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mysticpetals · 3 years

Text

Farewell, sunshine

𝙋𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜: Jake × f!mc (Syianne)

𝙂𝙚𝙣𝙧𝙚: angst, a sprinkle of fluff

𝙒𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩: 4.9k (oof)

𝙎𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮: All Jake ever wanted was to find his sister and protect the person who had helped him more than anyone. Only, he slowly began to realise that bringing Syianne into this had caused more harm than good.

𝙒𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨: mentions of blood, physical attack, violence, hospitals, medical coma, panic attack.

𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙩𝙨: Anonymous asked: 5. “Wake up! Please wake up.” MC and Jake finally get to meet for the first time, but everything is heavily dipped in angst. 😂 Also I adore your writing and keep up the good work!

Anonymous asked: Can you give us the most angsty jealous filled over protective short with Jake x MC i want all the ANGST to be seeping out of my screen

@mnrangera asked: Here's a nice angsty scenario for you: MC is in Duskwood continuing their investigation but is caught out in town after dark. They are on the phone with Jake when they are attacked by the Man Without a Face like Jessie was.

𝙉𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙨: I know this has been LOOOOONG overdue and I apologise for the wait. Thank you to all my followers for being patient, especially those who sent the requests in. I hope the long wait is worth it and you enjoy it. Also, please read the warnings before proceeding, I don't want any of you to be triggered by something I wrote. There may be inaccuracies in how I progressed medical conditions and general working of the hospitals so I apologise for that. Please do not repost or translate this fic anywhere else!! I'm literally begging you, please don't ruin my hard work like this. I would love if I could get some sort of feedback, whether it be reblogs or comments or just anon asks. I've tried to improve my writing and I hope it shows a little in this. This is my Christmas and New Year present all wrapped in one! I hope you all have a great 2021 <3

It was a cold, winter evening with the sky painted in a plethora of warm colors and Jake felt like finally things were going his way.

He, along with Syianne, had been working tirelessly for the past few weeks to find out what happened to Hannah. They had faced a lot of challenges along the way, with cryptic diary entries and threats directed towards them and their loved ones, but still, they'd prevailed and spent every ounce of free time, getting more information about Hannah's perpetrator.

They finally had the facts about what happened the day she was kidnapped and only the identity of the criminal was hidden. Syianne had suggested that she should go to Duskwood to try and find the last puzzle piece, to which Jake had been a little apprehensive. She argued that the rest of the group had already been through enough, with getting stalked and receiving threats and insisted that she should be the one to carry out her search in secret.

She never once asked for him to come along because she knew how dangerous it would be for him and she didn't want him to get caught. Jake was instantly warmed by the thought that someone cared so much about him, to think of his well being first.

So that night, as she called him to update him on her findings and plan after she went to Duskwood, he found himself speaking his thoughts impulsively.

"What if I came too?"

There was silence on the other end and Jake thought he might have overstepped or made it weird but she answered before he could stammer an apology.

"I'd like that. But only if you're comfortable and safe."

She told him to ruminate on it for a while and bid him goodnight. Jake thought about whether it was a logical thing to do. If Syianne planned to go undercover, he couldn't very well let her go into the lion's den alone. So he made up his mind and texted Syianne to let her know.

Jake [10:46 pm]

I'll come to Duskwood too.

Is it okay if we don't meet straight away?

I...I don't think I'm ready yet.

Syianne [10:47 pm]

I was lowkey hoping you'd say that ahaha

And of course! Take as much time as you need :)

That night, he slept with a smile on his face, excitement churning in his stomach.

⊱⋅ ──────────── ⋅⊰

Syianne was looking forward to her trip to Duskwood.

She knew it was a potentially dangerous situation and she was only going there to investigate but knowing that Jake might be there too, sent a spark of thrill through her body. They had been speaking non-stop for the past few weeks and she really liked talking to him. His answers to questions about him or his life were adorably confusing and Syianne realized that she really wanted to get to know him, be his friend or possibly something more, if their flirty banter was anything to go by.

Her bag contained all the essentials she could need, along with a sketchbook and pencils to use in case of boredom. She couldn't leave Matrix with any of her friends as they were either busy or allergic to cats so her only option was to take her along.

She had never booked a flight so fast. Knowing she would have to take a car from the airport to the rest of the way to Duskwood did nothing to damper her excitement. She couldn't wait to meet everyone once they found Hannah, some more so than the others.

The trip was nothing eventful, just a lot of travelling and it made Syianne a little tired but the idea of meeting her friends and finally putting a stop to all this madness, made her keep going. She wouldn't admit it if you asked her but she was looking forward to possibly seeing Jake as well. She knew he might not be comfortable enough to meet her yet and she completely respected that, but the thought still lingered.

She checked in to the only hotel Duskwood had, not meeting the receptionist's - Lilly's - eyes and was eternally grateful that she had only leaked her number and not her photo in that video. It would have been much more difficult to move about Duskwood, if that were the case.

The room they had was pretty basic, but not too bad for a few nights. Matrix prowled around the room, getting herself comfortable in the new environment while Syianne slowly unpacked the few clothes and necessities she brought.

In the corner of her mind, there was the thought that Jake might be staying at this hotel too and that sent a shiver of excitement down her spine. But she was a woman of her word and would wait until Jake was ready and would not try to look for him.

She had a mission here and she wanted to be damn sure that that's what she would be focusing on and save Hannah.

⊱⋅ ──────────── ⋅⊰

Jake was supposed to be in Duskwood about two nights ago.

He had encountered some issues with removing his tracks from the internet, as well as trying to find a safe way to drive to Duskwood without exposing himself. Working as a hacker did have some benefits and finally he managed to find a guy who made him three fake number plates that he would interchange every once in a while, so his whereabouts couldn't be traced.

He had let Syianne know of the unexpected delay but to his surprise, she was enjoying herself in Duskwood. She had told him that Jessy gave her a virtual tour of the town once and she was excited to explore all those places in person. She talked to him at night, describing the beauty of the small town and Jake felt himself growing wistful, wondering what they could do together if he had been there. But then again, hadn't he said that he wouldn't show himself right now? He was cautious - just as he had been all his life - but something about Syianne just made him want to let his guard down, to just be selfish for once.

He had no time to think further on it because finally, all the preparations and precautionary measures were done and he could drive to Duskwood. He couldn't leave Glitch at home because he had attachment issues and couldn't go without Jake for a long period of time. So he ushered him into his carrier and told him he could claw all the wood he wanted when they reached their destination and Glitch meowed in agreement. He had always been a smart cat, after all.

Changing the number plates every hour was exhausting, especially when he didn't do much manual work but he endured it, if it meant he was one step closer to finding his sister.

When he finally reached Duskwood, he was in awe of how normal it looked, how silent; how someone who didn't know that a girl had been kidnapped would think of this place as the perfect getaway. But he knew better, didn't he? This town held dark secrets, secrets that people weren't willing to acknowledge and he was going to expose them for what they were, no matter what it took.

Signing into the Duskwood hotel was as awkward as he imagined it to be, his half sister having no idea who he was and looking at his dark, baggy clothes suspiciously. He wasn't blaming her, he would have probably done the same if a strange man came out of nowhere to stay in Duskwood of all places. Lilly gave him a tight smile as he picked up his bag and key and made way to his room.

Syianne had texted him earlier that day that she would be checking out the lake in the evening, where Jessy was attacked. Jake was against it from the start but he should have known how stubborn she could be and eventually, he had to agree but only on the condition that she stays on video call with him the whole time. Syianne was evidently bewildered by his request, judging by the way she kept writing and erasing her reply but after a while, she managed to ask if he would be comfortable with that. Jake's heart warmed at her considerate words, never really having anyone who would care about his emotions, he was always surprised when Syianne said something like that. He replied that he would just turn off his camera or point it at the lamp or something but he had to be sure about her safety.

And that's why, he was sitting with his phone in front of him in the evening, camera turned off as he watched her fondly, pointing out the strange birds she saw.

"Ah, I wish you were here! The lake is so pretty this time and the light from sunset is reflecting off the water and it makes an amazing view," she said, voice breathy with the exertion of walking for a while and a tone of awe towards the scene in front of her.

"That's sufficient sightseeing, don't you think?" Her voice suddenly took a serious note and Jake straightened up in his chair. He was afraid but couldn't say anything. He had already agreed to let her go with a condition and he feared if he asked her to not investigate, she would probably end the call and keep looking for clues by herself. At least on the phone, he could look at her surroundings and made sure no one sneaked up on her.

"If you say so," he said half-heartedly, glancing at the surroundings behind her as she narrowed her eyes at his dismissive tone.

The next twenty minutes were spent with Syianne looking around the lake and Jake looking over her shoulder virtually. She had scouted the edge and went a little deeper into the forest, looking for a car, a boat, a mask - anything, really - but the search had proved to be futile so far. Everything was as peaceful as ever, no signs of any disturbance and it made Jake a little antsy. Nothing was ever this perfect.

"Well, since we can't find anything here, I think you should come back. It's getting late," Jake said, looking at the already darkened sky. It was an ominous red color and Jake was getting more and more worried as people left the lakeside.

Syianne frowned but didn't argue and that made him sigh in relief.

"Yeah, you're right. No use trying to find something that isn't there," she said and started walking again.

"Wait, you walked here? Didn't you bring your car?" Jake asked and she shook her head.

"Nope, I wanted to enjoy Duskwood and being in a car wouldn't have helped," she smiled at the camera and Jake let out an almost inaudible sigh. Why couldn't she care about her safety a little more? She was going to give him grey hair before he reached his thirties, that was for sure.

As he began to reply to her, he caught movement from the left side of the screen and instantly grabbed his phone, expanding the background.

There was a silhouette of a hand.

"Syianne, run!" He shouted, as the figure's arm came into view and she looked back in surprise before starting to sprint, the camera shaking from her movements.

Jake scrambled to get his car keys, not bothering with what he was wearing and ran towards the hotel parking, getting into his car and connecting the GPS to his phone, all the while listening to Syianne's panting breaths as she ran away from the man without a face.

Getting her location was no problem for him and he just hoped he would arrive there on time.

"Jake, I'm scared. I'm hiding behind a big building and I think he went on ahead," she whispered, voice shaky and trembling and Jake's hands gripped the steering wheel tightly as he glanced over at his phone to watch her looking around herself in a panic.

Five more minutes and he would reach her location. Jake had never been more thankful that Duskwood was a small town and the hotel wasn't so far away from the lake.

"I'm coming, Syianne. Just a little while more and we'll go back together."

"Okay, I think I'm safe for now," she said. There was a sound of slow careful footsteps as Syianne came out from behind the building.

The abrupt sound of a gasp almost made him lose control of the steering wheel and he increased his speed as he heard what sounded like a scuffle. Syianne had probably dropped her phone because it only showed the dark sky and sounds of her struggling against her attacker.

"No! Let–"

Jake let out a harsh breath, jaw tightening as he heard Syianne's scream. He drove straight for a bit and turned the next corner and saw the man trying once again to restrain her. His eyes saw red and he honked and honked like it was nobody's business, speeding towards them.

The man without a face seemed to have realised that someone was coming to help as he pushed Syianne roughly into the wall and ran away towards the forest. As much as Jake wanted to go after him, Syianne was his first priority and he quickly got out of the car, dashing towards her crumpled form, lying on the ground.

He fumbled with his phone, calling the local police and asking for an ambulance, his body shaking all the while, as he knelt down next to Syianne.

He felt tears welling in her eyes as he looked at her battered form and realised that she was bleeding.

"Syianne?" He spoke in a scared voice.

"Syianne!" He said more forcefully, repeatedly patting her face in hope she'll look at him but her eyes were still glassy and unfocused as if she couldn't comprehend anything.

"I'm...so sorry. I…" her voice trailed off as she struggled to breathe and Jake cried, seeing her in so much pain, when he couldn't do anything except wait for the ambulance to arrive.

After a moment, Syianne's eyes fluttered closed and Jake's panic rose to new heights.

"No, no, no! Wake up! Please wake up!" He shouted and begged but she didn't respond to his calls.

His hand was soaked in her blood from where he was applying pressure on the wound at her side. The blood hadn't stopped flowing and Jake was worried that she was losing too much, too soon.

"What do I do? What do I do?" He muttered to himself, adrenaline coursing through his veins, with only one thought in his head – to save her.

He heard sirens in the distance and was relieved to know that help was coming. He pushed up the fallen hood of his jacket up on his head and looked at Syianne for any signs of consciousness. Her breaths were shallow and eyes still closed.

Soon enough, paramedics rushed to the scene and immediately started tending to Syianne's wounds. Jake felt as if he was just a spectator, not being able to do anything but watch. Someone came up to him and started asking him questions, about how he found her, who he was to her and if he knew anything about the attack. He answered all the questions as carefully as he could, giving a fake name, because he still wasn't sure if the police department was in league with the kidnapper or not.

As soon as he was done with the questioning, a paramedic approached him, letting him know that they were taking Syianne to the hospital and he would have to come there for a bit of paperwork. Jake hesitated and said he'd drive there in his own car and the paramedic nodded in response and left.

He got in his car and put his head in his hands, shaking at the unfortunate turn of events. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Syianne was just going to check out the lake and then surprise her friends the next day by telling them she'd be here for a few days and enjoy Duskwood together.

Jake was even thinking of meeting her in person and telling her that she had changed his life for the better. But his cowardice, his meticulous nature to not let anyone know who he was or where he was might have cost Syianne her life tonight. Even thinking about it had tears pooling in his eyes and he took a deep breath to bite back the sobs that were threatening to break once again.

He felt guilty, so so guilty and couldn't bring himself to start the car. He was pretty sure that if – no when – Syianne woke up, she would want nothing to do with the man who put her life in danger. With that thought rooted in his mind, he opened his phone and with trembling hands, sent Jessy a text about Syianne's accident. He received a reply almost immediately.

Jessy [8:46 pm]

What?

How did she come here?

You know what? If she's not okay, I'm going to hunt you down and make you pay.

Jake had no trouble believing she was telling the truth. All he wanted to do was help and now everything was falling apart. Taking a deep but shaky breath, he started the car but instead of going to the hospital, he turned towards the hotel.

⊱⋅ ──────────── ⋅⊰

Jessy had no trouble believing that the hacker was telling the truth. His texts were frantic and he practically begged her to go to the hospital to see Syianne. She had no idea how she got here, but hearing that she got attacked, just like she was, was enough to make her worry and drive to the hospital, after letting Cleo know. She figured that the rest of them deserved to know too.

She rushed to the front desk, breathless and worried, and one of the nurses told Jessy that the doctors were with Syianne and she'd have to wait until they were done to know how she was.

After some time of relentless pacing, Cleo arrived and Jessy filled her in on everything that the hacker told her, which wasn't much, but it gave them a good idea of what had happened. Cleo said that she hadn't told anyone else yet and that they should do so as soon as the doctors had an update on Syianne's condition.

About an hour later, a nurse came upto Jessy and Cleo, asking if they knew Syianne and upon their confirmation, led them to the room she was kept in. They weren't allowed to enter yet as the doctors were still in the room, but Jessy gasped when she saw Syianne's scratched up face, with bandages covering her head.

"Oh my gosh." Cleo breathed and Jessy felt a rush of sorrow as she averted her eyes.

The doctors after completing their examination, told them that Syianne was stabbed in the side but luckily it didn't puncture anything important and they closed up the wound to allow it to heal. What was more concerning, was the fact that she was hit on the back of her head.

"She most likely suffered from a concussion, in which case, it is of the utmost importance that the patient doesn't fall asleep," the doctor said and Jessy and Cleo looked at each other uneasily.

"But Syianne fell asleep…" Jessy began and the doctor gave her an apologetic smile.

"That's right. She was unconscious when she was brought here. The superficial wounds are taken care of, we just don't know when she'll wake up."

Both of them were too stunned to say anything and a call for the doctor from one of the nurses broke them out of their stupor.

"So, she's in a coma?" Cleo asked.

The doctor hesitated before answering.

"Essentially, yes. But we can't know for sure without further observation. If the injury isn't severe she'll wake up soon, we just have to monitor her constantly and look for any changes." He then walked off when his pager went off, most likely to see another patient.

"Don't worry, Jessy. She'll wake up soon," Cleo said, placing a hand on her shoulder, as they looked into Syianne's room, seeing her sleeping peacefully, as if nothing was wrong and she was just taking a nap.

⊱⋅ ──────────── ⋅⊰

As soon as she got home from the hospital, Jessy sent out a row of furious texts to the hacker, clouded by her anger and hopelessness. In her head, it was all his fault that Syianne was twittering between life and death. He was the one who asked her to come to Duskwood without letting any of them know, which caused her to be in such a terrible condition.

Everything was crumbling.

They were a tight knit group, always there for each other but when did it turn into a nightmare, Jessy didn't know. Emotion overtook her and she suddenly collapsed against the wall, keeping a hand on her mouth to muffle her sobs, and cried.

She cried for Hannah, who she had no idea whether she was alive or not. She cried for Syianne, who had become such a great friend to her. Most importantly, she cried for her relationship with everyone, that was slowly but surely, withering away.

⊱⋅ ──────────── ⋅⊰

Jake had been pacing in his hotel room ever since getting back, waiting on a word from Jessy. Glitch watched him with big eyes, as he stubbed his on the bedside and cursed. Sighing in defeat, Jake realised that it won't do any good to worry himself to death, but that didn't mean that his mind didn't drift off to the earlier scene.

Syianne lying on the ground. Blood pooled around her.

He shook his head in frustration, trying to get that image out of his head but to no success. Glitch, sensing that something was wrong, strolled towards him, rubbing and purring against his legs. Jake softened at seeing his efforts to calm him and he picked Glitch up, moving to lay down on the bed. He petted him, smiling at the way the cat burrowed himself further against Jake, curling his tail around his wrist.

After a few peaceful moments of cuddling, Jake's phone lit up with a text, which had him scrambling to grab it from the bedside. Glitch meowed in protest but Jake was too wound up to notice.

Jessy [10:25 pm]

She's in a coma

They don't know when she'll wake up

Jake felt all breath leave him as he read Jessy's text. He didn't know what to think, what to do, what he could do. Jessy didn't give him a chance to respond.

Jessy [10:26 pm]

Don't contact any of us ever again

I don't want to find Hannah this way…which leads to everyone else getting hurt

Please leave Syianne out of this

Saying her mind, Jessy went offline again. Jake took a shaky breath, trying to ground himself. Syianne might never make up.

No, he told himself.

He couldn't think like that. He knew she'd wake up, it might take a little time but she will. Because if she didn't, Jake wouldn't be able to live with himself.

He got another text from Lilly, saying she was sorry that it happened but he couldn't bring himself to write back. His mind was empty, body numb to everything around him and he was cursing himself for being so careless.

If he hadn't been so selfish, if only he didn't put all of this on her, if he had just reached on time, if, if, if.

That's all he thought of, as tears continuously trailed down his cheeks, an arm covering his eyes, the only thing on his mind being Syianne, just as it had been ever since he started talking to her.

⊱⋅ ──────────── ⋅⊰

The next day, Jake found himself holding a large flower bouquet and walking to Duskwood hospital's reception. He was trembling, scared out of his mind but he just had to see Syianne. So, he had braved his anxiety and was now standing in front of the receptionist, who looked at the abnormally large bouquet in his hands and raised an eyebrow. He cleared his throat.

"I'm here to see Syianne King, she was admitted here yesterday."

The receptionist's gaze sharpened as she looked him over and he partially hid behind the flowers.

"Only family members are allowed to visit," she spoke slowly and Jake bit his lip in frustration.

"I'm her fiance," he said and before the surprised receptionist could say anything, he continued, "I drove here as soon as I got the call but they wouldn't tell me what happened. Only that Syianne had been in an accident and I needed to get here as soon as I could and I—" he cut himself off, shuffling nervously and wiping away the tears that had managed to escape from his eyes.

The receptionist softened, seeing his genuine sorrow and care for his fiance and warmed her voice.

"Of course, I'm sorry for what happened. She's in room 309, third floor. The elevator is down the hall," she pointed and Jake thanked her profusely before walking ahead.

Him being Syianne's fiance might have been fake but everything he had felt was the truth and he felt overwhelmed now that he was here. Should he see her? Did he even deserve to see her after he put her in danger? Thoughts like this plagued his mind all the way to Syianne's room and they only stopped when he saw '309' written in bold letters on a grey coloured door.

His breath stuttered in his chest. He was second guessing his presence in the hospital, thinking whether he shouldn't have come. He stood in front of the door for about ten minutes, contemplating but when the nurses started giving him suspicious looks, he swallowed thickly and with shaky hands, opened the door.

Nothing could have prepared him for the utter despair and helplessness he felt, as he saw Syianne's motionless form on the bed, breathing as if she was just sleeping and would wake up any minute. But he knew that wasn't the truth.

She was here and it was his fault.

For the longest time, he just sat on a chair beside her bed and just looked at her. His eyes traced every injury, every bruise that was visible and he felt sick, blaming himself for letting it happen. She was still sleeping and suddenly, it just got too much.

There was too much light, too much beeping, the walls were too white, the flowers in his hands digging into his skin and he got up hastily, dropping the bouquet and backed into the furthest corner of the room.

His breath was coming in short bursts, it hurt to breath, to think, to stay upright—!

His legs gave from under him and he slid down, back against the wall, shaking hands coming up to wipe the wetness on his face.

He didn't even realise he had been crying.

His vision was a blur of dark shapes and in a distinct corner of his head that was still sane, he thought of what Syianne would have done had she been awake. He was sure she would kneel down in front of him and take his hands, running her thumbs against the back of his hands to calm him.

'Breathe slowly, Jake. Deep breaths with me, come on,' he heard her in his head and tried to slow down, breathing harshly at first but after a few minutes, his vision cleared and his breathing stabled to an acceptable rate.

His whole body shook with the sheer suddenness of the panic attack and he slowly tried to get up, holding onto the wall as a support as his gaze, once again, landed on the bed and it's occupant.

All at once, his head cleared and he knew what to do.

Snatching a sheet of paper from the notepad lying near her chart, Jake penned his thoughts, all his anguish, and his apologies on it. Not once did his hand shake as he wrote the note and not once did his mind waver from the decision he had made. At last, when he had said everything he wanted to, he put the pen down and glanced at Syianne's peaceful face.

His throat closed up but he swallowed once to make sure he didn't cry. No, Jake had no time for tears. It was his fault that this happened in the first place, so it was his responsibility that he would make it right.

He didn't know when she would wake but whenever it might be, Jake had everything he wanted to say, already written for her.

He bent down towards her and placed the softest of kisses against her forehead, knowing that it would be the only time he would ever get to do it.

She did not open her eyes and Jake stepped back with a miniscule tilt of his lips.

Yes, he would make everything right.

#duskwood #duskwood jake #everbyte duskwood #duskwood game #everbyte #jake × mc #duskwood jake × mc #jake × player #duskwood fanfic #duskwood fanfiction #duskwood jake × mc fanfic #viotence tw #physical attack tw #coma tw #blood tw #panic attack tw #please read the warnings carefully!!#and i hope you enjoy it ❤️

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immortalcoelacanth · 3 years

Text

Smile for Me Oneshot (Reader x Habit): Make Love, Not War

*crawls out of my writing slump*

I live, and bring forth new reader content! This was inspired big time by a fellow Smile for Me fan I met on Discord, so if you're reading this know that this goes out to you!

Word count: 2563

Summary: The last thing you wanted to do was fight Habit, but you had no choice! Unless…

Thinking back to what Kamal had warned you about when you had first expressed an interest in confronting Habit and his scheme, you were not too sure what to expect. You had assumed the towering man would immediately be hostile, that some sort of fight might break out, a fight of the verbal and mental sort rather than physical, and for you to use your wits to secure victory.

But, toothfully-

…

That gas Habit had hit you with was definitely making thinking significantly tougher than usual at the moment.

Truthfully, you had been hoping, praying, that you would be able to get out of this without hurting anyone, or being hurt in the process. Hoping that everything would go according to plan.

Of course, entering Habit’s office and getting gassed, being knocked out, and waking up restrained in some dentist’s chair was the furthest thing from the plan. Essentially being powerless as you were forced to listen to his rambling, only able to nod or shake your head was also something you had not planned for. To see him so… unhinged, to quote Kamal, and so menacing, it was…

Sad.

It made you sad to see him like this, especially with what you knew about his past. Those diary entries, and that slideshow-

The abuse.

You could see what Kamal meant. Habit’s soft spot, something that drove his horribly twisted need to “help” people, was fading. If you took too long or hesitated, it would be too late.

And you did not want to think about what too late would mean, and what you would have to do.

Once Habit left, you made your move and broke free, even though it meant using your teeth to get out.

You… you were going to repress this moment to the furthest corners of your mind, the sight of Habit looming above you in the gloom, the numbness that gave way to panic, fear, and sorrow. The tears that had bubbled up in the corners of your eyes.

It was a good thing you had dental insurance, too.

After acquiring the mirror and managing to hit the buttons in front of you, occasionally missing due to the lingering dizziness from the gas, the restraints popped open and you were free. From there, it took no time for you to get the door open and stumble out into the lobby-

Directly in front of Habit.

You honestly had no clue who was more surprised at your sudden appearance, you or him, but the shock you both experienced quickly wore off as a frown crossed Habit’s face.

“You… You Flower Brat!” He spat as he stepped towards you, his shadow engulfing you.

Why did he have to be so tall?!

Instinctively, you raised your hands and took a step back. Okay, okay, you had to do something. You had to get him to stop, to calm down, to snap him out of his angered state. Unconsciously, your gaze wandered over to the various signs plastered over the walls. You did still have that glove-

No, no! The last thing you wanted to do was resort to violence! You did not want to hit him!

Knock him onto the fragile, glass balcony behind him…

You shuddered in horror at the thought of such a horrible outcome.

Suddenly, an idea came to mind. Just before confronting Habit you had conversed with Jerafina in the Lounge, and gained a very special item in the process. An item that could definitely prove to be useful in this situation.

So, without warning, you jumped up and kissed Habit.

It was, thankfully, a gentle kiss. Your lips brushing against his jaw, the only point of his face you could reach even with your jump. You were just so short and he was so… so tall!

And bright red.

Indeed, the moment after you kissed him, a brilliant blush consumed his face, frown vanishing in an instant. He took a step back in shock, giving you some welcome space, due to the unexpected gesture.

You… you had kissed him. Not hurt him, insulted him, or done anything cruel to him.

No vengeance for all the cruel things he had done to you, said about you.

His mood immediately took a dive as he recalled all the hurt he must have caused you, as well as his employees, the people he was responsible for taking care of and helping. The Habiticians, too, must have been hurt by his actions. He took a step back and looked towards the ground, long fingers knitting together.

He couldn’t, wouldn’t, look you in the eyes.

He was too scared to see what he might find. Was that kiss the last of your compassion? Your empathy? Would you mock him? Hurt him much like his father had-

“Flower,” He began, voice shaky as beads of sweat began to roll down his face. “I… You want to stop fighting, yes?”

You quickly nodded your head, hopeful that you had managed to get your point across. All that was left now was to talk everything out and get Habit smiling again!

“I… see.” The dentist nodded. “Flower, I am… confuzzed. I do not know what to say-”

He cut himself off and let out a quiet, tired sigh. “Perhaps it... would be best if you left. I won’t bother you again.”

Oh, there was no way you would allow things to end like this. Habit was still sad, still hurting, and you refused to stop helping him until you managed to cheer him up. So, you strode over to him and quickly shook your head.

He would have to carry you out if he wanted you to leave.

Habit looked exasperated by your refusal and quickly pointed at the open door that led to the lobby. “Out-”

Deciding to take advantage of the gesture, you quickly reached out and tugged on his arm, still shaking your head. He did not move, you were far too weak to actually pull him around, but hopefully it was enough to help him understand that you wanted to talk. Slowly but surely, you managed to navigate Habit towards the ground where you both sat down beside one another. He still looked confused, but at least he had stopped trying to kick you out.

From your spot on the ground, you carefully pulled on Habit’s arm once more, encouraging him to slowly lay down, his head resting in your lap, his hat falling off in the process, not that he seemed to care about it at the moment. His hair was so soft, so fluffy, but you managed to wrangle your urge to run your fingers through it. He looked up at you in confusion, and you smiled warmly at him while tilting your head to the side.

A compassionate smile that you hoped conveyed the words you wish you could say, but knew he would never understand.

It’s okay, you’re safe with me, I promise.

I won’t hurt you.

You can talk to me.

It was as if a dam broke the moment he saw your smile. Words rushed out of Habit almost faster than you could comprehend, but you were able to keep up. Stories about his childhood, his family, and his pain. The coherency of his speaking fluctuated, and there were times where he started speaking in Russian before switching back to English, but your attention never faltered.

You nodded, and expressed concern, and occasionally pat the top of his head to help him calm down.

“Thank you, Flower. It’s nice two be able too talk.” Habit mumbled as he looked up at you. It was obvious he was doing better than before, more stable and calm, but he still was not happy.

You pouted in annoyance as you tried to figure out a way to cheer him up. You knew you were getting close to what he needed, the conversation had definitely helped, but you just needed a bit more oomph!

Unfortunately for you, you were unaware of Habit’s amusement towards the endearing and adorable expression on your face. He had never seen such a look before, and it made that smile on his face grow just the slightest bit larger.

“Flower cutie…”

Immediately a blush took over as you looked off to the side at the compliment. This was unfair! He couldn’t call you that, especially with that almost-smile on his face! He was the one who was adorable, not you!

Instinctively, flowers started to sprout out of the top of your head, as they always tended to when you were very happy, embarrassed, or startled. Several daisies popped up, petals unfolding and swaying in the momentary breeze. Habit chuckled at your reaction, causing the last flower to bloom.

Pop!

It resembled a typical lily, although there were some differences. The petals held more of an orange and yellow hue, and seemed to smell nicer than the rest of the flowers. The scent was not overpowering, but it was calming, and while you were unaware of the significance of this new flower, Habit was not.

He sat upright in surprise, oblivious to you jolting backwards and nearly falling over. By the time you managed to resettle yourself he had turned so he was facing towards you, a hand stretched out in your direction. His eyes were focused not on you, but on the flower sprouting from the top of your head.

His Lily...

You were quick to let out a cough, snapping him out of his dazed state. He blinked a couple times before looking down at you, clearly trying to figure out what to say. You looked up, tilting your head to the side and causing the flower to sway in the process.

Flower… flower… oh, that’s right!

You held your hands up, before quickly rummaging around in your bouquet. With all the chaos, interactions, and people you needed to help you had completely forgotten about planting the Erythronium seed Millie had given you. It was tooth shaped, which made it seem like the seed had a connection to Habit, especially since Millie had found it in the Habitat. Upon locating the item, you grinned victoriously and held it up for Habit to see.

His jaw dropped, unintentionally exposing far more teeth than you wanted to see. You suppressed your winced and quickly thrust the item in his direction, your intentions clear.

Take it.

As though he were handling glass, Habit carefully accepted the seed and looked it over, a gentle, genuine smile crossing his face.

He looked so cute!!!

“Do you kno what this is?” Habit asked. You shook your head and tilted it to the side to show your interest, and the dentist was quick to answer your unspoken question.

An explanation about the Tooth Lily, the importance of the flower, and how challenging it could be to grow it. It dawned on you that perhaps the reason why the Tooth Lily had bloomed atop your head now had to deal with that kiss you and Habit had shared…

Something that you wanted to do again.

You blushed once more and looked off to the side, quietly frustrated with how emotional you were being at the moment. You were just so… so flustered! The fact that Habit was so cute, and warm, and how safe you would feel if he wrapped his arms around you-

Pop! Pop! Pop!

As more flowers bloomed, you hid your face in your hands to hide from your shame. You were faintly aware of Habit shifting so he was sitting a bit closer to you, that bubblegum smell growing stronger. Curious as to what he was doing, you looked up-

Just in time for Habit to plant a kiss on your forehead.

Immediately, another Tooth Lily bloomed and you swore you were going to pass out with all the blood rushing to your face. However, before you could respond and attempt to get back your dignity, the sound of the door to the lobby opening caught both your attention.

Kamal had, apparently, decided to check up on you, probably since you had been with Habit for so long and to make sure nothing bad happened. You appreciated the compassionate gesture, even if it did nothing but make you feel more flustered.

It seemed as though he was just as flustered as you were, a blush appearing on his face as he started to sweat. Habit was silent, appearing to be completely stunned by the appearance of his ex assistant.

“Erm, uh,” Kamal stuttered as he retreated back to the lobby. “I’ll just be waiting out here for you guys! T-Take your time!”

As Kamal vanished from sight, kicking up a trail of dust in his wake, Habit let out a distressed noise and reached towards him, as if trying to get him to come back. Of course, by the time he moved it was far too late for Kamal to have noticed his gesture. Like a wilting flower, Habit visibly drooped in disappointment and sorrow. Concerned, you reached out and took hold of one of his hands, rubbing slow, gentle circles into the back of it.

“... I hurt so many people.” He said after a couple moments of silence, sounding completely worn down and exhausted. “Kamal, Wallus…”

He nervously picked at his sleeve with his free hand, his anxiety growing. Would any good come from him apologizing? Kamal had to hate him at this point, and even if you seemed to be alright with him, the kissing certainly helped to soothe those fears, who knew if the same could be said for everyone else?

You frowned to yourself. He was starting to spiral again, losing that light you had seen in his eyes. Apologies were definitely going to be awkward, but they needed to happen, for the sake of Habit and those he had hurt.

You pushed yourself up so you were standing in front of him and held out a hand. He appeared confused for a moment before slowly placing his hand in yours. Rather than pulling him up like he expected you would, you turned his hand over, palm facing up, and slowly traced letters into it.

Letters that formed words.

Words that made a sentence.

I’ll help you.

His eyes went wide as he looked up at you, stunned at the offer. You were quick to trace out more words, internally agonizing over how long the process was taking. Perhaps when you got out of here you could encourage Habit and the others to learn a bit of sign language since nodding and shaking your head only went so far.

Or at least carry a notebook around to write in.

Everyone deserves to be happy, and that includes you. You might not be able to fix everything you did, but apologizing is a good place to start.

You gestured for him to stand up as well and then pointed towards the lobby. Kamal had been hurt the worst out of everyone and was the most deserving of an apology, so he would be the best person to start with.

As Habit stood up to join you, you leaned forward and pressed one last kiss against his cheek, your touch spelling out one final sentence.

I believe in you.

And in the end your belief, your support, was what Habit needed most.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I, like the reader, am an immense simp for Habit hugs, but then again I just crave hugs in general XD

I hope you all enjoyed reading!

- ImmortalCoelacanth

#my story #fanfiction #smile for me #sfm #second person pov #reader as flower kid #boris habit #habit x reader #fluff #kisses #reader didn't grow the Tooth Lily so an alternate route is taken

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famous-aces · 5 years

Text

Henry David Thoreau

Who: Henry David Thoreau

What: Author, Philosopher, Abolitionist, Activist, Naturalist, Critic, Surveyor, Yogi, Historian...ah, Jeez, what wasn't he?

Where: American (active largely in the US)

When: July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862

(Image description: a photo of Henry David Thoreau from 1861, it is obviously in black and white but has faded to sepia. He is a white man in a jacket and what appears to be a scarf or cravat. He has a long, tired face, circles around his eyes. He has a thick beard and mustache and slightly messy hair, his hair is dark but graying. End ID)

You have probably heard this name even if you don't know why. He is best known for his memoirs, essays, and his role in the founding of the Transcendentalist movement. His progressive philosophy remains relevant to this day. His influence has lasted well over a century and he served as inspiration for the likes of JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., Hemingway, Tolstoy, Shaw, Gandhi, among dozens of other names of equal note.

Thoreau was a Transcendentalist through and through, meaning he believed in the inherent goodness of humanity and nature in conjunction with science, and the power of the individual. His writing is generally practical, thoughtful, detailed, and observant, and he wrote extensively on a number of subjects. Perhaps most notably on environmentalism (he is one of the inspirations for and a precursor to the 20th century environmentalist movement), nature, ethics, simple living, direct action, civil disobedience, abolition, tax resistance, anarchy, among countless other topics.

Thoreau's most famous and popular works include Walden, which is the published version of of the diary Thoreau kept over his two year social experiment at Walden Pond (written beginning in 1845, published in 1854), "Civil Disobedience," which helped both Gandhi and Dr. King form their philosophies, and states that in an unjust society the just must rebel, (it was originally titled "Resistance to Civil Government or Civil Disobedience", 1849), "Walking" an instruction manual on how Thoreau thought, observed, and wrote (1862), "Slavery in Massachusetts", a speech given at a rally to protest the re-enslavement of escapee/fugitive slave Anthony Burns (1854) and Excursions, collection of essays, published posthumously in 1863 with biographical introduction by fellow author and Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson. He also wrote on John Brown and his execution ("A Plea for Captain John Brown" [1859], Remarks After the Hanging of John Brown [1859], and The Last Days of John Brown [1860]).

(Image description: a replica of Thoreau's cabin in Walden. It is a very small wooded. Cabin in a clearing, one room at most, brown/gray in color. It has a white multi-paned window and a brick chimney in the back. The whole cabin is not much taller than its door. Behind it is a shed or outhouse. They are surrounded by trees. Touching one of the closest trees is a brown metal statue of a man walking, presumably Thoreau. End ID)

Probable Orientation: Gay ace or possibly aroace with a desire for a male QPP.

I am very confident in Thoreau's asexuality, if a little shakier on his romantic orientation. As far as anyone knows (and his life has been repeatedly and heavily scrutinized since the 19th century) Thoreau never had a romantic or sexual partner. He was a public figure with a wide circle of friends, someone would have known at some point during his life and if somehow a partner escaped notice the historians who dedicated their lives to studying his life specifically would have uncovered them. Thoreau wrote on male/male relationships, some more platonic, some queerplatonic, some vagulely romantic, none sexual.

Thoreau, like Elizabeth I, is one cishets hold onto, turning away from the idea he could be anything but heterosexual regardless of the evidence to the contrary. Like Andy Warhol he is one exclusionists refuse to acknowledge was ace, although they have even less of an argument here. Many aphobic fans of Thoreau are terrified by the idea that maybe, just maybe, the thing Thoreau loved most was nature. Some outrageous arguments from either side include: one historian claimed a poem Thoreau wrote for a man was actually meant for that guy's sister, some say he was being hip in writing about Achilles, some say he was too repressed to have sex, especially since he was gay. One blogger got heated in his admantness that Thoreau wasn't ace but was "a human being with feelings and needs." Nice aphobia there, dude.

But here is the thing about any of those arguments: Thoreau broke every other rule in his culture. He was not afraid to be different, and separated himself from society. He was all about the individual breaking away from society and its traditions and going with your human nature. Thoreau did what he believed to be right.

He had a following, many friends and aquaintences, almost certainly suitors, he spent a lot of time alone in the company of men he seemed to find attractive e.g. Tom Fowler (who was his sole companion and guide through Maine) and Alek Therien (who visited Thoreau alone at Walden). I firmly believe that his percieved "prudishness" was not artificial but came from a genuine disinterest and failure to even really understand sexual attraction (his journals imply as much, you will see). If he did sleep with any of these men Thoreau never documented it, not even in his own journals. But what he did articulate in letters is that society's refusal to discuss sex/physical relationships was proof of its problems. Sex was natural so dismissing it wasn't.

His feelings about sex are contradictory, he thinks it must be natural but he also finds it repulsive and dirty. He makes note at one point of how beautiful pollination is (he is quoting and translating J. Biberg but agrees with the sentiment and indeed only uses the quote to prove his point on the beauty of sexless flowers), but he vilifies or dislikes human intercourse. Thoreau seems to like the idea of sex without the sex, he likes closeness more than intercourse. He wants to like sex but can't, the closest he gets is the desire for these things to be open.

Quotes:

Hang onto your hats. There are some long ones here, but Thoreau, like Chopin, is pretty overtly ace. Like he couldn't make it clear without waving an asexual pride flag, would be hard considering it was invented in what? 2010? And Thoreau had already been dead 148 chaste, chaste years.

"What is commonly honored with the name of Friendship is no very profound or powerful instinct...I do not often see the farmers made seers and wise to the verge of insanity by their Friendship for one another. They are not often transfigured and translated by love in each other’s presence. I do not observe them purified, refined, and elevated by the love of a man…I do not often see the farmers made seers and wise to the verge of insanity by their Friendship for one another. They are not often transfigured and translated by love in each other’s presence. I do not observe them purified, refined, and elevated by the love of a man…Nor do the farmers' wives lead lives consecrated to Friendship. I do not see the pair of farmer Friends of either sex prepared to stand against the world...Even the utmost good-will and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody. We do not wish for Friends to feed and clothe our bodies,--neighbors are kind enough for that,--but to do the like office to our spirits…[the ideal friendship] will make a man honest; it will make him a hero; it will make him a saint. It is the state of the just dealing with the just, the magnanimous with the magnanimous, the sincere with the sincere, man with man.”

-Henry David Thoreau, from his journal 1839. This entry on friendship the hope for something deeper than what most people call by that name, but still looking for friendship. He is looking for a partner, an emotional, spiritual, partner. This quote could be read as romantic or queerplatonic. You know which one I am leaning toward, queerplatonic, especially because he specifies these relationships as unique from marriage (which he equates in other texts with sex and maybe romance) also he was writing while on a trip with his brother, John, to whom he would later dedicate the publication after John's death in 1842. But it could easily also be a sexless romantic relationship, what he is looking for is not explicitly either.

The following are all from 1852 letters written by Thoreau to his friend and proofreader Harrison Blake. One of these letters was overtly written on the subject of "Chastity and Sensuality" and contains his complicated feelings on sexuality:

"What the essential difference between man and woman is, that they should be thus attracted to one another, no one has satisfactorily answered."

(Note: self explanatory)

"If it is the result of a pure love, there can be nothing sensual in marriage. Chastity is something positive, not negative. It is the virtue of the married especially. All lusts or base pleasures must give place to loftier delights...The deeds of love are less questionable than any action of an individual can be, for, it being founded on the rarest mutual respect, the parties incessantly stimulate each other to a loftier and purer life, and the act in which they are associated must be pure and noble indeed..."

(Note: in the above quote he seems to believe that in marriage sex must eventually stop because there is something better. As if they have gotten the sex stuff out of the way.)

"Love and lust are as far asunder as a flower-garden is from a brothel.

(Note: this was part of his description for his disdain for human sex vs human love, his confusion about sex but love of human relationships. It is part of that desire for sex without sex thing I mentioned but harsher than his tone in a later letter.)

"'The organs of generation, which, in the animal kingdom, are for the most part concealed by nature, as if they were to be ashamed of, in the vegetable kingdom are ex posed to the eyes of all ; and, when the nuptials of plants are celebrated, it is wonderful what delight they afford to the beholder, refreshing...'"

(Note: this is Thoreau quoting and translating J. Biberg. Part of the same letter as the brothel line. In this letter he discusses how perturbed he is by sex and lust, but how it should be something beautiful. He celebrates pollination, while finding human sex distasteful, again sex without sex.)

"The intercourse of the sexes, I have dreamed, is incredibly beautiful, too fair to be remembered. I have had thoughts about it, but they are among the most fleeting and irrecoverable in my experience."

(Note: Also self explanatory)

(Image description: the original title page of Walden. It has an illustration on it drawn by Thoreau's sister Sophia. Above the illustration it reads "Walden; or Life in the Woods by Henry D. Thoreau, Author of "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers". Then is the illustration showing Thoreau's cabin, it looks very much like the modern replica if with a slightly different treeline. There is a path leading from the cabin down to the bottom of the image directed at the words below. The text continues after the drawing "I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake the neighbors up. -Page 92. Boston, Ticknor and Fields. M DCCC LIV.". End ID)

#lgbtq #queer #asexual #ace #history #gay #authors #19th century #american #north america #usa #aromantic #aro #activists #bio

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vectorgallery · 6 years

Photo

3am magazine

niconomicon: a conversation with lutz graf-ulbrich

Interview by JJ Brine and Cat Marnell.

Lutz Graf-Ulbrich is a prolific German musician with a varied discography spanning several decades. He’s been a member of many groups, from the 70s art rock band Ash Ra Tempel to his current folk ensemble, 17 Hippies. What might be most intriguing to rock historians, though, is his long relationship with Nico, which he recently documented in his book, In The Shadow Of The Moon Goddess.

If The Velvet Underground was the first “alternative” rock band, Nico—the Andy Warhol Superstar and original art house chanteuse most famous for her contributions to 1967’s The Velvet Underground & Nico, the band’s debut—was the first alternative to alternative music. Warhol essentially imposed the German supermodel on the band, as though she were an art installation. The result, arguably, was the advent of contemporary pop culture.

The solo careers of Lou Reed and John Cale bore traces of their roots in the avant garde, whereas Nico’s musical sensibility seemed to have no roots at all. Rather, it was the zeitgeist that had its roots in her, ones that are still growing. She was not simply the first goth girl, but the first goth (the first use of the term “gothic” in the rock press as a musical descriptive came from Rolling Stone in 1971, in reference to Nico). She was “the most beautiful woman in the world,” whom the Ibizan authorities would not allow out of her home unveiled, for fear that her beauty would cause civil unrest. She was a tabloid fixture who had given birth out of wedlock to the son of the most famous man in France, actor Alain Delon; the model turned actress turned singer who, by Andy Warhol’s reckoning, seemed to change careers whenever something was beginning to really go well for her; the woman whose only regret was to have been born a woman instead of a man; the interdimensional songwriter who taught herself how to play the harmonium and channeled a mystical operatic alien civilization that peaked in its apparent nuclear winter; and the junkie with the lowest female voice this side of everyone.

This past summer, I met Lutz and his wife Daniela at a cafe in Berlin, along with my friend Cat Marnell, a former beauty editor and the author, earlier this year, of the amphetamine-addled memoir, How To Murder Your Life. Considering Nico’s unapologetic, perennial drug use, and the media’s determination to cast her persona in a Warholian mold—something critics have tried to do to my own work as an artist—Cat and I were perfectly placed for this assignment.

—JJ Brine

JJ BRINE: How did you meet Nico?

LUTZ GRAF-ULBRICH: We met in 1972 in Paris because we had the same manager. He promoted a concert in Paris and I was playing with a hard rock band called “Agitation Free” in Berlin. Nico was playing there too. That’s when I first saw her. Nobody knew who she really was. There was a strange aura, and lots of rumors, and nobody knew what to make of all that. Before we met she was already a mysterious thing. When she performed it was really strange, with her harmonium and the way she sang. The audience was very enthusiastic. I was stunned. And of course we talked. As we had the same manager, we met a few times. There was a party held by our manager and she took me aside. She saw my record cover and she said it was strange and frightening. Her aura and personality were just so strong that I felt like a little boy. I was 22 and she was 36.

JB: How did your love affair begin?

LG: In ’74 my band split up in June or July. I stayed in France because I loved the people and I wanted to live there as a solo musician. We met again at a musical festival we were both playing at. I was backstage with a band called “Creme Delirium” and I drank some tea, and I remembered that this band puts acid in their tea. It wasn’t normal, I felt intoxicated. I closed my eyes and played the guitar. When I opened my eyes Nico was there. I was on the acid level, and Nico was always sort of over the moon. It was a very good time. After our concerts Nico asked me where I was staying. I didn’t have a hotel and she invited me, she bought me a room. I went to her room and said bye and she said, “Oh no, you’re not getting away.” She was naked on the bed and she was very good looking. I was too shy, I went back to my own room. We sat together on the train to Paris and I played her all of my songs and the whole thing started.

CAT MARNELL: What were you guys wearing at this time?

LG: Nico was wearing a red cloak like a curtain. I was probably wearing a leather jacket.

JB: Were you a fan of hers before you two met?

LG: Of course I had known the Velvet Underground, but only some songs. I hadn’t really connected her history. I only knew a photo of her but I had forgotten about it. One day when we were together she showed me a German fashion magazine, Twen, and it all hit me. Maybe when I was sixteen I had seen this cover.

JB: How was it to be in a relationship with Nico?

LG: Nico generally liked philosophers and drug dealers and gangsters and anything like this. I was an exception to this. She didn’t hold hands in public. She called me her “German friend.” There was one time that she did give me a huge compliment. She did say in public that I was the best lover she ever had. But Nico had many lovers in her life. She could be jealous when provoked. One day she walked into “our” New York restaurant close to the Chelsea Hotel and saw me with the model Angeline, a friend of Nico’s whom she had introduced to me. Nico was very angry and she left.

JB: You and Nico remained close friends even after your love affair ended. But how did that breakup come to pass?

LG: One day we were both in her room and she wanted to be alone but I wouldn’t leave the room. So she threw an iron at me and I went for her and we fought. That was 1979.

JB: Was Nico proud of her body of work? Did she feel that she was a great artist—the greatest?

LG: Of course. I think she found herself underestimated, which was true. A lot of people say, oh yeah, she can’t sing and all that. Of course sometimes when you hear live recordings the tone was sort of off, but at the same time she was such a fantastic singer. When you listen to a song like Tananore, it’s really difficult to sing! She had such a powerful voice. Nico’s body of work was the greatest contribution to music. That’s what makes her so fascinating. The way she was composing and writing songs. There’s nobody who can really explain her music. So dark and poetic. And the combination with her voice. People talk about All Tomorrow’s Parties and Femme Fatale, but of course Nico was more than that. She thought she deserved a better audience, she should’ve sang in an opera hall and all that. But instead she was playing to this young punk audience.

JB: Do you think Nico was thinking of herself as a celebrity—as a star? Was she consistently aware of this?

LG: She was always aware and thinking of things in this way. Nico was a star and everybody knew it.

CM: What kind of scent did Nico have? What was her favorite perfume?

LG: Well, Nico did not like bathing much. She hated water, like a cat she didn’t like to get wet. But she wasn’t stinky, and I do remember her fragrance. It was Chanel. That was her favorite.

CM: Did Nico ever exercise?

LG: One time in Los Angeles, at a friend’s place, I saw her in a bathing suit and I said wow! That was the maximum.

JJ BRINE: What was her attitude toward Andy Warhol? Did she speak of him often? Did they keep in touch over the years?

LG: Andy Warhol I met for like 15 minutes in Paris, actually. Nico had her money stolen and we went to see Andy and she said, “Oh Andy, can you give me some money?” And he gave it to her. He was very generous.

[Warhol recalled this incident in a diary entry from 27 May 1977: “Nico was there with a young kid with a big bulge in his pants, she asked Bob to photograph him. Bob already had. Nico looked older and fatter and sadder. She was crying, she said, because of the beauty of the show. I wanted to give her some money but not directly so I signed a 500-franc note ($100) and handed it to her, and she got even more sentimental and said, “I must frame this, can you give me another one, unsigned, to spend?”]

JB: What do you think of the narrative presented in the documentary Nico Icon about Nico wanting to lose her good looks so as to be taken more seriously as an artist? Do you think this is in any way reductive or misleading?

LG: I don’t know what to say. I know that Paul Morrissey said that.

DANIELA GRAF-ULBRICH: I asked you the same question a few years ago and you told me she was always putting on makeup and that she was very concerned with her appearance. And that she used that as an excuse, like she didn’t want to be beautiful anymore so she gave it away.

LG: It’s true. She could be insecure. When we were living at The Chelsea at one point she had put on a lot of weight. And she didn’t like that.

JB: How do you think Nico wished to portray herself?

LG: More than anything, Nico wanted mystery. And to provide this air of mystery, Nico sometimes lied. Often, in fact. I mean, what happened to her father in WWII, or saying her grandfather was a Whirling Dervish or something, he wasn’t Turkish. Acting lessons with Marilyn Monroe, meetings with Ernest Hemingway, et cetera. She was also very self-absorbed, narcissistic. For instance, she was convinced that right before he died, Jim Morrison came back to Paris just for Nico. I’m not sure that it’s true.

JB: What do you think Nico was most proud of?

LG: Her artistry. She knew that there was nobody else like her, not anywhere. Also, she would always say in interviews that she was most proud to be the mother of her son, Ari [the result of an affair with Alain Delon, who refused to recognize his paternity].

CM: Were there some things about Nico that you came to understand as you got to know her, related to her addiction?

LG: It began when I met her. She was smoking heroin. I didn’t want to take it. But when you’re in love with a person, you want to get on their wavelength. And Nico was so hard to follow as a person, even though we were really close. I could never tell what she was thinking. When she was taking heroin she went even further away. After awhile I gave in to her. I only took it for about a year and a half, maybe in 74 and by 76 I was done. I think Nico thought she was productive! I remember she once said, “I wrote already three albums with a lot of songs. That’s enough, what more do people want?” I think she was lazy actually. She was not productive. She was sitting hallucinating. She wasn’t working on songs all the time. There were two concerts in a month or something. She would rehearse right before a concert or a few notes occasionally.

JB: Did Nico have any phobias?

LG: The sun. And that was what killed her in the end.

JB: I know that you arranged Nico’s last concert, Fata Morgana, where she performed a set of completely new material—hinting at what her next album would have been like, with her alone on her harmonium. Was that the last time you saw her before her death?

LG: Well, she slept at my place after the concert. The next day we talked and she was staying at my place, she was sick of hotels, and I took her to the airport. She was angry at the airport staff because they charged something for her harmonium and she had been told she wouldn’t have to pay but it turned out she did. I remember the woman telling me at customs, you should take care of this woman because she won’t last much longer like this. And then of course six weeks later she died.

JB: Can you tell us more about the circumstances leading up to her death?

LG: I remember she invited me to stay with her in Ibiza, telling me she was going with Ari for three months to write songs or write a book, and I wasn’t sure because she was smoking so much hash, and at that time I didn’t want to do that. But then I had this answering machine message from Ari that said, “It’s so nice, come to Ibiza with us!” And so I bought this ticket the next day. The same day I bought the ticket, I got the news she had died.

JB: If you could say one thing to Nico today, one last thing, what would it be?

LG: I would tell her how grateful I am to have had the luck and fortune to meet her, I still don’t know why she chose me to be with her. That was the great gift in my life.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWERS

JJ Brine is the creator, owner, and artist behind the Vector Gallery installation project, which also encompasses its own religious movement, a governing body of Ministers for a self-proclaimed sovereign, Vectorian State, and even its own singular Vectorian time zone. Often called the founder of the PostHuman Art movement and the Andy Warhol of our time, you can follow “The Crown Prince of Hell” straight to heaven at jjbrine.com, or Twitter and Instagram (@jjbrine).

Cat Marnell is the author of How To Murder Your Life (2017), a memoir centered on her experiences with the revolving door of drug addiction and drug rehab by way of high fashion offices like Condé Nast, Nylon, and XOJane. Previously, she wrote a column for VICE Magazine titled “Amphetamine Logic.” You can keep up with Cat’s wizardly ways on Twitter and Instagram (@cat_marnell).

https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/niconomicon-conversation-lutz-graf-ulbrich-nico/

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cloudbattrolls · 7 years

Text

Leashed

Srevni || Present Day

You slip back into the building with almost no effort.

Suspiciously no effort. It’s like -

“My dear, do you really think...”

Your fists clench, but you keep going.

“...I wouldn’t even greet you? I’m not so rude.”

You ignore Cherie. All you need to do is keep walking. You can’t do anything to them, can’t upset their plans...but you can make it easier for Naeyrn and Chimer, who will probably follow you. Maybe they’re coming even now.

A small hand rests on your shoulder. You want to bite it. Instead turn your head to look at the short troll.

The most familiar and hated features you know.

“Leave me alone.” The words are nearly a hiss, quiet against the sterile inside of the skyscraper.

“That’s not what you wanted, several sweeps ago. You begged me to make you safe.” They murmur, softly as if to a wriggler, as if every word isn’t a reminder of their power over you.

They reach up to your throat, brushing against your tattoos gently as a shudder runs through you.

“Don’t - don’t pretend you ever believed I could be.” You manage to snap, though it’s tetchy rather than truly aggressive. You shrivel inside at the weakness. You could have Cherie kneeling on the floor...if you hadn’t let them take advantage, those sweeps ago.

And for what?

For this?

“I only wanted to give you what you desired.” They say, getting even closer, a hand to your side. You hate that you recognize their perfume; it’s their favorite, citrus and vanilla. You used to mix it with oil to see the puzzled, annoyed look on their face.

“I know better now.” This time your voice is stronger with bitterness.

“You might be over me, but you’re not over her.” They say, amused now and less soft. “She has the power helped make you. Isn’t that a tad perverse?”

“You have nothing to lecture me on of perversion, Cherie Dolcez, when you keep Maidel as a prize. You’re disgusting.”

They actually pause.

“I never forced her.” They say, the faintest hint of petulance on their lips. You smile, little though you should. You could always get them to break their facade if you pushed hard enough.

“You don’t even pity her. She’ll never pity you again, now that she knows better. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Your stupid bloodline obsession. Liehde’s get should have died with Etoile. Better an idiot than a highblood so pathetic they’re fit for nothing.”

You feel them stiffen for just a second before they relax and smile again.

“It’s been lovely catching up, honey, but you’re not interfering anymore, even indirectly.”

You start to laugh, and then realize you have a splitting headache. That shouldn’t be poss - that shouldn’t be possib -

The last thing you see is the device on Cherie’s palm as you collapse, which looks unpleasantly like a nullifier.

Chimer Latrai || Present Day

You stare up at the skyscraper, its violet lights visible from many blocks away. Naeyrn’s beside you, mask on and biting her lip, and she reaches out a hand. You squeeze it briefly before letting it drop; the two of you have to focus now.

You take your clock in your hand.

One turn of the dial on its golden rim

Things slow.

Two turns.

The rush of the city is gone like a sigh, within the bubble Naeyrn has made. Space and time are synced into an unnatural state

for only a second as

she makes a portal and you both

step through to a perfect trap.

Maidel Juzuxt || Present Day

You feel you know the ceiling as well as your own horns from how long you’ve stared at it, only occasionally shifting in the plush couch provided in your block. None of your games seem appealing; none of the violet-class food in the coldbox. Cherie’s ideas seemed so enticing down in the generator...but now it just all seems insane again. You don’t know what to think.

The only reason you start to get up is the crick in your neck from resting your head on the couch arm. The cobalt-embroidered cushions lay on the floor, tossed there when you flopped down.

As you get up and stretch, you notice the corner of something poking out from under the couch’s dust cover. You get down on your knees and tug at it, easing it out until you recoil as if burned.

It’s...it’s a diary with a cute sheep design on the cover.

It has your name on it.

You tentatively flip it open.

“I beat the DLC in two days! Survived on chips alone. How’s that for an accomplishment?? W00T!”

Oh god, this sounds exactly like you when you were six. You cringe.

You flip further onward.

“I’m so bored I’ve finally started writing in this thing again. Can’t leave, something something, but it’s not like I have a lot to do. It’s not SO bad I guess, but I wish we’d just get going with things. What’re they waiting for?”

You turn a few more pages, a bad feeling growing in the pit of your digestive sac.

“This THING showed up tonight! It was huge, with wings, and an eye on its neck, and it was terrifying! Somehow Cherie stopped it just by talking to it, and led it away...They’re really amazing sometimes. I wonder what that was? It told me it was sorry. Weird. Then Cherie came back with some weird looking troll. I don’t know what that’s about.”

The last entry is only two words.

“They lied.”

Thanks, past me! You want to scream. Lied about what? You’re so helpful! Thanks for going and hooking up with a creepy blueblood who wants to warp reality for some weird utopian nonsense! Thanks for supporting them! Thanks SO MUCH!

You shove the stupid useless thing back under the couch and it’s right then that you hear a knock, and freeze.

You get up slowly and go over to open it.

It’s Cherie, of course, and not only are they smiling (as usual) but their hands are pressed together and they’re moving back and forth slightly, as if so excited they can’t stay still.

“Maidel! Everything’s ready. Come see!”

They reach out as if to take your hand before letting it drop, looking sheepish, but their excitement is quickly recovered and they skip on. You follow, mostly because maybe, maybe this is finally ending. You can go back hive.

Again you hear the ring of a faint bell.

You go back down to the generator, but this time, it’s not only the helm columns that greet you; your mouth drops open as you see...

“Naeyrn.” Your mouth is dry, the word a hoarse croak. It’s her this time, you know it.

“Chimer?” You add, confused. What’s she doing here? Did Cherie really mean...

Both of them are being restrained inside what looks like a shimmering forcefield bubble, and both are unconscious.

There’s another troll - or is it an android? They have a visor - on a pedestal raised above the others. They’re just...lying there, as if asleep, but unnaturally still.

Erikaa, Tabula, and Priori are all standing off to the side. Cherie gestures to the olive and the fuchsia.

“Priori’s knowledge allowed me to capture them. See how the people who hurt you no longer can? In fact...”

They gesture again, and one of the columns slides open. You stumble back, terrified.

“Doroch!” You cry, but they too look like they’re asleep, and the door slides shut again.

“I have Blanca Rincon as well.” They comment casually. “It’s a shame I couldn’t get miss Lyseli too, but everything in time. Do you see, Maidel? Everyone who made you afraid...they’re all going to change.”

You say nothing. You don’t understand.

Cherie takes out a remote, presses a button, and the troll on the pedestal’s visor flickers before they sit bolt upright.

They turn their head toward you and their ears flatten.

“I’m sorry.”

The blueblood uses their other hand to take two objects out of their sylladex and put them in your hands.

Chimer’s clock. Naeyrn’s mask.

You shiver.

Then they press another button, and the troll on the pedestal warps into a horrific crouching beast, with a crackle of energy that sounds horribly, horribly familiar. It’s...humming, a deep, low lament.

The shape is different. It has legs, and only one set of wings, and a head that’s a terrible amalgam of almost-troll features and eldritch ones.

“Look at what Echthros became, Maidel! A mockery of Orthos Aviiva and itself, since it no longer had my moirail’s form to steal. Made by the very creatures responsible for all our misery.”

They smile as wide as you’ve ever seen.

“Let’s make them pay atonement for their crimes, shall we? I need you to break these objects, Maidel. It will release the creatures who shut themselves in there, one last gambit to ensure their survival.”

You look at the creature again. It’s curled into a ball, tail wrapped around it as it continues to hum, head bowed. It seems a lot less threatening than Echthros ever was.

“Don’t bother pitying it, Maidel.” Cherie says soothingly. “It’s still essentially the same being who tried to wipe you from existence. It would hurt you if it could. Do you think it doesn’t hate you for banishing it? It lies. It has always lied.”

“That’s not striiiictly true.”

Priori’s voice is the last thing you’re expecting to hear, and you still flinch slightly.

Irritation flicks across Cherie’s face for a second before they smile questioningly.

“Now’s not really the time, dear...”

“It really is, though.” She says, finishing with a yawn. “Y’see, we were all kinda like hey, I’m not so sure about this, because like, suddenly you’re only paying attention to freckleface here, and you know that’s not very reassuring and all, because like...the rest of us exist too. Including your ‘rail. You know, the whole reason you did all this anyway?”

Cherie turns and looks at Erikaa, now looking sincerely worried.

“Eri, I’m so sorry...”

“Save it.” She snarls. “Shove it into the incinerator with the rest of your garbage.”

“Eri, I - ”

Tabula takes the mask and clock from you, and everything vanishes in a massive burst of white light.

#heaven of ashes #this is 2long but oh well #only three left

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tomcruisefilm · 7 years

Quote

ON TOM CRUISE: From the moment he appeared Tom was Lestat for me. He has the immense physical and moral presence; he was defiant and yet never without conscience; he was beautiful beyond description yet compelled to do cruel things. The sheer beauty of Tom was dazzling, but the polish of his acting, his flawless plunge into the Lestat persona, his ability to speak rather boldly poetic lines, and speak them with seeming ease and conviction were exhilarating and uplifting. The guy is great. I'm no good at modesty. I like to believe Tom's Lestat will be remembered the way Olivier's Hamlet is remembered. Others may play the role some day but no one will ever forget Tom's version of it. (Let me say here that anyone who thinks I did an "about face" on Tom just doesn't know the facts. My objections to his casting were based on familiarity with his work, which I loved. Many many great actors have been miscast in films and have failed to make it work. I don't have to mention them here. Why hurt anyone by mentioning the disaster of his career? But we've seen big stars stumble over and over when they attempt something beyond their reach. That Tom DID make Lestat work was something I could not see in a crystal ball. It's to his credit that he proved me wrong. But the general objections to the casting? They were made on solid ground. Enough on that subject. Tom is a great actor. Tom wants challenges. Tom has now transcended the label of biggest box office star in the world. He's better.) Favorite moments with Tom: Tom's initial attack on Louis, taking him up into the air, praised by Caryn James so well in the New York Times. Ah! An incredibly daring scene. The finest romantic scene in any film, and here please read the word romance as an old and venerable word for timeless artistic forms of poetry, novels and film. Romance is a divine word which has never really been denigrated by the drugstore novels with the swooning ladies on the cover. Romance will be with us for all time, If you want to know more about Romance, put on a video of THE FISHER KING and listen to Robin Williams describe the deeper meaning of romance to his newfound girlfriend. It's worth it, believe me. Back to Tom: other great moments. Tom's bedside seduction of the dying Louis, in which he offers Louis the Dark Gift. Once again, Tom gave Lestat the virility and the androgyny that made both him and the offer irresistible. He was near blinding. I would have accepted the Dark Gift from him then and there. Only an actor with complete confidence and conviction could have done that scene or any of the others. Tom's angry outburst in the face of Louis' repeated questions. His stride, his voice both loud and soft, his frustration, his obvious discomfort, and inner conflict. Once again, Tom took over the screen, the theatre, the mind of the viewer. Immense power. Tom riding his horse through the slaves' fire, and then turning the horse around so that he could face the suspicious mortals. That was on a par with Errol Flynn and Rudy Valentino. It was on a par with the opera greats who have played Mephistopheles. Only a genuine "star" can make a moment like that, and I'm as confused as to why...just as much as anyone in Hollywood. Let's close this one out with one word: Grand! (No, can't stop talking about it.) If I had to settle for one picture in this film, it would be that shot of Lestat on horseback looking back at the suspicious mortals. That was and is my hero. That was and is my man. Lestat just won't be afraid of anybody. He won't stand for it. He hates what he is as much as Louis, but he cannot do anything but move forward, attempt to make existence worth it, attempt to create. He knows the formula for success, and has no patience with the formula for failure. That's Lestat. Tom's rage and obvious pain in the scene with the bleeding wench and the coffin, one scene from the book which I did not include in my script. it was probably put in by Neil Jordan. If Tom had not given so much depth to this scene, it might have been unwatchable. His desperation, his vulnerability, made it work, and he made himself in it the worthy object of compassion. No small feat! I found the scene, otherwise, to be disgusting. The shot of Tom looking through the green shutters, and the falling rain, knowing that Louis is somewhere out in the night. This was a gorgeous and eloquent shot. Again, it was the actor who gave it the depth in all the subtle ways that only he can do. Tom's making of Claudia, and here I want to praise the entire trio...Tom, Kirsten, Brad... The scene is directed delicately and captures the intimacy, the blasphemy and the undeniable innocence and blundering of the human who has a supernatural gift to give and in his pain and confusion, chooses to give it, come what may. That's a scene for now, for our world of scientific and medical miracles, as much as any scene in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and Tom pulled it off right to the last second. Later, Tom's confusion when after bringing Claudia a doll, he sees Claudia turn on him. About half of what I wrote for this scene in the script, or less, made it into the film, and I liked what I saw very much. I wish they'd gone on with the version of this scene that is in QUEEN OF THE DAMNED (see Jesse's discovery of Claudia's diary, and the entry describing what happened), but alas, what they did was great. Tom's manner and expression on the dangerous night that Claudia comes to him and offers him her "reconciling gift." Close in on those two at the harpsichord. Tom is seated, I believe. Kirsten is behind him and apparently offers him the acceptance he needs so desperately. Scenes like this, with Tom, make this film work. Every humorous scene Tom attempted was a complete success. The rat and the glass, I adored it. The humor added apparently by Neil Jordan -- the poodles, the piano teacher hitting the keyboard, the dressmaker biting the dust...well, I didn't adore all that, but Tom carried it off with true wit and style. And yes, its all right to laugh at those parts. We do every time we go to see the movie. There are many other great Tom Cruise moments throughout the film. Many. But these are the ones I cherish now. The readers calling me desperately want Tom to play THE VAMPIRE LESTAT. I hope he does. I hope I get to write the script for the movie. Tom's power, knowledge, skill, magnetism and artistic integrity are part and parcel of the success of IWTV, and there is no doubt that Tom would bring power and magic to TVL. (Let me digress again. For those of you who haven't read TVL, it is not really a sequel to IWTV. It's a complete full novel on its own, beginning the Vampire Chronicles. IWTV was the truly difficult film to make. TVL will take commitment, money and immense faith as well as talent, but compared to IWTV, it is much, much easier to film. Lestat is the true hero of TVL. He is entirely sympathetic. The trick, I think, will be achieving a texture in that film that includes all of Lestat's adventures...from the snows of the Auvergne, to the boulevards of Paris, through the sands of Egypt, and through the visit to Marius' sanctuary, and on to the twentieth century rock music stage. The tales of Armand and of Marius all also excursions for Lestat essentially. I hope Tom makes the journey.) One point: I am puzzled by what seems to be a discrepancy between the way Tom played Lestat, and the way my hero, Producer David Geffen, and others have described Lestat as a character. Did Tom on his own make this role a little bigger, brighter and more complex than anyone else realized it could be? I don't know. David Geffen called Lestat "nasty" when he was interviewed by Barbara Walters. Nasty? I don't get it. But David Geffen is my hero for getting this film made. No one else could have done it. So why quibble about what David said? There is one problem created by the compelling charm of Tom's performance, obviously. Since he isn't all that nasty, why does Louis hate Lestat? How can he? Well, I'll take that problem any day over a more shallow solution. Tom hits the right note. And Louis was Louis. Nothing could comfort Louis. The film got it.

Anne Rice on Tom Cruise in Interview with the Vampire

http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~forest/vamipre/morecomments.html

#interview with the vampire #anne rice #tom cruise #tom

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angel-gidget · 7 years

Text

Stars Unearth Your Fires (ch2/?)

Title: Stars Unearth Your Fires (Ch 2/?)

Fandom: DCU, Teen Titans, Red Robin (preboot)

Rating: PG | Words: 1200 approx | a03 link

Summary: Tim Drake never thought of himself as a troublemaker as far as Robins go. But a passing accusation quickly escalates into a case of stolen memories, technologically backwards clues from his past self, interdimensional hijinks, reflections on the good old days, and possibly the rekindling of a foregone romance. Eventually Tim/??? Mystery ship!

A/N: I ask that any fashion nerds reading this forgive me for my fake fashion week plot device. Lets just say the DCU has extra fashion weeks bc magic and leave it at that. Thanks again to @kiragecko for the beta!

"Wait, dude. Scrappy Doo hacked your diary?"

"It wasn't a diary, Kon. But, kinda."

"A lockable device on which you record your private thoughts you share with no one? Soundslikeadiary,man. Youshouldembraceit."

"I could repeat lectures verbatim from Diana about refusing to be shamed for traditionally feminine things that are actually emotionally reinforcing, but I think I'll spare you since you're not fooling anybody."

He could have come alone, but he had returned their texts on a whim, and when they had learned he was going to scavenge their old HQ at Happy Harbor... well, there was no stopping the remnant of Young Justice otherwise known as his best friends.

"It was more like a smartwatch jam packed with ridiculous hardware and old ipod levels of memory that I had filled with work reminders, but whatever."

Cassie and Bart had a point. But the truth was, the closest thing he really had to a diary was the dozens of hand-written letters he had written essentially screaming at his father. Letters he had tossed in the fire before he could be tempted to actually leave them where the (now dead, now lost) man could find them.

But some things remained too raw to share.

"Hey," Cassie was the first to touch her toe down on the threshold (Normally, Bart would beat her, but he had allowed himself to be a bit distracted, fully zipping around a couple laps to check out external changes).

Cassie started entering the old security codes without a hitch. She was not even thinking about it, and it gave Tim a tiny surprising warm fuzzy tingle in the chest, "Damian didn't use anything in it against you, did he? Trying to dig up crap on--"

Tim allowed himself a chuckle, "No. Assuming he did manage to read any of my entries, I would have paid money to watch him try to figure out what any of it meant."

"Oooh," Bart zipped back, and darned if he wasn’t talking faster and faster, allowing his own nostalgic excitement to kick in, "Did you write it in a code?"

"Sort of."

Kon was floating by the graffiti wall. It didn’t matter how many times they cleaned it, "Hanson Sucks" would always reappear as if by magic. Tim used to suspect Bart solely, but looking back, (and looking at Kon's face now) he suspected a little differently.

The guy's grin has a bit of the ol' Kid when he glanced over his shoulder, "You didn't just write it in code, you wrote it in SLANG, didn't you. Yes, you did."

Tim snorted. But denied nothing. There was no point.

"Bet it was like 90% rap references."

"Ooh, don't underestimate Tim's eclectic-ness, Bart. There was no doubt a healthy dose of Enya lyrics entwined in there."

Bart's nose scrunched, "Enya? Seriously, Tim?"

"Hey," Cassie interjected, "I like Enya."

"You also like country music and boy bands dangerously similar to Hanson. It's okay, Cass. Weloveyouanyway."

The rules for Gotham and his team had always been different. While clever hiding spaces had been a practically intellectual game in his home city, sometimes the trick to hiding something in YJ HQ was to just place it somewhere really dumb.

“The girl’s locker room, Rob? Really?”

“You never looked for any of my toys here, so clearly, it worked.”

The locker combination was Steph’s birthday. Something his teammates had no reason to know and something Batman and Nightwing might overlook. Or at least, they would have overlooked it back then. Maybe he should change it. Did it matter? Would he ever have cause to use this thing again? It was worth thinking about, but not something for just yet.

The lock released with an obnoxious clack and the door swung open with a creak. There were some things in his life that Tim kept meticulously clean, but no locker had ever been on the list. His crumpled extra Robin uniform tumbled out along with a collection of scratched CD’s, multi-sided dice, hand-drawn diagrams of team formations covered over by Bart’s doodling, and a cracked baseball bat.

At least his uniform had been through the wash before he stuffed it in there. Small favors from his former self. Tim carefully unrolled the Kevlar cape, tumbling his old wrist computer into his palm.

He would need to replace the battery. Specifically, remove the battery, and carefully charge it, then place it back into the device. He was not going to risk synching the thing—even to the old YJ mainframe—by plugging it into the computer directly. Maybe he was being paranoid. Hm. Not the worst thing to be.

“So…” Kon interrupted, “You gonna tell us what’s up?”

His first—heh—impulse was to be cryptic, but he swallowed it down. These were his friends.

“I was singled out by those Gatekeepers. I want to know why. When I checked the dates, I realized all of our computer records were compromised. I think… I think a more personal record might have escaped their notice.”

A moment of silence. He would have enjoyed the rarity of quiet in the old YJ cave of all things, but they were looking at him with a high-alert concern that was on the edge of tipping into horror.

“Woah. The bat-computers were compromised? Holy Hera, Tim.”

“DoyouthinkitwastheGatekeepers? You do. You totallythinkitwastheGatekeepers.”

Tim nodded, “Yeah. I do.”

“So what, man? You think they waved their triple-joined finger and just…?” Kon waved his own hand.

“Erased a week—maybe more—of events that happened while our reality was colliding with something outside of our own multiverse. And in a room with you, the Flashes, Booster Gold, and Guy Gardner; the person they expected to cause trouble was me.”

“And you can’t remember because they probably also erased our memories.” Cassie inferred.

Kon nodded until Tim’s earlier comment sank home, “Hey wait, whattaya mean ‘with me’?”

Bart giggled, “Oh, as if you don’t remember what you were like back then.”

Kon sighed as Bart and then Cassie joined in on ruffling his hair. They had to be fast. And reach up on their tip toes to do it. But Kon let them for a good half of a second.

“Ok. Point taken.”

The wait for the charger to hit green felt like an eternity. Plenty of time for the ambiance of the old cave to slip from nostalgia to haunting. Bart had opened up an entire closet of junk—chemicals, paint, mechanical insects—that he had apparently collected with Greta. Kon had dusted off Anita’s old masseuse table, only to find that no one was really in the mood to hop on it. Cassie found an old set of brass knuckles that belonged to Slo-bo, but quietly set them down when she noticed their discoloration was due to dried blood.

Nobody messed with the dusty arrows kept in hopeful little spaces. Nobody looked at the archer’s targets. At least, no one looked when others were looking.

Tim sighed and watched as Cassie floated around, fidgeting. He remembered how hard she had clung to the idea of Cissie returning to the hero life, terrified that her best friend would grow distant as a result. Tim had… been more optimistic. At the time.

He knew where their old friends were. He knew Greta Hayes was a freshman in college now. That they girl they had once called Secret had impressed the entire faculty of St. Elias with her ability to catch up and surpass academic basics. He knew that while she excelled in her math and science classes, she enjoyed the chaos and the friendships she found in her drama electives. He knew because her teachers kept good notes that were easy to hack.

He knew Anita took odd jobs to support the two tiny children that were her de-aged parents. She would put on her old Empress costume on occasion, when crime had the gaul to come to her doorstep, but lived quietly in Louisiana for the most part. Supergirl had been the last hero to come into contact with her, and told him all about it.

None of them had really had the chance to feel close to Ray, but Tim knew that didn’t make them special. Ray Terrill’s profile with the Justice League displayed a new team every year. He had run with reserve units, the JSA, Freedom Fighters, and more.

Then there was Cissie, Arrowette, the girl who took them by all by surprise once every few months as her face appeared on a cereal box, in an energy drink commercial, or on a motivational poster in a sporting goods store. Because nothing sold that stuff better than an Olympic archer who had looks as well as accuracy.

It wasn't a painful thing for Tim personally. Hell, there had been a time when he thought he was headed for a similar path, a time when he thought retirement for himself was a strong possibility, just a few years away. But he knew better now. And he knew that Bart always bought things with her name or her face on them, but didn't actually look at them. And that when Cassie heard her voice blaring from the TV, she would stare mournfully at an old number in her phone before putting it away unused. As much as they would wish otherwise, Cissie King-Jones had drifted away from them.

Not that Tim didn’t also fit the drifter profile to an extent. The thought hit him hard. He hadn’t been to the Tower in over a two months, but like a dog with a bone, the Titans had refused to let him stay out of touch. Even when Dick had the bright idea of sending Damian to the tower, to try to get him to interact with ‘younger’ heroes—because apparently Dick could’t be bothered to remember that he was sending an eleven year old to socialize with a crew that no longer possessed a member under the age of sixteen—his friends had reached out, insisting that Red Robin was the only Robin on their roster.

It was humbling, and it put a scratch in this throat and a watery heat behind his eyes that—

BEEP!

Charging complete.

Bart zipped toward the outlet, and hopped on his toes while waiting for Tim to unplug the device. He felt Conner and Cassie join in hovering behind him as he began to skim through the files. There was only one that matched what they were looking for, with its simple text repeated in the space-tab code.

R E M I N D E R S

Dig up 8th grade time capsule

Go 2 fashion show @ Hollywood Mall. Compare/Contrast costume

Be outside July 4th

Go 2 most romantic city on July 15th

“That’s it?” blurted Kon and Bart at once.

“Fashion show?” Cassie scratched her head.

Tim sighed, “I was watching out for key word triggers. I think.”

Bart frowned, “Like, if you actually said anything close to what you meant, you were worried the Gatekeepers or whoever would notice and erase everything like they did with the Batcomputer?”

Tim nodded, “The ‘reminders’ are literally reminders. Straightforward intel would be too dangerous.”

“‘Cause God forbid your lil’ bitty bat-self actually tell your future self what was going on.” Kon huffed impatiently.

Cassie elbowed him in the ribs.

Kon hissed. “Sorry! Too dangerous. I get it.”

Cassie raised her brows and let it go. “So, what are you going to do?”

Tim shrugged, “Do what they tell me to and hope they help me remember, I guess.”

Bart looked up from his phone, “Better hope the ‘reminders’ don’t have to go in order, Tim.”

Tim winced, “Why?”

Cassie looked over Bart’s shoulder at his screen, “Because the only major summer fashion demonstration in California hits the runway in about 12 hours. Woah.”

Tim powered down the wrist tech. He didn’t like the idea of going out of order, but only two of the reminders had actual dates attached. At least he had opened the file right before July. Small favors.

“Fine. Mall first. Grab some food and rest and meet back with me in—“

“Only if you do,” Cassie’s eyes were narrowed.

“Yeah, man. No caffeinated all-nighters.”

“Kon and I will tuckyouinifwehaveto.”

Tim snorted, “Fine.

It messed with his plans, but if he was being honest, Cass was in town, and Steph had mentioned to Dick in the cave that she was done with her freshman comp essay. Red Robin wasn’t strictly necessary when Blackbat and Batgirl were around to help out.

He did his best to take it as the impromptu bit of fortune it was.

He didn’t let it hurt.

#stars unearth your fires #fanfic #gidgeblog #tim drake #the core four #core four #bart allen #cassie sandsmark #kon-el #conner kent #dc fic #dcu fic #red robin #wonder girl #kid flash #superboy #kiragecko

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diamondcitydarlin · 7 years

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tbh, as much as I’m enjoying Victoria (I’m about 2-3 episodes shy of being done, can’t remember which number of episode I’m on now) I’m a little confused by some of the writing choices, particularly as concerns Victoria’s love interests, Lord Melbourne and Albert, respectively.

Of course it’s a foregone conclusion she’ll be with Albert in the end, as anyone who has glanced at her wikipedia article would know. However, as something of an admirer of the British Royal Family and their history I also had been well aware for sometime that Victoria (according to diary entries and letters) was very besotted with Albert at the time of their wedding. Though it may have been a marriage of convenience for both parties there was a great passion and affection between them.

As such, I wanted to believe in Victoria’s choosing of Albert, I wanted to feel as enraptured with their coupling as I did reading Victoria’s accounts of her love. I admit, this series has not yet provided that for me. The disproportionate time spent developing her relationship with Lord Melbourne has a lot to do with this. I don’t at all object to the romantic chemistry this show has introduced between them, it’s fascinating and moving, but I don’t think the ultimate goal was to have the audience lamenting that she chose Albert instead. For me, anyway, that’s been the result.

Victoria’s ‘falling’ for Albert happened just about as abruptly as his arrival and I still don’t fully understand how the two of them went from contempt for each other to being in love. To be sure, I absolutely love the sort of romantic chemistry that starts out with two people being at odds with each other and over time realizing they’re kindred spirits. For Victoria’s part I sort of understood. With a little suspension of disbelief I could accept that when Albert showed a tender, more emotional side of him she felt a connection she couldn’t deny. It’s still a bit rushed, but I can buy that.

Albert, however? I still don’t understand at what point he changed his mind about her. It’s a lot to ask to have a character arrive, complaining about how petulant his betrothed is, about how much he wishes he could be anywhere else, and then not only provide us with a good enough reason in the span of an episode for why he not decides otherwise, but actually falls in love with her. I still don’t know if we ever got it. It seems like all it took was a piano duet for him to completely change his mind. A character written like Albert in a less rushed source material would need longer and more reason than that and I really wish we would’ve gotten it. He’s principled, driven and admires selflessness, and I would’ve liked to have seen a more obvious scene of him gaining respect and admiration for her through a merciful action as Queen. I think that would’ve gone a long way to making things more plausible for them.

This would’ve been excusable in and of itself, I’m no stranger to rush romantic storylines in TV narratives. However, given all this, the choice to include the romantic tension between her and Lord Melbourne was an odd one, especially since it felt like the writers were far more invested in these two than Victoria and her actual husband. Again, I don’t oppose that decision in and of itself. As I said, I love the dynamic between her and Lord M (probably more than I should). It just felt a bit like whiplash to have us go from something so compelling and endearing in its tragedy for most of the series, to the ultimate ‘endgame’ couple who ended up not having near as much initial development.

Also, if I’m honest, it all made Victoria look a bit flighty in her emotional attachments. Imo, for as much as I loved her dynamic with Lord M, I was still well aware that her infatuation with him is driven by youthful impulsiveness, a need to cling to someone that has her best interests at heart while also letting her stretch her wings. Lord M is, essentially, her first crush and while those feelings are very intense for her they are also very immature. There is no doubt an element of a deeper affection within her for him, but the mature devotion and affection he develops for her cannot truly be reciprocated by one so young and uncertain of her own mind. Time would perhaps make her into someone mature enough to better reciprocate a deeper, more mature affection, but of course they don’t have that. That’s part of their tragedy.

All of that is understandable and natural, but then it makes the ‘love’ she develops for Albert seem just as impulsive and shallow. Again, I don’t doubt the things she feels are intense, but having her go in the blink of an eye from being deeply in love with one character, to being immediately, deeply in love with another in seemingly just a few days, makes it hard to believe in any legitimacy of either attachment. All I’m really saying is that it was just a collection of weird writing choices. I’m not sure who the writers want me to care about more.

As for her marriage, I’m willing to accept that over time a more mature affection grows between them as they work together and get to know each other better, but this writing has ultimately soiled the initial view of them as a couple that falls deeply in love from the start. For Albert’s part I still don’t understand how or why, for Victoria’s it just feels like she clings on to any man that shows her affection. It feels like if any of those other Princes had just gotten whispery and emotional with her, they could’ve been the lucky recipients of her love instead.

It’s just a bit disappointing and confusing and I had to voice that frustration. Apart from these writing choices, I’m really enjoying the series!

#victoria #lord melbourne #prince albert #i'm not gonna lie vicbourne is otp #AM I WRONG FOR FEELING THAT WAY?#I GUESS

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hellosaltysaladcollectionstuff · 5 years

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LARB presents an excerpt from Geert Lovink’s latest book, Sad by Design: On Platform Nihilism, which was released this month by Pluto Press.

“Solitary tears are not wasted.” — René Char

“I dreamt about autocorrect last night.” — Darcie Wilder

“The personal is impersonal.” — Mark Fisher

Try and dream, if you can, of a mourning app. The mobile has come dangerously close to our psychic bone, to the point where the two can no longer be separated. If only my phone could gently weep. McLuhan’s “extensions of man” has imploded right into the exhausted self. Social media and the psyche have fused, turning daily life into a “social reality” that — much like artificial and virtual reality — is overtaking our perception of the world and its inhabitants. Social reality is a corporate hybrid between handheld media and the psychic structure of the user. It’s a distributed form of social ranking that can no longer be reduced to the interests of state and corporate platforms. As online subjects, we too are implicit, far too deeply involved. Likes and followers define your social status. But what happens when nothing can motivate you anymore, when all the self-optimization techniques fail and you begin to carefully avoid these forms of emotional analytics? Compared to others your ranking is low — and this makes you sad.

Omnipresent social media places a claim on our elapsed time, our fractured lives. We’re all sad in our very own way. As there are no lulls or quiet moments anymore, the result is fatigue, depletion, and loss of energy. We’re becoming obsessed with waiting. How long have you been forgotten by your love ones? Time, meticulously measured on every app, tells us right to our face. Chronos hurts. Should I post something to attract attention and show I’m still here? Nobody likes me anymore. As the random messages keep relentlessly piling in, there’s no way to halt them, to take a moment and think it all through.

Delacroix once declared that every day which is not noted is like a day that does not exist. Diary writing used to fulfil that task. Elements of early blog culture tried to update the diary form for the online realm, but that moment has now passed. Unlike the blog entries of the Web 2.0 era, social media have surpassed the summary stage of the diary in a desperate attempt to keep up with real-time regime. Instagram Stories, for example, bring back the nostalgia of an unfolding chain of events — and then disappear at the end of the day, like a revenge act, a satire of ancient sentiments gone by. Storage will make the pain permanent. Better forget about it and move on.

In the online context, sadness appears as a short moment of indecisiveness, a flash that opens up the possibility of a reflection. The frequently used “sad” label is a vehicle, a strange attractor to enter the liquid mess called social media. Sadness is a container. Each and every situation can potentially be qualified as sad. Through this mild form of suffering we enter the blues of being in the world. When something’s sad, things around it become gray. You trust the machine because you feel you’re in control of it. You want to go from zero to hero. But then your propped-up ego implodes and the failure of self-esteem becomes apparent again.

The price of self-control in an age of instant gratification is high. We long to revolt against the restless zombie inside us, but we don’t know how. Our psychic armor is thin and eroded from within, open to behavioral modifications. Sadness arises at the point when we’re exhausted by the online world. After yet another app session in which we failed to make a date, purchased a ticket, and did a quick round of videos, the post-dopamine mood hits us hard. The sheer busyness and self-importance of the world makes you feel joyless. After a dive into the network, we’re drained and feel socially awkward. The swiping finger is tired, and we have to stop.

Sadness has neighboring feelings we can check out. There is the sense of worthlessness, blankness, joylessness, the fear of accelerating boredom, the feeling of nothingness, plain self-hatred while trying to get off drug dependency, those lapses of self-esteem, the laying low in the mornings, those moments of being overtaken by a sense of dread and alienation, up to your neck in crippling anxiety, there is the self-violence, panic attacks, and deep despondency before we cycle all the way back to reoccurring despair. We can go into the deep emotional territory of the Russian toska. Or we can think of online sadness as part of that moment of cosmic loneliness Camus imagined after God created the earth. I wish that every chat were never ending. But what do you do when your inability to respond takes over? You’re heartbroken and delete the session. After yet another stretch of compulsory engagement with those cruel Likes, silly comments, empty text messages, detached emails, and vacuous selfies, you feel empty and indifferent. You hover for a moment, vaguely unsatisfied. You want to stay calm, yet start to lose your edge, disgusted by your own Facebook Memories. But what’s this message that just came in? Strange. Did he respond?

Evidence that sadness today is designed is overwhelming. Take the social reality of WhatsApp. The gray and blue tick marks alongside each message in the app may seem a trivial detail, but let’s not ignore the mass anxiety it’s causing. Forget being ignored. Forget pretending you didn’t read a friend’s text. Some thought that this feature already existed, but in fact two gray tick marks signify only that a message was sent and received — not read. Even if you know what the double tick syndrome is about, it still incites jealousy, anxiety, and suspicion. It may be possible that ignorance is bliss, that by intentionally not knowing whether the person has seen or received the message, your relationship will improve. The bare-all nature of social media causes rifts between lovers who would rather not have this information. But in the information age, this does not bode well with the social pressure to be “on social,” as the Italians call it.

We should be careful to distinguish sadness from anomalies such as suicide, depression, and burnout. Everything and everyone can be called sad, but not everyone is depressed. Much like boredom, sadness is not a medical condition (though never say never because everything can be turned into one). No matter how brief and mild, sadness is the default mental state of the online billions. Its original intensity gets dissipated. It seeps out, becoming a general atmosphere, a chronic background condition. Occasionally — for a brief moment — we feel the loss. A seething rage emerges. After checking for the 10th time what someone said on Instagram, the pain of the social makes us feel miserable, and we put the phone away. Am I suffering from the phantom vibration syndrome? Wouldn’t it be nice if we were offline? Why’s life so tragic? He blocked me. At night, you read through the thread again. Do we need to quit again, to go cold turkey again? Others are supposed to move us, to arouse us, and yet we don’t feel anything anymore. The heart is frozen.

Social media anxiety has found its literary expressions, even if these take decidedly different forms than the despair on display in Franz Kafka’s letters to Felice Bauer. The willingness to publicly perform your own mental health is now a viable strategy in our attention economy. Take L.A. writer Melissa Broder, whose So Sad Today “twitterature” benefited from her previous literary activities as a poet. Broder is the contemporary expert in matters of apathy, sorrow, and uselessness. During one afternoon she can feel compulsive about cheesecakes, show her true self as an online exhibitionist, be lonely out in public, babble and then cry, go on about her short attention span, hate everything, and desire “to fuck up life.” In between taking care of her sick husband and the obligatory meeting with Santa Monica socialites, there are always more “insatiable spiritual holes” to be filled. The more we intensify events, the sadder we are once they’re over. The moment we leave, the urge for the next experiential high arises. As phone and life can no longer be separated, neither can we distinguish between real and virtual, fact or fiction, data or poetry. Broder’s polyamorous lifestyle is an integral part of the precarious condition. Instead of empathy, the cold despair invites us to see the larger picture of a society in permanent anxiety. If anything, Broder embodies Slavoj Žižek’s courage of hopelessness: “Forget the light at the end of the tunnel — it’s actually the headlight of a train about to hit us.”

Once the excitement has worn off, we seek distance, searching for mental detachment. The wish for “anti-experience” arises, as Mark Greif has described it. The reduction of feeling is an essential part of what he calls “the anaesthetic ideology.” If experience is the “habit of creating isolated moments within raw occurrence in order to save and recount them,” the desire to anaesthetize experience is a kind of immune response against “the stimulations of another modern novelty, the total aesthetic environment.”

Most of the time your eyes are glued to a screen, as if it’s now or never. As Gloria Estefan summarized the FOMO condition: “The sad truth is that opportunity doesn’t knock twice.” Then, you stand up and walk away from the intrusions. The fear of missing out backfires, the social battery is empty and you put the phone aside. This is the moment sadness arises. It’s all been too much, the intake has been pulverized and you shut down for a moment, poisoning him with your unanswered messages. According to Greif, “the hallmark of the conversion to anti-experience is a lowered threshold for eventfulness.” A Facebook event is the one you’re interested in, but do not attend. We observe others around us, yet are no longer part of the conversation: “They are nature’s creatures, in the full grace of modernity. The sad truth is that you still want to live in their world. It just somehow seems this world has changed to exile you.” You leave the online arena; you need to rest. This is an inverse movement from the constant quest for experience. That is, until we turn our heads away, grab the phone, swipe, and text back. God only knows what I’d be without the app.

Anxieties that go untreated build up to a breaking point. Yet unlike burnout, sadness is a continuous state of mind. Sadness pops up the second events start to fade away — and now you’re down in the rabbit hole once more. The perpetual now can no longer be captured and leaves us isolated, a scattered set of online subjects. What happens when the soul is caught in the permanent present? Is this what Franco Berardi calls the “slow cancellation of the future”? By scrolling, swiping, and flipping, we hungry ghosts try to fill the existential emptiness, frantically searching for a determining sign — and failing. When the phone hurts and you cry together, that’s technological sadness. “I miss your voice. Call, don’t text.”

We overcome sadness not through happiness, but rather, as Andrew Culp insisted, through a hatred of this world. Sadness occurs in situations where the stagnant “becoming” has turned into a blatant lie. We suffer, and there’s no form of absurdism that can offer an escape. Public access to a 21st-century version of Dadaism has been blocked. The absence of surrealism hurts. What could our social fantasies look like? Are legal constructs such as creative commons and cooperatives all we can come up with? It seems we’re trapped in smoothness, skimming a surface littered with impressions and notifications. The collective imaginary is on hold. What’s worse, this banality itself is seamless, offering no indicators of its dangers and distortions. As a result, we’ve become subdued. Has the possibility of myth become technologically impossible? Instead of creatively externalizing our inner shipwrecks, we project our need for strangeness on humanized robots. The digital is neither new nor old, but — to use Culp’s phrase — it will become cataclysmic when smooth services fall apart into tragic ruins. Faced with the limited possibilities of the individual domain, we cannot positively identify with the tragic manifestation of the collective being called social media. We can neither return to mysticism nor to positivism. The naïve act of communication is lost — and this is why we cry.

Geert Lovink is a media theorist and internet critic and the author of Zero Comments, Networks Without a Cause, Social Media Abyss, and Sad by Design: On Platform Nihilism. He founded the Institute of Network Cultures at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and teaches at the European Graduate School. He stopped using Facebook in 2010.

The post This Is Why We Cry: From “Sad by Design: On Platform Nihilism” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://bit.ly/2YAr2Re

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kellyeduquette0-blog · 6 years

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Stealing, The Pits For Post Marketing professionals.

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attemptingtobeom · 7 years

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What I would like to change within my daily schedule:

I would like to be able to fit in at least 10-30 minutes of writing a day every day. I find it to be quite cathartic and it has shown in the past to hold some kind of bearing on containing my thoughts and/or producing something of substance from them rather than them floating around in my head. Whether this be diary entry, scheduling, character mapping, reflection; whatever comes first best to mind. I believe it would be in my best interest to do this some time in between dinner and bed, at around say 8o’clock. Perhaps this can be used as a pause from doing something constructive as it is a seamless activity that requires minimal brainpower. Whether this is with pen and paper or on the computer is irrelevant, more to the point is that it actually gets done.

Music; I wish to begin re-integrating my studies to my normal day-in, day-out schedule. I believe, and have known for some time now that it is in my best interest to go back over my course studies; and approach them directly as to relearn all I did; solidify. I believe if I can manage an honest hour a night of such, perhaps with a days break, I will find myself quite quickly making my way through the weeks coursework and on the way to a better routine of learning again. The biggest part of this is that I schedule it and actually do it. It will be extremely healthy of me to take this on and will re-open the avenue I closed when course finished. Perhaps when this coursework is finished I will have found myself capable of dedicating more time to such, and able to work through the likes of patch.es

Exercise; It is in my best interest to solidify the regularity of my exercise routine. At the moment, I am riding my bike every second or so day, but this is not something that is scheduled. If I am able to establish a routine for this and for for my home-workout, it will provide for me discipline and show results in the way of self-esteem and general happiness. It is absolutely possible to go for a bike ride before work, at say, 8:00, every day, and be home before 9:00 to do my other workout and have breakfast and a shower before leaving for work at ~9:30. The exception I should perhaps take from this is Tuesday, where I’ll be waking up at 5:30 to be at the shop at 6:30. Perhaps I can treat this as a ‘rest’ day. This would mean that I would want to be in bed every night by 11:30 at the latest.

Smoking; I have proven to myself that this is not going to come overnight, and that it is self-torment to try to act on it in such a fashion. I must, therefor, act on it in a civil and meticulous way; I must strive, in a wholistic sense, to reduce the amount I smoke over time. At the moment I am smoking ~10 cigarettes a day. I think that this should tie in with my writing; act as a reward mechanism. If I can reduce the number of cigarettes I smoke in a day by 2, and then one per day, over the course of a week; I will surely find a system more manageable for myself. I am not a weak person and having succumb to it’s teeth is not a weak act. I am obscenely addicted to this substance and changing this habit is not something that will happen overnight; it has been developed over the course of the closer half of my life. The decision to quit is one I must maintain; I will soon reap it’s benefits – the benefit of life. This is something, just as others, I must discuss with myself on a deeper level though. Starting tomorrow, I will count the number of cigarettes I intake in a day. For the next week, until the coming Monday, I will count the cigarettes I have and make an average to work on. From here I will mediate a further processed plan of action.

Keeping my own endeavours in control regardless of work; It must be explicitly written that my workplace at the moment is not the one I will maintain for the rest of my life. I am extremely humbled and grateful to have had the pleasure of experiencing such a workplace, community, environment. Despite this, I must maintain that I am working towards something else; the betterment of myself and the yearning for that which I desire. This does not mean that I will not apply myself as intensely at work as I have in the past, but rather remain conscious of my habits at and while not at work. I must be sure that I am using my time outside of work as wisely as possible as it is the time that I have to work towards something better within myself to show the world, whether this be writing, music, love, and or just the better version of myself in general. This is the main focus of this new schedule plan; to use my time outside of work in the most productive manner possible. That is not to say that I cannot have any down time. Everyone needs down-time. But it is in my best interest to create product from such as well as the time that I spend in thoughtful productivity; ie in times of relaxation and such, rather than playing games I could be reading, spending time at the pub enjoying the local entertainment, writing, making music, speaking to friends; these all sit better in my subconscious than the act of spending time alone playing games. Of course this, sometimes, is nice, and necessary. It is nice to seclude yourself. But doing so, playing the likes of a game of Counter-Strike, is by no means an efforted discipline towards self-betterment. Such acts must be minimalised and essentially, eventually overthrown by those that are equally enjoyed but provide better self-gratification.

Open to learning new things; Contact Gretel regarding doing some gardening; having our own relationship detached from work Sunny; promote a book before he passes. Nan and pa; hold an interview before their memory is too far gone Mum; show unrivalled love and compassion to her and promote the best person she is. + liam

Moreover remain humble and promote love in those around you.

Research diet and optimal supplements for vegetarian lifestyle.

#reflection

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