thiefintheashes-blog

[thiefintheashes-blog]

To The Girl I Love:

Someday, I will be brave enough to speak past the phone vibrating in my pocket, the silent hesitation where it shows that I’m typing but the final message is not “I love you” or “How do you feel about me?” but some other idle chitter-chatter like the snow on Mt. Fuji or the cat stretched out on my lap trying to nap or the masquerade of writing out detailed character analysis when really all I want is your body physically next to mine, not in heat but in space, for my lips on your cheek to be more than a virtual and italic representation of an ache to brush your hair back with present fingers, to reach and touch human skin instead of blinking at a screen of ones and zeros and trying to light candles in coding under the pretense that my textual actions will linger ghostlike where my physical flesh cannot. Someday, I will be brave enough to send the snapchat picture of a five-year-old’s scrabble on the back of a blue-lined paper torn out of a spiral notebook, the words “Do you like me? Check yes or no” written in my messy mixture of printed cursive, sketched in greyscale and erased so many times that the paper is all but worn through instead of sending the videos of carolers standing on the front porch, all black coats and woolen gloves and boots knock knocking on the pavement and red antler headbands and noses sparkling with a light that directs them to me but not me to you, instead of pictures of that same glow turned pumpkin spice and peppermint mocha and red velvet crust on a harsh yellow snow. Someday, I will be brave enough to take the words spiraling in my esophagus, steadying my heart with pacemaker certainty, and instead of pouring them down the drain where they might unplug the golden strands of hair choking the water’s flow, pour them into that same chat where they will be the water and no draino or clorox will purge the plumbing clean enough to let them through. To the girl I love -       If my someday should never come,       may yours find me, red ribbon tied around my neck,       before my lips turn blue, starving for your warmth.

[thiefintheashes-blog]

On Word Choice

we do not write poetry like a paper although in the end it means the same thing the research is less on the practical     what is the importance of:          the mention of scully’s true hair color               is it a reference to gillian’s               it implies that it is not red               which implies that her current color is a choice               instead of an acceptance of her fate               and that she is not soulless as gingers have been said to be               unless even dying your hair red steals your soul          silver shoes vs. red shoes               and whether or not the witch’s skin is green               no one ever talks about her skin in the book               but because the first movie made her green it’s               stuck in our consciousness like the song               you can’t get out of your head--                    never gonna let you down--               and is this why green has become the color of villains               is green the color of envy because it’s the color of money               and yet it’s half the color of Christmas               the other’s that same red color, the way it flickers in the light                    say it                         we cannot simply say the way it flickers in the light                         because that is nowhere near as good as describing it                         with other images.  so let us describe it more thoroughly                              not the tarnished burnt bronze of a copper penny after                                    passing through too many hands                              not the drying cracked burgundy of a scab when the blood pools                                    together but has not quite hardened                              not the simpering pastel of her chapped lips or                                     the scarlet flush of her skin or                                     the crushed cherry of her cheeks when the soullessness                                          drains her body of its other colors                                                she is no vampire but i might be                              but the loud flashing embers of the alert on your computer that                                          you have a new message                                     not you’ve got mail but a much softer ding! that you could miss                                     if you hadn’t trained yourself to hear it, to jolt awake at the simplest                                     sound instead of the never gonna run around that you’ve                                          nevertheless grown accustomed to hearing i write poems like arguments not about what must be described in words but                  what must be described in feelings which                            must be described in words and this is a long, wasted introduction. i could make an argument about the use of you vs. that but you would need to understand that using one or the other changes the entire phrase and you would need to understand that changing the entire phrase may change the entire      meaning and you would need to understand that the simple change may never be noticed or      understood or acknowledged this is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug to make a difference so subtle that it means the world if it were noticed to make a difference so subtle that it is never noticed none of these are specific, they are meandering, which means, in poetry, this is bad writing aspens doing something in the wind only works when you spend an entire poem talking of      the futility of language when you acknowledge that you cannot say what they are doing such that people      understand what you see and feel i write poems like arguments to myself. to you. reader. whoever you may be. less an expression of feeling and more an expression of something:     say it          tiny red threads curled around your fingers with their fraying ends in her hands          dying your skin cherry and blueberry and blackberry before they break or you do     say it          sitting in the car with the engine turned off          swiping through images while the heat fades     better than that          they say it starts with the extremities          first your fingers and toes, brittle and numb          push them under cold water and there is no burn          then as you fade you grow tired          don’t sleep don’t sleep don’t sleep you’ll die if you sleep          always keep a friend with you          a dog does not count the dog will survive you will die in your foolishness          but they are wrong          it starts in the mind          the echo of nothing reverberating against nothing          the hush when the beeping stops and there is one long line          no hills no peaks no valleys          it’s all one line and we are part of it we will be there we will--          it skips your throat          it’d get caught if it didn’t          makes a mess of ginger root and lemon juice in your stomach          jalapenos and habaneros and ghost peppers with milk          then it finds your throat          you might as well have put those peppers in your eyes     better than that          when i was young, i only knew how to cook scrambled eggs          crack the shell, plop in the pan, push and push and push it          one day, i discovered spices          i don’t scramble eggs anymore

[thiefintheashes-blog]

Things I Should Have Said:

I am not a great writer. I’m not a great poet, either. You can tell by the fact that I have a very simple title,      a very simple theme-           it’s stated right there in the title, so you can’t miss it-      a very simple premise. Everything about me is simple,      which is why it was so easy to stand shell-shocked when we met.

          Although.  Shell-shocked would likely refer not to how           I felt but to warriors of many countries and their veterans,           and if I research it, then it probably has more of a PTSD vibe,           which is not how I felt at all.  Maybe deer in headlights would           work better.  Yes- the feeling of standing in front of what is           terrible and moving beyond me and if it touches me I might die,           that almost fits better.  But neither of those terms really takes           in the feeling of anxiety leading up to the event.  Perhaps shell-           shocked is better for that – a deer certainly cannot know that           it will be hit by a car, not until just before, and perhaps doesn’t           even realize until after the fact, light slowly but surely glimmering           from its eyes, while scavengers arrive hours, days, weeks afterwards,           unbothered by the smell, simply wanting something on which to feast.                We are all so hungry.

          But a deer in headlights can have an impact on the car which destroys           it – there’s an equal amount of destruction, as the thickly built body           of the deer can also damage and potentially end the life of the thickly           built body of the car.  We complain about the deer, but the deer never           really gets a chance to complain about us.

               Not that I’m complaining.                I have not been destroyed by meeting you, nor                am I left traumatized by the event.                You, I suspect, have not been destroyed by it either, if                you remember it at all.                I wouldn’t remember me, either.

I am not a great writer. If this were prose, it might be easier, but I think it might miss the weight of what I want to say.      Wanted to say, in retrospect.      It’s funny – you will likely never read this, and yet I am compelled to write it.      I never said I wasn’t a writer.  Just not a great one. Besides, what writer gets so distracted over simple word choice they spend so long expanding on it?      Ones who don’t sell.      Unless the word choice – not quite lightning but close enough – is the whole point.      I spend a lot of words in writing saying what I could not say verbally.      Fill in the gaps, so to speak.           Maybe I hope one of those will be lightning.           But that would return us to the whole destruction vibe, and as I said,           we were not destroyed by each other.

I am not a great writer.      I get distracted.  Blatantly.

I am not a great poet.      A great poet would have given this a modern title.      The title would be part of the poem itself.      This would be much more imagery and floweriness and            less of this blunt speak that comes from years of focusing on prose.

I am not a great speaker.      If I were, I doubt this poem would be written.

I am not great—      If I were, I believe the world would be different.      Maybe I am great.

We met a grand total of three times.      All of this came at little financial cost to me personally.      My way was paid.      I doubt it cost you much.  In fact, I think you were paid for it.      Unintentional similarity.      Perhaps we are both deer. In all three occasions I was given a chance to speak with you, in one form or another.      The first I did not take because I did not know what to say.           Because I was along for the ride.           Because I did not want to get in the way of people who loved you more.           Because I did not want to ruin it for a friend who wasn’t even there.      The second I did not take until you spoke first—

          They run us through like cattle and you do not touch.           We stand next to you briefly and a light flashes and the car is coming           and we smile as it hits and move on, never knowing that we are dead.           You do not touch because you do not want to.           We do not touch because we are not allowed.           They read a line of what we cannot do because they protect you.           You are the prized cattle, an impeccable statue, and you have trained           yourself to be just that because maybe that will keep the craziness off.           Because when you stand for hours while people are whisked by every few           seconds, it is easier to make yourself comfortable.  Maybe, eventually, you           are.  Most of us never will be.  There is too much fear in looking like a fool           beside you.

I did not expect to talk in either of these, and perhaps that is why I could not speak at the last.      Perhaps I simply spent too much time overthinking it, the way people do, worrying that I      would end up pissing you off (easily enough forgotten, but I did not want you to have a bad      taste in your mouth over me more than you already must have – that is simply me coloring      the situation, perhaps there was no bad taste in your mouth at all.  You have already      forgotten our names, but we never forget yours), or, worse still, worrying that I would end      up rambling on things you did not care about, as I do with people who love me, or ending      up in territory that I would rather you did not know – not for my sake, but for the sake of the      person who was not there with me and should have been.

You asked me who she was, and all I could say was:      “She’s a friend online.” You tried to talk to me, as one sometimes does with animals, and I,      still stuck in that they want me to get things done and move on mentality,      said very little.      I do not remember much more of the conversation.      We have that in common.

I should not have said anything about myself. I am not great:      not as a writer, my chosen profession;      not as a poet, my chosen manner of speaking;      not as a person, my chosen identification. I have little ambition.      I write, but not much that can be published.      I sing, but not consistently and not in a way that someone hasn’t already done better.      I work, but in a deadbeat job that only barely pays bills.           As I said before, I did not pay to meet you.           I could not.

“She’s a friend online.”

That is true enough.      She is a friend online.      She reintroduced me to your work.      She has seen everything you have ever been in.      She follows you.      She takes on your characters and writes them.      She analyzes your work.      She writes papers on your arts.      She loves you.

I am here in her shoes, and I am not great, and all I can say in her defense is where we met. She is great.      She would have words to say to you that I cannot even imagine.      She knows you as well as she can.      She learns, she studies.      She would never have been tongue-tied.      She is not cattle, and she is not shell-shocked, and she is not a deer in headlights-            she is the car,            she is the headlight,            she is the road who is splattered by the blood of our meeting,                 who is thoroughly touched by that small interaction,                 who is not destroyed by it.

I am not much in comparison. I am here because I have the opportunity. We may never meet again. She will meet you on her own terms one day,      whether by opportunity or by the sheer force of her greatness, and when she does, you will remember her.

I have only this to give her.      A picture.      An autograph.      A story. I have words on her behalf to you.      Nothing you would remember.      Nothing that, on meeting her later, you would see me.      Nothing about anything of importance.

I am not allowed to touch you.

I say nothing.

[thiefintheashes-blog]

Someone please explain to me why my character with the best relationship with her mother and the worst one with her father is also the one who will have to eat her mother’s heart and then goes on a serial killing/cannibalizing rampage against French warlocks.

My characters with good relationships with their fathers and questionable relationships with their mothers do not have this problem.  What does this say about me?

[thiefintheashes-blog]

So I took the color quiz again to try and get a more accurate reading on things, using two of my characters from one of my novels (Hosanna and Grace), who, in one scene, are so blatantly me and a friend of mine that people who knew us and read it could call it out.  It felt like one of our fights.  (It was maybe meant to feel that way.)

My hopes in doing so was to see where the red came in, since red is not in how I see myself.  My theory was that Hosanna, who was blatantly me, would be red - because then the red basis would be in how other people see me.

Unfortunately, Hosanna ended up being seagreen - a mixture of cyan and green (which makes her the first of my characters to have my cyan carryover - and the second, other than Jess, to have the green) - basically someone who cares but has a tendency to be ruled by head over heart.  (Note that this does fit with how people closest to me in college thought of me - and the differences between how they saw me and how I saw myself - if going by Myers-Briggs, they saw me as a T, and I saw myself as an F.)  Hosanna was high saturation and of flexible brightness - she could go either way.

Grace fucked up my theory.

I thought Grace would be blue, as she fits the character stereotype for my blue characters (like Bedelia does).

No.

Grace is pure red.  Passionate, energetic, unafraid to tackle life’s changes, always ready and willing (and wanting) to try new things.  (...which makes me think I picked the wrong colors for Grace because...she’s not...really.  Like that.)  She is extremely low saturation, so her actual color is silver - she’s not likely to get involved in anything unless it’s actually going to cause something (because she doesn’t waste her time making it look like she’s doing anything).  She’s also slightly brighter than normal - slightly more optimistic.

I think I maybe typed Grace wrong.

Regardless - given that Grace has the pure red strain, I’m more able to examine what that is in relation to me personally.  Red is fearless.  Red is what I want to be but have a hard time being outside of books and writing due to my own nature (whether we’re looking at overthinking, anxiety, or possible consequences to my actions).

...which tells me that, with one exception, the characters I currently RP are ones who embrace a fearless lifestyle and what I want to be.  The one exception to that rule is the one closest to how I see myself, but also the kind of personality that, by default, I tend to be attracted (platonically) to - people I see in that form.

Or...if the above is anything to go by - it’s really the red that attracts me to people, not the blue as I initially thought.

This is intriguing.

[thiefintheashes-blog]

So - as some of you know, I’m currently reworking the extremely long Jess/Bedelia drabble into something else entirely. The problem with this is that, since I’m hoping to publish it (at some point), Bedelia as Bedelia must be taken completely out.  (There is another character in her place with a similar personality to my interpretation of her, which is extremely canon divergent.)  Basically, references to anything related to Hannibal must be removed.

This means some fairly large chunks near the end of the writing have to be completely rewritten (ugh), and since the originals basically aren’t going to be used (or are going to be so heavily edited that although a general overall theme might still be present, the specifics and nuances of this particular version will likely be lost).

...but I like these chunks - so, here.  I will share them with you.

Please note that the following comes from a nanowrimo project (where quantity tends to have more value than quality, as you’re shooting for word count) and, for the most part, are unedited.  Also note that in most cases (with the exception of the switch from Hannibal’s perspective back to Bedelia’s at the very end), there would be a Jessica Irving/Samantha Oliver (same person) section at each break.

ALSO NOTE that ANY reference to Alana Bloom in the course of this work is specifically referring to Kat (defenestratio)’s interpretation and portrayal.  I do not take any credit for that.  (I should also point out drlecterpsychiatrist’s help in brainstorming Bedelia and Hannibal’s early relationship, and although said brainstorming was many months prior to this writing, it is a base for my interpretation of their earliest interactions.  Some of what is mentioned in here is a reference to things we had planned and did not finish.)

As a brief set-up:  Over a year prior to this event, Bedelia stepped in to help Jessica away from a group of drunk catcallers and, upon finding she did not have a place to stay, allowed her to live with her in her ramshackle tiny apartment (she does not buy her house until much later).  During the time between that event and this one, the two have become friends (sort of), with Bedelia being in a more motherly role.  However, Jessica has not explained why she ran away, and the night before the following, Bedelia pressed her for information and, true to form, Jessica left, not wanting to deal with the situation.  Although Jessica originally planned to be home (like normal), she found herself at a college party, started hanging out with the lead singer of the band, and blacked out.

Bedelia knows none of this.  (She also refers to Jessica as Samantha throughout the following, as the younger girl, being a runaway, didn’t want to use her real name for fear of being sent home.)

This starts the next day with Jessica/Samantha still gone.  Hannibal is Bedelia’s last patient of the day.

Have at.

The office seems more compact than usual today. Bedelia crosses one leg over the over, straightens the edge of her dark blue skirt – not navy, but something much more full in color than that simple one – and does not pale when Hannibal Lecter joins her.  His is, of course, the last session of the day.  She knows that he holds his own practice in a setting much farther from her own – much more luxurious, as well, as befitting the man before her – and that their regular sessions are after he has finished with his own for the day.

She does not believe herself to be helping him unpack the day’s woes or dealing with anything that he has heard in therapy; she, herself, has had no need of a therapist on such occasions and, although she has seen one in the past, she is not seeing one now.  Perhaps this might be a lack in her own foresight.  Perhaps she should be looking for someone.

But there is a hint of pride in Dr. du Maurier, in the self she has so carefully crafted for herself.  Bedelia knows, yes, that at any moment there might come something to break the façade she has so carefully worked to build, but she would rather like to pretend that this armor will hold against anything, a veritable fortress against any forcible attack.

(We know now that this is not true, to some extent, but we will allow her these moments of belief in her own abilities.)

“Good afternoon, Dr. Lecter.”

“Good afternoon, Dr. du Maurier.”

She does not want to be here.  She has not wanted to be here all day.  She has wanted desperately to return home, to make sure that Samantha has returned safe and sound.  There have been no calls – she has refused to be the fidgety, crotchety, worrying roommate who demands to know the other’s location at any point in time – and for the past more than a year, she has been able to stick to that ability. But, then again, Samantha has never been gone so long.

And, in spite of herself, Bedelia does worry.

“My apologies, but you do not quite seem yourself.”

Dr. du Maurier smiles, and perhaps Bedelia has forced it, but the therapist in her knows to smile in that way she does, not quite thin-lipped and not quite full but somewhere in-between, like a cat with a canary stuck somewhere between its teeth.  (She does not smile this way with all of her patients, but she does with this one, whom she trusts and yet does not.)

She knows she cannot lie to him.  Not in this moment.  Her walls are not yet built for that.

“If I were to be quite honest with you, I would agree. However, I will not let this impede our time together.”  Her hands clasp together on her knee, but her fingers do not interlace.  She is careful to keep them together and occupied in such a manner, and in this way attempts to hide the little half-moons bent on the insides of her palms.  “How have you been, Dr. Lecter?”

But he looks at her with this hint of worry, and although she knows that their session will be a session just like normal – and she knows, somewhere within her, that his brand of worry is not truly worry at all, is something almost feigned – Bedelia knows that, when their session is over, when the hour is up, he will insist on walking with her to help calm her down.

Dr. Lecter is neither her therapist nor her friend, but he is somehow a combination of the two without giving himself a label.

There will be no labels for Dr. Lecter – in the future they will call him a monster – but in this moment, with this woman, with his therapist, there are no labels, either – not because he is a monster but because, in some respects, that is the furthest from who he will ever be.

“How have you been, Dr. du Maurier?”

He asks again, not the first time since they met today, and he asks it with the weight of being past his hour.  Now the question is no longer simply a formality needing to be crossed at the beginning of their meeting, one that is passed quickly without a necessary second thought or potentially extended answer, but the question one friend might ask of another friend when concerned for their well-being. Hannibal Lecter has practiced the air of concern so well that one might not be able to tell just when it is feigned, but for Bedelia du Maurier, who has been his therapist for long enough and who has known Dr. Lecter for far longer (before he was a psychiatrist at all, she will make mention only to herself, although he was still a medical doctor at that time – a surgeon, one to whom she owes far more than she will ever explain to anyone, regardless of how necessary that might be), she notes the littlest of cues, the disaffect in the back of his eyes.  She has seen this question asked at the beginning of all of their therapeutic meetings and she has seen the feigned concern in the back of the formalities, has noted how little true concern there was towards the manner of her wellbeing. She compares it with their occasional luncheon during her internship at Johns Hopkins, when he was still pursuing the last of his medical degree.  At the end of her internship, he would have it, finishing his surgical term there, and promptly return for one of a more psychiatric nature, while she would leave him and Baltimore behind for another, more prestigious post-doctoral internship at the Mayo Clinic.

It was her post-doctoral internship and her collegiate lineage that brought her the practice she had now, the clients who expected someone of a far higher caliber than the simple blonde woman they met. But those who stayed past the immediate surface results noted her manner of speaking, the way her cold blue eyes watched them with the occasional spark of warmth, and told stories of her particular propensity in her craft.  Dr. du Maurier was a psychiatrist of whom her patients spoke nothing but well, and she needed only to continue to grow herself to look and act the part outside of her practice – something with which she had only a monetary struggle.

Perhaps, had she decided on a house and the upkeep of her wardrobe before the surgery that allowed her to dispense of both her glasses and her contacts, she would be in a much higher station.  But each person has their own personal preference, and Bedelia wanted to rid herself of those last remnants of an unhappy childhood school life before going farther in her present circumstances.

To tell the truth, Bedelia had little idea that Hannibal Lecter was now a psychiatrist until he’d found her practice.  They had, on occasion, talked about it over coffee in one of the little shops downtown just past their alma mater, but although he had seemed more and more interested in the psychological field, she had not dreamed he would change his pace so quickly and so…successfully.

And Hannibal Lecter was a successful psychiatrist, there was no doubting that, as was the child he’d taken as his protégé, one of the other interns in her time there – one Alana Bloom.  Bedelia had yet to see her, after returning to Baltimore, but she suspects that the bright shock of pink in her hair has disappeared into the dark curls, that some bit of herself had been – not tamed, as she abhors using that word in relation to other human beings, but something akin to it, something altogether quite similar – perhaps, not diminished, but refined by her work with Dr. Lecter, who was always extremely refined, even now, even when he asks how his colleague, his peer, his therapist is with the concern she knew well once, many years ago, when they were but college students wrapping up doctoral degrees and sitting in little cafes drinking coffee and eating the occasional chocolate chip biscuit.

“I have been well, Hannibal.”

It is no longer their therapeutic hour.  She has closed his file and returned it to its drawer in her desk.  The door to her office is locked behind her, and he has waited for her outside.  They will walk together – not a frequent occurrence, but an occasional one, especially on days where he has yet another house to show her.  Today is not one of those days, as Hannibal might have called ahead if it was, not wishing to surprise her and often acting out of a part where he overwhelmingly never wished to present himself as rude.

“Then might I change my question?”

He is only a few years older than she, but the seniority remains.  It feels odd to her that he should pose this question in the way that he has, asking in a manner of a schoolboy to his teacher.

“You may,” Dr. du Maurier answers – always, always now she is Dr. du Maurier around him, even when before she might have allowed herself to be Bedelia.  Part of this is, of course, the natural result of their therapeutic sessions; as Hannibal’s therapist, she must keep up a polite distance, must never be too close to him.  Where before, in their little cafes, they might have spoken unveiled, now there is very much a veil between them, one which she cannot and will not part.

The other part of this is that Bedelia feels very much unarmored around Hannibal Lecter, feels very much as if she needs to put a defense between herself and this man who is her patient, for reasons other than simple doctor-patient, for words that she cannot yet express.

“How are you today, Dr. du Maurier?”

And now she must hesitate, thinking over the question and carefully considering the ways she might answer the old Lithuanian without giving herself away.  Perhaps it would be best – and certainly easiest – to simply answer, “I am not well, Hannibal, although this is for reasons I do not feel I may explain.”

He is silent, but she can hear the thoughts – do you feel you cannot explain this because the matter is purely personal, or do you feel you cannot explain this because it is me – and although she knows well enough that Hannibal himself is not of the sort to actively think either of those, in the same way that she knows most people would not – or perhaps not in the same way at all, as Hannibal Lecter has constantly revealed himself to only act like most people in a form similar to the way that she, herself, only acts like most people – although for what she believes are markedly different reasons, although he has not yet revealed them as such to her – she cannot help but note the creeping sense of anxiety building in her chest.

It has been years since Dr. du Maurier has allowed herself to succumb to a panic attack.  The fear is always there, even when she is alone; when she is among people, constantly she is counting the moments down to when they will leave, and when she is alone, she fears having to go out in the real world.  This is why she has created the self she wears now like armor – this self is the one who meets and greets and becomes what people expect of her.  When she is Dr. du Maurier, then she is no longer quite Bedelia; she is as she imagines Bedelia would be without any of her anxiety.

And yet somehow, in some ways, the anxiety builds in and it creeps among her thoughts.

It never truly leaves.  It is only whether she will give in or not.

Dr. du Maurier never gives in.

Bedelia often has.

Whether or not Hannibal wonders on just why she cannot explain how she is, as she fears he might, he does not say.  He lowers his head, shoes ticking across the ground and says, only, “I understand.”

“Thank you, Hannibal.”

“But if I might ask – perhaps this has something to do with your sudden search for a new home?”

It has been months since she began home-shopping with Hannibal.  The search has narrowed quite a bit, and at the moment, it feels like they are simply waiting.  She looks through listings of houses and he looks through listings, and although he brings a few to her attention, they are more to test the waters – not houses he truly believes that she might buy but ones with features she might enjoy or consider searching for in a house of her own.  As it is, they have grown quite accustomed to each other’s tastes – hers perhaps a modicum more modern and simplistic than his own – more of a falling waters sort than Hannibal’s old world, Lithuanian charm – he might not live in a true rock and mortar castle, but everywhere he lives breathes that sort of centuried feel.  It is only finding something that fits her tastes and yet elevates itself and its owner to the social elitist height within which Hannibal believes his therapist could be centered (not should.  A good therapist is a good therapist, no matter her brand of taste, and it is likely Hannibal would continue to see Dr. du Maurier even should she live in a unseemly little shack.  No, perhaps not.  He could not abide in an unseemly little shack.  But, then, neither could Dr. du Maurier, although Bedelia all too easily might).

Perhaps Bedelia was simply afraid of joining the social elite, even though she has accepted that her place as Dr. du Maurier might require it.

There was no hesitation in Hannibal’s inquisition, no doubt that he might ask, even if the question itself went unanswered.

It would not go unanswered.  To do so would be to be rude, and Dr. du Maurier may be many things, but rude is not one of them.  All potential rudeness lies solely at Bedelia’s feet, and the thought that she would personally, publically, privately, potentially wound or offend another person – client or not – through manner of rudeness is an ice cold shock of fear trickling down her spine like Chinese water torture – drip, drip, drip.

“You may ask,” and perhaps Dr. du Maurier hesitates before speaking, because she is not sure how much of her life she would like Hannibal Lecter – or any singular one of her patients besides him – to be privy to, “but I may reserve the right not to answer.”

“You might do that.”

It would be rude.  No, it would be rude to push the matter further when she did not wish to speak on such things.

“I might.”  Dr. du Maurier’s hands are tucked into her jacket pocket – a beautiful thing, deep mahogany in color with russet undertones – and her nails are not digging into the flesh of her palms.  “There are similarities between the two matters, but the search for a new home is not the central focus of my well-being at this moment.”

Another nod.  “But the similarities are.”

She does not want to answer this question.

She does not want Hannibal Lecter to know about the young girl living in her apartment, although she is certain he has picked up on some of the subtleties of the arrangement.  He knows, for instance, that in her search for a new house she has been looking for a place with more bedrooms than she might ever need.  She’d considered explaining it as a way for family to come and visit, but the sheer expanse of house for a single woman – even well off – might appear…odd.

Then again, many of the social elite had sprawling mansions with more room than they would ever need.  At the same time, many of them entered into such activities in marital pairs.  She had – and has – no intention of doing such a thing.

“I believe I stated I did not wish to explain this matter. You are not my therapist, Hannibal.”

“No.  However, I might consider myself a friend, and in times such as these, when the well-being of a friend is at stake, am I not allowed a moment of concern?”

Fake or not? his words seem to imply, and the thought of that sickens her.

His concern is not feigned in this instance; she knows this much and she will not forget it, nor will she forget how much it now bothers her to be center to the concern of one Hannibal Lecter.

“You are allowed a moment of concern, but that does not mean you can use that concern to coerce your friend into explaining more of it than she wishes to reveal.”  Dr. du Maurier stops her walk, then, and Hannibal pauses with her.  “I appreciate your concern, Hannibal, but there is no need. This will right itself out, with time, and thus my well-being will return to a normal, stable position.”

“Are you unstable now, Dr. du Maurier?”

She gives him a glance and the barest hint of a smile and at once says both no and pursue this no farther, Hannibal. For his part, he mentally steps back from the conversation, although he is still watching her.  Her smell is off today, an absence of something like fried pork and buttered shortbread.  The faintest wisps of it are still there – the memories of yesterday morning curled within the fastidious bunches of her golden hair – but nothing strong enough to prove that she had a similarly sufficient breakfast this morning.  Nor are there any of the trappings of a luncheon about her.

So, not quite on an impulse but more on the matter of a moment, taking advantage of a long-awaited opportunity, he asks, simply, “Might I invite you to join me for dinner?”

A sudden pause of breath, not choked down but caught in her throat all the same.  “You might.”

He does not ask the second question, but it lingers in the air all the same, and she does not lower her head when she says, just as simply, “It is possible, if you were to extend such an invitation, that I might accept.”  She still does not turn to him, does not let her cold blue eyes glance up, does not allow herself to act as a schoolgirl might, on being asked such a question by one long admired – because, in truth, although there are aspects of Hannibal Lecter that Bedelia finds admirable, she does not feel towards him in the way a schoolgirl might feel towards someone of his standing in such a situation. “Provided that such a dinner might be in a more private location but not in such a place as to be conspicuous towards either of us should it be revealed at a later date.”

Now she does raise her head, if only to understand the tiniest bit of control being afforded here.  “However, I believe that you already have the place in mind, do you not?”

The barest hint of a smile now crossing the lips of the old Lithuanian recognizes the control and returns the precious gift to her. “Let us meet here in an hour’s time. That should be suitable, as I expect you will want to change into something more…comfortable.”

By which he means I am not to look like a simple psychiatrist.

It was not a hint of disdain towards Bedelia’s clothing choices but simply a note of the type of dinner this might be.  Her work clothes are not so simple as most, but she understands him frankly.  “That will be more than sufficient.”

They part ways, and Bedelia walks away, and there it is again, the now familiar serpent coiling in the pit of her stomach. Unlike some people, she can no longer believe that her ‘gut instinct’ is correct – far too often it is spiked with anxiety where there is no reason for it to be present – and although in this case she feels that, perhaps, she is entering into a chess game where she is merely a pawn to a far greater player, a stepping stone towards a greater purpose, at the same time she hopes, somewhere within that barren heart of hers, that where she sees chess and strategy, the opposite is not true.

She has spent far too much of her life fearing that people will use her for their own purposes –nefarious or not – and although she senses that it might be the case here, she refuses to let herself be afraid.

Perhaps, for once in her life, she will simply allow herself to step up to the plate and learn to do battle for herself.  Is that not what she has been trained to do, is that not what this self was for?  It is time to quit acting as Dr. du Maurier and to become her.

And yet--  there is no room for Samantha Oliver in the life of Dr. du Maurier. She cannot have both, although she might try.  She is already tied to the child.  For now, her alliances are there, and when this chess match has reached its final conclusion, she can only hope that, in the end, there is still enough of her left to welcome the child as she had only a year before.

As long as the child is here, she need not fear.

But she does not expect her home when she returns.

Bedelia was right not to expect anyone home when she returns.  She considers the fact that Samantha might have had work today and, upon returning home, cleaned herself up and immediately left for the hours at her job. This consideration is paused, however, by the state of things – how Samantha’s stuff is still in the exact same place she’d left it the night before when she’d left.

She refuses to consider that Samantha ran away.  Not from her…or, more importantly, not without her guitar.  No, Samantha would not leave permanently without that.

Perhaps it seems odd to you that Bedelia is so worried over the possibility that Samantha would run away.  In this case, Bedelia is more worried that something potentially bad has happened to Samantha.  I feel the need to remind you of this before stating, very gently, that Bedelia also deals with a very strong anxiety disorder.  It is not one she has explained to Samantha, as she has spent many years pushing it under her very control, building the self known as Dr. du Maurier in an attempt to get it under control.  Although at home, she is still very much Bedelia, she uses her other persona to help her in the moments where she seems most likely to be overwhelmed by potential anxiety.  This is perhaps not something you have seen, as my writing may be very sloppy at times, but rest assured that it is very much there, underlying every single one of Bedelia’s actions.

She was even worried – afraid – when she invited Samantha to stay.  This is why her bedroom is considered off-limits, not just for her own privacy, but also, as Samantha rightly guessed, to give a space for Bedelia to rejuvenate herself away from the young girl who she has, on the odd occasion, considered as something of a friend.

Please, then, understand that Bedelia’s anxiety is slowly but surely taking over her fear that something has happened to Samantha and slowly but surely making her believe, as it had on that Thanksgiving afternoon so long ago, that Samantha simply wished to run away from her. Bedelia is not in the habit of making friends or having them – she did have some in her early years at college, up until the hair dye fiasco (not that her hair did not look wonderful when it was short and dyed that beautiful auburn red, but that her mother slapped her in such stern disapproval that Bedelia distanced herself from those people she called friends, afraid that this was simply a new form of bullying that she had not yet come across before this point in time – one full of false compliments that she could not tell from truths) – and although she will, in future years, consider other people friends, and although she is trying very hard, now, not to consider Hannibal Lecter a friend (as the patient-client clause comes to harm her here, in her opinion, although she finds that he makes her anxious and we know that such a clause is only really protecting her future interests as we currently know the truth about Hannibal Lecter that is currently kept hidden from her eyes behind his veil, one that will, eventually, grow thinner and thinner until, perhaps, she is invited beyond it – an invitation she will not accept), one must realize that Bedelia has no real friends at this moment in time other than Samantha Oliver.

Her past makes her doubt the authenticity of their friendship and at the same time makes her believe it would be easy to leave her behind.  Although Bedelia knows her worth, when it comes to close-ish relationships such as this one, she understands that worth really has no meaning.  If it did, then the entitled rich white boys of the world would have no friends, apart from those like them, and yet we see that this is not the case.

Bedelia might have great worth as a friend, but it means nothing if no one else realizes that same worth.

A part of her wants to stay in her home instead of returning to join Hannibal Lecter for dinner in whatever private establishment he has requested, but she knows that to do so now, after accepting said invitation, would be rude.  She is never rude, and certainly not to one of her most consistent patients.

So she cleans herself up, the quickest of showers to wipe the muck from her face, to cleanse her skin of the sweat that anxiety pools all around her, and begins the process of a shift in her armor.  No – not so much a shift as simply a redressing. The armor is the same as it always has been, slowly working its way closer and closer to the piece of herself that she considers her truest heart; it is only wearing a different trapping now – a dress she bought quite a while ago with no intention of wearing it until she reached such a point as it would be useful to her.

It is useful now, even if it might be considered something akin to last season.

The thing that Bedelia du Maurier has yet to realize is this – when you are the social elite, seasons do not matter.  She will build a wardrobe of her own and use it to her immense pleasure regardless of what others may say about her, because it is only her self that is a commodity there.  Clothes, once they reach the status of the best, are simply a trapping.

…and as long as she is with Hannibal Lecter, she is the one about who the seasons and decisions turn.

Perhaps white was not the best choice for her dress.

Bedelia smooths the thin fabric as she drives, a thin golden wrap about her shoulders.  Worse still, it feels odd to drive to her office when, on every other day of the year, she walks – even through thick piles of snow, in case her clients might ignore the weather. (During storms, she drives, yes, in an attempt to make sure her hair stays crafted in place, to keep herself from looking like a drowned cat when she arrives.)

Chantilly lace, gold and ivory – the dress is not old by any means, nor was it cheap – an Oscar de la Renta gown fitted to her precise measurements.  Her blonde hair is swept up and to one side, carefully crafted to stay exactly in place, every hair in its proper position, coiled there, and around her neck is a simple golden necklace, mimicked by the tighter gold band around her left wrist. All light and luxury.  She feels…surreal.

Especially in her car, an older make and model, bought primarily for the occasional use.  She’d decided to postpone buying a better one until after her house purchase (which she is steadily realizing was an excellent decision, given the prices of the houses she has been looking at with Hannibal over the past few months). But that does mean she makes a most remarkable look, the name and cost of her dress far outweighing that of the vehicle she is in.

But this does not matter.

She steps out of her car with ease and shifts to much better maintained vehicle driven by the aforementioned Hannibal Lecter, who is dressed, as always, in a very well-tailored suit.  His is different than the one he wore earlier, and for some reason this pleases her, as does the softest scent of his aftershave.  She cannot place it in the same way she has, on occasion, seen him place the scents of others (as he is now placing the scent of her perfume, as she expects),

“Poivre.”

Dr. du Maurier nods once; she’d spared no expense on the trappings for her occasional night out, and although she had determined not to buy it in barrels and wastes, she has a little of each expensive dish on hand so as to give the appearance of luxury when it is needed…like now.  “I hope that I have not overestimated the evening.”

Hannibal smiles, his lips pressed together, still examining.  “Not at all.” A brief glance.  “You have excellent taste.”

“Thank you.”

She feels like a diamond on display and realizes that those high price jewels once so used and loved probably now feel like their true potential is wasted.  Jewelry was made to be seen and examined, yes, but only on the forms of those who love and use it best.  If it is only seen on display, then it is not serving its purpose and is left to be cooled by the world when once its most spectacular use let it be warmed by the skin of those who loved it.

Her voice is soft, each word measured out carefully and enunciated so clearly that one could cut the aforementioned diamonds by their clarity alone.  Dr. du Maurier folds her hands in her lap – no lace gloves here, as she believes they are – and would be – a tacky, childish addition to the beauty she is currently wearing.  “However, I must admit that it cannot match yours, even on my best days.”

An admittance, perhaps, but more an attempt to stroke the ego of the man sitting next to her.  His smile shifts the slightest bit as he speaks.  “Might you be ready to embark, mademoiselle?”

He does not remark on the superiority of his taste in comparison to hers, and yet that succumbs a point to her as well.  If Hannibal’s taste is so remarkable, then she must be a very tasty dish herself.  His appraisal of her as one well worth his time – both as a psychiatrist and as a colleague with whom he might spend time, even now – showcases her worth.  She does not dwell on this.  Something about Hannibal feels…wolfish this evening.

Dr. du Maurier simply nods, interlacing her fingers in her lap, her golden heels barely touching the floor of his vehicle. It hums beneath her as he starts the engine, but the ride is smooth – fast, yes, devilishly fast, but so smooth that sometimes she is unaware that she is moving at all.  A soft sound of classical music – violins, harpsichord, strings all – lingers just above the sound of the engine but still low enough to allow for talking if they so desire it.

She does not wish to talk right now, instead keeping her cold blue eyes focused on other aspects of their travel.  She watches out the windows, as though to be able to guess their destination simply by Hannibal’s drive, and, on occasion, turns to let her gaze wander over that of her companion.

No, Bedelia does not feel safe here, but Dr. du Maurier feels like she has only just arrived.  It shocks her, sometimes, the stark difference between these two parts of herself, but she is unsure that she could live any other way.  Here she has completely robed herself in Dr. du Maurier, and at home she loses that robe as much as she can, but she is slowly but surely realizing that the dressing and disrobing is half of the trouble.

To be or not to be.

It is a choice she does not want to make.

Fortunately for Bedelia du Maurier, Hannibal Lecter has not taken her to his home.  He is reputably much more savvy than that – and, for the moment, does not hold any desire to eat her at all.  There have been the slightest moments of rudeness, but every time those have been noticed – or even commented on – she has apologized in a way befitting his sensibilities.  Besides, although there are those odd moments of rudeness, she is not a singularly rude person – any singular moment from her of anything less than polite seems an affront to her character as opposed to an intricate pattern, habit, or way of life. Bedelia du Maurier as Hannibal Lecter knows her is not a rude person, simply a polite person who occasionally makes the very grave mistake of being rude.  He shall not punish her for that sin.  He can forgive, on the odd occasion.

And he chooses to forgive Bedelia du Maurier her rudeness.  He does not suspect – he knows – that there are reasons for it, some underlying cause that casts itself beyond her control and takes the worries and anxieties he knows that she often has for herself and casting itself on someone else.  In those moments, she has a tendency to forget herself.

If Hannibal Lecter were to eat anyone at all in this relationship, he would eat the cause of Bedelia du Maurier’s rudeness.  Since she herself is not the cause, he would find that cause out and eat them instead.

Given the ample understanding, Hannibal Lecter would eat Samantha Oliver, would take her meat and garnish it with olives in a way befitting her last name.  (But, true to form, Hannibal Lecter would know quite a bit more about the person of Samantha Oliver before choosing to eat her – and certainly would find that her cause of Bedelia’s rudeness is accidental, based solely on her age.  He will not eat the young girl.  But he might, perhaps, eat her rapists.)

Hannibal Lecter knows that Bedelia du Maurier would be most uncomfortable at his house in these moments when she is undergoing the beginnings of her becoming.  There is a part of her unlike the woman he met at Johns Hopkins, something much more vulnerable beneath the surface, and he hopes to slowly lead her to encompass and engulf herself with that stronger, much more confident part.  She can be more than she is – and she is halfway on reaching that.  He will continue to extend his own hand in an attempt to help her reach beyond who she is now.  He does not owe her this much – he does not owe her anything – but he does remember the woman shocked to the core by the patient of hers who, during her internship, decided that suicide was the way to go, was much better than anything the young doe of a woman could ever teach him in her attempts to help him recover. That night, Hannibal Lecter the medical surgeon had saved the young man’s life – an act which began his friendship with Bedelia du Maurier beyond their initial interaction – but on a much later night, when Bedelia was finished with her internship at Johns Hopkins and picked up her post-doctoral internship at the Mayo Clinic, when Hannibal was working on his own doctoral thesis and seeing psychology patients of his own, when Hannibal Lecter picked up the man who thought that suicide was more important than whatever the dear not quite Dr. du Maurier had to teach him—

That man is now dead, as he wished to be, and eaten, as he perhaps did not wish to be.  But Hannibal has determined that if he, who kept the man alive, now took his life away according to the man’s wishes, then that man had no say in what happened with his body afterwards.

He’d cooked his liver and his heart but left his tainted brain to shame.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter steps out of his vehicle – one well-powered, chosen for and tailored specifically to his needs and desires (he is a man of taste, and his taste touches everything he so desires, and, on occasion, he desires Bedelia du Maurier – whether as a friend or as a lover is yet to be seen, although he knows not to advance on either of those fronts unless she allows it – and he believes that, perhaps, she may allow it sometime in the future, even though she has not done so yet and does not do so now) – and crosses to the passenger side door, which he opens for the aforementioned Dr. Bedelia du Maurier.

He is not ecstatic.  His emotions are, as always, very well-regulated and completely under his control.  He has allowed himself a supreme contentedness in this unexpected happening, although he has been aware – and hoping – that it would happen sometime in the future, as it eventually did.  (He did not hope, because there is only expectancy and, in his mind, no certainty in hope.  There is too much knowledge that this would happen at some point, and so he would call it foresight, even though we would call it faith.)

But he is remembering this moment, opening the door for Bedelia du Maurier as she steps out of his as-yet-undetermined vehicle, ivory heels with gold on their edges, her gown not something fit for a wedding but still in the ivory color of those who are about to be married (and, to be quite honest, he does not yet intend to make her his bride in any small moment or fashion, although he certainly approves of the cover and the meaning it might yet convey), the small flowers intricately etched into the Chantilly lace and ribbed with the same gold that finds itself on the heels of her elegant shoes, an ivory wrap about her bare shoulders, a simple gold and ivory necklace about her fine little neck, a thin bracelet of ivory about her left wrist (hiding the little black tattoo he once had the chance of seeing at their little coffee shop after their classes at Johns Hopkins – he finishing up his medical doctorate and she finishing up her psychological one – with something much more elegant and refined)—

This, he believes, is the Bedelia du Maurier that the world should know and realize and appraise, not the vulnerable little mouse that she kept locked in a cage somewhere in the deepest, stillest part of her heart.  He had no intent to crush that mouse – elephants, after all, run from such things, although he would never refer to himself as an elephant – but to help her keep it hidden, to help her forget that it ever existed in the first place. Right now, her most secret and selective part was a mouse, but he believes, in time, that he will be able to take that mouse and transform it into something much more powerful and lethal – a panther much more befitting his legacy.

Hannibal Lecter will revisit this image later and apply it to his mind palace, where he may return and look on her later, if he so desires.  There, he will be able to smell the prestigious scent of her perfume and relegate himself with it, there he will look on the elegant coif of her delicately formed hair and see each individual strand for what it is – blond as a whole but mixed with ever-increasing strands of white, near the opposite of her clothing choice this evening.  He will look on the ivory and gold and compare it with the woman he believes she will become in the future, contrast it with the much simpler woman he knows she once was (not through their conversations or through anything she has personally told him, but in the way she speaks, in the food she cooks, in the formation of her lips in a singular purse and the way her eyes will shift away and down as though she is embarrassed with herself when there is never any need to be embarrassed for the lovely woman she has become and is still to become) before she changed herself for the better.

He will sit enthralled with her evolution – with the evolution of the woman he has come to know and will continue to know – and smile over any and all help he has given, every slight little nudging, every development of taste – any and every moment of her evolution and becoming in which he has placed his hand and left his mark on her.  Bedelia du Maurier might, at this moment, be a woman of her own making and her own choosing, but Hannibal Lecter is working his ways of influence over her, starting with the smallest of subtleties and working deeper and deeper until she will no longer know what of it is hers and what of it is his…and, in the end, will not know to care.

Hannibal offers Bedelia a pleasant, gentlemanly smile as he opens the door for her, as she steps out of his much esteemed vehicle, and despite the anxiety hidden just there behind the cold blue of her eyes, she looks up and meets his eyes so deep and maroon – not quite like blood clotting but similar, almost close enough, although she will never say that and he would never mention it, except in passing, to strike a semblance of the fear and respect he deserves into the heart of those most rude (just before he takes their open bodies and retraces them, carves them in even more explicit designs to befit him and his design on the world, before he ends them and they become something other than the rude sack of flesh they have decided to be and he cannot help in any other way).  Bedelia du Maurier mimics Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s smile – pleasant, womanly, lady-like from her where it was gentlemanly from him – and he finds that this shall be most pleasant indeed.

Bedelia carefully switches modes in her mind. She is Dr. du Maurier, she is still Dr. du Maurier, Bedelia is a mouse in a cage locked away in her heart and of no help to anyone, and while she is with Hannibal Lecter, she shall remain Dr. du Maurier.  She cannot feel the slightest touch of his claws in her yet, does not notice the way he looks at her not like prey but the way a sculptor might look at a block of marble – sees its potential and the way that someone might have already attempted to carve it into something wonderful before giving up on it – and taking it under his wing, into his humble artist’s abode, the chamber of his heart where he can mold and craft and sculpt it – sculpt her – to be whatsoever he desires.  In this moment, she does not notice and so will not fight him, but in the future, when his carving tools begin their very careful and cautious work on the veins in her neck, it will feel to her like the jaws of a large, ravenous beast on her throat.  She will draw back and be lost.

But, for now, we may leave them like this, in this moment where Hannibal Lecter has appraised her as well worth his time and devotion, where Bedelia du Maurier shuts herself to enter into the world of people like Hannibal Lecter for something as simple as an elegantly prepared Japanese dish in a simple, empty chateau.

[thiefintheashes-blog]

I just took this quiz with my four main RP characters (and myself...twice (because I’d originally not planned to post my own results, but ended up doing it anyway besides the point)), and I wanted to talk a little bit about the similarities and differences between them because it intrigues me a lot.

(I will note a disclaimer that my original result was different than my second one - but I think I was simply...more cyan than blue, maybe?  And perhaps a little brighter?  I don’t remember.  I think it was just more cyan than blue but it was still those two colors.)

Now - my colors were cyan and blue, as mentioned above. Out of my four characters, only one of them had either of those, and she was staunchly blue. Of the four, three had red as one of their main colors, and two had magenta as the other. My saturation level was medium. Two of the four were medium. Of the other two, one was slightly lower than average and for the other, it was high. My brightness/darkness level was slightly brighter than average. None of the four had this result. One was slightly darker than average, another was of medium brightness, the third was extremely bright, and the last was flexible.

Now, given that three of the four had red as a main color and two had magenta, I can pick out what each of those colors means (relatively).  Red correlates to spontaneity, to going out and doing things, whereas magenta seems to correlate to connection with people (small group of close friends, devotion, almost).  Since one of the characters was blatantly and solely blue, I can pick that out as the “compassionate mom friend who wants to make people happy” - magenta seems to be somewhere between red and blue...just a little more private.  The red character who did not have magenta had a secondary color of green, which seems to be an analytical, thinking color (as opposed to blue which is feeling and people-oriented).

     So green vs. blue seems to be your basic T vs. F.  Ish.

None of them had my cyan, which seems to be more of an understanding color (the commentary on curiosity and making sure things make sense are not found in the blue, so I assume they are exclusive to the cyan - the sense seems to come from the green that would naturally be found in a cyan color - thinking, but not thinking for thinking’s sake).

What this says to me is that, more often than not, I have a tendency to write characters who are more adventurous and influential than how I am in real life, when this is not very much like myself at all.

This is the strongest difference as opposed to the saturation or brightness/darkness levels. The next strongest difference would be the latter of those two - but the important thing to note is that my own brightness level was only slightly above average.  What you see through most of my characters is either an exacerbation of that, or a tendency to be more neutral (or flip to the other side...but only just).

Now - brightness/darkness seems to be optimism/pessimism but with one difference, as my character who was slightly darker seems to point out.  It’s not just having a more optimistic outlook but actively taking the time to look for the good in a situation.  Whereas my flexible character is considered a realist, my slightly darker character is specifically pointed out as trying to be realistic but not trying to find the good in a situation.

What this says to me is that, in more cases than not, I write characters who are more like me in this - who actively look for the good, as opposed to necessarily being optimistic in a situation.

Lastly, saturation, which seems to be about work ethic, determination, and decision-making.  What I see from my character who is high in saturation vs. the one who is low in it is basically a type A vs. type B personality.

But what I find interesting about saturation is that, the more saturated a person’s color is, the more commentary there is about changing the world.  My character low in saturation has a master plan where everything falls into place eventually, but my characters with medium saturation (and myself) can get things done, but don’t make decisions and don’t want to try and force the world to change (and don’t think it will, not for us).  This is in stark contrast to my character with high saturation, who not only wants to change the world, but wants other people to change it with her.  (There’s also commentary on strength of personality, but that’s another thing.)

It seems to me that there’s nothing wrong with a high or a low saturation, but that medium actually seems to be wishy-washy and depressed.  They’re stuck in a rut and don’t think they can make things change.  It is interesting to me that it is this hopelessness that is the most pervasive of my personality traits (from this quiz) to make it into my characters.

All of that said--      Just from character-to-character comparison, it is interesting to me that Blanche and Meg have the same basic color scheme - that their differences come in how they view the world (optimistic vs. pessimistic, respectively) and their work ethic (hopeless and go-getter, respectively).

It is even more interesting to me that Meg, who is the darkest of all my characters, is the one most willing to try and change the world.

(And, although it does surprise me, it should not surprise me that Bedelia is the closest to me of all of the characters.)

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I just heard this woman say “you procrastinate because you are afraid of rejection. It’s a defense mechanism, you are trying to protect yourself without even trying.” and I think I just realized what was wrong with me.

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I love seeing those posts where people are like “if you have headmates or whatever you should be on meds because that’s not okay” posts. Like neurotypicals just think that there’s some magical pill out there that will ‘cure’ anything they don’t consider ‘normal.’ Meanwhile, in the land of reality, my shrink thinks it’s pretty healthy that I’m finally getting to know my headmates, and has no intention of putting me on magic pills, because as long as I’m not hurting myself or anyone else, who cares what neurotypicals think is ‘normal?’ Actually, let’s be real: who cares what neurotypicals think at all?

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Can I just say, uh, I’m pretty sure noticing you’re asexual is hard than noticing you’re gay, straight, pan or otherwise. Like, I just read someone’s desciption of hitting puberty and, like, there’s nothing like that. There’s no sudden ‘boob’ moment, no sudden ‘fuck, I’d fuck that’ moment, not sudden anything. You just, like, plod on through life as usual going ‘oooh, that’s pretty, I’d like that hair’ or ‘oooooh, they’re nice, I’d like to be close to them’ but there’s no like, ‘oh, someone would want to fuck that but I don’t’, you know? You just- you don’t notice, you don’t realise everyone else has ‘had a moment’ but you haven’t, you just- keep going as you always have.

And then, much much later, you start to wonder why people are getting so caught up in drama for romance or sex, like, why bother? It’s not worth it, they’re not worth it, why are you doing stupid things for something that’s so- and then you wonder if there’s something wrong with you, start mentally over compensating. Like ‘uh, okay, um, who should I date? Who can I stand to date? Who could I stand to fuck?’ like- it’s not, it’s not something you want, but you want to fit it, to be normal.

Sometimes you don’t even know that you’re doing it.

Sometimes you don’t even know asexual’s a thing.

I dunno, I guess, I just feel like, uh, people should understand more?

idk sorry thank you for listening to me

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Book MCs: Jessica Irving is your primary MC, a soulless ginger who ran away from home after being raped by her younger stepbrother. She is taken in by our second MC, Diane, and she’ll run away again before the book is over. Beatrice Diane Daniel is your second MC, an asexual psychiatrist just starting her practice. She is a bundle of nerves suffering from more than one disorder, but if you need a place to stay, her couch is open and comfortable, as Jessica finds out. Alexis Katrakis is your third MC, the eldest but not only daughter of someone who might represent your basic oil tycoon. Despite not wanting to be involved in the family business or any business at all, really, she finds herself pulled into the drug cartel of her college town. Darn those exes. Series MCs: The Author is, theoretically, the one writing the book, given their name. Unfortunately, given multiple issues with their identity, they have forgotten who they are and depend on their stories being told to them, in hopes that they will remember. Caroline is the one actually telling the stories. A voice of encouragement, hope, and purpose, she seeks to help The Author remember who they are, no matter the cost. It is quite possible that Caroline is only a character herself, but who she is and how she came into being is yet to be revealed. Thanatos is the one seeking The Author’s destruction, as his name might give away. As opposed to Caroline’s voice of hope, his is a voice that leads towards despair and frequent bouts of anxiety. He often steps into The Author’s stories in an attempt to derail them, and many villains and antagonists are really Thanatos or one of his cronies in disguise. As far as sexualities and romantic orientations for the MCs in the current WIP and the connect series are concerned, theirs are as follows: Jessica Irving is both pansexual as well as panromantic and polyromantic. To be quite honest, labels do not particularly work well with Jess, who is simply both sexual and romantic, regardless of gender or definition of the love given. However, as a result of her focus on thought and reason above feelings as well as a potential result of her rape, she is definitely demiromantic. Diane Daniel, as mentioned previously, is asexual and is also strongly heteroromantic as a result of social prejudice and her own anxieties. It is possible she is demisexual, but her previous experiences have informed her otherwise so far. Alexis Katrakis is bisexual and biromantic. Although she has a potential for multiple partners, she is strongly monoromantic, and throughout the course of the novel, she becomes strongly demisexual. The Author often appears in the form of a child and so their sexuality and romantic orientation are undetermined and unknown, as are many things about them. Caroline is both asexual and aromantic, although she loves freely and openly. (Just not in a romantic way.) Thanatos is also asexual and aromantic, although he specializes in manipulating the sexual and romantic feelings of others (as well as other things. He simply specializes in manipulation of all kinds, including those). And where gender orientation is concerned: Jessica Irving, Diane Daniel, and Alexis Katrakis are all cisfemale and use she/her/her pronouns. The Author is of undetermined and unspecified gender and uses they/their/them pronouns. Caroline is genderfluid but often presents as a woman and so uses she/her/her pronouns. Thanatos is agender but prefers to present as a man and so uses he/his/him pronouns.

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Pros of Roleplaying: Gaining better understanding of character and relationships, getting a better grasp on setting and how characters interact with it, learning how to build a variety of character relationships as needed. Cons of Roleplaying: Getting used to writing the set up for a scene only to switch over to a completely other character instead of staying in one character's head for the entirety of a scene; not having one overarching story with a beginning, middle, and end; getting used to not finishing the majority of what you start.

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                   I want to kiss you and trace with my fingers                                the constellations on your skin.

                                                            fox design credit [x]                                                                 quote credit [x]

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I’ve been suddenly brainstorming CrossRoads.  Every now and again I think I have a breakthrough on how it works, and I think I’ve been given another one - another piece to the puzzle.

My biggest problem with this novel is I have a huge desire to suddenly make everything metaphorical and mean so much more than it does.  And, while CrossRoads is meta-fiction and therefore full of things that mean other things, I think I’ve been tied down to a theory that didn’t work.

I was going to make it an allegory but had a huge problem with that because if the Author as a character is still a human, then I really - there’s flaws in that entire thing.

But I’ve figured out who the Author is - and separated a few other thing out - and finally figured out how to make Thanatos work (because he was meant to be a major opposition to the Author, but if he’s a character, then by technicality the Author should just be able to dispose of him or easily overcome him, etc.) - and....

I’m excited but also working on, again, not getting too caught up in what everything might mean.

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Guess who just broke 50k.

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Less than three hundred words from 44k.

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Three hundred words away from 42k.

Over 24k in the Bedelia/Jess novella.

Caught up on Nano.