"For the bulk of time you can remember her depression has waxed and waned in one long, grey note, like an organist died at their post and was never removed from a position slumped onto the keys. She wasn’t always this way, you can remember clearer than you can remember a time where fear didn’t make your stomach flip and your throat close up - vague memories of a childhood spent having meaningless fun, stalking others like gargoyles on the highest parts of playgrounds, making up stories where you conquered the universe, playing board games and dice games and feeling something other than disgust when presented with food. You don’t know when she started losing interest in everything around herself. The important part is it happened, and you know she’s slowly fading away to nothing, just as you’re burning up to a crisp."

"You have the daily energy her depression denies her - too much of it, almost - but that alone won’t get you far. This isn’t what she was talking about back in the bathroom: close, but across the scale of your whole lives, and it’s always hung over your heads like an approaching storm: you will never be satisfied. The two of you were meant for something more, something greater, but something fictional and elusive, that you’re only able to glimpse in the corners of ambitious daydreams. You will live, you will die, the world will turn to dust, and nothing you do before it does will matter in the way you want it to; matter to you and no-one else. You have no grand plans of conquering the world, of achieving fame and glory, of building a monument or burning one to the ground. You just want to grasp the concept of something you would feel happy achieving, and that’s why you do what you do on a day to day basis: satiating passing whims on the off chance you glean a glimpse of some greater satisfaction with the idea of your life."

"She's already smiling when you look at her, a laugh just waiting to burst from behind her lips, and you laugh too because you have to admit you see the joke, that you're ridiculous and awful and have always been ridiculous and awful and always will be, too: the two of you, laughing together now, encouraged by the other in an endless cycle. Those stupid giggle-snorts of hers, your own laugh both light and raucous.

Yes, you think, it's going to be okay."

from the wip second chapter of plastic flowers:

"Snoke himself is arranging papers at the front. He’s this stooped, wizened old man who you’re sure is either the toughest thing alive or could be done in by the next light breeze with no chance of a middle option. He looks like a walnut: completely bald, olive skin bordering on browned, so covered in either scars or wrinkles that you can’t tell which it is."

"Poe nods with a brilliant smile. He's handsome, truly: that dazzling grin that meets warm brown eyes, that chin, that jawline. Good work, Phasma, you find yourself thinking, just as you also wonder if he's too likeable to be in the league of what you're looking for: too kind, too popular, too normal. Phasma's kind, isn't she? Maybe? Oh, that part doesn't matter. He says, ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘Likewise.’ Your voice feels rather softer than it often is, air absent from your throat. Phasma gives you a look you don't care to decipher. Poe’s hair is gelled in a neat pompadour, and his shirtsleeves are pushed above his pink-tipped elbows. You fiddle with the neckline of your t-shirt. He looks like a bit of a douchebag, you try to reason with yourself. Anyone who irons their clothes is at least a bit of a douchebag, and he’s so crisp. And unnaturally shiny, like someone dipped a stationary set in clear nail polish thus rendering it useless. He belongs in a car insurance commercial and not your libido."

"As Ben and Poe return to their spots, however, Sloane saunters over to your table. That can’t be a good sign, even from an adult you like. The elation at having dodged one of life’s projectiles floods suddenly from your tiny body. ‘Hey guys,’ she says. As always she smells faintly of cigarettes at a close distance, which you normally find reassuring, though not enough to outweigh this scenario. The other three look up; you calm your stare into a slight eye twitch. ‘I hate to split up the dream team,’ she continues; her voice is deep and gravelly and you are going to either die or kill somebody, ‘But I would really appreciate if you two would work with our new students here to make sure they’re on board with the new project. They’re going to have enough catching up to do as it is, and I’m sure they would benefit from people as bright as the two of you helping them out.’

Flattery will get her nowhere. Curse your good grades. You are going to murder Ben and Poe for sitting here. You are going to murder whoever in administration gave them the same geography class as you. You are not going to murder Phasma, because she was only trying to help and you can’t survive in this world alone. You are probably not going to murder Sloane, because you suspect she could snap you in half like a twig if she wanted to, and the fact that she doesn’t ever seem to want to is one of your few comforts in life. ‘Are you all okay with that?’

You don’t register any of their reactions, but you think you nod, because she says, ‘Great. I’ll leave you to it.’"

from wip fourth chapter of black pear tree:

"‘We’re going to fucking change that,’ Kylo says, and Rey’s heart buoys enough to shake her from her conflicted discomfort. ‘We’re going to fucking change that.’ She shakes her hand as she says it, a weird aggressive movement, as though trying to chase away gnats.

‘Yes, we are,’ Phasma says, and leans in to a kiss which Kylo meets. Rey looks away and instead at Hux, who looks like he would very much like to possess the ability to roll his eyes out of his skull. His eyes meet hers as they land, and they don’t hold solidarity so much as calculating disgust, but she still feels like she can do this.

‘One thing at a time,’ he says pointedly, and the two women separate with little smiles lingering on their faces. ‘I see now why you wore that mask, Ren. You need a muzzle.’"