I told myself: "okay, you haven't been able to write, so work on a painting for a while, get in the mood, and take this sick day as an opportunity."

And life was like "hahhahahahahahahahhahahah, yeah no."

Did the painting for a while, had a long chitchat with Mum when she got home, felt a headache coming on, and it just never went away because *surprisesurprise* it was one of those magical PMS headaches and I woke up in the middle of the night bleeding out of my vagina and reeling in lady-pain. Couldn't get to sleep because 1000mg of Tylonel did nothing. It was only when I took out a second heating pad and blasted two of them on my head and my belly that I got back to sleep and had Japanese language dreams that I was in a hotel in Japan and had to call Tomoko over to help me make dinner. She needed lettuce for soup for some reason and I was all out.

The painting just looks okay right now? I mean I'm just fiddling around and not sealing anything in until the basics are decent? If any of you have ever been with a tall man (cloudsinvenice, I'm looking at you), you know how real the hand-holding struggle is, and I'm not sure "Erik" has the posture yet for someone trying to make that work for Lily - it's a little off. Then again, he is distracted thinking about what trash he is as a person...

Meanwhile Lily is like "ooo, I never knew his eyes were brown! oooogoaghggughghghghghghgh"

Was trying to decide their Hogwarts houses (was? I mean have been for weeks) and maybe Lily is actually a Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff hybrid. I really liked the way these houses were described by a user I happened by in a message board: they said "think of the houses as groups during wartime: the Gryffindors would be at the front of the line, fighting the fight. The Ravenclaws would be the strategists, scientists, and engineers. The Hufflepuffs would be the medics, the caretakers, all matter of support. The Slytherins would be the spies, the trojan horses. All have a vital role, none less important than another.

"Erik", who is Ravenclaw, would probably disagree with me and saw "nah, she's a straight-up Hufflepuff. A smart and curious one, and an oddball like me, but a Hufflepuff nonetheless", but, idk maybe as an author I think of what she could be and not just where she is at the moment or has been.

On that note, I just remembered I was having a discussion that I would like to find and paste here, with Carolina, about where the HT crew would all be 10-20 years from the story's timeline. In it was a guess that "Erik" might -- well okay spoilers, in a way! -- "Erik" might end up renovating old houses when he's older. As far as jobs go, he's going to be limited once he's out on parole, but it would seem a no-brainer that he'd pick up where he left off and go into construction, carpentry, painting, etc. Learn how to install lighting and this and that. He's going to be that dude working on manors in the middle of nowhere with his shirt off, chopping wood and dragging in giant mirrors. *fantasizes profusely* That would be very therapeutic for him. He would have to be creative and problem solve, as well as work his ass off. For all of his life, he's going to need something that demands his full attention and exhausts him. If he spends too much time sitting and thinking it's just going to derail him again. 

I can see him learning how to make furniture, too: carving benches and tables and sculptures from wood. And people would buy them! He'd make them with real care. Funny how none of this has to do with music? I don't really know what he would end up doing with his musical talents. After Lily, I'm not sure he wants to let people on to that side of him. It all stings. 

Anyway, I really like this image, because I used to feel just awful thinking about where I left him, where I chopped off his side of the story, in the end of Lily's story. He has his own recovery to make that takes much longer; these demons that Lily escapes from... well, they are still inside of him. Some people live their whole life sabotaged by their own demons, but I do believe he is smart enough to figure out how to keep them at bay. It might not look like happiness to "normal people", but he will have something of it eventually, and will have earned it in ways the rest of us never had to worry about. <3

ighghghhhhh I leave for work in three hours... tell me some writing can get done. Pleeeease.

-J

I had a dream the night before last that I *was* him and Lily was 14 again by the looks of it? And still I/he was all smitten with her trying to land kisses on her face? What in the hell?

That was weird.

I mean I could argue a lot that they don't even breathe the same air until she's 17 and he's 20/21 depending on where in the story (still a problem in many states) but I just-- I do not believe for half a second that his sexual inclinations towards her are recent. *chokes in horror*

The whole situation is -- yeah, it's just weird, because even I think that if he were a few less flavors of fucked up they would really hit it off as a couple and the age thing was just kind of an accident. And lord knows many of my readers are even more adamant about them being a couple, and seem to focus almost exclusively on the fluff. It's like in the YYH fandom when people just want to produce and consume endless amounts of fluff about Kurama and it's like... Dude's shady. Think about it a moment and the dude's shady, sorta not human, sort of a sadistic self-righteous murderer sometimes, etc. etc. I'm not saying I don't like Kurama fluff, just that there is such thing as wanting too much of it and wanting fluff so sweet all your teeth should be falling out and never wanting anything else when it is painfully clear there ARE other things about him, things glaringly unpleasant and bound to get in the way.

Bless her heart, I have a friend who is like that about "Erik" and Lily. And she always feels bad for him, and gets uppity when they're fighting, and excited about all the innuendo.

Meanwhile I'm like wanting to go along with it because he's like my fictional son whose life I ruined in the first place so the least I can do is give him some moments with this girl who means everything to him. Knowing all the same that I wrote him specifically to come off like a creep, because he is. He's also one of those people who's aware he's a creep, aware of the boundaries he's stepping, but has all these explanations and does it anyway. Then he does that thing (by the end of where Patrice was reading) where he tells her up front "you know, I really am kind of trespassing, this has been really not okay but I have feelings and all that", knowing that she will say something-- wanting to be soothed by her saying something that forgives him for his transgressions. Knowing she's dependent enough upon him not to drop his ass. I mean it almost makes it worse than if he just didn't know things, especially in your love life, aren't supposed to happen this way. He's not off the hook for being schizophrenic, either. I repeat: he is not off the hook.

For a second I was going to find something wrong with Lily but she really is kind of a cinnamon roll that wants to pull love out of her pockets and sprinkle it on him like glitter and-- well, you know, do the impossible: fix him. And when she does feel guilty about something she's doing? Frankly, she's showing him too much pity. Or he's made her think a perfectly reasonable reaction she had was unreasonable. He knows this about her too: that there's probably a way to bend her kindness backwards until it's unproductive and painful for her. Doesn't everyone who's damaged need to seek these kinds of people out, since everyone else won't put up with them? Mariam certainly wouldn't. Paulina has in the past but has learned from it. But unfortunately for Lily, 1.) Mariam's low tolerance just seems cold and judgmental, 2.) Paulina knows Lily has to learn for herself. 

Anyway, yeah, their quirky age/disposition gap. I think these two moments speak for that:

(From chapter 11): Sometimes, it was great fun, and I'd be like Alice chasing a dozen white rabbits through “Crew Only” corridors and staircases while he idled behind me. (...) “One time, Mariam and I... I mean, little Meg Giry and I, we came in there,” I told him, about the hall to the control room, “and we ate candy from the bowl on the front desk that we'd stolen during dress rehearsal. Is that stupid, or what?”

“It sounds just like you,” was all he said with fondness, but with his hands wringing. If he ever seemed quiet when I told him stories during lessons, he was even more reserved when I went on those adventures, almost like I was an experiment of his. Once I had tripped my whole way up to the automation booth and ogled the levers and screens, I caught him propped against the doorway, clutching his pocket watch and fixating straight ahead. When I asked what was on his mind, he said I made him see everything anew; he had a vicarious joy about it the way a parent would with a child. “But you're better than having a child, because I can't stand them.”

(From chapter 15): The King of Mischief's steps were too heavy to flutter like his Spark's, so he carved a steady path through the pines while I pranced all around him like an erratic moth that had found their favorite street lamp. We passed the theater towards the path where we had first met, and he made no mention of going inside. The ever-looming subject that had brought us together was clearly weighing on him, making my fluttering rather nervous, so I balanced across fallen tree trunks and turned up stones just to give him time to find his words. (...) Maybe I was the only one who'd be stunned by it, but the rings of chocolate brown that burst to life as he glanced towards the sun had me tripping and staring in secret awe. Well, I guess it wasn't such a secret anymore after that. 

“Careful,” he told me. He probably didn't need to lay his hand on the small of my back to steady me, but there it was. As if the tree roots rippling in the dirt beneath our feet might sweep us away like the river current, I threw my arms around him, though only briefly. That perfect shiver overwhelmed me enough that I broke away. After that, I told him he should have something and crammed the stem of the flower I had been holding down his breast pocket. The fact that he didn't immediately react was somehow hilarious.

I don't know, I actually love what the two bring out in each other because even though Lily suspects him to be older, this isn't typical behavior. All this childish jumping and wandering and staring in enthrallment is not what she's known for, she's just so damn smitten, and energized because of it. Her feelings for him, on the whole, are transparent and make her very happy. That is also what he is attracted to and has been attracted to from the start. I think he's in love with her by the end of that first moment's day, like legit "I was not planning on this, and now this whole thing we're doing seems 10x as scary as it originally did... WHAT AM I GOING TO DO TO KEEP HER. I HAVE TO KEEP HER NOW? Oh I'll just keep hiding everything because she wasn't supposed to know anyway, or have to know, because we shouldn't have been doing this."

I mean HELL to the NO he did not think she would want to stay after lessons! As the authoress, I just laugh at imagining his giddy, perplexed POV of that stuff. "You want to stay here. With me. Alone. After midnight." Then I also don't laugh at all because he must have been staring at her a lot, and testing his physical boundaries with her in the smallest least conspicuous ways he could manage. And no one is around to witness this or hold him accountable. They're in a little land of "anything goes", and she likes it, and in her heart of hearts she never meets anyone so enticing again, not for years. Despite what I know he puts her through and how horribly everything ends. Even in her mind it gnaws at her that he was her soulmate or something. And he certainly feels that way about her and doesn't keep it a secret. And she's prone to believing things he says because he is "Erik" after all -- he is "maestro", he is clever, he is prodigious -- and if nothing else he is intense enough to seem right.

Yeah they are like kind of fucked up and four years apart at a key time that defines whether their relationship is legal, but. Well, I do enjoy writing them. o_o

I told myself I wasn't going to post until I did the last picture in this set, so whoops. It look me two weeks. lol

These are my OC's. And their parents. Because when you work on a story for ten years, you accidentally start developing past generations and get interested in them. Frankly I talk about Max like he is as legitimate as anyone else and it's getting ridiculous. I should post the one-sided discussions my friend and I have about all of it.

The images are actually pretty big, so if the html was done correctly you can click on them to see details. I just really liked having the grid!

 

So yeah, I'm really excited to have it done! The only thing is now I'm wanting to draw other family members, particularly Lily's father? And also the characters at different ages, like Phantom-obsessed 8-year-old Lily? Oh vey. 

Also, I put this together as a height comparison and holy moley is there a range. Mariam's mother is like a tree elf and frankly Max must be hitting his head in every doorway, I mean Jesus. The both of them are also taller than the other dads, although Lily's comes close since he is 6'. 

So I've always done something like method acting in my head, to make my characters react the way I think suits them. I'll go from moment to moment hopping into their bodies, taking on their different points of view, motivations, objectives, and sometimes that has even led me to physically spending time as characters that will have a lot of expression in a certain scene or chapter. I used to become "Erik" by dressing up and going to walk the dock at night with a scarf over half of my face. I would have all of his negative thoughts and come back inspired to live as him through that chapter, confident I could do it right.

But I always got exhausted by it; I knew that being him was not a pleasant experience. He has always been the darkest piece of me that I took out of my head and grew into a man, I'll say. He's the one who adopted all the feelings inside me that I hate, and has to experience them constantly. Whose entire life has been ruined by these feelings paired with isolation, lack of support, with being different. So I was always happy to step out of him, finish a chapter, and get to be myself again. I knew that he and I were still very different, even if he came from me.

But nowadays, I think I become more and more like him all the time. Angry, frustrated, disappointed, and convinced that I can't get through life without distracting myself with things that aren't real.

It's a scary thing to admit.