#because I SHOULD be able to live independently like the adults my age did 20 years ago | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

romanceboys · 4 years

Text

(interview) w korea september issue 2020 — reptile

1. i was surprised to learn that this is your 13th year since debut. within a company, the years almost reflect the experience of a vice department head. that’s right. though there are things i’m seeing for the first time at this point, i think there’s a lot that has remained the same. shall i tell you something funny? early in the year, i transformed into my debut appearance from when i was 16 with a bowl haircut and had my picture taken. i put it up on instagram and as i watched my fans briefly mistake it for an old picture, i thought to myself ‘well at least my face hasn’t aged much yet.’ haha. 2. today, i get to meet one of the personalities i’ve been very curious about personally. how should i put it, you seem like a person who possesses a perfect narrative. oh my, thank you. 3. maturing steadily after debuting with shinee in middle school, you broke away from your image as the group’s youngest and instead donned the clothes of a solo musician. all 5 of your solo albums have been recorded as hits. now you are a member of superm that has gone global. even a narrative within a coming-of-age novel could not be as sturdy as this. when i look back on my life, i find it quite fascinating. i entered the company at the age of 13, and this year i turned 28. i’ve lived half of my life as a singer, i realise this when i think ‘i’ve run along the same path for a long time’. i think... i’ve been very greedy. it was through this greed that i was able to debut in a team called shinee, and consequently receive solo plans. once, producer lee sooman told me to bring him a recording of any pop song. wondering ‘what’s going on?’ i prepared for it and submitted, and soon after my solo album was released. thinking back, it must’ve been a test. i felt a sense of accomplishment in these things. that too very deeply, of course luck was on my side too. 4. a methodical company like sm couldn’t have proposed a solo career so lightly. there were a couple of tell-tale signs as far as i could tell. my singing parts were little during debut. after all taemin had the image of the one in charge of dancing. then my parts started to increase gradually, this could’ve been one of the signs. back in the day i used to stay back in the practice room till dawn. the employees working late would see me and the word probably went around. they must have felt sorry for me. a skinny boy practising by himself till dawn (laughs). 5. were you the type to stay back later than the rest in the practice room? i would go to the practice room as soon as we wrapped up our schedule. i’d practice till sunrise then return to the dorm and prepare for the next schedule immediately, i spent a long time doing this. 6. it was at the time of ‘sherlock’ in 2012 that your stage presence started to shine in shinee’s stages. thereafter, it seemed that you enjoyed your time on stage thoroughly. when did you begin to realise that only you were in command of your own stage? there were a couple of times... sherlock was one of them. sherlock was an album that came out when i was 20, right after becoming an adult, it was then my attitude towards performance changed. in those days i challenged myself to ‘not to do what was expected/fixed.’ usually our gestures at certain sections of the song are fixed beforehand, from sherlock onwards however i tried my hand at different things without reserve. it was my way of approaching the audience with sincerity, and my way of improving in the future. back then i would notice variations (in my performance) everyday when i monitored myself. 7. frankly, isn’t it difficult for someone to have made such a prominent leap? i think it might have been because of the long hiatus before sherlock. i was able to prepare well so my growth was likely more obvious when i stood on stage after a long time. how should i put it, my members were very stimulating for me. since the hyungs aren’t ordinary people (laughs). this is something i’m confident about, even if you say that most of the shinee members are main vocalists, none of us is inferior to the other, everyone is so talented. with these thoughts verbatim ‘i must survive in here,’ ‘i need to finish what i started,’ i practiced. i couldn’t not have made the leap with such stimulation and not to mention my greedy nature (laughs). spending time together with the members made me realise that we started to resemble each other in some aspects, thanks to them i was able to broaden my perspective and become aware of my undiscovered talents. 8. the prologue single ‘2 kids’ of your third album ‘never gonna dance again’ released in august. as i was listening to the song, i suddenly became curious about the lyricist and looked them up. my impression was that the language of the lyrics was raw and honest. the lyricist turned out to be you. my intention was to include everyday, colloquial speech. i’ve written poetic and abstract lyrics before, but while working on ‘2 kids’ i wanted the listeners to easily grasp the emotions at once. since i’ve released many songs like ‘danger’ with vivid concepts and sensual performances, i expected there to be some distance between me and the public. i found that i shouldn’t stray too far. in any case, i’m a pop singer. i thought to myself let’s meet the public halfway, and the result was the lyrics for ‘2 kids.’ it’s the brightest of all my title tracks (laughs). 9. i find two interesting points here. first, you are completely aware of your identity as a pop singer, second, to do that you work hard to keep close to the public. of course there are times when it doesn’t work out (laughs). for instance, when we’re deciding on the title track for a shinee album, my opinions always diverge from the members’. after listening to our fourth album title track ‘view,’ i said ‘no way, it can never be this!’ (laughs). what i’m after is, how shall i put it... there is a side to me that wants to experience things profoundly. for example, if i were to express love, instead of depicting it one-dimensionally, i’d prefer to do it maniacally. i like taking it one step further to appear twisted. 10. that’s amusing. it’s probably because i’ve seen your easy-going appearance on tv a lot, i would have never guessed for you to approach things ‘deeply’. profound people tend to be like that. ‘multi’ people are able to do several things at once, i can’t do that. i have to dig into things deeply at a time. that’s why when my members and i receive the same schedule notice, i’m the only one who always forgets it (laughs). 11. oho, this makes me curious about your taste in pop culture. i really like the british drama <black mirror>. i get hooked on the unusual. like mind-boggling things? i used to watch movies that weren’t popular because such movies are less likely to repeat contents that have already been consumed. but then i slowly began to enjoy light films as well. these days i leave a movie running in the background while i do other things. back when i would look for an independent film or thriller of my liking, i’d get extremely exhausted after watching it. they require so much focus that they sap my energy. 12. we were talking about lyrics but somehow ended up here (laughs). if you were given the opportunity to write lyrics again, what kind of story do you want the lyrics to convey? i like philosophical lyrics. for instance, a song called ‘soldier’ from my solo album deals with religious content, it varies from time to time of course but well if i were to write again... i think about this a lot these days. i want to change myself, i want to shake off my image uptil now and be reborn again. 13. why is that? i want a colour that is more concentrated and unique. as if i'm debuting again, i want to show something completely new that i had not before. 14. but aren’t your comebacks always novel? a musician like you who does diverse and experimental concepts is rare. is that so? sure the concepts are always new but... these days i think about how i want to change myself as a person from the very inside. instead of putting a facade on display, i have a thirst for wanting to show a more humane, genuine appearance. all humans experience moments of weakness and dysfunction. i think these moments definitely hold some beauty in them. the moment a person breaks down. it’s the only way one can get up and overcome difficulties again, i believe showing these sides of me, all of me, unabashedly is a path i need to walk as an artist now. 15. honestly, i’m excited for your third album because i heard this album reflects your ideas the most. what aspects of the production were different this time? firstly, i personally cast and liaised with the music video director. i thought it was important to work with the director one-on-one by keeping mediators to a minimum. through several meetings we mulled over every single thing like concept, outfit, hair and makeup. i offered my opinions too: ‘because i’m thinking of leaving a connecting link in the prologue, since there are two albums that would release following ‘2 kids,’ i want to drop certain keywords in the music video.’ fans usually call this a ‘bait’ (laughs). 16. the choreography stood out the most in the ‘2 kids’ music video. you weren’t simply moving to the rhythm, rather weren’t you moving your body guided by emotions? actually there were barely any plans to include dancing scenes. but i thought you never know so i quickly prepared a choreography the day before i left for paris. initially, i had a ‘dramatised’ (borrowing elements from drama) choreography in mind, but the director was expecting something modern. in the end, we expressed it well with a choreography that the director and i came up with after finding the perfect common ground. 17. personally i think a dramatised choreography would have been quite alright because ‘2 kids’ is a universal love song. i told the director i wanted to look miserable and pathetic through and through, like falling into a bottomless pit, wrecked, to be found waking up in the middle of the street, that would do too. why did i want to be that wrecked? i don’t know. there’s just a lot that exists within me. and i might have wanted to express that.... 18. with your first solo mini album <ace> you proved your grit as a solo musician to the public, and i believe your second album <move> reified your colour. i think taemin is a musician who doesn’t need to prove himself anymore. having reached this status, you’re releasing your next album <never gonna dance again>. did you ever think that this album could be it? rather, i hope that this album can be my ‘turning point.’ just as how it was during sherlock, i hope this time it changes my identity completely, as an individual and as a performer. people might like this album or find it mediocre, but i try not to care about these things now. 19. were you the type to stress over feedback? yes. because there are many people who are uncomfortable with change. but then i realised we’d never be able to free ourselves from within if we continued to be tied down. so now i’m trying to notice these things less. 20. have you ever had this thought? that looking back, the experimental has always revolved around you. as i said before, i think there is a lot of something within me (laughs). people have recognized that, there’s a lot i want to do. there is a greed for wanting to be different from others. it’s not that i want to ‘appear’ different but truly be different. 21. do you think there is an aspect of you that others can’t follow? i can’t seem to figure it out. i’m looking for it. however, my satisfaction level with myself tends to be low. and it’s something that has been guiding me till now. 22. what helps you recharge the most? i like lower-body bathing so much (laughs). as soon as i get into the bath, i automatically end up going ‘euu’ ‘aah.’ i soak my body completely, light up a scented candle, then let my body warm up like this. 23. while watching your vlog-like youtube content taem-log, i wondered ‘does he have an affinity for household goods?’ since the camera often captured your surroundings, i noticed pretty glasses and a colourful coffee machine adorning your cupboard. not at all. my mother did all of that (laughs). she’d say ‘this would suit taemin~’ then set it up prettily for display on the shelves. sometimes i do think i’d like to furnish my house with antiques if i were to move in the future. this is a bit funny but i find the houses in old horror movies so pretty. 24. i saw a bottle of moët & chandon in your refrigerator, is champagne your regular choice of alcohol? i rarely drink. i usually receive gifted alcohol quite a lot, it all goes to my father (laughs). my mother brought the moët & chandon and left it in there. i asked her to leave a pretty bottle in there at least for decoration purposes, so she probably brought it just for that? (laughs). 25. what kind of a person is 28-year-old taemin? i sort of want to set things ablaze. i want to put up a spectacular finale of the opening act. 26. how do you want to be remembered as a musician? as a great person. i say this knowing it sounds a bit grandiose but it’s my mission. 27. i can see it. the bigger you become the larger the impact you can have on society. i will become that person. so that many people can hear the message i want to convey.

translated by romanceboys — take out with full credit (source)

#shinee #taemin #p:taemin #w korea magazine september issue 2020 #interview #translations #e:never gonna dance again #enjoy!

316 notes · View notes

jaceyneedsabetterusername · 3 years

Text

Enlighten Me

Pairings: Marcus Moreno x Reader

Summary: You’d been in love with Marcus since you were seventeen but wrote it off as a silly little crush on an older man. After seeing you again when you were 20, about six months after the loss of his wife, romantic feelings for you stir in Marcus that have him feeling confused. Two years of secretly pining after a seemingly impossible relationship leads to some confessions.

Warnings: Age Gap (13-ish years), Little angsty, Mentions of his wife’s death, Brief mention of pedophilia (Marcus just says he’s concerned about being seen this way), Brief mention of kidnapping (just super quickly says that reader saved kids from being kidnapped)

Word Count: 4200

______________

You stood in the briefing room of headquarters, waiting for the rest of the Heroics to arrive. Tech-no, Ms. Vox, Miracle Man, and Blinding Fast were the only other heroes there so far and the meeting couldn’t begin until everyone was present. Being in the Heroics Headquarters for the first time in what felt like forever sent nerves throughout your body like the first day of training. Even though you had always felt like a legitimate member of the team, you hadn’t been called on to do a job in a while. It was almost always Miracle Man, much to your secretly jealous chagrin, or occasionally Tech-no, depending on whether or not the problem could be fixed with gadgets. Regardless of who had been called how many times throughout the year, there was always an annual meeting of all the Heroics just to ensure that everyone was on the same page as far as current threats and protocols. This was that meeting.

You stood beside Tech-no, listening to him explain the newest creation he’d invented in an attempt to block out Ms. Vox and Miracle Man’s incessant voices. Both of the heroes were nice people but they had egos the size of China and it did get grating sometimes. You’d always found it best to just avoid the people who had annoyed you on the team instead of getting involved in the incessant bickering that constantly seemed to be plaguing the team.

“With a simple press of the blue button, I was able to send an EMP straight to the power source of the detonation system. Stopped the bomb and Miracle Man caught the lady. Pretty neat, huh?” Tech-no explained, his demeanor pretty calm despite knowing how excited he got when his devices were successful.

You smiled at his story, “Wow, that’s amazing!”

“Have you been called in lately? I haven’t seen you around in a while.” He noted, brows knitting in curiosity. He’d always been like a big brother of sorts to you, one of your favorite people on the team, so of course he would notice your lack of presence, especially after spending so much time together.

You shrugged, “Not much, only a handful of times this last year. I helped Sharkboy and Lavagirl with those elemental giants in Arkansas back in March and then Invisi Girl and I rescued all those kids from those kidnappers in Louisiana but it’s been a pretty dull year other than.”

Tech-no’s face twisted sadly, “I’m sorry. I know it’s no fun to get left out of the action.”

“It’s alright. Just gave me time to focus on my schoolwork.” You lied. Well, not about the schoolwork but about it being fine. You couldn’t lie that there were times you felt like you were treated like you were less important than the other Heroics for multiple reasons. Typically, the Heroics came up in generations where the last generation’s kids would take over for them. Most of the current Heroics had been born in about the same six year time period so they were all relatively the same age. However, your parents weren’t superheroes. They were just normal people who happened to somehow create a superhuman child. On top of that, you were about thirteen years younger than most of them. By the time you had decided to finally seek out help and direction from the Heroics at the age of seventeen, it was clear you were a strange in between age. The current generation had been in their late twenties-early thirties while their children, if they’d had any yet, were in the first two or three years of their lives. Especially after you’d been trained by Grandma Moreno, the team had taken to you quite well but always felt the need to protect you, despite the fact that you had superpowers, just like the rest of them.

The door to the room slid open soundlessly but after years of training with Grandma Moreno, it was something that you noticed right away. Your heart stopped when you saw Marcus Moreno walk into the room, all geared up and with his swords strapped to his back. Your eyes were trained on his tall strong figure as he glanced around the room, inspecting who had already arrived. Butterflies erupted in your stomach and you could have melted then and there when his gaze met your own. Small crinkles appeared at the corner of his eyes as a wide smile spread across his face. “Mirror! Long time no see! How you been, kid?” He asked happily, pulling you in for a big hug.

It took a lot of effort to not show how your heart fell when he called you that. Kid. It was all you’d ever be to him. You’d harbored a crush on him since you’d met him, though then you’d written it off as some puppy love crush on an older (and married) man. Over the years, though, the stupid feelings had anything but subsided, choosing to bubble up inside into some ridiculous unobtainable love for a man that would never love you back. Or so you thought.

When Marcus entered the room, his eyes were automatically scanning the space for your bright smile. It was the same smile that made his heart flutter the way his wife’s did. It was the only other smile to ever have brought him such feelings of longing. When he saw you talking to Tech-no, he couldn’t help the way his lips turned up into a wide smile.

These feelings made him uneasy, however. It felt wrong- inappropriate to have any sort of romantic feelings or attraction towards you being so much younger than he was. He had known you since you were seventeen and watched you grow into the beautiful young woman standing before him now, only growing more and more radiant with each time he saw you. By all accounts, you were an adult. You were on the verge of graduating from college, living on your own, and working a second job outside of being a Heroic. Even with all this, he was certain that if he had ever made his feelings known, you and the rest of the Heroics would look at him like some pedophile- except he was far from anything so disgusting. Any hint of romantic attraction to you hadn’t blossomed until you were twenty, when you had shown up at HQ one day, suddenly a woman instead of the girl he once knew. Even then, it was only a few months after the death of his wife and he was sure it was his heart’s way of trying to cope and fill the void with a safe presence. He was sure the feelings were purely temporary and hid them away from anyone, even himself for a while, but over the course of the last two years, he was almost frustrated to say they hadn’t subsided. Now you were twenty-two, strong and independent, beautiful and intelligent.

With all logic, Marcus knew that having feelings for you shouldn’t make him feel dirty, especially when he’d had aunts and uncles that were fifteen years apart in age, but he couldn’t help the way the nickname kid had spilled from his lips before he could catch it in a subconscious attempt at overcompensating for his emotions. He cringed internally but kept an altered look of happiness on his face. He caught the way the twinkle in your eye faded just a little at the name and he felt a little bad for making you feel like a child.

“Y’know, I have a real name.” You chided, rolling your eyes jokingly.

Marcus chuckled, “I can’t remember the last time anyone used their real names on duty.”

You raised your hand towards him, “I can’t remember the last time we didn’t just call you Marcus, even on duty. Besides, this hardly counts as being on duty.” You added, glancing around as more heroes shuffled into the room, clearly splitting off into groups based on how much they could stand one another, which wasn’t much.

“Well, I don’t really ever go out as an actual Heroic anymore so I don’t really count.” He insisted, noticing how your eyebrow raised, eyes glancing down at his uniform and the swords strapped to his back. “It’s more of a formality for meetings like this. I don’t usually wear it.”

“Okay, one, you do still count. You’re still the leader of this team. Two, if I have to wear this,” You motioned to your get-up, “You should have to suffer too.” You insisted with a laugh.

Marcus couldn’t help the way he glanced down at the mention of your suit, though he tried as hard as possible to not make it look like he was actually checking you out. The smokey grey material sparkled ever so slightly in the light and was skin tight, covering your arms and legs entirely. It was modestly cut at the top, though it still showed the curvature of your breasts due to the tightness of the material. Thin black lines drew long angular patterns down your arms, torso, and legs, before disappearing beneath your tall black boots that covered just above your knees. Your hair was braided back back there were still some tendrils that hung loose at the front. You were a sight for sore eyes and Marcus’s eyes must have been aching because he never wanted to look away.

Tech-no looked between the two of you, noticing the way he was seemingly forgotten about the moment you saw each other. He smirked to himself, noticing how both you and Marcus looked at each other differently than how you looked at anyone else. “I’m gonna go talk to Crushing Low but it was nice seeing you again, Mirror.” He excused himself, patting Marcus on the shoulder as he did.

“Oh, okay!” You had honestly almost forgotten about the other man, too entranced by Marcus’s presence.

It got quiet between you and Marcus after Tech-no had left, apparently having provided some sort of unknown buffer between the two of you for your unspoken tension. Marcus stood with his hands on his hips, looking down at you with a smile and you chewed your lip, trying to think of anything to say to break the silence.

“Well-”

“How-”

“Heroics, I’m glad you could all make it.”

You and Marcus had begun to speak at the exact same time, only to be cut off by the ever commanding presence of Ms. Granada as she floated into the room gracefully despite her insanely high heels. With momentarily startled eyes, you shot Marcus an apologetic look before making your way to your designated seat around the large circular table. You sat between Sharkboy and Miracle Man, Marcus taking his seat across the table from you and crossing his hands over the files you’d all been handed.

The meeting went quickly as Ms. Granada did a recap of the last year. In the file had been a list of all the missions gone on, all villains, new and old, as well as more boring things, like the budget for the upcoming year and guidelines on how to handle the press when situations got more destructive than preferred.

After she had finished everything up, you all rose from your seats and began to leave, very few members of the team wanting to be around each other any longer than necessary. You decided to hang around HQ a little longer, it having been a while since you’d been to the building. There was one place in particular you’d always loved. In the back of the massive building, there was a garden that had always felt a little out of place amongst all the cold clean metal of the facility but it was somewhere you’d always felt drawn to. There was a small pond with little koi fish that swam around inside and a moderate variety of plants, most of which were actually somewhat tropical looking, all around. Gravel formed a path that wound through the mulch, crunching beneath your boots as you walked and breathed in the fresh air. You knelt down beside the pond and watched contently as the little orange and yellow fish glided through the water effortlessly.

“Had a feeling I’d find you here.” Marcus’s voice startled you and you whipped around in a knee-jerk reaction.

Your heart rate slowed and you chuckled a little, “Yeah, couldn’t help it. It’s been a while since I got called here to help out with anything. Figured I’d better come to my favorite spots before I didn’t stop by for another few months.”

Marcus sighed knowingly. He knew you weren’t called in for many missions and he was partially to blame for it. When Granada consulted him on which Heroics to bring in when the world was in peril, he always suggested other people first. Perhaps it was selfish of him but he was honestly just terrified of losing you. Especially after his wife’s death, he wasn’t sure if he could handle losing you as well. It wasn’t that he thought you were incompetent by any means, he was just genuinely scared for you and the idea of Miracle Man getting a good beating made him feel better than the idea of you taking one.

“You know, you’re still a valued member of the team. Even if you’re not called in all the time.” Marcus tried to reassure you, walking beside you through the winding path of foliage.

You shrugged, “I guess. I know my powers aren’t as cool or useful as some of everyone else’s. I mean, Miracle Man can fly. Tech-no can build almost anything. Lavagirl can literally control lava. You’re a freaking magnet!”

You and Marcus both laughed when you called him that and he shook his head, “What are you talking about? You’re amazing! You can create physical projections of yourself! That’s pretty awesome.”

You felt the blood rush to your cheeks at his compliment but still just shrugged again, “Yeah, but I can only really make them do separate tasks when I really focus on them which is hard to do in the heat of battle.”

“Hey, you are talking down on one of my best friends and I really don’t appreciate it. You really are absolutely amazing, though, and everyone sees it.” Marcus stopped, hand coming to your shoulder to make you stop as well. A goofy little laugh followed his lame joke and you couldn’t help but feel the warmth blossom in your heart at his compliments. When you locked eyes with him, you were sure he could be the last thing you ever saw and you wouldn’t ask for anything more.

That bit of doubt still crept up into your mind though, even though Marcus had a way of making you feel like you were the most important person in the world. You glanced away, avoiding his gaze, “If that were true, I’d be picked for more missions. Sharkboy and Lavagirl live on another planet and have a six-year old. I’m single, kid-less, and live twenty minutes away. They both manage to go on more missions each in a month than I do in a year.”

Marcus’s face fell when you began to walk away again. He never would have thought that his attempts at keeping you safe would have had such an impact on your self-esteem as a hero. Marcus had seldom used his powers anymore, something he felt was unnecessary if he wasn’t actively working as a Heroic, but before he could help himself, his hand had flexed just enough to will the metal vambrace around your left forearm to pull towards him.

Your eyes shot down to the way your arm was being pulled towards Marcus and then back up at the man in utter confusion as to why he wouldn’t let you walk away. The force wasn’t strong by any means but just strong enough to draw your attention.

“I’m sorry.” He apologized simply, unsure of what else to say.

As far as you knew, none of what you had just said had been his fault. By the way he apologized, you could tell he wasn’t simply apologizing for the way you felt but it was like he was sorry for something that he’d done. “For what?” You asked, confused.

Marcus let his grip on your protective vambrace go and you took a natural step towards him, bodies closer than you meant them to be but not making any effort to correct it. “It’s my fault you don’t get called on often.” He admitted, looking away guiltily.

“What? How?” You asked, desperate to understand what he meant. He was the leader of the Heroics so you were sure that he had some say in who was called in but you had never thought to attribute your lack of action to him.

“Granada has actually suggested that we bring you in for many missions throughout the years but… I’ve always been the one to suggest other people.” Marcus continued slowly and he could see the hurt in your eyes at his confession.

Your mouth fell open a little, trying to hide the hurt in your eyes. Did he have any idea how long you’d been feeling undervalued? Less than? Treated like a little kid? “Why would you do that? Do you not think I’m good enough?”

The look in your eye almost made Marcus regret ever coming clean to you. He had hoped that telling you Granada had requested your assistance multiple times would make you feel better. Instead, he should have seen how this would just make you feel worse.

Your heart almost broke. You could handle Granada thinking you weren’t as good as everyone else. You could handle Miracle Man treating you like he was better than you (like he did to everyone). You could handle the mothering way Ms. Vox treated you and the way Tech-no treated you like a little sister. The one person whose opinion you valued the most had never outright treated you like you were less than. But now, it seemed that he’d thought you were all along.

“No! That’s not what I meant at all! You are one of the best people on the team. I just-”

“You just what?” You snapped more aggressively than you meant to, cutting him off before he could finish his sentence.

Marcus closed his eyes and turned his face away from you, “I just couldn’t risk losing you.” His voice was calm and guilty, remorseful and scared.

The venom in your chest began to subside at his confession and your voice softened, “You’re not gonna lose me, Marcus.”

His eyes slid open at the safety of your calmer voice, feeling more able to face you now that he didn’t have to see the anger in your eyes anymore. He swallowed hard, deciding that it was too late to turn back now. “I never thought I’d lose my wife either but… I was scared of being wrong again and losing you too.”

There was a pause while you tried to interpret what he meant by this last statement. He had always cared about you, that much had been clear, but you’d always assumed that it had been in a brotherly fashion. The way he looked at you now as he poured his heart out to you made you feel like there was a little more behind the words than you ever thought.

“You don’t have to be scared.” Your voice was soft, almost a whisper, as you took another subconscious step closer to him. Marcus’s eyes glanced down at the mere inches between your shoes and his before raking up your body and finally meeting your eyes.

“There’s more than you know.” He admitted quietly, his voice low and raspy. His eyes searched yours, terrified that this was the last time he’d ever see those beautiful eyes looking at him in this same way. He was about to cross a line that he couldn’t come back from but something about today made him feel like he couldn’t go any longer with this secret in his heart.

“Then enlighten me.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, “I might lose you still if I do.”

“Then it sounds like you have a decision to make.” You responded, anxiety rising as you looked at him with a straight face. You hadn’t meant to sound so blunt but he couldn’t say something like that and not expect your brain to linger to the worst possibilities. What could be so bad that he was convinced it would ruin your friendship? Was he kicking you off the team? Were you being reassigned to somewhere else in the world? Was about to insist you go back to training? Was he moving? The sudden flood of doomsday-level thoughts concerning your friendship made you vaguely annoyed that he would lead you on with a comment like ‘there’s more than you know’ and then continue to beat around the bush.

“I think I love you, Y/N.” He blurted out, suddenly feeling a massive weight lifted off his chest. That weight was quickly replaced by a bubbling sense of insecurity when your mouth fell open in a state of disbelief.

“Y-you what?”

Marcus’s heart was caught in his throat and his breath hitched, unable to make it past the lump. His nightmare was coming true. This was a mistake. “I-I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-. This was a mistake.”

“Wait!” You reached out to place a hand on his bicep when he turned to leave. He stopped and turned back to face you, hurt evident in his eyes, “Don’t leave.”

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I just- I’ve had feelings for you for a while now and I didn’t want to come off as the creepy old guy.” He began to ramble uncharacteristically, the typically smooth under pressure superhero reduced to a panicked lovestruck boy.

You put a hand over his mouth and looked straight into his eyes, “I love you too.”

Beneath your palm, his jaw went slack. Slowly, you removed it, biting your lip with a small nervous smile as you waited for him to respond. “You do?”

You nodded shyly, never thinking that your dirty little secret would ever come to light. “I’ve had a stupid little puppy love crush on you since I was seventeen but I’ve been in love with you since I started college. I was always just worried you’d only ever see me as a little girl.”

Marcus’s hands nervously came to rest on your hips as he stared down at you in disbelief. He shook his head, “You’re an amazing woman, Y/N. One that’s impossible not to fall in love with.”

Your hand came up to his cheek, the stubble scratching your skin lightly, “And you’re the most amazing man I’ve ever met. One that’s impossible not to love.” You mimicked his sentiment back to him with pure genuine intent.

His hand came to cover yours, pressing his face further against your skin, pulling you closer to him by your hip. It was an innocent move, one of a man desperate to finally experience what he’d been keeping bottled up as a deep secret for the last two years. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?” He asked, obviously referring to the thirteen year age gap between the two of you, “I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“I know that I’m younger than you but I’m not a naive child. You’re not taking advantage of me at all. Believe it or not, I am absolutely and irrevocably in love with you. If you want me, I would love nothing more than to be with you.” This was it: your all or nothing, all cards on the table, point of no return. The words you only told Marcus in your dreams were spoken and unable to be taken back.

His deep brown eyes flicked to your lips and then back to your eyes, his intention clear and awaiting any sign of hesitation, to which he found none. You leaned up on your toes but he finished closing the gap between the two of you, your lips touching in a gentle experimental kiss. His lips were soft in stark contrast to the stubble that scratched your skin. At this close proximity, you could finally breathe him in and it exceeded all expectations. He smelled clean, like freshly washed laundry, but with a hint of what you could only place as men’s body wash.

Marcus felt the way your body melted into his touch. Your skin was soft as silk against his, your lips like pillows he wanted to stay in forever. Your perfume danced around him, engulfing his senses and rendering him incapable of thinking of anything but you. Finally, he pulled away, resting his forehead against yours. Your lids slid open only to see him already admiring you.

“There’s nothing I would love more.” Marcus repeated. Two and a half years ago, he never could have imagined he would ever love again. Two hours ago, he never would have imagined that you could have possibly loved him back. But here you were, gazing up at him in a way he only let himself think about when he was alone, wrapped in his arms the way he dreamt about, saying the words he’d felt guilty for fantasizing about hearing from you for so long.

#marcus moreno #marcus moreno fluff #marcus moreno imagine #we can be heroes #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fluff #pedro pascal imagine #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal x you #pedro pascal x y/n #marcus moreno x reader #marcus moreno x y/n #marcus moreno x you

43 notes · View notes

kpopisthereasonihavenolife · 4 years

Text

His Prophet

BTS

Kim Taehyung/Reader [F]

Genre: God AU, romance, fantasy, protective Taehyung, arranged marriage vibes (kinda), kingdoms and castles, and medieval aspects dotted around, royal au sorta

Words: 9.8k

Warning(s):(Y/n is pushed around in one scene, is that a warning?)

a/n: go ahead and blame the GDA for this (and I was listening to creepypastas during work and one particular story’s ending twist inspired me in a non-spooky way). Also, I’d like to say it took 20 minutes for me to find a photo that wasn’t rejected by my computer to make this godforsaken banner.

summary: The royal Sun God of Navern is a complete recluse; the polar opposite of what one would immediately assume of the God of the Sun should be. Being the only God in his kingdom, he stayed within his castle walls- or at least it is assumed. Staff and servants of the palace only see him occasionally in the halls or peering out into the gardens. It was the dreams of one certain townswoman who worked in a small library that he happens to run into one night that changes everything.

The Kingdom as Navern was a prosperous kingdom, even if smaller in comparison to other neighboring kingdoms. Of it’s few larger cities and small towns, the capital city and home of the Navern Palace was named Vicious. The city was home to all sorts- merchants, blacksmiths, traveling priests and devoted followers of the kingdoms single God; any occupation or profession one would think of, it would probably be found in Vicious.

However, what one thing masses defined as unordinary was a woman who could read and write and who was just as intelligent as a man living in a run-down, two-story library.

The bottom floor of the brick build and metal-framed building was filled with bookshelves upon bookshelves of books of all kinds. Fantasy and children books, adult novels of fiction and non, and documentation of the kingdom’s history. Encyclopedias and thick bricks books of words and information that- if it had the right reader- could suck them in with knowledge.

The top story was closed off from the public. Small living space was where the family of the library lived when the store was closed. A small living room with only two rooms and the kitchen was right off the far wall of the living room, not even a wall to separate the two. It was small, but cozy for the small family of three.

In the past, this small library with two small step stools for high shelves and one small ladder used to belong to an old man and his wife. They had a small child, a little girl when the couple was early into their middle-aged years. As that little girl grew up, her father taught her to read and write and would often raise her as if she were a son. She still wore the suffocating dresses and low heeled shoes of a child as a requirement of her mother. Her father had her help him with broken shelves and squeaky doors, learning a good chunk of labor in her early years.

On the other hand, her mother still pampered her and grew her into a proper young lady. Manners and ideals of a woman and one-day future housewife. Cooking, cleaning, chores, shopping, sewing and all the factors that lead to proper womanhood. Oddly enough, that little girl didn’t mind all the things she was taught.

All her talents in both ladylike behavior and otherwise was an opportunity to learn. And if the girl had anything it was craving for knowledge. She greatly enjoyed reading on the downtime she had and would often recommend books to the boys in her grade school- something she would regret as it lead to years of ridicule. She was simply too smart for a girl.

At the age of 13, this little girl lost her mother to sickness. Catching a cold was all it was, but she just got worse and worse and her father couldn’t keep up with doctor bills. Eventually, the sickness claimed the girl’s mother and it was just her father and her in the apartment and the library. 5 years later, when the girl is 18, she loses her father next.

He had been called to help damper out a raging fire in the Nothern part of the city. Some criminals had started a fire in the small prison to try and mask his escape.

The older man never came back to the library, only a messager did to tell the girl that her father had been killed pursuing the escapee. Leaving the 18-year-old young lady, leaving you, to inherit the library fully.

Things from then got painfully stressful for the better part of half a year. Managing the library and your personal life. Trying to get accustomed to running everything by yourself and not letting the snarky remarks of young men behind your back as you hammered loose bricks back into the outside bricks. Working day in and day out and also having to run errands for families in need for extra money kept you busy and balancing your schedule wore you out.

There were many times you thought about giving up the library, no matter how much you loved it. You came close so many times to that decision, but the memories of you and your family always made you rethink and keep the building in your possession. Many men had come along and tried to buy it from you to wreck it down and rebuild something else where it stood- you always declined.

Years went by and as time passed, things slid into a certain pace of ease and you were finally able to live comfortably. You were 24 years old now. Still managing your library and keeping your home in shape, you also stood as an independent woman. No man or person of romantic interest simply because you had no interest or time for a partner at the moment. Besides, the men in the city, or at least your part of it, had no interest in a woman who threatened to be smarter than him. Bruised egos are a lethal attack to men it seemed.

However, there were a handful of women who respected you a great deal with your knowledge and ability to disregard the judgemental stares and comments from others. It wasn’t just men who sneered, but the women who were a bit too rich in both money and unrealism gave you stink eyes. Sometimes the rich women were even more threatened than the men were even when they couldn’t count anything other than bills.

You were busy restacking the shelves with books that had been returned that morning from mostly children and a few older generations. Your dress wrapped around your torso as you wore your corset, looser than a lady should, and the skirt hitting your ankles. You dusted your hands off with each finished task on the white apron tied around your waist. Small, brown, worn-out flats covering your feet. Working all day with heels just would not suffice. Your hair wrapped around your head in tied upbraids. Uncomfortable, but out of the way.

You were more tired than the day before from the dream you had last night. The dream wasn’t frightful per se, but something about it made you jolt awake. Each time you went back to sleep, the same dream came back and the same dream woke you up. It was hours before dawn when you decided to forget any further sleep and just get up. An early start to the day wouldn’t be so bad. It gave you time to take books off shelves and clean them only to restock them- a task tedious but long overdue.

The dream was one set in your city, the city of Vicious. In fact, in each dream you were outside, just walking around running some sort of errand for the local older woman or fetching medicine for the bedridden old gentleman for a small bit of money. And in each new errand and each new dream, you kept seeing the same people and the same faces you had grown up knowing. However, it’s one person’s stature that always caught you off guard.

The wore a brown, long robe with the hood always flipped up. Masking their face and hiding their body, just walking down the path like every other citizen of Vicious. You would always unconsciously think of them as a traveling beggar from some other town in Navern. It was when the hooded figure moved to seemingly lift their head to look towards you when you always jolted awake. Perhaps it was your brain trying to tell you that you woke up because whatever person that hooded figure was, wasn’t someone you had seen before. Without a proper face to register, you just woke up to avoid it altogether.

You never got a fearful or unsettling feeling in your dreams or afterward, so you didn’t think too much of it. However, it wasn’t just that night you had that dream. It was present the night after and further on. Night after night it was all sorts of different dreams with different errands and different people, but that one cloaked beggar always was present. Still not giving you a feeling of discomfort, but the reoccurrence of this dream made you halfway convince yourself to spend some saved up money on a doctor’s trip.

It’s that night when you contemplate medical aid that you had a dream set in a doctor’s den. Sat in his dinky little office, but instead of a face, the doctor had a long mask on. In fact, the whole doctor wasn’t even human, but a giant, humanoid raven with black feathers and dressed in a tailcoat of the most wealthy bank owner. Waking from that dream with a shiver and a line of sweat down your spine, you might actually consider that one a nightmare.

You decided at nearly midnight to go out and clear your head with a walk. It was a late and dangerous time for a woman to be out, but the idea of sleep made you shiver. Maybe some time to clear your head in the quiet nighttime would help ease you.

Changing from one of your father’s old shirts that you wore to bed every night into your least flattering skirt and small poet’s blouse, you threw a shawl over your shoulders. Not even bothering to tie your hair back. It wouldn’t be a long stroll, just one to breathe in the clean air and take in the silence. When you looked out your window, you smiled as you saw the moon shining brightly overhead- even though it was only halfway through the new moon cycle. It would light your path along with the small patterns set outside homes for those who had late-night workers as part of their family.

Inside Navern Palace dwelled the Sun God of Navern, Luos. Luos was a God who was revered and respected, even as a shut-in God. He ruled and took care of his kingdom from the comfort of his palace walls. Any word he needed to hear of, he’d turn to his Water Mirror, a vase with a wide mouth and filled with water. A few taps of Luos’s fingertips against the water, causing ripples and he could see to the furthest reach of his precious kingdom.

He did love him home. Navern was were he grew up as a human with a different, human name when the kingdom was first birthed. His devoting to his home was what caught another God’s eye- the supreme God of all that was known. When he died as a young man due to his efforts in fighting in a long war, the Ruler God revived him as something far greater than human and giving him the new name of Luos and the insignia of a butterfly. Thought, he never forgot his original name- and he refused to abandon it altogether. It would be like throwing the long memories of his deceased parents away and he absolutely would not do that. His original name stayed solely with him as he lived as Luos.

Luos was not always a shut-in, in fact, he used to be rather outgoing and always spoke and hopped around from town to town among his kingdom. But, many years ago, something changed and all of a sudden he closed his doors for good. He wouldn’t set foot outside palace walls and on some days his palace servants couldn’t even get him to go out into the gardens full of sunflowers he so much loved.

He’d been this way for nearly 20 years now. Only the oldest in Vicious have a vague memory of their royal God walking the streets.

It was never announced as to why Luos locked himself away into his own prison. There had been no wars, no famine. Crime had been on the lower side of the scale and he had no negative reputation with his people that was noted. However, he still made the ironclad decision and his people could do nothing to change his mind.

However, it was nearly two weeks ago that he started to question his seclusion. He had grown quite accustomed to his reclusive past couple of decades, but for the past couple weeks, he’s had this feeling gnawing at the back of his mind. He’d stand at one of his many grand windows just staring over the castle’s main gates to the rooftops of town across the thin, brick bridge that connected the castle to town over the clear watered mote surrounding his palace.

It had been a long time since he had the urge to go out and see his capital again, however recently it had been the hardest urge to suppress in his day to day, reclusive life. The Sun God himself had changed vastly from when he had first started his Godly duties. The thin, childlike innocent he used to hold in his face had matured out into a sculpted jaw and eyes that had seen many things and consumed more knowledge than humans could take in.

“Perhaps I should select a prophet,” was his constant reoccurring thought recently. The thought poured into his head one night when sleep had been actively avoiding him. He had heard in an old wise tale that when one cannot sleep, it is because someone else is dreaming of them. He questioned the truth behind that because he had not set foot outside in so long, no one had the reason to dream of him at all. He was even more confused as to why he suddenly had the compelling idea to suddenly rope in someone to be a chosen prophet.

Even when he thought about the suggestion, he could never think of a face or name that would fit the title. He felt a nagging in his chest and with each possible candidate he could choose to help spread his word and ideals, the nagging would worsen. It was as if his subconsciousness was rejecting each person he knew within the castle- almost pressuring him to go outside the palace. Perhaps he truly should. Perhaps he should go and venture out into his capital and try to see if a single one person could cure this nagging that had begun to irritate him.

So, late at night when the castle was quiet, he dressed in slacks, shirt, and cloak before he left. Walking out of his room and throw the abandoned halls to the back gates of the palace, rounding around the entire castle to avoid as many guards as possible. If he were seen leaving, the guards would most definitely make a fuss about it and the gossip would spread from Navern’s farthest board lined town before dawn. As far as anyone else was concerned, he still hadn’t stepped foot outside the palace perimeter.

The moment his feet hit the loose dirt from across the mote’s bridge, he took a sharp breath. It was like his soul had missed this feeling of his cities roads. He felt at home already, even after all this time. He flipped up his hood, hiding his pitch-black hair and smiled as he stepped onward once more, a joyous hop in his step. The moon named Selene, guiding his way forward. He looked up at her bright surface and smiled a silent thanks for invisible guidance. The moon was always motherly towards him.

Selene says she doesn’t play favorites, but Luos was definitely a favorite- even if she denies it.

Your stroll outside was a quick as you wished it to be. You walked to the wishing well of stone of ice-cold water in the center of Vicious as you sat on the thick stone of it. The sounds of the water calmed you and the area chilled your skin even beneath your shawl enough to raise your skin in gooseflesh. The wind blew slightly in small wisps, making you unattractively breathe in strands of your hair.

Fed up with it, you took the loose tied around your wrist you carried with you everywhere and began to sloppily tie your hair back at the low of your neck. Not very tight, but enough to keep it from entering your mouth and causing you to gag or choke again.

It was very bright out for it being the middle of the night. Part of you regretting now bring a book out with you. You could easily read a chapter or two with the moon’s brightness this night. You half contemplated going back home only to come back to the fountain and do just that when a small gasp sounded behind you.

Jumping to your feet and whipping around, you were met with a cloaked figure with their hood flipped up. You gasped lightly yourself. It was just like your dreams and now you half expected yourself to bolt awake at home in bed. You clenched your eyes shut, expected your mattress to be pushed against your back any moment, but nothing happened. You still breathed the fresh air, still heard the fountain’s water, and still felt the chilly air of the nighttime.

You squinted your eyes open just a sliver, still seeing that cloaked figure across the fountain. You squeezed your eyes closed against and reached under your shawl to your shoulder and pinched your skin. The top trick in the books, if you want to wake up from a dream, pinch yourself.

“Why are you hurting yourself?” You gasped as your eyes shot open. You had been so preoccupied with yourself that you didn’t even hear this cloaked stranger walk over to stand in front of you. Their deep voice had a silky tone to it and it was most definitely a male’s voice. He stood so close to you, nearly toe to toe and yet you still could not see him under his hood. Just like the dreams, his cloaked figure had no fae you could see. However, you’d never heard them speak before, so perhaps this was some sort of lucid dream? “Miss?” He spoke again.

“I, um, I’m trying to wake up,” you dumbly replied. A reply which made his shoulders shift- the only physical thing you could see as a response to your words. You then heard a small, low chuckle from beneath his hood.

“Are you trying to say that you’re sleepwalking?”

“Perhaps, I’ve been known to do remarkable things before,” you unconsciously spoke back in a teasing manner. You then remembered that to most, and almost all, you weren’t supposed to speak to men so highly. You were a woman of independence and held your head high despite your differences of other women, but the lessons of manners from your mother flooded back into your head. You quickly took a step backward, leaning back and away from the stranger and covered your mouth with your fingertips. “I apologize for my tone!”

The stranger quickly lifted his hand to his chest, palm towards you. His cloak opened to show what seemed like black pants and a white shirt beneath it. Boots tucked into his trousers. You partial hoped he wouldn’t raise his hand higher and demand more respect like many, entitled men would without hesitation.

“There is no need to apologize!” He quickly dismissed. He lowered his hand back down, his cloak closing back again at his front. His pushed forward chest straightened back down as he saw you relaxed slowly but surely. “Why are you running about the city so late at night, Miss?”

You bit back the urge to ask him the same thing in return but knew better than to avoid your basic ladylike manners again. You cleared your voice, straightening back up.

“I’ve had trouble sleeping for a while now. I thought that perhaps the night air would help clear my mind.” You didn’t hear the small gasp he took in.

“Trouble… sleeping?” You nodded towards him, brow raised at his curious tone. He cleared his throat. “When did your trouble begin? Perhaps if you talk about it, it would help.” You contemplated his offer. A listening ear of a stranger who offered willingly was far easier and cheaper than visiting a local doctor. You just looked up at him, head tuning in curiosity.

“Are you truly willing to listen to my late-night woes? Me, a stranger.”

The strange man turned around, backing up to the edge of the fountain and took a seat. He just looked up at you with his hidden face and offered you to take a seat beside him. You relented and even though you didn’t know who this man was and you didn’t recognize the voice as anyone you may have met before, you felt oddly calm. You sat next to him before speaking.

“I suppose it started at the beginning of the month’s moon cycle. When the moon was dark and unseen, that’s when it all began. So, a couple of weeks ago.” You fiddled with your fingers, looking at your lap instead of up at his hidden features. You missed the man’s chin drop as he suppressed the urge to push his palm against his mouth in shock. He just remained still and rotated his hand to silently tell you to continue, not trusting his voice. You sighed. “I normally sit and read before trying to sleep again, but the dreams just keep reappearing over and over again.”

“You can read?” He asked inquisitively. It wasn’t said in a disgusted tone, not even condescending. He was genuinely curious.

“I… can. My father taught me when I was young and it would be odd if a librarian lacked the skill to read her own books.” He could tell by the way he put his hands together in his lap and pushed his legs up to his toes and back down that he wanted to know more. “My father’s library in town was passed to me when he passed. My mother had already died so I had to learn to manage it on my own, but that was nearly 5 years ago now. I’ve put it behind me and it isn’t so bad as it seemed at the time.”

“I apologize for your losses,” the strange offered his condolences. “However, I’ve not known many women to read and write efficiently. Are you ridiculed for it?” He asked lightly as if trying to avoid any conversational landmines. He smiled lightly with a small huff and looked down at your hands.

“I am, very often honestly. Truth be told, I seem to provoke men and the wealthy women of the city because of my skills. I’ve tried teaching children, but their parents berate me. I’ve become deaf to their insults now, however.”

“You’re a respectable woman,” the strange told you. The compliment seemed so truthful it sent you into a small recoil. He chuckled as your reaction. “A strong, intelligent woman shouldn’t be deemed unordinary, but revered as a genius. You all weren’t’ just made for family expansion and chores. Or so, I believe.”

You burst out into a fit of laughter. You pushed your hand over your mouth, knowing it was late and if you were to wake anyone, they’d stalk into the city center with a stick or ladle, shooing the noisemaker away. You missed the small smile the stranger hid under his hood.

“I apologize,” you forced between stifled laughs. He shook his head.

“No need, I think your laugh is beautiful.”

You calmed down as you took a breath to regained your breathing. “I’m not sure where you come from, stranger, but you are vastly different from any other man I’ve met.” He was silent for a moment.

“Believe it or not, I’ve lived in Navern for many years. I’m a bit of a recluse and don’t get out much. I work from home, in a sense.”

“Is that right?” You asked, a teasing hint of skepticism.

“I swear to Luos himself,” He said, cringing at his words. You nodded. You both continued to sit and talk for a while longer before the moon had moved drastically in the sky. The stranger was soon standing, taking your hand gently to help you to your feet. His fingers seemed to linger on your skin as he let your hand go. “It’s getting far too late for a lady to be out. I’ll walk you home,” he offered with no room for rejection.

When you both stood outside your home, the stranger looked through the dark windows. The outlines of filled shelves sketching over his vision. Looking up, he saw a window, probably to your room away from your shop. You removed the thick, cooper key from around your neck that was on a rope of leather before slotting it into the door. Turning it to click it open. You turned back to the stranger.

“Thank you for your company tonight. I really did appreciate being able to speak and be myself without being sneered.” Your voice was soft and filled with genuine happiness.

“I can guarantee that your company and conversation pleased me far more than you. It has been far too long since I spoke to someone.” His voice was soft and calm, you could hear the smile on his face. “Next time, let’s talk inside and in the daylight instead of sitting outside in the cold.”

“You would come to visit me, wouldn’t you?” You teased lightly. You were shocked when he nodded immediately. “Well, if that’s the case, could I see your face?” You gently asked, not wanting to pressure him. He was still a stranger, but you felt so calm and easy about him. You just wanted to see him just once- but perhaps he would decline your request. He had his hood up this whole time without movement to lower it.

“I don’t usually show my face outside of my home,” he started and your face started to fall, “however, I think I can make this exception.” Your fae jumped back up as you bit back a smile of victory. He lifted his hands to open his cloak and grip the sides of his hood. Pushing the fabric back, your smile fell into the face of awe.

He was gorgeous. Long, black hair that brushed passed his eyes. His eyes dark but light reflected off them in specs of the most wondrous color. His hair was curled with waves and framed his face well. His jaw is wide and sharp. His voice seemed to fit his face a far better than you couldn’t have ever imagined. He chuckled at your reaction to his face. He put his hands on either side of his neck before dropping them.

“For the first time tonight, it seems you do not have any words left,” he jested.

You just licked your dry lips and hid your face, trying not to let your cheek heat too much. “May I ask one more request?”

“I suppose,” he drawled. You picked at your fingers, nails tapping together.

“May I ask your name if I offer mine back?” You gingerly looked up at him, eyes looking up first before your head lifted in follow. You could see a small jolt of hesitation at your question. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’d recognize you anywhere even without your name.” He took that as a compliment of compelling looks.

He faltered in his step as he moved to take your hand, raising it to push the back of your knuckles to his lips. His eyes closed gently as he kissed your hand, your mouth opening and your cheek flaring in the cold night breeze. He opened his eyes as you noticed that one eye had a monolid while the other was double eye lidded. He smiled widely, the purest and cutest smile you’d ever seen.

“Call me Taehyung,” he cheered lightly. He dropped your hand, as you offered your name back with a small flustered stutter. Y/n was a wonderful name and fit you perfectly. He watched you go inside and even saw your shadow trot up the back staircase to your apartment. He looked at the top window and saw a dim light of a lantern you had just lit before he smiled.

He did feel a bit guilty for not telling you the name he went by now was Luos, but Taehyung was the only name he felt he should give you. His original name was much less intimidating than the Sun God Recluse, Luos. He flipped his hood back up and made quick work of his way back to the castle. Already impatient to see you again and without him really noticing, the nagging in his chest had subsided.

It was two weeks ago when your dream started to subside. That night you spent talking with Taehyung for so long seemed to take your dreams away. You were shocked when he showed up at dusk, knowing at your library door the very next night. He claimed he couldn’t wait to see you again, so here he was. You immediately let him inside without a hassle.

You’ve been talking with Taehyung for two weeks and you greatly enjoyed everything about him. His attitude was uplifting and even when he spoke about topics that angered him, his anger was justice and the points to support his rage were solid. He was knowledgable and well versed in many things. The conversation never died with him.

You were comfortable with him, especially since he always marveled at your abilities. He watched with awe as you caught you repaired a shelf once, and nearly ate enough for four men when you cooked for him the first time. He could read well but preferred hearing you read to him, claiming to love hearing your voice.

It was no mystery how fast you were falling for Taehyung. The romance was something you didn’t think was optional for you, but Taehyung waltzed into your life at night and wasn’t a creepy serial killer. Taehyung had seriously raised your bar of men’s standards and he probably had no idea how you inside turned into mush when he showed up at your home with his giant, wide smile.

Taehyung also always only visited you when night was falling and always cloak. However, it was early in the morning once when he decided he couldn’t wait another long day to see you again. Sneaking out of the castle was harder in the morning, but possible. Still cloaked and hooded, he hid his small smile from the sun’s shadow. His smile wilted when he saw the corner of your library-home come into view.

You had just unlocked the library door and moved to put the hanging ‘open’ sign you had painted and decorated with Taehyung one night to symbolize for people to come and go as they please. He wanted to smile at the idea of you using it, but the young men around your age coming towards you made his teeth grind.

You had just hung your sign on the front window of the door on the small nail you had put on the door a few nights ago when you felt a small shove on your shoulder. Your dress today hit the ground and you nearly toppled over by stepping on the fabric. Your corset of white pushed the dress against your stomach, pushing your chest up, and your torso felt pain as you nearly bent over in the course that was tight.

You regained balance with a small huff as you adjusted your apron on your front. The two men were two fellow rude boys you had grown up with. They had yet to outgrow their childish bullying, and you doubt they were would. You figured they should just marry each other at this point. With rotten, toxic attitudes like theirs, there is no way they’d find wives.

One man, a small sprout of bone was Lix. The other was a bit broader, but no looker for sure; he was named Horan. Lix was more a verbal fighter, not having much strength when it came to fist to fist confrontation. Horan was the opposite. He was dead stupid, but his power balanced out what Lix didn’t have. It was a poetically stupid match made in some twisted heave.

Lix turned to your sign before taking it off the door and looking it over. A small frown on his face as he’s eyes squinted.

“What awful handwriting!” He crowed, even if your handwriting was a perfect script. “I knew it, women should stick to cleaning and looking after little rugrats,” he spits before he threw your sign with a flick to his right. The wooden plack spun as it descended and hit the road with a puff of dirt. You gasped lightly before you ran towards it.

Kneeling in the dirt, you picked it up, the road sticking to your fingertips and filtering under your nails in grounded, small pieces. Dirt would be pushed into your apron and you’re sure you’d have to dust it and wash it all out later. When you looked at the sign in your lap as you knelt on your knees, you recalled how happy Taehyung looked when it as down. Your eyes began to tear.

There was a small murmur of on-lookers who watched the two men push at you. You knew you had no authority to act out, even if you wanted so badly to shout at them. You’d have no ally if you did, no one stood in your corner. You were alone and the fact that everyone watching and gossiping you get pushed around didn’t move to help you, only proved your point.

You could only stamp your feet and curl your fingers around the wooden, painted ‘open’ sign as you held your tears back. Lix started marching up behind you, you could tell from the dainty footsteps he took. Horan’s was much more heavy in terms of his weight. You could feel his presence right behind you, the looming feeling of this man looking down on you. He kicked dirt at your back, debris mixing into your hair and rolling down your dresses back from the collar as you shivered at the sensation.

You felt pathetic as you just let it happen. You could feel him step closer and the shadow you saw from your side showed him reaching out towards you. You expected him to grab your hair and pull you to sit straight. You just shut your eyes in a panic to avoid anyone seeing your unshed tears.

Lix’s nasty grip never came. Instead, a near set of steps rushed from in front of you and came to halt. A shadow of someone blocking the sun from you clouded your shut eyes as you peeked them open. A pair of black boots were in front of your down casted vision. You could vague hear Lix squawking in pain before the new arriver stepped around you and shoved Lix back. You heard his ass his dirt as he whined. Horan was soon stomping to defend his attacked friend, but soon the stomping stopped.

You lifted your head, turning to your back to see who had interfered. You didn’t know of any townsfolk would who defend you. A woman who was so vastly different from others. Your mouth opened to a quivered form as your tears fell. That familiar cloak a blessing to your eyes.

“Taehyung,” you whimpered. You weren’t shocked to see him, you were just relieved to see you had someone to help you. You cried further when you realized you finally had someone in your corner. Taehyung protected you and he had flipped down his hood. His hair was even more beautiful shining off the sun. You wanted to see his eyes in this light- it was probably more breathtaking than seeing them in the candlelight of lanterns.

Horan remained still, frozen mid-charge. Taehyung glared at him and it was blood-chilling enough to freeze the unintelligent giant in his tracks and even silence the gossip of others. Some even moved to remain their work, trying to play coy as if they hadn’t witnessed the assault without assistance. Lix had picked himself off the ground, not sure where to move to, Taehyung eyes burning them into place.

“Make yourself scarce,” was all he seethed. A threat underlined in his words. Lix and Horan were quick to flee. Taehyung’s shoulders slackened as he turned to you, sitting in the dirt and holding the sign in your arms to your chest, hugging it as if it were some precious treasure. His eyebrows dipped, sad to see your tears. He moved to you, kneeling to rub his palm against your wet cheek and push his fingertips into your hair, combing out bits of dirt.

He raised his eyes over you, looking at the people still cocky enough to keep starring. He glared again. “Return to your duties and mind your business!” He yelled, everyone obeying without hesitation and soon all eyes were off you. Taehyung looked softly back at you before he gently picked you off the ground.

Walking you into your store, he took the sign and set it gently on the window sill. He locked the door once you both were inside. He rubbed your arm softly as you palmed at your eyes, trying to dry them. Taehyung moved to stand in front of you, grabbing your cheeks and bending to look into your glasses, red eyes. He rubbed your skin with his thumb, his large hand holding your head.

“Let’s not open up right now,” he whispered so softly to you. You nodded, not able to trust your voice yet. “He gently pushed his lips on your forehead, his brows crunching as he held his lips against your skin for several seconds, feeling pain in his chest from seeing your own pain. H epulled from your forehead before he grabbed your hand. “Let’s go upstairs. You have tea? I’ll make you some” You just nodded again, following him upstairs.

Taehyung spent that day with you. He cleaned your face and wiped your tears. He reassured you and made you speak your frustrations. He took care of you in a way you didn’t think a man ever would. He made you change out of your corset and set your apron in the wash bin to soak the dirt stains out. He brushed your hair out before he sloppily pinned it up. He stayed by you all day and far into the night. When you fell asleep that night, you shocked to wake up the next morning without a single dream to plague you. Even more shocking, you gasped lightly when Taehyung was sleeping in front of you, eyes shut easy and arm under his head as a pillow.

He never left your side. All that previous and all night, he was there. You cupped your mouth as a wae of resh tears spilled over the side of your face. You pushed your face into Taehyung’s neck, startling him awake as he rubbed your back.

“What’s wrong/ Tell me? Did you have a nightmare?” You just shoo your head as you hiccup. “Y/n?” You cried tears of relief and realization as you finally attempted to yourself that you were in love with Taehyung. So very much in love with him.

He left the night of day two he had been with you. He wanted to stay longer, stay forever if he could, but he knew he had to get back to the palace. One day without his appearance wasn’t odd, many assumed he was probably locke din his room. However, any longer and he feared someone would grow nosey.

He left you that night as you flushed at the kiss he pushed on your forehead. He held your hand softly before he flipped his hood up and ran off. You went back upstairs, suddenly exhausted and fell into sleep.

The next morning, you woke up to the murmur outside. You rubbed your eyes, going to your window and opening it. There were people whispering with cupped hands as they pointed to your library. You assumed they were still talking about the debacle two days prior with Lix and Horan. It wasn’t until you came downstairs when you saw two people standing with their backs to the front windows of your library.

Unlocking the door and opening it, the two people turned to you. They were both men and dressed in guard uniforms. They were from the palace and part of your blood froze. Why were castle guards standing at your storefront? You swallowed as you greeted them.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” you greeted trying to remain calm. One stood forward, holding a spear in his arms as the tip pointed high to the sky. He seemed to be the higher rank of the duo.

“Fine morning, Miss. I do not wish to alarm you, but we have immediate orders to escort you into Navern Palace.”

“What?” You choked. You took the time to look around again. You noticed that instead of all judgmental eyes, some gazes were envious or even respectable. They looked at you like you were some higher being or had some power over them. You crunched your brow.

You were ready to talk to the guards when you felt someone run into your back, knocking you forward a step. You turned around and saw Lix, Horan in front of him his arms stretched out. The bigger man had pushed the smaller and the look Lix gave you when he saw it was you he rammed into was one of almost terror. He straightened out as he stood beside Horan, both bowing deeply towards you.

“We’re sorry!” He cried as they ran off like scared children. Your brows flicked up higher. What in the world was that? Were they scared Taehyung would show up again? You momentarily forgot about the guards until one cleared their throat to gain your attention back. The one who spoke to you scolded his underling.

“Do not force her attention by force in such a rude manner!” He shouted as you quickly hushed him.

“No! It’s fine! I’m not offended or anything.” You sighed when the higher-ranked guards only bowed to you and offered his thanks, the younger mirroring his actions. “So, I’m to go to the palace?” You asked, trying to restart the original conversation. The guards stood right up again.

“Yes, Miss. Luos has asked for you.” YOu gasped lightly.

“God Luos asked to see me?!” The guards nodded. Your mouth grew dry as you swallowed to try and find saliva. You licked your dry lips. “I- okay.” You relented. If the God of your kingdom really did request you there, you had to go. You hoped he didn’t mind librarian clothes and a slightly stained apron. You had no time to change and get ready as the guards had begun to usher you off after you locked your library door.

As you walked with the two men, you watched some children smile and wave you. Some women stared in awe at you as if they knew something you didn’t. Men looked at you in caution as if they were committing a crime if you met their gaze. What possibly could’ve happened overnight to get gazes on you in a totally different light?

The moment you crossed the brick bridge across the mote and stood at the giant gates of the palace, you looked in open-mouthed awe. The castle was a gargantuan wonder up close. It took your breath away. The sides of it were as beautiful as the Sun God it housed you were sure. The idea of you probably meeting the God of the Sun, Luos made your stomach turn. He had been silent for so long, what did he suddenly pop back into the public gossip for? And to summon you of all people in Navern?

You were lead to a wide, open, beautiful throne room. The throe at the back of the room at the end of the long, golden rug and up 4 steps of marble was empty. No God was there. You stood walking closer to the throne and taking in the fabric, patterns, and creation of it. Itw as a wonderfully beautiful chair. You gasped with enough force to knock the breath out of you when the heavy, tall doors of the throne room wheezed open again and a voice echoed behind you.

“Would you like to have a seat on my throne?” The voice so scarily familiar and you hesitated to turn around. Surely your mind was playing tricks on you. There was no way. You heard the echoing steps come closer to you as your back remained towards him. Luos was behind you, that you knew for sure- he addressed this throne you stared wide-eyed at as his after all. You felt him stop behind you, his loom presence burning at your back. “Will you not turn to look at me?” His voice was lower, quieter. You gripped your have stained apron as you took one step forward, putting distance between you and he as you then slowly stepped around to face him.

Your eyes were focused at his feet. He walked barefoot. Golden anklets around his skin. His trousers were black as they were rolled at his shins. Following his pant legs up, his white shirt was long and loose on his body. Following it up higher, you saw a golden robe of printed suns adorn his shoulders and you could vaguely see bracelets of gold wrap up his forearms like guards. A thick golden collar of jews around his neck and a crown of golden spikes sat on the crown of his head. Dramatic and much like the rays of the sun.

This was Luos and as you looked into his eyes at his face, you gasped. This was Taehyung.

“I hope the sudden call to my home wasn’t too alarming, Y/n,” he told you softly. He could see the confusion in your eyes, but you weren’t screaming yet so he considered it progress. You just stood there, gaping at him in silence. He reached out and brushed the back of his fingers against your cheek, making you flinch, but not back away from him. He smiled softly. “Is who I am truly that shocking?”

You didn’t know how to politely say ‘yes it fucking is shocking’, because the man you’ve been visiting with the past two weeks was a God. You gasped, taking another step backward. He rose his brow in confusion as his hand hovered in the air now. You had let the God of Navern into your rackety all home. You gazed at him in starstruck gazes for hours before. You had told him so many personal events and facts about yourself and you began to flush.

Luos, God of Navern’s Sun had picked your pushed and bullies body off the dirt road just two days ago and had stayed at your home with you alone for over 24 hours. Your cheeks grew darker.

You had fallen in love with Luos and you didn’t even know it.

Was that wrong? You started to inwardly panic. Was it against some scared law of Gods for a human woman who was clearly outcasted from her city to fall for a God? Even if it was unknown to you in the time you were falling, would it be punishable by some degree? Was that why he called you here?! Had he seen through your obvious red faces and stuttering and brought you heard to punish you for your feelings that you should or should’ve been feeling?

Taehyung stepped forward, seeing your mind start to flip. He grabbed your shoulders and pushed his lips against your forehead. Just as he had before. He closed his eyes, hoping and praying that you wouldn’t change just because of who he was. He was guilty of hiding the ruth from you, but what choice did he have? He was a shut-in God only a couple of weeks ago, but now he was determined to change it all. And he’d need the help of a prophet for that.

“Calm down, dear,” he soothed. His warm hands pushed against your covered shoulders and you did start to calm. Trying to ignore your warming ears at the endearing name. He felt you slacken after some time and moved to look at you again, stepping just a bit away from you. “Are you alright now?” You nodded. He took his hand and pushed your hair from your face to see you clearly. He smiled at your flushed cheeks. “Red is a color that suits you,” he teased.

You were silent as you looked at your feet. Biting back a ‘shut up’ because in all honesty, how do you talk to him now? Wasn’t it rude to be so direct to a Sun God. A royal God who lived in the royal palace of his own kingdom. You had to watch what you say and say it all respectfully. Taehyugn seemed to know your thoughts as you felt his thumb rub beneath your ear, his hands dipping under your jaw to lift your head up to meet his gaze.

“Do not change yourself because you see me as Luos. My name truly is Taehyung and everything I’ve told you about myself these past weeks is all truthful. I’ve never once lied and I never once will.” He dipped his eyelids, his eyes pleading with you to believe him. “I don’t want to appear different to you now, so don’t treat me any differently.”

You raised your hand to push over his that held your jaw the other staying fisted loosely around your apron. Taehyung smiled at your palm’s warmth. He watched you take a deep breath through your nose before pushing it out of your lips. You looked up at him warily.

“I won’t get punished for being blunt to a God?” You asked carefully. You were blunt, yes; but you were always careful of your words towards him. He smiled.

“Of course not. Why would you be punished if the God you’re speaking to gave you pardon?” You finally smiled a small bit. One that made Taehyung break out into a smile so large he nearly let out a small giggle at you. The way he held your jaw and squished your cheek combined with your small smile, he almost pushed dimples into your cheeks.

You both stood in silence for a while before Taehyung dropped his hands from your jaw and moved to hold your hands in his. Threading his fingers with yours. He was affectionate before, sure. He would often plop his head into your lap as you read to him and of course he slept beside you that one night he decided not to leave your side. However, his laced fingers with your brought warmth to your chest.

“Do you remember when you talked to me about your dreams that first night we met?” You nodded. “You remember when you explained that the hooded figure would always appear and you’d wake up?” You nodded again, not sure where he was going with this. “Well, I think that actually was me.” You lightly breathed in an air of confusion. “Sometimes,” he began, “humans are born with something close to supernatural powers. Some can move objects without physical touch, some can see pasts and futures of people, others can even control the mind of others. Then, there are some like you, who are shown prophetic dreams of things to come.”

“Come to think,” you started with a raising brow, “my dreams did stop after that first night we met. I just thought it was because I finally talked about them. However, you’re saying-”

“I believe you were meant to have those dreams and you were meant to meet me that night. That night I felt like I met someone I was always destined to. Prior to that, I had this nagging in my chest,” he lifted his hand to push against his torso, “and it compelled me to go out into town. It cannot be coincidental that I met you that and the nagging abandoned me.”

Taehyung stopped his talking before he looked over your shoulder. He took your intertwined hands and moved to drag you towards his throne. Helping you to not trip up the marble steps, he soon stood with you at his throne of gold. He held your hands tightly.

“Navern is my precious kingdom I care so much for. I’ve had my time of being reclused and I need to go back into my kingdom and reclaim it with new eyes. I cannot do that on my own. I need someone to help me and to help keep me balanced and straight. They will also help keep my words strong to my people who believe in me and my Sun.” He took a deep breath before he removed on hand from yours and took to his pocket, pulling a scarlet red sash from his trousers that had a hair comb wrapped inside of it.

It was a beautiful piece. A golden frame with solid, silver teeth with gaps made to avoid severe tugging of the hair. You slowly reached out with the hand not held by Taehyung as you ran your fingers over its heavy glory.

“It’s beautiful,” you told him as he smiled.

“I know. It belonged to my mother. A long, long time ago.” You looked up at him with a bit of sadness in your eyes. You knew how he loved his parents, he had told you all about them one night and got a bit more emotional than he’d like to admit recalling so many memories. “I want you to have this now.”

“What?” You breathed.

“Y/n,” he put the comb and it’s scarlet fabric in your open palm before he brought your other hand up to sandwich the comb in your hands. His hands around your own before he lifted them to his forehead. “I want you to help me regain the social regime I have let die. I want you to wake up in this palace day by day with me. I want you to stay here and use this comb as you stay with me as my chosen Prophet.” His voice cracked like he was going to cry admitting it all. “I’ve never-,” he took a breath, “I’ve never been in love before. I died too young so long ago I never experienced it. However, I know now I’m positive that I’m falling in love with you.”

Your breath was sucked out of your lungs like a vacuum because of his words. “Do,” you started small, gaining his attention as he looked at you, lowering your hands back down, still holding them tightly. The comb’s cold material warming in your palms. “Do you really mean all of that?” You squeaked.

He nodded so quickly as he took a step closer. His nose was inches from you as he looked down at you. His feet stood between your shoes as he looked back and forth between your eyes. He truly was a beautiful man. “Yes. I swear, I-I mean everything.” He was so fearful you’d say no to him. What would he do if you left this palace and didn’t take his words with you? Would he still be able to visit you in town at the library? Would you avoid him? Shun him? He was scared of the negatives.

“What would happen to the library?” You asked softly. He knew it was important to you. Rundown and aged, yes, but it’s the place you spent your life with your family before they were gone. Taehyung wouldn’t let anything happen to that small, cramped home of yours. He loved it just as much as you. It’s where he spent so much time with you and learned so much about you. Where he ate with you and comforted you and slept beside you.

Taehyung loved that library.

“I’d keep it safe. I don’t want anything to happen to that library or your apartment you claim. It’s so precious to me now. I’d make sure no one got inside it to vandalize or. Nothing would happen to it and I’d keep it safe from ruin. If something is weak, I’d work to rebuild and fix it.”

“You’d do that for a small library when you have such a grand castle?”

“In a heartbeat. That’s the place I got to spend so many memories with you,” he softly admitted out loud. “You don’t need to agree to my request,” he told you, heartbreak in his voice. He wouldn’t force his wishes on you, no- never would he do that.

You slowly pulled your hands from his, opening your palms to see the golden comb in all it’s beauty again. You then handed it to Taehyung, having him hold it as you unraveled your messy, braided hair. Holding locks of it ver your shoulder, you looked at him and smiled.

“Can such a comb even brush such messy hair?” Taehyung’s face nearly split in two at the smile that erupted into his face. He wrapped his arms around your shoulders, lifting you off your feet and toes to hold you so tightly. YOu felt his chest breathe heave, relieved sighs. He set you back down on your feet.

He moved to kiss you again, but not on the forehead. No, this time his lips fell beneath your eye. He kissed you and when he pulled his lips from your skin a small mark had begun to outline onto your skin. Shining with golden light before forming the shape of a butterfly, his insignia animal. He smiled again as he moved to sit you down into his throne.

He then moved to kneel in front of you, taking your hand and kissing your knuckles much like the night he first met you when he left you for the first time. He kissed your knuckles before he smiled up at you with his innocent, childlike smile.

“We’ll have to get you accustomed to the castle, my dear,” he giggled. He began to lead you to a room of seamstress servants to exchange your ordinary librarian clothes with fine, silk robes of the Sun’s golden glow.

The only thing he kept secret from you now, was the fact that not only were you his Prophet, he also may have told the townspeople that if they mess with his fiance and future wife again, he, the God Luos would not be pleased. Of course, you didn’t have to know you were engaged quite yet.

a/n pt.2 - Tell me all what you think! I spent 5 hours writing this in one sitting and I’m pretty proud of it ngl. So lmk!!

452 notes · View notes

thinking-in-symbols · 3 years

Text

Quinquennial Life Assessment

So, it’s been a few years. When I was 19 I posted a sort of “roadmap” for the evolution of my life on this blog. Today I thought I’d revisit that. I want to take a look back and see what progress I’ve made, and then in a separate post I want to turn to the future, think about how my vision for it has changed, and consider how I can reincorporate these goals into that vision.

This is the list of things I wanted to get done in varying time frames. I’ve crossed off the things I’ve done to get a sense of my progress:

1 year:

At 19, my hopes were to accomplish the following things by age 20:

- Joined, and consistently participated in, at least 2 campus organizations that suit my interests, at least 1 of which should be competitive in nature - well, I joined the ISO and KVRX, my college radio station! Neither of those were competitive, but in retrospect I don’t really care about that :-)

- Made concrete plans to study abroad - Nope, unfortunately I never did this. I’m not quite sure I regret that, all things considered - I traded that experience for other things. I did make plans to spend a few months abroad of my own accord, and I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for that meddling global pandemic. But as it stands I haven’t done this.

- Learned C++ and python to proficiency - Hm. “Proficient” is a relative term. But I think I have a tendency to downplay my skills, so in the interest of counteracting that I’m going to count myself as “proficient” in these languages. I think that’s fair.

- Gone on at least a several day road trip with at least 1 friend - I’ve gone on several trips with @meeshbug, my very lovely girlfriend and best friend in the world :-)

- Decided on a concentration beyond the extremely vague umbrella of “computer science” - Unfortunately as far as my education is concerned I never really did this. If anything my interests have *broadened* rather than becoming more focused. More on this later...

- Made meaningful, ongoing contributions to an open-source project - You know what? I’ve published the source of everything I’ve ever made, and I’ve gotten to the point where I can make stuff that’s not trivial. So I’m giving myself credit for this one.

- Learned to cook enough meals to eat in most days and not get sick of my own food - I wish. I’ve learned to cook a fair amount of stuff but I still get way too depressed and lethargic to apply that consistently. Whether I consider myself to have achieved this honestly depends on the month.

- Learned to keep my living area clean - I’m much better at this than I was at 19, but at 19 I could barely clear a path to walk across my room. So there’s more work to do. More on these last two later.

- Gotten a pet - Meesh and I have a dog named Courage (after the dog of cowardly fame) and a cat named Jax!

2 years:

- Independently written a piece of software to completion and deployed it publicly - I’ve always pretty bad at actually seeing projects through to completion, but I do have a few full, independent projects under my belt at this point. I’ve built a simple game engine, a pathtracer, plugins for games I like, and some other stuff.

- purchased and begun regularly using some basic amateur radio equipment - Ah man. I got my license but I still haven’t gotten any equipment. I guess I have to get on that...

- purchased and begun experimenting with some basic music recording equipment - This one I’ve done, but I haven’t done as much experimenting as I’d like.

- hosted a party - I did this for my 21st birthday and it’s one of my favorite memories! Honestly this was probably the last time I had all my really close friends in one place. I’m actually getting kind of emotional about that.

- done some kind of hallucinogen - I have now done this. I definitely did get something out of it, albeit not what I expected. This is something I actually only did pretty recently and it’s still having a pretty profound effect. Maybe I’ll write a separate post about this.

- Gone camping with friends - Despite my best efforts, this hasn’t happened yet. Pretty fucked up.

3 years:

- learned to play another instrument besides the piano (guitar?) - I don’t feel comfortable crossing this one off quite yet, but I went ahead and bought myself some guitar equipment and have been messing around with it lately :-) I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet and pay for lessons if I’m serious about this, which I am.

- Written and recorded a song - Damn, I can’t believe it’s been 5 years and I haven’t even done this.

- Met a group of people I can play music with - nope

- Owned a leather jacket. I can’t believe I’ve still never even owned a leather jacket - I’ve done this and wore it frankly too much. Kinda cringe.

- Worked as a professional software developer - Yep! Worked as a software developer for a retail company for a couple years. I’m actually not working as a software developer right now, though; I’m working in a sort of adjacent position. More on this later.

- Participated in research related to my field - That’s pretty ambitious. Not sure I’ll ever do this, unfortunately. But we’ll see.

- Been to a film festival - Oh shit, I totally forgot about having written this. That’s a cool idea. I should do this, it’s not like it’s hard (well, at least in principle. I guess covid kind of changes the situation).

- Gotten a dog - Courage is one of those, I think, although he might also be part rat.

- collected 50 records - Lol, my dumb ass really thought I was going to buy $1,000 worth of records on college money. No, I haven’t done this, but I’m on my way there.

- Purchased a desktop computer - Well, my dad gave me his old desktop. That’s not really a purchase but I think it counts.

5 years:

- Begun accepting freelance development gigs - haven’t gotten here yet and I’m not totally sure this is a direction I want to go in my career. Freelancing has its own stressors as I’ve come to learn from others. No career path is sunshine and roses and I’m trying to internalize this fact.

- Participated in a student film - Nope. I don’t even know why I wrote this down to be honest.

- Gotten laid by solving a 5x5 Rubik’s Cube in front of a girl because surely that’s gonna have to work on someone eventually, otherwise I wasted a lot of time - These are getting weird. Surely I didn’t really expect this to happen, right? Well, either way I now have a long-term girlfriend, so I don’t - wait, Meesh has seen me solve a Rubik’s cube and she saw it before we started dating. So actually I’m going to give myself credit for it. I’m the one who makes the rules here.

- Fleshed out my political opinions - Yes, I now know everything about politics and can answer 100% of questions on political issues. Just kidding. But I know where I stand.

- Participated in a protest or some other kind of political event - Done! Went to a few protests as part of the ISO, participated in lots of their events, and attended some protests with friends as well.

- Studied abroad - Nope :-/

- Learned a language other than Spanish - I took a semester of French! But I don’t quite want to give myself credit for this one because I really would like to learn a different language to something resembling fluency.

- Run a marathon - Lmao. I am in much worse shape now than I was when I wrote this post, and even at that time I could probably do like 7 miles if I really pushed myself. How sad.

- Gone hiking outside of texas - This is weird because I’d literally already done this when I wrote this post. But I’ve done it more since then, so hey!

- Been out of the country with a friend - This I had also already done. I guess the point is to have done it without “adult supervision” or whatever. I haven’t done this since writing this list so I guess I have to leave it uncrossed.

10 years:

- Lived with a girl for an extended period of time - Meesh 🥰

- Spent at least 6 months living on the road in an RV, preferably with a dog and a girl - God, I am so close to being able to do this. I don’t want it to be an RV anymore - those things are expensive. But a van? Still pricey, but doable, especially if I’m willing to sacrifice some comfort. This has actually been front-of-mind for a while. I’ll let you know when I get the balls to pull the trigger.

- Started making Real Money - Well, yep, I have gotten to that point. I do have other thoughts on this, though. Money is weird, man.

- Lived in a long-term living space outside of Texas (i.e. not including RV time) - How long is long-term? Three months? If so, I’ve done this by living in Boston with Meesh for a few months after she went there for law school. However, I anticipate staying there much longer in the near future, so I’ll wait on this crossing this one off.

- Written a book about something, idk - Not yet. I’m halfway to the deadline on this one and I have some ideas, but ideas aren’t worth all that much, especially to me, who rarely sees them through. We’ll see where this goes. It’s not exactly a priority and historically I struggle to get even my priorities done. It might make more sense to replace this with recording a concept or narrative album, for which I also have ideas that I happen to take more seriously.

- Learned to solve a 6x6 Rubik’s Cube - nope

- Gotten laid by solving a 6x6 Rubik’s Cube - nope

- Lived in an apartment where I pay all the rent - Yes! :-))) We love independence

- Earned an advanced degree (this one’s iffy) - This hasn’t happened, and whether it will ever happen is something I’ve been thinking a lot about. I sort of decided half-way through college that I would be totally burned out on school by the time I graduated. But in retrospect it takes way less time to burn out on work than it does to burn out on school, and grad degrees are a different kind of thing. So it’s worth revisiting.’

- Given a best man speech (Sam, this means you have to get married within the next 10 years. Good luck out there.) - Holy shit, Sam, you maniac, you actually did it! Sam got married back in 2019 and I gave his best man speech! It’s another one of my favorite memories :-)

- Gone on a cruise with someone I’m dating - Hmm, not yet. I’ve gone on cool trips, but none on a boat. Maybe that’s something to aim for after the pandemic passes :-)

Retrospective:

1yr: Completed: 5/9

More than half isn’t bad! I’m not gonna worry too much about whether I got these things done within their assigned “time-frame”. I’m a procrastinator in my heart and I don’t see any reason to put that kind of pressure on myself. The point is, they got done. That’s enough for me.

The things I did best in in this category were academic things, and things to do with relationships. I’m proud of the academic achievements, I really feel like doing them has increased my belief in myself and my sense that I’m good at the thing I’ve spent the last four years studying. And of course, I am so happy to be in a loving, fulfilling relationship that brings so many good things into my life. I almost feel like the things I accomplished sort of fell into my lap - of course I’m gonna do programming stuff as a programming student, and getting pets / going on road trips are things I did as a result of my relationship with Meesh. I don’t say that to downplay the accomplishments, but I do think it’s worth noting.

The things I haven’t done are more to do with personal development, which is disappointing. I would like to be able to say, 5 years down the road, that I’ve done the personal development I expected to do in just a single year, but maybe that’s a lot to expect. These are problems I’ve dealt with my whole life. I think what this means is that I can’t expect everything to fall into my lap. Those things are going to take real concerted effort to change. I’m not quite sure how to go about that, though.

2yrs: Completed: 4/6

Two-thirds! Even better!

Lots of these are one-time accomplishments, not so much long-term commitments to personal development. The good news is, I did them, and I think those resulted in some development in their own right :-)

Again, though, the things I didn’t do so well are the things that require long-term, concerted effort. For instance, while I crossed off the one about experimenting with music, it’s really only the initial investment that I’ve really done at this point. It remains to be seen whether I’ll be able to follow through on the commitment to actually experiment and learn.

3yrs: Completed: 4/10

This category also follows the same pattern I’ve noticed with the last two. The other thing I’m noticing is that so, so much of my effort over the past few years has been going towards developing a very particular skill: programming / computer science. Music and art are so important to me, but I’ve done very little real development in those areas. I mean, I’ve done some. But not as much as I would have hoped for half a decade.

5yrs: Completed: 4/10

This is getting a little more fun because less of my goals have to do explicitly with my degree. I’m starting to think beyond college, which is good, because the stage of life I’m in right now requires me to start thinking about the kind of life I want to build now that I’m done with school. Also, I’m at the deadline for this one right now! So this is a particularly interesting category because it really shows where I thought I’d be by this time.

The goals I accomplished in this timeframe are, again, mostly things I’ve done through my relationship, but politics also feature pretty prominently on this part of the list. I spent a lot of time reading and researching political issues during college and really did look for ways to participate. I honestly made politics a pretty big part of my identity over the last 5 years, and I think it will stay that way forever, but I’ve gotten to the point where I think I need to devote less of my mental energy to knowing more. I know what I need to know. It’s time to think about other things.

10yrs: Completed: 4/11 (and counting!)

There’s some career stuff in this section that I’ve been able to do, which is good news. I’ve always been scared about entering the working world. All things told, it’s gone more smoothly than it could have. But I also have lots of lingering doubts about what I want to do in the long term. So one of the most pressing goals I should aim for is to resolve those doubts.

Ultimately, I have a lot of time left, and I’m not even done with this time frame, so I’m not gonna spend much time dissecting the things I haven’t done. What I’ll do instead is say that while I didn’t do everything on this list, I feel proud of the things I have accomplished. I said when I first wrote this list that it’s sometimes hard for me to feel that my life is moving in any particular direction, and I’m still feeling like that five years later, to be honest. But looking back on these things has helped me see that I actually am making progress in my life. Not in all the ways I want to, but that’s OK. There’s still time.

In the next couple days I want to come back to this and reorganize this list into an updated set of goals, for the same time frames. Maybe that will help me think through exactly what it is I want out of the next five-ten years, with the benefit of having analyzed the things that I did and didn’t do well over the previous five.

2 notes · View notes

carewyncromwell · 3 years

Note

5, 13, and 20 for the potter asks?

Pro or anti Marauders?

Pro overall, but let’s break this down by characters --

Remus Lupin is my favorite male character in the entire book series. He not only reminded me of my best teachers growing up, but I felt so, so much for him as a character too. I always felt kind of marginalized and different from my peers growing up, so it’s kind of unsurprising that I’ve had a soft spot for “outcast” characters since I was very little, and Remus is no exception. I completely understood why his friends meant so much to him and therefore felt SO much for him that, in the end, he had to lose all three of them and end up alone. Even his flaws, showcased best in the Snape’s Worst Memory chapter of OOTP and especially in Deathly Hallows, only serve to make him more real and human -- it broke my heart when he considered leaving Tonks and Teddy to help the Trio with their Horcrux hunt, but Remus wanting to “bury himself in his work” (which, honestly, this was -- he was a member of the Order, after all!) rather than face his worst fear of possibly dooming another person (namely, his son) to live a life like his made perfect sense with the characterization established, however horrible and wrong of a choice it was. It made me side with Harry so much in scolding Remus, yet I also felt compassion for the feelings behind Remus’s initial impulse. And of course, I was so proud of him when he overcame that fear and stood by Tonks and got to know his son before he died. I’m still not over the fact that my bb Remus had to die, AUUUUUGH, he and Sirius and Harry should’ve lived together as one happy makeshift family togetherrrrr. DX

Peter Pettigrew...that bloody rat. >> I’m sure just about everyone feels a lot of justified resentment toward Peter for what he did to the Potters, and I definitely agree with that sentiment...but at the same time, there’s still a part of me that finds him very interesting. Mainly because...I’d love to see him at his best, now that we’ve seen him at his worst! He was a Marauder, same as Sirius, Remus, and James, and we should never forget that -- he might have been a bit of a tag-along, but none of the other three, Lily, or anyone else thought that Peter would ever have been the type to turn on his friends. McGonagall disparaged Peter for his magical talent, but she openly grieved for him when she thought Sirius had killed him. Everyone was ready to believe Sirius -- who clearly adored James -- could be the traitor, before suspecting Peter. Sirius even suspected Remus before Peter...and this is when their connection in the books is so strong that HP fans have shipped Wolfstar since POA was first published back in 1999! Even when you read the books, you can see flickers of remorse in Peter at points, if you’re reading carefully. In Goblet of Fire, Peter seems noticeably uncomfortable around the rest of Voldemort’s supporters -- his efforts to bring Voldemort back to his body really seem to be out of obligation rather than any kind of enthusiasm. And of course, as we see in Deathly Hallows, Peter even as a Death Eater still retains enough honor to hesitate when Harry reminds him that he owes him his life. Gryffindor house does preach chivalry as well as courage, and in a twisted way, one could read Peter’s “loyalty” to Voldemort not just being about desperation as his friends now want nothing to do with him, but also because Peter’s standing by the choice he made...not unlike how Percy stood by the Ministry as long as he did, rather than by his family. This doesn’t justify what Peter did at all -- he is a despicable coward who destroyed so many lives and is responsible for bringing back the Dark Wizard whose return resulted in even more deaths -- but it does give his characterization as a villain interesting nuance. There’s a well-established internal logic to how Peter behaves, one I would frankly LOVE to see more of in a future Marauders-centric property.

Sirius is arguably the most polarizing of the Marauders, but honestly? I love him to pieces. He is a very, VERY flawed character -- he’s got a real mean streak, a hot temper, and more aggression than the average person. Him encouraging Snape to “go after Remus” was an indisputably terrible, stupid, callous thing to do, not just because of the endangerment to Snape’s life, but the flagrant betrayal of Remus’s friendship. The way Sirius treated Kreacher was completely uncalled for, regardless of how much the elf reminded him of his terrible home life. Sirius also can be really immature and can get really surly and passive-aggressive when he’s upset. But despite all of this, I love Sirius anyway. In a lot of ways, Sirius reminds me of my father, who I also love a lot despite his many flaws. Sirius lacks empathy for those different from him, but he’s also the only member of his immediate family who rejected the idea of pureblood superiority and fought in the Order of the Phoenix against Voldemort. Sirius was a bully and even as an adult could be incredibly petty and mean-spirited, but he also was the first person in Harry’s life who really felt like family to him -- who he could write to for help when he was sad, afraid, or insecure. Sirius was a hot-tempered, rash person who rarely thought through the consequences of his actions, but he also would’ve done absolutely anything to protect the people he loved. He without question loved James, Lily, and Harry more than his own life. Despite being raised in a cold, hate-filled, prejudiced, unaffectionate, abusive home, Sirius understood unconditional love, and he understood his godson in a way no one else could, not just because he was such close friends with the parents he’d lost at such a young age, but because he’d lived Harry’s experience as a neglected, unloved child himself.

And now we come to the often maligned James Potter. Honestly, this guy gets such a bad rap in the fandom, almost exclusively based on Snape’s memories, and I don’t think it’s really fair. Snape is really the only person who has a sour image of James, and even if we disregard the testimonials of fellow Marauders like Sirius and Remus, people like McGonagall, Dumbledore, Mad-Eye Moody, and even Cornelius Fudge had nothing but nice things to say about James, and those people don’t have reason to speak well of James at Snape’s expense. And of course, even Snape’s perceptions are bound to have their own slant to them. Pensieve memories are just that: memories. A Pensieve is not a pocket dimension that perfectly recreates the past, hence why Slughorn was able to badly modify his memory, Hokey the house elf’s memories were tampered with by Riddle, and even in Snape’s own memory, we follow Snape throughout the memory and we’re only able to hear what the Marauders are saying because he was close by. And if we judge James solely based on his no-doubt worst moment in Snape’s Worst Memory, we’re bound to get an incomplete picture -- just as we did for Hagrid, after seeing Tom Riddle’s memory of him confronting Hagrid for supposedly opening the Chamber of Secrets. Would we judge Harry solely for Malfoy’s recollection of the Sectumsempra incident, or Hermione solely for Marietta’s recollection of the time Hermione hexed her face to read “SNEAK” across it? Of course not. James was a bully and what he did in Snape’s Worst Memory was no doubt horrible -- but this is also a young man who without hesitation gave Sirius a home after he ran away from his terrible family, who supported Remus financially when he couldn’t find work, and who selflessly put himself between Voldemort and his family just to give them a chance to escape, even though he didn’t even have his wand on him. I would frankly love to learn more about James and see more of the arc he must’ve gone through as a character for someone like Lily to have fallen in love with him and for people like Remus and Sirius to feel such strong platonic love for him themselves, if a Marauders-centric property was ever created.

Who was the bravest character in Harry Potter and why?

Oh gosh...hm...that is a real challenge. There are a lot of very brave characters! Harry, Ron, Hermione, Remus, Sirius, McGonagall, Hagrid, Dobby, Cedric...but I think I’m going to nominate Neville. While Hogwarts was taken over by Snape and the Carrows and the students were no doubt being brainwashed a la the Hitler Youth to regurgitate blood-purist talking points rather than learning anything that could defend themselves against the Dark Arts or that was even remotely true about Muggles, Neville decided to face that undeniable hopelessness -- worsened all the more by the students’ lack of independence and freedom while being housed in the castle’s walls without their families and the threat of losing both their families and all hope for a future constantly dangled over their heads -- head-on and reform Dumbledore’s Army with Ginny and Luna to stand against it. Then, even as his group’s members got picked off one by one and were forced to hide in the Room of Requirement, he stuck to his guns and kept resisting because he knew -- as a Pureblood -- he was in a position he could use to fight for others and wasn’t afraid to stand up for those who couldn’t stand up for themselves and others. It was only when his grandmother was forced to flee and the Carrows realized that Neville was too much of a threat to keep in check that he went into hiding himself. Then, when everyone thought Harry was dead and many others would’ve despaired, Neville fearlessly and fiercely stuck both by Harry, his parents’ memory, and his own convictions and refused Voldemort’s offer to join him, even keeping his head enough after getting burned by the flaming Sorting Hat to fulfill his promise to Harry and kill Nagini. And this was the kid who people said shouldn’t have been Sorted into Gryffindor at all, in his first year! What a beautiful transformation.

Favourite Death Eater?

*cringes* Mmm...well, character-wise, I’d say I’ve always found Lucius a very compelling character, in the books. The Malfoy family in general struck me as interesting anti-villains, since they are indisputably unpleasant, prejudiced, awful people, but their one silver lining to me is how deeply and sincerely they love each other. That aspect is really lost in movie!Lucius, since the films try to portray him much more two-dimensionally bad and that interpretation has since colored the fandom’s view of Lucius as an abusive father when there is NO textual evidence of that in the books. And I kind of find it a shame, because as much as I adore Jason Isaacs in his role, it did serve to make Lucius a bit less complex and interesting in the films than he was in the books. Admittedly as well I have a bit more of a soft spot for Lucius after taking on the challenge of writing the guy and his family a redemption arc in my way-too-long AU fic Harry Potter and the Lack of Lamb Sauce. XD

HP Ask!

#hp ask #opinion #ooc #lucius malfoy #sirius black #remus lupin #james potter #peter pettigrew #neville longbottom

10 notes · View notes

alarawriting · 4 years

Text

Inktober 2020 #24 - Dig

This comes from the latest incarnation of the very first novel I ever wrote.

When I was 10 I was blown away by a book called “The Girl Who Owned A City”, about a girl my age trying to survive after a plague killed all the adults. This predated the TV/comic series “Jeremiah” by a good bit. The book had a lot of weird shit in it that I now know is libertarian/objectivist bullshit, but at the time I was amazed by it. So, of course, I wrote my own version of the concept, “Below”, which was terrible because I was in 7th grade and in those days, without the Internet, we all sucked when we were young. Then when I was 13, I wanted to enter a contest for teen novel writers, and my mom “helped” me by completely rewriting Below into a totally different, equally terrible work that was terrible in a very different way.

Sometime in my 20′s, I started a rewrite, more or less using the plot skeleton of the original but completely rewriting from the ground up, but I only got, like, two chapters into it. In 2017, I picked up the rewrite again, and would probably have gotten farther with it if not for the 2018 cancer diagnosis. One of the things I did was to add an explicitly autistic character as a counterpart to the main character, who, being that she was originally based on me, is an undiagnosed autistic girl who more or less successfully fakes being NT most of the time. Andy Thorn is a boy, does not successfully fake being NT pretty much ever, and was diagnosed as autistic at some point in his life. He’s also anosmic because my older son is and I wanted to explore how not being able to smell might affect a kid in a world without adults, after a plague.

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

The house was like most of the other houses Andy had visited. One window was smashed, but the front and back doors were still locked, and aside from the broken window, there was no evidence anyone had gone inside. “Stay, boys,” Andy told his dogs. They’d led him here, and he didn’t question their noses, but it was good to get independent corroboration.

He used the stepladder he’d been carrying around in the cart attached to his bicycle to climb up to the broken window. Carefully he reached inside, unlatched the lock on the window, and screwed two clamps to the lower rail of the window sash. With the clamps attached, he was easily able to open the window enough to slide inside without hurting himself on broken glass. The front door was deadbolted, but the deadbolt could be opened with the twist of a knob – it didn’t require a key. Andy opened the door and let his dogs in, and then pulled in his cart.

Clifford and Updog immediately began sniffing around, exploring the house. “Clifford. Find the dead thing. Find dead, Clifford.” Tail wagging, Clifford went in search of dead people. “Updog. Heel.” Updog took the appropriate position. “Good boy. Let’s go.” He followed Clifford, and Updog followed him.

They were in the master bedroom, of course. Two of them this time, two men. Their rotting bodies lay next to each other, as if they had huddled together before the end had come.

Andy was here to make a bargain with them. He didn’t need to talk out loud, because they were dead and couldn’t hear him, and because he knew they wanted what he had to offer. Or would have wanted it, if he had been able to make the deal when they were alive on behalf of when they were dead. The dead wanted to be buried. They didn’t want to rot in the pajamas and nightgowns or sometimes naked in the bedsheets that he found them, bringing maggots and disease to the homes they had loved when they were alive. They wanted to go down in the ground and have a stone to mark where they’d been laid to rest. And they would pay him in the bounties of their home, canned goods and medicines and other things Andy could make use of and that they couldn’t anymore.

Stealing was wrong. Andy didn’t like the looters any more than he liked the gangs. The looters stole from people who weren’t alive any more – generally speaking people who had died in a hospital, far away, because they stayed away from the houses that smelled like death – and the gangs stole from the looters. Stealing was wrong, even if you were doing it to survive, because it was wrong. Wrong things didn’t stop being wrong just because you felt like you had to do them. Andy had found another alternative. He performed a service for the dead, and the dead repaid him.

He found bedsheets in the linen closet. Wearing his gloves, which he never forgot because he hated touching anything because everything had germs on it, Andy wrapped the first body in a bedsheet, and then the second one. They didn’t fall apart too much. The skeletons were strong. Some of the meat had rotted enough to fall away from the bone, but it was stuck in the pajamas so it didn’t fall away from the body, and then it was all wrapped up in the bedsheet. Another bedsheet, he carried out to his cart and lined it, and then pulled the cart to the bedroom.

It was hard for a 10 year old boy to move the dead body of an adult man. It involved a lot of pushing and pulling, and eventually, the body fell off the bed onto the cart. Two dead bodies would be too much to carry, so Andy moved the first one first, going back to the front door. “Don’t worry,” he told the dead man. “Your friend comes next. You won’t be alone.”

Outside, he dug in the dirt. Clifford and Updog helped. They liked to dig. For sanitary reasons a grave should be six feet deep, but Andy wasn’t even six feet tall, and there was no way he could dig that much. He dug down about a foot and a half, wide enough for two bodies to lie next to each other, long enough that they could lay mostly straight without having to curl up a lot. It took hours. Not as long as it had taken the first time he did this, when it was his mom and his dad that he was burying; he was stronger now, even if his hands were sore and calloused from all the digging, but it was still hard and it still took half the day.

When he was done digging, he tumbled the body off his cart and into the shallow grave, and then went back for the second body. That one was dumped into the grave too, lying half on top of the first body. Then Andy started putting the dirt that he’d taken out back on them, forming a mound.

He ate two meals there at the house, while he was digging. The cheese that had gone bad in the fridge was covered with mold, but the mold didn’t go all the way into the hard cheese, so he was able to get it all off with a cheese planer. The bread in the pantry was moldy too, but there was an ancient hard baguette that was too crunchy and tough to have grown any mold. Water still ran from the taps, though the hot water was all gone by now. Hard baguette plus water made softer, more edible baguette, and cheese where he’d cut all the mold off tasted weird but satisfied his hunger. For his second meal he ate cold vegetable soup with milk made from powder, and had a dessert of a can of cherry pie filling.

There wasn’t any dog food in the pantry. They hadn’t had a dog. Most houses Andy visited didn’t have a dog, and the one he did find, the dog had eaten most of the old man’s body, making it very hard to collect all the pieces of the guy to bury them. He’d released the dog; as much as he liked dogs, it was a small yappy dog who barked at him and his dogs a lot and also growled at his dogs, so letting it free to join a wild pack was probably better than making Clifford and Updog jealous or stressed out. Andy did find canned Vienna sausages and canned tuna fish. He liked to eat those things himself, but Clifford and Updog needed meat in their diet; Andy could survive without it as long as he ate things like powdered milk and peanut butter, things with the protein he couldn’t get from most vegetables. So he fed the canned meat to his dogs. It wasn’t very much; they’d need another meal when they all got home.

It was close to evening as he finished shoveling dirt onto the mound. He heard a whistle, and turned. Three boys were standing outside the fence. He was face-blind, so he couldn’t tell from looking at them if he knew them from anywhere. One was a littler kid, maybe seven or eight, but the other two were around his age, 10 or 11 or so. One of the kids his age was white; the other two boys looked like they were from India or Pakistan or something. All three of the boys were wearing hoodies that had some kind of green blob painted on them, that looked as if maybe it was trying to be the same shape each time but whoever had had the can of spray paint wasn’t a good enough artist to be consistent. “Shit, dude,” the white boy said. “Did you just dig a grave for some deads?”

“Yes,” Andy said.

“This your house then? I thought this was the house where the gay guys lived.”

“Is that why they died together?” Andy said.

“Didn’t you know them?” the older brown-skinned boy said. When he talked, Andy recognized him. It was Nish Varma, who’d been in most of his classes with him. “How did you not know they were gay?”

“I didn’t know them,” Andy said. “I looked through all the envelopes in the house to find their names and I wrote them on this rock.” He showed the boys the rock he had written the men’s names on, in crayon because Sharpie markers didn’t stick to rocks as well as crayon did. Andy kept crayons in his pocket for that reason.

“What were you burying them for then?”

“That’s what I do,” Andy said. “I bury the dead. Stealing is wrong so when I need food, I go to houses that have dead people in them, and I bury them. That’s a service, so I take the food they left as a repayment. That’s better than stealing. There’s nothing wrong with bargaining for what you need and working hard to provide a service and getting paid for it.”

The little boy said, “How can you stand how bad it stinks? We don’t go to houses with dead people! There’s flies everywhere and it smells awful!”

“I can’t smell anything,” Andy said.

The white boy said, “Seriously? You can’t smell that? What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me is called anosmia,” Andy said. “It means I have no sense of smell. It’s like being blind or deaf except for smell.” He gestured at his dogs. “My dogs here find the dead people houses for me. Dogs don’t mind dead people smells. So I bury the dead bodies. You’re supposed to make graves six feet deep but that takes grownup men a long time to do and ladders so they can get out, so I don’t dig as deep.” Andy had suspected that the main reason the houses he visited were usually untouched and unlooted – at most, a broken window or a jimmied door, but no food taken – was that people with a sense of smell couldn’t stand it, and as long as there were still houses where the owners had died in the hospital and so there were no dead bodies on the premises, other kids weren’t desperate enough to go to the houses of the dead. He knew dead people supposedly smelled bad; he just had no idea what a bad smell was actually like, since he couldn’t smell anything. But this was the first time he’d had it confirmed.

The white boy whistled again. “But still! You can lift dead grownups and you can dig a hole that big? You must be ripped, man.” He leaned on the fence. “Look, me and my dudes here aren’t here to get on your stake and take the food here. I can see you’ve got big dogs, and you look pretty tough.”

That surprised Andy. Most people didn’t think he looked tough. He used to get bullied a lot. “Maybe I got pretty tough from a lot of digging,” he agreed. Or maybe they were fake complimenting him in a sarcastic way and it was really bullying. Andy could never tell if that was what kids were trying to do until they started laughing. But he preferred to give people the benefit of the doubt and take their word for it until they proved otherwise.

“I’ll just bet,” the white boy said. “That’s why we’re here to recruit you. The Green Bears could use a strong dude like you.”

“You wouldn’t have to dig any more graves,” Nish said. “When you’re a Bear, you get fed. We’ve got access to gas-powered ranges that are still on, so we get cooked food.”

“We had spaghetti yesterday,” the little boy said. “With sauce!”

“Yeah, and me and my brother are vegetarian but the kids who aren’t vegetarian got meat sauce.”

“And you can live in your own house, since the Civic Center got too full for any more guys,” the white boy said. “The Bears are fucking huge, man.”

Andy winced. “That’s a curse word. You shouldn’t say that word.”

“Oh, like my mommy and daddy are around to wash my fucking mouth out with fucking soap? Fucking shit damn on a bastard son of a bitch. Who’s gonna fucking stop me?”

“No one,” Andy said, “but wrong things don’t stop being wrong just because no one can stop you doing them.”

“Fucking hell, dudes, we got ourselves a real Boy Scout here,” the white boy said, and Nish and his brother and the white boy all laughed.

“No,” Andy said. “I was never in the Boy Scouts.” The other boys laughed harder. Andy scowled. He knew they were laughing at what he said, and he was pretty sure it was probably in a nasty, making-fun-of-him way, but as usual he had no idea why they thought what he’d said was funny.

“Andy’s special,” Nish said, leaning on the fence. “If he doesn’t wanna swear I’m cool with that.” Nish hadn’t been one of the kids who’d bullied him in class. He had never talked to him or tried to be friends with him either, but at least he hadn’t bullied Andy. “How about it, Andy? Come join us!”

“No, thank you,” Andy said politely.

The white boy scowled. “Dude. You have no idea what you’re passing up.”

“That’s okay,” Andy said. “I don’t believe in stealing. Gangs go around stealing things from other kids, so I don’t want to join one. And I don’t believe in hurting anyone unless they hurt me first.”

“Bullshit,” Nish said. “In third grade you hit the teacher with a chair.”

Andy winced. He had done it because she took his book away while he was reading about dogs, even though he was already done with his assignment, because it was math class and he wasn’t supposed to be reading in math class. It had been totally unfair and triggered a complete emotional meltdown. He’d been suspended for three days and had had numerous Talks with his parents during that time. “I have a bad temper,” he admitted. “That doesn’t mean I think what I did was right.”

“I think you’d better reconsider,” the white boy said. “Carrie doesn’t like it when we report to her that some guy didn’t want to join the Bears. She’s psycho, man.”

“Who is Carrie?”

“Carrie Mulhaney. She’s Rich’s younger sister and second in command. When guys say they won’t join the Bears, she burns their houses down.”

“I’m not worried about that,” Andy said.

“I’m not fucking with you, man. I’m serious. She will burn your fucking house down.”

“With what?” Andy said. “Gasoline? Wood that’s on fire? Alcohol?”

“Are you serious?” the boy said. “With whatever! What does it matter?”

“My dogs are trained to smell dangerous things for me,” Andy said. “Fire is a smell they’re trained on. Gasoline is a smell they’re trained on. Natural gas is a smell they’re trained on. I don’t know of anything that can be used to burn down a house that isn’t a smell they’re trained on.” He smiled, with all his teeth, because a couple of kids in his class said that when he smiled with all of his teeth he looked like a psycho and he should stop doing that, except that right now, these boys were threatening him so looking like a psycho so they would leave him alone was a good thing. “I have guns upstairs in my house. If my dogs alert me that someone is bringing a dangerous smell to my house, I’ll take my dad’s rifle and I’ll shoot whoever is on my property. And dogs can smell a dangerous thing from a long way away. I could tell you all about how good dogs are at smelling, if you want.” Most kids never wanted to hear him talk about dogs. Occasionally adults would listen to him, but there were no adults anymore.

“Don’t let him get started,” Nish said. “If he starts talking about dogs he never shuts up.”

“Your funeral, man,” the white boy said. “If you’re saying no, you’re saying no, but I betcha Carrie isn’t worried about your guns.”

“That’s good,” Andy said. “If she’s not worried about them, then she won’t take precautions and it’ll be easy to shoot her if she comes into my yard.”

“Whatever,” the white boy said. “Come on, dudes, let’s go. We don’t need this loser anyway.”

“Weirdo,” the little boy said. “Creepy weirdo. We don’t even want him in the Bears.”

They left. Andy brought his dogs back into the house, sat down on the dead men’s plush, soft sofa, and called his dogs up on to the sofa with them. Then he hugged them while he cried. Emotional confrontations upset him, a lot. He’d gotten better at controlling his temper since third grade, and he could hide the fact that he wanted to cry until he was alone or with a safe grownup, but he couldn’t keep himself from crying indefinitely. Updog lay his head and paws down on Andy’s lap, which was heavy but comforting anyway, and Clifford snuggled close so Andy could hug him and cry against his fur.

After he was done crying, it was time to take his payment and go home. His dogs needed food, and he had candy bars at his house that he was saving for stressful times like this. He loaded his cart with the powdered milk and all the cans he could fit, as well as a bunch of fitness food replacements like energy bars and protein powder. Maybe tomorrow he’d come back for the rest of the cans; he didn’t know how fast dead smell cleared out of a house, though, so it was possible that other kids would hit the place before he had a chance to.

It was dark, and Andy had a hard time finding his way in the dark, but he trusted his dogs to know the way. “Home, Clifford. Home, Updog,” he said, and they trotted in front of him, pulling just hard enough on their leashes to lead him forward. Really, he was only holding their leashes to make them feel secure, because they were trained with leashes; he knew they would walk with him if he let go of the leashes, and it was hard to pull his heavy cart with one hand and hold onto two big dogs’ leashes with the other, but he did it anyway because his dogs expected it and he know how upset he got when things happened that he didn’t expect, so he imagined his dogs felt the same way.

#inktober 2020 #alara's october 2020 prompt fics #below

8 notes · View notes

dogtrainingscoop · 3 years

Text

Miniature Husky Full Grown | Alaskan Klee Kai Husky

“The Miniature Husky Full Grown will grow to 16 inches and weigh up to 35 pounds as an adult. So, their size is much smaller than the standard Siberian Husky.”

Miniature Husky Full Grown are the darlings of the dog world! Everyone’s obsessed with their wolf-like appearance. But, not everyone can get a standard sized Husky. That’s why the Miniature Husky exists!

The Miniature Husky Full Grown is a smaller version of the Standard Siberian Husky

Author: Vernon Mclean

Miniature Husky Full Grown — Thesis Short Version

The Miniature Husky Full Grown is divided into three varieties by height:

Toy: up to 33 cm.

Miniature: 33–38 cm.

Standard: 38–43 cm.

The weight of a Miniature Husky Full Grown ranges from 4.3 to 10 kg depending on the height in the withers. In general, it is a harmonious dog with strong front and hind legs, especially strong hips. The body length is slightly longer than the height, so it seems a little elongated. The head is wide enough, but not round and not flat, the muzzle looks like a wide wedge, narrows to the nose. Ears are necessarily triangular and standing, and their ends are slightly rounded. The tail, unlike the Siberian husky, twists into the ring and rests on the back or sides, it can not be straight or too high set.

The color of wool in the representatives of the breed can be black-white, gray-white or red. The average lifespan of a dog is 14 years.

Despite the bias towards this breed, many of the Miniature Husky Full Grown has many positive traits. They always treat their master with trepidation and tenderness. They are agility and sometimes excessive activity. Loyalty to the owner is expressed in the constant desire to protect him from danger. In the form of guards, they are weak, but can warn their masters through barking.

Breed Characteristics — Miniature Husky Full Grown

Size: 13–17 inches.

Weight: 20–35lb.

Lifetime: 12–14 years.

Coat: Double coat of medium length.

Color: Lots of different colors and blends of white, black, red, brown and saber.

Temperament: Naughty, loyal and outgoing.

Intelligence: Highly.

Socialization: Independent but very sociable with humans and other dogs.

Destructive behavior: He becomes destructive if he gets bored and if he doesn’t exercise properly.

People’s skills: They can be stubborn but friendly.

Good with children: Yes

Activity levels: Very high energy level.

History Of The Miniature Husky Full Grown

The Miniature Husky was bred in Wasilla, Alaska, from the early 1970s until 1988 by Linda S. Spurlin and her family. The breed was originally obtained by crossing Siberian huskies, Alaskan huskies, and they were also added to the barks and American Eskimo dogs to reduce the size of the breed without signs of dwarfism. She was engaged in breeding as a private owner, and in the late eighties allowed to use the genus for general breeding. The subsequent unification of the genus occurred after the breed was recognized by clubs and associations for rare breeds. The Miniature Husky, or dwarf husky, better known as the Alaskan Klee-kai was officially recognized by the American Rare Breed Association in 1995. The United Kennel Club (UKC) recognized this breed on January 1, 1997.

Miniature Husky Full Grown or Other Dog Problems..??? We have a Solution for You….

So you’re reading this page because your dog is doing something you don’t like — some behavior you want him to do differently — or simply stop doing:

😩 Housebreaking “accidents”

😩 Barks too much

😩 Jumps on people

😩 Chews on your hands

😩 Constantly seeks attention

😩 Pulls on the leash

😩 Aggressive toward people or other dogs

😩 Chews on the furniture or your belongings

😩 Did I mention housebreaking “accidents”

The list goes on???

“How can I stop my dog from….?”

One of the most common questions dog owners ask me is: “How can I stop my dog from (doing some specific behavior problem)?”

But before you start pulling your hair out, take a moment to step back. Yep, you’re probably not in your neighbor’s good books right now. No, you’re not going to be able to let the problem go on forever. And sure, you might have some work in front of you.

But hang on this is do-able……

When a dog jumps or barks, it’s for a reason. Understand that reason, and you’re already well on your way to finding a solution.

So, let’s cut to the chase. If you’re sick of questioning his behavior problems, it’s time to find out exactly what you can do to put an end to both.

WATCH VIDEO: Discover How To Quickly Stop This Behavior Using Simple, Yet Highly Effective Exercises…(video will open in a new window)

Play The Video

External Characteristics — Miniature Husky Full GrownA.The Miniature Husky Full Grown is characterized by the following external signs:

The transition from the frontal part to the muzzle is moderate. The skull has a wedge-formed shape, and the muzzle is narrowed to the nose.

The size of the muzzle is equal to the size of the head from the occipital to the forehead. The lower jaws do not stand out. The lip is predominantly black, but let’s say a lighter, hepatic color for dogs of red-white suits.

The nose is predominantly black, but white inclusions are allowed (snow, in lighter suits — dark gray.

The medium-sized eyes are planted a little obliquely. Coloring of the cornea is different, and can combine different shades. The incision of the eyes is either almond-shaped, or oval or round. The rim around the eyes should be black, and the light suits should be dark gray.

Ears are triangular upright, the tips are rounded, positioned perpendicular to the head. Thickly covered with wool. They look big relative to the head.

Body structure: medium-sized cervical section arched and raised. While running, the dog stretches the neck so that the head is parallel to the torso. The top line, from the withers and the front of the sternum, is straight. The sternum itself is wide oval in shape, slightly protruding behind the front paw line. Krup is powerful. The lumbar department is shortened and powerful, the groin is flat and already chest.

The front paws are flat, the shoulders go back at an angle, about 100 degrees relative to the shoulder blades. The stumps are shortened, slightly tilted, are strong and flexible.

The hind limbs are slightly divorced, the shin and plus form a small angle relative to the heels and hock joints, which form a 90-degree angle relative to the ground.

Paws form an oval and have a thick wool cover. The pads are thick and dense.

The tail is fluffy and wrapped in a pretzel. The tip is painted in a darker tone.

The wool cover is double. The pile in the neck is longer than on the body and forms a gate. The undercoat is thick and tender, and serves as a support for the top layer of wool.

B.Psychological Characteristics — Miniature Husky Full Grown

Although the appearance of Miniature Husky Full Grown is very similar to huskies, the nature of these breeds have significant differences:

Miniature Husky is fun and loves to participate in games, never refuse to have fun in the fresh air or take part in long walks;

The dog does not cope well with loneliness, so this breed is not suitable for those who are absent all day at home;

Miniature Husky do not bark, and communicate with the owner, and some sounds the dogs make are very similar to human talk, it is also possible to note the vocal abilities of dogs of this breed and also very funny the art of washing themselves with their front paws, like cats;

The dog is very affectionate and obedient in a group or family, and will keep guard with strangers;

Well-trained, memorizing many commands and performing them with pleasure;

Can easily live in an apartment and in a country house;

Does not conflict with other pets. They get along well with children, never showing any signs of aggression.

Intelligent and Pleasant Temperament — Miniature Husky Full Grown

At first glance, the Miniature Husky Full Grown gives the impression of an intelligent animal that moves naturally and understands everything around it. Although in the past it was used almost exclusively for tracking purposes, due to its beauty, intelligence and good and cheerful nature, it is increasingly becoming more popular.

The Miniature Husky gets along great with people, and they especially like small children. In the presence of a child he will probably try to warm them up or entertain them. They respond ok to strangers and are generally not aggressive, but will be cautious if you are also cautious. If a Miniature Husky sees that it can trust a stranger, he will quickly surrender. It is not safe to leave it with other small animals such as cats.

He is very energetic during a game and rarely aware of his size, so when you play games you should be careful, especially when close to a small child. It needs to play games, also a lot of movement and a lot of owner attention. They are stubborn, very strong for their size, so when training miniature huskies from an early age, you work hard on showing them that you are dominant. They normally live in packs, so if you do not make them aware that they’re not the leader of the ‘pack’, you could have problems. If you don’t meet their needs for running and playing, they will most likely become restless, destructive, and depressed.

These dogs don’t bark, they are mostly quiet. Howls can be heard causing people to immediately associate them with wolves. Their howls can be heard several kilometres away.

Subtleties of Care — Miniature Husky Full Grown

The Miniature Husky Full Grown is not difficult to care for. These dogs are clean and rarely end up dirty. Many members of the breed spend about an hour and a half on their hygiene daily. They do not have a pronounced dog smell and normally no bad breath. The only thing they can not clean, it’s paws, when there is wet and dirty weather.

When caring for a miniature husky, you should adhere to some simple principles:

The Miniature Husky Full Grown is not prone to diseases and is not allergic.

Due to the rare molting, the wool should be combed out as needed. To avoid oral diseases, you need to replace rubber toys every now and then.

Ears are a weak spot, so it is worth paying more attention to them.

The food should be varied, because mini huskies along with an active lifestyle can rest half a day. The diet should include both dry and wet food, vitamins in the form of treats and vegetables.

Twice a year you should cut their claws.

Because of the thick undercoat, the miniature husky does not need additional warm clothes in winter. And for the same reason should not be under direct sunlight in the summer for a long time to prevent overheating.

Character and Upbringing — Miniature Husky Full Grown

Some of the Miniature Huskies are cheerful and energetic, but not showing a predisposition to war and endless running. They love to play with different toys, to practice on sports, but most of all they like to spend time with the owner. Miniature Huskies is a cross between active terriers and quiet chow chows. They managed to gather the following qualities and characteristics:

Loyalty;

Distrust of outsiders;

Lack of malice and aggression;

Stress resistance

Learning.

These pets are unpretentious, largely due to a strong nervous system and thick wool. They do not need to wear any extras in winter or in the rain, the moisture will not get to their skin, and they’re also not scared of frost for the very same reason. They are happy to walk for several hours, but if they live in a house, then from the yard they will come to eat, sleep and check the situation in the dwelling. Miniature Huskies will not run to a stranger with joyful barking and a desire to get a little bit of affection, this dog will gently sniff and will not allow any companionship. But it will never bite, but will simply step aside and look out for potential danger.

For the same reason, it is valued for its watchdog qualities, it copes perfectly with the function of a small dog. If a child grew up with such a pet, there will be no problems in communication between them. Miniature Huskies are adapted to life in a pack, in foreign nurseries they are often kept in spacious enclosures with other dogs and would live together without judging relationships and instigating fights.

This breed is suitable for active people, home-owners find it difficult to maintain an optimal balanced life with these pets because they are active and love their games. But a responsible and active teenager can cope with the upbringing and care of a small and energetic dog. Miniature Huskies need to walk, play games and socialize with other dogs. Therefore, future owners need to expect that playtime could mean a 1.5 hour break in the afternoon, and maybe also some in the morning — around 30 minutes. Many owners note that miniature huskies like to talk, silently pronouncing words-like sounds, attracting the attention of a person or begging for goodies.

Food and Menu — Miniature Husky Full Grown

The Miniature Husky has a fast metabolism due to their small size and mobility. This in many ways forms their diet and diet. Since the weight of the Miniature Husky and the growth vary greatly, there are no specific portion sizes. The standard formula for Full Grown adults is: 3.5% protein of total weight. For example, a dog weighing 10 kg should receive 350 grams of meat or dairy products. For puppies up to 6 months the ratio is different — up to 7%, but they get food more often for normal growth and digestion. The approximate menu of an Miniature Husky Full Grown looks like this:

Meat products: 60% of the total daily serving.

Dairy products: 20%.

Cereals: 10%.

Vegetables, fruits and greens: 10%.

Meat for this breed of dog is suitable lean, chicken or turkey are well digested and give enough nutrients, but not excluded and beef, occasionally sea fish. Miniature Huskies are happy to eat kidneys or raw liver but it can disrupt digestion. Dairy products are also recommended: cottage cheese, rye. From cereals choose the least allergenic and the most useful: rice and buckwheat.

Helps in brushing teeth and vitaminizing carrots, green apple, pumpkin, and parsley is indispensable in the winter-autumn period. They are given fresh or steamed. It is better to remove Onions and Cabbage from the menu of the Miniature Husky.

The right food for Miniature Husky Full Grown:

Whether small or large, every dog appreciates it when meaty food gets into its feeding bowl. And pet’s health will also benefit from food with a high proportion of Meat / Protein. Make sure that the meat is always at the top of the food decoration, regardless of whether it is dry or wet food you offer to your dog. With puppies of smaller breeds, including Miniature Husky, follow the manufacturer’s instructions for feeding and include delicacies and snacks in their daily food intake. If you are doing a lot of pet training and prefer to encourage food intake, it is especially recommended that dry food croquettes be used to reward them. So your little dog will work for food without exceeding the permissible calorie limits. Smaller chewing bones or dried tripe fragments are excellent for treating, but always give them to the dog under supervision! Also, make sure that the animal always has enough fresh drinking water. If you want to go on longer trips with your pet in the summer, take a water bottle!

Important Nutrients for your Miniature Husky Full Grown:

Protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins and trace elements are the main nutrients that must enter the dog’s body through its food. They provide him with energy and ensure that his vital functions remain healthy. In contrast, missing nutrients can put a heavy strain on the whole body, bones, muscles and internal organs, as well as lead to diseases.

1.Proteins

Undoubtedly, protein is the most important source of energy for your dog. Amino acids in protein are vital. Meat is a particularly excellent source of protein. Therefore, it is advisable to feed the dog at least 70% of meat. Basically, it can be almost any kind of meat: beef, lamb, pig, rabbit or poultry. Among offal, liver, heart, kidney, spleen are recommended. The dog’s high need for meat is no accident, since it is a direct descendant of the wolf, so it is one of the carnivorous predators. Its strong teeth and chewing muscles, relatively short intestinal tract and particularly aggressive digestive fluids are the perfect “tools” for meat consumption. It is important that the meat is not cooked, as the protein content becomes denatured and unusable. Fresh, raw meat has the highest protein content. As an alternative to meat, fish may be given once or twice a week. It is also recommended to serve as freshly as possible, as it contains the most unsaturated fatty acids, easily digestible protein and vitamin D in this form. Salmon, cod, redfish, anchovies, crustaceans or shrimp are among the fish species.

2.Fats

Unsaturated fatty acids from fish are of great importance as they contribute to improving the protection against inflammation and the immune system. Dogs primarily need omega-3 fatty acids of animal origin, but omega-6 fatty acids in vegetable oils are also important, which is usually sufficiently found in meats. Oils are essential to absorb important vitamins in your pet’s body. Therefore, it is always worth watering vegetables with a little animal oil, such as salmon oil. In order to avoid overweight four-legged food, the fat content of the food should be significantly less than its protein or carbohydrate content. In addition, nuts contain natural fatty acids, which is recommended only when grated or ground.

3.Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates found in potatoes and grains, which is not a vital nutrient for dogs. Most of the food available in pet shops contains carbohydrates, so it is not necessary to give them separately. If you only feed your dog raw food, it is best to feed it to your dog in flakes such as oats or millet flakes.

4.Vitamins and trace elements

Your dog’s diet should contain vitamins and trace elements, which are found primarily in vegetables, fruits and herbs. Nutrients interact with each other, which means that one is often needed for the other to be absorbed. Therefore, we do not recommend a one-sided diet, so do not give meat to your pet, for example. It is ideal if a dog eats about 25% of vegetables and fruits with 70% meat and only about 5% grain. Celery, carrots, courgettes, pumpkins or domestic fruits such as apples, pears or other berries may be brought to the meat when grated or lightly cooked.

5.Calcium

Calcium is found primarily in milk and dairy products. However, an overdose of calcium can be dangerous, especially in dogs that are not yet fully developed. Therefore, it is advisable not to include milk on the menu of adult dogs or only to a very small extent. Cow’s milk is a particularly unsuitable ingredient, as it rarely leads to allergies or other intolerance.

Possible Diseases — Miniature Husky Full Grown

Since the removal of this species, no genetic defects have been identified, which means that there are no characteristic diseases in Miniature Huskies. However, there is always a risk of contracting canine sores such as cystitis, diarrhea, fleas, lichens, colds and poisoning.

Very rarely can a blood disease be detected, where a lethal outcome would be inevitable, if no action is taken in terms of treatment. But it’s more of an exception to the rule.

Despite excellent health, it is still necessary to vaccinate Miniature Huskies. The first planned comprehensive vaccination is carried out by the breeder, when the puppy reaches the age of 8–9 weeks, and the second — after 3–4 weeks.

Subsequent preventive vaccinations are carried out at a year’s interval.

The vaccine includes products capable of resisting dog ailments such as parvovirus (hemorrhagic) enteritis, piroplasmosis, leptospirosis, plague and rabies.

Pros and Cons — Miniature Husky Full Grown

The Miniature Husky Full Grown looks very similar to the Siberian husky: black and white, gray-white, brown-white or pure white, blue eyes. Among the Miniature Husky there are also “harlequins”, in which one eye is blue and the other is amber or brown. The differences are in the shorter face, large ears and tail raised ring, like a rough one. And, of course, the size — the height of these dogs on the withers can be from 32 to 45 centimeters.Of course, such a dog is much easier to keep in an urban environment than large dogs. This baby inherited its best qualities from the Huskies: it does not freeze even with a hard frost, does not require a haircut, does not bark, loves children very much, trains easily. Miniature Husky is a very mobile and energetic dog, a little prone to diseases. Almost odorless and rarely causes allergies. But twice a year, like Siberian huskies, they take a shower and require special care for wool during this period.

Of course, such a dog is much easier to keep in an urban environment than large dogs. This baby inherited its best qualities from the Huskies: it does not freeze even with a hard frost, does not require a haircut, does not bark, loves children very much, trains easily. Miniature Husky is a very mobile and energetic dog, a little prone to diseases. Almost odorless and rarely causes allergies. But twice a year, like Siberian huskies, they take a shower and require special care for wool during this period.

The main disadvantage of this dog is its price, which is not affordable to all. The first puppies in the Russian kennel were born only in October 2013. In American nurseries, the cost of a Miniature Husky can be as high as $5,000.

When choosing a pet one should take into account that it is a very active breed, which requires daily long walks and games, as well as a lot of attention. Miniature Husky can’t stand to be alone. But on the other hand, this little copy of Husky will reward you with its dedication and give you a lot of positive emotions.

Would he be a Good Pet — Miniature Husky Full Grown?

Yes, Miniature Husky Full Grown makes a great pet, but only for the rightful owner.

Although they are friendly and loving, they are not a good choice for novice dog owners and less active people.

The ideal owner of a Miniature Husky Full Grown will be an active, open person who can provide the dog with enough places to walk, run and plenty of time to participate in joint activities.

A bored Miniature Husky Full Grown that’s left alone (inside or outside) is a recipe for disaster.

A Miniature Husky needs active and engaged owners, as well as a lot of training and socialization to avoid bad habits, including running and more running!

A Miniature Husky is an ideal companion that you will have alongside you on all kinds of open adventures and sports such as backpacking, running, walking and all other kinds of physical activities.

5 Fun Facts About a Miniature Husky Full Grown

Husky almond-shaped eyes allow them to squint and keep snow out of their eyes.

They are very good escape artists.

One of the few breeds of dog with penetrating blue eyes.

Due to their double layer, they can withstand extremely cold weather.

They are very loud and like to howl.

Power of Love — Miniature Husky Full Grown

Although Alaskan Miniature Husky Full Grown likes to be in the ring, Linda S. Spurlin emphasized in her publications that the primary purpose of human-created dog breeds is not to perform at exhibitions, but to enrich human life. Today, the Miniature Husky fulfills its useful mission as a therapy dog in hospitals for incurable patients and in nursing homes, and is also a welcome and successful breed of dog in agility games. It is also bought by many people who are enchanted by the mystical northern beauty of the husky, but do not take on the sporty lifestyle and reinforced fence that comes with it.

The Miniature Husky gives them the northern illusion while remaining a pleasant matured, obedient and easy-to-use social dog. With his kind nature, he warms people’s hearts, gives love, and receives love in return, but he is not suitable for all people. If you choose a dog, you need to know the characteristics of the breed, your own housing situation, your rhythm of life and your free time with your dog number. You must find a dog that you can love and care for with all your soul from the beginning until the end arrives.

PuppyTrainingScoop.com is wishing you all the best with these training methods!

Our GIFT to You — You might also want to look at the following Training:

Clicker Training 101 (Complete Guide):

How to Clicker Train a Dog — Fastest Reward Training. The Puppy Training Shortcut — Tips to Clicker Train your Puppy with Easy Steps. How to Clicker Train a Dog the fast way..

When Do Puppies Stop Chewing — Biting, Nipping and Mouthing Explained:

When Do Puppies Stop Chewing… People complain of Chewing, Nipping, Mouthing, Teething and Destruction. Here’s some Quick Tricks…

How To Crate Train A Puppy — Crate Training 101:

How To Crate Train A Puppy — Best way to crate train your puppy! Using crate training can help puppies sleep at night and prevent potty accidents..

How To House Train A Puppy — EASILY Potty Train Advice & Tips:

How To House Train A Puppy EASILY — For Potty training take your puppy outside frequently — every 2 hours — and after eating or drinking..

Puppy Training — Want Your Dog To Listen? Our Easy Guide:

First Week Puppy Training — Important Skills to Teach in the First Week. Starting at 8 weeks old…. Proven Training Methods….

Teaching Puppy to Walk on Leash:

How to Leash Walk with Puppy! Teaching Puppy to Walk on Leash. How to train a puppy to walk on a leash without pulling..

Puppy Jumping — Tips to Stop Your Puppy Jumping on People:

Puppy Jumping — How to Train your Puppy to Stop Jumping. Is it Safe for Puppies to Jump? Simple Steps for Success… Reward Good Behaviors..

Teaching Puppy To Sit — Is it possible within Minutes:

Teaching Puppy to Sit — At 7 Weeks you can expect him to start learning simple obedience commands such as “sit,” “down,” and “stay”.

To get your gift — Yes Access Here

#MiniatureHuskyFullGrown #MiniHuskyFullGrown #KleeKaiHuskyFullGrown #DwarfHuskyFullGrown #AlaskanKleeKaiFullGrown #MiniatureHusky #MiniHusky #KleeKaiHusky #DwarfHusky #alaskankleekai #dogs #dog #pets #puppy #puppies #puppers #pup

2 notes · View notes

eldritchsurveys · 4 years

Text

873.

5k Survey I

1. Who are you? >> I’m Mordred. 2. What are the 3 most important things everyone should know about you? >> I’m sensory-defensive and post-traumatic, I'm part of a multiple system, and I’m a fictional character. 3. When you aren’t filling out 5,000 question surveys like this one what are you doing? >> Taking way shorter surveys. When I’m not taking surveys at all, I’m posting on tumblr or pillowfort, reading, playing video games, researching video game lore, watching a movie or show, or trying to manage my hellbrain (which is a whole separate task in itself). 4. List your classes in school from the ones you like the most to the ones you like the least (or if you are out of school, think of the classes you did like and didn’t like at the time). >> I do my best not to think about school, the last bit of which was 15 years ago anyway. 5. What is your biggest goal for this year? >> I don’t make goals like that.

6. Where do you want to be in 5 years? >> It’s inconceivable to me to plan ahead that far. Even to think ahead that far seems silly and pointless to my very present-focused (and past-haunted) mind.

7. What stage of life are you in right now? >> Adulthood. Just the general “adulthood” between hectic young adulthood and transitional middle age. 8. Are you more child-like or childish? >> I’m not child-like or childish. I simply understand that the division between “childhood” and “adulthood” isn’t nearly as cut-and-dried as society has organised it for the sake of legality and social interaction, and I also understand that the desire to escape childhood and “childish things” is a conceit of the young, who wish to be seen as grown and independent creatures (which is part of development! it makes perfect sense). By the time you get to your thirties, it really stops mattering. You know you’re an adult. You know that being an adult means you have the freedom to do whatever you want (as far as leisure and play and stuff like that goes, I mean), which means you can sit in your pjs watching cartoons and eating sugar cereal if you like, and no parent can chide you for it, and your peers can fuck off if they don’t like it. (The “adult” part of doing that is knowing to stop after one and a half bowls of said cereal, lmao. It’s all a balance, innit?)

9. What is the last thing you said out loud? >> I don’t remember. 10. What song comes closest to how you feel about your life right now? >> I don’t think there’s any song that can capture that. Or, maybe there is, but I don’t know about it. 11. Have you ever taken martial arts classes? >> No. I’ve been interested, but frankly, I can’t afford anything like that. 12. Does your life tend to get better or worse or does it just stay the same? >> There is no set trajectory, like that. Life has high points and low points, and the majority of it is really spent somewhere in the middle. It’s just that we focus on the high points and the low points most often (and when the low points are particularly low, they often end up defining our entire existence, even when we’re in the middle or even at high points). 13. Does time really heal all wounds? >> It’s not time that does it. Time just always happens to pass while the healing is being done, so we figure it’s the most common denominator. It takes work to heal, not just passively sitting around waiting for it to happen. 14. How do you handle a rainy day? >> I bring an umbrella, if I have to go out. Usually I don’t, so I just... do what I would do normally? 15. Which is worse…losing your luggage or having to sort out tangled holiday lights? >> Obviously losing your luggage... 16. How is your relationship with your parents? Will you miss them when they are gone? >> We have no relationship. There will be nothing to miss. 17. Do you tend to be aware of what is going on around you? >> Yeah. Especially since I’m prone to hypervigilance. 18. What is the truest thing that you know? >> The truest thing that I know is that I don’t know shit, and neither does anyone else. We’re all just elaborately guessing about shit, and interpreting reality the best way we can. Which is great, really. The fact that we keep trying to understand shit is cool. Just... “the map is not the territory” kind of applies to a lot of the stuff we think we know. ...Or not, right? After all, what do I know? :p 19. What did you want to be when you grew up? >> I just wanted to be free. 20. Have you ever been given a second chance? >> Probably. 21. Are you more of a giver or a taker? >> I’m a fair amount of both, being, you know, a person. 22. Do you make your decisions with an open heart/mind? >> I make my decisions the best way I know how. Whatever that means. 23. What is the most physically painful thing that has ever happened to you? >> Menstrual cramps. 24. What is the most emotionally painful thing that has ever happened to you? >> Yeah, right, like I’m going to be able to rank that. 25. Who have you hugged today? >> No one. 26. Who has done something today to show they care about you? >> --- 27. Do you have a lot to learn? >> Of course. I don’t necessarily have to learn all of it, but it sure is out there. 28. If you could learn how to do three things just by wishing and not by working what would they be? >> I don’t think that would be of any benefit to me. As much as I balk at taking those long uphill journeys to skillfulness, I feel like those journeys are beneficial and aid one’s growth. I’d rather not just snap my fingers and have a djinni grant me abilities like that. 29. Which do you remember the longest: what other people say, what other people do or how other people make you feel? >> How what other people do and say makes me feel. 30. What are the key ingredients to having a good relationship? >> Meh. 31. What 3 things do you want to do before you die? >> I don’t have a list like this. 32. What three things would you want to die to avoid doing? >> I think I would rather die than be incarcerated. So I’d take the death penalty if I could avoid a life imprisonment sentence... 33. Is there a cause you believe in more than any other cause? >> Not particularly. 34. What does each decade make you think of? The 1920’s: Prohibition. Wait, was that the 20s or the 30s? 30’s: World War II. 40’s: The rest of WWII. 50’s: I just think of... all the propaganda images from that era. You know, all the... domestic Whiteness... also, weird foods like meat aspic. 60’s: Hippies and Woodstock. 70’s: The Vietnam War (and the protests). 80’s: Hair metal. 90’s: Grunge and weird television/movies. 2000 : Well, I was an adult for most of this decade, and more or less aware of the world, so I don’t have a succinct “concept” of the aughts the way I have for decades that I didn’t live through, that I only have historical knowledge of. 2010’s: ^

35. Which decade do you feel the most special connection to and why? >> I feel an emotional connection to the spirit of the nineties. I don’t feel like trying to organise my words to explain why, I feel like that would take a lot of energy right now and I still have fifteen questions to go. 36. What is your favorite oldie/classic rock song? >> I don’t have one particular favourite. 37. What country do you live in and who is the leader of that country? >> United States. Donald Trump is president, weirdly enough. If you could say any sentence to the current leader of your country what would it be? >> I’d rather not, thanks. 38. What’s your favorite TV channel to watch in the middle of the night? >> I don’t watch television in the middle of the night... 39. What Disney villain are you the most like and why? >> That’s a great question, but the thing about Disney villains is that I don’t relate to them as much as I just love watching them do what they do. Like, my favourite is Judge Frollo, but I don’t think it’s because I have anything in common with him. Or, hell, maybe I would burn down an entire city because I don’t know how to handle the fact that I really want to bone this superbly hot chick. (My actual favourite villain is Catholic Guilt.) 40. Have you ever been a girl scout/boy scout? >> Briefly. 41. If you were traveling to another continent would you rather fly or take a boat? >> I would rather fly. I feel like boat travel would take a particularly long time and I’m not into that. 42. Why is the sky blue during the day and black at night? >> Oh, you know. Science. (I’m not Google.) 43. What does your name mean? >> I’m not sure anyone really knows what “Mordred” means. 44. Would you rather explore the depths of the ocean or outer space? >> Outer space. 45. What is the first word that comes to mind when you see the word: Air: Astrology. Meat: Beef. Different: Strokes. Pink: Panther. Deserve: Entitlement. White: Power, unfortunately. Been reading about too many fucking Nazis lately. Elvis: Pelvis. Magic: Mountain. Heart: Head. Clash: Punk. Pulp: Fiction.

46. If you could meet any person in the world who is dead who would you want it to be? >> I don’t care about this. 47. What if you could meet anyone who is alive? >> I still don’t care. 48. Is there a movie that you love so much you could watch it everyday? >> Of course not. I did watch Event Horizon every day for like a month, but I was in the psych ward at the time. What the fuck else would I have done anyway? 49. You are going to be stuck alone in an elevator for a week. What do you bring to do? >> What do I bring to do?! That’s definitely the least of my concerns with a hypothetical like this. I can’t fucking survive in an elevator for a week, dude. 50. Have you ever saved someone’s life or had your life saved? >> Doubtful.

#surveys #survey #5000 question survey

1 note · View note

letmetellyouaboutmyfeels · 5 years

Note

Mads! Hello and I love you! I just saw your reblogged post about age disparities in relationships and I have a question. Have you watched Good Omens? Did you love it (I very much did)? I just wonder, if you’ve watched it, what you think about Michael Sheen being 50 years old and having a girlfriend who is 25 and who is also pregnant. Gross.

Hello nonny! I hope that you’re having a beautiful day. I really considered for a long time whether or not to answer this ask. I didn’t want to get dragged into discourse and I could easily see an ask like this sparking a lot of that. But I want to be open and honest and for people to feel like they can come to me with questions and such, so I’m going to give you my honest, and probably far too long-winded, answer.

Now, I’m guessing, dear sweet nonny, by the ending to your ask that you already have an opinion on this and that you want me to agree with that opinion which is: gross.

If that’s the answer you want from me, then I’m sorry nonny but I fear you’ll be a bit disappointed.

Let’s start with a very important fact that I am not in any way denying: we have an epidemic in our society where older men are predatory and dating women far too young for them and grooming those women from a young age. Woody Allen is an especially heinous example. We see it in films as well, older men always always paired with much younger women. It’s a serious problem in our society.

In general, I think this is a trend that needs to stop. It’s horrible to the women of the world. It deeply concerns me.

However, I cannot condemn Michael Sheen for his relationship for three reasons.

1. I don’t know the full story and I don’t know Michael Sheen. If I don’t have the facts, I can’t judge them. I cannot judge people I do not know and while public figures do have some measure of public responsibility and we should call them out for bad behavior and hold them accountable, there has got to be a balance and far too many people are far too quick to condemn and judge and wipe away that balance.

2. As someone who is 25 years old at the time of this writing in fall of 2019, I cannot judge another 25 year old for dating a 50 year old. Why? Because then I would have to condemn myself for having a massive crush on Lucy Liu. On Cate Blanchett. On Rachel Weisz. I could go on. If any of those women were single and met me in a bar and said, “let me take you out to dinner,” I would say yes. And being 25 is not the same thing as being 17, 18, 19, 20.

Age-gap relationships in your twenties can be difficult because of all the growing and maturing you do during that time period. Who I am at age 25 is miles different from who I was at age 22, and so on. By 25, I’ve lived as an adult for years, I’ve graduated college, I’ve gotten a lot of the maturity and life experience to be able to come to the table in a relationship and be an equal partner.

Remember, you’re looking to see if the two parties have equal power in the relationship. Jerry Seinfeld dating a girl who was still in high school? Who’s a student, who can’t drive, who can’t legally drink or vote, who still lives at home with her parents? HUGE IMBALANCE OF POWER.

Lucy Liu dating me, an out-of-school, living on her own, financially independent person who can vote, drive, and has had previous relationship experience?

Equal power.

How can I possibly condemn this woman for dating this man and then turn around and daydream about doing the same with my own much-older celebrity fantasy? How can I do that when I have been attracted to people much older than I am? How can I do that when I know about relationships with large age gaps that are healthy and happy and have stood the test of time?

I simply can’t be the pot calling the kettle black.

3. Context matters. That was what the post I reblogged, the post you’re referencing, was talking about. The posters were pointing out that you can’t just look at age, you also have to look at all the other factors.

One example of context is finding a pattern. For example, a quick google search showed that all of Sheen’s previous romantic partners have been his age (Sarah Silverman, Kate Beckinsale). So him dating a much younger woman does not seem to be a pattern, which is the first thing you want to look out for when trying to find predatory behavior.

Another example is other relationships. In the post you’re referencing, one of the posters talked about how this guy who tried to date her when he was 30 and she was 22 had just gotten out of a bad divorce and had kids. Those can both be red flags. Compare that to someone who, say, had an amicable divorce a few years ago, or someone who has a child that’s 15 and you’re 25. Compare that to someone who has a daughter who’s 22 and you’re 23.

Changes how you see the relationship based on that, doesn’t it?

Another bit of context--did the older partner know the younger partner as a child? Was the older partner behaving in sexual, romantic, and/or flirtatious behavior while the younger partner was still a minor?

Leonardo di Caprio has not dated a single woman over 25. Woody Allen married his stepdaughter, whom he had adopted with his then-wife, and who first got to know him as her father. When she was a minor.

Both of those men give me massive red flags as a result.

The people on that post I reblogged were trying to prevent the massive and unforgiving “cancel culture” and to remind people that there are general rules and that there are exceptions to those rules. It’s like learning anything--you have to know the rules before you can break them, and you have to know the rules so that you know when others are abusing them. I am so grateful that my mother taught me about internet safety, even though I broke a lot of the rules she set me, because I could break them wisely.

We have an epidemic, a disease, a cancer, of older men grooming younger women, abusing them, using them. An older man (or older person of any gender) who refuses to date someone their age? Red flag, wrong, dare I even say perverted.

But someone who has had healthy relationships with people their age and has in the course of life met someone much younger who is nevertheless on an equal level with them in terms of power in the relationship?

Entirely different, and entirely their business.

I hope that this clears things up for you, nonny. I hope that I’m not disappointing you, and I sincerely hope, whatever your opinion of me by the end of this, that you have a beautiful day and you remember to be kind to yourself.

#mads answers things #friendly reminder that anyone being rude will be blocked without mercy #please be polite in all reblogs and replies #remember kiddos life is not black and white and context is important #I have no idea what to tag this with #age differences #I think?

28 notes · View notes

1998tales · 4 years

Text

4 APRIL 2020

11:25PM

I continued my habit of waking up late and taking an afternoon nap. I kept scrolling through https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ all day to see the death tolls and infection rates.

Aside from that, I watched the 2017 version of Truth or Dare. I liked the movie overall, only I would have tweaked the dares for people to be able to survive them. A few of them were impossible to survive. Plus, when it’s revealed that the demon/evil thrives on your fears and secrets, we should have found out what each person was hiding. I don’t think that was probably shown, or maybe I’m just dumb and didn’t realize what was going on. I looked up spoilers and youtube reviews for the Blumhouse one made in 2018. I bet I would have liked that version too. Something that I’ve always liked about horror films is that you see young people with such independence. Where are the parents? LOL

As a teenager, I didn’t have much independence. In college, I was mainly stuck in my dorm or apartment with no one to hang out with and nowhere to go. Even now in my 30s, I’m dependent upon other people and my friendships aren’t really my own. I’m just the third wheel in most situations. Middle age is dawning on me and I feel like I’ve never really lived. I haven’t experienced very much in life. No guys have ever really liked me. No one really seeks my friendship.

I was convinced through movies and books that we all go through an awkward stage and that stage will end. Some guy will notice you and like you. You’ll find that quirky group of friends who will have your back. You’ll have moments of euphoria and transcendence. No, no, and nope. A few of us will never experience what it is to be loved by someone. That’s just reality.

We don’t need excuses from people. We don’t need cliches. Life does not work out for all people, no matter what they do. The pretty girls at my work get handed life on a silver platter. All of my life boys and men have made sure to tell me, that I am worthless. Sometimes, your self-esteem is already so broken by your family that the rest of your little world adding to it just hammers the nail in.

I’ve been called ugly, masculine, and stupid in both direct and indirect ways my entire life. My mother would call my hair “shit colored”. To this day, I hate having my haircut. I hate going to salons. I remember as a child having my hair insulted at them because I would wear it up so much. I wore it up so much because people would make rude comments when I wore it down. People do not understand the damage they do to children. I’ve been wearing my hair up because of this since 1993. I haven’t had a professional haircut since I was in my early 20s.

Boys would call me masculine. I can’t figure out why, but they would say I had a penis. I dreaded being misgendered on the phone. I still remember one Halloween where a man called me a boy. It ruined the entire night. I realized at the time he couldn’t really see me in the dark, but it still hurt. A group of friends were all out somewhere and one of them got into a conflict with a guy. Then the guy looked at me and them, and said “go back to hanging out with that girl, or whatever it is.” I truly do not understand why this was said to me. I didn’t look like a boy.

As an adult, this transitioned into calling me gay. Now, gay people do not like to hear it, but a straight person like myself does not want to be called gay. I want to attract men, not women. I’m not being called gay because I’m popular with women, it’s just another way to say “You are ugly, masculine, and are repulsive to men.” My co-workers think I’m gay. One of the few times I’ve went out in my life, I had some man accuse me of being gay (repeatedly to taunt me), all because I was wearing a button up shirt. No doubt if I were blonde and pretty, that would have never happened.

To this day, if I wear a dress, I always get a comment from someone. As if it’s the wildest thing that I could wear a dress. I feel so self-conscious wearing them that I rarely ever do. I have only worn them 4 times in the last 5 years despite really wanting to wear them. I’m saying this in the nicest way, but if men can walk around wearing them, why should I get these weird comments? Why do people always have to insult me?

My goal once I lose weight is to wear them more frequently.

I think all of my issues with people judging me as masculine have influenced my near obsession with makeup. I used to not feel entitled to wear makeup or anything feminine, because of how people would insult me. That changed a few years ago and now I usually wear a full face every day. I feel like it’s my only way to ever be feminine. And I didn’t wear makeup as I do now. I started to wear foundation to help cover up how red my face would get. Then, I moved on to wearing mascara and a wash of color on my eyelids. It took a long time to get into lipstick because I knew someone would make a comment. They did.

When you suffer from shyness that is so painful, you might exaggerate the negative contact you have with others, but when there’s a recurring pattern of being insulted in a particular way by people, you have no way to escape certain phobias or avoid developing certain anxieties.

I’m at the weight I am now partly because I always thought my body was disgusting. I thought that way because my mother would tell me I was fat. She started telling me this when I was 114 lbs. I had a really distorted way of looking at myself. I gained a little bit of weight and had stretch marks too. She made a negative comment to me about it when I was 16. I felt like there was no way back from this and that I could never let someone see me naked or even in a bathing suit. Now I realize at 230+ lbs, that I wasn’t a fat person then. Now, I have real damage to my body.

But then I wonder too: if I wasn’t really fat and was at my youngest, why didn’t anybody ever like me? I never received compliments from anybody. No guys showed any interest. If I lose all of my weight, I’ll still be me. Someone they never liked and now I’m older, which they dislike too. You really can’t win in life at all. I think the cards were always stacked against me. And sometimes, when I have to play along with other people’s happy lives, I get sick of it. You generally have what you do because of your looks or money. That’s the truth. Pretty people and well off people don’t want to admit it.

Even the man that I really care about, could even say that I love him, he is really handsome and masculine. I wouldn’t like him if he weren’t. That’s just the truth. Anyway, I’m tired of this subject. Just wanted to share “my truth” as the say.

I’m so terrified of going to work on Monday. Now, I regret sending that email to my colleagues. I could have spent this entire time not worrying. Now, I know that on Monday, I will have the review. I might get into serious trouble. The only comfort in my mind is that it will be over next week. Whatever happens, it will be over. If I get into trouble, I get into trouble. If I don’t, I don’t. I’m so anxious that I feel sick.

#covid19 #coronavirus #truth or dare #horror #lonely #gender stuff #gender #feminine #childhood abuse #bullying

1 note · View note

tumblunni · 5 years

Text

SO! IT is time for Dr Snap headcanons!

* He is autistic like me, because I find a lot of his portrayal very relateable as an autistic person. He's clearly hyperfocusing about monsters, and he gets so super passionate and infodumps about them! And he's very socially awkward and perceived as "weird and childish" by others for being so passionate about his interests and not being good at making the correct facial expressions and stuff. In the Japanese version there's actually even more of that, in English he speaks in a standard formal grandpa style but in Japanese he speaks in oddly stilted childish language and uses the unfitting pronoun "boku" that's usually only used for young kids in fiction. There's also a scene of him literally saying he gets social anxiety in crowds, which was left out in the English translation for some reason. I was surprised to hear about that from my Japanese friends, it makes him even more relateable! And of course, his whole plot is basically the fantasy version of "his only friends are animals because other humans exclude him", which is another relateable mood.

* Also I want the Darkonium Orb as a stim toy, lol! I know it's an evil artifact but a floating ball seems like it'd be super fun to swish around in circles. And I wonder if it's like a crystal or if it's like a squishy stress ball...? I'm getting distracted, lol!

* Since all we know about his backstory is that he had no friends even as a child, I headcanon that he suffered badly from bullying and isolation in his youth that permenantly impacted his ability to trust anyone but monsters. I had the idea that maybe he was also mistreated by his parental guardians for being autistic, and he often used to hear "if you misbehave, the monsters will get you!" It actually backfired and started his love of monsters! He used to dream that the monsters that take away bad kids would take him away from his suffering...

* Oh, and related to this: it's my headcanon that he was raised in an orphanage since a very young age and doesn't know anything about who his parents were. He was just found clutching his baby sister crying and shivering in an abandoned wagon in the woods, full of dead bodies that were assumed to be his family or at least whoever was taking care of him at the time. For a long time it was thought that monsters had killed the family, so that's why the cautionary tale of "monsters coming to get you" was used to discipline him at the orphanage, and why it hit so hard. But when he grew up and became a famous and successful scientist he was able to finance an investigation into his own past and discovered the culprit was actually human bandits. He still could never find out the names of his parents though, but knowing that monsters hadn't been the cause of his tragedy helped him get over his fear of them and eventually learn to love and trust them more than anyone else

* Oh yeah it's also my headcanon that despite how obsessed he is nowadays with the cuteness of monsters, he was actually very frightened of them all the way up until his 20s! The "you're a bad child for these neuroatypical symptoms you can't control, and monsters are gonna get you just like they got your family" thing actually did affect him a lot as a child. He saw it as kind of a guilty or sinful feeling that sometimes he would wish they would just take him already because even the horror of monsters can't be as bad as the horror of people, yknow? But he was still too scared of them to ever really interact with them at all, and believed whatever he was told about them cos he had no other frame of reference. He also felt rather aimless in life because he hadn't discovered this thing he would love so much, yknow? He flittered through loads of different hobbies getting temporarily obsessed but never finding anything that stuck with him. Bit of a jack of all trades!

* oh btw I headcanon his first name is Jack, lol! To fit with the playing card theming of the game. Also his younger sister is named Jacqueline and she became known as Jack Of Hearts as a famous adventurer~!

* Oh also I headcanon that he has a sister, lol. Should have mentioned that earlier! The game never tells you anything about the player's mother except that she died, so I headcanoned maybe she was Dr Snap's sister and he's your uncle literally just because I like Dr snap a lot and I want him to adopt the player and take him away from his shitty dad. Like man you know you're a shitty dad when the main villain of the damn game has more scenes of positive parental interaction with your son! (ANOTHER REASON WHY DR SNAP TURNING BAD AND DYING WAS SO SAD)

* His sister was very similar to the protagonist as a child, a punky outgoing stubborn badass who wouldnt listen to rules and wouldn't take any shit from anyone! Even though she was his younger sister, she would always be the one protecting her shy older brother from bullies! She was his dearest only friend in such a tough life...

* Sadly, she was considered "more adoptable" since she was neurotypical. Young Snap blamed himself that he was holding her back from finding a new family, because she always refused anyone who didn't want to take her brother too. He thought it would be better if at least one of them escaped the orphanage, so he eventually convinced her to leave him and go with a nice family. And then he didn't see her again for decades, and he didn't have a single other friend...

* The instigating incident that caused him to first become a monster research was because of this. He didn't have a good life after losing his sister, he eventually just aged out of the foster system without ever being adopted, and had trouble living independently and finding a job with his limited skills of Just Hyperfocusing On Random Stuff And Not Being Able To Talk Good. Nobody really valued him enough, he was just considered strange and all his attempts to research various things (I think before monsters he liked butterflies a lot) were considered creepy and useless because he was so lower class and could never afford to get a proper scientific education to actually do anything with his skills. So he ended up flitting about between jobs that he would keep failing cos of his lack of social skills, having no time to do the hobbies he cared about and being told he could never make a job out of them. And having no family or friends and living in terrible conditions. He didn't have any hope left in life...

* So one day he ended up making a sad decision to end it all, after being fired from yet another job and just not having the strength to keep trying when it seemed like this would be every day of the rest of his life. He went out into the woods to take some sleeping pills and pass away where he wouldn't be bothering anyone. But by a stroke of fate he ended up bumping into a monster!

* Because he'd already made his peace with dying, he didn't have any fear if it killed him here. But instead this titanic beast simply stumbled to the ground and desperately clutched at a pile of broken eggs. It had already been fatally wounded by a hunter, and only wanted to try and protect its children from the same fate. Dr Snap remembered his child self clutching his baby sister to protect her from the bandits, and he was so moved that he tried to save the poor creature! But his limited skills learning science only from books meant he wasn't much use. And all he even knew was how regular animals work, which could end up only hurting a monster! Plus he was in the middle of nowhere with no supplies!! He tried his best but he was completely out of his depth, and all he could do in the end was hold the poor thing and stroke its head as it passed away. And as the tears streamed down his face, they landed on the one still living egg that the monster was protecting. It hatched into twins who would be his first of many monster partners!

* So he rushed home carrying these lil newborns and desperately took care of them. He began researching monsters in order to look after them properly, and found that he was totally sfascinated by them and also it was the one thing he was truly talented at that he'd always wanted to find! Having a family to take care of was what he really needed to find a reason to live again, and he was also able to finally make a career out of his monster research and find enough success to live more comfortably. He even ended up inventing the monster scout ring and founding an entire company all about mosnter battle tournements! And this led to him finding his sister again, because she heard news of this and recognised him. They reunited as adults and rebuilt a happy relationship, and she was overjoyed to hug her new lil monster nieces and nephews!

* So yeah he has a lot of reasons to love monsters a lot and see them as the embodiment of goodness that deserves everything in the whole world. And after his sister passed away he was left alone with his monsters again, terrified of losing more family, and slipping deeper into the madness of those forbidden legends that could give his monsters eternal happiness...

* also I think he likes tea, it would be nice to have a fancy tea party with him and his monsters

* also he is a good man who didn't deserve to die

2 notes · View notes

missmentelle · 5 years

Note

I feel really stuck. I'm trying to move fowards but something always comes up. I still live with my family and I have no privacy and have to explain where I’m going and what I'm doing all the time. I really want to get back at uni and I’m trying but that means no time to get a job and won’t be able to move. I can’t stand the city anymore, i can’t stand being so useless. I feel like I haven’t lived at all, i’ve never been in a relationship, haven’t travelled, how do i take control of my life?

It’s tough to make a step-by-step guide or action plan for getting your life together when I don’t really have a ton of information about your goals or financial situation, but I will give it my best shot:

Go easy on yourself. While there are some people out there in this world who manage to be world-travelling Instagram stars, planning their dream weddings and moving up in their glamorous careers at age 25, those people are very few and far between. Many of them come from incredibly privileged backgrounds or have the types of parental support that most of us can only dream of. Being unworldly, directionless and living at home with your parents is the normal 20-something experience. What you’re going through is common. You feel like you haven’t lived yet because your life has barely begun; you haven’t fallen behind, you and your peers are still on the starting line. You have a lot of time ahead of you, and it’s important to be kind to yourself, and to be realistic about the progress you’ll make. You aren’t going to go from being broke in your childhood bedroom to being a high-flying career person with a spouse and a ritzy apartment overnight. Be gentle, and don’t beat yourself up for being young and inexperienced - you have a long journey ahead of you, and you’ll need to save your emotional strength to make it through.

Focus on finishing university. At this point in your life, I think your top priority needs to be finishing your degree as quickly as possible, even if it requires some short term sacrifices. I know that your living situation is irritating and that you are tired of not having privacy, but if you can tolerate your parents and your city for a little while longer and keep going to school while living at home, you’re potentially setting yourself up for a huge advantage in life by completing your degree with minimal debt. The problem with putting off university to get a job and move out is that once you’ve taken on financial responsibilities like rent and bills, it will be a lot more difficult to find the time, resources and motivation to go back to being a student, and your options will be limited for moving into a higher paying job. It’s very easy to get yourself stuck in a vicious cycle of living paycheque-to-paycheque in a low wage job, and not being able to improve your situation because you can’t afford to quit your job and go back to school - my high school friends are in their mid-to-late 20s now, and many of them are now stuck in retail or service industry jobs because it’s difficult for them to give up their source of income and return to school, especially now that some of them have kids or partners. A degree is not a guarantee of a good job, but it’s certainly a mandatory minimum requirement for most opportunities now, and it opens up possibilities like grad school or law school; the sooner you get it out of the way, the sooner you can start building a career, gaining independence and saving up money for travel. University is also a valuable social resource - by getting involved on campus, you can start making meaningful friendships, meeting potential partners, and building useful connections.

Try new things. One of the keys to living an interesting life and gaining valuable experiences is to actively try new things. It’s hard to gain life experiences by doing the same things over and over again. Challenge yourself to do at least one new thing per month. You don’t necessarily have to like it - you just have to try it. Sign up to volunteer somewhere new. Take a zumba class. Sign up for a new dating app. Write a short story. Change your hair. Start a blog. Go to a restaurant you’ve never been to. Join a local D&D group. You might be surprised by what you end up liking. I ended up in my current career because I took a psych elective to fulfill the social science requirement of my computer science program - sometimes trying something new can lead you down a whole new path you never imagined. It’s also a great way to meet new people that you might never otherwise have met. If you’re feeling like your life is in a rut, new experiences are a great and easy way to un-rut yourself.

Have side projects and goals. It’s easy to feel like your life isn’t going anywhere when you don’t have any way to measure your progress. Even while you’re stuck living at your parents’ house, there are ways to keep moving forward with your life. Always have a project or hobby or goal in your life that you can work on. The possibilities are pretty much endless - you could work on your physical fitness, an artistic project, knitting, improving your cooking, journalling, photography, restoring furniture, learning a language, playing an instrument, etc. Anything that captures your attention. Set small, manageable goals and track your progress. Feeling like you are improving in one area of your life can go a long way to calming your jitters when you are feeling stuck in other areas of your life.

Don’t rush into a relationship or “settle”. It’s hard to predict where or when you’ll get into your first relationship - you might meet your first partner next week or five years from now. Some people meet the love of their life on Tinder within weeks of signing up, some people use dating apps for months without success. All you can really do is put yourself out there, keep working on yourself as a person, and see what happens. The one thing I will advise, though, is that you be cautious of settling for the first person who comes along. If you’ve never been in a relationship and you really want to be in one, it can be tempting to rush headfirst into a relationship with the first promising person you meet - especially if you’ve had to watch your other friends be in long-term relationships for a while now. If you meet someone who seems great, it can be easy to get very serious, very fast, and rush straight to “let’s move in together”, especially when you are already looking for a way to get out of your family’s house. Don’t rush. It’s okay to be disappointed that you haven’t had a relationship yet, but remember that a relationship should be something you get into because you truly want to be with the other person, and not just because you want to check “dating” off your list of adult milestones. If you meet someone, that’s fantastic, but remember that it’s okay to take things slow - if this is really the person for you, they will still be there six months or a year or two years from now. Getting too serious with someone too quickly can mean missing some glaring red flags, and tying yourself financially to someone you haven’t been dating very long can be a recipe for unwanted stress.

Remember that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. It’s easy to blame your problems on the city you live in. The world is full of people saying that everything would be better if they could just get out of this town. Thousands of people dream about moving to NYC, and there are thousands of people walking around NYC who dream of getting the fuck out of here. No matter where you live, there is someone who dreams of moving there, and no matter where you want to go, there is someone there who is desperate to leave. No place is perfect - every place has its perks and its downsides (for instance, NYC has lots of things to do, but every square inch of this place smells like stale urine and hot dog water). Unless you are making a drastic change in setting - like from rural to urban, or from one country to another - you’re going to find that most places have very similar problems; high rents, rising cost of living, too much competition for jobs, bad dating scenes, overcrowded public transit, crumbling infrastructure, etc, etc. There might be legitimate reasons to want to leave your current location - you live in a dying small town, the climate where you live is affecting your health, you want to work in an industry that only exists in a specific location - but it’s important to keep in mind that location isn’t everything, and you can still make progress in your life while living somewhere that you don’t necessarily love or want to stay in.

I can relate a lot to what you’re going through - while most of my friends moved out on their own right after high school and started what I thought were glamorous adult lives, I lived at home with my incredibly overbearing parents for four years and took the bus back and forth to a sensible, commuter campus university in a city that I didn’t like. I had friends and I did my best to make the most of my time in college, but part of me felt like I was being denied the formative experiences that other people were having - moving in with their partners, getting an off-campus apartment with roommates, partying all night and not having to answer to their parents, and so on. After graduating, though, I was able to find a full-time job in my field earning more than double the minimum wage, and I moved into an apartment with my best-friend-turned-boyfriend. The money I had saved by living at home during university allowed me to go after my dreams of attending grad school in NYC, and that decision led me to all kind of experiences I never expected to have and friends I never expected to meet. At 26, my life isn’t perfect, but it’s definitely well beyond what I expected when I was a frustrated 21-year-old commuting to school and having my mother constantly ask when I’d be home. Change takes time, and your 20s are tough. Have patience, and keep doing the best you can.

Best of luck to you!

46 notes · View notes

saeitoshi · 5 years

Text

Convergence

Eiji turns his head to the left, admiring the vast sunny landscape through his window. “But when I first arrived there, I met a person who I knew who was unlike everyone else, someone who was special. And that is what he became to me.”

Fandom: Banana Fish

Chapters: 1/1

Word Count: 1,951

“Ehh why do I have to go?”

“Because you’re the one who broke the window, so you should take responsibility and apologize.”

Haruto grudgingly gazes to the right with his emerald eyes, seeing his next-door neighbor’s house now tarnished with a gaping, crackled hole in one of the windows. It wasn’t on purpose; he was practicing for his upcoming baseball game on Saturday but threw the ball a little too far. Now here he is, sitting on the backyard swing with his mother giving her good ol’ lectures on “already being 12” and to “grow up and be more like an adult.” He didn’t want to hear it. He was only 12 and felt like there were so many more years ahead for him to become the adult she envisioned.

“Can’t you come with me at least?” Haruto asks with a hopeful tone.

“No can do, sir. This is a chance for you to learn from your mistakes,” his mom sternly states. “Tell you what... afterwards I’ll treat you to some ice cream so you at least have something to look forward to.”

His mom ruffles up Haruto’s ebony-toned hair, the same color adorned by the former. The son pouts in response, silently annoyed at her contradictory message for him to act maturely but then still treating him like a child.

The mother adds on, “Besides, I’ve heard he’s really nice and friendly. It’s a shame he’s been bedridden ever since we got here.”

Haruto’s family had recently moved to this town a month ago. His mother is Japanese but his father is American, and ever since he was born they’ve been hopping around between different locations across both countries due to his father’s work as an ambassador. This small rural town just happened to be their latest pit stop. From what he has heard from the residents so far, the neighbor in question was always very jubilant and offered help to anyone in need until he developed arthritis in his legs. Even then, people had to forcibly keep him in bed until he finally relented and hired nursing staff for bedside care.

Haruto sighs, then despondently looks back up. “Okay, fine. Let’s just get this over with.”

Staring at the front door, the nerves really begin to take into effect. Haruto starts deliberating over countless possible outcomes in the span of a few seconds. Would his neighbor be easily forgiving, or does he actually have a darker side that no one knows of? And if his neighbor asks for compensation to fix the window, how would he be able to afford such an expense? Would his mom pay for it, or would she tell him to be an “adult” and work to pay it off?

The young male continues to stand motionless outside his neighbor’s house, quietly anxious and his mind frazzled about what is to come. All of a sudden, he feels a sturdy yet light pat on the shoulder.

Haruto jumps in fright and quickly spins around, almost giving himself whiplash. There was no one to be found. Slightly scared and paranoid, he scans the premise to ensure that no one has been stalking him, but there was no presence to be detected. Strangely enough however, whatever it may have been, whether it be a gust of wind or simply his imagination, it felt very reassuring. It felt as if it was to encourage him, to let him know that everything will be just fine.

Shaking off his unease, Haruto deeply inhales and exhales. After a moment of silence, he finally knocks meekly on the door.

A middle-aged man opens the door, stating, “Hello, you must be Eiji’s neighbor. I saw you in the back earlier. Come on in, I was just about to leave to restock his medicine supply. You’ll find him upstairs in the first room on your left.”

Quickly realizing that he was one of the nursing staff, the adolescent simply nods and walks towards his destination. From his approaching perspective, he notices the door to Eiji’s room wide open, inviting anyone to enter with a friendly reception. The room is moderately decorated, nothing too extravagant but a rather comfortable abode. Haruto sees an elderly man resting upwards on his bed and reading a newspaper. His face though expresses so much exuberance, deducting from his appearance 20—possibly even 30—years of age.

Hearing the footsteps from Haruto, Eiji looks up and his face brightens up, “Ahh welcome! I’m Eiji, nice to meet you! Please take a seat. It’s not every day that I get a visitor besides the nurses, so by all means make yourself at home.”

Still suspicious of the impending wrath en route, Haruto reluctantly pulls a cushioned seat from the desk in the room to the right side of the bed, gradually descending to the chair as if to delay his fate.

“First of all, if you’re here to apologize about the broken window downstairs, there’s no need! The noise sure startled me, but my nurse went to check and explained that he saw your mother scolding you about it. You’ve probably already gotten plenty of lecturing from her, so I’ll hold off on that,” Eiji says with the biggest grin.

Haruto blinks in surprise, relieved that the “apology” was much easier than expected—if one could even call it that. The young male is left puzzled. Why did the old man want him to sit down then?

As if a telepath, Eiji answers, “I actually wanted to talk with you for a bit since I was able to overhear some of the conversation from up here. Let this old geezer give you a hand, I may not look like it but I’ve definitely been through my fair share of problems back in the day. But look at me, I’ve been talking this whole time, I didn’t even catch your name! Sorry about that. Like I said, it’s been since forever that there was someone new to talk to,” chuckling at the end of his ramble.

Haruto hesitates to reply, slightly overwhelmed with Eiji’s extroversion. Although he had just met his older neighbor, the sincere kindness emanating from Eiji makes Haruto want to spill all of his inner turmoil. So he does.

“Nice to meet you too, Eiji-san. I’m Haruto… and if I’m completely honest to you, I’m tired. I’m tired of my mom treating me like an adult in some instances and a child in others,” Haruto begins, laced with tension. “It’s like she thinks I’m old enough to be this full-fledged adult and handle all of my problems by myself in a mature way, but then also won’t take me seriously when I want to be and allow me the privileges that independence comes with because I’ll always be her baby son. She switches her view of me being an adult and a child to her benefit and it’s frustrating.”

Haruto ends his rant, clenching his fists in an attempt to assuage his emotions after the unplanned outburst. Eiji stares intently at Haruto, wholeheartedly concerned. After feeling confident that the latter finished his part, he commences his long response.

“You know, I used to live in America a while ago. In fact, the only reason I returned to Japan was because of my declining health. Before my legs gave out, I also developed issues with my lungs, and the pollution in the large cities was too concentrated so I had to move back home.”

He embellishes a small smile, fixing his gaze onto Haruto. “Had the same colored eyes as you, wouldn’t you know? In fact, if we had a son, he’d probably look just like you,” Eiji teases with a cheeky smirk.

He then continues, “But the emotions brewing within them were so powerful and engorged with internal conflict, I became drawn to them. He, too, was going through sort of what you’re troubled with. Although, he was placed in much more… uncomfortable situations. He was always pushed by the adults to become whatever they wanted him to be. He was forced to grow up and become a leader, while still being treated like the grown ups’ puppet.”

The elder leans as forward as he can from his stationed position, placing his hand on top of the youth’s lap. “This may sound tacky, but your mother really cares about you. She’s probably even scared of you venturing out into the real world by yourself, which is why she keeps alternating her stance for you to be independent with her desire to protect you from the brutality of the outside world. You’ll have to give her some patience, but what might be best is for you both to talk it over.”

Reclining back to his initial posture and lifting his head, Eiji’s eyes lighten up as he speaks, “As for that special person, he didn’t have anyone that he felt close to when I met him. I wanted to shield him from the cruel world, because behind that strong facade he had such a kind and fragile heart. We had been through so much together, and I truly felt that we had this indescribable bond.”

Haruto sits there quietly, soaking in everything the older gentleman has said. His mind elucidates through Eiji’s soothing voice, his feelings consoled by his insightful advice. Yet Haruto felt concealed loneliness, regret, and sadness from Eiji’s speech as he was talking about this “special” person. Whoever he was, he must’ve meant the world to Eiji.

Deliberating the best way to comfort him, Haruto whispers sympathetically, “Eiji-san… I-“

Before he could proceed, Haruto’s words cut off as he feels a large pressure weighing on his shoulders. And then his mind goes blank.

Unaware of the interrupted sentence coming from Haruto, Eiji lowers his head somberly, “I don’t know if I did enough for him. I wanted to keep him safe, to protect his delicate smile, to stay by his side forever. But I just don’t know if I was able to fill the void in his secluded heart.”

“Eiji.”

Eiji’s head shoots up, and as he looks into those jade eyes, his own eyes widen at the familiarity that radiates from them. They display the soft look that only he, no, only Ash would ever give him.

“You’ve always given me the warmth that I was missing my entire life. Because your soul is always with me.”

The tears erupt out of Eiji’s eyes, uncontrollable from all of his suppressed longing throughout the decades. He slowly reaches his hand out towards him, to hold the one hand that he wished he never let go.

The other party garnishes a heartfelt smile, and likewise extends his hand towards Eiji, until both hands grasp each other firmly yet gently. Their hands intertwine, filled with immense yearning and compassion, as if they finally returned home.

Giving one last smile in return, Eiji’s eyelids fall to a close.

Haruto promptly blinks, feeling dazed. He stares down at his hand, and then up towards Eiji and notices that he’s sleeping.

Confused as to why Eiji has randomly fallen asleep, Haruto becomes unsure whether to try to wake him up as he might be interrupting a nice dream.

However, the adolescent soon grew worried for the elder as he did not see any noticeable breathing coming from the latter. Quickly rushing, Haruto places his index and middle fingers on top of Eiji’s neck.

There was nothing.

#banana fish #bananafishdaily #dailybananafish #fanfic #fanfiction #writing #bananafishedit #my edits

93 notes · View notes

acehotel · 5 years

Text

The Bushwick Review: Interview with Elle Nash

There’s a particularly delicate yet redolent allure to the “and” found between some of fiction’s greatest love stories. Jules and Jim. Henry and June. In the case of writer Elle Nash’s novel Animals Eat Each Other, it’s Matt and Frankie. Tales of love and loss, instability and stasis, all told through the lens of a 19-year-old narrator adrift in Colorado Springs are what line the pages of Nash’s brutal and endearing debut.

In partnership with The Bushwick Review, an independent literary and art magazine, Nash chats with editor-in-chief Kristen Felicetti about her editorial origin story, the importance of bisexual representation in fiction and how to ignore people who talk about her baby’s socks.

Animals Eat Each Other was published by Dzanc Books last year. The UK edition will be published by 404 Ink in May.

Kristen Felicetti: I’d love to hear how Animals Eat Each Other came together. From the initial idea, to its development, to its publication with Dzanc Books.

Elle Nash: It started off as a short story in one of Rae Gouriand’s six-month writing workshops online. At first, I thought it was a story that could be told in just a few pages, but then I began working one-on-one with Tom Spanbauer as a mentor, and he kept saying, “What about this?” which made me realize how much I was glossing over, and kept prompting me to expand on so much of the story. I think that lasted about two years. The process really taught me how to slow things down. At some point, Michael Seidlinger, who was working with Dzanc at the time, asked if I was working on anything and so I sent him this manuscript, which he loved and which then-editor-in-chief of Dzanc, Guy Intoci, also enjoyed. After a while, they offered to publish it. Feel like I got really lucky with that, as Dzanc has been a great publisher. Michelle Dotter, the current editor-in-chief, is a wonder to work with.

KF: I really like how spare, direct and visceral your prose is in this book. Did that style come pretty immediately to you for this novel, or is this something you refined in its editing?

EN: I think it was definitely refined in editing. Although I worked a lot with Spanbauer as a mentor while I was writing this book, and his style is also minimal in that way (he was a student of Gordon Lish, along with Amy Hempel, etc), towards the end I found myself rewriting entire chapters. I find myself using things like metaphors as almost a shortcut to what I really want to say in a story, and so I tried to find those and expand on them as much as I could.

KF: You recently tweeted “what are your fave books that feature bisexual people” and I saw that in another interview for this book you mentioned wanting to create a book with a bisexual character, because you don’t see bisexual characters that often in fiction or media. I hadn’t really thought about that much, but it’s true. While in real life I know people across the queer spectrum, I can’t think of a lot of bisexual characters in fiction. The other thing I liked about the narrator’s sexuality in the book was that she doesn’t seem to be concerned with attaching any labels to her identity. She’s just driven by her own desires and behavior. She has sex with men (Sam, Matt), she has sex with women (Jenny, Frances), but I don’t think she even once uses words like “bisexual,” “queer,” or “gay.” I’m not sure what my question is here [laughs], I’m just saying you gave me interesting things to think about. Do you want to talk more about any aspect of this?

EN: Yes! And people had a lot of great suggestions — Mean by Myriam Gurba; anything by Kathy Acker; Henry and June by Anais Nin; Salt Fish Girl by Larissa Lai; The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson — I need to read all of these, obviously!

I really just love to see and want to read books about and by people who are outside of this realm of what a traditional relationship looks like, even if there is not a particular label on the character’s sexual identity — and I think the reason for that is because growing up, perhaps, I felt I was exposed to a lot of books that dealt with young adult issues but the particular issues became the entire character’s identity. For example, The Best Little Girl in the World, (or Wasted, even though I love that book), or Cut by Patricia McCormick, Crank by Ellen Hopkins, Smack by Melvin Burgess. These books were all great, but in them, the characters’ lives are consumed by their troubles, it becomes their entire identity, and I really favor work that illustrates the life of a character that, for example, is affected by these kinds of important issues, but also shows how there are other facets to their identity. Being bisexual is not the only thing that I am, there are many facets to a person, and so that seemed important to express in a book, to show a character’s life like that.

KF: In addition to Animals Eat Each Other’s recent release, the magazine you edit, Witch Craft Magazine, also just released its most recent issue. Can you talk a little about the process of putting that issue together? What’s the process of working with your co-founding editor Catch Business, your team of assistant editors and the writers you publish?

EN: Yes! That was a tough issue, mostly because the original release date was on the heels of me giving birth, and so we had to push it back. I had also just moved out of the city that Catch and I lived in together, and so we’ve been doing everything via email, text and Skype. Catch really has kept the sails up while I’ve been less involved because of the baby, and the assistant editors I worked with for issue four (Asha Dore and Gwen Werner) made some excellent selections for non-fiction and fiction this go around. The hardest part is staying on top of email. I just spend less time on the computer these days, and it can be hard to respond to things. I always feel like I should be doing more. In the past, I’ve made the trailers for the issues as well but our art editor Carabella Sands took the lead on that front for issue four and it was great. I’d really love for us to expand and do more but right now it’s just something we have to do slowly.

KF: You recently became a parent. We’re around the same age, and I haven’t decided whether I’ll have a child yet, but I’m pretty nervous over whether I’d have any time left for writing/being creative or even how I’d grapple with the identity of being a mother or being seen as a mother. Obviously I’m not the first female writer to ever have these fears. Did you have any of those same anxieties about being a parent or not? And do you still or is that just not as big of a deal once the moment actually arrives?

EN: I did and do have anxieties over time, but to be honest I have always had anxieties over time — when I had a full time job, I felt the same way, that I wasn’t getting the time I needed to write and that I might die before the work I need to do gets done (I always feel this way!). When I had a part-time job, I was spending a lot of time doing freelance transcription work to make up for my loss in income and so I worried about wasting my time there as well. And with a kid, it is harder because I am currently on her schedule, but I still do find the time to write while I can. She naps, for example, and so I make the best of it. Also knowing that she slowly gets more independent and that the process of her being a baby is a temporary one helps, and that a writing career is a long-term goal, that expands over multiple decades (as long as the existence of a life allows). But I mean, yeah. It is always hard. I like to be alone a lot, at least when I write. I don’t get the uninterrupted five to eight hour stretches of time inside my head anymore, like I could with a day off work, but since her birth, there’s been somewhat of a schedule (which does change a lot), and I’ve been able to polish 20 pages on a new book, write some essays, do interviews, polish a short story… and waste a lot of time on Twitter. I started dictating some of my essays/stories for example when my hands were busy and she just wanted me to hold her or while I was breastfeeding (though I haven’t done that for a while). I think for anyone who does have anxiety about time but WANTS a kid, the best advice I have is to just not stress yourself about it or push yourself to do it if you really can’t. Some days I wake up and I just think, “I can’t do this today” (“this” being all of the responsibilities of being a parent and also the pressures I put on myself to write, etc), and so I won’t write that day. It’s both hard and not hard. Time just keeps moving and the child keeps growing, and I have to be willing to go with the flow of that. If I fight it, it’s too hard.

On the identity of being seen as a mom — sometimes I think, “I’m too butch/dress too XYZ/am too sad/insert identity label to be a mom!” like when I think of how my mom was/dressed/etc, and because I got really hung up on my assumptions of how a mother should be. But, I am also surrounded by a lot of great mothers who are themselves/their identities intact/are full, sexual, beautiful, creative, independent people, and that helps me not be hard on myself. I wondered if my identity would change, and I don’t think it has, really, I just have become less patient for other people’s bullshit and am very strong about enforcing my boundaries now, in a way that I wasn’t before. People in public make comments a lot (like, for example, if the baby is not wearing socks outside, I know someone will say something), and you really have to ignore it. You just have to become really all about yourself and the kid and fuck what other people say about how you should parent. It’s just not their life. That’s become extremely apparent.

KF: What are some things that inspired Animals Eat Each Other or other recent work of yours? It can be other books, but also films, music, people, things in nature, anything.

EN: So many things! I think the biggest inspiration I drew from was Tom Spanbauer’s book I Loved You More, which is a masterpiece about three people who love each other and how hurt/heartbreak rippled through them. It’s an important book about relationships. I listened to a ton of The Weeknd while writing the first draft of the book, I think because it is easy to listen to his music on repeat a lot and is very melodic, and also listened to a lot of Lund. The film Manchester by the Sea inspired me, as well, because in the Amazon reviews so many people hated the movie because it felt unresolved and depressing to them, and I love that kind of work. I read a lot of things that inspired me also — Mila Jaroniec’s Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover; Elizabeth Ellen’s Person/a; Juliet Escoria’s Witch Hunt; Something To Do With Self-Hate by Brian Alan Ellis; and Waves by Lucy K Shaw.

#interview #ace hotel new york #the bushwick review #elle nash #book #animals eat each other #ace nyc #ace new york #ace hotel #yes

13 notes · View notes