Idk Man, The Fact That Skip And Loafer Cares To Differentiate Between Attraction To Someone Because You

The Searcher

That’s enough, I think. Enough. It is 2.43 am when I glance at the ancient clock, ticking away. The room is ridden with dust, home of papers and sheets and ink. Pen and books. 

I have been trying and trying to write since long. It is not that the words have not been coming to me– they come, they ebb and they flow. But they miss something. And I am sure, so sure they miss something. 

I know this because they didn’t miss it when I was a kid. I remember my words having that something, that spark and that shine. They not only ebbed and flowed, but sung and danced and set up for the grandest of plays. 

And it’s not today, I am realizing this. I have been realizing it for a long time indeed. I have been trying to find that thing for weeks– the muse of the stories, the core they hold.

I have tried working in my college’s dorms, in public libraries, in the central park, countless different places at countless different times. I have tried searching for answers in the words of the greats, in the sermons of my professors and nothing worked. 

Nothing works. 

Maybe different, far from this modern life, I think. That is where I will find it. And so I decide to pack my bags and leave for the mountains in the North.

This may seem like I was overdoing it but I was not. I am obsessed– I need, need the words to come. I need to write the perfect story, the immaculate tale, the haunting novella that I have dreamed about since I was a young kid.

~

In my time in the mountains I seldom meet people. I usually spend my time working away under the trees, writing on paper after paper– disappointed, wandering from one corner to another until I reach a village. 

I meet an old woman there, sewing a bamboo hat together for herself. She has wise eyes, unkind face. She looks at me and asks, “What are you looking for, young lad?”

I tell her what I am looking for and ask her if she can help.

She shakes her head. “I am afraid not. I used to paint, you see.”

I ask her, “Used to?”

“Used to,” she confirms. “I don’t anymore. I lost it.”

Lost what? I ask.

She goes on that she used to paint, you see. That she was nearly 40 when she quit and she didn’t really know why but she stopped because the colors were not coming from long now, the muse was long gone. “I suppose it was inevitable,” she says. “I forced it for many years, couldn’t force it for life. I took up crafting then.” She holds up the bamboo hat. 

I ask her if she still feels natural at it. She shrugs, she says she is not sure.

“But I will advise you,” she says. “You won’t find it in people you are looking at.”

I am surprised and I ask, “Then where will I?”

“Ah, I..” she frowns. “I think I saw it in my young son once.”

“Where is he now?”

“Oh you know.” She waves her hand dismissively. “In England, studying.”

~

I leave the mountains soon to head for the rainforest. It is a strange thing, one can think. Why go so far for this? 

But if one thinks that, they won’t truly understand why. 

I believed– have believed from long that if you love something, you must be willing to love it till madness. You must continue to love, to create even if it drives you mad.

And in these moments, I thought, I was nearing a sort of madness. A madness of not men but gods.

In the rainforest, I spend my days by the trees, canopies and bushes. Near the streaming river as the hot sun casted glow on it, making the water sparkle. On the 3rd day, I reach a cabin in the middle of the woods. A man greets me. He is middle-aged and toys with a cigarette in his fingers. He glances at me and says he can tell I am looking for something. “What are you lookin’ for anyway, man?”

I tell him my troubles and he huffs.

“Get that, you won’t find it here,” he says.

“How do you know?” I ask.

“Well, I've been here for years. And I haven’t found it.”

“You are an artist?”

“I used to make music,” says the man and tells me about his life. From the man of city and modern worries to a nomad of forests. 

By the time he’s done and the next morning rolls around, I have left the forests. I wonder to myself what is it that the old lady and he are missing? What is it that we all are missing? 

I continue my search for months to come– like a wayfarer, going from one place to another, searching for what?

I didn’t even know anymore. The muse, was it? Or the inspiration. Perhaps a sort of contentment with what we create, the words that flow– the oomph, the x-factor, or simply the joy?

I do not know anymore.

At last, I come to England and meet the son, who is now about 28. He looks at me with skepticism but that fades away when he hears me talk about his mother. He smiles and sighs, saying he misses her. I tell him about my conversations, my search– and his smile falters.

“I don’t have it anymore,” he says. “I don’t.”

I plead, request him to give me something. By this day, I am tired. Exhausted, beat and at my wits ends. I need something. I am getting madder and madder.

“I am sorry,” he goes on. “I really don’t. I still write. But I just.. It’s gone. It was something which is just gone.”

“When did it slip away so?” I question.

“Perhaps when I was 14,” he answers. “Perhaps older or younger.”

I stare and he laughs. 

“We may never know.”

He offers me a stay in his university, saying we could try working together and I accept. I am tired, hopeless but I accept anyway. Weeks pass and nothing comes together– it’s all the same. The same. 

I leave England in the most desolate mood and by the time I am back in my college, I have given up. I rush to my room and I throw my papers in frustration. The ink bottle is hit and dark blue, nearly black, spills onto the floor. It seeps. 

One last time, I pick the old pages up and the new ones. The new ones are better– the better technique, grammar and they are certainly more intelligent. But it is with one look I can tell that they don’t have the ‘it’ like the old stories do.

~

I gave up on writing years ago and I am married now– I have a beautiful spouse and the sweetest little daughter; my little girl, my joy. 

By the time she is nine, she has found my old trunk from the attic. It has the papers, old and new, crumpled and well kept. Countless stories, finished and not. She reads some of them and later asks me about it. I tell her some of it– about my writings, about how I wrote some of them.

“Why did you stop?” she asks. 

She is a child and I don’t know how to explain. “It was only a hobby,” I say. The words ring as false. It was never only a hobby. I had spent months being driven insane, to the brink of my sanity by it. I had spent years honing it, wearing it as my identity. And then I had let go, being as torn as a lover parting from a beloved.

I come back from the office one day to find her. She has been writing, my spouse tells me. And I find it sad how my first instinct was to discourage deep down. But I do not. Instincts and choices must be kept separate. 

She has been writing in afternoons after school and on one such, I go to her. I ask her about it and she says it is a story about a girl who gets a device to make an infinitely huge chocolate sprinkled with candies and sour bites. I throw my head back and laugh. She keeps writing, uncaring.

I manage a glance at her work and my laughter drains.

My daughter has it.

I see it. I see it all too well. Then I look at her and her big eyes, working with no hint of doubt or hesitation– contentment and I am assured that I am right. She hones it masterfully, all that I had been searching for.

She glances at me and her face falls. She lets go of the pen. “Daddy, are you okay?”

I am nearly pale and I am praying.

Praying, hoping, wishing and begging– for her to not lose it. 

Her words are sloppy, her writing is messy– the grammar horrible and the punctuation painful and yet it is perfect, I know. It is enough, I know. It sparkles, it shines. The words dance and sing and form the grandest of plays. 

She nudges me, worried.

I shake my head and then manage a laugh. “You are a genius, you know that?”

She blinks but then realizes that was a compliment. 

She grins. “Just like you.”

~

Fuck, this hit too hard, god no 😭

My mama didn't raise a quitter..

She didn't raise a winner either so imma do the secret third thing and rot in my bed 👍

I feel like my life is just split into phases of hyperfixations. Any space, any time and all the days spent where I was not hyperfixated on something mostly do not remain in the brain.

For example, oh that was my HP era, or there was my arcane era, there was my short stories era, PJO era, steam-games collecting era, boyband era, the time I was hyperfixated on my sexuality, the time i was hyperfixated on a genshin character, the time I spent all time thinking about teen romcoms, the time I watched 5 movies in 2 days, the time I wanted to buy 50 books, the time I read 50 books-

but... don't you dare ask me what happened in the time I was NOT hyperfixated. I was a ghost who moved from one spot to another. I do not remember. Its all a void.

its either giving my entire soul to something or we die like men.

Pleading for my exam tomorrow to be cancelled. Can't study jackshit atp. My mind is cooked.

Well. Now to get more serious.

As an indian, this entire india-pak conflict has been enlightening about one thing- other countries don't give a jackshit. Nor does global. In the sense that, the pain india felt due to Pahalgam can never be translated to you.

Disclaimer: I do not hope for a war or escalation. I am just tired of seeing people talk about this stuff in black and white terms.

I am tired of entire narrative with this, "ahhh india attacked civillians!"

Civilian deaths are to be mourned. They shouldn't happen. I pray for their families but the attack was never targeting civilians- unlike what Pak did last night. Which I will get to shortly.

So, it was a calculated retaliation (on terrorist sites) to Pahalgam which was fucking horrific and bone chilling. The entire country was chilled.

And yes. Pahalgam is backed by Pakistan. It has been a pattern. Here is a video to get you started on this mess, entire history of kashmir conflict and what not. The history of terrorism. It has sources linked.

Let's get to last night now.

I live in the state adjacent to a border one. My hometown itself was one of the places which was rained by missiles. My family could hear the blasts, the crackling noise till 2 am. My baby cousin was crying scared. All was dark and the only light was of missiles.

Pakistan attacked civillian cities, alongside the ones with army bases. They did not give a fuck.

I don't know how it isn't clear what the country is trying to do already.

I am just so sick. Hoping no escalation happens. We don't need a war. No one does. But stop painting India in red. Pakistan isn't the victim. They haven't been from a while.

Final words? Asking the common citizens of both countries to stay safe.

AINT NO WAY, DIED, STOP CALLING ME OUT LIKE THAT

Told her to undress me, she showed me my jee ka result kyuki nanga to usme bhi hua tha

Reading volume 4 of Eighty Six and I cannot help but share the quotes/moments that bring me immense feels. Damn this angst. (In no particular order.)

1]

"You don't have to do this anymore. You have no sins to atone for. No one's condemning you, so please stop--stop trying to bear a cross that doesn't exist."

~Shin to Lena.

2]

"We wouldn't do something as pathetic as hanging ourselves just because our deaths were predetermined, nor would we sit idly by, counting the days until the end. If we have to die, we'll live each day without regrets-always smiling in the face of death. That was our one and only form of resistance. "

-Shin.

3]

"Leaving such things as they are even when you know they’re wrong is tantamount to supporting them."

-Lena.

LOUDER for people in the back 👏

4]

'“Those kids, they aren’t strong. They simply understood that they had to be strong to survive, and in the process of trying to become strong, they instead cut off anything that made them weak.”

It wasn’t that they weren’t hurt. It was that they hurt so much they had to cut off anything that allowed them to feel pain…?'

_________

In conclusion? I should have started reading this piece of art earlier. The LNs are amazing.

Ok today i WILL finish the book im currently reading cuz i just ordered 3 more books and have another already waiting for me. I am falling behind chat.

I looked everywhere, the deepest depths of media, mangas, anime. From novels to games. I dived in the darkest depths of ao3 and I have discovered that Luke Pearce and Rosa are the epitome of the "childhood friends, seperated and reunited, to lovers" trope. Fight me. ITS NEVER DONE WELL, THIS TROPE, BUT TOT DOES IT PERFECTLY. FIGHT ME. THE ANGST, THE FLUFF, THE YEARNIG, THE PINING, THE SUNSHINES AND THE DARKNESS- ITS ALL THERE, WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT??

I was asked by a super extroverted person yesterday that "how do you write so much"

And like. I can't talk about my feelings. Physically. So i project them onto my characters like a sadist. That's how i write so much. It's not that girl in my book struggling with hyper-independency but me. Its not that boy mourning his loss of hope but me.

Surprise, its all me.

VOLUME 5 MOMENTS THAT I ADORE (HUALIAN MY BELOVED) (ft. TINY HUA CHENG!!!!!)

1) Xie Lian watched him in a daze, not speaking a word.

Hua Cheng frowned slightly. “Your Highness, you…” Suddenly, Xie Lian’s free hand reached out and pinched Hua Cheng’s cheek. Hua Cheng’s eyes widened as his face changed shape from the entirely unexpected squishing.

“…Gege!”

Xie Lian laughed. “Ha ha ha ha ha ha…sorry, San Lang, but you’re too cute; I can’t help myself. Ha ha ha ha…” Hua Cheng was speechless.

2) Hua Cheng clasped his hands behind him. “Yes. I’ve endured this for too long. I can’t wait any longer.”

Just as he finished talking, Xie Lian slipped his hands under Hua Cheng’s arms and lifted him. He raised him high in the air and laughed.

“It’ll be such a shame! I won’t be able to pick you up like this once you’re grown again. I’d better hug you as much as I can right now. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…”

3) Xie Lian held Hua Cheng even tighter, and his hand smoothed his hair.

4) Hua Cheng reached out and lifted Xie Lian’s chin. “His temper is certainly nice, but mine is bad. No one but me can touch the things I love.”

5) “Try touching him, I dare you,” Hua Cheng warned frigidly. “Do you think I would so easily allow you lot to touch my heart’s dearest treasure?”

6) Only a single “ha” had left his lips when Xie Lian flung out his silk bandage; it whipped out so hard that Pei Ming was almost sent flying. He only barely dodged with a backward leap.

“Your Highness, just how deeply do you treasure Hua-chengzhu? Can’t even take a joke?”

~~~~

Ps. I LOVE PROTECTIVE XIE LIAN.