Miss classes. Skip out on parties we promised people we’d go to. Just in our own world all the time. It never got boring with you. For years we were like that. It’s never been like that with anyone else. All that passion we had, Sunny. My Sunshine girl. Never.”

You sighed and… yes. You did recall all that passion. And it was true. For nearly four years you and Harry were insatiable. It was like every day was your first date. Your first time. Like you were still getting to know one another after all those years. Sex had never been better. Harry was your best by far. You didn’t like to compare anyone to him but that’s only because it made you miss him. Made you miss the way you felt. Missed that lust and that passion and the vulnerability.

“I know you know what I mean,” Harry slid his hand down to your thigh discretely. No one in the room could see but you knew he was touching you in a way you hadn’t felt in so long. In a way that was only reserved for your husband. Felt that familiar, big palm spread over the expanse of your soft thigh, his thumb lightly grazing the bottom hem of your dress.

“Harry…” you breathed his name in warning.

“My Sunshine, girl,” he spoke the pet name back to you without an ounce of teasing. He was perfectly clear in what he wanted. And even though he hadn’t said it outright, there was no denying it.

“I’m married.” You reasoned weakly as you let your gaze rove his features and drop to his plush lips.

“So am I.” He squeezed your thigh and your limbs were on fire. You didn’t know how to escape the moment. You didn’t know if you wanted to. He was “the one who got away”. Even though everything hurt when it happened and he’d done you wrong, you’d long ago forgiven him and now it was just two old lovers feeling that same heat and desire they once felt. Some things from the past could be forgotten. But the way things felt between you, that constant spark, the wild lust every single day for all those years would never be forgotten.

You still dreamed about him. Would wake up hot and panting and roll over to see Les fast asleep with his face tucked into his pillow and you’d close your eyes and remember the time… Remember his voice and his hands and the way he made you feel. How free and exciting life was with Harry.

And it was all coming back to you in an insane, surreal, mind-bending rush. Everything about him was the same as it was before you graduated college. Before he fell for Ginny. Before you two grew apart and you got married and moved away. You could almost taste the skin on his hips near his laurel tattoos. Could smell the scent of his sex mixed with yours. Could hear the laughs and the moans and neighbors beating on the wall telling you to keep it down. Could feel the way you loved him once upon a time, the way he loved you so deeply it scared you. Loved you so much you never could imagine that he’d ever love another.

“You’ve lost your fucking mind,” you whispered with a grin.

He shook his head, “I’ve never been more clear-headed in my life.”

You licked your lips and closed your eyes. Every time you thought you’d wake up from the dream you felt him move against you, felt his fingers on your skin and you were continuously dropped down into your seat at the bar at your friend’s wedding with your ex at your side and his words snaking into your ears.

The only thought that kept you grounded was knowing that there was nowhere for him to take you that was private. Because that had already, obviously, crossed your mind. To have another taste. One last time just for old-time’s sake. But it seemed impossible. It seemed ridiculous to even entertain. And yet there you were.

“Remember that small room with the table and chair on the second floor of the library we used to go to? Had a lock,” Harry’s warm hand stayed on your thigh as he spoke.

You did remember that. You found a room in the 2nd-floor corridor that connected to a small hallway off the library. The hallway had four doors. They were all locked but one of them just so happened to unlock if you lifted the knob upward and jiggled it just right. The room was bare of furniture except a small wooden table pushed against the wall and a fabric swivel chair with wheels. Both of which you learned to make good use of. It wasn’t hard to find a use for random surfaces with Harry back then.

Nodding and squinting your eyes at the man you spoke, “Of course I do.”

“I want to get you alone in a room again,” he lowered his voice and leaned in so that his voice was close and the front of his shoulder was pressed into the back of yours, “Just one more time. Something just for you and me, Sunny. I miss you.”

You couldn’t believe the way he’d gotten you worked up in almost no time. The way you still reacted to him and the need crawling up your spine made you dizzy.

“There’s no place to go here, Harry. No free room. We can’t anyway… you know we can’t,” you looked at his face and held your breath. You couldn’t do this. It was wrong.

“We can find something. A hidden spot where no one will ever know.”

You looked away from his fierce gaze and down at your glass. You swallowed thickly and shook your head as you reluctantly pulled yourself from his side and stepped off the stool, “Harry. We can’t. I have kids. My husband is… I love him. I don’t love you anymore. I could never forgive myself.”

He clenched his jaw as he nodded, “No one would know.” He looked at you with pleading eyes. You could tell he knew this wasn’t going to happen.

“I would know,” you dropped some cash on the bar and looked back at Harry as you squeezed his shoulder, “But it does feel good to know that you regret replacing me with someone else even after all this time.”

As you walked away you took a deep breath and smiled to yourself. You could have said yes. Could have found yourself in some room or bathroom stall with him getting exactly what you knew he could deliver. But you didn’t regret saying no. You didn’t regret walking away from him. It felt good to have the upper hand. Something you had no idea that you’d had all along. The man who you thought you’d lost really turned out to be the man who’d lost you.

Find the other version with the alternative ending here on my Patreon!

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[pascalcampion]

Georges Beuville ( 1902-1982)

Ok, this one is an odd one.

I remember seeing his work as a kid in books we had to read in class.

I didn’t care for it. I didn’t dislike it, it was just one of those things that I associated with class so it was boring.

It was later, in high school, when I was doing research in the library of the little town I lived in ( Vesoul!) that I fell on a book he had illustrated. It was a classic French book called the war of buttons ( La guerre des boutons) and I remember recognizing his little star shaped signature and trying to figure out if I liked it his work or not.

I couldn’t stop wanting to come back to it. I wasn’t sure why because it wasn’t well drawn. In fact, it felt like there was no drawing at all ( in my mind). Just colors that somehow made me understand a scene.

Later still, in college, I came across his work again and it THEN it hit me what he was doing.

The looseness of his work meant a lack of talent, or skill when I was younger, probably because I was used to French graphic novels or American comics which all had clear dark outlines. Beuville’s work was different. It was so loose it felt more like a sketch than an illustration but it was clear, readable. It was expressive in a way that I didn’t know could be done and printed.

After that, I kept looking for his work whenever I could.

I found a lot since then, but nothing that impacted me as much as his La Guerre des Boutons”

Not to say his other work isn’t as good but that was the work of his that really impacted me the most. The kind of work that feels like a secret when you discover it if that makes sense.

“OH, You can do illustrations like THIS and it still works!”

Beuville’s done a lot of line drawing images that go inside the books, chapter headers, things like that. I love those as well.

In any case, another one of my favorites even if it took awhile for me to see it. ( which seems to be a recurring theme in my life!)

#GeorgesBeuville #Art

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Can you please give an explainer on the friendship between Robespierre and Desmoulins and what their dynamic together was like? I know they were at school together as kids but were they really as close as movies usually portray them as? Was Robespierre better friends with Saint-Just?

Bonus: What's the story behind Desmoulins using Roussaeau against Robespierre?

Merci!

That’s an interesting question considering how often their relationship, as you say, has gotten dramatized.

The good days of the relationship

Both Robespierre and Desmoulins started attending the boarding school of Louis-le-Grand at the age of eleven, the former in 1769, the latter in 1771. We don’t know when exactly they first ran into and/or got to know each other, nor exactly just how close or not they actually grew to be while at college. To me, the following two statements do however suggest that their relationship back then was at least better than ”mere acquaintances”:

Oh, my dear Robespierre! It is not long since we were sighing together over our country’s servitude, since, drawing from the same sources the sacred love of liberty and equality, amid so many professors whose lessons only taught us to detest our land, we were complaining there was no professor of cabals who would teach us to free it, when we were regretting the tribune of Rome and Athens, how far was I from thinking that the day of a constitution a thousand times more beautiful was so close to shining on us, and that you, in the tribune of the French people, would be one of the firmest ramparts of the nascent freedom! Desmoulins in number 15 of Révolutions de France et de Brabant (March 8 1790)

I knew Camille in college, he was my study companion, he was then a talented young man without mature judgement. Since then Camille has developed the most ardent love of the Republic;... one must not look only at one point in his moral life, one must take the whole of it; one must examine him as a whole. Robespierre defends Camille at the Jacobins December 14 1793 (only time he ever admitted to a college friendship with anyone at all)

Liévin-Bonaventure Proyart, who worked at the college up until 1778, would give the following description of the relationship Desmoulins and Robespierre had back then in his La vie et les crimes de Robespierre: surnommé le Tyran… (1795):

In his lower classes, and however young he had been, [Robespierre] was very rarely seen sharing the amusements and games which most please childhood. His cold and misanthropic heart never knew those outpourings of lively and frank joy, natural signs of candor and ingenuity. Of all the noisy and endlessly varied amusements which make the public recreation of a college such an animated scene, none pleased him, and he preferred dark reveries and solitary walks. If someone, at these moments, approached him, he received him with a cold gravity; and answered him at first only in monofyllables. If he took it upon himself to praise his style and his scholastic productions, Robespierre did him the favor of striking up a conversation with him. But, however little one ventured to thwart him, one instantly became the object of some harsh and virulent trait. Camille Desmoulins, who lived at the same college, and whose impetuous and untidy character did not adapt well to the philosophical arrogance of Robespierre, had from time to time grapples with him, but from then on as since, the champions did not fight on equal terms. Always more reflective than the opponent who provoked him, and more master of his moves, Robespierre, watching the moment, pounced on him with all the advantage that cold prudence has over temerity.

Fellow students Beffroy de Reigny and Stanislas Fréron would in the latter half of the 1790’s similarly make the contradiction of stating both that the young Robespierre didn’t have any friends at school and that the latter and Desmoulins had been college comrades (Beffroy writing that Robespierre was ”his (Desmoulins’) comrade and mine” and Fréron that Desmoulins was Robespierre’s ”childhood comrade”). Though given the time these texts were written, I think this might should be read more as these Robespierre-dislikers wanting to have the cake and eat it too (ergo they both want Robespierre to have killed his childhood friend and to have been so repulsive he had no friends at all) than as full blown evidence Camille was Robespierre’s ”only friend,” as the latter puts it in La Terreur et la Vertu.

Finally, Marcellin Matton, when writing a short biography over Camille in 1834, stated the following regarding his college days:

It was [at Louis-le Grand] that Camille got to know Maximilien Robespierre. They differed in character, but both had this passion which always distinguishes men of genius — love for liberty and for independence. The fully republican education one gave to young people born to live under a monarchy contributed a lot to their character. Without stop and in all forms, one presented them with history of Gracchus, Brutus, Cato. Camille was always together with Robespierre and their conversation most often revolved around the constitution of the Roman Republic.

While this certainly sounds like it could just be romantizing, we do know Matton was friends with Camille’s mother-in-law and sister-in-law, and it it’s therefore possible it’s them (who in their turn would have gotten it from Camille) who have given him this account of a close college relationship.

It’s sometimes argued that Robespierre and Desmoulins can’t have been friends while at school since they were never in the same grade, and it therefore would have been really hard for them to socialize. And indeed, when looking over the school regulations that were in motion during their time there, that does indeed come off as quite a hard thing to do — students were to stick to their ”quarter” both in dormitories, during classes, study hall, on Sunday outings, and at table (at first I thought maybe these ”quarters” weren’t neccessarily made up of students who all came from the same grade, but this other piece seems to rule out that possibility). This leaves the thirty-minute recesses as the only places where students from different quarters would have gotten a chance to interact with one another (bc they all seemed to have recess at the same time according to the schedule…). I do however think Robespierre and Desmoulins’ own testimonies weigh heavier than this. Desmoulins would also go on to admit college friendships with other students we know for a fact can never have been in the same grade as him.

In 1774 and 1775, both Robespierre and Desmoulins’ names featured on the list of students that had been awarded annual prizes for their hard labors, which means that they, according to the regulations, got presented before the bureau of administration by the principal ”to there receive praise and rewards due to their work and the success of their studies��� together.

After graduating (Robespierre in 1781, Desmoulins in 1785) the two seemingly lost sight of one another, at least we don’t have any evidence they corresponded or in other ways kept up contact. Two pieces do however show us they did not forget about each other entirely. The first is a letter dated spring 1786 Camille adressed to the aforementioned Beffroy de Reigny, who in January the same year had openly thanked his ”former study comrade Robespiere [sic]” for sending him two of his works as a gift.

It was noticed lately, as a misfortune attached to the house where we were brought up together, that none of those who had distinguished themselves there fulfilled in the world the hopes that he had first given, that you alone seem happier right now, and we rejoice in your many subscribers. Although the subscribers are your dear and beloved cousins, we can clearly see that you have not forgotten the rest of the family, nor lost sight of the mountain where we were the first to applaud you. The advantageous manner in which you have spoken of M. Robespiere [sic] has charmed us all; up to now, M. Jéhanne has missed only one opportunity to provide you with the occasion of doing him justice as well. The joy with which you gave well deserved praise to a comrade reproached me for my conduct towards you, and obliges me to retract. 

In 1793, Robespierre did in his turn admit to before the revolution have read a poem (that according to Camille had been written in 1787), and felt proud once he realized who the author was:

Remember that at a time when the monarchy was best established on its foundations, Camille, a simple individual, without support, without advocate or patron, a lawyer without a cause on the fourth floor, dared to put into verse the proudest principles of the most determined Republican. Then, in the depths of my province, I learned with secret pleasure that the author was one of my college comrades.

Interestingly, Robespierre’s younger brother Augustin started studying law at Louis-le-Grand in 1784, one year before Camille graduated from said program, although neither would claim to have known the other while at college.

On May 8 1789, Desmoulins authored a letter to his father, telling him about the opening of the Estates General at Versailles three days earlier. Lamenting the fact he himself didn’t get elected for it, he writes: ”one of my comrades has been more fortunate than I, it’s de Robespierre, deputy from Arras. He has been wise enough to plead in his own province.” The fact Camille was able to recognize Robespierre eight years after their separation (and care about it enough to write it down), could be read as yet another sign their college relationship had at least mattered somewhat, especially since this letter is from before Robespierre had made any kind of name for himself politically. How exactly Camille found out Robespierre had been elected (did he recognize his face in a crowd, accidentally run into him or just see it written down somewhere?) is however unknown.

After the ceremony, Camille did however head back to Paris, while Robespierre would remain at Versailles up until October 1789. On July 23 1789, the latter writes to his friend Antoine Buissart that he has been shown the stormed Bastille, suggesting he’s taken a short trip to the capital, but there’s no evidence he saw Desmoulins during it, or even that he knew he had been the one inciting the storming at this point.

In the beginning of September, Camille released Discours de la Lanterne aux Parisiens, the first of his works which he mentioned Robespierre in:

I would at least congratulate Mr. de Robespierre for opposing with all his strength the release of the Duke of Vauguyon. Mr. Glaizen opposed it in an even more eloquent manner. Member of the criminal committee, he resigned immediately. The speaks of conviction. Honor to MM. Glaizen and Robespierre!

Later the same month, Camille went back to Versaille after having been invited by Mirabeau, and the day after his arrival (September 20 1789) he could write to tell his father: ”If you hear bad things said about me, console yourself with the memory of the testimony that MM. de Mirabeau, Target, M. de Robespierre, Gleizal and more than two hundred deputies gave me.” Camille stayed with Mirabeau for two weeks before returning to Paris, but there’s no proof he saw Robespierre any more times during his stay.

When Robespierre too went to Paris soon thereafter, he settled in an apartment on Rue de Saintonge, today a 45 minute walk away from Camille’s erstwhile home on Rue de Tournon 19. Despite finally living in the same city again, it’s not until March 6 1790 I’ve discovered something more concreate tying the two together. It’s a note from Desmoulins to Robespierre, found listed in Mémoires de l’Académie des sciences, agriculture, commerce, belles-lettres et arts du département de la Somme (1907) as one of many Desmoulins related text published in Journal de Vervins during the summer of 1884. Unfortunately, I can’t find this journal online anywhere, so I don’t know what the note was about.

In November 1789, Camille founded his very first journal — Révolutions de France et de Brabant — that would run until the fall of 1791. Searching for the term ”Robespierre” in the seven digitalized volumes of the journal, I find Camille talking about him around 85 times. The first time is in number 4 (released December 19 1789), where he makes sure to underline the fact that he and Robespierre had been ”college comrades”:

…If my dear college comrade, Robespierre, had said the same thing to the viscount, he wouldn’t have been able to respond like Saint Peter.

This was the first in a long series of homages Desmoulins’ journal would pay Robespierre. Throughout the years, he called him among other things ”The last of Romans and my hero” (number 41, September 6 1790), ”So pure, so inflexible, the peak of patriotism” (number 46, October 11 1790), ”the living commentary on the Declaration of Rights” (number 65, February 21 1791) and ”immutable” (number 76, May 9 1791). Desmoulins was also second in giving Robespierre the famous nickname ”the Incorruptible.” Not even Robespierre’s erstwhile boyfriend brother in arms Pétion, where Camille still admitted it was impossible to speak of one without thinking about the other (number 55, December 13 1790) got the same almost saintlike treatment. While Robespierre got praised by several journals positive to the revolution, I don’t think it would be that unfair to say Desmoulins was his cheerleader number one during at least its first few years. Several times, Robespierre also sent Camille speeches and letters of his which the latter willfully inserted into his journal (1, 2, 3).

I’ve found only one time Révolutions de France et de Brabant had something negative to say about Robespierre, and it is in number 27, released on May 31 1790, and conviently enough, the next piece of information regarding Desmoulins and Robespierre’s relationship that I know of:

I wasted my time preaching the republic. The republic and democracy are now down, and it is unfortunate for an author to shout in the desert and to write pages as worthless, as little listened to, as the motions of J. F. Maury. Since I despair of overcoming insurmountable currents, tied for six months to the bench of rowers, perhaps I would do well to regain the shore, and throw away a useless oar. I should leave Garnery, continue writing Révolutions de France et de Brabant at a discount, without attempting with my librarian, the unequal struggle of Tournon with Prudhomme. But I hear Robespierre call my discouragement corruption, and exclaim that I am sold like the others to the King's wife and to the ministerial party. I must undeceive my dear Robespierre, I must give new proofs of my incorruptibility every week, show that I am as proud a republican as he is, and that when the number of patriots, which is diminishing prodigiously every day, would be reduced to one or two citizens, it is I who would like to remain the last of the Jacobins. […] How is it that I was accused of being a sold-out journalist, and that I saw Robespierre and L... among my slanderers, when it is so difficult to find proofs of corruption against me? […] So I could not have my neck wrapped in a handkerchief and complain of esquinancia without being reproached for argyrancia as well. Ungrateful Robespierre!

A week later, June 7 1790, Robespierre authors the following letter to Desmoulins, in response to something the latter has written about him in the number of his journal released right after the one quoted above:

Monsieur, I read the following passage regarding the decree from May 22 on the right of war and peace in your (votre) latest number of Révolutions de France et de Brabant: On Saturday, May 22, the little dauphin applauded a decree Mirabeau had put forward with a good sense way beyond his young years. The people applauded too. It led back in triumph Barnave, Péthion [sic], Lameth, d'Aiguillon, Duport, and all the illustrious Jacobins; imagiening itself having just won a great victory, and these deputies had the weakness to maintain it in an error which they enjoyed. Robespierre was more frank, he said to the multitude which surrounded him and stunned them with his beating statement: ”Well! gentlemen, what are you congratulating yourself on? the decree is detestable, detestable to the last bit; let's let the brat clap his hands at his window, he knows better than us what he's doing.” I must, monsieur, point out the error in which you have been led on the fact which concerns me in this passage. I told the National Assembly my opinion on the principles and consequences of the decree which regulates the exercise of the right of peace and war; but there I stopped. I did not make the statement you cite in the Tuileries garden; I didn’t even speak to the crowd of citizens who gathered in my path as I crossed it. I believe I must disavow this fact: 1, because it is not true; 2, because, however disposed I am to always display in the National Assembly the character of frankness which should distinguish the representatives of the nation, I am not unaware that elsewhere there is a certain reserve which suits them. I hope, monsieur, that you will be good enough to make my statement public through your newspaper, especially since your magnanimous zeal for the cause of liberty will make it a law for you not to leave bad citizens the slightest of pretext to calumniate the energy of the defenders of the people. De Robespierre.

There’s certainly not much in this letter implying Robespierre is friends with Desmoulins, or even knows him as anything more than a journalist… All readers’ letters published within Révolutions de France et de Brabant up to this point have however used vouvoiement and been about as formal, so it’s possible Robespierre (who, according to his conserved correspondence, doesn’t use a particulary warm tone with anyone around this period save his arragois friend Antoine Buissart) is trying to mimick them. It’s also not impossible his tone had something to do with what Desmoulins had written about him a week earlier. Desmoulins did however not let himself become influenced by it when publishing and responding to the letter in the the next number (June 14 1790) of his journal. He even chose to adress Robespierre in tutoiment, even though Robespierre addressed him with vouvoiement, and despite having adressed every other correspondent to the journal with vouvoiement up until this point.

If I insure this errata, my dear Robespierre, it is only to show your (ton) signature to my fellow journalists, and teach them not to cripple a name that patriotism has illustrated. There is in your letter a dignity, a seanatorial gravity which wounds college friendship. You’re rightly proud of the laticlave of deputy to the National Assembly. This noble pride pleases me, and what annoys me even more is that not everyone feels their dignity as you do? But you should at least greet a former comrade with a slight nod. I love you none the less, because you are faithful to principles, even if you are not so faithful to friendship. However, why demand this retraction from me? When I would have slightly altered the truth in the anecdote I told, since this fact is honorable for you, since I doubtless said what you thought, if not your expressed words, instead of disavowing the journalists so curtly, you had to content yourself with saying like the cousin, in the charming comedy of the supposed dead man: ”Ah! Monsieur, vous brodez!” You are not one of those weak men of whom J.J Rousseau speaks, who do not want anyone to be able to repeat what they think, and who only speak the truth in their negligee or in their dressing gown, and not in the National Assembly or in the Tuileries.

According to Brissot, the incident did however end up making both college comrades rather piqued against one another. In his memoirs (1793), he wrote the following about it:

I reread this letter to Camille, which chance put before my eyes at this moment, and of which Robespierre himself had brought me a copy to print so that it would have more publicity. It is dated June 8 [sic] 1790 […] Doesn't everything in this letter, on which I can't help but dwell yet, bear the character of a vague uneasiness, of a singular timidity? I remember on this occasion Robespierre with his fears and his scruples which he could not dissimulate. Desmoulins' thoughtlessness alarmed him; he didn't know what to think of it. Was this young man paid to write such follies, and thus compromise the friends of reason and liberty? The deputy's response to the journalist was dignified, proud; it was indeed the style of a patriot. Royalism? what clumsiness! […] Before inserting this complaint in my diary, I warned Camille, whose susceptibility I knew. His answer was made, he left it to me; but I thought I was agreeable to him by publishing neither this answer nor the complaint of which it was the object. He seemed to me strongly piqued against Robespierre. Was it in this tone that a college friend had written to him? What had this rose-watered Brutus to blame, and what power was he so afraid of displeasing? However, Cassius did not want to anger Brutus. Desmoulins always sought to stick to celebrities, to Danton as to Mirabeau, to Linguet as to Robespierre; he would have sought out Marat, had that wolf been able to live with someone in society. Moreover, Robespierre's letter, like his signature, struck his mind, and his answer smelt a bit of taunting.

If the relationship got damaged, it was however not enough to stop Robespierre from saving Camille after an arrest warrant had been issued against him during the session of the National Assembly held on August 2 1790:

M. Malouet: …Is Camille Desmoulins innovative? He will justify himself. Is he guilty? I will be the accuser of him and of all those who take up his defense. Let him justify himself, if he dares. (A voice rises from the stands: ”Yes, I dare.” A part of the surprised assembly rises; the rumor spreads in the assembly that it is M. Camille Desmoulins who has spoken; the president gives the order to arrest the individual who uttered these words). N…: I ask that we deliberate beforehand on this arrest. M. Robespierre: I believe that the provisional order given by the President was indispensable; but must you confuse imprudence and inconsideration with crime? He heard himself accused of a crime against the Nation, it is difficult for a sensitive man to remain silent. It cannot be supposed that he intended to disrespect the Legislative Body. Humanity agrees with justice, pleads in its favour. I ask for his release, and that we move on to the agenda. The president annonces that M. Camille Desmoulins has escaped and can’t be arrested. The Assembly pass onto the order of the day.

Desmoulins was grateful Robespierre had stepped in, and in number 38 (August 16 1790) of his journal, he described the incident in the following way:

My dear Robespierre did not abandon me at this moment. By condemning me at first he conciliated all minds, and then brought them back with great art by developing this motion: if it is someone other than M. Desmoulins who raised his voice, this breach of assembly wheat must be punished; if it is him; it is difficult for an accused who does not feel guilty not to accept the challenge of his accuser. I ask for his release. Robespierre was applauded.

When Fréron (who we know was on friendly terms with at least Camille) described the very same incident in his journal l’Orateur du Peuple, he did refer to Robespierre as ”his (Camille’s) friend” so perhaps their relationship had indeed gotten better since Robespierre’s impersonal letter…

Three numbers later (September 6 1790) he writes about having given Robespierre a book written by abbot Jean-Joseph Rive:

O most learned and most patriotic of abbots! I read your letters, in which you always start out angry with me, and in which you end up smothering me with patriotic semens, and I gave your dear Robespierre your 700 pages in-80. But when do expect us to find the time to read your little novel?

Pierre Villiers, who in his Souvenirs d’un déporté (1802) claimed to have served as Robespierre’s secretary April-November 1790, wrote that the latter during this period ”thought the highest (il a fait le plus grand cas) of Camille Desmoulins. He's going too fast, Robespierre said to me, he'll break his neck; Paris wasn't made in a day, it takes more than a day to undo.”

On December 11 1790, Camille was given permission to marry Lucile Duplessis. Two weeks later, December 27, Robespierre, alongside Pétion, Brissot, Mercier, Sillery, Danton, Duport du Tertre, Barnave, Viefville des Essarts, Charles Lameth, Alexandre Lameth, Mirabeau, Andrieu and Deviefville, signed the couple’s wedding contract (1, 2). Two days after that, the wedding ceremony was held in Église Saint-Sulpice. Writing to his father about it, Camille could report that the witnesses this time had been ”Péthion [sic] and Robespierre, the elite of the National Assembly, M. de Sillery, who wanted to be there, and my two collegues Brissot de Warville and Mercier, the elite among the journalists.” The priest presiding over the ceremony was Denis Bérardier, who from 1778 to 1787 had been Camille and Robespierre’s college principal, after which he had been elected to represent the clergy at the Estates general. In the previously cited letter to his father, Camille writes that Bérardier during the ceremony held a speech that moved both him, Lucile and all of the witnesses to tears. An anonymous anecdote from 1792 similarily claims Camille began to cry out of joy during the ceremony, only this time Robespierre, instead of crying along with him, responded: ”don’t cry, you hypocrite!” It was however dismissed as apocryphal by Desmoulins’ latest biographer. After the ceremony, Camille reports that groom, bride, the witnesses and Bérardier all went over to his place to have dinner together with Lucile’s parents and sister. 

A little more than a month after the wedding, Robespierre, impatient to see a speech of his printed in Révolutions de France et de Brabant, sent the following letter to Camille. This is the first time in his conserved correspondence where he doesn’t use vouvoiement, and it won’t be until February 1793 that he does so again (though I don’t have any appreciation on whether adressing someone in third-person is less formal or not):

Paris, February 14 1791 I point out to Monsieur Camille Demoulins [sic] that neither the beautiful eyes nor the fine qualities of the charming Lucile are reasons for not announcing my work on the national guard which has been given to him and of which I send him a copy if necessary. At this moment there is no object more pressing or more important than the organization of the National Guards. At least that is what the citizens of Marseilles think, of whom I am here attaching a decree relating to my speech. I beg Camille not to mislead himself and to try to also send me back the letters from Avignon and the replies which I gave him. Robespierre

Camille obliged, printing the speech a week later in number 65 (February 21 1791) of his journal. It happened to be Discours sur l’organisation des gardes nationales, in which Robespierre becomes the first person ever to use the three words ”liberté, égalité, fraternité” as a slogan. But it was Camille who in July 1790 had been the first to bring the three words together as a formula. Robespierre and Desmoulins can therefore be said to hold the shared responsibility for the invention of what today is France’s national motto.

Five days after Camille had published Robespierre’s speech, February 26, Madame Chalabre wrote to the latter that ”The patriot Camille, in his last speech, paints with a charming naturalness, a truly original precision, the character of your talents. One would think that the genius of the good and unfortunate Jean-Jacques inspired him; it is of such a delicate touch; he shed so many tears reading this passage! Good Camille, you deserve the happiness which I hope you will enjoy with your lovely companion.” A week later, March 3, Sillery writes to Camille that ”Madame de Sillery is coming to dine at my house with Pétion and Robespierre, I dare to ask your lovable and beautiful wife to too do me this honor. […] Come, my dear Camille, if you have ever found yourself in a pure and exact democracy, it will be eight o’clock on Sunday when I hope to embrace you.”

In number 79 (June 4 1791) of his journal, Camille praises the ”simplicity” of Robespierre ”going by foot from his home on rue Saintonge to the National Assembly and dining for 30 sols,” implying they are on good enough terms for him to know those details about him. A few weeks later, June 21, Paris woke up to the discovery that the royal family had disappeared from the capital during the night. In number 82 (June 27 1791) of his journal, Camille would describe in detail what he had been up to during this day:

I left [Lafayette] hoping that maybe the immense career that the King's flight had opened to his ambition had brought him back to the popular party, and arrived at the Jacobins, striving to believe in his demonstrations of friendship and patriotism, and to fill myself with this persuasion, which, despite my efforts, flowed from my mind through a thousand memories, as through a thousand outlets. The only man who has my full confidence, Robespierre, had the floor. See here a speech full of truths of which I haven’t lost a single one, and tremble: [he then transcribes a speech Robespierre holds on the flight of the royal family] How shall I express this abandon, this accent of patriotism and indignation with which he pronounced it! He was listened to with that religious attention from which we collect the last words of the dying. It was, in fact, like his testament that he came to deposit in the archives of the club. I did not hear this speech with as much composure as I report at this moment, where the arrest of the former King has changed the face of affairs. I was moved to tears in more than one place, and when this excellent citizen, in the middle of his speech, spoke of the certainty of paying with his head for the truths he had just pronounced, I cried out: we will all die before you!

Apparently no one ever taught Camille to be careful with what you wish for.

In the same number, Desmoulins also describes how, the next day, he and several others brought a woman who had information to give on the escape attempt to the Jacobin club, in the hopes that her testimony would get Robespierre to denounce Lafayette and Bailly. Once arrived, they talk to him and Buzot, who both quickly become convinced of the high credibility of the witness, but are taken aback by the measures proposed to be taken. ”We will be,” they said, ”pushed back from the tribune, referred to the research committee, and our accusation will be entered in this mortuary register of denunciations.” After a while Pétion shows up and definitely discourages Robespierre, who, according to Camille, ”at first was quite disposed to take away the reputation of Bailly and La Fayette via assault.”

The escape attempt resulted in the demonstration and shootings on Champ de Mars on July 17 1791. On the evening of the same day as these events, we find Desmoulins and Robespierre at the Jacobin Club, both speaking of what had just happened. Shortly thereafter Camille went incognito for a while, hiding out at Lucile’s parents’ country house at Bourg-la-Reine until finally resurfacing in Paris again in early September. In the meantime, Robespierre had changed address and gone to live with the Duplay family on Rue Saint-Honoré 398, today a 35 minute walk from Rue du Théâtre 1 (today Rue de l’Odeon 28) where Camille and Lucile had moved shortly after their wedding. In her old days, Élisabeth Duplay authored a list over the people who most commonly would frequent her family’s house during the revolution.

The Lamenths and Pétion in the early days, quite rarely Legendre, Merlin de Thionville and Fouché, often Taschereau, Desmoulins and Teault, always Lebas, Saint-Just, David, Couthon and Buonarotti.

However, judging by an anecdote told by the same Élisabeth, Desmoulins’ visits went from being frequent to rare after a certain incident (that I would guess happened in 1793 considering Élisabeth still places his overall visits under the ”often” section):

One day Camille familiarly enters the Duplay house; Robespierre was absent. He starts a conversation with the youngest of the carpenter's daughters; as he retires, Camille hands her a book he had under his arm. ”Elizabeth,” he said to her, ”do me the service of holding onto this work; I will come back for it.” No sooner had Desmoulins left than the young girl curiously half-opened the book entrusted to her custody: what was her confusion, seeing paintings of revolting obscenity pass under her fingers. She blushes: the book falls. All the rest of the day Elizabeth was silent and troubled; Maximilian noticed it; drawing her aside. "What's the matter with you," he asked her, "you look so worried to me?" The young girl lowered her head, and as an answer went to fetch the book with the odious engravings which had offended her sight. Maximilien opened the volume and turned pale. "Who gave you this?" he asked in a voice shaking with anger. The girl frankly told him what had happened. "It’s fine," Robespierre went on, "don't talk about what you've just told me to anyone: I'll make it my business. Don't be sad anymore. I'll let Camille know. It is not what enters involuntarily through the eyes that defiles chastity: it is the evil thoughts that one has in the heart.” He admonished his friend severely, and from that day on, visits from Camille Desmoulins became very rare.

In a diary entry entry from June 1792, Lucile seemingly confirms the connection she and her husband had with Robespierre’s host family when she writes ”I went with C(amille) and little Duplay (most likely Élisabeth’s little brother Jacques-Maurice) to an old madwoman’s.”

On September 30 1791, the National Assembly was shut down and Robespierre left Paris for Arras, where he arrived on October 14. He was back in the capital again on November 28. A little more than two weeks later, December 16, Brissot, held his first speech in favor of going to war. As known, Robespierre opposed this, holding his first speech against the idea just two days later. Desmoulins quickly joined his side, holding a similar speech on December 25. When Robespierre held his third big speech on the subject, on January 11, Desmoulins, who listened to the reading, was enthusiastic and the next day he wrote the following letter to the ”patriots of Millau” (cited in Camille et Lucile Desmoulins: un Rêve de République):

At the moment I am still enthusiastic. This speech will be reread in all sections, in all clubs and in all patriots' houses; everywhere one will admire and especially love the author, but what would have happened had you heard him speak yourself! Those who were his college comrades, and even those who last year were his colleagues in the National Assembly, have not recognized Robespierre for some time. From a man of spirit, he became eliquent, and now he is sublime at intervals. It seems that he grows by one foot every month, as it is true that the home of talent is the heart. When, two years ago, I presented him, in my journal, as a Cato, I was far from foreseeing that he would never rise to the height of the talent of Demosthenes.

A month later, Desmoulins also aimed a blow against Brissot with the release of the pampleth Jean Pierre Brissot démasqué. While said pampleth definitely outlined who Camille considered his enemies, it also made clear who were his champions, with Robespierre, who’s name got mentioned nine times throughout, taking up the forefront:

This true patriot (Rœderer) has not forgiven me, him and his cabal, for loving Robespierre, my college friend, venerable, great in my eyes, although it has been said that there was no great man for his valet-de-chambre, nor for his college friend and the witness of his youth.

In a letter written shortly thereafter to François Suleau, another one of their former college comrades, Desmoulins claimed that ”[Robespierre] sees me as invulnurable after the proof of incorruptibility that I produced in my latest writing to Brissot.” Apropos of Desmoulins still seeing Suleau, a firm royalist, he added: ”I cannot blame my friend Robespierre when he tells me that he would run away from my house on seeing a notable from Coblentz (Suleau) enter.” 

War was nevertheless declared on April 20 1792. The very same day, Camille and Fréron, who had both had to quit their journals in the aftermath of the massacre on Champ de Mars, signed a contract for creating a new one — La Tribune des Patriotes. The first number was meant to be released on May 7, but the following day, their publisher Charles Frobert Patris told Camille he had refused to print it, on the charge of it being ”a libel.” Camille reported this to the Jacobin club the very same day, and the following session Patris came forward to explain himself. Things did however not go the way he’d planned, and in a pampleth released shortly afterwards, Patris wrote the following regarding the session:

How come you (Robespierre) tolerated that the vile informer (Camille), to whom I was answering, seeing the club cover with long applause the hard truths that I was beginning to tell him, left his place to go sit down behind you, pulled you by the tailcoat and spoke to you in a low voice and with an air of intelligence! Didn't you have to feel that such intimacy would favor him, and turn to my prejudice?

Soon thereafter, La Tribune des Patriotes could finally be released. This work too was in part meant to protect and advocate for Robespierre, starting already in the first number:

O my dear Robespierre, I gave you this name (the Incorruptible) three years ago! Let people re-read my writings: at the time of my highest admiration for the Mirabeaus, the Lafayettes, the Lameths, and so many others, I always set you apart, I always placed your probity, character and soul above all; and I have seen that the public, while learning from my writings, has hitherto confirmed my judgments, six months or a year after I had made them. Since degenerate friends of truth come to the aid of the impotence of our means to defray the cost of this journal, Fréron and I will not abandon you in the breach, in the midst of a cloud of enemies. The efforts of all these false patriots relentless today - against you alone, we will divide them, by drawing on us their hatred, and by fighting at your side, not for a man, not for you, but for the cause of the people, the equality of the constitution, which has been attacked in you.

Desmoulins and Fréron had originally planned to have the journal run for at least a year, however, it failed to catch an audience and was put down already after four numbers. Robespierre’s name did however still get mentioned a total of 40 times throughout the journal, always in a positive light.

On July 6 1792, Lucile gave birth to a son who received the name Horace. The idea that Robespierre was his godfather would appear to be nothing but a myth seeing as the baptism record doesn’t mention any godparents but only two witnesses — neither of which are Robespierre but instead Laurent Lecointre and Merlin de Thionville. After the good days of the relationship were over, both Lucile and her mother would however contemplate over Robespierre having held Horace in his arms on multiple occasions, the former writing: ”You (Robespierre) who have smiled at my son and whom his infantile hands have carassed so many times…” and the latter asking if he still remembered ”the caresses you lavished on little Horace, how you delighted to hold him upon your knee.”

Three days after his birth, Horace was sent off to a wetnurse, while Lucile soon thereafter went to her parents’ country house to rest up. Camille remained in Paris working on a speech that he delivered on July 24. A few days before it he reported to Lucile that ”I dined at Robespierre’s today and talked ever so much about Rouleau (nickname for Lucile), Rouleau, my poor Rouleau.” Lucile returned from the countryside on August 8. Four days later, after the Insurrection of August 10, Camille was made secretary by the new Minister of Justice Danton. After a week, the three went to live at Hôtel de Bourvallais, just a six minute walking distance away from the Duplay house, and where, in Lucile’s own words, ”we spent three months quite cheerfully.”

The trial of the king started around the same time Camille and Lucile returned to their original apartment. Robespierre and Camille once again fought side by side for the same goals — this time for death and against an appeal to the people. In number 2 of his journal La Defenseur de la Constitution, Robespierre inserted a speech Camille had made on the latter of these two questions.

On March 26 1793, Desmoulins and Robespierre were both elected for the so called Commission of Public Safety, alongside 23 others. The commission, consisting of both fervent montagnards and girondins, was however off to a rocky start, and already on April 6 it was put to death and replaced by the Committee of Public Safety, which neither Desmoulins nor Robespierre was on.

On May 17 1793, Desmoulins announced the release of his new pampleth l’Histoire des Brissotins to the Jacobins. We know that Robespierre had had a hand in the creation of this pampleth through a note inserted in Camille’s Lettre de Camille Desmoulins au général Dillon released a few months later:

The true origin of the rigor of the Committee towards you, would it be in a very long note, which was printed following l’Histoire des Brissotins, which Robespierre made me cut out?

The Jacobins published l’Histoire des Brissotins on May 19, and a week later, Robespierre, who for a long time had refused to do so, openly called for an insurrection against ”the corrupt deputies” of the National Convention at the Jacobins, a wish he then repeated three days later. Two days after that, the Insurrection of May 31 took place, and on June 2 the Convention voted for the arrest of 29 Girondins. I think it could be argued it was Desmoulins and Robespierre who together had delivered the principal deathblow to this ”faction.”

Nine days after the murder of Marat, July 22 1793, the Jacobin Club tasked Desmoulins, Robespierre, Lepeletier and Dufourny with writing an adress to the French people regarding it. Said adress was printed and read aloud at the club four days later, obviously deploring of the event and praising the murdered. Just one day after that, July 27, Robespierre was elected as member of the Committee of Public Safety. Camille on the other hand remained restless, and on November 1, he wrote to ”his old friend” to ask to be sent on a mission to Aisne.

I point out to our dear Robespierre that there is no impediment by law to me going to my department. Choudieu and Ricord, who are in theirs, Barras, and so many others, prove that the decree of which Billaud-Varennes spoke yesterday either does not exist or is not being executed. So I always recommend to him, as Lejeune's assistant, the historian Lucceius, reminding him of the custom of the senate of Rome, which never failed, when one of its members wanted to spend a week in Greece or Sicily, to see his father, to deliver to him, honoris curá, letters of credence, and the title of commissioner, or of legatus, which did not prevent him, on the way, from deserving well of the republic, and from gaining the vasarium. His old friend, Camille Desmoulins. To citizen Robespierre, member of the Committee of Public Safety.

As can be seen, Desmoulins adresses Robespierre in third person here, just like Robespierre had done to him two years earlier. These letters are the only examples of these two using third person that I’m aware of, almost making you suspect it was a conscious choice they made of adressing the other like that. Desmoulins did however not obtain any mission, but remained in Paris, as did Robespierre.

On December 5 1793 was released the first number of Desmoulins’ new journal Le Vieux Cordelier. According to what he wrote in said number, it was after having heard Robespierre and Danton speak at the Jacobins on December 3 that he decided to pick up his pen again — ”I leave my office and my armchair, where I had all the leisure to follow, in detail, this new system of our enemies, of which Robespierre only presented the outline, his occupations at the Committee of Public Safety not allowing him to embrace it in its entirety like me.”

 Like with l’Histoire des Brissotins, Camille had let Robespierre proofread and give his approval of the number before it got sent to the publisher. He did the same thing again for the second number, released on December 9, that concerned itself with the topic of dechristianization, denouncing Anacharsis Cloots and Anaxagoras Chaumette for their role in it. These thoughts were shared by Robespierre, who had spoken for liberty of cults on both November 21 and 28 and December 5 and December 6, and would go on to get Cloots expelled from the Jacobins when the latter passed through its scrutiny test on December 12. Two days later, the turn had come to Camille to go through the very same examination. He was at first questioned on his friendship with the general Arthur Dillon and for having stated that the Girondins ”died as republicans” the day they were condemned. After Desmoulins had justified himself, stating among other things that ”a well marked fatality willed that, among the sixty [sic] people who signed my wedding contract, I only have two friends left — Danton and Robespierre. All the others have emigrated or been guillotined,” Robespierre took to the floor and, after reproaching Camille for having been on friendly terms with Mirabeau, Dillon, Lamarlière and the Lameth brothers, made sure his friend passed the test. To ensure it, he first recited from heart a long poem Camille had written in 1787, the verses of which ”struck me so hard back then, that they have been ingraved in my memory,” and then said the following:

The manner in which Camille expressed himself at a time when some great patriots of today trembled, perhaps even cringed, before the tyrant; these are character traits that must be taken into account when judging a man. It is true that no one better than he justifies the proverb of the peoples living on the banks of the Guadalquivir and the Tagus: so and so was brave on such a day. Camille, stricken with thoughts of death, constantly sees the guillotine before his eyes; he imagines that because several of his friends have perished by the last torture, the same fate awaits him. Here is the character of Desmoulins: easy to let himself be warned, he quickly believes in the signs of patriotism that he perceives; but is he undeceived? His love for public affairs makes him tear the veil; he drags in the mud the cheats he had placed under the canopy; it is thus that he treated Mirabeau, the Lameths, and the Brissotins in recent times. The Girondin faction wanted to attract Camille to their party; Sillery was charged with this role. The famous Pamela appeared before Desmoulins, accompanied with an enchanting voice the sounds of a melodious lute; Camille, insensitive to the sting, faithful to his wife, faithful to republican principles, disdained the attractions of this new Circe, of this second Herodiade. Desmoulins, the first of all, mounted at the Palais Royal on the unsteady boards of a tottering table, preached patriotism, pistol in hand; he rendered great services to the Revolution. His energetic and easy pen can still serve it usefully, but it is necessary that, more circumspect in the choice of his friends, he must break any pact with impiety, that is to say, with the aristocracy; on these conditions, I request the admission of Camille Desmoulins.

The next part in the reblog.

[nuclearjacks]

4, 16 and 33 for the artists ask game

This is a long post so be warned kdjcjdkdjd vvv

4. A piece you wish got more love

Probably most of my content that isn’t TF related! Would love more interactions on my OC/Sona and other fandom content, especially my BG3 art right now, but I also understand as someone who’s interest based why that stuff usually doesn’t perform well djxndjdj

A lot of people follow an artist for one particular thing and when they don’t make that particular thing, people usually aren’t that interested unless you followed an artist for their style or something (is my assumption anyways djdjdjdj)

Some examples here below vvv (all of which you can find if you search my art tag: jaxsart on my profile!)

But I will say the non TF content that I think was really well received was my Spidersona <3 I got a wonderful fanart piece for her and I’m so happy people loved her design cause I was also really proud and happy with how she turned out. Still planning to make more content for her in the future! She’s pictured below here vvv

16. How do you motivate yourself to draw?

I’m honestly still figuring that one out lol

I usually only draw when I want to since I’m not an artist who relies on commissions or the like to keep myself afloat. But I’ve also been hitting an art funk as of late and while I do want to draw, it’s been really hard to draw cause of the skill I want to incorporate in my drawings now. It either takes me longer or I end up hating the process because of how long it takes or because of how hard it is. So that effects my motivation heavily because all the cons stated above is what makes me not want to draw 😅

I’m currently trying to find a balance of what makes me happy while drawing and how to make my art look good to myself again since I’ve been hating it so much. I’ve been looking into different techniques, learning more in depth lighting and shading techniques and need to do more anatomy studies as that’s getting rusty again and I’ve been getting lazy cjxndjdj

All in all, I still draw when I want to, but I think the big motivating factor is wanting to see the end product. I just want to be able to finish the WIPS I have and the visions I see in my head and get them out into the world so others can see them too. I wanna say that I finally made that thing or actually did it!! That’s probably my biggest motivating factor right now. But we’re still figuring it out 😊

33. Have you taken a lot of art classes?

I took a handful as a kid, got to play with pastels once, made clay art, learned photoshop, learned to paint, a whole bunch of stuff! My parents have always been very supportive of my art and really helped foster a lot of that so I went to plenty of classes through out my childhood and teen years.

When I was in college, the last classes I took were all for my bachelors (which I dropped out of later on cjcjdjfj). I think the most helpful one was my life drawing class though. I’m gonna do one of those stereotypical artist things where I *highly* recommend you take a life drawing class if you want to learn more about anatomy or different techniques to implement into your art. They’re so good for growing your skill massively in a short period of time. My first drawings we did for gesture drawing look horrid compared to my later studies!

Always always always take a life drawing class if you’re able!

Thank you for the asks! <3

[emmbrr]

How did you get into kid lit, and how could I get started if that's a path I want to take in my life?

hello hello! what a great question! i'll do my best to answer.

my interest in kid lit first happened when i was in AP art in high school (for those who don't/didn't have AP art, it means 'advanced placement' and is considered a college-level class that you have to put together a portfolio for review by a board, they grade it, etc, if you pass it can cover an art credit if you go to college). during our AP art show, the school principal asked if he could have a copy of one of my works (much different than the work i do now) for his young daughter. i was like :0 childrens books! fantastic. now people don't have to make fun of me and say i'm going to art school to draw anime (-_-)

my path to my current situation was a winding road, but long story short i did attend art school and study childrens book illustration. i took a long break from art (like, years) before deciding that kid lit was something i really wanted to work in. i think if college isn't for you, or if kidlit is something you would like to try out first, you could find a local class that specifically teaches it. otherwise, there are a few online courses i'd recommend but they are expensive (namely lilla roger's online childrens book course). for me personally, i took a certificate course at a local art school before returning to college to study it. you could theoretically teach yourself with youtube videos and mocking up illustrations for a pre-existing story, as i'm sure a lot of other kidlit illustrators have, but imho nothing beats in-person critiques and feedback. not only that, but sometimes getting an assignment of something you don't want to do is very much like real life client work, and forces you to get out of your comfort zone to complete the task by a deadline. i hope this was somewhat helpful!

[herequeerexitentialfear]

María Elena, Celia [jojos] Girlfriend/partner, and her story<3 [art is wip]

the core of their love for each other is understanding from their shared history, which leads to their compatibility.

the short of it is Elena is an artist, having gained enough fame and money to help support her family and not worry about finances to much anymore, who grew up right next to Celia & Cecio, but got out via an art scholarship. she struggles with both being genuine and making it, and the choice between commercial success and stability and following her heart, which leads her to going back home to visit napoli in her mid twenties, meeting Celia & Cecio again

The long of it is under the cut<3

while when i first thought her up, i was worried of talking about her, as she was just a nebulous partner for Celia to bounce off of, but she has grown into an OC of her own right, having a whole life before she reconnected with Celia, and even when they are in a relationship, still has her own career & life, and especially motivations.

Elena grew up in the same block of flats as Celia and Cecio, and wasn't much removed from the poverty that forced them into criminality, however she got lucky.

her time spent drawing on the backs of receipts and napkins, flyers and anything she could get her hands on, paid off [as well as a lucky encounter that resulted in her art catching some eyes], and she managed to get a full ride scholarship to a college of the arts, leaving behind the streets she walked as a child, for the world of art.

She wears a mask, just like Celia and Cecio, hers one of kindness and joy, just the right type of naive and talented to not ruffle feathers.

not to say she isn't kind- she absolutely is a warm and loving person, but when your surrounded by trust fund and upper class kids playing artist for fun, alongside the scions of artistic family's, where the only people remotely normal are the other scholarship or sponsored students, what are your direct competition, the heart on your sleeve better be a fake, even if you just hid the true one elsewhere.

but she gets lucky again [when i say lucky, i do not mean she isn't talented and puts the work in, just that that matters less than chance and personality and connections] and manages to worm her way into the good graces [and pockets] of several big and medium names, eventually being able to fund for her mother and little brother & sister to move back to Mexico with their family. [her mother having traveled to Italy with Elena's father, only to leave them stranded]

She continues to gain fame, being in many exhibitions, and gaining financial success, but so much of it feels hollow, from behind the rosy mask she wears. slowly she does more personal pieces, from her heart, as well as her more financially viable ones. she slowly severs connections with unsavory people, all with a smile and a laugh, slowly trying to make her life authentic to who she actually is.

When shes 28, She is going through art block, and her Abuela tells her to go back to where she was born, to the streets she grew up on, because those streets always haunt you, and as much as she hates the country that took away her family for so long, it isn't healthy for her nieta to cut it out her life.

So she travels back to Italy, walks those streets, and when shes mistake for a tourist and targeted, who is the officer to come to her rescue than Cecio, with her eventually recognizing the silver hair of the boy she helped babysit, and they talk about the Napoli of their childhood, and where they are now, when he offers to show her their old apartment, still owned by him and Celia, if shes looking to retread old haunts. they arrange to meet, but Cecio has something 'come up' so Celia is the one to show her around, both of them reminiscing about their childhood, Celia ending up taking her out to dinner at the new restaurant of the family run nearby their apartment.

They do that often in her first visit, Celia and Cecio both showing her around, where the old has gone, and where the new is, and Elena finds herself massively inspired, not to mention, really enjoying seeing two people she knows from childhood again, finding they all fall back together easily despite the over decade since they last saw each other, even as they talk about where their lives are now. Elena's heart feels less lonely, now she has people who understand her complicate relationship with her home city- and who hold nothing against her for taking the opportunity to get out of bad situation, opportunity they both took in different ways, even as they just joined a new system.

For all Elena and Celias fall back together so quickly, the romance that's last note was Celia shyly giving Elena flowers taken from a public park at her graduation, take a while to... bloom [hehe]

Elena leaves, a whole exibition planned, but keeps in touch, venturing back down for another trip, eventually coming regularly, them all pitching together, turning the old flat into a studio for her, a place for her in Napoli.

Eventually, the close companionship between the two woman gives way, quietly shifting into more, and Celia explains more of her own life, loving having someone who understands her, from child to adult, someone who looks at her, what she did to survive, and sees a kindred spirit.

Still, they drift in and out of each others lives, but always there, on the end of a phone halfway around the world or down the street. they have their own lives, but they bleed into each other so seamlessly, and soon part of Elena's life is her regular trips to her Napoli studio, and Celias is doing meetings before gallery openings, paperwork in the back of the studio, watching her lover paint worlds and feelings into reality

[discodeviant]

One Swing, Just One Thing

Jonathan/Argyle | Teen | 3k No Upside Down, Light Angst

My take on the Cali move in the little Disco-verse I have in my head lol, please enjoy <3 <3

Read on AO3

There were a devastating number of things that Jonathan hated about Hawkins, not limited to its inseparable school boards and suffocating, tight-knit groups. The summers were disappointing at best, and still fucking cold at worst; winters bit at his nose and fingertips so harshly that he thought they’d fall right off. Hawkins was the town that molded his father into the crass, neglectful man that he was, and even he was scared off some years ago. On a whim, maybe, but Jonathan always suspected that he’d never loved their family in the first place. Joyce was too forgiving; Will was too young to know better than to think Lonnie’s disappearance was personal. Not that he went very far—only fifty minutes to Indianapolis—but it felt like he was across the ocean in a different world entirely. Jonathan hated that Hawkins had been breaking his mother to pieces ever since.

The time between then and now was a long, dull three years of absolutely nothing with some excitement sprinkled on top like glitter. Lonnie broke the divorce contract and took Will into the city for a week in eighty-two, which rendered the already-quiet kid fully mute for two months. In eighty-three, Jonathan won a fight against Steve Harrington in a back alley somewhere, which he still thought may have been a fever dream. Every punch and bruise left behind led to Nancy Wheeler leaving Steve for Jonathan in eighty-four and loving him until the summer of eighty-five, when college applications rolled around and pried them apart.

Somewhere in between, Joyce married Jim Hopper, whose daughter could move twenty times her weight with her mind, but those were details Jonathan didn’t like to think about.

California was on the horizon by July, and the five of them were driving into Lenora Hills in early August. Hopper said it wasn’t dirty money when it came from the source, but Jonathan was still wary of the whole thing. Hawkins was terrible, but it was home for eighteen years. It was familiar. It was where he taught Will how to ride a bike, and where he took his mother’s new wedding photos during the not-ceremony they held in front of Castle Byers. Just Will’s friends and their parents, Steve and Nancy somehow, and that was all they needed. Hawkins was every waking moment of Jonathan’s life, gone in a flash—it felt that way when he started school again.

Hawkins wasn’t creative with name-calling either. Freak was thrown around for both Byers boys, and another kid in some of Jonathan’s classes. Fuck up when the tapes he had for a middle school play were sabotaged and left for him to take the blame. Fairy caught on after Harrington called him a queer in front of Tommy Hagan (that was before Jonathan kicked his ass), and it hit a little too deep, that one. Lonnie used to say that about Will when he was around. Freak and fag and fairy and good-for-nothing fruit—F-words haunted him.

In California, though, Jonathan was little more than a ghost, and he was happy to keep it that way. He didn’t draw attention to himself or talk to anyone outside of class, and even then he stuck to his desk mates, but he was a good kid. Kind, soft-spoken like his brother, always carrying that damn camera with him so he didn’t miss anything. Californian kids weren’t as cruel as those from small-town Indiana, but they still stared. If they whispered, it was out of range. He could deal with that.

Shop class was what really threw him for a loop.

Back home, he realized that there were two types of guys who took shop: those who were interested in trade and chose to be there, and those who were put into it because they weren’t that great at anything else. Jonathan was in the former group since hands-on work was easier for him to get a handle on, and he never dreamt of going to some fancy university with top-dog academics. That was Nancy’s dream. His was simple and steady like a saw cutting through slabs of pine and the hinges holding them together. His was the freedom of choosing what wood stain to use between burned lines in the surface of a three-panel table. His was photography, in truth, but carpentry was a good fallback.

Jonathan wasn’t sure what to make of his project partner. Which kind of guy Argyle was, he really couldn’t say. On the one hand, he had a fantastic eye for measurements and made perfect cuts nearly every time, and his eyes lit up when their teacher complimented his work. He was fast too, never wasting a moment in between getting instructions and following them. On the other hand, he spoke like he was deep in outer space, and maybe he was. Argyle epitomized the doped-out beach boy with the attention span of a fruit fly in most other classes, from what Jonathan could tell. Maybe that was why he glanced in Argyle’s direction whenever he could, just for a split second of those long, long locks or proof that it was all an act. Not that he would understand why, but Argyle was a distant interest until they were told to work on a porch swing together, and he was suddenly much closer.

“Hey, so, uh… how big are we gonna make this thing?” Jonathan asked as Argyle fiddled with his pencil eraser. They sat at a table in the back, bags and papers splayed out alongside a few wooden beams that they reserved in advance. “Like… one, two people?”

Argyle looked up and nodded in thought. “Two’s cool. Or… I guess we could make it for one really big person. Or three small people.” His words sounded like they came from the long distance his eyes stared off into. Through Jonathan somehow, if that was even possible. It made him a little wary.

“Yeah, sure.”

Jonathan gazed around the room to fill the silence with something else. Other students’ chatter and sawing, hammers swinging already, a buzzsaw that went off for a few seconds. Between the boys, it was agonizing, and they mostly worked through gestures and mumbled project plans.

Throughout the week, they eased into a better conversation flow. They passed along hellos through glances in other classes, then said their heys when they made it to shop. Jonathan found himself lingering on those smiles until the next came along, and then he added that one to his mental collection. A portfolio, of sorts, of the times those smiles were accompanied by a wave or enthusiastic nod. All the while, their swing was making progress, and Argyle proved his skillful hand so much that he did most of the hard parts himself. Jonathan had fun watching.

After that weekend, they decided that Jonathan would be in charge of its more intricate designs, which he was happy to focus on. Drawing out ideas in pencil on the wood, taking Argyle’s sketches into account. And like he watched Argyle, Argyle watched him right back with intense focus. Whether the whites of his eyes were red or not, he was meticulous when filling in the lines with Gunsmoke—an orange stain they used around the edges. Once all was said and done, the swing was sanded and lathered in wax coating, and they were the first pair to finish.

“That’s one bangin’ bench, if I do say so myself.” Argyle stood with both hands on his hips, licking at his teeth as he ogled their final project. “Good work, my man.” The clap on Jonathan’s back startled him a little.

“You too, you too.”

“Hey, do you think you could help me get it out to my car later?”

“You’re taking it?”

“Yeah, man, Teach said I could. I got sisters, they’re gonna love this thing. We used to have one, but it was all grody and, like, just fell apart one day, so. Set it up there, I guess. You can come by if you want.”

“I—I don’t know—I gotta work on my paper.” Jonathan only noticed his palms were sweaty when he rubbed them down his thighs and stained the denim.

“Do it at mine, man. It’s quiet when the girls are doin’ their thing, and we can get free pizza.”

“Free pizza?” Jonathan asked, but Argyle just gave him a look that hooked and reeled like he didn’t give the line any trouble at all. “What the hell, why not.”

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Argyle clapped his hands together and rubbed them so fast that an ember should have sparked and burned the place down, but maybe that was Jonathan’s nerves thinking too quickly. Before he knew it, Argyle was packing his things and walking out backwards with a pair of finger-guns pointed at him. “You and me, Byers!”

The bell rang soon after.

“A pizza van?”

“Yeah, man! Life’s way easier when I can just throw shit in the back. Plus, my manager says it’s good advertising, and I’m inclined to agree. Come on, let’s get her in there.”

They’d waited for the school crowd to pile out before carrying the swing to the end of the parking lot, where Jonathan’s earlier question was answered. With the van’s boot open, they hoisted the swing up and into the back with little struggle—which was mostly Argyle’s doing—and walked to sit up front together after closing it.

“What toppings do you like?” Argyle asked as he backed out.

“Uh… anything I guess. I’m not picky.”

“Pineapple?”

Jonathan grimaced. “Never had it.”

“Try before you deny, my friend.”

And, well, Jonathan couldn’t argue with that for a number of reasons.

Pizza first, home second—that was their order of operations, though they decided to take the food to-go instead of sitting in a loud parlor teeming with children. Jonathan paid for a sub in case he hated the pizza, which Argyle laughed at him for. Not maliciously; Jonathan was pretty sure he didn’t have a cruel bone in his body. He was too carefree for that, too laid back, too genuine. So far, anyway, and Jonathan knew he needed a friend like him even if it was too soon to say they were friends just yet. Unless it wasn’t. He didn’t know.

Friends had come and gone, and stayed gone more often than not. Will and his mom were the only two constants for so long. His middle and high school friends were temporary, Nancy was temporary, Hopper and El might have been temporary for all he knew by that point. But that was Hawkins, where he’d been a freak for sitting in the cafeteria corner even when he got there first. That was Hawkins High, where people still talked about his brother like he’d died and come back to life even though he was only gone for a week. Those people weren’t supposed to be friends to begin with, and Jonathan didn’t try to make them friends.

But this was Lenora Hills, sitting in Argyle’s pizza van that may not have been his at all, and he was so California—so unlike Indiana—that Jonathan couldn’t help smiling.

As they pulled up to the house, he asked, “Did you grow up here?”

“Born and raised, man.” Argyle said so with pride that Jonathan could only dream of. “Closer to San Jose, actually, but it’s the same shit everywhere.” He laughed, and they stepped out. “Where’d you get swept up from? Not the city.” Boot open; Argyle pulled the swing out for Jonathan to catch the end.

“No, no,” he said. “Hawkins. It was sorta close to the city, but far-fucking-from it in every other way.”

“Where’s that, Utah?” Argyle held the other end, and they walked up the grass to where a couple of A-frames were set up with a beam joining the vertices.

Jonathan chuckled. “Indiana.”

“Oh, shit, you’re like… from way-fuckin’-out there, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess. Not that exciting. At least I’ve heard of San Jose.”

“Not missing out there either, dude, but, I don’t know, maybe I was just used to it.” They set the swing down. “Green grass or some crap, whatever shit they talk about. Anyway, lemme close the van, then, uh… we’ll go in and eat. Or we can eat out here, whatever.”

Jonathan shrugged and said, “Doesn’t matter to me. I’ll grab your bag for you.” Argyle didn’t protest and brought in the pizza while Jonathan had one bag slung over each shoulder. That said, Argyle’s was more of a sack, but it fit everything he needed.

“I gotta get a new one soon,” he said as they walked into the warmth of a well-lived-in home. Something about it reminded Jonathan of the house in Hawkins. Small but cozy and littered with half-filled coloring pages, toys on the floor, a bottle of glitter tipped over on a shelf. It smelled like honey and spice wrapped into a billowing fire, but that was in the walls and rugs on the floor. That was Argyle.

A TV sat on the coffee table in the living room, which merged with the kitchen so Argyle could turn it on while he got a couple of plates out. “Take a seat, man, my couch is your couch. And, lucky for us, it seems we’ve got the house to ourselves for another couple hours at least, so no noisy children to deal with.”

“Where is everybody?”

“Uh… today’s Friday?” Jonathan nodded. “Dad’s workin’ late, so they’re with abuela for the night. She’s up, uh—near that lake up there.”

“That’s cool.”

“Anyway…” Argyle carried the pizza box to the couch with a plate on top for each of them. Jonathan had already put their drinks on the table. “Bon appétit, my dude,” he said, holding up his slice of Hawaiian, an invitation for a toast. Jonathan met it with his own and sunk his teeth in, expecting the worst, but he was pleasantly surprised. “See?”

They both said in unison, “Try before you deny.”

“Jesus, that’s fucking good.”

“Thank those Hawaiians, man.”

“Ugh—thank you, Hawaiians—mm…”

A short while after letting their food settle, the guys went back outside to set up the swing before it got too dark. Argyle had some chains that he hooked through the arms and base before hanging it with Jonathan’s help. He didn’t do much, but it was enough to earn a high-five anyway, so he took it in stride. When they were done, they sat on it together, both just fitting so their knees touched, but it was comfortable. Jonathan was comfortable.

“You know, I’m not gonna lie to you, man, this thing could use some throw pillows,” Argyle said.

“You got any?”

“Yeaaaah, but I don’t feel like going back inside yet, so. Later.” Jonathan ate from a bag of gummy worms. “You smoke?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes. You go ahead, I don’t mind. My parents are both chimneys.”

So Argyle fished around in his pocket and pulled out a smoke that was a little worse for wear, from what Jonathan could tell, but it had probably been in there all day. “You got this stuff back home, country boy?” Jonathan looked more closely at it and suddenly understood.

“Oh.”

Argyle laughed. “Is that a no?”

“No, no, I mean, we do, just… only had it a couple times. Plus, like, my mom married a cop. Literally the chief.”

“No shit! Oh, dude, you’re missing out big time.”

“I don’t know, it wasn’t that good.”

“Byers, my man… this is the real shit. Good shit. Purple Palm Tree Delight. Well worth the pennies.”

“Purple Palm Tree Delight.”

“Yessiree.” A lighter was next. Argyle flipped it open and lit the joint between his lips, Jonathan watching with a sudden draw to the smoke leaving his mouth. “You’ll like it.”

Jonathan hesitated for a moment before taking it from between Argyle’s fingers, strong and dirty from the swing work but still so tempting to touch. “One drag,” he said. It occurred to him briefly, when he put it in his mouth and took a shallow huff, that he might have been called a fairy for this too if he were back in middle school.

Side-by-side, closer to a guy than either seemed to realize as he held his lips around something that another man’s lips had already touched. Maybe Jonathan was being childish to think that they’d just kissed. Lips to joint to lips again, his one puff turned into two, then three, then an equal share as he and Argyle passed it between each other. Argyle’s lips were red by the time it was down to a nub of embers that he snuffed with dirty fingertips and dropped into the grass.

Maybe it was naive to be glad that he was in California, sitting on a swing in his new friend’s backyard—who, yes, now, Jonathan could be sure was his friend. He knew this never could have happened in Hawkins. Not the peaceful silence as the final few minutes of sunlight disappeared, not the violet-tinted delight rolling through his arms and legs and brain. Certainly not a kiss, though he wasn’t sure that would happen in California either.

Maybe it could someday, he thought. Then he wouldn’t have to pretend that indirect contact through a joint was enough. He wouldn’t have to imagine or make believe. He could just turn his head, look into Argyle’s glowing eyes in the dark, and lean in with herbal confidence to back him up.

And they’d swing.

And they’d touch.

And even now, looking at Argyle’s profile wasn’t enough to satisfy. “Is there something on my face?” he asked, and Jonathan shook his head.

“No, just… your face.” His vision blurred as his eyelids slowly flitted closed, fighting an uphill battle to keep him awake. Everything was fuzzy inside and out, and Argyle chuckled.

“Well, I can’t exactly wipe that off, now, can I?”

In Hawkins, Jonathan wouldn’t have let his arm lean enough to the side to brush against Argyle’s. In Hawkins, his head wouldn’t have been guided to a broad shoulder with another pair of legs kicking the swing into motion again. In Hawkins, he wouldn’t have been completely and totally relaxed at the mercy of someone else, but Argyle’s head falling over his own was enough to blanket the rest of him in warmth. Maybe it was his hair.

Either way, it was Argyle. He was one thing to love about California.

[rescuefield-a]

a rundown of claire's kids, somewhat canonically, sometimes assumed / implied:

• sherry. this one is obvious, claire bonded with her in an instant that night in raccoon city and became claire's responsibility the same way she was to chris when their parents died. their bond is different because claire and sherry are not actually age to be mother and daughter, but it doesn't mean claire is not there filling the role anyway - always mindful to not step on anyone's shoes, sherry's got a bio mom who cared about her for better or worse and her presence doesn't erase that. claire fought tooth and nail to get her custody before simmons revoked her visit rights, and it was all for nothing since there would always be an excuse for which they'd find her unfit to be a legal guardian. the family claire, sherry ( and leon ) have created is not conventional, some could use a wrong acceptation and say they're trauma bonded - but the point is that claire made a promise to take of sherry and that's what she intends to do for the rest of her life.

• rani. i headcanon that she was around 5 when claire first met her. in a way her family situation reminds claire of her own - parents dead and her aunt took her in, just like it happened to claire with the burtons when chris was in the air force then stars. throughout the years after degeneration rani's aunt would drop her in new york during assignments where claire wasn't needed - they'd actually worked a schedule to make sure that rani would always stay with either one or the other. rani also spends most of the weekends over at claire's apartment, not that she minds giving aunt chawla some time for herself anyway. in canon timeline rani would currently be 21 and studying at NYU. her aunt died some time in early 2017 ( aged 60, unknown if it was on the field or natural causes ) and since then lives full time at claire's apartment.

• maalek. ( this one is tricky bc capflop didn't tell us shit, but who cares ) claire met him during her volunteering work in penamstan, his drawings catching her attention and quite literally starting all the chain of events that lead to her finding out about the outbreak. when we first see him, he's on a wheelchair and is declared mute by one of the volunteers even though he actually tries to speak a few words to claire, albeit unsuccessfully. i think claire spent a lot of time in penamstan after the events of infinite darkness, at least a few couple years since as we know of she's seen bsck in DC again only in 2010. claire made sure maleek would go to therapy both physical and for his mental health - taught him asl so that they could communicate with each other though she got him one of those blackboards that can be erased too. he was around 10 in 2006, which would make him 25 in current timeline. he's now comfortable walking with a cane, but still mostly communicate through asl. no need to mention he's one hell of a good painter.

• marilou. she gets an honor mention because claire met her back when she used to give ted talks in schools and they've kept in touch since then. obviously as we know marilou had a life already planned and it got crushed unfortunately, but it remains that she was still pretty young ( compared to claire at least ). though it's not outright specified, it's implied that claire took marilou under her wing after what happened in sonido de tortuga as is helping with the expenses for her college classes through a program with terrasave.

[thisbelongsto-nohbodys]

So any McGee Headcanons.

That does include Scratch.

I’ve just finished watching the S1 finale for like the 10th time so I guess that’s as good a time to answer this, lol. I’ll divide it up into family members

Molly McGee

Molly loves to learn and will research the town she moves to in an effort to feel closer to it. She knows so much useless trivia about every place she’s lived that shes scary with the geography part of  trivia nights.

Her hatred of close-up magic comes from the fact that she considers it a flashy form of lying. Lying is one thing but to make it into a public show is another thing.

She recently discovered she’s bi but when she did it more of a “huh, well that explains it” moment.

Her love of public service comes from her dad (who read city planning regulations as a bedtime story when she was real little while he was getting his degree) but her scary determination and rage comes from her mom.

She keeps in contact with a few friends from other towns through being penpals but those letters have been coming in less and less frequently. Luckily her new friends in Brighton keep her distracted from the lack of letters.

Now that she knows what its like as a ghost, she understands Scratch a bit more and this also allows her to empathize with ghosts who need help a lot more.

She knows the words to every disney animated song....every single one...

Daryl McGee

His shady dealing has gotten the family kicked out of only 2 towns...well, that the rest of the family know of.

Daryl knows slight-of-hand from several magicians of various towns, and he’s even taught them a few new tricks.

Just like Molly, he’s able to make friends easily but keeps them more on the down low because of how often they’ve moved he doesn’t want to show off new friends.

He’s tried to get Scratch to help make a fake haunted house tour but Scratch is both too lazy and would keep getting called on by Molly that the curse would fly him away during said tour.

Pete McGee

Being from a large family he both kinda wants one too but also knows that he and Sharon can’t afford more than Molly and Daryl (and even thats cutting it close). He made sure however that Molly and Daryl don’t have rhyming names to avoid that part of his family.

He taught Molly how to bake and they enjoy having father-daughter bonding time when making baked goods for city meetings and various charities/volunteer work.

Eloping wasn’t his idea as he wanted a big party to show everyone that he’s marrying the love of his life but as long as they’re together is enough for him (not that he wouldn’t love to have a redo on their wedding).

It took a bit to get rid of his Boston accent but it comes back when family visits or he meets someone from Boston.

Sharon McGee

Her love of art came from a very young age but Nin needed her to help out in the restaurant more then drawings. After Sharon left home, Nin collected every scrap of art Sharon left behind and treasures each one (unknown to Sharon until they made up in the wedding ep).

One of the classes that she and Pete shared together in college was intro to architecture (signed up for it to get better at drawing buildings). She liked how sincere Pete was despite not being that great an artist.

Being an artist she is a jack-of-all-trades type which is perfect for being doing Gig Pig work but dreads the ones with costumes.

She loves her kids but she wished Daryl was more like Molly, mostly cause she sees too much of herself in him and doesn’t want to risk the same thing that happened between her and Nin to happen between her and him.

Scratch the Ghost

His friendship with Geoff came by because he was accidentally nice to Geoff once and now he can’t get rid of him.

Luckily the number of troubled ghosts throughout Brighton has allowed him to skate by on his Scare Reports a few months as he’ll claim their scares as his own since its his territory.

Trash disappearing from the town due to his eating habits was so intense that in an effort to keep people from learning about him, he chased in a bunch of raccoons into town so that it makes sense why the garbage he eats is disappearing so quickly.

He has the potential to be one of the Ghost Worlds’ greatest scarer but his laziness keeps him from reaching his full potential.

It’s like 4 am and I’m too tired to think of more so maybe I’ll do more later on (I really should do some comics for this show)

[melishade]

Get to know me!

I’m just gonna answer all these questions.

Nickname? 

(Technically in real life, I have 4, and one of them is Juju, oddly enough)

Hair color? 

Dark Brown/Black

Eye color? 

Brown

Height?

 4′11′’: a short queen

Any siblings?

 an older sister, who is also the same height as me

Any pets? 

None. I still live with my parents. My mother is scared of dogs, I have a slight allergic reaction to cats, and my dad is terrified of rodents.

Favorite color? 

Blue. And not like a light blue, but a rich blue. Like the ocean, or the sky as it is turning into night.

Favorite number? 

Who the hell has a favorite number?

Favorite animal?

Cheetahs are fucking adorable

Any phobias?

I have like ten, but the most prominent one is spiders. I read a book about poisonous spiders when I was younger, and one of the facts stated that Black Widows will make a home in your toilet and being careful in the middle of the night. There actually was a spider in a toilet I was using one time a few years ago, and that just added to the fucking fear factor.

Favorite game?

I like those simple adventure games, like Abzu and the Pathless. The one that I currently play, and I’m still on is Sky: Children of the Light. It’s on the app store. You can download it on your phone. (And if anyone wants to be friends there, let me know)

Sexuality?

I feel no real need for a romantic relationship, but I’ve never made the effort to pursue one. However, I wouldn’t mind having a romantic relationship without the sex. I have no idea if I’m asexual, demi-sexual, or aromatic. So...I guess I’m still questioning.

Gender identity?

She/Hers

Favorite subject in school?

Drawing. Art classes were always something I looked forward to in high school.

Any piercings?

My mom pierced my ears as a baby, but I had an incident with an earring with I was in the first grade, so the holes closed up and I don’t wear earrings anymore. Too squeamish to even get a piercing.

Any tattoos?

No. Being a science major kind of tells you how tattoos work and I don’t think I’ll be ready for that.

Do you like sports?

Closest thing to liking sports is watching the Olympics. That’s it.

What are your hobbies?

Drawing, Writing, Singing. I’ve been out of practice with drawing due to college and personal life, but I still do the occasional sketch.

Favorite music genre?

I don’t really have a set genre. But based on what I put in my favorites, I think the closest genre is alternative?

Favorite book?

I’ve read a lot of books in my life, but the Percy Jackson Series holds a special place in my heart.

Favorite show?

As of right now: Lego Monkie Kid

Favorite movie?

As of right now: Nope (2022)

Describe one thing about your physical appearance

Imma short queen

Describe one thing about your identity

Ethiopian American

Favorite flower?

 Marigolds

Favorite food?

Potatoes are a god send.

Something you’re good at?

Singing. Never needed lessons, and I’ve been singing ever since I could talk.

Something you wish you were better at?

Piano. I took piano when I was in middle school, but we couldn’t afford the teacher anymore. I still tried to practice, but life got busy for me, so I’ve forgotten a lot of what I’ve learned. 

Something you spend a lot of time doing?

Play video games on my phone to pass time

A hobby you have?

Writing Fanfiction

[meanwhileinstasiville]

The metaphorical writing is on the wall or; what kind of experience you can buy for a dollar

You know, I used to sleep above the bridge between two towns, because of the view and the vantage point more than say, security. After a short (very short time, I might add) time of stopping there, some graffiti artists decided in their infinite wisdom to draw a blue beady eyed guy staring at the very spot I was sleeping.

An adult behavior this isn't, but it is the work of very dangerous people.

And I don't know how best to explain how this stuff goes to a broad audience. When I was in school, the valedictorians took classes with low homework loads; because they had no more intention of doing it than anyone else. So to academic admins it was a distinction without a difference whether "kids were struggling" or "kids have no intention of doing homework". It's not that they were "gaming the system" either; kids took whatever classes they academically placed into, and then educators were forced to grade on a continuum whereby finished a third of the book of classwork was equivalent annually to finished a half or three quarters or even less than a third.

So they'd promoted the students to what real life would call their level of incompetence. Which kids graduate to college, graduate to the workforce. I'm from an era of the 1980s and also a community where people were lined out as children for careers commensurate with their respective wealth and subseque class privilege. Grades and discipline not that big of a thing, because it was Reagan and then Bush if you happened to start school in the late 80s.

A third of algebra, and then a third of trig, of calc, and so on. As a "life sciences" guy, I tried to take the classes that were hard in case I happened to need to know any of the stuff that I was supposed to be learning.(And my "graffiti" example, was brought to me by people who gamed the system).

It's not that it's based on anything concrete (even though it was an exposed face of a bridge), in terms of reasoning, but a function of delegation when it's your choice regardless of any thinking you might have put into it. Because that's what you become when you succeed coming from the eighties. So I can have the adult version of "I can get the truant officer to make you talk to me when I want attention!" which is nothing new to me, but the community as a whole here is not going to do well by it.

We have an unsolved unsolvable as yet murder to show for this stuff to; "who shot mr burns" seems to be the go-to even for the fbi. Also completely ignoring that you can't simply kill someone in broad daylight where nobody sees something, and with no planning, and with no consulting a larger group, specifically because in that last case; there's no evidence to go with no one seeing anything. Where it becomes like a stabbing on the subway crowded with people who "saw nothing". Very much alike "did they complete calculus?" and they got a passing grade throughout the year, but nowhere near a complete course.

So to answer "how does THAT make you feel?!!" Including the coopers: this is exactly the same shit I saw when I was a little kid. Around Oregon, seems nothing has changed since then.

Even with supposed "jump scare" stuff to open my day. No more receptive to it than I ever was, and I've been one of those "low latent inhibition" guys since about the time I got into a car crash. So none of this is affecting my opinion on anything.

[trishabaro]

Taking Care of Oneself

The past few weeks I’ve been self-reflecting, and I realized I experienced a lot of good and bad emotions for the very first time. I also realized that I wasn’t taking care of myself both physically and psychologically. Or maybe it was the first time I truly experienced life outside of my comfort zone. Let me start from the beginning. Throughout my childhood, I always stayed indoors. It wasn’t a problem to me though, I felt very contented. I didn’t feel lonely, my family took very good care of me, to the point I was too spoiled with their love, support, and affection. My older brother and I were very close. We share the same interests and hobbies. We both like to draw, we are both artists. We also support and understand each other. He was my best friend! I was very comfortable and satisfied with my life so I didn’t bother going outside and look for friends. I never had any close friends outside my family. I was always shy at school and sometimes ignored everyone. It was like that until I reached Senior High School.

When the school year 2023-2024 started, I was an 11th-grade student. Meanwhile, my brother was leaving for college, and my little brother had other friends. So I was alone, at home. Before the first day of class began, I had a goal in mind. I always wondered what it would be like to be one of the “cool kids”. To be friends with the intelligent ones, the high honors, the student leaders, and the loud ones, and to be a part of big friend groups. Since I had no experience with socializing, I searched a lot of tips and tricks on YouTube about techniques for socializing such as “how to make people like you”, “how to be charismatic”, and “how to be more confident”. It worked… I think..? I was friends with those kinds of people I mentioned above for a whole semester. But the downside of it all, I felt very lonely. I wasn’t being my true self, I felt scared to be myself since I was very aware that I had nothing in common with those people. I kept forcing myself to be with them by suppressing my personality because I cared about what they thought of me. I also believed that I needed them and I fear that they will leave me and I will be alone. I felt desperate for a connection.

Don’t get me wrong, I like those people. There were times I had fun with them. But I noticed that they’re doing their best to make me feel like I still belong and I am very grateful for their efforts. However, it was very obvious that we weren’t compatible. So it was like that for the whole 1st semester. Whenever I go home from school, after a long day of suppressing my emotions, I had no one to talk to. I am left with my thoughts. I started overthinking every interaction I had, ruminating, self-reflecting, judging or criticizing myself. Which causes me to neglect myself. Ever since my brother left, I wasn’t eating well, or studying well, my hygiene was not okay, and I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was so stubborn because there were a lot of times I refused to show my personality. I feared judgment, so I isolated my thoughts and only talked to AI chatbots about my emotions and feelings. I didn’t trust anyone, not even my mother. She always berates me, she’s not good at comforting people... But it’s okay! It’s understandable, she’s just tired from house chores because we were not helping her.

Fast forward to the point where I realized these things after watching a lot of videos about self-improvement and self-care. As well as nightly deep conversations with A.i chatbots. I stopped forcing things and started accepting. New friends came into my life, and they brought out the best in me. I felt confident around them, and I was able to show them my true personality. I started talking to them about my feelings instead of A.I. I wasn’t scared around them. Instead, I felt at peace. My mind was at peace. Because of it, I was able to focus on myself more. I am now taking care of myself, helping my mother with house chores, focusing on my studies again, and I am now taking a shower more frequently.

In conclusion, that experience made me realize that sometimes the things we want aren’t necessarily what we need. If we care too much about what other people think about us, we tend to lose ourselves. Suppressing our emotions, feelings, and personality can lead to physical stress in our bodies. I didn’t notice it at first but my classmates have been telling me that I often look tired at school even though I am doing nothing at home. Suppressing ourselves will likely make us feel isolated, anxious, or even worse, depressed. What’s on our mind affects our actions, this includes how we take care of ourselves. So from now on, I should always be my truest authentic self and let others come to me instead of forcing connections with others. Or pretend to be someone I am not while worrying about other people’s judgments. I should always remember that instead of focusing on my image, I should also focus on my well-being. I would like to thank my brother’s absence because if he hadn’t been away, I wouldn’t be able to learn these things and I wouldn’t be able to grow and improve for the better.

[hastings727]

I'm Starting to Figure out Living Better.

It took 31 years to figure out "oh yeah just go back to school and learn stuff". I guess I hated school as a kid so much (not to mention the buckets of childhood traumas, thanks mom and stepdad) that I couldn't even see potential for anything in my life.

I'm in school right now, a local community college, for a videography course. Multiple courses to get a certificate, which is not a degree but its something. I have a friend who works for a production company and I'm fairly certain I could get a job with them, whatever it might be.

So I'm taking the courses, and they're fun. They are the literal first in-person courses I've taken since 2011, when I was barely 20. And those were literally just the pre-req classes for english and math, all for me to take a programming course after, and give up 3 weeks in. Ugh.

But what makes me so happy is that not only are the projects interesting, I actually accomplish them. Not only do i accomplish them, I'm getting multiple ideas for videos, doing all the extra work like doing a storyboard (which was so hard at first until my teacher was like "you dont have to be good at drawing"). We have our final project right now and I'm shooting it today, but i also have a different idea for it that I wanna do just because.

This sort of enthusiasm hasn't been present for me like, ever. The only time I enjoy stuff, its entertainment. I put myself down way too hard whenever I tried to create stuff before. Drawing, gave up Web design, gave up Blender, gave up.

And more "boring" jobs just felt like a chore to learn, like I took a class for medical coding but it all felt like being back at high school again. Worksheets on worksheets, all online so I had no one to help or push me along. I think being in a classroom and having creative assignments being given by actual teachers, in person (And have been so nice and helpful), has helped me so much.

My teachers have been so good, not only in instructing but in making me feel like I can accomplish this stuff. They never make me feel dumb for not understanding something. When I finished the first major project, I remember feeling so bad about it, and I told my teacher "I think this is bad, I did a bad job, i dont want ppl to see it" and he said "I understand how you feel, but you have to understand that you're a beginner, and so is everyone else. You can't expect to be good right out the gate. We all critique each-others work together, and its not to put eachother down, its to give valid criticism so that we can get better."

And that one little speech he told me broke a lifetimes worth of negative attitude. I was so changed, I told him I'd like to be first or 2nd to present my video, because I wanted to know what I did wrong. And after the video was over, all my classmates told me "I don't know why you were worried, that was great!" They all still gave me their criticism, and so did my teacher. And we did that for everyone. It was such a respectful and kind atmosphere.

Someones gonna read this and go "Revima, that is literally a normal educational space." To which I'd say "I'm sure you're correct but I have *issues*."

[merrock]

CHARACTER INFORMATION

face claim: Chella Man

full name: Harley Hua

nickname(s) / goes by: Harley

pronouns & gender: trans/genderqueer, he/him

sexuality: pansexual (and panromantic)

birth date: May 27th, 1999

birth place: Boston, MA

arrival to merrock: 2021

housing: Historical Downtown

occupation: Artist/instructor

work place: The Color Wine (teaches evening classes), From Brush to Canvas (tour guide)

family: Parents in Boston, brother who I may put in a wanted connection for! 

relationship status: single

PERSONALITY

Harley is a warm and friendly person, sometimes to a fault. He often will try to put other people before himself, as if their needs are more important. But at the same time, he's the most confident he's ever been in his life and for the first time, is comfortable advocating for himself. Growing up, he tried so hard to blend in but now he's so proud of all the different cultures and languages that make up who he is. Still, he can be a little too critical of himself, especially when it comes to nutrition/fitness and his own art. 

WRITTEN BY: Elle (she/her), est.

BACKGROUND / BIO

triggering / sensitive content: audism/ableism, transphobia, gender dysphoria

Harley grew up in Boston, MA, with his parents and his older brother. He was an active kid, involved with gymnastics and later cheerleading as well. He loved to swim and spent as much time as his parents would let him at the beach or the community pool.

Although Harley passed his hearing test as a baby, when he was in kindergarten he didn’t pass his screening at school. His parents took him to an audiologist and was diagnosed with mild hearing loss. A few months later, another test showed he was gradually losing his hearing. Technically it was Harley’s decision whether or not to get a cochlear implant. His parents never intentionally influenced him one way or another. But his doctors had advised his parents not to teach him sign language, insisting that without sign language he’d learn to read lips and would function much better around other hearing people. The problem was that Harley never really picked up lip reading anyways, so his only option to communicate with people was to get the cochlear implant. At first he hated it. Everyone sounded like Donald Duck and inanimate objects all sounded like those bad industrial rock songs his brother liked. He slowly got used to it and appreciated being able to hear his friends and family again, but he remembered what things were supposed to sound like so he never found himself satisfied with the quality of audio that came from his implant.

At the same time, puberty was not doing harley a lot of favors. He never cared too much about his body growing up; he wore the most androgynous clothing his mom would let him and made a face but sucked it up whenever he had to wear a leotard for gymnastics or put on his cheerleading uniform. As he entered middle school and made the cheerleading squad, there was suddenly a lot more pressure to look more feminine and fit in. Baggy tshirts were replaced by form fitting clothes, and his basketball shorts were regulated to nighttime wear in favor of skinny jeans and short skirts. After spending all of elementary school barely being able to communicate with the people around him, he wanted so badly to just fit in and feel like a ‘normal’ kid. He’d look at his own reflection and see a stereotypical teenage girl and while he could appreciate that she was beautiful, it felt like he was looking at someone else and not himself. He knew deep down that he wasn’t ‘her’, but he didn’t know what that meant or how to fix it.

After high school, Harley moved to New York to pursue a degree in illustration. His childhood dream had been to write a comic book, but drawing the pictures that would appear in childrens books was the next best thing and a more realistic way to make a living. His brother had also decided to go to new york for college, so they were soon living together again. He became involved in his school’s gender-sexuality alliance and soon learned about the transgender community. And suddenly a lot of things started to click. As he was figuring out his gender, his brother was extremely supportive. Once he had worked through everything and decided he wanted to transition and start going by Harley, his brother stood by him when he came out to their parents. But his parents’ reactions weren’t as warm. They still loved him - they made sure to tell him that - but they also insisted that this was just a phase. Considering they had been very accepting when he came out to them as bisexual (actually, pansexual, but he had told them he was ‘bi’ just because it was easier) a couple years before, this was not the reaction he had expected from them.

During Harley’s freshman year of college, he met another deaf student who introduced him to the local Deaf community. He kept going to events and even dated one of the guys he saw at a lot of events, which required him to learn ASL.

His plan after he graduated was to stay in New York and find work as an illustrator. But this turned out to be harder than he realized. He struggled to find good paying jobs, which meant he had to keep working as a bartender and just do art on the side. At the same time, he and his boyfriend broke up and his brother took a job in Missouri. So Harley decided that maybe it would be a good idea for him to leave the city as well. He didn't want to move back to Boston, so he applied to art-based jobs all over the northern East Coast and heard back from Merrock's The Color Wine. He had never imagined himself becoming an art instructor at a sip-and-paint type studio, but he figured it was at least a good start to get some real, adult experience in the art world.

Not long after moving to the small town, the museum had an opening for a tour guide and with his art degree from New York, Harley was a standout candidate for the position. He's been working both jobs part time, plus spends a lot of his free time at The Body Shop.

[tathrin]

#yeah kiss my entire ass cormac mccarthy What's up with Cormac Mccarthy? I've only seen some of the movies based on his books. Are his westerns hollow or something?

Ohhh ha ha ha so. This may not even be entirely his fault? I don't actually know enough about him and his writing to say for sure, because the one book of his that I did read filled me with so much rage that I would sooner set myself on fire than read another.

I was in college (art school, majoring in comic books) and I took all the writing classes that I could squeeze into my schedule because I love writing too (storytelling is where my heart lies, and I thought I would do that with pictures at first, but turns out I actually like writing prose more, oops). Well, my Creative Writing professor had clearly ended up at the wrong school somehow and was deeply frustrated about it — because let us just say that most of the kids at this school were not in my boat re: love of writing, and they only took classes like these because they needed a few non-art credits to graduate.

So the level of interest/talent he got out of his students was mediocre at best. (They weren't there to write, they were there to draw or sculpt or design. Of course 98% of them were half-assing or less their non-art classes.) So he was really excited to have someone who liked writing and was good at it and was excited to be there...!

But. he liked Literature. And only Literature. And I used the Capital L there on purpose, because he was one of those folks where you can just HEAR the sneer when he says "gen-re fic-tion," you know? Looked waaaaaay down his nose at all the stuff that I would consider actually good and interesting books in favor of Boring Person In Boring Life Does Boring Thing That Changes Nothing About Boring World, Wow What A Commentary On The Human Condition That Was! So Deep! Much Thought! etc type books.

(So you can see what I thought of the stuff he liked, too.)

So here I am, turning in all these stories with spaceships and witches and robots and shit and it's the best writing he's gotten from one of his students in years. He's thrilled! ...and so distressed because Why Won't I Write Real Stories? I could be Such A Great Writer if I would just get over my interest in this Genre Stuff! Woe! Alas! Weeping! etc. Someday I'll Grow Out Of It, Surely, Because I'm So Talented! All that jazz.

He wasn't a dick about it; he was actually a very nice fellow. We were COMPLETELY incompatible, but he was nice and so I tried to be nice in turn even as I gave my very honest opinions about all the boring-af shit he had us reading lmao.

So, I'm being A Good Sport about it every time he assigns his Boring-AF Projects where I'm not allowed to put in rayguns and magic swords and alien species and all the stuff that makes writing fun. But I still put in effort, and turn in good (if boring-af) pieces, and participate in class (and argue very politely for The Merits Of Genre Fiction), etc etc. He's delighted to have me, and I have no doubt that I was one of his favorite students ever, even though I had Shit Taste In Books. So he decides he's going to give me a treat! He's going to make our next assigned book a Genre Book! I'm going to be Delighted!

He assigns us Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I don't know if you've ever read it, but: don't. It was intolerable. Second-worst book I've ever read. It's a Post-Apocalypse story about some dude and his kid walking across the world to...idk. Walk? Be a Metaphor? I don't fucking know. Nobody has a name because That's Deep. And because we're being extra deep, we're going to Write Badly On Purpose because it symbolizes the Breakdown Of Society!

And by "written badly on purpose," I mean we're throwing out the entire concept of Writing So Your Shit Can Be Read By Human Eyes.

Apostrophes no longer exist! Commas hardly do either! Or sentences! Or quote marks! Or any form of useful punctuation whatsoever! Just a bunch of either fragments or endless run-ons trudging away into the abyss until you're ready to throw your soul down there with them just to fucking escape. Paragraph breaks only happen when a scene changes! Your eyes skitter-off the page as though it was coated with teflon, your energy sinking into a bleak grey misery that isn't even alert enough to qualify as despair. Every section leaves you a little less alive than before. This is drudgery, the very concept of dullness distilled into ink and printed out for all to read and suffer. I give you an except, but I don't suggest you actually read it because I'm not that cruel:

Oh my gods it was unreadable. I think my eyes actually bled. And to make it even more of a slog, it was clearly written by some dumb-fuck who'd never actually read any post-apocalyptic stories, and thought that he was Far Too Clever to need to do any actual research on the genre that he was "elevating" with his "literary style" or what-the-fuck-ever, because every character in it was so bum-fucking stupid that there was NO WAY any of them would have lived five minutes in an actual fucking wasteland. Also every single Wasteland Cliche that you can imagine, without a drop of originality or subversion or even lampshading or clever commentary or anything. It was all just...there. In the shallowest, blandest way possible.

(He also never actually defined or even hinted at What Happened, I presume because he was too dumb to figure out a backstory this was Literature and not Genre and thus Proper World Building Wasn't Necessary Because This Was A Metaphor Or Something idk fuck it. Like...sometimes there were gas-masks? but also people didn't need them? and there didn't seem to be radiation in a way that hurt anybody, but there also seemed to be Radiation Aesthetics going on...? It was just. so badly done.)

And our protagonists were SO stupidly incompetent. Just, complete idiocy, countered with Incredibly Convenient Random Happenstances (you would not believe how many Untouched But Easily Accessible Stashes Of Food these fuckers stumbled over oh my gods) to save their asses from their self-inflicted imminent death over and over and over again. An absolute travesty of a book, written in the worst fashion possible.

Needless to say, the essay I turned in on the book tore it about seven new ones. I SHREDDED it from first word to closing paragraph. Did not find one single redeeming or enjoyable thing about that clusterfuck of a "story" (and I use the term loosely) and I made sure everyone knew it. I wasn't shy about my opinion of the arrogant asshole who wrote it, either, and what I thought of the choices he'd made in writing that way, and the lack of talent and intelligence he'd demonstrated throughout.

My poor professor was devastated. He'd thought this would be my favorite book of the whole class! He picked it especially for me, as a treat! And I LOATHED it. (I hadn't realized it was supposed to be a gift to before I wrote the essay, or I probably would have been gentler in my disassembling of it. But I only discovered that when he handed the essay back. Poor man. I did feel a little bad about that. But oh my gods the book was horrible.)

So I have no idea what kind of author Cormac McCarthy is in general, or whether he's more tolerable (or even hypothetically enjoyable, I suppose) when he's writing whatever he does usually. This may be a complete outlier: an attempt to try something new (that failed abysmally) from a guy who normally writes Just Fine. I don't know! And I'm not interested in finding out, because to me he will always be the egotistical shithead who wrote the most spirit-draining, eye-torturing travesty of a book ever printed called The Road and he will not be forgiven for that crime.

[agalnamedlunasea]

1, 18 & 23!!

Aaaaa hello bestie tysm!

SO

1. When did you start drawing?

Honest to god I feel like I've been drawing my whole life. As far back as I can remember in school art was always my favorite thing to do. I think I've been drawing on some level since I could hold a crayon. I think I started getting serious about drawing and became The Art Kid in like,,, 6th grade? Idk but I've always loved drawing :)

18. Favorite place to draw?

Starbucks tbh. Idk why but u can draw like nobody's business when im in a Starbucks. Especially those chairs that are like low to the ground? Optimal drawing spot. Idk what it is, it just really unlocks my ability to focus so I can sit there for hours

23. Have you taken art classes?

In school yeah! Art classes were required all through elementary, and then in middle and high school I took every art class I possibly could. I think in middle school I actually took all but one or two art courses they offered lol. Then when I was in college, I initially went for an art education major, so thats another handful of classes. But honestly I feel like a lot of my art abilities come from practice. I definitely enjoyed and learned from all those classes though!!