#I’ll try to do egg moves and natures and all that jazz

[dameronology]

love in the time of p.t.a. meetings {marcus moreno} - 4/5

summary: after a few months of slightly chaotic bliss, you & marcus start to think about the next steps in your relationship. {series masterlist}

warnings: swearing 

this is up a little later than i wanted & i do apologise, i once again stayed up all night and i cannot recount a single thing i’ve done. enjoy!

- jazz

Things between you and Marcus quickly fell into a routine.

You kind of had to when you both had kids; their lives needed structure. Depended on it, in fact. It wasn’t long before both of your lives were entangled in more ways than one, mostly for the sake of Missy and Jack having security around them but also because things between you were so good. Neither of you were trying to rush by any means, but when it worked, it worked. You were both good at communicating with each other - not that many issues really cropped up - and you both understood that your children came first. Things progressed easily and naturally, and he made you feel secure enough that you didn’t have to question whether or not it was too good to be true. 

Five months had quickly passed and you were both comfortable. Marcus Moreno was your boyfriend and it wasn’t a big deal. Okay, it had been at first - especially the first time he planted a kiss on your lips in front of the minivan brigade - but now? It was normal. It felt like he’d always been there, and you took it as a good sign. You got on well with Missy, especially since she’d witnessed your spat with Carol and started to think the world of you, and Jack...well, he was obsessed with Marcus. You couldn’t blame the kid. 

‘Jack! Put the soup down!’ 

It was another one of those mornings. It was a Sunday, so you didn’t have to worry about getting up early for school or work but you’d been at Marcus’ till late the night before. You and Jack ended up spending a lot of time at his; there was a swimming pool and a big garden for Optimus Prime to run around in, so it tired both of your tiny spawns out, which worked in your favour.

 Even when the kid had spent four hours swimming last night, he’d still risen that morning at 6AM like Jesus Christ on the third day. You’d woken to find the kitchen covered in smashed eggs and ham, then your oven had broken and the toilet was blocked again. 

You’d been halfway through reversing the problem when you’d heard Jack shuffling in the kitchen. You were stood in the hallway, still in your pyjamas, with a toilet brush in one hand and the other balled up into a fist. 

‘Jack, the soup is about to-’

You paused mid-sentence, watching as the bowl he was trying to reach for toppled straight off of the counter. You’d only washed his hair ten minutes ago, and you might as well have not fucking bothered because it was now covered in chunky vegetable soup. And the Chewbacca onesie he loved so much? Trying to peel that off him for the next few hours to wash the Heinz out of it was going to be a whole task in itself. You’d only just been to the laundrette the day before, and you’d gotten to the point in life where having a place with its own washing machine was a sign of success. 

‘Mum, there’s soup in my hair.’

‘It’s okay.’ You took a moment to breath. ‘We are not going to cry.’

‘I’m not crying.’

‘Wasn’t talking to you, buddy.’ You rubbed your temples for a moment. ‘C’mon, let’s go hop in the bath.’

So much of parenting was just...stopping to breath. Stopping to take a moment to remind yourself that although your love for your child was unwavering and unconditional, you sometimes felt like screaming. All you’d done for the last five hours was go in circles, cleaning and lecturing and cleaning some more. It made you wish you were at work that day, because at least then you could have conversations with people that weren’t about what cheese they wanted for lunch or what cartoon they wanted to watch. 

‘I just had a bath.’ Jack muttered. 

‘Yeah well, you need another one.’ You took another deep breath. ‘I’ll be there in a minute-’

‘- I don’t want a bath!’

‘And I don’t want a kid that’s covered in soup!’ You shot back. ‘C’mon, buddy. Just do as I say, please?’

Your conversation was interrupted by a knock at the door. You frowned for a moment - you weren’t expecting anyone. There was no post on Sundays and you hadn’t seen your landlord since the day you’d moved in. Your nosey neighbour knocked sometimes, usually asking about the noise (he didn’t have kids, clearly) and you were this close to telling him to mind his own fucking business. 

‘I swear to god, if that’s David again, I am going to shove this can of soup up his - Marcus!’ You almost did a double take when you saw your boyfriend stood at the door - he really chose his times, didn’t he? You hadn’t even had time to put the fucking toilet brush down. ‘Hey.’ 

‘Hey, baby.’ He greeted you slowly, eyes slowly taking in your appearance (and not in a sexy way). ‘Were you not expecting me?’

‘Shit, did we have plans?’ Your eyes widened. 

‘No, but Jack called. He said you’d asked him to ask me to come over, but I realise half way through that sentence that starting with Jack called probably means you had no idea.’ He offered you a goofy smile. ‘He said that the sofa had exploded and that you needed help.’

There was a lot to unpack there. When had Jack done that? More to the point, when had he learnt to use the phone? How had he worked out your phone password? The kid couldn’t do up his own velcro and now he was a Russian hacker, apparently. 

‘Oh my god.’ You groaned. ‘I am so sorry. Things have been batshit here this morning and I’m sure he had my best interests in his weird little heart, but he made you come all this way-’

‘- Marcus!’ Speaking of the devil.

Jack pushed past you, wrapping his arms around Marcus’ waist. He leant down to pick him up, lifting him off the ground - albeit at a distance, due to Soupgate. 

‘Hey, buddy.’ He greeted him. ‘You been causing trouble again?’

‘Not on purpose.’ Jack replied. ‘Mum says I need another bath.’

‘I think she’s right.’ Marcus said. ‘Why don’t you go pick out some clothes and come back in a minute, yeah?’

‘Okay!’ Seemingly impressed by the newfound trust in him to choose an outfit, Jack wriggled himself back down to the floor, trotting towards his bedroom. Seriously, how did Marcus do that? Perhaps his ability to have authority over your archaic child was another hidden power of his. 

‘You look like you need a break, baby.’ He reached out, gently running a hand down your arm.

‘I’m fine, he’s just been a lot today.’ You sighed.

‘You have soup on your shirt and fluff in your hair.’

‘Couch stuffing.’

‘Huh?’

‘It’s couch stuffing. Except that was Optimus Prime and not Jack, which makes a nice change.’ You muttered.

‘Look, Missy is at her abuela’s today and she’s been begging for ages to see Jack again.’ He said. ‘What d’you say I drive him over there, you clean up and we hang out? Just us, no kids, no dogs, no stress.’

‘That sounds like a fucking dream.’ You couldn’t help but smile. ‘But Optimus has consumed half the couch and I gotta keep an eye on him-’

‘-we can bring him with us!’ Marcus grinned. ‘He loves the garden.’

‘Are you sure? Because I remember you saying you had work plans today and I don’t want you to cancel them on account for the fact I can’t control my own kid. Or life.’

‘You two come first.’ He said it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. ‘Three, including Optimus Prime.’

--

In the time it took Marcus to drive Jack to his mum’s and get back to yours, you were able to clean up. The apartment was still a state, but it hadn’t been properly tidy in...how many days had it been since Jack was born? Because it hadn’t been clean in exactly that many days. You felt a little bad dumping him on Anita when he was still covered in soup, but if anyone was able to wrestle him into the bath and some clean clothes, it was her. You’d met her a few times and she was absolutely lovely, but you had no doubt she could be terrifying when need be. She was the sort of woman you aspired to be.

By midday, you were driving out the city. There was music playing quietly over the radio and you were watching the houses go by; even though it was cold out, you had the heater on and you were bundled up in a leather jacket, Marcus’ scarf snugly around your neck. It smelt faintly of his aftershave, which had become one of your favourite scents over the last five months. The time had gone so quickly. You’d seen each other practically every day since then, and having the kids meant you’d been fallen into being domestic pretty quickly. The simplicity of it all - him and you and getting to this point so easily - was overwhelming in itself. 

Your first relationship had been so complicated - so finicky and filled with unnecessary arguments. That should have been a sign early on, but then you’d gotten pregnant with Jack and getting married had seemed like the obvious thing to do. His presence meant you wouldn’t have changed anything, not for the entire fucking world, but it made you a little sad to think about how long you’d wasted on what had clearly been the wrong person. Meanwhile, Marcus’ situation had been entirely different; he’d had the right person the first time around and then he’d lost them. You never felt like a replacement to his wife, or even thought about the notion, really. That had been another part of his life. You were a new part and it didn’t mean he was forgetting the past. The two could co-exist without taking away from each other. 

‘You’re deep in thought.’ Marcus observed. He moved one of his hands to rest on your leg, giving it a light squeeze. He did that a lot, usually whenever you were sat beside him at the table or on the sofa. It was just a him thing. 

‘Yeah, sorry.’ You tore your gaze away from the window. ‘My brain always goes a little into overdrive when things are quiet.’

He chuckled. ‘What’s on your mind?’

‘You, actually.’ You tangled your fingers with his, thumb brushing over the back of his hand. ‘I was just thinking about lucky I am and how good things are, and how it almost feels too good to be true.’

‘Better believe it, baby.’ He replied. ‘Because it is true.’

‘I know.’ You peered over at him with a smile. ‘It’s just...my only perceptions of relationships were based on the single one I’ve had. Everything was so complicated and exhausting. This is completely different and it’s so nice. And normal. And I don’t know, that sounds stupid-’

‘- it’s not stupid at all.’ Marcus peered over at you, shaking his head. ‘It’s natural to be a little apprehensive after a bad relationship and if there’s anything I can do to help, you just have to tell me. You know that, right?’

Maybe it was the way he said it, or maybe it was just him, but you knew for certain that he meant that. There was sort of a silent agreement now that you were both in this for the long haul. Your mum had always said that you’ll know when you know but you’d always written that off. Mostly because you hadn’t known the first time round. But, now you did. You did know and though you weren’t going to admit that to Marcus, you never doubted him for a second. 

‘I do.’ You said. ‘But he’s in the past now - and hopefully it’s where he fucking stays.’

‘I have contacts. I can find him and set Miracle Guy on him.’ Marcus’ grin had returned. ‘Just say the word.’

‘You make a tempting offer.’ You smiled back at him. ‘But the past is the past and I’m ready to...slam the lid on that dumpster.’

‘Do you think he’ll ever want to come back into Jack’s life?’

You pondered for a moment. ‘I don’t think so, but if he did, I dunno if I’d let him. I never wanna be the person who stops someone from seeing their kids but what he did was...it was unforgivable.’

‘You don’t have to make that decision until it actually happens.’ Marcus gently said. ‘And I’ll support whatever you choose.’

He pulled into the drive way of his house - his nice, clean, sofa-stuffing-and-soup free house. Optimus Prime leapt out the car as soon as the door was open, practically tearing past the two of you and down towards the yard. There was a moment of silence and then a splash!

‘Guess he found the pool.’ Marcus commented. ‘At least it’s heated, I s’pose.’

Truth be told, he loved having the three of you at his house. It felt like whatever had been missing before was slowly making an appearance as your relationship progressed. The irony was that you brought nothing but chaos and clutter with you, but that was exactly what made it feel like a home. It was small things; the painting that Jack had done for him at after school club was now hung up up on the fridge, and there was a photo of him and Missy on the fireplace with Optimus Prime. Half of the thousands of blankets of pillows that had been at your place had ended up on his sofa, thanks to the countless sleepovers. 

If he could have it his way, Marcus would have you live with here all the time. The energy that you and Jack brought made everything feel complete. He loved the evenings where Missy and Jack would play out in the pool, and you two would sit back inside, complaining about the cold. Then there were the nights where you’d take both the kids back here when he was working late, and he’d come home to find you piled on the couch watching an old movie, with your burnt cooking abandoned on the stove, surrounded by boxes of left over take out. It was the kind of thing that was so simple and so domestic, but it was everything he wanted. 

That was probably the flashpoint moment when Marcus Moreno realised he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you. He already knew he loved you - he’d worked that out about three months in, when you’d fallen asleep in one of his shirts whilst trying to wait up for him - but he hadn’t said it. He’d hinted at it and made back-handed comments but he’d barely admitted it to himself, let alone to anyone else. He knew what you and Jack had gone through before and it broke his entire fucking heart. You both deserved someone who stand by you and support you, someone who would embrace you both for the craziness and warm energy you brought everywhere with you. More than ever, he was realising he wanted to be that person who gave it you. After all, you’d made his life so much brighter without even trying.

Snapping out of his trance, Marcus looked over at you. You’d already ditched your shoes and dropped onto the sofa, pulling one of the blankets with you. This was exactly what you needed. A quiet house, your favourite person and a cable knit blanket. 

‘Hey, baby?’ 

You looked over at him, smiling at the name. ‘Yeah?’

‘You know I love you, right?’

You blinked in surprise, sitting up. ‘I know.’

‘You do?’

‘You’ve never said it, but I can tell.’ You nodded, before offering a smile. ‘And I love you too.’

‘I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner.’ He slowly approached you, dropping onto the sofa beside you and taking your hands in his. ‘I think I just got so caught up in everything and feeling everything that I forgot.’

‘Why are you apologising?’ You couldn’t help but scoff at him, leaning forward to press a kiss to his lips. ‘It’s your actions that say it, Marc. Hearing it is good but you showed it a long time ago.’

‘I know, but really you deserve to hear it everyday.’ He smiled against you, helping you move onto his lap. 

‘You do tell me everyday, with the things you do.’ You reminded him. ‘Like meeting me in the parking lot with coffee, or bribing Jack into going to bed early with video messages from your superheroes, or doing my grocery shopping when you know money is short.’

‘Why wouldn’t I do those things?’ Marcus seemed genuinely confused. ‘It’s you.’

‘I love you.’ You repeated the phrase. 

‘And I love you.’

He pulled you into another kiss - this time it was a little firmer, not unlike your second declaration of love. Marcus did all those things without thinking, simply out of his intense want for you to just be happy. He was the same with Missy, always doing little things to make her life easier just because. It was just part of who he was, and it made him happy to see his loved ones happy. 

With your body pressed against his and your hands tangled in your hair, Marcus realised he didn’t want you to ever leave again. He didn’t want you to have to drive home in the dark at ten because all of your stuff was on the other side of town. You did stay over sometimes, but then you’d have to creep out at 6AM with a sleeping Jack in your arms to get home in time to get ready. He wanted you here all the time. You should have been here all the time. 

‘Move in with me?’ 

He both did and didn’t mean to say it out loud. He did because he wanted you so badly to be a permanent fixture in the house, but he also didn’t because the idea might have been a little absurd. Was it too soon? What if you didn’t want to leave your place? He knew you loved your apartment. It was your home and had been for a long time.

‘What?!’ You suddenly pulled back from the kiss, eyes wide. 

‘I mean...if you want to.’ Marcus slowly said. ‘Hell, Missy and I can move to your place if that’s what you want. It might be tight but she loves the dog and I just want to be with you-’

‘- hey!’ You cut him off, planting your hands on his shoulders. ‘You’re rambling again, but that’s besides the point. I would love to live here.’

‘You would?’

‘I would.’ You smiled. 

It made sense. Aside from the glaringly obvious fact you wanted to, it was also practical. It was closer to the school, closer to your work and it had a fucking swimming pool. Marcus was already clearly financially secure and moving in wouldn’t mean relying on him, but it would have meant that things for Jack were a lot more stable. Missy loved the company of you both, and it meant she would finally have the dog she wanted so bad. 

‘Missy would be okay with it, right?’ You asked.

‘She was the one who put the idea in my head, actually.’ Marcus admitted. ‘I’d thought about it but then she kind of asked in passing why you don’t live here, and I couldn’t give her an answer.’

‘Your kid is smart.’

‘D’you think Jack will-’

‘- I’m going to stop you there.’ You cut him off.

‘Right, I probably don’t need to ask that question.’ He chuckled.

‘Exactly.’ You pressed a kiss to his nose. ‘Don’t forget the dog, either.’

‘How could I? I can literally see him peeing on my lawn right now.’

‘Our lawn.’

--

Exactly three weeks later - and after a hefty amount of paperwork and hours of sorting through Jack’s endless amounts of crap that he insisted on hoarding - moving day came. 

Anita had insisted on having the kids again. They were both excited, but perhaps a little too much. They were probably more likely to get in the way of things if anything. Children, a dog and large boxes? It seemed like a match made in hell. Plus, she had a whole ass training course in her back garden and if that didn’t wear the kid out, then you were definitely going to take him to the Heroics to get tested. The thought alone was enough to tire you out. 

You didn’t have too much stuff to move. You’d been half-moved into the damn place before Marcus had even made the formal proposal, so that made things a lot easier. You were keeping your sofa for Jack’s room, but the rest was going to Goodwill. Most of it had come from there in the first place.

‘I think that’s the last box.’ Marcus announced, exiting the bedroom. ‘I didn’t realise that a five year could own so many variations of storm-trooper toys.’

‘Oh, yeah.’ You replied. ‘There’s the original trilogy ones, sequel trilogy ones, dark troopers, shock troopers, clone troopers - and I realise half way through listing them that you don’t care.’

‘I never said that!’ He placed his hands on your waist, pressing a kiss to your forehead. ‘I’m excited to learn.’

‘I’m sure Jack is excited to tell you.’ You grinned. 

Then, it faltered slightly with the realisation you were actually leaving this place. You’d never intended for it to be your permanent home, but it had still been the centre of your entire universe for half a decade. Every room told a story; the crayon marks on the bathroom wall, the dents behind the TV from, the crack in the living room mirror. All caused by Jack, naturally. The last five years was contained entirely within these four walls and you got bleary eyed at the idea of it becoming someone else’s. 

‘Hey, don’t cry.’ Marcus gently wiped away a tear from your cheek. 

‘You know, the rent is still paid till the end of the month so we could revisit the idea of you and Missy living here instead.’ You tearfully smiled. 

‘You’re kidding but you know I’ll do it.’ He pressed another kiss to your nose, grip on your arms tightening. 

‘It’s okay.’ You moved so that the kiss landed on your mouth instead, capturing his lips in a brief kiss. ‘I knew we were gonna outgrow this place. I just didn’t expect it to be so soon.’

‘I know. Still kinda feels like it all came out of no-where, huh?’ He replied. ‘In the best way.’

‘You’re right. In the best way.’ You firmly nodded. ‘Can you believe I was 23 when I moved into this place? I found it on Craiglist within ten minutes of finding out I was pregnant.’

‘Do you wanna take a minute before we go?’

‘No, it’s fine.’ You shook your head. ‘We should get going.’

The apartment was just that: an apartment. And the house you were going to was just that: a house. But the people you were with? That’s what made it count. It wasn’t about the four walls or the roof over your head, or whether or not it had a big yard and a jacuzzi bath tub (though, that did help). It was about the laughter and warmth inside; the faces in the photos on the wall and the people you came home to after a long day. It was the smell of your burnt cooking and the pizza you’d ordered in place. It was Jack’s toys left in the exact place where someone could trip and it was Missy using all the hot water in the morning so that Marcus’ showers were practically arctic. It was everyday things that reminded you of the people around you; the people that made it home, and how lucky you were to have them.

That was home. And you’d found yours. 

taglist: @naivara-duneimith @1-2-3-4-5metalfingers @likeshootingstarsinthenightsky​ @lyanna-the-giantsbane @phoenixhalliwell @crazycookiecrumbles​ @bitchin-beskar​ @comphersjost

[maybedefinitely404]

Day 20: Moxiety

@tsshipmonth2020

(Yes this is out of order, but I figured I’d rather give you guys out of order content than no content at all. Hope that’s okay.)

Day 20 - You can send one item to your soulmate every year. 

Content warning: Christmas, food mentions, homophobic family members mentions, serious fluffiness.

Word count: 2.7k 

Songs mentioned in this fic: “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”. 

Patton’s eyes scanned over the letter, barely reading the words he’d read many times before. After the first time he’d gotten one, years ago, he’d re-read it so many times he’d committed it to memory.

Patton Hart,

You are receiving this notice to inform you that the annual soulmate item exchange is arriving. On December 24th, BEFORE MIDNIGHT, please bring your package to your nearest postal service or drop box, marked clearly with the provided adhesive label on the TOP. Item must be contained in the shipping box provided. Other boxes will not be accepted. If the drop off time is missed, your package will not be received. 

There was no signature, no return address, no number to call. At first, he’d been slightly suspicious, since everyone he asked had no further information than what was on the small letter, but after the first year, when a beautiful black and gold notebook and a matching pen had shown up on his doorstep on Christmas morning, he’d decided to heck with his worries. Despite his initial curiosity, he’d sent a gift anyways (if it was legitimate, he wasn’t about to leave his partner without a present!), a grey beanie that he’d stitched a small heart and message into. 

He giddily placed the letter back into the envelope and stuck it into the gap between the hallway mirror and the wall so he wouldn’t forget. Although, he doubted he would. He’d already bought a present, months ago, when his eyes fell upon a black and purple striped sweater in the window of the mall. The black thin stripes occasionally jumped, looking like the lines on a heart monitor, and it hooked him instantly. It was simplistic yet eye catching and unique, like the gifts Patton always received from his soulmate, so he immediately bought it and wrapped it as soon as he got home. He didn’t know his soulmate’s size, but you really can’t go wrong with an extra large (baggy sleeves are ideal, after all).

His time passed quickly, filled with movie nights with his roommate (who insisted on watching Nightmare before Christmas at least once a week) and trying new Christmas cookie recipes. It was his favorite holiday, with the songs and the decorations and the ever present smell of cinnamon in every store, so the moment they had passed Halloween, every moment was filled with his Christmas playlists and cheesy holiday sweaters. His family was coming to his place for their celebration this year, so the place was decked out with tinsel and little snowy villages, candles and fairy lights on every wall, and of course, their tree in the corner of the living room. It was going to be… amazing. 

He’d offered to take his roommate’s soulmate item along with him to the post office, seeing as he was uneasy in high crowd situations, and soulmate exchange days were always insanely busy. It had been the right move, too, because as soon as the office came into view, he could already see the crowd of people milling outside, trying to get into the small door. What could you expect, though, only giving people a twenty four hour window to all show up to the same spot? By the time he got inside and got both packages passed to the handler on the other side (an arduous process, since they had to check each gift thoroughly to ensure there were no cards or any other way to identify the sender), it was dark outside. All he wanted to do was curl up with some hot chocolate and watch the Grinch, as the two of them had planned. 

That’s what they did, falling asleep on the couch in the process. They were awoken in the morning by a knock at the door, Patton gently extracting himself from Virgil’s arms and turning off the TV, cringing that the cover screen of the movie had been on all night. The other mumbled in annoyance at his heat source disappearing and sat up, rubbing his eyes.

“It’s too early.”

“Merry Christmas, Virge!” Patton shrieked, ignoring his roommate’s mock irritated snarl as he gave him a tight hug. “Let’s go get our gifts!”

Begrudgingly, Virgil followed him to the door that he flung open, revealing two small parcels on the step. The labels from the senders had been replaced with simple name tags, another way to ensure that their soulmates would not be traceable. The other houses on the block all had similar ones outside their doors, and the carrier was nowhere to be seen, as usual. He picked them both up, handing Virgil his, and running back into the kitchen to get scissors, pretty much vibrating with glee. 

“I’m making coffee first. You want some?” 

Patton hummed, looking between the gift before him and Virgil’s tired eyes. “This can wait. Let’s have coffee.”

Virgil was barely able to conceal with excitement at being chosen over a Christmas present by someone who was essentially an overgrown child, pulling out two mugs. He passed his package to Patton, who placed it beside his on the table, and shuffled around his roommate to start on breakfast.

“It’s Christmas. You’re going to eat breakfast for once,” Patton interrupted the moment Virgil started complaining, grinning widely when he finally agreed. 

“Do you ever wonder who your soulmate’s gonna be? What they’ll be like?” Virgil asked as he poured the coffee grounds, dangerously precise as always. The elder hummed.

“They’re your soulmate. So I guess, a perfect match to you. It’s not like they won’t like you or anything. That’s against the whole point!” An egg sizzled as it hit the pan, quickly followed by another.

“I guess,” He mumbled, clicking the on button on the machine. The smell of coffee quickly filled the small kitchen, “So when is your family getting here?”

“Around noon,” Patton chirped, flipping the first egg while simultaneously popping bread in the toaster with his other hand, “I like to cook, but my moms don’t trust me to make the main dish alone. My sisters are super excited to be old enough to help make food this year-- it’s so cute. But yeah, they should be here by noon.”

Virgil cracked a pained smile, watching the dripping coffee into the pot. “Okay. I’ll be out of your hair by then.”  

Patton’s hand froze in mid air, whipping around to his roommate. “Excuse me?”

“I said I’ll be gone by then,” Virgil repeated, looking down to play with the hem of his sweater, “Do you want me to leave earlier? I can if you want.” His voice very nearly cracked as he spoke, tone getting quieter with each word. Patton’s heart shattered.

“Why do you think I want you to leave?” He whispered, blindly shutting the stove off behind him so the eggs wouldn’t burn. The toast popping startled them both, but neither could find it in them to laugh as they usually would have. Virgil shrugged.

“I mean, your family’s coming over. I’m not family. And I know you were super excited for them to come over, and I don’t want to… ruin the vibe,” He shook his fingers in weak jazz hands, shooting a watery grin at Patton. “I was just planning to go to the mall or something. I think it’s open-” 

His words were silenced as Patton threw his arms around Virgil’s shoulders, pulling him into a tight hug. It was no secret that Virgil didn’t get along well with his own family. That was the understatement of the year, really. Patton didn’t know the details, refused to pry, all he knew is that it had something to do with Virgil coming out to a pretty conservative family, an action that ended with him being split off from everyone. He had lost his little brother to his parents cutting contact, among other things, and Patton realized with a start that this was Virgil’s first Christmas without his family. 

In the single year they’d been roommates, the two had grown closer than any childhood friend Patton had kept throughout the years. Heck, he’d maybe consider them closer than he was with his moms, and that was saying a lot. For them to even fall asleep on the couch after a movie night, as they’d done last night, was a regular occurrence for them. They admitted secrets to each other they hadn’t fully admitted to themselves, about their own aromantic natures, about what that meant for soulmates, about what kind of pie was the best. Not all their conversations were deep.

“You are family, Virge,” Patton whispered, resting his chin on the other’s shoulder. “And unless you have a legitimate reason not to, you’re staying here. My family will love you, I swear,” He added quickly, knowing the other’s tendency to grow anxious around new people. 

“Are you sure? I don’t want to ruin-”

“I will physically fight you,” He hissed before the other could finish, pulling out of the hug with a soft kiss to his temple. “Stay. For me?”

“Fine,” Virgil rolled his eyes, turning away in fake annoyance to pour their coffee, “For you.” He had a reputation to uphold after all, and him nearly crying was not great for it.  

Just as they finished breakfast, Patton eyeing his present next to him with, again, startling resemblance to an excited child, there was a knock at the door. The roommates shared a confused glance, silently communicating that ‘no, I’m not expecting anyone’ before Patton got up to open it. He’d barely unlocked the latch when it burst open of its own accord, a loud shriek of “PATTY!” echoing through the small entryway.

“You guys are early!” Patton laughed as two small girls attempted to squeeze him to death around his torso, the pair having the same blond curls as Patton. 

“These two just couldn’t wait to see you,” A woman Virgil assumed to be one of Patton’s mother’s smiled, angling above the girls to give Patton a gentle hug which he eagerly returned. 

He quickly led them all inside, introducing a nearly shaking Virgil to his family. His other mom was carrying a box laden with uncooked food, and began to set it out in the small kitchen to begin preparing it. The girls, after a bit of hesitation, flocked to Virgil.

“Why’s your hair purple?” One asked, pulling herself onto Virgil’s lap. Her southern accent was just as strong as her moms’, reminding him of the accent Patton had slowly lost since moving in with him. It wasn’t gone all the way, just dimmed, but from the kitchen, he could hear his roommate talking to his moms animatedly, the accent back in all its glory. 

“I drank too much grape soda,” Virgil lamented, “When I was little, I couldn’t get enough of it. And then it turned my hair purple.” 

“No, it didn’t!” The girl leaning on his knee giggled.

“Are you saying I’m a liar?” He gasped, placing a hand over his heart, “How dare you!”

They both erupted into shrieking laughs, causing Patton to poke his head out of the kitchen. Virgil couldn’t help grinning widely at him as the second girl pulled herself onto his lap as well, causing Patton’s face to light up like the sun. 

“Did you know Christmas is my favorite holiday?” 

“Is it really? Why’s that?” Virgil asked, leaning back in his chair.

“It’s mine, too!”

“Nu uh, it’s only mine!”

“We can have the same favorite!”

“Nu uh!”

----------------------------------------------

Patton collapsed back onto the couch, groaning loudly. The tree was the only light in the darkened living room, the air still warm and smelling like the dinner they’d enjoyed hours ago. It was quiet again, his family gone back home. He’d missed them immensely, but he’d forgotten how loud they could be. His feet shifted on the floor, rustling the wrapping paper left over by his hurricane twin sisters; a mess he’d clean up tomorrow. Footsteps approached from down the hall, signalling his roommates arrival, and the speaker on the mantle started to quietly play “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas”, Frank Sinatra’s soft voice drifting through the air.

“I’m so full,” He groaned again, resting his head on the back of the couch.

“Mood,” Virgil said, dropping next to him. He didn’t need to open his eyes to know that Virgil was just as tired as him. Tired, in the best way possible. 

“You’re really good with kids,” Patton noted with a smile. 

“Tell anyone and they’ll never find your body,” He deadpanned and Patton snorted, before he continued, “They’re the same age as my brother.”

“Oh,” He whispered, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, surprisingly. I miss him. A lot. But this was the best Christmas I’ve probably ever had. No homophobic family members, no shouting matches, just… family. It was nice.”

“Hard to be homophobic when you have two moms,” Patton joked, relieved that Virgil snickered. 

“Probably would be, yeah.”

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,

With every Christmas card I write,

May your days be merry and bright,

And may all your Christmas’ be white.

They sat in comfortable silence for a bit, relishing in the silence of the house. The tree sparkled, lighting up the blank walls in rainbow hues, their conglomerate mix of thrift store ornaments shifting and reflecting the light. People shouted outside, joyful noises, and kids laughed, their neighbors wrapping up their own holiday celebration.

Patton opened his eyes as he felt something placed on his lap, looking down in confusion before grinning.

“Oh my gosh, I forgot!”

Virgil smiled sheepishly, shifting his own box between his hands. “I put them into my room when your family showed up.”

“Smart move. The twins would have torn them open.” Patton dropped off the couch onto the floor, sitting cross legged and shaking with anticipation. With a laugh, Virgil joined him when he gestured to the floor in front of him. He reached up and took his keys from the mantle, slicing open the duct tape on his box before handing it to Patton to do the same.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, 

Like the ones I used to know, 

Where the treetops glisten and children listen, 

To hear sleigh bells in the snow

They opened their boxes in unison, Patton gasping when he saw the item in his. He pulled out the large, black fuzzy blanket, blue paw prints the size of Patton’s palm decorating the surface. A high pitched squeal burst from his lips as he squished the blanket to his chest, shoving his face in the soft fabric. 

“Virgil, look! Isn’t it-”

His words caught in his throat at the expression on Virgil’s face; one of absolute shock. He was clutching his gift in white knuckles, and Patton’s mouth went dry when he caught the distinct black heart-beat-esque lines on the purple sweater. 

“Oh,” Patton whispered, both of them frozen, looking at the gift they’d bought in the other’s arms. “Oh!”

“You’re my soulmate!” They both stated at the same time, breaking off into giggles.

“I guess so,” Virgil gasped, smiling as Patton pretty much leapt into his arms, trying to maneuver his hands around the other’s shoulders while still clutching the black blanket. 

“Oh my gosh, I’m so relieved! You’re aro and I’m aro and it’s not going to be awkward with someone else, and I don’t have to explain and oh my gosh this is so fantastic!” 

They both dissolved into another laughing fit, Virgil finally able to wind his arms around the other and pulling him closer. The end of the song slowly dwindled down as they both untangled themselves, unable to stop grinning. There was a moment of silence in the room as Virgil picked up a shrieking Patton and dropped him onto the couch, their sides sore from laughter, and essentially settled on top of him.

“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” filled the room with soft violin swings as the two fell into a blissful sleep, wrapped in their respective gifts, more at peace than they’d been in… who knows how long.

[standbi-ghost]

Hand in Mine, Into Your Icy Blues

Words: 2872

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Child neglect, implied abuse

Hey hey, you you, prefer reading fics on ao3? https://archiveofourown.org/works/27850118

AU where ghost hunting is a respected profession and captured ghosts are used as tools in order to find other ghosts, *insert Danny angst because I love seeing the boy suffer*

The Fentons are America's top ghost researchers, famous for their work, infamous for their neglectful habits. Jazz finds their newest research subject down in the lab.

It was weird to live with the fact that your parents are “big shots” in their profession when you have to come home to them every day. Especially when you didn’t seem to know your parents at all when all you saw of them were the shadows behind their studies.

Growing up as an only child was, in the nicest way possible, lonely. Which is why Jasmine Fenton found herself raised by the books on her shelf and the curiosity in her heart. Sure, her parents were there at the start, it would be cruel to leave a newborn baby to fend for herself, but the moment she showed signs of independence.

It was fine. Everything she could ever need she could find on her own. She taught herself to cook, to clean, to spell the extra difficult words in her 3rd grade English class, to solve the laborious equations in her honors Pre-Cal class. She earned the food she made, she reveled in the clean citrus smell of her room, she earned the praise from her teachers. And when she found she couldn’t connect to the other students, she just reminded herself that she didn’t need the warm embrace of a mother, the thunderous laugh of a father, nor did she need friends. She could take care of herself.

Which is why she found herself sat in front of the only thing her parents ever shielded her from.

-

It was a sad sight to say the least. It seemed like it was more bruises and taunt broken bones, if it even had bones, than skin. She had always been known for her soft heart, always giving others second chances even when they were undeserving. Which is why she found herself in front of the very thing that shouldn’t ever be shown that kind of weakness.

Apart from the obvious signs of abuse, it was all teeth and claws, snarling at her even now. She was sure that if she were to let it out, it wouldn’t hesitate in killing her and her parents.

The growl that erupted from its chest broke her away from her thoughts. The cold basement floor seemed to get colder as she stared into its eyes. There was a flash of something before his gaze was consumed by guarded anger.

“Hey, it’s okay,” the closer she got the more aggressive it seemed to get, “it’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you. Look!”

She opened her palm to reveal a cookie she had snuck down with her. If Pavlov taught her anything, it’s that the favors of any being, be it a dog or undead monstrosity, can be won over through positive stimuli.

“Here see, I’ll have some too! It’s really good, I’m sure you’ll like it!”

At this point in her life, she wasn’t really sure of anything anymore. Life had been so much easier when her parents were just some far to reach superheroes she barely saw. She used to think like them, that ghosts, if you could even call them that, were just balls of left-over emotion from when a person died. That ghosts were some kind of monster in the closet that her parents could just scare away with their presence. That they were less than the dust bunnies under her bed. But there were skeletons in that closet too. Awful, immoral experiments, living dissections, and the screams. She doesn’t hate her parents, far from it, she loves them with all her heart, but the studies they were a part of? The less empathic members in their field? Hunters? Those were fair game to hate.

She split the cookie into two messy halves, popping one in her mouth as she nudged the other closer to the teeth in front of her. The teeth glared back.

“Okay, I get it, I’ll be on my way, but this isn’t the last you’ll see of me.”

With that, she got up, dusted her jeans off, and with her took the only light present in the basement lab.

She didn’t catch the small ‘thank you’ that followed.

-

Once in her room, Jazz let the tears slip. Whatever was in her parents’ basement was really pulling at her heartstrings. The thing looked to be no older than 15 years old, it was a child. But looks can be deceiving. She couldn’t begin to count how many of these child ghosts had attempted a massacre, how many of them seemed innocent enough to fool someone out of their own free will. Child or not, whatever was in the basement was dangerous. She was playing with fire here. But the look of hurt in his eyes seemed real; felt real. And, if anything, he seemed more at risk of being hurt by her rather than the other way around. He was as thin as a twig and too exhausted to do much of anything. If she could only-

Jazz shook the thoughts out of her head, plopping herself on her bed. Since when had ‘it’ become a ‘he’? And more importantly, why was there fear in his eyes?

“Jazzy pants, we’re home! We’ll be in the lab if you need us. “We left 20 bucks on the dinner table, go ahead and order some take-out for yourself!”

She sighed as she pushed herself off and out of her room. As she dialed the number to the first restraint that came to mind, she couldn’t help her thoughts wandering to the bag of bones locked in the lab just beneath her feet.

“Hi, thank you for calling Shanghai Inn what can I get started for yah?”

“Yeah, can I get some Vegetable Chow Mein and two Egg Rolls please?”

-

By the time her parents had finally stepped out of the lab, the food had long since gone cold. She tiptoed down into the basement and cracked open the door into darkness. There was a green glow and something of a soft hum emanating from something shoved in the corner of the lab. Taking a deep breath, she mustered up the courage to fully plunge into the shadows and crept towards the covered cage. One hand holding a plate of Chinese take-out, she fumbled with her phone until it pierced the darkness.

Almost instantly the hum ceased, again plunging her into a deafening silence.

“Hey, um, I’m back and I brought more goodies!”

There was a sudden sound of rustling before a quiet sniffle was heard. At that, she closed the distance between her and the cage in front of her and she peeled back the sheet over it.

She almost threw up there and then.

It- he was barely holding himself together, literally. He was tightly hugging his bleeding torso. A less perceptive person would’ve pegged it as the remnants of whatever was the creature’s last meal, but Jazz saw the jagged cuts he was trying but failing, to conceal. He’d been vivisected. He’d been vivisected by her own parents.

She dropped to her knees, the meal in her hands forgotten. That seemed to startle him back to reality because he began his growling again. This time a lot more defensive and a lot less forgiving.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, it’s just me see? It’s just me.” She said as she put her hands up in what she hoped was a universal surrender.

He seemed to study her as his head tilted, growl dissipating. In another life, she would’ve called it cute, adorable even, but right now she was trying her hardest not to scream out of instinctual fear. After he seemed to deem her safe enough to his standards, he went back to picking at his chest, the quiet hum returning to the room.

“I don’t know if you can understand me, like, at all, but I can help you with that,” she pointed to his exposed chest. She hadn’t noticed it when she first walked in, but it seemed to be the source of the soft glow in the room. He was sluggishly bleeding what she guessed was the ectoplasm her parents studied.

Again, he responded with empty eyes and a head tilt.

Were her parents right? Was this an unfeeling killer she was kneeled in front of? Of course they were right, how could she, someone who’s never even thought of looking into ghosts before, compete with the two most respected researchers in the field. Hell, they’ve got to have their PhDs mounted somewhere in this lab. She should’ve known better. She should’ve-

A whine echoed through the lab. She looked up from her lap to find the dead’s eyes locked on her. Once he seemed sure that her attention was on him, he gave a slight nod of his head, gesturing to his shredded torso.

“You want me to help?”

Another nod.

“Okay, alright, that’s good- I mean, not good, but, okay”

She scattered away from the injured boy, mentally making a list of materials she would need to stitch him back up. She would need a first aid kit, naturally, she would also need some kind of suture that would actually hold, the Fenton net might. Her mind was racing, trying to figure out how to do the task at hand. The poor kid wasn’t in any shape to move, so how could she tend to him from outside the cage? Unless-

“Okay, for this to work we’re going to have to trust each other okay?” she paused, was she really going through with this? “I’m going to have to be able to trust that you won’t just randomly decide to kill me and make me your next meal,”

At that, he made an adorably disgusted face. Ancients he was definitely growing on her.

“and you’re going to have to trust me to not cut you open or something, deal?” she pressed her pinkie into the cage. She didn’t know why she did it, it was a childish gesture she grew out of ages ago, she was 18 making a deal for her life for crying out loud, not some child promising friendship, to a dead who probably didn’t even understand the gesture nonetheless.

The boy gave a small smile a wrapped his own pinkie around hers.

“Deal”

It was small, if she hadn’t been overanalyzing his every move, every sound, in fear of her life, she would’ve missed it. But she didn’t.

“You can speak?”

Everything in her parents’ research pointed to the fact that ghosts were incapable of complex thinking, they were just echoes of a former person after all. Yet here this boy was, spitting in the face of her parents’ years of research.

A small nod was all she got in return.

“Okay,” she was starting to think her vocabulary was slowly diminishing to just the word ‘okay’.

“Alright, I’m going to go upstairs and look for what I need to fix, that,” she gestured to him, “I brought this up here,” she said as she picked up the overlooked food, “It’s not much, and not very healthy, but it’s all I have at the moment and It’ll do. Feel free to munch on it all you want, I should be back in a minute, my parents went out with some old college friends and shouldn’t be back till tomorrow afternoon.”

He simply watched her ramble on in fascination. She didn’t know where these mother-hen instincts were coming from, but she wasn’t complaining. The kid was nothing short of adorable.

“uh- anyways, you probably want this,” she said as she pushed the plate into the cage.

She watched in mirrored fascination as he sniffed the food and began eating it. That didn’t faze her though, what caught her by surprise was that he very clearly knew how to use the chopsticks provided with the meal, especially with one hand fighting to keep himself from spilling onto the basement floor.

Leaving him to finish the meal, she set to finding the supplies in her mental checklist. Once she had what she needed, she made her way down into the lab, making sure to swipe the keys hanging by the entrance to the lab.

She unceremoniously dropped everything in front of the ghost boy, startling him into a flinch. She winced.

“Sorry.” She sent a sheepish smile to the kid who sent his very own.

This is the moment she’d been dreading. There was no way she would be able to stitch him back up and keep him locked in the cage. She would have to defy her parents’ one rule. Never trust a ghost. But her parents had been wrong before. They said ghosts can’t feel pain, yet the ghost boy wined every time he placed accidental pressure on his wounds. They said ghosts can’t form complex thought, and yet he could, enough to speak to her at least. They said ghosts don’t need to eat, that they sustained themselves through ectoplasmic energy, yet here he was eating, using chopsticks.

“Okay, I’m going to let you out, but remember our deal,” she could still go back, she could still take all evidence of tonight, lock herself in her room and pretend this never happened. But as she looked into his green eyes, she couldn’t help but noticed the pale freckles splashed over his cheeks, noticed the way his hair frizzed from the dampness in the air, noticed the way her parents had left her with this supposed monster. The monster that was now attempting to balance one chopstick over the other.

“I trust you, and you trust me.”

With that, she unlocked the cage and instinctively stepped back.

She was expecting teeth and claws like when she first came across him, or maybe a slow crawl towards her, what she hadn’t expected was a pair of pinprick green eyes latched onto her in fear. He was scared of her.

She slowly made her way towards him, exaggerating her movements as to not startle him.

“You think I can carry you out of there? It’ll be easier for me to work out here rather than in there.”

There was a stiff nod before she carefully picked him up bridal style. He couldn’t weigh more than 50 pounds which she had no idea whether or not that was in a healthy range for him. Careful to not further aggravate his injuries, she put him down gently onto a clear area on the floor.

“Alright, I’m not going to lie, this is going to hurt, a lot, do you want me to talk to you while I do this?”

A nod.

“Okay, is there anything you like, or do you just want me to talk random?”

There was a hesitant look on his face before speaking for the second time that night,

“I like space.”

“Oh, well, I don’t know too much about space, but I do know some neat stories I can tell you!”

That’s how she found herself telling story after story of the few constellations she knew while stitching up a ghost kid she met not even 24 hours ago. A couple of stitches in and her hands began shaking, but the boy didn’t seem to mind. He was lost in her words and the worlds she was building for him. She hadn’t even noticed she was done until she went for the next stitch only to find an unmarred surface.

“and in his anger, Poseidon created Scylla to wreak havoc on seas and the seacoast!” she waved her fingers at him.

“Cetus”

“huh?”

“He created Cetus, not Scylla, she’s a six headed monster.” he cheekily pointed out, sticking his tongue out for good measure.

“Okay mister know-it-all,” she cheekily grinned, “I think it’s time to head to bed.”

She quickly checked her phone to confirm it was half-past 4 in the morning and way too late (early?) to be discussing sea monsters.

Pocketing her phone, she looked up to see a terrified look yet again plastered on the ghost’s face.

“Please don’t put me back in there!” he wheezed, “I promise I won’t cause any trouble and you won’t have to see or hear from me ever again!”

“Hey, breathe, remember what I said about trust?”

He seemed to make a point of nodding at a neck-snapping speed.

“Well, right now, I can’t trust my parents, so come one, you’re staying in my room until further notice!”

“...really?”

It would be hard. Sneaking in extra food for him, keeping him quiet, hell, just explaining to her parents how the ghost in their lab escaped from right under her nose, was going to be tough. And her parents weren’t stupid. Neglectful? Yes. Valued their work over their own daughter? Understatement of the year. But it was worth a try for him.

And sure, she had always said she was fine being on her own, she had even declined her parents’ attempts to get her a kitten when she was 12, arguing that she was better off on her own, a lone wolf of sorts. But now, looking into the eyes of a kid, ancients he really was just a kid, who’s seen much more pain than she could ever imagine, having a little brother didn’t seem half bad.

“Yeah little bro, let’s go”

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * *

INTERVIEW: SAINT MISBEHAVIN’ WAVY GRAVY

by Richard Whittaker, Dec 21, 2010

One day I got a note from ServiceSpace founder, Nipun Mehta offering me tickets to a new documentary movie about Wavy Gravy. Would you like to go?

    I went. Although I was aware of Wavy Gravy as a cultural icon, I really knew very little about him. The film is a eye-opener. Michelle Esrick’s loving documentary, Saint Misbehavin’ - 10 years in the making - is a real introduction to this remarkable man. I'd never heard about Hugh Romney, the man who later became famous as Wavy Gravy. And what a story. I'll mention just one of its surprises: earlier in his life, Hugh Romney was Lenny Bruce's manager.

    A few weeks after seeing the film, at Mehta’s urging, I had the chance to interview Wavy Gravy himself.

Richard Whittaker:  How are you feeling about Saint Misbehavin’?

Wavy Gravy:  Oh, it’s a swell movie. I’m honored to be so well-documented, and the review in the New York Times was embarrassing. I’m not that good.

RW:  You said in the film that you’re an “intuitive clown.” Would you mind saying something about what that means?

WG:  I’m trained in the art of acting improvisation. That means acting on the spur of the moment rather than doing, say, the focused slow burn and all the traditional clown moves. I don’t do any of that.

RW:  So that would be about sensing the moment, what’s there, and taking in who you’re with.

WG:  Absolutely—and sensing what’s going on. I was, for a number of years, with The Committee in San Francisco. I taught improvisation at Columbia Pictures. Harrison Ford was one of my students and I’ve taught improvisation at Camp Winnarainbow for over thirty years.

RW:  I wanted to ask you about your history. For instance, in New York in Greenwich Village, you wrote poetry, right?

WG:  Yes I did.

RW:  Is any of it available? And is it something you’d want people to find?

WG:  There are a couple of slender volumes out there. I think you’d have to go to Amazon or eBay to find them. I don’t even have copies myself. But other people do and will lend them to me when I need them.

RW:  Do any titles stand out for you?

WG:  Kaleidoscope and there’s Joe’s Song, which is taught in a poetry class at the University of California at Berkeley. Would you like to hear it?

RW:  Please.

WG:  Okay. It goes like this:  “Once upon and ever since I was a child in a child’s world. I have wept a child’s tears and built a child’s wall of clay and stone and colored years of poems in paint and virgin gold. I sought to build a wall so tall from lion eggs from Gallilee, a brick of song among the dregs of silver nails and lesser men a mile long to kiss the sun and climb again. Once ago and ever now I stood a man on a child’s wall. I stopped and prayed to spider webs and roses of the sea. I spoke as one with all the earth and knew the pain of birth and death to be the same without my wall. Once upon and ever furled I stand alone with all the world.”

RW:  That’s beautiful.

WG:  I wrote it in 1960 or about then. I don’t write lyric poems very often. These days I mainly write haiku, usually when friends pass away, which is happening more and more frequently from natural causes. Also I’ve been having the good fortune to have my art exhibited, and I do a haiku to go with each piece.

RW:  I’m imagining that, as a younger man, you had certain visions and deep feelings that could have been a liability for living the conventional life.

WG:  I don’t think I ever had to contend with that one [laughs]. I live in the land of one thing after another. [speaking with an east Indian accent] “The sand only goes through the hourglass one grain at a time,” as some Hindu sage proclaimed. I’ve discovered that to be true.

RW:  Did you have mentors who supported you in Greenwich Village?

WG:  It was kind of amusing. I was going to theater school at Boston University, which was an amazing theater school. The finest directors in the world would come in and the whole college would read for a part. A freshman could get a lead. It was extraordinary. And if you weren’t cast in the production, you would be cast in the lighting crew or the costume crew or the stage crew. Then there was an upset about theater students not doing their social studies and the university attempted to move the campus of the theater school over to where the rest of the university was laid out. Just at that time, the teachers who had all been hired during the McCarthy blackball because they couldn’t work on Broadway, well, the blackball ended and they all quit. They went to work at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, and they took me with them.

    But while I was at BU, I had read in Time Magazine about jazz and poetry in San Francisco. I thought, hey, I’ve written a couple of poems and I know some musicians. I can do that! So I got together with a bunch of artists from the museum school and we proceeded to take the basement of a bar called The Rock on Huntington Avenue. The place in the basement was called The Pebble in the Rock. We put in black tables and black clothes and mobiles and paintings and began doing jazz and poetry. It was the first jazz and poetry done on the East Coast. So I had the privilege of inaugurating the East Coast to jazz and poetry. I persisted in doing it for years in, of all places, Hartford Connecticut. On every Monday I would grab a bunch of musicians and go to Hartford and make substantial money. Otherwise I was going to the Neighborhood Playhouse and reading my poetry in the evenings at the Gaslight Café in Greenwich Village, as you saw in the movie.

RW:  That’s an amazing story. There was another thing you said in the film, “put your good where it can do the most.”

WG:  Which is the advice I gleaned from one of my mentors, the author and adventurer, Ken Kesey.

RW:  Did that kind of focus something for you?

WG:  Well, it lit up. It lit up. I had discovered that, somewhat. Whenever I would do a good thing, it made me feel good. I think I heard a preacher of color on television in the late fifties. He said, “It’s nice to be nice.” And that kind of hit a chord for me.

RW:  Do you think there’s a mix in what artists do? That in your poetry, part of it was trying to give something?

WG:  Hmmm, I don’t know. I was just trying to get out of the way and let whatever was inside of me come to the surface. In the early days, I was not all that consciously altruistic—although, in the early days of poetry, the poets were not paid. We used to pass a cornucopia around after an hour or so and people would put money in it. We made an embarrassing amount of money that way. Myself and Len Chandler, who was one of the first folk singers I brought into The Gaslight, he and I put on these capes with hoods—Len was an African-American and he had a motor scooter. And we would jump on the motor scooter at the end of the evening and drive down into the Bowery and find somebody passed out on the sidewalk. We’d stuff his pockets with money and drive off and find somebody else until we’d given away at least half of what we’d made in the course of the evening. It was a lot of fun.

RW:  That’s incredible. What do you think led you to do that?

WG:  I don’t know. It just seemed like a fun thing to do. We didn’t need all that money.

RW:  Do you remember the moment when Ken Kesey said “Put your good where it will do the most good”?

WG:  No.  But he told me a lot of stuff—like, “You should honor your mother and your father.” This comes out of the Bible. As soon as I learned that Kesey had written that, I forget how he worded it, I immediately called my mother and my father and honored them verbally as best I could. And it was illuminating for them and for me. Afterwards, I called Ken up to thank him. He said, “Well, it’s just so darn simple.”

RW:  I want to ask about giving and receiving. Do you have any thoughts in general, let’s say, about giving?

WG:  Giving seems to be easy for me. Receiving is the thing I’m just beginning to learn how to do with grace. It’s a work in progress, like the rest of me. Over the last thirty years I’ve experienced considerable physical difficulty, having had to receive a series of spinal surgeries and spending amounts of time in body casts. You have no alternative, or you starve. So it was necessary. I tell people I learned patience in the hospital. [there’s a pause] That’s a pun.

RW:   You’re right! [laughs]

WG:  And as my infirmities persisted, I learned to acquiesce to the moment and accept, with as much graciousness as I could muster, the assistance of people who offered it.

RW:  I bet this is true for lots of people, that it’s easier to give than to receive.

WG:  Right, but as I pointed out, I didn’t have much choice, as with a lot of the stuff that has happened to me in my life. Life situations have presented themselves and it was either sink or swim.

RW:  This reminds me of another part in the film. This is at Woodstock. You and the other members of The Hog Farm were brought there to be the police force for the whole event. You called yourselves “the please force.”

WG:  We were the Please Force. And we had also set up what we called the Trip Tent.

RW:  And there’s a part in the movie where you describe helping a young man who was having a bad acid trip.

WG:  As he came in ranting, this three-hundred pound Australian doctor laid on top of him and said, “Body contact. You need body contact” [said with an accent] and then a psychiatrist leaned in and said, [using another funny voice] “Just think of your third eye, man.”

   Then I figured it was time for me to make my move. I said, “Excuse me. I’d like to try something here.” And they all backed up. What’s this hippie going to do? That’s when I said, “What’s your name, man?”  

RW:  And he mumbled something…

WG:  I said, “No, your name.” He told me his name and I said it back to him. In fact, I said it back to him several times.

RW:  I noticed how very clear and emphatic you were when you got his name. “Okay, Bob. Bob, that’s your name.”

WG:  Your name is Bob.

RW:  Where did you get the knowledge of using that simple directness?

WG:  We’d spent some time on the psychotropic frontiers through the prankster days and beyond. It was not unfamiliar territory.

RW:  You knew something about being really concrete, and focused.

WG:  And through the greatest professor of them all, professor experience; and from courses at hard knocks university.

RW:  You’ve had a lot of hard knocks university experience, I think.

WG:  Yes. Well, that’s how you learn things.

RW:  You said in the film how you’d found you could get high without the psychotropic assistance. Could you say something about that again?

WG:  There are many ways to alter space. I do lots of breathing exercises, and I do mantras. Different people have different recipes to get to a space of consciousness and then to dwell in it for as long as you can, I guess. My own way is an amalgam of many different practices from many different lineages.

RW:  You evolved from Hugh Romney doing the poetry to where you were wearing a jester’s hat.

WG:  Between poems I used to talk about the bizarre things that happened to me during the day because it was really tedious just reading all these poems night after night after night.  Then a guy came along and said, look, skip the poetry. Just talk about your bizarre experiences. That’s how I got into doing stand-up.

    Lenny Bruce became my manager. I put out a couple of albums and toured the U.S. —and in fact, something of the world—doing stand-up before these other things came along.

RW:  Somewhere you left the jester’s hat and started dressing as a clown.

WG:  I was asked, when we had moved to Berkeley in the mid-seventies, to go the Children’s Hospital in Oakland and cheer up kids. On the way out the door of my house, someone handed me a red, rubber nose. I discovered it enabled me to get out of myself and be entertaining to the kids. After awhile, I began to paint my face up as a clown. Somebody gave me a costume, and a clown who was retiring from Ringling Brothers gave me his giant shoes. I worked with kids, with kids who were terminal, even, and did this almost every day for about seven years.

    At one point I had to go to a political rally at Peoples’ Park and I didn’t have time to take off my clown stuff. I discovered that the police didn’t want to hit me anymore. Clowns are safe.

RW:  Can you say more about what your experience at Children’s Hospital working with kids was like?

WG:  I discovered that not only was I helping the kids, I was helping myself. As I began to do this work, I’d gone through three major back surgeries and was in quite a bit of pain. But working with the kids I discovered that as I focused on the children and the pain they were in, I lost track of my own pain.

RW:  Is the clown an archetype you can inhabit?

WG:   Sure.

RW:  Do you think, “I’m a clown?”

WG:  I don’t know. I can’t see you.

RW:  [laughs] No. I have a long way to go. If I evolved, I might become a clown.

WG:  Well, you need to go to camp Winnarainbow. They’ll teach you to clown. It’d be good for you. I think John Townsend said it most brilliantly in The Book of the Clown, “A clown is a poet who is also an orangutan.” But clown comes from the word “clod” or bumpkin, and the red nose indicates they were drunk. But I found all this out later. Suddenly I have these big shoes on and [laughs] a nose and I’m painting my face up, and where does it all come from? I began to study it, and it’s very fascinating, the path of the clown and the jester.

RW:  What have you found out about being a clown? What has been revealed?

WG:  It enables me to go places I couldn’t go as a regular kind of guy. People feel challenged by people going where I go. But when I put on the patina of a clown I’m no challenge to them in any way.

RW:  What do you wish for people when you become a clown?

WG:  I wish that they would find joy in the moment. It’s like I expressed in the film, laughter is the valve on the pressure cooker of life. Either you laugh at stuff or you’re going to end up with your beans on the ceiling.

RW:  At camp Winnarainbow in the film it showed the labyrinth you have on the grounds…

WG:  It’s a unicursal Cretan labyrinth. The oldest one is 3000 years old and was found on the island of Sardinia. The more common labyrinth, like the one you see at Grace Cathedral came about during the 11th or 12th century when Europeans could not go to Jerusalem on pilgrimage. So they developed this other labyrinth, which is different from the Pagan labyrinth, which made it to Scandanavia, to India and somehow to Peru and to the sun temple at Mesa Verde. That’s where I first encountered it when I spent time living with the Hopi Indians for a few months.

RW:  How did that happen?

WG:  I was enamored of the Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters. And that’s where I first saw the labyrinth. According to the Hopi if there was a condition of planetary emergency the different races would gather on this mesa for instruction from the spirit world. So I showed up. They said, “You’re pretty early.” But they took pity on me and I got to hang out with them for a while.

RW:  Was anything given to you?

WG:  Not something that I would feel comfortable talking about, but yes—not so much from the people as from the geography.

RW:  So you brought this labyrinth to camp Winnarainbow, then?

WG:  Yes. I asked Minalanska, who was an elder, what that was. She said, “Oh Wavy Gravy, that’s just the master plan of the universe.” So I borrowed a pencil and wrote it down, and I’ve brought it everywhere I’ve gone ever since. I learned to draw it. Even with my first book, I’d sign it and draw that labyrinth.

RW:  Now how do you make use of the labyrinth at camp for the kids?

WG:  A teepee at a time, in the evening, the campers get to walk the labyrinth to beautiful music under the stars. If they do good things, they get strokes. If they do bad things they get strikes. Three strikes and you’re out. You can always work off strikes, but you can get enough strikes to be sent home, too. By doing things above and beyond the ordinary camper—for instance, if you get eight stokes in a two-week session, you get to walk into the center of the labyrinth. In the center, there’s also these crystals. You get to take a crystal out of the labyrinth and take it home.

RW:  Do you talk to the kids about the labyrinth?

WG:  Oh, sure.

RW:  What do you tell them?

WG:  I tell them that the labyrinth is not a maze. Mazes are designed to get you lost. Labyrinths are designed to get you found. And I ask them to think of each step as a prayer for peace. I tell them you go into the labyrinth and that there’s an energy in the center that I call the spirit of Gaia, the earth mother. I say that if you have cares or problems you can leave them in the labyrinth and come out perhaps lighter than when you went in. And that is sometimes helpful to young people.

RW:  In the film you made a comment to one kid that the labyrinth is inside of you.

WG:  Oh, I tell all the kids that. The true labyrinth is inside you.

RW:  That’s powerful. From the film, I see that your life has been a journey. Do you feel it that way?

WG:  Absolutely. It’s been a great adventure.

RW:  What are some of the changes from where you were and where you are today?

WG:  The things that are the most significant for me in my life are the circus and performing arts camp that I’ve run with my wife Jahanara for over thirty years. We do nine weeks for kids and one week for grown-ups. And the Seva Foundation is another. Through it I’m able to raise funds to help the blind regain their sight. Eighty percent of the blind people in the world don’t need to be—they can get their sight back.

    When we first started doing the work it was about five dollars for a cataract operation. Now it’s close to fifty dollars for the operation in third world countries. If you go to SEVA.org you can find out all about us. We’ve helped to orchestrate—it’s going on three million sight-saving operations. I get to put on concerts to raise funds to do that. I’m going to be seventy-five years old in May and I’m looking forward to doing a concert in the Bay Area at the Craneway Pavillion in Richmond and in New York City at the Beacon Theater. And also I’m facing another basic spinal surgery in January. So I’ve got a lot of stuff on my plate.

RW:  I know we don’t have much more time, but …

WG:  Eternity now, I always say.  That’s one of my favorite quotes. And we’re all the same person trying to shakes hands with our self. I think that’s a good one, too.

RW:  I like those quotes. It’s clear that you’ve spent a lot of time doing forms of service. Camp Winnarainbow seems to be a service.

WG:  Well, my greatest legacy is the children that have come out of camp over the last thirty years. Lots of the kids who started camp when they were seven are now running the camp. And I’m sure it will go on long after I’m gone.

RW:  Is that something one begins to learn, that the deepest gifts come when one can look beyond personal wants to take in the needs of others?

WG:  That is my want! [laughs] Put your good where it will do the most. I can’t say it any better.

[WORKS AND CONVERSATIONS]

[blackevermore]

x Secrets of The Lake: The Company of Misery and Pain

{ Chapter 15 }

Summary: Vladimir Masters’ family tree has always been tainted by secrets swept under the rug. From generation to generation there have been countless reasons the Masters’ family had seemed to keep private from the public. Even to this day, Vladimir was no exception. But what was one to do when a restless spirit from the settlement years finally breaks free from restraints and demands you answer for your ancestor’s crimes? Vladimir doesn’t know. However, Clockworks does.

Notes: We just having fun, rewriting some of the canon, new adventure new characters. I will apologize now for any grammar, spelling, weird sentence structuring in advance. My brain writes faster than my fingers and even when I go back through to reread it I still miss things. Sorry about that!

Word Count: 8640

P.s: Chapters will be taking longer to get out which means they will get longer to read as well

Breakfast was quiet, Dani as usual came from her room and sat at the table half asleep waiting for her father to finish cooking. Vlad stood at the stove flipping the last few pancakes and scrambling eggs. But that form of silence Vlad was used to. This new silence felt strange as if it hung over his shoulders that something was wrong. Vlad crunched his nose and thought of something else to distract him. He settled for what he remembered yesterday night, it had been bugging him just who Dani was on the phone with. He knew that if she had started dating she wouldn’t tell him. Danny would be her to go to person or even Jazz due to how much closer they were in age; also the fact neither of them were her parental figure. But being a very nosy person by human nature Vlad had to poke at his daughter to settle the cat inside him. With a slow forming wicked grin Vlad placed down the spatula and cleared his throat. 

“Danielle?” Vlad called over his shoulder to wake the other and received a hum in response. “Who was that you were on the phone with last night? I couldn’t help hearing you through your door when I walked by.” Vlad tried to sound as normal as possible without giving it away he was snooping. Vlad heard the sound of the chair carting against the floor and Dani struggling to sit up straight. 

“Oh that was just some friends, I meant to call them yesterday after the graduation but I didn’t have the chance.” Vlad could hear the pitch in her voice rise in nervousness. He turned his head slightly to look over his shoulder at the young phantom and he saw how red her face became. Clearly a lie. Vlad smirked and finished cooking and placing the food on plates before using his powers to move said plates towards the dining table. Once seated he motioned for her to dig in and Dani was hesitant as she made her plate. Once the young girl was face deep in her pancakes Vlad smiled and cleared his throat once more to gather her attention. 

“Surely if you were starting to date you would tell me, right?” Vlad had no time to react as Dani’s eyes widened and she slightly choked on her food. She managed to clear her airways and hide her face in her hoodie. Vlad had to keep from showing how satisfied he was at knowing he was right. A point for Vlad. 

“Why are you bringing this up?!” Dani couldn’t bring herself to uncover her face, she couldn’t look Vlad in the eyes right now. But even though the thick fabric of her hoodie she could tell he was looking right at her and smirking. 

“Is it a boy?” 

“No!” Dani snapped back hard and Vlad chuckled as he shook his head and took a bit from his pancakes. She didn’t mean for it to come off so harsh but she did hope he would leave her alone about it. 

“Ah, so a lovely young lady, is it? Care to share her name?” Dani groaned and finally lowered her hoodie but refused to look her father in the eyes. She shook her head and Vlad understood, he wasn’t going to push her on it nor was he going to demand it from her. He was happy though. It was so cute to see Dani branching into that age of discovery and possibly finding interest in someone. Vlad didn’t care who but he did have limitations on certain things. “They are of your age, correct?” Dani only shook her head ‘yes’. “Do they know you are...” Dani shook her head ‘no’ and Vlad was satisfied.

If this relationship his daughter was about to embark on was serious then at the right time Dani would tell this young lady her secret. Hopefully, she would be just as helpful as Danny’s friends were when he was growing up. Vlad remembered when he was young and had developed a crush. Unknown to everyone who knew him now, Maddie was not his first love. That title went as far back as a middle school back home in Wisconsin to a boy named Thomas. Vlad had no idea that the feelings he had then were romantic until he was older but he could recall how gitty Thomas made him. There was never the time the other held his hand every time they rode the bus home from school until Vlad was the first to be dropped off.  

“C-Can we drop this now?” Dani muttered and Vlad smiled gently and nodded. The young girl sighed and tried her best to get back into her food but she knew her father had one more thing to say. She could see it in his eyes as he stared at her. 

“Don’t you think saying you love them is a bit early? Unless you’ve been seeing this young lady for a while and I’m just now hearing about it.” Vlad said teasingly as he watched his daughter groan and once again cover her face. He let out a lite chuckle then promised he wouldn’t speak on it anymore unless she wanted to. Dani rolled her eyes and told him she was finished and that she was in her room if he needed her. But before she could float away they both heard the sound of faint groaning in the distance. Vlad turned his head trying to find just where it was coming from but had no luck as it still sounded far away. 

“What is that?” Dani floated over to the sliding doors and looked through the glass. Vlad quickly placed down his fork and strolled behind her to see but saw nothing in the garden. Then like cold water, it washed over him that Tayonna was in fact missing in action. The night before he had looked for her and couldn’t find her. He didn’t think anything of it since she would just show up if he had a dream. But that was it, he didn’t have any dream last night, everything was a blank canvas and Vlad had woken up refreshed and well. He had expected Tayonna to be there but she wasn’t. When the groaning became a bit louder Vlad stiffened and clenched his fist. 

“Danielle stays right here, I’ll be back.” Vlad turned towards his daughter with hardened eyes and Dani nervously nodded. Vlad unlocked the door and slid it back and stepped out into his garden before closing it back. He followed the whimpering which led toward the statue. Vlad took note that the roses that were wrapped around the statue were not wilting and one by one dried and dead petals fell to the ground. Vlad stepped closer and tried to figure out why this was happening all of a sudden. Just yesterday the roses were alive and beautiful and danced in the gentle breeze of the summer air. Vlad gently touched one of the rose heads and it crumbled to ash at his fingertips. Vlad flinched back and frowned, they were very beautiful and it was a shame. The whimpering continued and it pulled Vlad away from the statue to the left that travelled to behind the house. As Vlad slowly followed the sound he noticed a trail of green buds poking out from the ground. They were unblossomed rosebuds that seemed to pulse through the low cut grasses. Vlad did his best to not step on them as he followed them towards the back of the house, they were his only sense of where to go.  

As he travelled along the path he saw that the buds began to change into the next stage of growth. They were frozen stills of a flowering cycle and it was fascinating, to say the least. When he saw the first peek of a petal he saw that they were vibrant green and glowing through the leaves. When he made it to the back the whimpering was a lot more clear and the ground glowed a faint green. Even with the sun out, he could see the pulsating glow from the fully bloomed roses that now clustered together like bushes. Vlad wasn't sure what he would find in the bush and he steadied himself. He ignited his powers in his left hand and held it low. As much as he preferred to handle ghostly fights in private he was not above settling the score out in the open. He inched closer trying to get a peek of what was to come before fully dragging himself over. When he saw the form of a hand and dark skin he shook his powers away and rushed over to the bush. Tayonna laid on her back in the bush breathing heavily in a pant and a twisted look of pain on her face. She was groaning and shaking slightly as she held onto her right arm in a tight grip. Tayonna didn’t seem to notice Vlad standing over her and rolled to her side to curl into herself.  

“What’s wrong with her?” Dani’s voice scared Vlad and he jumped to the side, clenching his chest. He took a deep breath then narrowed his eyes towards where Dani could have been. The girl became visible and rubbed her arm with an apologetic expression. “I told you to stay put,” his voice was stern and Dani knew better than to disobey him when there could be a danger. But she was curious and also worried that he might have needed help if something went wrong. After the events of last time, she really didn’t want to see him hurt. Vlad held up a finger before she could answer and shook his head. “We’ll discuss later, right now, stand behind me.” Vlad pulled Dani behind him but the girl moved to his side and looked over his arm. Vlad wasn’t going to touch Tayonna, not when these weird green glowing roses cradled around her. He had never seen anything like these. He wasn’t too sure if they were related to Blood Blossoms or not. God knows if he touched one it would do to him, but at the same time, he felt they were in a strange way safe. They were inviting with how they pulsated and seemed to wrap their stems around her. A thick stem was curled around her ankle and up the ends of her long skirt. Another was wrapped around her waist and another was wrapped around the arm she was holding.  

They didn’t seem tight as Tayonna twisted and turned and the stems would give way so she could adjust. Vlad was curious to know what other powers the ghost had, he also wondered what effects they had on ghosts. He could remember how the Blood Blossoms weakened ghosts, there was always the misconception that they killed ghosts but that wasn’t the case. A ghost could easily get away from them if they weren’t stuck in an enclosure of them but if they were they would just be weakened. Vlad knew firsthand what it was like to be affected by them and he hoped he never dealt with that again. Vlad took a deep breath and held it as he reached out and touched the petals. A shock of energy ran through Vlad’s body and he felt his core thump against his chest. It wasn’t painful but rather energetic as if Vlad had just had a day's worth of sleep and energy drinks. It felt amazing but Vlad knew he had to pull away before he became too intoxicated by it. Vlad pulled his hand back and stared at it trying to figure out what just happened and why. 

“Those aren’t Blood Blossoms?” Dani asked, pointing out towards the roses. 

“No, they seem to do the very opposite of the blossoms. They give you energy instead of taking it away. Interesting.” Vlad's voice trailed away as he saw the tips of his fingers slightly glow then the surge of the glowing travel up his body. He looked back to Tayonna and gently touched her shoulder to pull her towards him to uncurl her. When Tayonna gave way she let out a deep sigh and Vlad could now see the damage along her right arm. From her knuckles to her shoulder her skin was cracked like glass and dark like a fire had been set against her skin. He could also see the faint debris of what looked like ash coming off of her and being sucked up by the roses. When Tayonna groaned again the roses grew brighter and she rolled back over to cover her arm. The roses must have been a healing factor of sorts and Tayonna needed to smother her arm into the petals for it to work. Vlad felt in his core he couldn’t leave her there, he had better ways to treat wounds and injuries in his lab, it was best to get her there and handle whatever this was. Vlad wasted no time in rolling her back over and getting his arms under her to lift her up and out of the flower bed. The stems of the roses gave way with ease from around her and shrivelled back into the ground. Tayonna gasped then curled against his body and Vlad felt a small shiver run up his back. 

“Are you going to help her?” Dani asked, Vlad could hear in her voice the uncertainty, but he simply nodded and pulled the girl closer to him. There wasn’t a foreign feeling this time telling him to do it, this was genuine and Vlad wanted to help.  

“If I leave her here there is no telling how long it will take her to recover. It’s best if we handle it my way, wouldn’t want someone walking past the house and seeing her just lying there.” Vlad quickly took note as he spun on his heels that Tayonna felt like nothing. Despite her size and height, he lifted her with ease as if she surely was nothing but ghost matter. This was a bit odd considering solid ghosts did of course have weight to them. It was in their basic genetics of keeping themselves together. Vlad knew he could feel her snuggling against him, probably taking comfort from his warmth, but there was nothing in his hands. Very interesting. Vlad told Dani to get the door and he walked into his house carefully so as to not shake up Tayonna anymore, and sunk through the floor to get to the basement.  

“Danielle, get me a table, please.”  Dani ran off to clear off one of the tables that had Vlad’s papers and books on it. It was just the right size to place someone on it and Vlad was grateful he always overcompensated with furniture. He placed the girl down and Tayonna began to shiver as the cold metal touched her skin. Vlad quickly placed his hand on the table to warm it and ease Tayonna from discomfort. Vlad watches as Tayonna's face falls from knotted brows to an almost gentle sleep. 

“Now what?” Dani asked, floating over Vlad’s shoulder a few feet back. She wasn’t as shaken up by Tayonna but that didn’t mean she wanted to be near her. 

“Now I help her, and possibly study the roses she slept in. Do me a favor dear and go get a handful of those roses and bring them down here.” Dani nodded and shot through the ceiling. Vlad walked over to a large metal cabinet and pulled it open to retrieve the supplies he needed. A couple of months ago Vlad had the idea to create a cream specifically for ghosts that would jump start their healer factor in case a wound took too long to heal on its own. It mostly made it for Danny after he got in a really bad fight that left a scar down the middle of his back that could easily be seen at the tip of his t-shirts. Vlad hadn’t used it on burns before but he was sure it would help all the same. He brought everything to another table beside Tayonna and set everything out in order. First, he would need to get a better look at what he was working with, which meant getting Tayonna to let go of her arm.

 Vlad reached over and took the girl’s wrist and tried to pull it away but Tayonna gripped it tighter and tried to roll away. Vlad huffed and let go to pull her shoulders back down and settle her. Vlad put his hands on his hips trying to think of the best way to get the girl to corporate. Sure tying down one hand and forcing the other was a method he was more used to but he knew that would only end up in a disaster. Then a thought formed in his head, he knew it wasn’t his own but it seemed like it would actually work. ‘It better work’ Vlad thought then sighed as he loomed back over the girl and took hold of her wrist once more.  

“Tayonna,” Vlad called out gently as if he was trying to wake her. “Please let go.” Vlad rubbed his thumb across her wrist trying to ease her grip and with a few more caressing rubs her fingers loosened and she let go. “Thank you.” Vlad brought her arm to her side then walked around to see the wounded one. It seemed to have gotten better but it was still an unpleasant sight. Her brown skin started to fade back into itself but the cracks and wrinkles seemed like they drove deep. Vlad ran a hand over the skin and felt how warm it felt compared to the rest of her. He then took her hand into his and looked at her fingers. They weren’t small and fragile, they were rough like workers and seen better days outside of the sun. Vlad could easily tell Tayonna was not the type to sit around and do simple tasks that held no weight. From the dreams, he could remember, Tayonna was always busy with harder labour that required rough hands and a strong grip. Vlad ran a thumb over her knuckles and sighed before pulling himself away to grab the creams and wraps. 

Dani watched from where she floated as her father went to work helping the other. She had already picked a handful of roses and came back just as her father was asking Tayonna to let go of her arm. She could see that he was gentle and maybe a bit too caring as he held up her arm or moved her a bit. It was odd seeing him so gentle with strangers who held no virtue in his life. When she left, her father had made it clear he didn’t take Tayonna as any more than a nuisance from the ghost zone. But the look on his face told her that during her time away something must have happened that put them on some equal level. Dani had to squint a bit as she saw how soft her father’s eyes became as he rubbed the cream into Tayonna's arm. He had the same look in his eyes he only ever gave one person Dani could recall. Dani didn’t know what to actually make of this and could nearly double over and question everything as she tried to figure out just what had happened during her time away. She cringed a bit when a certain thought crossed her mind. 

“That should do it,” Vlad said, cleaning off his hands with a rag and stepping away from the table. Vlad turned around and smiled at Dani, she held out the flowers and he thanked her as he took them and brought them over to his testing table. “She should be fine within a couple of hours. Though I’m not sure if that is an appropriate time frame considering her wound looks more like burns than scars. But nonetheless. Vlad pulled one of the roses out from the bunch and cut the stem off from the bud. The rose lost some of its glow when he did so and he quickly took note of that. From the cut rose he plucked one of the petals and dropped it into a test tray of ectoplasm he kept for testing purposes. When the petal came in contact with the substance the ectoplasm started to glow. He pulled the test tray under a microscope and examined it, and what he found was truly impressive. The molecules from the pedals were absorbing the ectoplasm then spitting it out in doubles before binding them like a net with another abnormally shaped molecule. 

Vlad has seen this before in blood clots and how they formed nettings to cover wounds to send in platelets cells for repair. The green roses were plant based immune system boosters. Vlad knew this could come in handy in the future and he quickly gathered up the rest of the roses and tied them off in a science bag. He walked over to the cooler he kept his other tests in and pulled the marker from the holder to write the date and time.  

He put everything away and he turned back towards Tayonna who was now completely still on the table. He could see the shallow ups and downs of her chest and could tell she was now in a complete sleep. He walked over to check on her arm and saw the cream was in fact working and had already filled in the cracks. It was only a matter of time before her skin would turn back to normal and she would wake up. Happy with his results he turned to Dani and walked over to lay his hand on her shoulder. 

“Seems like she’ll make a recovery, it's best we leave her be for now.” He gently squeezed his daughter's shoulder. 

“She isn’t like dying or something, right?” Dani asked. Vlad shook his head then looked over his shoulder. 

“No it was just an injury of sorts. They are healing so whatever it was only skin deep. When she wakes up I’ll have to ask her what attacked her to make sure we’re not in danger. I highly doubt we are, but just to be sure.” Vlad turned back around then motioned for the stairs. Vlad didn’t want to tell Dani that he didn’t feel like there was a threat. He didn’t want the girl asking even more questions that could potentially lead to him having to tell her about the core issues. It was best to just keep it under wraps. Dani let out a sigh and turned around to walk away, grumbling about how they could have flown. Vlad chuckled as he heard her and shrugged. 

Tayonna handed Vladan the rose and the man couldn’t hide the amazed look in his eyes. He knew that flowers could come in many ways and colors, but for them to glow like this was beyond him. Tayonna was truly a master of her craft and Vladan couldn’t help but feel the tug of his heartstrings. It had been two months since he found out her secret and she never failed to amaze him. 

“This is what you’ve been giving my brother?” Vladan rolled the rose in his hand then brought it to his nose to smell. He had thought due to its abnormalness it would smell weird, but it didn't, it smelled like any other rose. The girl nodded then backed away from him with her head low. Ever since he had found out she was a witch Vladan had spent every waking moment by her side. He knew it made the girl uncomfortable but he had to make sure she wasn’t trying to do any wrong. He also just had to quench his thirst for the unknown that lurked around. He felt like a child every time he asked her to show him something. Tayonna, always uneasy but not wanting to upset him, would lead him away from any prying eyes and show him the wonders of the unknown. Vladan could still recall the way her fingers lit up in a purple hue and she made sparkles of light float around them. When they finished he would awkwardly say thank you in German and hastily turned back towards the house as if hell was hot on his heels. 

“They will heal him for as long as he wishes to be here,” Tayonna asked him but never brought her head up. “They are known as Green Whispers where I’m from and they are used for healing practices.” Vladan hummed and plucked a pedal off the bud and rolled it in his fingers. He felt a small pulse surge through him and he smiled.

“Can anyone grow these?” 

“No, only those chosen to be priests.” Vladan’s brow rose in curiosity and he placed the rose back on the table in front of him. He knew nothing about Tayonna other than what his parents told him, which wasn’t much, and the few bits Luther was able to sputter out before falling to sleep. He wanted to know more about her whether it was personal or magic related. He wanted to know if the tales of witches he had heard back across the seas were true to those of different origins. He already debunked the one above all witches being ugly. Tayonna was far from with her hooded eyes and full features. Nor was she a sore to look at with her fuller figure and soft appealing skin. He could agree she was short due to his 6’3 height but that would be unfair to her 5’6. She stopped right below his collar when she stood up straight and it was tempting to pull her in and see how well she fit next to him. Vladan couldn’t excuse himself the more he chose to close the distance between them, he wanted to touch her. Maybe it was the rush of something new or maybe it was that he found her interesting. Since he arrived he couldn’t fathom the thought of a black girl with bright green eyes. Yet, there Tayonna was, tending to his brother, and always outside in the gardens, taking space within his mind for then she should.  

“You were supposed to be a priest?” Vladan wasn’t too sure if that was a possible thing a woman could do. Not where he was from was it common to have a woman reach such status. She could become a nun or even a mother of the church, but to hold the title of a priest was few and far between. 

“Destined to be until-” Tayonna stopped abruptly when the door to the front of the house opened and Vladan’s mother came in. Vladan quickly snatched the rose off the table and shoved it into his pocket. 

“Dearest?” His mother called to him and Vladan stood and bowed his head to greet her. The older woman kissed her son’s cheeks then smoothed his dark hair. Vladan could tell there was something worrying his mother from the way her brows knitted together. She started to correct his clothing and hair like she would do when he was a child when she was anxious. Vladan used to think it was just her way of doting on him before they went to see guests; now he knew that meant something wavered at her nerves. As his mother continued her frantic apparel corrections she looked over at Tayonna who continued to stand as still as she could with her head bowed. “Tayonna there is no need to lower your head, stand with a purpose in a Mægisters’ presents or you will be eaten alive.” The servant took in a harsh breath and raised her head and stood up straight. Vladan couldn’t help himself from staring her on and drinking in the ghostly look in her eyes. “Much better,” The older woman nodded, then patted her son’s chest. Then stepped away to look between them, she saw the way her son looked towards the girl and it made her heart slow in fear. "If you are going to be known for something treacherous, I much rather you stand with pride than cower like the rest of them.” The women’s words weren’t bitter but rather a backhanded compliment of encouragement  

“Mother?” Vladan snapped back around to his mother who was already sidestepping him and heading towards a different part of the house. Vladan didn’t go after his mother immediately, he looked back towards Tayonna who gave him nothing for a response then stormed away. “Mother, what are you on about?” 

    Vlad's fingers found home smoothing out Tayonna’s wild curls as he sighed then quickly pulled away when he realized what he was doing. It had been a couple of hours and Tayonna still hadn’t woken up but her arm was completely back to normal. He had only meant to come down and check on her, take notes of the effects, then leave to go back and enjoy the rest of his day. He had already been to work and quickly came home upon Dani request she not be left alone in the house if Tayonna were to awaken. When he ventured down the pull on his core told him he had to get closer. And when he did the voice inside him said nothing but silently pleaded for Vlad to touch her again.  All day he couldn’t stop thinking about how he held her in his arms when he carried her. He wanted to do it again, or at least satisfied the burning in his fingertips that told him to do it again. He only wanted to indulge Vladan’s annoying pleading to make him shut up. However, when Vlad felt how soft her hair was and how peaceful she looked asleep on the table he got lost in a trance of his own. 

The only other person whose hair he caressed was Dani’s when she was younger and would have terrible nightmares. He had thought of the countless fantasies he had of caressing Maddie’s hair and how that made him feel. But this was new and a bit refreshing. He couldn’t run his fingers through her hair, it was too coarse and filled with curls that went in every which way. Maybe if he had the chance to brush her hair it would be easier but he highly doubted it. 

Vlad knew he should reach out and touch her again, he scolded himself to simply say she was alright and go back upstairs but he was too curious to know. Vlad told himself to make it quick before he felt his mind being taken over again while he reached out to run a thumb over her cheek. He held his breath as he cupped the side of her face and caressed her cheek. She felt so cold against his fiery skin and it felt amazing. Vlad was constantly on fire from the inside and the slight comfort of a cool surface always relaxed him. Tayonna’s skin was smooth but he also enjoyed the feeling of texture in her skin he did find. He was supposed to pull his hand away already but he found himself in a trance fighting with his fantasies of Maddie and the realness of Tayonna. They were so different and he knew nothing about Tayonna like he believed he did of Maddie. Vlad was only able to pull himself out of his trance when he felt Tayonna’s head roll into his hand and nuzzle his palm. He quickly calmed himself as he tried to pull his hand away before she opened her eyes but Tayonna’s hand shot up and held him there.  

Tayonna took a deep breath then let out huffs as she continued to find comfort in the hand on her face. It felt so familiar and warm and for a moment she could have sworn she knew who it belonged to. Her eyes slowly fluttered open and it took a bit for her vision to get adjusted due to the change of sensory. She had remembered being outside and now she was in a dimly lit room. When she felt the hand on her cheek trying to escape she closed her eyes and chuckled and pulled it back kissing the palm. 

“Where are you going?” Tayonna’s voice was sweet and playful as she smiled and let out a small giggle. Vlad felt his heart skip a beat and his cheeks heat to a faint pink. This wasn’t good and he knew that when she realized whose hand that actually was she wouldn’t be too happy. But Vlad would rather face the music than allow this to go on any further so he cleared his throat and pulled his hand away a bit forcefully. Tayonna's eyes flew open and she shot up from the table and looked around. When her eyes landed on Vlad she looked down at his hand then quickly back up to his eyes. Her eyes widened and she quickly jumped off the table and backed away from him. She gripped her skirt nervously and looked around frantically trying to figure out where she was. 

“Please calm down, you were hurt and I brought you to my lab to help you.” Vlad held up his hands and walked towards her. When Tayonna jumped back Vlad quickly halted in his steps cursing himself. Tayonna touched her arm which had been damaged and she looked it over before locking eyes with Vlad again. 

“You helped me? Why?” Her words hurt him as she narrowed her eyes, which earned her a tsk and Vlad rolling his eyes. 

“A thank you would have been nice considering your method of healing would have taken longer than expected.” Vlad crossed his arms and leaned on one leg. “ You looked terrible curled up in a bed of roses.” Vlad knew that was a lie but it was the best he could come up with trying to save face. Like hell he would tell her he found her charming in her rose bed with stems wrapped around her. Like hell he would tell anyone that for a matter of fact. Tayonna seemed to realize she was being rude and she sighed and turned away from him. 

“Thank you.” She muttered. 

“You’re welcome, now if you don’t mind telling me what caused all of this that would be wonderful.” Vlad walked towards his work desk and took a seat in his chair. Tayonna once again gripped her dress and thought over what to say before raising her head and standing with a shaky air of confidence.  

“I tried to leave.” 

“Leave?” Vlad brows knotted and he pointed towards the ghost portal across from him. Tayonna shook her head ‘no’ and slowly raised a finger up towards the ceiling. 

“I can’t leave.” Tayonna's voice was broken as it trailed off and Vlad swallowed hard. He felt his mind become split in two for a moment between yelling at him to stop her from ever trying that again and actually being surprised she tried to leave on her own. He wasn’t against her leaving, a matter of fact if she went maybe he would have a clear conscience to actually think. The voice in his head that filled with worry finally shutting up and leaving with her could possibly be a blessing. But when he realized that her trying to leave is what caused the damage he groaned and rubbed the bridge of his nose. 

“Is it him that won't allow you to leave?” Vlad asked, waving a hand through the air. Tayonna shrugged her shoulders and Vlad gritted his teeth trying to make sense of this. “I take it this isn’t the first time you’ve tried to leave either, is it.” Tayoona shook her head and Vlad bit his lip and ran his fingers through his hair. He brought a hand to his face and stroked his chin trying to think but nothing could come to mind. While Vlad threw blanks after blank in his head he took notice that Tayonna now ran her fingers over her cheek. She looked so hurt and confused as she ghosted her fingers in the place his hand once were. He wanted to reach out and remove her hand and replace it with his and just hold her but he mentally kept his hand bound to his side.  

“You touched me.” Tayonna pulled her hand away from her face. 

“Well I didn’t want to but he did.” Vlad felt his cheeks heat up again and he turned to fake a cough.  

“No, it was you, you touched me, I felt it was you.” Tayonna lifted a hand to her chest and took a shaky breath then dropped it. 

“Miss Tayonna I can assure you the only reason I have touched you in the whole time you’ve been here was due to unwilling subconscious interference. I would much rather keep the distance we have, but this annoying nagging in my head from your ever so...lovely reminder of the past will not leave me alone.” Vlad pointed towards his ears, he wasn’t necessarily lying, half the time he touched her wasn’t his doing. Or if it was it was because Vladan had hinted in a way to calm Tayonna down from spiralling out of control. The last time Vlad was going to weasel himself out with pretty excuses and hope the ghost wouldn’t push for the truth. But he could see in Tayonna’s eyes she already knew the truth and his pretty lies weren’t going to work on her. However, at the same time, her eyes told him she wouldn’t hold it against him. She would pretend to buy his excuse and allow this time to pass. 

“Then don’t touch me.” Her words didn’t hold a threat like the other few times she had said it to him. It almost came off like a little tease. Vlad didn't see or feel Tayonna’s skin to know she was blushing. He felt it in his core. Blasted! He had forgotten they were bound and could sense each other. It seemed it only made itself noticeable when emotions were a bit high or like a sick joke when the moment called for it. Vlad would have chuckled and made a flirtatious remark if this had been a different situation and a different person. He might have even played into it and teased the other right back. But this wasn’t that and Vlad was not going to cross any lines that were set by themselves with Tayonna. 

“Very well,” was all Vlad could muster as he stood from his chair and hooked his hand behind his back. “I would like to introduce you properly to my daughter. Which you already met on a very sour first impression. But second time’s a charm I suppose, but fair warning, she’s not as excited to see you. So do be on your best behaviour, any harm that comes her way will be dealt with.” Vlad motioned for Tayonna to follow him up through the ceiling and she did. 

“Danielle? Please come here, dear.” Vlad yelled throughout the first floor and heard a faint ‘coming’ ranging from the living room. When the youngest phantom flew through the walls she quickly dropped to her feet and gasped. Tayonna stood a few steps behind Vlad and stared right into the girl’s soul. Dani shivered a bit, normally green eyes wouldn’t freak her out, but Tayonna was the strongest exception. Dani felt herself become nervous and quickly shot her hands up to her head as she shook it back and forth. 

“She’s doing the mind thing again!” Dani pointed her finger towards Tayonna who almost seemed taken back by the assumption. 

“No she isn’t, you’re nervous.” Vlad sighed and placed his hands on his hips. 

“How do you know?” Dani shot her father a look but quickly dismissed it when he returned a very fatherly one. 

“Because,” because I could feel it if she did. “Because she agreed to not do that to you nor I as long as she stayed here.” Vlad sounded very sure of himself as he stepped to the side and allowed Dani to fully see Tayonna. “Danielle I would like you to meet Tayonna. Tayonna, this is my daughter, Danielle.” Dani gave a quick and nervous ‘hi’ as she took another step back and Tayonna lifted the ends of her skirt to bow. “Danielle, Tayonna will most likely be home with you while I’m away at work during the day. Which means you will have to try and get along with her. But also means that if anything happens you call me straight away or get ahold of Daniel to handle the situation. She has promised to not do anything but we must be sure. For the time being it is for the best of us that we find our common ground within this house and respect them.”

“Yeah, okay…” Dani anxiously started rocking on her heels and Vlad sighed and told her she may go.  

“Dinner is in an hour!” Vlad called after the girl then grumbled something about teenagers before smiling. He turned back towards Tayonna, the girl had a small smile of her own and even soft eyes as she watched Dani leave. As the youngest phantom presents were gone, Tayonna's feelings leaked from her to Vlad. She had become unbearably sad. 

“Did you two ever have children?” Vlad asked, the curiosity of the cat purred and clawed at his mind. 

Tayonna raised a hand to her stomach and her eyes closed and brows fell in a sign of hurt, “We were, they would have been a girl.” Vlad now felt awkward for asking and turned away to hide his embarrassment. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be, he wasn’t.”

[meltedhorror]

Midsommar; as reviewed by me, a Swede

Okay so! Finally got around to writing this. This might be a long post, but oh well. Obvious spoiler warning.

For those who don’t know, I’m a Swede, born and raised in Sweden, having celebrated Midsummer every year that I’ve been on this earth. So needless to say - I would dare to say I know a bit about Midsummer. BUT I will admit that I may not be the very most knowledgable about how it was celebrated in the past and the exact origins about it. But I’ll try my best.

SO IMPORTANT TO KNOW BEFORE WE START TALKING ABOUT HOW THEY HANDLED MY CULTURE IN THE MOVIE.

Midsummer (in Swedish Midsommar) is the celebration of the fertilization of the earth, or the world being reborn anew. The celebration is to ask the gods/spirits to bless us with a good year of harvest and to keep our animals healthy. And thats the rough explanation of it.

So lets get into the movie stuff and see what they got accurate, no?

When our main cast arrive in Sweden and get to... I forgot the name of the place they went to-- I have relatives who come from there. Anyway, they are greeted with people doing drugs, drinking mushroom tea (also drugs) and being greeted by the multiple day celebration and preparation for Midsummer.

I don’t know how it is in other countries, but yes some people do make tea on special mushrooms here, and you do get high on it. You get these mushrooms from cow or horse shit, cause they grow in that, and then you make tea of it. It causes mostly hallucinations. I have friends who do it and I’ve been offered it a few times as well.

I don’t really know how every single person in this country spends their days before Midsummer, some may very well be hanging out doing drugs. But thats not really something majority of people do (surprise surprise).

When it comes to celebrating for a longer time.

It depends on where you are in the country. Some people make a huge thing out of it, celebrating sometimes the entire month, while others (like me) only spend like two days preparing and one day celebrating. It really depends on the people, how many are attending each separate celebration, and if its a local community centre (hembygdsgård in Swedish) thats holding the celebration.

What you do during this preparing time is things like building the majstång (dunno the translation tbh), make the food, depending on where you are make the special clothes for each participant, and a lot of girls pick flowers (we’ll get into that later).

So.. The clothes?

Yes! So we see people wearing these special clothes in the movie, and in this case they’re completely white and have runes on them. Again this depends on where you are and how you celebrate Midsummer if you actually wear these clothes.

Many hembygdsgårdar have them, and a lot of people do wear these clothes. But they come in many variants!

As you can probably tell, we don’t wear just plain white, but dress pretty colourful for the occasion!

You’d also probably wear a flower crown if you celebrated. Me and my mom always used to make flowercrowns for Midsummer when I was a kid, although they always came out very bad lmfao

So the midsommarstång or majstång?

Ah yes, can’t forget the main piece of the event! And I’m so glad they got it accurate in the movie! Or... Accurate with minor changes lmfao

(I couldn’t find a better picture I’m sorry)

So in the other two images that are not from the movie, we also have this centre piece I guess I could call it. This is the most important thing in our celebration, and it comes in two variant. The classic symbolism one (I will explain don’t worry) and one thats just a leafy pole with ribbons coming from the top.

The version we see in the movie however is the most common and has huge symbolism. What they did change about it though is that they put runes in the rings, which to my knowledge no one has ever done in this day and age, nor in the past.

BUT ANYWAY THE SYMBOLISM, DAMN I GET OFF TRACK FAST.

Remember how I said Midsummer is the celebration of the rebirth of the earth? The majstång symbolises a penis and a vagina, going into the ground to fertilize the earth and give life anew. Yes. We dance around a massive dick and coochie, what do you do during your summer?

The majstång is made of wood and leafy branches and a lot of the time is held together with steel wire or other sticks that are more bendable. And in my opinion? They nailed it in the movie.

I mentioned the girls picking flowers.

Okay so the day before Midsummer (I’m pretty sure at least) the girls would go out to pick flowers. But you have to do it in a certain way (which I don’t remember honestly) and you have to pick seven types of flowers. You have to walk backwards, and climb and walk a roof, and jump a gärdsgård (type of fence), and... Thats about what I remember.

What you do with these flowers after that is you put them beneath your pillow, and go to sleep before midnight, and then you’ll dream of your future lover.

Did I do this even though I’m a guy? Yes. Did it ever work? Hm... Not sure.

So what do the guys do? I honestly don’t really remember. I’m pretty sure you just go about your day as normal and help with chores and stuff. I might be wrong though.

They do this weird thing with their hands...

So throughout the movie you see the Swedes doing jazz hands I guess you could describe it the best. I’ve given it some thought, and I’m pretty sure what they’re doing is doing a forest clap, or a silent clap. I don’t know how it is in other countries but-

So basically when you’re out in nature you don’t want to disturb it, or you just don’t want to make a lot of noise, you can clap your hands like that. It means the same thing.

How do I know? Cause we got to learn two types of forest claps in school when I was a kid when we were out looking at rocks that got fucked when the great ice moved across the land.

So it might look weird, and I do admit it IS weird, but they are essentially just clapping their hands at things.

Okay, so how about the runes and learning runes?

In the movie they talk about how all the kids learn runes and how they write in runes. This is not something we do, obviously. But we do learn runes in school! Believe it or not, there was a time when I could write fluent runes and translate Swedish into runes.

They also talk about the runes having a great power. And this is actually interesting!

Back in the days of the Vikings, when we wrote in runes for real, they believed that the runes had powers and that if you etched the runes in with a weapon, either the rune got power of the weapon did (don’t remember which one). Thats why the runes do not have curved lines, because it was both difficult to make curves with something you slash at a rock or piece of wood, and you wouldn’t get as much power out of the rune/weapon.

Some runes have specific meanings, but majority of runes you’ll learn or see are just plain out letter you use to create words.

Runes are not inherently connected with Midsummer in the sense they want it to in the movie.

They made two old people jump off a cliff and die.

Okay so me being ever so slightly uncultured didn’t really know what this was either until I watched the movie, however my mom did.

Ättestupa was a way of punishing people, more specifically criminals. Once sentenced to have committed a crime, you could be thrown off this cliff and people would gather around to watch this. Think beheading in France, but instead you throw someone off a cliff.

That’s what my mom knows about it, and we actually live pretty close to one of these spots. However I’m a bit unsure if that was the only thing, as Google wants to tell me otherwise. They may very well have made old people jump, or them deciding themselves to jump.

But I can guarantee this has absolutely nothing to do with Midsummer.

So... THAT scene...

You know what I’m talking about. That one scene that got the entire audience to laugh uncontrollably in my case.

First thing I have to mention about this is that they state she’s Byxmynding, which they did explain as of legal age to have sex in the movie. And thats exactly what it is. Its the age of consent, or rather when you turn the age of consent. You become Byxmynding.

This age is 15 here in Sweden, and it is not legal for someone above the age of 18 to have sex with someone who is 15.

I just wanted to throw that out there.

Now obviously here’s where we step away from what is true and what is fiction and just horror. But I will also say that I’m pretty sure somewhere I’ve read that in the past that during Midsummer there would be orgies to celebrate the rebirth of the earth.

Don’t take my word for it, I may be wrong. But I’m pretty sure that was a thing.

Nowadays a lot of new age people in this country do that however.

The dude hanging from the ceiling with his lungs out his back.

This was a way of torture during the Viking age. You could either do this from the chest or from the back, but the intention was to make it look like you had wings as you were slowly dying.

The dancing around the majstång and the food.

This is something we do, we do dance around the majstång to music. As for the whole dance until you can’t stand anymore because myth of girls dancing to their death thing, I can’t confirm it and I can’t deny it. Its probably something pretty accurate, and I want to remember actually hearing that as a kid when we celebrated in school.

When we dance, depending on where, the people, etc etc, you may have a live band playing things like the fiddle, accordion, guitar, flute, things like that. Or you may just put on a recording of Små Grodorna and jump around to that.

We dance around for a while to the music, maybe play games during it, and then we finish to go eat with our family/friends/other people (Depending how you celebrate)

What we eat is things like herring, surströmming, boiled potatoes, eggs, knäckebröd... Maybe other things too. Personally I’m no big fan of the fish thats served and I usually just eat smoked salmon that I brought myself so I won’t starve.

So... What are my final thoughts about this movie?

I actually really enjoyed it! I could tell they put in good amount of research to make this, and thats always appreciated. Of course Midsummer as a normal thing here is not scary or horrific like in the movie. What I would describe what we see in the movie is cultish, and almost mixed with new age in a way.

They did a great job of depicting it as something strange and twisted, even to an audience who has been raised with this celebration.

I also really appreciate that they hired Swedish actors and actually spoke real Swedish!! It did so much for the movie to me, unlike other films set in Sweden (cough cough The Ritual fuck you thats not Swedish). I don’t know if English speaking who don’t know Swedish get English subtitles on the parts they speak Swedish, but it still does so much. And the dialogue didn’t feel forced or strangely translated, it felt... Natural. Even in a creepy way. But I will admit that a lot of the line delivery was very stiff and robotic.

I enjoyed it. As strange as it is, I enjoyed it.

Oh also the singing you hear throughout I’m pretty sure is a weird mix of Joik, which isn’t inherently Swedish, but eh who cares at this point

[holy-mountaineering]

This spread is for @Latasha-kills

Here’s the full Qabalistic Tree of Life Spread that I do. What I’m going to do is go through and briefly explain each card, its position on the Tree, and then I’ll give you a summary/synopsis of the spread as a whole. You know the routine.

Think of this spread as a sort of quantum map, or even the land of a regular map, everything is happening at once, in each place. It’s important to think of yourself as moving “through” the map but you are also simultaneously everywhere at once. For the sake of this specific experiment, think of this as a map. Maybe as a person, the Qabalistic Adam Kadmon.

Where we’re starting the journey from is Kether, the monad, the first sign of creation. We’ll call this your hometown, since it is where you’re from originally. Here we have the Princess of Wands, the earthy part of Fire.

This is the material substance that comes from fuels action. Think of this: you have to make a fire because it is cold. You have a set amount of wood. You can make a big ass, bright ass fire that will leave you cold later that night when you’re out of wood, but jazzed while it’s happening. Or you can make a smaller, less exciting fire that will keep you warm all night.

There is also a message about the last step in any action is really to become the actions and to let them become you. When your very Earthly substance is in it, you are no longer doing you just are.

Don’t burn yourself out and exhaust your resources on what you’re tackling in life right now. Do this and you shall live to dance and party another night.

In Chokmah, which is like your freeway getting you out onto the road out of  your hometown is the Ace of Disks, the root power of Earth or the material. 

This is the foundation which all your solid structures are and will be built on. This is the very root of your real world/material life situation. While this doesn’t mean you must tear everything down or that there is nothing in your material world that you've built, it does mean you must look at the source from which you've built your material and everyday world. If you have no foundation you can have no structure. If you have a shoddy foundation, you'll have a shoddy structure. Look to what things were like  before you began building. Is there sand beneath you? Are you in a swamp, building castles of stone that will bind to the mud and be pulled down much sooner than later? Did you account for the raise in elevation when you laid your foundation? Look down to the base of what you've made and what you've made it upon.

This is an engineering job, you’ll need tools to measure and level everything out. The occult might not be the best place to find these tools and it is possible that you have issues much more base than you're willing to cop to. There are many tools you can use to look at your foundation provided in psychology and meditation from other sources. The Universe throws us extreme situations and more often than not, this is the only way people see their basest of instincts and behaviors really act out. If you can, take a look at what connects you and what you’re building to the Earth before an earthquake, tornado, volcano, or other act of G-D forces you to pray everything was fine. Check the strength of your foundations before the strength of your foundations are checked.

Get down to the base fundamentals of what is going on in your material (things, money, living situation, literal stuff) and build from the ground up if you must.

In Binah, which is ruled by Saturn and for the sake of this reading we will call the first stop on your roadtrip. You haven’t really arrived anywhere but you’re stopping and getting a chance to repack your car in a more efficient way. Sitting in Binah is the 7 of Swords, Futility.

This is the main thrust of the Will through the mind being thwarted by in helpful organization of ideas. Each sword with a planetary sigil are like the spikes in a parking garage, one way. It isn’t that the ideas or aspects represented by these swords are “bad” just that their placement and yours are not lined up in the best way right now. 

Mentally and communication wise pull back from what you’re going at and work on how you’re organizing the information in your head.

In Chesed which is ruled by Jupiter and again for the sake of this experiment we’ll say involves your influence and benevolence in your current trip is the 6 of Swords, Science!

This is thinking and communicating in its idealized form. This is the system building card where individual thoughts are organized into a repeatable formula. Mercury’s intelligence is flowing through the Water Bearer Aquarius and coming down to useful data gathering techniques.

Organize the way you’re thinking about what you’re doing to reflect all of the information you have available. Be scholarly about your thought process and write shit down goddamnit.

Across the Tree in Geburah, which is Mars Town, where you find your drive and what you’re trying to accomplish/conquer is VII The Chariot, Cheth, Cancer.

I like to think of the Chariot as an armored train. The Four elements are the engine pulling the otherwise stagnate charioteer of Cancer down the predetermined path. While they pull him toward his goal he stays in his armored shell focusing on his moving center. This is not about “going off the beaten path” at all, this is “staying on track” to take care of yourself and Yourself, if you catch my meanings. The armour of the night is “not to keep others out, but to keep the Knight focused in.” to paraphrase. The rotating center is the Knight’s center, from His perspective, the center of All.

Stay on your path, you might not be driving the train but it’ll get you going where you need to be. Focus on your soft inside bits like the crab does, you can only fit so much in your current state.

In Tiphareth, the Sun and center of gravity holding all this in place, the heart pumping the blood through this, your heart is  IV The Emperor, Tzaddi, Aries.

The Emperor is the activating consort of III The Empress. He is King of Spring, the sign of Aries being his energy. He has the energy of the Sun, who in spring gets closer to the Earth and revitalizes the plant growth. The Emperor is formulated, active energy that causes force and growth.

This is new growth brought about like the spring that Aries heralds. Like the season of Spring, this card is activating the potential growth of the Earth, that is to say, the time is right to spring forth and grow as you can, with what you have.

Get formulated and active. Put things in their place or notice the NATURAL orbits of things. What works is that which grows from your energy.

In Netzach, Venus town, where you have the realization about how this is going to change you as a person with a personality is the (often misunderstood, like you) 5 of Disks, Worry. 

Like all of the 5s in Tarot, this is the microcosmic or human number . Don’t believe me? Stand up, stick your arms and legs out and counting your head, congrats, you’re a pentagram. Lord knows people worry like motherfuckers about how they are going to get by in the “normal” world, so there is a stress and strain in this card that everyone late on a bill can understand. This is the worry that you’ll get your intelligence (Mercury) smothered by the laborious strain of Taurus. This is, like all 5s a human limitation issue. 

Well it won’t unless you only see your limitations and make it happen. Be smarter about you material situation so you don’t have to work harder.

In Mercury Town Hod-ville, where all the Universities are and everyone has real intellectual shit going on is XX The Aeon, Shin, Fire.

Think about where you are now and how you go about doing things in general. Do you remember a time before this point in your life when you acted differently and didn’t have this kind of understanding of the world? The Aeon is a new understanding and thus a new way of acting in your life.

Harpocrates giving the sign of silence has to do with the meditative process of accepting this new law of life. You must truly grasp the meaning of this change in order to act in the new “spirit of the age” if you will.

You are being born anew through fire and blood, you are emerging from the egg in the background and coming forth.  What you take away from this will be with you forever but one day will also be improved on and brought to a new level.

On the Moon in Yesod, the receptive and reflective place that is alot about the feelings that you’re picking up from all this is MY GIRL, XI Lvst, Teth, Leo, OUR LADY BABALON. 

This is the Serpent motion of the True Will. Both Teth and Leo represent the Snake. Leo was later attributed to the lion but originally it was a snake as you can see by the shape of it’s glyph. The top of the card itself shows snakes (obviously stand ins for sperm) drawing near to the newly torn horizon BABALON has ripped. There are human figures meekly praying beneath the Beast that she rides with the stirrups taunt because SHE is in control of this act. The practical implications is the drive and Will to Do What Thou Wilt at the expense of the weak who would drag you to their grovelling level without a second thought. 

You might need to move “irregularly” like the serpent but very few predators take on snakes and they get to go about their snaky business generally unharmed. In short do what you Need to do, nay sayers be damned. Move powerfully even if you’re so far off the “beaten path” you’re smashing through the thickets.

Down here in Malkuth-istan, the everyday life mundane, waking up pooping, and going to work world is the The Knight of Swords, the fiery part of Air or acting on thinking.

This is the breeze blowing the forest fire across a road. Our Knight has a sword in each hand as he dive bombs a fixed point. He has his airy bird friends in tow and his steed is as fixed as the rider.

You understand what you must do. Now, you must gather all available force to throw at your new focus.

So, there’s a lot ahead of you on this path so work on pacing yourself so you don’t just burn out quickly. It will help to start from scratch, look at the foundation of what you’re building to ensure that it is solid. If you feel like there is a lot of pressure on you right now, back up and reexamine how you’re approaching things. You have (intentionally or not) called forth things that are supposed to assist you on your travels, but they are big and scary if you come at them wrong. Find the path of least resistance, things being very difficult doesn’t mean they’re right.

That being said, take those big things you see as “in the way” and reorganize those shits so you can use them! This is a bit like “Captain Planet” (terrible cartoon reference that dates how old I am) in that when you combine all these powers they’ll serve you much better. And this may not be news to you, but the direction you’re heading is the right direction as long as you reliquish some control over it. You’re on train tracks, they’re moving one way and again, stay the course, there are forces that wish to help you down this path, trust them. Once you’ve got this idea in your head, the idea that you can use these powers around you to your benefit, you will feel a lot more ordered and in control of the actions you’re taking. Feel that power and vigor and know that it is good and what you’ve been needing.

You are growing and evolving at the correct rate. Don’t rush yourself or get too impatient with yourself. You are just human and so is everyone else, so don’t put too much on yourself or others and realize you’re just a person. However, you are going to be coming to a new realization about the world around you and your place in it. This is the knowledge that comes with age and experience and there’s no way to rush it or explain it before you’re ready, just know that it is happening and begin to work on understanding it for yourself. This is going to involve some “irregular Strength” in the way that it may seem odd to other people, but it is just the way you need to move right now and you should surround yourself with that energy that allows you to make your own moves, your own way that are powerful and individual to you.

And when you have that friend, you shall take all that you have and throw it at this task to get it done, but as in Kether way up there, in a way that isn’t going to just burn you out. DO, but do for you, as you must, in your time!

Ta Da! Hit me up with any questions!

[artificialqueens]

Quiet Hour (Scyvie) - ella

a/n: hi!!! this is my first ever submission to aq, but this oneshot has been up on ao3 for a while now. 

(POTENTIAL SPOILER AFTER THE JUMP)

this isn’t much, but with the whole branjie mess coming down, I figured a lot of people would want some sappy cute shit lmao. This is all domestic fluff to keep things happy, so hope you enjoy!

-

If there was one thing Yvie loved doing besides drag, it would be her quiet hour. She would brew herself a nice cup of coffee, play some ambient low-fi music (maybe even burn an incense if she’s really feeling it), and just lay in the couch and think. She’d stare at absolute nothingness for a full hour and reflect on certain situations she’s been in, the problems she’s been facing. It was a way to reset her mind and just stop. Yvie loved that. Yvie needed that.

But the recent months have been harder on her, now that she’s a quote-unquote ‘RuGirl’. She could never find the time to stay home between all her gigs and finish at least one quiet session. Whenever she would attempt it, her mind would fall restless and she’d end up moving around and doing work. Five minutes into one attempt she found herself hemming an outfit. Ten minutes into another try, she began to subconsciously practice her choreography for a number she was working on. It was concerning, in her eyes. She couldn’t stop to take a break and she feared it would be damaging to her health.

Another thing that kept her from bringing back quiet hour was her new boyfriend, Scarlet. After 6 months of being together, Yvie ended up moving into Scarlet’s Brooklyn apartment. They’d spend as much time together as possible, and for a while it made Yvie forget about personal space. As much as Yvie loved her alone time, Scarlet’s presence had a calming nature to it that she felt was more than enough. She’d find Scarlet overcooking eggs and playing jazz music at 7 in the morning, using her vintage record player (Yvie made fun of Scarlet’s old soul when she discovered the device, joking about how she feels like she’s dating a grandmother with how stiff and awkward she danced to the melodies). She’d break into dance in front of Yvie, and the happiness that it would produce would make Yvie feel like alone time was overrated. She had all she needed by her side, why want to be alone?

But with each episode airing, and with the show slowly unraveling the ugly side of Yvie Oddly for the world to critique, she started to crave for time alone. She needed to escape from the constant buzzing of her phone. The idea of a short escape was good enough for Yvie to daydream about it. So, one night, while Scarlet was busy keeping her nose in a book, she brings it up.

It was well into the night, and with the faint vocals of Dolly Parton playing in their record player, Scarlet was engrossed in Virginia Woolf. Such a grandma, Yvie chuckled as she settled into their cluttered bed. She leaves a lamp on for Scarlet to read properly, and places a small peck on her cheek before laying her head on the older queen’s shoulder.

“You’re really cute when you do that thing with your eyebrows. Makes you look mean.” Yvie smiled, which makes Scarlet roll her eyes in a playful manner. Scarlet stays quiet though, too engrossed in whatever the modernist writer has to say to continue the conversation.

Yvie realizes that she has to make her pay attention, so she slowly pushes the novel down, meeting her boyfriend’s eyes. “Hey, can we talk about something?”

Scarlet, confused, looks at Yvie with a questioning stare. She sets the book down, placing the book by their nightstand and yawning. “What is it baby?” She hummed, eyes falling on the younger queen. “Something bothering you? You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good, don’t worry.” Yvie quickly replied, before letting her hand trail down to meet Scarlet’s. “…I used to do this thing called quiet hour where I would sit down and do nothing. I know it sounds stupid, but it really helped me relax and reflect on everything so that I don’t bitch out.” She laughed, shaking her head. “It’s- after the episodes started to release, I just need to reset my brain and the quiet hour does that. Would it be okay if I did that here?”

Scarlet frowned, before tightening her grip on Yvie’s hand. She sighs before placing a soft kiss on her boyfriend’s lips. “Vie, we’ve been together for almost a year and you only told me you had this whole self-care ritual now?” She let’s out a smile, cupping Yvie’s cheeks. “You know that I value self-care.”

“I think your ten-step skin care routine makes that obvious.”

“Excuse me! I’m doing a little thing here?” Scarlet exclaimed, mouth hanging open. “I would enjoy a little respect when I’m speaking!”

Yvie laughed, letting her boyfriend have her moment. “Fine, go on.”

“Thank you.” The older queen responded, her smile not leaving her lips. “Baby, if you need time alone I’m all for that. I’m guessing you would want me out the apartment while doing that? I won’t be offended if you say yes.” Scarlet lets go of Yvie, their eyes the only thing connecting.

“Yeah, of course! But we’ll be busy the next few weeks, and we won’t have time before our anniversary. So… I guess it’s okay to have you here when I do it. I know you won’t be intrusive.”

“I’ll try my best to understand what you need. But I would like it if you explained to me what you want me to avoid doing specifically-“ Scarlet let a yawn escape from her lips, cutting off her sentence. “… tomorrow. Tell me tomorrow. I think we should head to bed.”

Yvie chuckled, pecking her lover’s lips before settling into their sheets, satisfied with their little discussion.

-

“Alright Vie, it’s almost 5…” Scarlet spoke softly, reaching up the kitchen cabinets to grab their coffee machine. “Is there anything else you’d like me to do? Or to avoid doing?”

Yvie shook her head, wrapping a hand around her lover’s waist and setting a kiss on the back of her head. “Nothing, babe. I think we’re good.” She pulls away, glancing at the clock before turning Scarlet around to meet her eyes. “..But maybe if you’re going to make coffee, maybe not use the machine? It’s pretty noisy.”

“Oh! Oh of course, I’m sorry.” Scarlet fumbled, placing the machine back in the cabinet. “I’m sorry, I’ll just grab one of the instant packets.”

“No, it’s okay. No need to apologize!” Yvie spoke, a faint smile itching to develop into a full grin. “You’re already doing so much, I’m already thankful.”

Once Yvie was able to settle in their bed, she already felt a wave of tranquility coming in. She closed her eyes slowly, feeling the flutter of her eyelids. She took deep breaths (it was a new meditation technique scarlet recommended that she try and honestly, it’s so nice) and relaxed her shoulders.

Numerous thoughts pop up in her head, and after a while, they are put to rest. From personal issues with past queens to simple ways she could improve her living situation. She remembers how amazing her quiet hour was, how it did wonders to her restless brain and its antics. The little thoughts that bothered her head are finally set down, looked at, and resolved.

But besides all these minute problems she’s been able to resolve, Scarlet just kept popping back into her head. The way her eyes were a striking blue, to how her smile could kill and would send six feet under. Scarlet was a gem, and Yvie felt so lucky to have her. It was magical, the way they felt for each other. Yvie didn’t believe she’d have something (or someone) as special as her love for her boyfriend, but here she was. She was absolutely lovestruck and she didn’t hate one bit.

Trailing off to daydream about Scarlet, she heard their bedroom door creak. Her eyebrows furrowed as a reaction to the sudden sound. She peeked an eye open, and she saw Scarlet.

What? Yvie thought, her eyes trailing to the two cups of coffee held by her partner. She was confused, almost irritated. Didn't I tell her to not intrude?

Scarlet pushed aside the puzzled glare her boyfriend was sending her way and set one of the cups she held on the nightstand. She smiles to Yvie after her lover fully opens her eyes, handing her the other cup.

Yvie opened her mouth to speak, but decided against it. She went with the flow of the situation and took the warm mug from Scarlet. She watched Scarlet pull the covers up and settle into bed, taking her cup from the nightstand and closing her eyes.

Was she… joining her? Yvie was almost amazed. She’s never seen Scarlet show interest in meditation, nor her quiet hour. She didn’t think Scarlet would survive silence longer than ten minutes, and to see her try made Yvie’s heart jump out of her chest.

Scarlet was trying to understand.

Yvie sighed loudly, closing her eyes once again before placing her head on Scarlet’s shoulder. She felt the older queen tense up at the sudden touch, sensing the surprise in her actions. She didn’t bother looking up though, Yvie just relaxed further into Scarlet’s shoulder.

After a few minutes, they were finally able to relax. Scarlet’s hand timidly inched towards Yvie’s, her manicured fingers softly tapping her palm before slowly intertwining their fingers together.

Yvie didn’t think spending quiet hour with someone would be any help. But with a cup of coffee made with love, her head on her boyfriend’s shoulder, and Scarlet’s thumb softly caressing the back of Yvie’s hand, maybe having Scarlet with her this time wasn’t that bad of an idea.

Once the hour was up, she finally opened her eyes and saw Scarlet’s eyes still shut. Yvie sits up, and softly places a kiss on Scarlet’s temple. “Thank you, I love you.” She whispered before pecking the spot once again. “I’m grateful that I have you.”

“Thank you too.” Scarlet spoke, softly as to not ruin the tranquil mood. “I think I like this quiet hour idea. Can I join you sometime?”

Yvie nodded, her arm wrapping around Scarlet. “You are a great companion, so yes, you can.”

[shookethbrooketh]

stars

chapter 21

like many moments of the day, it wasn’t even the physical contact that had him on the edge of his seat. it wasn’t sitting in phil’s lap, hands wrapped around his back as he placed soft, wet kisses up and down dan’s neck. it wasn’t phil’s hands in his hair as he gasped for air. it wasn’t urges he had to repress in the best interest of them both. it was just phil. It was just the two of them there, for the last time in the perceivable future. it was a goodbye, but it wasn’t. in reality, dan longed for phil not because of the sweet taste of his kiss, but because he knew that when they separated, it could be their last.

summary: dan grew up in a normal 1930s london family with his parents and little brother. everything was completely and utterly normal… until the bombs started dropping. When dan was fifteen his father went off to war, and when he was sixteen he and his brother hayden were sent off to a foster family in rural england. he looked up at the stars and couldn’t help but wonder how something that beautiful could exist in such a broken world. just when he thought things would never get better, dan met phil, and he became the shining star of his life. but when phil turned eighteen and went off to war, dan couldn’t help but wonder when, if ever, the stars would twinkle the same way again.

rating: t

genre: angst, fluff, history au, strangers to lovers, teenagers

whole fic warnings: warfare (not descriptive), bombings, fire, panic attacks, ptsd, epilepsy/seizures, homophobia, death, fighting/arguing chapter warnings: n/a

chapter word count: 3.4k total word count: 31.2k

read it on ao3 read it on wattpad fic masterlist

“I’ve been planning this day all morning,” Phil said, pride in his voice as they walked through the front door.

“Now I’m terrified.”

“It’s nothing bad! Just a sort of a... trip through time.”

Dan narrowed his eyes as he followed Phil up the stairs and to his room, where he’d taken Dan’s new radio from his room. It was playing upbeat jazz, and there were clothes laid out all over Phil’s bed.

“I think it’s about time for another dress up day,” Phil said with a playful smirk.

Dan couldn’t help but laugh as he thought back to the night he met Phil, when they’d gone driving and come back to Phil’s room so Dan could try on some of his clothes, since he hadn’t been able to bring along any of his own. It was the first good memory he had with Phil, as well as the one that reassured him that his relocation wouldn’t be so bad after all. “You’re really going to take me through all six months I’ve spent here, aren’t you?”

Phil grinned and simply nodded.

Most of the clothes they tried on were the same ones they’d done before, and they may have even used the same combinations, but it had a new dynamic they couldn’t quite describe that made the moment even more magical than before. There was a certain casual feel to the experience the first time they did it, but now that feeling had intensified. A lot had changed for them each, individually and as a duo, since they first played dress up six months earlier, and as they indulged comfortably in the often considered feminine act of creating their own outfits out of Phil’s clothes and modeling them for each other, it showed.

Each flung himself onto Phil’s bed, breath heavy as they glanced at all the clothes littering the floor around them. “We’re gonna have to clean that up, aren’t we?” Dan groaned, barely maintaining the energy to speak, let alone clean.

“I’ll have to pack most of it anyway,” Phil said, a painful reminder of the reason why they were having this extravagant day. There was a moment’s silence before Phil recognized the awkwardness and sat up, clapping his hands. “Time for activity number two!”

He took off down the stairs, and Dan sighed, still almost out of breath, and pulled himself out of bed to follow him. He was met by the front door flung wide open to the hot, summer day. Dan suspiciously stepped outside and down the steps into the grass, glancing around the yard but finding no one. Suddenly, he heard a noise to his right, and turned just in time to get sprayed in the chest with a thick stream of water. “What the-” He looked down at his chest and up at the culprit. Unsurprisingly, Phil stood a few feet away from him holding a water hose and grinning from ear to ear.

Dan was hit again, this time from behind, and he pivoted to see Hayden holding his own hose. There was another hose at his side that he picked up and taunted at Dan, who immediately got the hint and moved towards Hayden to take the hose. Apprehensive, he quickly snatched it from his brother’s hand and put some distance in between the two of them.

The air was silent for a moment, each of them staring each other down in the heat. “Every man for himself!” Phil shouted, roaring his hose into action. Dan ducked to miss his shot, swinging his hose in every which direction in hopes to hit one of his two opponents. Meanwhile, Hayden was charging straight for him, hose on full power. The force of the water stung his skin, but he was laughing anyway. This wasn’t the sort of summer activity one could do in London.

“Howells attack!” Dan shouted, nodding at Hayden as they both charged at Phil a few minutes into the fight. Phil’s eyes widened as he attempted to fight them off, but he stood no chance against the two of them, and eventually his hose slipped from his hands, Dan picking it up.

Dan and Hayden gave each other mischievous looks before turning back to Phil and turning all three hoses on him, knocking him to the ground. Dan strode over to him, placing his foot on Phil’s chest in dominance. “I am victorious!”

Phil glared up at him. “Dan, you’re soaked.”

“But at least I don’t have a muddy footprint on my chest.”

Three showers later, Hayden was in his room, and Dan and Phil were sat in the living room in front of the family radio. “You know, Phil,” Dan said shortly after joining Phil in the room, having showered last. “I don’t remember having a water fight in the last six months.”

“Maybe not, but you can’t exactly have a snowball fight in the middle of the summer.”

The pieces of the puzzle clicked together in Dan’s head, and he remembered the countless snowball fights they had over the winter, the first of those being on his first full day in the countryside. “Touche.” He smiled remembering the winter afternoons. “You even got Hayden in on it.” He thought about that for a moment, and his smile faded. “Does Hayden know?”

Phil nodded. “I told him last night after everything happened. He was a bit upset, but I think he’ll be happy to have you back to himself.”

They each smiled a bit, but neither of them were happy. The day seemed to have fallen into that pattern; they were mostly happy, but every now and then they would have a particular moment in which they remembered the situation they were in, and all that happiness faded, only to return as soon as the day roared back into action.

“What’s next?” Dan asked, anxious to get back into the happy part.

“This.”

Dan stared at him in confusion. “What?”

“This. All our winter days beside the radio. Our dances, our talks, our everything.” Phil reached over and turned on the radio, tuning it to the jazz station. “That’s it.”

Dan settled into his armchair as the host spoke, but he wasn’t there long. As soon as the first song started playing, Phil jumped up and extended him a hand. “May I have this dance?”

Dan rolled his eyes, despite being impressed by Phil’s openly romantic question in the middle of the family room, his parents probably in the next room over. “Gladly.”

Despite the romantic nature of the proposal, when Dan stood up to dance, the song was far from romantic. It was a fast, upbeat song that inspired them both to dance independently yet still together. There were a few songs like this, and they continued along the same path, memories flooding their minds of past dances until they became weary. Luckily, as Dan was resigning himself to finally sit down, the next song was slow, and he close instead to rest his head on Phil’s shoulder.

The last time he’d ever slow danced with anyone was his primary school dance, and he didn’t even know how to do it, but it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered in that moment was the closeness of the two of them, Dan’s breath on Phil’s neck and Phil’s hands around Dan’s midsection. It was the dance they never had; it was the dance they may never have again.

Tears rolled down Dan’s face as the song ended and he picked his head up to put his lips to Phil’s; it was a short kiss, but it was an important one.

“It’s okay,” Phil said, wiping tears from Dan’s cheek as he struggled not to shed his own.

“I know,” Dan said with a genuine smile. They were sad tears, but they were just as much happy tears. He was going to miss Phil more than he could ever imagine, but the second he came home, and Dan tried as hard as he could to convince himself that he would, they’d be able to dance for the rest of their lives. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

A few recovery minutes later, they were outside in the yard again, but this time upon exiting they met Margo and Harold. They were dressed in their Sunday best, and each of them held a basket. “Happy Easter,” Margo said, handing her basket to Dan. Inside was a single egg. Dan turned to Phil, who was beaming.

“This time, don’t fall.”

And with that, he was off. Dan hesitated before realizing he was to compete against Phil and dashing off in the opposite direction.

“You have fifteen minutes!” Harold yelled, wrapping his arm around his wife to watch the boys search. Dan had never been much good at egg hunts back in London, and it was common knowledge that his previous one hadn’t ended very well, but his competitive side came out as he ran around the yard searching for eggs. The fifteen minutes passed faster than he would have thought, and they were called back to the front door.

Dan glanced into Phil’s basket and saw almost twice as many eggs as were in his own. “Oh, come on!” Dan scrunched up his face in fake anger. “Stupid home field advantage.”

Phil gave him a cheeky grin, placing his hand on his shoulder and clearing his throat in preparation to do the best possible Dan impression. “I am victorious!”

Dan rolled his eyes as Phil took his basket and gave them both to Margo, who trailed Harold back inside. Phil led Dan over to the truck and opened the driver’s door. “Your chariot awaits.”

Dan sighed, rolling his eyes for what must have been the millionth time as he climbed into the truck and drove into the field. “You better be ready to drive,” Phil said after a couple laps. “Because this time we’re going on the road.”

Dan turned to Phil in fear and disbelief, not because he was unconfident driving, but because he didn’t have a permit to drive on roads. “Is that legal?”

“Technically speaking, no, but most people here don’t particularly care. Just don’t tell my dad.”

Dan laughed, but he was still nervous. “Can’t you drive?”

“Nope,” Phil declared. “All part of the memory trip.”

Dan groaned as he pulled out of the gate and onto the road. He coasted down the country road, fairly comfortable. “See! You’re doing great! Phil exclaimed. He gave Dan little notes as they went along, reminding him of a time when Phil actually taught him to drive rather than just sitting in the passenger seat as he drove them up to the tree and back.

“Where am I going?” Dan asked as they neared the town.

“Take a right,” Phil said, overly laid back. Dan had never driven with any traffic, let alone the town, which was quite busy for countryside standards. Dan tried to ignore the driving anxiety and think instead of the surprise. “Left,” Phil said. There were only a few destinations on the cut-through road, but Dan still couldn’t figure out which one. “Here we are!” Phil clapped excitedly as Dan turned into the restaurant.

Dan probably should have assumed dinner, as it was 7:00 in the evening, but he still wasn’t ready for it. “Phil, we’re both barely dressed. I was planning to wear these to bed tonight.” Dan laughed at their clothes, which were probably better described as pajamas.

“So? It’s not like this is a fancy restaurant. It’s the most casual sit down place in town. Come on!” Phil shouted cheerily, hopping out of the truck and prompting Dan to do the same.

“Besides,” Phil said as they walked towards the door. “It’s like the date we never had.”

The ‘date they never had’ was absolutely different than anything they’d ever done before. Not only had the two of them never gone out to eat, but Phil had never cared less about keeping their relationship a secret. He wasn’t open, as that would be purely stupid, but he wasn’t near as reserved as he usually was. He was more open to joke around with Dan in public than ever before, and it probably had something to do with the fact that he was leaving indefinitely the next day, but Dan loved it.

It was an Italian restaurant, and, similar to their getups, they went casual and ordered a pizza. Dan didn’t realize how hungry he was until he got it, and they tore into it, demolishing the medium pizza in only an hour between the two of them.

Each of them picked up their last piece, and Phil reached out to stop Dan before he could take his first bite. “To us,” he said, extending his own slice of pizza. It took Dan a moment to figure out what the hell he was doing, but when he did, he couldn’t help but laugh.

“To us,” Dan repeated, giggling as he toasted the pizza slices and took a massive bite out of his respective slice.

They left the restaurant stuffed, and Phil agreed to drive home, but when they arrived back in the darkening yard, Phil didn’t stop. Instead he turned back through the gate and drove straight up the hill, parking beside the tree. Dan wasn’t expecting the move, but in hindsight it didn’t surprise him at all. What better way to end a flashback through their time together than on the hill looking up at the stars?

The stars weren’t out yet, but the sunset signaled that they would be arriving soon. Dan peeled himself off the seat, stomach still full of pizza, and followed Phil to the tree. He didn’t particularly want to start climbing in that state, but he knew it was worth it.

Phil was already up to their branch when Dan started making his way up and claimed his seat beside Phil. “This is it, isn’t it?” Dan asked, tearing his eyes from the sunset to make eye contact with Phil. “This is the end.”

“Yeah,” Phil said. “It is.”

A certain fear entered Dan’s stomach. He was surprised it had room with all the pizza, but it found all the space remaining and filled it with pure discomfort. In front of him, the sunset was beautiful, but he had a painful feeling telling him against every logical cell he had that it was his last. He knew he’d live to see another sunset, and so would Phil, but it felt like the universe would rip in half the moment he left.

Phil reached out and took Dan’s hand, placing them both on his lap. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“I was just thinking that,” Dan said, leaving out the rest of the thought.

“Yeah,” Phil said, letting the air fall static. They sat, each of them admiring the sunset and indulging in their individual thoughts as their time ran out until finally Dan’s voice rang out.

“Let’s just cut to the chase, Phil. This is your last night here for God knows how long. We’re not just gonna spend it sitting here and watching the time go by. I love you, and I want to be with you tonight, not a silent shell of you.”

Phil turned to him, eyes wide. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting or you to say that.”

Suddenly, Phil was on top of him, and he was pushed back against the tree trunk. They could barely balance on the branch, but neither of them seemed to notice, both their focuses on the kiss they were both entranced by. They seemed to pull closer with every breath they took until Dan was sandwiched between Phil and the tree. “Phil,” Dan moaned, distracted.

“Mmm.”

“Phil, there’s a branch in my spine,” Phil immediately backed off of him, allowing him to rescind down the trunk and back to the grass. By then, the world around them was dark, but they were more used to the dark environment than either of them would like to admit. “Well, come on!” Dan shouted up to Phil as he opened and climbed into the truck bed. Phil finally took the hint and scurried down the tree and over to Dan, where they picked up right where they left off.

That was something Dan valued about his relationship with Phil; they’d managed to get themselves into so many awkward situations throughout their friendship that now that they were dating, it took a hell of a lot to make something awkward.

And so they were left to themselves in the truck bed. No people, no branches, no distractions, just them. And Dan couldn’t get enough of it. Like many moments of the day, it wasn’t even the physical contact that had him on the edge of his seat. It wasn’t sitting in Phil’s lap, hands wrapped around his back as he placed soft, wet kisses up and down Dan’s neck. It wasn’t Phil’s hands in his hair as he gasped for air. It wasn’t urges he had to repress in the best interest of them both. It was just Phil. It was just the two of them there, for the last time in the perceivable future. It was a goodbye, but it wasn’t. In reality, Dan longed for Phil not because of the sweet taste of his kiss, but because he knew that when they separated, it could be their last.

Dan was reluctant to drop to his back and rest his head on Phil’s shoulder, but eventually he gave in and turned his gaze to the stars. It was like separating two pieces of paper recently glued together; they didn’t want to come apart, and they might have broken a bit as they did, but it certainly worked, and they were individual again.

So Dan laid on Phil, who ran his fingers through Dan’s curls. The only sight left for them was the stars overhead. “Dan, have you ever heard of the Big Dipper?”

“Yeah, we’ve talked about it in class before, but I’ve never actually seen it.”

“Look up there,” Phil said, pointing to a cluster of stars in the shape of a spoon. “That’s the Big Dipper.”

Dan nodded. “It sure is.”

“You know something cool about the Big Dipper? Or any stars, for that matter?”

“Hmm?”

“No matter where you are, you can still see them. If you sit out here and I sit out at night wherever I am, we’ll be looking at the same sky. The same stars, the same moon, the same everything. It’ll be like we’re in the same place.” Phil took Dan’s hand and placed something cold in it. Dan looked down to find the star Phil had given him the previous night. “I got it from your room.” Dan clenched it in his fist as Phil took both of his hands in his, staring into his eyes. In the darkness, Dan could only really see half of Phil’s face, but his eyes, twinkling like the stars overhead, were clear as day. Tears welled up in his own eyes, and he didn’t even try to stop them from falling. “I’ll always be with you. I hope you know that.”

Dan nodded, tears streaming down his cheeks. Even Phil’s eyes were beginning to glisten as he looked into Dan’s.

“I love you, Dan. So much. And I’m going to go out there and fight every single day to keep you safe and get back to you.” He paused, wiping some tears from his eyes and laughing at his own weakness. “That’s all I care about.”

Dan’s tears turned to sobs as he fell into Phil’s arms, and the sobs began to echo from them both. “I love you, Phil.”

“I love you too,” he said, pulling back and giving Dan a soft, short kiss. It was messy and teary, but it was real, and it was them, and Dan knew it was the last one they would have before he left, leaving him with every cell in his body wishing for more. “I always will.”

[jorahssquire]

Cover of Moves Magazine 2013 / With accompanying Article - 

Before we got started, Michael Shannon expressed some concern that he might not be very loquacious.  “[These interviews are] not always easy.  I’m not a very talkative person by nature.  I’ll try to give more than one word answers.”  So Moves made sure to ask the right questions.

When you think of Michael Shannon, you’ll think of his intensity.  His performances in Revolutionary Road and Boardwalk Empire – indeed, in most of his repertoire – are intense.  His characters are a cadre of grim-faced, borderline something-or-another dark-sided men.  If you want to know what we mean, look up his recording of Deranged Sorority Girl’s viral email, and then tie yourself down to whatever chair you’re sitting in.

In point of fact, however, the first thing you notice when you speak to Shannon is that he’s a nice guy with a sense of humor.  “I’m at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles.  I’ve seen Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones and Gwyneth Paltrow and Paul McCartney.  It’s like Mme Tussauds, but they’re actually alive.”

But when we caught up with him, the nation was reeling over the Boston Marathon bombings and gun violence. Shannon’s roles often call on him to step into the shoes of the men behind the madness, but the importance of treating those roles with respect isn’t lost on him.  “It just reminds me to take it seriously, you know?  There’s a tendency if you’re playing pretend to forget that these acts of violence are actually quite horrible and have huge repercussions.  You have to be very vigilant to remind yourself that it’s not fun or cool to do these things.  That it’s actually very terrible.”  There’s an understanding, a character analysis, necessitated by taking on violent roles in TV and film.  “And that’s the reason to tell these stories, I think, because violence does exist in the world.  And hopefully telling stories that have violence in them help us understand why violence exists in the first place, and process our own feelings, so to speak.”

As such, gratuitous violence just isn’t his thing.  “I try to stay away from projects where I feel like violence isn’t given its appropriate gravity, you know what I mean?”  To which we think – Superman?  But Shannon reassures us, while perhaps tipping the Man of Steel hand a bit: “There’s a lot of violence in it, and it’s geared toward a younger audience.  You think about that in regards to: Am I glorifying this?  But the thing I could tell about Man of Steel is that the gravity was there, the sense of consequences.  That’s what I love about the Superman myth story in general.  There are always consequences.”

Michael Shannon has a young daughter, Sylvia, and like any other parent facing the newspaper headlines every day, he worries about how the world’s violence will affect his child.  “It’s something I think about a great deal.  It’s the essence of a film I did, Take Shelter – the anxiety of being a father in this day and age, considering everything that’s going on.”

And there’s a lot.  The world has changed, perhaps most notably in how we exchange information.  “It used to be that you had to get a library card and go look in the – I can’t even remember the name of it – the card catalog, and the Dewey Decimal System.  And you’d try to find a book on, you know, like, mosquitoes or something, and it would be a daylong project.  Nowadays you just Google ‘mosquitoes’ and everything you need to know is right there.”  So the violence is ever-present, even before we roll camera.  “Now things are in your face all the time.  The news coverage of Boston was pretty – I was about to say ‘bombastic’ but that may be an inappropriate pun.  But I do worry about it.”

What you may not know about Shannon?  He’s an environmentalist.  “I’ve always been concerned about the environment and tried to do my part….  I think it’s the most important issue.  ‘Cause I live in Red Hook and seeing first-hand the devastation that Sandy brought, I just can’t believe…. Anyone who’s not thinking about climate change is really pretty clueless in my mind’s eye.”

Shannon is a Brooklynite, by way of Kentucky and Chicago.  (His favorite pizza? “It’s just different.  Why can’t we all get along?”)  When Sandy hit the east coast, Shannon and his partner Kate Arrington were performing in Grace on Broadway.  They packed up Sylvia and headed to Kate’s mom’s house in Harlem to wait out the storm.  But he’s shocked that, even today, people in his shorefront neighborhood are still struggling.  “They’re not back in their homes.  It’s unusual, because it’s been a long time.” Our sensationalist world loves a good story, a good disaster, a good drama.  “They have these signs all over New York City that I find very disconcerting.  The mayor is suggesting that, you know, everybody has a disaster plan.  Posters of little children sitting in front of storm clouds and lightening bolts.”  It calls to mind the bomb shelter signs of the ‘50s.  “It just seems to be part of our culture.  Every decade has it’s own worrisome subject.”

That’s why, even if we use our films to analyze and understand society, we also use them to escape reality a little bit.  “Man of Steel is a miraculous film.  I’m very proud to be a part of it.  Zack Snyder, the director, he’s a real powerhouse and I feel like this is his finest work yet – a culmination of everything he’s been working on.  It’s a stunning picture.”  Shannon couldn’t share a lot of behind-the-scenes info – “I always get paranoid talking about Man of Steel, that I’m accidently going to say something I’m not supposed to say – it’s like walking through a minefield.  You’re supposed to say: ‘Yeah.  It’s great.  Come check it out.  It’s gonna rock your world.”  But he did share a little insight into his other current film, The Iceman:

“We were shooting the big scene at the end where they arrest me and finally take me to jail.  There were all these period cars – they weren’t driving hybrids back then.  It was a huge set-up, you know, because there were like five or six cars coming one way and three or four coming the other way and undercover cars and skidding and sirens and all this.  The first time we went to shoot it they said “action” and I’m backing out of my driveway and I’m looking around and I don’t see anything, and then I hear “cut” because all of the cars weren’t working.  The cop cars weren’t working ‘cause they were so old and crappy.  So we had to wait a couple hours to fix them.  I think everyone was trying to fix the cars, even if they didn’t know anything about cars.  ‘We’ve got to get this Kuklinski arrested!’”

But let us really introduce you to this issue’s Cover Man by telling you about his favorite haunts.  What better way to learn about someone than to learn what they love?  “The best restaurant I’ve been to recently is The Good Fork in Red Hook.  The chef, Sohui, is Korean so there’s Korean influence but also a variety of other influences.  And the food is delicious.  It’s a beautiful little restaurant – intimate and warm and cozy.  And they have a really good steak and eggs Korean style, with Kimchi rice.  It’s really scrumptious.

“And then you could stop by afterward for a cocktail at Fort Defiance.”  Apparently, Fort Defiance was a revolutionary war-era fortress in the Brooklyn borough area.  “They have wonderful, very inventive cocktails.  The proprietor – his name is St. John, but you pronounce it “Sinjin” – he’s been a bartender for years and years.  And he’s invented one cocktail called the King Bee that I really like it, with the vodka that’s got the honeycomb in it.  Again, it’s a smaller place, but I guess a lot of New York places are kind of small.”

Finally, a little night music.  “Music.  Oh, I love music.  I like to go to the Village Vanguard for jazz in the village, but everyone knows the Village Vanguard.  It’s legendary.”  What kind of jazz?  Like MMW?  “I’m not a smooth jazz aficionado.  I don’t like anything with drum machines or too many synthesizers in it.  I love Medeski Martin and Wood a lot – but I also love the old stuff a lot.  My favorite is Thelonious Monk. “  And here he shares something that tells you exactly what kind of man he is:  “I like to go to Village Vanguard and think about the fact that Thelonious Monk sat at that piano, once upon a time, even though I wasn’t there to see it.  It’s the same room, which is pretty thrilling.  Pretty exciting.”

But where is Shannon really going for the best music experience?  He doesn’t have to leave his house.  “When you have a kid, you don’t go out as much as you used to.  So I stay at home and make music with Sylvia.  She’s very musical.  She likes drums and the piano.  She’s got a little pink ukulele she likes to play.”

See?  He’s really just a big softie.

[im-basically-logan]

Comfortably Pushing Boundaries: part 4

Previous - Next -- Beginning

so... it’s been a while huh? I actually had part 5 done before this but decided there needed to be another chapter in between actually. so part 5 should be out in less than a few days I hope. also this is a bit longer than the other parts i hope you dont mind ^^;; (mostly to make up for lost time)

Summary: Logan decides that it’d be best to watch Virgil as his wound heals so he won’t scratch it open. Nice little shenanigans follow.

Words: 2,589

Ship: Platonic Analogical

TW: mentions of wrapping a wound

send me an ask/message if i’ve missed something

Genre: Fluff

@alien-atmosphere @your-dark-strange-son  @living-on-the-virge   @crowsketches  @nokatai-realm  @generalfandomfabulousness @michealawithana  @robanilla  @freepaperie081  @mirror2thespirit  @today-only-happens-once  @lallide  (url changed i think)

When Virgil woke up he almost forgot about the plastic wrapped arm until he heard it rustling when he eventually got out of his bed. Logan had told him not to scratch it, but it was really itchy! So many things were already irritating it he might as well just give it a little nick.

And then Logan popped in, as if on queue, with arms crossed and probably ready to tackle Virgil before he thought about scratching at his wound.

“Oh! Hey… Logan,” Virgil said, putting down his right arm, the burnt one, and waved with his left. “Did you really wait til I was awake to tell me not to pick my burn?”

“Well, no. You usually wake up after all of us and I was actually coming to replace the plastic wrap with an actual bandage,” Logan explained, gesturing to Virgil’s arm. The sleeve was pulled down over it but little strands of ripped plastic could still be seen.

“Alright then, Doc.” Logan huffed in amusement at the nickname, then brought Virgil down to the kitchen after grabbing the bottle of aloe vera.

“Morning, kiddo!” Patton waved at Virgil with a butter knife. Roman waved silently in greeting, currently downing toast and eggs. “How’s your burn doing?”

As Virgil returned the hello’s, Logan placed his hand on the counter near the sink and pulled his sleeve up to his bicep.

“Better, I think. Logan’s gonna replace the wrapping and medicine.” Logan gently took off the wrapping, exposing the blistered skin. It was less red at the moment, but still clearly there.

“Sorry again about this, kiddo,” Patton apologized, looking over Virgil’s wound himself.

Virgil shook his head. “It’s fine, Patton, really. I should’ve been more careful, y’know?” Patton sighed but gave a nod. Logan had been silently wrapping Virgil’s burn and in a few short moments he successfully applied the aloe to it and bandaged up.

“I believe supervising you on your itching tendencies is an order,” Logan said, making Roman snort from the table.

“Awww, Logaaaan. I’m not a child!” Virgil replied, sounding exactly like a complaining child. As he pulled his newly wrapped arm from the counter, he put it in his jacket pocket. “I’m not gonna scratch at it, okay?”

Logan shook his head. “Judging by how, as you put it, “taking your hand hostage”, went last night, I think looking over your actions with your burn will be beneficial.” Virgil opened his mouth to protest before hearing Patton and Roman say something along the lines of “I agree!” and he promptly shut up. All of them cared for him too much, but he wouldn’t try to fight it.

“Well, lovelies, I am off to adventure!” Roman announced after putting his plate in the sink, leaving to his room. Patton waved a goodbye and put the last few dishes in the sink as well.

“I left a few pancakes for you, Virge!” He called as he sunk out himself. “Remember to keep watch, Lo.” Logan smirked with a nod of satisfaction, Virgil groaning dramatically.

Logan watched Virgil like a hawk throughout the day after breakfast and Virgil didn’t scratch his burn at all. Successfully anyway. If he went to go for it, Logan gently slapped his hand away. Although this was the case, Virgil was probably just as stubborn as Logan. At one point in the day he had bolted from the commons just to get away from him.

“Virgil! Don’t you dare!” Logan had shouted, catching up to Virgil as he awkwardly rubbed through the frabric-y material of the bandage. The material had effectively stopped him from itching at the burn too much, but now it was red around the wrapping, irritated and probably even more itchy than before. Virgil looked up to see Logan coming over in quick, long strides.

“I didn’t scratch it that much, okay?” Virgil put his hands up in mock defense as Logan stopped in front of him, a scolding look on his face. Logan took his free hand and dragged Virgil back to the couch in the common room. He then began to distract the other by reading aloud and having them both do puzzles together. It went rather nicely, actually, and he didn’t try to run again

“No no no, that line goes there!” Virgil said, pointing at Logan’s phone as he played Flow. It was a difficult level with 15 “flows” that needed to be connected. Logan obliged and the rest of the puzzle was a piece of cake.

“Good one,” Logan said, seeing Virgil’s smirk out of the corner of his eye. Normally, Logan would have been in his room for most of the day, but Virgil’s situation kept him occupied. Although, being the logical side, Logan had various schedules done, scripts edited, and ideas from Roman sorted through days and even weeks in advance. It was no wonder he seemed overworked all the time.

They went through a few more levels before one finally got them stuck, then moved onto another app. Despite Virgil being mostly behind Logan, he could feel whenever Virgil tried to scratch his burn. It wasn’t even worth trying since the bandage was in the way, but Virgil attempted it anyway. Logan took Virgil’s free hand in his lap, the situation similar to the night before, and opened up another app.

“Actually…” Virgil began awkwardly, making Logan pause. “Y’think you could maybe… erm...” Logan raised an eyebrow.

“Yes?” He asked, coaxing the anxious side to continue.

“Just… talk? Not reading or anything but just… talk,” Virgil eventually finished, averting his gaze from Logan’s. Logan put his phone down, laying it down gently onto the coffee table in front of them.

“That’s fine, Virgil. If it’ll distract you,” Logan said, smiling a half-smile at Virgil in reassurance. “What would you like me to talk about?”

“Um… whatever you want I guess?” Logan thought for a moment and looked downwards as he selected a subject.

“What about robots and chemistry?” He suggested.

“Sure, I’ll be listening.” Virgil relaxed, leaning back on the couch with his free hand still in Logan’s grasp. Logan leaned back as well, glancing at the ceiling as he started his lesson.

“Personally, I find robots amazing. Not all robots are the stereotypical metal, humanoid things we usually think of. It can be beings created with chains of code, or a robot made to play Snake, or even a robot whose soul purpose is to make you think they are a human.” Virgil was actually interested at this point and Logan being so passionate was a nice change of pace. He knew the other didn’t get to spill his thoughts out a lot so it was a pleasant experience for the both of them.

“I saw a video recently about an A.I. that taught itself how to create jazz music, it was rather intriguing. Admittedly, the music wasn’t that good but some runs of it sounded coherent. Also robots trying to do mundane tasks is very entertaining, just ask Patton.” Logan paused, a little grin growing on his lips.

“Many videos depict metal hands trying to pour water or a whole body just trying to walk which usually results in failure. It really puts into perspective how hardworking humans can be because we go back and try to fix those mistakes.”

Virgil nodded and smiled as Logan kept going. This was a good distraction.

“You said something about talking about chemistry earlier?” Virgil asked, tilting his head. Logam nodded quickly and changed the subject immediately.

“Yes, I find it amazing how one little change of the amount of protons in an atom makes it entirely different. Mercury and gold, for example, are very different and yet only one proton apart. Gold has a melting point of about 1 thousand degrees celsius which is… approximately 2 thousand degrees fahrenheit, give or take a couple hundred degrees. Converting larger numbers from celsius to fahrenheit quickly can be inaccurate.” He paused at Virgil’s open-mouthed, shocked expression.

“How… how did you convert it that quickly?”

“Well it’s an estimate formula, but you take the degrees celsius, multiply it by two and add thirty. With a little rounding for larger quantities.”

Virgil shook his head. “Too much math for me, personally.” Logan chuckled in amusement.

“Well, anyway. Gold has a very high melting point, yes? But mercury on the other hand has a melting point of negative 39 degrees celsius or about negative 45 degrees fahrenheit.” Once again Virgil’s mouth was open in shock.

“Negative degrees?” He asked, furrowing his brows. “Isn’t that like… really cold.”

“Yes, well, mercury is a liquid at room temperature. One of the only metals to have this odd property, in fact. I suppose gallium is close since it can melt in the palm of your hand.”

“That’s… actually pretty cool.” Logan smirked, feeling proud of himself.

Logan shared a bit more about mercury and other elements. His favorite was iodine apparently.

--

The routine became second nature to Logan: Change Virgil’s bandages and aloe then either he or one of the others distract Virgil for the day. Despite Virgil’s constant whining about being supervised, it was actually rather nice bonding time. Logan watched him for most of the week and the burn had healed gradually within about 5 days.

“It’s not itchy anymore,” Virgil said as Logan took the wrap off for the last time. “Thanks, Lo.”

“You’re welcome, Virgil. I’m glad it healed so quickly.”

“Me too.” Virgil chuckled and after Logan threw the bandage into the garbage, Patton threw himself onto Virgil for a hug.

“Me too, kiddo! So glad you’re all better!” Patton squealed. Roman, who was just behind Patton, gave Virgil a comforting pat on the shoulder after Patton broke off from the embrace.

“Don’t burn yourself again, you hear me? You had us all worried and fussing for a week--”

“It was 5 days--”

“--nonetheless, I’m also grateful that you are better.” Roman shot Virgil a sincere smile and Virgil timidly smiled back. They all left to their respective rooms, occasionally returning to the commons as usual, and went on with the rest of their day.

The next day, Logan forgot that Virgil’s wound had healed and just casually went into Virgil’s room to change his non-existent bandaging.

“Logan? My burn’s gone now, remember?” Virgil said groggily, sitting up in his bed.

Logan blinked, becoming a little flustered with himself. “Oh, I apologize. It had just become so second nature for me to come in and take you to the kitchen…” Virgil waved his hand, still clearly tired but he didn’t seem to mind the other’s company.

“It’s chill. I’d say that you can stay a while, but y’know how my room is.”

“Alright, just come to my room if you need me.” Then Logan left and although he hid it well, he still felt a bit embarrassed by his mistake.

A few hours passed and Virgil ended up in Logan’s room with a plate of cookies.

“‘Atton shed to vring theesh ‘o ya,” Virgil said as he was eating a cookie himself.

“Please don’t speak with your mouth full,” Logan replied, reaching out for the plate. “But thank you. I’ll go thank him later.”

“I um…” Virgil swallowed his cookie and cleared his throat. “I was wondering if I could stay for a while actually. Not just for the cookies, obviously. Pat gave me a plate earlier.” He scratched the back of his neck. Logan, who had just set the plate down on a table, turned his head with a surprisingly comforting glance.

“You don’t have to ask, Virgil. You’ve done it before, after all,” Logan said. “Anyways, would you like to be in the library setting?”

“Sure…”

“Alright.” Within an instant the room became a library once more, book shelves making their way into the scene and familiar furniture forming in the center. The plate of cookies had conveniently been shifted from Logan’s usual table to the coffee table in the library.

“Would you like something specific to do? I also have a few audio books to recommend you if you’d like.” Logan took a cookie from the plate as he spoke, taking a seat in his chair. “Also feel free to sit in the other chair and not under the table.”

Virgil rolled his eyes in a lighthearted manner, making his way over to the chair Logan referred to. He sat on the chair’s arm, which was close enough on the actual chair at this point.

“Um… I dunno. Just chillin’ with you is cool.” Virgil fiddled about with his thumbs, looking down at his thighs.

“Are you sure? It’s fine whatever you chose.” Logan took a bite of his cookie as he spoke, covering his mouth with his free hand as he munched.

Looking back up at Logan, Virgil replied,”Actually… maybe we can listen to music? Anything you want.” Logan took a few moments to reply, making sure he wouldn’t be sputtering with the treat in his mouth.

“That sounds rather peaceful, would you like to listen through earbuds or a speaker?”

“Earbuds.”

Virgil had beaten Logan to it, grabbing a pair from his jacket pocket. Logan took out his phone, pulling up Youtube and picking a playlist full of instrumentals. Specifically, many classical pieces but also other more modern ones containing ukulele, piano, and other calming instruments. Virgil got up from his perch, handing Logan his earbuds before realizing the situation.

“I umm… I could sit on the floor?” He said, gesturing to the small size of Logan’s chair.

“Nonsense, I’ll just make the chair longer. This is my room after all and while Roman can conjure many things outside of his room, we can do many things ourselves in our respective realms.”

“Oh right… I guess the uh… the cognitive distortion thing made me forget.” Virgil was jumping to conclusions again, like he always did. But he was trying to get better.

“It seemed to. Anyway…” Logan snapped two fingers together and the chair had turned into a couch, the cushions seeming a bit softer than before and two pillows added on either end. “Sit down on the actual cushions for optimal earbud sharing, if you will.” Virgil obliged, properly sitting on the couch for once on one end and placed his arm on the arm rest. Logan followed soon after, sitting somewhat close to Virgil. “Would you mind if I sat closer like how we sometimes do?”

The physical contact was nice but Virgil had never liked initiating it-- it felt like he was taking something without permission. “Um, yeah, go ahead.”

So Logan did, moving on the couch directly next to Virgil, legs touching. He plugged in the earbuds to his phone, handing Virgil one of them. Logan put the other in his own ear and pressed play.

They sat in silence for a while, perhaps a few hours, as the music played. Many songs later, the plate of cookies was empty with nothing but crumbs and traces of chocolate. Virgil had his eyes closed, but was still awake, and leaned against the couch. He seemed relaxed. Logan had given himself a book to silently read, the music being a nice accompaniment.

There was a small intermission of sorts when Logan eventually left Virgil to put the plate away, he returned shortly after, getting back into place next to Virgil and continuing to read and listen to music.

“Thanks, Logan… again,” Virgil said modestly, almost a mumble, but Logan heard it.

“You’re very welcome Virgil, as always.”

[pedropstanacc]

Describe an ordinary day of living with/being with your bias

I’m so bad at describing things! 😫 but I’ll give you a basic description of it ok? :(

Ok ok so say it’s like Tuesday and I wake around 8am bc I’m sort of an early bird now, and Sehun wakes up at like 11am when he doesn’t have to go to work early bc my man is a night owl and sleeps late 😒. So while he’s sleeping I do the basics when waking up like brush my teeth, wash my face blah blah and then i go downstairs to make us so breakfast. I should go work out pero let’s be real :/

Oh and this is one room! https://instagram.com/p/Bj9b-w6FjYG/

It’s low bc it’s easier for vivi to jump on the bed.

I make simple foods for us bc it’s not the weekend so I don’t go all out and I just make eggs and coffee and idk cut up some fruit lol.

I eat first bc I can’t wait for sehun even tho I would like to eat with him :( soooooo sometimes I decide to wake him up early bc I’m in love and want to live life with him lolol. And today is that day! He gets annoyed by it but gets over it. To wake him up I’ll just jump on the bed or have vivi jump all over him. And before he gives me morning kisses I need him to brush his teeth lol.

After he washes up I give him his coffee and breakfast and we just talk about random things for a while. Our kitchen is really big and comfy so I could stay in there all day if I could (I’d couldn’t find pic is my perfect kitchen but it’s open and filled with lots of natural lighting and and a big island in the middle).

We then take vivi for a walk around the neighborhood and get in a little bit of exercise.

Then we go home to shower and start our day.

I work at my own restaurant and don’t go into work until like 1pm and Sehun is still a big star and has schedules. So we unfortunately part ways for a few hours and don’t get to see each other until like 6pm at the earliest.

I get home first bc my hours are less hectic than his and I start on dinner. I really love cooking so I try and make a nice meal as often as I can. Plus I think it’s so homey when you come home from a long day at work to the smell of food cooking 😣.

Sehun and I are really keen on at least spending one or two meals a day together so for dinner we eat at the table and play some soft jazz and drink wine and talk about our day and just be in love 🤧

After dinner we go out into our yard https://instagram.com/p/BjyOtbMh8yb/

https://instagram.com/p/Bj59mLrB3Nt/

And if we are not to full we’ll eat some desert and drink more wine lol and watch a little movie or tv show or dance together ☺️ Sehun knows how much I love to dance with him surrounded by those beautiful lights 😌

At this point it’s like 9pm and idk man I’m usually the one that’s tired and wants to be in bed already but Sehun likes to stay up play video or games or work in his studio on some music. Or he’ll practice some dance moves.

I’m in bed with vivi either reading a book or watching a documentary lol.

At like 11pm Sehun slips into bed with me but I’m probably already asleep so he watches some tv until he knocks out. Or if he’s lucky I’m still awake and it’s mandatory that we cuddle and be cute and gross together bc again we’re in love 😖. And uuuuuuhhh sometimes other adult things occur so that’s always a nice way to end the day 😁😁😁. 

And yeah that’s it!!! On the weekdays we’re an old married couple bc of work and stuff but weekends we do as much as we can together or hang out with our frens 💕

[searchingthedepths]

Sugarplum Dreams

Faye and Bella have a heartfelt conversation within the dream world. 

From the Desk of F.K.E.

Everything was dark and blurry, save for a single beam of light from above. Bella carefully tried to stand up. She felt lost and disoriented in the darkness. It blanketed everything like a wet washcloth, like it couldn’t decide if it wanted to be warm or cold. She took some steps towards the spotlight, squinting to try and see what was under it. She could discern a figure, a very petite figure, clad in black and white with bits of gray. She rubbed at her eyes, but nothing could clear her blurry vision. Strange, she had perfect eyesight, never needed glasses before, why couldn’t she see anything?

            “Bella? Can you hear me?” A voice called out. A gentle voice, a little childish, feminine, charming, a voice just like…

            “Faye? Faye is that you! Where are you?”

            “Shh, it’s okay, I’m here.”

            The spotlight and the figure under it walked closer to Bella, until they were right in front of her. Though she was still blurry, Bella could still understand when she motioned for her to come closer. She kneeled beside the petite form, and in turn, the figure gave her a peck on the cheek and rubbed her eyes. After blinking a few times, Bella’s vision was crystal clear.

Before her was an adorable cartoon character. She was a little fairy, small sure, but graceful and majestic in ways Bella hadn’t expected. She had beautiful curly hair in the darkest black pigment that went down to the backs of her knees. Around her head was a lovely wreath of silvery leaves. Her clothing looked like it was made from all the things you’d commonly find in nature, leaves, vines, and flower petals. But of course, the main attraction had to be her fluttering wings. They were gorgeous, as though crafted from the finest silk, they glittered as they moved in the light.

“You alright Bell-bell?”

Yep, this was definitely Faye, no doubt about that. Bella had so many questions, but she wasn’t sure where to start.

“Faye, what are you doing here? I-is this really you?”

The fairy giggled and held Bella’s hand in hers. “Yeah, it’s really me. I know you haven’t seen me like this before, but it won’t be long before I look like this all the time for you, well, minus the wings. Those are just my own creative license.” She squeezed Bella’s hand gently. “Sammy asked me to make sure you stayed asleep while he got work done, so I entered your dreams for the night.”

“Wait, what? Why would-”

“He has a lot of ritual stuff to do tonight, prepping your body and all that jazz. I know, it’s probably really weird to talk about this,” she blushed a dark gray and looked away, “I guess this is just a normal enough occurrence for me that it’s not so weird anymore.”

“Faye, n-no worries, okay? Look, it’s not the most comfortable idea in the world, but I’ll learn to get over it, alright?” Bella wrapped her arms tightly around the little fairy and hugged her. “I don’t understand a lot of what’s going on, but it’s gonna be okay. I have to trust you guys, you know what you’re doing.”

Faye sniffled a little and hid her face in Bella’s chest. “You’re so different from all the other humans. They all tried to get out of the studio, even when they knew they couldn’t. I don’t get it, why haven’t you tried to run away?”

Bella thought about this for a moment. She wasn’t sure herself, trying to escape was the logical answer after all.

“Maybe it’s because I’m needed here. Outside the building, there’s not much waiting for me. I have no job, no home, no family, and my best friend is all the way in another state, probably forgot all about me,” she replied. She tried to laugh it off, but she did a horrible job at masking her pain.

“Sounds more like you need us,” Faye said, “I’m sorry about what happened. I wish I could make it all better. That’s what I was made for, to give people joy, but I’m not too good at it. People here are never happy.”

The fairy snuggled up to the human, getting them both to sit on the floor for a while. Bella could relate, she’d felt this often as of late, like no one wanted to be happy, no matter how much she tried to give them a chance at it. But you can’t force people to change, she knew that. She played with Faye’s locks for a while, rubbing her shoulder while she held her tightly.

“Honey, something tells me that the people here would be a lot worse off without you. I’m certain Sammy would be. Sometimes it’s not obvious, but we all help each other in our own ways. Sometimes something small can be so much bigger than it first seems.”

She held Faye closer to her, wondering if that had been the right thing to say. The human knew she wasn’t the greatest at pep talks, but this was Faye, the one person in the world that would never stop believing in the best in people. To be able to keep that belief was important. Bella hadn’t seen her friend interacting with anyone outside of Sammy and Graves, but with them, she knew the fairy was a light in the darkness. Faye cooed, getting comfortable in the human’s arms. She looked so peaceful, Bella thought, they could stay there forever and be totally fine.

The tiny fae eventually wiggled out of Bella’s arms and went to stand back in the spotlight. She plucked one of the leaves from her wreath and kneeled on the ground, lifting it up like dirt and burying the silver plant beneath it. Whispering so softly that the human couldn’t hear it, Faye recited a short incantation, and slowly the darkness lifted. There were sparkles and glittering lights everywhere, a pixie dust that washed away the inky black into a colorful field of flowers. The sky was like a robin’s egg, a protective shell of blue, with a sun shining over the wild orchids and marigolds. Bella forgot to breathe for a moment, taking in the beauty. From the spot where the leaf had been buried, a sapling of a tree had sprouted, delicate and youthful. Faye smiled knowingly and latched onto Bella’s hand.

“We don’t have forever to spend here, but I wanted to give you a safe place to come back to. What’s going to happen soon, it can be…difficult, to adjust to. I just…I don’t want to see you lose yourself,” she said.

Faye had never been hesitant in the brief time Bella had known her. If even Faye was serious and glum about the upcoming ritual, she had every reason to believe that there was something amiss.

“Faye…what’s gonna happen to me? I know you guys have the best intentions, there’s no doubt in my mind that you’ll all make the right decisions, but I need to know. It’s clearly bothering all of you,” she pleaded. She grasped the fairy’s hand tightly, holding it with both of her own. “I promise, I’ll do whatever I can to make this easier, okay?”

“That’s the thing though, there’s just no way to do that,” Faye looked straight into the human’s eyes, tears forming in her own. “I don’t want to say goodbye, when I’ve only just met you. And now I’ll never get to know you, no one is ever the same once they’ve been submerged.”

Bella nearly felt her heart stop at that. “Goodbye? I don’t understand.” She felt cold inside, shivering.

“There’s something Sammy will tell you, I know for certain he’ll say it. ‘Once you enter the ink, you’ll never be the same again.’ It’s true. I was there for that part, I saw people change. They stopped being themselves after a while, it was horrible. I don’t want to see that happen to you!” She flung herself at the confused human and bawled in her shirt. Bella tried to calm her down, but nothing would stop the tiny child’s sobbing.

“I-I don’t want to see your fire go out…it’s been dim since you got here. Bell-bell, please don’t lose your light, you’re one of the few people I’ve ever seen it in.”

“Hey, hey, calm down Faye,” she said gently. Bella held her close, giving her a peck on her forehead. The fairy whimpered before looking up, wiping the tears from her eyes. Bella held her shoulders firmly, looking her dead in the eyes.

“I may not be the wisest soul on Earth, but this much I know. No matter what happens, I’m still gonna look out for you guys. Faye, nothing could ever take away my love for you. I’m doing this because I believe it can make things better, I have to be okay with whatever happens, or it will never work.”

Faye’s heart sunk. As inspiring of a speech as it was, she saw what really motivated those words. Something grim finally clicked in Faye’s mind.

“You’re dying.”

It was barely a whisper, but in the silence of the flower field, it was easy to hear. Bella merely nodded.

“Is that how you see it? That this is the end?”

“It’s the end of my life as a human, that much is clear.”

She held up her arm and rolled up her sleeve. Even in a dream, the veiny black was still there, it had spread to her wrist, beginning to trail up her pinky.

“How can I be human when I’ve got a piece of the studio in me?”

Faye’s eyes widened, “How did you know?”

“Wasn’t exactly hard to figure out,” Bella replied. She traced over the black veins with her fingertips, as though tracing constellations in the sky. “Before I heard you, there was something else. The darkness, it wasn’t silent. There was something trying to speak, something that hadn’t reached me before. And I could be mistaken, but you’re a part of it, aren’t you?”

Faye sheepishly nodded. “That’s the ink. It has a voice of its own, the voice of the studio and everyone who belonged to it. We’re all together, all a part of something larger.”

“And now it wants Henry and I to become a part of it. It’s not just Sammy’s plans, the ink has something it wants too”

“Exactly.”

“Why though? We’re just ordinary people.”

“You think the rest of them weren’t?” Faye replied, “It doesn’t want to be alone. The people inside it are close to gone, their spirits are broken, and their hearts drained. You’re fresh, something I’m sure it hasn’t seen before, and Henry, he’s a Creator, just like Joey, having him would be valuable. The ink is hungry. It needs a new dream to feed off.”

“A new dream?” Bella asked.

“That’s what summoned its power in the first place. Joey had a dream, something he really wanted, something he wouldn’t stop working towards. But no one remembers what it is, only the ink knows. All I know is that there’s something in the Depths that he’s trying to find, and it has to do with that dream.”

“Hmm…well, I can’t say I have many dreams anymore, most of them disappeared after I lost my job. There’s only one I’ve got left, and something tells me the ink won’t be too happy with it.”

Faye raised an eyebrow. “What makes you say that?”

“That dream is to save you all from it.”

The fairy chuckled, a pure, tinkling laugh that wasn’t corrupted. “The ink isn’t a monster silly. It doesn’t hurt anyone, just the things that live in it do.”

“Well that’s reassuring,” she replied sarcastically, “Are you saying I’m gonna end up as one of those hurtful things?”

“It’s hard to say for sure,” Bella replied, “Everyone takes to the ink differently, and Joey has different jobs for everyone. I don’t think you’ll ever be asked to harm someone, that’s just not you.”

“But couldn’t that change? I thought you said you were afraid I’d lose myself.”

“I am. There’s no doubt that you’ll be changed, but it’s not like you have no say in that. That’s the wonderful thing about being born as a human, you’re not made for an intended purpose, you get to decide what your path is. I just, well, y’know…”

“You hope I’ll choose a good one, aye?”

Faye nodded quietly, her cheeks flushed. Bella couldn’t help but smile.

“Oh honey, what do I have to worry about? After all, it was your ink that healed me. With a piece of you inside me, I know I’ll never get lost.”

The printmaker held her companion tightly. She’d done her best to be reassuring, that was all she could do. But even with a false sense of confidence, she still felt chilled inside. The prospect of all of this, the idea that she’d be swallowed by something beyond her comprehension was scary. But she had to do it, she’d promised, to do the ritual as well as to save them. There was no backing out now. The fire in her eyes showed itself again, restless and small in its flame. Faye leaned next to her and tried to warm her up. Her inner flame was dim again. It needs some fuel, some extra heat, Faye decided.

“Would you like me to try and explain it? I’m not all that great at it, but you did want to know more, and knowing makes it less scary.”

“Pretty please,” Bella said, “I just want to understand. What does it feel like?”

“Think of it like this. Becoming a Searcher is like being a phoenix. You’re buried in the ashes, but when you come back out them for the first time, you’re still you, just reincarnated to be a little younger and fresher. It’s different, and you’ll have to get used to it, but you’re still you at the core. Who that person is, who you believe yourself to be, that changes with time, but nothing can take that away from you.”

Faye gestured over to the tree sapling. “You see this? There’s a reason I planted this here while you’re still fully human. This tree will grow with you throughout all of this. Some days, it will wilt, other days, it will flourish, but it will only survive if you nurture it. It represents your essence.”

“But how will I know how to care for it?”

“Simple. Take care of yourself. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to take care of you too, we all will.” Faye said, daintily petting her hand.

“Hey, I thought I was supposed to be taking care of you,” Bella said. She pretended to be miffed, which made Faye giggle.

“Nah, it’s mutual. Besides, you’re the baby of the group, someone’s gotta take care of you.”

 For in the end, you will be reborn, little ewe.

[junker-town]

A Q&A with Bucks guard Pat Connaughton during quarantine

A Q&A with Pat Connaughton of the Milwaukee Bucks.

A Q&A with the Milwaukee Bucks guard as the NBA season has been paused indefinitely over the coronavirus pandemic.

Six weeks ago, Milwaukee Bucks guard Pat Connaughton was coasting through the fifth year of his career as a rotation player on one of the best teams in NBA history. He’d just competed in the NBA’s Slam Dunk Contest, and had a story about his real estate development company published in the New York Times.

Today, as Covid-19’s rampant sweep across the United States has placed the rest of the 2019-20 season in jeopardy, there’s a chance Connaughton — a free agent this offseason — has already played his last game with the Bucks.

Most people have been forced to adjust to a different lifestyle. That includes this 27-year-old NBA player who would otherwise be preparing for a playoff run, while fulfilling his second career in different ways than he currently can.

In a wide-ranging phone interview with SB Nation on Monday, Connaughton opened up about free agency, why it’s important for professional athletes to prepare for life after retirement, Giannis Antetokounmpo’s future in Milwaukee, the Netflix series Tiger King, and so much more.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

SB NATION: I’ll begin with a question I find myself asking just about everyone I talk to these days: How are you staying safe? And, did you consider traveling home once the NBA allowed its players to do so, or just bunker down and stay put?

PAT CONNAUGHTON: I stayed in Milwaukee. I tried to look at it from a variety of different angles. For me, I’m from the Boston area and Massachusetts was arguably hit worse than the majority of other places, so going home didn’t really make sense for me, for my own health but also for the safety of my family.

We’re fortunate to be in the NBA. We might as well stay close to our team just in case, God forbid something does happen and we need access to doctors, we have team doctors. If we need access to food for some reason, the chefs are trying to help us out when they can. There’s different things that I think teams are doing to help their players that stick around.

I also wanted to do my best to stay in shape, and when the facility shut down I was able to work with some of our strength staff to get some free weights into my apartment, to get a bike, to at least have some workouts that I can do outside, running up hills near the lakefront where I live, things of that nature so that I can keep myself sane.

SB: What’s been the biggest difference for you, going from the 100 miles per hour schedule you were on as an in-season NBA player to just shutting everything down as quickly as you did?

PC: I really do believe it’s a simulation of retirement. Obviously guys still want to stay in shape and work out because basketball will be back at some point in time, but it is a mini simulation of it. Our working careers end by 35, 40, if you’re fortunate, so you’ve still got 35, 40 years of life, and what are you doing day in and day out?

For me, I love doing different things with real estate. I try to work with my best friend who’s our project manager who lives with me out here in Milwaukee, we’re working on ‘Hey, how can we grow the real estate company?’ It’s similar to what I do in basketball, learning from Giannis on a daily basis. How can I use the same competitive skill-set in the business world during this time off, because when the ball does stop bouncing I still want to have another successful career in another field.

SB: How about your daily schedule. I’m just curious how you’re filling spare time, being that I’m sure you have even more of it now with the season on hold.

PC: I wake up, I’ll scramble some eggs, cook some bacon, have a few pieces of toast, yogurt, smoothie, whatever it might be. I’ll then workout, whether it’s outside, inside, bike, weights, whatever I have access to, however creative I can be. By that time I’ll have lunch, and while I’m having lunch I’ll check my emails. I’ll check some of the work stuff I’m doing as far as the business outside of basketball for a few hours, do some stuff there.

By that time it’s probably dinnertime. We’ve been making dinner at home. Tacos. Homemade pizzas. Ramen noodles. We’re fortunate: My best friend’s fiancee also is with us and she’s a little bit more expertise in the kitchen than we are, but we’re learning.

At night, it’ll vary. Sometimes we’ll watch Billions. I’m a huge Billions fan. I’m catching up on it now because the new season is coming out in May. We checked out Tiger King. Some nights we’ll play video games. We’ll play NHL. I grew up with all hockey players. I was the only basketball player, so I didn’t have a choice on learning how to play hockey video games, now I actually enjoy it. Sometimes we’ll watch a movie. Sometimes I’ll read a book before bed. So I think it kind of varies depending the night, but before you know it, it’s 9, 10 o’clock, and if I want to try to continue to simulate what it’s going to be post retirement to get a feel for it, then I try my best to get to bed at a reasonable hour, get up in the morning and do it all again.

Photo by Michael J. LeBrecht II/NBAE via Getty Images

SB: I will never forgive myself if I don’t ask this super-serious followup question, but what were your thoughts on Tiger King?

PC: [Laughs] I was a huge fan of seeing the tigers, the lions, the ligers, the animals. Those things fascinate me. I used to watch The Lion Whisperer on Youtube. There’s this guy who is out with wild lions, in Africa or wherever they live, and he’ll just go up to them and they love him. So I’ve always been fascinated by the size of them, the size of their heads, the size of their paws. Actually the background on the lock screen on my phone is a lion. So I loved that.

As far as the personal life of my man Joe Exotic and some of the characters in it, I was a little bit puzzled. My facial reactions were a little bit, like, giggle-worthy, as my buddy and his fiancee said. They’d look at me when something was happening and I’d look at the screen like ‘what the heck is going on?’ Never in my life would I have sat down to watch that otherwise, so I think that’s all part of the experience. I’ll look back on this hopefully in five, 10 years and be like ‘Hey remember that pandemic we went through? Yeah, remember that show we watched with that guy who got put in jail, and there was that other lady who might’ve fed her husband to a tiger?’

SB: I could honestly ask you one million questions about Tiger King but I think it’s best for everyone if we move on to topics that actually matter. We don’t know when or if the season will come back, but how difficult do you think it’ll be to ramp your body back into game shape? There’s really nothing that can perfectly simulate what an NBA game is like. Does that concern you?

PC: Not for me, personally. I don’t think there’s any way to simulate game shape, but the ironic part about that is every offseason there’s also no way to simulate game shape, so in reality that’s not really a big difference, in my opinion. I’m more concerned about not having access to a gym. I can’t go into the facility. We’re not allowed to go into public gymnasiums. Unless you’re a guy who has a personal court in your house or live in nice weather and can shoot around in your driveway ... I’ve got a few balls in my house and I’m dribbling around but I’m sure the people below me and to the side of me aren’t thrilled about the dribbling that goes on at night, you know what I mean? I think that is something that will be on my radar as the season comes back around.

The in-shape thing, some of the workouts that I do, I’m laying on the ground dead afterwards. And as far as I’m concerned every time I’ve run up and down a court and played in a game I’ve never ended up laying on the ground in the locker room afterwards, like, purely exhausted. So I think the in-shape stuff, I can mitigate that worry, but I think the skill-related stuff, shooting, that’s something you’re gonna have to focus on a little bit more, pending when and if [the season] comes back.

SB: Is there anything the Bucks have communicated with you to try and combat that?

PC: When I think about what I can do, I think back to when I wasn’t in a gym every single day as a kid. We weren’t allowed to be. You had practice two, three, four times a week, depending on how many teams you were on. You weren’t necessarily in a basketball gym for hours upon hours every single day. Especially for me, playing baseball. I just think about the stuff that I used to do around the house. Dribble the ball around until my mom yelled at me. Lay in bed and shoot the ball up in the air, like you saw Pistol Pete do in that movie or whatever it was. Simple things like that to just keep your feel of the basketball at least somewhat normal.

SB: How did you find out the season was suspended and what was your first reaction?

PC: I was sitting in my apartment, actually just finished making tacos with my buddy and his fiancee. We were playing the Celtics the next day, and I was on League Pass waiting to watch the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Utah Jazz game. And it never came on. So we were like ‘when was the last time an NBA game didn’t tip off at tip-off time?’

So we went straight to Twitter, and for the next two hours we were watching Twitter as if it was the night of the NBA Draft, back when [Adrian Wojnarowski] used to drop the tweets before the draft picks came out. We might as well have thrown the Twitter feed of my phone up on the TV screen and just watched it that way because it was just fascinating.

I was just kind of like ‘this is wild.’ I didn’t think much about it at the start, as far as, this could end the season or anything that drastic. I was just like ‘wow this is having a serious effect on this one game.’ And then the Pelicans never even started their game and the Mavs finished their game, and we were supposed to play the next night? Will they [cancel] another game? The Celtics had just played the Jazz, so we kind of thought that our game wasn’t gonna last, but we didn’t get the official word for no shootaround until later on that night. And then we didn’t get the word about no games until the next day.

It was just kind of fascinating how quickly it unfolded, and how the NBA was ahead of everything. The NBA honestly set the precedent, in my opinion, for not just the rest of the sports world, but almost the rest of the world itself, to start taking this thing seriously.

SB: It’s hard to think about where we would be in this country had Rudy Gobert never tested positive, and we’re still so far behind.

PC: We’re far behind as far as the world is concerned. As a sports league, we were ahead of where the U.S. was, which is wild and scary to think about.

SB: Being part of such a special season with the Bucks, how often do you think about the possibility that the season is over, and how you might never get an opportunity to finish what you started? How difficult would that be, given all the hard work that was put in and what the expectations were?

PC: It’s tough because you look at it from a few different lenses. You think seasons like this don’t come along every year, so if it ends that’s gonna suck. To be honest. But when you look at it from the lens of an athlete you’re like we, as a team, are very good. What is preventing us from doing it again next year? Obviously we would be disappointed, we’re having a great year, etc. But maybe it just makes us hungrier next year. Maybe it’s fuel on the fire, as opposed to something else. Giannis will be a year older, a year more skilled. We’ll all be getting better. If you look at it that way you can throw some positive light to it.

The other light you look at it, just being open and honest, there are guys that are on contract years. There are guys that, I mean, personally I don’t have a technical contract for next year or anything. So you look at it like how does it affect free agency? How does it affect the salary cap? What does our team look like next year if the season were to end and not continue, and the playoffs weren’t to happen and there weren’t a champion to be crowned. I think all of those are unknown.

I could sit here for 24 straight hours and put down a sheet of paper, pros, cons, all these different scenarios, but I don’t think that does me any good. We don’t know. Nobody knows. The NBA is full of much smarter people than myself. Adam Silver is great. The owners are all very smart guys. The general managers are very smart guys. Obviously the player’s union, Michelle. Chris Paul. All them are very smart. I believe the best interest of as many players as possible and all the teams and the league itself will be what’s most important and what will be accomplished. So for me to worry about those sorts of things, sure, but at the same time it’s not gonna help me. I’m not gonna figure out, sitting in this apartment in the next month and a half, what the answers are.

Michael McLoone-USA TODAY Sports

SB: I wanted to ask you about being a free agent this offseason, and, as you said, we don’t know what will happen to the cap but there’s a chance it drops, given the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue that will be lost — which could limit the amount of money teams are able or willing to pay. Respective of your own situation, I’m sure you’ve thought about that, and then also the idea that you might’ve played your last game with the Bucks. How difficult is it to cope with such an uncertain future?

PC: I definitely think about it but in the most simplistic terms. That’s one of the reasons I’ve always made sure I do other things outside of basketball. I’m not saying it’s because my basketball career is about to end, I’m just saying my dream was always to play in the NBA. Would I like to make a lot of money playing in the NBA? Absolutely. But if the cap gets affected there’s nothing I can do about it.

I want to continue to play in the NBA. I want to continue to be part of the Milwaukee Bucks as a championship contender, and I want to continue to help my team eventually win a championship, two, three, four, whatever it is. What my contract looks like while I’m doing that? If it was more money and more guaranteed years, absolutely, I’d love that. But as long as I’m here, as long as I’m playing, as long as I’m doing my job to continue to be an NBA player, a dream that I wanted to accomplish since I was a kid, it’s quite possible I make more money outside of basketball than I do in basketball when it’s all said and done.

The way that I’m trying to set up the real estate venture, the way that I’m trying to set up business outside of basketball, with, hopefully the relationships that I’ve built and will continue to build while I’m involved in the NBA, hopefully there’s a career after basketball. Maybe it’ll definitely be real estate, but maybe there’s something else. Maybe there’s a consulting role. Maybe there’s a front office role. Maybe there’s a league role. Maybe there’s something else for me because I don’t put all my chips in one basket. I can only control what I can control but I think the way that I’m setting up my life will at least allow me to have some flexibility as far as making money in the future, and continuing to play in the NBA for, hopefully, 10, 15 years.

SB: How has this pandemic impacted Beach House LLC, your real estate development company?

PC: We have a few job sites here in Milwaukee, we’ve got one that’s still moving forward. We got permission from the city because it’s right next to another building so for safety reasons they want us to make sure we get the foundation in and get some things there so it’s not just sitting as an open hole throughout this time. So I try to go by it once a day.

The name [Beach House LLC] might be changing soon, but one of our goals with real estate development is to mitigate risk. We’re trying to find distressed properties, we’re trying to find land, we’re trying to find things that we can create value in. My dad is a general contractor, I’ve been around it. So it’s not your typical real estate investments where you’re just investing in a property and banking on everybody that’s paying rent to at least cover the mortgage and give you a little bit of a return. We’re doing that but we’re doing it after we’re developing, fixing up or renovating a property. So in reality we’re kind of on both sides. We’re creating value in the property so the appreciation grows quicker, faster, more. And then we’re holding onto the asset and trying to cash flow it so it’s also making some money year after year. But in the long term, in the 10-year window, in the 15-year window, that’s when it really starts to make money.

I think as a professional athlete, the reason others have gotten involved is because we’re fortunate to have another source of income. How do you use that income to set up another source of income when that other source of income falls off? Aka, when your career is over, is there a way to utilize the money you’ve made in this career to set up another, arguably equal or close to equal, source of income afterwards. I think that’s kind of our goal with this.

In the short term, does [coronavirus] have an effect? Yeah, potentially. Does it also have an effect where you’re able to buy some property because prices drop? Potentially. I don’t really know how it’s going to fully affect it but in general it continues to go up over long periods of time. I think that’s what gives us an advantage in that world.

SB: Why change the name?

PC: I want it to reflect the story behind it. Beach House was an LLC that my father had for a house that he did back in Florida, way back when. I’d like to put it in something that shows athletes in business, something that’s unique about this actual story, because at the end of the day, if I’m able to do what I want to do in the business world I think it will be a unique story.

My main goal is, after seeing the 30 for 30, Broke, to shed some light, get some professional athletes involved [or] give them advice even if they don’t want to be involved and kind of help change the stigma that professional athletes go broke after their careers because they don’t know how to manage their money during, and shortly after.

SB: Have other players reached out for advice or even made requests to get involved over the past few weeks?

PC: I’d say a few have. I wouldn’t say as many as you’d think with all the time on our hands, but that’s also partly because I haven’t reached out to anyone either. What I’d like to do during this time is really think about what is that next growth for the real estate development company. We have five to 10 [professional athletes] involved in a number of different projects that we’ve done, so those are great one-off projects.

What is the next growth for my company? Is it raising a fund, or getting a bunch of guys together at a certain dollar amount? Is it trying to incorporate the pro athletes that I have with some of the businessmen that I’ve known and put them together for a fund or partnership where there’s a surplus of money, and now I’m going out, developing, buying, doing different things so that when one of the players in the NBA comes to town to play the Milwaukee Bucks next year, they’re able to go by the job site that we’re doing, and they’re able to see how it’s being built. They can see it in person and say ‘Hey, I own that.”

What is that next growth step for the company? That’s kind of what I’ve been utilizing my time and energy on during this hiatus, and hopefully in the next week or two I’ll have that answer and I’ll start to put something together for it. I’ll start to reach out to some players, or field some calls from some players and try to start to make it a bigger operation. Make it a bigger business.

SB: Are you mainly focused on properties in Milwaukee or looking to expand in the future?

PC: Location is the most important thing in real estate, so I want to expand to different areas. It’s just going to depend on the location in those different areas. I have two buildings, one that’s being built and one that’s gonna start being built in a few months around Notre Dame. I obviously know that area really well. We were able to get locations that are right near campus. You can probably hit a driver off your porch to campus.

There could be some similar growth in the future for the company. Some of the projects [Portland Trail Blazers guard CJ McCollum] is involved in, there’s no reason we couldn’t do a similar model around Lehigh. He’s obviously the biggest name to come from Lehigh in the professional sports world, so there’s no reason we can’t do some of those things. Those are the business ideas I love thinking about. But in the short term it’s about areas that we know and areas we have influence in and can get to relatively easily. We’re not locked to one city, is the short version of that answer.

Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

SB: Circling it back to your playing career now, you competed in your first NBA Slam Dunk contest at All-Star Weekend last month. What was going through your head when the judges gave you a 45 after your first dunk?

PC: Honestly, I was ... that’s a great question. I don’t think I was as appalled at the time as a lot of people that I know. Did I think it could’ve been a little higher? Absolutely. But I wasn’t necessarily outraged, like, I like to think I’m pretty realistic. I like to think I’m relatively humble. That was my first dunk in an NBA dunk contest ever in my life. I was happy that I got it down on the first try, pulled off the White Man Can’t Jump thing pretty well, and then been able to share that moment with [Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich] and Giannis and Khris [Middleton] and Thanasis [Antetokounmpo] and my teammates. I thought it was pretty cool, so I was less concerned about one of the eights that could’ve been a nine. And by one of them I mean the only eight that could’ve been a nine. But that’s neither here nor there.

SB: Speaking of Giannis, you’ve been his teammate for a while and have a good relationship with him. With his upcoming free agency being one of the larger stories in the sport, do you ever talk about whether he’ll stay or go, or does it not really come up?

PC: It’s something I would talk about with him. We’re close enough friends where we definitely could. And I think our team is so close and so great as far as talking about things other than basketball, and business, and world issues, social issues. Kyle Korver brings a great element to those sorts of things. I think we have a very close knit team in our locker room.

I think sometimes it gets brought up randomly in passing and things like that, but I think at the end of the day, for us, it’s not as big of a deal as it is for the rest of the world. Obviously the city of Milwaukee, the team, everyone wants Giannis to be here forever. But Giannis has put himself in a position to provide for his family from growing up with nothing in Greece, and I don’t think you can fault Giannis for whatever decision he ends up making, that he believes is the best decision for him, his family, the people who are closest to him.

I’ll support him regardless of what he does, and I think the entire team will support him regardless of what he does. I think we’re building something pretty cool in Milwaukee so that will play a role, but it’s his decision and all of us will support what he does, whenever that decision comes to light.

[justforbooks]

I’ve been trying to remember, was it The Sorrow And The Pity they were lining up for when, sick to death of the medium-is-the-message windbaggery of the pseudo-intellectual – now there’s a term to blast me back – in front of him, Alvy actually produces Marshall McLuhan from behind a lobby card? The association strikes me as a natural one, since I’m about to gather with the other acolytes in an art house cinema. Will anyone in the queue reference or be moved to imitate the McLuhan moment, I wonder?

And where were they? Was it at the Regency at 68th street? (Was it even called the Regency? It hardly matters, since it’s gone now, like the New Yorker at 88th, the movie house at 72nd and Broadway, the Thalia {{which does show up at the very end of the movie, when he runs into Annie after they’ve stopped dating and introduces her to a young, young Sigourney Weaver, fresh out of Yale}}, the Metro, the Bleecker and, of course, Theater 80. With all the rep houses having ceded their real estate to condos and their authority to Netflix, who is curating the tastes of the city’s undergraduates? How will they even know about The Sorrow And The Pity? Mondo Cane? How can the budding homosexual flower without the occasional force-feeding of a double feature of Now Voyager and All About Eve? To wit – and to extend this parenthetical yet further: in senior year, at the last meeting of our Japanese literature seminar before Spring break, the professor – ageing, erudite, one of the few, perhaps only, Western recipients of countless Japanese cultural laurels – asked us our plans for the coming week. I allowed as how I would be staying in town in order to write my thesis. ‘Well then, of course you’ll be going to the Bette Davis festival every day down at the Embassy.’ He said it as if stating an obvious prescription, like recommending medical attention for a sucking chest wound, or ‘You’ll want to call the fire department about those flames licking up the front of your house.’ Only a self-destructive lunatic would think he could survive the week by missing the Bette Davis festival. I took his advice and went every day. Did it help my thesis any? Hard to say. It was a long time ago.)

The time when a Woody Allen retrospective would have evoked that kind of fierce cinéaste devotion seems long gone, having been tempered out of us not just by the years (such performative loyalty is really the province of the youngsters who nightly go to Irving Plaza right near my apartment, passing the hours sitting on the pavement singing the songs of the artists they are about to see), but by Woody Allen himself. The tsunami of mediocrities like Hollywood Ending and Melinda And Melinda effectively obliterates why Manhattan mattered so much. I can’t help feeling like he’s dismantled the very admirable legacy of his earlier work by his later, overly prolific efforts. It’s a more benign version of Ralph Nader (with the key difference that I hate Ralph Nader, whereas Woody Allen simply makes me a little bit sad).

Then again, no one worth a damn doesn’t make the occasional bit of bad work: there are episodes of The Judy Garland Show that are absolute train wrecks of creaky squareness, made all the more ghoulish by the presence of an aphasic gin-soaked Peter Lawford, and I take a back seat to no one in my love for Judy Garland, the most talented individual who ever lived (ladies and gentlemen, my Kinsey placement); I read a lousy late Edith Wharton novel this summer, The Children, that was a tone-deaf, treacly muddle; I don’t care for Balanchine’s Scherzo à la Russe and I’ve said it before, even though it is considered a cinematically signal moment by the Cahiers du Cinema crowd (zzzzzzz), I’m no great fan of the movie Kiss Me Deadly.

Perhaps taken as a whole, the twenty-eight films will start to exert their own internal logic and I will see and delight in how Allen mines his themes over and over again. Or perhaps it will be like the Broadway show Fosse, where a surfeit of the choreographer’s vocabulary made all of it suffer and the entire thing looked like the kind of shitty entertainment that takes place on a raised, round, carpeted platform at a car show. I’ll see, I guess.

As one might expect for the 1:30 p.m. showing on the Friday before Christmas, there are only about a dozen of us waiting. Our ranks swell to about thirty people closer to show time, but at first it’s just me and more than a few men of a certain age (whose ranks I join with ever greater legitimacy each day), about whom it might be reasonably assumed that we spend an inordinate amount of time fixating on when next we might need to pee. Thoughts of age stay at the forefront in the first few minutes of the film, when Woody Allen himself (who, it must be said, in later scenes, stripped down to boxers, kind of had a rocking little body in his day) addresses the camera directly and tells us that he just turned forty. I’m older than that by two years.

How many times have I seen this, I wonder? Unquantifiable. The film is canonical and familiar and memorized, almost to the point of ritual. Perhaps this is the spiritual solace the faithful find in the formulaic rhythms of liturgy. It’s as comforting as stepping into a warm bath. Diane Keaton is enchanting, there is no other word for it. She comes on the screen and you can hear the slightest creaking in the audience as corners of mouths turn up. There is Christopher Walken, a peach-fuzzed stripling. And there, doe-eyed, with drum-tight skin: Carol Kane playing Alvy’s first wife, Allison Portchnik.

Allison Portchnik. Oy. I am generally known as an unfailingly appropriate fellow. I have very good manners. But when I fuck up, I fuck up big time. Suddenly I am reminded of how, three years ago, I was on a story for an adventure magazine, an environmental consciousness-raising whitewater-rafting expedition in Chilean Patagonia (about which the less said the better. It’s really scary. Others may call it exhilarating, and I suppose it is, the way having a bone marrow test finally over and done with is exhilarating. And Patagonia, Chilean Patagonia at least, while pretty, isn’t one tenth as breathtaking as British Columbia). On the trip with me were Bobby Kennedy, Jr., hotelier André Balazs and Glenn Close, among others. Everyone was very nice, I hasten to add.

After lunch one day, my friend Chris, the photographer on the story, came up to me and said, ‘I’d lay off the Kennedy assassination jokes if I were you.’

I laughed, but Chris reiterated, not joking this time. ‘No, I’d really lay off the Kennedy assassination jokes. The lunch line . . .’ he reminded me.

And then I remembered. I had been dreading this trip (see above about how totally justified I was in my trepidation) for weeks beforehand, terrified by the off-the-grid distance of this Chilean river, a full three days of travel away; terrified of the rapids and their aqueous meatgrinder properties; terrified of just being out of New York. All of this terror I took and disguised as an affronted sense of moral outrage, that such trips were frivolous, given the terrible global situation. I explained it to Glenn Close thusly:

‘I was using the war in Iraq to try and avoid coming down here,’ suddenly, unthinkingly invoking the part of Annie Hall where Alvy breaks off from kissing Allison because he’s distracted by niggling doubts: if the motorcade was driving past the Texas Book Depository, how could Oswald, a poor marksman, have made his shot? Surely there was a conspiracy afoot. Then, with Bobby Kennedy, Jr. helping himself to three-bean salad on the lunch line not five feet away, I switched into my Carol Kane as Allison Portchnik voice and said, ‘You’re using the Kennedy Assassination as an excuse to avoid having sex with me.’ Then I followed that up with my Woody Allen imitation and finished out the scene. Nice. No one pointed out my gaffe or was anything other than gracious and delightful.

Despite how well I know the material, the film feels so fresh. All the observations and jokes feel like they’re being made for the first time, or are at least in their infancy. By later films they will feel hackneyed (in the movie Funny Girl, the process of calcification is even more accelerated. You get back from intermission and Barbra Streisand already feels like too big a star, a drag version of herself ), but here it’s all just terrifically entertaining. And current! Alvy tells his friend Max that he feels that the rest of the country turning its back on the city – It’s the mid-70s. Gerald Ford to New York: Drop Dead, and all that jazz – is anti-Semitic in nature. That we are seen as left-wing, Communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers. And so we remain, at least in the eyes of Washington and elsewhere, a pervy bastion of surrender monkeys. There was an Onion headline that ran after a sufficient interval of time had passed post-9/11, that essentially read, ‘Rest of country’s temporary love affair with New York officially over.’

Rest of the country’s perhaps, but mine was just beginning when I saw the film at age eleven. By the time the voiceover gets to the coda about how we throw ourselves over and over again into love affairs despite their almost inevitable disappointments and heartbreak because, like the joke says, ‘we need the eggs,’ (if you need the set-up to the punchline, what on earth are you doing reading this?) I am weepy with love for the city. Although, truth be told, it doesn’t take much to get my New York waterworks going.

Walking out, my friend Rick, thirtyplus years resident said, ‘I had forgotten how Jewish a film it is.’ I really hadn’t noticed. But I’m the wrong guy to ask. It’s like saying to a fish, ‘Do things around here seem really wet to you?’ I wrote a book that got translated into German a few years back. There was a fascination among the Germans with what they perceived as my Jewish sensibility; a living example of the extirpated culture. I’ve said this before, but I felt like the walking illustration of that old joke about the suburbs being the place where they chop down all the trees and then name the streets after them. At least a dozen of the reviews referred to me as a ‘stadtneurotiker’, an urban neurotic, a designation that pleased me, I won’t lie. Especially when I found out the German title for Annie Hall.

Der Stadtneurotiker.

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