Maisie

look. look.

imagine you're ten year's old and you meet a lad who's had a shit life and has basically no family, and that's foreign to you because you're surrounded by family (even if they do keep dying). and you help save him from the quarry, and it's brilliant, and then his grandma dies and your mum and dad say hey, he's coming to live with us and it's like all your christmases come true, right?

except nothing ever goes to plan and life goes sideways and you flip between being mad that he's taking your place to passionately defending him because how dare anyone else get to say anything bad about him, right up until he takes your mum from you and almost takes your dad (does take your dad, but not with a bullet).

and amongst all that realise you like boys too and you're sent away and you come back and nothing's okay.

and your ex-best friend-brother is the person you think about most, for better or worse.

and you steal the girl he loves because you love her too and because he loves her and because you can and because you're two sides of the same coin and your lives are intrinsically linked for all time.

so yeah tl;dr robert spent most of his early life thinking about andy in one way or another, and his teenage years trying to get under andy's skin, and i'm just saying that that's robert's love language baby.

I think part of what is making young people lonelier, in discussing why they're increasingly isolated, is that they're so afraid of meeting someone who doesn't hold their same beliefs, and instead of being just core beliefs it is kinda ancillary shit.

It's actually okay to disagree even on social topics! Even on some political ones! But I mean, online you can start with "i love this mutual but they have a really bad/uninformed opinion about x media"

I know this is IMMEDIATELY going to be taken in bad faith, and yes babygirl, you are so right, I DO want you to go make best friends with both the KKK grand wizard AND your nearest nazi leader.

But seriously, as someone who has spent two decades doing community organization: finding ways to connect with different people is so so so important. There are people i follow here who ate 80% smart and their brain falls out of their head 20% of the time and that is GOOD FOR MY MENTAL ECOSYSTEM AND GOOD FOR LEARNING HOW TO BE A PERSON

harry: you're a betrayal

seb: you're a crime

eve: i'm a miracle

Chris: You're not getting any younger, Jack. Maybe it's time you started thinking about the next generation. Robert. Victoria. And my son, Joseph. They all have an interest in this farm. (5th November 1996)

Joe: [Robert] has offered to sell your share of the farm...to me. (7th January 2026)