I can't stop thinking about Colin on his travels. Colin, alone, on a journey to 17 different cities, across several countries. Colin on his own.
Colin who writes letter after letter, to his family, to his friends, and barely gets a response back. How long before he understands that they didn't get lost in the mail? How long until he realizes that, just like when he was a boy, no one has the time for him? The space for him? How many letters unanswered before he lets it finally take root and fester in his mind?
He could have died on that tour.
Would they even notice? Would they see when the letters slow until they cease? Would they wonder why? His mum, surely (maybe, possibly, but she has enough on her hands, besides, and he's never been a concern, in need of her assistance, before), but anyone else? Anthony on his honeymoon, Eloise a stormcloud personified, Benedict taking on the familial responsibilities, Fran preparing for the marriage mart and in Bath, regardless. Daphne, his closest sister, a mum running her own estate.
Greg and Hyacinth who enjoy his stories, but are children.
Pen who ignores him. No explanation, no goodbye.
Colin who has no one in his corner. Colin who travels city to city, putting on personas. Will they like me? What about now? Colin who has hardly anything to read from the people he loves. Who do not think of him.
And yet he thinks of them. Brings them back gifts, writes his recollections for them until it hits him that, oh, they don't care. They don't care what he's doing, how he's doing. They didn't want to hear it before, when he was there with them, and they do not want to hear it now, either. Did they even open those envelopes? Did they see them come through the post, just as proof he's alive, and shrug off the contents? Did they look? Once, Colin sends an empty page. No one notices. Easier, then, to send just the outsides. People only ever care about the outsides. Pretty and prim in neat packages, uncaring of what lies beneath. Sea sick on the rocking boats, staring up at stars on the continent, Colin grows aware, but not bitter. Sad, but resigned.
He loves his family, he loves Pen, loves them to grace, loves them to it's okay. It was him, he determines. Too chatty, his letters too long, uninteresting, his passions dull or droll, or else, worse, he's displeased them in some way. Colin who takes refuge in stranger's arms and homes, who dreams and tries to sate his curiosity. Colin who pretends, because anyone, anyone but him would be received better, he's sure of it. Colin who must talk too much, surely, and with no one to listen. Colin who learns to hush.
Yes. Remarkable- as in, I have many remarks about it.
How many times did he go to excitedly write of what he did that week, and stopped himself, knowing it was a waste? How many times did he write and throw into the fire a letter asking Why don't you see me? Why don't you care?
If he didn't make it, how long would it take for anyone to notice? A month? Two? A year? Would they wave it off as his frivolity, denounce him as a flake and fume about the funds? Would they wonder where it was he had lost himself off at?
He cannot fall into that, so, he writes in his journal, instead. Of the ache of it, of how he longs for connection, for understanding, for someone to take him seriously. He keeps it with him, this log of his discontent, of his folly and felicity, of his pitfalls and pains.
If he didn't make it, would they realize all that's left of him is what he sent them, not even a body to bury? Did he look over the side of a bow of a boat and look at the churn of the ocean and think of how many bones it held? Did he tip his face to the sun? How many new scars did he earn? Who did he befriend?
Who did he become?
Somewhere along the line, Colin learned. He learned the real him wasn't wanted.
Somewhere along the line, somewhere between Patmos and Paris, Colin left Colin behind.
And, somewhere along the line, Colin laid face to face with loneliness in his bed, and it wrapped its arms around him.
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There's sometimes a misconception that Feng Xin is totally subservient to Xie Lian or afraid to say no to XL but FX often scolds/nags XL and has on multiple occasions told him to do or not do something.
FX has his own convictions and mind of his own too. He trusts XL's judgment on major decisions, following XL's call for serious matters, but imo it's not subservience, but rather loyalty borne out of a firm belief and conviction in XL's moral compass. FX's loyalty is bc of FX's own righteous principles and own moral code too.
In bk 4 FX argued with XL and questioned XL's decisions, and was even openly angry at XL, like when XL almost killed a commoner just for disrespecting XL and called the commoner a derogatory term. FX was angry at XL and yelled at XL for that bc FX has his own strong moral code that includes not harming innocents or doing unscrupulous things. He's not just blindly loyal. He has his own convictions too.
And he's certainly not a people pleaser or someone who follows rules to the letter. It's considered rude and unbecoming for heavenly officials to be too vulgar in the heavenly court, yet FX cusses openly all the time without a care. Would a people pleaser who was scared of breaking the smallest rule do that? FX is simply not someone who is afraid of saying no.
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Having grown up with pretty severe undiagnosed ADHD one of my core memories will always be the teacher in 6th grade that would go out of his way to humiliate students that weren't reading enough. Idk how common this was but we had AR points. Essentially a system where if you read a book you could take a quiz on it and get points if you passed, with each book being worth a different amount of points. A very short book might be 3 points, a book the size of Harry Potter might be worth 40-70. You get it
I was actually good at literacy, I had the highest literacy score in that class. But audiobooks weren't really much of a thing yet and sitting down to read a book was virtually impossible, it's something I still struggle with and thought I was stupid for. I knew how to read and was great at it, even liked the material, but physically sitting down and reading a book was close to impossible. There were kids with hundreds of AR points and I had idk, probably less than 25.
And every few weeks this asshole would have all of us line up from most points to least. He'd go through, first hyping up the front of the line saying how impressed he was. He'd tell the next few they were doing well, to keep it up. Further down tell them to pick up the pace, but god help you if you were within the last 6 or so (some of them had the same issue as me, VERY likely also something undiagnosed)
He'd spend most of this time on those last few students. Berating these 11 year olds individually and intentionally humiliating them, telling them how there are 7 year olds who read more than us. He'd say we had no future, at least nothing better than minimum wage at McDonald's. That or we'd be on the streets. He was the type to bully neurodivergent kids every chance he got and boy that was damaging.
Wasn't the first or last teacher of mine to bully and shame kids and other teachers knew he did this so they'd send them to our classroom. He'd sometimes take an entire hour (I'd counted) out of our class time just humiliating this kid or few kids sent in for things like not doing their work or causing disruptions. He'd sometimes put their sloppy unfinished work or something on the projector and make fun of it. If the kid started crying he'd tell them to suck it up or call them names. And he was actually really well liked by the students, just the ones he wasn't an abusive motherfucker to
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