#and I think people (at least around here) rely too heavily on cheese

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

I would say that the United States, as of right now, has three main food groups (aside from junk food) and those are, Italian, Mexican, and Chinese. All of which have been Americanized here to some extent but differently in different parts of the country. I find this very funny because I have heard people from Italy be indignant about what we’ve done with the stuff (and about good restaurants too!) like, sorry if you guys weren’t creative, mixing things up a bit is great. “What about (regionally popular food)?!” I know we all have those, I haven’t heard of bitches in the south eating lefse, but that’s not my point! What was my point actually? I think I was going to say that, even if we bastardize stuff a lot, I’m super glad we have, as a country, agreed that more seasoning is good. Because if this place had been like “fuck immigrant food forever, we are eating British style” I think I would die.

This country has historically treated immigrants like shit, but we do tend to cave eventually and go like “actually,

your food is really good” a kind of shallow prize I guess, but I’m glad we actually start doing it eventually because I WILL mock British food and I WILL be sad that the only good family recipes my family has from before immigrating are all desserts. Don’t get me wrong, I love sweets, but I’m pretty sure there is a reason we stopped making other stuff

Wait, I re-read this today and realized I sound like my family is British. We are not. What even are British desserts? I bet they don’t have enough cardamom. Although lefse doesn’t have cardamom and i like a lot of things without it, my point is that their holiday and special event foods probably don’t have enough! Which wouldn’t surprise me tbh because apparently the only place that went crazy for the stuff outside of where it originated seems to have been Scandinavia for some reason. At least some maps I looked at seemed to suggest it. Which rocked me to my core

[sigmaleph]

@serinemolecule asked me for hot takes on this 2006 article on Argentinian food, which I am now reorganising into a proper post for y'all's consumption. you're welcome.

First of all: the titular thesis that you should eat two steaks a day. I am forced to clarify that as 'should's go you should eat zero steaks a day, but this is ethical rather dietary advice and I don't follow it as well as I should, so, y'know. I would engage with this on the level it was stated, but I actually have no opinion on it. Moving on...

Argentine beef really is extraordinary. Almost all of this has to do with how the cows are raised. There are no factory feedlots in Argentina; the animals still eat pampas grass their whole lives, in open pasture, and not the chicken droppings and feathers mixed with corn that pass for animal feed in the United States.

This is, as it happens, completely false. There absolutely is plenty of feedlot beef being eaten in Argentina, and this was also the case back when this article was written. There's grass-fed beef too, and maybe the writer structured their life around only eating those, but the claim that there are no feedlots is just not true.

if you let them make the call, you get a two-inch thick of meat[...]The Argentine steak stands alone, towering three inches over the plate,[...]This gorgeous specimen is called a lomito; it's a standard lunchtime steak, clearly so thin that the Argentines are embarrassed to send it out into the world without a protective wrapping of ham and cheese

I have no idea what their obsession with steak thickness is; meat exists at various levels of thick and thin to suit various tastes. If you like yours thick that's fine but quit the projecting, y'know.

As you might expect, vegetarians will have a somewhat rough time here. For most people in Argentina, a vegetarian is something you eat. One's diet will accordingly lean heavily on pastas, gnocchi, salads, and (for the less squeamish ) fish. Vegans will not survive in Argentina.

This is, unfortunately, true (well, hyperbole, but). Rinna had a rather bad time trying to find vegan food when fae came over for visits. The situation is improving slowly, at least.

The homemade cookies bought in the minimarket downstairs taste of steak. [picture of alfajores de maicena[

Jesus. Find somewhere better to buy your snacks.

It should be no surprise that the land of beef also has excellent milk and butter. The milk comes in plastic bags that would give any American marketing department a heart attack. They proudly advertise "GUARANTEED 100% BRUCELLOSIS AND HOOF-AND-MOUTH FREE". One brand even brags that its bacteria count never exceeds 100,000 per mL, and prints daily statistics to prove it (only 82,000 bacteria/mL on Monday! mmm!).

Are you under the impression American milk doesn't contain bacteria and that when it spoils it's because of the molecules' sheer willpower? Or do you just object to the reminder that they exist?

This menu is delicious, but with rare exceptions it is all you are going to get. People coming for more than a few weeks are advised to bring a discreet bottle of Tabasco sauce.

Eat at better restaurants.

With any order from the master menu comes the Bread Basket, which should be treated as you would treat a basket of wax fruit, that is, as a purely decorative ornament. It is considered bad form to actually eat anything from Bread Basket

What are you talking about. Do all your dining companions just suck, eat some bread.

Dulce de leche is a culinary cry for help. It says "save us, we are baffled and alone in the kitchen, we don't know what to do for dessert and we're going to boil condensed milk and sugar together until help arrives". This cloying dessert tar is so impossibly sweet that you wish you were ten years old again, just so you could actually enjoy it. It is everywhere. There is a special dulce de leche shelf in the supermarket dairy case, and the containers go up to a liter in size. Even the churros are stuffed with it - the churros, Montresor!

It is rare that I feel insulted for the sake of my country, but this? How dare you.

Yes, of course we fill churros with dulce de leche; the real question is why anyone doesn't, short of dietary restrictions. Finding out that people do otherwise was like learning that in other countries, "sandwich" just means two slices of bread. Live a little. Eat a real godsdamned churro.

I spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how meals work in Argentina, and they remain a mystery to me. Dinner is clear enough: people tend to go to restaurants beginning at ten o'clock (for those with small children), with the main rush around eleven, and dinner is pretty much over at one or so in the morning. And breakfast - or rather, its absence - follows as a logical consequence of eating a steak the size of a beagle at midnight. But I have yet to figure out whether people eat some kind of meal in the afternoon, and if so, when.

At... noon? Like. We eat lunch. Usually somewhere around 12:00. I am eating lunch right now, and I have done so essentially every day of my life. This is just baffling.

I've come to think the culprit in the missing Argentine lunch scene is yerba mate.

how.

Where the ignorant foreigner may see just another kind of herbal tea (yerba mate is a very unassuming shrub that grows in the northern parts of the country) the Argentine sees a taste treat of unimaginable subtlety, and a tonic for all his problems. The Wikipedia article on proper mate preparation should give you a warning of the level of obsessiveness attainable here (the Urugayans are even worse). To the virgin palate, mate tastes like green tea mixed with grass clippings. The beverage is traditionally drunk out of a little gourd, through a metal straw called a bombilla, with hot (but not boiling!!) water poured into it (without wetting the surface!! clockwise!!) from a thermos.

Yeah, this is accurate. Well, not the clockwise part, never heard anyone complain about that and I can't imagine it mattering.

What distinguishes mate from coffee and tea is the social context - two or more people share a gourd, with a designated pourer in charge of refilling it with hot water after each turn. The ritual is low-fuss but indispensible. You can buy mate gourds and thermoses in any grocery store, and get your thermos filled with hot water at any convenience store or gas station, but you will never see mate served in restaurants or sold in little disposable paper gourds, to go. it's not that people refuse to drink mate alone - anyone working a solitary shift will have a gourd in hand - but that the concept of being served mate by someone who does not share it with you seems impossible.

This is also true. Attempts have been made to sell to-go mate but it's never very popular, the social ritual is important. Also unfortunately a disease vector, I haven't had any mate in a year and a half.

Mate aficionados will tell you that mate contains a special compound, mateine, that serves as a tonic and mild stimulant, promoting alertness without making it hard to sleep, reducing fatigue and appetite, helping the digestion and serving as a mild diuretic. Scientists will tell you that mateine bears a suspicious resemblance to a chemical called caffeine. Mate aficionados will then grow indignant, explaining that mateine is really a stereoisomer (mirror image) of caffeine, with different effects, which will in turn irritate the scientists, who will snap that caffeine doesn't have a chiral center, so it can't have a distinguishable mirror image, and why don't the mate aficionados just put a sock in it.

The first part of this is true; some people definitely think "mateine" is different from caffeine and it absolutely isn't. Never heard the stereoisomer claim before but googling it does confirm some people say so.

still have no idea what any of this has to do with lunch, though. I promise you nobody skips lunch because mate is just too filling.

The wine here is very good (something has to stand up to that steak), but Argentina has no liquor to call its own, relying on whiskies like Old Smuggler and the low-maintenance Don Juan cognac to carry the flag.

There's a fundamental omission from this list and it's called fernet.

Beer is ubiquitous and comes in a bewildering variety of sizes, although there is a skittishness about the full-on liter. Things level off at 970 mL. In my case, it means I end up drinking 1940 mL of beer as a kind of personal protest, and all is well with the world. To make up for the abundance of sizes, beer comes in only one variety, Quilmes, which inevitably comes served with a tripartite platter of snacks - nuts, salty cylinders, and aged potato chips.

I never had trouble buying beer by the litre, but I confess I never tried to do so in 2006 on account of being under 18 at the time.

Anyway, beer comes in a lot more varieties today, thankfully, because Quilmes sucks. I'll never be a beer person, but at least these days there's options I tolerate.

[original post]

[scrawnytreedemon]

Can’t sleep, mind going precisely 56 miles an hour, so I think I’ll finally get around to writing this.

Couples days back, I went ahead and finally psyched myself up to do the Zant bossfight.

Because I’d picked up where I’d left off yesterday, which was just before the boss room, obviously I was taken back to the beginning of the area. This gave the whole ordeal a trek, if a short one, what with the Palace of Twilight’s laughable length, and me more time to think.

I didn’t want to do this.

It sounds stupid, but I really didn’t want to do this. I’d cried the day before trying to psych myself up and failing, and I’d cried then, before the boss door, stalling by sweeping away the crystal-fog as best I could-- A meagre attempt at housekeeping, and a futile one. Of course I couldn’t. This isn’t that sort of game. This isn’t a game for failed attempts at kindness, at least trying to clean this awful, awful place for an awful, awful man going through awful, awful things. I was supposed to be a hero.

Heroes don’t make beds.

They don’t wash dishes, or hang laundry, or hold a rival’s hand,

They kill.

The trek didn’t stop past the door, either.

We still had to walk up the stairs. To the throne.

To him.

And I was there, laugh-crying, wishing I didn’t have to. That I could skip this pathetic ordeal.

I tried to turn around and leave.

Despite it only looking like a larger one of the many, many doors we’ve passed through this awful, nonsensical, poorly-designed excuse for a palace that no one could ever live in, it didn’t budge. There wasn’t any turning back. I had to go forward, because this is an action game, and violence is key.

The game takes the reigns. Link walks up to the throne, sword drawn, despite my deliberate decision to sheathe it. The narrative begins again. Midna sneers, and throws a taunt at him.

Zant sits, and smiles. Smiles like he thinks he still has some form of control, or knows full well he’s lost it.

You know, when I was working through the Palace of Twilight, I’d come to the realisation that... Zant locked himself in the throneroom. From the outside. Logistically, despite the good laugh I had over this guy locking himself in from the fucking outside, where his opponents can grab the key, he could get out easily-- teleportation and all. But even that aside, it still spoke to a level of hasty panic, that he would even keep the key outside, behind a waterfall of yet more shitty fog-crytals in the hopes that would deter them. Deter us.

How long had the guy been here, alone in that room?

We all know what happens next. Despite this being my first playthrough, I’ve probably seen this cutscene a dozen times. Zant has what amounts to an overly-dramatised autistic meltdown expositing himself and his motivations. That he was upset and felt like everything he’d worked for had been taken away from him. That he was angry, angry and fed up of being relegated to a half-existence. Midna retorts, Zant wails some more.

What gets me is that, when Ganondorf visits him, engulfs him in this flaming ball of fucked-magical-fuckery, he just. Stares. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything. Ganondorf speaks as though he’s already decided that, yes, you will do, we will make a pact and rule Everything together; I will live on through you.

Did Zant even agree to this?

I think, subconsciously or not, he accepted it, but it begs the question of whether or not Zant was capable enough to partake in it.

Whatever the answer, he’s clearly not capable enough to partake in this. This fight.

It’s laughable, that I’m expected to find victory in this.

The fight was a fucking slog, 90% of the time. Some of these boss-battles I hadn’t played in nearly two years thanks to the impromptu hiatuses I’m so fond of taking, so I didn’t know what the fuck I was meant to be doing half the time-- And when I did, it lagged to shit everytime this poor bastard fired projectiles, because I was playing on the gamepad, because why on earth would I play this on the goddamn TV? It was a sad, pitiful encounter that I had to laugh my way through and also mumble “what the fuck“ on several occasions because I guess somebody at Nintendo ate cheese before bed and the dev team were so desperate to patch something together for this guy’s sudden crisis that they threw it in-- I’m obviously having a good laugh, but What The Fuck.

I knock the guy down in the last phase of the battle, the only one where he isn’t mimicking something else and dizzies himself spinning like a hyperactive child, and the game takes the reigns again. Midna prepares her hair. I look away-- I’ve seen it before, many times before, and it’s cartoonishly grotesque for a game that relies heavily on somber semi-realism. Midna has her own crisis-- And yeah, yeah bossbabe, I feel it.

It cuts back, and there’s a Heart Container on the guy’s throne.

I.

I killed a guy, and now I’m collecting his lifeforce. I stormed into the bunged-up attempt of a fortress conjured up as a last defense by a man who’s fallen head-first into insanity, tore through any meagre security measure like butter, murder the guy when he’s having an episode, he dies a fucked up death, and then I collect his lifeforce.

Is that fucked up or what?

For all of Zelda’s endless violence, rarely do you actually kill “people.“ It’s the kind of stuff reserved for the end, for Ganondorf, or some other corrupted nigh-demigod on the brink of losing their humanity, or never having possessed it.

We kill Zant.

Zant barely puts up a fight, and we kill him. Zant gets summoned from the netherworld by Ganondorf in Hyrule Warriors; we put him there in the first place.

If we were to view this from a literal, like this shit actually happened and these characters are to be held accountable standpoint, then what we did was justified-- If not wholly, then mostly. Zant got power-hungry, committed what amounts to a bio-terroristic coup on the government, disfigured his rival, a woman notorious for her beauty, then proceeded to attempt the same thing with Hyrule, leading to the indirect death of at least the people who got transfigured into Shadow-Beasts in Kakariko, and attacks you first, then yeah, no biggie?

But I’ll be fucking real with you chief, I don’t find it... I don’t know, persuasive? Effective? Compelling, would be the best word, to think of it that way?

What Zant is, is a narrative tool. One that was set up to be this big, bad interloper who you need to Take Down and Save Everything, as per usual Zelda format. The justification for why we should hate him, if I’m going to be honest, feels contrived, most of the time. He does some bad thing off-screen, Midna gets pissed, Midna and everyone within a 12-mile radius explains why we should be pissed in a way that often feels borderline developer-hand-y-- And that’s. Well that’s how Zelda usually is.

It’s justification to commit violence.

--To be clear, I don’t say this in a political sense. I mean it in the very literal “hit/kill a guy“ sense. And in all honesty, that’s kinda inherent to the ethos of action games. We enjoy catharsis-- We enjoy taking down big things, it’s satisfying! I’ve played a little Hyrule Warriors-- Loved the feel of it. Violence is inherent to even the most benign of action games, and it is what it is.

Where it falls short for me, is that with Zant, I don’t feel like I’m taking down some great foe that I should justifiably hate.

I feel like I’m a clearly more equipped person breaking into a room, and bludgeoning a mentally ill person.

I’m autistic. I may slot in easier to NT society than most, but I am autistic, and it makes me deeply uncomfortable to see something I’ve fucking gone through be used carelessly as flavour for a prelude to violence. I have meltdowns. They’re relatively rare, and mostly in my room, alone, but I’ve also experienced one out in public. It was only sobbing, but there’s a special kind of horror, of humilation in knowing other people, strangers, family, what have you, are seeing it, and all you can think is how much you failed.

I can’t fully articulate why I cried so much during this, quite frankly, menial ordeal. I’m half-embarrassed to even talk about it-- Because then that means caring too much, and I can’t care too much over a poorly-justified character that wasn’t even intended to be sympathised with and that most of the fandom laughs at. And I can’t say I blame them.

I guess at the end of the day it comes down to the ever-present pity; some strange, childish commiseration I’d indulged in ever since I was six and cooing over Bowser and how awful everything was for him, that despite my continuous efforts, I can’t ever seem to explain.

I didn’t like the Zant fight. It felt empty,

And all did was sweep cobwebs and try to turn back.

[mmamagoto]

are u guys prepared for this i put all five of the muses here on this one. so of course it’s under a cut for being long as hell

name: natoru

nicknames:

gender: female

age:

date of birth: april 30

origin of birth: listen they’re all from the human world on this blog so let me just save myself the trouble of typing that four more times

race/species: cat (scottish fold)

spoken languages:

romantic/sexual preference: middles toward aromantic

occupation: royal assistant and whatever else they can toss under the umbrella of ‘assistant duties’

hobbies: space, sports (or more specifically, competition), stereotypically Cool Boy things like dinosaurs and creepy crawlies, annoying natori

criminal record: 

disorders: none

eye color: kind of a hazel thinking emoji they’re pretty tbh

height: markedly shorter than every other cat in this dang film

scars: possibly a few very minor ones from some scrapes and clumsiness upon first coming to the cat kingdom, but they’re probably not very noticeable

birthmarks: none

overweight: i’m. not sure thinking emoji she’s definitely a solidly-built little thing but considering she’s a cat it literally could just be her body type lmao. even so, she doesn’t consider it an issue, and neither does anyone else tbh

underweight: no

favorite color: olive green, pink

favorite food: yakiimo

wants to get married / is married: n. no

gotten pregnant / had a child: no

wants a child: not really. she’s content with her cool big sister role

likes children: yes. she has kind of a natural rapport with them

can sing: i mean. she can probably carry a tune

play an instrument: probably not

can dance: ???

gotten tattoos: 

gotten piercings: nah

smoked/drank/done drugs: has probably definitely had Drinks. also like probably catnip/matatabi, which all things considered i’m not sure if it counts lmao

had a broken heart: not really

been in love: not really

a cuddler: Probably bc i’m still very amused by her and natori having to share a room during a trip to another kingdom and natori Suffering the entire time

a kisser:

scared easily: she’s skittish which is Unfortunate bc she is the ‘reacts to jump scares by punching them’ type

jealous easily: it. depends on what it is. she tends to be more the envious type, where she covets Unique and Cool objects over companionship

hot/cool tempered: generally very cool. she’s a tolerant creature, and i feel like that tends to get overlooked thinking emoji

trustworthy: mostly, particularly when compared with her two coworkers lmao

single: yes

extroverted/introverted: she’s adaptable

considered mean: this one is so funny to me bc i think, when compared with natori who is kind of in a similar position to her in the hierarchy, she’s often seen as the more approachable one which is ironic bc between the two of them she’s the uhhhh. less Understanding one. she will sell you for a corn chip

fears: sugoroku space, dogs (just slightly), stick bugs but every other kinda bug is Fine By Her, natori with a ruler in his paw

siblings: marsh (older brother)

parents: unknown

pet(s): none

name: claudius

nicknames: mostly (even now) referred to by titles by everyone except lune

gender: male

age:

date of birth: august 2

origin of birth: see above

race/species: cat (probably a persian)

spoken languages: 

romantic/sexual preference: i kinda lean toward bi or panromantic tbh

occupation: retired king so. mostly just a NEET at this point

hobbies: traveling (mostly to show off but stILL). other than that, now that he’s retired, he’s struggled with finding hobbies that aren’t just napping or following natori around. he’s not a patient or committed creature, so when he tries something new and it’s Too Hard, he tends to lose interest very quickly. that said, he definitely relies very heavily on other people, natori, natoru, and entertainers, etc. to provide him with things to pass the time

criminal record: he’s offended at this very notion

disorders: does. does strabismus count

eye color: has marked heterochromia, with one blue eye and one red eye

height: Tall for a cat jjfkdeia

scars: none

birthmarks: none

overweight: actually, no

underweight: no, tho without all the fur, he definitely has a scrawnier, less conventionally cute look to him jfjfie;a

favorite color: gold

favorite food: oden

wants to get married / is married: he maybe kinda sorta misses being married (or, more specifically, having a significant other)

gotten pregnant / had a child: yes, so long as adoption counts

wants a child: a grandkid sounds kinda nice

likes children: yes, but to absolutely no one’s surprise he’s a bad influence on them and has No Clue how to interact with them when they’re upset. he also is 100% the type to throw hands with a preschooler

can sing: OF COURSE

play an instrument: no, tho he certainly likes the idea of being able to. he’s badgered natori into trying to teach him before inevitably getting bored with the practice when he’s not instantly a genius at it (see above in the hobbies section, aha)

can dance: definitely. unless it’s not a ballroom dance. then no one wants to see that

gotten tattoos: 

gotten piercings: mm, probably not

smoked/drank/done drugs: absolutely

had a broken heart: yes

been in love: twice

a cuddler: It Depends. he was once someone’s Ultra Pampered house cat, so he’s of the five of them probably the most amenable to being pet and held, but he’s also temperamental and finicky so uh. Pet At Your Own Risk ig

a kisser:

scared easily: not really. he’s too impulsive to be scared psh

jealous easily: 100%

hot/cool tempered: HE CLIMBED HIS WAY UP A TOWER WITH NOTHING BUT HIS CLAWS AND SHEER OFFENDED WILLPOWER.............. and all with two swords strapped to him..............

trustworthy: not too much

single: it’s. Complicated

extroverted/introverted: extroverted, mostly, but he has his random introspective moments when he generally wants to be alone

considered mean: I MEAN. it really depends jfjfei;a i will go to the grave with this headcanon that he’s honestly well-liked as a ruler but has a definite reputation of being difficult-to-please and mercurial

fears: being genuinely or legitimately Disliked, pissing off lune to the point he turns his back on him, squeamish with squirmy things

siblings: none

parents: unknown. the previous queen is his mother-in-law

pet(s): none

name: lune

nicknames: an endless cavalcade of affectionate nicknames from his father and no one can convince me otherwise

gender: male

age:

date of birth: october 27

origin of birth: see above

race/species: cat (the fandom seems to have him pegged as a russian blue and i’m not gonna disagree sO)

spoken languages: 

romantic/sexual preference: probably heteroromantic

occupation: king of cat kingdom :v

hobbies: butterflies and moths, idk does urban exploration count for a cat lmao

criminal record: no

disorders: none

eye color: shares his father’s heterochromia-- one blue eye, one red eye

height: notably smaller than his father but still taller than natoru like everyone else jfkfd;a

scars: none

birthmarks: none

overweight: no

underweight: no

favorite color: aquamarine

favorite food: lots of different street foods, tbh, but his favorites are probably takoyaki and taiyaki (particularly when filled with cheese laughs)

wants to get married / is married: is married! and very happy with that marriage

gotten pregnant / had a child: no

wants a child: it’s crossed his mind, but not with any real intent

likes children: probably. he’s never really interacted with them

can sing: i mean. again, he can probably carry a tune

play an instrument: i feel like he probably can. at least one thinking emoji

can dance: yes

gotten tattoos:

gotten piercings: ........i should give him his manga earring. it’s cute

smoked/drank/done drugs: has definitely had some alcohol in his life. also the catnip thing again

had a broken heart: not yet

been in love: yES

a cuddler: i’m. not sure

a kisser:

scared easily: not in the least, but it’s mostly bc he’s a gaddang pollyanna

jealous easily: not particularly. he’s a gregarious creature

hot/cool tempered: cool-tempered, but without natori’s aloofness so he most likely comes across more reasonably or genuinely

trustworthy: Absolutely

single: no

extroverted/introverted: like natoru, he’s adaptable. and like natori, i feel that he’s become quite practiced at playing the part of an extrovert, but perhaps with more genuineness

considered mean: ABSOLUTELY NOT

fears: saying goodbye to any of the familiar cats in his life, Abrupt Change, vehicles are a little iffy nowadays

siblings: none

parents: cat king (father). the previous cat queen was his grandmother (uh, not persephone)

pet(s): none atm, but probably had numerous ones throughout his childhood, including a rabbit which ‘ran away to the mountains (aka the ninth kingdom)’ at some point. according to natori, that is

name: natori

nicknames: poppet, a long time ago

gender: male

age:

date of birth: unknown. tends to use the cat kingdom’s new year celebrations as an excuse to celebrate

origin of birth: see above

race/species: cat (oriental longhair)

spoken languages: 

romantic/sexual preference: generally idles between homoromantic and  demiromantic

occupation: royal advisor/assistant. on paper, he’s retired, but it’s never stopped him before

hobbies: keeping goldfish, music, cooking

criminal record:

disorders: none

eye color: coppery brown

height: close to the king’s height. i keep waffling back and forth on just which of them is taller

scars: none

birthmarks: it’s not necessarily a birthmark, but he does have some kind of marking on him Somewhere (x-files theme) it’s well-hidden by his clothing

overweight: no

underweight: no

favorite color: lavender

favorite food: fish

wants to get married / is married: He Doesn’t Know

gotten pregnant / had a child: no

wants a child: like natoru, he’s mostly content with his role as uncle/mentor

likes children: yes, tho he’s easily stressed by them lmao

can sing: y e s

play an instrument: i’m not really sure yet thinking emoji

can dance: yes

gotten tattoos: 

gotten piercings: he would never

smoked/drank/done drugs: like the others, has definitely had a taste of alcohol fjfjkd;a

had a broken heart: yes

been in love: he’s not sure

a cuddler: generally Not

a kisser:

scared easily: his composure drops pretty quick lbr

jealous easily: a little. a teensy bit. okay it’s much more than a teensy bit

hot/cool tempered: cool-tempered, but, as mentioned above, with a very distinct aloof edge that probably often leads to him being perceived as unapproachable

trustworthy: .............it depends

single: yyyyyyye-- no? yes. no. nobody knows

extroverted/introverted: introverted, mostly, but he plays a very convincing extrovert

considered mean: not especially, but again. probably perceived by many as being difficult to approach

fears: they are Many and Varied and most of them connect either to the collapse of the cat kingdom or the human world in its entirety

siblings: manami, sachiko (younger sisters)

parents: EXTREMELY UNKNOWN......

pet(s): three goldfish

name: yuki

nicknames: lune calls her sweetie in the manga and it kills me every time i remember it

gender: female

age:

date of birth: march

origin of birth: see above

race/species: cat (...not sure what breed she might be thinking emoji)

spoken languages:

romantic/sexual preference: biromantic

occupation: queen of cat kingdom

hobbies: she hasn’t really spent the time trying out hobbies just yet. has gotten a little into butterflies and moths bc lune likes them. has her eye on a number of more artistic pastimes 

criminal record:

disorders: none

eye color: a very pretty blue jfjf;a

height: pretty much the same exact height as lune tbh

scars: none

birthmarks: none

overweight: no

underweight: no

favorite color: plum/wine

favorite food: nikuman, pastries

wants to get married / is married: is married! and like lune, is also very happy with the setup laughs

gotten pregnant / had a child: no

wants a child: atm, not particularly

likes children: also like lune, she has very little experience interacting with them. at least, recently. but i can not see her Disliking children so. u know

can sing: probably

play an instrument: no

can dance: some dances, yes. i like the idea that lune is casually teaching her behind the scenes lmao

gotten tattoos:

gotten piercings: no

smoked/drank/done drugs: a. again, like all of these cats have probably had some alcohol lmao

had a broken heart: s. sort of

been in love: yes

a cuddler: next to the king, she’s probably second most amenable to being pet and held, but she’s not really the type to actively seek it out

a kisser:

scared easily: not particularly, but she’s definitely more wary than lune is

jealous easily: not too much

hot/cool tempered: definitely cool

trustworthy: generally

single: no

extroverted/introverted: definitely introverted, but she’s not awkward in most social interactions. she’s more awkward now than she used to be simply bc she’s still not entirely certain what to expect with her new position and clout

considered mean: definitely not, to the point that i headcanon those who don’t know her terribly well are sometimes surprised by how remote she can come across laughs

fears: somewhat insecure in her new position, a lot of her current fears come back to being ridiculed or making a fool of herself, damaging her reputation right off the bat so that no one will ever take her seriously, or that it will bleed into lune’s reputation, too rip

siblings: none

parents: unknown, however for this blog’s canon, she did spend some time as haru’s pet in the human world

pet(s): none. she’s still kinda baffled by the idea of cats having pets in the first place lmao

natori very hesitantly but cheerily introduces her to his goldfish and she isn’t sure what to say fjfjk;ea

yuki, to lune: i didn’t know cats could have pets lune: sure! i had a pet rabbit once yuki: yuki: what

[aspoonofsugar]

Hello! I just finished Madoka Magica (plus movies) and I have trouble understanding main themes, especially when it comes to Homura and Madoka's relationship. Could summarise briefly what are your thoughts on them?

Hello anon!

Thank you so much for this ask! I have wanted to talk about Madoka since forever, but I had never gotten the chance.

First of all, I will mostly concentrate on the series and I will mention the movie only in the last part of the meta. This is because the story told by the series can be considered finished, whereas the one told by the movie is not really over. Moreover, I have re-watched the series recently, while I watched the movie some time ago, so I remember it less.

When it comes to the main themes, I think there are several and they are all highlighted by short lines within the show.

The most important one is this:

Madoka is a story about wishes. To be more precise it is a story about people having to understand what they really want and which kind of wishes can help them reach happiness and a good outcome and which ones do not.

This theme is clearly underlined by the worldbuilding since in order to become magical girls the characters have to make a wish and their powers and abilities are greatly influenced by that wish. The girls have to find something they wish so strongly they can dedicate their whole lives to it without regrets.

This theme is explored in several ways and these different prospectives are linked to secondary themes. Each secondary theme is illustrated by each girl’s subplot and they all come together in Homura and Madoka’s stories even if in different ways.

To be more precise I would say there are two main secondary themes.

1) Growing up and what it means which is introduced through Mami’s arc.

It’s not that it was her dream to work somewhere, but she is still living the way she wants to live. Some dreams can come true that way.

So you can make how you live your dream?

2) The importance of integrating opposites and to overcome a black and white vision of the world which is explored through Sayaka and Kyouko’s inverted arcs.

MAMI: THE CHILD BEHIND THE IDEAL WOMAN

Mami is introduced as a mentor figure to Sayaka and Madoka. She is older and appears more mature than the two other girls. Moreover, she offers to guide them and to give them advice.

It becomes soon clear that Madoka wants to become like Mami whom she sees as a sofisticated person and as far more adult-like than herself.

This fits with the image Mami wants others to have of her. This ideal image is shown also by Gertrud, the first witch Mami fights:

Gertrud is the rose garden witch and has several attributes Mami shares as well. This is not surprising. As a matter of fact each witch in the series is meant to underline something about the magical girl who fights her. In other words, they can often be seen as embodiments of the girls’ fatal flaws.

When it comes to Gertrud, I would say the witch is more than anything a representation of some superficial aspects Mami presents herself as having. For example, they are both associated with flowers. What is more, the witch is said to be distrustful and Mami’s fight against her has the girl being extremely cautious and prudent.

This battle underlines Mami’s experience and strength and makes so that Madoka starts to wish to become like her senpai.

In order to do so, Madoka decides to become a magical girl without thinking further about her wish since she only wants to become a magical girl. Mami’s reaction to this is important:

Telling Madoka to wish for a cake is an extremely superficial advice and it is very different from what Mami previously told her two apprentices. This is because in this moment Mami shows that she is really just an extremely lonely girl who wants someone with her. This means that, even if Madoka sees her as an adult, Mami is actually still a child under several aspects and this is why she dies by the hands of Charlotte aka the sweet witch:

Charlotte represents childishness. Her labyrinth is full of sweets and resembles a child’s room or a child’s birthday party.

Let us also consider what her wiki page says:

A line in the design for Charlotte’s labyrinth in the Official Guidebook says “It’s really a delicious cheese cake. My dying mother wanted to eat it, but maybe I should have cured her disease instead. However, that surely wasn’t appropriate.”

This line implies that Charlotte’s wish was to have a piece of cheesecake to share with her ill mother.

It is pretty clear how this wish makes the witch parallel Mami.

As a matter of fact Mami too regretted having wished only for her own survival and not having saved her parents as well.

Mami’s mistake (if we can call it so) is to have made a wish before she could realize what she really wanted. Of course, it is comprehensible why she made such a mistake since she was dying when Kyubey offered to realize her wish and she had no time to think about it.

What is important is that Mami who Madoka sees as a grown-up version of herself is actually a person who was forced to grow up too fast and that, as a result, has not completely developed on an emotional level and this makes her very frail and lonely.

Her “premature” wish is symbolic of this and the fact that she encourages Madoka to wish for a cake means that she is encouraging the girl to repeat her own mistake.

So, in the end Mami dies killed by the embodiment of childishness since she had no chance to conquer hers because of her tragic past.

Her arc underlines the importance of growing up and the fact that an attempt to do so by forcing oneself to adopt superficial behaviours which appear as more mature without solving one’s inner-turmoil and insecurities is not an available option.

SAYAKA AND KYOUKO: BLUE AND RED

Sayaka and Kyouko have inverted arcs and the scene in the church shows it. Here the apple means two different things in relation to the two girls’ character arcs.

1) When it comes to Kyouko the apple represents sin:

As a matter of fact it is implied that Kyouko stole them and Sayaka calls her out on her selfish way of living showing her that another choice is possible.

2) When it comes to Sayaka the apple represents the knowledge of good and evil:

As a matter of fact Kyouko offers Sayaka an alternative and deeper point of view when it comes to what is good and what is bad, but Sayaka refuses it just like she refuses the apple.

Sayaka and Kyouko represent two extreme positions and in order to successfully complete their arcs they should integrate with each other.

To be more specific Sayaka should accept that she is motivated not only by noble and altruistic reasons, but also by selfish ones, whereas Kyouko must realize that her way of life rooted in extreme selfishness is wrong.

However, Sayaka is not able to do so. She refuses the apple and metaphorically what Kyouko could teach her. She chooses to persevere in her fatal flaw and her fight with Elsa Maria is symbolic of this:

Let’s underline how black and white are heavily used in this scene. These two colours represent Sayaka’s black and white vision of morality which is simplicistic and rigid.  Moreover, the witch symbolizes Sayaka’s hypocrisy. As a matter of fact Elsa Maria is praying, but from her back beasts who attack her enemies are born. In other words she gives her back to both who comes to attack her and to her own monstrosity. This is just like Sayaka who is quick to condemn people who think differently from her (like Kyouko and Homura) and who refuses to look at her own selfishness. Moreover, when Sayaka goes against Elsa Maria, the animals on the witch’s back take the shape of snakes and later on of a tree. The snake and the tree are a call back to the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve are tricked by the snake to eat the apple. Once again the symbolism around Sayaka highlights how she should accept that there is selfishness within herself. If she did, she could gain knowledge and could become wiser, but she refuses to do so.

This is shown also by her choice to suppress her physical pain during the battle. The suppression of pain lets her fight longer, but it is something even Kyubey advises the girl not to do since it would make her slower. In short, pain is said to be useful and necessary and this holds true for negative things in general as the series makes clear. The desperation the girls feel is what can oppose entropy and so save the universe, people are motivated both by selflessness and selfishness, a person can be both good and bad and so on. So, Sayaka repressing her physical pain is symbolic of her doing the same with the negative things about herself she doesn’t want to face.

However, Sayaka can’t keep repressing forever and in the end she realizes the truth:

But, when she does, it is too late and she becomes a witch. If she had accepted Kyouko’s advice, she could have avoided (or at least postponed) such an outcome.

As far as Kyouko is concerned she is able to positively develop, but since she is trapped in a system which doesn’t let her any way out she still dies.

Let us consider Kyouko’s fight against Oktavia.

First of all, it is interesting how, differently from Sayaka’s fight against Elsa Maria, this fight uses mostly red and blue.

Red and blue are the colours associated to Kyouko and Sayaka and their use in this fight symbolizes the necessity of an integration and how the good or bad result of this fight relies entirely on this.

In the first part of the fight we can see how there is somehow an equilibrium between red and blue:

As it can be seen the witch is blue, whereas the seats are red, so both colours are used heavenly.

This is because in the first part of the fight Kyouko still hopes that it is possible to bring Sayaka back. This is why she lets herself be hit by the wheels. She sees it as a form of punishment for her past behaviour towards Sayaka. By doing so Kyouko shows to have grown and to have understood her past mistakes. This is underlined both by her speech and by her blood being represented as a mixture of blue and red:

However, the wheels can be also symbolic of the wheels of fate and in this case Kyouko being hit by them represents the impossibility for her to bring Sayaka back and the fact that her hope is vain. This is quickly proven true by Oktavia attacking Madoka. Let’s highlight how Oktavia’s blood when Kyouko cuts her arm is only blue:

Even if Kyouko has grown and integrated her point of view with Sayaka’s one, Sayaka is not in the condition of doing the same and this is why Kyouko’s attempt is meant to fail. At this point the floor breaks and Kyouko falls downstairs where the equilibrium between blue and red is lost since the seats appear blue like the witch:

By this point Kyouko chooses to sacrifice herself and to be together in death with Sayaka. It is interesting how by doing so she starts praying. As a matter of fact finding some form of reconciliation with her faith is one of the most important aspects of Kyouko’s arc. However, what mostly interests me about it is the fact that Kyouko’s position resembles Elsa Maria’s one:

Still, Kyouko is not giving her back to Sayaka, aka to what magical girls are bound to become, but she is directly facing her because she has accepted both her good and bad parts. While she does so Kyouko’s red magic brings more equilibrium to the whole scene with red and blue being in harmony.

All in all Sayaka and Kyouko’s stories are meant to convey the importance of integrating between opposites, to face the negative parts of oneself and how bad and good can be side by side and they can be difficult to separate.

Sayaka and Kyouko’s wishes are used once again to communicate this idea as well.

Both girls made a wish for someone else and ended up suffering for it, but the reason of their suffering is different.

Kyouko’s mistake was to think that what she wanted was what his father wanted and that his father would have been happy if magic could make people listen to him.

Sayaka was right to think that Kamijo would be happy to have his hands healed, but she refused to admit that a part of her hoped to receive a reward for such a wish and to be more specific that she hoped that Kamijo would love her.

Sayaka and Kyouko’s wishes underline the grayness within the ideas of selflessness and selfishness and how these two concepts are often both present and intertwined in people.

MADOKA AND HOMURA: A DIFFICULT CONCILIATION

Mami’s arc explores the theme of growing up and Kyouko and Sayaka’s arc the importance of reconciling good and bad, selfishness and selflessness.

Both these topics find a resolution through Madoka’s final wish.

As a matter of fact Madoka chooses to erase all the witches and to dedicate her own life to it.

The idea of making of one’s lifestyle their own dream is something which has been touched at the beginning of the series. There, Madoka wanted to make of her magical girl style of life her wish, but back then she was still looking at things in a superficial way. As a matter of fact Madoka was trying to solve her self-esteem and self-loathing problems by acquiring magical powers. By the end of the series she doesn’t become a magical girl in order to grow up, but she can become one because she has grown up.

Similarly, it is important to note that Madoka’s wish doesn’t erase evilness or desperation or the negative things happening in the world. This is because the series underlines how these things are a part of the world itself and can never be completely destroyed as Sayaka’s attempt shows. So, Madoka chooses not to eradicate the magical girls system. After all, if she did the universe would have been ultimately destroyed as Kyubey explained (alternatively the Incubators would have found another cruel way to collect human energy). After having considered this, Madoka decides to respect the will of other magical girls to risk their lives to realize their wishes and simply makes the system less cruel. The ending suggests that the system has been changed and that now magical girls go around fighting monsters representative of human negative emotions. By doing so, they collect energy which is then given to the Incubators to use. They do something which is much closer to what magical girls typically do and they are not tricked into becoming witches by the Incubators anymore.

In other words, Madoka’s wish embodies the themes of the series.

Another important thing about it is that by making the wish Madoka becomes active.

Throughout the series Madoka’s passiveness and her self-loathing have been two of her biggest flaws as her meeting with Elly shows. The witch catches Madoka and forces her to see Mami’s last moments again by showing them on the screens. Madoka being completely helpless and prey of the witch could symbolically represent her feeling of being useless and without worth since she thinks she is not able to help people. As it is clear she overcomes these feelings in the finale.

Let’s now consider Homura and how she herself is linked to the two themes underlined above.

Homura’s wish is born by the unwillingness to accept Madoka’s death, so by her being unable to move on and this is symbolically shown by her repeating the same month several times.

So, Homura’s wish negates what the series wants to convey since 1) it is born by Homura’s refusal to accept something negative which happened to her (Madoka’s death) and 2) it literally makes so that the time won’t keep flowing and so that Homura and all the other characters won’t go on and won’t grow up.

This is shown also by the witch which represents Homura’s character flaw aka Walpurgisnacht.

Let’s consider what Walpurgisnacht’s wiki page says:

She will turn all of fate’s misfortune to nothing.She will flood the earth with magic,and take all of humankind into her play.A moving stage construction.

If everything is a play, no unhappy things will exist.It may be a tragedy, but it’ll all be part of the script.

The play stops on Walpurgisnacht,and the earth does not turn even once more.The story will not change.Tomorrow, and the day after, is the night of Walpurgis. 

And also:

She symbolizes the fool who continuously spins in circles.

The fool who continuously spins in circles is a reference to Homura and to her quest to change the future by continuing to live again and again through the same situations.

What Homura does is similar to Walpurgis’s attempt to turn the whole world into a play because by making reality into fiction people won’t be forced to truly accept the bad things which happen to them. As a matter of fact every time Homura reaches a bad ending all she has to do is to refuse the outcome and to go back in order to change it until she reaches a situation she can accept as reality. However, no matter how many times she repeats things, she will never be able to obtain what she wants.

In short, whereas Madoka affirms the series’ themes in an active way through her wish, Homura has to convey them in a passive way by giving up her wish to save Madoka. This is because growing up means both to find something which is worth to fight for, but also to realize when it is time to give up.

Madoka and Homura represents these two different kinds of growth.

At the same time though, Homura’s wish is not condemned as useless by the series.

In order to understand it, let’s consider Madoka’s witch form aka Gretchen.

The wiki says interesting things about this witch:

Witch of salvation. Her nature is mercy. She absorbs any life on the planet into her newly created heaven–her barrier. The only way to defeat this witch is to make the world free of misfortune. If there’s no grief in this world, she will believe this world is already a heaven.

And also:

According to witch animator and designer InuCurry, Walpurgis Night’s and Kriemhild Gretchen’s silhouettes are supposed to make a pair.

Puella Magi Production Note further reveals that Kriemhild Gretchen is meant to look like the lower half of a sand timer, while Walpurgis Night looks like the upper half. Interestingly, Homura’s shield has also been described as a sand timer.

In short, Madoka’s witch form is meant to show that also a noble feeling like mercy can lead to desperation and destruction if it is imposed and extreme. Moreover, Gretchen seems to be a witch which is complementary to Walpurgis i.e. the embodyment of Homura’s flaws.

In other words, Madoka and Homura are opposites and alone would not have managed to do much, but the union of their efforts and the integration of their different world views led to some kind of result.

As a matter of fact, Madoka’s wish to sacrifice herself for others would not have accomplished much if fueled by an absence of self-worth. However, when coupled with Homura’s feelings it let Madoka change the world. It is thanks to Homura, thus, that Madoka became so powerful in the first place and could finally grow up. In other words, symbolically, Homura’s love gave Madoka the self-worth she lacked making her a better person, so that she could then help the whole world.

Their two wishes, one born out of a selfless desire to help everybody and the other born by the selfish will to twist time in order to help one person are complementary and, in different ways, lead to the series’ ending.

This resolution is sealed by Madoka giving Homura her ribbons.

The ribbons have a double meaning.

1) When it comes to Madoka, her giving them to Homura underlines her finally growing up. This is because they were given to her by her mother at the beginning of the series, so Madoka finally giving them to someone else shows that she doesn’t need to depend on a parent anymore.

2) When it comes to Homura, they represent her relationship with Madoka and are a memento of her friend. After she receives them Homura shows to have accepted Madoka’s wish to fight in order to protect the world and she is determined to fulfill it. Basically, the ribbons represent Madoka’s legacy.

I have analyzed the series, so I will now do a short section dedicated to the movie and to Homura and Madoka more specifically.

In short, Homura regresses throughout the movie. Her growth lies in letting Madoka go and in partially accepting her pov. In the series she did so even if in a passive way (meaning she was not given any other choice) and in the movie she changes her mind and acts to change things.

Basically the movie shows that a new conflict will be born in the future between Homura and Madoka and the root of this conflict will be this:

H: “Kaname Madoka, do you treasure this world? Do you consider stability and order more important than desire?”

M: “Well, I…Um…I do treasure it. I guess I do think it’s kind of bad to break the rules because you feel like it”.

H: “I see…Then I suppose one day you will be my enemy as well”.

Homura despises the world which makes people and Madoka especially suffer and thinks that desires should be fulfilled no matter what, whereas Madoka treasures the world despite its flaws and thinks that to respect its laws is more important than the satisfaction of one’s desires.

They are two opposite visions which will lead the two girls to fight each other.

What follows this conversation is an inversion of what happens at the end of the series since Homura gives Madoka her ribbons back.

Once again this has two meanings.

1) Homura refuses Madoka’s POV she had previously partially accepted and in this way she also gives up her friendship with Madoka since she affirms they will be enemies.

2) In a sense the ribbons are symbolic of Homura tying Madoka and imprisoning her. Let’s underline that when Madoka is about to awake her true powers her pigtails are getting loose. However, Homura stops Madoka by embracing her and later on she ties her hair with the red ribbons. Moreover, as explained above, the ribbons are symbolic of Madoka’s childishness, so this means Homura is making so that Madoka remains stuck in her childhood. This is coherent with Homura wanting to protect her by any hardship which is something not only impossible, but also detrimental for a person’s growth.

This scene is also interesting because it is also a call back to a previous one in the movie:

As a matter of fact Madoka too at one point tries to calm Homura down through tying her hair and Homura is tempted to lose herself in such a dream, but in the end she refuses this consolation.

This leads us to explore what is probably the main problem of Homura and Madoka.

Basically they both have a very low self-esteem and in order to prove their worth they are both determined to be useful and to succeed in their mission as magical girls. However, Madoka’s mission as a magical girl is in opposition with Homura’s one and this leads the two girls to never be completely satisfied at the same time. If you notice, both in the series and in the movie, when Madoka is active and confident Homura is unsure and lost and vice versa. Homura especially needs Madoka to be safe in order to prove her self worth and this is a problem because it makes so that it is impossible for Madoka to claim any form of agency since it will lead to Homura being left unsatisfied.

So, if we will ever have a sequel I think it will explore the conflict between Homura and Madoka and will offer a new integration between their two points of view other than Homura actively letting go of her wish this time.

Thank you for the ask and I am sorry for the long answer, I hope you enjoyed it!

[witchymarvelspacecase]

Mission Improbable

Summary: The team is tired of Bucky’s mopey energy, so they hatch a plan, but you know better. Let the shenanigans commence.

Word Count: 2788

Warnings: Un-beta’d, cursing, fluff

A/N:This is a total random piece, inspired by a conversation with @gigistorm . It’s a major disaster, but I kinda love it. Hope you all do too!

Avengers tower was a high energy place. The lower levels, which housed both Stark Enterprises HQ and the Avengers PR and logistics teams, were a hive of activity at almost any hour, The upper floors, which housed the Avengers themselves, had less people, but no less busy.

Normally, it was a content, almost happy sort of buzzing energy that floated around the Avengers quarters. Before missions, the energy was more tense. After the energy could be either melancholic or euphoric. But the usual feeling was a pleasant one. At least, most of the time.

When Bucky arrived, the mood shifted. Suddenly, he was in an unfamiliar environment, surrounded by people who did not get a good first impression of him. Bucky seemed to want to isolate, to keep to himself to that he couldn’t upset anyone. The shift in the building’s energy was uncomfortable for you, especially with you powers, but you understood his reasoning. Actually, those same powers that made you so sensitive, were what helped you to understand him better.

You could read people’s energy, judging by the feel of their energy, you could gage their mood, feelings, and sometimes their thoughts. You could manipulate a person’s energy to a degree as well. No, you couldn’t completely drain a person, and kill them, but you could pull enough of their energy away, that you knocked them unconscious. On the flip side, you could boost a person’s energy, which could help boost a person’s mood. So, when you noticed Bucky sticking to the outskirts of the team, you thought you’d offer to help.

Once you explained that you would NEVER alter his energy without his permission, Bucky actually seemed willing to talk to you. Those first conversations were awkward and stilted, but soon, the two of you were talking like old friends. Especially after the rest of the team devised their “plan”.

…

“Okay look, Manchurian Candidate is a serious buzz kill. We gotta get the guy to lighten up,” Tony announced once the briefing room doors closed behind the last person.

He’d called a team meeting t discuss what he called an important mission, but when you walked in, all you saw was a PowerPoint titled: “Mission Improbable: Get Bucky to Smile”.

“Tone, I’m not sure this is the best way to go about this,” Rhodes sighed, after Tony laid out his plan.

“Well we need to do something, okay? His perpetual grey cloud is putting a real damper on things.”

“He just doesn’t feel like he belongs here, Tony. He’s not angry or anything, he just need time,” Steve tried to explain. But for some reason, even though he seemed to understand, he ended up agreeing with Tony’s plan, and so did everyone else.

The conclusion that the team finally reached was that a little friendly hazing would fix Bucky’s problem. You ended up spending the entire meeting with your head in your hands, willing yourself not to smack the ever loving shit out of your friends. You wished Natasha was there, knowing she would have helped you, but the whole reason Tony had planned the meeting, was that Bucky and Nat were out on a recon mission. They were due to arrive home later that night.

As you sat, contemplating the stupid plan, you thought about what you could do. From what you’d seen of Bucky’s energy and the increasing number of talks the two of you had, you were sure that the “harmless” pranks the team were planning would only make Bucky’s feelings of isolation worse. Unable to get your teammates to comprehend, you instead made a plan of your own.

The team’s goal was to get Bucky to smile. Yours was to block all their stupid pranks, and maybe play a few of your own in return, hopefully, with Bucky’s help.

…

The moment Bucky and Natasha arrived back at the tower, you all but jumped Bucky, and dragged him back to your room. You’d talked in there before, but you could see Bucky’s confusion. You knew that he would rather be in his room, but you also knew that Clint’s prank was waiting for him there.

Each of the team members had chosen their own prank, to be played one at a time, throughout the week. Once you’d gotten the thoroughly confused Bucky Barnes to your room, you explained what was going on.

“Honestly, I think they were trying to help, but it doesn’t seem like a good idea, so- I thought I’d tell you.” Once you said it out loud, you realized you’d sounded pretty stupid, but you truly wanted Bucky to know.

Bucky, who was sitting on the edge of your bed, sighed and slumped, resting his elbows on his knees. “Steve okayed this?”

“Yeah. His reasoning was that there had been a ton of shenanigans in the commandos, and you were all tight in the 40’s, so maybe Tony was on the right track. Steve’s prank is set for Tuesday.”

Bucky grumbled and scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair. Noticing his energy dipping into what looked like “tired and frustrated”, you decided to mention your plan.

“I never agreed to be a part of their shit, but,” you paused, “I know all of their plans. That grabbed Bucky’s attention. When his eyes met yours, you smiled, “wanna help me mess with them instead?”

It took Bucky a moment, but a wicked grin slowl spread across his face, and his energy kicked back up.

“Hell yeah.”

…

Later that night, after you’d showed Bucky where Clint had hidden all the pop-its, the two of you carefully moved them into Clint’s room. Clint was a hell of a spy when he was awake, but he slept like the dead and relied heavily on coffee to wake up usually. It was easy to sneak in and hide the tiny noisemakers all over his room. The hardest part was holding in your giggles.

Monday Morning

“Good morning everyone,” you called as you entered the common room. Everyone except Wanda, Clint and Bucky was already there. Clint was always the last to arrive. Bucky was planning to make an entrance, but where was Wanda?

“Morning,” Bucky grumbled as he shuffled in, heading for the kitchen.

Every face but yours was a study in confusion.

“What the hell?” Sam muttered under his breath.

“Wasn’t Wanda gonna swap all his clothes for dresses? Where’d he get those?” Rhodes muttered back.

You caught Bucky’s eye and gave him a wink, that was immediately followed by a high pitched shriek.

“Was that Wanda?” Steve asked from the kitchen as Vision disappeared. You assumed that he had reappeared in Wanda’s room as a second shriek came a second after he left.

Then Clint ame staggering into the kitchen. His eyes were darting round the room, and he nearly jumped out of his socks when Steve set a plate down a little to loudly.

You were biting your tongue to keep from laughing, and though Bucky looked as stoic as ever, his energy was high, and if you had to guess, he was trying not to laugh too.

Vision appeared, suitably chastened, and said, “Wanda may not be leaving her room for a while. It appears that while she was showering, all her clothing and towels vanished.”

Tuesday

“You sure Buck? Yo always have orange juice in the morning.” Steve pressured Bucky after their run. But Bucky knew better. That was not orange juice in the pitcher in the fridge. It was boxed Mac and cheese powder mixed with water. Steve had been hoping for an epic spit-take, but it wasn’t gonna happen.

What HAD happened, unbeknownst to Steve, was an alteration to the back of his wardrobe.

Painted on the back were the words: “Star SPANK-led man with a plan” with a winking face and Steve’s phone number below.

Steve didn’t take his phone running, and you could hear it buzzing from across the room. It almost buzzed itself off the table.

“What on earth?” Steve looked so adorably confused.

“What’s the matter, Steve?” you asked innocently.

“I’ve got like 50 missed calls. I don’t even know any of these numbers.”

“Turn on channel 4,” Tony shouted as he slid into the common room. FRIDAY did as he asked and the large flat screen in the common room was soon filled with photos of Steve and Bucky running, and then pictures of Steve’s back.

You were pretty sure you’d never seen Steve’s face that shade of red before.

Wednesday

Thor’s prank of choice was to sabotage Bucky’s hidden Oreo stash. Thor had painstakingly replaced all the cookie filling with toothpaste. Obviously, Bucky was not going to be consuming any of those tainted cookies, but it did give him an idea.

Thus, the entire tower was awoken by Thor’s panicked shouts when his mouth was suddenly filled with bubbles that began to come out his nose. Shaving cream in a person’s toothpaste does that.

You and Bucky were the only ones not to rush to Thor’s aid, choosing instead to saunter into the hall, smirking and sharing a subtle high-five.

Thursday

You’d thought someone would have caught on by then. You lived with expert spies and ex-assassins for heaven’s sake. But no. If anyone caught on, they didn’t say anything, and no one changed their plans. Vision still tried to give Bucky a frozen bowl of cereal for breakfast.

Vision’s reaction to the prank pulled on him was lackluster, but the rest of the team made up for it. You’d had FRIDAY tell Vision, that due to a very specific mission requirement, the entire team needed to come to the briefing in tiaras and tutus. The team erupted into laughter when he came floating in the door.

“I take it by this response that I have been- what’s the phrase? Punked?” Vision monotoned as many, many photos were taken.

Unfortunately, due to the mission, you and Bucky were not able to prevent Tony’s prank.

Upon returning home, there was a GIANT ice sculpture in Bucky’s bed. And it had been there a while apparently, because it was already melting.

“I know we already replaced his ground coffee beans with dirt, but I’m still pissed. I just wanna go to bed,” Bucky whined, tossing his bag on the floor.

“You can come stay in my room, Buck.” You hadn’t really processed all of the possible consequences before offering; you were exhausted too. But after a bit of awkward, embarrassed explaining, the two of you decided that as you were adults, you could certainly share a bed for one night. And charge a new, very expensive mattress to Tony’s card in the morning.

Once you had both showered and changed, you had to cajole Bucky into actually making himself comfortable enough to sleep. He was adamant about staying on top of the covers and firmly on his side of the bed. You eventually got him to climb under the blankets. “There’s no point in being in here if you’re not gonna sleep, Bucky.”

After a bit, you could feel Bucky moving slightly, adjusting himself and his pillow, and you smiled. As you were drifting off, you heard Bucky say, “good night, Doll. Thank you.”

Friday

Sam’s prank was easily avoided since Bucky wasn’t in his room,and inadvertently slept later than usual.

Sam had strapped air horns to the backs of the doors to Bucky's room and the gym. Sam, in turn, was treated to a VERY loud alarm blaring John Philip Sousa at 3am. Neither you nor Bucky were awake to witness his reaction, but you were sure FRIDAY had a recording.

You woke, immensely comfortable. You’d never felt so cozy in your bed before and you didn’t want to get out of it, burrowing in further without a thought.

That thought came through just a few seconds later though, when you realized that what you’d assumed were blankets, were in fact Bucky’s arms. He’d wrapped his arms around you, and you had nestled into his chest, bunching his shirt in your hands.

When you looked up, Bucky was semi-awake. His eyes were blinking open, but he didn’t seem to really be aware of anything. You shifted a bit, to try and pull away from him in case waking up like this made him uncomfortable, but his arms tightened and immediately dreamt you back in. He nuzzled his nose into your hair, and mumbled something incoherent before his breathing dropped back into a sleeping pattern.

Sighing, with a smile on your lips, you resigned yourself to your fate and settled back in against Bucky’s chest.

When you woke the second time, Bucky was gone, but one of your favorite pastries was waiting for you on your nightstand.

Saturday

Together, you and Bucky found all of Bruce’s hidden alarm clocks before they went off Saturday morning. Then, after you changed the times on the alarms, you snuck them into Bruce’s lab. Your hiding places weren’t as good, but the effect was the same. Fortunately, Bruce hadn’t been handling anything caustic, cause he dropped the empty beaker he’d been holding when the first alarm began ringing.

Rhodes planed to wrap plastic wrap over Bucky’s door while he was sleeping, which Bucky decided to allow. He asked to stay with you again, to which you readily agreed.

“Honestly, I’m not sure the last time I slept that well,” Bucky said, looking uncomfortable as he rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand.

“Me either,” you admitted, blushing as you helped Bucky wrap Rhodey’s Iron Patriot suit in the same plastic wrap. You used over five rolls, and by the time you were done, the blush had almost faded from your cheeks, but a bit of a matching pink still colored the tips of Bucky’s ears.

Sunday

Most of the team had realized that something was up by the last day, but apparently no one talked to Peter.

The entire team was in the hallway outside Bucky’s room, just in tie for Bucky to interrupt Peter setting up his prank.

Peter, who was busy webbing all of Bucky’s furniture and belongings to the ceiling didn’t even notice the crowd until Bucky spoke up.

“Ah, a spider,” Bucky called in a monotone voice, his face completely devoid of emotion.

Peter didn’t seem overly concerned until Bucky picked up the broom he’d stashed out in the hall.

“No! Wait, Mr. Barnes I-“ he started, but it was too late.

“I got it,” Bucky shouted and began swinging the broom over his head, successfully knocking some of his belongings from the ceiling nd whacking Peter in the face with the broom bristles multiple times before the kid finally dropped.

“Ow,” Peter moaned as he landed flat on his back on Bucky’s floor.

Bucky turned then, meeting each team member’s gaze. “Ya done fuckin’ with me now?”

“Oh well done, Barnes,” Thor laughed.

Sam and Tony were both sulking, but it was Steve who spoke next.

“So you knew all along, huh? All of this?”

“Yeah, Punk. I knew.”

“How?” Wanda asked quietly, looking around the group. When her eyes met yours, they narrowed in suspiscion. “You didn’t…”

“Didn’t what?” You asked, a smirk slowly spreading across your face.

One by one, your teammates realized the mistake they had made, allowing an confederate into their midst. They turned on you then, but Natasha managed to step in front of you. As she had been exempt from the pranks, she had been more or less aware of the whole situation. And since she appreciated not being subjected to any juvenile hazing, she managed to get you through the group and over to Bucky before your angry teammates could lay a finger on you.

Bucky played bodyguard for all of a minute before everyone calmed down. Sure they were still pissed you’d messed with their plans, but once you’d had a chance to talk (while being hidden behind Bucky), they admitted their lan wasn’t the best.

“You’re still helping me unwrap my suit,” Rhodes griped, as the group backed off.

You stepped around Bucky then, stopping next to him. “Okay Rhodey, I will help you de-plastic your suit,” you giggled. But before you moved, you looked up at Bucky. His energy was reading higher than usual, but he didn’t seem amped up, or worried, no he seemed… happy. You smiled, and without thinking, tiptoed to press a kiss to his cheek. “Thanks for protecting me, Bucky.”

You walked away without noticing the scene you’d caused. All of the team was staring. Several reached for cell phones to take pictures. Tony was in shock, and Steve was nearly in tears.

You see, Bucky was smiling.

Perma Tags (Open): @buckyappreciationsociety , @17marvelousfreak , @melconnor2007 , @writingwithadinosaur , @whenallsaidanddone , @hello-sweetie-get-the-salt , @umwhatandrea , @pineapplebooboo , @thefridgeismybestie  , @xlemon-limex , @sammysgirl1997 , @4theluvofall , @geeksareunique , @madcheshire89 , @shakzer00 , @ajimagines @battlebunnyteardropsinthesun, @mummy-woves-you @isnt-the-blog-youre-looking-for Avengers Perma Tags (Open): @ldyhawkeye , @gonnadiereading Bucky/Sebastian Tags (Open): @waywardpumpkin, @smileybear17, @not-sebastian-stan

[lizartgurl]

“Back To You” (Aqualad x OC)

PART FOUR

(part one) (part two) (part three)  

Emma freaks out over Kaldur being Kaldur and they meet the Marten family of Moose Factory Island.

@flamebiirds​ @lesbianstargirl​ @staar-sailorr​ @the-shadow-of-atlantis​ run in here and get y’all aquafire

They divided the potatoes in half without argument, and managed to keep quiet at the same time. It seems both had silently agreed that not talking was the best way from anything getting soaked or electrified.

But it couldn’t go on like that forever.

The cheese, crisps, and potatoes turned over in her stomach. She’d sunk into the incredibly comfortable couch, but Kaldur insisted on eating at the table like a normal person. Emma still wasn’t used to not having a butler cleaning up after her.

It stormed all night, thunder shaking the loose drawers in Emma’s room. She held the stuffed dragon tightly, safe under a pile of blankets she found rolled up and shoved in the linen closet that was fortunately devoid of any mice or moths.

The door to Kaldur’s room was still closed when Emma woke up and she felt hurt, unjustified though it was. When he was the leader of the team, Kaldur’s bedroom door was always left even slightly open, for her or for anyone who needed help. After all that had happened, why should she expect that his door should remain open to her?

Her stomach grumbled, reminding her why she got up in the first place.

She fixed herself a bowl of cereal, moping all the way. She stared- or was it glared? Out the window, desperate for a distraction. Was it a good idea to wake up Kaldur and ask if he wanted to eat breakfast together? Or was that too intimate? Lines had to be drawn somewhere.

She decided not to go pounding on the door and demand he wake up and eat a bowl of dry Cheerios. With the circles under his eyes, he needed rest more than he needed to get into a routine or whatever it was that would keep them from going crazy.

However, as she was washing her bowl in the sink, the door creaked open,

She spun around, palm out flat, and hit the pile of wood Kaldur had been carrying.

The logs clattered against the tile, and Kaldur immediately knelt down to pick them up, mumbling several different apologies.

“Were you outside?” She blurted out, going into shock several times over.

“Yes, why?” He asked. Logs retrieved, he stood up and walked over to the fireplace to stack them.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She asked, arms folded.

“I was unaware that you were my keeper.” Kaldur continued his nonchalance as he hung his hat and sweater on the hooks by the door.

“I’m here to help you! To protect you! I wouldn’t have kept you from going outside or anything, I just-” She fumed visibly, rocking from side to side.

“What if you never came back? I wouldn’t know what happened to you or where to look. What if you got sniped, or someone took you, or-” Her throat constricted at the thousand terrible scenarios running through her head.

“Just tell me!” She shouted at last.

She breathed in, heavily, as Kaldur stared at her, his face magically blank.

“Just tell me,” She shrugged, and she had no idea why she wanted to laugh.

Kaldur glanced back at his woodpile, stacking the last look on top of the pyramid. “I wished to surprise you. I knew you must have been cold last night. I could hear you shivering.”

Great, now she felt guilty. She knew Kaldur wouldn’t purposely guilt-trip her. He was too Kaldur to do that, just like he was too Kaldur to betray all of them and join forces with his father. She also knew that he, like any of their friends, hated to be treated as a child, and would not do well under house arrest, no matter the situation.

She hated this whole situation.

“What-” She took another deep breath, “-what if we went to town today. Met some of the people. Maybe get some food,” She added, remembering the ancient, half-used box of cheerios and the mysterious milk carton at the back of the fridge.

“Bruce did leave us some money for expenses, and, knowing him, it’s more than enough for food.”

Kaldur stared at the fireplace for a moment, then nodded.

“Well, it would be unwise to disappoint Batman.”

-

Emma tried and failed not to pout behind her scarf. She had forgotten their incredible lack of transportation, and so they trekked along a small worn path through the thin trees, bundled to their comfort. Kaldur insisted that he was fine in his simple hoodie and beanie combo, which Emma silently loathed him for, as she was wearing her second-biggest coat, a thick-knit hat, scarf, and gloves.

The town part of the island wasn’t that far away, it was actually visible from the safe house through the trees. Not much, just a few large buildings and a few small neighborhoods that scattered off towards the north end of the island. It was very nice, but it was cold, and there was no snow. According to Emma, it was not allowed to be cold unless it snowed. At least then the snow made everything look prettier (and brighter, according to Kaldur). The town looked quaint, but the bare white tree trunks and brown fields made the whole island look dead, filling Emma with even more despair.

Neither of them said anything as they tried to follow Ted’s tiny path, but Kaldur kept sneaking looks at Emma and smiling at her as she all but waddled along beside him. Emma wanted to glare, but that took too much energy.

For a moment, she could almost forget all that had happened between them, and she started to think of what this would be like if they hadn’t broken up, if Kaldur had told her about the undercover mission against Richard’s wishes. She would have accepted this assignment immediately, much to Bruce’s chagrin, Kaldur having confided all these threats to her so that she would be aware and be able to help him as she would have confided her problems with him for help, and Tim and Mara would have teased her about it far past the extent they had allowed themselves yesterday. She and Kaldur would have cooked dinner together, maybe fish and chips to balance out their likes, and then spent the night talking in the sitting room, snuggled together for warmth rather than relying on a potentially dangerous fire.

She sighed loudly, which gave Kaldur a look of alarm as they approached the town.

“Are you alright, Emma?” He asked.

She shrugged, hoping he would mistake her red cheeks for the cold. “Oh, you know, I’m freezing my butt off here, Mister Atlantean.”

Kaldur chuckled at her pain. She missed his laughter, but that wasn’t his real laugh. His laugh of contentment and pure joy. He hardly ever laughed, even with the team. He always had the stress of potentially making a choice or error that could threaten the lives of his friends and loved ones. He was a good leader, but leadership wasn’t something he enjoyed. A good leader hardly ever did.

They walked past the docks, and Emma’s spine prickled as people began to recognize them as strangers. Perhaps she shouldn’t have bundled up so much, no matter how close she was to a popsicle. Kaldur’s skin tone and style, at least was almost a copy of the locals. She stuck out like a sore thumb.

So much for the sidekick of Batman.

After their curious glances, the townspeople would slowly return to work, following the strangers out of the corner of their eye. At least they weren’t as intrusive as the paparazzi, but suspicious was still dangerous to their cover.

“Here,” She said, nudging Kaldur to the log cabin-style building bearing a sign that read “Trading Post” In French, English, and another language that might have been Cree. She should have spent more time researching, like Tim did. Less than a day’s worth of prep time to go into hiding with your ex-boyfriend was no excuse when you were Batman’s oldest and toughest trainee.

The Trading Post was a general store, stocked with a food, clothing, and daily necessities, along with a few outdated versions of board games and cheap toys. Emma felt ashamed of the “Is that it?” that flashed through her mind.

“I've never seen you around before.” Accused a voice.

Except for them, the store had appeared to be devoid of customers. Kaldur noticed the voice's owner first, a fit young woman standing behind the counter, wearing a thick knit blue sweater and a black apron.

Kaldur approached with a kind, heart-melting smile that  most definitely did not make Emma jealous, removing his gloves to offer to shake hands. “Pardon me, I am Jackson Hyde. This is my wife, Mary.” He wrapped his arm around Emma, pulling her forward. “We’ve come to get away from most of civilization for a while. Our friend Ted Grant offered us his cabin up here for a few months.”

“Ted!” The woman's face lit up, “Any friend of Ted Grant is a friend of Moose Factory. I’m Miiyahbin Marten, my grandmother is a good friend of Ted, and she owns the Trading Post. It’s wonderful to meet you.” She shook Kaldur’s hand, then Emma’s. Emma was too shocked to say anything. Obviously, they needed an alibi, but couldn’t Kaldur have told her that he wanted to use a fake-marriage cover-up? How could they convince the Moose Factory locals that they were a couple on a romantic getaway for an undefined period of time when they could hardly stand to be in the same room as each other?

“It is fine, Miiyahbin” Kaldur assured her, making a conscious effort to avoid looking Emma in the eyes. “Your suspicions are valid, especially if you do not get many visitors.”

Emma had never felt more like a white girl than she did then and there.

“Feel free to call me Miiya, I know my full name’s a handful. Let me see if I can find my grandma, she’ll want to meet you..” She disappeared through the swinging door back door, and Kaldur turned to Emma.

“We’ll talk about it at the house,” Emma snapped quietly as a mother and her two small children entered the store as well. Emma disappeared into the shelves of food, not caring if Kaldur followed or not, looking for anything that they might need. Everything appeared fresh and locally-grown, a mostly self-subsistent community with the exception of some brand foods imported every so often. Several herbs and plants even hung from the ceiling in the light of the window. Fresh caught salmon from the river, Kaldur would like that. Blackberry and strawberry jam with some sort of bread for breakfast, maybe a box of cereal or two. Fresh milk, maybe a box or two of not-quite-expired pop tarts, and a dime novel or two from the bargain bin, just for something new, if trashy, to distract herself with.

“Hello!”

Miiyahbin’s grandmother was a fit older woman with a kind smile, a gray braid wrapped around her head, and wearing a sturdy but tarnished pair of glasses with an intricately woven sweater.

“Ted told me you might be coming,” She smiled knowingly as she shook Kaldur’s- “Jackson’s”- hand. “It’s a pleasure to have you here.”

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Kaldur nodded politely.

Miiyahbin’s grandmother then caught sight of Emma watching them, her arms full of groceries.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, dear, let me get you a basket. Or your husband can fetch one, they’re right by the front door.”

Emma felt like throwing up from all the awkwardness, but she swallowed it.

“Thank you, Mrs. Marten,” She said. The older woman was quicker than Kaldur, and helped Emma arrange her things in a basket.

“Oh, just call me Grandmother, dear, everyone does. ‘Mrs. Marten’ is too formal for my liking.”

“I’ll, uh, We’ll keep that in mind, then.”

“So, how’s Ted’s old house treating you? That old thing certainly has seen better days.” Grandmother said, hopping back behind the counter with Miiyahbin, who started to ring up their purchases.

“That house used to belong to my grandfather!” Miiyahbin bragged, “But when he married Granma and had my father, they moved to town and started the trading post.”

Emma nodded, glancing around the Trading Post. It almost felt like three buildings meshed together.

“So you have a post office here?”

“And a bar, and the grocery store. They used to be three buildings all in a row, but Granpa bought them all and made them bigger and better!”

“This place is all but a town hall. We move all the food and tables to the back and host a party or two every week.”

“Really?” Kaldur asked.

“We may not be one of your big cities down south,” Miiyahbin grinned cockily, but if there’s one thing Cree people enjoy it’s being happy, especially as a community.”

“Now I know you two came up here for a romantic getaway,” Grandmother all but teased, “but I expect both of you here next Saturday at eighteen-hundred sharp. It isn’t good to be all holed up by yourselves for weeks on end.”

Emma swallowed a scream, wishing that she could tell the Martens all about what was going on and how she and Kaldur were nowhere near married, but the family had gotten in line behind them and Miiyahbin was handing her a receipt, so she took is and put on her best camera-smile.

“We’ll look forward to it.”

[lyonrhodes]

One Bad Day #8: Collapse

Red Hood x OC, Batman/DC Fan Fic

Summary: Dora has lived in Gotham her whole life and is accustomed to the rampant crime and corruption. Her life gets worse when Black Mask takes over the city. She thinks all hope is lost but a new vigilante appears, calling himself the Red Hood. However, he’s not your typical knight in shining armor. Dora must decide: does she dare fall in love with a revenge-driven killer? (Romance, Crime, Action)

Chapter 8: Collapse

Dora ripped the orange biohazard sticker off the Alibi’s front door. Her mother Anita struggled to get the police tape off the gaping opening that would have been the bar’s plate-glass window, so Dora helped her out. “Hopefully all that was enough to keep out looters,” Dora said, balling up the tape.

“In this city? On Park Row? I doubt it,” said her mother.

The GCPD had taken two whole days to catalog the evidence, and the crime scene cleaners another two to do their jobs—getting rid of all the blood and gore left behind by the bodies. Dora’s mother had given the cleaners keys to the bar so they could lock up the kitchen, office, and bathrooms when they were done. However, anyone walking down the street could have just stepped through the tarp that covered the broken front window and take anything they wanted from the main barroom. Dora did just that—it was quicker than walking through the front door.

“Dios mio,” Anita gasped.

The crime scene cleaners had stripped down the barroom to its bare bones. Most of the floor panels had been removed, baring the concrete foundation underneath. The upholstery from the booths had been ripped out, the couches and armchairs from the lounge area were gone, along with a lot of the tables and chairs. An entire wall had been stripped of its wood paneling, and another had a hole in it big enough to step through to the bathroom behind it. The copper piping was missing. Anti-septic fumes lingered in the air.

“What the fuck happened in here?” Anita stared at the hole in the wall. “And what happened to the pool table?”

When Dora had told her mother what happened that night, she had left out Carla and Holly’s participation, and had glossed over the gory bits—like the man that had basically burst like a water balloon splattered blood everywhere when Red Hood’s motorcycle slammed him into the pool table. “You don’t want to know.” She felt her stomach lurch just remembering it. “At least they left the bar alone.”

Anita scoffed. The bar was still there, but the wood was cracked and pockmarked with bullet holes. The tap handles were bent or missing. The liquor shelf behind the counter was a ruin and the wall itself was swiss cheese; the mirror was shattered and all the shelves were gone, along with the bottles that had been kept there. In fact, all the drinks were gone, including the kegs underneath the counter—and the area still reeked of alcohol. Dora wondered if that was the work of the cleaners or looters.

“Some hero that Red Hood guy is.” Anita ran her hand across the scarred bar top, brushing off debris. “He saved us from getting robbed by those gangbangers, but it was the cops that fucked us over.”

“What do you mean?”

Anita sighed. “The crime scene cleaners took almost all of the insurance payout. The check is coming, but it’s not going to be very much. Paying to fix this place up will have to be out of our pocket mostly.”

Dora’s heart sank. She remembered the last time they completely renovated the bar—ten years ago. Her parents were in debt for years. It wasn’t until President Luthor’s relief bailout after the earthquake that they managed to get out of debt, but almost immediately afterward Black Mask took over the rackets on Park Row. The Alibi never stayed pristine and new for very long.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be alright,” Dora said, placing her hand on her mother’s shoulder. “We got through it... twice, three times? We can do it again. It’s about time, anyway. This place needed an update.”

Anita shrugged off Dora’s hand. “No. I don’t think we can do it this time around. We don’t have the money, mija. Black Mask took most of our savings with his damn racket, and the tenants are breaking off their leases because of all the crap that keeps happening here. Entiende, who wouldn’t move out with three murders on their doorstep—todo dentro un solo ano. We just don’t have the savings or the income to rebuild... We...”

No, don’t say it, Mami.

But she did. “We have to sell it. Cut our losses and leave this place behind. Let it be someone else’s problem.”

“But this place, this whole building, has been in our family for generations, we can’t just leave it behind...”

“Your family, Dora, not mine.”

That stung. A lot. Te quiero, Mami, pero you’re such a bitch.

Dora’s mother had estranged herself from her father when they divorced. They had still co-owned the building, but split its management; Monty ran the Alibi on the first floor, while Anita became the supervisor and landlord of the apartments upstairs. When Monty died, the first thing Anita wanted to do was lease the Alibi, but Dora convinced her not to.

Taking a breath, Dora tried to settle her emotions. “How else are we going to support ourselves? This place is your job, Mami—and mine. You’re not qualified to do anything else. You don’t even have a high school diploma!”

“Look here, mija, I managed this bar and a dozen apartments, and kept books on all of it, by myself for over twenty years. Your father never did that shit, it was me. I have more experience than any fucking CPA or landlord or super in this city that’s worked as long. That has to be worth something to somebody.”

“Do you really want to demote yourself to being a super elsewhere, if anyone will even hire you, when you’ve been your own boss for such a long time? You’ll make much less money working for someone else than you will for yourself. Tu sabes eso. We need this place. As much as you don’t like to admit it, this bar wasn’t just Dad’s lifeblood, it’s yours too. It’s mine. Soy Silva, soy Latina, soy de Santa Prisca, como ti, Mami. Pero entienda que tambien soy Montgomery. Yo soy la hija de mi padre.”

She couldn’t tell if her mother was angry or sad, but either way she was on the verge of tears. “Yo queria mas para ti que esto. You were in college, Dora. You were supposed to be a doctor, not a bartender. And you threw it all away for this dump.”

Dora grabbed her mother’s shoulders. “Let Carla be the doctor in the family. Let Mercedes be a lawyer, a broker, or an engineer or the fucking president or whatever. I’m willing to sacrifice my future and invest it in this place to give them those opportunities. Like you and Dad did for me.”

Those words broke the levee. Anita rummaged through her purse and pulled out a tissue to dab her eyes with. “Fine,” she sighed, then cupped Dora’s cheek, looking into her face. “You may have gotten my looks, but you were always his daughter more than mine.”

悪

Over the next few days, Dora and her mother worked out the finances.

The insurance check was chump change like Anita had expected, so they got a loan from the bank. However, the bank only approved a small amount at a ridiculous interest rate because the Alibi’s accounting was a nightmare—poorly kept and inexact, with unexplainable losses and gains all over the place. Her mother was insulted, but Dora thought it was ironic. Their books were only in such terrible shape because of Kosov’s and Black Mask’s extortion and money laundering over the years.

To supplement the loan, Dora had to take out a title loan on her father’s vintage 1969 Chevy Impala, which almost broke her heart. Sometimes she felt like the car was imbued with his spirit more than the Alibi itself. It, too, had been in the family for generations.

But even the loans weren’t enough. It took hours of debating, but Anita was finally able to convince Dora to mortgage the Montgomery building, meaning they no longer owned it—the bank did, but they still had most of the rights to the property.

And with that, they had enough to rebuild the bar, but at the cost of the heaviest debt Dora had ever known in her adult life. She knew how she was going to pay it back—it was just daunting to think how long it would take. She couldn’t rely on the income sources she had once taken for granted. For once, she began to regret her decision to keep the building,  but her father’s memory made her persevere.

Some of the Montgomery building’s tenants had already moved out in the wake of the shooting. More said they weren’t going to renew their leases. The remaining renters united, demanding lower rent or else they would move out as well. Dora negotiated with them, at first leaning heavily on sympathy, but she eventually had to convince them that Red Hood was their ally. He would protect them if anything ever happened again—which was unlikely because by now every gangbanger, narco, and mafioso on Park Row knew not to mess with the Alibi, the Montgomery Building, or anyone living in it.

Dora and the tenants agreed to some terms, but it led her to think about Red Hood and if he would actually extend his protection to the tenants like she had promised, not just to her and the Alibi. Lately, it seemed like he was actually protecting her, giving her an uncomfortable new sense of the term “protection money”—the literal sense. The monthly twenty-five percent she still owed him weighed on her conscience as much, if not more, than her other debts.

Red Hood had saved her life on two occasions, but she couldn’t forget that he was a criminal as much as he was a hero. He killed people, ruthlessly. Only bad people, but nonetheless, in the eyes of the law they were people that didn’t necessarily have to die. He ran the brothel that Holly worked at now, technically making him her pimp. And Dora had learned through Holly what became of the cocaine Carla had brought into the bar—Red Hood had sold it. That didn’t sit right with Dora, but it relieved her somewhat to know that Red Hood sold the cocaine not on the streets of Park Row, nor Gotham’s other ghettos like the East End, Backport, or the Narrows, but instead to the spoiled gentry on the Upper West Side.

Dora had no idea how Red Hood would react when she told him she couldn’t make her first payment, let alone the second, or the third, or possibly the fourth. The Alibi wouldn’t bring in revenue for at least a month because of the remodeling, and they wouldn’t make a sizable profit for years because of the debt... And that was only if the bar actually survived that long. She wasn’t certain if any of her customers would return, especially if her dwindling tenants were any indication.

When Red Hood wasn’t shooting people and cutting off their heads, he seemed like a relatively nice guy... Would he understand? Twenty-five percent of zero was still zero.

As days went by, Dora started to doubt herself more and more, believing she had financially ruined her family, like her father almost did—ten years ago, during the last renovation. The risk had paid off then, but only because of a lucky government bailout had saved them from bankruptcy.

悪

“Well, this is the last of it.” Carla grunted as she pulled the crowbar back, ripping what remained of the ruined cabinetry away from the wall. The wood cracked, splintered, and finally snapped. She kicked the debris into a pile in the corner.

“Great, thanks,” Dora said, not looking Carla’s way, busy calculating the cut she had to make on the tile in her hands. She marked it with a pencil and lined it up with the whirring buzz saw.

“Why don’t you let the contractors do that?”

“Because they’ll charge us.” Dora swapped her glasses for safety goggles.

“So?”

“Every penny counts, Carla.”

“Be careful, Dee.”

“I know what I’m doing.” Pretty much. Dora was thankful she had learned a lot about home improvement from her father when she was younger, having helped him maintain the apartments upstairs as the super. Lesson one was how not to pay a professional for simple little tasks you could do yourself—if you weren’t lazy.

Satisfied with the cut, she blew the dust off the tile and set it on a sawhorse. “You should head home,” she said to Carla, looking outside. “It’ll be dark soon.”

“Mom said to pick up dinner on the way back. What do you feel like eating tonight?”

Dora fished through her pockets and pulled out a few crumpled bills. “Here, get something from Fausto’s.”

Carla looked down at the money. “You’re not coming with me?”

“Nope.” Dora picked up another tile and went to a corner. She knelt down and penciled in some reference marks. “I’ll be home in a few hours. The contractors are coming tomorrow, so I have to finish this today.”

If she didn't, and continued tomorrow with the contractors around, she would have to endure a pack of beer-bellied Santa Priscan illegals her mother insisted she hire (to save money) telling them what to do—whether it was because they thought a woman’s handiwork was inferior, or as a pretense to flirt with them.

“Um...” Carla hesitated. “Okay, I guess I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah. See ya. Don’t forget to get a quesadilla for Mercy, and a flan for Mami. You know how she loves those.”

Before her sister had even left the bar, Dora was back to work. She had lied to Carla. She knew it would take her more than a few hours to tile the floors—easily all night. But the bar was closed indefinitely, so she could sleep in tomorrow while the contractors worked. Even still, if she wanted to minimize how much she had to deal with them, there was no time to waste.

A few hours later, her back was aching and her knees were sore from all the crawling around... but she was only half done. She still needed to do the lounge area, the pool and darts area, and cut down more tiles for the odd corners by the doors to the office and bathrooms... She groaned as she stretched and popped the kinks in her back. She needed a piss and a cold drink of water before continuing—and maybe some coffee... or maybe some whiskey.

In the bathroom, she washed her face in the sink and ran some water through her hair. As she dried off, someone knocked on the back door.

Dora froze. The knock came again, harder. She fumbled for her glasses and slid them on.

When she started renovating the bar a few days ago, the first thing she had done was replace the wooden front and back doors with ones made of industrial-grade steel with magnetic RFID locks. She would have installed a proper security system, complete with cameras and an alarm, but there simply wasn’t enough money in the budget.

She poked her head into the kitchen. “Go away! We’re closed!”

Whoever was behind the door didn’t answer; they only knocked again, more insistent.

Maybe the new steel door was too dense to hear through. It might be Holly, Dora thought. She usually came around at this time of night when she got off work for a free drink and some conversation. But just to be careful, Dora reached for the crowbar Carla had been using earlier, wishing Red Hood hadn’t borrowed her father’s gun. She felt naked without it now.

She unlocked the back door and it swung open. No one was there. The alley was empty; obscured in darkness except for a dim flickering lamp overhead. She gripped the iron bar tighter.

“Holly? I’m here,” Dora called out, stepping outside. “Hello?”

Gravel crunched behind her. She wasn’t alone.

Without stopping to think, Dora turned around and swung the crowbar.

[v0.3.15.1]

[yvaquietdays]

idealising the past and dreaming about the future

Last week, after I made the blog public, I received some pretty beautiful messages. Most of them were from folks who had been in the exact same position as me, whether living with depression or anxiety, or simply finding it tough battling through life’s disappointments. It was incredibly comforting knowing what I believed when I wrote that last post was so resonant; we’re all going through the same bullshit.

But a friend in particular, his name is Mat. He commented publicly on my post with some words that got me thinking. Imma share this here:

If I was arrested for any crime at all it would be for idealising my past self. That and eating too many biscuits. Who I was, who I thought I was. I laughed more, I cared less, I subscribed to nobody else’s version of me. But then I got depressed and worried all the time, and I lost that part of myself. The happy-go-lucky, ball of energy, motivated, determined young woman, gone. As slow and as unnervingly noticeable as a fart. Much in the way that Mat reminisces over his “extroverted, confident ‘me’“, I reminisce heavily upon the teenage me, the one who had stars in her eyes and never wavered in her confidence of her abilities.

Except, when I really think about it, when I’m honest with myself, and I face my self in the mirror, I know that isn’t true.

All that I’ve lost, really, are my rose tinted glasses.

I grew up.

I was never motivated, I was never determined. I was lucky. I can’t reminisce about the person I was because I know more about myself now than I did before, and I think the hardest part of climbing out of the pit of your mental un-health is accepting that life goes forwards, not backwards. I can’t unlearn all the things I’ve learnt since I noticed three years ago that I wasn’t happy. The truth is, I was unhappy before that. I’ve been fighting off that frequency sadness for as long as I can remember.

So I can’t go back and rewind the clock, because all I have is now and I don’t want to be that sad girl anymore. I’ve been thinking a lot about cycles, the 7-year-life cycle in particular. Wait, though- Before you flick back to whatever you were doing before you decided to read my blog, bear with me. Aside from whatever spiritual or philosophical connotations the idea might have, let’s look at it logically for a second. The first seven years of our life we spend smelling and touching and feeling out the world around us. Any mental learning is done almost subconsciously, depending on how our world treated us. We’re well on our way to becoming a real, pubescent adult when the second cycle rolls around, by which point we’re discovering our sexuality, relationships, viewpoints and intellect. This is such a huge exploratory phase for some. Then the third arrives, and we’re beginning to find out what the world is like without our parents driving the train. We’re figuring out where we place in the grand scheme of things, and wondering how you might change, politically, environmentally, socially. And then come our twenties.

Jesus Fuck.

WHAT HAPPENED?!

I think it is no coincidence that a lot of people suffer mental illness for the first time in this particular age bracket. I envy those who don’t. They tend to be some of the most driven, strongest people I know. But my friends used to call it “the mid-twenties fear.” Out of nowhere, we’re mentally and physically culpable for all our own decisions and mistakes, and all the ideas we had for life in those first three cycles have become somewhat buried under a pile of work deadlines, rent days and bills to pay. We don’t own your own home yet, we aren’t married, we have no kids. We aren’t in the perfect job yet, we haven’t even begun the successes that were supposed to come to us after we put in so much work at our GCSE’s, A-Levels, degrees!

We’re the guy cleaning our toilets now, we’re the ones buying the food. School didn’t prepare us (not in the UK at least) for how to deal with every day responsibilities; how to pay taxes, how to arrange loans, how to mentally cope with the resounding disappointment we feel at how our lives panned out in contrast to the grand ideals we had when we were in our third cycle.

Oof. I know. Heavy man.

(I have a big problem with how out-dated our education system is; instead of being career-driven, it is goal-driven. Degrees don’t work for everyone and they evidently do not provide for a stable economy. More apprenticeships, less pressure on exams (not everyone is good at those) and more practical applications, pls & thnx)

But here’s what I’ve realised. Life is a cycle. It’s not meant to go backwards, it’s supposed to continue on its round, picking up what we’ve learned and adapting itself as it goes. Why focus on what we haven’t got when we should focus on what we do have? And if something is ever spiralling, ever changing and evolving, how can we go back to the last cycle? Should we jam an iron rod in the spokes, forcing the wheel to brake suddenly and collapse under the pressure? Because that is what would happen. That is what happened to me.

I knew at the age of 18 my life wasn’t heading in the right direction, when I stared out of my university accommodation window at York Minster in the distance, listening to Stop This Train by John Meyer. The night was dark, and I sat curled on my redundant desk chair, wondering in a pale blue light of sadness, even then. Eventually I made the change, dropping out of further education and pursuing my joy, my music. But it did not alleviate the sadness. I continued on, all the while so scared of living life on my own, so scared of growing up. I lived in fear for years of never achieving my goals because I could not bear to be alone doing it. Isolation was my motivation and fear my hinderance.

I spent years dreaming and idealising this vision of the future where I was always winning, where I was singing and performing and recording and I was writing with everyone and everyone wanted to write with me, and everything was just going to work out (claps between words required). It was easier living in this fantasy life I wanted to build, but the escape was taking me further away from reality. Much like that incredible Pixar film, Inside Out, fear and sadness was in control of my actual life.

Things were going well for a while in that frame of mind, but then they didn’t.

When all those things I’d dreamt (I stress that I never visualised them, not in a positive way- I dreamed them- the difference is as vast as an ocean) didn’t happen, I kept harking on to that past self, wondering where it all went wrong, trying to get back that ambition, the endless streams of excitement, the riveting pangs of desire. It was all a lie I told myself. Because really, all I had in the pit of my stomach was dull and and grey; it was nothing, and I could feel myself hiding in that pit, far, far away from where I used to be. All of what I told myself was a lie, and I was starting to realise the truth of it.

I think that amidst all of it, life was telling me (whatever it was; nature, God, Buddha’s mates,) I ought not to hyper-admire my old self. Because in trying to become my past self, I was ignoring what I could become in the future. All of the little lies I told myself started to evolve on their own like that black icky shit from Prometheus (don’t watch it- it’s disappointing, just like your life), to the point that I forgot what I had done to protect myself; when all of those things I had lied with were stripped from me, I was naked and bare, and I had no idea of how I was going to move through the murk of it all. My self esteem was so low that the idea of performing made me anxious, writing made me cry, I sat in silence at the piano with a choke in my throat and my guitar lay in its case gathering dust.

But I was naked for a reason. I had to accept that I was relying heavily upon this idea of my self, not upon what I was. I was constantly seeking others’ approval, my only source of validation was what I thought others thought of me.

It has been empowering to know that the answer has been in me all along. I cannot blame others for how I view myself.

Life is a cycle. I am where I am supposed to be now. It’s not perfect, I’m still working on me and creating my life with my own hands, not someone else’s. I’m not quite there yet, but I’m trying.

But maybe this is my best self, because I’m so much more aware and emotionally awake. Maybe I’m the best I can be because I recognised my laziness and arrogance when I needed to, and in stripping these things away from my ego I am looking forward to being a better person, not the young complacent girl I was. And as a woman, cycles rule our lives. From the second cycle to the latter, our emotions and physiology is run by a monthly turn of events. Part of the reason I came off the pill was so that I could feel and trust this more purely. I was neglecting my basic instincts and self and I couldn’t have jacked up hormones hiding it away from me.

So everything comes and goes. The old girl goes and the new woman arrives. We have a chance to change every time. All aspects of life in this world run in a cycle. Water, fire, earth. It all moves and works in a cycle. Ice ages, the rising of dough into a beautiful donut, the melting of butter atop a mountain of cheese and jacket potato. Life and death. All the important stuff.

So I let the death of my old self instigate the birth of a better me. And one day I might shed this skin too and look forward to the next husk I inhabit.

What I’m learning is that nostalgia can be good, if you’re with your mates and remembering that time you threw up down the side of George Ezra’s tour van (true story).

But if we start becoming nostalgic about our selves, thinking of our current self in a negative way, dousing it in low light and bad reflective gear, and instead highlighting that past self with the glory light of hindsight, we can’t, and I believe, we won’t move forward.

We have to accept ourselves as we are now, and then build whatever we can upon the foundations that we create every second we’re alive. Because all we have are our own decisions, that ultimately we are in control of. How we respond, how we act, what we say; at the end of the day, that’s who we are. What you did today, that’s who you are, good or bad. No-one is perfect and life is a cycle. We always have tomorrow to try again.

We don’t have yesterday, so

[davidfostercomedyblog]

My 2nd Trip to Paris: The Strike!

Mamidou worked the night shift at the front desk of L’Empire Hotel, and it was his job to open the doors for us when we stumbled drunkenly home from our nights of Parisian gluttony. He’d originally grown up in Senegal, but “lived many years in U.S.,” having split a decade between Brooklyn and the Bay area of California.

“I prefer California,” he said. “New York too cold.”

I just laughed, which is my default response to anyone expressing any kind of preference over New York. It’s like someone saying they didn’t like The Godfather. I know we don’t see the same world, so laughter keeps things amicable but logically distant.

One of the things we enjoyed about Mamidou, besides his joyous demeanor in response to our drunken faces at the door, was his nightly rants against French people. “They don’t wanna work,” he’d yell. “French people do not work… and they want to work even less than that! They don’t know how good they have it.” In retrospect I think Mamidou may have been as drunk as we were.

His monologues were in response to the national strikes going on, supposedly driven by the goal of longer and greater pensions upon retirement. “France is ‘the country of strikes,’” Mamidou explained. “You didn’t know that?”

We do now, as our arrival in Paris this time was not without a hitch.

“Should we take a cab?” my wife (who was a mere fiancée for the last trip) asked after we retrieved our bags at the airport.

GPS indicated the difference in time of arrival to be negligible while the price gap was huge. We’d relied heavily on the train last time in Paris and came to fall in love with it relative to the MTA, the way a woman does with her new boyfriend that treats her well after decades of neglect in an abusive marriage.

The train platform was crowded. After a few moments loud announcements came (in French only) over the speaker. The locals looked displeased and a few of them departed back up the escalator. If not for the language barrier I’d have thought I’d never left New York and we were stuck at Columbus Circle.

Apparently there was a strike affecting the train operations on a national scale. Eventually we all left the station, forced to climb broken escalators, some of us sacrificing the future of our rotator cuffs to be gentlemen, carrying old ladies’ suitcases up the non-functioning escalators. My wife and I were sweating, confused and exhausted – that barely-any-sleep-on-a-red-eye-exhausted, angry– and it looked as though this trip would not be nearly the success of the previous one. Thankfully, there are few things that cannot be cured by a nap, alcohol and good food with your best friends. Next time you feel horrible I highly recommend this 4-part prescription.  

My best (wo)man from my wedding and her husband were in Paris for their anniversary. Their last two days were our first two, not coincidentally of course. Since our first trip my wife seeks any excuse to go to Paris; so if you know us and we’re even peripherally friendly, by all means let us know if you’re planning a trip. We’ll meet you there.

NIGHT 1 was dinner at Bon Georges, followed by Moulin Rouge, then cocktails at the Little Red Door, followed by another dinner and more cocktails at some wherever-the-fuck, dope Parisian late night corner spot filled with beautiful, thin people drinking, eating cheese, and smoking cigarettes.

We arrived at the restaurant too early, which is always a good excuse to grab a pre-dinner drink. Jillian and I sought espresso, still running on jet-lagged fumes, but our dates were (understandably) ready for wine. We went around the corner and spotted Bo Man Café, which looked nice enough.

The first red flag should have been when they were “out of espresso.” “Out of espresso?” Where are we? Are we absolutely sure the plane ever took off from JFK? Are we in Long Island? Fair enough. “We’ll have the $6 glass of Cotes du Rhone.”

This might sound cheap, but we’ve had many a brilliant $6 glass of wine in France already. Unfortunately this experience would bless us with a joke that would kill in a black comedy club of wine aficionados, nicknaming it: “Cotes du Wrong.” It was the worst glass of wine we’d ever had in the nation of France, also the worst Cotes du Rhone we’d ever had. It wasn’t corked. It just sucked. Do not go to Bo Man Café.  

Bon Georges was excellent. The artichoke puree soup with truffles blew everyone’s mind, as did the filet mignon special and my roasted pork chop with roasted onions that reminded me of a fancy version of how the west African restaurants do fish in Harlem. Although Paris is best known for duck and red meat, my experience thus far is to never skip the soup if and when it appears on your menu, as it’s always been incredible. Do skip the frog legs, as they were a bit too oily, and I’ve had better even in Chicago. We did only one bottle of Bordeaux, followed by a couple of single glasses, as we were in a rush to go see the tits.

Moulin Rouge, unfortunately almost ruined tits for me forever, as tits lose their luster when you’re looking at 48 of them at once, from 50 feet away, all of identical (B-cup) size and attached to 24 bodies doing the Can-Can. I never thought I could be less turned on while looking at naked French girls in their physical prime. As the saying goes… too much of a good thing… Though maybe this degree of exposure is part of the reason European culture tends to be less sexually repressive than ours in the west. In any case, you could never have told me I would see so many boobs in a show and my favorite part would be the contortionist and shirtless, diesel, yoga balancing guy. You equally could never have convinced me that my least favorite part would be the champagne (in Paris). Yuk! Higher quality drinks were in order immediately afterwards.

The Little Red Door was a revisit from last trip – a lovely creative cocktail lounge that attracts the local sophistos, hipsters and tourists. It wasn’t as crowded as last summer, but the bigger difference this time was it did not mark the end of our evening. We left hungry and drunk and it was 1:30am in Paris, which in real world terms is only about 9pm. The night was young! My friend, Daniel, craved a slice of pizza because he, like us, is from New York. Instead we found another restaurant still bustling with locals smoking cigarettes, surely prepping for the five-hour work day that lay ahead for them to start around noon. Daniel ordered what I imagine to be the Parisian counterpart to pizza: French fries. I got another full meal: Burger, pommes frites and a burrata caprese, and plenty of beer. We got to bed at 4am.

DAY 2 was Angelina’s for brunch, followed by the Catacombs, then dinner at Pottoka and drinks at Le Fumoir.

Angelina’s was our 9:30 breakfast reservation, and I honestly never felt so good after five hours of sleep after a night of drinking after a two-hour sleep red eye the night before. Paris man…Situated almost directly across the street from the Louvre, Angelina’s is an iconic brunch spot (and set to open a new location in NYC, God help us). I thought I was being less of a tourist by getting the eggs benedict, but it didn’t much match the restaurant’s décor, upscale crowd, or awesome coffee. Instead I spent most of my (hungover) breakfast picking as much as possible from my wife’s plate: The greatest French toast either of us had ever tasted. On brioche bread with the perfect amount of sweetness and an ever so subtle taste of rum, it was just divine. A bit more of a Beverly Hills-type crowd than either of us would prefer, and if not for the shit bag, overcast weather I’d have thought we were back in rocky-ass Nice. Nevertheless, the service was lovely - even uncharacteristically diligent. On the way out we were advised to get the hot chocolate, which tasted good, but was more like a hot melted fudge in a coffee cup. It was insane. You could’ve cut it with a knife, and in spite of its reputation, I do not recommend to anyone baring any consideration for their A1C.

Next we crossed the street to the holiday market. We’d already had breakfast, so it was apparently time for shots of cognac and cups of mulled wine, which worked out perfectly, as it helps to be intoxicated while watching the wife shop. If I don’t get at least one son or tomboy I’ll surely be joining some kind of men’s club.

The Catacombs is a “museum,” as the French call it. What it actually is is a dungeon of a cemetery five stories under ground where six million broken up skulls and skeletons lay buried from times of an epidemic hundreds of years ago. It is… fucking… creepy. As we wound down the tight spiral staircase, floor by floor, we eventually wondered if it would ever end. The walls were covered in graffiti, which in most cases of urban environments makes the atmosphere more intimidating. In this case it actually had the opposite effect. People got dizzy as the air got colder and staircase narrower, so when I saw next to other scrawled marker on the wall: “Astoria 19thSt.,” it had a great calming effect for me. Other douche bags from New York had been here – guys I’d probably call friends – and momentarily, Catacombs seemed not so scary, humanized, ironically.

Minutes later was a completely different story. I was in a dimly lit hallway about 100 yards long with ceilings only 6-12 inches above my head, lined on either side with literal skulls and crossbones (actually bones laid mostly parallel, but “cross bones” sounds cooler). Some hallways were longer and quieter than others, and a few times I genuinely looked over my shoulder for the sole purpose of making sure a ghost wouldn’t tap me on the shoulder from behind and in the process ruin my vacation and change my life forever more. I was hung over and probably still drunk and just not ready for such an experience. I made it through. I checked it off my list and took a bunch of pictures, although not every one that I wanted to. There were bars over cages in front of pitch black spaces, and I was so shook by a few of them that I resisted taking a picture for fear of the flash revealing a demon skeleton that would lunge forward and growl as if from some horror movie and my brain would be fucked forever. It should be noted that one of my flight movies on the way over the day before was Pet Sematary.Who knows how much this may have played into my comical levels of cowardice and paranoia.

After climbing the five stories of spiral staircase back up to reality I figured I could finally catch my breath and relax. The drama was over. No one had tapped my shoulder, no demon ghosts had appeared for my eyes only.  I could return to great food and fine wine, unnecessary beers and one too many espressos… right?

Wrong. Supposedly there was an international scare happening. We were told because of the strike that flights were being canceled and my (Jewish) wife had entered an all-out panic that I couldn’t help but find the irony in. “You’re afraid of being trapped for an extra day in PARIS?Things could be worse.”

Believe it or not nobody was trapped (unfortunately). Life went on, all flights were on time and it’s flowin’ like mud around here, you know what I’m sayin’?

Pottokawas a dinner recommendation from the same person who’d recommended Derriere, which was our best dinner of the entire first trip, but ironically our worst (lunch) of this trip. Pottoka is on the lesser frequented left bank of town, offering an unplanned second visit to the Eiffel Tower, and this time we got to see its lovely flashing night lights, albeit engulfed in the overcast sky.

Pottoka ended up the all-star MVP of the trip, and arguably the greatest dinner I’ve ever had in my life. Although chicken generally gets ignored on Parisian menus for the beef, pork and duck, my wife and I looked at each other at almost the same time after reading over it and said we were considering the chicken. It was a farmed breast stuffed with chestnut and beef, served with pumpkin, black garlic and ham foamy, cooked to crispy, juicy perfection of course. “What is ‘ham foamy’ you ask?” I have no idea how or what it is. All I know is the plate featured a dollop of foamthat tasted exactly like ham and went nicely with each bite of chicken, and it was definitely the best chicken I’ve ever tasted. Not to be ignored were the other plates: A beef cheek with bacon, shallots, anchovies and macaroni gratin, preceded by a farmed foie gras with cocoa nibs, pickled mushrooms, remoulade celery and chestnuts soup poured over all of it at the table by the server. The whole experience was completely insane. And you’re insaneif you go to Paris and don’t go there. Actually you’re insane if you don’t go to Paris soon with the explicit intention of going there. Go there. We only did one carafe of red wine, but that’s because we were meeting friends for cocktails later on at a lovely spot near our hotel, Le Fumoir. One night there we had one of the loveliest servers in all our time in Paris. Another time was the complete opposite, but the drinks and atmosphere are definitely can’t miss.

Finally the night was over, and for literally the first time in the 21stcentury I slept for 11 hours. I usually sleep between 5-7 hours, the former side of which is obviously pathological and frankly, the bane of my existence. I woke up and looked at my phone and it said11:03am. I figured it must be a mistake. I figured there was a better chance of evil spirits in the Catacombs having somehow scrambled the visual cortex of my brain into reading numbers inaccurately than there was of my sleeping 11 hours. Fortunately I woke my wife up and she saw the same digits on her phone. They were the same on the TV, and in a glorious storm of prolonged jet lag, alcoholism, and the de-stressed mind of vacation, I set my adulthood record for sleep. I was elated, on cloud nine! My wife, on the other hand was immediately panicked that we’d missed the continental breakfast and actually had to move urgently to make lunch. I gently reminded her: “Fuck the continental breakfast, babe. I just slept 11 hours. Also, we stayed out late and woke up late. I mean, are you Parisian or not?As the wife now deeply covets the status of honorary Parisian, this is a card I can always pull. She calmed down and we went about…

DAY 3: Lunch at Derriere, followed by Musee D’Orsay, an Italian dinner at Norma and drinks at Lavomatic.

Derriere was the star of our previous trip – sadly, the flop of this trip. It was nice that our friends, Daniel and Yael, joined to say goodbye on their way to the airport, but the soup was cold and taste of the food mediocre. Go for the dinner!

Museum D’Orsay was situated conveniently about a 15-minute walk from our hotel. It had been closed the day before due to the national strike, and today only the ground floor was available for viewing. This meant no Van Gogh, which initially gave my wife pause: “Do we still want to go with no Van Gogh?”

“Yes, I replied. We’re on vacation and time is at a premium. We can’t afford to get off the itinerary, lest we sacrifice some amount of food or wine, which is not an option.”

She agreed, and agreed further upon realizing midway through the walk in the museum: “Ya know, I don’t think I like art… I don’t understand it.”

I love my wife. She and I possibly share less in common than I have with anyone I’ve ever met. We like almost none of the same TV shows, movies or music, and she hates sports almost as much as I do her two religions,General Hospital and Disney World. But the one thing we do share in common is an equal disinterest and ignorance around politics and paintings (not counting graffiti).

D’Orsay was okay. There were plenty of boobs and penises, but it didn’t compare to the Louvre, nor do I think it would have even with Van Gogh. When it was 16 minutes before closing time we were rather aggressively ushered out, which perpetuated the semi-sour experience and brought on thoughts of how we’d calm down and de-stress: Wine.

Norma wasn’t part of the original itinerary. We had one night to improvise dinner and wanted something close to another recommendation for drinks, Lavomatic. Norma was Italian food, but being in Paris we were sure to order the fried squid appetizer. It was the best calamari we’d ever had, and instead of marinara sauce, they served it with mayonnaise, much to my pleasure and my wife’s dismay. She kept dipping pieces in the burrata caprese tomatoes and I kept looking around to see if anyone noticed. The basil pesto gnocchi with burrata cheese was the best gnocchi either one of us had ever tasted, and the wine in spite of being not French, was excellent. The server didn’t speak a word of English and we didn’t give a shit.

Lavomatic is a functioning laundromat situated underneath a speakeasy cocktail bar in the heart of where the riots for bigger pensions and less work had taken 11 lives the night before. My otherwise wonderful bride, who is more or less ruled by the fear emotion, expressed reticence about going; though I would hear nothing of it. “The riots were yesterday. That’s like a lifetime ago. Nobody got killed today all day.”

On our way there we passed a historic monument with graffiti scrawled across it: “C’EST NOUS LES BRAVES!”(Translation: “We are the Brave!”) I’m not sure if “brave” is the adjective I’d use to describe a determination to not over-work, but whatever it is, is a quality and goal I admire. We are lost in the west.

We knew we’d reached our location when we saw a young, strapping man in a long, black coat standing conspicuously on the sidewalk in front of a door as the only person on the quiet block. We were already a bit drunk and unsure of how to proceed. Somehow I felt like Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shutso I figured best to just show my ID. He enjoyed that very much, getting a good laugh: “That’s OK, man, this is Paris, I don’t need that.” We laughed, which encouraged him further: “But thank you, I couldn’t tell. What is that, powder on your face there?” He gestured to my mostly white 5:00 shadow, mocking my pathetically wishful idea that someone might ever ask for my ID again.

“Wait right here,” he told us as my wife attempted to collect her hysterics at me.

He let us in to a small foyer of a space with one locked door and two giant washing machines. I tried pulling and pushing the door.

“No, no,” my wife said. “It’s a trap door, you know?”

“A trapdoor?!”

“No, not a trap—you know, like a trick door. We have to open the washing machine!”

Quick reminder: She’s a doctor and I have a Master’s degree in Chinese Medicine.

I turned to ask the bouncer outside how to get in but he just smiled and turned away. It was futile, like asking a Chinese acupuncturist a question about our medicine. Figure it out for yourself, is the general maxim in Chinese Medicine, which is an utterly moronic tradition in my opinion, and one that leads me to drink hard liquor in Laundromats.

The western MD figured out how to open the washing machine and we walked up two flights of stairs to a tiny bar in the attic that resembled a popular teenager’s basement hang out. The ceilings were low and the crowd was young, probably just post-college, poised to enter the grueling work force of 25-hour weeks and greater pensions. There seemed to be a lot of dates happening, legs crossed and angled towards one another on small loves seats or bar stools, and it had a distinct Williamsburg feel, logically. “Affirmative Action” from Nas’ second album in 1996, came on shortly after our arrival and it reminded me that God is always with me.

We broke from the vin to humor the mixology and sat enjoying two cocktails each. My go-to is scotch-based and I think Jillian leans towards vodka. At one point an older couple came in, thankfully then stripping us of the title, and were seated just next to us at the bar. Is this like the opposite of the kids’ table?

The first thing my wife noticed was the aromatic cloud of cigarette that followed them in. She made a face and whispered to me the way irritated wives do, then for a moment showed relief when the smell dissipated. Unfortunately, olfactory reprieve was brief, before she was re-assaulted by their even more offensive body odor.

“Well… Paris, babe.”

Jillian shook her head, and I swear to you a moment later went aghast for a third and final time. Another lean in: “Oh my God, she just farted. She just basically farted on me.”

“Oh.”

We moved our seats, finished our drinks and made our way back downstairs, probably wishing we could have thrown our outfits in the washing machines. We drunkenly enjoyed laughing at ourselves with the bouncer on our way out. It was fun. No one got killed.

Day 4: Finally the continental breakfast! Another shopping day in Little Israel, then a huge dinner plan SNAFU turns magical and we close with Hemingway.

L’Empire Hotel had a lovely front desk staff and the room itself was totally fine. We were pleased with its convenient location being almost immediately halfway between the Louvre and a lot of our chosen shops and restaurants, especially since the trains were closed due to the homicidal riots. Finally, it was beyond sweet of the staff to give us a complimentary bottle of wine for our (mini) honeymoon stay. However, in my now half decade of (arguably) over-indulging in the grape’s finest contribution I’ve never seen a screw go directly through the middle of the cork to the other end after having not been able to pry it out even half an inch using all my strength. We tried pouring some out through the hole in the middle just to sample, but it was to no avail, and surely not worth the effort. Safe to assume it would not have been to our liking.

The continental breakfast staff was not as lovely as the front desk (separated only by 20 feet) and the food actually didn’t compare to that of Villa Opera Drouot. Instead, the highlight of our morning eggs cheese and baguettes was the rather short, gentle-looking Italian man who sat alone at the table next to us in the humble dining room. He’d already taken his plate from the buffet, ordered his espresso, took out his phone and made a call. It was the angriest I’d seen anyone since we left New York. A true travesty that neither one of us could follow his Italian, but we definitely each caught a “mafankulo” and “bafangu,” respectively. He was mustering as much a whisper as was possible, but anger is anger and ours’ weren’t the only heads in the room to turn. We were both concerned for the immediate future of the person on the other end of the phone. He hung up and enjoyed his espresso and cured meats and left quickly, before we did.

When we left it was on to more shopping Christmas was three weeks away. Why not bring to our loved ones gifts from the city of love? We shared a falafel sandwich and it was the best falafel we’d ever tasted, but made a point to eat very little in preparation for our final night of great gluttony.

Before dinner was a mission of vindication. We’d never made it on our first trip to the highly recommended Hemingway Bar in the Ritz Hotel and were determined to make it this time around. We arrived at opening time, 6:00, and there was already a 40-minute wait to get in. The cozy bar was full, and the elder, English maitre’d with a warm face kindly advised us to wait on the lobby couches and he’d come get us as soon as there was space. “It could be sooner,” he added. “But I’d count on 40 minutes.”

We figured that was fine. It would give us time for one drink before dinner, which at 30 euro/drink would suffice.

40 minutes came and went, as did 50, as did we. We informed the maitre’d we had to leave, who again kindly recommended we try again after dinner and he’d skip us to the front of the line. He was so nice.

Terres du Truffes was one of our favorite experiences from our summer trip to Nice. They put truffles on everything! Black truffles, summer truffles, even white truffles, and served us what at the time as the best Margaux we’d ever had. As it turned out they had another location in Paris, so we were sure to make a reservation for our sequel. Unfortunately, as is the case with most sequels…

We got there at 7:30 and the restaurant was empty. Maybe a reservation wasn’t so imperative after all. They sat us in front of the window (as restaurants do to give the illusion to the street that there are actually people dining there) and it was chilly. The menu didn’t reflect what it had online, nor what we’d had in Nice. Where was all the duck? It was mostly egg dishes and cold fish… in December. As we sat there being ignored for five minutes we finally called the waiter over to ask if we’d been given the wrong menus.

“Is this for brunch?”

“No, no, this is the menu,” he replied in an accent noticeably thicker and more broken than that of the staff in most of the more reputable venues thus far.

He didn’t ask if we wanted anything to drink, alcoholic or otherwise, and after five more minutes of being ignored I peaked around the corner to note a table full of bread baskets surely awaiting the dinner rush. But, what about us? We like bread.

I had an impulse and we walked. No goodbye, no oi revoir or merci. We just bounced.

We were hungry, tired and cold, the trifecta of adjectives to describe Jewish; but sadly no longer anywhere near “Little Israel.”

We tried walking in at Balaganand they laughed at us like when Patrick Bateman tried getting a reservation at Dorsia. The host was courteous and recommended a market of restaurants affiliated with them just around the corner. We went around the corner and got lost. We saw no market. No restaurants, no nothing. We were growing colder, hungrier, more irritable. Our last evening seemed doomed.

“Let’s just go anywhere - I saw a spot a block back,” I muttered and my lovely bride stood by my indignant side.

A red awning and red seats – it must be good. At the least there seemed to be patrons there. They gave us a nice table upstairs and we figured it would be decent.

Le Castiglioneended up serving us one of the best fucking meals I’ve ever had. We started with a Bordeaux and soups – French Onion (“the authentic kind,” as the menu read) and a pumpkin puree with hazelnuts. We planned on sharing our entrees – the veal Milanese and filet mignon with peppercorn sauce and pomme frites – but Jillian barely allowed me an angle at her veal.

“This is just like my mom used to make,” she raved. “Do you want more?” she contrived an offer, but I was just as fine with my steak. It was perfect. A totally generic-looking restaurant and the steak was on par with any New York steakhouse. For dessert was the coffee crème brulee, and I’d go as far as to say the meal was even better than that of the original Terres du Truffes in Nice. One comes to expect magic in Paris.

Upon return to Bar Hemingway we were skipped to the front of the line as promised. I wouldn’t call it hokey, but it was definitely touristy, filled with mostly attractive young, professional Americans and Brits, yukking it up over over-priced cocktails served by the loveliest of white-coats. The room was brightly lit, as most are in Paris, and there were pictures of the psychopathic, genius, Hemingway, all over the walls; in addition to one of the Obamas at the bar perched immediately next to our seats in the corner. A row of sophistos lined the remainder of the bar seating, and next to us sat three young blonde girls, who seemed to be having a joyous, reunion at the maximum decibel of volume that was still respectful and appropriate, which is no unimpressive feat. Proximal to them was a double date of two gay men along with a straight couple who were no distant second in flamboyance, however still oddly coveted the attention of the trio of girls. One of the gay guys paid one of the girls a compliment on her jaw line that was no less awkward than if it had been delivered by some goofy straight college bro in the 90’s. “Thank you,” the girl laughed in response, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as when the (apparent straight) girl came over in hopes of merging their two tables. It was pathetic. It was like trying to sit with the plastics in Mean Girls, except these girls weren’t mean or plastic. They were just obviously long-time best friends, drunk and having the time of their lives, which is an impossible frequency to penetrate for a complete stranger.

Luckily she got the hint without anyone having to be rude. She made her way back to her double date and my bride and I continued our intoxicated eavesdropping. The complimentary olives and pistachios were as good as any I’ve ever had, although the $30 cocktail was no better than Lavomatics or Little Red Doors’. It was a great experience, but I’d probably only go back if there was no wait.

We woke at some ungodly hour and paid some ungodly expense for an Uber to the airport, as rates were jacked up due to the strike.

“I miss Paris already,” Jillian lamented on our dark, cold cab ride.

“I’m sorry, babe,” I consoled her, and became abundantly aware that we were presently neck deep in the most comical first world problem in the history of mankind. How sad it is, to leave Paris for New York City (for the second time in a year), and not know when you’d be returning.

Wikipedia defines “Paris Syndrome” as a culture shock experienced mostly by Japanese tourists when they visit Paris that can last anywhere from a few days to the rest of their lives. I can’t tell you how entertained we both were to read about this “syndrome.”

For my wife “Paris Syndrome” means something different – something I think more common and understandable. It’s an addiction to Paris – no cheap addiction – and a preoccupation with wanting to always be there. After our first trip she began googling flight deals at the airport gate on our way home, which is obviously what lead to this trip in the first place. After this trip I had to quickly shoot her down like a parent: “No. Please. Just… please… no more trips to Paris for a while.” It’s just not sustainable.

This brings me to my own definition of “Paris Syndrome,” which is no less in love than my wife is, but I’d like to think a bit more optimistic and enlightened.

“We live in ‘Paris,’ babe,” I man-splained to her in hopes of not flushing away all of our retirement and kids’ college funds on steak and wine. We live in New York City – pretty much the only place in the world that Parisians equally admire and crave to see and be a part of. We don’t have to travel halfway across the world to eat incredible food late at night, drink fine wine and be immersed in rich metropolitan culture. We have it right precisely where we both were born! Sure, the food might not be of quite the same caliber and the wine isn’t as affordable, but it’s more affordable than hotels and airfare – that’s for sure.

My “Paris Syndrome” is another kind of beast. It’s a degree of celebratory alcoholism, socializing and gluttony, which is also a seamless transition when you get home two weeks before the holidays. Last time we returned I spent 3-5 weeks of basically pretending we never left. Sure, I went back to work and resumed the responsibilities of a real adult in a world that doesn’t as much value well being, but I went out with friends more often, stayed out later, consumed a bit more, and relished in the incredible privilege of having been born and raised, for all intents and purposes, in Paris. This time has been more of the same. Paris reminds me to celebrate more and stress less. It reminds me to occasionally look at my home through the lens of a tourist, thereby reinvigorating my excitement for home and mitigating the effects of the daily grind. That is what “Paris Syndrome” means to me.

[kadobeclothing]

The Best Ways To Combat A Receding Hairline

Next to losing ‘wood’, nothing is quite as terrifying to a man as losing his hair. A thick thatch has long, if erroneously, been associated with both masculinity and virility. A full head of hair is related to neither, of course, but that doesn’t stop men fretting about their follicles. So much so that a recent survey found that over 70 per cent of men worry about hair loss.At the end of the day, most of us would rather keep the hair we have – if only because it’s fun to have a hairstyle and reassuring to have something to keep your bonce warm in the winter.Hair Loss: The FactsProblem is, lots of things conspire to rob your scalp of its most precious asset. Male pattern baldness, the hereditary condition that’s responsible for 95 per cent of hair loss in men, will affect up to half us by the time we hit 50 and almost 40 per cent of men will have experienced some hair loss by the age of 35.Some men’s hair will begin to disappear at the crown; others will start to notice that hair at the front is receding; while some unfortunate guys will see both areas affected at the same time. “The pattern depends on which hair follicles are genetically programmed with receptors to DHT (dihydrotestosterone) – the hormone which triggers hair loss,” explains trichologist Sally-Ann Tarver from The Cotswold Trichology Centre and Theradome GB.“Where you start to lose your hair is down to the genes you inherited from your parents – and genes of both mother and father are inherited in male pattern baldness,” she says, putting to bed the myth that baldness is inherited solely from your mum’s side.Other factors like stress, rough handling and diet can take their toll on the thickness of your thatch too. “As well as male pattern baldness, men can suffer from Telogen Effluvium or ‘diffuse hair loss’, which is often due to lifestyle and health issues.” This can be caused by anything from stress and illness to poor diet and nutrient deficiency.A man can live without a quiff, of course, and a lack of hair never held back the likes of Patrick Stewart or Jason Statham. What’s more, women don’t find it the turn off men think it is either: in a recent survey by WatchMyWallet.co.uk 84 per cent of women claimed that hair loss would not affect how attracted they were to their partner. But if you’re not yet ready to embrace the pate, here’s everything you can do to thicken, disguise and style out thinning hair.How To Stop A Receding HairlineLuckily, there are things a man can do to, at the very least, slow down the hair loss process. “The key is to treat hair loss as soon as possible,” advises Tarver. “It’s much easier to retain hair or slow the progress down with treatment than to restore hair once it has been lost.”So whether you’ve a receding hairline or a burgeoning bald spot, here’s how to stay one step ahead of hair loss.Feed Your HeadAccording to Tarver, getting plenty of protein is key to a healthy head of hair. “Keratin, the sulphur-containing protein that hair is made of relies on dietary protein for its composition,” she says. “Thus a low protein diet will result in finer, weaker hair.” Men are pretty good at getting the protein they need but fall down when it comes to getting their five a day. If you consider mac and cheese a side dish, you may not be getting all the other essential nutrients that keep hair strong and healthy.Foods rich in B vitamins, zinc and iron (like breakfast cereals, liver and apricots) and silica (bananas and – handily – beer) are especially good for hair health. “People with hair loss caused by issues other than male pattern baldness are often deficient in vitamins B12,” says Tarver, who points out that a supplement may be especially important for vegetarians since dietary B12 can only be obtained from animal sources.If you’re worried your diet’s below par, think about popping a daily supplement aimed at promoting hair health like Wellman’s Hairfollic Man.Choose Your Styling WeaponsIf you have thinning hair, choosing the right styling products is crucial. “It’s worth avoiding heavy products like clays, gels and pomades and instead opting for mousse on wet hair and texturising powders on dry hair to finish,” says Georgie Wynes-Devlin of The Wild Hare barber in London, who uses Redken’s Full Effect Mousse to plump up hair and the same brand’s Powder Grip to style very fine hair.“Spray waxes are good for thinning hair too, as you can gently build up the amount of product you want.”Deal With DandruffDandruff isn’t just a danger to your rep – according to Tarver it can exacerbate hair loss too. “Dandruff is often seen alongside male pattern baldness and healthy hair cannot grow from an unhealthy scalp. So if you’re worried about hair loss, it’s a good idea to ensure your scalp remains as free from scale as possible,” says Tarver.To keep your scalp a flake-free zone, use a shampoo containing anti-dandruff agents like zinc pyrithione or ketoconazole and don’t be afraid to use them regularly. Many men worry frequent shampooing will accelerate hair loss because they spot stray hairs on the shower, but we naturally shed between 40-100 hairs a day and shampooing can actually help minimise hair loss by removing grease, grime and dead cells that can interfere with follicle function.Pack In The FagsAs if ashtray breath, cancer and honking clothes weren’t good enough reasons to pack in the ciggies, a study by National Taiwan University revealed that smoking also hastens hair loss in men. Researchers discovered that men who smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day are more than twice as likely to have moderate or severe hair loss than men who have never smoked or have quit.The boffins who conducted the study suspect that smoking may damage the blood vessels at the base of hair follicles, effectively starving your hair of nutrients.Regaine Your PrideThere are scores of snake oil-style treatments for hair loss on the market but Regaine is the only clinically proven over-the-counter treatment for hereditary hair loss. It works thanks to an active ingredient called minoxidil, which increases blood flow around the hair follicles and by stimulating and prolonging hair growth.It doesn’t work for everyone (Regaine themselves suggest giving up treatment if you’ve haven’t seen any results after using their Extra Strength Foam for 16 weeks) and it’s best to start treatment as soon as you notice hair is thinning, but it’s still the best everyday option on the market. The down side is that it’s expensive (a year’s supply of foam will set you back around £172) and you’ll be using it for life because the minute you stop, your hair loss will revert back to normal.The other option is Propecia: a prescription-only treatment in the shape of a tablet containing finasteride, which hinders the body’s ability to convert testosterone into dihydrotestosterone. It’s even more expensive than Regaine (a year’s supply will cost you over £350), you’ll have to take it for as long as you want hair, and known side effects include a reduced libido – which may knock your confidence even more than the hair loss.Try A TransplantWhen Wayne Rooney tweeted, “Just to confirm to all my followers I have had a hair transplant”, back in 2011, he changed how men viewed hair transplants forever. In proudly outing himself on the follicle front he made having a transplant no more outlandish than having your teeth whitened. So mainstream are transplants now that according to a survey by Asda Pharmacy, 31 per cent of men under 35 are actively considering one.The most common treatment (and the one favoured by Rooney) is Follicular Unit Extraction: a minimally invasive procedure performed with a local anaesthetic where individual shafts of hair are taken from the sides and back of the head (or chest if need be) and are transplanted into existing, vacant hair follicles.The procedure itself takes anywhere between four and 16 hours to complete (thousands of individual hairs have to be re-homed after all), will cost you anywhere between £3,000 – £10,000+ depending on the number of grafts required, and occasionally repeat transplants are required for hairs that don’t take.The Best Hairstyles For A Receding HairlineIn the same way that dressing in dark colours and matte fabrics can disguise a little extra poundage, the right hairstyle can go a long way to disguising a follically-challenged thatch.If hair loss is a problem your first port of call should be your barber. “A skilled barber will conduct a thorough consultation to help you to understand how you can make the most of your existing hairstyle or suggest a restyle that absolutely owns that receding hairline,” says Tyler Peters, from the Shoreditch branch of barber chain Ruffians.Here are four universally recommended hairstyles for a receding hairline.The French CropA style that’s seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years, even with guys who don’t ‘need’ it, the French crop is the perfect style for combatting the ‘M’ shape a receding hairline creates at the front of your head.“Your barber will fade the back and sides down low before blending the top weight but the crux of this style is the fringe, which can be cut in a line then layered to give texture,” says Peters. “If your barber hasn’t already suggested it, style with a lightweight product that produces a messy yet stylised finish.”The Short Cut“This is an idea for those whose recession line hasn’t crept up too much and allows you a bit more versatility by maintaining a little length on the sides with a bit more on top,” says Peters.“Allowing for a little more length on top creates an almost inverted triangle look that positions the weight through the centre, making hair look fuller. Wear it rough and ready with a clay rather than slicked back with wet look products as they tend to reveal more of your scalp.”The Buzz Cut“If you’re heavily receding don’t be afraid to go short,” says Wynes-Devlin. “Leaving too much length can sometimes make the hair look thinner than it actually is.”If you want to avoid too-short a buzz cut she suggests asking your barber to scissor cut your hair instead. “Clippers can produce too harsh a cut sometimes, so it’s always best to do these things gradually.” Dropping the length towards the nape will provide a softer, more natural finish.The Close ShaveSometimes, the only way to deal with going thin on top is to accept defeat and embrace being bald. “If you’re going for a head shave, book in with a skilled barber confident with a cutthroat razor to take your hair to the scalp,” says Peters.“Ideally, your barber should cut down the existing hair to a minimum before applying an exfoliating scrub and soothing hot towels to open the pores and ensure a closer shave.”Tips For Dealing With A Receding HairlineIf you just looked in the mirror and noticed your hair isn’t quite as thick as it used to be, here are some quick ways to make it look a little fuller.Pump Up The VolumeBlow-drying instantly makes hair look fuller and thicker. Don’t BBQ your hair though – a medium heat setting will allow you to style without damaging hair’s structural proteins.Buy Now: £12.80Shampoo In Some ThicknessThickening shampoos work by coating the hair with special volumising polymers that make it appear thicker and fuller. The effects are temporary but every little helps, right?Buy Now: £7.95Disguise Your ProblemIf a small bald patch is a problem try disguising it with the help of electrostatically charged coloured fibres, which mesh with your real hair to fill in any noticeable gaps.Buy Now: £6.95Use Your FingersRepeatedly combing thin hair can make it look limp and flat whereas styling with your fingers adds volume and texture.Grow A BeardFacial hair is brilliant at drawing attention away from the top of the head and down towards the face. It’s a bit like pointing at the sky and asking “What’s that?” when you want to distract someone long enough to zip up your flies. Try growing a beard. Beards are badass. Source link

source https://www.kadobeclothing.store/the-best-ways-to-combat-a-receding-hairline/

[kansascityhappenings]

Experts say the keto diet isn’t sustainable, so why is it so popular?

America is in the midst of a keto craze. The trendy diet — which bans carbs to make your body burn fat for fuel — has kicked Weight Watchers’ derrière on the stock market, captured the endorsement of celebrities such as Kourtney Kardashian and Halle Berry, and deluged the internet with recipes and copious social media chatter about pounds lost.

Now the popular diet even has a day named after it. The Vitamin Shoppe, which wants to sell you a ton of keto-based products, has named the first Sunday of this new decade “National Keto Day.”

“What on Earth justifies granting a day to memorialize a fad diet?” said Dr. David Katz, founding director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center. “The grapefruit diet surely warrants its own day too!”

Katz is no fan of keto, or any other diet that restricts entire food groups, calling them unhealthy and unsustainable.

“Losing weight fast by using a severely restricted, silly, unbalanced diet inevitably leads to even faster weight regain,” said Katz, who is the president of the True Health Initiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to health promotion and disease prevention.

“Absent ketosis, keto is just a false label for some kind of diet that presumably restricts added sugar and refined carbohydrate — which, frankly, any good diet does,” Katz said.

Katz’s low opinion of keto is echoed by many nutritional specialists across the country. Katz joined 24 other top names in the field to rank 35 popular weight loss programs for 2020 recently put out by U.S. News and World Report.

The popular keto diet flunked, coming in next to last — which it has done for several years now. Only the highly restrictive protein-only Dukan Diet ranks lower.

“Most health professionals are concerned that the degree of carb restriction requires someone to cut out many of the foods that have been consistently recommended as being healthy: fruits, beans/legumes and whole intact grains,” said Stanford professor Christoper Gardner, who conducts research on low-carb diets at Stanford Prevention Research Center.

With such negative reviews, just how did keto capture such a faithful following? Experts say it’s because its legions of fans are focusing on the short-term benefits of fast weight loss, without factoring in possible long-term risks.

What is keto?

Keto is short for ketosis, a metabolic state that occurs when your liver begins to use stored fat to produce ketones for energy. The liver is programmed to do that when your body loses access to its preferred fuel — carbohydrates — and thinks it’s starving.

The diet has actually been around since the 1920s, when a doctor stumbled on it as a way of controlling seizures in children with epilepsy who didn’t respond to other treatment methods.

“It was recognized long ago that denying the brain access to glucose, and converting to ketone-based metabolism, dampens brain electrical activity,” Katz said. “But why on Earth would you want to dampen brain electrical activity unless you had refractory (unmanageable) epilepsy?”

Creating ketosis is not as simple as it seems. Your liver is only forced into producing ketones when carb intake is drastically slashed. In the keto diet, you limit your intake of carbs to only 20 to 50 a day, the lower the better. To put that into perspective, a medium banana or apple is around 27 carbs, the full day’s allowance.

It can take several days to weeks before your body fully transitions into burning fat. In the meantime, it will scream for carbs, and (speaking from personal experience) will punish you by sending a zombie to suck out your brains, a vampire to drain your blood and a giant troll to jump up and down on your body.

The feeling of fatigue and malaise is so bad that keto-lovers have christened the experience “keto-flu.”

You’ll also have “keto-breath,” a wonderfully metallic smell similar to nail polish remover emanating from your mouth. Other than urination, that’s the only way ketones can escape your body.

Drinking water might help with dragon-breath. You’ll also need to drink a lot of water to try to counter constipation and other gastric-grumblings due to the lack of fiber from fruits and starchy veggies.

Once all that passes, keto-lovers maintain, you’ll have more energy, a more focused brain, and best of all, very little hunger.

But those effects only last if you stay in ketosis. Cheat a bit, and your body scrambles to go back to what nature intended.

Therefore low-carb diets like keto rely heavily on fats to fill you up. At least 70% of the keto diet will be made up of fat — some say it’s more like 90%. Of course you can get all that fat from healthy unsaturated fats such as avocados, tofu, almonds, walnuts, seeds and olive oil.

But just in case you can’t eat that many avocados, the diet also allows those not-so-good-for-your-arteries saturated fats like lard, butter, palm and coconut oils as well as whole-fat milk, cheese and mayonnaise.

And here’s a twist: You can’t rely too much on lean protein to accomplish ketosis. Eat more protein than an average 20% of your daily calories and your body will use that, and not fat, for fuel. Bye bye, ketosis.

Therefore protein sources for ketosis reply on “skin-on poultry, fattier parts like chicken thighs, rib-eye steaks, grass-fed ground beef, fattier fish like salmon, beef brisket or pork shoulder,” according to U.S. News, as well as — get ready America — bacon!

Yessss. That’s why this is a popular diet right? Like the dog in the 1980s commercial, we as a nation collectively jump up and down for bacon.

‘Dirty’ vs ‘clean’ eating

Of course the lure of all-the-bacon-or-fat-you-can-eat was arguably behind the initial success of the Atkins diet that exploded into popularity in the ’90s. It was followed by more low-carb options such as South Beach, Paelo, Whole30 and Zone, among others.

Yet critics say those initially popular plans have struggled to keep the public’s interest as dieters have succeeded in losing some weight, only to fail to keep it off over the long term.

Atkins has rebranded, offering different levels of carb restriction they call “Atkins 20” and “Atkins 40.” Colette Heimowitz, Atkins vice president for Nutrition Communication & Education, told CNN the company’s approach allows for more flexibility than keto “as we encourage people to incorporate foods back into their meals and find their carb tolerance level.”

Keto appears to be undergoing the same process, with some promoting “clean” keto, which focuses on using all those avocados, nuts and seeds for fat sources, instead of “dirty” keto, in which folks take the buns off their fast food burger and chow down.

Clean keto advocates admit that it takes a good deal of effort to research food items and plan and prep meals, so “unsurprisingly, many a keto eater takes the easy way out, eating a diet centered around foods like bacon, cheese, butter, and packaged foods,” according to an article on the Vitamin Shoppe’s Keto HQ.

And that’s the crux of the problem for nutritionists.

“Most people who claim to eat ‘Paleo’ use that banner to justify eating any kind of meat they like, notably, bacon, burgers and pepperoni,” Katz said. “There was no paleolithic pepperoni!

“No doubt, the same is going on with keto — people invoke the label to eat the foods they want to eat, notably processed meat,” he said. “I suspect a very tiny minority of those attempting to eat keto are either eating clean or are in ketosis.”

What do the studies say

Then there’s the issue of varying health claims for keto and other low carb diets.

“The ketogenic diet is designed to be a short-term diet, and there are a number of studies and trials demonstrating its effectiveness,” said chiropractor Josh Axe, a spokesperson for the Vitamin Shoppe, in statement.

“When done correctly, it can be a great tool used to treat and prevent several chronic conditions while also supporting overall health,” said Axe, who is the author of “The Keto Diet: Your 30-day Plan to Lose Weight, Balance Hormones and Reverse Disease.”

An Atkins spokesperson pointed to a two-year study by a health group selling ketosis diet interventions and told CNN in a statement that “today’s science” shows “people can improve health markers pertaining to weight loss, cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome” when they control carbs.

Not exactly accurate, according to Gardner and Katz.

“There’s very little research, and to the best of my knowledge, all of it is linked to a company marketing the keto diet,” Katz said.

“The bottom line is that despite its current popularity, we have very few studies that can support or refute its impact on health,” Gardner said.

The National Lipid Association Nutrition and Lifestyle Task Force reviewed all the available evidence in 2019 and found low and very-low carb diets “are not superior to other dietary approaches for weight loss,” and in some cases even raised cholesterol levels.

In addition, they found “three separate observational studies, including a large prospective cohort study with long-term follow-up,” showed an association between very low-carb diets and “all-cause mortality.”

So far, at least, it appears science has found the benefits of low-carb diets are fleeting.

“What the early studies have shown is that there are early benefits in terms of weight loss and glucose control,” Gardner said. “But in the few studies that have gone on for 12 months, the benefit in comparison to other diet approaches diminishes and is no longer statistically significant.”

Which is why nutritionists fail to see the benefit of subjecting your body to the stresses of a low-carb diet just to lose a bit of weight, gain it back, and then start all over again.

“To achieve and maintain a healthy body weight, or optimize diabetes or heart disease risk factors, we should not be focusing on a ‘diet’, ” said Alice Lichtenstein, director and senior scientist at Tuft’s University’s Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory.

“We should be focusing on dietary patterns, making changes in current practices that can be sustained lifelong.”

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2020/01/05/experts-say-the-keto-diet-isnt-sustainable-so-why-is-it-so-popular/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2020/01/06/experts-say-the-keto-diet-isnt-sustainable-so-why-is-it-so-popular/

[unwritrecipes]

Corn and Green Chile Quesadillas

There are nights when you can turn out a three course meal with a flick of the wrist and a cheery smile (ok, maybe two courses, or really, who are we kidding, probably just one) but those nights, at least in our house, are few and far between and virtually never on a weeknight. You know what I’m talking about, right? Weeknights (unless you’re a terrific planner) are more like, “it’s already 5:30–I haven’t gone shopping, what can I put on the table before there’s a full out mutiny?!!” If that seems familiar to you, you are going to love these Corn and Green Chile Quesadillas. They’re quick, easy, extremely crowd pleasing and rely heavily on kitchen staples. Hallelujah!

Hectic lifestyle aside, I don’t really need an excuse to make or eat quesadillas. We love, love, love ‘em around here! And it helps that they’re so versatile too!

Especially this version. If you can make it your business to keep a can or two of little green chiles in your cupboard, a block of some sort of cheese that melts well and a stack of tortillas in your fridge, plus a bag of corn in your freezer, you’re basically good to go at any given moment. 

To keep things bright these also have some chopped scallions, fresh parsley and lime zest but you could easily sub in onion, cilantro, tomatoes, mushrooms—your imagination and the contents of your fridge are the only limit!

One thing that sets these apart is the sautéing of the corn, which not only adds more crunch but brings out the natural sweetness of the corn too. So worth the extra few minutes!

Balancing out that sweetness are the green chiles which add that needed little zing.

Then there’s the gooeyness of the melted cheeses—need I say more? And the crunch of the crisped up tortillas. YUM!!

And just like that, dinner is on the table! Yippee! Add a simple side salad and it’s the perfect warm weather vegetarian meal! Not bad for a Tuesday that feels like a Monday, huh? Yikes, I’m going to be messing up the days all week!!

Corn and Green Chile Quesadillas

Serves 4-6 people

Prep Time;  45 minutes

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1 cup fresh or frozen corn (no need to defrost)

Salt and pepper to taste

6 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, shredded

6 ounces cheddar, shredded

4 ounce can green chiles, drained and patted dry with paper towels

Handful of fresh parsley, chopped

2-3 scallions, thinly sliced

Zest of 1 lime

8 (ten-inch flour tortillas—or any size you have—you’ll just wind up with larger or smaller quesadillas)

Salsa, sour cream, hot sauce, guacamole for serving alongside (optional)

The Recipe

1.   Preheat oven to 450º F and line 2 rimmed baking sheets with aluminum foil. Spray with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.

2.  Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and when the oil is very hot, add the corn, stirring every now and then, until the kernels begin to brown and start to pop a little. This should take anywhere from 6-8 minutes. Remove from the heat and season with a pinch of salt and pepper.  Let cool a bit.

3.  Meanwhile, add the shredded cheese, green chiles, parsley and scallions to a medium bowl and toss together. Zest a lime into the mixture. Toss in the cooled corn and stir the mixture together well.

4.  Place 2 tortillas on each prepared sheet and divide the mixture evenly between them, spreading the mixture out in an even layer. Top with the remaining tortillas and brush the tops with the remaining oil.

5.  Bake for about 10 minutes, or until the tops begin to brown. Then use a large spatula to flip the quesadillas over and continue to bake for another 5-7 minutes. Let quesadillas cool for a few minutes. Then use a sharp knife or pizza wheel to cut into quarters or eighths and serve with salsa, sour cream, hot sauce, etc. if desired.

Enjoy!

Note:  Recipe adapted from Dinner Illustrated by America’s Test Kitchen. I tinkered a bit with this—think of this recipe as just a jumping off point.

[whole30problems]

Day 20: 1/20/18

Soooo... we are considering not finishing this Whole30. I’ll get into why, but let me first just say that I realize this seems like a really lame cop out. And I think it would be if this was the first time I was doing Whole30. But I already did the whole thing once so I know I’m capable of it - so it doesn’t feel like giving up to me, it feels like considering my options knowing how I’ll feel in both scenarios and trying to make the more mature move instead of focusing on the guilt that I think people will be disappointed in me or make fun of me or whatever might happen.

Actually, lemme just tell you about my day because I think then you may understand where I’m coming from.

Breakfast

I woke up at 5am again, sneezing and with a constantly runny nose (I should have taken a picture of how many tissues I used in the next hour; I think it was probably like 30). For some context on this: I have woken up between 4-5am every single day for the last... I think 2 weeks? We finally acknowledged today that it seems like I might be allergic to something in the apartment, because it seems like as soon as I leave home I’m fine, and as soon as I come back (like right now, as I type this, I am sneezing again, and I have not sneezed in hours) it starts up again. So that is stressful thing #1.

So I woke up at 5, put in a few hours of work (stressful thing #2: work is crazy right now for a bunch of reasons and I know someone’s going to yell at me about work/life balance but I work at a very early stage startup that is doing a lot of cool things and this is not the time for me to have a work life balance so just don’t yell at me about it. But yes I basically work 24/7 currently and it’s exhausting), and sat around sneezing and feeling miserable. 

Erik woke up eventually and offered to make some of those yummy smashed potatoes out of leftover cooked potatoes we have in the fridge. I said that sounded great. Then he came out of the kitchen with ONE plate with a couple potatoes and a sausage on it. I asked him where my breakfast was and he said he didn’t realize I wanted any. “What made you think,” I asked him, “That I would be making my own breakfast at some time in the future? I’ve been awake for hours and I’m starving. I also literally can’t stop sneezing long enough to even make it into the kitchen, PLUS I’m in the middle of a bunch of work.” (I am a joy to build a life with.) So he made me some breakfast:

Then he went off to skate (his current passion) and was so excited because this is the first day in months where it’s warm enough that he can go do it outside. He came back only an hour later, which is always a bad sign because it means something went wrong. It turns out the skate park was closed (and still full of snow), and he crumbled. The problem is, as I may have described here before, that January removes everything Erik loves. He’s not allowed to have beer. He’s not allowed to eat any comfort foods. He doesn’t have any free time because he’s constantly doing the dishes (or helping with other household chores that I don’t have time to do because I’m cooking every second of the day that I’m home). And he can’t spend any time outdoors, which makes him totally insane.

So on days like this, where he thought he might have something nice to do and then even that got taken away from him, it’s really not easy for him to bounce back. To his credit he tried, but it illuminated for me yet again how miserable this diet is making him. It’s just withholding one more thing that has the potential to make him have a good day. So there’s stressful thing #3.

Lunch

We went to see a couple apartments (as I think I mentioned the other day, we just found out we have to move), and since this was my first time really moving around today I noticed that a subtle lower back pain from yesterday had blossomed into what felt like a full-on muscle sprain. It was bad enough that I was limping a little because it hurt every time I moved my leg (back injury: stressful thing #4). When we got home from looking at the apartments, we did some stretching, which helped a little, but when I stood up from the floor I got really dizzy and that thing happened where I blacked out for a few seconds and couldn’t see anything and had to hold on to Erik until it passed. (Concerned family reading this: I promise I am fine, this is not something that happens often.)

This is when Erik totally lost his mind. He started expressing some concerns that I guess he’s had for a while, which is that I’ve basically been sick the whole time we’ve been doing Whole30 (as he put it, "I’ve never seen you this frail in the entire time I’ve known you”) and he strongly feels I should consider whether or not this makes sense for me to keep doing. I argued that I don’t see how eating less healthy would make me feel any better. What, if I was drinking regularly and eating pasta all my problems would be solved? And I really don’t know the answer to this - I don’t know if these things are a coincidence or if my diet really is hurting me somehow - but I do know that last year at this time I felt great, and for whatever reason I do not feel great now. I do have more energy at work, yes, which is nice, but I think that’s just because I’m not drinking and I’m not eating sugar and I’m going to bed earlier. But I feel sick, and weak, and exhausted at the end of the day, and I can’t sleep. So something certainly doesn’t feel right. Stressful thing #5.

Anyway, we argued about that for a while and then I made us a greek salad, which was really good!

It’s just romaine, hardboiled eggs, tomatoes, and kalamata olives. The dressing is olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, and salt and pepper. While I was making this admittedly very simple and quick salad, I was also heavily guilting my husband about not offering to make it. But the problem is, he hates cooking more than anything in the world, I think maybe even a tiny bit more than he hates seeing me in pain, which is certainly a lot. So I made lunch while I moaned every time I had to move because my back hurt, and constantly blew my nose because it wouldn’t stop running, and generally gave him a hard time. The thing is, I joke about this a lot here, but this kind of intense diet really is tough on a (or at least our) relationship. It’s so much work, and it’s neverending. Erik has done the dishes 3 times today, and somehow there are still dishes in the sink. There’s always groceries to order or something to clean or something to cook. And it is very much not making us enjoy the limited time we have together at home. Stressful thing #6.

I took a nap after lunch and that helped (so did the heating pad I put under my back).

Dinner

We did have one really nice part of our day. Remember that angel Duncan who cooked us a Whole30 dinner last year? He did it again this year, and this time he had help in the form of a second angel, Sarah:

They hosted us for dinner, and made us a delicious salad, a spatchcocked (??) chicken, and a truly amazing slow cooker curry cauliflower korma that you should 100% make. This was the best dinner I’ve had probably all month (half because it was good, and half because I didn’t have to make it). We brought the La Croix. They wouldn’t let us clean up any of the dishes after dinner. Like I said: angels.

They read the blog, so we talked a lot about how it’s going and the pros/cons. And while we were talking about it, I realized... there aren’t really any pros this year. In addition to all the health problems I’ve been having, I also still haven’t dropped more than those original 5 lbs (and I’m convinced that was just from getting rid of alcohol). And we’re just... so... miserable.

Duncan also made us a “second course” (since we’re not allowed to have “dessert”) which was a sort of smoothie made from bananas, coconut milk, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Oh my god it was heavenly.

On our walk home, Erik and I had some real talk about the Whole30. He told me how guilty he felt eating that paleo crack bar the other day because it had raw maple syrup in it, and how it got him thinking that so many of the Whole30 rules seem so silly because we already know (from doing it + reintroduction last year) that a bunch of the forbidden foods don’t make us personally feel bad. I also think I’ve been relying on the Whole30 too much as my sole (theoretical) method of losing weight or staying skinny when really what I should probably be doing is exercising. And, ya know, sleeping.

I think we just don’t... really believe this is the right diet for us. And we actually DO eat relatively healthy (much more than we used to before Whole30). We went down the list:

We almost never eat bread or pasta at home

We almost never order in food

We eat breakfast every day, and it’s usually some variation of the eggs and meat/veggie we’re eating now

We’ve both cut down on our caffeine

We’ve both massively cut down on our sugar (outside of my one vice, Pumpkin Spice Lattes in Nov/Dec)

I eat way less cheese than I used to, and Erik eats way less fast food than he used to

We’re not perfect, but we don’t have any serious dietary reactions to anything we eat, and we’re relatively thin, active people. I just don’t really know what we’re trying to get out of this anymore. It doesn’t really feel like it has a point this year. Last year, we had a goal: finish the Whole30. Prove that we can do it. Now it just feels like a dumb project we’ve finished already.

I feel pretty confident that even if we choose not to continue doing the Whole30, we can still use January as a healthy month (no alcohol, little to no sugar, more veggies, and actual exercise) and get more out of it if we’re not stressed and miserable all the time.

So there you have it. I don’t know what we’re going to do but I can tell you that I’m leaning towards giving up on this. We have enough stress in our lives without a self-imposed diet that seems to be killing both of us slowly. I still super believe in the Whole30 and think it’s worth doing once to learn what works and doesn’t work for your body, but I think what I’ve learned this time around is that rather than doing something extreme like this again, a smarter thing is just to take what you’ve learned and incorporate that into your life in a sustainable way. I’d like to be healthy year round, not just in January.

And Erik would like to eat a pizza.

[youreghanamissme]

2018, Eat My Harmattan Dust!

We did it! We survived 2017! Hoo-Boy, was it a tough year. It's been a positively transformative experience, but there were chunks of time where I felt like I was drowning in a lasagna of my own anxiety, trauma, and depression. But y'know what? It's a new year, and I have plenty to look forward to. I'm probably the happiest and most content now than I've been in the last two to three years, so Cheers!/ Mabuhay!/ La Chaim! to that!!

I'm off to my COS (Close of Service) conference in a few days, and in a few months, I'll be leaving Ghana. You'll read it across the plethora of PCV blogs that exist on the internet: “two years has flown by.” It sounds a little contrived, but it's one of the truisms of service. Most folks, myself being one of them, don't really hit their stride until the one year mark, and then you're just rollin' rollin' rollin' trying to be as productive as possible while still maintaining your sanity and taking in the beauty of everything—all the cultural nuances, the environmental overhaul, the punchline in the joke—happening around you. Sometimes I feel like I just got off the plane last month. It's hard to accept that this journey is almost finished.

I was re-reading some of my old blog entries, and I was struck at how doe-eyed I was! And how many of the circumstances that perplexed me no longer seem as big of a deal. Here are some of the changes I have witnessed for myself over the past two years:

1. Time. Time is a social construct. We give it value in America. Punctuality is a virtue to possess after all. But in Ghana, time is just time. Things will figure themselves out eventually, so why rush? It's a big deal when I need to catch a tro out of my community or when it's call to prayer, but otherwise, I don't pay much attention to it. I go by the heat of the day or the movement of the sun. That being said, I do feel like my life has been on pause while I've been here. I'm a little uneasy to go back to America where I feel like I'm behind the times culturally and professionally, but things will figure themselves out somehow ;)

2. Little pleasures. Reveling in a smile. A greeting. A goodbye. The sunset. The feel of the ocean against my legs. The kiss of the equatorial sun on my face. A productive day with my community members. The excitement of students. An old friend. A new friend. The breeze. The rain. The smell of wet earth. The buzz from a drink. The euphoria of good company. A platonic “I love you.”

3. Noise. I had a hard time adjusting to the perpetual din in the background (or, sometimes, assaulting me in the face). Much like waiting hours for your tro (bus) to fill, you'll never get completely used to the bangarang, but the rooster crowing at odd hours, the 4:30am call to prayer, someone's repetitive chanting to sell something, etc... they get drowned out a little after a while. Especially if there is a much louder noise accosting you, i.e. honking of a horn around every corner, the vibrating boom of Ghanaian high-life music, or the heart-jolting shot of a musket across the village.

4. Jogging-ish. I mentioned my somehow-running journey a few times in previous posts, but that's because it's had a pretty big impact on my sense of self. Before I came to Ghana, I detested running. Absolutely hated it with vitriol. I still don't love it, but I've learned to enjoy it somehow. It has less to do with weight loss (because I haven't lost any) and more to do with transformation. I presented myself with a challenge, and I succeeded on my own terms. I ran a race in Ghana, and I've adopted a healthy habit. That makes me happy; I'm proud of myself.

5. Wholesome eating. I eat beans, maize, and a way too much oil almost every day in Ghana. And while I gorge on processed candy and biscuits whenever I can, I also crave spinach, cheeses, fresh vegetables and fruits. I'm anticipating the day when I don't have to pay a premium to eat olives or butter! The variety in Ghana is seasonal, and I'd like to maintain that commitment to support local farmers in America. I'm considering joining a CSA and am honestly gleeful at the thought of cooking and prepping most of my meals myself when I go home (but also... Hot Cheetos. They are a non-issue).

6. Friendship. The best kind of ‘ships. Without my friends I wouldn't have made it this far. Some have left the country prematurely, finished up and having a hoot at home, or got lucky and transferred to a bigger community for work, but many are still here, striving and thriving. This year I vow to commit more of myself and my time investing in my friendships. I've realized that my time is the most important and valuable artifact I can offer. If I haven't been a good friend, I'm sorry. I'll do better, be better. But know that I cherish each and every one of you, even if the last time we talked was yesterday or twelve months ago.

7. Adventure-seeking. Traveling the world is a privilege. I know there are many articles on the internet that tout “You Can Easily Travel If You Do These 10 Tips” or something along those lines. That's a load of tone-deaf shit. Not everyone can afford to travel, even if they try to put away a fraction of their paycheck for a year. Some people have responsibilities/ barriers / circumstances that prevent them from taking even a week off to see the world, to feed their soul, and amaze their wonder. Life is hard, and the economy and political climate isn't helping. But life is short, and I want to make it a priority of mine to try to see and experience as much as I can. Ghana isn't the first country I've visited, but it certainly has had a profound impact on my wanderlust. I plan to do a solo COS-trip. I'm a little scared to do it alone, but it's also part of the thrill.

8. Reading. We all read a lot, but I didn't read as many books as I did articles or op-ed's until I came to Ghana and committed to the idea of finishing a book (and then some). I've read many that affected me on more levels than I can articulate; have altered my perception of seeming truths; have educated me; made me laugh, cry, cringe; given me book hangovers. I've rekindled (:P) my love for books, the printed book industry hasn't died, and I can't wait to get my hands on some Ta-Nehisi Coates.

9. Self-understanding. I've alluded to a lot of emo, angsty shit that went down this past year. Yeeeah, I'm not going to deep dive into that on this blog. That being said, life wasn't great for a good while. I was pretty lost and acted out a lot, and I needed a lot of extra emotional support because I couldn't bear all weight on my own. I relied heavily on my friends (My undying gratitude. You lovely humans know who you are) and introspection to climb out of the pit. Sometimes I trip and fall back in, but y'know, that's gonna happen. Since then, I've gotten to know myself a lot better. I've been growing into a fuller version of my best self all the while discovering my wants, goals, bad habits, and how far I can extend beyond what I believed was a limitation. I think this is what the young people call, a “glow up”!

10. Appreciation for this Earth, My Life. I've developed a greater appreciation for our natural resources and my personal circumstances so much more. Clean drinking water, access to education and health services, the beauty in the landscape. I hope to continue reducing my waste and creating positive change in the world. And also call my parents. I'm lucky to have been born and raised in America. They're refugees and naturalized American citizens, but life for them wasn't as peachy-keen. I forget that when I'm all wrapped up in my own life, neglecting that my life is an echo of their life too.

TBT to A little nugget at the nutrition IST

There were moments in service where I contemplated extending, especially if I landed a position that worked with girls empowerment and youth development... but there were also moments where I screamed to myself, “I need to GTFO of here!” And then I ruminate on the goings on in America: FCC votes against net neutrality (I hope that it gets overturned), the tax reform that will decimate the middle class, the increasing rent and crippling job market in the Bay Area, California, and I wonder: Should I extend? Should I attempt WOOF'ing across South America? Can I just be a vagabond until 2020? The next step is daunting AF.

I'm trying to embrace the strong probability of moving back in with my parents which is utterly—complete and without qualification—soul crushing. When I moved out of the house at seventeen, I never settled back in. I would visit, but I always maintained my own living arrangements, even when I was preparing to move to Ghana. Committing the ultimate millennial move is not beneath me. They're lovely people. We just can't cohabitate. But the one truth is: I'm excited to go back and start some semblance of a career, a decision that will give my mum some relief.

I've somehow committed to the idea of finally applying to nursing school, something I've grappled with for the last three to four years. I'm going to take the plunge... I think! I'm frightened, but that kind of fear is overrated. I'm also excited to...

Do cool things! Like enroll in a class for cooking, Spanish, drawing/painting, pottery, car mechanics, yoga, boxing (I still have those gloves...). It all sounds really expensive, but I want to invest in myself more.

Clear the physical detritus of my life. I have a lot of junk. A good ½  of it was donated to Good Will when I came back for my sister's wedding, but I think I can downsize some more (coughthoseboxingglovescough ??). I'm eager to live minimally.

Move. Living with my ma and pa is a real contender for practicality's sake, but I'm anxious to see more of America. Maybe the east coast? California is a marvelous, endearing, magical bubble filled with the chillest people, the best food, and the diversity and creativity that I need and crave... and that's why I need to leave to thrive (at least for a little bit)

Hike. So many sights to see! I want to be stunned—become weak in the knees, physically and figuratively!—by the natural beauty that I often neglect by living in a city for as long as I have.

Learn how to swim. Because it's a life skill... and because all my friends are hanging over there, in the deep end of the pool :(

Live my best life! That includes continuing to grow, eating good food, reading, learning, hanging out with my favorite people, trying new things, meeting new people, and so much more!

It’s my last Harmattan, hurray!

[judithnegrin]

Being Successful in Free to Play Games: Atelier 801 Interview

We got in touch Melanie Christin, the co-founder of Atelier 801, an independent game studio that produced the massively multiplayer Free to Play title Transformice. Its community has been extremely active since 2011, the year of its initial release. We asked her for tips and feedback on the company’s experience.

Melanie, can you tell me who you are and what you do at Atelier 801?

Hi, I am Melanie Christin, the cofounder of Atelier 801. We built this game company with my partner, Jean-Baptiste Le Marchand, thanks to the success of our first game, a multiplayer title called Transformice. And we created the game one year before the studio.

Your flagship game is Transformice. How does it play?

Transformice is a massively online multiplayer browser-based game. The player is a small mouse that jumps from platform to platform to catch a piece of cheese. But he’s competing with other mice to be the first to bring the cheese back to the hole. One of the players is the shaman. He has the power to create crates and planks to help all the others in their mission.

This is our main product today. It represents 99% of our revenue.

Playing Transformice is a cheerful and funny experience

The game is made in Flash. Why did you go with that technology?

First of all, Transformice was released back in 2010. Then, both Jean-Baptiste and I were working at Ankama on the MMORPG Dofus. He was a developer there and I worked as an artist. We both had a lot of experience with Flash. Especially Jean-Baptiste, who had already created many games with that technology: he was one of the few persons back then still specialized in this language. Thanks to his experience, we could reuse a lot of code to make Transformice. It took us less than 3 weeks.

Flash has other advantages. As we use vector graphics, the game was and still is lightweight today, after 7 years. It’s but a 1 MB download.

Only 3 weeks? Did you plan to do Free to Play from the very beginning?

No, not at all. We made the game in 3 weeks. It was just a basic version, a test project for us. We released it on a forum, for free. We had no intention to monetize it. But suddenly, we had 10,000 players and an overloaded server. People had to queue up to play. We needed to pay for dedicated servers, which are very expensive. That’s when we decided to put an Adsense banner below the game, on the webpage. It generated enough revenue for us to keep the game running.

One year later, we left Ankama and created our own game studio: Atelier 801. Back then, will still relied on ads exclusively. However, it was enough for the both of us to make a living. it is only 2 years after we released the game, in 2012, that we decided to transition towards Free to Play.

How did it happen?

Well, that wasn’t planned either. At the end of 2011, we were really happy: we had a fresh company, our first employee… We had huge activity spikes, millions of players, all was good. But one day, we got banned from Google AdSense. And as you can imagine, we didn’t know why and had no way to get in touch with Google. To salvage the situation, we had to ask a friend who had been going to the same college as one of Google’s employees. He sent a few key emails on our behalf. Thankfully, within minutes, our ban was lifted. That’s only then that we learned why that happened. The Google bot had decided that the ad banner was too close to the game area.

The thing is, the ban lasted for 6 months. In that time, we didn’t pay ourselves just so we had enough money for our employee. That’s why we moved to Free to Play: to avoid another bad situation like that. That was in June 2012.

Here’s how we implemented it at first. In Transformice, you do not only collect cheese for the sake of it: you use it to buy hats for your mouse. We just gave the players the option to buy them with real money instead. And it’s been a huge success. On the first month only, we made €250,000.

Transformice relies on its massive multiplayer nature. We couldn’t add a barrier for people to get into the game. Because new players can get started within seconds, and for free, the community is really lively. Adding a subscription fee or making the game premium would have been a terrible idea. Transformice had been free for 2 years anyway. Changing that would have killed it. As hats and clothing is 100% optional, we were okay to let people pay for that.

  How did you change the way you monetize over time?

The business model didn’t evolve for a long time. However, we just added watch to play: video ads on demand. We slowly adjusted things over time. For example, in 2014, we stopped giving away hats for free during events. As this was our main source of income, by giving them away, we hurt our sales. As a player, you only need so many hats for your mouse, and we gave a lot of them. This is one of the main changes we made, but aside from that, the business model didn’t change all that much.

The new video that reward the player with in-game currency only arrived in April, 2017.

Then, in a more general way, what are the biggest challenges you faced getting into Free to Play, and how did you overcome them?

I’m a bit ashamed to answer, because we didn’t really do our homework. To us, there were 2 ways to do Free to Play:

The bad way, like some of the big studios, with energy-based systems that prevent you from playing if you don’t pay

And the right way, focused on cosmetics, as in League of Legends, with ethical prices

That was about all there was to know, for us, back at the time. We didn’t know what all these Key Performance Indicators were: ARPU, MAU, and all those barbaric acronyms. When we started doing Free to Play, we set our prices very low. Even today, our prices are much lower than other games on the market. The thing is, although you can lower your prices, you can’t increase them once they’re public. Players would not understand that.

It is hard to anticipate all those economic pitfalls, to understand all those metrics. They are not that accessible, not easy to grasp when you get started. We learned everything on the job, unfortunately. We should have learned all that in advance instead.

The in-game hat and skins shop

Over time, we added new paid options to cover different price points. Like, the ability to change the shaman’s crate, to buy complete outfits, or to rename your avatar. We started selling jewels that you can put on the tip of your mouse’s tail. They are shiny and they look unique, which justified a higher price than for hats and scarves.

The community accepts the fact that some services are more expensive than others. The idea that you will pay a higher fee to change your character’s name for example. We set this one around €10, which is standard in online games. It turns out it’s not a problem for people. We felt that was expensive, but it actually works.

I guess the community does that to support you at the same time?

Yes. At least when we first introduced Free to Play, our community wanted to support us financially. People were happy they could finally change their character’s fur color. They also sent us support messages, said they wanted to help after playing for 2 years for free. And we had donations before, but these didn’t work at all. It’s only when people could pay in exchange for something that they supported us massively. As I said before, in our first month, we made roughly €250,000.

Do use analytics for the game?

Yes, but not a lot. Laughs. Not as much as I would like to.

As we have a multiplayer game, we always track the servers’ status. If we have issues, like many players dropping, or a long queue waiting to get into the server, we can act in response. Our metrics are technical, for the most part: we monitor the servers’ response time, or for example if we have too many payments that arrive at once. That’s one way to spot credit card fraud.

We use few metrics to improve our monetization. We look at the sales for the latest added products, to see if the players like them or not. But aside from that, it’s mainly global sales and the average basket. We didn’t design the system from the very start to track all the common KPIs. Now it’d be hard to do today. We would have to refactor the system heavily. We have 2 separate databases for payments and for the players, which are hard to link with one another. I do track retention however: how many accounts are created, and for how much time people stay around in the game. The percentage of players that stay for more than one hour, one day, one week… also what I call the “deserters”: players who come back after months of inactivity on the game.

Share this interview on Twitter…

Being Successful in Free to Play Games: An Interview with @Atelier801 #gamedev Click To Tweet

Any advice for people looking to get into Free to Play games?

Do you homework! Laughs.

There are plenty of resources on the topic, and you want to read up so you don’t do the same mistakes others made before you. For example, for the KPIs, you don’t have to take everything. But you want to know what these are beforehand. You need to know how to use them, so you can pick the ones you need. You don’t want to use tons of metrics and never look at them. That’s worse than not having any at all. Whenever you add a metric to your analytics board, think about what you’re going to do with it. Will it help you to take actions? You should think carefully, always have a plan before you start to track analytics.

How do you see Free to Play evolve in the coming years?

Free to Play already dominates over premium, if you look at it at a global scale. Be it in terms of revenue or the number of players, Free to Play is really big. So I don’t see it getting that much bigger. There will always be both premium and Free to Play games, as Free to Play is more adapted to certain genres. Especially multiplayer titles, when there’s a lot of interaction between the users.

How did creating your own company and Free to Play change your vision of game creation?

Back when I worked at Ankama, I had a narrow vision: I thought that everything would be better if I did it all myself and was in charge. Then I made my company and discovered it’s a lot more complicated than that. In particular, human resources. Clearly, the hardest part of game development is to manage people, to lead the entire team towards a common goal and not hurt anyone along the way. Keeping a great relationship with all our employees was the hardest thing I’ve had to learn to do.

That’s the real challenge. At least if you want to get it right. We’ve had clashes, and they were quite painful. If I could start again from the beginning, I would take management classes, and make sure to work on my leadership. Because at first, we didn’t have a common vision. We just let people do their work. But it takes many persons to ship a game. A lot of discussion, collaboration, and it is harder than you might think at first.

Dead Maze, Atelier 801’s next title, looks gorgeous

Atelier 801 is now working on their biggest project so far: Dead Maze, a post-apocalyptic, isometric MMO where players cooperate to survive to a zombie outbreak. You’ll get to collect resources, fight, craft to progress through its deadly, yet beautiful world. The first images from the game look gorgeous, and Melanie told us they’re looking to release it in open beta next summer. You can follow Dead Maze on Twitter.

The post Being Successful in Free to Play Games: Atelier 801 Interview appeared first on GameAnalytics.