#but having nothing to channel it into for most of her young life- being discouraged from taking part in tethe'allan politics

[weavingmemories]

(tag stolen from @bibliophileemily​ - hope it’s okay to take this as a springboard to ramble a little 👉👈)

replaying ToS as often as i have, i tend to have fun thinking a lot about new character dynamics every time i come back to it- and yuan/colette struck me a lot when i considered how yuan directly compares her “cloying attitude” to martel when he opens up a little (in the mithos the hero sidequest)- and it kind of all spiralled from there! (colette asking yuan if he was looking for a four-leaf clover in the ring sidequest is so absolutely adorable too LMAO. her just pointing out that maybe he wants to be happy and that was her reasoning... oh, my sweet angel.)

since i’ve been thinking a lot about my chosen swap au, i’ve often considered how colette’s involvement in the renegades would be a lot more active; she’d be a lot more invested in actually HAVING autonomy somewhere and feeling like she can work to change the world for the better on her own merit, after being largely ‘seen and not heard’ as the flourishing world’s chosen for show (and treated generally like glass by the noble class)- so instead of largely gaming all sides of the conflict like zelos does in canon, she’d be more stuck between a rock and a hard place with cruxis, but genuinely believe in the work she does with the renegades.

i’m still fleshing out the smaller details of the swap, but i think that in general colette learning how to wield her elemental magic (via aionis) and training with the renegades would really be the first time she feels like she can do something, and while yuan would probably be standoffish and busy for the most part, she’d really come to respect him, especially knowing how much danger he’s in and the tightrope he also walks behind yggdrasill’s back! i also feel like their closer contact and communications would kind of wear him down over time, since colette has so much genuine faith in him as a leader (and i can see her becoming close to botta too, since they probably do a lot more practical work together since he runs things more front-facingly!)

on the flip side, zelos’ journey (because his mana signature is probably not quite so close to martel’s) is kind of a dummy one just for the sake of turning over the hourglass- i think colette’s life would still be in imminent danger of becoming martel’s vessel if mithos found out just how close her match was, and how much of a clear shot he’d have at bringing his sister back. and so yuan probably is keeping very close tabs on her for that reason too! and of course, he’d probably have a lot of conflicting feelings about her- reflexively wanting to remain stubborn in his belief that she’s just silly, naive, etc. as a defense mechanism to opening his heart again, but really coming to appreciate her both for her familiar kindness but also her own unique personality!

i also think that in post-game, colette would want to keep working with yuan and the renegades as a force for rebuilding the world and helping out (and maybe even become his new right hand man?). and that could lead to something... who knows? :3c

[hiiddens]

hello hello all ! i’m kina (she/they), and i’m excited to introduce my daughter yang hyerin, who has joined the infinite tour as a makeup artist. i joined a very long time ago but had some things going on, so hopefully this time i’ll be able to stay as long as possible. hyerin is an homage & amalgamation of some of my past artistic muses that have never been given the proper spotlight, so i’m excited to present her to you all ! if you’re interested in plotting after learning all the necessary information about her, please hit that heart ! (discord is available as well if it’s easier to plot through it !)

[ resources : biography, profile, plots, pinterest ]

✩ look who’s joining the infinite tour ! only yang hyerin, who is a makeup artist. i’ve heard whispers that the twenty-two year old is pretty charismatic but lowkey noncommittal. also, don’t they remind you of yu jimin?

✩ THE BACKSTORY ;

i’ll try to summarise her biography as best as i can so think of this section as a tl;dr !

born on nov. 11, 2000 and raised in seoul, south korea for her entire life. (scorpio sun, pisces moon, scorpio rising if that means anything to anyone.)

second-born therefore second-best in her parents’ eyes, since birth she’s lived in the shadow of her older sister whom of which her parents considered as a golden child.

every accomplishment she achieved seemed like nothing in comparison to her sister since she did everything first and at a young age, and felt unloved & unappreciated as a result.

hyerin fell in love with the arts (predominantly painting) as a coping mechanism, and it’s been a major source of happiness for her for a long time. unfortunately her parents never approved of her love for it, and often discouraged her from pursuing it as a career.

she eventually fell in love with makeup after her older sister introduced it to her, which would become another major passion of hers (the same way painting is.)

after working in cosmetic stores for a couple years, she begins a youtube channel in 2019 called ‘selene syndrome’ (inspired by the greek goddess of the moon / personification of the moon + actual beauty youtuber pony syndrome) that grows quickly in numbers, which helps her become noticed by different makeup studios, cosmetic brands and eventually infinite entertainment as well.

she’s worked with different companies every once in a while prior to the tour, but became an official a member of their staff for the tour and placed her youtube channel on a semi-hiatus as a result.

she posts occasionally with her favourite stage looks she’s done for infinite artists once a month or every two months to keep some engagement, but nothing like the weekly uploads she’s used to. (it’s also due to the fact that she wants to experience more on tour without having to feel burnt out from overworking herself for her channel.)

✩ THE PERSONALITY + OTHER INFO ;

there’s a quick analysis of her personality on her profile, so consider this section as a deep dive of who she is as a person !

she has a reputation of being very social and playful, regardless if she’s around strangers or her closest of friends. sometimes it can be very intense for others who aren’t used to her energy, though she tries to quickly adapt to her environment to ensure she doesn’t continue to make someone uncomfortable. could she be considered a personality chameleon? maybe. however, she’s also someone who runs a youtube channel, and a large majority of her appeal is that she's a comfort-watch, if that makes sense. kind of like speaking to an older sister or friend who you’ve been close to for years talk about her day while teaching you how to recreate her latest rendition of her day-to-day makeup look.

speaking of her youtube channel, anyone who knew her prior to its debut knows that she wasn’t always the most talkative person. for a large majority of her life (up until her last year of high school when she got her first job as a cosmetician) she was quiet and reclusive, not known for having many friends. she only ever had two people on her arms that she considered her best friends, and that was all she needed.

is it a facade? absolutely: there’s a deep void that ya girl is trying very hard to hide. it’s unrealistic to present herself as someone who’s completely perfect, someone completely fulfilled in life, but in her eyes it’s too much of a risk to let anyone view the broken heart that’s taking the slowest possible time to put itself back together. she doesn’t care about coming off as fake to some people if it meant that they wouldn’t see all of the cracks just below the surface.

what if she lets someone see her vulnerability? congratulations ! that means she trusts them a whole lot ! it’s almost as if she’s putting her heart in their hands and trusts them enough to not throw it on the ground. they get to witness a side of her that speaks her mind more freely, unlike the pillar of strength she forces herself to become, a side of her that’s almost unashamed to show that she is, in fact (and unfortunately), still human.

painting is still a very beloved passion of hers, and it’s a reason transitioning to a makeup artist was so easy. if she’s not out and about in the city, she’s in her room feeling inspired enough to translate all of her current emotions through brushstrokes and she’ll be in there for hours.

she currently has two ragdoll cats named kiki & lala, a bonded pair she adopted to keep her company when she feels loneliest. she’s always wanted a pet when she was younger, but her parents never wanted one in the house and didn’t like the idea of it. eventually she wants to adopt a puppy too, but for now her two children will be enough <3

hyerin doesn’t know boy groups well, but best believe that she loves loves loves all of the women on this tour and specifically known for being a big fan of flora and braveheart. she recreated a lot of their makeup looks in the past and the fact that she gets to work with them once in a while?? oh she’s over the moon !

she also has an unfortunate reputation of being a bit of a player. sometimes she goes home with a stranger she met an hour ago and it’s mostly to temporarily fill a void that cannot be permanently filled. too scared of love and how vulnerable she has to be to be in order to give her heart to anyone in a way they deserve.

she remains unsure of what will happen after the tour ends, as it’s the most excitement she’s had in her twenty-three years of being alive. there’s a part of her that really doesn’t want it to ever end, but she knows it’s unrealistic. for now she’s just happy to enjoy her time on the road and hopes that the memories she’s created and has yet to experience will be the fondest of memories in a distant future.

if you’ve gotten this far, thank you for reading this word vomit and i hope you’re having an amazing day / night !

[morbidology]

Dennis Jurgens was born in 1961 to teenager, Jerry Sherwood, and her boyfriend. Unable to cope with a baby due to her young age, Jerry reluctantly put Dennis up for adoption. Authorities assured her he would be going to a loving home.

Lois Jurgens was a homemaker and her husband, Harold Jurgens, was an electrician. Louis was a devout Christian, at least in her own eyes, and had an obsession with how she and Harold were perceived by those who knew them. The house was always spotless and the garden immaculate. She came across as the perfect housewife in suburban America. However, Lois and Harold couldn’t have a child. Due to Lois’ prior stint in a psychiatric hospital where she was diagnosed with mixed psychoneurosis, they had to adopt a child privately. Their first adopted son, Robert, fit in well. From a young age, he knew to behave and be tidy to remain on the good side of his new mother. The adoption went so smoothly that authorities concluded that the Jurgens didn’t have to adopt privately. If they wanted to adopt again, they could use official channels.

The couple then adopted Dennis when he was just one-year-old. From the minute he entered the home, he was greeted with a rainbow of bruises. As soon as Lois met him, she didn’t like him. He had spirit, as most toddlers do, and this infuriated Lois. She wanted a silent baby who could fit into her façade of the perfect family. She adopted him despite the fact she disliked him because she was concerned this would discourage the authorities from allowing them to adopt again. Within months, Dennis arrived at A&E with first and second degree burns on his genitalia. Lois claimed he had soiled himself so she put him in the sink where he then turned on the hot water. This explanation was accepted without qualms.

Once home, Dennis was abused and tormented beyond comprehension. If he didn’t eat his food, Lois tied him to the chair and shoved horseradish into his mouth, causing him to vomit. When he vomited, she forced him to eat it. Lois became obsessed with Dennis’ weight and resorted to calling him “Sloppy Fat” and frequently starved him when she wasn’t force feeding him. When Dennis wet his diaper, Lois would place a clothespin on his penis or bite his genitalia. At night, Dennis would be tied spread eagle to his bed so that he couldn’t move. When he went out, he was forced to wear sunglasses to conceal his black eyes.

At the age of three and a half, Dennis’ body finally gave in. It was the early morning hours of 11 April, 1965. It isn’t known what exactly killed Dennis. Was it one specific blow or an accumulation of the years of abuse? When Dennis died, he had zero body fat. His appearance equated to someone who had died from starvation. He had bite marks, scars, and lacerations all over his genitalia. He was bruised and cut from head to toe. At a time when authorities and society alike could not accept the concept of a child being the target of abuse in a middle-class home, his death was marked as “deferred.”

It wouldn’t be until 21 years later that Dennis got some form of justice. His birth mother decided to try and track him down and found that he had perished. Reading his death certificate, she demanded an investigation be opened. The trial was a soul-destroying one, with mortuary photographs of the battered boy being shown to the stunned jury. From the photographs alone it was evident he had been the victim of foul play. Furthermore, numerous witnesses came forward to report that they knew of the abuse but did nothing to stop it. They were afraid of Lois, they claimed, and because of this selfish fear, a three and a half year old was murdered over the course of two years. As it turned out, Lois had adopted four more children after the murder of Dennis. All of these children ran away and begged for help from neighbours after she abused them too. From slamming one’s face into a nail protruding from the wall to forcing them to standing naked out in the snow, the abuse was horrendous. Thankfully, these children were old enough to run away. Dennis wasn’t so lucky. In 1987, Louis was sentenced to 25 years in prison. She was paroled in 1995 and went on to live a quiet life in Stillwater, Minnesota, with her husband who stood by her.

Eight measly years for the systematic torture and abuse of six children and the murder of one.

[kyber-crystal]

➳ pickup lines || s.w.

summary: you’re oblivious to the fact that sam, your best friend is hopelessly in love with you. and it kills him inside because he’s been dropping hints for as long as he can remember. 

warnings: none, just fluff and a cliche best friends to lovers trope :) 

words: almost 2k

a/n: for @marvelsswansong​ ‘s late birthday present! sorry this was so late and that it’s so bad RIP i tried to write it in one go...anyway our boy sam deserves some more recognition sksksk

“Guess what this shirt is made of?” Sam smirked as he pointed at himself. “Boyfriend material.”

You rolled your eyes, suppressing a chuckle. “Oh, stop it.”

He slid into the seat next to you at the kitchen counter, swiping the spare muffin from your plate. “Y’know what’s on the menu today? Me-n-u.”

You just shook your head, spreading jam across your toast before biting into it. “Wow.”

“They say Disneyland is the happiest place on earth,” he cleared his throat, “well, apparently, nobody has ever been standing next to you. You are absolutely breathtaking.”

“I look gross,” you argued as you tried to hide your face with one hand, “I got three hours of sleep after helping Bruce in the labs and I’m a mess.”

“Don’t be silly, Y/N. You always look beautiful. Especially to me.”

Even if he was joking, you couldn’t help but feel the butterflies in your stomach at his comment.

“Oh my god, will you shut UP,” Bucky groaned. “You’re cheesy as fuck, Wilson.”

“You’re just jealous because nobody likes you,” Sam retorted. 

“Ooh, shots fired,” you whispered, cupping your hands around your mouth, “need some ice for that burn, Barnes?”

“He isn’t wrong, though,” Wanda shrugged, pouring herself a mug of coffee, “the chemistry is evident here. I’m surprised you haven’t gotten together yet.”

You let out a long sigh and went back to focusing on finishing your meal, not noticing the several glances Sam stole out of the corner of his eye at you.

...

“Y/N. “

“Natasha,” you replied without breaking your concentration on murdering the punching bag in front of yourself. 

“Girl, how long are you going to keep this act up for?”

You dropped your fists by your side, sighing. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You and Wilson.”

“What about it?” you questioned as you began unwrapping the tape from your hands. She handed you your water bottle and you took a long sip, “We’re best friends. I don’t see anything special about that.”

“Best friends or not, he clearly likes you. I’m not gonna sugarcoat this: you’ve been the most oblivious idiot ever. If what he’s doing isn’t obvious enough, then I don’t know what is.”

“He does not. Sam’s just being Sam. That’s who he is. It’s in his nature to joke around.”

“Does he use pickup lines on me in every other sentence he speaks? No. Does he do that to Bucky? Never-”

“Because him and Bucky are rivals, and you guys are just f...”

“Just friends! Babe, you proved my point.”

“Oh, shut up...”

���If you don’t take matters into your own hands, then I will. You keep turning the poor man down and you don’t even know it. Tragic.”

“Natasha, I do not like any-” The redhead gave you her signature ‘look’, crossing her arms over your chest. Your shoulders sagged in defeat. “Fine. I don’t know. I guess I’m scared.”

“What reason do you have to be scared? You’ve gotten shot, you’ve led countless teams into battle before, you’ve taken out aliens with the power of your fists alone. Hell, we survived the Red Room together, and you’re afraid of catching feelings?”

“What if I embarrass myself by telling him?”

“Are you nuts? He’d be over the moon if you did so much as react to what he said. Poor guy’s feeling discouraged by your poker face. Give him a chance. He’s your best friend, you don’t wanna ruin the relationship you have together.”

“Fiiiiiine.” You whined and tossed your sweaty towel at her. “Now leave me alone so I can go take a shower.”

She laughed and tossed it back. “Alright. Tell me when you’re officially dating!”

“I hate you!”

“Love you too, babe!” she called out after you as you left the facility.

...

“SAM!” you yelled from the bathroom “Get your ass over here!”

“Am I in trouble?” he asked innocently as he peeked his head through your doorway. “You need something?”

“I forgot to bring a shirt with me. Can you get mine from the laundry? The black one?”

“Yeah, of course.” You heard him shuffling around before falling silent, then there was a knock on your door. “Here. Take this.”

“Thanks,” you nodded before taking the shirt and closing the door behind you. 

You looked down and let out a groan when you realized he’d mixed up the shirts and given you his instead - a V-neck you’d seen him wear plenty of times when you, him, and Steve went on morning runs together. It was ridiculously tight on him and you absolutely hated it because you couldn’t help but stare. But you didn’t like him. Definitely not.

Right?

Right.

You trudged down the hall to the kitchen, walking into to see Bucky’s and Sam’s awaiting smirks.

Crossing your arms, you raised an eyebrow at him, “Samuel, where is my shirt?”

“Dunno,” he feigned innocence, “I got mixed up.”

“Okay.”

“I’m no photographer, but I can picture you and me together,” he sent you a finger gun and a flirty wink. 

You rolled your eyes for what felt like the millionth time that day. “You’re such a sap.”

“Y/N! Hi!” Peter dropped his backpack and rushed forward, tackling you into a big hug. 

You stumbled backwards in surprise but quickly returned the gesture, ruffling his hair playfully. “Hey, kid. How was school?”

He made a face. “Sucked. I actually need your help with an assignment. I’m supposed to interview three role models in my life about stuff and Mr. Stark is in the middle of a conference call right now so...yeah.”

“Oh!” Your eyes widened in pleasant surprise. “Me? I’m not special-”

“If you weren’t special then Ned wouldn’t constantly fangirl over you to me. He always asks me if it’s true you can shoot lasers out of your eyes and hands.”

You chuckled. “I feel honored. Count me in, Queens.”

The two of you headed off to the labs together, and as soon as you left, Sam let out a loud groan, his face falling into his hands. “She doesn’t get it. I keep throwing hints her way but she doesn’t get it at all. I don’t understand. What exactly am I doing wrong?”

“Y/N isn’t an openly affectionate person. She rarely ever tells people how she feels. She usually conveys her emotions through killing her enemies and channeling all her energy into punching bags,” Bucky replied simply. “And the occasional Mario Kart deathmatch. She’s not very easy to read.”

“Even I had a hard time getting to her,” Wanda admitted. “She’s very...private. Prefers to keep her feelings to herself.”

“Does she even have any sort of clue?” Sam looked over at the young woman with a desperate look in his eyes. “Otherwise I’ve been humiliating myself all this time, for nothing.”

“She likes you, but she’s too afraid to admit it,” Steve suddenly spoke up. All heads turned in his direction. “It’s a thing I picked up from my ma when I was young. I can read into body language. And hers, well...she likes you, Sam. She’s just very subtle about it.”

Hope glimmered in his eyes. “She does? So she doesn’t mind my pickup lines?”

The super-soldier laughed. “As terrible as some of them may be, yeah, she doesn’t. I’ve seen her walk away flustered many times.”

“What do I do now?”

“You’re gonna win her over, once and for all,” Natasha declared. “And we’re making sure of that.”

...

“Y/N.”

“Pete.” You glanced over at the teenager, who had stopped furiously scribbling notes down in his notebook, “what’s up?”

“What’s up is you and Sam.”

“What about us?” You quirked an eyebrow. “I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t.” The boy wrinkled his nose, “I know he likes you, and you like him. So why do you keep pushing him away?”

“Peter-”

“Y/N, I’ve known about this since we first met. So why haven’t you made a move yet?”

“I don’t know.”

“He’s trying his hardest to win you over and you’re refusing to budge! I bet he feels so bad about it.”

“Oh, God, I know...” you rubbed your forehead and let out a long sigh, “I just don’t know how to react.”

“Send a pickup line right back at him! He loves pickup lines, so gauge his reaction on that!”

“Alright...”

"Back to Chemistry! Which you two clearly already have...”

“Queens!”

“Okay, okay!” You both burst into laughter. “Okay!”

The team had all agreed on an outdoor barbecue, so you all gathered outside on the massive rooftop of the compound to eat dinner. Tony, Thor, Steve, and Rhodey were busy flipping the meat, Wanda and Pepper were setting up the refreshments, while the others were lounging around and casually conversing with one another. 

You noticed Sam standing alone by the edge, hands stuffed in his pockets as he stared out ahead at the horizon. He seemed to be deep in thought, but as soon as he turned around and saw you approaching him, his face lit up with a grin that the others knew he only had when you were around. 

“Hey,” you offered him a small smile. You felt your heart skip a beat as you locked eyes - the early evening glow only made him look better than he already was. “Penny for your thoughts, Wilson?”

“Are you a magician? ‘Cause when I look at you, everyone else disappears,” he stated.

“Are you a parking ticket? Because you’ve got ‘fine’ written all over you,” you replied smoothly, taking him by surprise. This was a first --

“Am I dreaming, or did Y/N just send me back a cheesy pickup line?”

“I did,” you laughed lightly, breaking into what he thought was the most beautiful sight on earth - a million-dollar smile. He’d never forget it. “How’s your week been?”

“Uneventful. You?”

Your face fell momentarily, and he felt his heart drop at the same time. “Could’ve been better.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

You took in a deep breath before responding. “Fury’s got me leading Team Alpha in a recon down south in the Outer Banks. Then as soon as I get back, I’m called to represent the team at a press conference about disaster relief. After that I’m stuck filing reports for a solid six hours and I end up only eating one meal that day. So yeah...it’s been pretty rough.”

“Did you make up for all that lost sleep, though?”

“A little. Compared to my typical three hours, I’d say 5 is a good enough improvement.”

“Progress is what matters. And you did that,” he nodded. “Look, if you ever need someone to talk to...you know I’m always here, right?”

“Definitely. That doesn’t eliminate our weekly Mario Kart competitions with Bucky, right?”

“Of course not.”

“Good.”

You stood there in silence for who knows how long, until he spoke up again.

“Did you know that when you smile, you can’t breathe?”

“Really?” You looked straight at him and gave him the brightest smile your face could produce. 

“I’m kidding. I just wanted to see you smile.”

At that moment, all the Avengers immediately stopped what they were doing and froze on the spot. 

“I think you broke her,” Peter whispered as he poked you in the shoulder multiple times, and you didn’t move. “That was smoother than butter.”

Your mouth opened and closed like a fish but no words came out, face burning with heat - the butterflies in your stomach had turned to hummingbirds. Since when did he make you feel this way?

“Yup,” Bucky coughed, “she’s definitely in love with him.”

"I’m not in love with him, I love him. I have for a while,” you muttered so quietly that he almost didn’t catch what you said. 

Now, it was Sam’s turn to be left speechless.

[onisiondrama]

"The Onision Coverup Exposed (Onision Tells All)" April 9, 2021, Speaks - Summary Part 2

James (Onision) says he thinks James Charles is deeply guilty of being an idiot. He doesn't know about perversion, but he thinks he's stupid. He says James Charles obviously needs to keep his stuff in his pants. Says James Charles went in front of a camera and admitted it. James Charles needs a lawyer.

He says Trisha Paytas is attacking James Charles, yet she celebrates Elvis who married a 14 year old. He says people don't want to talk about that. He says he was going to say Elvis and Priscilla had a successful marriage, but he just looked it up and they were only married for 6 years. He says if you had a successful marriage, it proves you weren't with them for their age. If you break up with them it shows you used them and got rid of them. He says it would have been smart for Elvis to marry someone 5 years older than him right after his divorce.

James says he loves reality shows like The Real World because you can see psychopaths in their natural state.

Someone points out Michael Jackson married Priscilla's daughter. James jokes in a Michael Jackson voice that he knew her mom would be cool with it because she married Elvis at 14. He says he doesn't know any of the details about Michael Jackson other than the first episode of the Neverland documentary. He says he stopped watching because it was fucked up. He didn't want to hear people talking about the gross horrible shit they went through. Someone said Michael Jackson was murdered. James says that was probably a relief for him. James says MJ seemed like a really nice guy, but he was doing it for a reason, he wanted something.

James says in an article it says Elvis cheated with a 15 year old. He asks what the age of consent was back then. Someone lists the ages of consent. James says then it was super fucked up for him to do that. He says you shouldn't go under what the age of consent is in your country. He personally doesn't see the problem with 17 because it's right next to 18. He says it also depends on your age gap.

He says an 18 year old recently paid for the contact Onision perk and asked him to do an Only Fans collaboration. They said they make over $200,000 a month and wanted to share a cut with him. He thought it was like prostitution with a camera. He says he told her she was too young and he was too old. He says 35 and 18 is fucked. He says he could almost be that person's father.

James asks how old the person was who the 8 year old got pregnant? He says he constantly thought about how he wanted to bang all his teachers when he was young. He says he wasn't thinking that way until he was 10.

Someone says the youngest person to give birth was 5. James says he discourages people wishing death upon each other because they don't know the full story, but getting a 5 year old pregnant- there's no story there.

James asks about Sarah telling him there was nothing on the laptop she turned into the FBI and only turned it in because of pressure from the public? (The nudes Kai allegedly sent to Sarah were said to have been on the phone Sarah handed in, not the laptop.) He says in Washington state he can't record a conversation unless it's clear it's being recorded. She repeatedly asked if he was recording. He said it would be nice if he could. He says she told him it's legal in Michigan. He jokes that he'll ask her to send him a copy if she recorded it. He says they spoke for 9 hours and her sister snatched the phone. He says he told her it was abusive to take someone's phone away and she should give it back. She yelled at him and hung up. He says when he spoke to Sarah she seemed relatively reasonable, but completely brainwashed by the public. He says in the first livestream she said nothing was going on, then later she started jumping to extremes. (This isn't true. I've been watching a ton of Sarah and James' statements on the subject recently for a video project and she was extremely consistent. James on the other hand changed his stories dramatically from the beginning of 2020 to mid year. A small example is when he would talk about the 5 days he lived with Sarah after they broke up. At first he said he slept in a garage for one night because he was afraid of her anger, but he would still watch movies with her and go out to eat before she flew home. By August he was saying after they broke up he slept in the garage every night because he was avoiding her. So far I've gone through 72 videos and 10 livestreams.)

James says he went to see if Sarah said something, but her Twitter is private. A fan says she privated because a commentary person was talking about her in a livestream. James asks if it happened around January 23rd, when he had the call? The fan says it happened late January. James says she probably did it because of the call.

James says Sarah was surrounded by people who dehumanized himself and Kai. He says when he talked to her, she heard the person she knew before maybe realized she fucked him over for no reason and went behind his back. He says in one of her livestreams she said he cut ties with her because she sexually extorted her. He asks his fans if they remember her exact words? They said she admitted it. (She said she joked about getting what she wanted when she was asked to sign the NDA, but they knew she would sign it anyway.)

James asks what happened to the 4th documentary episode? Says it should have been out already. James says he made videos on his Speaks channels proving the episodes wrong. He says it's crazy a multi-billion corporation ignoring obvious stuff. Someone said the R Kelly tapes on Netflix are inaccurate. James says there is a video of R Kelly peeing on someone so it's open and close. Someone said people get paid to get peed on. James says apparently this was someone who couldn't consent. They talk about how R Kelly is in jail awaiting trial.

James says it should be illegal to make a documentary to ruin someone's life. He says it should be for informing people. James says the documentary would say "actual tweet" or "actual text," but wouldn't show the actual tweet or text.

McFly asks if James is waving his white flag about Shane Dawson? James says if someone punches you in the face and you want justice, but a mob beats them to death, are you still mad? He says he's not mad at Shane because worse shit happened to him than what he did to anyone else. He paid the price. James says Mike Tyson went to jail for raping someone, but he's back to being a celebrity. He says people aren't mad anyone because he served his time. James says he thinks Shane should have went to jail for a little bit because of the way he touched someone who was nowhere near the age of consent. He says someone sitting in a cell waiting for trial counting as time served is the equivalent to what Shane went through. He says it's one thing to go to jail, but it's another to have your whole career destroyed, get fired, publicly humiliated, shamed, and called horrible things like a predator. He says most people would choose jail over that.

They start talking about someone, but I can't make out the name. James says he saw a clip of him talking about how he used to be terrible and was a chronic cheater. He says he's not sure if it was an apology video because he just said he was a monster. James asks if this person admitted to being a terrible person, why would he trust what he has to say?

[molnlycke]

100 DAYS OF SUNLIGHT BY ABBIE EMMONS REVIEW

As a disclaimer I want to say that I found the Youtube channel of Abbie Emmons by one of her ‘write with me’ videos. Following that I watched some of her WritersLifeWednesdays vlogs and thought, this woman has tremendous passion and work put into her craft. She actually gives valuable advice, and the themes of her videos are pretty good. So when I saw that she has a novel of her own published, I wanted to see how she incorporates the stuff she talks about into practical work. This is how I started reading her debut novel: 100 Days of Sunlight.

I was curious, okay?

But oh man, what is this?

This book… I’m sorry it’s just so bad. The mess of glaring problems, plotholes, the …characterisation. Abbie Emmons says every good story is character driven (which I wholeheartedly stand by if it is executed well!!!) but what should I get from this, honestly?

There are too many things screaming PROBLEMATIC here.

But let’s start at the beginning.

The exposition––the first chapter’s building don’t make no sense. It has a twist in it alright, but why start with something that turns out to be a dream (or a scrap of a memory in this case) of the actual past, only to get dumped with everything else that also happened following that scene? All of this is told from the protagonist’s reminiscing of said happening.

- To be clear the book starts with the scene of an accident–the accident in which the protagonist, Tessa loses her sight. A drunk driver with a pickup truck runs the red light crashing into the car Tessa and her grandmother are in. Soon it turns out that’s only a recurring nightmare and she’s been home for one or two weeks (maybe? I don’t remember precisely). By this time she has already lost her sight. Tessa runs the audience over all that happened after the accident (basically in those weeks she got discharged from the hospital etc. etc.) Now my question is why not start the book from the accident itself? It all gets narrated either way.

The next problem is the way first Tessa’s grandparents, and then the WHOLE BOOK just downplays consent. Why? Why would you do that?

- Tessa’s grandparents “know better what’s good for her than she does”–that’s an actual quote from the novel btw. Nothing glaringly alerting in that, I mean adults often have this way of thinking about children. Until… they try to arrange a stranger to help Tessa with transcribing her work. Tessa is a poet with a blog where she posts her work on schedule. Ever since the accident, she doesn’t feel like writing (or blogging for that matter). She’s shut herself off from the virtual world, doesn’t touch her laptop, nor speaks with her internet friends. (Because ofc she’s homeschooled, doesn’t like to go out at all and only has internet friends in the first place.) She’s in her room for most of the day, cries a lot and tries to cope. Whether her coping is good or bad I’m not qualified to say, but she thinks of herself as selfish, lazy, cynical, and depressed most of the time––everything she never wanted to be, things hates with every fibre of her being. She blames herself and basically detests life for beating her down to the ground. She feels she can’t get up even though she’s told, her blindness is a condition that can go away in ninety-something days’ time. I think feeling these emotions are pretty reasonable for a teenager. It’s been like three weeks since the accident, and her newfound blind perspective of life. That can’t be easy. BUT her grandparents know this isn’t healthy, Tessa needs to write. “I haven’t written one verse, one line, one word of poetry. I have no desire to. I have no inspiration, no joy. It’s all gone.” - Tessa from ch.1 So what do Granny and Gramps do following their infinite wisdom? Play the girl. And I’m like, sure dude, harass the child into doing what you want. Sure, don’t try to get her professional help or a psychotherapeutist or something if you think she’s faring so terribly. Sure, run an ad for hiring some part timer to transcribe for the poet who doesn’t want to write anymore. Sure, do it all behind her back. I mean she has PTSD and is blind for now, but yeah, this will most definitely help. Good job! For goodness’ sake they treat the girl like she’s been locked inside her room for months?!

When they share this brilliant plan with Tessa, she freaks out so much the elderly retract the ad. But not before the son of the newspaper’s owner gets a scrap of this new, possible past time activity and decides to be a creep and essentially stalk Tessa. But that’s for later.

Tessa explicitly tells her grandparents she doesn’t want to meet new people, doesn’t want to write, what she needs is time. So the next thing Granny does is pushes an unknown, teenage boy into her blind granddaughter’s room for a chat. Against Tessa’s repeated objections! There’s so much nonsense going on in the sequence of the story. Like one day there comes a boy–a stranger, knocking on the door, saying he’s this and this’ son and wants to help. And because, at a glance, he has prosthetic legs, you invite him first into the house then into your blind teenage granddaughter’s room? Without actually knowing if he is who he says he is? Without knowing the first thing about him? But even if that part is true, and he is who he says–the son of the newspaper’s owner, let’s not forget the mildly stalkerish way the guy’s been acting.

Granny shares a shit load about Tessa’s problems, then flat out tells her to meet Weston. “I told you I don’t want help. And I certainly don’t want anyone touching my laptop. I don’t want to write. I don’t want some stranger coming into my house and feeling sorry for me!” That’s Tessa speaking with Granny prior to the meeting. I mean it’s no biggie if she’s against the whole idea because he could help, right? Is this the American way of handling things? Someone give me a spoon that I can boink myself in the head with to get around this type of mentality.

At the first meeting Tessa has meltdown, screams at Weston and cries. Tells him she doesn’t need help. Tells him not to bother. Tells him she wants him OUT OF HER ROOM. Weston leaves before telling her he’ll be back the next day. And Granny and everyone else is fine with that. So in the following days the nuisance has the audacity to come over, small-talk the grandparents into loving him because he’s so charming everyone is in love with him a little. (That’s another thing from the book, I shit you not, the dude straight up thinks things like this. Yes, I know it’s self-deceit.) Weston forcibly takes over Tessa’s room which is basically the last place she feels comfortable at? Never mind, now someone’s popping in randomly when they think it’s cool, telling her what to do––“I know you don’t need me. But you need to write.” Bitch I think you need to fuck off from people’s lives who don’t want you in it. Just an advice.

One time Tessa wakes up to Weston barging into her room (“...he walks into my room without knocking, at 9.00 a.m., when I’m still in my pajamas”). Granny’s off to do her things leaving the boy to stay and make himself at home. Huh, quite reasonable.

Weston forces Tessa to accept there’s no fleeing this situation––one, the three of them (him and the oldies) constructed for her. Because it’s helping.

That’s basically the question of: where’s the line between wanting to help someone and pushing them even deeper when they’re already at a bad place. But since this is a YA romance everything is nice and good and sorted at the end so Tessa can thank her loving family for forcing their volition on her.

- Here’s another lovely example of consent portrayed in the novel: “I told you I don’t want to go outside.” Weston laughs. “You also told me to get out of your house and never come back.” “And you directly disobeyed my wishes.” “And you’ve been enjoying it...” Please tell me I’m not the only one seeing what’s wrong with this whole dialogue. It’s so disappointing and frankly, discouraging, to see an attitude like this written by a woman, targeted at a young, female audience.

- Oh, there’s their first kiss as well. It’s really really romantic. Weston asks for permission then doesn’t wait for the answer! “I’m gonna kiss you. Is that okay?” It’s not fair, because I don’t give her any time to reply. Instead, I press my lips against hers. Without permission.” ...So why did he even bother to ask? To seem nice? Well, as the saying goes it’s the thought that counts… So is this how consent works? NO! But consent never stood a chance in this book at the first place.

Next up; Characters.

*not @me side-eyeing Abbie’s video about how to craft a strong female protagonist* - I’m not gonna say a lot about Tessa. For me she falls flat like a cut-out. She’s paper thin, and dumb, although she’s the novel’s protagonist. Funny though, I feel she has less to give to the story than Weston, and it’s not just the length of their respective chapters. There’s like 600-700 words from Tessa’s POV (mainly about Weston 80% of the times), then we get a 4k word count chapter from Weston (mainly about his own journey and overcoming his struggles). Tessa’s chapters are either shallow or about her time spent with Weston. Opposed to this Weston has a full arc of him getting over the loss of his legs and standing up from it (quite literally). See what I’m talking about? All I get from Tessa before the accident is that she’s a writer, homeschooled, likes her colour coordinated books, and waffles (like Abbie ha!) (*whispers* and she wears her hair in a messy bun, ofc she does). Oh and she can’t live without WiFi. All I get after the accident is that she’s hurting, angry and blind. And now she has Weston. So her backstory is…..?

- Weston. Oh man where to start. Now he has a backstory. From it we can conclude how idiotic he is. That’s not recklessness or being a teenage boy. I’m sorry but his behaviour is simply idiotic. Sometimes he’s really grown up (taking care of his baby brothers and all) other times he has like 1 (one) braincell operating in his head. Bearing weeks of pain, and not saying anything about it to anyone because that’s not superhero like? WHAT??? He experienced, at the least, three weeks of torturous pain and several days of fever and dizziness, popping Advil like it’s candy. Still, the only one who realised this is his best friend at school and his 10 year old brother who was at the scene of Weston injuring his legs in the first place. What about the parents one might ask. Well Idk. Obviously a 13 year old is so good at deception and sneaking around that adults can’t catch on! On this note I want to gift Parents of the Year Award to Mamma and Pappa Ludovico. With parental supervision like that I’m baffled the child lived up to the age 13.

Weston is the nightmare male lead people usually salivate after in k-dramas stuffed into the body of a 16 year old American boy. Now I’ve never understood those people and their preferences of the bratty, entitled, but oh-so-handsome males and I still don’t understand to this day. Where’s the appeal? Don’t ask me.

I’ll just put down some quotes: “It’s the first time in three years anyone has ever met me without that look of pity on their face. The first time anyone has ever looked at me and not seen me. The first time anyone has stood before me—with perfectly normal legs—and complained about their own problem. The feeling is exhilarating.” So basically this is the so called ‘No one has ever treated me like this. Except this girl, my God, she’s intriguing’. Weston enjoys Tessa’s rude behaviour. “So she’s stubborn. She’s rude. She’s a spitfire wallflower who lost her sight and now hates anyone who tries to help her. Game on.” ...Are you five? “Tessa is the only Dickinson who doesn’t like me.” I have no idea why that could be. But, listen, listen: “I turn around in the desk chair, throwing her a hard look over my shoulder. She’s still sitting rigid and stoic on her bed, staring at nothing. She’s actually really pretty. Her eyes are bluer than mine—the enhanced kind of blue you see in contact lens commercials. She has freckles, too. Just a few, thrown across her nose and cheeks. Her hair is braided today, less messy. She looks so serious. I liked it better when she was screaming and crying.” Idk somehow this sounds like every badly composed romance I’ve ever seen. Let’s just say the progression of the relationship between Weston and Tessa infuriated me 90% of the story. You can help others without being an ass. You can also help others without being a horrible love interest, but that’s for another day. YA contemporaries don’t work like that.

Oh Weston, what a knight in shining armour. Three years prior, he had this thing with Clara Hernandez–a girl from school. It wasn’t real dating but they spent some time together (he walked her to class ooooh~~~) so she became “at the time, my unofficial girlfriend”. Things change after Weston’s accident, of course. He tells her he doesn’t want to continue their ambiguous relationship. And that’s alright, it’s his choice, BUT he then kind of passes the girl to his best friend, so she won’t annoy him anymore? The way he narrates the whole thing is...ugh. “But she wasn’t even dumping me, and we weren’t even dating. We were thirteen years old, for crying out loud.” See, this is Weston thinking about what happened. And this is him telling Rudy about it: “What were you talking to Clara about?” he (Rudy) asked. “I dumped her.” Following in another chapter they talk about how now that the coast is clear––Weston and Clara are through, Rudy should hit on Clara: “He wanted to resist the whole thing and deny his obvious crush on Clara Hernandez. But he couldn’t do anything except laugh and shake his head. He knew I was the best friend he could ever ask for.” Such a kind and caring person for handing out the girl he doesn’t really want to his best friend. Give him a medal for that one. Idk this whole business irked me to no end, like Clara was his possession or something. (Yeah, and the poor girl eventually ended up with Rudy, not like she had any other choice…)

- Downplaying female friendship. Yeah, that one happens as well. When Tessa talks with her friends (her blogging circle) the only thing we as readers can glimpse about their conversation is “Tell us more about the boy,” like... really? Because once again that’s the only thing a group of friends can talk about when one of them suffers an accident resulting in trauma. And Tessa’s answer? “At first, I didn’t like him. I thought he didn’t understand anything about me—even though he acted like he did. And I’m not sure that he understands much, even now. But he’s kind. And patient. And he kept coming back to type poetry for me, so I’ve kind of been forced to make friends with him.” The reply of her friends… “Aw ... He sounds really cute.” Yeah, really cute, forcing you to be friends with him. “How can you not be in love with a boy who makes you waffles?” Well, friend no.5, it’s not that hard… But there’s more. After Tessa gets her sight back the only thing we get from this supporting bubble of warm friends is as follows: “LIV: TESSA HOW ARE YOU FEELING ME: a lot better actually ME: my headache FINALLY went away MARIA: yayy!! ALLISON: PRAISE THE LORD ME: yeah fr KATE: So glad to hear you’re doing better, Tessa! It must be quite a transition omg… GRACIE: I can’t even imagine ME: it’s been pretty crazy ME: but good ME: I guess ME: ugh idk mixed emotions LIV: ???? LIV: TELL US EVERYTHING LIV: if u want to lol ME: ahhh well ME: Weston is kind of not talking to me anymore,” That is it my friends. Two to three sentences about her condition and it’s time to talk about the boy. Is this really how shallow anyone would want to describe the protagonist and her close-knit group of friends talking for the first time after one of them lost their sight? Then again, talking for the first time after she got her sight back? I’m disappointed to say the least.

- I didn’t care for any other character enough to jot down my observations. They were bland, they were there to help the main couple, nothing more, nothing less. Weston’s kid brothers were cute and Rudy seemed like a normal, sane character (I applaud him for that). All I can say is the families in this novel are something else.

The romance.

Okay, let me state before anything else: I like romance if there’s balance. I like romance when the people involved are equals. I believe a relationship, and a good one at that, should have cornerstones. One of them has to be that equality. It also doesn’t hurt if none of the involved parties are assholes. The romance can be of any trope as long as the happy ending is tied to said relationship being healthy. And I don’t mean sorely the end product; the way that relationship is constructed step by step should resemble these things. If not, at least call them out for it. I’m not the advocate of perfect characters or relationships (any kind, not just romance) because that would be really unrealistic. It can be bad, yeah, it can be toxic, or a little messed up in the middle. But for crying out loud reflect that in the storytelling! Do it especially if the story is planned for a younger audience! Now let me make another statement: What I don’t like is that in mostly American YA het-romances there are rarely any of these things.

- This one here is probably supposed to be the writer’s well liked trope of hate-to-love romance, but I feel the concept of kindergarteners is more fitting. The boy forces, the girl yields. But it’s okay because he likes her and wants to help.

There are some cases of harassment sprinkled in, as in one party objecting the other’s closeness or presence and the latter not giving a damn about this. Real respectful; but, hey, that’s part of consent too so I guess it simply flew over our heads in this particular story. A fresh and original concept on romance, wholesome and healthy. And the thing is, Weston actually knows these things. He literally says so in the book, “...until I intruded on Tessa’s life, however it happened.”

And of course Tessa is more pure than fresh snow on white lillies; she’s basically a lotus. Weston is the first boy stepping into her room. Give me a second to freak out about that. It’s so exciting! (Mostly by knowing the circumstances in which he did that.)

The other thing that annoyed me was Weston’s entitlement and holier-than-thou attitude. He knows everything better than Tessa. He knows Tessa better than she herself does WHEN HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW THE FIRST THING ABOUT HER. That’s the moral of the story. No, but I’m not kidding, some of his thoughts set me on fire. “She wrote about sunlight and oceans and falling in love, when I’m pretty sure she has no idea what it feels like to fall in love.” I’m sorry, but do you know Tessa? (besides stalking her via the grandparents)???? The audacity, I’m cackling.

- Can someone tell me why Tessa speaks with Weston if she doesn’t want to? I mean besides that this way the story can go on. She actually starts their conversation on the second day. Me, personally, don’t talk to people whose presence I can barely tolerate. How silly, I know.

- Weston annoys the shit put of Tessa for like five minutes but he talks to her, (for his own selfish reasons may I add––Weston, honey, if you want people not to pity you try helping blind little kids who actually want your help) and brings her flowers, and chocolate so I guess it’s reasonable that approximately four days later Tessa’s attitude shifts to comparing him to sunlight. “Weston is everything And all at once. Weston is gentle And harsh. Weston can be blindingly bright But then he can also be Delicately soft. Weston is a paradox.” – Oof girl.

- Let me tell you kids just because someone annoys or teases you and you tolerate it––that’s not the get-go to life changing love. Even though he’s the first real life boy whom you’ve ever spent casual time with. But he’s the first boy who ever showed you real attention, you say. Well then, that’s a grace girls have to accept. Or so this book and so many others try to make us believe. The sad thing is, there actually could’ve been a conflict––if one wants to write about opposites attracting each other so much––without making the story so cliched and weak.

Plot-holes.

- Maybe it’s nitpicking for some, BUT… why was Weston in his dad’s office in the first place? I never got around to the reason of that. He loiters around there once a week, that’s what the book states. Well, okay, he is there inspecting the motivational quotes collection on the wall while his father just works away. And am I supposed to believe the man is all cool with this? What is Weston doing there? For what reason? The answer is easy: he simply had to hear the phone call of Tessa’s grandfather retracting the ad.

- Now why does his father–the owner of the newspaper–accept calls regarding ads in the first place? Is this really how things work? Other employees do nothing? I’ve worked at a small printing company in the past. The management only accepted calls regarding ads if there wasn’t a single soul anywhere near the perimeter of the office. There’s a department for jobs like this. Bosses don’t qualify.

- About the already mentioned beautiful first meeting, where sparks fly, and the lovely couple can roll off a great start... If Tessa didn’t want to meet anyone why didn’t she lock her door? That’s a pretty easy task. At first I thought maybe there’s no lock on the door. But wait; after the disastrous meeting she locks herself away. “The door is locked, and Grandma has stopped trying to open it.” Sooo there was a lock after all…...okay…….

- Why is almost everyone in this book freckled with blonde hair and blue eyes? Okay, this really is just nitpicking, but like, is there some symbolism in that? *bounces eyebrows* Ehem, if you know what I mean.

- I’m not sure if this is an actual plot-hole but I was really surprised by the lack of anxiety Weston’s approach triggered in Tessa. Essentially, Weston is a stranger at the start of the book, with whom she gets locked into a room, without anyone else in there, when she’s still adjusting to the fact she can’t see. I especially looked out for it; Weston closes her door every time he’s over at their house to speak with her. I mean the first time she’s angry; but what about later? She doesn’t even seem nervous or affected by this at a time when her blindness is still fresh. Yet, when they go to Barnes & Noble, a public space with people around, Tessa is anxious the minute Weston leaves for a bathroom break. Like okay, some strange dude tries to pick her up and she’s rightfully terrified, but all she has to do is call out. Now both of these scenes are pressuring and scary, but where’s the difference? Tessa is nervous when the stranger approaches her in the book store, a big and open space with people around even before said stranger tries to initiate skinship. She tells him to leave her alone. But she did just that when Weston first went to see her. And Weston didn’t give a shit about it, much like the high schooler at the book store. And I’m supposed to believe with Weston she wasn’t apprehensive at all? Of course she wasn’t… he’s the love interest.

The whole book store scene makes me so uncomfortable and NOT because of what you’d think. It’s simply distasteful to create a scenario like that only to draw it back to… yes, you guessed it, Weston. He’s the saviour sweeping Tessa off her feet with “Get your hands off my girl” and chasing away that jerk. Why is it that still, in the year of *looks at smudged handwriting on hand* sometime past the 1890s there’s the need to use The Jerk™ hitting on the girl and The Nice Guy™ saving her by making her seem like his property? Oh did I forgot to mention the jerk smelled like cigarettes, and his pants were falling off his ass. I’m surprised he wasn’t wearing a leather jacket or had piercings just to fit the look to a T. That usage of my girl ...ugrghgh I can already feel white hairs sprouting from this. Look, I’m not against the idea of belonging to your beloved. If you want to say it, cool, do it. But when it’s not consensual, and you’re not a couple who already expressed to one another the wish to be viewed that way maybe DON’T FUCKING USE IT. Not to one up another guy trying scare the baddie away. Man, don’t do that. *channelling my inner LE to rap the last line really loud* What’s even better than this? Tessa’s reaction: “Despite the gravity of the situation, I can’t help but smile and get butterflies all over again.” REALLY???? Please donate braincells to this girl. She really needs it.

The dynamic of relationships.

- This is mind bogging for me. Almost all relations (excluding the most fundamental ones) serve a sole reason: cheer on and make the main couple happen. This book is promoted as a love story, one, not limited to romance. It’s a love story of family bonds, love between brothers, and grandparents, and friends. And that’s true for Weston… but for Tessa??? I don’t think so. But maybe that stems from how underdeveloped Tessa’s character is.

- The main couple’s dynamic is so stilted. Weston basically caused the state he is in, Tessa suffered an accident caused by outer circumstances. She’s the victim of a drunk driver, while quite frankly, Weston’s the victim of his own stupidity. And yet, since Weston decided to fight for himself he expects Tessa to do the same. Now that’s a nice thought, even if it’s about someone you barely know and met maybe two times in your life. Is that a reason to harass the other and tell them what to do, not taking no for an answer? I highly doubt it. Weston wanted to get better so he pressed himself, but he made that choice himself. It’s beautifully written down not once, not twice, but multiple times; how hard it was for him to choose between 1, the easy way––the flat grounded desert and 2, the hard scaling and rocky mountain range. He chose the mountain range and that’s admirable. What’s not admirable is, that from what I get from this book, Tessa never had the luxury of a choice. Because other’s never gave her time or let her decide for herself. Tessa says Weston is stubborn and obnoxiously optimistic. I think he’s just obnoxious, period.

- At the end of the book Tessa narrates how ashamed she feels and how her heart is breaking “Because of what Life has done to Weston.” For one, is Life responsible for what happened to Weston? I’d liked to read about how Weston tells the story of losing his legs to Tessa with a straight face, because all thorough the book he never once did that. To anyone. If that happened, he ought to admit how incredibly stupid he had been. As well as the consequences of his own decisions, every time he went on without saying a word or asking for help. That stubbornness is his character trait. Yes, it is, but we never get to see how that affected his family, there wasn’t one paragraph about his parents talking about it with him.

- On this note why is Tessa always so ashamed, feeling like she’s the brute, saying sorry to everyone at every chance? It’s not like others apologised to her once. This character trait only perpetuates the notion how everything others impose on her is fair trade because they only want to help. And either way, she only feels apologetic about standing up for herself.

Mentions of notable things that annoyed me.

- The judgement if a girl need makeup or not, because *banging pots and pans* she’s beautiful no matter what in the boy’s eyes. And he tells her just that. “Are you wearing makeup?” I ask, without thinking. Tessa smiles just a little. “Yeah,” she says. “Grandma helped me with it. This feels like… a special occasion.” “You don’t need it, you know. You look beautiful without it. But you look beautiful with it, too. You always look beautiful. Even when you’re crying.” Tessa really needed to know your opinion about her wearing makeup Weston. Kudos for you for telling her she doesn’t need it because she looks beautiful without it, but it’s okay to wear it as she looks beautiful with it too. Great input man!

- At this point I’m not even surprised, but there really was the girl staring at something, asking if it’s pretty. (Okay, Tessa couldn’t stare but she was probably imagining––here it’s the sundown, bc of the whole sunlight theme). Then the boy answering, “Yeah, it’s pretty.” Not as pretty as you, he thinks while staring straight at her. Hello, is this a Disney production?

Conclusion.

All in all is this the worst book ever? No. Are there unforgivable problems with it? Not explicitly.

My biggest problem is what message it sends about relationship patterns, patterns I hate with a fiery passion. It’s the same old shit I grew up with, and it’s the same old shit that doesn’t seem to change after twenty years. Not even now when,––with the help of the era of internet––everyone is suddenly so woke. But are they, really? All I saw about this novel is the raving reviews praising it to heavens. And there are themes in it that deserve praise––the acceptance of one’s self, the loss, the forgiveness, the overcoming of hardships of life––but what about all that’s left? What about the execution?

Bottom line is, because this is a book, everything gets resolved and all is happy and fine at the end. However in real life, coercing others to do things against their will isn’t a glorious idea. Disregarding consent isn’t acceptable. Helping with the stubbornness of a mule isn’t really helping. And last but not least, perpetuating a mindset and a budding relationship like the one presented in this book––for a young audience shouldn’t be okay.

[savingher]

5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50 <3

5 . )     if your muse is a woman of color, how does her cultural and racial heritage impact her?  are there gender based traditions she takes part in?

lei has a strong connection to her native hawaiian heritage, and has always held it very close to her chest. as a kid, she grew up in lahaina on the island of maui. while she grew up in one of the more highly populated areas, which meant there was heavy tourism, she the city also has a heavy focus on the history of the island and hawaiian culture. however, her strongest connection to her heritage will always be the stories her mom and aunts would tell her from stories about growing up on the island to far older legends and the food. the assistance in preparing different dishes, even at a young age, was always very important to her. and one of the things she carried with her even when she and her siblings were forced to move from the island after the death of her mother. it was her attempt to really keep their connection to their heritage alive, which feels so much more difficult without the connection to the island itself. especially without her mom. even when she settles in savannah, she always imagines that she'll move back. she'll go home.

in terms of gendered traditions, other than her assistance in preparing meals for feasts and dinner parties on special occasion, the most important one she participated in when she was young was hula. it was something her aunts and her mom used to teach her and her sister, as both had done so more seriously in their youth. however, they lost their mom before they were ready to do it anymore seriously. although, lei really wanted to. close to when she lost her mom, she was preparing to ask if she could take real lessons. because she wanted to be as good as her mom, and she wanted to know just as much. she wanted the history classes and the rigorous training. she rarely talks about it, but never getting the chance is something that lingers in her mind.

15 . )     is she outspoken about equal rights and feminism? is she intersectional in her feminism?

damn, IS SHE. lei is very vocal about equal rights and various issues. her feminism specifically, is something she talks about a lot. she talks about it a lot in regard to politics and academia, as well as in hollywood. often speaking about the additional impacts of race on the issues of feminism. to lei, other than her brother, there is nothing that matters to her more than leaving the world a better place to some extent when she leaves it. even if the impact she leaves is small, she needs to do something. she wants women to have a voice. whether they're like her or not, she places such high regard on the way she was taught women are, that she firmly believes their voices are needed. not just because there are so many women in the world, and they all deserve to be represented, but because women in leadership just lead differently. women prioritize different things, the address issues differently. and she thinks that the more women with their voices loud and clear...the more likely real change can happen.

her feminism is intersectional. regardless of your race or sexuality or the biology you were born with. as far as she's concerned, womanhood is more about what's in your heart than anything else. she'll be the first to correct anyone who tries to discount the womanhood of anyone who identifies as a woman.

20 . )     for wlw muses, when did they first realize their attraction to other women? did they struggle with this or accept it easily?

lei didn't start questioning her sexuality until she was 16. at first she thinks she just misses her parents and her sister. that she's looking for anyone to grab onto, and it just so happens her best friend is the closest person to her. but when she feels an odd pang of bitter jealousy when her best friend kisses her boyfriend in the hallway, lei realize nope. that is very much not just grasping at straws. she doesn't really struggle with the fact that she likes a girl, so much as she struggles with it being her best friend, who is straight and dating someone. it's something she keeps very close to her chest. she doesn't tell her best friend she likes girls until they're at a high school graduation party two years later. that night her friend tells her the same thing and lei almost passes out, but nothing happens from there. lei is just relieved to have told anyone.

before she goes away to college she comes out to her aunt and her brother, and it's easy enough. there's no blowout, which is unsurprising. but there's a while where lei struggles, knowing neither of her parents ever found out. that she never got to tell them. that she'll never know if they'd still love her. but as she grows older and goes to college, and think back on her youth and the crushes she hadn't even registered she had ... she wonders if her parents knew all along.

25 . )     for queer women of color, how does their identity intersect with their racial heritage? are there experiences and aspects of it specific to that intersection you want to share?

sexuality wasn't something either of her parents ever talked to her about. it wasn't something she heard a lot about in her early life either. however, she always wondered if that was because of her aunt who never married. it isn't until she's older and visits home that she realizes her aunt eventually does get married. just to a woman. between her parents' families, there are different points of view on sexuality, however her parents had never pushed much of anything. it's something she wonders about when she's older, but she fears learning the truth.

30 . )     is there a hobby or interest that she was discouraged from pursuing because of her gender? did she continue anyway?

when in high school, she was did engage in model un and the debate team. and there was some discouraging from male teachers, but that was more from the fact she was quiet in class. she assumes there was probably some vague sexism in there as well, however she quickly proved herself. overall, she'd never been discouraged from much. her parents never discouraged her, and her aunt knew better than to try once she was left with the last two akana kids.

35 . )     how does your muse deal with sexism in the workplace?

honestly, she doesn't deal with a lot of it. for the most part when she waited tables for a while she'd experience some from customers, and that was the one time she'd ever grin and bear it. however, when she starts her real career, working in podcasting ... she's really her own boss. so she doesn't really face it. and when she does face sexism in comments or in every day life, she addresses it on the podcast. she'll write little parody songs for her youtube channel. overall, she makes it clear it's something she won't tolerate. she has no interest in it.

40 . )     if your muse is neurodivergent, how does this impact their relationship to gender and sexuality?

she isn't neurodivergent, however she does suffer from depression at different points in her life. and she does have minor ptsd. however this doesn't have a major impact on her views of gender or sexuality. if anything, her understanding of her father's depression and struggle with alcoholism impacts her view of gender in terms of men. and what is perceived as male strength. she learned that no matter how strong you were, whatever your gender ... life can still break you down. but it didn't make her view any gender as better or less than. it made her see fewer differences. really, it made her just think less of gender.

45 . )     for neurodivergent muses of color, how did these two aspects of their identity intersect?  any experiences you want to share?

again, she isn't nerodivergent. but in regard to her struggles with depression and such, there wasn't really much of an intersection with that and her cultural identity. particularly because she wasn't around those who shared her identity aside from her siblings and father at the time. however, based on memories, she can't help but wonder if she was home. if she was on the island, if she'd feel better. if that physical connection to her origin would help.

50 . )     give me a headcanon that has to do with their identity, whether it’s gender, sexuality, race or a mix of it all!

lei really should have questioned her sexuality earlier, because her first crushes actually happened in conjunction. her neighbors when she was 9 were a set of twins. ana and manny. she liked them both at the same time, and she always struggled to choose between who to play with as they got a little older and they didn't want to hang out with each other. the first time someone who wasn't a family member kissed other on the cheek it was when manny did it in front of ana, who was mad and told lei she wasn't allowed to marry her brother. they two girls joked they'd marry each other one day instead.

𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭  𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬  𝐟𝐨𝐫  𝐟𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐞  𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐬 .     ››         @fabreai.

[kingspoetrysoc]

Interview with Konstantinos Pappis

Konstantinos Pappis is a poet and King’s alumnus who studied Strategic Entrepreneurship and Innovation for his Master’s. He shares his blackout poems on Tumblr @blackout-diary​ and on Instagram @blackout_diary, and is the Music Editor at Our Culture. The King’s Poet’s Karen Ng talks to Konstantinos about his poetic experiences, process, and inspirations.

What is your earliest memory of poetry?

Like many people, my earliest memories of poetry are associated with school, where I felt pretty alienated by the way we approached poetry. It felt cold and analytical and I struggled to connect with it on a personal level – or perhaps there was less of a need to at that age. Although there were some Greek poets we studied in school whose work I remember liking, including C.P. Cavafy, Kostas Karyotakis, and Odysseas Elitis, it wasn't until later during my adolescence when I started discovering poetry outside of an academic context that I was able to appreciate it more. Things really started to change when I was introduced to English and American poets; for some reason, something about it not being in my native language made it easier to engage with and relate to. And then eventually I was able to approach different kinds of poetry from both an intellectual and an emotional standpoint.

How did you first realise you wanted to write poetry? What do you enjoy the most about writing?

In a word, Tumblr (RIP). But honestly, finding a community of people who used poetry as a form of expression more than anything else inspired me to do the same. I realised it wasn’t this inaccessible, overly sophisticated thing that you had to be especially clever or well-read to really get. Again, if you weren’t doing it to get a good grade, it was considered a bit weird to engage with poetry in any way, so seeing it outside of that context was pretty eye-opening.

It was also something that came with realising I had a passion for the arts in general. Music had always been my primary outlet, but poetry took over when I felt I needed the words to have more space on their own – to jump out on the page and release all the teenage angst I was going through, because listening to Creep every day somehow wasn’t enough. None of that poetry was any good, of course, but it was vital. And when I felt like this really personal thing was something I could share and exchange with friends, writing also became an important part of embracing vulnerability and forming close connections, too. I came to enjoy it more as a medium than an art form, in a way – at first, at least. 

In terms of what I enjoy about it now… Well, it’s hard to articulate, but if we’re talking about writing poetry specifically, I guess the appeal hasn’t changed all that much. It’s been a while since I’ve felt inspired to write a poem, but in the past it’s always been when I felt like I need to channel something that I couldn’t through any other form. Some might view the poetic form as being kind of limiting, but I feel like it’s quite the opposite – it’s almost freeing in the endless possibilities that it presents.

Above: a blackout poem by Konstantinos. The source text is “Moon” by @makingthingswrite on Instagram.

You’ve written a lot of amazing blackout poems! What about this form  appeals the most to you?

Blackout poetry appeals to me for almost entirely different reasons. I treat it more like a mental exercise that can be both calming and stimulating; something that operates on a more subconscious level. I like that I don’t have to be particularly inspired to do it, not even by the text that I’m using. I like that it doesn’t necessarily have to make sense, that I don’t have to stress over the final result too much. I like that it can then inspire me to make something else. I like the visual aspect of it, the act of repurposing something and giving it new meaning not just by altering the text but also its surroundings. Of course, people can make blackout poetry in a much more intentional way, but what sets it apart for me is that it’s a creative outlet that can be simple and almost passive yet gratifying at the same time.

How do you select a text for your blackout poems – where do you look? What do you look for?

It really varies: sometimes I’ll take photos from a book – I used to do blackout on old books nobody would ever open, but I switched to doing everything digitally –  and sometimes I’ll search for poems or articles randomly online. Reviews often work quite well. There does have to be something about the text that sticks out to me for me to use it as a source, but I tend not to overthink it.

I love that – inspiration is everywhere in our daily lives, even when we aren’t looking for it! Can you tell us a little about your writing process? Is it more emotion-led or methodical?

For blackout it’s entirely intuitive. For poetry in general I would say it’s almost always emotion-led, but the editing part can be more methodical. Normally, a lot of it happens late at night when I can’t sleep, and if I can’t sleep long enough for me to write things down and it doesn’t strike me as absolutely terrible in the morning, then it might turn into a poem.

Above: a blackout poem by Konstantinos. The source text is Sam Sodomsky’s review of duendita’s song “Open Eyes”. Your poem pebble (an ode) was one of the first poems to be published in our magazine. It isn’t a blackout poem, but could you tell us a little about it too – do you remember what it was like writing it?

See above re: late-night thoughts and the utter absurdity of the human condition! 

How has your experience of sharing your poetry to Instagram been? Are there any tips you could share with our readers? 

I haven’t done it in a year, partly due to a lack of inspiration and partly because I’ve tried to distance myself from Instagram and other social media platforms as much as I can – though maybe I’ll go back to Tumblr? But my experiences with the Instagram writing community have been nothing but great – I participated in Escapril back in April of last year, a yearly event founded by Savannah Brown, that encourages users to write and share a poem a day based on a prompt. It was a really great and fun challenge that helped me write and read more and connect with other poets. I would say participating in these kinds of communities is probably the best way to utilise the platform.

Thank you for that advice! On a similar note, which poets and poems inspire you the most? These could include childhood inspirations… Have your influences changed over the years? 

I would not be the person I am nor would I have any interest in poetry if it weren’t for Sylvia Plath. I can’t even pinpoint exactly when I first encountered her work, but I identified with it to an almost unhealthy degree as a teenager, as I’m sure many people have. I still get that feeling whenever I revisit her poetry or read more about her life and art. Also, a lot of spoken word videos from people like Sarah Kay really resonated with me at a young age. 

More recently, the closest I’ve gotten to that feeling of being deeply excited and inspired by poetry was when I discovered Savannah Brown’s work a couple of years ago. Her spoken word videos and poetry films really moved me, and her second poetry collection – which came out last year – is absolutely incredible (I wrote about it here). Lately I’ve also been listening to a lot of musicians whose work intersects with poetry, including Cassandra Jenkins and Anika Pyle, whose most recent albums reckon with grief and loss in a really powerful way.

Above: a blackout poem by Konstantinos. The source text is Christopher Gilbert’s poem “Fire Gotten Brighter”. Are there any styles besides blackout which you particularly love, or themes? Are there any topics you gravitate towards? 

I’ve always gravitated towards confessional poetry, both in terms of what I tend to write and what I like to read. Something most of the writers I’ve mentioned have in common is that they use intimate language to evoke a deep yearning for connection, in the face of existential dread and the unfathomable vastness of the cosmos. That usually does the trick!

Have any experiences at King’s Poetry Society or King’s in general – events, classes, readings, people you’ve met, or London itself – been particularly memorable, or inspired you? Can you tell us a little about them?

Absolutely. Just being in London, not even necessarily the experiences I had there, made me want to write more poetry than I had in a long time. There’s a Savannah Brown video essay on YouTube where she talks about passing a billion people on the street – obviously in the before times – and being like, “Who are all of you people? Could I care for you? How many of you idiots could I love?” That’s basically the gist of what had been stirring in me for a long time and that I still think about to this day. And then being a part of King’s Poetry Society was an opportunity for me to try and channel that, and engage in an actual physical writing community in a way I never had before. I literally read a poem inspired by that video during one of our poetry reading events – that will certainly stay with me.

Above: Konstantinos’ poem “doors on the underground”. He read this poem at one of the 2019-20 King’s Poetry Society critique sessions.

How important do you think writing communities are, in fostering “better” writing? In your experience, is writing helped by discussion? 

I think they’re incredibly important, not just in fostering “better” writing but also fostering a space for vulnerability. Poetry can be an intensely private form of writing, but so much can be gained from discussing it, especially if one is looking to not only hone their craft but also learn from and connect with others. Us writers can be especially introverted people (hi!), and may be discouraged by the long stretches of silence that can pervade a poetry meeting, but there’s power in hearing the words you or someone else has written out loud. Even a single comment can completely change a way you think about a poem.

What do you think the value of reading poetry is? Can a poem profoundly change someone’s life? Conversely, can someone read a poem and be unaffected – and if this happens, has a poet “failed”? 

I think Marianne Moore sums it up pretty well in her poem Poetry, where she talks about finding in it “a place for the genuine.” As for the second question, poetry can definitely change someone’s life – not to be corny or anything, but like all art, it can also save someone’s life.

That said, I don’t think a poet has failed if the reader feels emotionally unaffected by their work. Sometimes, a writer may wish to portray an event or theme in a cold and unaffecting manner to get a certain point across. There’s value in that type of poetry, too, and art’s inherent subjectivity means that someone might be moved by a poem that someone else feels indifferent towards. There’s also value in poetry that is private and not meant to be shared, because even if only one person derives something from it, then it is valuable. I do think, however, that the further one strays from that ideal of earnestness, the closer the work hinges on being trivial or pretentious. We’ve moved past the need to be overly cynical or ironic.

I agree, poetry that is never shared is not lesser by any means – I find great personal value in treating a poem like a diary of sorts. Maybe each stanza mimics a different entry... With all that you feel manifesting into this thing that is at once completely attached to your experience but also – if shared – something that becomes detached and open to reinterpretation... That is really powerful. How do you think people who have never written before could be encouraged to start writing for themselves, whether for fun or as catharsis – without the pressures of becoming someone recognised or followed?

I really like that approach! I think the diaristic style of writing is often looked down upon as less legitimate, even though it isn’t. To answer your question, I think normalising the act of writing poetry purely for enjoyment or as a form of catharsis is really important, especially from a young age. Part of that could be achieved by exposing young people to more than what one might call the poetic canon. Being disappointed that a student isn’t engaging with poetry when they’ve only been introduced to Shakespeare is like assuming someone isn’t musically inclined when they’ve only been exposed to a single genre of music. Another way would be to incorporate more writing activities that utilise the poetic form, and allow the freedom to explore it outside the confines of academic study. I’m not saying all teachers should follow the example of Dead Poets Society, but there are so many ways to foster creativity and make poetry more approachable.

Do you think poetry is sometimes perceived as an inaccessible art? 

100%. I think that’s the biggest problem with how poetry is perceived. A lot of it comes down to the way poetry has been taught and disseminated for centuries – through a lens that is inherently exclusionary, upheld by systems that are classist, racist, sexist, etc. Hopefully that is starting to change – studies have shown that more and more young people read and write poetry, largely thanks to the rise of social media poetry. Poetry can represent such a wide range of experiences, but for people to view it as an accessible art form, more barriers need to be broken. Amanda Gorman becoming the youngest inaugural poet in American history, and the first Black poet ever to perform at the Super Bowl this year alone is certainly a huge sign of progress. 

Do you have a favourite literary journal, or a poetry platform you would like to recommend? What have you been reading lately? 

Subscribing to the Poetry Foundation and the Academy of American Poets’ poem-a-day newsletters has been a great way of keeping poetry in my everyday life. Recently, I’ve also been loving a podcast called Poetry Unbound, where each 10-15 minute episode immerses you into a single poem. On YouTube, I love Ours Poetica, a video series curated by poet Paige Lewis in collaboration with the Poetry Foundation that features readings of poems by writers, artists, and actors – including John Green reading Moore’s Poetry and Savannah Brown reading her poem the universe may stop expanding in five billion years. It offers a truly intimate and approachable way of experiencing poetry.

Above: Konstantinos’ poem “lonely little london”.

Is it important to you to read a wide variety of poetry, from different communities and on different subjects? Do you think it’s important for poets to write about things beyond their immediate world? 

That’s probably the biggest shift that has happened since I first got into poetry – realising how important it is to read widely. I was mostly drawn to poetry that reflected my own limited experience, but now more than ever I find it vital to immerse myself in different points of view, especially from underrepresented or marginalised groups. I now see poetry less as a means of personal expression than a form of empathy, and because of that I’m able to gain so much more from it. That said, I don’t think it’s necessary for poets to write about things that aren’t part of their immediate world. It depends on one’s goals and ambitions, but there’s already so much that’s unique about a person’s immediate world – things that are reflected in society at large – that being forced to write outside of it can often lead to work that feels hollow and insincere, or even insensitive. That doesn’t mean it has to be limiting – the beauty of poetry is that you can write about your immediate world but not necessarily through it.

Lastly… Do you think a poet is born a poet, or made into one? Which is more important: natural talent, or practice and growth? Can anyone become a poet? If everyone has it in them, do you think anyone who puts their mind to it can produce meaningful work – since, of course, all work is meaningful in one way or another, whether privately or publicly?

This is a slightly tricky question to answer, because either way it could imply that only some are afforded the privilege of becoming poets. If a small percentage of people are born poets, then of course that means everyone else is inherently excluded; if one is made into a poet, then only those who are able to cultivate any artistic inclinations will have the opportunity of fulfilling their potential. Most people will say the truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle, that it’s some complicated combination of the two. But I feel it’s much simpler than that – when you boil it down, really, everyone is born a poet.

[nuttyrabbit]

Forge the Coelacanth Bio

So a couple of days ago,an anon sent me an ask telling me to talk about my OC Forge. Seeing as how I’ve never formally introduced him on here, I thought I’d instead just post a ref an a brief description of him.  Instead, that turned into writing him a full on fucking bio.

So once again, before diving into the bio proper, I should give a major shout out to @pidgeonspen for not only designing Forge, but also helping to beta read and edit his bio. 

With that out of the way, let’s get into the bio proper. Like always, everything is under the cut

Name: Forge the Coelacanth

Age: 1000+

Height: 6'0

Occupation: (Former) Commander of the Atlantean Knights

Personality:  Contrary to what his imposing size, booming voice, and various scars may imply, Forge is an incredibly affable and endearing individual.  His commitment to those he is sworn to protect goes beyond the purview of his duties, going so far as to try to befriend or at least get to know most of the people within Atlantis, especially those he fights alongside.  Because of his extended lifespan, Forge has formed friendships that transcended generations, from the first  of a line to the last. As a result, many considered him just as much a part of their family as those related by blood.  

Forge is also an incredibly jovial person, often indulging in revelry with others following a successful mission or other joyous occasion. In these instances, his love for telling stories, singing classic Atlantean songs, and of course, his boisterous laughter all make themselves readily apparent.  His jovial nature also shows itself around children.  Forge absolutely adores children, having raised many himself over his long, long life and even having adopted some who had become orphaned.  But above all else, Forge  has an unwaveringly strong devotion to both Atlantis and what he believes to be “justice”, even two centuries after its fall.  As a result, he has no tolerance for anything he either perceives or is told is “evil” or a threat to Atlantis and resorting to any means he deems necessary to get rid of it.  On that note, Forge's morality is rather black and white, firmly believing in notions of objective "good" and "evil", leaving little to no room for any sort of nuance or moral "gray" area.  

All of these traits have in some way or another contributed to him becoming a sort of "living legend" amongst his people, treated with immense respect and in some cases, even reverence. 

 While Forge appreciated and even sometimes used his status as a living legend to inspire his people both on and off the battlefield, he disliked the idea of being out and out worshipped and even discouraged the few that partook in it from doing so.  At one point, Forge was rather religious. He  often prayed to Atlantis' patron  "god" of Levias for a variety of reasons, ranging from victory  in battle to the continued propserity and safety of Atlantis.  But as Atlantis fell to nothing, so too did his faith, feeling that he was no longer worthy of his god’s protection for one reason or another 

Skills: One of the things that gave Forge his status as a living legend amongst his people was his nearly unmatched skill in combat.  In particular, he is extremely skilled and adept in the realm of lightning magic, channeling it through both his armor and his sword  to devastating effect.  His most frequent application of this magic is simply shooting lightning from his sword, but he can also cover his entire body in lightning as a makeshift barrier, create massive shockwaves by slamming his charged sword into the ground, use it to supercharge his limbs, giving him a significant boost in strength, and even call down bolts of lightning.  Even without his magic, he is still devastatingly adept with his sword. The sword itself is a massive greatsword, forged by Forge himself from pure Atlantean steel and named "Tempest". The sword is also magical in nature, being attuned to Forge specifically.Despite having centuries of formal training,his  style  actually forgoes finesse and formal technique in favor of a surprisingly loose style, revolving around using a combination of swinging Tempest around, using his lightning magic, and his own raw power to simply overwhelm foes.  As stated before, Forge is able to use his status as a living legend to inspire his allies, especially on the battlefield.  

Hobbies: Forge is someone who has rarely, if ever had the time to truly pursue any hobbies between his duties as an Atlantean Knight,  his duties as a father and husband to the families he has helped to raise over his extensive lifespan, and other miscellanous matters. On the rare occasion he had a usable amount of free time, he usually either spent it honing his abilities through training.  However, that changed once he decided to not start another new family after the 2nd one he had formed ultimately ran its course.  With all this newfound free time, Forge had to find something to do, and indeed he did. He rediscovered a field he had very briefly considered pursuing a long, long time ago: blacksmithing, using it not only to craft novelty items, but also repair and improve both his equipment and that of his fighting companions.

Likes: Atlantis (Obviously), children, Octopus/squid (His favorite food. Don't worry, they're just normal animals, not mobians), storytelling, mead, combat/battle, blacksmithing, singing.

Dislikes: What he perceives as "evil" and general injustice, being the object of worship/reverence,  bureaucracy (Politics just goes over his head), his near-immortality, bitter foods.

Backstory: Forge was born into the world as Atlantis, which was but a  a small, simple city at the time started its expansion into the empire it would come to be mythologized as.   As such, Forge grew up hearing about the glorious conquests of the Atlantean armies, the brilliant innovations of Atlantean scientists, and how the people of Atlantis were the noblest, smartest, and strongest people of the Seven Seas. But above all else, Forge heard and witnessed countless tales regarding the Knights of Atlantis (Or more simply known as the Atlantean Knights); an elite group of soldiers and guardians who were said to represent the very best of Atlantis, men of unmatched valor and heroism whose explots inspired some of Atlantis' finest artistry.  The young coelacanth  could not help but be enraptured by these tales, by these men who seemed to be larger than life, who represented everything noble and good about Atlantis, who were equal parts loved and revered.  

As he grew up, Forge's fascination with the Atlantean Knights continued to grow larger and larger, as did his nationalistic attitude about Atlantis and all it stood for.  On the cusp of adulthood, Forge knew that he wanted to serve his country someway, somehow, but he wasn't sure as to how until it hit him. Instead of merely fawning over the Atlantean Knights like everyone else did, he could *become* one, be the shining knight that all others aspired to be.   Even though he knew it would require a nearly Herculean amount of time, effort, and perhaps even blood to do so, if it served Atlantis well, it would all be worth it.

And so, Forge enlisted in the Atlantean army. It was there he would earn his trademark armor, his legendary blade and mastery of magic. With these in hand, Forge would come to aid Atlantis in many of her conquests, quickly climbing the ranks and gaining the attention of his superiors due to a combination of his combat aptitude, valor in battle, and unmatched dedication to Atlantis' cause. Before he knew it, several decades had passed and  before he knew it, Forge would finally take his place amongst the Atlantean Knights, fulfilling his near-lifelong ambition, and even starting a family along the way. But something else had shown itself.  Despite his many battle scars and literal decades given to Atlantis' conquests, Forge himself looked as if he had barely aged at all.  

Forge continued to serve Atlantis, taking part in her many conquests, leading her crusades - all the while continuing to raise his family. Decades came and went, his love eventually passing on to the next world, their children growing older and older... and for Forge, time had seemed to stop. He outlived them all, never seeming to age further. No matter what he did, whether it be forming yet another family, leading endless crusades against Atlantis' enemies, or throwing himself fully into his duties and working tirelessly to uphold his personal sense of justice and righteousness, he could not escape one simple fact: he would come to outlive everyone he would ever know and loved. He would be forced to watch everyone he cared about wither and die, and no matter how much he tried not to, he would come to feel immense pain at every loss he suffered.   Forge tried to keep himself busy; starting yet another family, leading crusade after crusade against the enemies of Atlantis, burying himself into his work- but little of it helped to distract him from the truth: he would come to outlive them all. As time went on, he would bury everyone he came to know and care for, and it never did get easier. When the last of his children from his second marriage passed on, Forge solemnly decided that bloodline would be his last, instead focusing on his duties as Grand Commander of the Atlantean Knights. He defended his homeland against all her enemies, both real and imagined, his loyalty to those in power absolute and unwavering.

Forge was so convinced that this was what he was meant to be - a paladin of his people, carrying out Atlantis' will and standing as a testament to her greatness. He would gladly give his life and soul to protect his home from the perceived evils that dared threaten her... but he as unable to see that the greatest enemy to Atlantis came from within. The rulers of the great city, the aristocrats and the councilmen, nobles and advisors -- all of them polluting the seemingly unfaltering city with their greed and corruption. Forge was so eager to please, to abide by his superiors and do whatever it took to keep his city safe, that he didn't see any of it for what it was. He never questioned the crusades he was told to lead, the atrocities committed during those wars, the supposed heresy he was called to put an end to - he did it all for his homeland, for his people. He had to, in his mind, lest Atlantis fall for a moments hesitation.

But no matter how hard Forge fought to smite the "evils" plaguing Atlantis, he ultimately could not stave off the inevitable.  Centuries of greed, corruption, and in-fighting came to a head and the once seemingly invincible empire of Atlantis tore itself asunder from the inside out.  Soon, despite Forge's best efforts, the once great empire of Atlantis that had stood triumphantly and unfaltering for centuries, her capital city a shining beacon of greatness and prosperity, was reduced to naught but ash.  Her once vast empire, which stretched for endless miles, was shattered, with her territories either abandoned or fought over by the very people they had once conquered. And her people, once innumerable, were reduced to none but a select few surviors, amongst which was Forge.  Soon enough, they too would perish, leaving Forge as the sole survivor of his people, the last relic of a once glorious civilization.

Forge's worst fears had come to pass. Not only did he outlive all those he cared about, but he even outlived the very thing he had loved so dearly, the empire he had spent centuries helping to build and defend.  The streets he had spent his life patrolling, the houses he had raised his families in, the taverns in which he celebrated his greatest victories, the graveyards where he mourned his worst losses, they were all gone, which nothing but ash and rubble in their place.   There was nothing left for him there, but he couldn't just abandon all he had fought for for so long, could he?   No, he decided, he could not. He had sworn an oath so very long ago that he would defend Atlantis to his last dying breath from all that may harm her, and even though there was nobody left to defend, nothing left to protect, he could never break that oath.

And there he stayed, guarding the ashes of what little remained; an unmoving, unwavering sentinel with nothing left to protect. As he partook in his seemingly fruitless patrols, his mind couldn't help but wander, and it always end up at the same place asking the same question: Why? Why did Atlantis fall?  What had destroyed it?   And the answers to those questions would always pin the blame on one person and one person only: himself.  Forge had failed Atlantis somehow. Maybe he hadn't fought hard enough. Maybe he wasn't vigilant enough and let an "evil" in that had destroyed her people.  Maybe he wasn't able to unite the people in a time of crisis and be the leader that they had needed. No matter what it was, the blame would always shift inwards.   But he wouldn't fail them now, he couldn't. He may not have been able to save his people, but he can at least try to save what's left.   If there was anything to be gained from this curse of his, it was that he could stand vigilant forever,  and that the legacy and spirit of his people would never truly be lost.

For over a century, the coelacanth continued to stand vigil at the tomb of an empire, bound there by his unwavering sense of justice and his oath. Things would change over time, for a threat unlike any other would come to this hallowed ground: creatures of pure darkness and reek of fetid evil began to manifest, drawn to the very ruins Forge swore to protect with his life. And protect the remains of Atlantis he did -  but no matter how many of the foul creatures he smote, more would spawn as night fell.  The horde was unending, and Forge eventually realized to put an end to this evil, he would have to destroy it at its source, whatever and wherever it may be... and that meant he'd have to leave Atlantis to find it. Even if it meant  temporarily leaving the ruins at the mercy of these monsters, he knew he could not idly stand by while such vile creatures existed, seemingly intent on destruction. It was time to take action and to put a stop to these monsters for good.

And so, in his search for answers, he emerged from the depths to a land none of his kind had dared to venture: the surface world.  A world so vastly different from everything he's ever known, where the black & white ethicality he'd so strictly followed would be challenged, a land where he would be confronted with an evil far beyond anything he had ever encountered... and where he would ultimately come to face the truth about what really caused the fall of Atlantis.

[seth-storm]

27 Fans

(A short fic before I get the next chapter of Leaving the Pond done)

Characters: Roman (main), other sides minor

I wrote a song and wanted to write a Roman fic off of it, sue me!

Roman clicked record on his iPhone four, propped against his laundry bin and a bunch of piano books. “Um, hey guys! Creativity Prince here and welcome to my first video! I mostly write my own songs and... mostly play the ukulele. Call me basic.” He laughed awkwardly. “Anyway, yah, that’s what you can expect from me, and I expect my first video will be out fairly soon!”

He uploaded a song he wrote every week for months, almost a year. But he was disappointed. He wanted for his channel to blow up overnight, but apparently he just wasn’t good enough for that. He looked at the number on his screen.

27 Subscribers

It was discouraging, to say the least. But Roman kept going. He had dreams. Dreams of being famous, of inspiring people the same way singers inspired him. Of not being a nobody anymore.

~~

It had been two and a half years since Roman started his YouTube channel. He had kept up his routine, posting a video a week, although he had to have some filler videos. He was making videos faster than he could write songs. The number on his screen seemed both massive and tiny at the same time.

27,000 Subscribers

He had friends at school like “Deceit” who were famous on other platforms, and always envied the people who had more fame than they seemed to know what to do with. But Roman and his iPhone 6 could just keep trying. He didn’t have any fancy equipment, just his voice and two ukuleles (Patton had bought him another one as a gift). Remus encouraged his brother to keep making videos, but Roman was starting to be discouraged.

Until one day, it happened.

“Dude,” Virgil texted Roman, “Have you seen your new song? It’s blowing up!” Roman’s eyes widened as he checked the video. 80 million views. Roman’s mind was blown. What was so different about what he had done in this video to warrant this?

2,700,000 Subscribers

He pestered Logan about it all day, and strangely his best friend seemed put out. When Deceit asked Roman if he’d like to sit with his group, Roman eagerly accepted, leaving his brother and his friends in the dust. Roman “Creativity Prince” became the most popular boy in school, swarmed by boys and girls alike. They all admired him and looked up to him. Some of them told him he was their favorite YouTube creator. It was everything Roman ever wanted. And it honestly felt really good. He didn’t talk to his friends very much anymore, but he was always surrounded by people, so he never felt lonely. He loved the attention.

But everything slowly dies down.

Months of hard work went by, but after that one song, Roman’s fans felt like nothing could measure up. Roman became what he had always feared: a one hit wonder. His channel started losing subscribers with each video on his iPhone 8 that didn’t quite “measure up”. He saw his channel, his life’s work, his passion, and ultimately his fame, die in front of him. His friends didn’t want him back. After how fast he ditched them, they thought he was fake and uncaring. In reality, he’d just gotten swept away. Roman went from a popular trend to an abandoned rock so quickly that his subscriber gain and drop was unprecedented. YouTube, thinking bots were being used to manipulate the channels statistics, banned Roman. When Roman submitted an appeal, it was denied. He still had every video saved on his computer where he had stored them on a hard drive, but all of his subscribers, and four years of work, were for nothing. Roman “Creativity Prince” disappeared, and everyone forgot.

Roman did start a new channel, however.

27 Subscribers

He started back at square one, and never made it much farther. He’d lost friends, but was trying to get them back, and seemed to be making progress. Every now and then, Roman would be recognized on the street, or told that he was someone’s favorite, but these times were now few and far between. It brought tears to Roman’s eyes that people did remember him, and to some people he wasn’t just a trend. So, he decided to write a song telling his story but projecting it on to a young girl going through the same problems. If it didn’t help people, it would at least be therapeutic to write, and since most of his audience was female, on the off chance it went big, they might relate more.

He switched on the camera of his iPhone X and immediately started playing the ukulele Patton had given him, trying not to cry at the pain of not talking to his friend for so long.

She just wanted people to know her name

Is that such a crime, is that such a crime?

She wanted just a taste of fame

That's not a crime that's not a--

She knew envy was a sin

But what about ambition?

It's not like she could ever be

One in a million

She wanted people to recognize her on the street

Immediately recognize her as one of the elite

She wanted someone to say she was their favorite artist

Then she'd smile with her lips glowing scarlet

She wanted so badly to hear cheering in her stands

But at first she only had 27 fans

She slowly built her reputation up

And it wasn't long, it wasn't long,

Till she was bigger than she thought she'd ever be

But it wasn't long it wasn't--

She knew envy was a sin

But what about ambition?

It's not like she would ever be

One in a million

She wanted people to recognize her on the street

Immediately recognize her as one of the elite

She wanted more people to say she was their favorite artist

Then she'd smile with her lips glowing scarlet

She wanted so badly to hear cheering in her stands

But she only had 27 thousand fans

She knew pride was a sin

But what about ambition?

It's not like she would ever be

One in a trillion

She wanted more people to recognize her on the street

Immediately recognize her as one of the highest elite

She wanted more people to say she was their favorite artist

Then she'd smile with her lips glowing scarlet

She was so happy to hear cheering in her stands

But she only had 27 million fans

She let the fame get to her head

That poor little girl wound up dead

Her spotlight faded, flickered out

She ran out of things to sing about

And slowly they forgot her

Slowly she went back to who she was before

She knew laziness was sin

What happened to her ambition?

She remembered fondly when she was

One in a million

She loves when anyone recognizes her on the streets

Or say they still think of her as elite

She cries over letters saying she's their favorite artist

And she smiles with her lips slightly parted

She used to be happy to hear cheering in her stands

But now she's happy with 27 fans.

That video didn’t go big. It didn’t get 80 million views. But Roman did have more than 27 fans after that, he had 30. After apologizing for about half a year, his friends agreed to give him another chance. They also all subscribed to his YouTube channel. Logan, Patton, and Virgil sometimes appeared in Roman’s videos, but not as often as Remus, who would bust down the door and start singing with Roman because he already knew the melody (due to Roman’s extended rehearsal of the song). Deceit’s popularity also faded over time, and he eventually found a place with the one hit wonder he knew a long time ago. And to this day, every time Roman gains a subscriber, he smiles at his phone screen in pure joy.

Because now he understands that the number on his screen isn’t a popularity score, it’s the number of people who believe in him.

[thenightling]

Dracula: The Rock Opera

I’m going to try to be polite about this.   I won’t review it on Amazon as there are few to no reviews for this musical and I don’t want to discourage potential buyers with my criticism.  

First, the background .  I truly love Frank Wildhorn’s Dracula the musical.  Whildhorn’s Jekyll and Hyde has over twenty different album variations if you know where to look, from the original cast recording, to the 2012 version, to the other language versions and demos, to the “Jekyll and Hyde resurrection” album- the Dracula musical has precious view incarnations.  There is the studio cast recording in English (only fifteen tracks), the various demos (only four albums I could find), and the German language album, which is twenty-five tracks.  

I saw Wildhorn’s Dracula on Broadway with my mother in 2004 and it’s held a special place in my heart.

 And though I still ache to hear Zu Ende (It’s over) in a good quality recording in English, or the whole English album redone in rock style like Jekyll and Hyde Resurrection, I found myself growing restless and seeking other similar musicals.

“Frankenstein the musical” (from 2008) has a similar style and is quite good.   

So was the Frankenstein Metal Opera by Richard Campbell.  That one quotes the original novel without feeling dry or bland about it. It knows when to emote and how to deviate in song styles. 

And I’ve heard the UK Dracula musical (which isn’t by Wildhorn) which has one or two likable tracks like “Within my World” but I was still unsatisfied.

Yesterday morning I found an album on Amazon called Dracula: The Rock Opera by Little 5 Points Rockstar Orchestra.   As it was an album consisting of two discs (disc one being fourteen tracks and disc two being twenty two tracks) it seemed to have promise.  So I purchased the thing on Mp3 format.

 Frank Wildhorn’s Dracula is more of a musical adaptation of the 1992 Bram Stoker’s Dracula movie starring Gary Oldman, including the love story between Mina and Dracula. 

This one, however, (Dracula: The Rock Opera) seemed more inclined to follow the novel and at some points Dracula: The Rock Opera out-right quotes the novel, which is very thoughtful in the effort to adapt the source material.   However, there are problems...

I am sorry to say that Dracula: The Rock Opera is probably number 3 on my list of worst Dracula musicals I have come across (Yes, there are more Dracula musicals than you may think, including Dracula: Swing of Death.)

 There are times when the lyrics don’t rhyme very well and the songs blur together.  I realize this is an opera but often there are shifts and cues that tell you when a different song is starting.  The singers sing relatively well but they don’t emote much.  Holding a note is not the same as putting passion into your words.  And honestly, Mina got... slightly annoying.  (“Uncleeeean!”  SHUT UP!)      The first half is mostly Harker in the castle.  And that wasn’t so bad but around the time Dracula comes after Lucy I felt like the lyricist was getting bored. It had such “Clever” lines as “Lucy, so young and juicy!” (and that cringy little line is said repeatedly in the song it appears in).

When you get to Renfield’s song the chorus of orderlies looking for him going “Renfield, Renfield, where is your mind?” and other repeated “Renfield, Renfield, Renfield” chorus-chanting sounded suspiciously like the Reptar on Ice sequence from an episode of Rugrats. (Some of you will know what I’m talking about.)  And I almost think this similarity was on purpose...

Something both amusing and jarring is that Renfield sounds a great deal like Evil Ed from the original 1985 Fright Night.  And though Evil Ed is a Renfield-esque character it still takes me by surprise to hear a Renfield out-right sound like Evil Ed.  I can’t tell if I like it or not.  As fun as his Evil Ed impersonation is, he doesn’t emote well, so when he’s dying you can barely tell he’s dying.  Stephen Geoffreys he is not.  When Stephen Geoffreys Evil Ed was dying, he and Roddy McDowall made me care.  I happen to love Fright Night and Fright Night: Part 2, just not so much the remake.

And that's another problem I have with this musical.  The songs aren't very dynamic.  Most of the action happens between the songs so the songs, themselves, ultimately feel like filler, which certainly shouldn't be the case in an opera.

I recall back when Widlhorn’s Dracula hit Broadway there were people who were very unkind about how “blunt” and “unsubtle” the lyrics to songs like Fresh Blood (Blut in German) were but no. Nothing is more blunt than the lyrics of Dracula: The Rock Opera.   Dracula literally announces everything he does to the point of feeling like an exposition fairy.  

Including announcing that he caused the wind over The Demeter and that the captain would either die by his teeth or by fright.   Really!?   You had to announce this?!   And yet people thought Renfield describing what you were doing on the ship was blunt in Wildhorn’s The Master’s Song.  

There are points where it feels deathly serious and other points where it feels like the writer is going “I just don’t care anymore.” and is really phoning it in.

Mina’s voice could be pleasant with the right song but for most of her songs she just sounds whiny.   Dr. Seward and Quincey BOTH sound Southern so at first I worried Seward and Quincey would be merged into one character but no, Quincey’s accent was more embellished.  And poor Doctor Abraham Van Helsing sounded far too young for the role.  He sounded as young as Jonathan Harker.    

They all sound quite young and you can tell they are trying.

Unfortunately a lot of it feels padded and stretched out.   In fact it made me yearn for Wildhorn’s version all the more and appreciate it all the more because the part in Wildhorn’s version told in The Prologue, A Quiet life, Over Whitby Bay, Jonathan’s Bedroom, Forever Young, and Fresh blood (five songs) was somehow stretched into FOURTEEN on this album.  Fourteen songs, ten of which felt like they could have easily been compressed into one song without losing a thing from the story.  

Pacing is a problem. It IS book accurate though if you want a musical retelling of the novel or a crash course on the Dracula story but the emoting is limited, which makes it kind of dry.  Though Widlhorn’s version more follows the 1992 film than the actual Dracula novel, it is a better musical, I must admit. 

My favorite part of Dracula: The Rock Opera is the final lines of the last track, partly because I recognized them as lines once recited by Edward Van Sloan (Doctor Abraham Van Helsing) back in 1931 at the premiere of Dracula starring Bela Lugosi.  So someone clearly did their research there.

It’s well researched.  It is faithful to the novel but it’s stretched out and some of the actors are miscast.   And some of the lyrics are just...  Umm.. “Lucy!  So young and Juicy!”  Yeah...

I’m going back to my high quality live tracks of Dracula The Musical from Frank Wildhorn. (You can hear them on the youtube channel: DraculaHyde).

Dracula The Rock Opera is not the worst thing I’ve ever heard but it’s not the best.   My heart belongs to the Wildhorn musical. And this...  This could have been so much better.    Keep at it, kids.  It can be improved. 

https://www.amazon.com/Dracula-Little-Points-Rockstar-Orchestra/dp/B00I063EH2/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Dracula+the+rock+opera&qid=1554216690&s=gateway&sr=8-1         

[morbidology]

Dennis Jurgens was born in 1961 to teenage Jerry Sherwood and her boyfriend. Unable to cope with a baby due to her young age, Jerry reluctantly put Dennis up for adoption. Authorities assured her he would be going to a loving home.

Lois Jurgens was a homemaker and her husband, Harold Jurgens, was an electrician. Louis was a devout Christian, in her own eyes, and had an obsession with how she and Harold came across to those who knew them. The house was always spotless and the garden immaculate. She came across as the perfect housewife in suburban America. However, Lois and Harold couldn’t have a child. Due to Lois’ prior stint in a psychiatric hospital where she was diagnosed with mixed psychoneurosis, they had to adopt a child privately. Their adopted son, Robert, fit in well. From a young age, he knew to behave and be tidy to remain on the good side of his new mother. The adoption went so smoothly that authorities concluded that the Jurgens didn’t have to adopt privately. If they wanted to adopt again, they could use official channels.

The couple then adopted Dennis when he was just 1-year-old. From the minute he entered the home, he was greeted with a rainbow of bruises. As soon as Lois met him, she didn’t like him. He had spirit, as most toddlers do, and this infuriated Lois. She wanted a silent baby who could fit into her facade of the perfect family. She adopted him despite the fact she disliked him because she was concerned this would discourage the authorities from allowing them to adopt again. Within months, Dennis arrived at A&E with first and second degree burns on his genitalia. Lois claimed he had soiled himself so she put him in the sink where he then turned on the hot water. This explanation was accepted without qualms.

Once home, Dennis was abused and tormented immeasurably. If he didn’t eat his food, she tied him to the chair and shoved horseradish into his mouth, causing him to vomit. When he vomited, she forced him to eat it. Lois became obsessed with Dennis’ weight and resorted to calling him “Sloppy Fat” and frequently starved him when she wasn’t force feeding him. When Dennis wet his diaper, Lois would place a clothespin on his penis or bite his genitalia. At night, Dennis would be tied spread eagle to his bed so that he couldn’t move. When he went out, he was forced to wear sunglasses to conceal his black eyes.

At the age of three and a half, Dennis’ body finally gave in. It was the early morning hours of 11 April, 1965. It isn’t known what exactly killed Dennis. Was it one specific blow or an accumulation of the years of abuse? When Dennis died, he had zero body fat. His appearance equated to someone who had died from starvation. He had bite marks, scars, and lacerations all over his genitalia. He was bruised and cut from head to toe. At a time when authorities and society alike could not accept the concept of a child being the target of abuse in a middle-class home, his death was marked as “deferred.”

It wouldn’t be until 21 years later that Dennis got some form of justice. His birth mother decided to try and track him down and found that he had perished. Reading his death certificate, she demanded an investigation be opened. The trial was a soul-destroying one, with mortuary photographs of the battered boy being shown to the stunned jury. From the photographs alone it was evident he had been the victim of foul play. Furthermore, numerous witnesses came forward to report that they knew of the abuse but did nothing to stop it. They were afraid of Lois, they claimed, and because of this selfish fear, a three and a half year old was murdered over the course of two years. 

As it turned out, Lois had adopted four more children after the murder of Dennis. All of these children ran away and begged for help from neighbours after she abused them too. From slamming one’s face into a nail protruding from the wall to forcing them to standing naked out in the snow, the abuse was horrendous. Thankfully, these children were old enough to run away. Dennis wasn't so lucky. In 1987, Louis was sentenced to 25 years in prison. She was paroled in 1995 and went on to live a quiet life in Stillwater, Minnesota, with her husband who stood by her.

Eight measly years for the systematic torture and abuse of six children and the murder of one.

[thecoroutfitters]

Written by Guest Contributor on The Prepper Journal.

Editors Note: Another guest post from valknut79 to The Prepper Journal. A subject close to my constant mantra, and one where political correctness has NOT been factored in to be “fair” or spare any groups feelings. The absence of disclaimers is intentional. As always, if you have information for Preppers that you would like to share and possibly receive a $25 cash award as well as be entered into the next Prepper Writing Contest with a chance to win one of three Amazon Gift Cards  with the top prize being a $300 card to purchase your own prepping supplies, enter today!

“On a warm spring night, after eating dinner with friends and deciding to do a little late-night dancing, a young lady walks across the top floor of a well-lit parking garage.  She’s tired, worn out from the night of dancing and to help combat her fatigue, one hand is carrying a latte from the local late-night coffee joint down the road while her other hand fumbles in her purse.

Since it’s the top floor of the garage, there are few really good places to mount a security camera, so the ones that do exist are not able to capture much outside of the fact that behind her, a black-clad man with his hood up approaches her from behind as she unlocks her car door, and attacks.  Within seconds, he slams the back of her head, knocking her unconscious with his blow, if not with the ricochet of her head against the roof of the car.  Picking up her keys off the ground, throwing her inside the car bodily, he’s driving off through the garage, and is out of camera range very quickly to do…well, just about anything he wants.”

While this is a fictional situation, it’s the kind of thing that I’m starting to think about now that my daughter is going to be attending college in the big city.  She has basic skills in martial arts, an interest based on an activity that I required of her when she was a young teen, but doesn’t have a firearm and doesn’t carry any weapons in her purse.  What can she do to prevent this kind of attack?

3 Ways to Discourage Street Attacks

#1 – Situational Awareness & Mindfulness

Millennials often get a bad rap for being too tied into their phone, but it’s not only them. People of every age do it and they need to beware of the risks of making their way through life oblivious to those around them.  In a world where any kind of media is immediately available through so many channels, it’s easy to put your headphones in and enjoy a little entertainment on those lonely walks down the streets.  I love podcasts myself, and I know how easy it is to get lost in what the hosts are discussing and become engrossed to the point of making secondary the thoughts about where you are, where you’re going, what you planned on doing, and how you’re getting there.

Situational Awareness is simply the act of being constantly aware of what is happening around you.  It is essential in any kind of potentially dangerous situation to be mindful of what is happening around you, keeping a clear head, focusing on the present situation and your present environment.  Use as many of your senses as you can – listen to the ambient sounds, notice the smells of your environment, put your eyes and your head on a swivel, looking behind you every thirty seconds or so, and more often if entering a new environment.

I used the word “mindful” in the last paragraph, because Mindfulness is becoming a part of the zeitgeist of modern life as well.  This age-old concept is very simply a set of techniques designed to help you focus on the present moment, and what is happening around you – very similar to situational awareness.  Looking up some simple mindfulness exercises like “leaves on a stream” or even practicing basic meditation is a good way to help build your tolerance for long periods of being in the moment.

In the above situation, the young lady who was attacked likely had no idea that there was someone else on the roof of the parking garage, much less that he was following her, even as closely as he would have had to in order to attack so quickly.  Having no situational awareness, and likely being lost in a world of her own thoughts or in cell phone music or audio programs was her first big mistake.  Had she been looking around, aware of her situation, and perhaps even made eye contact with the attacker on her way towards her car, she may have done enough to encourage him to choose a different target.

#2 – Providing Disinformation

If you were an attacker who wanted to prey on someone, would you choose a man or a woman to attack?  Young or middle aged?

Almost everyone would choose a young female. The reasons are simple – she’s less likely to have any interest in martial arts or combat sports, she’s probably smaller and less muscular than her male counterparts, she likely carries more cash or valuable jewelry, and is stereotyped as being more naïve by the media and society at large.  Whether any specific female fits those categories is unimportant, its true that the simple act of being a female makes you a bigger target.

Being a young female isn’t something you can control.  Or is it?

No transgender stuff here.  But it’s possible, highly likely even, that the attacker in the above situation has done at least a small amount of research on this car he found on the top floor of a parking garage late at night, and it’s surprising what you can figure out about someone based on their car.

Does she have custom vanity license plates?  If so, those are generally a strong indicator that this is a female, unless the plates say something decidedly masculine like “GUNDUDE8” or “PREP MAN”.  If he peeks inside and sees custom leopard print seat covers, a steering wheel cover, or fuzzy dice on the rearview mirror, then assumptions can easily be made.   Other information can be gleanes as well.  If he sees a Victoria’s Secrets bag in your passenger seat, then what’s he going to assume?  The contents of your backseat can tell a lot about a person.  Makeup bags, the presence of an infant car seat or a booster, bumper stickers – all of these things say something about you, and help attackers decide if you’re a good target. While they don’t all “scream” female, they do all scream “unfocused” or having their concentration distracted by errands, a child, whatever. We are all guilty of this, especially in places we have frequented where “nothing has ever happened.” Reality is it only has to happen once to be life altering.

The worst offenders of the car customization market are the stick figures that populate the back windows of far too many cars.  Sure, they’re kind of cute, but they give way too much information about who you are, who is in your family, their ages and their interests.  If you have a single woman with two children on there, chances are that you’re coming out to your car either alone, or with two little ankle biters who are occupying all of your attention.

The best tip I’ve heard for single young women who are at risk for being attacked near their car is to give would-be attackers plenty of disinformation designed to encourage them to choose a different target.  A big, well-worn pair of men’s athletic shoes in the back seat, or a duffel bag covered in visible weight-lifting patches and karate logos will go a long way towards indicating to any smart criminals that the person who owns this vehicle is not to be trifled with.

Bumper stickers are also a good way to dissuade people.  Pro-gun bumper stickers, particularly if they endorse concealed carry, are a good place to start, as are indicators that you’re interested in things like MMA, wrestling, martial arts, or bodybuilding, whether you are or not. I have heard the counter-argument, that people “looking for guns to steal” look for cars with an NRA sticker (USMC emblem, etc.) The normal pattern of such a person is to follow you home to see what house to target for a robbery, when they observe you have left the premises. Yes, most people like this have gun safes – do you put your bedside go-to weapon in your gun safe every time you leave your house?

Spiked dog collars are also a simple thing to throw in the backseat.  While that might not be something that will dissuade an attacker in the aforementioned situation, it will work wonders for dissuading attackers spying on your car in a park, forest preserve or who might be looking at your home as a potential target.

Use your normal routine and patterns to decide what kinds of things you want to decorate with, or stash in your car. Understanding the places where you’re likely to be attacked will provide the best understanding of what will work best for you.

#3 – Just do it

People who prey on others are often quite a bit smarter than you might think.  Most have done their homework, and having looked inside your car to find evidence that you may be a very strong male or have a very large dog, might be smart enough to avoid you as a potential attackee.  Despite this, an often cited fact about criminals shows that most crimes that are committed in the US are crimes not borne from passion or careful thinking, but simply crimes of opportunity.

The attacker in the situation above may have been in line behind her in the coffee shop and noticed a $100 bill in her wallet, and taken the chance to follow her.  He may have just been a normal guy walking to his own car when he had a desperate feeling that he could get something from her.  Sometimes, the criminals will ignore any evidence of misinformation you provide, or maybe they’ve cased your car before and seen through your deception.

Sometimes, you just have to fight.  Or at least look like you’re ready for a fight.

Many will advise keeping some kind of weapon in the purse, and it’s hard to deny that this would be a good idea, but I would adovcate that, if not well trained in the use of a knife, pepper spray, a pistol, or whatver weapon might make sense for a young lady to carry, that weapon will be useless.  It might also function as a distraction – it’s mere existance forcing the attacked person to spend valuable reaction time digging around for the weapon instead of running, adopting a defensive posture, striking back, finding some other form of help, or doing almost anything else that may be more productive in helping the situation.

Instead, the simple act of looking ready for a fight is good enough.  Stand up straighter when you walk, turn your head when you look, not just your eyes.  Proactively say hi to people on the street to indicate that you notice them, as this can unnerve criminals who are doing their best to avoid notice.

Remember that if the need arises to defend yourself, it is nearly impossible to do so without a free hand.  If you carry a purse, consider keeping your hand inside it as you walk, not fishing for anything, but as if you’re holding onto something.  The fear of the unknown weapon in your hand may do enough to scare someone off.

Anyone, female or not, would also do well to consider what kinds of objects that you keep on your person and how they may be used as a weapon.  Pocket knives are an obvious choice, but making a fist around your car keys creates a deadly combination of striking and slashing weapons that can do serious damage.  Aerosol deodorant or hair spray is not a great choice, but it can certainly burn the eyes of an attacker if you get lucky.  Using the small, rounded edge of a hairbrush as a striking tool can be helpful to those who don’t have a lot of experience using their fists to punch, and it will likely cause more damage if you don’t already have any martial arts training.

Before exiting the stairwell or elevator, this young women should have had her keys ready in her dominant hand, with the key poking out through her middle and index finger, her hand in a fist.  Even with an improper strike, this will cause damage to any attacker.  That’s a nice easy weapon to carry that will do the damage, doesn’t require specific training, and will help you stay safe out there in the big bad city. And for those of us with “electronic key bobs”, consider investing in some sharp jewelry/bottle-opener thingy’s to add to the key ring. Also, never forget your extended thumb forward when making a fist as this can be devastating to an eye, a throat, even a kidney. Then again, there is this.

  The post Never Be Situation Unaware appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

from The Prepper Journal Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

[takespaceblog]

But you’re an actor

While a number of my college friends are also entering B-school this fall, I’m a bit of a novelty. Not only did I choose a school 5000 miles away when there are multiple world-class universities a train ride from my home, but I’m an actor.

Both artist and non-artist friends responded with confusion when I mentioned my upcoming plans. Some assumed I had given up on the theatre, some blatantly told me not to do it or that I was selling out, and still others wondered why I hadn’t chosen an arts management degree. When interviewing I spent more time defending my choice than actually discussing my work experience in Silicon Valley. And now that I’m in Cambridge and interacting with new classmates, I’ve found it best not to mention acting right away because their reactions are the same.

So before we go any further on this B-school blog let me officially explain my thinking.

First, some background.

In May 2014, I took a job at Metromile—a thirty person startup hoping to disrupt the auto industry by offering pay-per-mile car insurance. When I joined it had all the makings of stereotypical startup. There were free snacks and beer kegs in the kitchen, the office was in a converted art gallery and I sat on the floor my first day of work, and there were only five other women at the company.  While car insurance was never my passion it was an adventure that challenged me in unexpected ways. I wrote a script to sell policies to Spanish speaking customers because no one else knew Spanish. When the power went out we went to a co-working space and sold policies from a glorified coffee shop. I helped build products that previously did not exist. During my tenure the company tripled in size, I joined the leadership to team of the claims department, and I became an insurance wiz.

But let’s be honest, car insurance and auto claims were never my thing no matter how hard I tried. I initially took the job because I had less than a year until my 26th birthday— i.e. Obamacare D-Day for those luckily enough to mooch of their parents’ health insurance until they age out. Acting rarely pays the bills in the U.S. and the Bay Area is especially expensive so performing was never going to support me let alone provide insurance. I needed a survival job and after three years of working side gigs delivering groceries, I wanted one that required a little brainpower.

That being said, my two and half years at Metromile were positive and I left with an unexpected thought — if an ancient and behemoth industry like auto insurance could be disrupted, what would happen if similar principles were applied to the theatre?

So many start theatre companies out of love for the craft but without any business knowledge. Though the motivation is noble, it makes running a company in an environment already unwelcoming to artists nearly impossible. Artists know they won’t make enough so they take survival jobs and accept stipends that barely cover transportation costs for their creative work. Companies know they don’t have to pay their artists more than a few hundred dollars so their goal is simply to break even. While the Actor’s Equity Union requires a higher level of pay, companies often don’t hire those actors discouraging artists from joining the union. No one is to blame. It’s a vicious cycle and the status quo but in a city like San Francisco that is swimming in extra cash, it’s almost embarrassing.

Furthermore, it perpetuates the stereotype that an artist needs to be “starving” to be creative.  In arguing for the importance of copyright—which I’d posit provides a similar protection to work that a union provides to a performer— Matthew Barlan states in Copyright as a Platform for Artistic and Creative Freedom that “as popular as the ‘starving artist’ cliché may be, real artists need food. Meeting artists’ basic needs goes a long way towards empowering them to create their art.”

While the idea of simply having enough money for food may seem extreme, actors in the Bay Area would not be able to feed themselves on the stipends granted by most companies let alone pay the rent. And yet Silicon Valley is swimming in expendable income. It’s not as if the audiences can’t afford to attend the theatre. When Hamilton came to town, patrons were guaranteed tickets if they became season subscribers to SHN — the production company that houses all traveling Broadway shows. Membership ran from $300-$800 for six shows which was a steel considering everyone else shelled out that much for one ticket to Hamilton.

Of course, some will argue that Hamilton is not the same as an average Bay Area or regional theatre production. My answer to that requires a whole other post, but in short, Hamilton’s success proves San Francisco and the nation are interested in the theatre. It’s simply a question of getting them there.

The solution, of course, is complicated and I don’t pretend to know the answer. It isn’t simply in marketing—though if theatres approached marketing with a minuscule amount of the analytical obsession that comes at a startup we’d be getting closer. No, the answer lies in something larger and that is what why I hope to find or least begin to grasp in business school. I want to learn from other industries, from the successful theatres in England, and from my diverse classmates.  And one day I hope to bring back what I learn to the Bay Area, because I believe in the work and the artists and the community.

Today’s Take Space spotlight is on Elizabeth Gilbert and her book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. If you haven’t heard of Big Magic, you’ve probably heard of her other little book - Eat Pray Love. As a young snobby high school student, I immediately dismissed Eat Pray Love and Gilbert because nothing commercially successful can also be good. Oh to be 18 (I’m sure I’ll say the same thing in 10 years about being 28). To be honest, I still haven’t gotten around to Eat Pray Love but I listened to the Big Magic during my months of writer’s block and found it inspiring despite it’s self-help aura.

While writing this post, I knew I once read a quote about the danger of the starving artist stereotype and was convinced Gilbert said it. I picked a copy of the book and while searching for the quote remembered how many nuggets of wisdom she offers on living a healthy creative life. Whether you want/can be a full-time artist or not, I highly recommend reading Big Magic and coming back to it when you’re feeling stuck or emo about your work.

Now, it turns out she is actually very pro day jobs, but she did make a great point about the starving artist’s brother—the tortured artist—that we all need to remember when creating. 

I’ve never been attracted to the icon of the Tormented Artist...How does creativity possibly benefit from that arrangement? When Dylan Thomas dies there are no more Dylan Thomas poems; that channel is silenced forever, terribly...There’s a hole in our world from all the art those people didn’t make—there is a whole in us from the loss of their work—and I can’t imagine this was ever anyone’s divine plan.

With that, I leave you to prepare for my first day of school tomorrow! Excuse me while I freak out a bit. But coming up next — why Cambridge and not somewhere a little closer to home? 

[theonyxpath]

Vampire: The Requiem

Half-Damned for Vampire just finished its post-editing development phase, and is entirely in the art process now. So today, courtesy of Vampire developer Danielle Lauzon, I’d like to present a day in the life of a dhampir.

A typical day in the life of a dhampir will look very different for a dhampir deeply immersed in the All Night Society, compared to one who instead spends her nights hunting monsters. And for those who know nothing of their heritage and nature, things are different yet again.

Dhampir in the Dark

Dhampir have carved out their own place in the nocturnal world, though they always stand apart from — and the covenants often place them beneath — Kindred. Most statuses Kindred can achieve are also achievable for dhampir, with the notable exceptions of joining the Invictus, along with a few specific roles in the Circle of the Crone and among the Sanctified.

That said, dhampir face their own problems, chief of which is their reputation as murderers and renegades. Relatively few dhampir hunt vampires (though proportionally more often than mortals, their low numbers mean dhampir hunters are still few and far between), but these few, along with their depictions in myths and pop culture, have earned the dhampir some measure of wary respect from their wholly damned family. A dhampir among vampires has a threat profile higher than it should justifiably be, and that means he must watch his back constantly, or someone might just stick a knife there.

That said, a large portion of these dhampir have a patron in the form of their Kindred parent, affording them some measure of protection. So long as they stay on daddy’s good side, any strike against the dhampir is an attack on the vampire, which discourages excessive adventurism. Of course, this protection comes at the cost of independence, as these dhampir mostly have their whole lives regimented by their parents, who after all had them for a reason; at the very least, they must run errands fairly frequently.

Parentless dhampir have more freedom, but pay for it in danger. They have given up a bit of safety for a great deal of liberty, but that safety is vital for survival in such a dangerous environment. For this reason, independent Society dhampir usually cultivate strong friends, often trying to find a coterie to fit into or enough minor vampires to lean on to secure their places.

Dhampir also prize mundane resources — money and secular power can buy a lot of conventional security, and are also tempting for Kindred. And being able to provide things some vampires want or need, such as rare films or drugs at a reasonable price, can buy some measure of loyalty from vampires who don’t want to see their valued supplier run dry of goods because they ran dry of blood.

Dhampir at Dusk

Though those dhampir who hunt their full-blooded kind are a minority by far, the dhampir vampire killer is a frightening prospect. To the Kindred, it recalls the stories of the 70s California Eagle Killer who left behind a feather with every headless Kindred body, and Pyre Jack, who burnt his vampire cousins on the stake throughout Birmingham’s 1910s — or even the legendary Blood-Stained Cavalier who menaced newly-founded St. Petersburg’s nocturnal population, mortal and vampire alike, in the 1700s.

Some dhampir hunt like normal humans do, fighting with a group of like-minded sorts, while some hunt solo, relying on their own cunning as well as Breaks and Malisons to provide the needed edge over their Kindred quarry. Whatever the case, dhampir hunters draw upon their tainted blood often and early, either from natural inclination, or from having learned the hard way how close a thing their chosen path often is. They stand with one leg in the daylit world and one leg in damnation, trying to turn their monstrous side into a weapon while also fighting against its influence.

Known dhampir hunters not only face the fear and hatred of the Kindred, but are viewed askance by fully human hunters as well. To have vampire blood in one’s veins is to be part of the darkness that hunters are trying to put out, to be impure and potentially dangerous — in short, to be a monster. And perhaps that monster is useful, and perhaps that’s enough to make it a compatriot in the struggle. But then again, is it worth the risk? Most hunters consider fellow hunter groups containing dhampir to be inherently compromised “cancer cells” because of their presence, and not many dhampir can honestly say they feel safe in the presence of their comrades-in-arms.

Some dhampir have formed a group called the Boogeymen, focused on hunting vampires using their innate corrupt gifts. The name comes from the fearsome reputation a dhampir hunter can enjoy among vampires, and is symbolic of the irreverent, sometimes reckless, tactics they use. To be a Boogeyman leads to a short life expectancy, keeping the group’s numbers low. Each city generally has at most one cell, and its members can usually be counted on one hand, with the total number of cells probably numbering roughly a dozen. The group operates in a “honeycomb” structure, with independent cells which keep in touch via highly secure online channels, forming more of a movement than a true organization. This allows the Boogeymen as a whole to survive despite the elimination of a cell by their Kindred enemies being a fairly frequent occasion.

The Boogeymen’s lack of respect for their trade and their enemies is mirrored by their lack of respect for themselves. Redemption is a common theme in Boogeyman ideology: vampirism is the ultimate sin and evil, and being tainted by Kindred blood makes them into monsters and inferior beings. They accept mortal members as well, but in a distinctly secondary and somewhat patronizing role — mortal lives are fragile and precious, to be protected and placed on a pedestal.

The Boogeymen also willingly provide help and support for independent dhampir hunters, though association with other hunter groups is often enough to make them cut the connection.

They are loud, proud, and rowdy, and not too concerned with making absolutely sure they have the right target. To them, hunting is basically an extreme sport bound up with psychological issues surrounding redemption and inferiority, and that redemption can only be found in dying for the right cause. No Boogeymen parties are quite as raucous as their wakes.

Dhampir in Daylight

The mortal lives of dhampir can seem quite similar to their fully mortal relatives and friends, but the taint of darkness has a way of making its presence felt. Even a life entirely untouched by anything else still takes on a decidedly vampiric shade, as dhampir are troubled people at the best of times.

It all begins in the teenage years. Already difficult enough for most kids, the dhampir finds herself developing strange powers and dark moods that just don’t fit with what her peers are going through. The powers might seem neat at first, but eventually, she begins to realize that her conscious control over them is limited.

When her mother dies in a car accident, the young dhampir can feel it deep in her blood. She knew it before it happened, she knows it before she is told, and that argument she had with her mother last night? The one where the kid said she wished she’d never been born and she wished that her mother was dead? She knows things occasionally just happen around her when she wants them to — did she kill her mother?

Ominous events surround a dhampir even when fully adult. Things don’t turn out quite right, she gets what she wants but not how she wants it. Sometimes, she can feel something deep and dark inside her stirring, something monstrous — to a dhampir, the idea that everyone has a dark side is much more direct and immediate, and that dark side is terrifying.

Dhampir tend to end relationships and lose jobs. Even the best-adjusted dhampir every so often snaps and does something stupid, and afterwards, for the life of her, she can’t remember why. It was pointless, out of character maybe, and she didn’t want to act that way before or after. It’s like possession, lashing out for no reason and every reason because something else took over for a bit.

Adult dhampir with no idea of their heritage tend to suspect something. They’re not quite normal, but they have no idea why. Their “symptoms” only vaguely match certain conditions, but if they try to get treatment, it’s entirely worthless. Therapy can help, but when the therapist has no idea what’s going on with his patient, it only goes so far.

Dhampir who know of, but reject, their ancestry fare slightly better. They at least know what’s wrong with them, even though they can’t do much about it. A few resources exist for dhampir to cope with their rare state, online and in the form of dhampir therapists who help others of their kind through the rough spots, but these are hard to find and by necessity hidden and obscure. A dhampir needs to be clever and resourceful, or be in touch with other unusual sorts, to find these things. Most never do.

The dhampir blood does not breed true, and creating a family can sometimes be difficult both in terms of keeping partnerships and raising children. Often dhampir choose to be child-free for fear of messing someone else up as much as they are. Sometimes two dhampir will try to make a family together, but the rarity of two being in the same place at the same time makes this unlikely in the extreme.

[lifegivesyoulennonn]

Artists Chapter 2

Here’s Chapter 2!! Sorry it took me so long, but I hope to be updating more frequently now! Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

A/N: This is purely fictional, I do not own characters or songs

CHAPTER 2 John Lennon looked up and down at the young lad who had just knocked on the door. He had dark brown eyes with thick eyelashes and a round,  baby-like face with freckles dotting his cheeks and nose. Inspecting his features, John would say the boy even had a touch of femininity to him, features that not many males their age possessed. He was a charming lad, anyone with eyes could see. However, as John studied him, he noticed the boy was sweating slightly and wouldn’t look John directly in the eyes. John figured it was because he was either shy or in the wrong place.

“Well are ya a mute or somethin’?” John asked with a hint of sarcasm in his voice, attempting to make light of the situation. “What’s yer name, mate?”

“P-P-Paul,” the boy stammered. “Paul McCartney.”

“Lookie there, he can talk! Well Paul McCartney, what can I do for ya?” As John said his name, the boy called Paul finally made eye contact with him. Paul had deep brown irises and bright white eyes that contrasted with the purple that lightly tinted the skin underneath. As if drawn to his eyes by some magnetic force, John found it difficult to look away or even blink. However, when Paul began speaking, John was able to once again come back to the present situation.

“I’m, uh, looking for Ivan. He told me I could watch the Quarrymen practice and perform. Have you seen him?” Paul asked.

Before John could respond, the boy in question, Ivan, appeared behind John and smiled at Paul.

“Hiya Paul, glad you could make it! We’re just messing about right now, but we’re getting ready to start playin’ here soon. Come on in.” With that, Paul entered the small room past John and Ivan. The room was small, barely fitting the boys and their instruments. It seemed to be one of the children’s Sunday School rooms, as there were colorful posters with Bible verses hanging on the walls and the chairs the band was sitting on were a bit too small for them to sit on properly.

As John and Ivan went back to their instruments and tiny chairs, John noticed that Paul had meandered to the back corner of the room and was just standing there, gawking at the boys awkwardly. John observed  this, and wanting to relax the situation and the boy’s nerves, stood and told Paul to sit in his seat.

Paul looked at him with an almost scared look on his face. “No, that’s alright. I d’wanna cause any trouble.”

“No trouble t’all,” John smiled. “Me legs were gettin’ tired of all the sittin’ anyway. Go on an’ sit, son.” With that, Paul nodded and took John’s seat, the band now surrounding him.

Ivan, also sensing Paul’s apprehensiveness, thought it best to introduce Paul to the rest of the boys. He named them off one by one, telling Paul their name and what instrument they played. Each member smiled politely at Paul or shook his hand as they were introduced, and the atmosphere quickly became more relaxed between Paul and the Quarrymen. The boys in the band were nice, and they wanted to make Paul feel welcome. It wasn’t very often that a boy their age took interest in music or bands. Paul obviously had some interest in rock-n-roll, so he was well received by the band. Ivan waited to introduce Paul to John last, knowing John was all about spectacles and impressions.

“And last but not least, Paul, meet our fearless leader, the lead singer of The Quarrymen, whom you’ve already noticed loves a good laugh, is none other than John Lennon,” Ivan said, mockingly bowing toward John who was now leaning against the wall, smirking.

“Ta for that, Ivan, and don’t you be forgettin’ I’m the leader.” John laughed as he jokingly shoved Ivan’s shoulder. Looking at Paul again, John said, “But yeh, like he said, I’m John.”

“John Lennon,” Paul said his name slowly, with what sounded like  a hint of amazement in his voice. “Nice t’meet ya. Uh, thanks fer lettin’ me watch yer band. I’d love to be in a band myself someday.”

“Wait,” John took a step closer to Paul, narrowing his eyes. “Do ya play music?” John was interested to see if this boy with the intriguing eyes could be even more intriguing behind the eyes.

“Uh, yeah,” Paul started, breaking eye contact and looking down. “I play the guitar and piano.”

John felt he was a fortune-teller; he had sensed just from looking into Paul’s eyes that they were kindred spirits somehow, and here was the reason. The most important reason: music. John could hear the earnestness in Paul’s voice talking about playing instruments and wanting to be in a band. Paul McCartney understood. John hardly ever met anyone close to his age who knew how to play an intrument, let alone more than one. John quickly sensed the two’s common interest would create a bond between them. If only he knew how true that statement was.

*****************

John Lennon had always been different, an outsider, set apart. He supposed it was because his brain had  been wired differently than everyone else in the world, and maybe this was so, but it had made it near impossible for John to relate to people. John always wanted to question absolutes and defy authorities, even as a child, and he was scolded immensely for it by the adults that surrounded him. He had no desire to follow rules or conform to patterns, and for this he was looked down upon by both his peers and their parents. Any friend John would try and make would quickly be taken away from him because their parents could not understand John, and therefore would not give him a chance and would discourage their child from interacting with him. Of course, this only made John want to rebel even more. If they didn’t trust him or like him, why the hell would he feel any different towards them?

However, as much as John loved to rebel, he realized he needed social interaction, needed people to share his  life with. Though he questioned everything and strived to overcome all odds he faced, he longed for companions, someone to divulge the most hidden parts of himself. He wanted to show someone the side of John Lennon no one ever got to see, like that he loved to draw and was quite good at it. Or that at night he can’t help but just stare up at the sky and gaze at the stars, secretly wishing he was residing among them. John had had acquaintances throughout his life, but they were mostly kids who looked up to him because he said aloud what everyone was thinking or kids who liked to rebel for the sake of rebelling. John, however, revolted to find meaning and answers to his life, because surely his life meant more than what he was currently feeling.

John knew he had to find something about himself that he could use to his advantage to make friends.

One night, when John was about fifteen, he noticed that he could sing along in tune to the songs that played on the radio. He began to sing along aloud to every song he knew, and learn the songs he didn’t. He became determined to master any and every song he could get his hands on, and would sing at the top of his lungs when he was sure no one could hear him. Music became his outlet, his source of channeling his pain and confusion of his life.

However one day, when he was singing along to one of his favorite Isley Brother songs, his aunt came into the house and heard him singing. She went upstairs to his room, but stayed outside his closed door until the song was finished. When the record ended, she softly knocked and opened his door, tears brimming in her eyes.

“John Lennon, I didn’t know ya could sing so well,” she smiled proudly at him.

John, however, felt embarrassed and flustered, and demanded she leave his room at once. Although secretly, he felt good to know that someone else approved of his vocals. He could actually sing well! For once, someone agreed with him and he didn’t feel silly for working so hard to learn to sing all those songs. He knew this would be the way to finally find freedom.

From that point on, John decided it was time to make his voice known to the public. He figured that was the way he could get people to understand him and his thoughts. He started the Quarrymen with some boys he knew from town, and worked them day and night trying to perfect their sound and get them noticed. To him, music wasn’t just about sounding good, it was about perfection and doing what had never been done before. His bandmates quickly became his friends, like he had always wanted, but he still felt like he couldn’t open up to them the way he so longed to open up to someone.

In fact, this Paul McCartney lad was the first one he felt he might have a chance to completely open up to. However, John, being as skeptical as he had always been, began to question the genuity of Paul McCartney before he was let down once again. Things always seemed to good to be true. Why should this time be any different?

“Ya know Paul McCartney,” John glared at the boy with intimidation. “Bein’ in a band is more about knowin’ how t’play instruments. Ya gotta have presence. Talent. Somethin’ that no one else can contribute t’ the band. Do y’have that son? Because if y’don’t, ya might as well kiss that dream of bein’ in a band right goodbye.”

John slightly smirked, challenging the boy. Would he retaliate?

At first, Paul sat looking down, taking in all that John had just said. John thought he had hurt the boys feelings, and just as he started to feel a bit guilty when Paul suddenly stood up and marched up to John until he was inches from his face.

“Listen here John Lennon,” Paul said loudly, unafraid, looking John right in the eyes. “I have more talent than you could ever muster. Just because you boss around these lads all day and call yourself a lead singer doesn’t mean you know shit about me or anything else about being in a band. I’ve got plenty talent, and I don’t need you to try and tell me if I do or don’t. You know nothing about me. Nothing.”

John was taken aback as he stared wide-eyed at the boy in front of him, angry and breathing heavy. He was speechless; no one had ever dared speak to him that way. He was John fucking Lennon, rebel without a cause. He yelled, he contradicted, he fought,  he was the one no one knew anything about. Something stirred in John, a feeling he didn’t quite recognize. Staring at the boy, he once again became aware of his eyes again, and how easy it was for him to just gaze into them without looking for an ending. This boy was turning his world upside down and he hadn’t even known him ten minutes.

The two boys stared at eachother for what seemed an eternity before Paul spoke again.

“Don’t have anything to say now do ya, Lennon? Not used to someone actually standing up to yer gimmicks? Do ya even have a lick of talent?” This pulled John out of his trance.

“Well then, Mister McCartney,” John mockingly addressed him, guard back up, “why don’t ya prove me wrong? There’s a piano right here, show me what yeh got, son.” John gestured to the piano, and Paul walked over to it confidently. If he was nervous at all, John couldn’t tell, which annoyed yet intrigued him all the more.

All eyes were on Paul now as he sat at the piano. He had stood up to John in a way no one ever had before, in a way the boys of the band would have never even dreamed of doing. John never took his eyes off of Paul as the boy seemed to think about what song he would perform. After a few seconds, Paul began to play a familiar tune that John knew that instant Paul’s fingers collided with the keys.

Paul began playing Long Tall Sally by Little Richard with such fervor and confidence; he was a natural rock and roll star. John couldn’t help the grin that creeped across his face from ear to ear as Paul continued to play, as if there was no one else in the room. The shy stuttering boy that had walked into the room had transformed into a full blown performer destined for the stage.

As Paul continued to play, John watched and took it all in. This boy was it, the real deal. John had found someone to keep up with him, someone who wasn’t afraid to speak up to him and had more talent than that of any of the other boys in the band. John didn’t really believe in fate or destiny, but if he had, he supposed that Paul had been brought to John for a reason.

John let his heart take over his head as he went to sit beside Paul, moving him over to make room for the both of them on the small bench. Paul didn’t skip a beat and kept playing and belting the tune, while John was suddenly struggling with the fact that their thighs were touching and an electric current had consumed him. But Paul didn’t flinch or move away; he just continued to play the song in his own world.

After a few seconds, John regained his grip on reality and began to play the upper harmony and sing along with Paul. For the first time since sitting down at the piano, Paul skipped a beat, and glanced briefly at John before joining back in. As they continued to play, the rest of the room faded away and it was only the two of them, voices dancing together intricately in beautiful harmony while they’re hands on the piano followed suit. John’s voice had never meshed with anyone elses this perfectly, it was truly a musical match made in heaven. John thought Paul must have been thinking something similar, because he heard a smile in Paul’s voice while he was singing, making himself smile. They played together for a few more minutes before slowly coming to close, out of breath but smiling like they both knew that moment had been something special for the both of them.

“Ya sure know how t’prove a guy wrong, Paul McCartney,” John laughed as Paul chuckled and turned to look at him. They caught each other’s gaze, and for the third time that afternoon they were confined to merely staring into each other’s eyes, not saying a word but understanding each other completely.

For the first time in his life, John Lennon decided not to argue against fate and decided to just believe in what was right in front of him.