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SAFE TO SHORE by empathapathique

Sometimes, they were quiet together, Patrick reading words from pages he’d discarded on the floor. He’d read, ‘I do not know what it is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses.’ He’d wrinkled his nose. He’d said, ‘This is dumb.’ And Jon had pressed his face into Patrick’s neck, listened to him breathe between words, letting himself feel small; Patrick’s fingers in his hair, he let himself feel so goddamn small.

Patrick said, ‘Nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.’

And it was all wrong. Because Patrick’s hands were small, and good, and Jon should’ve been reading him poetry about all the ways he hated him and all the ways he loved him more and how sorry he was; he was always so fucking sorry. Why was it that he couldn’t be enough? Why couldn’t he be more?

PS. This fandom classic has always been dear to me, and it will be forever cherished. Please consider reading this tale of love and longing, as well as all of empathapathique’s lovely works today.

Hi to everyone that is still following this blog. I wanted to let you know that the beloved author of Chelseaverse passed away from COVID 19 this week. Empathapathique, also known as Rena Zoe Mungin, fought as hard as she could, but her body finally gave out. Her story has gone national so you will be able to find more if you google her.

May I suggest that as a tribute you go reread Chelsea, or one of her other brilliant stories, and leave her a new comment. Spread awareness. Spread love.

- Sue (mosgirl9, starzgrl)

peekaaboo

hippietoews-deactivated20171006

Golfing on August 8, 2017 SOURCE

beleafer44

12.9.2014: Kaner & Tazer’s SO goals

chelseaverse

mosgirl9 just tweeted at me about Tazer's face OMG.

Imagine Pat trying to kiss around that, ugh.

Hello! So, I wrote you a review for Chelsea verse only... it got a little away form me and turned rambly and also a bit more personal than I feel comfortable putting onto ao3. And it's too long to put in an ask. Do you maybe have an email address I could send it to? You don't have to reply to it or anything. <3

If you're ever looking for me, I am empathapathique [at] gmail [dot] com<3

Oh god.

Currently the Jonny POV story starts with Jonny and Matt in bed and Pat calling, asking Jon to pick him up from some bar downtown and Jonny getting up and getting dressed and telling Matt he can let himself out and Matt is just there, laying in Jonny's bed, watching him get dressed, and he says to Jon, "You know, you're never gonna get anywhere, mooning after straight guys." Jonny doesn't say anything, just goes to pick up Pat.

And the next morning they're sitting at Pat's counter and Pat's stealing his coffee, because we're in that breakfast scene in Running Out Of Air, and writing this already makes me SO SAD for Jon. Who the hell talked me into this/someone make me stop.

#jonny pov

Once again, I just received one of the nicest, most heart-wrenching comments. And now it's 3 a.m. and I'm still awake and reading my own story and crying. (Can't be sure if I'm crying because of what happens in the actual story or because each time I read a scene I remember what it was like to write that scene and I don't know which is more distressing tbh) <3

So, I wanted to say thank you so much for writing Chelseaverse, it's amazing and I will be leaving a coherent comment at ao3 at some point, when I can verbalize all my feelings, but I just wanted to say that I just relistened to Chicago by Sufjan Stevens and it reminded me of the Chelsea, Chelsea where there is a sense of optimism and moving forward, even after all the worry and fear and fucking up. Painful, but beautiful, as all the Chelseaverse has been, thanks again for gifting us with this

Thank you for sticking around.

And I think you're totally right--that song sums up a lot of the goodness I attempted to get at in the end, especially where there's the repetition of the line, "I've made a lot of mistakes," which describes Patrick's mindset at the end of the story, and the beginning of his journey to getting better. <3

#Anonymous

2/2 anon here. the beginning didn't send?? boooooooo. basically I was saying that I was thrilled you'd be writing jonny's pov and I had actually been thinking today about what happened with jonny when pat took off with chels. because obviously jonny was distraught, but was he angry? just really sad? scared? was he scared that pat had left him, or scared for pat and chelsea's safety because he knew pat wasn't okay? I have so many thoughts about jonny

Oh man.I don't even know if I could write those actual scenes. Pat and Jon fighting in Sharpy's house was one of the hardest scenes to write, beyond all that was going on with Pat, and he was flipping his shit, but it's probably the closest I've ever felt to Jon, and thinking about what each line of dialogue was doing to Jon, and what Pat pulling Chelsea's hand away would do to Jon. It was the worst. When I nannied by nephew I spent all goddamn day with that kid. My sister was finishing a degree and working full-time and I was the primary caregiver, I knew all there was to know about this kid. For that year, he was mine. And still my sister could swoop in and change our carefully ordered schedule, a schedule she didn't know because she spent her days either at home or at school, and resented being told off about. "This is my child," she would say, and how could I respond to that? My nephew is my nephew. My nephew is my sister's son. But it's the worst feeling, knowing that all you put into this child, all of your hope and love and goddamn time can be completely disregarded, someone could take this little person away. I imagine that Jonny didn't deal well after Pat and Chelsea left. I imagine that he had a panic attack of his own, that it was Sharpy trying to calm him down in the way that Bur calmed Patrick down as Pat sat in Bur's bathroom in the middle of the night. I imagine that Sharpy called, and Jonny called--even though Sharpy told him that he should. I imagine that Abby called. We know that Patrick didn't pick up.Jonny would've briefly contacted Claire--you seen pat?--he would've told Sharpy to call Bur to ask him about whatever woman he talked to on twitter because he knew Bur talked to this woman and he knew Pat talked to her all the time and I imagine Sharpy was like okay, no. This is not okay, no.

I imagine that Abby went to Patrick's place, that she and Maddy waited there while Sharpy and Jon sat around on Sharpy's couch and by the night came and she would've come back home because Patrick hadn't come home and Maddy needed to go to bed and she would be worried and Sharpy would be worried and Jonny would want to call the cops but it would matter, because Patrick was an adult and Chelsea was his child and Patrick could just take himself and take her like Jonny didn't even matter, and Jonny had to matter, how could he not matter, how was he supposed to let them be out in the world and not know where they were, if they were safe, if Patrick would let him say sorry, take it back. And then Bur would call and tell them that Pat had called and Pat was in Wisconsin and Jonny would flashback to the first time Pat was in Wisconsin and Jonny didn't go get him, Jonny didn't help him, and now Patrick is back in that place and Jonny can't help him at all, because Patrick doesn't want Jonny's help. It's a long weekend. There are pictures posted on twitter of Pat in Target and Pat with his family in Notre Dame and when Jonny calls him, Patrick's phone is disconnected. Bur won't give him Pat's new number, because Patrick don't want to talk to him at all. Yeah, that sounds exactly like the kind of thing I would write. But I don't want to write it. This aches something terrible.

#Anonymous

I've been sitting on the response you posted about the fic for nearly a month now, trying to organize my thoughts and failing. So i'm just gonna wordvomit. When I commented on AO3, I mentioned that Chelsea had been with me through some rough shit and you agreed. I didn't realize at the time just how similar our shit was. My fiance and I broke up in April, after nearly 7 years together, and huge chunks of the breakup scene between Pat and Jon were verbatim from my own breakup scene.

"And so much of it felt like failure. But what you said about love not paying the bills, about love not making people better? That made me sob, but in a good way, because it felt like validation for getting out. Because I needed to hear from someone outside of the situation that it's *okay* walk away from love when it's stopped being a good thing. And it made me feel so much better about and so much less alone in everything. So I wanted to thank you again, for everything. Thank you."This tears at my heart.I was the one to the initiate the break-up with my ex. Two days before I did, he sent me an email that I can't delete. It says, "i want you to know that i love you as you are. i'm always going to. don't forget that." I read that, and two days later, I broke up with him. It's been three years, and I dunno if it'll ever stop feeling like a personal failure, that I let someone who loved me and I loved go, that I couldn't get over what separated us enough to make it work. Every time I see a whacky dysfunctional relationship that one of my friends is in, I think about this guy I almost married, and what we had, and how fucking good it was, wondering if that's as close to good as I was ever gonna get and I just let it go like it didn't matter, like I didn't appreciate it. It's the kind of shit that's given me panic attacks. But it's also the kind of shit that makes me brave. I don't have any children. There's my nephew and my niece, but no one so wholly mine in that everyday sort of way that makes those relationships so damn salient. When I nannied for my nephew he was my sun and moon and stars, but it's different now that I don't live at home, that I can't remember his teacher's name. I guess what I'm getting at is that right now, there's nothing that exists in my life that I love more than myself--and that was a hard thing, because it seems so selfish. But again, I don't have any children, and if I don't put myself first than who will? I can't expect another person to put me before myself, and I don't. And I can love someone with all I've got and it doesn't matter if that person's not loving themselves back. I can't love someone enough to make up for that. I've tried, it doesn't work.

When I broke up with this dude, I was calm and rational and I knew I was doing the right thing for me, that I had to privilege me, especially when someone is something so deep in themselves that they can't spare anything for what you've built together.I'm babbling, but you've got me all up in my feelings, and I thank you for sharing this part of yourself with me. I can't say how much.

Some of the lines in that breakup scene are straight from my breakup. I don't think love ever stops being a good thing, but I think that situations often become bad, and we don't know how to get out of them because there's still all this love, and love is important, and we don't want to let go, even though we should.

Sometimes I wake up and I don't think about this guy at all. I'm like hell yeah, I'm flawless, independent, I don't need to be in a relationship to validate who I am. Sometimes there are whole weeks that I don't think about him, and then, one day, in one thing, I will. And it hurts. When your with someone for any significant length of time and then you're not suddenly--it's always gonna hurt. But I try to remind myself that the hurting is okay, that hurting makes me strong, and none of this makes me any less brave than I am. I'm a champion. And nothing's gonna take that away unless I let it. Not even love.

#fadeastride

(2/2) what did he DO? did he call claire? did he call julie? chelsea's doctor (would he know how to do that?) what did sharpy have to stop him from doing? did he want to call the police?? was he just so sad that he couldn't do anything? not that you have to write any of this I just wanted to share some of the thoughts that were swirling in my head today <3333333

I would give a lot to know what the beginning of this Ask says.

#Anonymous

I just saw your post about Jonny POV and I can't figure out how to reply to that, so instead I will fill up the empty space in your ask box with my excitement and the ridiculous love I have for the characters of Chelseaverse and your understanding of them. I cannot wait to see what you write next- and oh my god, thank you, you just sucked me right back in to that place of being obsessed with this fic. It's the best escape I could've asked for.

The plan right now is to only focus on some of the pivotal scenes that happen in the story now, connected loosely with scenes that show what Jonny does when he's not hanging out with Pat, i.e. hanging out with Claire and Sharpy and sitting in his empty house and playing his guitar.

Right now, the big scenes I have in mind are:

-Jonny meeting Chelsea when Patrick brings her to the city (maybe Jonny's talk with Julie?)-Jonny talking to Sharpy-Jonny freaking out about Pat-the first time Jonny babysits Chelsea, when Chelsea bit him-Jonny not knowing what the hell he's doing, taking Chelsea skating, falling in love, in love, in love with someone who only sometimes remembers to wipe when she pees, what.-Jonny and Claire-Jonny freaking out about Pat-Jonny meeting with his realtor (which is only not awkward because Jonny doesn't make these things awkward because the kind of sexual relationship they had was a business transaction and Jonny is good at those things; also, Patrick calls him during that meeting, it's right after Patrick's last AA meeting)-Jonny talking to Coach about coming out

THEN TIME JUMP TO SEPTEMBER WHEN PAT'S IN THERAPY WHAT-Pat telling Jonny about things he's learning about himself in therapy-Pat not touching him-the lockout-Chelsea being awesome at school-Jonny freaking out about Pat-And blah blah blahIt's nothing that I plan to be very long (god, I couldn't bear it). Just loosely connected scenes, I think, that take us from June 2012 to December 2012. I think.

#71malkins

mosgirl9 replied to your post “jonny POV”

Is this the author who said the Jonny pov wasn't going to be long or as detailed??? ;)

Sometimes ionthesparrow of keflin or dovetaler would leave me comments like, "why does Jonny do this/say this/wtf is he thinking?????" and I would be like LOL GOOD THINK I DON'T HAVE TO WRITE FROM THIS PERSPECTIVE, even though for awhile I played with the idea of writing Part II from Jonny's POV, and if I could go back I would consider that more heavily, even though I wouldn't trade the Pat POV in Part II for the world, as that was all about him and his kid, Jonny doesn't intrude on that part at all.

This is really hard to admit, but it was hard for me to even think about Jonny's POV because I relate more closely to Pat and his particular form of batshit. Now that I'm not so inundated in Pat, because the story is finished (at least this part of the story is), I can think more about Jon. And Jon--he makes me real sad.

#mosgirl9

So looking forward to reading anything you mentioned writing! Hope the thesis is going well, I just finished mine a year ago, so I know how time consuming it can get (towards the end, but really at any time uring the process). But it also always gave me tons of energy to write other things (what procrastination), so hopefully that's true for you as well :D

Thesising is thesising, which means I'm mostly miserable and only sometimes brilliant and often wishing that I was writing fic instead, lol. Thanks for the well-wishes, and fic always happens between the moments I'm supposed to be "working"--you know how it goes ;)

#Anonymous

jonny POV

I've been working on bits of the story from Jonny's perspective, most of it is stuff that Patrick wonders about but never too deeply, as Patrick is too deep in his own shit to spare any real energy for the normal shit in Jon's life--anything beyond himself, really. Mostly I mean Jonny's relationship with Claire. I've sketched a very fraught conversation between Pat and Claire about Jon, in which Claire is pissed about the "breakup" (C: D'you know how many people would kill to be with a man like that? And man who accepted them for who they were and their kid--), in which Claire projects all of her upset feelings about her own divorce, and her belief in love on Pat (i.e. the belief that the only thing that matters is love, that relationships fail because people don't love each other enough, which is complete bullshit) and Patrick is all upset and Claire isn't sorry and Patrick doesn't know what to think, because Claire and Jonny are hanging out all the time, mostly because they're like Broken Hearts Anonymous, and Patrick doesn't get to have a monopoly on female friends.

There are some scenes with Jonny interacting with people at Chelsea's school, taking note of few families Pat and Chelsea both have made friends with (Single Mom Claire, Gay Interracial Parents Sam and Isaiah, Super Successful Brown Professors i.e. the Cabreras), and even if Pat talks to that stay-at-home dad sometimes, Pat pretty much isolates himself from the more traditional families that he doesn't feel like he fits in with at all. Jonny doesn't know if Pat even realizes that he's done this. But Jonny also knows that what Patrick knows and what Patrick acknowledges that he knows are two different things.

There's brief shit about his brother and explaining more with his relationship with his mom. The big conspiracy about Jonny's "fight" with his mom is revealed, less that it was a fight and more that Andree said something that Jonny found untenable (Andree: Well, if this isn't working, maybe it's not supposed to work, have you ever thought of that?) She didn't tell him that he couldn't come back until he fixed his relationship, or that he couldn't come back because he was gay; she didn't tell him to go away at all. But Jonny leaves because his mother suggests that he and Patrick aren't meant to be, she uses the term 'work', and if there's anything Jonny knows, it's how to put in work. So he does.

But last night I was walking my nephew through restarting his laptop over the phone, and this is the kid that Chelsea is based on, a kid who's months away from turning seven and is the biggest asshole in the world, like most kids who are almost seven years old. And it hit me then, how very fucking weird it is to see a kid after you haven't seen them in awhile. Every time I go home my nephew is taller and his face is more grown up in ways I don't expect. He's not this little person anymore. He's what the psychologists call "school-aged," and Pat's so deep in Chelsea he can't even think about shit like that, but I tried to imagine would this would be like for Jonny, looking at this kid who looked like the love of his life, this kid that he didn't know existed, and suddenly she does. And in my head, it's just Jonny looking at Pat and Chelsea together that day Pat brings her back to Chicago, right after he made the decision to come back to Chicago and make this thing between he and Pat work, and feeling like his whole life is falling apart, and not knowing how he's ever going to be okay. And then I started writing Chelsea from Jonny's perspective :/

#ugh

lawyer au

riverlace replied to your post “Do you have any fic projects you want to work on next?”

Hello yes, I will happily read ALL OF THESE THINGS (And am hella rooting for lawyer!AU sequel and Jonny's coworkers meeting his husband. XD)

The lawyer sequel is from Patrick's perspective, and it's about being in a relationship where both parties are successful in their careers. Pat and Jonny are in the same city again but Jonny is always overworked and Patrick's first book has just blown the fuck up (Pen/Faulkner Award blown the fuck up), and Pat's on a book tour, which means he and Jonny are apart for most of the story.

And while Pat is giving a reading at like Cal Tech or something, he meets Jeff Carter, who teachers Queer Theory at Pomona but what's interesting is that he used to be a hockey player and now he's in a relationship with a man (and has been, for a long, long time. Guess who). He's also dying of AIDS.

A lot more happens, including a road trip to Vegas. Mostly, it's a story about living your life as a writer which basically means your a professional appropriator and what it means to be a professional and how is it possible to have love and a career all the while you deal with the hardships of being part of the academy and being mentally ill and being friends with someone whose story you unknowingly appropriated for your bestselling novel (fucking Sharpy telling stories that he's "heard") who is also in love and also dying.

I'll give you three guesses for who prompted me for this story, but you're only gonna need one.

#riverlace #lawyer au

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