To the one who deserves greetings, warm communication, and acknowledgment, this letter is not delivered.
Sweet child, pious son of Halone, worthy scion stamped in Ishgardian steel, I extend my thoughts, tremulous and anxious, towards you, and withdraw, in cowardice, at the last moment.
I might write to you for word of your health and of what exploits in and beyond Dravania your new employment has led, for clues as to whether my blasphemous aim of moving you out of the direct line of Nidhogg's gaze succeeded at keeping you from harm; I might confess my sin and invite your rebuke for ever so meddling your career and stymying its advancement. I sketch, in my imagination, the scope of your resentment and anger regarding this misdeed of mine -- this single mountain of a misdeed, dwarfed by the scale of the sum of them, like a small hill in the foothills of Abalathia -- and know how much more I deserve. But I do not write.
I might write to you to share the news of my impending marriage, for as perverse as it is to report to you such tidings as if you should be glad to hear them, to conceal them from you would surely be worse. I might speak of them as briefly and minimalistically as possible, so as to not trouble you with details you might not wish to learn; I might allude, with careful turns of phrase, to the exceeding generosity and gentleness of my intended's heart and the openness of her attitude to a relationship between us. In my imagination another mountain springs up in the range, and you regard it with the offense and disgust it deserves. But again I do not write.
I might write, at last, the unconfessed confession. I might beg for forgiveness which ought not to be granted; I might hope instead for excoriation of mine own soul, to do penance so that She might grant me a drop of Her mercy -- though I doubt I could ever earn enough to escape damnation. Rather than either, I ought to bare myself to you and receive the full brunt of your anger, to open the stage on which you may express the full scope of your rage. Your rage is Halone's rage; She is with you, the righteous, holy, and wronged. Your hate is Her spear, and every moment I feel in my heart the spot through which I should be impaled.
But I do not write.
I almost know you, worthy youth, hearty flower of Coerthas. I have seen you with eyes not mine, traced your name in censuses, spied upon House Haillenarte's reports. I know the dates you served at the country altar, the name of your village schoolmaster and the year you stopped attending his lessons. I know the Lock at which you were first squired, the name of your first commander, and the fate of your knight. I know the names of the squires involved in all the incidents precipitating disciplinary actions; I know from their records that you were, in all likelihood, probably justified in taking the first swing, at least a few times. I know how the knights have criticized you, and I know how their criticisms are overshadowed by the honor, bravery, piety, and truthfulness they describe. I know how oft your courage has placed you right in the mouths of Dravanians, protecting your peers, and speculate how soon you may have entered Halone's Halls a hero if I, despicable man that I am, had not exerted my influence to divert you from that fate.
I know what you are, son of Halone, brimming with all the best virtues of Her people, everything a Coerthan is and an Ishgardian should be. I admire you, shining white spear, as one who could never so be and can only hope to serve Her from the dark, in sin's shadow. I pray for your safety and pray for your glory even as I know you cannot have both; I imagine that these sentiments, proud and fearful, might begin to resemble those of a father.
But I do not know you.
The power to do so is in my hands -- but I do not exercise it.
You have had, mayhap, enough of my intrusions for a lifetime. Your anger may be such that to have aught to do with me again, before the time for your inheritance, is more than you wish to bear. Or mayhap you do not care -- for, born in lawful marriage and raised to adulthood by father and mother already, you have neither reason nor motivation to bear the egoistic lamentations of a stranger. You are known to the world as a trueborn Coerthan of bloodlines no less worthy for their unpretentiousness; mayhap you have no wish to discard that humble but straightforward honor for complication, ignominy, and shame.
I am a man of great talent in crafting plausible excuses.
I think of the woman I dare to think I love and whom I pray I shall treat as though I do. I can imagine how she would -- no doubt will -- advise me; it shall not be to make excuses. To know if you are angry or indifferent or filled with yearning, whether that be to punish or to solace, cannot be accomplished through remote cogitations, spycraft, or clever predictions; what I must do is ask.
But I do not ask.
If I love her, I am sure that she will prevail upon me, eventually, to do; her moral argument will sway me and, desiring not only to claim love but to enact it, I shall put it into practice. But the courage to do so, the moral fiber, is not yet within me. This moon, I delay, and again and again shall I do so, degenerate and craven.
Until the moon that I at last no longer delay, and I write, and I ask, and I know, I beg of you only one thing -- that you must live.
Written here, this day, by your Rosaire Ledigne, and then burned.
On Bodies: New years resolutions, weight, and 3 years of lessons.
I get it. I super super get it. I also can't wake up, pass a mirror, put on clothes, take a selfie or basically exist without wishing my body were a different size or a different shape or a different make-up. 3 or 4 years ago, I decided to do the thing you are doing. And I did the thing, I lost 80 pounds in a small amount of months. I felt amazing in my body for the first time in my life. People congratulated me (which felt good), people engaged in my process and asked about my path (which felt good), people sexualized me (complicated, but it felt good). Nothing about being skinnier felt bad. Not one single thing.
But bodies don't care about how you feel about them, they have their own processes and their own plans (and some science). And rarely do their plans include keeping weight that has been lost off. Naturally (and I MEAN NATURALLY), I slowly started to put weight back on. The congratulations went away, the engagement went away, and yes, most of the flirting went away too. I had convinced myself that I was in control of my body, and as such, my brain made this my fault, my failure. A year later I hit my current weight, almost squarely in between my biggest and my smallest (and who knows where I’ll be next year). It does not feel like a triumph. If feels exhausting. On bad days, it feels like I spent 3+ years working on my body and not on my self. On bad days, it feels like I used what will power I had to buy a vacation through the life of a "pretty" person, only to come back to not being one. My partner at the time and I talked about it afterwards (she had also gone on vacation with me) and we both agreed it was so much better when we didn't know what that was like.
I don't want this for you. I don't want this for anyone. Sure, build a better relationship to food if you have a bad one (I sure did/still do). Get into a gym because building strength feels good. Do the things that your body likes doing. But don't make it about weight. Don't let your friends make it about weight. Question the people who use your size to flirt or not flirt with you (fuck these guys, in particular).
It is better down there, this is an unfortunate truth. The world puts a lot of work into making it better down there. Even us fat folk help make it better there (I for sure know I have - maybe more on that later/being a photographer is weird). Let's maybe not do that so much.
We can all undertake individual paths to our own “failures” trying to get somewhere unrealistic, and make other people feel like shit in the process, or we can try to make it a little better up here in fatland (it's the snuggliest).
What I'm saying is this - if you really want to be something different, don't be a skinny person, be a bear - be fat, be rad and eat the smaller creatures.
I love this shot by @annamaguirecreative. It feels like it could be a still taken straight from a film. #actor #voiceactor #headshots #photography #manfeels https://www.instagram.com/p/BxBZ6e5hFCl/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=8dwz2nt824vq
I love how boys are so overly sensitive when it comes to their "manliness" that they actually feel the need to call it MENinism instead of Masculism, so nobody forgets that they're big strong MEN who don't have time to pay attention to proper English because that's too feminine for them!
