#Vincent TXT answers

[toaster-in-bathtub]

you like kissing boys dont you? You boykisser

“i like kissing men”

[enderwalk]

🧬- most chaotic?

🔮- does anyone wanna share something about their source(s)? Feel free to ramble !! And anyone that wants to can answer ! Even if it’s like 20 ppl ! Go on, have fun :))

🥞- spill some tea perhaps? 👀

!!!! ^_^

🧬- most chaotic? GRAHAM. he's an evil little man who makes my life so much harder by instigating fights. mark isn't allowed to get groceries or cook because he'll just create the absolute worst shit

🥞- spill some tea perhaps? 👀 there's so much i could say about wilbur you have NO idea. holy shit. he'd kill me and i can already feel myself getting a headache from answering these but the shit he's said about certain people... is interesting to say the least

[kitch3nsink]

wake from the scar,

what's this?

still feeling sick,

I think we can.. talk to people with it?

where did it get started?

hm. well, all we can do now is wait, i guess.

[ooc stuff below + rules n tag system]

Hello ! This is an rp ask blog for my (@defnotnoodle ) plate timeloop au called kitchen sink !!

asks will mostly be answered with text, though I might draw answers if I feel like it

nothing nsfw, thats basically it for rules. I'd prefer if asks didn't include flirting unless it's not serious and for sillies

The pfp is a placeholder until I come up with something to put there so ignore it for now

you can ask vincent or rody (or both of them) questions (and give them things if you want) if the ask doesn't specify who it's directed towards ill pick

vince uses it/he and rody uses she/he because it's my fucked up au and I get to choose the gender headcanons . Also vince has a cat but it's not relevant at all

Forgot to add this but the in universe explanation is that you're sending letters/packages (or just . yourself if the ask calls for it) to them and the letters don't reset through the timeloops oddly enough so they send ones back

anyway that's it have fun ig

also vince's text will be red and rody's will be orange ‼️

#txt - text posts

#v.txt - same as above but vincent specific

#r.txt - same as above but rody specific

#vr.txt - same as above but both of them

#png - image posts

#received - asks

[many-gay-magpies]

get to know me tag — !

name :: magpie!

sign :: scorpio sun and i dont remember any of the other shit

height :: 5'5 or 5'6

time :: 11:24 am

fav band/artist :: how dare you ask this question. i have SO MANY. ill just answer with five which are: the paper kites | luamel | st. vincent | verivery | and kate bush! (i have so many more though seriously fuck this question /lh)

last movie + show :: i don't remember my last full movie, but my last show was how to train your dragon: race to the edge (in my httyd era yippee)

when did i create this blog :: mid-may 2019? but i only really started to be active on it later in october

what do i post :: random shitposts, life stuff, the occasional art, moodboards (on a sideblog), some fandom stuff

other blogs :: @bambihee for moodboards, @apebbleforyourthoughts for mlp (my own art as well as copious reblogs)

do i get asks :: not a ton but yeah! i have a few regular askers (hi artzyy and vrvr anon <3) and then other random ones

average hours of sleep :: right now around eight cuz its summer and i can wake up whenever i want, but i bet pretty soon itll drop down to six or less LMAO

dream job :: some job at a library or maybe an ornithologist/other bird-related profession? bird photographer? i like birds.

dream vacation :: new zealand, canada, or maybe vietnam cuz of that giant-ass cave ecosystem they have there.

current favorite song(s) :: be free by kb | addicted to tv by dickpunks (yes that is actually their name) | wishlist by txt

tagged by :: @addictedtothesummernights kyuzu !! ty beloved <33

tagging :: @strwbrry-cake @just-a-demi-bean @blonghoonie @taeyeonsb and anyone else interested!

[visitsaddle]

・:〃↪ new message ᵎ — mwf?

・:〃↪ new message ᵎ — mwm? &lt;3

we won't be answering any more mw questions, as stated before we want whoever you have most muse for but we also want to have a diverse and safe space for everyone !! this is too long so under a read more it goes !!

with that being said we would love to have the twice, lesserafim and red velvet girlies around as well as aisha potter, dina denoire, christina nadin, salem mitchell, davika hoorne, yara shahidi, lame.cobain, ange jose, cierra ramirez, victoria villarroel, maría isabel, NANA, holly lim, lenabusch, mishti rahman, babynezza, bbyambi, lizeth selene, brianna tju, ashley moore, pamalaaam, flomoneyyy, kielemontgomery, amandawilliams, sofia jamora, jasmine tookes, imaan hamm, monet mcmichael, chase sui wonders, jung hoyeon, kylie verzosa, laura harrier, nadine lustre, nikki thot, sydney and devon carlson. you can go ahead and check buggyrpt, fcfortwit or naileadevoras for more fcs as they always post good options !!

for males seventeen, bts, txt, p1harmony, ateez, charles melton, jalen noble, mason gooding, nathan nyuts, evan mock, cylus sandoval, keith powers, bad bunny, curlyfrysfeed, wy.an, vincent trayvon, omar apollo, des.qua, scarfxce.xo, emiliosakraya, deaven booker, xolo maridueña, broderick hunter i really am bad for male fcs but i hope this helped !!

[jenovasheir]

[Text] Today is Lucrecia's birthday. I wondered if you would like to accompany me to buy her flowers.

[Text] I was considering going to the candle lighting for the lost ceremony they've been holding this evening. You are invited to accompany me to that as well, if you wish. There are no graves to visit here to pay respects, after all.

It takes a while for Sephiroth to answer Vincent's messages. He's never been one to mourn the dead. It was such an inevitability for so many of Shinra's soldiers that death almost became white noise at some point. Even Angeal's death was muted to a point.

[txt] I have no other plans for today. Should you wish for me to accompany you, I will oblige.

If nothing else, perhaps sentimentality will loosen the ex-Turk's lips and he'll be able to learn more about his mother.

[gamer--grill]

Catherine: Full Body game review. Spoiler alert!

Catherine: Full Body is a recreation of the original game Catherine made in 2011 by the game company Atlus, the same creators of the Persona games. It's a very story oriented platform puzzle game and follows the story of a man who's questioning his life and relationships.

Plot

So the story follows a man named Vincent Brooks, age 32, as he struggles with his hesitancy to commit to his girlfriend of 5 years Katherine and with the terrifying nightmares that plague him. At the very start of the game we meet Rin, formaly known as Qatherine, as she's running from her stalker in the streets. Vincent saves her and finding that she has amnesia and doesnt know anything about herself, she gets a job at the Stray Sheep playing piano, she is also Vincent's new neighbor.

2nd, we meet Catherine, a young, sexual blonde who comes into the Stray Sheep and has a drink with our protag. Vincent gets drunk out of his mind and in the morning he wakes up with Catherine naked beside him. He freaks the fuck out and here starts the love square as he struggles to hide his infidelity from both Katherine and Catherine while dealing with his growing affections for Rin.

Gameplay

The real meat of this game is in the nightmare segments. Every night you're transported to a world where you have to climb a tower of cubes before they fall out from under you and you become a heaping plate of sheep meat. And what they don't tell you about the puzzles is THEY ARE HARD, OH MY GAWD! If you play on hard or even normal be ready to throw your controller out the goddamn window and question your life choices bc if puzzles aren't for you then you're gonna have a bad time.

The game's puzzle segments have improved greatly with an additional difficulty setting called Safety where it's impossible for you to die, there's no timer so the floor doesn't fall out from under you, and you have an auto play and skip options so if you're feeling lazy you can have the game play its self or just skip the puzzle entirely. There's also a back camera so if you need to climb to the back of the puzzle you can actually see what you're doing instead of scrambling around like a sheep with its head cut off. The trap blocks are also disabled in Safety mode. After you get to the top of each block tower you'll come to a platform where you can save, talk to people and buy items that help you climb (they bring down your score of you use them fyi.) After that you'll get into a confessioanal booth where you'll be asked a question where you'll have to answer either 1 extreme or the other. This is the main thing that will determine the outcome of the game. This game has multiple endings and depending on what you choose that will decide the ending that you get and the paths you take. There's a total of 14 endings in this game including alternate endings that are exclusive to Catherine: Full Body so this game makes up for its relatively short play time by having high replay value. They've also added new questions to the game so it won't be the same questions that you answered if you played the original Catherine.

There's an option called Remix where there's entirety new kinds of blocks in the puzzles to deal with, I didn't play that but it looked intersting.

Other than the nightmare parts of the game, you spend you're time at the Stray Sheep drinking, talking to you're friends, bar patrons and Rin. You freqently get txts on your phone from all 3 of the girls and unlike the original game you get phone calls now and pics from all of the women, not just Catherine 😈😈. The best thing about the bar is that it's entirely optional. There's no extra fluff you need to slog through. You can just skip entirely passed it if you don't feeling like drinking or talking but it's all so atmospheric that you'll want to do it. Plus drinking more helps you move faster during the puzzles so bottoms up, bitches. 🍸🍺🍻🍷🍹🍶

Character's

I'm only gonna cover the love intrests bc they're the only ones who matter really.

Qatherine (Rin)

Oh. My. God. I can't even begin to tell you how good her story is. Her genuine innocence, kindness and sincerity help Vincent greatly as he deals with the traumatic nightmares and his relationship problems. Early on we can really feel the affection that he has for her and it seems completely natural that they would fall in love. In fact later in the game he kind of admits that he did fall in love with her. This is how good it was, when I messed up and didn't give the right answers for her path to be unlocked I was so pissed off when the cutscene finally came that I would have shouted at my screen if my dad hadn't been sleeping next door to me. Rin also has a unique place in the game. Unlike the other 2, she actually appears in the nightmares and helps you by playing her piano. That added comfort she gives Vincent really adds to her relevance and pefectly supports the way to a loving relationship should you choose to persue one. She's the most fulfilling love option. She's also not human. Or a girl.

Katherine

Katherine is already your long time steady gf when the game begins. Mature and sensible, she almost resembles a mothering role with the protag. She's always worried about him and his drinking habbits and how clean his apartment is. But she's not without her soft side either. She brings him cake and wants to persue a deeper commitment with him. She's very smart and ambitious but also quite understanding when it comes to Vincent's bumbling clumsiness. She truely wants the best for him and their relationship. This is expanded by the memories that are shown to you about their early relationship when they first fell in love. Which didn't happen in the original game. She represents the security and familiarity that comes with having a long time relationship.

Catherine

Catherine isn't actually a human at all. She's a succubus who was brought to specifically temp the protag into a steamy affair. She's described as "his dream girl" and represents the fantasy and freedom that people secretly crave. She's appears unassuming and innocent on the outside but is actually very shrewd and aggressive as shown when she beats the shit out of Vincent in the bathroom of the bar if you choose to break up with her. She also threatens to kill you early on if you cheat on her. She's very emotionally vulnerable and actually falls in love with the protag as the game progresses. If you break up with her she'll beg to stay with you, stateing that "I just wanna be your girl." And that she's ok with you marrying some one else. Then she cries. Then beats you up. It's all very hilarious and strange. Also no one else can see her except Vincent which leads to chaos near the end of the game. Her endings are actually pretty nice so give her some consideration.

Graphics

As this is a ps4 game, it goes without saying that the graphics are better than the original. The cematics really have the polished Persona 5 look to them. The colors are super bright and vibrant it's like a feast for your eyeballs, I just love it. When you do get a loading screen, which isn't often, you get blasted with that signature vibrant pink and the title screen has a whole new look to it. The style is there and I am here for it.

Interesting stuff

These are just things I personally found awesome.

In the begining, the hostess Trisha (she explains the whole story and presents it to you as a soap opera) aknowleges that this game is the new better version of the first.

The cubes with faces on them open their eyes when you stand in front of them.

When you reply to txts in the bar, you don't have to cycle through options anymore, just scroll and select.

There's Persona music on the bars jukebox including the opening song to Persona 5

There's Persona 5 Easter eggs. Just look around. 😉

There's a rich Muslim dude who you get to talk to on the platform after you climb the puzzles so if you're concerned about "representation" it's there.

Overview 8.5/10

Catherine: Full Body is an intersting, unique and stylish game that brings a fresh new concept to gaming and I really recommend it. It's strange and it does what it does and it does it well bc it's not trying to please or pander to anyone. The story is good and the style is showy and I love it.

I hope that you enjoyed this review and that your gamming experience is a little better.

[dirge-of-valentinex4]

Dear Dad

@valentiinus

It had been a month now, since Italy, since he’d seen his father and Vincent was still mulling over it all. He was still angry but not nearly as much as he thought he’d be... and he was starting to realize that some of it had been his fault. He’d not been easy to contact; he still wasn’t, but with good reason.

Today, it was especially preying on his mind. It was a slow day, and he’d roamed around his high rise office (he’d not yet told Meia that he had an actual job outside of the mob) more than once, standing and staring out the window in a fit of melancholy.

Finally, disgusted with himself, he’d pulled out his phone and opened his texts (most were from Meia...he’d gotten better about texting her). New number was put in, read off of a sticky note, then he stared at the empty box and blinking cursor.

What to say... He typed and erased for several minutes, becoming more and more annoyed and frustrated with himself. The phone was chucked onto his desk at one point and ignored for half an hour before he tried again.

[txt] Where are you?

Then, realizing that Grimoire probably didn’t have his number and wouldn’t know who was texting him, quickly followed up with a second.

[txt] This is Vincent.

The phone was chucked again in annoyance and he turned to the computer to answer an email; he’d no doubt just won the award for world’s shittiest opening text.

[psychoanalyticmystic]

📱

Send me a “📱” and I will answer the following:

What was my muses 5 last sent texts yours?txt: Tal // txt: TAL // sms: [image] // txt: why is it doing this??? // txt: where did we even get this couch? I'm pretty sure I've never seen it before?What was my muses 5 last unsent texts yours.? There's like fifty from Vincent accidentally opening her phone in her purse and hitting the keysWhat was my muses last snapchat to yours?click!What my muse saved your number as?Goat emoji next to a bunch of hearts, she doesn't remember why but it probably had something to do with a jokeWhat contact photo my muse has set for yours?click!What ringtone my muse has set for yours?thisHow many times my muse has called your this week?None, she prefers to text or talk in person with him How many calls has my muse missed from yours?None, if he calls her she'll answer it

[toaster-in-bathtub]

opinion on those shades of blue that look like purple and you'd never know its blue until some FUCK comes around and corrects you 4 calling it purple

“such a specific question Anon.. is someone a little colorblind?”

[im-not-a-what]

What the Deuce, Ch. 2

Title: What the Deuce

Summary: Neal Gold and Lily Vincent don’t start on the right foot when they meet at camp. But friendship blooms, and they discover some odd coincidences about each other’s families. Before they know it, they’ve stumbled on a long-kept secret that will throw the Golds and the Vincents for a monumental loop and into an overdue reunion.

Rating: T

Genre: family, friendship, humor

Chapter: Coincidences [Chapter 1]

Characters: Neal, Lily

AO3 link

Note: Neal and Lily are starting to get along and get to know each other. It’s time for the truth to come out.

It started with the typical getting-to-know-you questions. Maybe most people wouldn’t start to get to know someone they’ve known for a week under less than favorable circumstances. Not to mention that they were currently sneaking in extra work time on their shared game in the lab at nearly seven o’clock at night. They were struggling to stay focused, though, having come up with a baseline for a dragon-hunting plot with no title. Lily wanted to use “dragon” in its name, but a few Google searches turned up way too many pre-existing titles. To give their creative juices time to replenish, both Lily and Neal sat back in their seats. She stared at a screen full of code while he stared at polished, digital renditions of their heroine in various game-based poses.

“You never mentioned where you’re from,” Lily asked out of the blue. Apparently, personal questions as well as barbeque chips helped her reset.

“Neither did you,” Neal pointed out.

“Boston.”

“Really? I would’ve guessed New York.”

“I’d love to live in New York. Anything to get a break from my family.” Lily paused with a slight grimace. She’d caught herself blurting out something she’d meant to keep to herself. “I mean, I love them and all, but they can be a bit much.”

Neal nodded. “My dad’s like that. He does too much checking-in. He’s texted me every day since I’ve been here. I told him I wasn’t going to answer until bedtime. He hasn’t quite gotten it.”

“Yeah? What about your mom?”

The hint of a side-twisted frown earned a quick apology from her. Neal shook his head. “It’s all right. I haven’t heard from her in a while. She calls now and then. Just as well. Dad is enough to handle.”

Lily somberly dug into her bag of chips. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay, really. My parents divorced years ago. I was in first grade, so, I’ve had time to deal with it.”

“I doubt it’ll make you feel better, but I don’t even know my dad.”

Neal sat up in his chair. His eyebrows rose with joking concern. “We’re not secretly brother and sister, are we?”

Bits of potato chips flew fell out of Lily’s laughing mouth. “I hope not!” She wiped her mouth. “My mom’s name is Mal.”

“Mine’s Milah. That’s a little too close for comfort.”

“Mom is blonde, tall, about 50 years old.”

He slapped his chest. “Oh, thank God,” he coughed out.

As she giggled, an intrigued look crept into Lily’s expression. “That doesn’t rule out the possibility that your dad and my mom had an affair.”

“At about the same time my parents had me? I can’t see him doing that.”

She shrugged. “You never know.”

“No way. Here, I’ll show you a photo of him.” Neal took out his phone and pulled up the photo gallery. “You and he look nothing alike.”

Other kids might’ve jeered at how he had a photo of him and his father. Granted, it was his father’s birthday, and the candles from the cake unintentionally cast ominous shadows on Rumford Gold’s face. That alone made the picture a keeper. Neal’s face was harder to see, but his smile was clear while his father’s just as easily could’ve been a real smile or a demonic smirk. It was terrifyingly hilarious.

Lily scoffed from the first glance. “Is this your way of telling me your dad is Lucifer?”

“He’d take that as a compliment.”

“Hah! Nice. When was his birthday?”

“January 9th.”

The impact of that sentence was far from earth-shattering, but its ripple effect stretched beyond anything he or Lily could’ve predicted. While Neal sat there oblivious, fondly admiring and chuckling at his father, Lily was close to losing her eyes. They wanted that badly to pop out of the sockets.

“You’re shitting me,” she said.

Neal looked up, feeling like he’d been slapped with a fish. “What? No, of course not.”

“That’s my mom’s birthday.”

His mouth dropped opened, then spread upward in a grin. “You serious? That’s crazy!”

Lily didn’t look nearly as tickled. “What are the odds?”

“Yeah, I know!”

“How old is your dad?”

“Forty-eight.”

Now Lily looked a bit crazed.  “So’s my mom.”

Neal narrowed his gaze. Maybe she was trolling him. “I thought you said she was fifty.”

“Almost fifty.”

“Oh.” His amusement followed hers into oblivion. “Wait, are you joking? They’re the same age?”

“Sharing the same birthday,” she whispered.

A chill skirted down his back. Neal wasn’t sure if this information or Lily’s wild-eyed look caused it. “Okay. That means—”

“Born exactly the same day.”

“That’s . . . that’s an insane coincidence. But I guess it’s possible. There’s, like, one person born every four seconds, right? Or maybe four minutes. I can’t remember which.”

Lily slowly unwound as she leaned back. “I guess that’s right.” The puff of air escaping her foam-stuffed computer chair matched her deflating expression. And yet a lingering sharpness in her stare kept Neal worried.

The alarm on his wrist watch rattled them back to reality.

“Hey, dinner time,” Neal said.

Lily blinked. “Yeah, sure. Let me text Emma and see if she’s already at the cafeteria.”

About six hours later, Neal’s phone sang a techno tune. He groaned. The morning had come too early.

Well, he was right, but 1:24 a.m. wasn’t the definition of “morning” he had in mind. The noise from his phone was a notification for a text. He had to rub his eyes thoroughly before the bleariness cleared enough that he could read it. The light was far too bright for the total darkness of his dorm room. He checked that Michael and John hadn’t been disturbed. They slept in the opposite bunks, sound asleep.

Squinting, Neal read: Need u 2 look @ this. Txt me.

He hadn’t plugged in the name for the person whose number now loomed above the text message, but he gradually remembered that it was Lily’s. After reading the truncated words a couple times, not entirely convinced he wasn’t dreaming, he watched another data-loaded message come through. There was a photo attached to this one. He enlarged it.

In the picture, three teenagers stood crowded together. Two girls, one boy. The boy and the girl on his left looked about Neal’s age. The other girl was a few years younger. The photo had faded a bit to sepia, suggesting its age, yet the kids looked like anyone he might go to school with. Except that one of them was vaguely, uncomfortably recognizable.

Neal maximized the photo as best he could. The girls sandwiched in the boy. Both girls had long, straight, dark hair. The older girl on the left had Polynesian features while the other—well, he wasn’t sure if she had mixed ethnicity or was just white with unusual bone structure. The boy had the broadest smile of all of them. His dirty blond hair caught some shine from the sun. Blue eyes laughed at Neal. The kids were all grinning. This was the peak of their lives.

A studious examination of the boy brought back other images Neal had seen in a home movie. His grandfather, on a rare visit, had sat him down to “appreciate” a few reels of footage from the old man’s childhood. Neal did appreciate them. He got to glimpse at a part of his family he didn’t know much about. He watched Grandpa Malcolm run around as a tyke in the nude (a fact Malcolm was far from ashamed of) while tiny Aunt Maimie threw her pacifier at him. There was more footage, much of it starring Malcolm with Maimie appearing in about half. The other half featured Malcolm’s friends, who later became bandmates. The vintage hairstyles had made Neal laugh. His grandpa had aimed a disapproving but amused eyebrow at him. There was a lot to find memorable in those home movies, but none more than his granddad’s young, grinning mug. The same mug staring at him now.

Neal texted Lily back: Where did you get it? His heartrate climbed as logic sunk into his half-wakeful brain.

Waiting for her reply was painful. It took six minutes. My great aunt gave it 2 me. On the left.

His shiver came partly from uncanny excitement. U know the boy?

She said he’s my grandfather.

Neal didn’t like using all caps when it wasn’t called for. He immediately replied: WHAT?!

U know him? she asked.

He’s MY grandfather.

U sure?

It was close to an insult that she doubted him and didn’t deign to using caps lock, too.

99.99% sure.

Other girl = grandmother. Girls r half sisters.

U know the names?

Granny Melanie & Great Aunt Lila

He didn’t know those names. While he was aware of the hour, an itch in his fingers urged him to call his dad and ask for his grandmother’s name. Straight away he backed off from the notion. What little he knew of his family history consisted of his father being raised by two aunts while Grandpa Malcolm traveled for work. That was the cleaned-up version Pop had pitched to him for years. It was around middle school that Neal, meeting and befriending kids from broken homes, learned that abandonment wasn’t just a thing, but a thing that may well have happened to his own father. At first, he reasoned that it didn’t totally count, not if Malcolm dropped by every blue moon. Lots of kids didn’t know their grandparents that well. But Neal knew his great-aunts. It struck him how he had a more familial intimacy with them than his grandfather. And there was always tension whenever Pop and Grandpa occupied the same room.

His maternal grandmother never came up on Pop’s end. Neal presumed she’d died long ago, maybe even in childbirth.

He gulped and texted Lily back. Is your grandma alive?

Another minute dilated close to the point of breaking his sanity.

Yes. Lives in Boston.

A weight dropped away. Not for any good reason other than to be glad for Lily, he told himself.

Have u met your grandpa?

No. Divorced.

Oh. Why hadn’t he considered that? Maybe his grandparents divorced when Pop was really young. Maybe Pop didn’t even remember her that well. But why would his grandmother never visit? Was the pregnancy an accident? Had his grandparents even married in the first place? Neal felt a headache coming on.

And there was the question of Lily’s family—no. He had to stop drawing the conclusion Lily had directed him toward over their parents’ shared birthdays. But his grandfather knew her grandmother and great-aunt. Could that be mere coincidence, too?

His phone notification alarm sang quietly. Another text. Neal?

Neal exited the text chat. He called Lily’s number. She picked up on the second ring. “Hey.” Her whisper punched through the speaker, barely controlled.

“Hey.”

“So, uh, are you freaking out, too?”

“Not sure yet. We should . . . I mean, it’d be a good idea to—”

“Check this out?”

She’d stolen his words. A feverish heatwave stole over him. His brain replayed a composite memory of Aunt Maimie and Aunt Penny talking to him. They finished each other’s sentences with eerie synchronization.

“Yeah, exactly,” Neal finished one his breathing was steady.

“Meet me at the library lab after class,” Lily said. “I know a way we can find out for sure if . . . you know.”

“How?”

“Leave it to me. I’ll explain tomorrow. Gotta go.”

“’kay. Night.”

The click was too loud in the nightly silence. Neal played around with the idea of calling Lily back for more details. Most of him wanted to stuff his phone under his pillow or in his backpack, pretend this exchange never happened, and sleep in blissful ignorance. Maybe he’d wake up and find out this was a scarily lucid dream. He couldn’t remember a dream being so stubborn as he snuggled down and stared at the opposite wall, ideas spinning in his head like the wheels of an overturned, useless bicycle. It took forever for the momentum of his thoughts to finally wind down.

A quick self-assessment the next morning brought more grounding to Neal’s dizzy, weightless confusion than he expected. His stomach was alive like a beehive, yet apprehension sweetened to curiosity. He was a jittery mess and he couldn’t even blame caffeine by the time he was at the library, arriving a few minutes early of the appointed time.

Lily was already there. She was planted at her own laptop on a lab table left bare for kids who brought their own computers and plugged them into the row of outlets running down the center of aligned tabletops. Her thick eyebrows sat together, joined in concentration. Neal imagined the expression on a huntress tracking down a dragon through the wilds of an enchanted land. Then he imagined the same expression on the hunted dragon’s face, equally determined to find its quarry.

Neal came within five feet of her and properly announced himself. “Hey.”

Lily started all the same. Alarm was swept away by the relief and eagerness of someone meeting a coconspirator. “Hey, great timing. Take a look at this!”

He rolled up a free chair next to her. A quick study of the screen had him on the chair’s edge. Lily had pulled up several web pages, one with a UK address for a government site. It was a confirmation page for an order of some kind.

“What did you order?” he asked.

“Our parents’ birth certificates.”

“What?” Neal hunched at his own loud outburst. More softly he asked, “How did you pull that off? I didn’t even tell you—”

“I’ve been researching since last night.” Lily smiled sheepishly. “I should say I’ve been researching you since last night. I noticed you sent Emma a Facebook friend invite. I got into her account, accepted it, and searched through your page.”

“Okay. How did you get into—”

“Emma’s passwords aren’t exactly cryptic. Anyway, I grabbed a picture of your dad from one of your photos, sent it to a friend—a programming geek—to run facial recognition for me.”

“Facial—can’t only the government do that?”

“Oh no. If you know where to look, you can find someone who’s written that kind of program themselves. My friend sent me back some search results. Not a lot—your dad doesn’t have much of an internet presence, but I learned where he went to school as a kid. Got his name, confirmed his date of birth thanks to you, and I plugged the info into this site—” Lily pointed, barely taking a pause—“to order a new birth certificate. It’ll take a few weeks, but we’ll find out for sure, without a doubt, if what I suspect is true.”

Neal had been riding on her words like a roller coaster, too winded and astounded to cut her short. Now that she’d come to a halt, he jumped off as quickly as his frazzled brain could manage. He waved a hand. “Wait, wait, wait. Why were you looking up my dad? Is this about that photo?”

“The one with our grandparents? Of course!”

“What do you mean, ‘of course’?”

“You think it’s just a coincidence that your granddad is in a photo with my grandma and great-aunt?”

Neal shrugged slowly. “What else would you call it?”

“A freaking clue, that’s what!” Lily scoured her jacket pocket, whipped out her wallet, opened it and slipped out with extraordinary care the photo she’d sent him. Neal didn’t realize Lily had snapped a digital photo of the original with her phone—she’d done a good job with the alignment and lighting. Or maybe she’d already scanned and downloaded it to her computer before coming to camp. But why carry around the original? She held it the way Neal would hold a favorite CD, back before his dad wised up to iPods. Her fingers touched only the edges to avoid damaging smudges.

“You’re forgetting that this boy, according to Aunt Lila, is my granddad, too. So we have the same grandfather! That alone makes us related!”

Neal swallowed and finally let what she was saying, which was nothing but the truth, have its way. He looked at teenage Grandpa Malcolm, then Lily. While her complexion, hair and eyes were all darker than his, the overall shape of her features did faintly echo Malcolm’s. Neal hadn’t examined his own face in comparison to his grandpa’s. A few people had said he strongly resembled his mother, except for the eyes, brown like his dad’s. Brown like Lily’s. And like those of the girl she said was her grandmother.

“Holy shit,” he whispered.

“Holy shit, indeed.” Lily lowered the photo but didn’t put it away. Her hand rested on her lap. The photo stayed facing up at them. “You know what the amazing thing is?”

He hardly dared ask. “What?”

“That of all the ways we’d meet, it was at some camp.” Her elated expression turned pensive. “Do you think our parents know? Could they have planned this?”

“My dad isn’t the most open person, but he’d never not tell me this. What would be the point? It’s more likely he doesn’t know. We don’t even know the whole story. Maybe we have the same grandfather but different grandmothers. That could explain it.”

“True. That’s why we need the birth certificates. They’ll tell us who our parents’ parents are. But think about it—your mom and my dad share a birthday. They’re the same age. Either that’s a huge coincidence, or . . .”

The purposeful trailing off reminded Neal of his teachers at school. They used that tactic to get the kids to participate in class discussion. Either Lily was testing his intelligence or she wanted him to say what he clearly had avoided articulating. Because, come on, it was too ridiculous! How could the universe drop that kind of bomb on someone? On a whole family!

“Or,” Lily pushed.

Mega bomb-drop or not, it was a truth he had to be ready to face.

Neal inhaled. “Or they’re twins.”

She nodded. For once she had no words to follow with. That made him feel a little better. Better enough that he laughed in sheer astonishment at, well, everything. She joined him.

“I just realized something else,” she said after their laughter and incredulity leveled off.

“Oh great. What new epiphany are you having now?”

“You never told me where you’re from.”

Neal laughed again. “Oh, right! I’m from a tiny town in southern Maine. It’s called Storybrooke.”

[toaster-in-bathtub]

nah, you're a malewife. what's your favorite thing to cook/bake? or what do you make most often?

“. . .cookies and cupcakes”

“easy to make, but not what my skill is limited to”

[toaster-in-bathtub]

Nah cause I bet it's 7 itches, the middle girth being #cf45f5 and 1.28 inches wide. The tip a wopping 1 inch wide, #80159e, and uncircumcised

“… well aren’t you just a little creep, and an incorrect one too”

“it’s kind of charming..”

[toaster-in-bathtub]

dick or balls?????? answer fast.

“whichever [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [DATA EXPUNGED] [CENSORED]”

[toaster-in-bathtub]

What's worse? Overdone (burned) toast or underdone toast (bread)??

“underdone”

“limp, and pathetic, doesn’t deserve to be called toast”

[toaster-in-bathtub]

If I gave you six dollars, would you eat a rat

“depends.. chopped cooked and seasoned or roadkill? you need to be more specific”