#antic disposition core

[bit-and-bridles]

It’s okay my dear, this is a circular story —“Ghost Quartet” by Dave Malloy

7x14 // Acrylic and ink on canvas

[bit-and-bridles]

“It’s okay my dear, this is a circular story”

My friend recently turned me on to “Ghost Quartet” by Dave Malloy, and it’s been living in my head rent free ever since. This composition idea has been in my head for almost as long…

My plan is to make some sizing/perspective edits, transfer the line art to a canvas, do a full colour version with acrylics, and then give it to him for Christmas. Obviously, it will be late, but such is the way with holiday homemade gifts 🫠

[bit-and-bridles]

pretend i posted this yesterday

A last minute Happy Pride! In celebration, have a sketch I did embellishing one of the most-oft quoted bits of “Hamlet” — this has a special place in my heart as it was said to me-as-Laertes during every performance.

Felt very fitting for my first Pride where I’ve realized and embraced my Ace identity. 🖤💜🤍

[bit-and-bridles]

Okay BUT consider how much that would add to the plot??

(^ my rationale was received slightlyyy well; but they did have a good counterpoint: establishing a few seasons of sappy romance would be preferable— which I mean, think about how much more it will hurt then,,,so I can get on board with this)

[bit-and-bridles]

put a finger down if you auditioned for a production of Hamlet 7 months ago on a whim (with a new theatre, so, you actually auditioned to ‘get your first rejection of the season out of the way’) and you end up getting cast as bisexual disaster genderbent Laertes and the entire cast/troupe manages to lodge theirselves firmly into your heart and soul and you are fundamentally changed forever; but also because dopamine and shared creation experiences of theatre you always get a show crush and for some reason this time it lands on the man playing Hamlet (you know why you recalcitrant brain; but you know it started when someone excitedly talked over you (which didn’t bother you at all bc you adore them all and she didn’t mean to) and he was the only one who noticed and kept his attention on you which lodged so firmly in your brain); but you have a partner and you know crushes are fleeting (especially since you get one in every show), so you really don’t indulge it, except, except during the first (or was it second?) show he laughed onstage and you’re backstage getting ready for act 2 and suddenly your entire chest seizes and you end up dropping your makeup brush and being completely confused what’s happening before your brain catches up and you….you go oh fuck. BUT again you know he’s oblivious and also you are 8 years his senior, and at one point he compared you to his older sister, so it’s just a crush that will wane;;;

except you can’t keep well enough alone and once the show wraps there are occasionally messages back and forth because it turns out you are both so similar and he gets you hooked on media that you turn out to ADORE to the point that your brain is ITCHing to talk about it all but you subscribe your self to just multiparagraph text messages but then HE suggests coffee to have a yap session; and it takes just one those to get you h o o k e d on the experience and..you’re delightedly surprised to hear that he also had a great time and also needs them to continue. And so that continues every other week like clockwork (for the last 2-3 months) and from the get, every single time, your skin feels like it’s got electricity running under it and gods above you know you’re torturing yourself but there’s something,,,something that’s just pulling at you, and you can’t make yourself pull away; and hey, he’s touch averse and you know that if your finger tips even brushed his wrist accidentally you would combust from this, this electrical fire that’s crackling under your skin;;;

and again, you know he’s oblivious and you also know that friendship alone can be this deep and if he was a woman you wouldn’t feel like this was anything more than bog standard friendship, right? you just need to overcome that heteronormative thing that men and women can’t have as close of friendships. And you operate with that in mind, keeping what you are still stubbornly calling a ‘crush’ suffocated as best you can, for over a month of non-stop communication and moments and words that set your chest tightening and your pulse FLYING;;

But then one of the medias he got your brain firmly obsessed with is Magnus Archives and somehow?? that lent itself to somehow lead to deeper™ discussions, of a different vein, of very deep discussions of touch receptiveness in general, of romantic expectations on men vs women, and lastly on how you both experience and navigate (and cope) with life as aspec people (and the whole time you feel this war inside bc you only really PutUpWith sex with your partner because it makes them happy but now this person is validating thisthisthis part of your identity in a way that you didn’t think was possible after all the hurtandshame you’ve felt in so many failed relationships) and, and things start to surface for, for both of you now,,,,but what those things are? they don’t—fuckk—they don’t fit into any categories you recognize. [[I mean what DO you call it when this person’s very soul has met yours in a way that defies explanation? where you know that an accidental brush of his finger tips while handing you something runs the risk of your very throat constricting ((and so you are even MORE careful about your limbs and phalanges being under Very Strict Control around him))? Where everything you say and even these weird, esoteric thoughts you’ve held inside yourself for your entire life are met with a resounding “100% same!”]] And after a week of this messaging back and forth, you both feel incredibly exhausted and now you know for sure that he might have been oblivious, but he holds the exact same level of ??? for you that you had been trying to suffocate in yourself (because turns out, huh, it’s, not a crush, is it?);;

Andandand for the first time in your entire life, you don’t hold back from a connection because of the ingrained terror that this will lead you to being backed into a corner and having sex to maintain access to the connection. Because that’s all you’ve ever known, because everyone you’ve ever been with is allo, and you thought something was wrong with you — even in the last year, seeking out treatment because you had no drive for sex but you love your partner and they did move to Iowa for you so you want to ‘fix’ yourself.

And is this what they mean to completely fall for someone because dar os-déithe agus thíos déithe, you feel,,,you feel SO much,,,in a way you haven’t in decades/if ever. Because you’ve always held parts of yourself back, for fear of ‘leading someone on’ and then feeling obliged into The Act. And because of the sheer depth and soul-gripping magnitude of this Connection it feels like if you lost them, a part of your soul would be painfully excised. But you’re left with all of these things inside while trying to figure out if this means you’re poly (bc you don’t want to lose your live-in partner either), or if you’re not and if it’s irrelevant because this isn’t something that fits into a clean romantic category/doesn’t need to change from what it is,,,

But still when you say goodbye to them after your standing bi-weekly yap session (this time 7 hours??), you feel that (now-familiar) chest and throat tightening and GODS you would rather fall asleep at that diner table, surrounded by the late night drunk people and other denizens of such a liminal space at 3 am, than leave his presence,,,, because, because just being around him makes all the buzzing in your head quiet, and your heart, though still prone to leaping, is warmed and glowing inside you, and you know, as a sterling, crystalline truth, you’ll __never__ find someone who feels so so much like~~ your souls have always been seeking the other’s but neither of you even knew it until, until…until you did…and then those souls, startled but incandescently thrilled, both went, ‘oh. oh of course. it’s you.’