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"Hey. You've reached Astrid's phone. Just leave a message, and I'll try to get back to you. Thanks!"
**BEEP**
Room 210; Tuesday [03/01].
Mar. 1st, 2022 05:58 amHaving given the whitewash time to dry and only having the one class that day, Astrid was ready to set to work on her new mural proper, spending the morning mixing up some of the colors she wanted to use and getting that first base down, layering all the reds and yellows and oranges to imitate the watercolors she'd done of the sunsets in Kenya. Usually, she just painted the one wall, but, for this one, she'd decided to let streaks of it bleed into the adjacent walls, like little whisps and trendrils, like it wanted to spread to the entire room, but just didn't have the power or energy to make it very far. But it made it enough that it sort of felt she'd be wrapped a little in sunset as she slept.
And when she was finished with class, hopefulyl the base would have dried enough that she could start deepening the colors even further and adding the shadows of the landscape below as well, so it would definitely be a whole-day project, but Astrid honestly couldn't think of a better way to spend a day than this, anyway.
She wasn't quite sure if it would be her final mural, or if she'd come up with something good to put up right after graduation, but, if it did end up being the last one, she had to admit, it was a rather nice one.
[[ door and post are open, of course! ]]
And when she was finished with class, hopefulyl the base would have dried enough that she could start deepening the colors even further and adding the shadows of the landscape below as well, so it would definitely be a whole-day project, but Astrid honestly couldn't think of a better way to spend a day than this, anyway.
She wasn't quite sure if it would be her final mural, or if she'd come up with something good to put up right after graduation, but, if it did end up being the last one, she had to admit, it was a rather nice one.
[[ door and post are open, of course! ]]
Room 210; Sunday [02/27].
Feb. 27th, 2022 05:24 amNow that they were back from spring break and there'd been at least one afternoon and evening of recovery, Astrid was ready to get to work with all the inspiration she'd soaked in while in Kenya and Tanzania. It started pretty early; she'd slipped to the common room to grab some coffee and some snacks, and returned back to her room, door and windows open, and started to spread out and sort through the suitcase's worth of sketches and paints she'd done throughout the week, after covering the furniture and the floor with the tarps and canvases. Then, inspiration spread out around her, she set to mixing up the whitewash with which to cover the current mural on her side of the room (technically, it was all her room now, but there would always be sides), and then, roller in hand, she climbed up on the tarp-covered bed so she could get the higher spots near the ceiling first and work her way down with covering up what had been there.
She never even really felt sad about losing what had been there before anymore, either. The whole process felt like one of renewal and rebirth, perfect for going into spring, and into whatever waited for her once she actually got out of this place. Four years of painting and repainting, a cycle of images to reflect where she was or where she'd been or where she'd hoped to go.
She doubted this would be her last one here on this wall, but it was getting pretty close, and painting the wall white, once again, and the promise of possibilities therein, would never not be cathartic, nor a bad way to spend a week off that had given her a lot of food for thought. And whitewashing the wall was a good way to help it all digest.
[[ door and post are open! ]]
She never even really felt sad about losing what had been there before anymore, either. The whole process felt like one of renewal and rebirth, perfect for going into spring, and into whatever waited for her once she actually got out of this place. Four years of painting and repainting, a cycle of images to reflect where she was or where she'd been or where she'd hoped to go.
She doubted this would be her last one here on this wall, but it was getting pretty close, and painting the wall white, once again, and the promise of possibilities therein, would never not be cathartic, nor a bad way to spend a week off that had given her a lot of food for thought. And whitewashing the wall was a good way to help it all digest.
[[ door and post are open! ]]
Room 210; Friday [12/10].
Dec. 10th, 2021 04:54 amAstrid wasn't usually one to call in sick to work, but she had absolutely no problem with calling in Fandom on a day like today, where she'd barely been up and had already been harrassed by mistletoe to kiss her radio co-star twice. She was pretty sure the mistletoe would have enough discretion to not make it weird between herself and Apu (or the cheese panda!) if she did go into work today, but, well, she was eighteen now, there was a good chance all bets were off, and she wasn't about to risk that.
And she knew Apu would agree with her that not coming into work that day was probably the best decision she could have possibly have made.
So they were both happy, and Astrid could just spent the rest of the day tucked away in her room, working on painting some Christmas cards, some to send to people, most to hopefully sell, considering how the mistletoe did at least look nice there on the ceiling and wondering just how difficult it would be to paint something like. Maybe if she could find somewhere to get a good scaffolding....
[[ door is closed, but post is open! ]]
And she knew Apu would agree with her that not coming into work that day was probably the best decision she could have possibly have made.
So they were both happy, and Astrid could just spent the rest of the day tucked away in her room, working on painting some Christmas cards, some to send to people, most to hopefully sell, considering how the mistletoe did at least look nice there on the ceiling and wondering just how difficult it would be to paint something like. Maybe if she could find somewhere to get a good scaffolding....
[[ door is closed, but post is open! ]]
Room 210; Sunday Afternoon [11/28].
Nov. 28th, 2021 05:22 amAstrid sat with her long legs folded in front of her as she sat on her bed that afternoon, surrounded by a ring of papers. Not drawings, as one might expect, although she did plan to eventually repurpose them all some day into some sort of collage-piece, more than likely. No, she was surrounded by information, by forms, by applications and brochures, collected idly within the last few weeks and now gathered in front of her to be sorted through dauntingly. Admissions for colleges, for art schools, financial aid and scholarships. Was she a little late to be planning for this? Early? Not too long ago, she'd practically had an application ready to be sent off by Claire's good graces, and after she died, thoughts of higher education died with her. But now, facing graduation next semester, it was having a bit of a ressurection in Astrid's mind. She'd been saving enough money. With some help, maybe she actually could afford it.
It was possible, too, that she could use her mother's connections to get in somewhere back home. And why shouldn't she? Ingrid would certainly not hesitate to tap into resources available to her...but it was telling, that all the applications Astrid was seriously considering were all school distinctly on the east coast....or, even better, across the pond entirely in Europe.
But what caught her attention the most that afternoon was not an application or a form or a brochure, but, instead, a small, slightly creased business card, mostly forgotten about and discarded among all of Astrid's letters and drawings and sketchbooks, but remembered thanks to a weekend where she was herself, but not really herself. A business card for a comic book shop in New York, with a name and a sketch scribbled on the back of it.
She stated at the card for a long time, flipping it over in her hands, considering, contemplating, regretting, and then, finally, she reached for a notebook, flipped to a clean, fresh page, and began to write:
Dear Paul,
I'm not sure if you even remember me...
[[ door and post are very open! ]]
It was possible, too, that she could use her mother's connections to get in somewhere back home. And why shouldn't she? Ingrid would certainly not hesitate to tap into resources available to her...but it was telling, that all the applications Astrid was seriously considering were all school distinctly on the east coast....or, even better, across the pond entirely in Europe.
But what caught her attention the most that afternoon was not an application or a form or a brochure, but, instead, a small, slightly creased business card, mostly forgotten about and discarded among all of Astrid's letters and drawings and sketchbooks, but remembered thanks to a weekend where she was herself, but not really herself. A business card for a comic book shop in New York, with a name and a sketch scribbled on the back of it.
She stated at the card for a long time, flipping it over in her hands, considering, contemplating, regretting, and then, finally, she reached for a notebook, flipped to a clean, fresh page, and began to write:
Dear Paul,
I'm not sure if you even remember me...
[[ door and post are very open! ]]
Room 210; Sunday Afternoon [10/17].
Oct. 17th, 2021 06:28 amWith plenty of autumnal inspiration and thoughts of color tours and leaves and warm tones of orange and red and yellow on her mind, as well as a sort of maudlin realization that there was probably only one of these inspirational trips left for her, Astrid got up that day after the fall break and started moving furniture and covering things with tarps and hauling out the white paint.
It was time to start a new mural, but, before she could start on the interconnecting patterns of leaves and sunshine and shadows that she had etched across her mind, she had to take all her largest brushes, her paint roller, and the large buckets, to cover the last one, let it dry so that her week could be filled with sketchihng out the outlines and then slowly filling them in.
She was thinking, as she stepped back a few time to ensure that her whitewashing was even, that, as soon as the white dried, she would actually paint over it again in green, and then, add her sketchings, and slowly fill in the autumn colors from there, making the mural go through the same change as the leaves themselves.
It would be a detail that, unless anyone saw the transition in progress from day to day, only she would probably know about or notice, but somehow, that made her enjoy the idea even more, and, as the vision began to come into a more full realization, she got back to burying the last painting so the next one could rise up and take its place.
[[ door and post are very much open! ]]
It was time to start a new mural, but, before she could start on the interconnecting patterns of leaves and sunshine and shadows that she had etched across her mind, she had to take all her largest brushes, her paint roller, and the large buckets, to cover the last one, let it dry so that her week could be filled with sketchihng out the outlines and then slowly filling them in.
She was thinking, as she stepped back a few time to ensure that her whitewashing was even, that, as soon as the white dried, she would actually paint over it again in green, and then, add her sketchings, and slowly fill in the autumn colors from there, making the mural go through the same change as the leaves themselves.
It would be a detail that, unless anyone saw the transition in progress from day to day, only she would probably know about or notice, but somehow, that made her enjoy the idea even more, and, as the vision began to come into a more full realization, she got back to burying the last painting so the next one could rise up and take its place.
[[ door and post are very much open! ]]
And so on a morning already surrendered to the scourging wind and punishing heat, Camille Barren, Susan D. Valeris’s assistant, came for Astrid at the Hollywood portalocity hub, and they took the long drive out to Corona. In the visitors yard, they sat at an orange picnic table under the shade structure, drinking cold cans of soda from the pop machine, wiping them across their foreheads, pressing them to their cheeks. Waiting for Ingrid. Sweat dripped between Astrid's breasts, down her back, far more accustomed now to the milder Maryland temperatures. Camille looked wilted but stoic in her beige sheath, her fashionable short haircut limp and sweaty around the edges. She didn’t bother to talk to Astrid, she was only the errand girl.
“Here she comes,” Camille said.
( Parents' Weekend: Magnussen Style. CW for UGH, Ingrid. )
[[ taken and altered slightly from Chapter 31 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch. I hav ebeen dying to get to this scene for ages now! NFI, NFB, but OOC is always love ]]
“Here she comes,” Camille said.
( Parents' Weekend: Magnussen Style. CW for UGH, Ingrid. )
[[ taken and altered slightly from Chapter 31 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch. I hav ebeen dying to get to this scene for ages now! NFI, NFB, but OOC is always love ]]
Room 210; Thursday Afternoon [08/26].
Aug. 26th, 2021 05:58 amFandom was full of little surprises, wasn't it? But Astrid had to admit, from turning into an animal, thinking you were a princess for a weekend, or being confronted with a corporeal visit from your dead foster mom, none of them were quite so surprising as finding in her mail that day a letter from Ingrid.
It had been...months. Maybe even close to a year. And as much as Astrid's brain wanted to just tear it to shreds and toss it in the trash unopened, her heart could only allow her to rush up to her room as fast as her feet could carry her so she could immediately devour the words that awaited her on that onion-skin prison paper her mother had available to her.
( Dear Astrid, )
Astrid, now on her back on her bed in her quiet, lonely room, read through the letter again. And again, and again, and again, each time more voraciously, as if the spidery words, instead of satiating her hunger, only deepened it. There weren't words enough that could ever satisfy that hunger.
Alejandro the painter. Astrid remembered. Watching the line flow from his fingers, the movements of his arm. Was he a bad painter? It never occurred to her, as it never occurred to her that her mother could have felt excluded. Ingrid was beautiful there, she wore a white dress, and the buildings were ochre and yellow, her sandals crisscrossed like a Roman’s up her leg. Astrid traced the white X’s when she took them off. The hotel with screens and scrollwork around the door, the rooms open to the tiled walkway. You could hear what everybody was saying. When she smoked a joint she had to blow it out the balcony doors. It was a strange room, ochre, taller than it was square. She liked it, said there was room to think. And the bands of mariachis competed in the street below, the sound of concerts every night, from their beds under the netting.
Driving up from San Miguel de Allende in his toy-sized Citroen car, his shirt very white against his copper skin...
Was Ingrid admitting she made a mistake? If only she could admit it. Confess. Astrid might lie for her then, talk to her lawyer, take the stand and swear beyond a shadow of a doubt that she never. Perhaps this was as close as Ingrid would get to admitting a thing.
Finally, Astrid had stopped reading. She, instead, stared at the ceiling for a moment, then turned her head toward the side, toward her wall, its current brilliant image of a Los Angeles sunset over the ocean, and so many new thoughts running through her head.
Astrid wished they had stayed in Guanajuato, too.
Slowly, she rolled off the bed, leaving the letter, and went to get out the tarps and the white paint.
[[ oh, what's this? Time for some plot progression finally? Hell yeah it is! Anyway, bits and pieces, especially Ingrid's letter, taken from Chapter 31 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch. Door and post are open, with probably work-related SP caveat! ]]
It had been...months. Maybe even close to a year. And as much as Astrid's brain wanted to just tear it to shreds and toss it in the trash unopened, her heart could only allow her to rush up to her room as fast as her feet could carry her so she could immediately devour the words that awaited her on that onion-skin prison paper her mother had available to her.
( Dear Astrid, )
Astrid, now on her back on her bed in her quiet, lonely room, read through the letter again. And again, and again, and again, each time more voraciously, as if the spidery words, instead of satiating her hunger, only deepened it. There weren't words enough that could ever satisfy that hunger.
Alejandro the painter. Astrid remembered. Watching the line flow from his fingers, the movements of his arm. Was he a bad painter? It never occurred to her, as it never occurred to her that her mother could have felt excluded. Ingrid was beautiful there, she wore a white dress, and the buildings were ochre and yellow, her sandals crisscrossed like a Roman’s up her leg. Astrid traced the white X’s when she took them off. The hotel with screens and scrollwork around the door, the rooms open to the tiled walkway. You could hear what everybody was saying. When she smoked a joint she had to blow it out the balcony doors. It was a strange room, ochre, taller than it was square. She liked it, said there was room to think. And the bands of mariachis competed in the street below, the sound of concerts every night, from their beds under the netting.
Driving up from San Miguel de Allende in his toy-sized Citroen car, his shirt very white against his copper skin...
Was Ingrid admitting she made a mistake? If only she could admit it. Confess. Astrid might lie for her then, talk to her lawyer, take the stand and swear beyond a shadow of a doubt that she never. Perhaps this was as close as Ingrid would get to admitting a thing.
Finally, Astrid had stopped reading. She, instead, stared at the ceiling for a moment, then turned her head toward the side, toward her wall, its current brilliant image of a Los Angeles sunset over the ocean, and so many new thoughts running through her head.
Astrid wished they had stayed in Guanajuato, too.
Slowly, she rolled off the bed, leaving the letter, and went to get out the tarps and the white paint.
[[ oh, what's this? Time for some plot progression finally? Hell yeah it is! Anyway, bits and pieces, especially Ingrid's letter, taken from Chapter 31 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch. Door and post are open, with probably work-related SP caveat! ]]
It had happened again.
The food Astrid had picked up from the store yesterday to make breakfast with that morning was no where to be found, having been replaced yet again with boxes upon boxes upon boxes of Pop Tarts. Really, she was almost feeling like she should take it as a sign from the multiverse that it was just pointless to continue even doing these breakfasts anymore, but she'd had breakfast on her mind that morning, and people were apparently falling down holes, and so maybe those who weren't falling down holes just needed a good breakfast in these trying times.
So she called up the store to see about getting some ingredients sent over to the dorms instead, Pop Tarts be damned, though she frowned when the phone was answered.
"Apu? Is that you? You sound funny."
She braced herself from not only pissing Apu off by saying so, but also for that resulting in her not getting her food and being subject to a Plan C or just dealing with a Pop Tart breakfast again, but the person on the other end explained that this was a new delivery service they were using now! That didn't make Astrid feel any more confident about the situation, though. If anything, it was more suspicious, because Summer was usually really good about keeping everyone up to date on changes, but, also, she had been gone this weekend, maybe she hadn't had time to tell them? So she shrugged and said "Okay" and put in her order and agreed to meet them outside the school grounds in ten minutes.
Which meant that, of course, in ten minutes, Astrid was about to have a date with the very holes she'd been warned about.
[[ Establishy! You can see her in the hooooole~~ ]]
The food Astrid had picked up from the store yesterday to make breakfast with that morning was no where to be found, having been replaced yet again with boxes upon boxes upon boxes of Pop Tarts. Really, she was almost feeling like she should take it as a sign from the multiverse that it was just pointless to continue even doing these breakfasts anymore, but she'd had breakfast on her mind that morning, and people were apparently falling down holes, and so maybe those who weren't falling down holes just needed a good breakfast in these trying times.
So she called up the store to see about getting some ingredients sent over to the dorms instead, Pop Tarts be damned, though she frowned when the phone was answered.
"Apu? Is that you? You sound funny."
She braced herself from not only pissing Apu off by saying so, but also for that resulting in her not getting her food and being subject to a Plan C or just dealing with a Pop Tart breakfast again, but the person on the other end explained that this was a new delivery service they were using now! That didn't make Astrid feel any more confident about the situation, though. If anything, it was more suspicious, because Summer was usually really good about keeping everyone up to date on changes, but, also, she had been gone this weekend, maybe she hadn't had time to tell them? So she shrugged and said "Okay" and put in her order and agreed to meet them outside the school grounds in ten minutes.
Which meant that, of course, in ten minutes, Astrid was about to have a date with the very holes she'd been warned about.
[[ Establishy! You can see her in the hooooole~~ ]]
Room 210; Late Friday Afternoon [03/26].
Mar. 26th, 2021 04:54 amObviously, Astrid was skipping her shift at T&C today, considering she'd just gotten back from California. She wanted to stay a little bit longer, let some of the things she'd discussed with Susan really sink in and settle, so she convinced the lawyer to include a nice room for the night, and then she spent her morning in the Hollywood hills, looking over the city in the distance, trying to ignore how she never really realized that the nice bungalow she had lived and Claire had died really wasn't all that far away from the apartment where it all happened, where it all started, and if she'd eventually be dragged back here for one reason or another, and what the city might feel like if Susan managed to work her magic and have Ingrid walk free again.
And those thoughts were still clinging to her when she got back, so there was only really one thing she could do, and it definitely wasn't sitting behind a counter at a grocery store.
She went back to her room, set down her backpack, fished the crumpled hundreds from her pocket to put into the shoebox with what was left of the money Ron had given her, and then started to pull her bed away from the wall. She pulled out the tarps and methodically spread it over the furniture nearby, dug out one of the cans of whitewash, and got to work in spreading it all over the sparkles of night that had made the last mural, so she could get started on the next: the sprawling view of the city of Los Angeles. A Los Angeles that still existed without Ingrid Magnussen in it, so she might enjoy it while she still could.
There was no telling when Susan might actually get back to her. It might be a week. It might be a month. But at least this was something that might help her keep her mind off of it in the meantime, especially since she hadn't yet decided if she would cooperate or not.
[[ door and post are open! ]]
And those thoughts were still clinging to her when she got back, so there was only really one thing she could do, and it definitely wasn't sitting behind a counter at a grocery store.
She went back to her room, set down her backpack, fished the crumpled hundreds from her pocket to put into the shoebox with what was left of the money Ron had given her, and then started to pull her bed away from the wall. She pulled out the tarps and methodically spread it over the furniture nearby, dug out one of the cans of whitewash, and got to work in spreading it all over the sparkles of night that had made the last mural, so she could get started on the next: the sprawling view of the city of Los Angeles. A Los Angeles that still existed without Ingrid Magnussen in it, so she might enjoy it while she still could.
There was no telling when Susan might actually get back to her. It might be a week. It might be a month. But at least this was something that might help her keep her mind off of it in the meantime, especially since she hadn't yet decided if she would cooperate or not.
[[ door and post are open! ]]
Behind the tinted windows of Susan's Jaguar, Astrid nestled into the smell of leather and money. It wrapped around her like fur. There was a jazz station on the radio, a free-form piece with a flute and an electric guitar. Gulls bobbed on the blue-green water. In the sealed world of the Jaguar, it was a perfect sixty-eight degrees. Such a pleasure to be in a rich woman’s car. Now a new song filled the rarified atmosphere, Astrid immediately recognized it. Oliver Nelson, “Stolen Moments.”
She closed her eyes and imagined a scene she'd clung onto quietly ever since it came up once, in a simulation, when she was about to teach Nina how to drive. In a convertable, at the wheel, with Mae at her side and not her mother's lawyer. Barely tall enough sitting there to even peek over at the Pacific Ocean passing them by, the wind ruffling the fur on her cat face that wasn't really there. That precious moment. All the more so for being unreal, gone in an instant, something to savor like perfume on the wind, piano played in a passing house in the afternoon. Astrid hung on to it as Susan parked on the far side of a lake, where we could see the blue-green water, dotted with white, the picturesque hillside beyond. She turned the music down, but she could still hear Nelson’s trumpet.
( 'Captain America would not have approved of the emotion that filled Astrid just then, its sweetness was irresistible.' | CW for more murder talk with a side of mommy issues and gaslighting this time! )
"Okay," Astrid said. "Set it up."
Susan took a last drag of her cigarette, threw it out the window, then raised the glass. Now she was all business. “Anything you want in the meantime, some spending money?”
Astrid hated this woman. What she'd been through the last four years meant nothing to her. Astrid was simply one more brick in the structure she was erecting, she had just slipped into place. She didn’t believe Ingrid was innocent. She only cared that there would be cameras on the courthouse steps. And her name, Susan D. Valeris, under her moving red lips. The publicity would be worth plenty.
“I’ll take a couple hundred,” Astrid said.
[[ continued from here! Taken and modified slightly from Chapter 29 of "White Oleander" by Janet Fitch. NFB for distance, but can be open if anyone wants to get in touch ]]
She closed her eyes and imagined a scene she'd clung onto quietly ever since it came up once, in a simulation, when she was about to teach Nina how to drive. In a convertable, at the wheel, with Mae at her side and not her mother's lawyer. Barely tall enough sitting there to even peek over at the Pacific Ocean passing them by, the wind ruffling the fur on her cat face that wasn't really there. That precious moment. All the more so for being unreal, gone in an instant, something to savor like perfume on the wind, piano played in a passing house in the afternoon. Astrid hung on to it as Susan parked on the far side of a lake, where we could see the blue-green water, dotted with white, the picturesque hillside beyond. She turned the music down, but she could still hear Nelson’s trumpet.
( 'Captain America would not have approved of the emotion that filled Astrid just then, its sweetness was irresistible.' | CW for more murder talk with a side of mommy issues and gaslighting this time! )
"Okay," Astrid said. "Set it up."
Susan took a last drag of her cigarette, threw it out the window, then raised the glass. Now she was all business. “Anything you want in the meantime, some spending money?”
Astrid hated this woman. What she'd been through the last four years meant nothing to her. Astrid was simply one more brick in the structure she was erecting, she had just slipped into place. She didn’t believe Ingrid was innocent. She only cared that there would be cameras on the courthouse steps. And her name, Susan D. Valeris, under her moving red lips. The publicity would be worth plenty.
“I’ll take a couple hundred,” Astrid said.
[[ continued from here! Taken and modified slightly from Chapter 29 of "White Oleander" by Janet Fitch. NFB for distance, but can be open if anyone wants to get in touch ]]
As Astrid approached the coffee shop, the agreed-upon location for this meeting, just a few blocks away from a portalocity office she was sure would cease to exist once she was finished with it, she couldn't help but notice the dark green Jaguar sedan parked out front, and she knew that had to be hers. And then she stepped inside, and she saw the explosion of black curls, her bright red lipstick, and she recognized her from the news. She wore a white-trimmed navy blue Chanel suit that might even have been real. She was sitting at one of the tables by the window, writing a check, writing something off, Astrid wasn't sure, but she was sure she'd find out.
She stood and held out her hand to Astrid, short red nails garish against her white skin. She was shorter than Astrid, which wasn't hard, but still a surprise. She wore a good, green-scented perfume, a hint of citrus, almost like a man’s aftershave. She had on a gold necklace thick as a bike chain, with a square-cut emerald embedded in it. Her teeth were unnaturally white.
“Susan D. Valeris.”
Her voice was higher than you’d think, girlish for a lawyer’s.
( 'Astrid, when young people are so cynical, it makes me despair for the future of this country.' | CW for talk of murder and suicide. )
Susan slowly smiled in her red lipstick, pushing her black curls back from her face with one hand, her lashes very black against her white face. As if a bit ashamed of herself, but also somewhat relieved that she did not have to sell Astrid as hard as she thought she might.
“Let’s go for a drive,” she said.
[[ Part I of II. taken and slightly edited from Chapter 29 of "White Oleander" by Janet Fitch, wherein I officially get the timeline of the latter chapters all mixed up, but OHWELL. NFB for distance, NFI for now. ]]
She stood and held out her hand to Astrid, short red nails garish against her white skin. She was shorter than Astrid, which wasn't hard, but still a surprise. She wore a good, green-scented perfume, a hint of citrus, almost like a man’s aftershave. She had on a gold necklace thick as a bike chain, with a square-cut emerald embedded in it. Her teeth were unnaturally white.
“Susan D. Valeris.”
Her voice was higher than you’d think, girlish for a lawyer’s.
( 'Astrid, when young people are so cynical, it makes me despair for the future of this country.' | CW for talk of murder and suicide. )
Susan slowly smiled in her red lipstick, pushing her black curls back from her face with one hand, her lashes very black against her white face. As if a bit ashamed of herself, but also somewhat relieved that she did not have to sell Astrid as hard as she thought she might.
“Let’s go for a drive,” she said.
[[ Part I of II. taken and slightly edited from Chapter 29 of "White Oleander" by Janet Fitch, wherein I officially get the timeline of the latter chapters all mixed up, but OHWELL. NFB for distance, NFI for now. ]]
Room 210; Sunday Afternoon [11/01].
Nov. 1st, 2020 04:47 amIt was November first. Astrid's birthday. Seventeen now, and she felt an odd compulsion to look back on all the different places she'd spent her birthdays over the past four years, starting with that first one that made any difference, with Starr and Ray and Carolee and Owen and Peter, because they knew when it was thanks to a piece of official paper, offical documents, and why wouldn't they have celebrated her birthday? She didnt' explain that birthdays weren't really celebrated before; Ingrid didn't really believe in them. Ingrid didn't believe in a lot of things. But almost everyone seemed to believe in birthdays.
Claire definitely believed in birthdays, and she'd made a big deal out of Astrid's sweet sixteen, and she thought she would have made a big deal out of seventeen, too. Where would she be, if what happened hadn't happened, and she was still in California? Another camping trip to Mexico? Would they be skiing in the Rockies? Ron probably knew someone with a timeshare or a condo in Aspen or something, Claire would be covering Astrid in real wool and cashmere; she might even laugh as the two of them attempted to pizza and french fry their way down the non-intimidating bunny hills, oblivious to Ron schmoozing it up with snow bunnies and boozy hot cocoa back at the lodge.
And it was that thought that inspired Astrid that day, to pull out the tarps and the paints and pull her bed away from the wall so that she could add some new paint to it. Just adding. She wanted to keep the black sparkly sky of ash and glitter, but she was going to paint new blue-white snowy mountains over it, add bursts of stars and snowflakes to the space between. She could imagine herself cascading down them in the safety of a nice dream. She could imagine herself lost among them, would she be able to survive? She could imagine a lot of things with those mountains, really, which wasn't so bad, was it, for someone with apparently no imagination?
[[ door and post are open, with work-related SP throughout the day! ]]
Claire definitely believed in birthdays, and she'd made a big deal out of Astrid's sweet sixteen, and she thought she would have made a big deal out of seventeen, too. Where would she be, if what happened hadn't happened, and she was still in California? Another camping trip to Mexico? Would they be skiing in the Rockies? Ron probably knew someone with a timeshare or a condo in Aspen or something, Claire would be covering Astrid in real wool and cashmere; she might even laugh as the two of them attempted to pizza and french fry their way down the non-intimidating bunny hills, oblivious to Ron schmoozing it up with snow bunnies and boozy hot cocoa back at the lodge.
And it was that thought that inspired Astrid that day, to pull out the tarps and the paints and pull her bed away from the wall so that she could add some new paint to it. Just adding. She wanted to keep the black sparkly sky of ash and glitter, but she was going to paint new blue-white snowy mountains over it, add bursts of stars and snowflakes to the space between. She could imagine herself cascading down them in the safety of a nice dream. She could imagine herself lost among them, would she be able to survive? She could imagine a lot of things with those mountains, really, which wasn't so bad, was it, for someone with apparently no imagination?
[[ door and post are open, with work-related SP throughout the day! ]]
As Astrid approached the flower shop, she stopped, staring at the door. There were two girls she’d never seen before sitting there outside. Older girls, fresh faces, no makeup. One wore a vintage-style dress with little flowers, her sandy hair in a bun with a chopstick stuck in it. The dark one had on jeans and a pink cotton turtleneck. Black clean shoulder-length hair..
The vintage-dress girl stood up, squinting into the sun, her eyes the same gray as her dress, freckles. She smiled uncertainly when Astrid walked up.
“Are you Astrid Magnussen?” she asked.
( Who Wants to Know? CW for talk of murder. )
[[ NFI, as it goes straight into the proper shop post here. That Astrid had people looking for her to talk about her mother is A-OK, but if the specific details could be NFB, it would be appreciated. Taken and modified slightly from White Oleander by Janet Fitch. We're finally out of Chapter 27! Huzzah! ]]
The vintage-dress girl stood up, squinting into the sun, her eyes the same gray as her dress, freckles. She smiled uncertainly when Astrid walked up.
“Are you Astrid Magnussen?” she asked.
( Who Wants to Know? CW for talk of murder. )
[[ NFI, as it goes straight into the proper shop post here. That Astrid had people looking for her to talk about her mother is A-OK, but if the specific details could be NFB, it would be appreciated. Taken and modified slightly from White Oleander by Janet Fitch. We're finally out of Chapter 27! Huzzah! ]]
Room 210; Thursday Afternoon [09/17].
Sep. 17th, 2020 05:59 amAstrid came out of her class that day and discovered a letter from her mother; Ingrid had finally written a response to Astrid's last correspondance, the cut-up photo from the history book and just four simple enigmatic and questioning words. She didn't open it right away. She was almost afraid to, as if she wasn't ready for the answer to the question she had asked, even if she didn't imagine it would ever be explained to her, even if she knew Ingrid would never tell her. So she went for a walk around the island to bolster herself, and then she wound up back in her room, with a bag of beignets and a single black to-go coffee, which would probably go untouched on her nightstand as she sat cross-legged on her bed and finally opened the letter.
( Dear Astrid, )
Astrid lowered the letter into her lap, and blinked across the room at the window. She turned her head toward the fanciful Romanesque landscape of her current mural. Took a breath in, released it, then climbed off to the bed to pull out a box of letters from underneath it, found a container that she figured would be large enough, dug her lighter out from the hodgepodge of miscellany in the bedside table drawer.
Then she settled on the floor and slowly started to burn each and every one of the letters, collecting the ashes in the container, where, once she was finished with the last one, she would mix those ashes with copious amounts of glitter and blue-black paint, and spread them all over the wall like the vastness of space.
[[ door and post are open! Ingrid's letter taken from and slightly modified from Chapter 27 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch ]]
( Dear Astrid, )
Astrid lowered the letter into her lap, and blinked across the room at the window. She turned her head toward the fanciful Romanesque landscape of her current mural. Took a breath in, released it, then climbed off to the bed to pull out a box of letters from underneath it, found a container that she figured would be large enough, dug her lighter out from the hodgepodge of miscellany in the bedside table drawer.
Then she settled on the floor and slowly started to burn each and every one of the letters, collecting the ashes in the container, where, once she was finished with the last one, she would mix those ashes with copious amounts of glitter and blue-black paint, and spread them all over the wall like the vastness of space.
[[ door and post are open! Ingrid's letter taken from and slightly modified from Chapter 27 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch ]]
Room 210; Sunday Afternoon [08/30].
Aug. 30th, 2020 12:48 pmPart of Astrid felt a little bad about just holing up in her room with a small pile of books the day after new students had arrived, but it wasn't like she was a social butterfly even on the best of days, and there'd be plenty of time to get to know them in the weeks ahead. So a quiet afternoon of reading sounded just about right, especially since her last visit to the library lead to an interesting array of random books that it had decided to throw at her, and she figured that was a good enough selection process as any.
( Cut for waxing poetic on historical corpses and trying not to cry over spilled milk. )
Even though it was a library book (she wasn't sure anyone would even notice if it never even found its way back), Astrid looked up and reached for the scissors on her bedside table. She carefully cut out the picture of the Gettysburg battlefiled, and put it in an envelop with her mother's name and the address of the prison written carefully on it, and dropped in four loose cut-out words inside before sealing it shut and placing on a stamp:
WHO REALLY ARE YOU
[[ *gives canon a tiny nudge forward* taken from and slightly modified from Chapter 27 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch. Door and post are open! ]]
( Cut for waxing poetic on historical corpses and trying not to cry over spilled milk. )
Even though it was a library book (she wasn't sure anyone would even notice if it never even found its way back), Astrid looked up and reached for the scissors on her bedside table. She carefully cut out the picture of the Gettysburg battlefiled, and put it in an envelop with her mother's name and the address of the prison written carefully on it, and dropped in four loose cut-out words inside before sealing it shut and placing on a stamp:
WHO REALLY ARE YOU
[[ *gives canon a tiny nudge forward* taken from and slightly modified from Chapter 27 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch. Door and post are open! ]]
Nightmares were nothing new for Astrid,; she'd always had them. Well, she'd had them ever since the death of Barry Kolker, and the whirlwind of events that set into place, meaning she'd been whimpering and tossing in her sleep since pretty much her first night at Fandom. She was used to them by now; she suspected Sabine was used to them now, too, but that night, her dreams had been...different. They weren't moody Impressionist scenes filled with more feeling than physical substance, they weren't flashes and snippets of various little moment in her life, they didn't have that overwhelming feeling of longing and loneliness that they usually had. They were....desperate, in a different way, mingled with fear and adreneline. She was escaping something, something powerful and oppressive, but in a very real, physical way. Danger. Life-threatening. And she wasn't by herself, that usual oppressive alone-ness that usually filled her dreams like it's own presence absent, replaced with other people. Did she know them? Who were they? She felt she knew, but she didn't. The only thing she felt she really knew was that if she didn't move, she..they... wouldn't make it, so she moved, she had no choice.
But she was also distinctly not herself, and she didn't know who she was, there were bigger things on her mind, until she caught a sight of her fleeing figure reflected in the smooth, slick surface of her futuristic, sci-fi surroundings, and she realized...
...she was Sabine.
It was enough to jolt her out of sleep with a gasp, feeling the racing adreneline of the scene in her chest, her heart beating like a bird furiously trying to escape her ribcage. She was sweating, it was hard to breathe, but she tried to slow it down, tried to calm down, tried to listen instead to the breathing on the other side of the room.
Then, as she attempt to process what had happened in her head, she leaned over to click on the lamp on her bedside table, peering into the shadows of the rest of the room as she said, in a loud sort of whisper, "Sabine? Are you there?"
Not are you up, because even if her dreams had been someone else's, that cold grip of abandonment was still clinging onto her like it was a second skin just then, cutting through even everything she'd just gone through in the nightmare.
Please, god, be there...
[[ for the roommate! And a big fat probable Content Warning, because a lot of Astrid's trauma deals with death, suicide, and abusive parenting ]]
But she was also distinctly not herself, and she didn't know who she was, there were bigger things on her mind, until she caught a sight of her fleeing figure reflected in the smooth, slick surface of her futuristic, sci-fi surroundings, and she realized...
...she was Sabine.
It was enough to jolt her out of sleep with a gasp, feeling the racing adreneline of the scene in her chest, her heart beating like a bird furiously trying to escape her ribcage. She was sweating, it was hard to breathe, but she tried to slow it down, tried to calm down, tried to listen instead to the breathing on the other side of the room.
Then, as she attempt to process what had happened in her head, she leaned over to click on the lamp on her bedside table, peering into the shadows of the rest of the room as she said, in a loud sort of whisper, "Sabine? Are you there?"
Not are you up, because even if her dreams had been someone else's, that cold grip of abandonment was still clinging onto her like it was a second skin just then, cutting through even everything she'd just gone through in the nightmare.
Please, god, be there...
[[ for the roommate! And a big fat probable Content Warning, because a lot of Astrid's trauma deals with death, suicide, and abusive parenting ]]
Room 210; Thursday Afternoon [08/06].
Aug. 6th, 2020 04:42 amAstrid really wasn't surprised that her conversation with Mae yesterday had lead her to basically sketching out her ideas and thoughts well into the night, and now, in the light of day and realizing it had been a while since she'd done anything new with the wall in her bedroom, she had a new inspiration. She felt sort of bad, painting over the last one, the sound painting she'd made from Foomy's babbling, especially because it really sort of drove home how some of the quietness lately seemed to be from the lack of Nina's bellowing voice bouncing off the hallways, but...it was time, and she really loved this new idea and it would be a big, sweeping project that would take a long time and give her something to focus on.
So the windows were opened, the sheets and tarps were dragged out, and the the slashes and shapes and curves of Foomy's burbling were painted over, and Astrid set to the task of painting on the outline of her mural collage to be slowly filled in with the passing days. Plenty of space on the wall for all her imagined scenes of Fandom by way of Ancient Rome, all stylized in the spirit of the art at that time, though she was adding painstaking detail that no one would liked ever get close enough to even notice: Gladiator Mae in the pits at the Colluseum, her arms raised in victory to the shouts of the adoring crowd; Sabine, in the cloak of night, painting graffiti on the side of a stone wall while two clueless Centurians in armor more remnicent of troopers than strictly historically accurate, passed by unaware; Wayne and Nina front and center in the forum engaged in a spirited debate while other classmates--Shuri, Eleanor, Okuyasu, Freya-- either listened or had their own less explosive conversations in the background; herself, in front of a block of marble, slowly being sculpted away into the form of Grog, her model, staying still for so long only because he was distracted by a butterfly.
And at the center of it all was the dramatic figures that sparked it all, two charioteers that bore a striking resemblance to Alexis and Tahani, in fierce compteition with each other, their long hair streaming behind them entangled in the laurels of victory, visual contrasts embodying the same spirit of competition, the sumptuous details on their togas and sashes incredibly rich....
It was an ambitious project, it would take her a long time to finish, probably, but it was nice to have something to focus on, and anytime she started to doubt herself, to start thinking about what her classmates would think about being immortalized (temporarily, anyway, until she decided to paint something else there) and reimagined there on her bedroom wall, she just stopped for a moment, reminded herself that she didn't really care, and returned to painting out their lines.
[[ door and post are open, if a little slow due to work, but she definitely need to get this one out! ]]
So the windows were opened, the sheets and tarps were dragged out, and the the slashes and shapes and curves of Foomy's burbling were painted over, and Astrid set to the task of painting on the outline of her mural collage to be slowly filled in with the passing days. Plenty of space on the wall for all her imagined scenes of Fandom by way of Ancient Rome, all stylized in the spirit of the art at that time, though she was adding painstaking detail that no one would liked ever get close enough to even notice: Gladiator Mae in the pits at the Colluseum, her arms raised in victory to the shouts of the adoring crowd; Sabine, in the cloak of night, painting graffiti on the side of a stone wall while two clueless Centurians in armor more remnicent of troopers than strictly historically accurate, passed by unaware; Wayne and Nina front and center in the forum engaged in a spirited debate while other classmates--Shuri, Eleanor, Okuyasu, Freya-- either listened or had their own less explosive conversations in the background; herself, in front of a block of marble, slowly being sculpted away into the form of Grog, her model, staying still for so long only because he was distracted by a butterfly.
And at the center of it all was the dramatic figures that sparked it all, two charioteers that bore a striking resemblance to Alexis and Tahani, in fierce compteition with each other, their long hair streaming behind them entangled in the laurels of victory, visual contrasts embodying the same spirit of competition, the sumptuous details on their togas and sashes incredibly rich....
It was an ambitious project, it would take her a long time to finish, probably, but it was nice to have something to focus on, and anytime she started to doubt herself, to start thinking about what her classmates would think about being immortalized (temporarily, anyway, until she decided to paint something else there) and reimagined there on her bedroom wall, she just stopped for a moment, reminded herself that she didn't really care, and returned to painting out their lines.
[[ door and post are open, if a little slow due to work, but she definitely need to get this one out! ]]
Selkie Lake; Saturday [07/11].
Jul. 11th, 2020 02:10 pmAfter realizing very quickly that any conversation with Sabine that day was going to lead to their apparent mutual mother issues, which neither of them wanted at all, Astrid knew she had no choice but to go and find somewhere to be where she could be alone with her own thoughts and her own truth and not risk spilling anything to anyone.
But with the power out, the pool was also out, and if she went to the beach, she'd probably start floating out to with the tides and just let them take her...
...maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea, after all.
But, while she contempltated that idea, she chose instead the little lake by Selkie Cove, where she could float somewhere that wasn't completely dark, still feeling the sun on her face, and just exist, suspended in water, forgetting about everything else. The heat, the swimsuit she'd been living in for days now, the oppressive desire to suddenly open up and tell her truth, even though she herself was not even sure what that was.
This. This could be her truth right now, for the time being. Just her and the water and the sun and sweat on her skin and vast nothingness and the slow realization that she probably should have thought to bring sunscreen.
[[ absolutely open if anyone wants to deal with Little Miss Repressed over here and the fact that I am definitely taking advantage of getting this particular day off of work. Edit for CW for death and violence, because these kids got ISSUES. ]]
But with the power out, the pool was also out, and if she went to the beach, she'd probably start floating out to with the tides and just let them take her...
...maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea, after all.
But, while she contempltated that idea, she chose instead the little lake by Selkie Cove, where she could float somewhere that wasn't completely dark, still feeling the sun on her face, and just exist, suspended in water, forgetting about everything else. The heat, the swimsuit she'd been living in for days now, the oppressive desire to suddenly open up and tell her truth, even though she herself was not even sure what that was.
This. This could be her truth right now, for the time being. Just her and the water and the sun and sweat on her skin and vast nothingness and the slow realization that she probably should have thought to bring sunscreen.
[[ absolutely open if anyone wants to deal with Little Miss Repressed over here and the fact that I am definitely taking advantage of getting this particular day off of work. Edit for CW for death and violence, because these kids got ISSUES. ]]
Room 210; Thursday Afternoon [06/25].
Jun. 25th, 2020 09:13 amAstrid couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so good, so consistently, for such a long period of time, but ever since she fed her mother's words right back to her, she felt as though a weight was lifted from her shoulders. She felt as if she'd been given a whole new view of the world. How clear it was without her mother behind her eyes. She was reborn, a Siamese twin who had finally been separated from its hated, cumbersome double. There were days now where she woke early, expectant as a small child, to a world washed clean of her mother’s poisonous fog, her milky miasmas. There was such a force of possibility behind it, and instead of scaring her like it may have once upon a time, it energized her. Who would she be now that she had taken herself back, to be Astrid Magnussen, finally, alone.
It was hard to imagine anything could tarnish this new view of the world.
Until something actually did.
( It was just an envelope, but never just an envelope...Letters from Ingrid CW. )
Astrid sat on her bed,staring across the room at the blurring colors of Sabine's side of the room. They would not let her out. She killed a man, he was only thirty-two. Why should it matter that she was a poet, a jail-house Plath? A man was dead because of her. He wasn’t perfect, he was selfish, a flawed person, so what? She would do it again, next time with even less reason. Look at what she did to Claire. Astrid could not believe any attorney would consider representing her.
No, she was making this up. Trying to snare her, trip her up, stuff her back in her sack. It wasn’t going to work, not anymore. Astrid had freed herself from her strange womb, she would not be lured back. Let Ingrid wrap her new children in fantasy, conspire with them under the ficuses in the visitors yard.
Ingrid was wrong, again. Astrid did know what there was to be frightened about. They had no idea there were snakes in the ivy.
[[ door and post are open! Pieces lifted from Chapter 27 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch! ]]
It was hard to imagine anything could tarnish this new view of the world.
Until something actually did.
( It was just an envelope, but never just an envelope...Letters from Ingrid CW. )
Astrid sat on her bed,staring across the room at the blurring colors of Sabine's side of the room. They would not let her out. She killed a man, he was only thirty-two. Why should it matter that she was a poet, a jail-house Plath? A man was dead because of her. He wasn’t perfect, he was selfish, a flawed person, so what? She would do it again, next time with even less reason. Look at what she did to Claire. Astrid could not believe any attorney would consider representing her.
No, she was making this up. Trying to snare her, trip her up, stuff her back in her sack. It wasn’t going to work, not anymore. Astrid had freed herself from her strange womb, she would not be lured back. Let Ingrid wrap her new children in fantasy, conspire with them under the ficuses in the visitors yard.
Ingrid was wrong, again. Astrid did know what there was to be frightened about. They had no idea there were snakes in the ivy.
[[ door and post are open! Pieces lifted from Chapter 27 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch! ]]
Room 210; Sunday Afternoon [06/07].
Jun. 7th, 2020 08:04 amAstrid had pulled out the bag of her letters from underneath her bed that afternoon, some packets thin as a promise, others fat like white koi. The bag was heavy, it exhaled the scent of Ingrid's violets. Usually, Astrid kept the door open, in the spirit of their shared communial living, in the unspoken invitation for distraction or interruption, but today, she got up and closed it softly shut, before going back to her bed and lifted handfuls of letters out of the bag onto her bed.
Astrid hated her mother but she craved her. She wanted to understand how she could fill her world with such beauty, and could also say thigns like that woman was born to OD.
And so she read. Just one, for now. One at a time, like small little meals to get her through the day, as to not gorge herself on a feast and discover herself, suddenly, within an inescapable famine.
( CW for Ingrid's letters, which are always...something. In this edition: sexual content, domestic violence, drug use, prison being awful, Ingrid being an abusive sociopath and Astrid finally realizing it. )
Astrid glued them to sheets of paper. She'll give them all back to her.
Ingrid's own little slaves.
Oh my God, they’re in revolt. It’s Spartacus, Rome is burning. Now sack it, Mother. Take what you can before it all burns to ash.
[[ the bulk of this was swiped and modified from Chapter 26 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch, naturally, and I have been looking forward to this post for a long, long time. Door is closed, but the post is open! ]]
Astrid hated her mother but she craved her. She wanted to understand how she could fill her world with such beauty, and could also say thigns like that woman was born to OD.
And so she read. Just one, for now. One at a time, like small little meals to get her through the day, as to not gorge herself on a feast and discover herself, suddenly, within an inescapable famine.
( CW for Ingrid's letters, which are always...something. In this edition: sexual content, domestic violence, drug use, prison being awful, Ingrid being an abusive sociopath and Astrid finally realizing it. )
Astrid glued them to sheets of paper. She'll give them all back to her.
Ingrid's own little slaves.
Oh my God, they’re in revolt. It’s Spartacus, Rome is burning. Now sack it, Mother. Take what you can before it all burns to ash.
[[ the bulk of this was swiped and modified from Chapter 26 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch, naturally, and I have been looking forward to this post for a long, long time. Door is closed, but the post is open! ]]
