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reworking the end of year meme in a depression-/disability-friendly way?

2012-01-01T22:30:09Z

Odd question, but would anyone be interested in reworking the end-of-year meme (ex.) with me, to make it more depression-/disability-friendly? Or even just more ... flexible?

I like having a neat, time-capsuled summary of each year, but I had a lot of trouble with it this time. Couldn't get through it without a breakdown. The problem is with the questions, I think, not with self-reflection in general: certain questions are unproductive or even triggery ("What was your biggest failure?"; "Compared to last year, are you thinner or fatter?"), and just generally unnecessary. If anyone's interested, I'd love to do this collaboratively, and hear what you all have to think.

Discussion ideas! Um. Which questions to leave out? Which (entirely new) questions to add? How to reword certain others, to make them flexible and to take into account that what "achievement" is can really vary, depending on a person's circumstances. I'd love to see more of a focus on personal progress (ignoring typical external markers of it), self-care, friendship, etc. As someone who struggles with both depression and disability, I know it's essential for my mental health that I mark success in a way that works for me. I am not able to travel, or work, for instance. A monumental achievement might be something like reaching out to a friend, or keeping up my physical therapy for three months even though it hurts like hell. I'm seeking to frame the meme in a way that invites people to say things like that, and be damned proud of it. (A really good example of this sort of thing is synecdochic's weekly pride thread, which I think is genius.)

So, under the cut: an unanswered version of the meme. My thoughts are noted at the end. I know that all seems like a lot, but honestly, I'd love for anyone to make just one or two suggestions. ;) The original meme
(Though I know there are variations; this is just the version I happen to have grabbed five years ago.)

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions? Will you make more for next year?
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
4. Did anyone close to you die?
5. What countries did you visit?
6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2011?
7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
9. What was your biggest failure?
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
11. What was the best thing you bought?
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
14. Where did most of your money go?
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
16. What songs will always remind you of 2011?
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a. happier or sadder?
b. thinner or fatter?
c. richer or poorer?
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
20. How did you spend Christmas?
21. How did you spend New Year's?
22. Did you fall in love in 2011?
23. How many one-night stands?
24. What was your favourite TV program?
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
26. What was the best book you read?
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
28. What did you want and get?
29. What did you want and not get?
30. What was your favourite film of this year?
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
34. What kept you sane?
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
37. Who did you miss?
38. Who was the best new person you met?
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

--

My thoughts:

Questions that seem like they'd be kind of unproductive to dwell on: 6 (What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2011?), 9 (What was your biggest failure?), 13 (Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?), 17b (Compared to this time last year, are you thinner or fatter?), 25 (Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?). I don't think it's a bad thing to recognise failures, or things that you are still working towards, but -- I don't know, something about the phrasing makes them unanswerable for me. 17b is straight-up triggery and unnecessary; I would personally replace it with something about fitness (mental or physical) or eating well, probably.

Questions that maybe need to be phrased differently, or changed: 10 (Did you suffer illness or injury?), 17a (Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?), 22 (Did you fall in love in 2011?), 35 (Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?). I don't think it's a bad thing to track your mental health, but happier/sadder is an oversimplistic way of looking at it: like, I'm sadder this year because I have way more shit to deal with, but I have much better coping skills. That kind of thing. I would probably change 22 to something like, "Who did you love in 2011, and in which way, and why?" so that it's not just narrow-mindedly all about typical "romantic" love. And 35 just clearly needs to be changed to include fictional characters. :D

Questions that are may be less relevant to certain people: 17c (Compared to this time last year, are you richer or poorer?), 23 (How many one-night stands?).

Questions that could be added: What was something kind you did for yourself this year? What mistake(s) didn't you make? Did anything unexpected happen? What small (or big) thing did you do that you're most proud of? What was the best gift you received? Any goals for next year?

PS. To everyone who send me messages after my last post, I want to say, thank you. You are awesome. I am having trouble responding to all of them, but please know that I've read them all, several times, and appreciate them so much. ♥

we don't have to think like that anymore

2011-09-25T01:15:09Z

Life right now is -- um -- really hard. I have been getting progressively sicker since August, to the point where, for the first time ever, I didn't even try to register for classes this term. In addition to my fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, and chronic back pain, I am ALSO dealing with pelvic floor dysfunction, some weird undiagnosed stomach stuff (my entire GI tract is totally fucked after three courses of antibiotics), and major fibro-related pain in my lower body thanks to complications from the pelvic floor muscles.

Sex hurts (and that makes me furious). Eating hurts. Not eating hurts. (I've spent a lot of the past few weeks curled up in bed -- guys, I had no idea stomachs could HURT like that.) Walking hurts. I can't walk for more than 20 minutes at a time without flaring up so badly I need to lie down. It's ... kind of inconvenient, and really crippling, because I need aerobic exercise to keep my fibro under control, and everything is just getting -- really out of control.

I'm doing okay. I've realised this year that I'm doing both a lot better and a lot worse than I thought I was. Better, in that I have a couple of coping skills now, as opposed to the zero I had before. I react to new health issues by doing fucktons of research and then coming up with ACTION PLANS for getting better. I make sure to keep going through the motions -- you know, going to class*, making plans, seeing friends, getting out, doing things I usually enjoy -- because I find it helps if you maintain momentum. Go through the motions, keep pretending, until things become meaningful and real again; I feel like I am misquoting from East of Eden here, but I can't remember where in the book it is. Worse, in that -- well, I've realised that depression involves more than absolute, 24/7 existential despair (which I how I've always -- hilariously -- experienced it before). I assumed that once I kicked that feeling I was clear; not so much. Depression actually leaves hundreds of little fractures in your personality that, together, will fuck you up unless you determinedly go about dealing with them, and then dealing with them again when they relapse, which they will. I have promised myself that I will work on this.

* I'm auditing one course this fall! We'll see how it goes health-wise. I'm excited, because it's about doing literary readings of things/objects (semiotics!), and because -- happy coincidence -- one of my best friends is also taking it.

Okay, that's enough about my life for now. Have a bunch of music.

FEIST: metals

If I were Leslie Feist, I would be scared shitless right now. (The pressure! The public scrutiny!)

I haven't listened to it yet, so I can't say much, but I hope I like it. I hope it ends up being this year's perfect autumn album, because I need one; any suggestions?

	DEB OH: cold glory glass_icarus told me to listen to Deb Oh, and I'm glad I did. ♥ I think every single one of you would like this! It's only an EP, but it really displays Deb's range, from the grim, sultry "Vesper" (one of my favourite songs of 2011) to the wistful "Crescendo." On the whole I would call it evocative piano pop, sort of a "Vienna Teng with more percussion" sound.
	JAMIE WOON: mirrorwriting Is it dubstep? Is it r&b? Has it got traces of gospel, soul, '90s boyband pop, and singer/songwriter-with-a-guitar? Yes, yes, and yes. This album fucking ENTRANCES me. Lyrically, it's sometimes affective, sometimes opaque, which produces really pure, overwhelming strains of emotion. Sonically, it sounds like it has ghosts and spirits caught up in its basslines. Representative track: "Spirits." Please note that you MUST listen to this album in the dark. MUST.
	JAMES BLAKE: james blake If you like this kind of stuff, you've probably already listened to this album, but if you don't, give it a try! It sounds completely unlike anything else, and you might fall in love with it. James Blake would make a good winter album: it's full of stillness and expectation, a perfect contradiction of stripped-down electronic sounds and cut-up bits of James Blake's (gorgeous, warm, rich) voice. Teaser: a cover of Feist's "Limit to Your Love."
	LATE NIGHT ALUMNI: of birds, bees, butterflies, etc. For anyone who's not into all of the weird shit I've been uploading, you might like this a little more. It's warm, melodic electronic pop, textured with beautiful vocals, and each song's lyrics are like articulate little stories. There's also a strange, composed aloofness to it, which I like. When I have a headache and need to calm down by listening to something that's just really pretty, I put this on. Representative track: "What's in a Name."
	ROSE ELINOR DOUGALL: without why I've been listening to this album for about a year now, and it just keeps growing on me. I don't know if it's the lyrics, the layers of shimmering guitars, or the percussion, which is basically just addictive. (Ex. "Start Stop Synchro.") Rose used to be a member of The Pipettes, but she's taken things in a very different direction here; the album is impenetrable rather than catchy, and though it has a lot of energy, it also has a lot of understated elegance. There is also something incredibly British about it, which, bonus points!

Let me know what you take! I need to have long discussions with someone about Jamie Woon. And I have two more Late Night Alumni albums, for anyone who likes them.

a hedgehog crawls out from under a rock and says:

2011-07-15T22:35:44Z

If I don't write this post in one go, I'll never write it -- which is what I've been (not)doing for the past three months -- so I'm just going to do it, sloppily, imperfectly, never mind that I wanted to say something meaningful about illness and loss and what it means to have the part of you that writes just shut down.

I've had a pretty rough time since January, health-wise at least. I seriously re-injured my lower back, twice, sending me back to weekly physio and doubling my pain levels. My rheumatoid arthritis meds quit working, for complicated reasons, and I had to go through a medication switch, which, uh, yeah; hell; the new drug, Actemra, isn't working as well as it needs to be. I got really sick with the flu, probably thanks to immunosuppression, and the bed rest that required set me back a good six months of hard work on my fibromyalgia; I'm almost back to pre-January functioning levels, now. I also had a fun two weeks where I thought I had macular damage from Plaquenil toxicity (all you need to know is: Plaquenil = RISK OF BLINDNESS), until my ophthalmologist told me that it was a false alarm, oops, sorry.

-- and at this point I'm just sort of like, fuck, what's next? I'm TIRED. But I'm okay, by at least 80% of definitions of the word.

I finished out my term, though I have two essays, a portfolio, and a presentation that I took extensions on and need to finish by mid-August. As of now, I'm at the point where I can write by hand occasionally, hold a book sometimes, do my necessary fibro-managing exercise, and do something like go out to dinner with friends for a couple of hours without worrying that my back is going to give out -- which is to say, I'm healthy enough to be able to distract myself (read a lot, listened to so much music I probably need new speakers, watched Stargate nonstop), though who knows if that's healthy.

I would say that I am probably not depressed, though I have a lot of shit to sort through in my head. There are psychological conequences, I guess, of getting so sick again so suddenly, after slowly working towards that elusive state of healthier, of okay-again. I've had the necessary realisation that I will never be "healthy" or "okay" again, not permanently, based on my pocketful of diagnoses and the fact that I've had an off-again-on-again relationship with depression for seven years. And that hey, that's life -- it's not perfect, it's not even good, but that's not what matters; now start living it!

In terms of Livejournal: I am sorry I haven't been here! I will try better to be here! The truth is, I'm not sure what to do with it. I've gotten out of the habit of journaling, for various reasons. Journalling has always been a sense-making activity, for me, a way to exert mastery through self-representation, but it's impossible to give narrative shape to the recurring events of illness and pain. Unless we're talking post-apocalyptic fiction -- I'm only half kidding -- anyway; I'm just beginning to journal again, privately. I don't know if I can handle it publicly yet. I rarely discuss what's happening to me with friends or family in any meaningful depth anymore. I don't know if that's a good thing, a bad thing, or just a thing, but it's the only way I can manage it right now. Of course, I can still post fic, write about TV, books, share music, comment -- which reminds me of apologies I need to make for abandonment, not commenting, missing birthdays, and not replying to emails; I will try my best to get to all of that, in time <3 -- but I don't know, it's more about the interaction than the content; what do you want to read?

What I really want to say, though, and ask, is, how can I keep in touch with all of you? Where are you at? I mean, this journal has always been more about the people, less about the personal chronicle, and even if I can't write about my life anymore I don't want to lose that -- you. I know some of you have moved to other places, but some of you have disappeared, so I'd love it if you'd let me know where I can find you -- here at livejournal, or dreamwidth; twitter, tumblr, email, Facebook (won't link this outright; ask me), GTalk (which I have a notoriously bad relationship with), hell, even text message (but only if you are a resident of Canada. My phone plan sucks.). So, uh, yeah. It's not necessary to comment on the rest of the paragraphs, but I'd like you to answer that question. :)

there is finally sun in my city

2011-04-06T22:56:17Z

I apologise for my continual disappearing acts. ♥ I'll try to atone in about two weeks, after classes end. If I can survive them. Music, as always, has been my chillout drug of choice, and I promise a post about everything I've been drowning in sonically; Radiohead (good job being ten years late on that one), The Weeknd, Wye Oak, James Blake, Kanye West (I KNOW), Jamie Woon (where did you get that last name from, dude), Late Night Alumni, Lykke Li -- in the meantime, take this EP by an obscure Canadian band.

ACCOST: accost ep

This album encapsulates everything I love about music, asd;jal;sdfjls. I can't place it exactly in terms of genre, but I really think the sound is universally appealing. I'd call it, maybe, an effortless fusion between melodic indie rock and laid-back electronic beats, with clear, soaring vocals (female, if that matters to you) and evocative lyrics. Its soundscapes feel smooth, chilly, and bright, like a drive through the city on a spring evening.

A random string of thoughts -- I finally declared my major, after two and a half years of putting it off and/or outright forgetting, every time I was in the building with all the official forms; pretty anticlimactic, in the end. I am absurdly excited for S6 of Doctor Who. And for HBO's A Game of Thrones adaptation, because Lena Headey kicking ass is never not a good thing. I am not allowing myself to watch the season finale of White Collar until I finish all of my essays. I have to write ... four essays by next Friday, and then five more before May -- which I am trying not to think about -- which doesn't work because avoidance is definitely not the answer here. (Thank god for profs who are understanding about health issues and extensions. Sadly, the work doesn't just go away, you have to finish it sometime -- e.g. all within the span of two weeks, when your rheumatologist has pulled you off of your meds because they were making your hair fall out (AGAIN) and your pain levels are at 150%. Uh, pre-emptively: I don't want sympathy here, I just want to make a note about how the timing is hilarious etc. It's not not hard, but I'm doing fine and I'm happy, I promise. My life-coping skills have improved significantly within the past year.) There's probably no need for a rant about procrastination, because it's nothing we haven't all said to ourselves at 3am ...

music: let them try to find the beauty in the bassline

2011-02-07T04:59:55Z

(1)

thoughts on fringe, up to 3.12

a. Oh, Olivia. ♥

b. It's rare for me to actually identify with fictional characters, especially female ones, so it means a lot to me to have Olivia Dunham on my TV screen. She deals with her emotions in the exact same way as I do, rationalising it, deciding what she's allowed to feel and not allowed to feel and ultimately just shutting them down so that she can just get the job done. Her scenes with Peter have been breaking my heart, because she's trying so hard to talk to him, to trust him again, to feel something she can't feel anymore, and I just. I didn't realise until recently, but Olivia is my emotional viewpoint character for the show. Back when she was falling in love with Peter, I was, too, and ever since the Alt!Olivia thing I am not even attracted to Joshua Jackson anymore. I've been wanting to punch him, honestly, until the scene last episode where Olivia said to him, "I've been so wrapped up in what the other Olivia did to me, I didn't think about what she did to you."

c. I don't think Peter's been weaponised; I think that's mostly a lie Walter is feeding to himself to deal with the fact that he saw his son murder a shapeshifter in cold blood. I think it'd be more interesting to explore the idea that Peter's just angry -- the con man who let himself be conned, and his pride can't forgive it -- and parts of him that we haven't seen before are coming out. I mean, he does have this whole shady past that the show has totally ignored. Unfortunately, I think the show's going to go with the weaponised plotline, but this would have been a nice turn in character development.

c. I don't want the end of the world to be about a love triangle. I really, really don't. I subjected my poor sister to a rant about this, and then vinylroad got the sane version, but: the fact that Olivia has to save the universe by romantically appealing to a man, in direct competition with another woman, really undercuts all of the great work the show has been doing in terms of gender and giving Olivia agency. Discuss?

d. It took me ages, but I am finally falling in love with Nina Sharpe.

e. I have heard spec about a Peter/Alt!Olivia pregnancy thing, based on some of the Observer's comments in 3.11. If this is true, I will flip the shit. PLEASE MOVE AWAY FROM SOAP OPERA TERRITORY, SHOW.

f. On the bright side, alt!verse next week! Charlie! ♥

(2) I have stuff to say about other shows too, but I should be writing essays right now. If you want me to babble at you about White Collar, Community, Modern Family, Nikita, Being Human, or the Caprica finale, say so!

(3) And because I make music posts instead of dealing with real life --

	YOUNG GALAXY: shapeshifting Don't you love it when a band finally makes the album you've been waiting for since their debut? Yeah. Shapeshifting is phenomenal; it's a little shoegaze, a little dream pop, a little chillwave, with a cold electronic spaciness and haunting, epic lyrics, revolving around themes of transformation. Their female vocalist is amazing: her delivery is so emotionally precise and restrained. Hearing it is like having your heart flayed.
	JENN GRANT: honeymoon punch Okay, this album is utterly charming and catchy as hell. It's my happy place right now. It's kind of ... poppy folk, crossed with rock and tinged with electronica? Anyway, it's filled with energy, emotion, sweet, clever lyrics, and melodies that loop in your head. I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't like this.
	DESSA: a badly broken code Dessa's music exists at this strange intersection between spoken word poetry, alternative hip-hop, a capella, smoky jazz, and r&b; it has this fragile organicity to it. She's a feminist and did her BA in philosophy, and both come through in her lyrics, which paint compelling emotional narratives about all sorts of relationships. Even if it's not your usual, give this one a try. ♥
	P.O.S.: never better I have spent ALL YEAR searching for an amazing rap album, and I finally found one! It fuses punk and hip-hop, and it's fucking fast, propelled by relentless beats creating stripped-down, tight song arrangements that don't waste a single word or note. And the lyrics are top-notch: nonlinear smatterings of striking images & turns of phrase that are like punch to the gut once they cohere.
	ROISIN MURPHY: overpowered I started listening to this album obsessively last September, and then I just ... never stopped. No matter how many times I listen to it, the sheen doesn't wear off. This is classy, classy electropop, with beguiling lyrics and chilly, sparse beats offset by the sensual warmth of Roisin Murphy's voice. If you like Annie when I uploaded her, you'll love this.

As always, let me know if you snag anything, and tell me what you think. ♥ I have another couple of albums I want to upload, stuff that I was listening to in the fall, but I don't want to overwhelm you. (cherise, I know your M.O., you'd better not try to download all of these. :P)

(4) The world needs more happy things like the Inception Anon Love Meme.

the social network + janelle monae rec + fringe reaction post (ii)

2011-01-05T09:39:18Z

(1) So I FINALLY watched The Social Network, and -- so that was essentially a film about the worst break-up ever, hey? I'm already raiding Delicious, and I might have some Thoughts on it later, but in the meantime I would love fic recs. In particular, if you've written something, point me towards it! :)

(2) The best thing to come out of Yuletide this year: jibrailis wrote fic based on the canon of Janelle Monae's Metropolis: The Chase Suite. The story, Suite 0, is essential reading for anyone who's familiar with her music; it's a thing of beauty and unforgettable cadence, cerebral and emotional and sexy and daring. I still can't get it out of my head. Go read it. ♥

(3) The second half of my Fringe reaction post. I have a lot of feelings about this show, it seems.

FRINGE REACTION POST: PART TWO
-- also up to 3.09.

07. I hope we get to see more of the alternate universe; it's fascinating. I mean, it suffers from the usual AU conceit of not making any sense and having random zeppelins, but I'm willing to handwave that away in favour of worldbuilding and neat technology and the implications of amber/the decaying fabric between worlds.

08. I ADORE the alt!team. alt!Olivia, Charlie, and Lee are totally delightful together -- it's so interesting to see the kind of relationships our Olivia can't have, because of the way she closes down.

09. Don't even talk to me about Charlie and the shapeshifter. There had better be more alternate universe episodes, is all I'm saying.

10. I can't stand the episode "Johari Window." It started out intriguingly, with an SPN-casefile kind of feel, and then it ended up being an ableist piece of shit.

11. In terms of favourite eps: I love the first couple and last couple from every season, because the storyarc is delicious. I wish there was more of it; I'm actually not a huge fan of casefile/monster-of-the-week shows, I just put up with the formula to get to the good stuff.

I also love the quiet, unsettled tension of "Jacksonville;" "Peter" and "White Tulip" made me cry rather a lot; "August" is perfect (or would have been, if the writers had avoided using the word "love"), "What Lies Below" will forever have a special place in my heart because it is essentially "Fringe does zombies" (plus: Peter/Olivia fight scene, bonus points).

12. But, of course, my favourite episode is "Brown Betty." I mean, a musical noir AU, styled as a fairytale and told by a high mad scientist? SO MUCH YES. Ella's frankly adorable in it -- and the fact that Peter stole Walter's heart -- and I will never get over my joy at seeing Olivia channeling Phillip Marlowe; there's really nothing sexier. Hilariously, this makes Peter the femme fatale, which I can also get behind.

13. Is it just me, or did anyone else get this sense that Peter has this ... Canadianness to him? He's snarky and underwhelmingly awesome. He feels like, no matter where he goes, he doesn't really belong! It's especially apparent in the episode "Northwest Passage," which reminds me of BC and the Joshua Jackson film One Week.

Fringe fic/vid recs, anyone? I'm not really looking for Peter/Olivia, unless it's vids, because (for once!) I'm actually happy with how the show's handling its main pairing. Rarepairs, gen, or backstory would be lovely.

year in fandom meme + fringe reaction post!

2010-12-20T06:56:31Z

(1) Your main fandom of the year?
INCEPTION. ♥ I also read a lot of Sherlock fic, some fantastic Merlin stories, and a little bit of RPF.

Your favourite film watched this year?
Imagine Me & You makes me smile and smile and smile. (I'll never get enough of Lena Headey, although the fact that she's been cast as Cersei Lannister confuses me?) Alternately: the new Evangelion stuff is EPIC.

Your favourite book read this year?
This is always such a hard question. Probably André Aciman's Call Me By Your Name, a novel which manages to deconstruct love without ever using the word itself. It's intimate, defamiliarising, unflinching, devastatingly precise, and probably my favourite love story of all time. Runners-up include Blindsight by Peter Watts, The Vintner's Luck by Elizabeth Knox, and everything Manna Francis has ever written.

Your favourite album or song to listen to this year?
I'll do (yet another) albums post soon, but meanwhile, here are my songs of 2010.

Your favourite TV show of the year?
FRINGE. FRINGE. FRINGE. Also, um -- Caprica, Doctor Who, Sherlock, Nikita, Modern Family, and Community. I also watched A:TLA and Veronica Mars this year, though they aired some time ago, if that counts.

Your favourite LJ community of the year?
therewerecracks, which posts daily Doctor Who screencaps; absolutely gorgeous.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
Is Joseph Gordon-Levitt a fandom?

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
Caprica being cancelled. Or Merlin, which broke my heart so badly that I had to stop watching it. Though maybe we can reconcile sometime. Or Supernatural, which I finally gave up on.

Your TV boyfriend of the year?
PHILIP BROYLES. HOLY FUCK.

Your TV girlfriend of the year?
How is that even a question, when Olivia Dunham exists?

Your biggest squee moment of the year?
"You have to come back -- because you belong with me."

The most missed of your old fandoms?
THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES. Though I will never not miss HP! *clings* In September I finished a Remus/Sirius story that I've had on my hard drive for two years. It was just for personal satisfaction, but I like it so much that I might actually post it sometime.

The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to?
I don't know. I wouldn't mind another fandom to write in, though. I am vulnerable and open to suggestion, so go on. Convince me. :)

Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?
inception_bang stories, and being able to join the weekly Fringe flail, now that I've seen all of the aired episodes.

Also, I have three-and-a-half more Inception stories which are yelling at me, wanting to be finished, so maybe those will eventually show up?

(2) I finally caught up, and -- spoilers --

FRINGE REACTION POST
-- up to 3.09.

01. Let's just get this out of the way first: Anna Torv, holy fuck you are a gorgeous creature of steel and grace and a voice that makes me shiver.

Olivia is one of the most compelling characters I have come across in a long time. I love her intriguing balance of coldness and warmth. I love the fact that whenever she feels emotionally vulnerable, she just channels it into being badass. I love the way she deals with so much shit and just locks it all down and gets the job done. Competence really turns me on, and nnngh.

I think I really fell for her in 1.11 "Bound," the ep where she's kidnapped, has to go through a spinal tap, and then fights her kidnappers and escapes right after that. I mean, that's pretty badass. Or possibly when she faced down Broyles early into S1 and basically said: Yes, I do get emotionally involved in my job. And it makes me damn good at what I do. So stop trying to discount me by pulling the "women are too emotional" crap and fuck off. (And thus began a beautiful relationship of grudging, absolute respect and mutual trust!)

It's pretty fascinating how Olivia's been characterised through juxtaposition in the third season. alt!Olivia (what's fandom calling her, by the way?) is a great foil. Though, interestingly, we never get to know her. We get alt!Olivia-playing-Olivia, and Olivia-thinking-she's-alt!Olivia, but never a pure expression of alt!Olivia herself. I ... don't really know where I'm going with that.

02. Peter/Olivia is my new Sydney/Vaughn. The way he's there for her, the way he smiles at her (who wouldn't want that?). Olivia's fear, the distance she keeps. It's all very simple stuff, but beautifully realised -- their love spans universes, asdl;kjals;dkjf.

I loved the beautiful, slow burn of the first two seasons, but ever since the Olivia switch in S3, my feelings are a mess. What it did to their relationship -- I can't articulate it, because it hits too close to home right now. Or ... not, actually, ahaha. Because Peter slept with Olivia's doppelgänger from an alternate universe and that doesn't really have an equivalent in real life. My point is, there is love, and betrayal, and a girl trying to cope with the consequences of a mistake a boy made, and that's enough to break me at the moment.

03. Even though I'm dedicated to Peter/Olivia, I kind of ship Olivia/everyone? This might just be because I want to sleep with Anna Torv, but think about it! Olivia/Broyles would be HOT AS FUCK together. Imagine the aesthetically appealing angry!sex. And I can't get over the quiet, doomed wistfulness of Olivia/Charlie. And I think that office scene in "Brown Betty" made everyone ship Olivia/Astrid, really.

04. BROYLES. NNGH. FUCK. In short: I have a type. He is it.

I have been a fan of Lance Reddick's magnetic, hotass intensity ever since watching season one The Wire. I can get no further with The Wire, for reasons that have nothing to do with how amazing the show is and everything to do with leftovers from stupid friend drama. I have to admit: I started watching Fringe partially because faeriemaiden and such_heights and nekare kept telling me to, but, uh, 90% because I wanted more Lance Reddick. Which I got, and am very pleased with.

05. Peter fascinates me, from a writing perspective. The entire mytharc revolves around him: the rupture between worlds created when Walter saved him, his role in healing/destroying the multiverse (well -- dualverse?). (And yeah, we get it -- what's with your Jesus/redemption metaphors, JJ? Does the sketch of the Doomsday machine remind anyone else of the Rambaldi sketches?)

Anyway, my point: Peter is, arguably, the locus of the story, but ironically, he has very little agency. Most of what he does is in response to what's been done to him, and character-wise he's developed primarily in relation to other characters. I'd say that Olivia, Peter, and Walter are Fringe's main characters; while Olivia and Walter could be uprooted and transplanted into other shows, and still come across as who they are, I'm not sure that Peter could. A lot of his character would be lost without the weight of the Bishop family history, and his role as Olivia's love interest.

06. Lastly: oh, Walter. You are so fucking human, it kills me. ♥

I am sorry that my reaction post is so very overdue, nekare! :D It got long, so I'll stop here, and do the other half of what I wanted to talk about later. Meanwhile, here is a tiny, non-spoilery summary of my headspace for cherise and everyone who's still in S1 or S2: I love everything about this show. I love Olivia fucking Dunham, who's a total BAMF and possibly one of my favourite characters of all time in any medium. [Insert more superlatives here.] I love Broyles and the irrepressible Walter and Peter and Astrid and Charlie and Nina, which is to say, everyone. I love Charlie's aviators and "Astro/Aspirin/Asterisk" and Walter's lab and Peter being protective and alternate universes and asdljflskdfjs Peter/Olivia in their long black coats, wandering around crime scenes and determinedly not smiling together. I am so emotionally invested in this show that it's ridiculous. And now it's moved to the Friday timeslot of death. I am a curse unto TV shows.

fic: no discipline of forgetting

2010-12-13T03:48:30Z

title: No discipline of forgetting
characters: Arthur/Eames
rating: NC-17
words: ~13,000
summary: Arthur forgets; Eames waits.

notes: This is the very first Inception story I started, way back in August. I think I am probably the slowest writer in fandom. Thanks to chibi_lurrel, deepsix (extra thanks for this meta; I couldn't quite make the characterisations work till I read it!), and jibrailis for the beta work -- you are all wonderful. ♥ Oh, and apologies to Freud and Lacan. I know it's bad academic practice to misinterpret quotations and appropriate them for gay porn. Sorry, dudes.

--

No discipline of forgetting

[1]

At the edge of the cliff, Eames looks down into the ocean.

He'd washed up on the shore of his unconscious alone, and it hadn't felt right. So he'd walked the path cut into the cliffside, searching -- but there wasn't anyone else. Maybe his mind has just been playing tricks on itself. Maybe it's time to go.

One step is all he needs to wake up. Eames tilts forward, flirting with the edge --

-- and then there are hands on his waist, pulling him back, and he stumbles into a warm body.

He turns. A piece of Arthur's hair brushes his forehead, they're that close.

"God, you --" Arthur says, a little breathless. He backs them away from the edge, his hands steady on Eames' waist. "You scared me. Don't jump yet, okay?"

"Okay," Eames says easily. Then he realises, "I think I was looking for you."

Arthur holds Eames in his arms for another moment, just looking into his face. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Then he blinks, as if noticing how close they're standing. He steps back.

"I was looking, too. But not for you," he says, like it's a simple fact.

"For ... ?"

Arthur makes a noise of frustration, low in his throat, and shakes his head. "Fuck, I still can't remember."

The passage of time is strange in Limbo.

Side-by-side, they search for what seems like hours. On a hunch, Eames dreams up a watch and checks it at intervals. Discreetly -- Arthur's refused to let them build things, and Eames doesn't want to anger him.

The watch eventually confirms his hunch: it hasn't been hours, it's been days.

Memory is deceptive, here. Periods of sameness collapse inwards, turning on points of difference. A two-minute conversation is perceived as two minutes, but so are hours of silent walking. No wonder it's so easy to lose yourself.

"I know," Arthur says, when he explains. "Dom's told me a little about what it's like."

In the end, they don't find anything but exhaustion, so Arthur picks a sheltered spot and they sleep -- within reaching distance, but facing in opposite directions.

Eames wakes up. Arthur's watching him, and from the set of his shoulders, he has been for a while. He's sitting cross-legged, with his head propped up on his hand.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi yourself," Eames replies, smiling lazily. He sits up and stretches the stiffness out of his shoulders. "Did you sleep at all?"

"A bit."

Arthur's hair is sleep-mussed and the top two buttons of his shirt are undone. But he ruins the effect by sitting up straight, suddenly all business. There's a gun on the ground next to him. "We should go," he says.

"You're certain there's nothing here?"

"No. But we can't stay."

Eames nods. He gets to his feet and offers Arthur a hand up, which Arthur accepts. "How do you want it?"

"I was thinking Barcelona," Arthur says. "Do me first."

"Too messy. I prefer not to literally have your blood on my hands, if that's all right. How about that time in Mumbai?"

"That's fine." Arthur lets Eames come up behind him, relaxing into the curve of his arms. It's funny: the only time he gets to touch Arthur like this is when he's about to snap his neck.

"Alright?"

"I'm waiting."

It's quick and painless. Arthur crumples; Eames catches him, laying his body down gently. Then he goes to pick up the gun. And when he turns back, Arthur's getting to his feet.

"Eames?" Arthur says, confused. He's rubbing at his neck, but he seems whole and unbroken.

They try it again. And again. Five different times, in five different ways. Finally Arthur says, "Fuck this," and they give up.

"What the hell, Eames."

"I have no idea," Eames replies. "I don't exactly frequent Limbo. My best guess is that your instincts were right, and there is someone else here. Someone your subconscious knows we can't leave without, maybe. We'll have to keep looking."

"Not we," Arthur says. "You might be able to leave. You haven't tried yet."

"And I'm not going to."

Arthur looks at him for a long moment. Then he says, "Okay." He says it in the tone most people use to say thank you.

"Shall we go?"

"Not we," Arthur says, again. "Splitting up means covering more area. The clifftop where I found you -- I'll go back there in one year. Be there."

"Don't leave --"

Arthur arches an eyebrow.

"Yet," Eames finishes, with a grin.

He concentrates for a moment, then opens his hand. Resting on his palm are two identical silver pocketwatches, antique in design. Their faces display a circle cut into twelve unnumbered portions.

He tosses one to Arthur. "It counts down the month, not the hour."

Arthur slides it into the top pocket of his shirt, a simple white button-down. He nods once, a tiny smile on his lips, and then leaves. Except for Arthur's footsteps on the grass, it's silent.

Eames watches him walk away until his back is just a hard, dark line standing up against the horizon.

At first, Eames travels.

Since neither he nor Arthur have ever been in Limbo before, the landscape is just a vacancy. It's never literally empty -- the mind can't present disunities and impossibilities, so it fills the space before blankness can be perceived. But Limbo can only draw upon his memories, so that wherever he goes he just discovers places he's been before, emptied of people.

He walks. He thinks. He thinks about Arthur: his condescension, his casually cruel mouth.

It's Eames' job to deceive, to blur the truth. When the situation calls for it, he'll lie to himself -- everyone does; it's naive to pretend otherwise. But Arthur is one truth he can't get around.

Eventually, Eames finds himself walking in unfamiliar territory. Arthur's memories.

There are endless indistinguishable cities, coalescing into one; the vistas of Afghanistan's gunfire-burnt deserts; the university in Paris; the street where the Cobbs moved after Mal gave birth to James; a sixteen-story hotel in Prague where all of the rooms are empty, except for 228.

Eames remembers that room, that hotel. It's his memory, too. He opens the door and steps inside.

Mal dies. Eames gets a call from Arthur at two in the morning.

Arthur doesn't ask him to, not even obliquely, but Eames drives three hours through the pouring rain to get to him.

There's been something between them for so long that Eames forgets how it started. It makes Arthur touch too much, makes Eames let those touches linger -- too long, for someone whose body is so precise he can mimic nervous tics you didn't even know you had. It comes between them like a knife twisting underneath skin. It never comes to anything.

Eames baits; Arthur snaps. When it comes to the kick, Arthur's never gentle. Maybe this should matter, but it doesn't.

When Eames gets there, the room door is open a crack. Arthur sits on the edge of the bed, straight-backed, an unopened bottle of vodka in his right hand.

Eames closes the door behind him. "I'm surprised you're not in L.A. already."

"Couldn't get a flight out till tomorrow morning."

Arthur's left the window wide open. It's freezing cold, but he doesn't seem to notice. Eames goes to stand in front of Arthur; puts a hand on his shoulder, and leaves it there. They stay like that for a few minutes, not looking at each other. He's thinking about Mal, and he knows Arthur is, too.

Arthur smashes the bottle against the floor.

"For the love of god," he says, as the vodka seeps into the carpet, "don't fucking cry, I can't fucking deal with that right now."

"Jesus, Arthur. I'm not."

Arthur stands. They're so close that Eames can feel the rise and fall of Arthur's breathing in his own chest, and heat flares at the base of his spine.

Gently, Arthur puts a hand to Eames' face and brushes a thumb across his eyelashes. It comes away wet. He drags the wetness down Eames' cheek; his thumb nudges up against Eames' lips, then between them.

Eames tastes salt.

Arthur kisses him, with a desperation that's expected and a sweet desire that isn't. This is the first time they've done this, and the thought makes Eames go still, paralysed with want. Arthur looks at him, a question in his eyes.

Instead of answering it, Eames pushes him down to the bed, hands on Arthur's jaw, undoing the buttons of his shirt, sliding off his pants to get at the skin he's finally allowed to touch. He tries to be as gentle as he can, but want makes him careless.

Arthur cries out, and it's the first helpless noise Eames has ever heard from him.

There's a thin line of blood cut across Arthur's thigh, from where a shard of broken glass got pressed between them. Arthur just shakes his head and pulls off Eames' shirt, efficient hands fumbling at the zip of his pants. "It's not deep," he insists, rough and low.

Without thinking about it, Eames leans down, pressing a kiss there, and when he takes Arthur's cock into his mouth he tastes an edge of coppery blood. He doesn't hold back; he uses everything he knows to make Arthur feel, to forget.

Then he wraps his hand around Arthur's cock, spit-slick, jacking him off in slow pulls as he moves upwards to kiss him. It's hot and messy and Arthur melts right into it, content to cling to Eames and lick away the taste of himself. He kisses like he's helpless, pliant and needy, and Eames just wants to hold Arthur down and rut against him until they both come.

Arthur moves his hips, though, pleadingly -- and it's a foreign thought, for a man with few attachments, but Eames wants to take care of Arthur, in any way that Arthur will let him. It won't be enough, but he'll do what he can. He tracks kisses down Arthur's neck, his chest, his stomach, and kneels between his legs again, looking up at him.

"Fuck my mouth," Eames says, voice wrecked. "Fuck my mouth until you come," and Arthur moans like it's been ripped from him.

Eames slips the head of Arthur's cock between his lips. It rubs against the back of his throat as Arthur thrusts into him, over and over, filling him up more than a kiss ever could. He loses himself to the sensation, to the knowledge that Arthur is using his mouth to take what he needs. It isn't long before he comes, and Eames is gentle, holding Arthur's softening cock in his mouth as he shakes with the aftershocks. When he climbs up on the bed, Arthur reaches for his cock, but Eames brushes his hand away.

"Eames?" he says uncertainly.

Eames just shakes his head, stripping off the rest of their clothes. He's still hard, aching for it, but it doesn't matter -- Arthur's sleepy and unthinking and calm, and Eames wants it to remain that way.

"Stay," Eames says, curling around Arthur. He presses his lips against Arthur's skin.

The next morning, Arthur's gone. He's cleaned up the glass, the spilled vodka, but hasn't left a trace of himself.

After that, Arthur and Dom drop off-grid and stay there for months. The next time he contacts Eames, it's with a job offer. They go back to their endless, circling dance, like that night had just been a misstep.

Can you lose something if you never had it in the first place?

Eames wants Arthur, and he knows that Arthur wants him -- but that's not what Arthur needs right now. What he needs is someone he can rely on, a number that he can call for backup. A forger. A rival, sometimes; someone who will challenge him and keep him sharp on the job. A way to get Dom out of a Kenyan prison. A list of trustworthy chemists. A replacement PASIV. An experimental compound that's supposed to make projections more docile.

Eames gives it all to him, and loses track, after a while. The one thing Arthur never seems to need again is a warm body in the night.

[2]

Eames leaves the memory, shutting the door behind him.

Arthur spooks easily. If he realises Eames is following his memories through Limbo, he might not come back, when the year's up. Eames has seen him angrier over less.

Eames can't seem to stop stumbling into places where Arthur's been. So he heads back to the beach.

When he gets there, he finds Ariadne sitting cross-legged in front of a fire on the clifftop.

"Eames!"

It's been so long since he had anything but his own thoughts for company that he sweeps her off her feet in a hug. As he sets her down again, he laughs. "Sorry I'm so happy that you died."

Ariadne lets out a short laugh. "It's weird," she says softly. "I don't remember it. Dying, I mean. I just woke up here."

"That's probably for the best." Eames has been dying in dreams for ten years, but he's still not used to having pieces of flesh and muscle ripped from his bones.

"Yeah," she says, looking out at the ocean. "Yeah, you're right. Anyway, I think I just got here, but it's hard to tell. How long for you?"

"A bit over five months. Absolute fucking boredom. There's nothing to discover, unless you create it yourself."

"Then why don't you?"

"I can't," Eames says, surprised. "Objects, I can do. Or calling up places from memory. But I can't build from scratch. I'm not an architect."

"Mal built in Limbo, and she wasn't an architect."

"True," Eames admits. Mal had been a chemist; experimenting with sedation and dreams within dreams had been her idea, originally. "How did you know that?"

Ariadne grins, a little slyly. After a pause she says, "I bullied Cobb into telling me -- but you're changing the topic, don't think I can't tell. Come on, try it. Build something. If I can do it, you can do it."

"Alright."

Eames walks to the edge of the cliff. Then he turns to face the beach and brings his hands up, imagining something he'd never have the skill to build normally. Parallel to his motion, an intricate structure rises and shakes off sand: it's what a sandcastle on a beach might look like, if the Greeks had constructed it with marble in the middle of the Hellenistic age.

"My god," Eames says wonderingly. It's so easy here -- too easy.

After a few months, Eames and Ariadne are naturalised citizens of Limbo, sort of. They live in the marble sandcastle, making the sun rise and set every day, waiting for Arthur to come back.

At first, Eames works on refining his forges, but it's hardly practice. In fact, it's dangerous. Forging in Limbo is addictively simple: it's just as easy to be who you're not as who you are. Eames tries not to do it too often.

Ariadne spends most of her time building. She's intensely private about it, spending hours alone and not letting Eames see the finished results -- though she will talk at length about impossible architecture and pushing the laws of physics. It's all stuff he's heard from Dom before, and Eames listens indulgently. Just as Eames suspected, Ariadne and Dom have one thing in common: neither give a damn about reality. They just want to break its rules, consequences be damned. It's one of the things Eames loves about a good architect. It's one of the things he'll never forgive Dom for.

One afternoon, when Ariadne's down at the beach, Eames hears a knock on the front door. He goes to open it.

"Hi," Arthur says, a small smile on his face.

He's not looking past Eames; he's not looking for something that Eames doesn't have. He's just looking, a little tentatively, at Eames. For the last seven years, Eames has tried to get Arthur to look at him like that. Something clenches in his chest.

Eames reaches into his pocket. The antique silver pocketwatch is there, resting next to his poker chip; it always is. He makes a show of consulting the hands. Six o'clock, so it's been six months since he and Arthur split up to search Limbo. Arthur's early. He'd said he wouldn't return for a year.

"Did you miss me too much?" Eames says, holding up the watch with a grin. "You weren't supposed to be home till midnight -- but look, you're just in time for dinner."

Arthur's smile flickers, and Eames finds that he can breathe again.

"I'm tired," Arthur says. The set of his shoulders says it, too. "Are you going to let me in?"

"Darling. As if I could keep you out."

Whoever they're looking for, it's not Ariadne.

They try to leave, but just like the last time, the kick doesn't work -- not on Arthur, at least. He throws down his gun in disgust. "Look," he says, running a hand through his hair. "I can take care of myself. You should get out of here."

"I'd rather wait," Eames says casually.

Startled, Arthur looks at him. "You always wait for me, don't you."

"I guess I do," Eames says. He laughs; the heat in Arthur's voice makes him feel strange, owned.

"If he's staying, I'm staying," Ariadne says.

Arthur frowns. "I'm not going to pretend I want to be abandoned, but -- why? There's nothing here for you."

"It's not like I can get bored here. Not for a while, anyway," Ariadne says. "You just have to build things."

The three of them stay up late talking. In Limbo, the nights don't get cold if you don't want them to, and Ariadne puts on a meteor shower, just to show off. At sunrise, there's an argument: Arthur insists on searching alone. He says that Eames and Ariadne have to stay put, as a failsafe. That it's easier to get lost in Limbo if you're on the move. That he needs someplace to return to, someone to come looking for him if he doesn't come back.

It's all true, but it's not the truth.

Arthur, Eames knows, is angry at himself: for missing Fischer's militarisation, for not being able to find what he's looking for. He's always taken on his failures as a personal burden. They're something he doesn't share, or give up on.

"It's not negotiable," Arthur says finally. "If you don't stay here, Eames, you don't get to stay." He slams a gun down on the table.

"Alright -- alright, Arthur. Calm down."

Thanks to time distortion, they can stay in Limbo for years, as long as they remember it isn't real. Eames hates the idea of just waiting, though. Before he can breach the topic, Ariadne does it for him: "You know, even you need a break. Come visit us every once in a while."

"Maybe."

"I had a thought," Eames says after a moment. "Remaining in one place does have its benefits."

He outlines the concept, and they implement it, scattering jarring mistakes everywhere like little totems -- lightbulbs that burn cool green instead of warm yellow, clothing without seams, oddly-shaped electrical sockets. Safeguards to help them remember.

"And what if you forget?" Eames asks Arthur, after they're done.

"I won't."

[3]

Upon moving in, Arthur destroys the castle. He snaps his fingers, cool and arrogant, and it crumbles.

Then he grins, and says to Ariadne, "Build with me."

Arthur creates a Penrose staircase, reconstructing a structure around it. Eames sprawls in the sand, watching. For hours, Arthur and Ariadne bicker and laugh and tear apart each others' work; Arthur's smiling the whole time, though he doesn't seem to realise it.

The house, when it's done, exists at strange angles from the ground and hurts to look at. Arthur thinks it's a nice security feature. The rooms are distributed across four "floors," and Eames wants his room to be at the top, but of course that has no meaning when the stairs go up or down at the same time.

"Don't think about the paradox while you're on the stairs," Ariadne warns him.

Eames shrugs. "I won't. You know I'm not like you two. I don't get off on impossible geometry."

"Sorry."

"Hm?" Eames isn't paying attention; he's smiling a little, watching Arthur add a series of fire escapes. Only Arthur would be worried about exit routes in a place where there's no threat to speak of.

"Well, there aren't any people here," Ariadne says. "You must be bored." She looks from Eames to Arthur, then says, "Or maybe not."

On the sixth morning after Arthur comes back, Eames stumbles down the staircase to find Ariadne eating Cheerios out of the box and a note on the kitchen table.

Gone again for a while. Have to keep looking. Don't fucking touch anything in my closet, Eames.

Eames puts the kettle on, movements automatic. Making tea is one of his rituals, when he needs a ritual. The others involve alcohol, but losing grip on reality is not such a good idea here.

"He'll be back, Eames."

"I know that," Eames says. He rummages in the cupboard for a mug and some Earl Grey, and then waits as the water boils.

A few weeks later, Eames walks into the kitchen, yawning.

Arthur is making pancakes. His sleeves are rolled up to the elbows. There's flour on his tie. The entire scene is so domestic, so dreamlike, that Eames instinctively reaches into his pocket for his totem.

This is when he realises he's wearing boxers, and nothing else.

Arthur's gaze wanders down his body and back up again. And then he smiles, and there's a dimple involved.

Eames can't find anything better to say than, "The Arthur I know can't cook."

Arthur shrugs. "I do pancakes and sandwiches. You like maple syrup?"

The kitchen is different, Eames realises. The countertops are granite, the tap is stainless steel. There's an espresso maker plugged in next to the toaster. All of these are things that Eames has seen in Arthur's apartment before. Arthur put them here, deliberately.

So Eames sits down at the table, where there's a place setting and a glass of milk waiting, and lets Arthur serve him pancakes with maple syrup. For the first time in Limbo, Arthur eats with him. It's only been half a week since Arthur left, and this time, he stays for two.

Arthur's in front of the mirror, trying to put himself together. He can't seem to decide on a tie, and the frustration shows on his face. Eames knows the tie isn't the problem.

"You're not happy, darling."

Arthur meets his eyes in the mirror. "Good job. So fucking what."

"So," Eames says, and then stops.

Sadness is something for other people: Arthur gets the job done. Eames has always seen it as a mark of competence, but he also remembers what things were like before Mal died. Arthur's entire posture had been different. He'd worn embarrassingly colourful ties.

"Why would I be happy? We're trapped here. We have been for eight months. Because I can't do my goddamn job."

"It's not your job to singlehandedly track down a vague hunch in the middle of Limbo," Eames says gently. "Come here." He chooses a tie at random and holds it up.

Obediently, Arthur steps back so that he can put it on. He closes his eyes, leaning into Eames' touch.

When Arthur lets his guard down, his body discipline goes to shit.

Most people are duped by the poker face, the three-piece suits. Cobb's point man is inscrutable, they say. I can never tell what's going on in his head. But Eames looks closer, and he knows that Arthur's thoughts and desires are written straight into the movements of his hands and his hips. He'll stand too close, or put that steadying palm in the small of Eames' back just a few inches too low. He'll string Eames out over the course of a night with half-smiles and lingering touches. And he'll do it all with sweet obliviousness, because he has no idea what his body is saying.

Eames finishes knotting a double Windsor, and pulls it snug. He brushes his fingers against Arthur's throat, noticing how Arthur's breath catches.

It's unbearable to know how much Arthur wants him, and won't act on it.

While Arthur's gone, Eames and Ariadne sometimes walk along the beach together. They talk, or they're just silent. It's good to get out of the house, to stare out at the endless ocean and be reminded.

"What's that?"

There's a glint of metal in the sand. Strange. Things don't just wash up in Limbo; they have to be created first, and Eames doesn't remember creating anything around here.

Ariadne reaches down, slipping the thing into her pocket.

"Not going to show me?"

"I'd rather not," she says with a shrug. "Just scraps from something I tried to build yesterday -- it fell apart. Kind of embarrassing, actually."

"Alright." Eames figures it's none of his business. They all need to hold onto something in Limbo, even if it's just a secret.

"What are you hiding from me?"

Arthur strips the blankets off of Eames' bed, steals his pillow, and rolls him onto the hardwood floor. The he grabs him by the bicep and hauls him down to the living room.

Eames blinks. There's a small safe built into the wall right above the fireplace.

"It's not mine," Arthur says.

It's not mine, either, Eames is about to say -- but then again it might be. If he'd wanted to hide something from himself, this is how he'd do it. He wonders if he'd puzzled out Ariadne's secret, and put it here. If it's bad enough to hide, shouldn't he ... ? Well, no. He should trust his own mind, if he'd decided not to remember.

He says, "Everyone has something they'd rather forget."

Arthur looks at Eames like he wants to hit him. He steps into Eames' space like he's going to. And then he does, and Eames clutches at his jaw and says, "Jesus fuck." He looks down and there's blood on the carpet.

But Arthur doesn't look at the safe again before he walks out of the room, and Eames knows he won't try to break into it.

That afternoon he creates an Escher print he remembers seeing in Arthur's apartment once, the one where the hands are drawing each other. He places it overtop the safe. He'd rather not wonder about what he's chosen to forget every time he walks into the room, though he will remember the punch.

Arthur leaves. Arthur comes back.

He used to go like a thief in the night, sometimes leaving a note, sometimes not bothering. Now he waits until after dinner, so that Eames and Ariadne can see him off. Eames touches Arthur sometimes, as he's saying goodbye, and gets away with it. A hand on his shoulder, on his waist. He can't help it -- Limbo is boundless. If someone leaves intentionally, there's almost no way of finding them. Every time Arthur walks away could be the last time.

But he always comes back.

"Guess you just can't stay away, love," Eames says, when Arthur slips in the door one day at dawn.

"Guess not," says Arthur.

He shrugs out of his coat and lets Eames hang it up for him. He's impassive, but everything in his posture telegraphs anger. "Fuck this," he says. "Fuck this place. I used to be able to find anything I wanted."

"I know. I've tried to hide from you on more than one occasion, Arthur. It never works."

The look Arthur directs at him is vicious and fond at the same time. "We both knew you wanted to be found." Which is true, but it hadn't mattered, because Arthur had never come looking for him in person.

[4]

The leaves fall from the trees; snow falls from a white sky. Things settle in, a bit.

Arthur goes away less often, and stays for longer. Eames finds ways to keep him happy while he's there. He teaches Arthur to cook, and they spend evenings washing dishes together even though they don't have to. He lets Arthur beat him at chess. They spar. They play poker with Ariadne around the kitchen table at midnight.

Arthur discovers the library, which Eames has been working on for months.

All you have in Limbo is what you can create. If you remember the cracked spine of a novel but not the first hundred pages, that's all you have. To say that Eames' memory is good is an understatement -- during information-heavy extractions, the ability to recall is invaluable. The library has floor-to-ceiling shelves, containing Eames' approximations of everything from Austen to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. (In which Sirius doesn't die. It's nice to misremember, sometimes.)

"I'm impressed," Arthur says, looking around.

"I'm well-read," Eames replies.

"Derrida, Baudrillard, Descartes ..." Arthur tilts his head, examining the titles. As he does, he trails a long finger down the spine of each, and Eames feels a shiver go up his own. "... Nietzsche, Borges, Barthes -- Jesus, Eames, do you spend all of your spare time being a pretentious asshole? Isn't it exhausting?"

"Contrary to rumour," Eames says amusedly, "I got into the dreamsharing business through academic channels, not criminal ones. That part came later."

Arthur raises a disbelieving eyebrow, sliding a book off the shelf one-handed and flipping it open. The Interpretation of Dreams, by Freud.

"Oh, don't try to read that." Eames splays his fingers over Arthur's on the book's spine, snapping it shut. He lets his palm rest there, on Arthur's wrist. "Didn't like it much, hardly wanted to remember it. It's probably missing sections."

"Ironic," Arthur says dryly, but Eames is paying more attention to the fact that Arthur hasn't moved his hand away.

They're on the Penrose staircase.

Eames, walking up to his room, doesn't hear Arthur come up behind him -- not until Arthur's pressed against the length of his back, arms wrapped around his waist and lips brushing the curve of his ear.

"Arthur --" Eames says, unsure.

"Guess what?"

"I have no idea," Eames says, and it's true. He can't think of anything, beyond the fact that he can feel the rise and fall of Arthur's chest as he breathes.

Which is why he isn't expecting it when Arthur nudges his hips into Eames' ass and whispers:

"Paradox."

The stairs drop away in front of him, just as he loses his balance --

And then he's being tugged back, with Arthur's laughter warm against his neck. Eames turns and stumbles, inelegant, and their noses bump together.

"You little shit," says Eames -- but it comes out all wrong. Fond.

Arthur just keeps laughing. Eames has seen Arthur laugh for many reasons: derision, anger, schadenfreude. Never for mischief, though; never playfully. And his hand is still resting low on Eames' hip.

"I only caught you," Arthur says, "because I really don't know where you would've fallen to. And if we could get you out afterwards."

He's looking up at Eames through his eyelashes, lips parted slightly, and Eames knows the moment Arthur realises what he's doing. His breath catches. His shoulders stiffen.

He steps away, murmuring something about meeting Ariadne at the beach.

During dinner, Ariadne asks, "What are you going to do after you get out of here?"

"Take the most dangerous jobs I can find," Eames says. "Get piss drunk. And read actual books. Not necessarily in that order."

"Arthur?"

"Depends on what Dom's doing, I guess."

Ariadne makes a disbelieving noise. "Cobb? Seriously? Arthur, he's the reason we're all trapped down here. I don't care that he's the best, I am never working with that jackass again. What do you see in him, anyway?"

Eames has always wanted to know that, himself. But he sees Arthur's jaw go hard, and remembers why he never bothered to ask.

"Like you said, he's the best," Arthur says tightly.

Oblivious, Ariadne lifts an eyebrow. "Is it heavy, carrying around all of that emotional baggage for him?"

Arthur slams his chair backward and leaves the room.

"That was ... unexpected," Ariadne says finally.

"Not really," Eames replies.

Arthur has a capacity for absolute, unswerving dedication. It's a puzzle, a novelty, one of the things about him that drew Eames in all those years ago. What he hadn't known then, though -- what he'd had to learn later -- is that for dedication to be absolute, it also has to be singular.

Arthur's at the kitchen table, working on his gun collection. He has been all night. Eames walks in, intending to have toast and maybe tea -- but instead he ends up sitting across from Arthur, asking:

"Are you in love with him?"

They've been in Limbo for over a year now. Eames knows the answer; sometimes he thinks about nothing but. But he needs to hear Arthur say it.

"That's none of your fucking business."

"Tell me anyway."

Arthur's hands move over sleek metal, efficient. Pieces of a Beretta Px4 Storm come together, as he imagines them into existence with careful detail.

"There are different ways to love someone," he says finally. "Not all of them involve wanting to fuck."

Eames says the first thing that comes to mind, so that he doesn't have to process what he's really thinking: "Maybe you should get fucked more often. I'd say you need it."

"I fuck," Arthur says. He laughs, but it's a caricature of one. "I get fucked. I like it. I just don't like everything that comes with it."

"Ah."

"What."

"I get it. No commitment, no emotional baggage. You're not one for the morning after. Or for any sort of after at all." Eames' tone is inflectionless, and now he dips into mockery, saying, "There are many different ways to fuck someone, and not all of them involve love."

Arthur's hands go still, and he puts the pieces of the gun down on the table. "And sometimes you want both, but you can't always get what you want."

He says it quietly, staring off into space. Eames waits as long as he can, but Arthur doesn't say anything else.

Arthur needs a fight.

He doesn't know it, but Eames can see the coiled energy in his body, strung tight like a violin string. When Arthur snaps, Eames wants it to be worth it.

"Put on a suit," Eames tells him, one evening at sunset.

"Why?"

"We're going out."

Arthur gives him a curious look, but he complies.

They walk inland, past the forested area Ariadne built after Eames complained that flatlands weren't much of a view. In a quarter of an hour, they come to a glass-windowed apartment building standing in the middle of a field. Eames, mock-gracious, holds the elevator doors open for Arthur and they ride it up twenty floors to the top.

At the edge of the flat cement roof, there's a small table and two folding chairs. On the table is a bottle of red wine.

Arthur quirks an eyebrow and sits. Eames pours two wineglasses and offers Arthur one.

He waits out the expectant silence until Arthur's finished his wine. Then he stands up, smiles, and says, "I'm going to take the elevator down. You're going to take the stairs. There's a platoon's worth of projections between you and the lobby. U.S. Marines. Their objective is to keep you from getting there alive."

"Jesus Christ," Arthur says, voice low.

"I designed the building so that the stairs are on opposite ends of each floor. It should make things more interesting," Eames says, walking backwards towards the elevator. "Oh, and watch out for the minefield on floor nine."

"I'm unarmed," Arthur says. He grins, and it's predatory. "I'm unprepared. And I'm wearing four thousand dollars' worth of Zegna."

He's looking at Eames like he wants to fuck him.

"Have fun," Eames says, as the elevator doors start to shut. "I'll be waiting for you at home."

Eames is on the front steps, smoking and attempting to read a book, when Arthur walks out of the forest.

He's covered in blood; his hair is a mess; he looks more alive than Eames has seen him this entire time in Limbo. Along the way he's lost his suit jacket and his tie, and his shirt is missing buttons. He's smiling -- no man should be allowed to have dimples like those while carrying a Glock.

Arthur stops right in front of Eames, throwing aside the gun. He grabs Eames by the tie and drags him to his feet, pulling him into the house.

"They weren't shooting to kill, motherfucker," he growls. "Don't think I couldn't tell."

Eames laughs, stumbling up the stairs behind Arthur. "Was it good for you anyway, darling?"

Arthur locks the door of his room behind him and shoves Eames down onto his bed.

"Fuck yes," he says, dropping to his knees.

He fumbles Eames' shirt half-off, then gives up and goes for his pants. Before Eames has a chance to even touch him, he's got a hand wrapped around Eames' cock, jacking it off as he sucks on the head, dragging his tongue over it in long, flat strokes.

"Shit, what are you -- oh, god, please --"

Arthur slides his mouth all the way down. He takes it deep enough to choke, making noises of pleasure that vibrate against Eames' cock, when he has enough breath to. At some point Eames realises that Arthur's taken off his pants and is reaching down to slick himself with his own fingers. Eames goes dizzy with want.

Arthur climbs into his lap, kissing him. His mouth is messy with spit and precome, and he lets out a sweet little moan when Eames' cock nudges up against his ass.

"Fuck, Eames -- you have no idea how much I wanted this --"

Eames laughs, low in his throat, and rolls his hips. "I do, actually."

Arthur sinks down in one smooth movement, hot silky heat, and starts to fuck himself open on Eames' cock.

The desperation melts out of him, and he falls apart, slutty and unashamed. He goes incoherent, rocking his hips back and forth, and his hands are everywhere -- spread on Eames' chest, carding through his hair; touching himself, fisting his own cock like he can't get enough.

Eames loses track of how long they fuck for.

Every time one of them is close to coming, Arthur slows it right down, to an unhurried, rhythmic clench of his ass, kissing Eames carefully until he's trembling, starved for more. It's frustrating and drawn-out and gorgeous. Eames feels a fever building inside of him, skin over-sensitised from hovering close to orgasm for so long.

Arthur starts to rock his hips again, and Eames makes a pleading noise, but Arthur just smiles and shakes his head. He sucks a bruise into Eames' neck.

Ghosting his fingers down Eames' spine, Arthur settles them in the small of his back, stroking there. He must know what that touch does to Eames; he can't not. "God, I could fuck you forever," he says. His lips move along Eames' jawline and then he whispers, "Okay. Make me come."

Eames shudders, can feel himself jerk inside of Arthur. He wraps a hand around Arthur's cock, pulls once, twice, and that's all it takes -- Arthur clenches around him, coming, eyes fluttering shut.

His body goes languid, his smile content, but he keeps working himself up and down on Eames' cock, achingly slow. Open-mouthed and sloppy, he keeps kissing Eames, until Eames surrenders and lets Arthur bring him closer and closer to the edge, in waves, and when he finally does come --

Jesus fuck.

By the time the world starts to make sense again, Eames is on his back, Arthur curled up beside him, head resting on his chest. They're both shaking a little. Eames breathes, and Arthur presses their mouths together, over and over.

part two >>

music: static on the radio

2010-11-16T10:55:32Z

Dear new(ish) people: if you want to be on the filter where I babble about my actual life, drop me a comment! Otherwise, I post fic, music, TV/book talk, etc. unlocked/unfiltered, so you'll just get that.

A contingent of empty tea mugs is trying to annex my desk, and yesterday I listened to the same song thirty times on repeat. These are signals that I'm overwhelmed by life but totally didn't notice. I'll talk about it when I have time, but meanwhile, have a helping of strange music. I know some of you are doing NaNo and some of you are doing papers, so this is all lyric-less, background stuff that I find good for thinking/reading/writing.

	BURIAL: untrue False advertising, this one isn't really background music. I just wanted to upload it because it's SO FUCKING GOOD. Untrue is a quiet, epic little dubstep album, full of loops and echoes and beautiful haunting noise. It makes me think of loneliness and ghosts on concrete. Also, it's the only stuff I can listen to when I get my migraines-from-hell, so bonus points for that.
	CHRISTIAN PROMMER: drumlesson zwei This is my "work" album. I usually do classwork and studying in total silence, but if I need music to drown out ambient noise (i.e. loud assholes sitting at the next table over) I put on this. It's all clean, chilly beats, tense and fast, good for helping you clear your head.
	SLOW DANCING SOCIETY: underneath the sodium lights This album is like a gorgeous, 50-minute sunset. It's ambient and incredibly emotional. I don't have many words to describe it, but I can't recommend it enough. Perfect writing music, unless you are writing a spy thriller or something.
	HANS-JOACHIM ROEDELIUS: ex animo I don't even know how to describe this, but I love it. It's not electronic, so if you're turned off by all of the weird, beat-heavy stuff I keep throwing at you, rejoice. Ex Animo has a lot of creepy, pensive piano. And Latin song titles. Both good things.
	RACHEL'S: selenography Selenography feels like it could be the soundtrack to an Oscar-nominated period film about sophisticated rich people who live in manors, speak like Fitzgerald characters, and have dark secrets. It's piano and strings, mostly, though there's other neat instrumentation. One of the songs features a harpsichord, which is never not awesome. Sometimes when I'm reading literature that Takes Itself Seriously I put this album on.
	BONOBO: black sands This was my summer album, so it's not really weather-appropriate, but most people don't have my weird hangups about only listening to certain types of music during certain seasons, so. Black Sands is electronic, but it feels incredibly organic: smoky, warm, and addictive, with a few beautiful lyrical tracks.

Let me know what you grab and whether you like any of it. I have other albums by some of these artists, if anyone's interested in more. ♥

fic: this is all there is, roll the dice

2010-10-18T01:31:36Z

title: This is all there is, roll the dice
characters: Arthur/Eames
rating: NC-17
words: ~6,200
summary: A story about desire, fear, and Arthur's smile.

notes: Out of all the Inception fics I have sitting on my hard drive, I never thought I'd finish this one first. Huh. Thanks to the lovely jibrailis for the beta work! Title from a Matthew Good song. I haven't listened to him for years, but if the lyric fits, steal it.

--

This is all there is, roll the dice

The first memory he has of Arthur is from a dream.

Arthur's shirt is torn, and there's blood on the crisp white collar, on his jeans, on his teeth when he grins like he's having the time of his life. He fights his way through the projections, taking seven of them apart with his bare hands before kneeling down next to Eames.

"Hey," Arthur says, rubbing a hand across his face. A smudge of red stays behind on his cheekbone. It's someone else's blood; he's not even breathing hard. Twenty-four and just lured away from the military -- Dom's wasn't lying, he really is something.

"I'm impressed," Eames says. "In fact I think I'd be turned on, if I wasn't bleeding out on the ground."

Arthur laughs, and his smile is genuine, with none of the smirk in it they both get to know so well later. He reaches down, hands gentle, and snaps Eames' neck.

They had met before that, of course: shaken hands, done introductions, spent a week planning out the extraction with Dom and Mal. But that was the moment Arthur came alive in his mind, image burned there like a tattoo.

After the job, Eames lingers until it's only the two of them. Arthur finishes putting away the PASIV, and then turns and looks at Eames. He's probably known Eames was there all along, but he doesn't say anything. Just tilts his head, waiting.

There's something guileless in Arthur's expression, which isn't seen too often in this business. It strips Eames bare.

Eames means to flirt, to smile, to prolong the anticipation a bit longer, but he ends up saying, "Let me buy you a drink."

"You could do that," Arthur says. He pauses, draws out the silence. "Or you could just take me back to my hotel room and fuck me."

Arthur is spread out on the bed. The planes of his body are warm and hard underneath Eames, all compact muscle, and his kisses alternate between innocent, closed-mouth presses and completely filthy surrender. Eames thinks he could do this forever, rutting naked and tangled together in the sheets.

But Arthur's being very insistent, reaching for Eames' cock in a way that's almost pleading.

"Alright, love, alright," Eames says soothingly. He presses a kiss to Arthur's jaw, then slides down Arthur's body, pulling his legs apart. "Have you ever done this before?"

"No."

The look on Arthur's face is unashamed and open. When Eames starts to open him up with slick, lubed-up fingers, it's maybe even a little adoring.

"Fuck," Eames whispers, involuntarily.

Arthur relaxes, going still, as Eames' cock pushes in. His eyes are too wide, but as always he's in perfect control.

"Okay?" Eames says.

"It's fine." Arthur's breathing is even, his voice steady.

"Oh, I want it to be much more than fine, darling," Eames says. He reaches for Arthur's hand and makes him wrap it around his own cock.

Arthur's breath stutters, and a little sigh escapes his lips when Eames thrusts in all the way. He wants Arthur to remember this for the rest of his goddamn life, so he forces himself to respond to Arthur's body, moving slow and careful -- but not for long. Arthur goes from it's fine to yeah, that's good to oh, fuck, Eames very quickly, hips stuttering and encouraging.

Gasping, astonished, he starts to come apart, and it's one of the most beautiful things Eames has ever seen. It's been ten minutes, or maybe it's been half an hour. Arthur's gasps turn into moans, and at first he bites them back, like he's trying to be good and quiet, but Eames coaxes the sound out of him. They both keep their eyes open the entire time, and the intensity of it is hard to bear. The sheen of sweat covers Arthur's chest, which is smooth and unscarred, unmarked like blank slate.

"You're close," Eames says softly, wonderingly, as Arthur's breath begins to falter, and Arthur nods, pressing his eyes shut. In that moment, he looks intolerably young.

Eames leans down to kiss him, wraps his hands around Arthur's on his cock, and that's all it takes. Arthur moans Eames' name into his mouth and comes.

In the morning, he gets out of bed and takes his totem from the bedside table. He'd intended to leave yesterday, he should have left, but something in the way Arthur had curled around him afterwards made that unthinkable.

"Eames?" Arthur says, sleepy.

Eames bends over the bed brushes his lips across Arthur's temple, barely a kiss. "I would fuck you again, but I have a plane to catch," he says gently, and it isn't a lie.

"Mmm, okay," Arthur says, smiling without opening his eyes. "Next time, then."

When next time comes, it's been six months.

Arthur's graduated from dark wash jeans to well-tailored trousers, and his hair is longer, grown out of the military buzz cut. He looks older and younger at the same time.

"Your smile as disarming as ever, love," Eames says, instead of hello.

"You don't look bad yourself," Arthur says.

An hour later, with that smile on his face, Arthur tears apart Eames' extraction plan in front of Dom, like he wants to please, like he's got something to prove.

For the rest of the job, they spend hours arguing over minute details. Eames finds that he loves the challenge and the way Arthur looks at him when Eames turns out to be right. Sometimes, he stands a little too close -- which could mean something, or nothing at all. Arthur's different now, sharper. His posture is more relaxed, but he doesn't wear his emotions on his face the way Eames remembers.

By the time Arthur's satisfied with the plan, it's airtight. The extraction goes flawlessly, they're paid a decent amount -- the jobs they work at this point are still legal -- and Dom invites them both out for drinks.

"Sorry," Arthur says. "I've got other plans tonight."

The look he gives Eames makes him wish they weren't still in public.

Mal glances from Arthur to Eames amusedly, then blows them a kiss goodnight as Dom takes her by the elbow and leads her out the door, oblivious.

They take a taxi, both sliding into the backseat, and Eames can feel the slight tremble of anticipation when he puts a hand on Arthur's knee. Neither of them speak much on the way up to Arthur's room.

Eames shuts the door and fumbles for the light switch, but Arthur doesn't even bother with a kiss.

Eames' back hits the door as Arthur goes to his knees in front of him, hands on Eames' hips, holding him there and mouthing at the line of his cock through his trousers. He moves his lips over the fabric, wet, moaning low and satisfied in his throat until it's too much.

"Arthur," Eames growls, and Arthur's hands move to his belt.

Somehow, he ends up sitting on the edge of the bed in the dark, naked from the waist down. Arthur's between his legs, fully clothed, his mouth slipping over the head of Eames' cock and his hands working up and down the shaft.

Eames flicks on the bedside light, needing to see, and Arthur looks up at him, eyes wide, as he slides his mouth down, taking in more cock until his lips are at the base. Eames' hips snap forward, again and again, he can't help it -- Arthur's throat opens right up for him, and he holds Eames' gaze as he's choked full. Tears begin to form in the corners of his eyes.

Then he does something with his tongue that has Eames holding back a scream, and God, someone has to have taught him that. Eames isn't sure if he's jealous or turned on by the idea of Arthur fucking other men, learning these things to bring back to him.

"Undress," Eames manages, voice rough. "I'm going to fuck you now."

Arthur pulls off and stands up, lips slick and shiny. He undresses slowly, and it takes every ounce of discipline Eames has to keep still as Arthur strips. It turns out he isn't wearing underwear.

Eames bites down on his lower lip, and smiles in satisfaction when Arthur steps forward like he's been hypnotised. He slides his fingers into Eames' mouth, blunt nails dragging across his lip on the way out. He reaches down.

Using the wetness, he thumbs the slit of Eames' cock. Just once. Then he grins, suddenly obedient, and gets on his back on the bed.

Eames tries to go slow, gets one finger in and is about to add a second when Arthur makes a noise deep in his throat and rips the condom open with his teeth.

"Now," Arthur rasps, and Eames is a good man, but not a very good one.

Arthur isn't ready yet; he's unbearably tight, stretched. A noise that's half-pain escapes him, but he gets his hands on Eames' hips and pulls him in, sets the rhythm fast and hard.

His breath comes in whimpers, shocky, and Eames fucks him past the pain, until the words Arthur's moaning aren't even words any more and he comes all over his chest. A moment later Eames follows him, and has to close his eyes. It's too much, Arthur sprawled content beneath him, face open and happy. He leaves after Arthur falls asleep.

It's the beginning of a ritual, sort of. They fuck once after each extraction, and no more than that. No phone calls, no touching before or during the job. No talking about it. No talking around it. It happens a few times a year, for a few years.

Eames realises that there's more to it when he ends the longest relationship he's ever managed, right after getting off the phone with Dom about a job. He may lie like it's his mother tongue, but he won't sleep around on someone he's made a promise to. So the easiest thing to do is to break that promise.

It's becoming a problem, this thing. But when he lets himself into the office space Dom's rented and sees Arthur leaning over a desk, wearing a three-piece suit, he can't bring himself to care.

"Is Mal dressing your boy?" Eames asks Dom, impressed.

Dom laughs. "No, that's all Arthur. Why, you like what you see?"

Eames grins, roguish. They don't get along as well as Eames and Mal, but they've worked together and talked often enough that Eames knows Mal is Dom's whole world, possibly his religion, and Dom knows how Eames is about conquest. Dom's not an idiot. He's probably worked it out by now.

"What," Eames says finally, "you're not going to warn me off?"

"Arthur can take care of himself," says Dom. It's casual, fond, and something else entirely.

Eames reads people for a living, and he wonders. Certain rumours have been circulating in the dreamsharing community.

"So it's true, then? Kiev?"

"Yeah," Dom says shortly. Arthur killed a man to protect me, he doesn't say. The interplay of love and guilt and pride on his face is fascinating.

They go slow, this time.

Eames brings Arthur back to his hotel room, pours him a glass of wine. For hours, all they do is drink and talk. There are two couches, but they sit together on one of them; Arthur shrugs off his suit jacket and Eames can feel the warmth of him when their shoulders press together. A tension hums just underneath every casual touch.

Eames presses his thumb to the corner of Arthur's lip, wiping away a drop of wine.

Arthur smiles a small, closed smile, and lets him get away with it. Eames wants to ask what exactly happened in Kiev, why Arthur rarely smiles any more, but he won't get an answer to either question.

"So tell me, Arthur, why are you in this business?" he asks instead.

"Why are you?"

Sometimes, Eames will play out conversations by rote, flirting, challenging, joking. It's not about the words at all -- what he's really looking for is the pauses, the things left unsaid; the way people laugh, or don't.

"I'm in it for the same reason that Dom and Mal are," Eames says. He doesn't think before he says it, so what slips out is actually the truth. "I like to find out what's possible."

Arthur's voice is fond when he says, "Mal likes to find out what's impossible. And then ignore it."

"This is true," Eames says, amused.

Arthur puts his glass down on the table and half-turns towards Eames, leans in so that they're too close. And then he holds still.

Once, Eames could drift around the edges of Arthur's personal space and study the curve of his lips, and know everything there was to know about him. But it's been three years, and people grow into themselves. Arthur's body isn't as honest as it used to be. It doesn't lie, but it doesn't tell anything, either. He's folded it up and pressed it into the lines of his three-piece suits.

Eames waits.

"You know the feeling you get when you put a gun to your head in a dream?" Arthur says. "Right as you pull the trigger, that half-second of doubt. Panic. Fuck, what if this is actually real? What if I made a mistake?"

Eames hates that feeling.

"I love that feeling," says Arthur.

"Let me fuck you," Eames says.

He wouldn't be above pleading, at this point. He can barely think straight with Arthur sitting in his lap, a warm and heavy weight. He rocks his hips, and Eames gasps as their cocks nudge against each other. The only article of clothing Eames is still wearing is his tie, and Arthur gives it a sharp tug.

"No," Arthur says. "I'm going to fuck you."

He slides off, lifting Eames by the hips and turning him over. Eames goes easily, pliant, but he can feel the strength behind that move, and he realises that if he wanted to resist, to get the upper hand, he couldn't. A year ago, maybe, but not anymore.

The thought makes him moan into the pillow, precome leaking into the sheets. Arthur teases him with his tongue, then works him full of lube as Eames tries to concentrate on breathing.

"Open up for me," Arthur whispers, and laughs appreciatively when Eames relaxes around him, just like that.

He fucks into Eames like he knows exactly what he's doing -- long, deep strokes, palm in the small of his back. When Eames can feel the heat building, Arthur snaps his hips faster, bringing him to the edge -- but then he slows, holding Eames there, torturously close.

"Arthur --"

"I want to make you beg," says Arthur, "but I'll let you get away with just saying please."

"Please."

Arthur bites down on the spot between Eames' neck and shoulder. He lets go, lets Eames' body take what it wants, and Eames comes, hard, clenching around Arthur's cock.

"You should come to Paris with me," Arthur whispers into his ear, about ten minutes later. They're a tangle of limbs, and most of the blankets are on the floor.

Eames pretends to be asleep.

Arthur lets out a sound that's almost a sigh and tugs up the blankets, tucking them around Eames' chest.

This time, it's Arthur who leaves. By the time Eames wakes up, the bed has gone cold.

After James is born, Dom and Mal take a couple of jobs in Los Angeles, so that they can do the majority of their work from home.

Mal is wearing a sundress, holding a pipette and a vial marked with a biohazard symbol. She's mixing sedatives at the kitchen counter, telling Eames about how she and Dom have been experimenting with deeper sedation, more dream levels.

"Mal," Eames says. He grabs her wrist, a tiny bit furious. "You don't have any idea what the risks are. No one does."

"Are you the one with the Ph.D in chemistry?" Mal asks sweetly. "No, wait -- that's me. So don't worry your pretty head."

"I know enough to know that going deeper makes it easier to lose yourself."

Mal turns to him, and her eyes have an edge of cruelty. "I know you," she says. "You forget that sometimes. Look me in the eye and tell me that the possibilities of this don't thrill you."

"Have you ever thought that they also scare me shitless? And that maybe they should scare you, too?"

They're both silent.

Finally Mal says, "Would you make me some coffee? You're the only one who can brew it exactly how I like, you know. Don't tell Dom I said that."

There's something incongruous about Mal; she can frustrate and charm and perplex in a single breath. Eames suspects that's why everyone who meets her falls at least a little in love -- why Dom married her, why Arthur lets her kiss him on the cheek, why Eames is going to shut up and make the coffee.

"It's interesting," Mal says when they sit, hands cupped around her mug. She grins, which most people find disarming, but Eames knows better. "Arthur keeps finding us jobs that need a forger, and turning down the ones that don't."

"Oh," says Eames, noncommittal.

"I'm going to tell you something," Mal says, "so pay attention. I almost didn't marry Dom." She pauses, sips. "The week before the wedding, I thought -- God, he's perfect, it can't last. I'll lose him, and I won't be able to bear it. Once I started thinking it, I couldn't stop. So I booked a flight. I ran away."

"Really?" says Eames. "And then did Dom send Arthur out into the world to track you down with nothing but a flashlight and a Glock?"

Mal laughs. "No," she says. "I came back. I got over myself, and I married him."

Mal tells Eames he should stay with them, but when she opens the door to the guest room he stops short.

There are jackets and dress shirts hanging in the open closet, a stack of paper on the bedside table, next to a pair of cufflinks Eames recognises as Arthur's. There's only one bed, a queen; it's neatly made, clothes folded on top of the covers.

Arthur wears navy flannel pants to sleep, his mind notes traitorously.

"Did you ask Arthur about this?" Eames says, turning to look at Mal.

"Yes. He said yes."

Eames stands there for a long moment. He and Arthur are going to sleep together after this job's done. That's a certainty. Nothing else is. He picks up his suitcase. "Apologies, my dear, but I think I'll find myself a hotel."

The tilt of Mal's head is amused, her smile sad. "I don't understand you."

"I don't, either."

That's a lie, though.

Eames knows what he wants. He just doesn't want to get what he wants, because he understands the nature of desire. It's what makes him so good at his art. His paycheques come because he can give people so much of what they want that they crumble, vulnerable.

The beauty goes out of desire, when you look at it from all angles. When you shatter it along its planes, then forge the pieces back together and wear it like a cheap suit in someone else's dream.

So Eames has always filled his life with things he can get, things that don't matter -- simple hungers and harmless vices. Drugs, in his early twenties. Then gambling, stolen art, an endless string of men and women. Never more than one at a time, and never for very long.

Because this is the thing about a fantasy: it can never be fulfilled, or it will die. The desire for something is always more beautiful than the thing itself.

None of this explains why, after the job, Eames spends a week sleeping in Dom and Mal's guest room.

"Arthur," Eames murmurs when he wakes, "Arthur, Arthur ..."

"Fuck off," Arthur says, rolling across the bed onto his other side. But then he wiggles his hips back until they nudge up against Eames', spooning, and he tugs Eames' arm around him.

"We should fuck now," says Eames. He presses his nose into Arthur's shoulder, into the soft skin of his neck. He runs kisses all the way down Arthur's spine, and Arthur sighs contentedly. But he doesn't wake up, he never does -- if given the option, Arthur will sleep until noon.

So he watches Arthur for a while. Eventually he goes to help Mal cook an elaborate brunch, or to keep Phillipa and James -- who like to "help" -- out of the kitchen. At some point every morning, Arthur walks out of their room with his hair a tousled mess. He takes his coffee in exactly the same way Mal does, eats breakfast with an ankle hooked around Eames' underneath the table, and bullies Dom into helping him finish the crossword.

They spend the afternoons working on dreams. It's comforting to be able to monitor Dom and Mal when they go under. Miles' connections at the university get Mal access to the latest research papers, so Eames reads those for hours while he waits.

After dinner, Eames likes to suggest, "I think Uncle Arthur wants to go play in the park," and Phillipa always gets so excited that Arthur can't say no. He can glare, but he can't say no.

"We've gone to the park every day for the last four days," Arthur says, getting the stroller out of the front hall closet. "Why, Eames? Why?"

"Because," says Eames. "You wear jeans, and you smile like you're ten years old again, and sometimes you even take your shoes off and play in the sand. Really, can you blame me?"

One hand on the closet door, Arthur freezes.

"Arthur?"

Arthur's eyes are soft as he steps towards Eames and places one hand on his chest. He's trying not to smile, but it's not working. He leans in, presses a kiss to Eames' lips, and for a moment they're both breathless and quiet with surprise. It's the first time this has happened and had nothing to do with sex.

Everything about that week is simple and irresistible and when Eames gets a call from someone he owes a favour to in Mombasa, he's relieved that he has to go.

They're in Montreal.

Arthur usually doesn't work for other extractors, but Dom had told him to take this job. He and Mal needed some time off, he'd said. She was tired. So Arthur had given in, and he and Eames are on their second week together in a tiny rented flat. The job ended yesterday, but no one's said anything about leaving yet.

Eames wakes to find Arthur sitting upright in bed, the phone in his lap. He's staring into space.

"Arthur?" Eames says, putting a hand on Arthur's bare hip. "What time is it?"

"It happened," Arthur says in a monotone.

"What?"

"Mal. They went in too deep. They got lost. She's dead."

And finally, the dread that's been hovering in Eames' stomach for months drops. He has to swallow, because he thinks he might throw up. It should feel worse than this, but the truth is, a part of him had known, had been letting go of Mal already.

Arthur keeps staring, eyes empty, like he doesn't want to think. Then he turns to Eames and says, "I need you to fuck me right now."

In the dark, they reach for each other like they're trying to find oblivion.

If Eames hadn't woken up first, in the hours before sunrise, it might have gone differently. Arthur sleeps, sated, and Eames stares at him for what seems like an hour, his mind stuttering on the same thought over and over.

God, he's perfect, it can't last. I'll lose him, and I won't be able to bear it.

Mal had said those words just a few months ago. Eames thinks of them placed ironically, bitterly, into Dom's mouth. He thinks of Arthur, jumping off a ledge to his death, and he tastes acrid fear as the possibility of Mal's words burn against his own tongue.

He leaves. It's the worst thing he's ever done, and he knows it.

He doesn't even bother to take any of his things, just dresses with shaking fingers and pockets his totem. Arthur stays sleeping, a small smile on his lips. He'll probably wake up and assume Eames has just gone to get bagels from the shop down the road -- but eventually it will dawn on him, sick and slow.

The sun doesn't bother to rise that day; it hides behind the clouds. On the train outside the city, Eames looks out the window, mind blank.

The police look into Mal's death, and Eames keeps tabs on the investigation.

Just in case, he sends Arthur five different sets of fake passports and identification papers for him and Dom. He calls in a favour to make sure the two of them can get out of the country. And then he floats the name and the mythos of Dom Cobb to some of the major players in the underground community. Dom's natural talent will take it from there.

There's no way Arthur doesn't know who's behind it all. He and Dom worked on the legal side of things, before. Eames was their only contact whose paycheques hadn't come solely from the government.

But Arthur doesn't try to get in touch. Eames is glad.

Some nights he wakes up missing Arthur so much it's a physical ache, a pulse in his chest. When it happens, he pulls out the PASIV from underneath his bed and slides a line into his wrist.

He's heard that some people who dreamshare too often can't let go. They cling to their memories, building them into a subconscious maze, replaying them over and over, sometimes with revisions, sometimes without.

What Eames does is probably worse. There's a room inside his head that's made of mirrors, where he goes to practice his forgeries.

He closes his eyes and slips into Arthur.

It's as intimate as sex. He knows all of the planes and contours of this body from years of mapping them out. He presses a finger to the sensitive spot behind Arthur's ear, feels the thrill go down his spine. Traces a finger down his bare torso, like a vivisection from sternum to pelvis. Smiles, just to see it light up Arthur's face.

"Eames," he makes Arthur's mouth say. "Eames."

On his last job, he'd turned a street corner and run straight into Arthur -- his mind's projection of Arthur. It had shot Eames just to watch him bleed out. Eames has heard of it happening before: projections turning ugly, manifesting guilt or regret.

But in this space, Eames can remember him exactly as he wants to. Arthur beautiful and tender, ideal forever.

They don't see each other again until the Fischer job.

The first time he walks into the warehouse with Dom, Arthur doesn't even look at him. His hair is slicked back, the line of his spine as inscrutable as the barrel of a gun. He's efficient, professional, condescending in a way that might seem indulgent to an outsider. Arthur belittles, Eames baits. The verbal sparring is a twisted mockery of the way they used to dance around each other.

Eames calls him darling, just to see if he can get a reaction. He can't.

"It's cute, how antagonistic you two are," Ariadne says. She has no idea.

One night he and Arthur work late at the warehouse. Dom might be in the back somewhere, experimenting as usual with God knows what. Eames doesn't need to ask to know that Dom's a total mess. He wants to ask -- he cared about Mal so much that he cares about Dom by extension. But he forfeited his right to a lot of things, when he walked away.

If no one else is around, he and Arthur usually don't bother to talk to each other.

Tonight Arthur says, "Someone told me I had a nice cameo in Switzerland. I've never fucking been to Switzerland."

"Then you're missing out," Eames says, flipping a page of the notes he's scanning. "The Alps are lovely."

"You forged me," Arthur says bluntly.

"Yes," Eames says. He'd needed someone who could get him in and out of an impromptu bank heist, someone a little bit James Dean, and the rest of it had either been sadism or masochism.

"Why?"

"What can I say, darling? You were too perfect. I couldn't resist."

Arthur reserves a single expression for Eames these days, a smirk that says he's mildly disgusted, so Eames doesn't bother to look up.

They all make it out of Fischer's subconscious, and none of them are braindead. It's a small miracle. Eames follows Arthur out of the airport to the taxi queue, though he's not sure why. Because it worked, maybe. Because death still hangs over both of them like an abstract spectre.

Arthur doesn't acknowledge his presence until he reaches for the door handle of a cab and finds Eames' hand there already.

"Okay," Arthur says quietly. "What the hell."

He won't look Eames in the eye, but he jerks his chin at the cab's back door like a command. Eames gets in.

At first, they fumble like strangers. It takes Eames ten minutes to get all of Arthur's clothes off, but when he does, Arthur comes alive. Their bodies remember how to do this.

His mouth is hungry, licking into Eames', biting down on his lower lip. On his shoulder, Arthur's teeth draw blood, and the pain is so good that Arthur ends up sliding his fingers into Eames' mouth to shut him up.

Arthur moves down Eames' body, sucking bruises into his neck, his hips. He gets to Eames' cock and just teases, staring up at Eames as he presses his palm against the base and licks the slit again and again.

"I want you," Arthur says against his skin. "I always want you."

There's too much earnestness there. Eames tells himself it's just the heat of the moment.

"Jesus, enough," Eames says, his hands in Arthur's hair, dragging him up and shoving him onto the bed.

It's nothing like the last time. After Mal killed herself, Arthur had touched Eames like it was a surrender, his body opening up entirely to pleasure, to giving and taking. As if, in the wake of death, all he'd wanted to do was lose himself in Eames and never find his way out.

This time it's like a fight. Arthur wants dominance, and Eames uses everything he knows about Arthur's body to disarm him, make him go limp with pleasure. Roughly, he drags Arthur's hips half-off the edge of the bed, reaching for the condom in his wallet. He takes Arthur's cock into his mouth and clenches his throat around it, one hand flat against Arthur's stomach, the other working Arthur's ass open with spit-slick fingers.

They fuck in total silence. The light is dim enough that if Eames lets his eyes shutter half-closed, he doesn't have to look at the lack of expression Arthur's face.

He has Arthur on his knees, hand braced against the headboard, when he notices it. A scar. It's newly healed, running down Arthur's back from his shoulderblade to his hipbone. Eames has no idea where he got it.

His pace slows. His cock aches inside of Arthur, but he doesn't move, he can't stop looking. Something is twisting in his chest.

"Get a move on, Eames," Arthur growls.

Gentle, Eames bends down. He licks up the length of the scar and back down again, licks the tender skin around it, and yeah, Arthur seems to like that. He drives himself back onto Eames' cock, hard enough to hurt, and comes into Eames' hand with a small cry.

In the morning, Arthur watches him leave.

"You're a damn coward," Arthur says. He sounds tired. "You always were."

After the Fischer job, it makes sense for them to work together.

He and Arthur are at the top of their fields and in high demand. Dom's retired, so Arthur needs an extractor -- and that's a role Eames usually takes, unless he's been hired specifically to forge. He's good enough that he usually does the forgery and the extraction himself; it's more efficient that way.

Arthur calls him.

"There's a job in the States," he says. The connection's bad, and the static warps his voice. "It's not difficult, but it might take a while."

"Arthur," Eames says.

"I want you," Arthur says. "To work with me."

"I'm sorry," Eames says. He hangs up.

In the end, it takes a cliché to make Eames realise what he doesn't have.

They come together in Cortona, because Yusuf calls them both, not knowing that they haven't spoken in a year. The job is so simple that they don't need an architect -- Arthur can manage the basics -- and when one of Yusuf's dreamers in Mombasa has an emergency, they don't have a chemist, either. Yusuf takes the first flight back, leaving them with an apology and the compounds they'll need.

So it's just the two of them. Knowing the responsibility Yusuf feels towards his dreamers, Eames can't even manage to be angry. He and Arthur are terse and civil for the half-day it takes to plan the job.

Then they go under, and it all goes to shit.

The mark doesn't know it's a dream, but it doesn't matter. They'd cut corners on the research, wanting the job to be over; they should have checked his medical records. Eames discovers later that the mark has a long history of mental health issues. When he realises there's something off, and can't figure out what, his projections don't turn on them. He just kills himself.

"Fuck," Arthur says, and puts a bullet in his skull.

Eames catches Arthur's body as it falls, lowering it to the ground. Then he does the same.

He wakes to find Arthur on his knees in front of the mark, his eyes closed in rare surrender. There's a gun pressed to his forehead. The mark has his back to Eames, so Eames can see Arthur's expression clearly.

The look on his face says, I know I'm going to die, and for a second, Eames knows it, too.

The mark's shoulders shift as he prepares for the recoil, and Eames doesn't even think, just reaches for his gun and --

A shot goes off. The mark crumples.

Neither of them say anything.

Arthur bends over the man's body, checking it, then stands up. His voice doesn't waver when he speaks. "You got him in the shoulder. He'll live. We need to call a hospital and then get the hell out of this city."

He starts to put away the PASIV, but Eames comes up behind him and takes over. Arthur doesn't protest, and Eames places a hand in the small of his back and guides him out of the room, into the hallway.

After closing the door, Eames drops the PASIV on the floor and presses Arthur back against the wall, until there isn't an inch of space separating them. He runs his hands over Arthur's body, not searching for anything specific; he just needs to touch, to reassure himself.

"Arthur," Eames says. He leans in, pressing their foreheads together. "Remember what you said once about that moment of panic, right before you pull the trigger? The thought that you've made a mistake?"

"Yes?" Arthur says, confused but unresisting.

A tremble runs between them. Eames can't tell whose it is. He cups Arthur's face in both hands, something he's never done before, and almost can't believe he's doing it.

He's fucking terrified of this. He always has been. It doesn't matter.

"When I saw you on your knees like that, I knew I'd made one. I'd waited too long, I was too late."

"Eames --"

"I'm sorry," Eames says. "Arthur. Please."

"Eames," Arthur says again. He smiles the smile that Eames fell in love with years ago. It's open and adoring and he looks so intolerably young, just like he did at the beginning.

Arthur presses his lips to Eames', and says into his mouth, "You're not too late."

merlin vid rec

2010-09-24T09:17:38Z

I was going to make a proper post, but it's 3am and I'm still not asleep and such_heights's Merlin vidlet Backseat just made me fall apart and cry. It's stunning. Go watch it. ♥

Merlin is breaking my heart this season. I haven't even managed to watch 3.02 yet, I don't have the courage. (Or the time to be honest. Oh god, school! *clings*)

I mean, it used to just be romanticised, idealistic children's fantasy that was so ridiculously cheesy and over-the-top it was perfect. It played the tropes well; it was a happy, safe thing that made me smile every week -- and now that it's not, it feels like my childhood is being murdered. It's very sad. I think I've managed to assimilate my issues with the show (see: here & here) to my issues with the death of idealism, or something really weird like that.

music: ten albums I can't get enough of lately

2010-09-16T02:57:40Z

I come bearing gifts! This thing took forever to put together, so I hope you can get at least an album or two that you like out of it. All I ask is that if you do end up liking something, report back to me and talk to me about it! Very few of my offline friends have similar music tastes, so I never get to talk about music, even though I really love doing so. ♥

These aren't my favourite albums of all time (that post is elsewhere), but they're ten albums that, for the moment, I can listen to over and over again. Warning: superlatives lie ahead.

	REVERIE SOUND REVUE: reverie sound revue This is on my next list of desert island albums. This classifies as Canadian indie pop (the vocalist, Lisa Lobsinger, tours with Broken Social Scene), but it's so much more than that; it's ethereal. The guitar work is intricate, mesmerising, gossamer stuff, and the vocals are beautiful. The album makes me feel like I've been thrust into a modern city fairytale.
	METRIC: fantasies My love for Metric is cherise's fault, she uploaded their acoustic album and I fell in love with it. And then I fell in love with the wall of flawless, overwhelming sound that is Fantasies. I wouldn't change a single thing about this album, which is a rare find. Every single song is good, several are brilliant, and something about Emily Haines' voice makes it transcendent.
	ANNIE: anniemal Annie has been described as Madonna for hipsters, which -- okay, whatever, what does that even mean? All that matters is that this album is sonically amazing and it takes me into huge emotional spaces. It's suffused with melancholy, with desire, with attitude, and awesome beats. As a bonus, here's a non-album that's my undisputed favourite song right now: Two of Hearts.
	ELLIE GOULDING: lights God, I listened to this album so much, I think I have most of the lyrics memorised. Ellie's voice is vulnerable and yearning, and her delivery is completely heartfelt. Sonically it's a combination of folksy warmth and vast electronic beats: listen to it LOUD. And snag this coversong, which has made me cry on multiple occasions: Be Mine.
	HOLLY MIRANDA: the magician's private library Yes, I admit it. I downloaded this on a whim because who can resist an album title like that? And it ended up captivating me. Dreamlike vocals are layered with electronics, a combination I always love; this really is an album to dissolve in. Plus, "Joints" is about Holly's battle with fibromyalgia (!).
	LIBRARY VOICES: denim on denim Yeah, I also gave them a try because of the word "library." Their lyrics really are as geeky & literate as the name promises! Their sound is kind of like chamber pop, but harder-edged: "chamber rock," maybe? Songs like "Bodies of Fiction" and "End Time" (a song about being okay about death!) drew me in, and the catchy, happy-yet-wistful sound kept me there. The album's been growing on me ever since.
	YEAH YEAH YEAHS: is is My favourite Yeah Yeah Yeahs album is actually Fever To Tell, followed by It's Blitz!, but this is the one I'm into right now. Five totally solid rock songs filled with frenetic energy. Also, it's not on this EP, but it's my favourite Yeah Yeah Yeahs song, so here: Phenomena.
	CARINA ROUND: things you should know Carina Round is seriously stunning. I need her next album to come out, stat. She has the sirenlike quality of Sarah Slean and Charlotte Martin, plus a vulnerability and rawness that's incredibly seductive. The emotional precision of her lyrics and of her voice send shivers up my spine. This one's just an EP, but you need it.
	The XX: xx Listening to The XX is like being haunted by a ghost who does really slick guitar work. It's a good thing, I promise. This is a subtle, quiet album, with understated, sensual vocals (most songs feature two intertwining vocalists, one male, one female). Excellent for pensive, late-night listening.
	TORO Y MOI: causers of this I don't know if anyone will even like this, but I'm uploading it anyway because I fucking adore it. This is addictive, schizophrenic electronica filled with loops that make your brain feel like it's tripping over itself. It feels icy and warm at the same time, and listening to it is like being washed clean and left with a feeling of total peace. Although most people tell me it gives them a headache, but what do they know.

I should do this more often, because I get an inordinate amount of joy out of sharing music. I've thought about this a bit and figured out why: it's an easy way to give a part of yourself to someone else. Because words are hard, and saying something true about yourself can make you vulnerable. If a friend's hurting, sometimes words do nothing, but if you can give them a couple of songs that got you through a hard time, and it does the same for them -- then that's communication, that's a meaningful connection. And I mean, it's not always about the angst. Sometimes I just love something and want to make other people happy by sharing it with them. Things don't always have to be (as) complicated (as I make them).

And now I must get back to doing readings for class tomorrow; upcoming post on that! I'm already behind, and this actually fills me with joy, because it's such a return to the familiar. It's been a while since I've had readings to be behind on. (Although ... it's fifty pages of Marx, which is not so thrilling. I hate reading Marx.)

wanderlight @ 2010-07-29T20:25:00

2010-07-30T02:21:34Z

The new Livejournal 404 page features the creepiest goat I've ever seen. Frank, what happened?

wanderlight @ 2010-07-05T07:05:00

2010-07-05T13:02:52Z

Hope feels like being strangled as you watch the sunrise after being up all night long.

books, post-whoday, etc.

2010-04-26T01:36:11Z

(1) Does anyone besides me & breathingbooks watch Avatar: The Last Airbender? (The delightful TV show, not the big cinema thing, which I still haven't seen.)

(2) I found a ton of books at my favourite annual booksale. It's held in this huge empty hangar that typically stores -- airplanes, I think, and you have to put in a lot of searching but you can get great condition paperbacks for $1 each (YES REALLY).

Books which will go on the to-read pile
- The Portable Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufmann (I think I'm due for a re-read of Thus Spoke Zarathustra now that I've got a better handle on Nietzsche, and kind of love the dude)
- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
- The Door Into Fire, Diane Duane (are these even in print anymore?)
- London, Edward Rutherfurd
- The Mists of Avalon, Marrion Zimmer Bradley (flist, is this any good?)

Books I've read
- To Visit the Queen, Diane Duane
- Deep Wizardry, Diane Duane (don't you hate it when publishers switch editions halfway through publishing a series and you want the covers to match so you go and re-buy everything?)
- Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke

Books which I've tried to read in the past, and couldn't, but bought again because they were really nice editions and every book deserves a second chance
- Old School, Tobias Wolff
- A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Yiyun Li
- The Passion, Jeanette Winterson (I even own this already, but it's this adorable little 4.5" x 6" hardback edition!)

Books I bought for as late Christmas/birthday gifts for people, many of which I've read & loved
- The Gilded Chain, Dave Duncan (how come Dave Duncan's writing got worse over time, dammit?)
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- three volumes of The Canadian Review of Comparative Literature for my friend who's majoring in Comp Lit
- If on a winter's night a traveller, Italo Calvino (have bought five copies of this during my lifetime, not joking)
- The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield
- Salamander, Thomas Wharton (♥)

I really need another bookshelf. I have about four shelves' worth of books that are just stacked on random surfaces all around my room, but I'm running out of random surfaces now ...

(3) No post last Whoday because I wasn't really overly thrilled with the Lego-block Daleks, but this week essentially combined two of my favourite things, the Weeping Angels & River Song. Also, Moffat didn't make me cry this week! He did make me scream a lot, though. Six times.

5.04: the time of angels

a. Just curious, but what happens if, while staring at it the whole time, you rig a quantum-locked Angel up with explosives and blow it to pieces?

b. I adore River Song -- I love how much she's unsettling the Doctor by knowing everything about their future while he, for once, knows nothing. I think it's very interesting that we're seeing the Doctor humbled on a few occasions, this season.

c. Not sure if it's the dialogue or the delivery, but whatever it is, it's working! Love it between Eleven & River, and love it between Eleven & Amy in general.

"You haven't landed."
"Of course we landed. I just landed her."
"But, it didn't make the noise."
"What noise?"
"You know, the ... *cute rendition of the TARDIS wheezing noise*"
"It's not supposed to make that noise. You leave the brakes on."
"Yeah ... well. It's a brilliant noise. I love that noise."

d. Mmm, voice-stealing. Church Marine Bob explaining he was dead, he'd been killed, reminded me of -- on a totally unrelated note -- the Cotard delusion, which is one of my favourite things ever.

so it seems I am posting about Who again

2010-04-12T05:46:53Z

(1) Show, are you going to make me cry every week?

5.02: the beast below

a. The opening shot of Starship UK was a tiny piece of absolute beauty -- this is what exploring space & time should be like. ♥

b. I continue to adore Amy's attitude. She strikes a nice balance: a little fed-up cynicism (of the "you hopped into that box and left me hanging for twelve years, why should I listen to anything you say?!" type), a little delighted wonder.

c. I sort of feel like this ep had so much lovely stuff it hardly fit into 42 minutes. A two-parter might have been able to explore Liz Ten (who rocked, by the way) & the Smilers & the whole repressive government thing more, all of which I were intrigued by. I sort of wonder if mysterious things that weren't resolved will be later in the season, though? That mysterious crack seems to be threading itself through the story, to begin with ...

d. Continuing to be impressed by the aesthetic. I said this to faeriemaiden already: something about the Davies era was very crayon-y, whereas Moffat seems to be using pencil crayons, or maybe oil paints? More finesse, more shading-in.

e. So we've got the Doctor having to make a hard call, as per usual, with angry resignation, and you can almost feel the tiredness in him as he realises What He Has To Do, Again -- but then, because she's clever, and doesn't take the Doctor's word for law, Amy figures it out. And he doesn't have to kill the star whale, or anyone on Starship UK, and no one dies. I feel like this could be a kind of pivotal thing, between Davies and Moffat -- and these are, of course, blanket generalisations, not careful delineations -- or at least I hope it could be: that this Doctor will be allowed, by the writers, to be merciful and kind. It nearly killed me, to see the look in Ten's eyes, the despair settling in as he had to let people die, or the people he loved suffered because of him ("The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End"), and having to make impossible choices all the time. I just -- I don't know; too much of that and the magic goes out of it, for me.

f. "All that pain, and the misery, and loneliness -- and it just made it kind."

g. Oh, and at the end, there? One of the loveliest platonic hugs ever. \o/

(2) What was your first Who episode, everyone? (Or, failing that, the first one that drew you in, and why?) I'm curious about this because it seems that for everyone who knows avendya and ressie_noldo, it's "The Girl in the Fireplace" (I swear it was a widespread conspiracy, you two got us all), but there must be other firsts out there?

"I am definitely a madman with a box."

2010-04-09T04:28:00Z

(1) Most important things first, obviously!

I kind of feel like that episode was written just for me. ♥ Obviously it wasn't, but I think some of you might know what I mean when I say: I've been that girl, sitting on her suitcase and waiting into the early hours of the morning for the magic to come back. Except that it never does, in the real world -- not in five minutes, not in fourteen years. In the end you just grow up, and there's no Doctor to fix that.

But for 42 minutes every week, for the next twelve weeks, we can at least pretend?

In less ponder-y terms:

5.01: the eleventh hour

a. I thought the plot was a little silly, but pacing & dialogue & character exploration was excellent, and it's all very ... neat? I don't know, most Doctor Who episodes have this messy (= campy, ridiculous, sixty-seven plotholes, etc.) quality to them that makes it hard for me to rewatch, even if I enjoyed them the first time around. Moffat's episodes hold up even after I've watched them three, four, five times, though. Which isn't to say RTD et al.'s don't -- "Tooth and Claw," "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit," and "The Waters of Mars" all got rewatches from me this year, and probably will next year!

b. I also like the aesthetic; I don't know enough about these things to say intelligent things, just that it's more subdued, more fairytale, more carefully-constructed, and I like it.

c. I love Eleven already, but I feel like he still needs some time to shed Ten and settle into himself. Snap judgment? Ten had this immediate intensity about him, he was very self-contained even though he was ridiculously expressive. Eleven is ... less so. More childlike, less swagger, which is in no way a value judgment!

d. I also miss Ten already. I will probably be watching old eps to console myself for the next few weeks.

e. New TARDIS! :D You should all watch the Confidential, if only to get a good look at the inside of the beautiful thing.

f. Not sure if I've expressed this enough, so, basically: :D :D :D!

(2) I was going to say some stuff about my life, but I'd rather just bask in the happy glow of Who, so here! Steal an .mp3 of Amy's Theme, which is gorgeous, and which, appropriately, I stole from such_heights.

♫ murray gold: amy's theme

And now, I should go bake bread (gluten-free, egg-free, dairy-free, alas), so that I have something to toast and have with my tea (decaffeinated, alas) tomorrow. :)

wanderlight @ 2010-02-18T01:03:00

2010-02-18T08:03:50Z

Well.

This post has been through several sittings of deleting and editing and staring at the screen. Hopefully this is the last, and I can just say what I mean to say, or somehow stumble into finding out what I mean to say.

I've been a terrible friend and correspondent, and neglected all of you for a long time. I'd like to come back, though. I miss the conversations, I miss keeping up with your lives. But the thing I keep stumbling on, the other half of keeping a livejournal, is posting about my own life.

Because I just … really can't manage it. As you know this past year has been hard, and getting increasingly harder. I am very, very sick. I am at the lowest point I've ever been, physically and psychologically -- and getting worse. Psychologically, know I desperately need some sort of help and I've been struggling to cope, but no matter what I try, it hasn't been working. And I simply can't talk about what is happening to me, except vaguely and circuitously. I can't seem to say anything meaningful or cathartic about it. I don't have the strength, or the perspective, or the coping mechanisms, or whatever. Which is why, if you've asked how things are, I haven't responded. I appreciate it so, so much, and I apologise, but I honestly don't know what to say.

The closest I can come to describing it is as some sort of psychological trauma, an open wound that won't speak or heal. I've gone through a year and a half of unrelenting, totally meaningless suffering, pain and fatigue that just keeps coming and destroying my body and my life and my will, and I can't do a single thing about it. I am powerless. And I am powerless to stop what it does to me: in many ways I don't think I'm recognisable as myself any more. I feel very little connection to who I was before, or the people around me, or even the world I live in -- my day-to-day experiences are just so far removed from any semblance of healthy, normal reality.

But I digress into dangerous territory. -- The plan is: to write again. To communicate. To reach out to everyone I miss, involve myself in your lives again, and begin to talk about things, if you are willing to listen. I'd like to begin by talking about the things I can talk about -- the 10%, the surface of lived experience; books, movies and television, academics, fandom, what I had for dinner. And hopefully I will, eventually, again, be able to talk meaningfully about what is happening to me.

I do want to declare a defriending amnesty, just in case I reach that point. I've changed so much, and I'm sure many of you have. I do want to (eventually, maybe) talk frankly about illness and disability, because those are huge parts of my life now. But for a lot of you, that's definitely not what you signed up for when you friended me, however long ago. So if we part ways now, honestly -- no hard feelings. ♥ And for those who are willing to re-acquaint yourselves with someone who is, perhaps, not the person you knew last year -- hi!

wanderlight @ 2009-10-20T20:38:00

2009-10-21T02:50:26Z

So, faeriemaiden is not only a lovely individual, she also has a truly gorgeous voice. Jolene's started singing, recording, and uploading songs at come_all_ye, and will be posting them all next week. Even if you have no idea who she is, I encourage head over in that direction; your ears will thank you, I promise! She's trying to make some money to move to a new city, so she's asking for donations of whatever you think the songs are worth, but even if you're broke, take a moment just to listen. And tell her how beautiful her voice is. :)

music: desert island albums

2009-10-19T02:49:22Z

As a tiny gift to all of you, here are my ten favourite albums. I've uploaded and described them for your listening pleasure. ♥ You might find the selection surprising. A lot of stuff I love didn't make the cut; I'll upload the runners-up soon. Also, if this selection is representative, I'm not big on happy music and excellent lyrics are essential -- but I knew that already.

Described these in terms of what they sound like and evoke, not in terms of other albums & artists, because that doesn't do them justice. If you'd like me to try and describe something further, though, just let me know, and I'll try to do so using what I know about your music taste. :)

	NOE VENABLE: the summer storm journals Many thanks to Ren & Nelle for introducing me, because this has become my favourite album. It's otherworldly, it's shocking, it holds up over hundreds of listens. The dense & layered arrangements of piano, guitar, drums, occasional electronic noise & other odd percussion have amazing clarity, and her ethereal voice and lyrics spin it all together.
	CHARLOTTE MARTIN: stromata There are three things that really pull me into music: beautiful piano, electronic beats, and a stunning voice. Charlotte Martin's music is a synergy of all three, and she's probably my favourite artist. Her stuff is bravely experimental, but she knows her way around a good melody, too. This album shows off her (impressive) range, from piano ballads to breakbeats to opera.
	SARAH MCLACHLAN: fumbling towards ecstasy The first album I ever fell in love with. Disregard whatever connotation the words "Sarah McLachlan" have for you -- her recent stuff is pretty meh -- this album is pure melancholy, contemplative genius. It's honestly indescribable; it's emotionally captivating. I like to listen to it on repeat in the almost-dark.
	TORI AMOS: little earthquakes Tori Amos: the best thing that ever happened to a piano. I listened to nothing but Tori for a year straight, and this is my quintessential piano-pop album: idiosyncratic, but ultimately personal, so goddamn real and emotive. Each of these songs has a beating heart of its own. I'm not an outwardly emotional person, but Little Earthquakes makes me laugh and cry and scream.
	VIENNA TENG: dreaming through the noise This albums wins over Waking Hour by a smidgen, but you can't go wrong with Vienna Teng, really. She's an amazing lyricist, wise and empathetic and imaginative. Vienna once described songs as people: the music is what they look like, what they're dressed up in, but the lyrics are their soul. If that's the case, her songs are stunningly beautiful, fascinating people, each of whom you'd really like to get to know.
	PATRICK WOLF: lycanthropy Patrick Wolf played all of the instruments on this album and then made the thing on his laptop, and it's fucking brilliant. In addition to being musically daring, he's batshit insane, and that's channeled straight into these songs. Organic & electronic at the same time, angry and pensive, wise and imaginative, and really just primal.
	BLOC PARTY: silent alarm It's been said before, but dear Bloc Party: this is a perfect rock album. We don't mind if you keep trying, boys, but you're never going to top it. Bleak anthems for disaffected youth. It's tightly wound from beginning to end. It's kind of unstoppable. It sounds really, really good. You will dance. Or tap a foot, at the very least.
	BEAR MCCREARY: terminator: the sarah connor chronicles soundtrack (parts 1 & 2) Tense, distraught violins and glitchy electronic noise tooled to perfection. Strange choice, I know, but Bear McCreary is a god. He also composed the BSG soundtracks -- which I love too, but nothing can touch this. This is like the soundtrack to an apocalypse. A quiet mind-fuck of an apocalypse, anyway.
	PJ HARVEY: is this desire? This album is like being in a haunted manor in the middle of a misty fen: it's raining lightly; you're surrounded by jagged cliffs, the occasional spindly copse of trees; the air is so thick with lost wailing ghosts you can barely breathe. The songs are made of piano, electronic beats, and PJ Harvey's otherworldly voice, and when you listen to it you can almost lift the veil.
	EMILY HAINES: knives don't have your back I don't like Metric. I love Emily Haines. This album is essentially the thick smoke of her voice drifting over sad piano, accented by strings & horns, singing about self-discovery, loss, isolation, societal pressure, and meaning. On winter nights when I want to think and brood a little, I wrap myself up in these songs and just dissolve.

So, DISCUSS. These are my favourite albums, I could talk about them forever. Oh, also let me know what you take and what you enjoy. And if you can pick just ten, too, I'd love to know your list.

fic: do you remember? (hp, remus/sirius, r)

2009-08-23T03:56:43Z

My first R/S in I don't even know how long: I fail at bed rest, but this was worth it. For dogdaysofsummer, but more specifically for glass_icarus, whose beautiful writing inspires. ♥

title: Do you remember?
pairing: Remus/Sirius
rating: R
words: ~800
summary: "You remember," Sirius says. He bites down on his bottom lip, deliberately, and Remus shudders.

notes: Written for dogdaysofsummer day 22.

--

do you remember? (r)

They sprawl across the roof, haphazardly strung together by touching elbows and hips and the bottle of beer that's passed around: James-Sirius-Remus-Peter, one entity. It's the second week in July, after seventh year, and they're spending it suspended in limbo at the Potters' summer house.

For the past hour they've played a lazy, half-drunk game of "Do you remember?": a parade of the best and worst moments of the glory years. It's too fucking hot but Remus doesn't move away from the heat of Sirius pressed up against his side, Sirius' hand on his knee, casually, like it's an accident.

"Do you remember when," says Peter pensively, "we all ran into Sirius and Tony Baker, making out behind Greenhouse Two?"

"Oh, shit," Sirius moans.

"Oh Merlin," says James. "I remember, but I wish I didn't."

"Everyone's allowed to experiment," Remus says, vaguely gesturing with the beer. He finishes it off and tosses it from the roof, swish-and-flick of his wrist. It clinks against the other empties littering the flower-beds below; a random scattering, crushing the marigolds. "Sirius, pass me another?"

Remus' fingers brush Sirius' on the neck of the bottle, and, in the languor of his movements, stay. Almost by accident, he catches Sirius watching him with a half-smile. Remus could almost take a picture of that, in profile: jagged fall of dark hair, long-lashed eye, haughty nose, lips stained red, faint scar along the chin -- all contrasting against the empty blue sky. He wishes James or Peter would say something to shatter the moment.

Sirius arches an eyebrow like a question.

"What?"

"Do you remember," Sirius says, voice low, "the Astronomy Tower?"

"No," Remus says, not looking away. Sirius' eyes say, I know you do.

He does.

The memory is tucked down underneath layers of memorised spells and childhood memories and random Muggle trivia, but when Remus tugs it, carefully, to the surface, it's still intact, a Technicolour snapshot. Just him and Sirius, alone, together, a little cold in the dark.

They'd shared a bottle, very much like this. About a year ago. Must've been more than one bottle actually, and a little bit of something else: they were shoulder-to-shoulder, sharing warmth, and then a misplaced joke about getting off and somehow Sirius was practically in Remus' lap, lips against his jaw, sharing breath. Want to? Sirius looking up at him, grin like a dirty secret and pupils blown. What the hell, Sirius? And then the light pressure of teeth -- like this, Moony, like this -- and that was all it took for Remus to part his lips for Sirius' tongue, like an invitation.

"You remember," Sirius says. He bites down on his bottom lip, deliberately, and Remus shudders.

Exposed to air and sky at the top of the tower, they'd been silent, catching each other's moans in their mouths. Hands on shoulders, waists, the small of his back, desperately undoing belts, discarding clothes like inhibitions on the stones. Hard angles and planes fitting up against each other. Getting elbows and knees out of the way until it was just the long line of Sirius' body pressing into his, hard, laying him down on the ground. Sometimes at night, closed in by bed-curtains, Remus allows himself to remember the slide of Sirius' bare, sweat-slick skin stuttering across his own.

See, more fun this way, Sirius had said, as the ache built -- then Remus was struggling out and fumbling on his clothes. Sirius had lain there, hard and trembling and shocked, and Remus turned and walked away without saying anything or looking back. Because fuck if the thing he'd wanted for five years was just going to be just a night of fun to forget about when the next skirt walked by. If it could only be that he'd rather have nothing at all, even if walking away was the hardest thing he'd done in his life.

The next morning, Sirius had looked at him maybe a second too long. But neither of them had said anything, then or ever again.

"What?" James says. "What happened on the Astronomy Tower?"

"Never mind," Sirius says evenly.

Remus tugs the bottle from Sirius' fingers and looks away. Down below the view stretches out in front of them forever like peace, green green green and a single tree crouching on the horizon. "It's nothing, James."

Sirius says, too suddenly: "Oi, Prongs, do you remember when you got drunk and did Melanie Stephens?"

"What?" James sits bolt upright. "No, actually, I don't remember! How drunk was I? When did I --"

"It's okay, Prongs," Peter says, long-suffering. "He's just fucking with you."

Sirius claps James on the shoulder and grins.

James nearly succeeds in pushing Sirius off the roof, and in the scuffle, they all forget. So Remus can bury the memory again, under Sirius' indifference and the summer heat.

--

Feedback is treasured.

rita's oatmeal recipe

2009-07-23T19:38:41Z

Oatmeal is highly underrated. No one I know likes it, but I love it, I eat it every day, and I firstly maintain that once you've tried it my way, you'll be converted. I'm not much of a cook, but I can do oatmeal, I promise. Here's the result of many breakfasts of neurotic tinkering:

OATMEAL

Some of my measures are odd -- I actually use this tiny handmade bowl my aunt gave me to measure out the oats, which isn't exactly a standard measure -- but I've approximated?

1. Bring slightly less than 2/3 cup water to a boil on high on the stove in a small pot.
2. Add a heaping 1/3 cup of Quaker quick oats, stir.¹
3. Turn heat to low and cook for ~3 minutes, until desired consistency is reached.²
4. Add:
-- 1 teaspoon³ honey⁴
-- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
-- 1 teaspoon milk or cream
-- cashews, chopped dried apricots, and cranberries
5. Stir, lots.
6. Put in a pretty bowl. At this point you'll probably think, "Great, this is barely enough oatmeal to feed a small gnome," but I promise it's more filling than you think.
7. Don't forget to turn off the stove or your family will talk about how you almost burned the house down for, like, a week.

1 I've been told steel cut oats are good. I know from experience that Red Robin oats are always unsalvageable.
2 This is the most important part! If your oatmeal is goopy, nothing will save it. "Desired consistency" means a little creamy and a little chewy; the the oatmeal should stick to the pot a little and, if you put it in a sifter or a sieve (er, don't ask), no water should come off. Obviously it's personal choice, cook more to make creamier and less if it's too mushy, etc.
3 Teaspoon is not an actual teaspoon. In my house we have, um, big dinner spoons and little snack spoons and I use the little spoons. But a teaspoon is about right, I think.
4 Or marmalade; I just tried that today and it's fantastic. Usually I just use clover honey, though.

In other news, my dad finally comes home from China today, I've started an excellent new book, and I'm seeing Mother Mother in concert tonight with friends. \o/

dun-dun-dun TORCHWOOD

2009-07-20T03:58:09Z

What the fuck happened? Where can the show possibly go from here? I just watched it all in one go with my friend Sam -- and lots of comfort tea -- and our reactions were basically, "How can there be a fourth season after this?!"

I mean. They've killed off or ruined (i.e., Jack) almost everyone we care about, they've blown up Torchwood base, they've made us hate the human race, and there is not one shred of hope left at this point.

And I am really, really upset about Ianto.

Okay, yes, in many ways it was really well-written. Tense narrative, awesome undercover-spy stuff, moral grey areas, political twistings, creepy aliens without too much crappy CGI, some really beautifully-shot scenes. I love end-of-the-world stuff. But character-wise, they've destroyed the core of the show completely, and without strong character narratives, none of that other stuff matters. I've never been hugely fannish about Torchwood -- I'd rather have lots of Doctor Who -- but I'd really fallen in love with everyone & everything by the end of season two, and now that's all gone.

From a strictly plot POV, I can see a couple of ways Torchwood can reboot next season (five years in the future, Gwen is running Torchwood, and angstier!than!ever!Jack returns, etc.) but from a character POV, the show is dead. Largely because practically everyone is dead.

To end on the single happy note, I do really like the character transformation Rhys has undergone! Plus an excellent article on CoE here.

Re. RaceFail, if you haven't seen it yet, this. \o/!

housewarming party?

2008-08-07T03:07:38Z

Hello, world. I lost my entire iTunes library and all of my bookmarks today, so instead of moping I decided to (mis-)interpret it as a sign to restart. Thus I am posting while my reinstalled iTunes chugs along re-adding & analyzing gapless playback, whatever that is.

At times this past year I indulged my crazy scheme of wiping the slate clean, regaining my tabula rasa, and writing a new self. It's impossible, naturally. I scribbled madly, I furiously debated myself, I experimented with rejecting cynicism (yeah, so not happening), I tried to Do New Things and get my life in order (also not happening), I didn't sleep (not exactly a new thing) ... and I'm essentially the same person, albeit slightly saner and with a more balanced viewpoint. Theoretically. I still haven't made it to Rita 2.0, but I like to think of me as Rita 1.5 at least.

I've been peeking at the flist during hiatus -- well, "hiatus", you know how it goes -- so I have a vague idea of what's passed. I've still missed you all. My passive reading of your lives makes you almost books instead of people, but people make much better friends than books -- so I've come to grudgingly accept.

So: consider this a return. Of sorts. I'm ~~wiser~~ (hahaha) more wary of the computer's timesink nature now, so I limit my time to the bare minimum, but you're all worth teetering on the precipice of online addiction for. Or maybe standing back a foot. So no IM or anything, but I should be able to eke out a couple minutes every day to keep the LJ from dustgathering.

I realise I'm a stranger now, and people rarely grant favours to strangers -- but I don't want to remain one, so hello! I'd love to hear a little bit about your lives, your thoughts, and where you're at. ♥

[original: EXISTENTIAL CRISES: THE FACTS]

2008-03-14T02:27:55Z

Post-angst Rita + procrastination + three heaping spoonfuls of self-deprecation = "I KICKBOX NIETZSCHE OWLS IN MY DREAMS!" I wrote this a few weeks ago while I was going insane and not sleeping very much.

Dear Doctor,
     I suspect that I may have an existential crisis. Can you tell me a bit about the causes, symptoms, and side effects? What should I do to protect myself against an existential crisis in the future?
     -- Waiting for Godot

Dear Waiting,
     Existential crises are a relatively uncommon phenomenon among the general population. I would suggest that the only cure you need is a swift kick in the ass, but enclosed is an information leaflet from the Canadian Meaning of Life Foundation which you may find helpful.

EXISTENTIAL CRISES: THE FACTS
Overview
An existential crisis is a vicious cycle of thought in which a person questions himself/herself, the world, and the meaning of existence. It is caused by excessive thought and/or exposure to high levels of epistemology. Everyone who thinks is at risk of contracting an existential crisis, but rates of occurrence are especially high among disaffected, over-indulged 20th-century suburban youth.

If you suspect that someone close to you may be experiencing an existential crisis, do not hesitate to recommend that they see a professional. For further information and treatment, please contact Albert Camus or your family doctor.

Symptoms and Side Effects
Symptoms of an existential crisis include pacing, emotional distress, psychological breakdown, bad faith, absurdity, nausea, fear and trembling, and, in severe cases, shooting an Arab. Side effects of an existential crisis may include pretentiousness and/or repeatedly asking the question, "Why?"

To cope with their existentialism, people may turn to either nihilism or bad poetry. If these occur, seek professional help immediately.

Transmission and Recurrence
Existentialism spreads through mental contact with someone who has experienced an existential crisis in the past. Be careful: at the time of transmission, the carrier may not be symptomatic. Existentialism is a virus that infects the subconscious and remains latent until triggered.

An outbreak may be triggered or exacerbated by insomnia, religion, cynics, Fight Club, crime, punishment, Friedrich Nietzsche, or prolonged exposure to academia. If not treated, symptoms may recur at any time.

Treatment and Prevention
Existential crises are a fairly recent phenomenon, only truly surfacing in the 20th century. As such, there is no effective documented treatment. Most existing treatments are holistic. Love, God, and caffeine are reputed to shorten or prevent existential crises, but all evidence is anecdotal.

There is no cure for existentialism. However, this is no reason to give up on life.

--

*bows* You may throw fruit at me now. But not apples, please. I'm allergic to those.