#I will probably also think of a zillion more things later that I meant to mention but forgot 😔

[roboromantic]

I know the focus of the show is probably supposed to be about the future and humans, Terrans, and Cybertronians learning to live together in peace, but the Alex stan in me is DYING to know more about wtf happened on Cybertron anyway.

like ok ignoring for the moment the question of why the Autobot/Decepticon war started in the first place.

— Alex says everyone came to Earth via a space bridge; iirc it looked like the timeline went something like

Decepticons control the space bridge on Cybertron

Autobots manage to take it from the Decepticons long enough to get to Earth as well.

Firstly, where’d the Earth-side space bridge come from? I would assume someone woulda had to have flown over there in a spaceship and built it at some point — maybe Quintus? In IDW1 iirc space bridges were basically introdced to Cybertron by the Quintessons; having Quintus make it could be a nod to that and also explain the presence of the Emberstone on Earth.

or idk maybe it’s like a Minecraft Nether portal and it just generates the other bridge when you first use it    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway I’d’ve thought OP et al woulda had to fight Decepticons the second they arrived on Earth, but maybe they didn’t bother defending that side since they thought the Cybertronian side was secure. Or maybe no one really “controlled” it, it was just discovered and both sides immediately started fighting over it for some reason? and the Decepticons fled through it, pursued by the Autobots?  Did anyone even know where it went? why’d the Decepticons go to Earth in the first place; was it an accident? and if so why not just immediately go back to Cybertron lmao.

 At any rate, the Earth side of the bridge seems to be under Autobot control.

For whatever reason, Bee comes to Earth. Did OP ask him to come for backup? Did something happen on Cybertron to force him to flee? We don’t know.

Likewise, Bee’s shown fighting Starscream as OP, Elita, and Jazz (who in true G1 fashion apparently turns into Ironhide upon arriving on Earth?) beam over to Earth, which means Starscream either came through the space bridge after the Autobots gained control of it — did he manage to escape the Autobots on the Earth side? or did they also leave it undefended until he came through and they were like “whoops we should do something about that.” Did he come through at the same time as Bee?

Optimus blows up the Earth side of the space bridge and the war “ends.”

Optimus says Megs has only been working for Ghost for 15 years, so either the space bridge got blown up a lot later than Alex made it sound like or maybe they were at “peace” but Megs was still leading the Decepticons until something (Dot?) changed his mind. Like I know he said he saw that Optimus was willing to do whatever’s right to protect his people no matter the cost blah blah blah but. if there was a 15 year gap between that and him starting to work for Ghost then.

Optimus says something to the effect of “As far as we know, the Cybertronians on Earth are the last of our kind.” I would assume this ties into why Bee came to Earth; they don’t seem to have any way to communicate with Cybertron, so word of mouth from someone who left later. Is anyone even around to do anything about the Cybertronian side of the space bridge??? I wanna say Shockwave is usually the guy left behind but who knows

We also don’t know WHY Bee is hiding from Ghost iirc??? I’m also a bit confused about the Terrans hiding from Ghost bc Optimus Licherally told Ghost to send a truck to pick them up. that’s how they ended up getting kidnapped.

It’s kinda funny that Agent what’s-his-face doesn’t immediately recognize Bee like. I know that the last they heard of him he was probably a Beetle but still.

Also the FUCK happened on Cybertron to make them think they’re the only Cybertronians left??? Are we gonna get colony planet stuff? More importantly are we gonna get any Junkion stuff PLEASE this would be the PERFECT show to bring them back and update the “speaking TV” bit into speaking via memes. The kids can translate for the very confused adults and/or we could have a funny reveal where like idk, Megatron is actually super up to date on the latest in Internet culture.

Anyway going back to history, Mo’s textbook has some......interesting phrasing. The cover says “A brief and incomplete history of Cybertron, the Autobots, and the humans on Earth that live among them.”

Like it’s straight-up saying Cybertron=Autobot. It uh. sounds VERY biased unless maybe Volume II is supposed to showcase the Decepticon side of things.

Also saying “The humans on Earth that live among them” sounds to me more like the Autobots run the planet and humans just live there; I think we almost always see things framed as Cybertronians living among humans instead.

side note: I’m wondering if that’s supposed to just be abstract textbook art or if it’s showing Cybertron, its two moons, and a sun.   the two moons and sun are kinda not a constant throughout the franchise, though I think 2 moons is generally more widely accepted because of TFTM

If/when we see more of Cybertron I hope that like the last post said it’s more “fun and alien,” I really loved how Cyberverse had a lot more going on than just. plain grey metal with stupidly tall buildings. All we’ve seen of it afaik is from Alex’s story, which was rather obviously Not what it would look like if they go to Cybertron later in the show, and a picture of the planet in this same textbook.  speaking of Alex’s story it’s very funny to me that his wife is Megatron’s bff but he’s still like ~ooh the cruel and dastardly Megatron~ sjdfhdjkshkg

speaking of human companions don’t we see Spike with Bee for a brief second? whatever happened to them and will we see maybe a Hot Rod/Rodiums and Daniel friendship at some point??? They also mention Dot working with the Autobots and we see what is presumably her with younger versions of the kids but like. Optimus says it’s been 30 years since he started working with Ghost so they’d be at LEAST 30 by now.  I’m gonna chalk that up to it being part of Alex’s story and not evidence of what actually happened

There’s a lot of references to a Battle of Burbank (I think? the wiki’s not up to date yet and I don’t feel like digging through episodes to verify the name) Most important is Megs is reminiscing about fighting alongside Dot in this battle.

Wheeljack does mention that Cybertronian traditions aren’t really doable on Earth

Speaking of that reminds me of that Rescue Bots episode where they try to celebrate All Spark Day and THAT reminds me I really really wanna see some Rescue Bots stuff. are you kidding me they’d be PERFECT for this series.

OUGH ALEX MEETING WEDGE AND IMMEDIATELY BONDING OVER THEIR SHARED LOVE OF BEE........... Twitch and Whirl would also get along super well            

anyway I don’t know that they’d actually like, all show up on the show but it’d be cool if like, idk the Malto kids became friends with Cody and Frankie or st.

Side note but I’d also be curious to see who all is a member of the Rescue Bots. The original four almost certainly, but they might wanna keep Blurr a little closer to his G1 counterpart. As for Salvage, High Tide, and Quickshadow......who knows? Quickshadow’s not really a Rescue Bot per se, and what with her being a James Bond kinda character, I could see her being a part of like, Ghost’s British division or st.

 I want Nightshade to meet a nonbinary human (who uses neopronouns please and thank you) so people who are okay with it because ~robots don’t have gender~ or w/e can’t use that as a cop-out

I’ve been rewatching Earthspark to find stuff for this photoset (gifset? haven’t decided) I wanna make so here’s a couple fun background things I noticed

[olderthannetfic]

/728286197798076416/ - this is me. Before tumblr the sites I hung out in are socmed sites that have a friend system and not a follow one. I got a bunch of friends through those sites forums and seeing how some people interact with their mutuals here reminded me of those times so I thought that's how they become "friends" on this site when there's no friend system (and by that I meant like an online acquaintance you'd interact with a lot and not actual friend-friend unless you two actually got close).

It's also just been at least a year since they followed back. I have interacted with their posts with mostly likes and some reblogs (sometimes with added commentary since I like their posts) but aside from a like or two when they followed back, they haven't done anything else. A random follower who hasn't liked or reblogged anything from me even from the start doesn't bother me but I've seen people here make a big deal of being "mutuals" with someone and some of them have made posts about how their mutuals are important to them/their friends which fits how they talk to their other mutuals on posts but doesn't apply to me. It's what confuses and bothers me about why they decide to follow back cause it doesn't make sense based from these stuff.

I read the replies on my original ask and I guess I really just shouldn't think much about this. It's just so strange to me so it bothers me.

--

...

Nonnie, I was there for the whole Livejournal era, starting in 2002 before most of fandom was even on it.

I can say with certainty that calling the following function "friends" led to plenty of wank but no actual increase in how much it meant that you were a friendly acquaintance.

Some people have always used sites this way. Some just follow you because they meant to keep track of your account and go check it later. Did they actually go check it later? Questionable.

Most likely, these people talking about "mutuals" in that manner don't derive the friendship from being mutuals. They follow back people they're already friends with for other reasons. They may also be thinking only of the mutuals who talk to them a lot in ways they find amusing or notable.

One thing we cannot control is whether other people like our writing.

I get more than the usual share of replies. Some commenters stand out to me because I like how they phrase things. It's usually the people who sound like they read a wide variety of genres and as though they have a similar vibe to mine. I'll usually notice the Spanish speakers (if they mention it) because that's of interest to me, but I'll still probably only click with the ones who are pretty good at English in a way that sounds nice to my ear. Honestly, that's hard to quantify because it's different form how native someone's grammar is. I have a bunch of regular rebloggers coming from a variety of languages who are a pleasure to read despite copious grammatical errors because they're funny or sound colloquial despite that or because their content is so interesting. Some people sound stiff or convoluted despite having zero technical errors. (And that's true regardless of native language.)

If I find you painful to read for EFL reasons or bad writing skill reasons or humor that reads as tryhard instead of funny to me or excessive hostility or some other thing, we won't click.

Neither I nor the other person has any significant control over those reactions.

Now, I haven't observed your mutuals and have no idea what kinds of things you guys post, but I have observed a common pattern, both on tumblr and back in the day on LJ, where someone interacts a little but not enough and their comments are okay but nothing special. If the people they're interacting with are busy or already have a zillion friends, sometimes, they just get missed.

I also think performative posts about ~my mutuals~ tend to be hollow bragging about being popular. When they aren't, there's an implicit sense that they're talking about a particular subset of mutuals.

There's not really that much of a contradiction here. You were just taking those posts at face value, and you shouldn't.

[donnerpartyofone]

I'm cleaning out this ancient drive + Mac tower that I've had long enough for them to make REALLY scary noises whenever they're on, so I'm trying to move everything that matters before they e.x.p.l.o.d.e. I don't even know what all is on them anymore, it's probably a lot of stuff I wouldn't miss if it disappeared behind my back, but I ought to be sure. My music folder is the biggest mess, partly because I'm disorganized, and partly because iTunes is such a piece of shit, but partly because...well I used to have this friend who started out our relationship trying to get with me, even though I was already in a very serious relationship at the time, and one of his courtship techniques was to relentlessly bring me handfuls of burned mix CDs of like, at least one song from every single band he had ever heard of, it felt like. And like, I know he meant well, in his way, but this is a really terrible way to get someone's attention if they don't specifically ask for it. I worked 50-60 hours a week at the time, so there would have been no possible way for me to listen to a 100-volume encyclopedia of his entire personal music library without sacrificing all of the time I had to enjoy things I already care about, or had independently decided to explore based on my own reasons. That kind of behavior is really directed by the urge to make someone else validate your interests, to get a consensus vote on what great taste you have; you can tell by how indiscriminate it is. When a new friend or boyfriend has given me a 12-track mix that they curated specifically for me to enjoy, I ran those things into the ground; I felt appreciated, and I got a clear digest version of who the person was at the same time. Or like, one of the only friends that I've had since high school responded to my specific request that she introduce me to punk music by putting together a 9-tape library with brilliant handwritten liner notes telling me about the band or song, or just her personal relationship with them. I was so honored that she took the time and effort to give me what I wanted, and I still have a lot of that stuff despite several moves and a house fire. But like if you're just looking for attention and you shove 5,000 hours of random stuff at me so I'll think you're a great guy with better taste than me, it's gonna be like...uhhh thanks, I guess, I hope I find a way to listen to this all before I'm dead. This person was also the chief perpetrator of like, "recommending" something to me but actually INSISTING that I make space in my life for it, even if it was an entire TV show that I don't have time or much use for. It was like he thought I didn't have any of my own interests that I need to indulge, or they weren't as important as doing whatever he said. Very often the thing had nothing to do with me, either; it was something only he would care about and he should have known that (I often expressed as much if it came up repeatedly, which he later categorized as "abuse"), so it felt like he was just trying to turn me into him. If I discovered the thing independently when the time was right for me, even a long time after he first mentioned it, he would get really aggressive about trying to extract credit for it, like he owned it and I was just renting it from him. His goal was pretty clearly not related to me or our friendship, it was all about some kind of validation that he thought I owed him, that he could earn by doing things I never asked for. I'm sure he felt that he was being really generous, but it wouldn't have taken much thought to realize that he was being pretty disrespectful of my time and the differences between us. So while I'm slowly, meticulously deleting a zillion whole band folders with just one song in them, as long as I'm sure nobody else gave them to me in a more discrete and considerate way, it occurs to me to tell the public that it's not always "nice of you" to give or constantly recommend people things they haven't shown any interest in, and if you insist, you might consider that it's actually tyrannical of you to try to be

the administrator of somebody else's leisure time just to satisfy your own ego needs. Consider that you might have an idealized "friend" in your imagination who is really just a permanent audience, and you might be trying to create that out of a real person, which is inappropriate. Try to base your "recommendations" on who the other person is, and if you find yourself reminding them about it more than like three times, it's time to remind yourself that you are not the boss of them, and just be pleasantly surprised if they want to talk to you about it in the future. When you just cannot stop yourself from trying to implant opinions in other people's minds to place yourself at the top of the pyramid of modern taste, you start to resemble this:

PS AMERICAN PSYCHO is overrated THERE I SAID IT

[spaceorphan18]

Why do you feel the writers loved throwing Quinn under a bus (or I guess truck, oops)? The writers don’t know if they want her to keep being a ruthless bitch or actually learn and grow as a person, since she keeps flip flopping. I’ve read theories about how Dianna and RM butted heads a lot on set a lot, which was allegedly why she wasn’t present during the Quarterback, but I’m not sure how true all that is. All that said, Dianna was smart to leave the show after Season 3, she deserved a lot better. (Though I guess the few times she returned after that weren’t too bad)

So, this is kind of a complicated question that I don't really have a lot of info for. I've never followed Dianna, and especially didn't during the show's run, so beyond people telling me RM and Dianna not liking each other, I never really knew the source of this stuff.

Here's one of the things, though. If you watch enough Ryan Murphy related things, you start to see that there are patterns; cheating (lots of cheating), closeted jocks, and... punishing mean girls. RM, based on things he's said about his own childhood, hated the mean girls and really loves to stick it to them in his narratives. It's a bit petty and redundant now that he's done it a zillion times, but clearly something traumatic happened there, cause he keeps doing it.

Quinn was the ultimate mean girl. And tearing her down must have meant a certain level of joy.

Meanwhile, Dianna Agron is not Quinn -- and, really like all of the characters, she created Quinn to step away from the mean girl persona, and really added a softer dimension to the character. Rumor has it (and all I know about this is rumor) that RM did not like that and that's why they didn't get along.

I will also say, though, by season 3, Ryan Murphy didn't have a whole lot hand in creating the show as much as the other two, Brad and Ian, and the other writers. So I often find it bogus, even if I'm critical of him myself, to place all the blame on Ryan's feet. However, much like people complaining Kurt had too many bad things happen to him, and later how Tina was given questionable things to do, I do think it's a bit exaggerated -- and the writers were using these 'bad' things to help the character grow into the perfectly fine people they turn out to be.

I mean, at least Quinn had stories? Mercedes goes most of the show without having much anything to do. The same goes for many of the characters. I don't necessarily think it's punishment as it was not great, repetitive storytelling. (Also, everyone's stories were terrible in season 3.)

However, I do remember hearing that Dianna was unhappy. But I don't believe that's ultimately why she left. It was always the plan, after season 3, to cut down on characters -- to graduate the ones they didn't have stories for going forward. (Whether that worked or not is a thought for another day.) Quinn still came back in the later half of the series, but Dianna Agron went on to have a movie career and do other things.

As for the Quarterback episode - she was asked back, and she turned it down, probably for her own personal reasons, whatever they might have been. I do have to wonder if they were for more personal reasons relating to Cory's death than they were about Ryan or about the show itself. She came back after that -- and even for the finale. And I feel like if she hated everyone, or if they hated her, as much as all the rumors flying around suggested, she's a smart enough woman not to put herself back in there.

So, I don't know Nonny. Other than the writers weren't great - I have no real further insight than that. *shrugs*

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt 204

204

Extreme fatigue, emotional exhaustion, and dehydration was Coran’s official diagnosis with a small milk duct blockage in Lance’s left breast. Wanting to keep Lance in for a couple of days so he could rest and recuperate, Lance found himself tired of sleeping. Keith having to go back to Garrison for the full moon left him feeling lonely, though Rieva had brought Blue up to stay with him for company, and Shiro was taking care of Kosmo.

With their friends being their usual selves, they’d all come to visit. Pidge smacking him for ending up “in hospital again”. It hadn’t been his plan to. Sleeping all the time felt like a waste of time. Time he should be using to clean the nursery and make sure everything was organised for the birth. The vampire felt awful that Keith was stuck babysitting him when he wasn’t even awake to keep his lover company. He also felt awful that fresh human blood had perked him up more than Keith’s blood. Keith was his everything and tried his hardest for him. Now he was stuck with a fiancé that just wanted sleep, and if he wasn’t sleeping he was eating or expressing milk to ease the blockage... Keith seemed overly eager to help with that bit.

Of all the nights for insomnia to finally kick in, it was the first night of the full moon. He’d fallen asleep talking to Keith. Matt and Rieva swore to take care of Keith in his absence, but that wasn’t the same as him being there to help Keith during the daytime. He wanted to see for himself that Keith was safe. The idea Keith would be howling at their window for him, only for him not to be there hurt. If he hadn’t taken Lance’s bronco back to Garrison, Lance would have probably planned his escape, even if it meant being yelled at over it later.

Sighing to himself, Lance glared at the ticking clock on the bedside table. He really missed Keith. Blue was snuggled against his stomach, happy that her human was back to give her the attention she rightly deserved. He’d missed her. Kosmo came for a short visit before Keith had Shiro take him back to the apartment. Their best boy fur son hadn’t meant for one of his big paws to collide with Lance’s junk, but in his excitement that was exactly what had happened, whole body wiggling with excitement as he was hauled away. The time read a little after 9pm. Keith would have turned by now. He, Matt, and Rieva, would be doing whatever werewolves did when the moon was full... unlike him who was stuck waiting for the full moon to pass completely before he could finally go home to his bed.

A soft knock on the room door went ignored as Lance didn’t particularly want company, no matter how lonely he was. Cracking the door open, there came a giggle followed by a stumble and quick closing of the door, then a sigh a relief

“Pidgeon?”

Shrieking, Pidge clapped her hand over her mouth cutting off the noise. Evidently their little gremlin thought she was being sneaky about something. When a moment or two passed with no one coming to check, Pidge let out a whooshing breath of relief as Lance rolled himself back to prop himself up and stare at her in confusion

“Dude! You totally scared me! What are you doing awake?!”

Now he was slightly afraid. A sneaky Pidge was a planning Pidge

“Uh, you do realise this is my room...? Should I ask what you had planned if you found me sleeping?”

“That’s for the lord to know. Scooch over, I brought snacks”

Year of experience told Lance to do what Pidge said, even if he couldn’t scooch that much over. Coming over to the bed, Pidge was well stocked, her backpack over stuffed as she pushed it at him. Climbing up beside him, under the blankets, Pidge took her backpack back and started unpacking

“I’ve got snacks. I’ve got drinks. I’ve got my laptop... I think I’ve got everything we need”

“Everything “we need” for what?”

“A movie night. Me and you. Coran was totally like “let him rest!”. So I snuck down here to keep you company, because I’m like the best friend ever”

“You didn’t know I was going to be awake. What were you planning on doing if I was sleeping?”

“Watch you. Maybe do some coding... maybe give you a monobrow and a moustache? You know, what besties do when their bestie insists on playing Sleeping Beauty... but without the kissing ‘cause that’s just gross”

He knew Pidge and Hunk had both been to visit a few times when he’d been sleeping. He’d catch their scents and feel awful for not being awake. Keith told him repeatedly they understood, which made a grand total of two people who seemed to know what was going on. That his little Gremlin would come sneaking in, knowing he’d be lonely, brought him to tears

“Pidgeon...”

“Ah! Keith will kill me if he knows I made you cry. I’ve got a full battery so all we need now is the movie. There’s this new terrible zomedy I’ve been dying to watch, but Hunk is always sucking face with Shay, meaning you get the pleasure of my company and my outstanding choice in movies. Now, I don’t want anymore tears for the rest of the night”

God he loved her. Poised on the edge of some serious wallowing over missing Keith, Pidge had turned up in time to save him. Apologising seemed the best way to sum up his currently feelings. He was sorry they were stuck underground when he could technically go home, but was staying put for Keith’s sake

“I’m sorry”

Pidge slapped his arm lightly

“So you should be. I was seriously going to bust you out, but the nurses were between me and the wheelchair. I mean, I’m sure I’m fasting them, but I’m also pretty sure Keith would have literally killed me if I tipped the chair over mid-escape. I’ve got all the best snacks, plus I’ve got my coffee...”

“Pidge, laptops and coffee aren’t friends”

Pidge sighed heavily at him as she rolled her eyes

“I know that, dad. I’m simply saying I’ve totally planned this, so you have to do your part and keep me company”

“Fiiiine. I reserve the right to be upset about in the morning. Can I request something artistic, I mean, if you’re going to all that trouble it’ll have to be something good?”

“Dude, totally. The biggest, hairiest, cock and balls I can fit. I might even sign it just so everyone knows it was me”

Chuckling, Lance shimmied down a little to take the weight off his hips. He wouldn’t be surprised if the twins pulled an “Alien” at this point and simply busted their way out with how big felt

“Pretty sure the only one game enough to spend the night with a sleepy vampire. I won’t be offended if you leave for a better offer”

“Pray tell, how does one have a better offer? I mean, we’re officially the two group loners tonight. Keith’s off with Matt and Rieva. Hunk’s always busy with Shay. He won’t even come look at spooky buildings anymore. I’d bet 50 bucks right now that Allura is on the phone to Lotor. Shiro and Curtis are probably getting it on... face it, we don’t have any better offers”

Poor Pidge. All of them had found someone, and for someone who insisted she didn’t need anyone more than she needed her precious technology, he’d stupidly let her feel lonely

“Then it’ll be us against the world, tonight. A couple of wide eyed explorers on a doomed mission to Mars. You didn’t bring cornflakes, right?”

Pidge snorted with laughter, a total sucker for a movie reference

“No. And I don’t want to see your cobwebs or talk about pigeons”

“Some of my best material is about Pidgeons”

Accentuating the word earned him a sigh from his gremlin

“You’re awful. Your jokes are lame, old man”

“Says you. Besides, the twins can hear you now. They’ve got to get used to how snarky their aunty Pidge is”

“Excuse you. I’m the best aunty out there. Unless you’re suddenly talking to your sisters again... Shit. I shouldn’t have gone there”

Half way through Pidge had lost her joking tone. Lance feeling bad because teasing was the way Pidge showed love

“Vee messaged me when I was away with Keith. I don’t know what to say to her. You don’t need to apologise”

“I kind of do. I know you’re not on good terms with them”

“Yeah... I like... feel bad I haven’t replied, but you’re more of a sister to me than them anyway. Who needs blood when they’ve got their own little gremlin?”

“Uh, you. Isn’t that your whole vampire thing?”

Now Lance was groaning. He saw what she did there...

“You call me lame, and you still went there. You know, I’m going to have to get up and pee now”

Pidge faked a gasp of surprise, Lance bumping her with his shoulder. Having Pidge smiling again was a zillion times better than having her apologise and worry

“Are you sure? It’s been a whole 5 minutes”

“Oh no. I better go before I pee on you. I’m going to remember this when you’re pregnant and need to pee”

“Dream on, loser. You just watch. I’m going to give birth to next wave of technology”

“I know you will. If anyone can, it’s you. Right, no snacking until I come back. And don’t start the movie. I want to see it in all its pirated glory”

“How do you know it’s pirated?”

“This is you. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and there’s our Pidge”

“Where’s there’s an idiot, there’s a Lance, and where there’s Lance, there’s usually a Keith. I swear. He gotten bitten once, now he’s twice as stupid as he ever was”

Lance’s ego took Pidge’s joke wrong. Keith was crazy smart... and he was his idiot. Maybe they’d called themselves idiots too many times because now everyone is on the joke?

“Keith technically didn’t get bitten... and he’s not stupid. He’s anger loaf of emo ways”

“I don’t know. When he’s around you, he gets a dumb look in his eyes... He’s so in love with you”

“Oh, so looking at me’s dumb... You’re so romantic Pidge”

Pidge waved him off

“I’m saying everyone in love goes dumb. You two are just twice as stupid. And will you go pee already? I want my raspberry licorice, but someone said I had to wait to snack”

*

They’d ended up watching movies most of the night, Pidge fuelled by sugar, Lance unable to stop his thoughts from drifting back to Keith, and maybe tad towards annoyance as he couldn’t really claim he’d stayed up all night. Sometime before the end of the first movie he’d drifted off, then woke up during the second. Knowing Pidge was waiting for him to comment on the clear change, Lance didn’t give her the satisfaction. He loved his little gremlin, and he’d be having words with Keith in having her come round more often so she no longer felt left out.

The third movie had just started when both of them were startled by a scratching noise at the door of his room. Both snacked out, and comfortable under the covers, the pair of them looked to each other

“Rock, paper, scissors?”

It was the only scientific way to decide who was checking the door

“Hell no. This is your room”

“Meaning I’m the patient, and you should check”

“Nope. Uh uh. I’m not opening the door to death today”

“So it’s fine for me to?”

“You’re the vampire”

Lance spluttered. What was he supposed to do? Given birth on their intruder?!

“I’m pregnant!”

“Exactly. They’re more likely to take mercy on a dad to be... you wouldn’t want little old me being hurt, would you?”

Pidge fluttered her eyelashes at him, Lance groaning in defeat as the scratching noise grew louder

“Fine. God. Remind me why I love you again?”

“Because you do”

“Touché. If I get murdered, I’m coming back to haunt you”

“Please do. Having hard evidence of life after death would be nice”

Because being a vampire totally didn’t count? Ugh. Bloody humans.

Climbing out of bed, Lance shivered, wrapping his arms around himself he shuffled over to the door. Blue had abandoned him when Pidge came in, Lance feeling she had the right idea

“Don’t die!”

Lance flipped Pidge off. She could have come and investigated with him, but nooooo. She had to use his love against him

“I’m already dead. For a smart person, you have your moments. Alright, I’m opening the door now”

Cracking the handle, something big crashed into his legs, knocking him enough that Lance had to use his strength to fall. Soft black fur brushed against him as a wet nose poked the gap between his shirt and pants

“Keith?!”

As he stepped backwards, Keith stumbled into the room. Making it past him, his boyfriend collapsed onto the floor. What the fuck was Keith doing there?!

Pidge sounded just as shocked as Lance was

“Did you say Keith?”

Keith’s ear twitched upwards, growl escaping, as rolled to lay on his belly with his eyes on the bed. His chest was heaving, as the scent of blood reached Lance’s nose. This wasn’t good. Keith wasn’t coherent enough to be in a room with Pidge. Fuck... Had Keith not gone home?!

“Pidge, I want you to very carefully climb off the bed and make your way into the bathroom. I’m going to sit down and try to keep him distracted. I need you to call Coran”

“But... is that really Keith? He’s so big...”

Keith snarled at the sound of Pidge’s voice. His muscles twitching. Moving between his best friend and his fiancé, Lance placed his hand on Keith’s head, fisting the fur between Keith’s ears lightly

“He’s big and he’s not himself right now. I don’t know how he got here, but he’s not seeing you as friend. You need to move slowly and carefully... and be quite. If he thinks you’re a threat to me, he’ll attack. Let me sit down, then you can move”

Lowering himself to sit in front of Keith physically hurt. The floor unfairly close to the ground and not kind on his poor body at all. Taking Keith’s face in his hand, his fiancé seemed to recognise him

“Awooo... woo... woooooo...”

“I’m okay. I’m okay and I’m safe. Pidge, move now. It’s alright, babe. See. No bad guys here”

Pidge failed at being quiet, Keith trying to pull his head away from being forced to stare at Lance, teeth bared in anger. Fuck...

“Don’t mind the noise. See, baby. I’m right here. Right here... shhhh... it’s okay”

Bolting towards the bathroom, Keith went to rise as he snarled at Pidge. Lance holding him tighter until the bathroom lock turned

“Nope. No. Keith, don’t fight me here”

Snarling at him for stopping him, Keith went his hand, teeth clamping into his arm. Fuck. Lance felt his bones crunch. Keith knew it was him, but he was stopping him from his prey, which made him the enemy

“Keith! Stop! I’m fine! I’m fine! Let go”

If a werewolf could look confused as fuck for having an arm in its mouth, Keith managed to express it perfectly. Kind of grimacing, he let go of Lance’s arm with his nose upturned metaphorically. He didn’t smell that great to a werewolf. He probably smelt like a freshly dug up corpse to his fiancé, like a zombie arm with too much flesh connected

“See. It’s okay. Sit back down. Sit back down, boy”

Squashing all the ego he could, he maintained eye contact until Keith slowly lowered his body down. He’d learned how to break an ego, but he couldn’t hypnotise like Lotor or Sendak

“Good. That’s a good, boy. That’s my boy... here, let me scratch your head, I know you love scratches. Did you walk here?”

“Woooo”

Lance didn’t know wolf, yet he took an educated guess that that meant yes. Keith must have walked all the way from Garrison to be with him

“Oh, babe. Babe, I’m okay. I’m okay. I know it’s scary, but nothing happened. You must be so thirsty right now”

Raising his head a little, Keith’s howls were soft

“Wooooooooooo wooo woo”

“Yeah. I know. You’re confused. But you know this means you’ve finally conquered running around as a wolf. God, babe. What if something happened to you? You can’t do that to my heart”

“Woooo”

“I love you, too. Can you stand? You’ve got to be exhausted. If you can get up on the bed, I can try to cuddle with you”

There was no way Keith was fitting up there with him. His boyfriend was way too big in this form. Trying to push himself up, Lance saw how much Keith’s body shook with the effort

“Hey, no. If you can’t that’s fine. I’ll stay down here and give you pats”

Keith growled stubbornly at him. With his arm busted, he couldn’t help him up on the bed until it’d healed

“I know. You’re a big strong wolf, I’m sorry. I don’t doubt your strength”

Nearly rising, Keith slumped back down. There was no way he was moving. As he noticed what he’d done to Lance’s arm, he let out a distressed whine

“Shhh. It barely hurts. It’ll be all healed by the morning. I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you”

Whether it be wolf instincts or Keith’s regret, his fiancé nosed at the wound, starting to lap at the blood there

“You don’t need to clean it, it’ll clear up on its own. You’re safe here, babe. You’re safe”

Lance had nearly lulled Keith back to sleep with head pats when Coran came rushing into the room, startling Keith. Snarling at the intrusion, Lance grabbed him before he could go Coran. What kind of werewolf expert comes rushing into a room where there’s a freakin’ werewolf with his pregnant mate?!

“What are you doing?! You scared him!”

Coran was flustered. His radiant orange hair not perfectly in position as it normally was, opening and closing his mouth at the sight of them, the fae quickly drew himself together under Lance’s scowl

“I’m sorry, my dear boy! I fear I was in a rush to ensure you and our Pidge were quite safe”

“We’re fine. I’m fine, Pidge maybe not. She’s locked in the bathroom... I nearly had him settled”

Tugging Keith back, the werewolf wouldn’t take his eyes off Coran. Grabbing Keith by the muzzle, he forced his gaze onto him

“Stop it! He’s a friend. You know me and you know him. Don’t make me put you in a time out!”

Keith seemed shocked that he’d consider such a thing. Pulling on Lance’s hold, he tried to look back to Coran

“No. Focus on me. See, he hasn’t hurt me. Seriously, did you have to come rushing in like that? I nearly had him sleeping”

“I do apologise. Pidge’s phone call left me quite perplexed...”

“And it took you half an hour to coming rushing to our aid?”

Sheepishly Coran ducked his head as he scratched the back of it. So much if they had been in any actual danger, or attacked by a stranger

“I was reviewing the camera footage... He seems to have let himself in through the front door and used the elevator to come down here, then avoiding the staff, he made his way right to your room”

That was impressive. Lance was impressed, if not a little scared that werewolves could suddenly operate elevators

“That’s my wolf. He don’t need no fingers, do you, babe?”

“Wooo”

“Yes, I know. You’re just a big sook who missed me... yes, you are”

Keith thumped his tail under Lance’s praise. No wolf should be this damn scary looking and so damn cute at the same time

“Whooooo”

“I know. I don’t think I’m in any danger, but he’s not letting anyone close to me. He would have gone Pidge if I hadn’t held him back, but he’s really too exhausted to do that. I thought he was in Garrison”

“He seems to have walked back. Marvellous, even miraculous really. He doesn’t seem to have gotten lost”

“Keith doesn’t get lost, he gets directionally misplaced and sometimes advances in the opposite direction...”

Keith turned his head to scowl. So damn cute... and fluffy. Keith was so fluffy he was going to die. Whether from a fluff overload or choking on stray fur... He’d have to take a grooming brush to Keith’s fur when they were home, his fiancé would love it

“Coran, can you help get him up on my bed? I mean, like clear the bed? Pidge and I were watching movies, so if I can get him to settle then she should be able to escape without him snarling at her”

“I don’t believe he’d hurt her”

Lance could have rolled his eyes at Coran. If Keith hurt Pidge it never would be intentionally. Just like Keith would never intentionally bite him if he was completely in the right frame of mind

“I’d rather not take the risk and have to explain things to Colleen. Matt’s enough to deal with. He bit before when she moved. So I’m going to air on the side of caution here”

“He did? Gracious... he seems so attached...”

“It was my fault for restraining him. It’s already starting to heal, but I can’t move the things on the bed and hold him back at the same time. I think after this moon you really need to get Matt and Rieva onto helping him more with his wolf side. He’s scared being like this”

Keith let out a soft whine, his paw coming up to paw at Lance’s leg

“I know. It’s all so big and scary right now. We’re going to get you up on the bed and get some water into you”

Coran cleared the bed, Keith snapping at his fingers when the fae went to physically help him up. Undeterred, Keith yelped as the man hefted him off the floor like he weighed nothing. Soon his giant black mass was taking up all of Lance’s bed, Lance pulling the blankets over him and rustling Keith’s fur as Keith blinked at him

“Much better than the floor, isn’t it? You probably smell me and Pidge, but focus on me. You did such a good job getting here”

The scent of blood came from the dried blood on Keith’s paw. He’d healed as he walked, but it’d had to hurt at the time. Such a silly werewolf.

“He seems content”

He should be. With his head on the pillow, Keith looked ready to zonk out

“He’s exhausted. I’ll stay with him tonight. He clearly wants to be here with me. Tomorrow we’ll have to find another room for him to shift in. If we send him back to Garrison, he’ll only walk back again. Pidge has probably already let the others know he’s here. Shiro’s going to flip out”

“Just you leave that to me. Should I set up an IV line?”

“Nah, just a bowl with some water. I still can’t believe he came all this way. He’s damn lucky he wasn’t hit by a car”

“He loves you very deeply. He probably wanted the comfort of his mate”

“Yeah... he’s an idiot like that... Can you stay until he drifts off? Then if he wakes I can keep him preoccupied while you let Pidge out”

“I did tell our Pidge you needed your rest. I’m surprised to find you so awake”

“That’s what she said. It’s fine, she’s welcome to come see me whenever she wants, and it’s not like any of us expected Keith to walk here”

“He must have started walking soon after shifting. He’s covered an impressive amount of ground for his second moon”

“Tell me about it. I’m going to have to put a shock collar or something on him so he can’t leave the property when he wolfs out”

Keith let out an unhappy whine at Lance’s suggestion

“Fine. No shock collar, but at least a GPS so I don’t have to worry about you deciding to walk back to Platt each time it’s a full moon. I much prefer you in one piece, babe”

Keith thudded his tail, such a good boy...

“Yes, I know. You love me. Get some rest, I won’t be surprised if you sleep all day after your big big walk. I’ll be right here with you”

Keith huffed, wiggling his body beneath the sheets. Lance confused until he realised he was trying to make space for him to sleep next to him. If Keith wiggled anymore, he risked falling out the bed backwards

“Babe, it’s okay. I’m okay. I’m not going to fit in there with you”

His fiancé’s wiggling stopped with an unhappy huff

“I know, but this place doesn’t have a big bed like we do at home. You sleep there. It’ll all be okay and I’ll climb in with you once you’ve shifted back. I promise. Just be a good boy and rest. You did so good finding me... so good”

Keith melted into the scratched between his ears. Lance torn between wanting to enjoy how tame his werewolf was acting, and kind of hoping he’d fall asleep soon as Pidge would be stuck in the bathroom until he did, which would be awkward for everyone as he had to pee. The woes of being a pregnant vampire were only growing.

[nerianasims]

Billboard #1s 1987

Under the cut.

"Shake You Down" -- Gregory Abbot -- January 17, 1987

The only reason I've heard this song before is because of Todd in the Shadows' worst hit songs of 1987 video. I do not entirely agree with his list, but this one definitely belongs on it. I don't think the song's writer knew what "shake down" actually means. This is supposed to be a love song about how the narrator is missing the woman he's staring at (um) and wants her back so he can "shake you down." It sounds creepy, and yet the music is so painfully bland it can't even rise to that. It's no surprise it hasn't gotten radio play since it was a hit. That it was a hit in the first place is mystifying.

"At This Moment" -- Billy Vera and the Beaters -- January 24, 1987

A rather good blue-eyed soul song. The narrator is singing to a woman who just told him she's in love with someone else. It sounds like she's acting scared, and he's upset by that as well as by her leaving him, because "I'd never, never hurt you." And he'd give up twenty years of his life if she'd stay. There are some massive blues horns, Billy Vera sings it well, and it's cathartically sad. The song became a hit years after it was first released because it was on Family Ties. Billy Vera keeps on chugging, and he's also a music historian. He won a Grammy for "best album notes" in 2013 for a Ray Charles boxed set. I had no idea that was an award category.

"Open Your Heart" -- Madonna -- February 7, 1987

Watch out. When Madonna says "I've had to work much harder than this/ For something I want, don't try to resist me," it's absolutely believable. She worked incredibly hard to get where she was. I guess the song is stalkery when looked at from a certain angle, but that is not the angle I choose. I hear it as I did as a teenager -- as something aspirational, because I got huge and powerful crushes on guys (mostly friends) and then did absolutely nothing about it, both because I had no idea what to do and because I didn't actually want a boyfriend yet. (That changed in college.) Musically and lyrically, the song is Motown mixed with disco and updated, as most of the True Blue album is. It's a lot of fun.

"Livin on a Prayer" -- Bon Jovi -- February 14, 1987

I wonder what I'd feel about this song if it hadn't been overplayed for years and years. I don't think it was/is played more than "You Give Love a Bad Name," but I have never been sick of "You Give Love a Bad Name." This one... meh. I don't want to run screaming from it, even after hearing it a zillion times, so that's something. It's about a working class couple who's having serious money troubles. It's just a snapshot of this difficult time in their life, and how they're holding on to each other. I'd be happier with it if the story were rounded out, and especially if they got a happy ending. The music is fine, acceptable rock, but nothing special.

"Jacob's Ladder" -- Huey Lewis and the News -- March 14, 1987

This song is a "fuck off" to televangelists, though if you only listen to the chorus you might not know that. I always appreciate anyone telling televangelists to fuck off. I could use it being nastier, but you can't expect real nastiness from Huey Lewis and the News. Genesis would go there a few years later, and I like that song much better. "Jesus He Knows Me" is also more interesting musically. This one's fine, but not memorable.

"Lean on Me" -- Club Nouveau -- March 21, 1987

The original "Lean on Me" is one of the great songs. This version is annoying. A go-go beat and a faux-reggae break. The original of this song is deeply emotional and touching. This one is not even a good dance song. I liked it when I was a kid, but that makes sense, because it's a very kiddie song.

"Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" -- Starship -- April 4, 1987

This song is actually not bad. It's pretty good, even. It's a very slick synth-heavy drum machine love song, but I really like the way Grace Slick sings on it. Mickey Thomas, well, he hits the notes. Could be worse. If they'd gotten a male vocalist who could match Grace Slick on his part of the duet, this might be a great song. They didn't, so it's just pretty good.

"I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)" -- Aretha Franklin and George Michael -- April 18, 1987

George Michael is an excellent singer, but he's no Aretha Franklin. But who is? He holds his own pretty well here. As both Franklin and Michael know how to push emotion in a song, they end up with good chemistry on this one. Unfortunately, though the vocal performances are great, the music itself is dull. The melody slips out of my head while I'm listening to it.

"(I Just) Died in Your Arms" -- Cutting Crew -- May 2, 1987

*silent scream of anguish* I wish this song would slip out of my head permanently. It is my personal most overplayed song in existence. My hate for it could end worlds. I have no idea about what qualities it might or might not have. I just want it to shut the fuck up.

"With or Without You" -- U2 -- May 16, 1987

I don't think U2 actually counts as "alternative," but the alternative stations were the only ones who played them where I lived. The song is extremely structured and carefully designed, but it feels somehow raw at the same time. It doesn't have the layers upon layers of synth that most of the songs on the charts did. It has a beautiful melody. The lyrics are thoughtful, heartrending poetry. I'm not sure what I thought of the song at the time -- I associate it more with a couple years later, when my family moved to a town near a huge state college and I started listening to the college station. It hasn't aged a bit. An amazing song.

Also Bono’s personality is somewhat insufferable if one is silly enough to look into it. But his voice is incredibly hot, and I very much appreciate that.

"You Keep Me Hangin' On" -- Kim Wilde -- June 6, 1987

Back to the layers of synth. This is the Supremes song updated as a 1987 dance song, and it sounds exactly like you'd think it would. It's okay.

"Always" -- Atlantic Starr -- June 13, 1987

This is the kind of song I made gagging noises about at age 10, when it came out. I'm tempted to now too. It's like corn syrup, both lyrically and musically. It sounds like it was written for weddings.

"Head to Toe" -- Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam -- June 20, 1987

I liked this song a lot when I was a kid. I had a lot of fun dancing to it. Now I hear Lisa Lisa's vocals in the opening and chorus, which are kind of like a police siren, and want to cover my ears. I can't listen to it without getting a headache nowadays.

"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" -- Whitney Houston -- June 27, 1987

This is a Whitney Houston song I like. She doesn't oversing as much as usual -- she mostly, though not entirely, saves it for the chorus. She wants to dance with "a man who'll take a chance/ On a love that burns hot enough to last." It's a simple dance song that speaks to real emotion.

"Alone" -- Heart -- July 11, 1987

In the 80s, Heart did hair metal ballads. All the men who did the same were copying them. Including the hair itself. Heart did it first, and Heart did it best. So lyrically, why can't she get this person alone? Not even on the phone? Whatever, it doesn't matter. What matters is the emotion, the music, and that this is a great song to sing along with.

"Shakedown" -- Bob Seger -- August 1, 1987

Unlike Gregory Abbott, Bob Seger knew what "shakedown" meant. The song was written for Beverly Hills Cop II, and that's exactly what it sounds like. It's a good movie song, but doesn't transcend that box. Still fun though.

"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" -- U2 -- August 8, 1987

This is a spiritual pop song. But it's very far from the sanitized happy clappy Christian-brand pop that's so foul. It's about a search for transcendence that's ongoing -- eternal, really. And while this song is explicitly Christian, it speaks to a universality that doesn't require religion of any kind. Also it's beautiful musically.

"Who's That Girl" -- Madonna -- August 22, 1987

I'm surprised this was a number one. Or even charted in the top 20. I'd have predicted #46 or something. The movie it was written for was terrible, and Madonna was particularly terrible in it. Like, aggressively terrible, when in most movies she was just kinda blah. I've never liked the song. I don't hate it either; I don't feel much of anything about it. That is very strange for a Madonna song -- "American Life" is awful, but it makes me feel things. (Mostly embarrassment.) But "Who's That Girl" is bland, which a Madonna song should never be.

"La Bamba" -- Los Lobos -- August 29, 1987

This is a nearly faithful rendition of Richie Valens' original hit, which was based on a Veracruz folk song. But where are the castanets? The original is better, a true classic, but this one isn't bad. It's simply... unnecessary. It was done for a movie about Valens, so I guess it was sort of "necessary" in that way. Skip this one and go for Valens' version.

"I Just Can't Stop Loving You" -- Michael Jackson with Siedah Garrett -- September 19, 1987

This is from the Bad album, which I did not like in 1987 and continue to not like now. I find this song extraordinarily dull. Whitney Houston and Barbra Streisand both turned it down, and I'm not surprised. This song weirdly makes me think of The Love Boat. Like it belongs in a television series. It's legitimately bad. When do we get to Janet again?

"Didn't We Almost Have It All" -- Whitney Houston -- September 26, 1987

I think the narrator in this song is trying to get an old flame back. It's a pretty melody, and the lyrics are wildly repetitive but not bad, but I can't get past Houston's oversinging. Anyone who doesn't mind that will probably enjoy this song.

"Here I Go Again" -- Whitesnake -- October 10, 1987

I wonder what makes one feel a song is "horribly overplayed" vs. just "played probably too much but I'm fine with it." This song is the latter for me. It's a really good song, so obviously that's part of it. The beginning is thoughtful and searching, with an organ and everything (or probably a synth on the organ setting), and has that same spiritual feel as "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." Then in come the guitars, which are awesome. It absolutely rocks, and the emotion is of "like a drifter I was born to walk alone" is amplified by the rock, rather than buried under it.

"Lost in Emotion" -- Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam -- October 17, 1987

Lisa Lisa does not sound like a police siren in this, thankfully. And I got frozen on this song because I listened to it over and over and managed to feel absolutely nothing about it. I guess she's falling in love with a friend and worried she's telling him too much, and I should identify with this because it's happened to me more than once. But I don't. I like the bass line, and it's updated Motown, so I should like that. But again, I feel nothing. Maybe it's the way Lisa Lisa sings it. I don't know, and I've wasted far too much time on something I cannot make myself care about in any way.

"Bad" -- Michael Jackson -- October 24, 1987

I think the Bad album is bad. Actually bad, as in not good. I was 11 when this hit #1, so everything in the universe embarrassed me, but this stood out. I no longer knew anyone who liked Michael Jackson. I certainly didn't. In my opinion, Jackson had exactly one good album in him, and that album was Thriller. Thriller is one of the greats. Bad is blah.

"I Think We're Alone Now" -- Tiffany -- November 7, 1987

I wonder what makes stations decide to play #1 hits and what makes them decide not to. I don't remember hearing this much at the time, and never after. It's a cover of a 1960s song that was never that great, and it's worse here. In 1967, the "ooh we're alone gonna do something naughty" idea was still edgy. In 1987 -- are you kidding? Madonna's tearing up the charts in 1987; what on earth is this thing doing on it? It's an annoying song, annoyingly sung.

"Mony Mony" -- Billy Idol -- November 21, 1987

I had to do aerobics to this in middle school. Next!

"(I've Had) The Time of My Life" -- Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes -- November 28, 1987

This is one of those songs I can't really evaluate because it feels like background music to my life. Not that it was ever particularly important to me -- it's not. But it's sort of like "Eye of the Tiger", movie song and all. Medley and Warnes are well-matched on the song, and they do a great job. I wish the music were more interesting, but well, movie ballad. It's a good one for what it is. By the way, Dirty Dancing is another movie I've managed to never see. For no reason -- I might even like it. But somehow, it's never come up.

"Heaven Is a Place on Earth" -- Belinda Carlisle -- December 5, 1987

Ooh baby, do you know what that's worth? Yes. I love everything about this song. It's a big and unashamed dance power ballad about how great love is, and the lyrics are simple but powerful. But I have  a question: What the heck is up with the video? It looks like she's being inducted into a cult, not like she's in ecstasy over great romantic love. Well, it was the 80s, the videos usually didn't have anything to do with the songs. Still, weird.

"Faith" -- George Michael -- December 12, 1987

I've known the lyrics to this song since it came out, but I never registered them before. Only "I gotta have faith, faith, faith." I remember the video, though, with its prominent focus on George Michael's butt. I'm watching the video now, and huh, there's a basically naked woman in it too. That, I didn't remember, because it wasn't relevant to my interests. Anyway, the lyrics are about how the narrator needs a break from relationships so is not gonna have sex with this hot woman. Sure, George, that's why. Ahem. Sorry, we didn't know then, and it doesn't matter one bit anyway, because the singer is playing a role. It's a fun song for which the lyrics don't matter at all.

BEST OF 1987 -- "With or Without You" by U2  WORST OF 1987 -- "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" by Michael Jackson with Siedah Garrett

[northernreads]

looking back at the decade is weird. like i am so damn old. the last time i hit a decade i wasn’t really old enough to fully i don’t know... comprehend it? if i had to summarize the 2010s in one word than maybe: university? though there was more than that i suppose. this is probably going to be stupid long but i don’t caaaaare cause the 2010s went on forever too

i graduated high school in 2010. i went back for a victory lap solely to avoid university for a year. i did mediocre in high school in just about every way (grades, friends, experiences). i can’t say that i enjoyed it at all so finishing up with hs was a great way to start the ‘10s even if i petrified to start uni

in 2011 i started uni. i was terrified. i didn’t want to go in the first place, high school had sucked why would I want to do more school? but i felt like i had no other choice. the first year was rough, i worked my ass off though and while I was warned to expect my usual grades to drop the first year, they actually soared. when i was late enrolling for courses for second year the dean of my faculty emailed me to see if everything was okay and if I needed help. by second year i was actually really enjoying uni. i majored in history and minored in english and i loved it. i really like writing essays it turns out.

i graduated cum laude in 2016. my original plan to go to teachers college but after already extending my undergrad by a year and getting yanked around by my uni in so many dumb ways, when I found out that I would have to push back my graduation again to make teachers college work I decided to switch gears instead. i found something else to make my liberal arts degree work: librarianship

in 2015/2016 i realized I had to very quickly make things work if I was going to get accepted into a masters program. everything I had been doing to make teachers college work wasn’t enough for this masters program. namely that being a teacher meant volunteering with kids a lot while getting my masters meant developing relationships with profs. something I was incredibly uncomfortable with, and hadn’t even had much opportunity to do as my undergrad uni had a massive population and most class sizes were large even at fourth year level. I went way, way outside my comfort zone and made it work though. i got my letters of recommendation and got my act together and got accepted into both masters programs i applied to.

in 2016 i began my masters program at a new uni. the program was much smaller than what I was used to, and while I missed my english classes especially, I loved the program. I did well. I made friends. I even joined a club. mostly this two year program was me dealing with a long commute. (5-6 hours per day, four days a week). i was exhausted all of the time. i got a paper published. i loved this too.

in 2018 i graduated with my masters of information, with a concentration in library and information science

in the 2010s i graduated three times. graduations suck and yeah that’s some extreme first world complaining, but god i hate them so much

i got my first real job in 2012. i had no experience and had a hell of a time finding a job. finally one day someone gave me a chance and i started my first job at a gas station. i worked there for five years. i went through four managers, i trained a lot of employees, i made some work friends, i read a lot of books for uni there, it helped me come out of my shell a bit too

in 2017 i quit my job at the gas station. I was on my fourth manager and after weathering all that change this one finally broke me. every week he changed how he wanted things done and acted like I was clueless for doing it any other way. I also knew that I needed to develop some more work experience.

my next job was at a shoe store. less than two months into the job i was a senior employee because everyone kept quitting. it was my first time in retail and also the first time i was really working with other people. i hated it at times, but i also grew to like it too. i picked everything up quickly and was made a key holder before long. i was there for less than a year. the company wasn’t doing well and my hours were cut to almost nothing. cue next job

by this point it was 2018 and i had just graduated my masters program and was looking for a job in my field. in the meantime i needed money. i got a job at costco. they thought i was still in uni even though my resume said ‘graduated’. so I got hired on for the summer as a student. it was an okay job. bigger than anywhere i had ever worked certainly. by the end of the summer i was so ready to be done with it though, the management was poor at times and they were relentless in pushing us to promote membership upgrades. I despise upselling products to people who clearly don’t want to talk about it. overall it really wasn’t terrible. i did like a lot of the people.

i got two interviews for jobs at libraries over that summer. i was applying for hours every single day in 2018. zilch.

so by fall 2018 i needed a new job again. enter the coffee shop. i got hired to be a baker at tim hortons and was never a baker, in fact less than 2 months into the job they moved me permanently to their satellite location at a gas station (oh how circular life is) which had no proper kitchen. i liked the gas station location better in the end. there was a small group of ridiculous teens and barely adults on the afternoon shift and they were kind of the best. i was at tims for 8 months, was almost made supervisor but luckily dodged that bullet

in 2019 i got a better paying job. completely different than anything i’ve ever done before and not in my field. but i’m not complaining

i started the 2010s having never even kissed someone before. and i’m ending it having found someone that actually makes me believe soulmates are a thing.

in 2013 (i think) i had my first boyfriend. he was shit. i don’t think it even lasted 6 months but honestly i don’t remember much and i try not to

in 2014 (i think?) i had begun to question my sexuality a bit and landed on bisexual. i also had my first girlfriend. she was also shit. i guess it was maybe almost a year long. again i try not to remember. 

there were other almosts and not quite relationships but mostly it was just the two. and they were bad. they messed with me in their own ways. after the gf (2015) i just stopped dating. i needed a break from it at first. but the more time I took the more I began to struggle with realizing that i was ace. something i did not want whatsoever. i was also just busy with my masters. i had no time to date even if i wanted to between school, commuting and work.

in 2018 i met someone on here. he has been nothing but perfect ever since and i am madly in love with him. he also doubles as my bestest friend ever so that’s awesome

i traveled a little bit too. i did four major roadtrips with my family. twice to the west coast of canada and twice to the east coast. i also took a plane for the first time ever and went to england

i went to a few concerts: marianas trench (twice), lorde, hayley kiyoko, and imagine dragons

i got my drivers license and first car

i had roomates in uni in the dorms and now have my first apartment (+ a roommate)

i cut my long hair super short and kept it that way for a few years and then grew it all back again

i got back into reading again and it saved my life

i lost a lot of pets. i used to have my own personal zoo at the start of the decade. In particular i lost my dog Sam, who was the most important being in my life for most of the decade. now I visit my family’s cats and dogs once a week. and I miss them a lot.

we saw the world go through a lot of changes but i’m sure there are a million articles on that already. we saw too many memes too. but i’m guessing a zillion articles on that subject.

I discovered so much about myself over the past decade. 2010 holly would not know who I am now and I am so grateful for that. she was kind of an idiot. I feel so much more like me than I ever have before. the 2010s were rough at times, and that’s putting it lightly. But i’m here. i made it. Things feel good. I have a lot more big things coming, and hopefully sooner than later. 

[dontshootmespence]

Blooming Dahlia

A/N: An anon request for a Spencer x Reader where she is at the end of her pregnancy and it’s toward the end of season 5. She’s helping him get around because of his crutches. She gets overwhelmed between helping him and helping JJ with Henry and doubts whether she’ll be a good mom. 

“I’m a penguin!”

She heard Spencer chuckle from all the way out in the kitchen, where he was trying to maneuver his crutches to get into the refrigerator. “What?”

These crutches were really starting to cramp his style now. All he wanted to do was grab some orange juice and it seemed like an impossibility at the moment. A second later, Y/N came out and reached into the refrigerator, cradling her substantive baby bump as she bent down. “I’m waddling now. I’m a penguin! I waddle. I need this pregnancy to be over. The magic of it is gone! I want my baby!” She cried out, wildly throwing her hands all over the place after handing Spencer his juice.

“You’re my penguin,” he laughed, kissing her temple. “She’s almost here.”

After grabbing a couple pieces of toast and slapping some scrambled eggs in the middle, Spencer asked to be driven to work. “And I’ll be off these soon.”

When they arrived outside the FBI, Y/N took what felt like 18 hours getting out of the care so she could grab Spencer’s crutches for him. “You gonna be okay? Do you want me to help you upstairs?” 

Spencer pulled the messenger bag over his shoulder and situated himself on the rickety crutches. They’d had enough of this too. “I should be okay. You going to get Henry?”

“I’m gonna stay over there for a couple hours to allow the nanny to go to her own son’s parent/teacher conference,” she replied. The baby was kicking against the side of her stomach. She really was due any day now. “And then I’ll be back to grab you this afternoon. Just give like half an hour heads up because with this bowling ball in front of me, it’s taking me forever to move around.”

He chuckled and leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to her lips before nearly tripping over his own two feet and two crutches. “Okay, I’ll see you two later.” He pressed a kiss to his two fingers and placed them on her stomach. If he fell down trying to kiss the baby right now, the overwhelmingness of trying to help him off the floor while eight and a half months pregnant would probably cause Y/N to go into labor. 

“Henry! Henry, get back here!”

Being a penguin was not ideal when someone was trying to chase after an 18-month old who’d truly found his sea legs and wanted to get into and onto absolutely everything. 

She wasn’t supposed to do a ton of heavy-lifting, but Y/N had actually lost count of how many times she had lifted Henry off of a chair or some other high place to keep him from hurting himself. Between that and trying to keep from stepping on a zillion toys and also falling over from too much baby weight up front, Y/N was just a bit overwhelmed. “Oh my god, Henry, you’re killing me here,” she muttered.

All of a sudden, she was distracted yet again by a text from JJ:

How’s Henry doing?

Y/N: He’s getting into everything and scaring the crap out of me by climbing onto all the chairs, but otherwise he’s good.

JJ: That is the life of toddler mommyhood. The nanny’s coming back right after the meeting so it shouldn’t be too long. You okay until then?

Y/N: Yea, I’ll be fine. Tired, but fine. And that’s something I have to get used to.

She added a little laugh out loud to the end of it, but her mind was exploding in reality. “Okay, back to you,” she said softly. “Henry, where are you?”

Thankfully for both Spencer and Y/N, the BAU had a pretty abnormal day filled with mostly paperwork and Morgan needing to take a trek into the city to talk at a parole hearing. However, the ride down the elevator and into the garage made up for the calmness of earlier in the day. 

All of Spencer’s books fell to the floor out of his bag. It happened in slow motion, because there was no way Spencer could get down on his knees to grab them, so that meant it was up to her. “Okay, here’s the bag,” she said, handing him the now empty messenger bag. “Hold it. Maybe sling it over one of the crutches so I can get everything in there.” Slowly but surely, she managed. “Now to get up off the ground.”

Spencer held his hand out, but she didn’t want him to put pressure on his knees, so she pressed her palms to the floor and clumsily managed to push herself upward. “Oh hell that was a workout.” Taking a deep breath, she leaned into her husband and steadied her breath.

“You okay, honey?” Spencer asked softly. 

As they started walking back toward the car, she nodded, sighing, “Yea, I’m just a little overwhelmed lately.” Subconsciously, she started rubbing her stomach. “Henry was a lot to handle today and I can’t move the way I normally do. Plus, I can’t help you the way I want to be able to and it just has be questioning a lot.”

“Like what?” He seemed confused. But the wonderful thing about him was that he was always trying to understand. “You’re not questioning your ability to be a mom, right?”

There were slight tears in her eyes when she looked at him. “Listen to me,” he breathed. “No mother has everything in control all the time. Ask JJ. But you want to be a mom, and you have more love to give than any woman I’ve ever known. With that, me wanting the exact same thing, and a little bit of winging it, we’re going to be fine. You’re going to be the most amazing mother.”

One lone tear slipped down her cheek as she blinked. “I’m just nervous, I guess.”

“That makes sense. It basically is the biggest thing to happen in our lives.” “Not helping.” “Sorry, but you know what I mean. Sure this is big, but we want it and we’re in a position to do it. We’re going to be okay.”

Later that night, they fell asleep side by side, with Spencer’s hand resting comfortably on top of Y/N’s bump. It was about 2 AM when she was startled awake. “What’s wrong?” Spencer asked.

“I-I think we have a baby coming.” She felt a distinct wetness on the bed like her water had broken. “She’s coming early.”

Spencer had been confident that he only needed one of the crutches for the past couple of weeks, but the doctor had told him not to push it. Now he threw caution to the wind and hopped up, bouncing on one leg toward the baby bag, slipping it over his shoulder and behind his back before grabbing the crutches for a little extra support. “Let’s go do this. Oh my god,” he said. He was starting to hyperventilate. “This is real now. It’s baby time.”

With his bum leg and contractions stopping Y/N in her tracks every few minutes, it took them a while longer to get to the hospital than it should have (in addition to the fact that they spent five minutes bickering over who was going to drive - Spencer insisted despite his leg). 

He hobbled over to the counter while Y/N followed up behind. “My wife is having a baby. I’m on crutches. Help us,” he laughed.

There was nothing more perfect. He was sure of it. 

His wife was soundly sleeping after 13 hours of brutal labor, and now there was a tiny human being - a little girl that they’d created - sleeping in his arms. “Hello, beautiful.” They still hadn’t decided on a name. Too many were floating around in their heads. 

“You talking to me or her?” Y/N asked, the smile wearing through the tired muscles in her body. 

“Both.” Spencer was pretty sure he’d never been this happy before.

For a moment, they both just stared at her, breathing steadily with the tiniest little pale green hat atop her head. “I was thinking about our first date,” he said sleepily. “Remember what we did?”

“You took me on a picnic in a park, you hopeless romantic. There were a ton of dahlias growing all around us. I knew I was in love with you then.”

“Yea...what about Dahlia?” He stared at the bundle in his arms and kissed her little forehead. 

Y/N smiled, tearing up at the big moment. “Hi, Dahlia.”

@kalie-bee @jamiemelyn @prettyboyeffect @iammostdefinitelyonfire26 @unstoppableangel8 @veroinnumera @lookwhatyoumademequeue @hogwarts-konoha @bitchinprentiss @captainreid @tippy06 @cynbx @smolldork @lukeassmanalvez @marvelouslyme96 @literallyprentissstwin @chickenstringlights @ggyolo17 @rmmalta

[libralita]

Title: Emergency Contact

Author: Mary H. K. Choi

Summary: For Penny Lee high school was a total nonevent. Her friends were okay, her grades were fine, and while she somehow managed to land a boyfriend, he doesn’t actually know anything about her. When Penny heads to college in Austin, Texas, to learn how to become a writer, it’s seventy-nine miles and a zillion light years away from everything she can’t wait to leave behind.

Sam’s stuck. Literally, figuratively, emotionally, financially. He works at a café and sleeps there too, on a mattress on the floor of an empty storage room upstairs. He knows that this is the god-awful chapter of his life that will serve as inspiration for when he’s a famous movie director but right this second the seventeen bucks in his checking account and his dying laptop are really testing him. 

When Sam and Penny cross paths it’s less meet-cute and more a collision of unbearable awkwardness. Still, they swap numbers and stay in touch—via text—and soon become digitally inseparable, sharing their deepest anxieties and secret dreams without the humiliating weirdness of having to see each other.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Review:

So many things wrong with this book. I’ll talk about the one thing that I thought was done well. The romance. Which bonus points for a romance book having a decent romance. I think that Penny and Sam’s interactions were charming. There was very little forced tension and I think that part was well written. I was a little worried I wouldn’t be able to tell which perspective I was in because there’s a lot of texting but it was pretty distinct and the third person helped. I also didn’t have a panic attack when reading about anxiety so that’s good.

 …Yeah that’s about it first Penny. I don’t like characters who are dicks to their parents. I get that Celeste is not the best parent in the world but my god she needed to cut her mom a break. She didn’t let her mom go with her on move in day which is like so heartless. Especially at the end. Penny tends to be a dick to everyone except for Sam. Mallory I get because Mallory is a bitch. But Jude didn’t deserve it.

There were a few plots that were so minor I didn’t really give that much of a shit about them. Penny’s professor was forgettable. She didn’t really do anything and didn’t have much of a character other than YA idol that came straight out of Tumblr (we’ll get to that later). Then, besides the pregnancy thing, a lot of Sam’s subplots didn’t really keep my attention.

There were also some dumb little moments like this:

“Penny wondered why ‘girl trouble’ meant some dude had dating drama and that ‘women’s trouble’ was about periods.”—Page 55

Probably because you become a woman when you’re on your period. While you date when you’re young, usually. You know girlfriends. Ever heard of the phrase “boy trouble”? But this moment made me laugh. Also the fact that the author refers to things like stereotyping countries as racist. Like at one point Penny makes a generalization about Australia and she wonders if she’s racist. Because that’s a racist. It’s just really silly.

But the thing that made me really hate this book was only on two pages. Pages 80 and 81 were the worst. And it had a lot to do with Penny’s “love” of Sci-Fi. Which is also a thing that only has some importance to the plot. Just a little disclaimer is that I’m not huge Sci-Fi person so take what I say with a grain of salt:

“Over the years, Penny inhaled the [Sci-Fi] classics—Ready Player One, Dune, and Ender’s Game, though it wasn’t until was introduced to Messiah, ironically from a guy who was the worst dude in the history of dudes, that she realized sci-fi didn’t have to be so…boy. J.A.’s work was like Ender’s Game, yet where Ender was smart and getting conned ‘cause he was a kid, J.A.’s hero Scan knew her worth.

A female protagonist made the stories more inspiring than voyeuristic.”—Page 80

Okay. First of all, “Sci-Fi classics like Ready Player One”. What? That is just silly. I have not read this book but it’s not exactly a Sci-Fi classic. Dune could be considered one, Ender’s Game…I guess? But my god Ready Player One does not belong on this list. This just screams to me that Choi just googled popular Sci-Fi books and that was all the research she did in the genre.

Second of all, that last line doesn’t make much sense? I looked up what voyeuristic means and I’m guessing what this sentence is trying to say is that when a protagonist is female then she becomes inspiring and less sexualized? That doesn’t make sense because you still sexualize a protagonist. I…just don’t know what this means. This is just feels like the author is bullshitting and doesn’t really know what she’s talking about. Which brings me to my next quote:

“From then on Penny’s stories centered around women and girls. There wasn’t even a special trick. You wrote it exactly as you would for a guy, but you made pain thresholds higher since girls have to put up with more in the world and give them more empathy, which makes everything riskier. Plus, with sci-fi, you set up the rules at the beginning and you could blast it all to kingdom come as long as you did it in a satisfying manner.”—Page 81

Okay, so in order to write female characters you write them exactly like male characters. EXCEPT you make them have higher pain tolerance because of shit they go through and they’re more empathetic. A tad contradictory.

Then you go on to say that in Sci-Fi you can up whatever rules you want. So…what happens when you have like a matriarchy? There are stories with matriarchies. So would you just switch that for the men? It’s Sci-Fi you can do whatever you want. That line also doesn’t make sense on a completely different level. Because “Plus, with sci-fi, you set up the rules at the beginning and you could blast it all to kingdom come as long as you did it in a satisfying manner” sounds like you’re saying that Sci-Fi authors can set up rules and then just go “fuck them!” and it’ll be fine as long as it’s satisfying.

Haha no.

Do you remember when the Prequels came out and people were freaking the fuck out about Midi-chlorians because it fucked with established lore or whatever? Sci-Fi and Fantasy have a lot of similarities and I know if Brandon Sanderson just flipped the table on how the Cosmere worked the fandom would be pissed. Also that sounds like some real “ends justify the means” shit. As long as I get to a satisfying conclusion it doesn’t matter how I got there.

But this book talks about real issues and it has a message. It’s empowering to women and--

“J.A. made nerdiness glamorous. And not in some posery Tumblr way where girls played first-person shooters in their underpants to be attractive to guys.”—Page 81

Wow, you just slut shamed a bunch of women. That’s not hypocritical at all. Also, cam girls are not on Tumblr, they’re on Twitch.

[quicksilversquared]

Plagg and the Butterfly Costume Ch. 6

Plagg is willing to do a lot in order to get more cheese. When he’s spotted one too many times en route to the kitchen, he decides that a disguise is in order. One purple costume later, and Plagg is free to flit down to the kitchen without people thinking that he’s a rat.

And then he gets caught.

PATBC: (1)  (2)  (3)  (4)  (5)  

PatBC Outtakes: (1)  

(AO3) (FF.net)

For their second meeting, Adrien and Plagg arrived late thanks to a photoshoot that ran over. Adrien ran all the way to Fu's place, though Plagg didn't understand the hurry. It wasn't as though the old man was going to be going anywhere.

So of course when they got there, Ladybug and Tikki had already arrived and were sitting in Adrien's usual spot behind the screen. Plagg could see Tikki already perched on the low table, nibbling on a small cake. Next to her, Wayzz was sipping away at a small cup of tea.

Plagg perked up when he saw his normal cheese plate set out. He zipped towards it, ignoring Adrien's quiet apologies to Fu for being late. He mumbled out quick greetings to his fellow kwami and then dove into the cheese.

The cheese plate was the best part of these boring meetings, really. But Plagg knew that any moment now, he was going to be dragged away from the cheese to act as a mouthpiece for Adrien so he and his lovebug could talk to each other.

"What- what's this for?" Adrien asked suddenly, sounding positively puzzled. Plagg glanced over long enough to see his Chosen pick up what looked like a weird black plastic mask.

"Ladybug brought them," Fu said, as though that was any sort of explanation. Plagg glanced over and saw Ladybug sitting on the other side of the screen- or, well, he was assuming that it was Ladybug. Black pigtails stuck out from the bottom of a black mask identical to the one Adrien held. She waved at him. "They have a voice changer built in, and Ladybug thought you two would be able to use them to talk without having to go through the kwamis while still keeping your identities safe. I believe she called them... Darth Raider masks?"

"Darth Vader," Tikki corrected.

"Ladybug is my new favorite," Plagg said around a mouthful of cheese. "Now I don't have to stop eating just so you can ask a million questions. I mean, you'll look like a dork, but..."

Adrien grinned and jammed the helmet over his head, apparently unconcerned by the dorkiness. "This is so cool!"

Plagg blinked. That...was definitely a voice change. He had not been expecting that.

"And they were on clearance," Ladybug added, her own voice just as distorted. "Because the paint job got messed up somehow. The masks are scratched, but the voice things work well enough."

Adrien laughed. "Your voice sounds so funny like this."

"You're one to talk," Ladybug retorted.

"That is going to take some getting used to," Fu said with a laugh. "But it was quite a creative solution, I have to admit. Clearly I made a very good choice when I picked you for Ladybug."

"You really did," Adrien spoke up. Plagg could tell by the tilt of his Chosen's head that he was doubtless giving the screen in Ladybug's direction a soppy lovestruck look. "I don't know what I would do without my Bugaboo."

Plagg made a face and dove with more vigor into his cheese. He really didn't need to spend any more of his life listening to Adrien flirt and pine. It was lucky that he wasn't alert when Adrien was transformed, because from what Plagg could tell, Adrien flirted with Ladybug all the time while they were transformed.

"Both Ladybug and Chat Noir have been excellent choices this time around," Wayzz spoke up, thankfully cutting off any more flirty banter between the two superheroes. "You both fight wonderfully."

"But now we must talk of more serious things," Fu agreed, coming to sit by the table that the kwamis were on. "Tikki has told me already about some of the things that she and Plagg are planning. There are...security elements, in the lair, that you're in the process of destroying, is that correct?"

Plagg nodded by way of answer. He didn't want to have to hastily swallow the lovely creamy Brie that he had just bitten into.

"And from what I hear, that's going along well," Fu pressed. "And you have plans to finish the project this Thursday?"

"He's going to break an elevator button so Mr. Agreste can't go up to the lair and transform," Tikki volunteered, wiping cake crumbs off of her mouth. "So it won't matter that he's had to recharge a zillion times. And Ladybug is going to bring some cheese bread and some cheese up to a hidden spot on the roof so Plagg can keep recharging."

Plagg perked up. He hadn't heard that that part of the plan had been confirmed. He had rather thought that Tikki hadn't actually meant it when she said they would bring cheese for him and that he would have to keep going back down to the kitchens or to Adrien's room in between destroying missiles. Hopefully Tikki had told- or would tell- her Chosen how much cheese he would need, and he also hoped that she wouldn't skimp.

Fu was stroking his beard. "That sounds interesting. But you know your strength wanes the further away you are from your Chosen, and surely Chat Noir would be at school that day?"

"I have a lot of exams," Adrien confirmed. "And I've kind of been worried about it, since I don't want to have to miss exams because of an akuma attack."

"That was the initial idea behind breaking the button," Tikki chimed in before Plagg could. Not that he actually wanted to do all of the talking "So that they could complete their exams in peace. And then we figured that since Mr. Agreste wouldn't be able to transform anyway, we might as well take advantage of it. And I would be there as well, to counteract the effects of the distance between Plagg and Chat Noir as much as I can."

"And I can sit in a cafe or a park nearby and have Wayzz join you, to help further," Fu volunteered, and Plagg only just refrained from rolling his eyes. If it weren't for the fact that having Tikki and Wayzz there would help bolster his destruction powers with Adrien off at school, he would wonder if they didn't trust him to be able to destroy stuff on his own. He didn't need babysitters.

"And I'll come hang out nearby at lunch," Adrien added in. "In, er, the park or something. And after school, too."

Plagg hid a snigger. He knew full well that Adrien would be coming home and eating in the dining room just like normal, but he could hardly say that. Fu would end him for the early reveal.

"I'm glad we have a plan set for that, then. Hopefully there won't be an akuma attack late that day but if there is, then Ladybug, you will have to be prepared to do the brunt of the fighting. Plagg will be exhausted after that much destruction and recharging and won't be able to hold on to a transformation long."

"Right. Tikki already told me about that."

Plagg rolled his eyes. Of course Tikki had. She had always been ridiculously responsible about those sorts of things.

"And then we need to start planning further ahead," Fu told them. "We need to recover the book and the scrolls and then destroy the digital copy that Hawkmoth has, preferably without alerting him, though I don't know how we could do that. I don't know how far someone without training would be able to get with decoding it, but we cannot allow him the opportunity."

"We could always take the files off of his computer to see how far he's gotten," Adrien suggested.

"And we could introduce a virus somehow to make it look like that was what wiped the files off of the computer," Ladybug added. "I know someone who might know how to do that, actually. He was-"

"The Gamer," Adrien and Ladybug finished in unison. Adrien perked up- Plagg was certain that his Chosen was beaming under that dorky mask- and turned towards the screen separating the two superheroes. "Yeah! He probably could, considering that he made that robot! And maybe he could help us with the security cameras- I mean, Plagg could probably break them somehow, but it would be more convincing that nobody was there if the cameras were on the whole time, but just showed an empty loop of video."

Fu was smiling at both of them, looking for all the world like a fond old grandpa. "Ah, young minds! You certainly are more in tune with today's technology than I am. Those sound like excellent ideas. You are certain that the young man you're referring to could keep a secret and not accidentally let word get out about how he's helping superheroes?"

"He's rather down-to-earth, I think," Adrien said, and Plagg stuffed another wedge of Camembert in his mouth to muffle his laughter. Adrien was trying so hard to pretend that he didn't know Max in person, even though Fu definitely knew and Ladybug would probably soon know that they were in the exact same class. "I mean, he doesn't freak out when we show up, and I think he could understand how serious this is."

"Definitely," Ladybug agreed. "He's trustworthy."

"Then you should try to speak to him in private as soon as possible," Fu told them. "I'm sure that the young man will probably need some time to develop the- the virus, did you say?- and figure out the security cameras."

"Tomorrow evening, maybe?" Adrien suggested. "So we can figure out the security camera system information."

Plagg made a face. That sounded like it was work for him. Again. Too bad he couldn't just suggest that Ladybug come over so Tikki could do the exploring this time. Even with the extra cheese that he got, all of this research nonsense was starting to get a little old.

He zoned out again as Fu started discussing potential new powers and how Adrien and Ladybug might get them. He had made some good progress with the decoding and translation of the relevant pages in the book, apparently, but wanted to be certain that he was understanding things correctly before teaching them to the superheroes.

Plagg really didn't care. He didn't summon the powers, just supplied them. Adrien would have to do the work of remembering whatever it was that Fu said. Once the cheese was gone, Plagg rolled over and took a nap in the beam of sun that was hitting the table. He woke up when he was rudely tossed in Adrien's bag when he was packing up to go home.

"That was interesting," Adrien said as he hurried through the darkening streets. "New powers! Even if Master Fu did say they would probably be hard to master this early on and that we should try not to use them."

Plagg blinked and yawned. "Why not?"

"Because we want to be able to surprise fath- I mean, Hawkmoth," Adrien corrected himself. "Once we actually face him, I mean. If he knows all of our attacks already, then he can think of ways to counter them. If we have attacks he doesn't know about, then then he can't do that. So I guess we can do new stuff if no one is looking, but that doesn't exactly happen super-often."

Plagg shrugged, uninterested. All of this strategy talk bored him. He just needed to know what he had to do to keep his Chosen safe, and a nice nap. And cheese.

(He always needed cheese. That was a given.)

  Plagg was Not Having Fun.

"I'm already getting tired," Plagg complained as he phased back through the walls of the lair to mess up another couple missiles. He had already made the gunpowder in over a dozen of the weapons expire completely just that morning, and while it had been fun at first to watch the energy give out and dissipate as the powder unnaturally aged, it had gotten old.

Really old, really fast.

"You wouldn't have this much to do if you hadn't taken two evenings off," Tikki chided. She and Wayzz had been circling around the lair all morning, keeping track of Plagg's progress so he wouldn't miss anything and leave active missiles in the lair. "And it's not meant to be exciting. This is a job."

Plagg scowled- he had taken one night off because Adrien had transformed unnecessarily to go visit some classmate that wasn't Ladybug, and the other night off because of an akuma attack late in the evening- and zipped towards the wall cavity that Wayzz was waiting by. He phased through and went to the first missile. The gunpowder crumpled into no more than black dust under his paws. If Hawkmoth tried setting them off, they would just let out a cloud of black smoke and slide forward off of the launching rig to fall unimpressively to the floor in a grand display of ineptitude.

Plagg decided to amuse himself by imagining the look on Hawkmoth's face if he ever did try to shoot off the missiles. There would be wide eyes, there would be cursing, there would be foot-stomping, and there would probably be panic as the superheroes pounced on him and took his Miraculous.

"Hawkmoth is still struggling to figure out what is wrong," Wayzz reported after Plagg emerged from the wall, leaving three more thoroughly expired missiles in his wake. "Apparently he did decide to try to fix it himself, like you thought, and he's gotten little bits and pieces all over the floor." Wayzz held up a small spring. "I may have, ah, borrowed a piece."

Plagg sniggered. Ah, Mr. Agreste's reaction once he figured out that he had "lost" a piece would be a sight to see. Unfortunately, he was stuck up in the lair all day until he got every last missile destroyed. Maybe he would have to break another button some other day so he could see the results for himself. He could pull that stunt on a weekend sometime so he could sit and listen and laugh at Mr. Agreste as he struggled to fix it all day.

The cheese stash that Ladybug (Plagg was pretty certain that he had heard her name before- after all, she was Adrien's classmate and friend- but he really couldn't remember what it was, and he wasn't about to admit that by asking Tikki) and Adrien had put together was the one bright spot in Plagg's day. Ladybug had bought a variety cheese pack sort of thing that had all of Plagg's favorite cheeses, and then several cheese bread buns. Adrien had added a round of Brie and another of Camembert, all sliced into chunks. It was 100% Plagg's dream, and if only he hadn't had to work, then Plagg would be in heaven.

Unfortunately, Plagg was also 100% certain that he would never get a cheese basket like this again unless someone was trying to bribe him to do something or he was getting forced to work again.

"I'm only doing this for the cheese," Plagg grumbled to Tikki as he headed inside for the last time. He was starting to feel a little light-headed from the number of times he had had to recharge. "Otherwise, no way."

Tikki giggled at him. "You know full well that you're doing this to protect Adrien. You can't fool me. The cheese is just a bonus."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Plagg sniffed. "I am a creature motivated by cheese and cheese alone. Protecting my Chosen is just a bonus. Besides, who would get me my cheese if he got hurt?"

Tikki sighed.

"I mean, I guess that the kid has grown on me just a bit," Plagg added with his most exasperated sigh. "And I would be a bit upset if he got hurt."

Tikki clearly wasn't fooled one bit.

"Adrien is about to leave," Wayzz reported, popping up into the lair again. "His lunch break is nearly over. Are you almost finished?"

"The cheese is finished," Tikki reported with a giggle. "And Plagg only has two more missiles to go."

"I'm going to be running on empty as soon as I'm done," Plagg whined. "And then I'll have to waste away for the whole afternoon until Adrien gets back after fencing."

"Not if you hurry up and catch Adrien before he goes back to school," Wayzz called through the walls as Plagg made the last dregs of gunpowder crumble into harmless dust. "I know he has cheese on him, and he could probably spare a few minutes to grab some more before going back to school."

"Why would I want to go to school?" Plagg demanded as he wobbled back out into the lair to join them. He was feeling a little fuzzy-headed now after so many recharges. "I have to listen to that blond brat yammer on and threaten to call her dad all day when things don't go her way. I just want to have some cheese and sleep."

"He's not talking about Adrien, is he?" Wayzz hissed to Tikki. The turtle kwami was frowning. "Adrien isn't a brat."

"He's talking about the Mayor's daughter," Tikki explained with a giggle as she guided- well, pulled- Plagg towards the covered window of the lair. "She's a bit of a character. And they have exams practically all day at school, so it should be quiet. And Plagg, you know that you'll recover faster if you're close to Adrien."

Plagg tried to say something, but it came out as slurred mumbles.

"Yeah, he's exhausted," Tikki said with a sigh. "Wayzz, can you help me get him down to Adrien so he can sleep it off?"

"Certainly."

[quranreadalong]

A TALE OF TWO CITIES KINGDOMS, PT 1/4

The next surah involves a long and very weird story about King Solomon, so I think this is a good time to dive into some sweet-ass Biblical history, like we did with Moses way back when. Specifically, this series of posts is going to cover the Kingdom of Israel and its southern neighbor, the Kingdom of Judah.

If you were raised Muslim, the distinction between Israel and Judah was probably lost on you. It was for me, at least, and it seems like it was lost on Mohammed, too. David and Solomon are presented in Islam as “kings of Israel” and then the story skips ahead quite far, bypassing virtually the history of Israel and Judah as covered in the Biblical books of Kings and Chronicles. And so you may have missed the fact that the stories of the Bible are, substantially, propaganda against Israel by their southern neighbors in Judah.

The Biblical history of the Jewish people starts with Abraham arriving in Canaan, goes through the years in Egypt and the return to/conquest of the “promised land”, then enters the period of the statehood of Israel in the time of King Saul.

Saul is described as the first king of Israel, living around 1000 BC, and he is succeeded by David, who is followed by his son Solomon, both of whom have roots in Judah. The kingdom at the time is given as a very large, very wealthy territory, with Jerusalem being its major city.

That part is familiar to most people, Muslims included. What happens next is less familiar. According to the Bible, Solomon’s habit of acquiring a zillion foreign wives greatly displeased YHWH, and he vowed to take the kingdom away from his lineage.

Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Because you have done this, and have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom away from you and give it to your servant.  Nevertheless I will not do it in your days, for the sake of your father David; I will tear it out of the hand of your son.  However I will not tear away the whole kingdom; I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of My servant David, and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.”

The son in question was named Rehoboam. The Bible says that Rehoboam was a bit of a dick and the northern half of the country was sick of his shit, declaring its independence from him and establishing a new kingdom. The newly-independent north was called the Kingdom of Israel, while Rehoboam’s descendants got stuck with the southern part, the Kingdom of Judah. The two were never reunited.

Archeology and historical records show that Israel was by far the more populous, developed neighbor, and remained that way right until its fall to the Assyrians centuries later. As we’ve seen, the Bible completely writes off the people of Israel after this point, describing them as foreigners imported by the Assyrians, with the original inhabitants of the land being deported to Assyrian provinces and becoming the “lost tribes”.

So how much of what the Bible says about all this is true?

The good news (if you care about this sort of thing) is that David was a historical person, or at the very least the idea of someone named David being a historical person is very old. This is called the Tel Dan Stele, an Aramaic block commemorating the victories of the King of Aram:

It’s broken, but one key phrase is not broken: The “House of David”, described as the ruling house of Judah. Israel is also mentioned in the stele, but their rulers are not described as “of the House of David”. The stele dates to the 800s BC. So Judah, at least, was in fact ruled by kings who claimed descent from this David fellow. What was Judah like in this era, and what was Israel like? Let’s start all the way at the beginning.

The first leader of any territory in Judah mentioned in historical sources is a guy named Abdi-Heba, who was in charge of the area around and including Jerusalem when the region was under Egyptian control in the 1300s BC. Abdi-Heba’s letters to the Egyptian pharaoh mention various other local chieftains in both the future lands of Judah and Israel, including one named Labayu, who ruled a region in what is now the West Bank. These men do not seem to have ruled large or particularly well-developed areas; they were local, tribal leaders, largely indistinguishable from other Canaanite chieftains. They often fought against each other in petty squabbles.

I’m gonna quote some parts of The Bible Unearthed by the archaeologist Israel Finkelstein here. The Tell el-Amarna tablets describe Abdi-Heba’s domain as:

a thinly-settled highland region, loosely supervised from the royal citadel in Jerusalem. … isolated from the main trade routes … Its economy was concentrated around the self-sufficient production of the individual farming community or pastoral group. [Abdi Heba] controlled the highlands from … Bethel in the north to … Hebron in the south

Abdi-Heba’s domain was less prosperous and significant even compared to those of his neighbors, and in their letters to the pharaoh, neighboring chieftains accuse him of infringing upon their territory to expand his own. Abdi-Heba’s own letters are mostly concerned with his petty conflicts with regional rivals and trouble with roving bands of bandits and mercenaries. What happened to Abdi-Heba or any other ruler between him and the time of David is unknown, but many changes were afoot in the region about a century later. The entire eastern Mediterranean faced challenges from a new threat:

Mysterious and violent groups named the Sea Peoples, migrants who came by land and sea from the west and devastated everything that stood in their way … [a text] frantically describes how “enemy boats have arrived, the enemy has set fire to the cities and wrought havoc … the country has been left to its own devices” 

Prosperous settlements were burned to the ground; others were deserted and turned into ruins upon the advance of the invaders. The “Sea Peoples” weren’t just one group, but many of them were people from the Greek isles, apparently intent upon wrecking shit. Egyptian depictions make it look like they were also really into tacky headgear (and yes the women were apparently bare-chested, they don’t seem to have seen breasts as sexual body parts).

Whoever the many “Sea Peoples” were, they caused a whole lot of damage in the 1300s and 1200s BC. Egypt held them off for a while, but the warfare, along with political instability at home, meant that they no longer had the resources or energy necessary to maintain full control of the Levant region. And so new civilizations sprang up to grab whatever power they could get their hands on. One such civilization was the Philistines--most likely Greek “Sea People”--who established colonies to the southwest of Judah. The entire map of the region had changed in a very short amount of time.

Not all of the changes were disastrous. In the highland regions of what is now Israel, nomads began settling into sedentary lifestyles:

a dramatic social transformation had taken place in the central hill country of Canaan around 1200 BC. There was no sign of violent invasion or even the infiltration of a clearly defined ethnic group. Instead it seemed to be a revolution in lifestyle … about 250 hilltop communities suddenly sprang up.

A large proportion of the first Israelites were once pastoral nomads. But they were pastoral nomads undergoing … the presumed shift from the earlier tent encampments to villages of similar layout in stone.

The communities involved small, basic dwellings of around 100 each, providing for themselves by growing food and raising animals. By 1100 BC the population was barely 50,000 spread out across the entire area, but that still reflected a huge change from the predominantly nomadic system of the region just a century or so earlier.

The villages in this early era do not seem to have worshiped different gods or spoken a different language compared to other Canaanites. They were unfortified settlements and there are no archeological signs of any serious conflict with their neighbors. In fact, the only thing that distinguishes these proto-Israelites from other Canaanites is.... they didn’t seem to raise pigs. Whether that was because of their particular religious customs or was retroactively explained by them, who knows.

The layout of their early villages was in the shape of an oval, with living quarters encircling a courtyard containing animals. This same layout has been found all the way from the Sinai to Jordan, and seems to reflect a region-wide settling of nomads. They plopped their tents down in the traditional manner, built basic houses where they sat, and kept their animals in the middle.

It's probable that this process was prompted by the collapse of Egyptian rule after the 1200s BC--and the stability it offered. Before, nomads provided settled peoples with meat and settled peoples provided nomads with grain and produce. But due to the aforementioned wrecking of shit, there were far fewer agricultural settlements remaining in the region. So nomads could no longer rely upon settled people for grain and produce... and they had to begin growing them themselves.

This was all far more noticeable in what would become Israel than in what would become Judah, which at the time was:

rocky and covered with dense scrub and forest … A mere handful of permanent villages were established there at the time of the Israelite settlement … Judah remained relatively empty

The difference in environment was the main reason. The land that would become Israel was simply more fit for small agricultural settlements than the future Judah was. Israel was also in closer contact with the many Canaanite cities to the north and east, which were slowly reviving themselves. It took nearly 200 years, but the huge economic and social blow to the region was slowly fading.

By the 11th century BC the Philistines, who had previously settled along the southern coast, consolidated the power of their cities. The Phoenician successors of the coastal Canaanites occupied the maritime ports of the north. … after a few decades of abandonment even the major sites were reoccupied, apparently by the same population … the most important Canaanite centers were rejuvenated

And so the future Israel began to slowly integrate itself into the newly-revived regional economy. Now we’re finally getting close to the presumed time of Saul, David, and Solomon. The stage seems pretty set for a united kingdom to develop, right? People are settling down, the nomadic way of life is ending, the economy is developing. But we have a couple of problems here. One: Judah is still essentially hicktown, even as Israel takes the first steps towards development. Jerusalem won’t be noted as an important city in any records for a very long time. Two: there are zero signs of any united kingdom. The “House of David” is solely mentioned in connection with leaders of Judah in all of the historical evidence we have. The leaders of Israel were separate people living a quite separate existence, with nothing clearly in common with Judah beyond the two having YHWH as part of their polytheistic pantheon (and as we’ve already seen, YHWH was worshiped in some other Canaanite city-states too).

It’s possible (even likely!) that some guy named David did exist as the early ruler of some part of Judah. But the reality is that neither he nor any of his successors are mentioned in any historical sources. And the sources that mention their alleged later descendants never suggest that there was ever a time in which Israel and Judah were united and ruled by one dynasty of Judean origins. In fact, for the next several centuries, it was Israel, not Judah, which would play the historically important role in Levantine history.

It began in the mid-900s BC with a bang, involving foreign invaders yet again wrecking shit. This time, the invaders were more familiar.

The northern cities would be destroyed by violence and fire … they never recovered from the shock. This was Canaan’s last gasp.

Egypt … was at last ready to reassert its power … the pharaoh Shishak, founder of the 22nd Dynasty … launched an aggressive raid northward. This Egyptian invasion is mentioned in the Bible [1 Kings 14:25-26]. .. Shishak struck at the developing network of early Israelite villages in the highlands as well. But Shishak’s campaign did not result in lasting Egyptian control of the highlands … yet the blow struck at the revived Canaanite cities … was terminal. This had enormous implications, since the destruction of the last vestiges of the Canaanite city-state system opened a window of opportunity for the people of [Israel].

The cities of northern Canaan were violently conquered by the new Egyptian pharaoh, who thought that now would be a good time to reclaim his ancestors’ old vassal states. This pharaoh was Shoshenq, who recorded his victories on the walls of a temple. This pharaoh, called Shishak in the Bible, is only mentioned there as having conquered Jerusalem in the time of Solomon’s son Rehoboam. But the Egyptian records say nothing of Jerusalem. They do mention plenty of places in the Canaanite cities, and in Israel. It seems that Jerusalem, and Judah as a whole, just wasn’t considered a place worth gloating about at the time, no matter how hard the Bible’s authors try to insert it into the record.

Regardless, the total collapse of the northern Canaanites gave Israel an opportunity. They had a fairly large settled population now, and a climate that was able to produce olive oil and wine, two luxury items. With their local competitors indisposed for the moment, they suddenly became important in regional trade. And with that came an influx of money, and with an influx of money came a need to establish some bureaucracy.

It was around this time that one of the most important Biblical dynasties was founded. ...I am referring, of course, to the House of Omri!!

⇚ previous day | next day ⇛

[turbles]

Thoughts On the Beauty of Katsuki Yuuri

apparently there’s been a debate going on about whether yuuri ought to be called beautiful or not? idk, here’s my thoughts on the issue I guess, for what it’s worth.

I’m just gonna start off by saying I think yuuri is a REALLY well-designed character. there’s a lot to talk about here! his design is not only appealing and charming (because tadashi hiramatsu is a goddamn professional) but I’d even go a step further and say that the finer points of yuuri’s character design are also a vehicle that communicates the show’s themes. this is a really impressive and unfortunately rare thing in anime these days! 

When Hiramatsu has talked about his thought process for designing yuuri in the past, he’s said that yuuri is meant to look as plain as possible. this is pushed further by comparing him to the rest of the flashy-looking characters in the cast, but I’ll just use victor for now as a point of comparison.

Yuuri: he’s Japanese, obviously. He has many prototypical japanese features (black hair, brown eyes, shorter legs etc). His looks are virtually never commented on by anyone in the story, and when they are it is most often in a negative light, though it is mentioned his skating is beautiful. Victor: he’s russian. he has straight-up silver hair and really bright, somewhere-between-blue-and-turquoise eyes. uh... this is... normal for russians..? he is universally acknowledged in canon as, at the very least, distractingly good looking, causing heart attacks and fainting spells all around him with but one wink.

point is victor looks like an anime character, and yuuri looks like a real person, comparatively.

however, the MOST IMPORTANT feature of yuuri’s design is how dramatically he can change his look and still be recognizable as himself.

Like...??!?!

ok yeah this is obvious, I know it is, because I know every single one of us had A Reaction when yuuri turned on the eros for the first time. After inching closer and closer to a nervous breakdown for the first 3 episodes, we get nice and comfortable in our perception of what yuuri’s character type is; then the Onsen On Ice event comes and he suddenly does a 180 and becomes Sexy Confidence Personified for 2 minutes on the ice. I’m thinking woah, this is the fabled Gap Moe, where a character’s seemingly predominant personality traits are contradicted in certain situations. The gap moe only works because we love to be surprised, which just happens to be a recurring theme in YOI. :O 

But yoi handled characterization really well and sidestepped a number of oft-tread tropey paths for most of the characters. Especially Yuuri. The series portrays him as having a wide range of feelings, motivations, and reactions to things. He is revealed more and more to be a really complex, real-feeling person. The expressiveness of his design, and his ability to transform visually in so many different ways (there are so many different variations of his design! his body goes through physical changes as well as his changes of attitude physically changing his design. is this why he has 3 different nendoroids already...?) reinforces the wide range of his personality as well. His well-written character and carefully-designed outward appearance work together to express a really believable person, who is capable of surprising us with his depth episode after episode.

So, think of yourself as Victor, for a moment. The first time he sees yuuri, he arguably doesn’t even recognize him as a skater, from looking at him. Nothing special, probably just a fan, of which he has and has-seen zillions. Victor, like the viewer, comes to appreciate yuuri by experiencing his depths over time, learns how he works and how to exist successfully alongside him, and eventually comes to really capital-L Love him. As the viewer, speaking for myself, I found myself developing my feelings for this character at much the same trajectory as victor: over time, and in response to his gradually-revealed depths. My first impression was indeed of a shy, plain, regular-ass guy. I was like “oh looks like Hiramatsu re-used Parasyte Guy again” (which, lol, joke’s on me: Parasyte Guy is also designed with versatility of his look in mind). That’s all you get when you see a person for the first time. Just an impression based entirely on how they look. It is completely purposeful that he looks pretty regular in the beginning, to the viewer and to victor. Because it makes uncovering all the beautiful details SO much more enchanting.

it’s necessary for yuuri to come off as plain in the beginning, because how else will we feel that sweet, sweet surprise when he brings the Eros all of a sudden?

I think, as viewers, we fall in love with yuuri just as victor does. As we accumulate knowledge of his personality, little things about him start to take on beauty you probably wouldn’t have noticed as keenly at first. It’s what can take you from:

“This is a pretty cute anime-smile”

to:

*PRINCE’S I WOULD DIE 4 U BLARING AT 100000000 DECIBELS*

I’d argue it’s appropriate to call yuuri “plain-looking”. He looks like a regular person (well, caveat: he looks like a regular figure skater. that’s the only explanation for his ass) His magnetism is not in blinding, fae-like beauty like Victor’s or Yuri P’s. The effect of his confidence is never as obvious on him as it is one someone like JJ, with his near-permanent smirk and half-lidded eyes. the appeal of his eros isn’t like Chris’ overt, exaggerated sexuality with full lips, bright eyes, and prominent eyelashes. He never even really fits into the Eros costume perfectly. it’s never skin-tight on him. It is even, technically, a borrowed costume. But while not really fitting his body, it grows more becoming on him as he brings more and more of his genuine feelings into his performance.

(as an aside: one of the only times a character outright calls yuuri himself beautiful, it’s Victor, and yuuri is wearing his free skate costume, designed for a routine that expresses yuuri’s own emotions and development of himself. a.k.a.: symbolizes everything I’m talking about here lol)

Yuuri’s beauty is never JUST about how he looks, because that’s not how his character was constructed in the first place. Our impression of him is crafted carefully over the course of the series, using his character design and character writing in tandem with eachother. It is through Yuuri that the show’s recurring theme of Surprise is delivered, as yuuri continuously surprises his audience, himself, Victor, and us as viewers. Just because he is indeed “plain-looking”, doesn’t mean he isn’t also so, so beautiful. Yuuri’s beauty flows out gently from within him and manifests in response to learned facets of his personality. His smiles are so beautiful because you’ve seen him in his worst panic. His eros is so mesmerizing because you’ve seen how hard he’d struggled to access it, because you know what honest feelings he tapped into to release it; alluring, because you realize the shy, plain dude from the beginning is just the top layer. Every Yuuri we see is an honest yuuri, it’s all recognizably him, and the variety and surprise as you watch him open up to you and you begin to piece all these visions of Yuuri together into a cohesive picture of his character... is what leads you to fall in love with him, and see him as beautiful. Much like what drew victor to fall in love with him, and see him as beautiful. Much like how a real person might fall in love with a real person, and come to find their beauty as well. 

Very few of us are like Victor Nikiforov, Instantly Stunning With A Chin So Perfect It Could Fell A God. Most of us are Katsuki Yuuris, overlooked by 99.9999% of people on the street, but whose beauty waits to be seen by someone who wants to look close enough. 

so anyway I guess this is why I’M not completely sold on fics and stuff where victor is immediately all hummina-hummina over him. I just feel like that skips over the most interesting angle of Yuuri himself, and imo it’s just plain less interesting to read about a relationship where BOTH sides are smoking hot in much the same way...? There’s something really interesting to me in acknowledging something is plain but finding it absolutely beautiful in its simplicity at the same time. Somehow reminded I heard of a fic where kissing was described as, instead of sweet or fiery or melting, “tastes like mouth”. That’s just... so memorable and wonderful to me, lol.

this sort of bleeds into a thing I’ve been thinking about writing on designing sets of characters anyway, ideas about contrasting the designs against eachother and using a character design to subvert expectations later on down the line. related, but eh. it’s why I latch so hard onto the idea that yuuri can be considered genuinely plain AND beautiful AND sexy all at the same time, just cause... that’s the kind of effect I’ve been trying to achieve in my characters for a long time XD

Anyway that was a ramble, ty for reading, yuri on ice saved my soul goodnight

[yowetremmle]

oh my god not another lwymmd thinkpiece

I haven’t even posted on this account in MONTHS, but (fun fact!) I used to be a pop music writer and watching all the discourse around Look What You Made Me Do has me amused, so HERE I AM.

I think most analyses  of the song and video completely miss the point, which is that Swift isn’t actually playing the victim. She portrays herself as a zombie clawing her way out of a grave, then burying her old self in it, but the old self is smiling and perfectly okay with being in there. Plus, “[she] rose up from the dead, [she does] it all the time,” right? Right. Okay. This is the theme for most of the video- she’s not actually positioned as the victim in most of the depicted situations. This is important, because it provides context for the times when she is framed as the victim- specifically in the car crash scene. 

Let’s get something straight here- cheetah-print Taylor in the car is not Katy Perry. She is also not Kim Kardashian. In fact, she goes out of her way to show that she is, in fact, Taylor herself- first by holding up a Grammy (Katy and Kim don’t have Grammys, so why would they hold one?), and second by hanging the number 13 around the cat’s neck. 13 is Taylor’s lucky number, it’s a number she identifies with herself and with good luck- why would she plaster it on someone else? If you slow the video down right before the crash, you can see the initials TS on the front of the car- why would someone else be driving Taylor’s car? Furthermore, why would there be so many Taylors and just one non-Taylor in the final scene of the video? I’ll admit that I don’t fully understand the reciepts/editing comment at the end in light of that character being Taylor herself, but the idea that she’s playing a character other than herself in that costume doesn’t make sense. Much like how Taylor’s played with duality in the past- for example, by playing both the “cheer captain” and the girl “on the bleachers” in You Belong with Me, she’s playing with her own image, not someone else’s.

This scene is about the danger of the paparazzi, and their power. The fact that she holds up her Grammy the first time she says “Look what you made me do,” while the paparazzi snaps a million pictures is kind of the key to the whole video- they did this. They gave her the massive press coverage that allowed her to win a zillion awards and rise to the top of the food chain. The “what” that Taylor “does” is become massively successful. She’s not playing the victim, she’s winning the game. Later, when Taylor walks away from the accident unscathed, they’re so busy watching her walk away that they forget about the danger beside them, which literally blows up in their faces.

With that in mind, I want to draw a parallel between the line “Look what you made me do,” and The Weeknd’s “Look what you’ve done” in Starboy, another song in which the singer points a sarcastic finger at the media for giving them a platform only to complain that the singer got popular. Similar to LWYMMD, Starboy’s video opens with a current version of the singer murdering their past self, then destroying stuff (including things related to their own fame), only to drive off in a ridiculously expensive car with a jungle cat riding shotgun. Now combine that with the fact that some people see Taylor’s crash scene as an homage to Madonna’s “What It Feels Like For a Girl” video, a song about how men and women are held to different standards... go ahead. Draw your own conclusions. I’m not here to think for you.

I know I’m going out of order here, but now I want to jump back to the bathtub scene. Again, Swift is not being Kim Kardashian, nor do I think she’s mocking Kim (and anyone who says she’s mocking Kim’s Paris robbery- you do realize what a heavy accusation that is, right?). The hair and makeup makes it really obvious she’s playing her Blank Space character- which, as she’s explained in interviews, is a character she invented based on the media’s portrayal of her maneating ways, and which she’s always called a joke, saying that her fans understand that it’s just a parody. It’s almost like she wanted a litmus test to see who’s really paying attention- here’s this super well-known fictional character I’ve not only played in the past, but who I’ve point-blank explained was fictional and is representative of a media portrayal of who I am and not my real self. Let’s see who did their homework.

And this is the point where I as the author of this essay jump in and say I’m not exactly a Taylor megafan. I was into country music when she first debuted- I remember the first time they played Tim McGraw (her song, not the person Tim McGraw) on my local country radio station, actually- but I’ve never paid a whole lot of attention to her, and I’ve never owned any of her music or merchandise. I don’t say any of this to distance myself from her- I just want to point out that I know all this stuff about her without actually trying very hard. When I saw the big number 13 on her hand in the final scene, I Googled “Taylor Swift 13″ and found out very quickly what it meant. Her whole professional life is out there and easy to research, so anyone who’s written about her and misses major stuff like this... why are you writing about her, exactly? What purpose does it serve when you write what you don’t know?

Ahem. Back to the main attraction.

So people keep accusing the video of ripping of Beyonce, which I almost don’t want to address because it seems pretty groundless to me? If anything, the initial teaser images were maybe supposed to give the illusion of ripping of Beyonce (playing with the idea that Taylor somehow “stole something” from Beyonce by winning that infamous VMA over her), but the actual performance isn’t very Lemonade-like at all. I don’t know- maybe it’s just because I’ve been into K-Pop for so long, but the image of a bunch of dancers in a V-formation dancing in heels and crop tops just doesn’t really belong to Beyonce in my mind. To me, it seemed like another Madonna reference. As far as the bat in the heist scene? I mean it might be a Beyonce reference, but it seems a bit far-fetched- it could probably just as easily be argued as a Harley Quinn reference? I don’t think it actually is a Harley Quinn reference, I just want to point out that bats as weapons are, you know, everywhere. Other than the fact that she’s using a bat as a weapon, I don’t see anything else in this scene that calls back to Lemonade at all. (I believe the scene in the bridge where she stands on a pile of past Taylors is also a Madonna reference, with a capital T standing in for the crosses Madonna has hung herself on and and danced in front of, etc. I feel like this is also a reference to an old painting of Jesus hanging on a cross with demons or people or something crawling up the bottom of it, but for the life of me I can’t remember who the painter is or what it’s called and Google isn’t helping but I can’t be the only one who sees this, someone help me!!!  Ahem.)

People also seem to read this scene as a dig at Tom Hiddleston- just like they took the Nils Sjöberg gravestone at the beginning to be a dig at Calvin Harris. Look, I mean- it’s possible. It’s all possible. I’ve seen some convincing posts about how the positions of the necklaces on the floor beside the bathtub and an empty ring box in the heist scene are also references to her relationship with Harris, and I’m not going to say there are no direct references to her famous rivalries hidden in the video. I mean, the dollar in the bathtub is VERY CLEARLY a reference to the dollar she won in her recent legal battle. But, it still seems to me that the gravestone and shirt have more to do with her own image than with the guys she references. Taylor reportedly wrote “This Is What You Came For” under a pseudonym to see if she could write a hit without having her name attached to it- and yes, while having Calvin Harris and Rhianna on the track definitely tipped the odds in her favor, she’s still proven her point to herself and she’s done hiding behind a fake name.

The idea that she’s be “calling out” Tom Hiddleston is a bit funny- as far as anyone knows, that was an amicable breakup, right? She’s not mocking him, she’s mocking the assumptions people made about their relationship, which reached peak ridiculousness when he wore the “I <3 TS” shirt. Now, while I didn’t draw this conclusion myself (believe it or not, I don’t pay enough attention to Taylor’s love life to know how many famous exes she has), some people have mentioned that the eight dancers might be a reference to Taylor’s eight publicly known exes. That, combined with the “I <3 Taylor” shirt as a symbol of peak ridiculousness in relationship speculation, may be a dig at the media for caring so much about her love life.

I’m not a Taylor apologist- like I said before, I’m the most casual of fans. I could be all kinds of wrong about this. That said, people have this weird thing where they think everything Taylor does is a ploy to both make herself the center of attention while putting everyone else at fault for her problems. I think LWYMMD is Taylor turning the camera around on the media and reminding them that if they’re so sick of hearing about her narrative, they could put an end to it any time they want- they just won’t. 

[pokemaniacal]

I've been reading about monism and ancient monistic philosophers (particularly Thales), and I find it absolutely fascinating! Could you please explain the topic a little more in-depth, in your usual easy-to-read style? :) I'm also wondering if our current scientific knowledge points to a neo-monistic view of the universe (in that everything is made up of atoms)? (although I understand that atoms are made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons) (matter and energy are the same thing, aren't they?)

Well, pre-Socratic philosophy is not exactly my “thing” but here goes

So Thales was a Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus (modern Milet, western Turkey), probably around the early 6th century BC, who was famous for predicting eclipses, and discovering that any angle in a semicircle is always a right angle, good stuff like that.  We don’t have anything written by Thales himself, but we know a fair bit about his thinking and his achievements in engineering and mathematics because he gets quoted a lot by later Greek philosophers.  Apparently, one of the things that Thales believed was that everything is water.  This is before chemistry was a thing, of course; heck, this is even before Empedocles came up with the idea of everything being earth, fire, air and water.  People didn’t know what stuff was made of except it was stuff, and there are about a zillion different kinds of stuff in the universe, so there’s not much you can do with that.  But Thales was a mathematician, and mathematicians like things to be simple and elegant, not messy and complicated; they don’t deal with lots of different kinds of “stuff,” they just deal with numbers.  And Thales also lived in Asia Minor, which meant he would have encountered a lot of the old Middle Eastern creation myths that start with “in the beginning there was water.”  So he gets to thinking “wouldn’t it make more sense if everything in the world was made of the same stuff, just behaving in lots of different ways, and wouldn’t it make sense if that stuff was water?”  And if chemistry isn’t a thing, then there are excellent reasons you might think that.  Water is the only substance that exists naturally on Earth as a solid, a liquid, and a gas.  When water is cooled and condensed, it becomes ice; maybe if that process continues, it can become earth and then stone.  When it’s heated and rarefied, it becomes steam; maybe continuing in that direction will produce air, fire and light.  Living things require all different kinds of food to survive, but the one thing that seems to be constant, even between plants and animals, is that they all need water.  Whole civilisations grow up around rivers and oceans.  Water can fall from the sky or well up from the ground.  When you know everything about the world that we know today, it’s ludicrous, of course, but from an ancient perspective, there’s a lot to recommend the idea.  And the idea that there is a basic fundamental substance that can be rearranged into all the other kinds of “stuff” is really important!  That’s the idea that leads you to discover that atoms are the building blocks of all “stuff,” and that they all follow the same rules.  Then you realise that atoms aren’t fundamentally different either, that different kinds of atoms don’t have unique characteristics, they’re just made of different arrangements of protons, neutrons and electrons.  And those all follow the same rules too, they’re just made of different arrangements of, like... quarks and gluons and $#!t.  Maybe if you keep going down far enough, you find that it really is all just different arrangements of one basic thing that we call “matter.”  That’s getting into physics that is way over my head, though...

[ellegeemakes]

 Hi all! I’m back from a bit of a holiday break with a plaid jacket, inspired by one I saw in Vogue pattern Magazine. If you’re like me, you look forward to each issue of the Vogue Pattern magazine because there is always something there that will spark an idea for a project. This issue was one of my favorites as it was all about PLAID.

Love the plaid coat on the cover!! Inside, a vintage Vogue jacket caught my eye, and I knew I’d have to make my own version.

      It’s hard not to love a good Vintage Vogue design! Vogue 9082 is especially appealing because it has a cute cropped jacket.

  I made my jacket from a plaid I found at the Mill End Store here in Portland on my usual Fall visit there. I’m always on the lookout for classic but fun plaids, and, as usual, they did not disappoint. This fabric is really lovely in person; photos don’t do it justice. It has a bit of olive green and gold in it, and it’s so soft, a blend of wool and acrylic. I was lucky enough to get the last two yards on the bolt.

  Challenges: The pattern is pretty straightforward and pretty easy, but hey, I had to complicate things by making mine from plaid. It was a bit of a challenge to lay the pattern out because the sleeves are cut as part of the bodice. This means you must be sure that you place the plaid on the bodice carefully because that line follows down the sleeve. The good news is…because you don’t set in the sleeve, it means you get to avoid the whole sleeve to bodice matching ordeal, The bad news…the wrong placement could mean you’d have plaid sitting awkwardly on your shoulder. My plaid was large so a mistake would be glaring but I think it worked out well. By the way, my success rate with matching plaid has increased considerably since I started using Wonder Clips to hold things in place while cutting and sewing.

I love these things so much! Just posting a photo of them makes me want to buy a zillion more. You can find them at Joann’s, at craft stores, on Amazon. They are so useful and all the colors….I could go on and on!!

More about the challenges – – those collar points!!  From the line diagram, it appears that the collar is designed to look a bit more angular and pointed than in my version. Not sure why, but mine aren’t quite as dramatic as I expected. I think the error happened when I cut the bodice. When I inspected the pattern pieces later, to my surprise, I’d cut the collar points as I expected them to be, rather than how they were. Perhaps it was because I was binge watching Outlander. Blame it on Clare and Jamie.

    I think the cropped style works best with my highwaisted denim skirt (made here). It would probably work with jeans too!

Future posts and plans….

The holiday season is in full swing around here. It’s my favorite time of year because I get to sing in several Christmas concerts with my choir, which is such a privilege and joy. It also means I’ll be sewing a few fun EASY gifts for friends…Curious if you are too?  My next post will probably be about that. In other news, the year is coming to an end, as is the 2018 RTW fast and I’ve been thinking alot about that experience and what it’s meant to my sewing journey so I’ll share those thoughts too. Then, of course there will be a hits and misses post for 2018. So much to talk about!

I hope you had a nice holiday with family and friends. Happy sewing and thanks for stopping by!

          A Vogue Vintage Jacket in Plaid  Hi all! I'm back from a bit of a holiday break with a plaid jacket, inspired by one I saw in Vogue pattern Magazine.

[ultradisplacement-blog]

Failed Dates Plunge Me Deeper Into Limerence—A World of Perpetual Fantasy That May Just Border on Psychosis

I mean it. I really do. I’d rather spend a lifetime of limerence over someone so unattainable that barely knows I exist than go on another date with a blockhead who didn’t know that mayo is made of egg yolks, has never heard of Lykke Li (or any decent indie artist, at that), mistakes gender equality for feminism, and jumps back into my Taxify after he got off ‘cause he remembers he had some groceries to do—at 1 am, mind you. The Taxify that I had ordered and paid for, by the way, because he had no mobile data on his phone to order an Uber, nor could he connect to the Koton wifi (the McDonald’s one had for some reason vanished into thin air that night) or walk three fucking blocks back to his place.

He calls himself a world traveler but would’ve rather taken the subway to the old town instead of walking with me thirty minutes by the city lights, doused in the intertwining smells of shawarma, molten asphalt, and summer heat. Funny, because my definition of ‘world traveler’ is based on my friend George—who quit his office job in the name of freedom, motorbiked his way through (and came down with malaria in) Africa, had to apply for a new passport because the old one, though not expired yet, was full of stamps, and is currently driving a 1984 Skoda that crashed and burned a million times already somewhere in the heaths of Russia, bound for Mongolia—and this fellow couldn’t be further from that level of  “world traveling.” He brags about doing the same thing every day— jumping on a subway train to bypass the unbridgeable half-mile walk between point x and point y. That was the very first red flag that came into view. ‘I’d rather spend those 30 minutes in the old town than... walk,’ he said.  ‘Why? Do you have a curfew or something? It’s only 8:20 pm.’ ‘Nah, I just like luxury.’ Weird statement, coming from someone who backpacks through southeastern Europe and has no Internet on his phone. Means that actually, he’s probably cheaper than a dollar store. I used to be broke AF back when I first started traveling—which didn’t stop me from traveling anyway— but at least I was foresightful enough to download some offline maps so I wouldn’t end up sleeping in a bush in case I lost my way back to the hostel at night. There was also a hint of paranoia which I didn’t fail to take into account when he seemed leery of my Google maps directions and asked some passersby how to get to the old town instead. I was floored, and knew the date was meant to be a failure to remember, but I went for it anyway (if anything, perhaps so I could amass some writing inspiration).

He wouldn’t tell me much about himself except he spent the whole day at Mcdonald's, working his ass off. ‘Are you working at...McDonald’s?’, I managed to ask, trying to hold on to my wig for dear life. ‘Not that I find that a bad thing at all. I used to scrub toilets in a hotel—which is way worse than flipping burgers, some would argue. But it just struck me that you smell quite… fresh. Not like stir-fry oil, mayo, and pickles.’ ‘Nah, I just work from there,’ he retorted. ‘On my laptop, that is. I like to work from different places, like restaurants and cafés. I taught myself Russian and I move from one country to another, doing my thing; translating articles and stuff for some guys.’ To which I asked him whether he was one of those digital nomads or freelancers or whatever, but he didn’t seem acquainted with these terms.

We kept walking side by side, but with a considerable gap between us, I trying to avoid his hand to the utmost of my strength. He said he wants to go back to the States and enroll in Law school next year. ‘Why? Why would anyone wanna do any of that? You have all that we European millennials crave, pray for, and dream of at night—a job that allows you to work even from a McDonald’s lounge in a shithole in Eastern Europe and a passport that gives you the freedom to go wherever the hell your nomadic instinct dictates. Why would you loan your way into Law school and cram the whole constitution of the United States into your head when you could have… this, what you’re having right now?’

‘For the power,’ he answered simply. ‘And because I’m into politics. I don’t like to talk about it, but I am.’ (I failed to mention that when he first called me, he asked me how much money I’ll make as a doctor—a lot less than American doctors do, that’s for sure, but that was none of his business—huge red flag again. I told him, half-jokingly, half-seriously, ‘If you’re a gold-digger, I’m the last person you’d wanna hang out with.’ But he still did want to hang out with me, which I found nice at the time; now, I’m no longer sure.)

‘Well, if you wanna pave your way into the Oval Office and the ridiculous Twitter account with unnecessary capitalization that comes with it, why don’t you just buy a hotel and screw a porn star in one of its luxurious suites? I bet it must be easier and way more satisfying than Law school on the long run.’ Clutch your pearls, I may have just dated (and mocked) the next president of the United States; I sure as hell kick ass.

I hadn’t answered his calls and texts for almost a week. I was still grieving over my missed flight to Milan and the Nick Murphy show I had been looking forward to for so long as though it were my wedding day. I had been vivisected by the pain and the absurdity of the whole situation: a ramshackle, diminutive aircraft which triggered in my mind’s eye the depiction of my being sliced in a zillion pieces following its potential crash as soon as I set  foot onto it; loss of cabin pressure twenty minutes after landing—which was real; and an  emergency landing back to the airport we’d just departed from—realer than Kanye West’s tweets, too—only one hour before the connecting flight. It was lost, so irretrievably lost, and so was I—semi-catatonic in the departures terminal of the airport for the better part of the day, sleep-deprived for thirty hours, looking for solutions where there were none. My hair was blue, and so were my shoulders, the tip of my ears,  the tears trickling down on my cheeks, and my whole doubtful state of rejected aliveness. So blue for nothing. Pathetic and outrageous. I went back home and ran myself a bath—the longest and the most revealing one as yet; it felt more like a rite of passage than a basic body hygiene ritual It took half a bottle of shampoo to take off all that dye, and my hair was so stiff that it looked more like a worn-out broom abandoned in a country backyard than a bundle of human keratin that was supposed to be somehow alive. It took half a bottle of shampoo, but in the end, the whole tubful of blue water went down the drain. As soon as there was no more blue left in me, I got out of the tub and crashed into the bed that I had left unmade, crying myself to sleep.

And for some reason, exactly a week later, I was rehashing my predicament in front of this not-too-tall, not-too-fit, average-looking-and-talking American, who didn’t seem to grasp that I was into writing and I had a special way with words, and took all of my Facebook and Medium posts for mere yacking. He didn’t even ask whose concert I was pining for so badly (not that the name Nick Murphy—or even Chet Faker, his former moniker—would’ve rung any bell; he hadn’t even heard of Lykke Li, for fuck’s sake, though he pretended he was somewhat familiar with Lana Del Rey; that’d better be true). He said that something like this had never happened to him, and he’d been on at least fifty-something flights (which is not a lot, by the way; I didn’t keep track of them, but I think I’ve been on fifty-something flights, too, and I’m not the one who calls herself a world traveler). ‘But I’m glad that at least you’re alive; God must have taught you this lesson so you could be more appreciative of life,’ he reckoned, after I explained to him that loss of cabin pressure basically meant a death sentence because of the hypoxia that ensued—lack of oxygen, in layman’s terms.

‘Oh, really? Exactly on that day, on that special occasion that was so important to me? Why then? Why not on any other fucking city break flight to Brussels or Berlin? Your God is a big-ass jerk sometimes, and his workings lack logic, reason, and mercy. I cannot decipher his hidden motivations, nor do I think that’s of any use to anyone,’ I blurted out without too much consideration or piosity, almost oblivious of the fact that I had spent most of my childhood’s Sunday mornings trying to find the most spine-friendly positions in the pews of my local church (which was quite a fool’s errand, to be honest, but perhaps that was exactly the point— to engage yourself in an act of self-flagellation at least once a week, for three hours, during the Mass).  He seemed quite triggered, because he didn’t believe in what I  believed—namely,  an unfathomable higher power, a spiritual force that had taken the wheel of the universe before it had even been created, whose whims and fancies could at times torpedo all your plans, hopes, and dreams; he believed in a specific celestial entity, in a Christian god who was always righteous and whose decisions we weren’t entitled to question or frown upon. And there I was, an obnoxious little European brat calling his supreme lodestar—the one  in whom each and every American dollar bill ever put into circulation expressed its unflinching belief—“a big-ass jerk.” Yet we somehow managed to dodge an endless religious argument—spoiler alert, for then—and kept walking towards the old town—or so I thought, for at some point, he took a sharp left turn, urging me to follow him: ‘I wanna show you a place.’

The street was impenetrably dark, and my mind should’ve probably started coming up with all sorts of scenarios involving rape, murder, and identity theft—but it didn’t; there was utterly nothing there, and you can’t be afraid of nothing — or can you?  ‘What the hell do you wanna show me? There’s nothing here; not even rats or stray dogs.’ ‘Wait  a little and you’ll see.’ Cool. This is how you roll in life, I told myself. You keep walking and you wait, although nothing might ever come your way. So we kept walking two or three more blocks and then, bam! there we were. Apparently. In front of an old building that reeked of fried fish and garlic sauce. ‘This is where I stayed for two weeks when I first arrived here,’ he enthused, big grin on his face—and due to the neon lights that had wondrously cropped up out of the blue, I was no longer in the dark, and could clearly make out that his dental arches were covered in a yellowish stratum of grim, indicating the fact that mouthwash was probably not at the top of his shopping list (or even at the bottom). That Christian god, or that unfathomable universal force making the world go round, or Satan’s offspring, or Ellen DeGeneres, or whoever rules this fucking world must be a great prankster, I thought to myself, while my musical memory was reproducing the first two lines of the sexiest song I’ve ever heard—Chet Faker’s Melt: ‘Help me breathe, you’re breaking up my speech/While you smile at me, you got the whitest teeth.’ That very same god could’ve been able to crash a plane and kill a hundred people in the process so I’d miss Nick’s concert; so I couldn’t bask in the endorphins milked from my brain by his balmy—yet rabid—voice and the dazzling white of his teeth that would light up the whole venue every time he opened his mouth to set free into the world the most otherworldly sounds I’ve ever got to hear; but he couldn’t, it seems, make me cross paths with a guy that gave a shit about his dental hygiene (and he didn’t even smoke, like Nick does). I had every reason to be pissed off with this god and his sick sense of humor, and I still am; I’ll probably be for a long, long time.

So he’d made such a tremendous (judging by his standards) detour only  to show me the building where he’d been a roomer for a fortnight—a plain, old, decaying house reeking of fried fish and garlic sauce, which would, for reasons known only to him, put that indecorous smile on his filmy teeth. Truth be told, there’s a lot of emotional baggage attached to a rental apartment one uses as a storage room for two weeks until one figures out where to go next. ‘Let’s get the fuck outta here,’ I said, ‘until a hobo doesn’t jump from a bush and screws us in the ass or steals or wallets; or both.’ I may be wrong, but I had an intimation that he meant to show me something else, something he couldn’t find—since he was no longer in the comfy subway that told him precisely when to get off and which exit to take.

‘Are you into museums?’ he asked, as we were making our way out of an underground pass, finally approaching the old town that seemed to have replaced the Sydney Opera House on the world map that evening.

‘Wow. Could you ask me something any vaguer?’ I replied, without trying to conceal my irritation. ‘I mean, I had the time of my life at the Museum of Chocolate in Bayonne, but I think the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart would bore me to death. Seriously now; but if I had a broader choice, between a bar and a museum—whatever museum—I’d probably choose the former.’

‘Right, right,’ he approved. ‘You’re totally right. I, for one, don’t really like art museums; I prefer archeology.’ Hm. So very interesting. I don’t know why, but the fact that someone is into archeology doesn’t tell me anything about them except that… they’re into archeology. If he had told me that broccoli triggers flashbacks of his childhood trauma, I think I would’ve been more impressed—at least that would’ve given me on a platter some food for thought, be it—as most likely would’ve been the case—watered-down pabulum. Maybe if he had elaborated on that a little bit, if he had explained his drive for archeology, why it was so important to him to bring it up on a first date, I would’ve cut him some slack; but no, he just randomly dropped the word ‘archeology’ into the conversation, perhaps to appear more cultured than he really was.  But wait—it can always get worse.

‘Oh, but what about music? What kind of music do you listen to?’

I wish I could’ve buried my face in my hands and cried a lifetime’s worth of frustration away.

‘That’s even vaguer than the museum thing, honestly. The music I listen to is genreless and so eclectic, and there are so many factors into play that prompt me to listen to a certain song at a specific moment in time. But if you want me to reel off a few descriptive words of my bar of choice, here’s my best shot: I listen to a lot of alternative, indie artists; I’m into electronica, downtempo, trip-hop, but also into soul, blues, and jazz; when I write, I’d rather listen to some ambient stuff, some lofi hip-hop, or even dream pop on rainy days. I’m into shoegaze and garage, swing and old R&B, grunge and funk. I like film scores and some Super Bowl halftime playlists. And I worship Lana Del Rey; have you heard of her?’

‘Yes, yes, I have,’ he rushed to reassure me.

‘Good. Or else I would’ve had to kill you.’

‘Why don’t you play me something on your phone? Like, the last song you listened to?’

‘What?! Do you want me to blast it right now, in the middle of the street, without headphones?!’

‘Yeah, why not? I wanna get to know you better.’

‘You must be off your rocker,’ I said, but I did open my Spotify app anyway and played the last song in my library, amid the clanks, whirrs, and honks of the hectic nightlife. What difference did it make? He had no more awareness of my music than I had of the intimate structure of that experimental particle collider at CERN in Switzerland. It was The Cactus Channel’s Wooden Boy, an admirable rendition of a neo-soul song by a much-underrated—yet hugely talented—group from Melbourne. He confesses he’s a metal fan—not a die-hard one, but still. I asked him what was the last live concert he attended and he couldn’t remember, though he said he wanted to go to a Korn show once, but it would’ve cost him about 400 bucks, which he couldn’t afford.

‘What the hell? Who asks that much for a C category ticket? Not even the VIP ones are that much! You must have been on some scalper’s website or something.’

‘No, it was a festival and you had to pay for the whole thing.’

‘You could’ve bought a day ticket, though. One hundred bucks or less. Or you could’ve gone to one of their headlining tours; you know, touring to promote an album all by yourself (plus maybe an opener) is one thing, whereas festivals are another. All you have to do is go to Facebook and type ‘korn’ in the search box, then you’re on their profile; once you’re there, check out the events and see when you can catch them in the closest town; easy as that.’

‘Yeah, you’re right; maybe next time.’

Right; I couldn’t say the same things about us, though. I knew for sure there wouldn’t be a next time.

I digress, but I have to say about this one thing about metalheads (though he obviously wasn’t one; he just feigned a mild interest in a metal band so he could have a musical conversation with me). In my scarce and sparse dating history, he’d be the third metal element, which is way over the top; it’s like thirty percent of all guys I’ve ever dated had something to do with metal one way or another. What is it about my hipsterish, indie, unpigeonholeable ways that seems to attract metalheads like bees to a honeypot? Why, for heaven’s sake; why? For all I know, I’m no more metal than Coldplay or helium; the only metal I transpire is the aluminum in my deodorant (and probably some iron, but I’m not sure; as far as I remember, most of it is eliminated through feces and urine). All three metalheads in my life were made from the same mold, one that I never had a particular affinity for: massive, but not exceedingly tall individuals, with puffy cheeks and some sort of ugly beard, a more or less overflowing beer belly, donned in capris and extra-large T-shirts, nice but insipid, with an average/average-to-high QI. He’d be, however, the first one to believe in a Christian god (the other two were, quite predictably, atheists; but then again, he wasn’t that much of a metalhead anyway). I’d like to believe that I look nothing like a metalhead, at least physically; I look more like a perpetual thirteen-year-old, searching frantically and fruitlessly for an extra-small size and ending up with some polka dot or floral pattern tank top from kid’s section instead, with thready arms, spidery fingers,  and strikingly bulky calves. My face screams that one could beat the crap out of me, so probably that’s why the metalheads may be drawn to me—to fulfill their protective instincts and to keep me safe inside their towering, hairy, fatty, tattoo-adorned arms.  Unfortunately, my helpless ass suffering from severe abandonment issues seeks protection in a different type of arms: more indie and rejective, less fatty and welcoming; I don’t mind the hair and the tattoos, though. What the metalheads and I had never resembled romance—or even dalliance—in a million years; whatever that thing was, it would smother by itself by the second or the third date (I let it go that far only once), and it was for the better. None of them had the guts or the occasion to kiss me, which means that I’d been spared a good deal of embarrassment and social awkwardness; I could only hope the history would repeat itself tonight as well.

He wanted us to go smoke some hookah, proposition which I kindly—but firmly—declined. I explained that I steer clear of any source of smoke whatsoever, because back when I was a three-year-old, my mother— a voracious chainsmoker—put a lighted cigarette in my mouth so I’d stop pestering her with my asking what it was like to smoke. ‘This is what it’s like to smoke!’ she said, transplanting the cigarette from her mouth to mine, and causing me to choke so badly that I swore never to touch such a damn thing again. And it worked, because my mother is the smartest person I know. She was all too aware that interdiction would’ve only whetted my curiosity, so she shot the vice into my lungs like a vaccine instead; as a result, I gained a—it would seem—lifelong immunity to the “disease.”  My sharp refusal lowered his spirits instantly, so he took an intellectual approach in his attempt to talk me into it:

‘But do you at least know what it is?’

‘Of course I do; I’m not an idiot. I clearly specified—any source of smoke whatsoever is a no-go for me. ’

‘I didn’t say you were an idiot; I was just hoping I’d deprive you of your better judgment.’

‘You wouldn’t be the first one to try; or to fail, at that.’

‘Oh, man. Then maybe a beer or two will do the trick.’

‘Bad news—lately I’ve been drinking only Coke zero; and tonight will be no exception.’

‘There’s no way out with you,’ he conceded, before asking me one more time if I was totally sure I didn’t wanna try the hookah. I was.

I wish there had been a way out of that date, though. Particularly so when he felt that I wouldn’t mind him holding my hand on the street.

‘My hand is okay without being held,’ I said, ‘with all this heat and everything. My sweat glands have always been hyperactive and it’s a bit disgusting.’

‘It’s okay, I don’t mind holding it.’

I did, which is why I liberated myself from his grip as best I could; to which he responded by grabbing me by the shoulders. That is when I knew that I hands down loathed him, and that was the long and the short of it.

We stopped for a drink at a street bar. I was quite taken aback when I saw that he ordered the exact same thing as I had—a Coke zero, that is. I looked at him in sheer perplexity.

‘I guess you were saying something about some beers?!’  

‘Yeah, but I’m not drinking on my own. Drinking is an experience that needs to be shared. If you’re not having alcohol, then I’m not having alcohol either.’

‘What the hell. If I feel like having a beer in my dorm room—alone, with Lana Del Rey singing in the background Pretty When You Cry—I’ll have a fucking beer, alone in my room; or with Lana Del Rey;  or in a restaurant at a table for one (is that even a thing?), or with the devil himself, or under any given circumstances I feel like having a beer. I don’t need anyone to hold it for me.’

‘Yeah, but I don’t do that; besides, I drink a lot of Coke zero anyway, so that’s why I had a Coke zero tonight instead of a beer.’

‘Weird; you didn’t mention a word about your love for Coke zero ten minutes ago, when I told you this is the only beverage I’ve been binging on lately.’

‘Why do you think I should’ve?’

‘I don’t know; maybe because I would’ve?! Maybe because it makes sense?!’

‘It makes sense only because you want it to.’

‘Right. So very pseudo-philosophical and Coelho-lite. Or -like. Or whatever.’

‘How often do you actually drink?’

‘Wait, what? Are you trying to assess whether I might use a stint of drying up in a rehab? Because I’m having a Coke zero and not a beer? Do you think I’m trying to conceal my forbidden cravings or something?’

‘No, it was just an innocent question; I totally understand if you don’t feel comfortable answering it.’

‘There’s nothing uncomfortable about my relationship with booze, except I don’t have any estimates in terms of consumption. I drink whenever I feel like it. I don’t need an occasion or company. I don’t drink every day, but I don’t drink once a year either. I don’t fucking know how much I drink. I can do with one pint of Guinness and stay highly functional and mentally aware, but I can also binge-drink, blackout, and puke in a plastic bucket, if you want to know the minutiae behind how alcohol gets in and out of my system.’

‘Wow. Cool. Okay. And how often do you read?’

‘That’s easy. I have an answer, and that is every day. But what does reading have to do with getting liquored up? Am I missing something? Or are you particularly fond of numbers and statistics?’

‘No, but I just figured that the more you read, the less you drink, and the other way around. That’s the way I see it, at least.’

‘’the hell?! So you think my brain must be so tiny that it can’t imbibe both booze and knowledge at once, right? You sure as hell haven’t heard of Bukowski, my friend.’

We had our Cokes zero anyway and he pretended to be examining my rings in order to hold my hand again. And again he feigned interest, inquiring me about their signification.

‘Well, I wear them because of the sense of unity they provide; and because I believe everything comes full circle sooner or later. And also because I need to have something to do with my fingers when I can’t sit still; otherwise, I’d have to run my fingers through my hair or do other weird stuff that would come off as inappropriate in public.’

‘I see,’ he said. Truth is, you do look like that kind of person who’s into astrology, crystals, bio-energy, spirituality, and the like,’ he said, pouring his Coke zero in a glass (I hadn’t asked for one, so I just sipped it intermittently straight from the can, in my usual, not very ladylike manner).

I almost choked on my Coke. It’s true I check my horoscope on Elle.com for fun every now and then, but that’s quite a far cry from incarnating all that plethora of esotericism and bullshit he had so casually churned out at my face.

‘And truth is, you do look like that kind of person who likes to make all the wrong assumptions about people they’ve known for a minute. You see me wearing a shirt that reads ‘Gender Equality’ and you automatically assume that I’m a feminist, which fills you with dread and disgust; you leaf through my Facebook posts and automatically assume that I’m a yacker, though you have no idea that I’ve been writing longer than I’ve been menstruating, that writing is my whole life and the only thing that I feel I can actually do—little does it matter that it’s writing, not talking; you say that the average female uses 7k words a day, whereas I do 147k; you hear me dropping some indie artists’ names and you automatically assume that I must be into celebrities and Gossip Girls, though those people are so famous that you’ve never even heard of them; you notice a bunch of rings on my fingers and you automatically assume that I’m some sort of transcendental mystic, brewing tadpoles alive in a cauldron in her bathroom and hoarding crystals for the sake of her chakras’ balance. You’re so wrong you can’t even imagine. Shall I go on, shall we call it a night, or would you rather tell me something factual about yourself, like, I don’t know, how was your life back in America?’

Oh, my, that escalated quickly; so quickly that it caught him off-guard, which means things could get even worse from that point of no return. Nevertheless, I must admit that it surprised me to hear that his life in America is not something he likes to discuss on a date; he’d rather change the topic or start making some more wrong assumptions—that, at least, he didn’t seem to mind.

‘I don’t want you to be that girl I’m discussing my life in America with; it’s just something I don’t do. Not with girls, not on a date.’

I can’t tell for sure, but I must have choked on my Coke again. Why wouldn’t he want to talk about his life back in America “with girls, on a date?” Had I been a boy, would that have changed things in any way? What was there to hide? Was he smuggling keys on a schooner in the Caribbean or shoplifting from Walmart and TJ Max? Did he have a criminal record for driving without a license? Did he attempt to cut his wrists in a friend’s beach house in San Diego because he couldn’t stifle his pedophilic urges? Mind you, I can make a bumper crop of wrong assumptions, too; just try me.

‘Why is America a taboo subject? I thought we weren’t talking about your foot fetish or the fact that you love the smell of your navel lint. I’m a European girl, and you’re an American out on a date with me. Do you think I’m here in the hope that I might wanna wheedle a green card out of you someday?’

‘Nope, it’s not that. I mean, I could help you with the green card anyway when I become a lawyer.’

‘How considerate. Thanks, but I don’t think it will ever be the case. I mean, my needing your legal assistance, not your becoming a lawyer.’

Then he suggested we get going, even though we hadn’t finished our drinks. We can walk with them, he said, but before paying the bill, he chugged his down in a gulp. I looked at him, baffled and reduced to silence. I got mine and took a few more sips, and we resumed our walking,  but then he insisted to hold the can for me, which made me realize that what he actually meant was that he wanted to drink the soda he had paid for, so I handed it straight away to its rightful owner. Quite predictably, he wasn’t late to do what I had anticipated he would, and then asked me whether I still wanted to drink that thing. Nosir, it’s all yours—do with it whatever the hell you want; I don’t want your saliva anywhere near my inexhaustible mouthpiece that spits out 147k words a day.

At some point, we found ourselves in front of a Christian-Orthodox church—a church that, goodness only knows why,  was open at 10 or 11 pm, and a priest was firing off a raucous sermon on why adultery and greed will drag us to hell. The doors were wide open because it was sweltering hot, so we could see and hear the whole thing from outside. A handful of people were listening meekly to the sermon, eyelids heavy with sleep and boredom, while others were moving about to and fro, lighting candles for the living and for the dead or groping for the best angle that would do justice best to their  Instastories. He wanted us to go in, which I found ridiculous.

‘An hour ago I called God a big-ass jerk, and now you want me to step inside his home as though nothing had happened?! Why would I do that? Why would I do that even if I hadn’t called God a big-ass jerk? I know by heart these chestnuts that are supposed to scare the shit out of our straying souls and guide us to the right path. I’ve made it through six years of med school; hell is the last thing that can frighten me. Besides, it’s ridiculous; I never imagined that I’d be taken to church on a first date. You must have taken Hozier literally, but that song is so 2013, though; it’s 2018 now.’

‘Why? We’ll just go in a couple minutes, take a peek, do that sign, and that’s it. The architecture is beautiful.’

‘Do that sign? You mean, the cross? You’re not even an Orthodox; that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. There are people out there, something is happening—something that is none of our business; this isn’t the right time to play tourist.’

‘Oh, come on, it’ll only take a minute!’

And, believe it or not, I consented. ‘At least I can write about it,’ I told myself after the smell of incense, burned wax, and human sweat kicked us out of God’s Home in thirty seconds, just like Adam and Eve had been banished from the Garden of Eden at the dawn of time (except we hadn’t thankfully spawned the whole of mankind in the process). Deep down into the bottomless pit of the old town nightlife, though, his appetite for hookah was suddenly revived, and he asked me once again whether I was sure I didn’t wanna sample a puff with him. For the third and last time, I was; I didn’t want to. If there’s one thing that I deserve credit for, it’s that I have a knack for holding my ground under the direst and the most overpowering of circumstances. Back in LA, perhaps the most handsome guy I’ve ever made out with poured gallons of Bourbon down my throat—and even though I was dead-drunk, I could still say no when he undid my bra and unzipped his fly. It was hard (the situation, that is), but I had to; I didn’t wanna sleep with him because I didn’t wanna sleep with him; I didn’t wanna sleep with him because I was drunk. I’d had some minor blackouts, and I wanted to avoid a huge one that could explain a potential HIV contraction or a cocaine overdose (I was also on my period, but that’s just a piddling detail; or is it?). So, yeah; I’d rather sleep with someone when I’m 100% aware that this is what is about to happen—so I can blame it solely on temptation and my poor decision-making skills when I end up emotionally attached and they sleep around like normal people do, without giving a fuck about me and my attachment issues.

He wanted us to sit on a bench in front of the church—one that was circled by bums resting their bodies on newspapers and asking for alms—which I found a rather uninspired idea, so we just kept walking until we found a bench that was slightly less parasitized by unwelcome human presence and the odors thereof—which the crisp night air would only enhance. Out of the blue, he started talking about evolution; he told me that some scientists keep some secret genes in the lab, and that someday, maybe in thirty years from now, dinosaurs may be brought back to life. Birds are the closest thing there is to them, he said scholastically, and they might find a way to suppress some of their genes so that their eggs would hatch baby dinosaurs instead of chickens. Right, I said. And that wasn’t all: some people are born with tails (which some of them can move) due to pretty much the same reason—those atavistic genes undergo some mutations and aren’t silenced properly. I’d never heard of people being born with tails, but that sounded more like spina bifida to me; but from that to being born as a dinosaur instead of a chicken (or a human?), there’s a long way to go. That was nothing new under the sun to me; ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, that’s one of the few things I remember from my embryology lectures. In utero, at the outset, the embryo looks more like a worm or a reptile before gaining human features. It takes time for that amorphous cellular slime to morph into a functional human body. Anyway, why the fuck was I having a conversation about evolution close to midnight, in front of a church, with an American guy that believed in a Christian god? What was he trying to prove to me? That deep down, he knew there was more to it than what the Genesis pretends there is? The Bible is a metaphor anyway, but I should’ve expected him to take it literally, as he did Hozier’s song.

‘I can see that you’re a skeptic, but you have to admit that believing in a Christian god helps you be of better use to your fellow human beings. That priest in the church in front of us didn’t preach theft or murder; he preached kindness and decency instead.’

‘Why would I need a priest to teach me kindness and decency? Why can’t I be kind and decent on my own? Look, for example, a lot of people I look up to, who’ve made tremendous contributions to the world—they’re doctors, writers, psychologists, musicians— don’t buy into that shit. They’re atheists or Jews. They didn’t need a Christian god or a Christian priest to be of use to their fellow humans in need.’

At that point, though the lights were dim,  I could see him turn green in the face.

‘Are YOU a Jew?’ he asked, with panic in his voice.

‘There we go again,  Mr. I-can-make-a-wrong-assumption-about-you-in-the-wink-of-an-eye. I am not a Jew; and even if I were, that was not the point. Do you want me to remind you what’s going on right now in the Catholic church in terms of pedophilia and sex abuse? You must be familiar with Pennsylvania. Do you want me to remind you that the Pope recommends psychiatric intervention for children with homosexual tendencies instead of love and acceptance? What’s next on their to-do list for the sinful, a lobotomy? Would you want to have your appendix removed by a surgeon who has homicidal propensities? I bet not, so let’s change the subject or get the hell out of here.’

‘Yeah, sure; getting jammed in a religious argument is not how I wanna spend my time with you,’ he agreed complacently. ‘Why don’t we go play some arcade games instead? Oh, man, I love arcade so much!’

‘I don’t. And it’s almost midnight. Where do you think we could play arcade games right now?’

‘Oh, come on, let’s look it up on Google maps. On your phone, I mean, ‘cuz mine, you know.’

Yeah. I knew. I also knew I’d be mad as a hatter if I played arcade games with him when all I wanted was a reason to put an end to that stupid date as soon as possible. But I was so sure that I’d come away empty-handed that I agreed to look up “arcade” on Google maps, only to find this place called Arcade Café, 1.6 miles away—which turned out to be just a regular café with a misleading name; no arcade or any other type of video games whatsoever. I shoved the phone in his face triumphantly, and then we got going—again.

‘Would you like us to go someplace else?’ he asked.

Yeah, at our place, I thought. I mean, me—at mine, you—at yours. I regret I didn’t verbalize that thought, and instead I heard myself saying, ‘No. I don’t care where we’re going. This is also how I roll in life by and large.’ (The second part of that statement is, however, true.)

When we were in front of an ancient building (it was the old town, so we basically were in front of an ancient building at all times), he asked me whether I’m interested in history. ‘I used to be,’ I replied, ‘back when I was in secondary school, because I had this huge crush on my history teacher. I’ve had it for years,’ to which he interrupted me, grabbing himself by the ears jestingly, bringing to my attention that I had pronounced the word “years” as if I’d failed to notice that it started with a “y.”

‘Great. Thanks for the correction. This is my flawed Eastern-European pronunciation. You see, when I was born, I wasn’t swaddled in an American flag. Also, I read and write more than I listen and speak, which is detrimental to face-to-face dates with native English speakers. We should’ve done this whole thing on Facebook instead.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude, it was just a gentle correction. But carry on with your story, I wanna hear it.’

‘Yeah. A gentle correction and a huge turn-off. You know, like farting during sex. You can keep going, but it’s not gonna be the same.’

So we walked some more; until he said he needed to pee and wanted to go to McDonald’s to use the restroom. Must be a special bond between McDonald’s and him, I thought. Maybe he’s actually living in a McDonald’s, after all; maybe he doesn’t live in a rental apartment in the old town, as he had claimed. But now it was way past midnight—was it still open? Of course, only Google Maps and my phone had the answer, and like most answers that night, this one was negative, too. There was a park on our way to McDonald’s, so I just suggested he relieve himself behind a bush. ‘Not too classy,’ he said, ‘but if you have nothing against it...fine.’

‘Why would I have anything against it?! I’m not the one with a full bladder. Just go for it, release your problems, and be a happy man again.’ (And don’t dare touch me, my real self whispered in my mind’s ear; without a “y” this time around.)

‘Oh, look, problem solved!’ he jubilated, pointing towards a row of composting toilets—probably the most disgusting thing ever created by man, which filled the nightly atmosphere with their unmistakable whiff of ammonia and vagrancy until the memory of what must have been the scent of last morning’s freshly-cut grass was completely annihilated.

I sat down on a bench and waited for him to get out of that temple of piss and loafing, although deep down I wished a supermassive black hole would yawn out of that toilet bowl and swallow him out of my life. I could’ve walked out on him, but I knew he wouldn’t find his way back home if I did that. He depended on my phone to order an Uber and make it back to his place safe and sound. I was the man in this, not him; gender equality my ass. Or maybe that’s exactly what gender equality is about—a girl may just as well order a taxi for the guy who asked her out on a date and see to it that no one rapes him on his way home. Or not? He said he had a problem with feminists and was glad that I wasn’t one,  but what I did for him that night was the epitome of feminism—but more on that, later.  

At long last, there he was again, in front of me, with an empty bladder and a right—or left?—hand  brimming with bacteria from his groin, and probably from the groins of all the wastrels that had ever taken a whizz in that composting toilet. ‘What if we go to this other park,’ he suggested, and indicated the name of a park that was like a million miles away. We sure as hell couldn’t walk there, and I’d had enough of parks—at least when it comes to dating. I don’t wanna date in parks ever again. All the guys I’ve ever dated were so cheap that would rather take me to a park than a café or a restaurant, because it was open to the public for free; they didn’t risk having to pay a bill that would’ve probably caused an aneurysm to burst in their brains. I’d always offer to go Dutch, but better safe than sorry—in parks, you don’t have to go Dutch at all. In parks, you don’t risk spending your entire weekly allowance that mom and pop slipped into your pocket because you were a good boy who did well in school and didn’t come home with the clap. So we went to parks; a lot of ‘em, goddamit. Ugh! Those memories of making out on the benches and being made fun of by kids playing badminton or riding their bikes make me sick to my stomach. I had my first date ever in a park in my hometown, in late November. It was freezing cold and my poor, sickly beau subsequently came down with a cold that took weeks to heal. Nothing of the sort befell me, like,  ever. I also had my first kiss ever on a bench, in the same park, though with a different date. We broke up two months later because I loved dogs more than human beings, and he got married to the next girl he started dating after me, on the same day that the high tide wiped the hiking trail that would take me to the shore on an Irish island in the middle of the Atlantic. And once, I went to a park, determined to break up with this guy, but I ended up staying in that toxic relationship almost another year because of his cajoling and other dirty schemes. In a nutshell, I have no fond memories of parks; and the fact that someone takes me there in the middle of the night to pee (hoping to take a shot at romance after that) is not gonna make me change my mind; if anything, it’s only gonna make my nausea more difficult to internalize—which is a bad thing in itself, to begin with.

‘Do you like long walks?’ he asked me, when we were doing the exact same thing—walking for hours on end, heading to the middle of nowhere, because I didn’t care where I was going as long as it wasn’t home, and he was still hoping to get laid that night to let me slip through his fingers so easily.

‘I’m afraid I’ll have to thwart again your attempt to pigeonhole me in any possible way. What are you gonna ask me next, if I like my fries with ketchup or mayo, what’s my favorite color, the subject I struggled the most with in school, or the name of my first pet? You sound like Gmail asking security questions when you forget your password.’

‘Yeah, I know it sounds stupid sometimes, but… I’m just trying to get to know you. I know people who’d easily do that—the long walks, that is—whereas others are simply couch potatoes. Only Netflix and chill for them. I was just wondering where you belong.’

‘Nowhere. I belong nowhere.  I walked thirty kilometers in two days in Nice and Monaco, plunged sixteen kilometers into the depths of a forest in the French countryside in full hunting season, but I also had a two-month spell when I didn’t get up from bed, lying there all day long, writing my book (he totally ignored the fact that I had brought up the words “my book” into the conversation; must have misheard it or blamed it on my Balkan pronunciation).  Nothing I do makes sense or is interconnected with another thing I do; it doesn’t even have to. It’s just who I am.’

‘I see. That’s why I wanna spend time with you. Given that there’s nothing much to do in town, I’d normally say we go to my place and watch a TV show or something, but…’

‘But you know that “at my place” are not the three words you wanna say on a first date; not with me, at least.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know; I didn’t suggest anything, I just thought it’d be nice.’

‘I didn’t say you suggested anything; it’s just something I don’t do on a first date. You have a self-imposed America-related omerta; I don’t drink alcohol and sleep around.’

‘Fair enough. Well, then, I’d like to hang around some more, but I have stuff to do, so maybe we should order a taxi and go back to our places.’

How very odd. A minute ago, he was inviting me at his place because he wanted to “spend time” with me, and now, after he realized he’s not gonna get what he wants, he says he’s gotta go back home because he has stuff to do. How the hell did that stuff materialize into his living room in his absence, in the span of one or two minutes? Hm. Maybe he’s the mystic in this story, not I. If anything, I am the man. The man who orders a taxi, drops him at his place, at which point he gets back into the car, claiming he had forgotten he had to go buy something from a convenience store on the main avenue. His paranoia kicked in again when he wasn’t sure that the driver had started the GPS—does this guy even know where we’re going? And do I have to pay him or you? It’s a Taxify, you idiot; all the fares are deducted from my bank account. He handed me a bill, which I obviously turned down, hugged me twice (because he didn’t like the pat on the back—I patted him anyway the second time, too), and off he went. Finally. Thank God. The Christian god, the Jewish, the Muslim, or the Buddhist one, or whatever god had effected the long-awaited demise of my worst date ever.

Two days later, he texted me, saying that he wants to hang out again soon, but unfortunately, he still has a lot of work to do. Nevermind, darling! I’m far from being a time-sucking vampire. I like garlic and solitude too much, that’s why.  ‘Sorry, but I’m not exactly vibing it, and I don’t wanna waste your time (or mine). We belong in different worlds (literally and non-literally), so we’d better leave it at that. Best of luck.’ And I pressed “send.” The reply came back instantly, and it was monosyllabic—‘Weird.’ And I’ve never heard from him again.  

Man. That text felt so liberating I could almost cry for joy. It felt ecstatic to be able to fantasize again with Nick Murphy, to plunge into the same old endless spiral of limerence in the peace and quiet of my room, smelling of coffee, dark chocolate, old books, and isolation. No more piss in the park and platitudes on Christianity and evolution; no more answering security questions and avoiding hands caked in groin bacteria and molecules of urine; no more getting back home late enough to shower with cold water and watch the cockroaches crawl all over the dishes in my kitchen. Dating is a pain in the ass unless you do it with someone you’re smitten with—and the modern society doesn’t quite give you permission to be smitten with someone you could actually date. Here’s the thing—I’d been late twenty minutes that evening because I’d gotten lost in a Youtube loop, crying and grieving over my missed flight and Nick’s show in Milan, and telling myself that I can’t do this. I don’t wanna do this. I can’t do this. I won’t do this. I’ll cancel last minute, although I’ll come across as a bitch. I don’t want the universe’s leftovers on my table; I’d rather starve myself to death. I know that never in a million years could I have my limerent object, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be happy with the dollar store version of it. Matter of fact, I won’t. I may be trying to punch above my weight, but then again—who isn’t? I don’t have perfect teeth; I’m far from having a Baywatch body; hell, my jokes aren’t even that good sometimes, and I can’t even pronounce “years” correctly in English—why wasn’t this guy good enough for me then? Because nothing and no one ever is; because we only want what we can’t have. Because that evening, I was hoping for a refreshing conversation on the duality of the self, on the body-mind conflict, on how art in general (and music in particular) is a lifeline for lost souls like me; but instead I got caught in the trammel of a religious argument, with baby dinosaurs lurking around the corner, threatening to hatch from the potentially fertilizable eggs in my pelvis under the auspices of the right genetic mutation. Because only average guys can be stubbornly interested in me, so much so that they keep texting me although I hadn’t answered their calls or their texts for a week; average guys who probably hadn’t gotten laid in a while; average guys to whom I seemed reachable, who didn’t have to punch above their weight to go on a date with me.  I’ll never be interesting, multihyphenate, mysterious, or good enough for the likes of Nick Murphy or any other unattainable person that could be limerence material for me, no matter how hard I try; I’d probably have a shot if I stopped trying altogether (but I can’t, because I’m me).

And it’s sad, but I know the drill all too well, ‘cause I’ve been there so many times—basically my whole life: “Limerence is a state of mind which results from a romantic attraction to another person and typically includes obsessive thoughts and fantasies and a desire to form or maintain a relationship with the object of love and have one's feelings reciprocated, ” says the Holy Wikipedia. We owe this concept to psychologist Dorothy Tennov, who coined it in her 1979 book, Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love. Look it up on Wikipedia; it expatiates on all its aspects amazingly well,  and it might just let you know that you have a new disease. In my case, reciprocity never came into question, and in spite of starvation and adversity,  I’ve always managed to stay limerent until I found another person to transfer my limerence to. The more impossible it is, the more drugged up it makes me feel; the more rejected I am, the needier I get. And I believe it’s essential that it stay that way; a healthy relationship pattern just wouldn’t do for me. I have yet to discover whether therapy would be of any help, though, but I’m not that willing to try, to be honest. I feed on my limerence, and my limerence feeds on me. We need limerence, at least in art; studies say that limerence is experienced by about 5% of the population; I bet that the bulk of it are artists (or at least artists at heart). I wonder how many of the great songs put out into the world would have been written had it not been for limerence; same goes for books, paintings, sculptures, and whatever involves a muse. Not all limerent objects are muses, but all muses are limerent objects, in a way or another. I know it, and you know it; everybody knows it, and in case you didn’t, now you do. While therapy —or even medication— may help limerence to some extent, the one thing that does not help are failed dates, with people you’re just not vibing that much (if at all). And of course, you can’t vibe somebody else when your whole being vibes that unattainable, volatile, celestial presence that will never be within reach like Tash Sultana’s mad guitar riffs.

And it’s okay; just don’t rush it. Don’t go for the leftovers. Don’t go for the dollar store hoops when you’ve been coveting the Gucci ones forever; otherwise, you’ll end up with a fallacy and a lifetime of bitterness and second-guessing your own worth.  Are you truly dollar store material, too? Are you willing to work till you’re dog-tired, day in and day out, to afford something that might be stolen from your purse on your bus ride back home? But what if it’s something money can’t buy? What if it’s something not even wits or looks can buy, because it’s not yours to keep in the first place?

Well, that sucks; but I won’t go for the dollar store version ever again. I wanna bathe in the glory of a life with no one else, as the song goes. I’d rather die surrounded by dogs and books without having procreated, have no one come to my funeral, and give away my whole fortune—whatever’s left of it after decades of concerts, festivals and trips to Melbourne, New York, and LA—to charity. But until I die, I’ll keep on falling back upon the same pattern of limerence, hoping for the best; after all, hope is an important part of the definition of this whole concept.  And I’ll make art out of it to stay alive—and because it’s fun, even when it makes me weep. If I were to believe Lana, at least I’m pretty when I cry.