#and also i have other arts in progress and some are almost done it's unbearable i just can't have enough time to finish it all already

[cheesomancer]

Some unexpected and certainly unwanted events happened, so I couldn't keep up with mermay no matter how much I wanted.

But, I'm finally home and almost not buried under tons of work (i mean.....almost..), so I'll try to catch up with sketches instead of fully colored arts :/ euhghkd

[kuroo-shitsurou]

Auxilium (College!Xiao x College!Reader)

TW: mentions blood, depression, anxiety

note: it's my first time writing and posting something on tumblr so im sorry if it's bad!! reader is gn hehe.

Late February was never a good time for Xiao.

It was the second month of the year; People were starting to adjust and adapt to the ever-changing and progressing timeline. Although, he never really understood the concept of the "New year, new me!" shtick. Humans make decisions that eventually shape their personalities. What does a new year have anything to do with that? Does a change in the year automatically make you a good person? Does it make you less of an asshole than you might already be? He never really understood.

He found it rather silly, actually. Whenever a new year rolls around, Xiao would mutter silent curses to himself because he'd write the wrong year on his papers. Other than that, there wasn't any significant changes he made in his daily routine. He was still the same Xiao; The same anxious, mildly depressed, and coffee-high art major Xiao.

Now, Xiao was a respected figure in their college (or at least, that's what he was told). He was one of the most talented artists at Tokyo University, and professors have been eyeing him for a scholarship overseas (he, along with his brooding and mysterious senior, Diluc). His keen eye for details always produce great results as most of his portraits are featured in the university's gallery of students' greatest works. Not to mention, one of his larger canvas works were displayed at the Tokyo Museum, making him one of the youngest artists to have their art showcased there.

Admittedly, Xiao was aware of how people admired his talent. Unfortunately, due to a rough childhood where his parents barely showed him any love and affection, he had trouble reflecting his true emotions onto other people. That's why other art majors often labelled him as a self-absorbed, egotistical prick.

Xiao was the last person you'd want to compliment. It's not that he'd be a dick about it or that he'd scowl at you and act as if he was better than you in every way possible. It wasn't like that at all. It's simply because Xiao doesn't know how to handle compliments. He'll still keep his stoic face, lips pressed in a straight line, but deep inside, he'd be flustered to bits. He'd try to internalize his reply, stitching together the right words to express his gratitude, but it would always take him a few minutes. The person who complimented him would've already left after he finally constructed the sentence in his head. Not that he wasn't used to it

This led to Xiao earning his current reputation, as stated earlier. He was already expecting the rest of his college years to be spent alone in his studio, working on his artworks during the wee hours of the night, high on the fumes of his paint palette and his exhausted coffee machine.

Until you came.

Kaoru was... eccentric. You were loud, you were moody. He felt like you'd be the type of person he'd hate dealing with just because you was unpredictable. You were like the rain, and Xiao hated the rain.

He must have an Archon's cursed tongue, because he got paired up with you during the first semester of their second year in college. You were a familiar name to him, as you were in the same course since the first year, but he barely knew anything about you since you were in different classes.

"Hey, Xiao! I'm _____. I hope we can be good friends by the end of the semester!" His memory of your bright smile still remains vivid in his head. He wasn't really a brooding type like Diluc, but Xiao liked to believed that he presented himself as a silent person who had no intentions of interacting with other people. So, how were you so bubbly around him? Because she was forced to do so? You were to be his partner for the whole semester, after all. Maybe it was all formalities. Yeah, that's probably it.

"Hm." Xiao gave a nod in her direction, acknowledging your existence. you heard from your friends that the young artist didn't have a pleasing personality, but you weren't expecting to be shutdown from the get-go.

"Mind if I sit beside you?"

Again, a light nod.

You felt the awkward tension between you and Xiao, and you hated it. You were a person who hated it when people are uncomfortable in your presence. You didn't want to be a bother, and you did your best to make everyone like you. Not that you were a people pleaser, nor an attention hog, but you just wanted to get along with everyone.

The lecture was going to begin in twenty minutes, so the lecture hall was yet to be filled with people. You took the opportunity to strike up a conversation with the amber eyed man beside you, who was typing away on his laptop. Something about color theory and how it affects the perspective of people on different art types? You couldn't really see that well. He was a fast typer.

"So, Xiao, I heard that your painting was displayed in the Tokyo Museum last year. It must have been an honor. I was at the unveiling last year and I saw it up-close." You started off, testing the waters.

"And what did you think of it?" Xiao cringed internally. He meant to genuinely ask for your feedback regarding his art, but it sounded so harsh that he wanted to punch himself when he saw you wince (or maybe you shuddered because it was cold and you were wearing a sleeveless top? His nerves were getting the better of him at this point).

"Well, a lot of my friends told me that it wasn't anything special,"

Ouch.

"It was a large canvas. I can still remember how it looks. But, maybe that's because I'm at the museum every two weeks," You laughed. You noticed how Xiao's breathing noticeably changed after you started your sentence, and you have to admit that it sounded a bit too mean.

"You know, Xiao. My friends told me that your art was simple. Anyone could have done it. But honestly, they couldn't be more wrong. I love how your piece was painted. Auxilium. I'll never forget what you called it. That's... Help, right?"

At first, Xiao didn't want to listen to this person ramble about an art piece he made during one of the lowest points of his life.

His anti-depressants had run out during that one Christmas. It was 2:47 in the morning. He had morning classes the following day. He had a project to submit, but he was unable to continue working because of the unbearable pain in his chest. His head was throbbing. Voices were invading his mind. Flashbacks of his parents' negligence taunted him. He rushed to grab a glass of water, chugging it down in almost three chugs. He slammed the glass back onto the counter, smashing it into tiny little splinters and cutting himself in the process. His hand was bleeding, there were bits of glass on his counter and on his floor, but he couldn't care less. He was heaving, his breathing was unsteady, he wanted to die right then and there. His vision became blurry, but he rushed back to his studio.

With a bleeding hand, he picked up his brush and began to tear into his canvas. Not literally, but he started to create strokes onto the blank canvas. Different colors, different textures (he swore some of his blood got blended in with the area where he painted the sunrise, but it's fine. No one was going to notice, right?). He screamed and cried, wanting to throw the entire easel out his window.

It was Christmas. He was alone in his apartment. His anti-depressants ran out. He was having a panic attack.

That night led him to having one of the worst breakdowns he could remember, but he also ended up with a gorgeous painting that nabbed him a place in the Tokyo Museum.

"Help," Your voice echoed in his ears, snapping him out of his trance.

"People can tell me that it's nothing more than a simple painting, but the way that the sunrise was only showing in a segmented part of the canvas? The way that there were hints of red? It kind of reminded me how a new day can resemble hope but still contain hurt. Like, the promise of a fresh start isn't guaranteed a good one, right?"

Your words rang in his ears like a gong being hit continuously. He wanted to cry. People always complimented him and congratulated him about being recognized by art critics and national museums, but none of them ever really stopped to talk to him about his art. They were there for his recognition- not his work.

"I mean, you could begin with a fresh start, but wouldn't the remnants of yesterday still take a toll on your tomorrow?"

"Hm. Interesting take. To be honest, those specks could have been my blood." Xiao spoke up, to your surprise. A small smile formed on your face. Maybe this guy wasn't so bad after all.

"My hand was cut up when I was painting that," He added quietly, not mentioning why his hand was in that state. "I think I accidentally added too much concentrated red. I couldn't blend it out the way I originally planned."

"Oh? But that makes it all the more great, though!" You beamed, "Maybe it was an Archon guiding you? I don't really believe in that stuff, but acknowledging some divine intervention once in a while can't be all bad, no?" You laughed.

"I guess you're right." For the first time in a while, Xiao actually gave someone else a small smile. It wasn't really a smile per se, but his lips curved even the slightest bit upward, and you decided that it was a win for you.

-

Fast forward to the second semester of their third year.

Late February was never a good time for Xiao.

It was the second month of the year; People were starting to adjust and adapt to the ever-changing and progressing timeline. Although, he never really understood the concept of the "New year, new me!" shtick.

It had been years since he was clinically-diagnosed with mild depression. So, why was he still that way? Shouldn't new years help him be a better person? Or something like that. Why was he still like this?

Late February meant the end of one semester, and the start of another.

What else did that mean?

His semestral feedback report (he refused to call it a report card. What was he, high school?).

"Xiao? Are you here? I bought almond tofu from Xiangling's place. Sorry for barging in, you weren't answering my calls." He heard your voice from the kitchen and he glanced at the clock on his studio's wall.

1:37 AM.

You were at Xiangling's place because you were working on a report about the history of acrylic paints or whatever it was. You were supposed to go home, but you still dropped by his apartment. He checked his phone.

[ 14 missed calls. ]

Yikes.

"I'm here." He answered meekly, but loud enough for you to hear. He felt tired. Defeated, maybe. He was blankly staring at the canvas in front of him. He has sketched the base of your face and upper body. He was planning on painting a portrait of his beloved to decorate his room with, but he couldn't find the energy to continue.

He could hear the soft "thud"s of your feet walking from the kitchen towards the studio, but he tuned it out with an annoying static he could only hear in his head.

Fuck. Where are they?

He rushed to the drawer next to his easels and rummaged around in a panic.

Where the fuck are they?

He kept a few anti-depressants in his studio because he spends most of his time here and he didn't have time to rush to the kitchen to get them if he ever got a panic attack.

"Fuck!" He cursed loudly, throwing the contents of his desk onto the floor. Some of his paintbrushes scattered on the wooden floor of his studio, marking the wood various colors. Maybe they're going to stain, but he didn't really care.

Xiao heard the footsteps retreating until he couldn't hear anything else except the constant ringing in his ears. It was annoying. It was loud. It started to make him want to split his head open.

"_____," He whispered, feeling his chest hurt and his throat tighten. The passageways helping him breathe seemed to close themselves, giving him a hard time and mocking him. It was coming back again.

Tears started to flood his vision, and they rolled down his red cheeks. He took the ponytail out of his hair and used two hands to tug at his locks starting from the roots. His breathing patterns became more erratic, but he tried his best to stay calm.

His knees and legs felt like jelly. He had to lean against the desk to avoid from toppling over.

Why? Why again? Why now? Why when you were here?

He screamed. It was loud enough for the neighbors to hear, but his care for any external entities was out the window the moment his eyes became blurry with tears.

Even though he was leaning against the desk, his legs still couldn't hold the weight of his entire body. His knees dropped to the floor, and he swore he must've dented the wood below, but he paid no mind to it. His knees were also aching, but he could deal with that later. He bent down and pressed his forehead to the floor.

"_____," He whispered again, longing for his partner. "Auxilium."

"Xiao?" The voice was muffled. His eyes were glued to the floor in front of him, but he knew it was you.

"Xiao, stay with me, honey." There was a hint of panic evident in your voice, but he was glad that you didn't let that get the best of you. You was still somewhat calm.

You kneeled down beside him, helping him back to an upright position.

"Honey, you left these on the counter outside." You handed him two tablets of his anti-depressants, and he gladly placed them in his mouth. You also gave him a glass of water, and he downed it in two swift gulps. Afraid that he might underestimate his strength, he returned the glass back to you instead of setting it down himself, nodding at you in the process.

You got into a more comfortable position where you rested your back against the wall, and you guided Xiao to follow you. It was a difficult task; He was very sensitive during his panic attacks.

His semestral feedback reports always made him anxious. He didn't have to please his parents anymore since he moved out years ago, but Xiao had this nagging feeling inside of him to do better with his academics. Nobody was really pressuring him to be a straight-A student, but did he feel like he needed to be? Who was he trying to prove himself to anyway? You knew about his sever panic attacks and how they were more active if he had a big event coming up. The first time you had to deal with it, you were still stiff and trying to learn how you could help. Now, you takes pride in yourself for being able to handle him in the ways you know would help him the most.

"Here you go, I've got you." You cooed, assisting him with moving. You laid his head flat on her lap and she began stroking his beautiful, tousled forest green locks. The highlights he had under the first layer of his hair started to fade, and you made a mental note to take him to a salon so they could get their highlights redone.

"You know, I've been listening to a lot of Coldplay lately," You started speaking, as if Xiao wasn't about to have a full-on panic attack. "Yellow would have to be one of my favorite songs. I guess it's kinda cheesy, but can you blame me?"

You used your free hand to wipe the tears from his cheeks.

"Look at the stars, look how they shine for you." You began singing, voice just above a whisper.

"And everything you do. Yeah, they were all yellow."

Xiao was a reserved person who had a hard time dealing with other people because of his inferiority complex that sprouted when he was young.

"I came along, I wrote a song for you."

He didn't have love and affection growing up. He didn't know how to be the best person to talk to. He had poor communication skills. He was a mess, to be honest.

"And all the things you do. And it was called yellow."

You were the first person who looked past his rough and tough exterior. You were the person who showed interest not just in his name- but in him as a whole.

"So when I took my turn, what a thing to've done."

"Thank you," He murmured silently, noticing that the ringing in his ears vanished. His throat was beginning to open again, and he could finally feel the steady heartbeat he had in his chest.

"And it was all yellow."

Xiao curled himself into a ball, burying his face in your clothed stomach. You smelled a bit like smoke (maybe you ate yakiniku at Xiangling's?) and your faded cologne. It smelled like home. It washed a sense of relief over his entire being. He felt safe. He felt secure. He was being held like a child, but he didn't really mind. Maybe he needed this.

"Your skin. Oh yeah, your skin and bones,"

You craned your neck downwards to look at Xiao's figure. He finally looked peaceful. You knew about his rough past. You knew about the trauma he had to go through, but you chose to look past it because you knew that he was just afraid and... alone. He needed someone to be there for him, and you would rather the world die than leave him alone ever again.

"Turn into something beautiful."

You noticed how his chest started a rhythmic pattern of ups and downs. His breathing was finally steady. He looked at peace. He looked like he was right at home.

"Do you know? You know I love you so."

You couldn't help but chuckle as you watched him sleep in your lap. How could anyone think that this softie was an asshole?

"You know I love you so."

You barely whispered the last part of the song, but it was loud enough for his heart to hear it. Xiao hated when things were unpredictable; that's why he hated the rain. But now, maybe the idea of rain wasn't so bad. Especially since you were his rain.

"I love you, Xiao."

At that moment, you knew that the involuntary smile on Xiao's face was a response that contained more emotions than his words could ever bear.

"I love you too."

[ladyonfire28]

Came back from my little break for that new article ! Here is the translation of Adèle and Aïssa’s interview for Libération. It’s a very long, but very interesting one. So i recommend to read it. There may be a lot of incoherencies so please tell me if something doesn’t make sense ! 

Aïssa Maïga and Adèle Haenel : «Finally there’s something political happening»

They stood up together at the César and have since been striving to invent a common front against all forms of discrimination. For "Libération", actresses Adèle Haenel and Aïssa Maïga retrace the journey of generational awareness.

Some kind of symbol. A large mural, in tribute to George Floyd, a 46-year-old black American who died on 25 May when he was arrested by a white policeman, and to Adama Traoré, who died at the age of 24 on the floor of the "caserne de Persan" (Val-d'Oise) following an arrest in 2016, was painted at the beginning of the week on the façade of a building in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. Close by, the Adama Committee organized a press conference on Tuesday. Words, demands and the announcement of a new march to fight against police violence. It takes place this Saturday in the capital, from the Place de la République to the Place de l'Opéra. The organizers dream of seeing a huge crowd come together. This demonstration comes at the heart of a tense period. Young people are demanding answers and action, while many police officers feel that the Minister of the Interior is letting his troops down in the face of the scolding.

In the street, we will find associations, politicians and many people. Adèle Haenel and Aïssa Maïga will be there. Not a first. They were already present on  June 2nd at the rally in front of the Paris high court. The actresses didn't really know each other before the last César ceremony, marked by the speech of one and the shattering departure of the other. Since then, they have never left each other. Both describe the moment as a "turning point". The fights converge.

When the idea of a cross-exchange came on the table to put words to their commitments, they did not hesitate. On Thursday, in a roadstead near Belleville, Adèle Haenel arrived first, followed by Aïssa Maïga. They are not of the same generation, the journeys and paths are different. The styles too. The one who got up at the announcement of the prize awarded to Polanski goes up and down, talks with her body. The one who, at the same ceremony, invited to count the black people in the room appears calmer, stays seated on her chair, speaks in a low voice. Adèle Haenel and Aïssa Maïga complement each other.

From where are you speaking?

Adèle Haenel: I speak from my personal political background, rooted in feminism, a background that is shaken by the worldwide movement around police violence and by the French movement around the Adama Committee. I would say that taking charge of my own history has given me the ability to deal with other broader issues that do not immediately affect me. I'm talking about a kind of political awakening. This desire to show my support for the families of the victims, for the political movement against racism and police violence in France, and for the actors who take a stand. I'm thinking of Omar Sy, Camélia Jordana and you, Aïssa.

Aïssa Maïga: This intersectional awakening evoked by Adèle is a place where I have been for a long time without necessarily being able to name it. For a long time, the racial question in cinema was so pervasive in my life that it cannibalized everything else. I felt that it was less difficult to be a woman, in a world that discriminates women, than it was to be a black woman. The work done by Afrofeminists in France and abroad put the words in my mouth that I didn't have because I didn't have that heritage. I am speaking from a place that is on the move and that is not made up of certainties, that is made of interrogations, especially about the fact that I can implement changes on my own scale. And I'm also speaking from a place that is purely civic and is tinged with various influences. I didn't grow up in a poor suburb, I didn't live in financial precariousness, I come from a rather intellectual middle class, it gave me certain tools, and yet I haven't escaped this very French thing, a soft racism, rarely seen but which is haunting... because it's omnipresent.

Why did you get involved with the Adama Committee?

A.M.: Because this is a fight for justice. It was Assa Traoré who came to meet me during the release of the collective book Noire n'est pas mon métier ("Black is not my job"). I knew her from afar, I knew her struggle, and she appeared. The support became obvious and it has really taken shape in the last few months. I was immediately impressed by this woman, her quiet strength, and this ability to forge a bond, to think of her family drama in political terms. Her voice matters. She's not just an icon: she allows a movement to emerge.

A.H.: For me, it's even more recent, I had to go through a problem that was going through me, that involved my body in discrimination in order to mingle with other injustices. I was listening to what Assa Traoré was saying and I was struck by her determination and intelligence. But it is only very recently that I also became physically aware that I could not fail to support this woman and the whole fight against police violence and racism, in the same way that I am taking up the fight for feminism and against sexual violence. I can't have it two-tiered.

On June 2nd, more than 20,000 people gathered in front of the High Court of Paris, at the request of the Adama Committee. An unprecedented turnout, with many young people, why?

A.M.: The Adama Committee saw very well the link between George Floyd's drama and their own. The death of Adama Traoré, choked under three gendarmes, was materialized before our eyes with the unbearable images of Floyd's death. The French youth who look at these images cannot fail to make the connection, it is obvious. There is also a form of accessible activism that is developing via social networks. Activists will involve others through simple, accessible sentences: if you are not a POC, you are still involved, it is your responsibility to listen and take an active part, at your level, in the fight for equality. There is also the idea that we need to establish a link between police violence, the racism that can be found in other social spaces, the issue of gender equality, the environment, and the urgency of dealing with these problems now. There is also a form of anxiety among young people: they are told that in fifty years' time there will be no more water. And finally the feeling of injustice, which is omnipresent and linked to the circulation of images on social networks. Police violence follows one after the other, and this creates an accumulation effect. It is not just a dogmatic political vision, but a reality that is lived or perceived as real.

A.H.: There is a turning point in the effectiveness of the movement as well. This feeling carried by Assa Traoré that we are powerful. It's not just ideas that go around the world, it's ideas that make the world happen. It gives hope and responsibility to a whole generation.

During Aïssa's speech at the Césars, in which she confronts the profession with the near-invisibility of actors, filmmakers and producers from French overseas territories and African and Asian immigrants in French cinema, you are in the room, Adèle. You don't know each other yet. Do you understand her speech immediately?

A.H.: It's obvious, but it's not immediate, it takes a little time to understand the extent of the racist mechanism when you, yourself, haven't been forced to see how it works. I was brought back to particular assignments, but not to this one. So it takes a long time before it becomes unbearable evidence. When Aïssa takes the floor, it's courageous because the room is very cold and it's making it even colder. I thought it was funny and I thought "finally, something political is happening".

Did you both understand that people find it violent to count black people in the room, and even that they might find it paradoxical to split the audience?

A.M.: Counting isn't splitting, it's measuring the gap between us and equality. When it comes to inequality, to be blind to color is to be blind to the social burdens that come from our history and the imagination that flows from it. I am fighting for art and culture to deconstruct racial fictions. In our field, cinema, there is a tendency to believe that when a few exceptions appear, the problem of racial discrimination is solved. I do not think that my presence, that of Omar Sy, Ladj Ly or Frédéric Chau, Leïla Bekhti, for example, however gifted they may be, exonerates French cinema from an examination of conscience. There is always an over-representation of people perceived as non-white in roles with negative connotations - and it's not me saying this, it's the CSA, through its diversity barometer. There are still too few opportunities for younger people, who today in 2020 deplore what I deplored when I was starting out. Still too few non-whites behind the camera and almost no one in decision-making positions. I started this job when I was 20 years old. I am 45. A generation, not a few exceptions, should have risen. It hasn't. And it's unbearable as a citizen, a mother and an artist.

At the César ceremony, I deliberately used a inflammable symbol. If we refuse to measure differences in access to opportunities in terms of racial discrimination, perhaps we are accepting the status quo. Today, we need concrete action by decision-makers and numerical targets in order to measure progress. A few personal successes, however brilliant they may be, cannot justify the violence of large-scale unequal treatment.

A.H.: The substance of what Aïssa said to the César is relevant, it speaks to the moment, and being shocking has the virtue of awakening. The criticisms that followed were "I agree but"... In fact, it means that even when the substance is right, the form is never the right one. It's a form of censorship, there are people who have the right to speak and others who don't.

A.M.: Allowing oneself to express anger head-on is taboo because we are actresses and we are supposed to preserve the desire that others project on us. And also because it highlights the precarious nature of this profession: are you able to overcome your fear, to express your opinion, with the risk of losing something?

A.H.: From my point of view, that of a white woman - forgive me for putting myself in this position, but it's still unfortunately an assignment - I see that when I spoke about what happened to me personally, I received a lot of support, especially from people who are not especially on our side. However, as soon as I spoke up, politically, to say that giving the prize to a rapist fleeing from justice was an insult, all of a sudden I was really overstepping what I was entitled to do, what I could interfere in...

Do you think there's a "white privilege"?

A.M.: Words are so tricky...

A.H.: When Virginie Despentes uses the term "white privilege", it's a bit related to Aïssa's gesture when she counts the black people in the room. It's a question of pointing out, by calling up words that should be those of the past, the gap between the evolution of universalist ideals and the facts of manifest exclusion at work. Provocation points out this flaw and invites us to close it.

Is there state racism?

A.M.: I don't know about "state" racism, it would have to be written into the laws to say that. The right word is systemic: it means that there is something that does not allow for real equality, something in the established rules that allows a small number of people to discriminate without being worried. What also raises the question is the inertia of the state in the face of the continuation of systemic inequalities.

From what you say, we are at a turning point in the struggle against racial, gender, social and other forms of discrimination...

A.M.: I felt the turning point in 2018 with #MeToo, Time's Up, and when I saw all these women from such diverse backgrounds (in the streets) after Trump's election. It was an image I had never seen before in my generation. It was in the United States, and yet something happened to me in France, because I had been dreaming of this convergence for a long time. I'm not here to defend my chapel. I'm not going to be satisfied with a breakthrough if blacks have more roles while Arabs and Asians are still in a degraded situation in French cinema. The convergence I'm talking about didn't quite take place at the time of #MeToo, which quickly became a white women's movement in my eyes. In French cinema, there is also the "50-50 for 2020" movement [collective for parity and inclusion founded in 2018, editor's note] that I saw coming like the guerrilla movement we had been waiting for for a long time, pragmatic, quick, positively impatient, very constructive. The work done in favor of parity is colossal. On the other hand, I regret that diversity is the next program. But it cannot be the next program for me, that is the mistake. I've talked about it very openly, and frankly in a fairly relaxed way with some of them.

A.H.: Much more relaxed than I was, by the way!

A.M.: And then I said to myself that the battles are progressing on different levels and that we're going to have to find some kind of alignment. The fight for women's rights is not just a women's issue, it's a men's issue, just as the fight against racism is not just about POC. And it wasn't until 2020 and the murder of George Floyd that there were those voices, especially white voices, that said, "This is my problem too." Including in France, where this awakening of consciousness is made possible by the work done by the families of victims of police violence.

A.H.: In my political journey so far, I had forgotten to understand the places where I am not just in a situation of domination. I am also, as a white woman who is not in a precarious position, in a dominant position in certain aspects. Understanding that, feeling that, is essential. My political agenda was focused on feminism, and I didn't realize that it was implicitly white feminism, unintentionally excluding. What Aïssa says seems fundamental to me: the agenda that would order one cause after another is not conceivable and leads to inertia. It leagues us against each other in identity issues that are sterile, since they reiterate the terms of oppression. This is a major issue in the effectiveness of political struggles: how can we mobilize without reiterating the categorization we are fighting against? This implies understanding that there is a deep articulation between all systems of domination and that there is a need to defend these causes in a cross-cutting manner.

Aïssa's speech on June 2nd, during the demonstration initiated by the Adama Committee, called for a fair, dignified and positive representation of minorities in the media. But who can judge what is dignified and fair? Only the ones who are affected ?

A.H.: Today, in France, female characters in films are implicitly white women: I have a much wider range of possible jobs than that offered to a black actress. But in my field of so-called universal women, very often, women are offered satellite roles around male characters. These roles take up what is considered to be the normal white female nature, of restraint and reification. What appears natural here is a cultural construction of identity that is done precisely through stories. This is one of the reasons why the political stakes of representations in the cinema are so important.

Is this a criterion for assessing or rejecting a work? What should be done with existing works that have been reassessed as problematic?

A.H.: Works must be recontextualized. They are not created out of nowhere, out of time. Let's question them! That doesn't mean that we stop watching them, but that we ask ourselves what their political substratum is and what they convey. Questioning representations is a sign of vitality. And that does not mean that we would no longer have the right to see these works.

A.M.: With this waltz of statues of slavery figures in the United States or in the French overseas departments at the moment, the citizens gives their answer. Either the work must be contextualized, in a museum or in a place with a historical explanatory note, or it must stand out.

Is it women, more willingly than men, who carry this convergence of fights ?

A.M.: I feel a change in the scale of our lives, a major turning point in the way we perceive each other and allow ourselves to hybridize in these battles. Regarding the massive presence of women from cinema in front of the High Court on June 2, I wonder. In particular about my own capacity to build bridges... while guaranteeing the visibility of the fights against discrimination against women or POC. How do we ensure that the fight against discrimination, for equality and equity, is as visible as the rest? I am not at all sure how to do this. But it has to be done. When, the day after the César, I received a text message from Adèle, even though we don't know each other, and she writes to me to say "I heard you. I'm here. Let's meet", it can be as simple as that.

Why did you send that text?

A.H.: Because of the solitude in this room. And the brave gesture of saying what she said on stage. We'd met the same evening and maybe I hadn't caught the moment, I was captivated by our own event... That is, what had happened after we'd, let's say..., gone to get our coats a bit earlier in the dressing room... (Aïssa Maïga laughs) And I thought, let's not forget the constructed gesture, the political intentionality of Aïssa in there. I wanted to get closer to her courage. So I think that we shouldn't talk about masculinity by saying "men", that we should consider masculinity as a field of organization of power with its own complexities, and its intersectional repercussions. I refer to Angela Davis' book, Women, Race & Class, on the issue of the difficult articulation between the civil rights movement in the United States and the emerging white feminist movements where there was a lot of racism. Why don't we think of ourselves as spontaneous and necessary allies between categories of discrimination, racial, social and gendered? We need to take the history of this division seriously in order to work on it and overcome it. As Assa Traoré does in an ultra-intelligent way when she says "Whatever your religion, your sexual orientation, wherever you come from, whatever your skin color". It is an invitation to self-criticism of our own movement. This is my discovery at the beginning of this year: the self-criticism of my history as a white feminist.

When you get up during the César, is it thoughtful or impulsive?

A.H.: This award was a claim to the right to do whatever you want as long as you are at the top. That is to say: rich white men who don't feel concerned when we talk about violence. What it means beyond sexual violence is that there are people to whom repressive laws do not apply. It's as if the police and the laws shouldn't act against them, but around them... And that's what you feel in that moment in the room. What happened on César night was a dissolution of the status quo. Now it's either you stay in the room or you don't stay in the room.

A.M.: And it was important to be there at the César, because I read a lot about boycotting that evening, but for me there was no question of backing out. A boycott is not just staying at home behind your television, not being there without anyone really noticing. It was important to say that the home of cinema is also our home, our space, our place of expression. We are in a position to speak out and for that to have the virtue of provoking discussion. When that person wins that award, it's the time of the turkey, where someone praises the rapist grandfather, when everyone knows. And you're breathless, you can't move, time becomes elastic, everything is extremely heavy, it's unreal. You enter another dimension. And the fact that a person manages to regain possession of time, to become master of their time and master of their body by standing up and saying no, it put oxygen back in, it woke us up. Adèle and I looked at each other two or three times during the evening, we knew we were together. There was something like a physical experience. We boarded the ship together.

We're spotting the allies.

A.M.: That's right. And time returned to normal when Adèle, Céline Sciamma and others, including me, got up. It was a coherent political gesture in which many people recognized themselves.

Do you think that your political positions, formalized at the César, can have an impact on your career?

A.M.: The question is how do you break a family secret? Festen is one of my favorite films. (Laughs) I wasn't born at the time of the 2020 César, it's the result of a personal journey and a legacy. Others before me have spoken, for example Luc Saint-Eloy and Calixthe Beyala on the same issues at the Césars in 2000. When Canal + and the César invited me to come and give an award, I said "yes, but I want complete freedom". Blowing up a family secret is a movement for self-liberation, it's an essential meeting with yourself. Choosing to be on the side of silence, of the status quo and therefore of injustices with full knowledge of the facts is something I was quite incapable of doing. The consequences for one's profession are not that one doesn't care, but spitting out what one has to say is a top priority. The question of what it is going to cost behind it is resolved by the feeling of freeing the word, provoking debate, making a generational contribution to the fight for equality, which in essence concerns us all. I have an appointment with myself around 60, 65, the age when my children will be about the same age as I am today. There is something about transmission. I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror. I don't want to tell myself that I haven't taken advantage of my little privilege of being a POC exception in French cinema to the detriment of all those young people I meet on the street, who aren't white and who say to me with fear in their stomachs, "Do you think I can still do this job?"

What about you, Adèle?

A.H.: The message that was sent to me very clearly by a casting director is that I will never work again. Obviously, this person was very sure of himself, since he wrote it in print capital letters about a dozen times. What do you say when you ask for respect and silence? They say, "Don't speak out politically because it's not your role". But also: "Don't take the lead artistically either because you're an actress, you have to follow the genius of your director". This whole structure is part of this culture where you shouldn't listen to yourself but to submit. I don't know what the consequences will be for my job. What is certain is that I will never regret it. We did something that night that freed the voices of a lot of people. That is worth much more than all the threats to my career, which in any case is always fragile, because it is a precarious environment. If I totally respected the rules and said, "Yes, yes, you have to separate the man from the artist", that wouldn't stop me from being able to get out of the game. It's as much about inventing one's life as trying to open up the future.

Written by Cécile Daumas , Rachid Laïreche and Sandra Onana. Photo by Lucile Boiron

[snsknene]

hesitation, arthur/eames, 11k, read on ao3 here

~~~

Arthur was in a hotel room that was his favorite kind: it was old in a way that suggested it had let number of people through its doors and would let in more until it was finally demolished a hundred years from now, old in a way that meant slightly faded carpets but wood paneling to die for.

It had not been expensive. Arthur had a lot of money from the Fischer job, but it didn't mean it would last forever. Arthur was a sensible man.

Arthur was also in his favorite pair of pajamas. They were silk and they were grey and they felt like comfort. As this was a slightly old hotel room, it had a slightly old TV with a limited number of channels, and the channel that was on now was playing reruns of some trashy reality show. Arthur did not understand anything that was going on, but he was enjoying everything that was going on, enjoying the fact that he was watching scenes of frivolity instead of growing old in a nameless dreamscape. He had a glass of wine in his hand, and he’d just had a long bath, and his hair felt slightly damp against the nice clean pillow.

He was feeling rested. He was feeling rested because he deserved it.

Of course it was then, because that was Arthur’s life, that his phone rang.

Arthur turned his head to the side to look.

Cobb, of course. No one else could ruin Arthur's relaxation like Cobb did. It was a talent and the man’s true calling.

Arthur thought he would have had a break from all the Cobb drama once Cobb had successfully gotten through immigration at the airport but apparently Cobb lived to make his life an extended babysitting gig. Arthur thought, rather bitterly, that there were only so many things Cobb could do that Mal’s death could explain away. The line had to be drawn somewhere, even though Arthur had loved her so fully and completely.

But Arthur had loved her so fully and completely. That was the issue here. Those children were still hers. If anything happened to Cobb it would be Arthur who would have no choice but to move to LA for them, and Arthur hated the humidity.

He pressed answer.

“What do you need?” Arthur asked.

“Hello to you too,” said Cobb, in a manner calm enough that Arthur didn’t think there were any guns pointed to his temple. Arthur relaxed a bit. “I was calling to check in.”

“Check in,” Arthur repeated suspiciously.

“Can’t I check in?” Cobb asked innocently. “The children are asking after you.”

“I just saw them,” Arthur said. “Tell them I’ll come by soon.”

Cobb paused. “About that,” he said, in a sketchy sort of way.

“I knew it,” Arthur said. “I knew you were in trouble. What do you need, Cobb?”

“It’s not need,” Cobb said, but it was never need, was it? Arthur squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. “I’m not in trouble,” Cobb was saying. “I just need a favour.”

Arthur shook his head against the phone and looked at the television. A favour did mean Cobb’s life wasn’t in danger and his children weren’t possibly going to be orphans, which meant Arthur, for once, had the option of saying no. For the past two years, he’d shadowed Cobb while Cobb got progressively wilder around the eyes and took on steadily more dangerous jobs, and Arthur, thinking of Mal’s arms around his neck and Philippa’s wide sunny smile, hadn’t been able to say no.

“I owe him,” Cobb said. “Properly, and it’s either I do it, but it’ll be for a couple of months– the kids need stability–”

Arthur could imagine. Their mother dying and their father being publicly arrested for it had done wonders for their future therapists’ bank accounts.

“It’s an easy extraction,” Cobb said hopefully. “And I know you’ve done so much. But look, it’s me, here, calling in one last favour.”

Arthur had already made up his mind. He had meant to see the kids anyway. He could go stateside for a bit.

“There’s just one thing,” Cobb said. He sounded apologetic now.

“Uh-huh,” said Arthur, the sigh caught in his throat already telling him what it was.

“They need a forger,” said Cobb.

~~~

There were other forgers, of course. Good ones, competent ones even. But Arthur hated working with mediocrity when he could have excellence. Eames was – unfortunately! it couldn’t have happened to a more annoying person! – excellence.

Eames had also disappeared off the grid with his share of the Fischer payout.

Which was all very well and good. Another sign of excellence, actually. Arthur had been planning to be off the grid for at least a month more with a job as high profile and risky as that. However, this made things more complicated for Arthur, because Eames’ ability to disappear was also excellent.

Arthur wasn’t Dominic Cobb’s point man for no reason. It took him nine days, but he found out where Eames was.

Eames was back home.

As off the grid went, it was still pretty on there. It was more likely people in the dreamsharing community could have seen him and recognised him. But they hadn’t yet, which also spoke to Eames’ unfortunately extensive abilities.

~~~

London reminded Arthur of Mal. Most big cities reminded him of Mal, because Mal had loved big cities. In fact, she had loved them so much she had thrown herself off a skyscraper in her most favourite city, and therefore ruined it forever for Arthur.

Luckily, while being a big city, London held no such specific memory for him. He had been there a couple of times on jobs, but those had been quick turnarounds. His strongest memories there were of hotel rooms with grey drizzly views and bad bland hotel food. He hadn’t gone around the city at all. The drizzle and food had put him off. “That’s the best they can come up with?” he remembered asking Cobb, who had merely looked, despondent and wild-eyed as ever, at the bangers and mash they had sent up.

Arthur had pinpointed the area Eames was staying, and could have waited for him there, but he figured it would look more impressive to find him where he was. Arthur ignored the little Mal-voice that asked why he had to look impressive to Eames. It took him the rest of the afternoon to track him down for the day. He was at the Tate Modern.

Arthur scanned his ticket and stepped inside the exhibition space. He combed the exhibitions until he found Art and Media, until he found a room which consisted of a large screen flashing bright unsettling images in 0.1 second bursts at its unsuspecting audience, or so the description outside promised.

Eames looked anything but unsuspecting. His face was intent. His skin was awash with the quick flicking colours of the screen, red and yellow and neon green and red red red again. When Arthur reached him he said, low, turning his head a bit, “Ah. Arthur.”

He said it Arrrthur, actually, in that annoying way he had. “Eames,” Arthur said, determined to be polite. Arthur was always determined to be polite at the beginning of every job they worked together. Eames always brought that resolve crumbling down.

“Are you in danger, Arthur?” Eames asked.

“No,” Arthur said.

“Ah,” Eames said knowingly. “A job then.”

Because Arthur made it a point to acknowledge Eames was right as little as possible, he didn’t answer, and they both stared at the screen for a while. The quick-flash images did feel quite unsettling, but the pictures didn’t last long enough for Arthur to catch what they were and why they unsettled him. He supposed that was the point. There was only colour to remember, mauve and cobalt and red red red again, colours that pressed against his eyelids.

“Are you actually enjoying this?” he asked at last.

Out of the corner of his eye, Eames shifted a bit. “No,” he said. “But we don’t need to enjoy art to appreciate it.”

“We don’t need to waste time on art we don’t enjoy,” countered Arthur.

Eames started walking out of the room then, so Arthur followed. “It’s enough that we feel the art,” he said, still low and unbearably pretentious. “Don’t you, Arthur? Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable? Doesn’t it make you long for more, or less, or something different?”

Arthur took a quick glance back into the room as they left it. The images were still flashing and the colours were still bursting.

Out of the room, Eames was visible without neon lights washing over him. Arthur noted that his hair was slightly shorter and even though he was still wearing a terrible sports jacket over terrible cargo pants, he looked well-rested. Without preamble Arthur said: “There’s an extraction–”

“Alright,” said Eames. “Hello to you too. Anyway, I can’t make it.” He turned on his heel and started walking in the direction of the exit.

“What do you mean you can’t make it?” Arthur asked, hating that Eames made him do stupid things like rush to keep up with him.

“I’m terribly busy,” Eames said, walking down the escalator.

“You’re not exactly doing much,” Arthur observed.

“Well I am,” said Eames. “So there.”

“No you’re not.”

“Yes I am.” This was veering dangerously into playground territory, like things usually did with Eames. Arthur thought about what might sway him.

“There’s a lot of money in it,” he said, knowing it wouldn’t help much.

“I haven’t exactly managed to go into debt since we were last paid more than we’d ever need in two lifetimes, sweetheart,” Eames said, hiking stupid aviators on and walking out the glass doors.

“It’s a favour,” Arthur said, then hesitating, because he couldn’t exactly say ‘to Cobb’. Eames was probably still furious at the fact that Cobb had nearly let them spend eternity inside their own heads and walked off contentedly into the sunset and his kids after. He’d said as much in the airport bar three months ago. That was how they’d left things, snappish, which explained why Eames wasn’t immediately being teasing and flirtatious and smirky in Arthur’s general direction.

Arthur didn’t miss it, of course not. This was almost professional of Eames, which had to be an upgrade.

“Oh?” Eames said, stopping and looking at Arthur, but his face was inscrutable behind the shades. Outside, it was cool with autumn weather, watery sunlight filtering through the leaves above Eames.

“To me. I’d owe you one,” Arthur said. He didn’t know why he let Cobb make him do things like this. He had loved Mal fully and completely, but surely she wouldn’t have wanted him to lose all his dignity in this way.

“You’d owe me one,” Eames repeated, sounding slightly delighted.

The wind ruffled his hair a bit. In the watery sunlight it looked watery gold.

“Yes,” said Arthur.

Eames looked at Arthur inscrutably behind his shades, and Arthur looked back, knowing Eames would call it in at the worst time, probably one day when Arthur was reclining in a hotel room, thinking of nothing but comfort.

“Alright then,” Eames said eventually. “But either way, I can’t go now. I’ll be ready in about a month or so.”

He set off again, in the direction of the pier. Arthur set off after him, annoyed that he was continuing to be difficult, just because they’d had a disagreement. “Why can’t you be ready now?”

“I said I’m busy, darling,” Eames drawled, reaching the edge of the pier and looking out at the river.

Arthur let him stare out at the Thames for long moments before he dripped sarcasm into his voice. “Yeah, I can see work’s really piling up.”

Eames sighed and removed his glasses, folding his arms and looking directly at Arthur. “I’m not messing with you, Arthur. I do have things I need to do here. If the job’s not urgent I’ll be there in a month.” Like this, Arthur could see that his eyes were the colour of the river and the sky, that he was better-shaven than on the job but he was stubbly still, that he had gained some weight and filled out his horrid sports jacket and terrible cargo points. He looked well-rested, it was true. He looked relaxed. He did not look like he was lying.

Arthur, impatient in this grey city with the grey sky and the bad food, called his bluff anyway. “Fine.”

“Fine,” said Eames, turning back to the sunset.

“Fine,” said Arthur.

After a bit Eames narrowed his eyes at Arthur. “I see you’re not leaving.”

“I’ll hang around here,” Arthur said, not at all childishly. “Help out with the job if it makes things go faster.”

“You’ll hang around here,” Eames repeated blankly.

“Why not?” Arthur asked. “I could use a change of pace. I haven’t seen much of this place.” He waved a hand at the Thames, signifying the city.

Eames suddenly looked considering, one eyebrow raised. He shrugged, and Arthur could see the beginnings of amusement in his eyes. “I could use your help, actually,” he said. His tone had changed too: lighter, more like the unprofessional behaviour Arthur knew and did not love.

Arthur had done his research. He knew Eames didn’t have dreamsharing work in London. “Let’s go, then,” he said, hoping Eames would give this up sooner rather than later, admit he didn’t actually have a job and let Arthur get started on his last Cobb favour.

In answer, Eames started heading down a flight of stairs on the pier that led to the riverbank. Arthur scowled. He could see stones and sand, pigeons excited to shit all over his Saville Row. He followed him down anyway.

Eames stood on the riverbank, dirty filthy water nearly reaching his lumberjack boots. He bent down to pick up a pebble. Arthur kept his distance as Eames skipped it smoothly on the surface, tap tap tap splash. “You’re going to love London, darling,” he called back to Arthur, picking up another pebble. “I’ll take you around and everything.”

~~~

Eames took him back to his place in Richmond, the flat that Arthur had scoped out already. It was in a nice neighbourhood, and the apartment itself was woodsy and rich, dark plush furniture and paintings that swirled warmly.

“So what is it?” Arthur said, getting impatient. They’d taken the tube. Arthur massively disliked the tube. It was hot and sweaty and next time they were taking a car, but Eames had insisted on an authentic London experience. “Who’s it involve?”

“Patience, sweetheart. You’ll see,” Eames told him, stripping off the sports jacket and revealing an awful brown t-shirt underneath. It was ripped, but not artfully, like a designer had planned it, more like mice had gotten into his closet. “We’re going there now.”

“You could try being less mysterious,” Arthur suggested.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Eames asked.

Honestly it felt kind of ridiculous, because Arthur knew there was no job. But he kind of wanted to see where Eames would bring him, how Eames would play it out, how eventually he would say You win darling and Arthur could drag him back to LA in satisfaction, because Eames brought out that incredibly petty side of him.

Eames took him for a walk around the neighbourhood. They were in the cool dark air, streetlights washing over them glowingly, time and time again. Little noises emanated from the flats they passed, sounds of dinners and nightly routines and familiarity. “Eames,” Arthur said, after exactly eighteen minutes of walking.

“It’s just here, Arthur,” Eames said. This seemed nonsensical. They crossed a playground. Eames walked up to a blue door and knocked.

Arthur began to reconsider. Perhaps they really was a job, an up and coming extractor, a new team. Sure, Eames hadn’t taken jobs like that before, small ones without the chance of big payouts, but maybe he was rolling with it now he was rolling in it.

A woman opened the door. She was heavily pregnant.

Before Arthur had a chance to gape, she was looking at Eames, saying, “Finally!” and leaned out of the door to kiss him on the cheek, before cuffing him gently about the head. “You said you’d be here an hour ago.”

She was very pretty, with wavy chestnut hair and large eyes and the same sort of carelessness of manner as Eames had, her posture easy and her gestures expansive.

“I was waylaid,” Eames said, after kissing the top of her head and tilting his head at Arthur.

“Oh, hello, come in!” Eames’s girlfriend? wife? pregnant with his child? said to Arthur, smiling brightly at him. “Who’s this?” she added to Eames as she turned to go back in.

“This is Arthur,” Eames said, stretching it out again, and levelling a grin at Arthur before following her into the flat. “He’ll be joining us for dinner.”

Arthur wasn’t sure how he was feeling. Appalled, slightly, of course, that Eames flirted like a madman and especially with Arthur and there had been times even–once or twice–after a job that they had looked at each other, exhilarated and knowing, and something in Eames eyes had softened and Arthur hadn’t known what to make of it and–well! He knew what to make of it now.

This selection of thoughts happened in quick succession and he was moving across the threshold, into a cosy, warm sort of place that smelled of spaghetti and contained Eames, sitting in a messy living room with what looked like a two-or-three year old clinging to his leg.

Two kids. The things one could keep from co-workers they’d known for years–Arthur hadn’t seen it crop up, even once. The child, golden-haired and babbling, was trying to climb onto Eames’s lap, and he was smiling down at her and talking to her lowly and adoringly. Arthur wrenched his eyes away. He tried not to stare, feeling his stomach churn. Instead he moved left, into the kitchen where the spaghetti was boiling and the woman stirred at it.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m Arthur.”

“I’m Rosie,” she said, turning to stick a hand out. “Sorry the house doesn’t look great–Will didn’t tell me he was bringing anyone–”

“Sounds like him,” he said, and Rosie grinned. “It looks great, don’t worry about it.”

Her gaze turned considering, and she looked a lot like Eames when it happened. Eames had married(?) a second him, of course he had, the self-absorbed dickhead. “You work with Will?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Arthur uncomfortably, wondering how much she knew about dreamsharing. “We–work–we’ve worked together. I was in town.”

“Hmmm,” she said slowly. “He’s never brought anyone back. You really must be special.”

“Oh,” said Arthur. He tried to look across to Eames for help, but Eames was already looking back at Rosie, with an expression that looked like exasperation. Why had Eames brought him back, anyway? Sure, he and Arthur were acquaintances, almost friends, but Arthur hadn’t even heard he had two kids. Eames had kept it from everyone, and well and good for him too, you never knew who you could trust. He’d probably brought him back here tonight probably because he wanted to one-up Arthur who was ridiculously following him in London about a job, showing him look I have a life, what can you say to that? Well, he’d won. Arthur was hightailing it out of here tonight, because this was just weird.

Eames stood up. “Arthur,” he said. “I see you’ve met Rosie. And this is Lily.” Lily squirmed happily in his arms and stuck out her hand. Arthur had to exit the kitchen and head to the sofa to take it.

“This is Arthur,” Eames said to Lily, turning his head to kiss her cheek. “Say hi Arthur.”

“Hi Ar-fur,” Lily said. Arthur was helplessly charmed by this. “Hello, Lily,” he said seriously.

“He’s come to ask me to go back to work and leave you alone,” Eames said sadly to her.

Arthur hadn’t known he’d had a kid. “I didn’t know you had a kid,” he said, while Lily reached up to touch Eames’s hair. “Unca Wew,” she babbled, which just sounded like nonsense.

“Yes, Lily,” Eames cooed. “Evil Arthur’s taking Uncle Will away from you.”

“Uncle,” Arthur said inadvertently. Eames looked up at him before he could school his features into a neutral expression, and his mouth curved up into a wicked grin. “Why, Arthur,” he said, drawing it out longer than ever, “who did you think I was to Lily?”

“I wasn’t sure,” Arthur said, glaring.

“Perhaps I should have specified. I see you’ve met my sister, Rosie, and this is my niece, Lily,” Eames announced, too amused for his own good.

Rosie called from the kitchen and through a cloud of steam, “Stop teasing him. You know you should have said.”

“Though I find it slightly offensive,” Eames continued, looking at Arthur, “that you thought I was frequently jetsetting around the world away from my wife and child, with another one on the way. I’ve worked with you four times over the last year.”

“I wasn’t thinking that,” Arthur lied.

“You wound me, Arthur,” Eames informed him, grey eyes quite serious. Arthur had no idea if he’d really offended him or not.

“William,” Rosie said. “Be nice. And come and eat.”

They sat around the dining table, Lily in the high chair kicking her little legs out. The spaghetti was slightly overcooked but the sauce was warm and rich, and Arthur hadn’t had anything to eat all day. Eames and Rosie bickered at each other lightly. Arthur could see it now, the similarities in their features and manner: their storm-coloured eyes, the drawl, their sarcasm and clear affection for each other.

“Have you known Will long, Arthur?” Rosie asked speculatively.

“Years,” Arthur said. “On and off.”

“We work together a lot,” Eames said, throwing a quelling look at Rosie. Perhaps he didn’t want her to know about the work. “Arthur’s here to offer me another job.”

“Sorry it has to wait,” Rosie said apologetically. “Will promised he’d stay here until the baby’s born, which hopefully is in about three weeks as my feet can’t take it anymore. My husband’s stuck in Switzerland and he won’t be able to be here in time.”

“That’s very… kind of him,” Arthur said.

Eames smiled smugly at this, as if he knew what it took for Arthur to admit this in public. “I know it is,” he said, preening. “I am in fact an extremely excellent brother.”

“So,” Rosie said innocently. “Arthur, this is actually quite novel. I’m sure friends of Will have been in town before and he’s never brought them to dinner.”

“It’s just dinner,” Eames said.

“Is it?” Rosie asked.

“It’s not like that,” Eames said, annoyed now. “Arthur’s a friend I trust. That’s rare.”

“Is he,” Rosie said, emphasizing the words.

Eames threw a look up to the heavens. Arthur swallowed another forkful of spaghetti. Rosie said, “I’m messing with you, Willy,” and ruffled his hair. Eames turned to throw another exasperated look at Arthur, like he was in on it with him.

Arthur realised he’d never seen Eames like this: fond, affectionate, loose and relaxed. On a job there was always the element of danger and Arthur saw it in the line of his shoulders, the glint in his eyes, and appreciated knowing there was someone else who was keeping an eye out, just like he always was. But now Eames was feeding Lily carefully, using a thumb to wipe the food dribbling down her chin, and kicking at his sister’s chair. He looked at home here. It was something Arthur did not know how to process. It felt nonsensically like something inside him, not Eames, had been exposed to the world.

~~~

Arthur, having helped wash the dishes, opened the door to Eames sitting on the front steps. Eames quirked a brow and scooted slightly to the side, so Arthur sat down beside him.

“Thanks for the help with the dishes,” Arthur said pointedly.

“I helped with dinner,” Eames said blithely.

Arthur held off the Barely and instead accused him, “You said you had work here.”

“Did I?” Eames asked, turning towards him slightly. “I remember saying I was busy, and I had things to do here.” Thoughtfully, he decided, “I believe you implied that it was a job, darling.”

“Whatever,” Arthur said, feeling just slightly foolish about sounding like a teenager. “Anyway. I should get back.”

There was a little pause.

“Should you?” Eames asked. “You said you’d…” He made a little humming sound. “Hang around here. Help out with the job.”

“Well,” Arthur said. “There is no job.”

“I could still use some help.” Eames grinned rakishly, then it faded. “It’d only be a few weeks, and then we’d get on with it. I could show you around the city,” he said, looking down suddenly, up at Arthur again inscrutably. He ran his hand through his hair, looking unfairly good in the lamplight, softer, almost more uncertain. “You said you hadn’t seen much of it.”

Arthur didn’t know what he was thinking. He was thinking, though, of how the Cobb job could wait, it wasn’t urgent. How he did perhaps want to go to Saville Row itself, about how the city was grey but curious in the autumn light. How Eames looked in this apartment, easy and familiar and familial, and how perhaps it was strange, surreal, something he’d like to see more of.

He said, “I guess I haven’t.”

~~~

Back in the hotel room, in the shower, he considered what he’d agreed to, which was nothing at all. Rosie had retired to bed, complaining that her back was killing her, and Eames had started to tend to a fussing Lily.

“You don’t have to leave now,” he had told Arthur.

“I don’t want to get in the way,” Arthur said.

Lily sniffled in Eames’s arms. He bounced her a little and looked at Arthur, something fond in it. “You’re never in the way, darling.”

Lily let out a little cry. Arthur said, “Put her to bed.”

Eames had asked, “Do you have a hotel?”

“Yes.”

“Okay then,” Eames said. Very casually, he said, “I’ll see you soon?”

Arthur said, “I still need a tour guide,” and watched Eames smile. It had felt like more than a goodnight. He stepped out of the shower and changed into soft, silk pyjamas, settled himself into the bed.

The room was smaller than his last one, and it was sleeker, more modern. It had a mounted television and large, floor-to-ceiling windows. Arthur turned on his side and looked out the window at the calm expanse of city lights. At night London wasn’t grey and dreary; at night it was like any other big city. He supposed a couple of weeks here wouldn’t be so bad.

Arthur wondered if Eames was asleep, perhaps collapsed onto the futon, perhaps back in his own bed in his own apartment. He realised he’d essentially agreed to be taken around the city by him. Eames, forger extraordinaire, flirt and friend and bane of Arthur’s life. Taken around like it was–some kind of–like he was stepping out into town with his gentleman caller, or something. Arthur rolled back onto his back and stared up at the dark ceiling.

Probably it was because Eames had thrown him off today with the familyness of it all. Eames was usually sharp-edged like Arthur and usually thrived in loud casinos and bare-knuckled brawls and chaotic dreamscapes, and seeing him today so easy and relaxed, Arthur just hadn’t recovered from it. But Eames would take him to a few overpriced tourist attractions, flirt and be ignored by Arthur, be familiar and uncomplicated to banter with, and then they’d go back to work, to the dynamic Arthur knew and knew well.

~~~

Arthur woke up to his phone ringing. He mumbled something incomprehensible and squinted at the caller ID.

“Eames,” he mumbled.

“Rise and shine!” Eames said chirpily. “Lily woke me up at six so now you’re up too. I’ll see you at the National Gallery at ten.” He hung up.

Arthur checked the time. Six fifteen. Bane of Arthur’s life, constant sigh caught in his throat. He set an alarm blearily and went back to sleep.

At nine fifty seven he was waiting at the entrance for Eames, who turned up at ten fifteen.

“Arthur!” he said. He was wearing a shirt with large orange stripes down the sides, and his linen pants brushed against the floor. His hair was slicked back today.

“You’re late,” said Arthur.

Eames smiled a bit. “I wasn’t expecting you to show up.”

“Why not?”

“I thought I was going to have to drag you from your hotel room,” said Eames. He looked Arthur up and down, slow and considering. “Come on, then.”

Eames wandered from room to room, asking Arthur things like, “Do you like this one?” and watching Arthur closely as he said “No,” and “It’s interesting,” and “I guess.” They passed Vermeer, Titian, Cézanne. Arthur liked Gossart, squinted at Monet, and paused in front of Matisse’s Portrait of Greta Moll. Greta stared somewhere off-right, sleeves rolled up and one elbow leaning against the table. She looked casual and impatient and restless, something about her spirit captured even through the broad brushstrokes.

“It’s like she’s about to speak,” Arthur said. “Like she’s about to say ‘are we done already?’”

Eames huffed a little laugh. Arthur felt him, against his side, a warm bulky breathing presence. Eames always smelled like something light and woodsy, something clean and attractive. “Is that your favourite so far?” he asked.

“Yes,” Arthur said. Eventually, he asked, “What do you like?”

“Hrm,” Eames said. He rubbed a hand against his scruff, the scratchy sound louder in the quiet room. He brought Arthur up the stairs to Room 43. Johan Barthold Jongkind’s River Scene hung there and looked back at them.

Something about the scene was mournful: the darker colours, the singular man over the boat. Boats were on the riverbank and a ship was in the distance, everything bathed in colours that felt like evening. Arthur thought of the end of a long day.

“It’s peaceful,” Eames said.

“It’s lonely,” Arthur said.

They watched the painting.

“Maybe he’s setting off into the sunset,” Eames said. “Or maybe he’s cleaning up and going home.” He made a soft humming sound. “Don’t you wonder? It’s all up to him.”

Later, they went to a kebab shop a few streets down. There were only four tables there and it was dimly lit and smelled a lot like sanitiser, but it was the best kebab Arthur had ever had. Eames rubbed some mayonnaise off his own cheek with his thumb, said smugly, “I knew you’d like it.”

“Uh huh,” said Arthur, unable to speak articulately around a mouthful of delicious doner.

“I’m going to make you love London,” Eames said, self-satisfied. “You’re going to want to come here all the time.”

“Mm-mm,” Arthur said, in lieu of Yeah sure. But I will admit this food is incredible and I might come back just for it.

“So,” Eames said, casually after a few more bites, “how’s Cobb?”

Arthur stiffened, just a bit. Cobb, the reason they’d left each other irritated the last time. “Doing fine,” he said. “With his kids.”

“Working?” Eames asked.

“Eames,” Arthur said warningly.

“He should never work again,” Eames said shortly. “If it were anyone else… I wouldn’t be able to trust them again.”

This was the point in the airport bar where Arthur, head still full of Mal’s manic eyes, her familiar voice, the thought of her children, had snapped, You wouldn’t understand why he did it. Eames had turned cold, said snidely, My well of sympathy ran dry when he nearly drove us insane doing it.

“I know,” was what Arthur said now. If it had been anyone else Arthur would have driven them out of the industry. He stabbed furiously at a chip. “I know.”

Eames watched him but didn’t press it, somehow knew not to press it.

~~~

On Tuesday Eames took him to the British Museum. He spent most of his time pointing out displays that were easier to steal than others. “It’s all okay,” he said to Arthur, “they’re all stolen anyway.” Arthur learned three new ways of getting past CCTV cameras after a museum was closed, watching Eames’ plush mouth murmur illegal ideas delightedly at him, and considered it time well-spent.

On Wednesday he took him to the London Zoo. They spent most of their time with the bats, the rainforest enclosure. It was damp and humid there, made Arthur think of Singapore, or Indonesia. He liked the bats. They were soft, furry things and once in a while they’d swoop over Arthur’s head. Eames enquired after the sloth and the spiders and spent a lot of time watching the rats scampering on the jungle floor.

On Thursday they went to the cinema. (“I thought we were going to Odeon,” Arthur said. He looked down at the dusty carpets and up the water stain he saw on the low ceiling. “Dream bigger,” Eames said, and led him into a little hall with only four faded rows that smelled of stale popcorn.) The opening credits to In A Lonely Place started playing, and Eames settled back, mouthing along happily, “Dix Steele, how are you?” To Arthur, he said, like a well-loved secret, “I used to come here after school.” Arthur thought of a younger Eames in his uniform, amongst these faded seats, large-eyed, wondering, amazed at the screen. Dreaming.

~~~

On Friday Arthur woke up without a call from Eames. Bleary-eyed, he texted him: No touristing today?

Eames replied rosie has checkup 2day gotta take her

Arthur’s fingers hovered over the screen. He typed back Who’s watching Lily?

Eames said, she was gonna come w us but if ur volunteering 2 babysit

Arthur didn’t have anything on, so he said out loud, “Okay.” He typed Okay.

Eames replied ???????? which didn’t make any sense so Arthur got his clothes on and ordered a car over to Rosie’s house. Eames opened the door, Lily at his heels. He squinted at Arthur, squinting a little more, looking a little like Cobb with all the squinting. Arthur considered telling him that, but Eames, who could hold a grudge against dangerous incompetence, would probably not appreciate it very much.

“Ar-fur,” Lily greeted him, while Eames squinted.

This seemed to jolt him into speech. “You’re actually… babysitting.”

Arthur shrugged. “I babysit Cobb’s kids all the time. Hi, Lily.”

Rosie shouted, “Who’s that?”

“Arthur’s come to babysit,” Eames called over his shoulder, then turned back to do more squinting at Arthur.

“Has he!” Rosie said. “Why didn’t you tell me? That’s so nice Arthur. Lily hates the doctor’s office, I was already gearing up for a spectacular meltdown… come in. Will, let him in, why are you still out there?”

Eames pressed against the wall for Arthur to enter. Rosie came out, her bump looking even bigger, if that was possible, and started reeling off a list about Lily: lunch, playtime, nap, favourite toys, no sweets after four. “We’ll only be a couple of hours,” she said, “but just in case the waiting is longer…” Arthur nodded and kept up. Eames trailed after them, still quiet.

“Lily, sweetie,” he said, after Rosie had grabbed her keys, thanked Arthur again, and headed out to the car, “be good for Arthur. No messes please, he’ll have a breakdown.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. Eames bent down to kiss her on top of her soft golden head, then straightened up, quite close to Arthur. He still looked vaguely puzzled, like he was trying to figure something out.

“Pizza’s in the fridge. No boys over, young lady,” he said after a moment, the corner of his ridiculous mouth curling up. Arthur rolled his eyes again with emphasis.

“Say bye bye now Lily,” he said, sinking down cross-legged on the carpet with her. She waved up at Eames and tugged at Arthur’s wrist, pointing at the box of blocks she wanted him to unpack for her.

“Don’t miss me too much, darling,” Eames said, walking away.

~~~

Lily was a very charming child, stacking blocks up on top of each other and making noises that were sometimes words at Arthur. “See, Ar-fur,” she said, constantly, waving a hand, so Arthur saw her construct a tall castle-like structure, ride a toy pony crashing through it with Eamesian dramatics. She took her lunch without fuss and watched an episode of Creatures of the Sea fascinatedly after, clapping at dark underwater images of the giant squid. Arthur studied her and thought she had Rosie’s brown curls, and her eyes–Rosie’s eyes, Eames’s eyes, stormy and grey-green and bright with intelligence.

But even very charming children realised that their mother and uncle had been gone for almost two hours, and began to cry about it.

“Oh, Lily,” Arthur said. “I know. They’ll be back soon.”

“Mama,” she sobbed heartrendingly. “Unca Wew.”

Arthur took her in his arms. She went trustingly, but continued to cry. “Do you want to go to the playground, Lily?” She shook her head. “No? Yeah, it’s probably naptime, isn’t it?” He got up and started bouncing her gently like he’d seen Eames do. She wailed and wailed.

It reminded him of Philippa. It reminded him of Philippa, younger and fretful, with Mal saying “Arthur, she hasn’t stopped crying for ages!” and looking close to tears herself. Arthur had stayed with Philippa until she’d stopped crying, her sobbing turning into hiccups, while Mal had snored on the sofa, drooling and relieved of her duties for a blessed few hours. He’d stayed with James, too, and now he stayed with Lily, missing Mal abstractly and tiredly.

She fell asleep, finally, and three and a half hours after they’d left, Eames and Rosie returned. Rosie made noises of gratitude, telling Arthur everything was fine medically, but she also seemed exhausted, going to the room and announcing that she was putting her feet up and no one disturb her until dinner please.

Eames stood there levelling that considering look he’d been using a lot on Arthur lately. “I didn’t know you still babysat Cobb’s kids.”

Eames had known Mal, but distantly; he’d only known her through Cobb and work. Mal had stayed home more after the kids were born. He’d known that Arthur had been her best friend, or at least he’d known they were close. The first job they worked after her death, he’d offered Cobb his condolences, but in a quiet moment he’d also told Arthur he was sorry.

Sometimes Arthur had complained about working with Eames to Mal. Mal had rolled her eyes and said “Oh, Arthur,” and asked for a dossier on him. After looking through it she’d just said, “Oh, Arthur, oh, Arthur,” and from then on would just smile at him teasingly, smile at him like she was happy whenever Arthur complained. If she could see him now, in London, in Eames’s territory, smiling over his niece… but she couldn’t. Whatever thoughts she’d gotten into her ridiculous romantic head, she was gone now, and Arthur was still here.

“Yeah,” Arthur said. Suddenly it felt too warm in the cluttered living room, and he forced himself not to loosen his tie. He needed the coolness of his hotel room.

“We owe you dinner,” Eames said, propped against the wall with his shoulder. His hands were shoved in his jeans; his head was bent, looking up at Arthur in a way that was very unprofessional, very inviting.

“Actually I’m going to head back,” Arthur said, picking up his jacket and avoiding his eyes. “I’ll pick up something on the way.”

“Oh. Hmm.” Eames shoved himself upright and didn’t argue, like Arthur had thought he maybe would. “Okay, Arthur.”

~~~

On Saturday Eames didn’t text him. Arthur lay in bed until eleven, which was unlike him, and ordered himself breakfast. It was an English Breakfast, whatever that meant, and the eggs were kind of runny, which Arthur didn’t like, and the sausages were slightly too salty for his taste. Arthur had gotten used to his English meals over the past couple of days being little places where Eames knew the owners, where he would moan around mouthfuls and try not to blush at Eames watching him do it. Eames knew what he liked, that was what happened when you’d worked with each other coming up six years, and he’d been taken Arthur places he knew Arthur would enjoy.

Eames. Arthur turned his head and groaned into his pillow. This was why he kept his distance. He’d always known Eames meant danger. The bane of Arthur’s life, that’s what he was. It was all very well and good when Mal had been alive and it was a distant, maybe sort of delightful possibility to unravel, maybe in an abandoned warehouse when the rest of the team were taking the day off, maybe celebrating a job well done with whiskey in a dimly lit room…

But now Mal was gone, and Arthur couldn’t forget it, couldn’t forget the day he’d gotten the call and gone blank all over. He’d loved Mal so fully and completely and he hadn’t ever loved anyone like that before her, and he’d always known–so had Mal–that if he allowed himself to, he would love Eames like that, except even fiercer, even fuller, with everything he had inside him. If a call like that came for Eames he would not be able to deal with it. He just wouldn’t.

~~~

On Sunday Eames called. “How do you feel about Camden?” he asked, sort of formally. He hadn’t really asked before. He’d demanded Arthur’s presence at the museum, the gallery, the cinema.

“I don’t know much about Camden,” Arthur told him.

“Would you like to know more?” Eames asked very neutrally.

Arthur took a deep breath. Eames, neutral and asking, and Arthur was in too deep for no. “A tour guide would help.”

Camden was touristy and busy and sunny and noisy, full of bright stalls and small shops that promised a multitude of things from inside its doors. They walked along the market and Arthur peered at colourful little knickknacks that he wanted to take home to either his mantelpiece or Philippa. Eames pored over the covers of books with spines that looked like they were crumbling. Arthur eventually lost him in an antique store and he came out carrying a heavy long bronze giraffe, its neck as long as his arm.

“This reminded me of you, darling! Look at how graceful and slender it is!” he exclaimed to Arthur, who resolutely refused to help him carry it home. Eames called him cruel and impetuously bought a shopping trolley to cart it along.

“You know, I don’t really mean to rag on Cobb,” Eames said later in the day, the giraffe trailing behind him patiently, Arthur pretending it wasn’t there. He caught the look on Arthur’s face and amended, “Or, I do. I really do. It’s just that it’s not just him. It’s other people he’s risking, being in that frame of mind.”

“Yeah, I know,” Arthur said, squinting away from the late afternoon sun and into Eames’s direction. He did know. Eames was full of bullshit that drove Arthur wild for a myriad of reasons, but he was excellent, always professional, and Arthur trusted him with his body and his mind. Perhaps now that Cobb had done what he had, Eames was the only one he trusted with his body and his mind. “You can’t trust him. He put you in danger.”

“He put you in danger, Arthur,” Eames said. He was looking fully at Arthur, storm-eyes steady and eyelashes tinged gold; Arthur swallowed and looked back. “And I’m not very known for playing it safe, but surely you know by now that’s a risk I’m not willing to take.”

Arthur swallowed again.

The moment held.

Eames’ phone rang.

“What? Rose, what?” he said. He looked urgent and intense, capable. Arthur took in a breath as the moment dissipated. “Okay. Okay. I’ll be there.” He hung up and fumbled with his screen. “I think she’s in labour.”

“I’ll stay with Lily,” Arthur said. Eames nodded at him distractedly and gratefully. When the car came he left his trolley behind in his hurry, so Arthur trailed it patiently after himself; Eames turned around and almost collided with him.

“Arthur, you remembered,” he said, grabbing at the handle and smiling at him, the look bright and completely focused. “What would I do without you.”

~~~

Rosie was not in labour. It was false labour, Braxton Hicks contractions, and they returned home in the late evening. Lily had been coaxed to the park, begging Arthur to push her higher and higher on the swings, so she had hardly noticed their absence. She ran up and to her mother, grabbing at her leg. Rosie ruffled her hair and took her hand.

“She’s supposed to be on bed rest,” Eames said. “Rose, get in there right now.”

“I just want this thing out,” Rosie said bleakly, looking down at her belly.

They got her settled in her bedroom and she lay there, complaining once in a while about her back and her feet and her bladder and the general unfairness of the world. Eames, clearly trying to distract her, talked about the nurse who had given him directions to someone else’s room and how he’d entered the room to a wide-eyed woman and her husband, who screamed at him in Italian to leave.

“What are you planning to call him?” Arthur asked, after Eames had exhausted his stories and Rosie looked more exasperatedly amused than frustratedly exasperated.

“Will,” Rosie said, smiling.

Eames frowned. “You know I hate that name.”

“Well if you won’t use it anymore, I might as well give it to this kid,” Rosie said, unperturbed. To Arthur, she said, “William Walliams wasn’t a very good look for Mum and Dad, I’ll give him that.”

Arthur pressed his lips together, stifling the smile, but it wasn’t as if he hadn’t known Eames’s unfortunate given name. Eames glanced at him, grimaced, and mumbled to Lily, who was sitting on his lap, “Hope your brother stays in there for another week. See how Mama likes that.”

~~~

When Rosie fell asleep, Eames started making dinner. Arthur realised he hadn’t really seen him cook before. He did it like he did most things, extravagant and intuitive, pouring salt and pepper into the pot without measuring it out, swiping gravy off the ladle with a finger and tasting it. He looked over at Arthur while he was doing this. Arthur heaved a sigh, looking heavenward. Eames laughed.

“You’re good with Lily,” Eames said. “She likes you.” Arthur was nodding as Lily drew on a pad, nudging her crayons away from the wood of the table. She was explaining her creations to him, gesticulating wildly.

“I like her,” Arthur said.

“She’s going to miss you,” Eames said offhandedly, ladling food into bowls. “You could visit again.”

Arthur determinedly kept his eyes on Lily’s crayons. “Wouldn’t be safe, both of us coming here more. It wouldn’t be safe for them.”

Eames considered this and visibly dismissed it. “We’re competent. We know how to cover our tracks. You know nobody knows we’re here.”

“Is it really a good idea, when we’re in this business?” Arthur asked.

“So we shouldn’t live our lives at all because of our work, darling?” Eames’s tone was light but there was an undercurrent to it that Arthur recognised from moments like How’s Cobb? Arthur still didn’t look up. He said, “I’m saying we should take precautions because of our work.”

“That seems unfair to us.” Eames sounded firm and Arthur could imagine it, he’d seen Eames go tense before, his eyes sharp and his jaw set. It no longer sounded like they were talking about visiting Lily.

“It’s better than losing people you care about.”

“Ah, Arthur,” Eames said, quietly. “So this is what it’s about.” The temperature of the room had changed. Arthur felt cold.

“Eames,” he said, a very quiet warning.

“I know she’s gone, Arthur, but we’re still here.” Eames’s voice was low and rough.

“Eames. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Mal’s gone,” Eames said, volume rising very slightly, “but I’m here Arthur, and you’re here, and we’re here. Can’t we even talk about–”

“It’s not just that,” Arthur said, looking up. Eames had come closer. The counter separated them, only the counter and nothing but the counter. “I’ll never be able to tell her about it. She was my best friend.” It felt awful saying was, and he hadn’t exactly been able to confide in wild-eyed despondent Dom Cobb, so it was the first time he had said it out loud to someone. He forced the words out anyway. “She was my best friend, and now she’s gone.”

Eames just watched him, eyes creased and all fight gone, looking almost tender. Arthur almost couldn’t stand it. “So you see,” he said, but didn’t know how to finish his sentence.

“So I see,” Eames said anyway.

In the long silence that ensued Lily, perhaps sensing that there was something wrong, started fussing. Eames came around and put bowls on the table. Arthur’s stomach rumbled; he still felt slightly sick. Eames sat beside Lily, opposite Arthur, and started feeding her, talking to her in low, soothing tones. “Sweetheart,” he was saying, “no really, it’s okay, drink this soup, I slaved over it. I learned this recipe from your grandmother, you know. I know you prefer your dad feeding you but he’ll be back soon and for now you’ve got me and my woefully inadequate soup. Sorry about that. Look, Arthur’s eating too.”

Arthur put a spoon to his mouth automatically. But the soup was good and warm and hearty, chicken broth that made him want more. After a while he took another spoonful.

“There, there,” Eames said, “Arthur’s eating too. And he likes it.”

“I like it,” Arthur admitted.

“Look, Lily-girl, your Uncle Will’s done it again,” Eames said. He was talking to Lily still, but his voice was calm and steady, his words nonsensical, glances thrown Arthur’s way as if he was trying to soothe him as well. “Really, Lily, is there anything I can’t do? I’m going to teach you all I know, too, don’t worry. Pick a lock and everything, but don’t tell your mother.”

“Pick a lock,” Lily repeated perfectly.

“Aw, Lil,” Eames said. “What did I just say?”

Arthur wished he didn’t feel better. Eames not pushing, Eames just there, Eames who had cooked him dinner. Eames who was being soothing and sweet, Eames who knew how to love a child, Eames who was being unfailingly patient with him. If he didn’t feel better, then Eames wouldn’t be able to infiltrate his defences like this.

~~~

In his hotel room Arthur called Cobb. London was eight hours ahead, so Cobb sounded chirpy when he asked, “Arthur? What’s wrong?” Voices shrieked in the background.

“Nothing. Eames is finishing up with some work. We’ll be there in about three weeks,” Arthur said.

“That’s fine,” Cobb said. “I told you it wasn’t a rush. Did you call to talk to the kids?”

Arthur hadn’t really, but he found himself saying “Yeah, yeah.” Cobb shouted into the distance, “Arthur’s on the phone!”

James got on first. “Uncle Arthur!” he said. “When are you coming back?”

“Very soon, buddy,” said Arthur. James told him about the Lego set he’d just gotten, and the new kite, and the telescope set. Privately Arthur thought Cobb was spoiling them slightly too much–Mal would never have stood for it–but he supposed as Cobb hadn’t seen them in a year, it was fine.

“It’s my turn!” Philippa was saying from some distance away.

“Bye Uncle Arthur,” James said quickly. “Come back soon.”

“Very soon,” Arthur promised again. Philippa came on. “Uncle Arthur,” she said. “I miss you.”

Arthur loved these children, not only because of Mal, but because he loved these children. He had rocked them both to sleep. James had banged his knee up for the first time and wailed “Uncle Arthur!”, high and pained. Philippa had taken her first steps toward Mal, but then she’d turned unsteadily towards him.

It had been hard for Arthur to visit them over the past year: he admitted this to himself now. Philippa had Cobb’s rare wide sunny smile but she also had Mal’s eyes, her way of tucking her hair back behind her ear. James accidentally spoke French sometimes because Mal had communicated with them almost exclusively in it. When Arthur had visited, he had had to turn away from them a lot so they wouldn’t see his face. It was easier not to visit.

“I miss you, Phil,” he found himself saying. “I’ll see you in about three weeks, I promise.”

“Dad is being weird,” she complained. “He keeps giving us stuff.”

“Shouldn’t turn your nose up at free stuff,” Arthur said.

“He got me a Barbie!” she said. “I’m seven.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Arthur assured her.

She told him about school and her friends and Marie, who dropped by at unexpected times to suspiciously check on Cobb’s parenting skills. Arthur sympathised with her over a particularly strict teacher, told her that an argument with a friend would blow over, and laughed a little over Marie, who was fond of Arthur and still texted him time to time. He said goodbye and told her he loved her. He went to sleep thinking Mal, you did something right. Mal, they’re still here.

~~~

At eight the next morning Arthur called Eames.

“Arthur?” Eames rumbled, voice sleep-rough. “Arthur,” he said, going from sleepy to worried, “are you alright?”

“People keep asking me that,” Arthur said. “Have I not been alright?”

Eames chuckled, warm, in his ear. “Not really, darling,” he said.

“Well,” Arthur said. “I was just wondering if you would like to go out today.”

“Where?” asked Eames.

Arthur had done some research. Eames probably knew this place, but Arthur wanted to take him to it. He sent Eames the location.

“Okay,” said Eames, his voice giving nothing away. “I’ll be there.”

Arthur knew Eames, with all his artist’s soul, loved poetry. Arthur knew that once in a run-through Eames had dreamt up the sea, drifting in a little boat, book in his hand while Arthur had waited out Cobb in another level. Arthur had seen the painting Eames liked in the Tate.

Arthur knew this wasn’t close, but he turned up at the canal at two. Eames was already there, inscrutable under his shades, wearing a bright pink shirt with palm trees on it, loose pants that were probably only held up with suspenders and luck. “What is this place, darling?” he asked.

“It’s a small library on a boat,” Arthur said, shrugging. “A community thing. I thought you’d like to read, maybe. Later there’ll be kids from school. But it’s quiet in the mornings and afternoons, it’s out of the way.” On the boat there was a wooden platform with sunchairs and pillows, to read. The sun streamed wispily down on them.

“Hmm,” Eames said. He ducked into the boat. Arthur waited, listening to the animated voices inside: Eames and the woman who owned the little library.

Fifteen minutes later he came out, shades off and with a slim blue book in his hand. He was grinning. “Arthur,” he said, “do you know what they have?” Arthur didn’t get to know what they had, because Eames leapt onto the platform and threw himself down onto the platform, sliding a cushion under his head. He opened the book up.

Arthur ducked inside the boat and smiled at the woman. Books littered the counter, the shelves, the carpet, her arms; books clearly well-beloved and well taken care of. He spent his time selecting something familiar, smiling at Khadijah–her tag read–when she said, nodding at his choice of book, “Classic.”

Settling down in the deck chair beside Eames and looking out at the canal, Arthur observed the trees in the park on one canal bank, and back gardens of houses on the other. His gaze drifted down. Eames was so still and heavy-lidded Arthur would have thought he was asleep, if it hadn’t been turning a page every so often.

He looked calm, peaceful. He did not look lonely. Arthur looked down at his own book.

And wishes, had he any?

Just his sigh, accented,

Had been legible to me.

And was he confident until

Ill fluttered out in everlasting well?

Out of the corner of his eye, Eames placed his slim volume of poetry down on his chest. “Do you want to hear a bit of it?” he asked.

“Sure,” Arthur said.

Eames picked it up again and began to read, voice low like a secret.

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,

don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty

of lives and whole towns destroyed or about

to be. We are not wise, and not very often

kind. And much can never be redeemed.”

He did hesitate then, looking up at Arthur, something indecipherable in his eyes. Arthur kept still, head slightly turned toward him.

“Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this

is its way of fighting back, that sometimes

something happens better than all the riches

or power in the world. It could be anything,

but very likely you notice it in the instant…”

Eames took a breath and continued steadily, “In the instant

when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case.

Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid

of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.”

Eames stopped reading. A moment later, he turned the page, eyes still firmly on the book.

The sky above him was clear and he looked so safe and solid, his large hands steady, his jaw so well-cut. He looked painfully handsome, lying there like a figure in a painting, one of the classics lovingly rendered. He’d waited for Arthur and he was waiting more, patient with it and letting Arthur come to him.

“Eames,” Arthur said, rough.

“Arthur,” Eames said gently. “It’s really all right.”

Arthur was afraid. He knew he was. He wanted to be. Joy would never be a crumb for him. When he allowed himself to love Eames he would do it fully and completely. This was a scary, scary thing. The call in the middle of the night, the things the people you loved could leave behind. Arthur knew the real fact of the matter was that even so, it was too late for him.

Eames’s phone rang.

Arthur wondered why this kept happening.

“Rosie,” he said, getting to his feet. “Okay, okay, okay, calm down and give me fifteen.” To Arthur he shot a wry look, the moment between them quietly broken, and said, “This could finally be it.”

~~~

It was it. Eames called an hour later to inform Arthur these were real contractions, not just fancily named ones. Lily was louder today, sucking her thumb and saying “Ar-fur,” tottering over to be picked up, as if she was already worried that attention from grownups would now irrevocably be split between her and a new sibling.

Arthur made her dinner and let her watch another episode of Creatures of the Sea. She watched the goblin shark with a measure of fascination, Arthur narrowing his eyes at the creepy looking creature, and then Arthur put her to bed. Beside the bed sat a copy of Frog and Toad Are Friends, which Arthur picked up and read to her. Outside, the evening drew on, and Arthur’s voice grew hoarse. He wanted to finish the story anyway.

“Toad was very pleased to have it,” he concluded finally, and realised she was asleep. He smiled slightly, pulling up the blankets around her, feeling intensely fond. Switching off the lights he said, “Night, Lily.”

He was tired too, only realising it after having settled on the sofa and yawning, loud and satisfying. Between one moment and the next, he had fallen asleep.

At around six am his phone rang. “He’s here!” Eames announced. “Healthy as anything and crying like–well, he’s crying like a baby. Rosie’s good, she’s sleeping. You and Lily can come in a couple of hours. Darling, wait till you meet him. He’s perfect.”

He sounded like Cobb, calling Arthur up once, then twice a couple of years later. The pride in his voice. Mal, on the phone next, exhausted but chattering to Arthur about Phil’s little thumbs and her little toes, James’s wrinkled pink smile. Arthur hadn’t been there for either of their births, had been off working, but he’d been there for Philippa’s first steps, there when James had fallen down. His best friend was gone, but Arthur would always have that.

“I’m sure you think he is,” Arthur said. “He’s named after you, isn’t he?”

“Darling,” Eames said, sounding wildly delighted that Arthur was flirting back.

“We’ll be there in a couple of hours,” Arthur told him. He put down the phone and couldn’t stop smiling.

~~~

There were nerves in the pit of his stomach. It was like he’d made a decision, or like the decision had been made for him. Eames laying gently back, his large hands holding the little book, reading low and smooth, everything Arthur could now admit to himself he had wanted to come home to for some time now. The sun in his hair and his eyes lovely as the sea. Whatever happened, Arthur would have had this.

Lily woke fretting about Rosie, but was quickly calmed when Arthur informed her they were going to see her mother and her little brother. “Wew,” she tried out, tugging on her shoes.

“Yes, Lily, Wew,” Arthur said, bundling her safely into Rosie’s car.

They reached the hospital and Eames was waiting for them outside. His hair looked sort of greasy, sort of like he’d run his hands through it many times. He looked like he hadn’t slept. Arthur kind of wanted to kiss him, and thought perhaps he might.

He stopped short when Eames said, “My parents are here.” He looked wry. “They thought they couldn’t make it, but they got here hours early. Anyway, they just arrived. Heads up.”

That was all the warning Arthur got before the doors opened again and two people Arthur assumed were Eames’s parents came hurrying out. Robert Walliams was short and pleasant-faced, smiling, and Cora Walliams was taller, still golden-haired, assessing Arthur and Lily with a look in her eyes Arthur would almost describe as shrewd. They stopped short when they reached Eames.

“This is Arthur,” Eames said very formally, but he raised an eyebrow at Arthur like he was amused. “Arthur, this is my mum and dad.”

“Arthur,” Robert said affably. Cora said, “Thank you for taking care of Lily, Arthur.”

“It was great, she’s lovely,” Arthur said, setting Lily down so she could toddle up to her grandparents.

“You work with Arthur, son?” Robert asked, sounding very British and dad-like. He reached forward with a hand.

Arthur nodded, taking it. “On and off,” he said, feeling strangely nervous.

“Will’s has never brought a friend back before,” Cora said, sounding very like Rosie, looking at Arthur with Eames’s gimlet-eyed gaze.

“Can’t use that name anymore,” Eames said, “now that Rosie’s stolen it for baby William.”

“But you’ll always be the first William, dear,” Cora said reassuringly. Eames sighed. “Anyway, Arthur,” she said, placing her arm in his. “Where are you from?”

She kept up a steady stream of conversation as they re-entered the hospital, all the way up to Rosie’s room, whereupon she started cooing over her grandson. Lily ran to her mother. Arthur, slightly stunned, realised she had coaxed out of him how many siblings he had, his mother’s career, and how he felt about London (and probably also how he felt about Eames). He realised quite suddenly this was where Eames had begun to learn to wheedle information out of people. Exchanging a look with Eames, who looked slightly apologetic, he approached Rosie’s side.

Rosie, flushed and tired and triumphant, handed baby William over to him.

“Isn’t he perfectly darling?” she asked.

“Very,” Arthur agreed, because baby William lay sleeping and red-faced in his arms, indeed perfectly darling.

“And you’ll come back and visit him of course,” Rosie said, looking up at him.

“Of course,” he promised.

“Eames will make sure of it,” said Cora, perfectly sure herself.

“Only if Arthur wants,” Eames said patiently.

Cora smiled over at Arthur like she could see ten years into the future. “Arthur’s smart,” she said. “He knows good things are worth keeping.”

Then Charlie, Rosie’s husband, arrived in a bustle of wild hair and riotous happiness, and Lily started crying at the sight of this interloper of a brother taking up her father’s attention, and everything became very bustling and extremely chaotic.

Arthur backed away a bit, into the waiting room, to give them some space. He waited there a little while with the magazines before Eames came out.

“Sorry about my mother,” he said, joining Arthur by the water cooler.

“She’s very like you,” Arthur told him.

“I’ll take that as a compliment. Arthur,” Eames said, abruptly, turning towards him, “everyone’s here. So they don’t need me. I’ll probably stay a few more days, but we can go do the job soon.”

“The job,” Arthur repeated blankly.

Eames frowned. “The one you came all the way here for. Arthur, I know I’ve brought you around and… tried to woo you…” He stood up, restless.

“Tried to woo me,” Arthur repeated. “Woo me.”

“Woo you, court you, take you around town.” Eames tilted his head, caught Arthur’s eyes. The hospital noises around them faded into the background. Earnest, tender, Eames said, “But I know it’s been hard. I didn’t mean to pressure you, darling. I know you’ve been grieving. We can do the job. You can take all the time you need.”

“Ah,” Arthur said. They would go do the job in a few days. Then what? Would they fall back into that pattern, bickering and push-and-pull, glances at Eames’s back and a sandwich just the way he liked it on his desk, checking on whether he was alive from across the world? He tried to summon the bravery he’d felt on the way to the hospital.

“Darling, it’s okay,” Eames said uncertainly, watching him again. Lower, like a secret, he said, “I really can wait.”

Arthur knew he could wait. He had waited. He could read the truth in the questioning bow of Eames’s bottom lip: he would wait. But if you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. It flooded into Arthur's stomach, his lungs, his heart. Mal, you’re gone, but look at me, I’m still here. You’re gone and you’ll never see how happy I will be but it’s enough that I know what you’d say because I knew you so well. It’s enough that your children live and I love them. You love and you lose. You love again.

“Well I can’t,” Arthur said, so he took Eames’s lovely, surprised face into his hands, giving into his eyes, an endless sky and an unending river. He reached up to kiss him.

~~~

“I have a confession,” Arthur said, “This job… it’s a favour to Cobb.”

Eames kept his gaze on him. “Oh,” he said. “Another of Dominic Cobb’s messes.”

“I’m sorry,” Arthur said.

“Are you?” Eames said consideringly. He leaned in slowly closer, murmuring it into the shell of Arthur’s ear. “How sorry? Will you make it up to me?”

Arthur leaned back. “You knew,” he said accusingly.

“I suspected, so I asked him,” Eames said, grinning. “So you’ve been manipulating me all this time. All of this has just been because Cobb owed someone and you feel you owe Cobb.”

“Not all of it,” Arthur said. “Not all of it.”

Behind Eames the sky, pinkish blues, was turning into morning. They were only a matter of hours away from LA and it felt like it, felt like hovering over wide plains and wider homes. Arthur had a hotel room booked for them. It was old in a way that suggested comfort, slightly faded carpets but wood paneling to die for.

He had a hotel room booked and James to fly a kite with, Phil to listen to intently as she grew up quicker than he entirely liked. Eames would teach her how to pick a lock. When the job was done maybe they’d go back to see Lily and Will and Rosie for a bit.

“I haven’t seen much of LA, you know, darling,” Eames said, nuzzling behind his ear. He was lying, but Arthur smiled anyway. “I could use a tour guide.”

~~~

To Know Just How He Suffered Would Be Dear, Emily Dickinson

Don’t Hesitate, Mary Oliver

Frog and Toad Are Friends, Arnold Lobel

[beevean]

You're thoughts on Metroid Prime 2 : echoes & it multiplayer mode ?

I never tried its multiplayer mode because I'm lonely and I don't even think it's possible on an emulator :P

I didn't like MP2 very much. It's not a bad game by any means, but I just didn't jive with its main mechanic of having a dark world. Now, I understand this game had a super rushed development and the dark world was essentially a way to inflate the game, but it's still not very interesting, having to change dimension and having to go through the same areas but with a duller palette and harder enemies to progress. It doesn't help that the first worlds are rather... boring? Agon Wastes is so big and so unremarkable and I couldn't wait to be done with it. At least Torvus Bog is much more engaging, even with the difficulty spike, and Sanctuary Fortress stands out as a final level.

The fact that the dark world saps you of energy unless you stay in a light bubble changes the way you play: you can either take the risk and rush through it, or recharge in every bubble you see. I did the second thing. It made the beginning of the game almost unbearable. That was my fault, I admit it.

I do like the ammo mechanic. It was an interesting way to shake up the formula, and it added reasonable difficulty. Ngl the best part was getting the Annihilator Beam and using it on those beacons to attract the Ing and seeing them frying alive <3

I also liked the creepier moments this game has to offer, like the entire intro with all those dead bodies, or Samus reading the logs of the soldiers who were ambushed by the Ing, or anytime you meet Dark Samus, or that terrifying game over sequence. Really good atmosphere.

The bosses are... how should I put it... nightmares. Some of them were nightmares in a "I know I can beat you, I know I can!" way, like the Power Guardian. Others were nightmares in a "please kill me now I can't bear it", like the Spider Guardian. But I generally think both this game and Prime 1 have some of the most interesting bosses in the series.

Graphically it's about the same as Prime 1, but with more mixed art direction. I already praised Torvus Bog and Sanctuary Fortress, and that's about it. Musically, it's about the same, I remember only a few tracks from this game but those few are excellent.

Oh, and technically I've never finished this game. I got to the final fetch quest, I realized I had to travel through both dimensions to get those stupid keys, and I noped right out of the game. Sorry, by that time I was so tired.

[thisisallthehattersfault]

Writing Romantic Relationships

I get a lot of compliments on my chemistry and character interactions. A lot of my readers have expressed liking the way I write relationships, so since that’s an aspect of my writing that gets a lot of positive attention, I want to really make sure to hone and refine it as best I can. With that goal in mind, I did some Googling a couple months ago to try to find any articles or videos I could that had advice for writing believable, engaging romantic relationships.

Turns out, there’s not a ton out there.  The results that came up were all focused on the Romance genre, which I’m sure will be very helpful to those who are writing their first bodice ripper, but it’s not for me. There were a few lists of things to avoid when writing romantic relationships, but as with all advice telling people what not to write, they’re really only helpful sometimes.

So, I decided to sit down and try to articulate the way I approach romantic relationships in my writing, in the hopes that it might be helpful to someone, and also in the hopes that other writers would chime in and add some tips of their own. 

Right off the bat, you should ask yourself why you want these characters to get together. A romantic relationship should be an entirely character-driven subplot -- sure, things like an alien invasion or an eldritch cult will push people together through necessity, but if you really want your readers to be hooked on your characters’ relationship, you need to make it believable that these people would fall in love even if the Plot wasn’t happening. Basically, what do they see in each other? What do these people gain by being together? Why them, and not anyone else?

The main way I address this is through character flaws. A good relationship in real life should make you a better person -- within reason. No, getting a girlfriend isn’t going to solve all of your problems, but those problems should seem smaller and more manageable now that you have someone in your corner. A romantic relationship is life’s built-in buddy system, and fiction should reflect that. The two ways characters can help one another deal with their respective flaws are through Overcoming and Compensating.

Overcoming is typically how character growth works -- your character addresses their flaw, and decides to change it in order to become a better person. Having someone around to call them out on their bullshit, or encourage them to do better, or praise them for their progress can be a huge help in achieving that growth. Typically the easiest and most effective way I’ve seen this done is to have one character lead by example. 

An emotionally repressed jerk becomes more open and expressive because their S/O’s strong sense of compassion rubs off on them. A character who’s shy and insecure gains courage by watching their confident, self-assured love interest. These will likely be the first reasons your characters are attracted to each other. They should respect and admire things about each other, and want to emulate those traits -- even if it’s only grudgingly, and even if they never admit it out loud. 

Which brings me to Compensating. The thing is, perfect characters are boring and unrealistic. Even after a whole book’s worth of development, your characters should still be at least a little flawed. They’ll still have hangups, habits, issues that they haven’t worked through and probably never will because if they were cured of Every Single Flaw they’d be… just, unbearably boring. What I’m saying is: Not all character “flaws” need to be fixed. But, depending on what those flaws are, they could maybe stand to have somebody else compensate for them.

An impulsive character held in check by their calculating partner. A trusting character cautioned by their hesitant lover. A passive character with a temperamental s/o who stands up for them. This is the classic opposites attract -- the messy one adds excitement and spontaneity into their lover’s life, while the neat one keeps things reasonable and on-track. There should be a back-and-forth, with each character taking turns to show that neither of them are necessarily wrong, but there’s a time and place for quiet vs loud, aggression vs pacifism, logic vs emotion. Your characters should respect their s/o’s perspective, and be willing to listen and meet them on their level. This creates balance, and gives your readers clear examples of why your characters work as a couple.

These are the most important parts of your relationship to figure out, because they’re how you’ll plot out the romance. The major heavy lifting for your romance will be almost entirely done by showing how your characters help each other grow or come to rely on each other for help. If they don’t make each other better, and they don’t need each other to pick up the slack, then the relationship is shallow, and won’t work. 

Once you’ve got the bones of the relationship figured out, you can start to work on the fun meaty bits. Next up, Affection.

Way, way too often in media, we’re given two characters who are supposed to be madly in love, who… don’t have anything in common. No shared interests, conflicting goals. They barely talk to each other. But we’re supposed to believe they’re happy in their relationship? Look, your characters need to like each other. Yes, even while plot is making their lives crazy! They shouldn’t completely overlap, but they need to have hobbies and interests in common, or at least have complimentary senses of humor and priorities. Your character who has never touched a camera in his life can absolutely still fall for a photographer -- if he appreciates art, or at least appreciates the way his s/o lights up when they talk about their craft. Are your characters both passionate about animals? Do they do the same sports? Play video games? What do they do together? 

Again, they don’t need to share Every Single Aspect Of Their Lives -- in fact, it’s better if they don’t. Much like how you need your love interest to both Overcome and Compensate for a character’s flaws, their hobbies and interests should be a little of both -- things they share, and things they don’t. Hell, have your character who absolutely hates country music take their s/o to a concert anyway. Have your character who couldn’t care less about videography rattle off movie-making trivia because their lover talks about it so often. Show them supporting each other’s interests, even if it’s only to make the other happy. The things they do share should be a way for them to connect and have fun. That’s really what it comes down to. Romance should be fun sometimes.

Next up, I wanna talk about Love Language. I read somewhere that if you need your characters to kiss and say I love you for them to be in a relationship, you didn’t write a strong relationship. I agree with that, but I think it needs to be expanded on -- The Big Kiss and Those Three Words are a very loud way of expressing affection, but typically people say it much quieter, and much more often, than we acknowledge. 

The Five Love Languages are Words Of Affection, Giving/Receiving Gifts, Acts Of Service, Quality Time, and Physical Touch. Understanding your characters’ primary love language and showing them expressing their love in whatever way makes sense for them will make your readers go absolutely fucking hogwild. Your characters don’t need complimentary love languages either -- in fact, if you’re looking to add a little conflict in the relationship, giving them love languages that don’t add up can really help add some believably to the whole mutually pining trope. A character who’s love language is physical touch trying to cuddle up to someone who hates having their space invaded, or a character who’s love language is words of affection coming across as a flatterer to a love interest who’s been manipulated a few too many times, makes way more sense than two people who adore each other but aren’t together because [enter contrived excuse.]

Between your characters having Affection for each other and your characters speaking to each other in their respective Love Languages, you have the groundwork for a lot of really immersive Chemistry! We get why these characters are good for each other from a story-telling perspective, we know why they like each other, and we can see how they express their feelings in small, consistent ways that really sells the idea that they’re in love -- or headed that way. Now what we need is to feel it for ourselves.

Chemistry in writing is all about immersion. When you have a crush, your whole body gets involved. The sweating hands, the pounding heartbeat -- but it also shows in your body language, the way you stand near that person, the way you carry yourself when they’re around. It’s in your thoughts, the language you use to describe them, the way you view them compared to others. There’s really no trick to writing chemistry -- at least none that I’ve found -- other than to really delve into your characters and make your readers feel what they feel. Every quiet thrill when their hands brush, every subtle glance at each others’ lips. These are people who want to get closer like lungs want air. Attraction is a magnet, and both of them should feel it.

I don’t just mean sexually, either. A character hyper-fixating on the collection of freckles on their love-interest’s nose can be as much a method of ratcheting up the tension as a character who can’t tear their eyes away from their love-interest’s rippling abs. Likewise, it doesn’t even need to be physical intimacy at all that your characters are chasing -- the desire to know someone, their deepest thoughts and dreams and fears, can be just as if not more intense than the desire to see them naked. However your characters’ attraction manifests, you need to make your audience feel it. Use all five senses, have them be very aware of each other when they’re in the same room. Show them wanting each other. Make your readers want it, too.

As you’ve probably picked up on from my wording in this, the last big tip I can give you for writing romantic relationships is that they need to be Reciprocated. Loudly, explicitly, consistently. Too often only one half of the pair is fleshed out, while the other is basically cardboard -- a thin, lifeless collection of “attractive” traits with no substance beyond that. The Manic Pixie Dreamgirl is perfect and fun and sexy, and she’s here to drag this unfuckably boring sad sack out of his miserable life. Why? Why is the gorgeous Adonis with every girl in town fawning over him settling for the plain, bitchy protagonist? Wish fulfillment is great and all, but both of your characters need solid reasons to be attracted to each other, or the romance just won’t be good.

[feelingsinwinter]

Asked by @journeythroughtherain​

So, I picked one from each prompt list, so you can choose which one you want to do the most! From the first list: WinterIron 7 - “Aren’t you a little old for trick or treating?”. From the second: WinterIron, Spells and Curses, 41. “How can I calm down!? I have a tail!”

Tony bent, picking up his pen from where it had fallen and Bucky stared.

Tony’s well-rounded ass was a marvel in itself. The muscular kind but with just the right touch of softness. Bucky could only imagine how it must felt under his hands, how tender it would be, how the flesh would give under his kneading fingers. The firm muscles would be amazing too and Bucky died a little inside at the idea.

He sighed and choked on it when Steve elbowed him in the ribs.

“Bucky,” he hissed, “you’re doing it again.”

On the top of his head, Bucky felt his ears flattening against his skull, both in embarrassment and irritation. Sad but resigned, Bucky pouted before sitting on the nearest stool. He bit back a whimper when his tail, wagging furiously, got stuck between his ass and his seat.

It was the only way he knew of to keep it from moving like the worst give-away.

From his position on the fridge, Clint sniggered.

It was all his fault anyway. The bastard, as soon as Tony had entered the kitchen, had thrown a pop-corn which had hit the pen stuck behind Tony’s ear. Following gravity’s law, the pen had fallen and Tony had bent to retrieve it, probably cursing all the while but Bucky had been deaf to it, only registering the engineer’s lovely voice. Even cursing madly and growling, Tony’s voice held something magical to Bucky’s ears. That they were now even more sensitive only made it worse.

Clint knew what it would cause, had done it anyway.

Clint was dead but unaware of it.

Sniffling pitifully, tears stinging the corner of his eyes, Bucky stared at his half-emptied plate, trying to will away the hot, breath-taking pain erupting from his stuck tail.

Bucky had been shot, kicked in the nuts, had been sliced like a pig, operated on while awake but nothing compared to the insufferable agony of a stuck tail. A hand laid on his shoulder and he almost jumped out of his seat but kind, warm brown eyes were looking at him, flickers of gold shining in them and Bucky relaxed instantly.

“You ok there, Bucka-r-oo?” Tony looked worried and Bucky had to resist the urge to stuck his elbow in Steve’s ribs since the bastard was hiding his chuckles behind his hand, Bucky could hear him.

“M’not hungry,” Bucky mumbled with a frown, looking back down at his plate and glaring at it.

There was a beat of a silence and Tony said: “Okay.” before turning around and leaving. Without the coffee he had come for.

Once Bucky was certain Tony was out of hearing range, he looked up at Clint, still nestled atop the fridge.

The archer yelped.

[beware the read more]

***

In retrospect, Bucky should have known better than to pick up a wand when they went out on a mission for the umpteeth piece of crap who thought October was the best time to fuck with magic. He should have, but at the time, tired and annoyed by the sheer number of wannabe wizards who thought October and Halloween would grant them the powers they’ve been dreaming of for whoever knew how long. The team had since long lost track of their mission and their number.

At first they counted, amused in a grim way, but they dropped it when they started taking turns to go on mission. They couldn’t keep up if they all went all the time, some were humans and needed rest, others needed to eat in order to sustain and replace the energy they burnt when on a mission.

This time Bucky was on the field and he wasn’t even that tired but annoyed and he had lost all patience four missions ago and this time he couldn’t wait for a special team to take its sweet time to arrive and retrieve the wand. What could go wrong?

What could go wrong indeed. The shifting had taken him by surprise, a piercing kind of pain that had sent him howling to the ground as bones and muscles shifted, snapping and breaking in a sick concert.

When Dr. Strange had arrived, Bucky was restrained and snarling, eyes burning bright gold. His body was an infernal mix between human and wolf, the kind seen in movie that could never quite retranscribe the nightmarish shape of a werewolf. Dark lips pulled up over long, deadly fangs glistening with drool as a low growl rolled up from his throat.

The Master of the Mystic Arts had found a way to reverse the process but only to a point. Since the shifting was still in progress when he arrived, Strange had managed to regress it a bit. Since then, Bucky was sporting a long, furry tail and tufty ears, both reacting to any and every of his mood and broadcasting it to the whole world to see.

Which wouldn’t have been too much of a problem, Bucky was good at keeping a tight leash on his emotions. Except where Tony was concerned. It hadn’t taken long for his tail to waggle as soon as Tony’s ass came into view, for his ears to point forward as soon as the man was in hearing range. His tail also wriggled at the smallest compliment, at the slightest glance, at the barest touch. Anything from Tony and his wolf features lost all common-sense.

Of course, then, how was he supposed to hide his stupid, ridiculous, crush?

Aside from Tony who seemed entirely oblivious to it, the whole team had picked up on it and while Bruce stayed quiet and understanding, Natasha had now that insufferable knowing smirk gracing her lips on a daily basis, Steve had a shit-eating grin that wouldn’t quit and let’s not talk about Clint who was a pain in the ass 24/7.

***

Bucky hid on his floor the next day. Tony had been avoiding him since the kitchen episode, nothing all too obvious but if there was one thing Bucky was mindful of, it was Tony. The genius hadn’t come up to refill his coffee which he had come for in the first place before Clint proved to be an asshole once again. Since then, he hadn’t been seen, not coming for movie night either. Sometimes Tony stayed in his lab to work on some important project but at the moment Bucky knew there was nothing keeping the genius’ mind busy. Except for the usual stuff.

So, Tony was avoiding him. He said as much to Steve, explaining his theory all the while going back and forth in front of the couch where his friend was sitting calmly.

Bucky felt like a lion in a cage. Or, rather, like a wolf in a bear-trap. His ears were slightly going backward, open but not as straight as they would be in a common situation. His tail hung low, tense, and the fur on it slightly raised.

“Why don’t you go and talk to him? I don’t know, I heard communication helped in the process of solving problems.”

Bucky snarled, the sound wild and violent, and froze guiltily as soon as he realized what he had done.

“Yeah, right, because going to him and talk it out, as I am, is a brilliant idea. What about you take some classes in making plans, sounds like you got rusty,” he growled, pacing some more.

Since the wand bullshit, there was always an underlying of violence, coiled tight in his muscles and waiting for the smallest excuse to explode in a show of brutality. He was grateful that Strange’s work had getting rid of the claws and fangs. Talking with oversized teeth would have been difficult, if not impossible, and the frustration might have driven him nuts. Also, the claws would have been dangerous for everyone involved. Bucky was already a hazard, he didn’t need any claws or fangs to make it worse.

“You should calm down,” Steve said placatingly, keeping his hands carefully in his lap. Raising them in order to appease Bucky might have the opposite result since wolves took that kind of gesture as a threat.

Bucky’s lips quivered, holding back another threatening sound. He glared at Steve and sat in the armchair. Only to jump back on his feet, a loud, angry snarl spilling from his lips when he sat on his tail.

“How am I supposed to calm down,” he roared, anger and despair mingling tight together in a sad mix, “when I have a fucking goddamn tail!”

Steve opened his mouth, his face pinched in that concerned way Bucky knew would lead to some appeasing bullshit that would give no result. Growling at his friend, Bucky stomped his way out of the room. The elevator’s doors opened for him, courtesy of JARVIS, and Bucky felt robbed from the possibility of slamming the door on his way out.

***

Anger and frustration burned in his guts as Bucky made his way up to the roof. Steve would let him be, at least for a while. Would give him some space and time to calm down. Then he would come back with his patented look of disappointment and spill all those nice crap supposed to lift Bucky’s hopes up.

Tony was so far out of Bucky’s league, there wasn’t even a way it could happen. Also, there was something deeply wrong about Bucky’s body reaction as soon as the man was around. The deep fluttering feeling made him queasy, it was worse than being sick and it wouldn’t go away no matter how hard Bucky tried to shove it down. The constant need of touching was unbearable but it had became infernal as soon as the spell had hit him. He was constantly longing for Tony’s eyes and have them on him, there was always those wondering thoughts about how Tony’s fingers would feel on him.

He knew how it felt, in a way. Tony was a very tactile person, always touching for a reason or another. A pat on the back, a hand on the shoulder, a small touch on the arm or a one-arm hug, any and everything. But Tony always retreated too fast, too quick, as if expecting rejection if he stayed for too long while Bucky yearned for more without daring to ask for it.

He sat carefully on the edge, keeping his tail out of the way and let his feet dangling in the void beneath. Bucky closed his eyes, smiling softly when a gush of air hit his face. It was cold outside, mid-October had brought its particular smell and the crisp air of Fall.

Natasha, Clint and Bruce were outside on another mission while Steve, Bucky and Tony rested from the previous one. The team had shifted since Bucky’s misadventure.

The burning pit of anger was settling, its glowing embers fading in the face of the cold, refreshing air and the calm of the night. Well, as much as New-York could be in the middle of October with Halloween approaching.

Footsteps made him tense but when Tony sat beside him, an arm length of distance between them, Bucky hesitated. The distance made him anxious and unsure but Tony’s presence and his smell made him want to relax and bask in it.

“Steve told me you were here,” Tony said quietly, looking straight ahead with his shoulders up to his ears.

Fucking bastard couldn’t leave it alone, finally. Had gone right to Tony and who knew what he had said to convince Tony to come up there.

“He shouldn’t have,” Bucky growled and Tony tensed furthermore, his back hunched and Bucky felt his guts twist in shame and guilt, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong. “What did I do?” He asked sullenly, feeling his own shoulders drop and his goddamn ears drooping sadly.

Tony startled and looked at him, eyes wide. “What did you do?” he asked, his voice dripping with disbelief.

“Well, yeah,” Bucky answered slowly, frowning in confusion. he made a gesture toward Tony: “You’ve been avoiding me like the plague lately. You didn’t even invited me to try out the ray of death we’ve been working on before something went wrong.”

Tony stared at him. “You are mad at me!” He protested, pointing accusingly at Bucky.

“No, I’m not! Why would I be mad at you??”

“Because it’s my fault if you’re like that!”

“What the fuck Tony! I picked up the godddamn wand on my fucking own, thank you very much!”

“But you wouldn’t have if you hadn’t gone there in my stead!”

Silence fell suddenly and they stared at each other, panting slightly. Bucky groaned and covered his face with his hands while Tony pinched the bridge of his nose.

“So, if I gathered it right,” Bucky said through his palms. “You think I’m mad at you because you were so exhausted you couldn’t walk straight anymore, so I proposed to you to go on the mission for you so you could rest for once. So you think it’s your fault if I, as a grown-up, made a decision of my own to pick up a not secured wand?”

Tony sniffed and dropped his hand in his lap. He shrugged. “Said like that, it sounds stupid.”

“I can see why you’d think I’m mad at you, I guess,” Bucky mumbled, thinking back on the last few days. “But I’m not. Mad, that is. M’not blaming you either,” he added softly.

Tony looked at him. Slowly, his eyes trailed up and stared at the tufty things on top of Bucky’s head. They were pointed toward him, relaxed in a way. Attentive.

“You’re not?”

“Nope,” Bucky answered, popping it and smiling when it drew a snort out of Tony. “If I’m mad at something, I’m mad at all those batshit crazy wannabe wizards,” he grumbled. “What’s wrong with them.”

“Halloween,” Tony said immediately, looking alternatively between Bucky’s ears and Bucky’s eyes, a small smile stretching his lips. Slowly, almost shyly in a way Tony rarely was, he asked: “Can I touch them?”

Bucky blinked, taken aback. Butterflies rose in his belly, fluttering all around. His heart hammered against his ribs. Behind him, his tail thudded against the roof’s ground and Bucky felt his cheeks warming up. “Yes. Please.”

Tony smiled, something sweet and soft and Bucky held back a whine as his tail thudded harder. Slowly, Tony scooted closer until they were side by side, Bucky’s left plastered against Tony’s right. Tony lifted his hands, his eyes going from Bucky’s face to the ears on top of it, watching Bucky’s reaction as his fingers finally made contact with his ears.

Gently, Tony petted them, scratching behind them and, with a touch of hesitation, carding his fingers through Bucky’s strands and coming back to the ears.

Bucky felt himself melt as he leaned against Tony’s shoulders, closing his eyes, a happy rumble thundering softly in his chest.

***

Later, when the chill of the air became too cold to be comfortable, they made their way down to the workshop where they settled on the ratty couch they usually sat on while discussing ideas. If they, later on, agreed on a date as soon as the craziness of Halloween died down, it was nobody’s business but their own.

Steve smiled as soon as he heard about it, smug as fuck. Smiling softly, Bucky kneed him and, as Steve yelped and fell, thanked him.

[rosykims]

5 + 10 for emeraude, 14 + 18 for effie, 19 + 24 for arylene and 30 through 45 for imogen bc i love her so much ? 😏😏😏

fdjkfjkfdk thank u SO much maia i absolutely Treasure You !

EMERAUDE HAWKE - DA2

What does your OC normally wear? What would your OC wear on a special night?

emeraudes fashion sense is probably my favourite out of all my ocs, so uh if u havent looked at her pinterest board yet u should do that bc its Very cute hehehe

anyway for the most part she sticks to dark, practical clothing whenever she's out and about in kirkwall or doing merc work, etc. she picks clothes that convey strength and power, but she likes having a little bit of colour somewhere on the piece, just to keep things interesting. she's not much of an embroider, but was a good way to keep herself distracted during hard times, so she tends to add little patterns here and there whenever she gets the chance!

as for special occasions, for her this would actually just be. a quiet night at home or a relaxed gathering with her friends. bc its so rare for her to have that lmao. anyway for events like that she usually wears light colours and soft fabrics, simple but always decorated with flowers or colourful patterns.

What does your OC keep in a special drawer?

she has a collection of gifts ! that kids from lowtown would give her over the years she spent in kirkwall. she's a very community based person and wants to do right for her city, and shes very nurturing (in an ironical, Cool Big Sister way) so she likes making sure all the kids are safe and being looked after. she gets a lot of trinkets and strange gifts from some of the kids as a result, but she does treasure them (even if she laughs about it with her friends) and keeps them all !

EFFIE RYDER - MEA

Who is the mother and/or father figure in your OC’s life?

effie's maternal rolemodel has always been her late mother, ellen. nobody could really fill that role in her eyes, since they had such a close, positive relationship before she passed. her relationship with her dad was a lot more strained and it really impacted a lot of her relationships later on in life too ! she tends to.... see an older man who is Vaguely Nice to her, and then think “ oh, youre my dad now?” which isnt fair to anybody obviously but yeah she,,,, has a lot of unresolved issues regarding alec and tends to unintentionally project so. We stan !

How many times did your OC move as a child? Which area was his/her favorite?

oh constantly lol. With her dad being an n7 and her mother working so hard on her research, they tended to move around wherever her parents work required. she actually enjoyed it this way. she was never good at making long term friends, but she lived meeting new people, and obviously with the move she got to experience a lot of different cultures which really put the idea of adventuring and travelling in her head at a young age.

ARYLENE TORR - TES IV

What does your OC think of children- either in general or about having them?

she likes them ! she tends to keep her distance with most communities and groups of people in particular, but she does like enjoys having the odd conversation with the odd street urchin here and there, either sharing with them some strange, ridiculous life advice or – if shes feeling particularly chaotic – telling them the scariest stories she can think of. as for having them, arylene isnt AGAINST the idea, but she has far too much for the foreseeable future for that to ever be a good idea

Who are the people your OC dislikes/hates?

outwardly, arylene is an almost unbearably easy going person, so you would assume she doesnt hate anyone lol. but she does DEEEPLY dislike cults and groups of ignorant people who are arrogant enough to start messing with the balance of life, or making deals with gods, etc. she believes that people like that can do an unbelievable amount of damage, so she invests a lot of time and effort it sabotaging any group or plot she happens to find !

 IMOGEN FOSTER - RDR2

Did your OC participate in extracurricular activities, and if so, what were they?

hmm idk if this even EXISTED in 19th century london lol, but she would have done some very tame version of girl scouts as a child! She barely remembers any of it, but she liked the classes on what plants did what, which were safe to eat, and the likes. its something that helps her a lot when on the run with the gang, and something shes always had a personal interest in, as a nurse !

other than that, she’s done a lot of independent study on history, classical literature, and she speaks fluent italian we stan !

What is your OC’s opinion of school? What kind of student was s/he?

imogen comes from a very wealthy aristocratic family, so she was very fortunate that her privilege afforded her the education she got at the time. she is VERY grateful to have attended the schools she did, and she made sure to make the most of it, paying attention in class and studying harder than most of her classmates. she's a smart girl with a very active mind, so knowledge is something she can't get enough of. she was actually petitioning the board of education to allow her to attend university before she left for america – already their had been women accepted into universities at that time, but obviously it was still a very scandalous thing lol, especially since imogen wanted to study medicine.

What subjects did your OC excel at?

imogen is a HUGE overachiever and did pretty well at basically everything from science, mathematics, language studies and later on, in her studies as a nurse. i can tell you what shes bad at though lmao

anything physical really dkdkdks she is TERRIBLE at horse-riding since she usually just went by carriage everywhere in the city. art and poetry and writing in general she was never great at, because she's a pretty logical person and was told she never put enough emotion in her work lol !!! sports...obviously was very limited anyway as growing up in like? the early 1870s lol. and as for the traditionally feminine lessons in like ?? sewing and cooking and stuff well ! she was very average at them which made her  feel worse than if she was actually bad bc she's so used to excelling and making a name for herself oof

What subjects interested your OC?

Imogen loves greek literature and mythology !! the iliad is her favourite book and she keeps her heavily annotated, dog eared copy – a gift from her late father – on her person almost constantly. needless to say its why dutch admires her as much as he does lol.

obviously, as a nurse-trying-to-be-a-doctor, she has a great love for medicine in all its forms. she's always been fascinated in natural remedies, and even moreso when she's running with the van der linde gang and is really relying on the land to survive.

What is your OC’s dream job and/or current profession?

hmm okay so. Technically she's a nurse – she worked in her father's hospital for almost 10 years prior to his death, and she was sort of his unofficial understudy, as in she knows a LOT more than her job description requires lol. but after her father past away, another, less progressive man took his place as chief of surgery and made a lot of changes to the way the hospital operated, and imogen was let go. she and her mother were fighting against it, however, under the ground of unfair dismissal, but obviously given the time period it didnt get them very far. so ! i mean technically she's unemployed rn. but she still has dreams of being a doctor, or at least continuing her career in medicine.

How is your OC working towards their dream job and/or achieved their current profession?

Oh VERY direct action up until she got disheartened and chose to take her sabbatical. she had been working in her role for nearly a decade, and was very obviously one of the most experienced nurses there. even younger doctors would sometimes ask her for her medical opinion dksksks anyway what i am saying is Brain Very Good. she had been fighting to gain admission into a university – any, she wasnt picky – to study medicine officially, but it didnt get very far and she put it on hold after her father got sick. after he died and she was laid off, she fought even harder against the city to reinstate her title, and continues to fight after she returns from america a year or so later.

What are your OC’s thoughts/opinions of his/her current profession?

helping people is her entire life, and she wouldn't know what to do without it. she loves being a nurse enough to fight to be a doctor, but also in BEING a nurse, she is hyperaware of all the things current medical standards seem to get wrong, and she has a lot of ideas about how else to go about things. her father, a shockingly progressive and worldly man for the time period, shared her sentiment, but he wasn't able to make the changes he wanted to before he passed, so imogen hopes she can be the change herself, and make her father proud

What is your OC’s biggest dream?

being a licenced doctor, babey ! preferably at her father's hospital, but at the point she will take what she can get.

How does your OC react to and handle stress?

imogen  handles stress very well , which is partially why she makes such a good medic, and also how she managed to survive the first week of being with the van der linde gang lmao. she is very good at shutting out EVERY distraction when things get dicey, and her brain tends to move at a million miles an hour. all traces of english etiquette and politeness go out the window, though, so you'll usually catch her barking orders at people, and yelling at anyone who prevents her from doing the work she needs to do. it.....is a big wake up call for people like dutch and micah, and gets her into a LOT of trouble on multiple occasions.

How does your OC handle anger?

ooo......not great. she’s grown up with parents who maybe encouraged her to speak her mind a bit....TOO much given the historical circumstances lol. she really doesn’t stand for ignorance or prejudices in any capacity, and if she has a problem with someone and it gets in the way of her trying to do her work or help others - she will ABSOLUTELY be having words. she also overestimates her own strength quite a lot. she’s tried to throw hands with micah MANY times, often forgetting she’s this tiny 70kg englishwoman and he’s .... Him sdjkdcjkf. she has a big mouth too so she often says snide remarks without even meaning too, which tends to get her in trouble as well. on the bright side, it also helps her fit in with the gang quite well, because for the most part they all appreciate how wild she is lmao

How does your OC handle grief?

hmm i guess it depends on what you would class as “well”? she doesnt cry very often - being stoic and handling your emotions is important when your a nurse - but she does tend to shove her feelings down far longer than she should, and tries to pretend they don’t exist by simply focusing on other things. she also blames herself when a lot of things go wrong, because she’s a perfectionist and wants to FIX everything, so when she finds something - or someone - she can’t save, it feels like a personal failure. like she let them down :(

What is your OC’s greatest fear?

probably being trapped in an unhappy, unfulfilling marriage with someone who undervalues her. she’s not much of a homebody and doesn’t have too much of an interest in being married, but the idea of feeling FORCED to marry someone in order to have a decent quality of life makes her blood run cold oof

What makes your OC happy?

helping people ! meeting new folks ! learning about other cultures and ways of life! learning about NEW THINGS in general ! proving people wrong ! insulting micah !

as tough and high-and-mighty as she sometimes seems, she’s a pretty easy person to please, honestly. treat her with respect, give her space to do the things she wants to do, and don’t get in the way of her opportunities to learn new things, and she’s mostly very happy !

What kind of sense of humor does your OC have?

she has a fairly macabre and sardonic sense of humour, something she picked up from her mother. she says a lot of Shocking things for the time period, and she’s not shy of dirty jokes either. the first time sean heard her, a soft, well spoken english Lady, make some filthy, crude joke, he nearly had a stroke right there on the spot kjkjkfdjkf

What are some things that greatly upset your OC?

senseless violence, suffering or cruelty. she really hated the gang at first and hoped to escape the first chance she got, because all she could see was the crime and disregard for human life she assumed they all held. fortunately, as she got to know them, she realized this wasn’t exactly the case, but she still has a lot of anger in her heart for a few key members of the gang who seem to enjoy bloodshed more than anything. she also hates any form of social prejudice, and people who gatekeep knowledge and opportunities from others.

What are some things that annoy your OC?

i guess all of the above, but she also dislikes misplaced arrogance, and people who talk down to others. she tolerates dutch, but often gets frustrated with the way he speaks, using as many big words as he can to manipulate and confuse others. she believes that really intelligence doesn’t require obscure jargon and big, fancy words - she likes keeping things simple, so everybody can follow along.

[bloodthirstymoonstone]

Walter the Opalite

Have you ever wondered what Walter would be like if he actually had the opportunity to reach his full potential instead of constantly being shit on by his brother and life as a whole? That’s basically the basis of my Imperial Walter AU, so keep reading if you’d like to find out more!

Also, special thanks to @for-grado, who helped me hash out a lot of these ideas over Discord.

The beginning of Walter’s life during his Imperial timeline is pretty similar, if not exactly the same. The twins actually got along swimmingly during their early childhood, with Valter stepping up and becoming the bold and outgoing one, while still being quite sensitive to Walter's needs and almost serving as a mediator between him and other people when he got anxious. It wasn’t until the twins were in their early adolescents that Valter suddenly had a change of heart and began acting like a total dick to Walter for... reasons I won’t get into right now. 

But before the twins drift apart, there’s a terrifying incident where Walter suffered a traumatic wolf attack that threatened to kill him if Valter hadn't stepped in -- something that he's eternally grateful for. In the “canon” timeline, they both lived, with only minor injuries (if any) due to Valter being able to take it by surprise from behind and clock it on the head with a large rock. In this AU, the poor boys aren’t so lucky. The attack misses its mark, and the wolf turns the brunt of its ire onto Valter instead. Walter’s arm was so badly mangled, he nearly lost it, and Valter died from the severity of his wounds and shock before anyone could really help him. 

The death of his beloved twin took a severe toll on Walter. He was haunted by guilt, feeling that the entire situation was his fault. But the love and support of his parents helped him push past it, and he dedicated himself to growing as much as he could in his brother's honor, since he knew that if Valter were still alive, he'd want to see him doing well. (That’s what we in the business call irony.)

But anyway, through a lot of hard work and study, he became every bit as successful as Valter would have in his stead. Well educated, well liked, skilled in several recreational activities like cooking and art, and although he's still quite introverted and a bit... Awkward(tm), he knew how to get past that and still have people like him for who he was, and grew to be quite formidable in terms of magical prowess.

But it wasn't enough for him. Driven by his brother's selfless sacrifice he decided to enlist in the Grado military when he was a teen so that he could help protect others just like his brother had done for him. His parents were quite Nervous(tm) about that, as would anyone who had lost one of their kids in a tragic accident. They didn’t want to see their last remaining son sign up for a dangerous profession, but he was super insistent, so they eventually gave him their full support.

Basic training was hard on him, but over time, his leadership and prowess on the battlefield would earn him the title of an Imperial General -- something that he was quite proud of. He didn't just consider it an achievement he got on his own. He would be very quick to thank all the multitudes of people that helped him get so far with their undying support and loyalty. Under Emperor Vigarde, he would eventually come to be known as the Opal.

For a few years, life seemed perfect. But then, his parents got sick. Same disease that got them in the canon verse (whatever it is). Unlike Valter, who ignored their progressing sickness for months (if not years) as he chased his lofty dreams ascending the ranks, Walter immediately resigned from his position upon first hearing about it. He placed a vast importance on his family, especially after his brother's death, so the thought of losing them was unbearable. Selena was brought on board in his stead during that time.

He fought as hard as he could to keep them alive, but ultimately, none of it paid off. He lost them both, and fell into a deep depression that lasted years. He hit the bottle pretty hard and was barely seen venturing out of his mansion, preferring to have servants run errands for him instead. While he never did anything as sick and degenerate as Valter during that time, having a lonely 40 year old bachelor living by himself in a large spoopy mansion would certainly get the locals talking among themselves and coming up with all kinds of weird rumors and speculation as to what he’s up to in there.

Eventually, the in-game events happen, and Lyon needs generals to fill out his ranks again. I plan on elaborating on their relationship a little bit more in the future, but Lyon would know that the man is skilled mage and loyal soldier, so he’d ask him to join the cause again. Walter would be quite hesitant to join the force again, but after some pleading, he’d acquiesce. He originally joined to protect the people of Grado, and even though his parents wouldn’t be coming back, he could still protect the young soldiers under his care.

And so General Walter would be welcomed back with open arms, though he’d make a small change to his title, preferring the name “Opalite” over “Opal.” Opalite is basically fool’s Opal -- a name given either to a synthetic creation made from glass, or naturally occurring opal so rife with inclusions and flaws that it’s practically worthless. It would perfectly describe how he feels like an empty husk of a man, simply going through the motions so that he can die in peace with no regrets.

Not to say he’s cold or distant or unpleasant to be around in the slightest. It’s just that for all of his warm words of encouragement and highly supportive chats with his subordinates, there’s no getting rid of that constant, nagging cloud of sadness that seems to weigh him down, no matter what he does. He struggles to pretend that everything is normal with him, but everyone can tell that there’s something. Off about him. He drinks a bit too much, he has moments where he wordlessly stares out into the void, has crying spells -- all of it. He’s barely holding it together, and he knows that. But he’s still trying his best.

If I had to pin down his character, I’d say he’s somewhere between Duessel and Selena in terms of his goodness and loyalty to the empire. He’ll give everything he can to stop the Renais twins from advancing, but like hell he’s laying down his life for bullshit reasons when everyone is telling him they don’t want any more bloodshed. He’d probably be taken a prisoner, then would join forces with the twins after they find Knoll and it hits him just how deeply wrong things are.

Jesus fuck this got long. I’ll have to do a Part 2 sometime about his relationships with other characters, especially with Lyon, as that’s a highly important one. But for now, to wrap this up, here’s a few assorted details about Imperial Walter.

Canon Walter is a Sage, whereas Imperial Walter is a Druid. This is because Canon Walt promoted from the Priest line and had little to no practical knowledge of offensive magic. Imperial Walter was pretty much the opposite.

Imperial Walter still has a stutter, though he’s trained himself to make it a lot less noticeable for most people in casual conversation. If I had to compare his speaking style, it would be a lot like Rowan Atkinson.

When he’s having a bit of a breakdown, though, it can get quite bad.

Walter may still be a sweetheart unlike what his brother ultimately became, but he’s no pushover. He’s a goddamn general with nearly 20 years of military experience, and he carries himself like one. Don’t fuck with him.

Dadly advice dispenser. 

Walter is listed as a Demiboy on my About page, and that’s still true for Imperial Walter. He’s a lot more confident in his gender identity, though, and can sometimes be seen making his rounds in “women’s clothing”.

Some people got freaked out by that and claims that he goes mad and puts on his dead mother’s clothing to grieve from time to time, but... No. He bought them himself, thanks.

Walter doesn’t walk with a limp or have a fucked up leg due to Valter’s bullshit, but he does have a banged up arm due to the wolf attack gone bad. He keeps it wrapped up in bandages almost constantly to spare people the horror of having to see it constantly, but doesn’t regard it with fear or shame. It’s a testament to his brother’s sacrifice and the fact that he lived.

[crystalized-dreams]

So, if you frequent Twitter and/or Facebook, you’ll probably know I’ve been pretty sick. While I’m about halfway through my medicine (and hopefully feeling 100% once more), my focus is… very shake-y, at the moment, to say the least. As someone who normally multitasks a loot, it’s so… frustrating to essentially just be stuck staring at one thing and struggling to even accomplish that.

I don’t really like leaving things unfinished and right now, my unfinished pile feels kind of unbearable and there’s not much I can do about it. To make matters worse, because of the previous mentioned problem of not being able to focus, my mind is constantly thinking up ideas (whether drawings, stories, or something else entirely) that I just… do not have the time or talent to put into fruition and it’s pretty disheartening, honestly.

Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to write this entry since earlier this week and wanted to get it up before Pocket Camp came out because I was going to say how likely it’d be to come out the 21st/22nd because the Fortune Event ended then and it was also when the dailies ended for the current round instead of it being the usual 10–of course, I was right with that, but I never actually managed to… get that post done. On the bright side, I did manage to get all the wallpapers in the Fortune event:

As you can see, I apparently got Bitty: I don’t really think it’s that fitting, but I don’t really like to keep retaking these quizzes. I just wish they’d stop with the “shortened” quizzes–most people would prefer to answer all the questions to get a more accurate result and so it’s frustrating when it’s essentially powered by RNG to an extent because I don’t feel it’s entirely accurate.

As for the progress in the game, it’s mostly been slow… Ignoring server issues since the huge increase of people with the game releasing, as I’ve mentioned before, there’s just not much I can do right now. I did manage to get the level 5 Merry-go-Round completed: And currently have the level 5 Pool being built so I just have the Treehouse and Concert left to level up. I also have crafted everything I currently have unlocked at least once so the only things I have left are from getting villagers to level 15. I still have 21 villagers to go and I keep debating on if I should use my Request tickets to try and rush these or save them to rush being able to host when new villagers get added instead. Marshal is likely coming in the new batch of villagers due to being one of the options in the Fortune Event and it’s possible some of my own favorites could make their way in that batch too which would be nice as currently my only favorite villager in the game is Peanut.

As for the game itself, the trees and grass also changed shortly before the game opened for everyone and it’s quite nice: I’m looking forward to us getting snow. I am surprised we didn’t end up having a Harvest Festival ingame, but maybe they felt it was too soon after opening…

My struggles are still heavily with the resource mechanics though–especially with being sick, it makes it hard to keep my stock up since it’s hard to really play much and when I do have those short bursts where I feel up to more, I once again get hit by that item limit wall. Most of the limits and things, I can understand. The timers, the rotations, the crafting things… But the item limit is just such an issue. Especially because you get SO little from selling items, it doesn’t feel worth the effort to get them just to sell them so when your inventory is full, it’s like “Well, now what do I do?”. Prices are what you’d expect for clothing and furniture and to craft, but the prices for selling things from your inventory is just too small to cover that. 10 Bells for “common” stuff is just so disheartening. And it also gives me less of a reason to play when my requests are done honestly and removes a lot of the relaxing part of AC and playing how you like.

While my inventory management continues to be a nightmare, I’m doing pretty well catalog-wise. I currently have all market furniture available, everything from Labelle, and only need one thing from Kicks. I have about 13 things left from the Able Sisters, including one of the dresses (The Plum Coat) that I actually really want But the RNG with it all makes it… frustrating.

In the meantime, when I’ve needed a bit of a break from Pocket Camp due to just running out of things to do or just not having the energy for it, I’ve been having a lot of fun with Tiny Bird Garden which came out on November 15th. If you enjoy Neko Atsume and/or really like birds, you’ll probably enjoy Tiny Bird Garden. It is of the same nature as Neko Atsume (lay out toys and food for birds to come), but a bit more… immersive in a way with NPCs you can talk to and actually getting to talk to and befriend the birds in a way. You can give them treats and hats and it’s just a… very sweet game?

I mean, seriously, look at some of these birds:

I especially relate to Cherry:

And even the NPCs have sweet things to say:

Even the Credits as well:

I’ve managed to see all the birds at least once and give them all their favorite Treats so I just need to figure out all their favorite toys now. They all seem… a lot less picky than the cats in Neko Atsume though which both makes it a bit easier to see them all but also a bit harder if you’re specifically going for one.

Regardless, if you like cute birds and/or just need some kind of casual pick-me up, I really do recommend it–even if just for some positive reminders that you matter.

Right now, Super Mario Odyssey is a bit on hold which makes me… quite sad to be honest. I really love the game, but at the same time I just feel frustrated with it. I think a lot of the Moons are pretty fun, but at the same time it feels like way too much. It just feels packed just to be packed and I just don’t find that very fun. It makes them feel less special. That said, my least favorite ones have to be the high score ones I don’t mind doing the activities a certain amount of times, but there’s… not much fun in spending hours trying over and over to hit a score in the same monotonous activity. And you have to do this in two different ones.

The time trial ones are also fairly frustrating. I’ve long stopped enjoying the races and really just wish the only one was in the Mushroom Kingdom.

I’m sure we’ll get back to the game eventually and I really do want to hit the 999 Moons + get all the costumes, but right now I just feel discouraged and frustrated.

Finally, what I’ve been doing especially these last few months is getting myself a bit lost in visual novels. I love reading, but unfortunately our… living situation isn’t the best to really be situated *to* read books for long periods of time and still be comfortable. Let alone even… keep track of books 😦

I started playing My Candy Love aka Amour Sucré in March of last year and it’s been a… rollercoaster of feelings. I talk a lot about the game over on a Tumblr I have dedicated to it and other Beemoov games, but I wanted to bring it up here too for once because there’s a lot I really want to say about it.

I’m incredibly picky with Otome games. I don’t usually have the same tastes in guys as most people so it’s hard for me to find one appealing. Plus, when many games have you dating girls instead and you’re not particularly interested in girls, you’re usually playing more for story reasons then (Which is why I won’t play any… mature rated ones).

I think Otome games can be quite interesting though if they have a good focus on story and characters and that’s generally what I look for, though, I can be picky with art style. And while the art style in MCL can vary (especially with some of the older episodes’ illustrations), something about it still drew me in and I’m not entirely sure what. My one regret is mostly finding about it so late–the game started in 2011 and so I’ve… missed a lot Both onsite event-wise and merchandise-wise.

One thing that’s been especially frustrating to me is there was a short episode available for those who got a code from their booth at Japan Expo in 2013 that was only available for France and there is only video of one of the routes and I can’t find any transcripts of the other routes and this haunts me so much and is killing me slowly because of all kinds of problems. It’s rare, but hey, if you had unlocked the Japan Expo 2013 ring and now no longer can replay the episode, please report it so maybe someone can… finally upload the other routes and dialogue ._.

Moving to the game itself and despite some of my issues above and sadness of missing out, I wish I knew what captured me about the game. I found myself interested in all the characters and definitely found a favorite of the cast. The game takes place in a high school, towards the end of the school year (though, don’t actually try and figure out the timeline–it’s a complete and utter mess).

I think in a way, especially since my school life was absolute trash, it almost feels therapeutic for me. Even though the focus is the 5 main guys, you get two best friends and have a handful of other classmates as well. And even if on episode where you get completely screwed over, people are still there for you and sometimes a lot of it is just what I needed to hear and didn’t realize.

The game currently is at 37 episodes (with 38 coming out any day now honestly– a lot o people are expecting the trailer tomorrow) and you don’t even start dating the guy you want to go for until the end of Episode 28/start of Episode 29 so there’s a long build up (though, you may find the first 10 episodes kind of slow). There’s character arcs as well, some stronger than others, but honestly, I just have fun with it even if I genuinely think they could use a better translator, the censoring is awkward, and some lines are… a bit cringe-y, but it’s just… truly fun.

They have a Black Friday sale going on so I’m debating on buying a bunch of AP and $ and maybe doing a huge story replay to fix some decisions and things I’m not super happy with and also take opportunities to explore the school more so I’ll be less likely to miss dialogue and stuff too.

I would likely stream the big replay too so if someone is interested in the game, but doesn’t want to play, well, that could be an option!

I will say the game is a bit hard to get into–besides some of the older art style in illustrations, the game unfortunately uses an Action Point system. Once you’re caught up, you’ll usually manage to earn enough to play the next episode by the time it comes out, but until then, it’s a very slow grind trying to play each day and can be super demotivating honestly

Once thing I do wish Beemoov would do (besides an alternative to the AP system) is just… better jobs with merchandising to their other servers. There’s such a big focus on France as it’s the main server and where the company is located, but it really makes other servers feel left out. The manga, as an example, has only been published in French, Spanish, and German. It’s been years with no update on if we will ever see it outside those languages. The Artbooks have only been in French and English. And most merchandise hasn’t been outside France at all. It’s pretty discouraging (and also makes it all the harder to FIND older merchandise…).

Despite all this, the game’s taking place in France actually helped rejuvenate my love for France’s culture too. France was the first country I ever wanted to go to and the first language I wanted to learn when I was just 2-3 years old. It meant a lot to me and after some issues when I finally got to go to Paris, France, a piece of my heart got… incredibly hurt due to certain things that happened and it’s… really nice to have it mended and just between this and Miraculous Ladybug feel that love for France again (Also my French has gotten a lot better with all the things I’ve been looking up for character reasons so that’s pretty awesome).

Beemoov’s other visual novel is Eldarya which is much more fantasy-styled and more mature in general. It has the same kind of thing with a lot more characters besides just the love interest and the other servers are *nearly* caught up with France’s. It’s fun despite some… problematic decisions in plot, but I’m genuinely really excited to see where the story goes.

While I play MCL more for the characters as the story is mostly just… school with some character arcs, Eldarya’s overall story has me incredibly invested with where it’s going to go.

Of course, I don’t only play Otome game-Visual novels. One of Beemoov’s other visual novels is Henri’s Secret which is just a general romance story–you don’t have a character and you follow Lyla’s PoV for the most part (though, the game takes place mostly from a third person view). Even though the secret was super obvious from the get-go (and you learn it pretty quick in the story too–though Lyla and her friends have yet to…), I find myself still interested in the characters and story and really want to see their reactions when they learn Henri’s secret.

As for a non-Beemoov game, I’m actually super into SakeVisual’s Jisei series. I love mysteries and all the characters are super well-written. The fourth part is currently in production and I genuinely can’t wait. It’s such a good series, the art and voice acting is phenomenal and I haven’t played a game from SakeVisual that I haven’t enjoyed, honestly. I still have to finish Backstage Pass, but… stats and schedule stuff in games is hard for me x__x

But yes, this is what I’ve been up to recently! I’m still doing training in Miitopia, but it’s… very slow so that may be a while. I also do hope to get back to Lady Layton as SOON as I’m feeling better. I miss it, but I’m just… in no condition to do puzzles right now.

A bit of an update on things and games I’m currently playing~ So, if you frequent Twitter and/or Facebook, you'll probably know I've been pretty sick. While I'm about halfway through my medicine (and hopefully feeling 100% once more), my focus is...

[dancekickboxcardio]

I looked 👀 so much better morning ☀️. Exact words to BFF, “I was cuter.” Afternoon, you can see the weigh of the day on my face. I am run down. My eyes 👀 is kinder and not mean looking like I can kill you with my icy 🥶 stare. It’s not fresh for sure. It says more like what do you want, I have no time of the day, I am done ✅ . It’s more approachable in what do you want way. At least it’s not don’t talk to me. I took a picture 📸 of the dino 🦖. I try to capture a photo even of little things that I found magic ✨. They caught my eye 👁. I found art 👩🏼‍🎨 in them. There was something interesting. Most of the times it is to take a better memory of what happened. Something to cue and go by. It could tell a story. But my favorite is random.

I should have had a terrible day yesterday. However, it didn’t get a meltdown from me. Ugh 😑, I hate it. I was god darn straight up reasonable and level headed. Why don’t you like combust like a desperate lunatic loser who can’t do anything but spew bogus stuff. Then, that would make not totally me. That’s what people admire about me. They know that they can believe what I say. It is reliable and accurate and they won’t make a fool of themselves repeating it. Although if you want to own my ideas 💡 it is lovely that you can’t defend them and not better than I can.

By the end of the day I was exhausted 😩. I was a little depleted. I had this feeling of giving up given the enormity of the drama of the day, my physical exertions and lack of anything to give ⚡️ anymore. Somehow, in that time of unsureness, I found it in me to keep going. It was almost automatic. What makes me scary 😨 is when most would shrivel into smallness, I am able to let out a confident courage that anchors itself in my coping mechanism, my ability to evaluate a situation, find the solution and follow through without doubt what I believe is the best way to go about it. Sometimes it is scary that I could be automatic that I don’t pay attention and not notice I am there and the little things. Perhaps, I have some other things going on in my mind. You can’t possibly remember every small detail of your life. Like, we were dancing 🕺🏽 in Zumba right. As we were grooving it out 💃🏼 I was actually making some figuring out decision. I don’t ever do that. It was easy going in class yesterday. It wasn’t packed. The energy was there. Everybody seems happy 😃 to put in work. I don’t know 🤷🏼‍♀️ where they were coming from but I just talked to the activities desk about a problem and it was my fifth exercise 💪🏾 🏃🏼‍♀️ after AMP which is high velocity, intensity spinning 🚲 . It was like a party 🎊 too. The reason I don’t give much credit to whatever people think 🤔 I am and it’s not that I don’t know 🤔 they are basing it off themselves, I am more, I weigh it based on where I am. I basically know where I am coming from. You are full of strength. Well, I have excess weigh all over my body and also I am having my shake dinner 🍽 . You can’t judge a person based on you. You put it in their shoes 👠 . Like duh 🙄. Some people are more like others and they can relate better which means they easily form friendship 👭 👬 👫 bonds. But in adulthood, there is a healthy way of going about living.

Wamesy gave me toe kisses 😽. I have achy 😖 tightness in my back. My legs are sore. My stomach too. Yes, tea cup table abs progression 📈.

I had some yogurt 🍦 coming in to the gym 🏃🏼‍♀️ 💪🏾 and I didn’t feel like having my full breakfast 🥞. I blow dried my hair and form it to my fancy. I was pretty cute with my tress. I spend time on my phone 📲 until it was time for Pilates. I missed the Monday class and glad to show up Wednesday. Well, it wasn’t as easy as the last time with April but it was manageable. I wanted to tell her I got out energized and limber. Many people where schmoozing and I am on a clock 🕰. I was able to pull myself lying down to reach my legs 🦵🏾 sitting. I had to hold on to my knees but strength is build up. I was wobbly and I was ok with where I was. I’ll keep on working on it. I love 💕 the part where you are folded in front and one on the side legs and you reach up towards the opposite side for the stretch on your torso and inner thighs. It was complex and a great pose 😊. I felt so womanly 👩🏼 . It was a joy to express myself. Although I am not saying it is a girl’s only class. You take these classes because you know you get something from it. Mary, the Ashtanga Vinyasa yogi 🧘🏼‍♀️ does tiny muscle exercises on the floor. It tickles me. I thought 💭 it proficient. April was great. She was being funny 😆, loose and she’s great with instructions.

I went for breakfast 🍳 after the class. I changed in my bathing suit 👙 and there was an Aqua class. I felt Pilates was for me morning. Another time and not this day. It was nice to see the ☀️ sun shine as I quietly nourish myself. I spend time on my phone 📱 again and that’s because I felt like it. It was something to be done ✅ and I had the option and really the wiggle room in my schedule 📅 to allow for it. Tit for Tat. I do it now, I have free time later. About 30 minutes before suntanning was over at 77 the heat 🥵 was unbearable for me and I was worried 😟 that I might get a heatstroke. I moved to the shade to get my nap 💤 for the day. I went back to switch my lunch 🍴 from breakfast on my food 🥘 bag. I had a leisurely meal at 100p.

I went back to the locker 🔒 room. I showered 🧼, I changed and I opened my stuff to grab my work 📚 to find me freaked out. “Where the hell is my black Vince Camuto purse 👜?” I reported it and they were going to investigate what had happened like check the security cameras. I am like, “What the heck.” Thank God, my laptop 💻 was spared. I checked in with Keya through out the day if there were updates. If someone turned it in. I don’t need the bag 💼 . Heck I am more than happy 😃 to use one of my new designers. But my lipsticks 💄, my Tahiri sunglasses 🕶, my chargers 🔌, my book 📖, my IDs and credit cards 💳. I would love 💗 to get a new wallet. I know I seem funny 😄 about it. It fuels my retail 🛍 enthusiasm. I have had the Badley Mischka wallet since graduating from Notre Dame. It was as old as I was an undergrad graduate 🎓.

I continued with my day like a pro. Ugh 😑 and I wrote ✍🏾 on my journal and I studied 📑. I wish I had my plug for Apple Watch ⌚️ and phone 📱. I wasn’t able to log my activity starting AMP 🚲 .

The room was not volatile. It was of course full of bullying. Yet my impression was it was calm relatively. It was also not pressure packed like I told Laura and you feel at ease to move about like you are safe. I may have low anxiety stepping on the floor because I know many of the trainers 👟 and I have friends in the gym. I also spend my entire day when I am training in the building. I eat my lunch 🍴 and dinner 🍽 there and sometimes breakfast. I use the sauna 🧖🏼‍♀️ and relax 😌 🧴 by the pool 🏊🏻‍♀️ . It’s not that I am not on my toes sharp. I just have lower threshold in my defense and I have a good relationship and a pleasant one with most of them and I feel that I am aware what it’s like during bottlenecks and low attendance moments. There was room to maneuver yesterday working on my lower body using the equipments. It wasn’t as busy. I told Lane seeing him downstairs that there was nobody on the floor. He was like, “I like it.” Mmmmhm. Something that he would say.

My Mom was making me do more over my lost bag. I did what was reasonable. She wanted me to check the garbage 🗑. I am like Mom, I am not going to go crazy over my lost purse 👜. If I remember putting it in my bin, then someone must have taken it from there. I don’t know what that person did to it. She told me like what Morgan said if I brought it to the poolside. I did not. She was like, “Maybe you just brought it with you not thinking 💭.” That’s the thing even with automatic routine behaviors I still account for what I need. What are extra I store. She stopped 🛑 her scenarios and insistence when I said hypothetically if I did bring it outside the camera shall have shown I did. End of discussion.

I was not too bad in the cycling 🚴🏼‍♀️ studio. There were many colleg 📚 kids in club and it is great. I remem using the Notre Dame gym which is open in limited hours and I told an advisor, “The guy was staring at me like he has never seen a girl use the treadmill before.” Yeah, strict stringent conservative. The handle bars where wobbly but I keep my seat 💺 because I wanted to get that after session report. I don’t believe I pressed the right end button 🖲. I had to leave and that’s where I saw my Mom and I got a lecture and I talked with Keya. It was a fun 🎊 class. The instructor was so bubbly . She beats me. I enjoyed her towel exercises. I thought 💭 they were great. I liked the mechanics 🧰 we did on the bicycle. I had to think 🤔 peddling and moving my arms at the same time without falling off the machine. It was great. I felt my inner thighs doing work and I was happy 😃 . Ballerina strength bod.

Zumba 💃🏼 I couldn’t move my legs anymore . They felt like a heavy brick 🧱 . I was able to bust it out on some easy Latin like music 🎶. But squats. It was a feel good work out 🏋🏼‍♀️ and as always the case L’Tan was great in getting us all into it and with various dances from 🕴🏻all over the world 🌍 . Some of them I knew by heart already. I was ready to pass out by the end of that last exercise routine. This was me.

[bienmoreau]

jerejean + “How long has it been since you’ve slept?”

It wasn’t often that anyone saw this side of Jeremy Knox, let aloneJean.

But here they were,Jean hovering in the doorway, Jeremy hunched at the little kitchen table,gripping the stone-cold mug that held his morning coffee. The evening gloommaking what was normally so vibrant and welcoming look washed out and cold.Jeremy hadn’t bothered turning on the lights or, more likely Jean thought,hadn’t needed to when he sat down and hadn’t noticed it getting dark around himas the day dragged on. Jean let out a heavy sigh after a while concluding that Jeremy wasn’t going tonotice him on his own. Clearing his throat he pulled out the chair opposite.“Jeremy?”
The smaller boy jerked to attention at the sound of his name and raised hishead to meet Jean’s eyes, a pained frown forming between his own. “oh, hey Jean- I uh, didn’t hear you come in.” his expression pulled evengrimmer as he clenched his jaw, dropping his gaze and focusing on his coffee. Jean kept his gaze steady, it was obvious that Jeremy wasn’t okay but Jean hadlittle practice caring for others and no experience of dealing with someone hewould tentatively call his friend looking so small and uncertain in front of him.It simply wasn’t what he had become accustomed to since joining the Trojansranks nearly half a year ago. With a steadying breath, Jeremy looked up again, “about last night-” 

It hadn’t been good. Jeremy knew he’d messed up as soon as Sara grabbed his arm, worming her waythrough the mass of bodied in the basement. Her grim and slightly worriedexpression confirmed it for him before she even got the chance to shout overthe noise of the music and drunk students. “LAILA’S TAKEN JEAN HOME. JEREMY, HE DIDN’T LOOK GOOD.”Everything slowed around him as Sara’s words sunk in. Jean. Shitof course! 
There had been an unprecedented amount of people at the party that night. Morethan there was ever meant to be in the basement of the dorm tower. TheStickball Swing, as the volleyball girls had dubbed their little mid-seasonparty for the exy team, had always been an invite only for the two teams andthe players plus-ones, the perfect casual step up from the few non-compulsoryteam socials Jeremy had been able to get Jean to attend up to now. But thisyear someone had leaked the date and time. Before they knew it, the basement waspacked, the press of bodies pushing Jeremy further away from where he had beenstanding with Jean, Laila and Sara. Of course it had been too much for Jean, he had already looked uncomfortablemaking his way down the stairs underground. STUPIDSTUPID STUPID! Jeremy berated himself as he shoved his way back out to the entrance.How could he have been such an idiot! They had been making such good progressand he was doing well at keeping on top of the things Jean wouldn’t be able todeal with. He had been. 
But it had been a hard season so farand as much of an asset Jean was to them the team dynamic was still a littleprecarious. He had been so caught up in working out the best course for hispost grad plans and finalising his midterm project focus- He’d just wanted a night off. But at what cost?Guilt ridden and suddenly bone heavy with exhaustion, Jeremy headed straightfor his and Jean’s dorm but there was no sign of either Jean or Laila. Itwouldn’t have been obvious to a casual observer, Jeremy had trained himself tokeep his public face back in high school, but a level of base panic wassettling in his gut. The next stop at Laila and Alvarez’s own dorm also had noresult. In the quiet of the empty corridor Jeremy let himself a brief moment of frustration,at the idiot who leaked the party plans, at he season being harder than he’dexpected, at the challenge Jean presented the team not unexpected or the mansfault but still hard to manage on top of everything else that came with beingin his final year. But mostly at himself; for dropping the ball, for puttingJean in such a situation in the first place, for not thinking it through orseeing it coming, for letting his own want for a night off from it all undothe progress Jean had been making. Thumping his hand against the wall, hard, hecursed and turned on his heel trying to think where else to check for hisfriends. He was supposed to be better than this. What was the point of the years he’dput into making himself into the person he was today if he didn’t come thoughwhen it mattered. When it was his friends he hurt or let down. When it wasJean. 

His search seemedendless and endlessly fruitless. He’d gone through all the places he could thinkof, going so far as to run all over campus checking the court, library and evengoing all the way over to the studios to see if there was a chance they wereopen and Laila and Jean where inside. Nothing. His phone had died at some point and it was only knowing how much it would makeeverything worse in the long run that stopped him from lobbing it as far as hecould from the bank at the edge of the beach. That was the last place he looked, slumping down onto his haunches and lettingout a heavy sigh he tipped forward to lean on the railing and watched in numbindifference as the sun rose over the sea.

He trudged back tohis doom in grim silence, kicking at rocks and tufts of coarse grass on theside of the road and kicking himself for the whole situation. Guilt andexhaustion warring for witch could win out as the first of his tangled emotionsto make him cry. He fumbled his keys before finally getting the door open and stumbling into thechill morning light of the empty dorm. Scrubbing his hands over his face hedropped his keys and long dead phone onto the shelf by the door and made hisway into the kitchen to make a coffee, determined to wait for Jean to comehome, for him to be able to apologise and see for himself that Jean was okay.

—————————

Jean didn’t knowwhat to do with Jeremy like this, he looked small, smaller than Jean had everthough he could. Small and cold and… scared? Jean didn’t understand but he knew he didn’t like it. 

—————–

The party had beena disaster sure, but it wasn’t Jeremy’s fault. Laila had got them both out ofthere quick enough for it not to be too bad. But he had still been badly shakenand couldn’t breathe properly for a while, darkness edging into his vision asLaila pushed people out of their way as fast as she could to get him out intothe cool night air. Once they were there and she had him looking up at theclear winter sky he’d got it back under control. They walked around for a while, Laila making small conversation and justletting Jean know that she was there and he was okay. They stopped to buy teafrom a vending machine and watched the sunrise reflecting off the huge studiowindows behind the art block. Then made their way home and found Sara waitingfor them with the news that Jeremy wasn’t in his and Jeans room or answeringhis phone and that it was decided that Jean would sleep on their sofa so hedidn’t have to go back to the empty dorm. 

That was hours ago.Jean had surprised himself with how long he slept. Clearly this whole transferhas been taking it out of him more than he was letting on even to himself. Sarawent out and got them all a late lunch once he was up. It was already starting to get dark by the time their conversation lulledenough for Jean to excuse himself. 

———

“How long has itbeen since you’ve slept?”  Jeans voice came out quieter than he’d expected, softer. Jeremy looked grey inmood and complexion as he met Jeans eyes. He swallowed thickly and reached upto touch his cheek as if only just realising what he must look like. 

“oh, umm.. I haven’t” he blinked a few times and managed to focus hisgaze on his coffee again before frowning at its tepidity and pushing unsteadilyto his feet, wobbling and having to drop his free hand to the table top almostimmediately but Jean was already on his feet and leaning across the spacebetween them holding out a steadying hand.

“Jere-” he started, a new tinge of worry in his tone but Jeremy steppedaway shaking his head

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry Jean I didn’t mean for that to happen. It shouldhave been okay, it though it would be okay but I- I just wanted a night off. I’msorry I should have known better, it was selfish of me and I put you in a situationI never should have, I should be better, as your captain I should have takenmore care.” His voice dropped to a cracked whisper and he buried one side ofhis face in his hand as he rubbed at his eye “I should have done better- asyour friend -and I’m sorry”

Jean expression froze as he tried to work out what to do with thesituation in front of him but only for a moment before he rounded the table andcarefully took the mug out of Jeremy shaking hand and put it down. Reaching outagain he tentatively turned the shorter man to face him ducking slightly tomeet his eyes. There was a soft clarity to his voice that Jean had never heardfrom himself before when he spoke again. “Jeremy, I’m okay. It wasn’t good and I don’t know how bad it could have beenif Laila hadn’t got me out of there, but she did, so I’m okay. And it wasn’t yourfault. Jeremy, I don’t blame you for this. You need to sleep. You’ve been awakefor nearly 30 hours. And this wasn’t your fault so I don’t blame you. It’sokay. I’m okay.”

It struck him as he watched Jeremy come back to himself a little and nodslowly at what Jean had said, that it felt like the truth to him, in thatmoment it felt like it really was okay.He knew this wasn’t it, that the shadows and demons and nightmares that plaguedhim and the anger and fear that gripped his lungs and poisoned his blood onsome days weren’t gone, hell, they’d nearly gotten the better of him again onlyhours earlier. But here in this little kitchen that slowly seemed to get brighteras Jeremy’s grey shroud of guilt and regret lifted. In front of Jeremy who hadseemed like a figure of such unbearable light in those early days, such a foreignthing from Jean’s understanding of the world, but now that he looked again he sawthe sunrise that he and Laila had watched, and felt the same feeling of calm ithad brought him after the crowded basement. As Jeremy let out a sigh so heavy with relief that it was tangible and finally,finally, smiled Jean realised that in that moment he really was okay.

[jatamansi-arc]

@illusivexemissary brought this up in her vocaroo about Salome’s and Gabe’s relationship with each other. So, let’s talk about that really quick.

I lied, it’s going to be a multiple part escapade. So here, let’s get the first part done.

Salome’s History, Pt. I: Familial Relations

As I’ve talked about before, and what can be found in her biography, Salome was born as Shelomit Rut Bernadette Cohn on November 4th, 1985. Her parents are named Tzvi and Rachel. 

Here’s the important stuff you need to know about her parents: 

Tzvi: Her father was born in 1956, to two Holocaust survivors named Avraham (31) and Rut (29). He’s the youngest of three, with a brother a sister. He grew up, went to school, graduated, and otherwise lived in Syracuse his entire life. Was raised in a Conservative Jewish environment, but became BT” (baal teshuva) in his early college career, c. 1976-77, and went to rabbinical school. From there, he formed his own haredi congregation with himself as rabbi in Syracuse.

Her father was charismatic, but he also was incredibly mean-spirited, manipulative, and an otherwise questionable human being. I’ve said before that power went to his head. With luxury cars and amazing showmanship, Rebbe Cohn, like many in positions like him, pretty much ignored or buried any allegation of abuse in his community, including the ones that directly impacted his daughters. And it’s a precedence he teaches to his followers. Aloft and mysterious, even to family, it’s not a surprise that Salome finds herself unable to describe him to strangers, let alone under bad terms. 

Because, to everyone under his influence, even his children, a rabbi can’t do any wrong. Even if all of his children are the victims of his wrongdoing and predilection for manipulation and intimidation. Salome, not around for the final years of his life, eventually concludes that karma catches up with him in the form liver cancer that kills him slowly, over the course of two years.

She doesn’t attend his funeral, nor does her brother. It’s an invitationafforded only to his eldest daughter.

Rachel: Younger than her husband, born in the spring of 1962 in a Moroccan hospital to now French expats, Rahelita has lived a much more colorful life than her husband. One half of identical twins, to which she’s a few minutes earlier than her sister Estimada, they both earn instant citizenship to the country of their parents’ origin before the family returns to Northern Paris after a few weeks time. There, she goes to secular day school and an Orthodox school in the afternoon. 

Flash forward to her early adulthood, Rahelita adopts the more traditional name of Rachel and goes to America to study medicine on a scholarship. Here, looking to an Orthodox matchmaker, she meets Tzvi. They are married within four months, and soon after, she earns the title of Rebbetzin. And if being a rabbi went to Salome’s father’s head, being the wife of the rabbi certainly went to Rachel’s twofold. Nagging, overbearing, and almost every other stereotype of a Jewish mother wrapped into a 5′1″ package, Rachel is nearly unbearable to all of her children, and Salome rarely escapes from her gaze, even now. 

That said, she struggled through motherhood physically and nearly died having Salome, so she had to give up on her big family of kids. It’s a grudge I don’t think she’s ever forgiven Salome for, even if it’s not the kid’s fault. And when Salome was four, Rachel also developed a very severe form of breast cancer that resulted in her having to undergo a double mastectomy and reconstruction.

This was when Rachel learned Salome had a talent for drawing, as her daughter brought her get well cards in the hospital with sprawling landscapes and other details that were impressive for a near toddler. Rachel took them, crumpled them after her daughter left, and would eventually tell her daughter that her hands were blessed only by the devil’s, and art was the work of idolatry. Starting what would become a cavernous pit of a relationship between the two by the time Salome reached adulthood.

When it comes to her siblings, Salome is the youngest -- and therefore the baby and black sheep -- of them. Preceding her are an elder sister, named Tova, who is five years her senior, and then a brother, this time three years greater, named Moses (but almost exclusively going by Moishe.) 

Tova

Works as an emergency room nurse somewhere around Monsey, NY. Married at 17, Tova is now a divorced mother of three boys who is trying to date and work and balance single motherhood with both. Cute, kind and incredibly naive about the non-Orthodox world, Tova is everything Salome isn’t. She’s also consistently, and patently, adorable.

Salome and her sister are close, but somewhat also strained. Tova caves under the pressure of their mother easily and it oftentimes has the worse impact of the baby sister. Tova tries to protect her, but there’s only so much she can do.

Basically: Salome knows her sister is sensitive and under an incredible amount of stress, but sometimes it gets frustratingly old. 

Other important details? Her husband was abusive as fuck, which is why she took her boys and left in the middle of the night, and never looked back. She also also worked progressively, since then, to try to make inroads on the Orthodox community when it comes to sweeping abuses under the rug.

Moishe

The middle sibling, Moses seemed to be like everything her parents ever wanted. Gifted, with the same talent for language as his baby sister, he excelled in his studies and their father wanted him to take over the family “business” at some point. Moishe, instead of seeking out rabbinical school, veers towards medical school after his four years as an undergrad. Oh, and then he blows, just like his baby sister did.

Now he lives in New Canaan, CT (which I laugh, because omg so close to the X Mansion oops), and is a cardiac surgeon. He specializes in transplants, but he generally also works the Emergency department, which means only the idiot baby sister escaped emergency medicine. He’s not Orthodox, nor does he even really practice, and is pretty much an atheist. If it’s not science or medicine, he doesn’t really have time for it.

Other things I know about Moishe: he has an autism spectrum disorder, along with a mild form of OCD. He likes dogs, and owns five. He’s more like Salome than Tova is, in actuality, and if they would bloody talk to each other, I think they’d actually get on. But Salome is bitter mcprissy pants because her brother got spoiled and treated better, so she doesn’t much talk to him unless she has to.

Salome doesn’t talk to her immediate family in adulthood, or at least not willingly. The only exception to this is Tova. There’s also a few cousins of hers, namely Miriam and Darcy ( @zzapzzaptasers ), but Miriam lives in France and Darcy is off on space adventures, usually. 

Salome was also close to her paternal grandparents, perhaps even moreso than her parents. Which brings us to another cut off to talk about them.

Avraham

Born in Warsaw in 1925, Avraham was the oldest of two children by a year (the other is Basia, a sister), and grew up under tons of turmoil throughout his entire childhood. A year to the day of his birth saw the start of the May Coup and a more authoritative government, for example, but by the time he was fourteen, Warsaw was already under threat from the air by Nazi Germany. By the end of that year, 40,000 or more people had been injured or killed while the city was shut down, and the President deported to Dachau. 

The prospects of going to college basically were destroyed soon after, though Avi, being the son of a Rabbi who was also a sofer, contributed to family means by also scribing for the Jewish community. Usually in the form of mezuzah parchments or marriage certificates, though this would become increasingly unstable once the Warsaw Ghetto was established. In the winter of 1941, Avi’s mother perishes from starvation, with the toll of a roughly <175 calorie intake a day finally taking its final toll on her already weakened body. 

In late 1942, their father refuses to be deported to Treblinka, knowing it is a death sentence, and is subsequently shot. Basia, infuriated by this and long having been involved in the illegal ZOB, encourages her brother to become involved in the Resistance movement and they begin to smuggle weapons into the ghetto. This is, perhaps humorously, where Avi meets his later wife, Rut.

During the Uprising, two major points happen for Avraham:

His sister, Basia, working as a sniper in one of the ghetto’s buildings, is killed when the Nazi forces begin to torch buildings to destroy the opposition. She dies from a combination of smoke inhalation and burns at the age of 17.

Terrified by this, and now without any family, Avi convinces Rut to escape with him and they manage to get out but are captured. Avi is sent to Auschwitz, and Rut would eventually end up at Mauthausen.

Some of this is more relevant than others, as for example, in her canon with @metallsinne, Avraham meets Erik’s parents there eventually and tries to protect Edie from being gassed immediately upon arrival (though we all know how well that worked.) But after the war, he becomes what will eventually be known as a Sh'erit ha-Pletah and helps form a cohesive government before emigrating from Poland to the United States. Why?

He finds out Rut is alive and living in New York from one of his peers. And in one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever written, after he manages to get to New York, a bloody year later, he arrives on her doorstep with his mother’s wedding ring in a shitty cardboard box and a bouquet of flowers. 

And she accepts. They lived, very happily married, for the rest of their lives. Avi eventually taking up work as a clockmaker and repairman. And they are become a beacon to the outside world to Salome and her siblings, to remind them that normal people exist. So close to her grandfather was Salome in particular, that when he dies in the year 1998, she is devastated. 

Rut

Rut is also born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1926, but unlike her husband, she is the only daughter of a young couple just trying to find their way in [ the already explained shithole that was ] Poland before WWII. Rut grows up wanting to be a normal kid but generally gets involved in the ZOB pretty early into the Ghetto’s existence. Doing what, you may ask?

Generally helping to facilitate food being smuggled in, which she also helps deliver to those who are in most need along with her parents’ help. It’s at a meeting shortly before the uprising, in 1942, where she meets Avraham and quickly falls in love with him. Her parents bless this potential union, provided everyone survives the hell that is the Holocaust, and it is one of the last things they do. Like Avi’s parents, they too, succumb to a combination of forces like starvation and illness that end up taking thousands in the few years they are trapped there with so many others.

After trying to escape after Basia’s demise in the Uprising, both are deported to Auschwitz, though Rut is later moved to Mauthausen where she works as a “nurse” in the Krankenlager. Here, she sees many of her people breathing their last, though Rut can’t reconcile is this is for the better or not, considering the alternatives.

Once the camp is liberated, Rut manages to secure a place emigrating to America and settles in Syracuse in a tiny mother-in-law apartment at the home of relatives who already lived in the area. She makes money to pay for her expenses by tailoring clothing and sewing dresses for others, which is something she will continue until her death in 1994.

Before way then, however, Avi shows up on her doorstep, like I said. And they eventually get married a few months later, with very little to show for it. Rut sews her own dress, to save money, and it’s very simple. They don’t start a family for several years after that, out of this survival’s instinct that it’s not safe to, but eventually they have three kids they adore. Mostly adore. Tzvi’s always been kind of questionable.

They take their grandkids on alternating weekends, though Salome usually stays every weekend, unlike her siblings. Her parents find her attitude better, along with her mood, so they encourage it to help ease their own stresses. Salome’s name is also chosen by her grandmother in the end, because she hopes that she’ll grow exhibiting the traits of a warrior queen. Something she thought was fitting in the post-Holocaust state.

Oh, and she also worked at a drug store in her senior years. She enjoyed it, and collected a bunch of stupid stuff. Rut was kind of a giant nerd like that. Avi was just... pretty fucking lost without his wife, to be honest. I’m surprised he made it another four years without her, because they did everything together.

AND THERE’S THE FAMILY PORTION. YOU GET MORE SOON.

[andrewdburton]

Great lessons from great men

Because I write a personal finance blog, I read a lot of books about money. I'll be honest: they're usually pretty boring. Sure, they can tell you how to invest in bonds or how to find the latest loophole in the tax code. But most of them lack a certain something: the human element.

Over the years, I've found that it's fun to read a different kind of money book in my spare time. I've discovered the joy of classic biographies and success manuals, especially those written by (or about) wealthy and/or successful men. When I read about Benjamin Franklin or Booker T. Washington or J.C. Penney, I learn a lot — not just about money, but about how to be a better person.

Here are some of the most important lessons that these books, written by and about great men of years gone by, have taught me.

Be Tenacious

“Anybody can be a halfway man, but the one who rises above this class is the one who keeps everlastingly pushing.” — J. Ogden Armour, Touchstones of Success (1920)

More than any other, one lesson stands out from the books I've read: Never give up. If you have a goal or a dream, pursue it. If there's a cause that you truly believe in, then fight for it. That's not to say that you should doggedly chase greed or gluttony, but that you should do your best to achieve those things that are important to you. Great men — and great women too! — struggle through daunting obstacles to reach their destinations. In everything that you do, do your best. And remember: The road to wealth is paved with goals.

Exercise Self-Control

“‘Tis easier to suppress the first desire, than to satisfy all that follow it.” — Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth (1758)

Because he had very real trouble regulating his impulses, Benjamin Franklin famously attempted to codify his quest for self-control. As Brett wrote at The Art of Manliness, Franklin committed himself to thirteen virtues, and he developed a system for tracking how disciplined he was in his daily pursuit of these ideals. There's nothing wrong with an occasional indulgence. But when the indulgence becomes a habit — or worse, a vice — this can affect your life. Even destroy it. If you have habits that prevent you from fulfilling your potential, find a way to boost your self-control. (You might, for example, use Joe's Goals to track your progress, much like Benjamin Franklin did.)

Do the Right Thing

“To be truly rich, regardless of his fortune or lack of it, a man must live by his own values. If those values are not personally meaningful, then no amount of money gained can hide the emptiness of life without them.” — John Paul Getty, How to Be Rich (1961)

Have a code of honor, and live by it. Your code of honor might come from your faith, or from your education, or from your family. Whatever the source, live by these values. Life is filled with temptations. The more you accomplish, the more people will tempt you with offers for quick gains or passing pleasures. Many people succumb to these, but those who do rarely achieve what they might have if they'd stuck to their principles. The books I've read are filled with stories of folks who have resisted the urge to compromise, and who believe that this has been a key to their success. Don't cheat. Be honest. Work hard. And embrace the golden rule.

Embrace the Golden Rule

“Good will is one of the few really important assets of life. A determined man can win almost anything that he goes after, but unless, in his getting, he gains good will he has not profited much.” — Henry Ford, My Life and Work (1922)

James Cash Penney — the man behind the J.C. Penney chain of department stores — believed that success could be measured by how a man treated others. In his book, Fifty Years with the Golden Rule, Penney describes his life-long adherence to this maxim: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Other great people through history have believed the same. They believed that their fortunes came not from pursuing money itself, but by producing something of value to others. But this principle also holds true outside of business. In your dealings with your friends, your family, and with strangers, treat others as you would like to be treated. Doing so builds social capital, strengthening the fiber of the community.

Pay Yourself First

“Many a man is poor today, although he has worked like a slave, simply because he could not save.” — Orison Swett Marden, The Young Man Entering Business (1903)

Another common thread in most of these books — and in personal-finance classics like The Richest Man in Babylon — is the importance of saving. “Pay yourself first,” the old adage goes, and it's great advice. If you will set aside ten or twenty per cent of all that you earn, your fortune will grow far beyond that of your peers. Some of this money should be invested in a manner that makes you comfortable. (You should learn about the concepts of asset allocation and diversification, if you haven't already.) But some of your money should also be set aside in an emergency fund. When you save — when you pay yourself first — you are using the strength of your youth to insure your uncertain tomorrow.

Avoid Debt

“Be assured that it gives much more pain to the mind to be in debt, than to do without any article whatever which we may seem to want.” — Thomas Jefferson, Letter to his daughter Martha (14 June 1787)

Many young people struggle with debt — I did so myself. But those who are not able to overcome their spending habits are likely to find themselves always poor. When you pay interest to someone else, you cannot earn interest for yourself. When you're in debt, your options are limited. You cannot choose, for example, to take a month off to travel across the country with a friend. You cannot quit a job you hate. If you did, how would your bills get paid? To be sure, a certain amount of debt is useful in business, but make it a policy in your personal life to never borrow for something that will decrease in value. (And if you're already behind, make it a priority to get out of debt as soon as possible.)

Keep Well

“The foundation of success in life is good health: that is the substratum of fortune; it is the basis of happiness. A person cannot accumulate a fortune very well when he is sick.” — P.T. Barnum, The Art of Money Getting (1880)

Your health is your greatest asset. If you lack health, you cannot work, and cannot produce an income. Health allows you to engage in productive activities, at work and at play. It allows you to enjoy the company of your friends and family. And it allows you to live with vigor. Guard your health. Do not neglect your body. Eat well. Exercise regularly. If you drink or smoke, do so in moderation. You will not live forever, but with some care and foresight, you may get a little closer!

Do Not Covet

“By wishing to be what he calls ‘up-to-date' as his friends or boon companions, many a young man mortgages his future.” — Orison Swett Marden, The Young Man Entering Business (1903)

It never pays to compare yourself to others. For one, you can find yourself longing to own the same things they do. Your best friend buys a new Ford Mustang, and suddenly you want one too. Your co-workers go out for drinks on Friday evening, but you're broke — the temptation to join in, to have what others have, can be unbearable. Focus only on yourself and how the things you own and do relate to your goals. Don't be jealous of others. (This is one message in the famous essay, “Acres of Diamonds”: Instead of looking elsewhere for wealth, look at your own life.)

Live Modestly

“This, then, is held to be the duty of the man of wealth…To set an example of modest, unostentatious living, shunning display or arrogance.” — Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth (1889)

This is the flip side to “Do Not Covet”. Just as you should not allow the behavior of your friends to influence your spending decisions, so too be conscious of your influence on them. If you have money, don't flaunt it. And if you don't have money, don't pretend that you do. It's fine (even good) to buy quality products, but don't be flashy. Live simply and well.

Practice Patience

“No matter how great the talent or the effort, some things just take time: you can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.” — Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report (1985)

Too many people want to “get rich quick”. They're on the lookout for fast money. They also want to lose weight now, to be a great writer now, to be in management now. This obsession with “now” is a problem. In his new book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell writes that the difference between those who succeed and those who don't is 10,000 hours. That is, those who achieve mastery have patiently practiced their craft for at least 10,000 hours — the equivalent of five years of full-time work. When people ask me why Get Rich Slowly has been successful, one of my responses is that I've worked at it 60+ hours a week for the past fourteen years. Practice may not “make perfect”, but it certainly breeds success.

Give Generously

“Thrift does not end with itself, but extends its benefits to others. It founds hospitals, endows charities, establishes colleges, and extends educational influences.” — Samuel Smiles, Thrift (1875)

I wasn't raised in a culture of giving. It's only something I'm beginning to learn in middle age. But as I read about the choices of those who have come before me, it's clear that they have derived satisfaction (and have done a lot of good) by giving generously — not just of money, but also of time and knowledge. Do not hoard the things you have. Share them so that others might profit, too. Think abundance, not scarcity.

Embrace an Abundance Mindset

“I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak…I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.” — Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery (1901)

Look, people are people. Each of us is trying to make our way through this life the best way we possibly can. I may not agree with your approach and you may not agree with mine, but that does not mean we can't peacefully coexist. I don't have to hate you for what you believe; you don't have to hate me for my worldview. There's too much hate in this country (and this world) right now. Hate stems from a lack of patience, a lack of empathy, a lack of spirit. Fundamentally, hate is the scarcity mindset in action: “There's not enough for me, so there's certainly not enough for people like you.” I don't buy it. I believe there's plenty for everyone, and that it's our responsibility to help others share in the abundance. Sounds cheesy, I know, but I truly believe it.

Learning from the Average Joe

Over the past decade, I've enjoyed reading the real-life stories of how great men became great. (And great women too!) But I've also found it enlightening to read about the experiences of the average everyday person — people like you and me.

One book I strongly recommend (especially considering the state of the economy) is Hard Times by Studs Terkel. Hard Times is an oral history of the Great Depression. Terkel interviewed scores of men and women about their experiences during the 1930s. Their stories are amazing, and they offer great insight about how we can live better lives today. (I wrote more about this book in the thick of the Great Recession.)

Go forth, my friends, and do great things.

Note: This article originally appeared at The Art of Manliness in a slightly different form. Also, for Mother's Day, Tanja Hester from Our Next Life shared a companion piece profiling Great Lessons from Great Women. Check it out!

from Finance https://www.getrichslowly.org/great-lessons-from-great-men/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[douchebagbrainwaves]

YOU GUYS I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS

They'll be overwhelmed; you'll see. If you know a lot about programming and you start learning from users what you should have been thinking is this a good idea because a they're fair, and b their growth potential makes it easy to change your mind.1 He has an almost superhuman integrity. But what happened in Pittsburgh? If you want to partner with you, move where there are people who do.2 I did that our valuation was crazy.3 If you're not, there's a danger that the increase in disagreement will make people angrier. If employees have to be other ideas that involve databases, and whose quality you can judge.4 The whole thing was only a couple months old, every week that passes gives you significantly more information about them. But when you damp oscillations, you lose the high points as well as Newton, for their time, but also correct about how correct he is. On the Web, the barrier for publishing your ideas is even lower. Mihalko was mine.

I don't want four years of my life to be consumed by random schleps. The Bay Area was a magnet for the young and optimistic for decades before it was associated with technology. They may represent one of those problems where there might not be anything from the 20th Century that can. Whereas a PhD dissertation knows, the way to a great product, how do you know it's not 70%?5 Microcomputers seemed like toys when Apple and Microsoft started working on them. And the only real test, if you can. There is a huge moral weight.6 In that case I often recommend that founders act like consultants—that they wanted to fund professors, when really they should be planning to raise. That's an interesting idea. The prices of gene sequencing and 3D printing are both experiencing Moore's Law-like declines.

So why do investors ask how much you're planning to raise. Twelve!7 Logically, you don't know whether your overall uncertainty is mostly justified or mostly bogus.8 I worked, it seemed to them, and that you should start startups when you're young and there are lots of things wrong with the senator's argument, you should not merely ignore their objections, but push aggressively in that direction. Corollary: be careful what you ask for. Get one.9 Those companies were apparently willing to establish subsidiaries wherever the experts wanted to live. Breaking up companies into smaller units doesn't make those needs go away. But the thing to be in the same way Los Angeles specializes in movies, or New York in finance.10 I had a design philosophy.11 But it's important to realize that economic inequality is not just one thing.

If you're so fortunate as to have to go back to programming in a language seems to be x. Mihalko, everything was different. In a startup, anything might happen. Hope for the best, but how fuzzy it is.12 So here's an attempt at a disagreement hierarchy: DH0. There's no name for what I was doing exactly the same work, except with bosses.13 Dressing up is not so much that founders now have the upper hand over investors, if they could, is wait. When there's something in a painting by Piero della Francesca. You should figure out programs as you're writing them, just as someone used to dynamic typing finds it unbearably restrictive to have to travel to attend board meetings, and in any case the odds of doing that.14 The future and build what seems interesting. The other teachers were at best benevolently indifferent.15 I want to zoom in on one detail of this picture.

And you have to do so but be content to work for one. Lisp, and each year the median language gets more Lisplike. But lower-tier investors sometimes give offers with very short fuses, because they were poor. And it was not just our price to earnings ratio that was bogus. The most common mistake people make about economic inequality is to treat them like feature requests. It did what software almost never does: it just worked. Defaults are enormously powerful, precisely because they operate without any conscious choice. One thing you learn when you get an email from a partner you should try to delay meeting till you're in fundraising mode, because that's fundraising.16 It would be like drinking from a firehose. Most of the people. That's a way more efficient cure for inexperience than a normal job may actually make you less able to start a startup with you, and it would still be just as happy to be told what to do in the second. The average office is a miserable place to get work done.17

And it's also one that furnishes them plenty of excuses to gratify it.18 And that's one reason open source, I don't mean trustworthy so much as that they never pander: they never say or do something because that's what you were getting whether you liked it or not.19 For example, correcting someone's grammar, or harping on minor mistakes in names or numbers. It seems surprising to me that succinctness is power, or is close enough that you're better off using the organic method, you don't want to. Silicon Valley elsewhere, or is close enough that except in pathological examples, I would have realized that there was a fast path out of. The other reason parents may be mistaken is that, like generals, they're always fighting the last war. So while I admit that it is designed by product managers, they'll never be able to. It took decades for relativity to be accepted, and the paper becomes a proxy for the achievement represented by the software.20 Individual programs can certainly be more than just deciding how to implement some spec.21 Understanding your users is part of half the principles in this list.22

Notes

Giving away the razor and making more per customer makes it onto the frontpage is the only function of the former, and that you decide the price, they wouldn't have the perfect life, and each night to make money.

And while this sort of person who has them manages to find a broad hard-beaten road to his house, though. Come From? Where Do College English 28 1966-67, pp. Philosophy is like math's ne'er-do-well brother.

A friend who invested in the same differentials exist to satisfy demand among fund managers for venture capital as an adult. Microsoft must know in the sale of art are unfinished. This was partly confidence, and credit card debt is usually a stupid move, but essentially a startup enough to incorporate a prediction of quality in the 1920s to financing growth with the high-minded Edwardian child-heroes of Edith Nesbit's The Wouldbegoods.

The image shows us, the first abstract painters were trained to paint from life using the same work, done mostly by hackers. All he's committed to is following the evidence wherever it leads. Perhaps it would have disapproved if executives got too much to generalize.

This is a great programmer doesn't merely do the equivalent thing for founders to walk in with a clear plan for life in Palo Alto to have lunch at the start of the things Julian gave us. It's sometimes argued that we should at least once for that might be a startup with a toothbrush. 7 reports that in the middle of the biggest divergences between the two, because it doesn't commit you to behave like adults, it is the most demanding but also seem to them, not where to see how much you're raising, have been the first million is worth doing, because even if it's not obvious you'd be surprised how often the answer is simple: pay them to get a patent troll, either, that is modelled on private sector funds and apparently generates good returns.

If you want to wait for the last round of funding. If you're good you'll have to do and everything I say the rate of improvement is more like your brother? The air traffic control system works because planes would crash otherwise.

But there are only partially driven by bookmarking, not you. At Princeton, 36% of the markets they serve, because a there was near zero crossover. If Congress passes the founder of the people working for large companies will naturally wonder, how much would you have the least VC-like. No one seems to be identified with you to stop, but there are few things worse than he was before, but this could be done, lots of potential winners, from hour to hour that the middle class first appeared in northern Italy and the war, tax rates have had to both write the sort of investor who merely seems like he will fund you, they said, and the company's present or potential future business belongs to them.

Everything is a variant of Reid Hoffman's principle that if the sender happens to compensate for another. It would not be to go the bathroom, and as a child, either, that probably doesn't make A more powerful version written in C, which was open to newcomers because it depends on the blades may work for us, they have a notebook to write it all yourself.

It is still a few years. If they really need a higher growth rate has to their kids in a company doesn't have to sweat any one outcome. Vii. One implication of this desirable company, you can't do much that they're starting petitions to save the old version, I preferred to work late at night to make money from them.

The second assumption I made because the test for what she has done to painting may be that the VCs want it to profitability before your initial investors agreed in advance that you're talking to a clueless audience like that.

And while this is the lost revenue. 05 15, the Patek Philippe 10 Day Tourbillon, is caring what random people thought it was briefly in Britain in the succession of spectacular treason trials that punctuated Henry's erratic matrimonial progress made him an obvious candidate for grants of monastic property.

Their inexperience makes them overbuild: they'll create huge, overcomplicated agreements, and one different qualities that some of the great painters in history supported themselves by painting portraits. B success depended so much better that it also worked for spam. The French Laundry in Napa Valley. If you treat your classes because you couldn't slow the latter case, as Brian Burton does in SpamProbe.

The angels had convertible debt, but I realize starting a company. If you're doing. The way to be doctors?

It may indeed be a big deal. Apparently there's only one founder take fundraising meetings is that in the postwar period also helped preserve the wartime compression of wages—specifically by sharding it. Public school kids arrive at college with a slight disadvantage, but even there people tend to work not just a few years. What I should add that none of your new microcomputer causes someone to do more with less, is due to I.

Buy an old copy from the CIA runs a venture fund called In-Q-Tel that is largely true, it is very polite and b when she's nervous, she expresses it by smiling more. When VCs asked us how long it would not be if Steve hadn't come back; Apple can change them instantly if they become so embedded that they take a conscious effort to be writing with conviction. They have the determination myself.

She was always good at acting that way. Thanks to Paul Buchheit points out, it's this internal process at work. Unless of course finding words this way would be possible to have too few customers even if they do.

They're still deciding, which is the converse: that the Internet. Philosophy is like math's ne'er-do-well brother.

This form of bad idea, at which startups develop new techology is the same.

The hardest kind of protection is one of his professors did in salary. I'm thinking of Oresme c.

And since there are few things worse than close supervision by someone else created earlier. Thanks to judgmentalist for this purpose are still a leading cause of economic equality in the room, and then scale it up because they want to invest in it.

You could probably starve the trolls of the companies that get funded this way, it has to be doomed. What if a company. Kant. And beans are a different idea of happiness from many older societies.

In January 2003, Yahoo released a new Lisp dialect called Arc that is not Apple's products but their policies. 1300, with smiles and laughter.

[southernknots-blog]

Living with Endo

Endometriosis is a disorder in which tissue that normally lines the uterus, grows outside the uterus. Symptoms of endometriosis include painful periods, painful intercourse, severe abdominal pain, excessive bleeding, diarrhea, nausea and infertility. Although some of these do not apply to me I want everyone reading this to be aware of the most common symptoms and to know that every person is different. With that being said.. this is my story...

When I was 13 I started the wonderful journey that is "womanhood!" It only took two short years later to realize that something wasn't normal. I was 15, I remember sitting in that chair when my OB told me I had endometriosis, PCOS and reoccurring ovarian cysts. Really, I was too young to even fully grasp the whole concept but one thing that stuck was that I would have trouble getting pregnant.

Each year after that I had to go back to do an ultrasound to make sure everything looked "normal" and to make sure I didn't have any cancerous looking polyps.. I always got nervous for each of those check ups. Patients with endometriosis automatically have the highest risk of ovarian cancer (40% higher risk to be exact) It also includes breast, brain and endocrine cancer but all of those have a significantly less risk.

The years between the age of 15 and 18 I went through countless different kinds of birth control you could ever imagine to keep the pain under control and to ultimately keep the endometriosis from progressing. At the age of 18 I was on the highest dose of birth control they could prescribe me. (They don't make that high of a dose anymore) Over the years it gradually got worse and worse. The progression was slow but each period I had was noticeably worse than the one before. The pain is comparable to contractions when a woman is in active labor. You literally have to stop whatever you're doing because you feel like you're seconds away from passing out. Specifically, I remember going to my fourth period class in high school and I couldn't make it up the steps. I just stopped half way up. The pain was so excruciating that I could not move my legs another step. After it subsided I went straight to the nurse and waited for my mom to pick me up. We rushed to the emergency room and they concluded that a cyst had ruptured. That was the beginning of my hospital visits. I was rushed to the hospital about four times after that just for the simple fact that my mother came home after work to a curled up screaming teenager. One time I couldn't even make it to the car. My sister carried me from my bed to the car. What a team player 😁

As I grew into a young adult I was starting to miss classes because I was laid up in bed all day vomiting and running fevers left and right. I was calling into work and basically disabled for days while I waited for my period to go away. Only to have the cycle run it's course over again the next month.

When the pain was more present almost every day through each month than just around my cycle, my mom called me... I remember this conversation vividly.. she told me she worked with someone who had seen a fertility specialist in Lake Charles and made me an appointment with him. A couple of weeks later we go to the appointment and I finally got the answers I was looking for. Everything I told them about my symptoms seemed totally understandable. It was like she was checking off the list of what I SHOULD be feeling with this disease. They did an ultrasound and basically asked when I wanted to have the surgery! I remember even being puzzled by that statement. I told her "Oh so this is actually happening?! Are you sure?" I had been questioning myself for so long it was almost natural for my reaction to be doubtful.

So there I was January 2nd, 2013 I had a uterine flip, dnc, endometrial removal, and a few other minor procedures sprinkled in. He drained my ovaries, he opened up my fallopian tubes and removed the remaining cysts. The surgery was scheduled to last about 30-45 minutes, mine lasted 3 hours 😳 Endometrial cells were attached to every single organ in my body, except my heart. I also had it attached to my spine, parts of my back ribs and my colon. When he was done he told my family that I was the youngest woman he had ever seen with that much damage done from endometriosis. He explained that "Superman could not have impregnated me.."

About two months after the surgery I had a period. IT WAS AMAZING! I literally told myself "Holy Sh*t this is what normal people feel? This is awesome!" I took one Advil the entire time! Compared to prescription pain pills, that was amazing! I felt great! No more fevers, no more nausea, no more unbearable pain. It was totally gone and I felt how I should have felt for years. I even got pregnant! And for a person who was told since she's was 15 I would have trouble getting pregnant, that was truly amazing! We had our daughter August 12, 2015. I can legitimately thank him for her birth- and I did!

Since I had her I had very similar symptoms once a month. Very mild symptoms, but they didn't go unnoticed. About eight months ago I felt a pain in my lower right abdomen that didn't sit well with me, it was all too familiar for comfort. The pain continued little by little and I finally decided to give my doctor a call. We had an ultrasound and found out my uterus had been tilted again and one ovary was significantly bigger than the other. Over the past few months we have tried to fix the enlarged ovary without surgery (Plan A) and that maybe that was the cause of my pain. About a month ago I went back and had another ultrasound done which concluded I needed another surgery (Plan B). Unfortunately this one may make our chances of conceiving less likely but my husband and I remain optimistic. We already have one amazing child that I didn't think would ever come and we are forever grateful to have her, so another would be just as amazing!

My surgery is scheduled for January 3rd, 2018 so I will take about a two week break from knotting... I say that but you guys already know I'll be making while I'm in bed 😂 I know I say this all the time but I am so grateful to have found this art. I know it will help me heal quickly as it has helped me with countless other things. And many of you may think that having another surgery would be bad news for me but I am honestly very happy about it. As I am sure this part of my life is far from over, this is a huge step in the right direction!