He presses his forehead to mine. "Don't do this. Don't do this to me love."
"I have to."
His head is rocking against mine, from side to side. "No, Simon. No. We can't come apart like this. We're not made of pieces that come apart.
"Baz―"
"You can't just give up on this. On me. Don't you know what we have? It's the sort of thing people dream about. They make potions to steal it." He pulls his wand against his chest. He pulls me with it.
"I know," I say.
And I do. I know.
I know I'll never love anyone like I love Baz. I know he's the love of my life. Of all my lives. The Mage believed in reincarnation. Of a thousand lives stacked on top of each other. "Some lives we squander," he said. "And some we seize."
This was my life to find love. The truest love. The biggest.
But it isn't my life to have it.
If you look through the reviews for Any Way the Wind Blows on Goodreads- which I did the day after finishing to help resolve my feelings - there seem to be two exclusive camps:
🪄 The Gushers
and
🪄 The Disappointed
The Gushers forgive all sins and review solely through an incomprehensible language that consists mainly of screaming yelps of glee and an abundance of exclamation points, also known as The Feels.
It's a language I'm innately fluent in; Rosetta Stone can't teach this shit.
And then there's The Disappointed.
The camp that started the series with the highest of hopes and had them systematically dashed as the books went on.
They're vocal (as they should be), they're disapproving (Basilton energy), they're wondering where the fuck all the fluffy, magical school vibes went from the first book (up in flames with The Mage, methinks).
...
And then there's me.
The goblin in the middle.
Merrily blowing Snowbaz-shaped bubbles into the fray and wondering why everyone's so upset.
Because in my little goblin camp of one, we're actually pretty content.
We revel in the mundanity of Simon and Baz's relationship woes, roll around in the domestic mud of it, and splash around in the endless, awkward, romantic puddles smattered throughout.
This is absolutely what I wanted from the final book.
A book to reconnect with Simon and Baz, spend time with them in quiet, private moments where they could work through Simon's depression, Baz's helplessness in the face of it, and what it all means for their relationship going forward.
After the drama of Wayward Son, which I will admit was kind of a disaster that I still mostly enjoyed, to be back in Britain was, for one, a relief, but also by throwing everyone into situations that weren't all high adventure, deadly chases, and fighting for their lives, it settled my overall discomfort from our time in the US.
(No offence, America, but my boys belong on Celtic soil)
We were back to endless cups of tea, gradually fusing with living room furniture as is the nature of all uni students, and generally being uncomfortable in a way only us Brits can do so effortlessly.
(Instructions for British discomfort:Step 1) Avoid talking about what's wrong at all costs, Step 2) Be so polite it becomes bludgeon-worthy, Step 3) Make an uncouth joke to cut the tension, gallows humour is your friend, and Step 4) Everything can be solved with either a cup of tea or a bath. Everything. If you're bleeding from the eyeballs? Have a bath, you'll be good as new)
Also known as my Snowbaz happy place.
I pick up half a ham sandwich, and take a second to control my fangs before taking a bite. (I'm getting better at this.) Simon takes a sandwich as soon as I do, and shoves most of it into his mouth. He bites down, and his face lights up. He's kissing my cheek now, holding his tea out to the side, so it won't spill.
"What's that about?" I ask.
He noses at my ear. Softly: "There's butter on these ham sandwiches."
"I thought you liked them that way."
He nips at me. "I do."
Then pulls back, still smiling. What a ridiculous creature. Happy that I put butter on his sandwich. As if
I wouldn't make the world spin backwards if I thought he'd like it better that way.
I've said it time and time again, and I will continue to say it:
DOMESTICITY WITH A LONGTERM SHIP IS ENDGAME!
There is nothing I want more after spending a prolonged amount of time with a couple I've invested my entire fucking heart and soul into, than seeing them do normal shit together.
Netflixing, doing the dishes, bickering over who left a knife sticking in the butter like Excelsior overnight (barbaric behaviour, wtf!), etc.
Y'know, couple things!
I want them all, and I want them cute, and messy, and in abundance.
I helped Simon pick out a sofa today.
One minute, we were eating toast in his bed, and he was wiping his hands on my pyjama bottoms, and I was wiping my hands on his pillow―and the next, he was practically daring me to go to Ikea with him. (He'd been in such a desolate mood last night, after visiting Ebb's grave; I was relieved to see him so cheerful.)
He purchased: a navy-blue sofa. Four plates, four mugs, cutlery. Two sets of towels. Two pillows. A duvet. And two sets of bedding―(one with thick purple stripes and one with giant green apples. (Who knew Snow was whimsical?)
"You should choose one set, Baz."
"They're your sheets, Snow."
"Yeah, but you're going to be sleeping on them."
(I would sleep on a bed of straw to be close to him. I'd sleep in the back of a truck.)
He found a kitchen table he liked, then got kind of overwhelmed looking at chairs. "I need everything," he said. "This is going to take all day."
"We can come back," I said. "Ikea isn't going anywhere."
We ate lunch in their cafeteria, and Simon spent half his inheritance on Swedish meatballs and Daim cake.
He was wearing another Watford hoodie to cover his wings. One that he hasn't yet sliced to ribbons. I could tell he was overheated. (I don't know what the short-term solution for this is―a silk shawl? A lightweight poncho?) I noticed a few people noticing the hump on his back. But none of them seemed to think he was hiding anything.
We held hands the whole day. At ;inch, he sat with his arm resting on the back of my chair. "If you can't be gay in Ikea," Snow reasoned, "where can you?"
Was this the best day of my life?
I'm nearly certain.
And I rarely get them!
The only other series I can remember gorging itself on domesticity is Grace Draven'sWraith Kings- which I really need to read again because monster-fucking's never been so goddamn sweet, but aside from that?
Nada. It's a veritable fucking drought in the shipping community.
Which is criminal in my opinion, every series should have at least a bonus novella of the MC cooking dinner and bickering over the amount of butter mashed potatoes really needs (it's lots, always lots; and if you know why I'm referencing butter so much, then I love you, you're the best, *high five*).
Hell, I'd take an entire book made up solely of forehead kisses.
(Yes, I am this hangry for voyeuristic affection)
So, while others might be pissed off that for a hefty amount of the book we spend our time in bed with Snowbaz engaging in whispered, semi-coded, heavy conversations about what the fuck they're going to do to get through this difficult patch, I'm bloody overjoyed.
I'll snuggle right in the middle, thank you very much.
You drama-bitches can keep your near-death experiences, I'll take nap time with the boys - there's no better seat in the house, frankly.
Although, that's not to say this was a happy, carefree book and I was blissed out the entire time on queer-wizard endorphins.
I wasn't, it wasn't (except the endorphins, those were at an all time high), in truth, this was a really hard book for me.
I'm an emotional reader, I can't help but relate to what's going on and in some way lead it back to myself (vanity or high empathy? We'll never know), it's just how I read.
I can't even process how anyone can remove themselves entirely from a story and just observe, that's like eating a Tunnock's Teacake and not doing it methodically (chocolate first, then the mallow, but leave just enough of both to make the final biscuit base devouring a thing of taste bud beauty) and worshipfully, ie. biscuit lunacy.
But it's not always an intense emotion I encounter, sometimes it's just a pinky finger holding onto mine and saying I know you, and every once in a while (okay, all the time, I have a lot of feelings) it's a whole hand clutching fiercely, making sure I'm not alone.
Then there are unexpected moments where the book reaches out and envelops my entire body in a shielding embrace, it has to because it's the only way to contain and protect me from the heaving sobs shuddering from the inside out.
(Again, with the feelings and their abundance)
I didn't expect AWtWB to be one of those books, it was meant to be a last hurrah with the boys and their awkward beyond awkward romance, but it was and it cradled all of those skittish, damaged parts inside of me so well.
And this isn't the first time Rainbow Rowell's done this to me, she obliterated my socially anxious, introverted, negative-confidence self with Cath from Fangirl, a character I felt kinship with from the very first page.
If there's anything Rowell knows how to write, it's protagonists that deal with low self-worth and imposter syndrome, two mental health conditions I've been battling basically since birth but didn't have a name for before neurodivergence became more openly talked about.
I thought I was just different and I didn't understand why - I've a stronger grasp on it now, due, again, to the way we actually talk about mental health instead of blindly elbowing it back into its unspoken brain cabinet.
But that true feeling of difference didn't really hit until I reached university (see: Cath in Fangirlfor a pretty accurate portrayal of how alienated I felt in higher education) and subsequently when I left university.
Since before I can remember I'd been told you have a gift, you're really talented, I wish I knew how to do that, and yes, there's a level of arrogance when I say that because it felt good to hear, to know that I was naturally good at something.
I was good at it, and I think everybody wants to have that special something that feels as natural as breathing.
I absolutely do.
But when I went to art school all that changed, it wasn't easy breathing anymore, it was an asthmatic hike up a pathless incline.
Being a talented draughtsman wasn't enough anymore, I had to be more.
I can't tell you about any other art school in the world, but I can with complete clarity inform that the university I attended was not built for those who simply loved to draw, paint, sculpt, etc., who didn't necessarily want to change the world with their art but simply do it.
Replication just wasn't going to cut it.
You had to have something to say, a new style to bring to the world, you had to be gallery worthy.
If you weren't being subversive, you weren't edgy enough for good grades ←cackle at the polarity of those two statements with me.
Traditional art? Too old fashioned, no one wants to look at that.
REALISTIC DRAWING?! Get the fuck out, we like Abstraction (you have to roll your R's, grandly gesticulate, and talk like Edna Mode when you say this) in this here department!
...
Basically, I was fucked before I'd even started.
I loved portraiture, the human form, architecture; my favourite self-led project while I was there was on the anthropomorphism of nature (face pareidolia, specifically. I saw creatures in tree forms and drew them, essentially, it was very satisfying).
I think I blew my tutors minds simply because drawing in fineliners without mixing any other media in was my preferred style, and that, in the Fine Art department, was the equivalent of writing a book exclusively in TXT speak.
It just wasn't done.
And if it was, expect to be met with disapproval and disappointment.
But I loved it, and I tried and I tried to be more adventurous, to do what everyone was pushing me to do (without any help; Fine Art is basically a self-taught department full of very well paid artists masquerading as "teachers". Although, there was one tutor who had a profound effect on my time at university, Norman Shaw who was running the anthropomorphism project mentioned above. My time in his class was fun, eye-opening, soggy, and sparked something in my work. I'll always love that class), even when it was fucking killing me and without my knowledge building up to my first dose of true depression.
I fucking tried.
And when I didn't succeed, when I just couldn't take the endless barrage of disappointment being hurled my way on a weekly basis (I worked at home a lot, which is the benefit of art school being basically lawless) and scuttled away to my traditional cave to make something I was semi-proud of, do you know what happened?
In my final evaluation, the last one I ever put myself through in that institution, they told me they were glad I'd returned to my original style.
...
After putting me through hell, they were glad I stuck with my gut, as if that was the plan all along and they hadn't rejected every piece of work I'd ripped my guts out over.
*screams into the abyss*
And it broke me.
And I've never been able to fix myself.
There's something that happens to a person when the very essence of them is rejected (dramatic, shut up, I'm emoting here) by those who are supposed to nurture it, when they unflinchingly tell them that the thing that comes most naturally to them is wrong and unwanted.
It wears a person down, it alienates them, it casts them out, and if you're like me, it prevents them from creating, because if you're fundamentally "wrong", what's the point? What can you offer? Why put yourself through it to only feel pain?
Rationally, I know this is bullshit, art's for everyone, in any style, at any time, and its worth doesn't depend on a stranger's opinion to make it valid, grades truly mean nothing in the grand scheme of it all, but it's hard to reconcile that when all you've been told is no, not like that, we don't want that, why can't you do it like this?
It's so fucking hard to see past that.
Even when you're lucky enough to have people making sure you know that you did nothing wrong, that you don't suck, that they were unjust in how they treated you, and even if you never created again, you'd still be worthy, you'd be enough, you'd be loved.
I had and have that, my family took care of me when I was a wreck of a human, barely even human, if we're being honest.
They made sure that I made it through, and I was really bloody lucky.
But what no one has ever been able to do, because it's my task, not theirs, is break through that wall of Absolutely Fucking Not I put up, that bars any compliments, praising of talent, or assurances that some day, if it's right for me, I'll get it back.
That wall is made of impenetrable fucking steel and it is not coming down for anyone, as much as I may want it to.
False unworthiness may be just that, false, but it's a stubborn fucker, and like a virus, once it takes up residence inside you, there are no antibodies in the 'verse that can sweat the fucker out.
And this helplessness, wrongness, the feeling of being outcast is why this book knocked me flat on my ass, because it's exactly what Simon's going through.
But with, y'know, magic.
(Gods, I wish had magic, it'd make reaching the light switch so much easier)
At the start of the Simon Snow trilogy, Simon's the chosen one, the most powerful magician in the world, and from his first memory he's been told that he's special, that he has a destiny, a purpose, and that his magic is the most important part of him.
(If you didn't know already, the series is a blatant fanfic of Harry and Draco which started in Fangirlas a fanfic written by the main character, and then made into this series which is infinitely better than any of the TERF Mother's poisonous, spewing rhetoric)
But then he fulfils his destiny, he saves the world, and loses all his magic in the process.
It's just gone, never to be returned, Simon's joined the normal masses (with dragon wings and a tail but very human otherwise), so what the fuck does he do now?
What does that make him?
If he isn't the chosen one, if he can't do magic, if he isn't welcome in the magical community, then where's his place? How can he possibly stay with Baz and Penny, watch them cast spells with an ease he never had but at least he had magic?
If he's not Simon Snow, saviour of magicians everywhere, then who is he?
To Simon? Nothing.
Normal, unworthy, a reject.
He's spent too long with magic to fit in with the Normals, and now he's so normal that being around magic hurts him.
Physically, mentally, emotionally hurts him.
...
I didn't have magic, I wasn't an artist that was going to change the fate of the art world, I wasn't special like Simon but I do know what it's like to lose the thing you thought made you special, to suddenly have that natural born talent which had always been fussed over and used as an identifier for who you are to be snatched away through no fault of your own.
Simon's magic betrayed him.
The university and my brain betrayed me.
And like I was when I left university, in Any Way the Wind Blows Simon's just lost, in pain and lost.
I wouldn't have said Simon was a character I related much to in the beginning, he was the epitome a soft cinnamon roll who coasted along into one adventure to the next, he was the definition of the sunshine Labrador trope.
I loved him, I rooted for him, but he wasn't my character, the one I got excited for every time he turned up on page, he wasn't my blorbo.
(That was Baz, always Baz. His full name's Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch ffs, and he's fond a floral suit and sassing people out, how could he not be my blorbo?)
But now?
If the degree to which I relate to Simon Snow wasn't apparent in the above emotional verbiage, then let me make it clear
SIMON SNOW'S PAIN IS MY PAIN, AND I WILL PROTECT HIS FICTIONAL ASS WITH MY LIFE!
I swear it.
And I did while I watched him go through the same shit I went through at the height of my depression.
Pushing people away, barely speaking because forming words feels like your vocal chords are wrapped in thorn-infested cotton wool, rejecting touch and compassion because the depths of your self-loathing is so astronomical that any human contact feels like your skin is burning.
(Depression's fun, I don't recommend it)
BAZ
I told myself I'd be calm when I found him. Warm. Understanding. But all I am I angry―I'm livid, with him, with Bunce, with myself.
I turned my back for five minutes, and literally everything fell apart. This is why I haven't turned my back on him in a year! This is why I've been rushing him from class to sit next to him on the sofa. Because I couldn't trust him. I could never trust him . . .
The room is empty. Snow is standing at a window, looking at the closed curtains. His jeans are riding low, and his tail is tucked between his legs. His wings are hitched up around his ears. For some reason, there's a dagger tucked in his back pocket. "All right," he says, "so you found me. I can't hide from you."
"You bloody well can't."
"So what do you want me to say?"
I come up behind him. "I want you to explain what's going on!"
He doesn't turn around. He doesn't even raise his voice. "You know what's going on, Baz. I've already told you."
"You haven't even answered my texts, Simon!"
"I told you, I keep telling you . . ." He sounds so flat, like none of this affects him―like I don't affect him.
No. Unacceptable. Untenable. I always affect him.
I grab his bare shoulder. "You never tell me anything!"S
Snow whips around, nearly clipping me with his wing. "I told you I'm done!"
"Done what?" Don't with me, he means. I know that's what he means.
"Done!" he shouts, his wings spread wide. "I already told you. Christ I―I tried to tell you! Done . . . pretending!"
"Pretending what?" I shout. Like I don't know. Like it isn't already killing me.
"Pretending . . . this, Baz. Us. Pretending I can . . ."
I'm dying.
I'm dying, this is death.
Simon's in my stomach, he's in my heart, and he's punching.
"Use your words, Snow. For fuck's sake."
SIMON
I can't do this with him.
I can't say this. It will slit my throat to say it, it will slice its way out, and then he'll cut me down―I won't survive it. (I was never going to survive this. Everything I am I nearly gone. Finish me off, Baz)
I watched him wade through the same poisonous sludge I trudged through, that seeped inside and made damn sure I knew I was an undeserving piece of shit (see: Artax in the Swamp of Sadness*sobbbbbbbbb*), and it wouldn't. let. go.
Being attacked by your own brain, not feeling like you even are your own brain because you'd never say this shit to yourself, is so fucking cruel, almost evil, and painful beyond measure.
When you can't even trust your own thoughts, then just how fucking alone are you?
Answer: Not at all but very much so.
But it's not as if you don't feel joy at any point, I felt it, Simon feels it, and we see that joy most of all in the second of the trilogy, Wayward Son. On the endless, dusty roads of America, Simon felt joy, the sun, he saw Baz again, even though he'd been there the entire time. For precious moments, even when he was continuing to despair, he felt true happiness.
The problem with those euphoric moments is unfortunately that they're usually fairly sporadic, often fleeting, and the come down is a motherfucker.
It'll fell you for days.
You won't want to move, speak, eat, it's true misery and it seems to go on forever.
That was the basic format for Simon's emotions in Wayward Son: up, down, level, surge, plummet, ad infinitum.
So, if you think about the series as the stages of depression, then the second book is the absolute lowest point, the aforementioned sludge, and most likely why so many people didn't like Wayward Son all that much.
Reading your formerly sunshine Labrador protagonist lethargically flop around in his own misery is kind of a suck-fest, even I struggled with his despondency and I've been exactly where he is. If anything, that made it harder to read because my empathy was through the fucking roof, but I appreciated the representation of depression without the grandiose tone it's usually afforded.
Don't trust 90% of what the media shows, mental health isn't glamorous, it doesn't make you superhuman, not even Simon Snow, a former wizard.
It's long days and nights of just breathing through it.
I'm not sure Simon breathed at all during Wayward Son, even less so at the beginning of AWtWB, as he removed himself entirely from his former life, his friends, Baz, but once that happened, once he'd done everything possible to preserve his mental health, at a cost, we finally reached the next stage of depression, the oh fuck, why did I do that? stage.
It's usually when the sludge starts to thin out a bit, the claustrophobia dies down and your brain can at last process that being all alone isn't going to solve anything, and actually, those people who stuck with you, made sure didn't sink entirely and you pushed away, are who you need the most.
And now you've got to do some work to get them back.
AWtWB is Simon doing that work, and Rainbow Rowell wrote it so delicately, and without avoiding the rawest, most agonising parts that it tore me up a bit.
This is what people do.
They get close and try to stay there.
They stay.
They keep trying to hold on to each other, even though it's not really possible, I don't think. Because people are always moving, aren't they. But this is what they do. They keep trying.
I'll keeping trying.
To keep him well.
To keep him happy.
[...]
He holds my face in both hands. I hold his like it's precious.
This is what people do. This is what we'll do. Baz and me.
Okay, a lot.
Fine, she murdered my heart, but I can forgive that because there's such a strong message of love in this story.
Not just romantic, but familial, platonic, friendship, and oft forgotten, internal.
Rowell makes it absolutely clear in every chapter, every word, that Simon's depression doesn't change who he is, it doesn't make him unlovable or unworthy, it doesn't alter how his people feel about him.
Because what does depression not make you, not even for a second? Less of a person.
". . . I miss it. I liked having a job, and I liked that specific job, and I liked knowing who I was. In a larger sense. I didn't know who my parents were, but I knew who I was. Who I was supposed to be. Who the fuck am I now, Baz?"
"You're the same person!"
"I was the Chosen One before."
"You were you. You still are."
He growls. "You're not getting it―"
"I do get it." I pull the blanket up over my head to muffle my voice. "I understand that you've lost something―a lot of things―but you're still the same person. I know, because I loved you then, and I love you now, and I know that's not enough to make you happy―to make anyone happy―but you're the same person, Simon. You're still you."
Even if you know that already, I certainly do, and I'm a massive advocate for mental health rights/awareness and I genuinely feel neurodivergent people are some of the strongest fuckers in the goddamn universe, but even I appreciate seeing it written down.
I will never not need to be told that my brain, full of those dark thoughts that can pull me down at any given moment, doesn't define me.
I am more than the bad shit I say to myself without permission.
Which is why I appreciated those soft conversations between Baz and Simon, those whispered, revealing mumblings with half finished thoughts cradled with ellipses that happened in the dark, on soft beds, with cautious touches and tentative reassurances.
I appreciate them, firstly because they're necessary for recovery, for relief when you feel, not like an empty shell as depressed people are so often described, but because you're so full, at capacity with a oppressive "something" that chokes every nook, every corner, every crevice, and won't let you breathe those necessary breaths to just get through the fucking day.
But I also appreciate these conversations because they're ones I've had before, with family, with friends, even with myself. They're conversations I could almost speak along with before I'd read the next word because I know them, because they're what opening yourself up to someone sounds like.
It's not long speeches of backstory and explanation - you save that for a therapist/councillor/psychologist - but broken words and missing sentences that are full of an unspoken understanding.
The conversations you have with the people you love and who love you in return, who've you've spent years knowing and becoming attune to, should be a mystery to an outsider listening in, it should sound almost like a code they're not privy to understanding, highlighted and annotated with memories, cult references, inside jokes, and privileged empathy.
It should be so private it's practically a new language.
Which is why I knew exactly what was being said between Baz and Simon in those missing but silently present sentences.
Because I've been there the whole time, I know they're history, I know their wants and needs, I know them, and I didn't need Rowell to write passages of context I already knew.
What I needed, and what she gave me, were stuttered unburdenings and weighted, soundless promises.
Any Way the Wind Blows may be a book full of love, but it isn't a book that takes that love lightly.
Not once does Baz listen to Simon and reassure him that his love would be enough to make him better, make anything better, but instead makes sure that Simon knows that he's loved, that Baz'll never leave, and he'll be right there for whatever Simon needs.
He shakes his head, like he's irritated―possibly with me, possibly with himself. "You keep telling me everything is all right, that whatever I need is fine . . ."
I nod. "That's correct. I'm glad you're finally hearing me."
He twists up his face and throws his head back, so that his throat is a mile long. "I just don't think it's true."
"Simon―" I pull him in closer, I wish he'd open his eyes. "―of course it's true. All you've asked of me so far is kindness."
[...]
His voice is muffled: "What if I asked you to be less kind to me?"
"What?" I draw my head back. "Why?"
He's slumped into me, his forehead on my shoulder, whispering harshly into the space between our chests: "Because it makes me feeling mental. It's like being touched too lightly. Makes me feel like I'm being tuned inside out. Like I need to get away."
I pull his tail through my hand, firmly. I press my other hand into his back. I push my nose hard into his ear. "No," I say. "I won't do that."
Simon shrinks from me. His hands fall to his lap. He looks anguished.
I loop his tail around my hand again and hold him everywhere tight. "No," I repeat. "I can touch you less gently, but I won't love you less kindly."
That, to me, is a more profound and honest declaration of love than any grand gesture could ever supply.
Because Simon might never be truly okay, he might never get over the loss of his magic and the life he was promised, how could he when he's essentially been kicked out of the thing he loves most, the place he'd been told from the beginning was where he belonged.
That even when he had his magic, it felt like something he didn't know how to wield, a feeling I experienced like a punched to the gut:
"I'm sorry," I say, "about your magic."
"Ah, it's all right." He throws a napkin into the bag. "I didn't have much to lose. Not like you. You must miss it like crazy."
"I do. But . . . if I'm being honest, I was never any good at it either. It's not just about power, you know―you have to have some skill."
Because I may not have been supernaturally talented, but I had the tools, just like Simon, but I didn't know how to use them, how to control and advance them the way everybody else did, and then they were snatched away.
And then you're just abandoned, feeling like you've been given a false key to a door that everyone else has already gone through, left outside wondering why you're different, why you don't understand what seems so natural to everybody else.
That's not a feeling you just "get over", it's not something, especially for people prone to depression, that they can simply shrug off and move past.
It sticks with you, and it gnaws away with an admirable dedication, but it is possible to move forward, live beside the thing that was taken from you, to accept where you are at that precise moment, not backwards, not forwards, but right now.
"You said it makes you miserable, that I remind you of everything you've lost."
"Well, I can work on that."
"Can you?"
"Yeah . . ." [Simon] reaches his fingers up my cheeks and sucks one side of his bottom lip into his mouth. (It's an entire Joni Mitchell song. It's a Mercury Prize.) "Yeah," he says, letting his lip go. "Maybe when I feel that way, I'll turn it into being glad that I didn't lose you, as well."
I raise an eyebrow at him. "This is you trying, isn't it?"
"I suppose." There's a lightness in his expression that I haven't seen for so long. I want more of it. Even if I can't trust it.
"If we do this"―my chin hits his palm with every syllable―"I want the full Simon Snow treatment."
"What does that mean?"
"I want the locked jaw. The squinty eyes. The shoulders."
He wrinkles his forehead. "The shoulders?"
"I want you to slay a dragon before you give up on me, do you understand?"
I press my hands into Snow's chest and clutch them in his jumper. "I want you to try everything before you give up on us again."
He rubs his thumb below my lip. "I won't give up, Baz. Unless you tell me to. Unless you're, like, really clear that you want me to. And even then, I won't give up. I'll just persist from a distance."
That's an important message for anyone who's experienced or is experiencing a loss, that your life isn't over because something terrible happened, and I admire the way Rainbow Rowell relayed that message.
Not grandiose, not preachy, but quietly, privately.
He hides his face in my T-shirt. "It's too much for me."
I set the violin on the floor by the bed, then rest my hand over his on the hilt of the sword. He lets go. For a moment, I wonder if I'll be able to lift it, but I can. I set it by the bed, too.
Simon crawls half into my lap, burrowing his face into my chest.
I lay my cheek on top of his head and hold him behind his ears.
"It would be too much for anyone," I say.
I can understand why this isn't a finale for everybody: not enough magic, not enough drama, not enough high jinx.
I can understand that the majority of the fandom wanted a return to Watford, to magic, to Simon and Baz being more confident in their relationship instead of awkwardly broken.
I get that, I yearned for it too, but I think this was a braver, more important finishing point in Snowbaz's story.
It would've been so easy to simply give Simon back his magic, fix every unfixed point, deliver the ultimate, extravagant happy ending, that shit's simple.
But it means more to show that what they've gone through isn't something that's easily fixed, that it'll take time and effort, compassion and patience, probably some screaming matches, hurt feelings and tearful forgivenesses to finally take those first, leaden steps forward.
It matters to show the mess that comes with recovery, that comes with love in every form.
It just fucking matters and appreciate and respect that Rainbow Rowell did this for us, that she didn't shy away.
Maybe I'm taking it too personally, but as I explained, I'm apparently a really narcissistic reader, but I felt acknowledged reading this book.
Not patted on the head or used for drama like I usually do, but fully, properly, confrontingly seen.
"I can't . . . breathe," he says. "It isn't enough―it's too much―I can't―"
He's crying. And clinging to me. Arms. Legs. Wings. Tail. All of him trembling.
I'm breathless, too, but in the wrong way now―the wind hand changed. Hopefully it only just happened. Hopefully I didn't misinterpret every moment of this moment.
"Simon," I say, my hands in the back of his hair. "My darling. My love. It's all right.:
"I can't," he sobs.
"I know," I say, stroking him. "It's all right. I'm here."
"I can't."
"I'm here."
"Baz . . ."
"I'm here, love."
So, I repeat, I understand why this isn't the finale everyone wanted, I understand it was heavy and laden with heartache, but selfishly, as someone who's felt this kind of pain, all I feel is gratitude.
Gratitude that Rowell had the guts to show something real in a very fantastical setting.
And it's not as if the story was all deep and meaningful, there was mystery, puzzle-solving, the emergence of a new threat, Penny being generally awesome, and Agatha... well, the Agatha stuff felt kind of thrown in for no other reason than Rowell didn't know how to finish her story, but whatever, it was fun, she's got an awesome, veterinary girlfriend, she's a magical goat-herder now, I'll call it a win.
And it all helped lead Simon to a happy, familial conclusion I'm positive we all wanted for him from the beginning, so I'm calling that a double win.
All the wins for Snowbaz and co.
For a farewell story full of magic, humour, silliness, mystery, battles (internal and external), demon pacts, new romances, old romances renewed, to the numerous open-ended plot lines that don't actually bother me because, hello, scope for more stories!
To Fiona Pitch, who still won't accept front passengers in her car who've been kidnapped by Numpties.
To the goats of Watford, I kind of forgot you existed until this story, sorry Ebb.
To Shepherd, a soft new addition to the gang who treated m'lady Penelope with the reverence she deserves.
To Penelope Bunce, the list-making, sharp-tongued, wizard queen of my heart.
And finally, most importantly to Simon's bottomless stomach (there aren't enough sour cherry scones in the world), and Baz's Patrick Brewer energy when it comes to Simon's entire being.
To my boys, who I'll see again in Scattered Showers when my preorder drops through the door.
And hopefully, maybe, please Rainbow Rowell, you know want to, some time again in the future.
I really could do with that happy domestic book the boys deserve.
The baby―Swithin's nearly 2, I should stop calling him "the baby"―is screaming in my ear.
I pat his back, swaying. "What's wrong, little puff? Bad night?" I check his nappy, then his forehead. "You're allowed a bad night. Should we sing a song? You sisters always liked my singing . . . Even Mordelia."
I bounce him around the family room, singing songs from the White Album.
Baz calling his baby brother little puff and singing The Beatles might be my favourite thing in the entire book.
"Merlin and Morgana and bloody Anne Boleyn!"
I'm a sucker for pseudo-profanity in fiction and this is a beaut.
Baz laughs. "So the Mage paid for this flat?"
"Yeah."
"And the Mage bought that mattress?"
"Indirectly."
Baz grabs me by the waist and starts shoving me backwards towards the bedroom. He kicks off his shows between shoves.
"Hey!"
"Shut up, Snow, I'm going to have my way with you on the Mage's bed."
He pushes me through the door, and I fall back onto the mattress. Baz grabs one of my legs and takes me trainer off by the heel.
"Is that a turn-on?" I watch him take off my other shoe. "The Mage's bed?"
"Yes," he says, throwing both shows towards the door. "Because I hate him, and anything that would piss him off is a turn-on." He climbs over me."
I swallow and hook my arms around his neck. "So that's what this is, spite?"
"Hm-mm." Baz kisses my neck. "Spite. Look where the Mage's golden boy is now . . ."
"Depowered," I say. "Deposed. Hackney Wick."
Baz sits up, right on my stomach. I grunt and try to push him off."
"I meant"―he smacks my side―"in a homosexual relationship with on of his worst enemies."
"Right," I say, still grunting. He's crushing me. "He'd hate that part, too."
Basilton, showing his kinks off.
[Baz] puts on the gold-rimmed glasses, winding the springs carefully behind each ear.
I can't help but laugh once he has them on. His eyes look huge and blinky behind the thick lenses. I slide my arms around his waist. "Look at you, all specky."
He frowns down at me. He's only three inches taller, but I swear he stretches it out to six when he feels like it. He looks like a very handsome, very judgy owl.
"Kiss me," I say. "I've always wanted to kiss someone with glasses."
"Bunce was right there . . ."
"That's absurd―"
"You look like a steampunk vampire."
"That's absurd―"
I kiss him. It is absurd. I can't even see the glasses like this. I pull away just enough that I can.
Baz cocks an eyebrow above the frames. "I don't think this is what Lady Salisbury had in mind when she lent us her heirloom reading glasses."
"I don't think she'd mind. She seems like she likes a good time."
"Really. You think she's up to party?"
"You know what I mean . . ." I kiss him quickly. "I've never kissed you in the library. Think of all the places we could have kissed if we'd figured this out sooner."
He looks up at my forehead, threading one hand into my hair. His eyes are enormous. "If you'd figured it out sooner . . ."
I could argue with him tease him, return his serve. But I don't want to. I push him back against a bookshelf and kiss him some more.
Simon, showing off his kinks.
Penelope is lying on the couch with her legs up and hanging over one end, a book leaning against her thighs and keeping her skirt from falling. She always wears skirts or short dresses, never pants . . .
I've seen so much of Penelope Bunce's knees. Her legs are short and curvy―they're very goddamn cute, if I'm being honest, and her knees are the cutest part. And, okay, maybe I've more affected by her cuteness than I want to admit, but when am I supposed to do? She's right there, and she doesn't get any less cute. Her cuteness doesn't abate. It just gets worse the more I'm around her. The liquorice think is killing me. And she's covered in chalk dust 24-7. It gets on her face and in her hair . . . I've never seen someone with so much hair pay so little attention to it―she's either got the world's messiest ponytail, or a mop of thick, dark brown hair, curling every which way, falling halfway down her back. It's cute. It's real cute. I am not unaffected, okay? I am very affected. Very. Very, very aware of Penelope Bunce. And how cute she is.
And Shepard's appreciation for Penelope's everything but specifically her cute, little legs.
Male, inner monologues written by women feed me so well; I'm stuffed and I can't sit up.
It's pretty well known that I'm a leaky faucet just waiting to go geyser at the faintest hint of the feels but this, right at the end, sucker punched me right in the... spout?
...
There are some movies I'll watch time and time again, without fail, no exceptions:
If it's on, I'm gonna glue my eyes to it, recite all the lines in my head verbatim, and bemoan the fact that I still don't have a Rockford Peaches uniform (one day, cosplay gods, one day!).
It's the law.
'Cause I love it.
Which is why I was super nervous about a tv adaptation.
I mean, I shouldn't have been because a)Abbi Jacobson(where was my Ilana Glazer cameo, though, Jacobson? Where was my feral queen?) and b) D'Arcy Carden(Janet is my under duress The Good Place fave. I don't like to have favourites among my fictional children, but when forced, that tall glass of omniscient water will always come out on top), and c) Nick Offerman(Next to Tyler Gaca and Jenny Slate, he has the best laugh in media. Fight me).
But most importantly, finally just saying fuck it and making the show as queer as the movie always was but didn't come outright and say.
So good.
So fucking good.
Looked right, felt right, sounded right.
All the rights and that made it pretty fucking spectacular.
As good as the movie? Nah, never could be, but did it have the essence of the Peaches>
Fuck yeah!
But in true me-form, it wasn't the parts of the show I initially was drawn to that brought me the most happiness whilst watching.
That honour went to this little nugget of nerdiness:
Don't talk to me about my boys unless you're prepared for me to lie face down on the floor, effusing muffled, keening cries of:
I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.
...
The sweatshirt's fleece-lined, so at least I can be emotionally unbalanced and cosy as I wail inconsolably like the gutter-goblin I am.
Bittersweet is the only possible way to describe the end to a show that infinitely bettered its original and effortlessly made me fall in love with it within the first five minutes.
I thought it was going to be rubbish.
I'm an idiot.
And idiot who's really going to miss this fine rabble of scrappy miscreants.
.............................................
The Proprietary Paw:
The Charlie-Bear is not an affectionate cat.
He bites, he does not snuggle.
His head-bumps come with a warning label.
He's never slept in my lap, and I've only felt how soft his belly is when he's snoring and can't bat me away.
The Charlie-Bear is a motherfucker.
But he always does this when he's sleeping next to me.
Some part of him will always be touching part of me.
It's not a lot, but I'll take it.
Even when he scowls at me for delivering more than the allotted number of kisses he permits in a day.
The list goes on, and they're all glorious, and when you smoosh them together to birth Do Revenge, a pastel boss-bitch movie for Gen Z, it's so fucking pretty and batshit, I can barely stand it.
A special note for Sophie Turner, who I've never liked more than when she's screaming obscenities:
And then delete your initial review because you may as well have opened a vein and splattered your past relationship trauma all over the internet.
...
Let's just put it this way: I had my very own Laura Dean, a brazen fucker who wouldn't let me grieve the relationship in peace.
He's a monk, now.
...
At least in my head he is.
Fucker.
Persistent fucker.
Maybe it's just me, but when you unceremoniously dump someone, could you just, I don't know, kindly fuck off for the rest of eternity and not slither into my DMs every few months with flirty "friend" messages that lead fucking nowhere and leave me bruised, pissed off and broken all over again, as if you hadn't chewed up my chest organ like a piece of watermelon taffy (flavour choice feels right, don't know why) and unceremoniously spat me out?
Is it too much to ask that you fall into a canyon and 127 Hours yourself until I'm ready to acknowledge your existence again, if ever?
I don't think that's unreasonable.
I get a broken heart... you violently lose a limb...
Fair trade, yes?
...
See, there goes that trauma splatter I was trying to avoid.
But fuck, this triggered the shit out of me.
Bitch-slapped me right back to being eighteen, freshly dumped and just miserable.
That brazen fucker.
And me, the vulnerable sap, letting him.
He was my Laura Dean.
Laura Dean, who I wanted to tit-punch for the entirety of the graphic novel.
Willing Freddy to get out of her own way and see that she's being manipulated, gaslit, openly cheated on, used.
It's so clear that it's hard to watch.
I was cringing whenever they were together, with every vapid word out of LD's mouth, it was so obvious.
But that's the thing, it so easy to see from the sidelines, easy to rationalise and judge, know the right thing to do, but not so much when you're the poor fucker being preyed on.
(Been there, made the same damn mistakes, where's my bloody t-shirt?)
Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O'Connell did an insanely beautiful job of translating the vulnerability and frustration that comes with being in, and out, of a toxic relationship.
A relationship that, buried deep inside under piles and piles of repression, you know might actually contain love, or very strong like, that can feel so right when it's good, but is ultimately damaging to you, is actively hurting you, and you're letting it, and you can't seem to stop.
It's a special form of masochism that the Laura Deans of the world take advantage of.
Like a siren call to narcissists who nourish themselves on devotion and starve their devotees until they're sated.
It's fucking cruel, is what it is.
Which is why I spent almost the entirety of the story with murder in my heart and retribution in my eyes.
This. Fucker.
I'm so fucking angry, like a wounded animal lashing out at anyone who comes close, and I didn't expect to be.
The book's so pink and pretty, and its insides like liquid bubblegum; with glitching, comfortingly cluttered panels that slide into the next with cascading ease, strewn with Franken-toys who talk amongst themselves, hating on Laura Dean with the same sneering intensity I levelled at her.
It wasn't meant to trigger me like this.
I wasn't meant to make me remember all this.
But it did.
I do.
Fuck, I do.
But not because I can feel myself sinking back into that breakup depression that wrecked me for far too long, absolutely fucking not, but because Freddy's story made me desperately want to go back and find eighteen year old me, drag her from that depressed fog, give her a gentle but jarring shake, a massive hug, and then hand her this book.
Stay with her while she read it, made sure she understood that she did nothing wrong, that she was used and mistreated, and that was never, and will never be her fault.
I wanted her to be more okay than she was, which she could've been, if only she'd had a book like this, which in no short terms explained exactly this:
Fuck. That. Fucker.
And also serve as a tiny, massive reminder to treat your friends better, to not get so lost in a relationship or relationship grief that you forget about them, ignore whatever's going on in their lives and yet expect them to fully invest in your issues.
(I have got to stop talking in the third person, who the fuck do I think I am? Terry Jeffords?)
Because really, there's only much self-absorbed misery a bestie can take before you're the one receiving a tit-punch.
To past me: I wish you'd known that, you heartsore wreck.
To current me: stop hugging the book, you weirdo.
If you've ever had any kind of relationship (romantic, platonic, familial, etc.) that's taken a piece of you without your consent, read this graphic novel.
My sisters kept laughing every time I mentioned I was watching the Heartbreak Highremake, which I did a lot, because I was obsessed with the original(which I will now be rewatching with goblin joy) and it was blowing my mind that a) they actually remade it (wtf? Whoever decided that is my personal lord and saviour) and b) that it was so fucking good.
Which it was.
SO fucking good.
Funny and weird and scorchingly honest, with that Aussie humour that kills me every time.
Gen Z drama-brats are so freaking entertaining, and the show's doing for Australia what Sex Education(I need the next season nowwww) has done for Britain.
It's only been optioned, so there's no guarantee it'll happen, but... yeah, I'm trying to chill the fuck out but this is the level of excitement we're dealing with:
IWWV tore me to absolute fucking shreds in the most tremendous, book-life altering way (we're talking The Song of Achilles level of trauma), and I'll never get over the ending, and seeing it in episodic form might be my undoing, but fuck it, I'll get to experience my academic fuckups in visual form.
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