#can't get these in higher res without paying for them at the moment

[seasonal-writes]

If you want to, please elaborate on tango and impulse... their dynamic is so so good<3

-🍂

well i meaaan.. if you really wannaa heaaar.. cracks knuckles SO. essentially, if it wasn't obvious, Tango and Impulse have been attached at the hip for a LOOOONG time in this canon. Impulse's official "title" is like, Personal Guard to the Heir. His only assignment, unless stated otherwise, is to ensure Tango's safety and well-being—meaning they practically "grew up" together because he was constantly tailing him and keeping watch. so you can imagine they know each other veeery well, because Tango's had Impulse as a guard for like, ten or so years? they're genuine friends, of course! best friends, i'd even say, asss tango was actually lowkey a recluse/kinda sheltered? so he'd interact with whoever he had in the castle's vicinity in the Nether, and that happened to be Impulse. so this random, older kid's assigned as his guard and tango's like "it's free real estate" and YES they used to get into trouble together. Impulse has turned his head at maaany of Tango's shenanigans, and Tango never stood for Impulse being punished for anything by higher ups. And when they tried to find Tango someone else after too many convenient "I just wasn't paying attention"'s from Impulse, Tango had a melt. down. That was the first time Impulse ever saw Tango have a real moment of rage, and you can imagine that there were more than just a few scorched painting to deal with, and that Impulse was immediately re-instated as his personal guard. i was actually JUST talking to a friend of mine about how it's canon that Impulse is a few years older than Tango, and he was given this position while training to be an official knight. so i always look SO FONDLY on the image of a tall and quiet, awkward young Impulse with a training sword next to an equally-as-awkward teenage Tango at like, parties and events 'n things. we were making jokes that Tango turns to him like "You gotta start talkin' to some people, buddy. You look too scary." and Impulse is just like "I don't get paid enough to talk to people." It's so funny to me, and that definitely says a TON about their dynamic. Impulse is definitely still quiet, but they're very chatty in private moments—which I tried to capture in chapter six. Impulse is literally a shadow when he's around more than just his prince, and i love the aesthetic of that claim with his blackstone armor and wallflower tendencies. But if there is even a slight change in Tango's tone to indicate discomfort, he's hovering right behind him with a glint in his eye and his weapon drawn. He's also bulkier and a little taller than Tango, too. So he's intimidating as hell.<33 ANYWAY. they're very close. and while Tango might not see it all the time, Impulse is insanely devoted to him. Like, Impulse would die before he let Tango get hurt, he'd break any rule and go to jail before even a hair on his head was disturbed. It's your usual Knight and Prince dynamic, but instead they're long-time best friends and the selflessness is cranked up to an 11. I also have this idea that Impulse doesn't know what he'll do without Tango to watch over. Sure, position change. Sure, there will be changes. But his purpose has been one thing for so long, and i'm sure the idea of Tango running away would be wildly devastating to him. so uh. do with this information what you will. i love them so much and i'd fully recommend sitting and thinking about all the scenarios of two goofy childhood buddies being put into things beyond their age, but still having each other at the end of the day. Or defending each other. Or just being soft pals. i'm so normal about them, can't you tell?

i'm also SO sorry for how long this is, holy cow. i just get very excited about all the characters and these two are a special case to me.

[travelerontheedge17]

Hannah Waddingham looking fabulous and being a dork while bowing down to Sarah Snook at the "Succession" European Premiere

[sodacansculptures]

Hello, everyone!!

Just wanted to give an update on my life and my absence. It is a bit depressing, so feel free to skip the rest of this post. I am on mobile and do not know how to do a "read more", so I apologize.

The TL;DR version is that I have been struggling with unemployment for over a year (thanks, covid) and have become very discouraged in my efforts, and I am essentially in survival mode while battling depression. I do have a therapist and I know I will ultimately be okay--just not having a particularly good time at the moment.

The full version is that in 2018, finishing grad school became my top priority and was why I had to take a break from sculpting. I graduated in May of 2020 with my Master's, and I had a job lined up with a university, but it got withdrawn because the whole university shut down. As far as I know, the position was never re-offered or re-posted.

The industries for which my degrees qualify me and that I am pursuing were highly affected by budget cuts and project cancelations due to the pandemic, so they have many displaced workers seeking reentry into the field, resulting in unusually high numbers of applicants and competition for people such as myself. (USA Today actually interviewed me for my expertise on this topic.)

Lower-tier jobs pass over me because I am overqualified and they assume I will be pursuing other employment, leaving them with turnover, which is expensive to any agency. Higher-tier jobs are in high demand as they offer better wages and better working conditions, so they have a large crop of candidates from which to pick and elect someone with more experience than myself (and obviously I cannot gain more experience without employment). I am in a sort of impossible situation that has left everyone involved in my employment search with frustration.

Over the past year, I have enlisted the help of an employment training/retention program and multiple staffing agencies, and they have been extremely supportive of me and helped me expand my network. I have sought out much help, and I am endlessly grateful to have support, but unfortunately there is little they can do more than what I have already been doing for myself to gain employment.

I have a stellar resume, an awesome number of favorable and practical references, and I always study the agency and position to which I am applying so I can write an informed cover letter and have relevant talking points during interviews. I put a lot of time and effort into every opportunity, and when I inquire for feedback, employers repeatedly tell me that they admire my resourcefulness and work ethic and think I would be an extremely valuable worker, but another candidate just had a little more experience. It is heartbreaking to know I have done my best and interviewed excellently but ultimately end up back at square one. I honestly wish there was something I was doing wrong so that there was something tangible I could improve to fix my situation.

My effort feels invisible to the outside world and it seems the public assumes I am on a sort of easy vacation. In reality, every day for me is full of uncertainty, and every day, I wish I could be working. I get by utilizing my skills from high school robotics and self-instruction via the internet to repair, restore, and upgrade old electronics, but it is not stable work and not for what I went to school.

Additionally, I have been deemed not to qualify for Unemployment for a nonsensical rationalization. They ask for employment history in order to calculate how much to pay, but for some reason, student jobs do not count as jobs to them. So although they have me in their system as having been employed as a graduate assistant, they both demand to know from my previous employer what that wage was (and the institution would not forward that wage information to Unemployment because it is a student job and irrelevant to Unemployment's calculations), and would not consider that, anyway, in how much to pay me. So essentially, Unemployment could not figure out how much to pay me, so they just decided not to. I have opened appeals over the situation with them twice, and I have been rejected twice and had the case closed with no opportunity to reopen it. It is a huge slap in the face that even the social system put in place to help people such as myself has failed me and turned me away.

I would take a factory job or do some other physical labor since those are hiring, but I have plantar fasciitis and being on my feet for more than an hour or so at a time just is not feasible for me. I was receiving physical therapy for it at one point, but insurance stopped covering it because they decided I should have had enough visits by now to have recovered. I'm also struggling to get my insurance to cover things like treatment for GERD, which makes eating anything at all a nightmare to deal with.

I have been getting by mostly on pity from family and friends. I do not have unnecessary things like wifi, and I have a lot of expenses I had been putting off because I assumed I would have a job by now (such as a vacuum cleaner. Mine is broken). It kills me to ask for money because it's embarrassing for me that I can't provide for myself, and I got into the field of public administration because I want to be a servant to the people and help them have resources and money, not take money from them.

If you don't have a lot of money, please keep it for yourself. I'm not hurting that badly that I would want to put others in a precarious situation. But if you have a little change you'd like to spare for me (and absolutely no pressure. If I receive nothing, I will still be okay), my Venmo and my PayPal are each @asclw7643. Any little bit would help and I'd be greatly appreciative.

Finally, I did finish that project I was posting about last year in my previous post. I want to post a photo of it, but I can't seem to locate where I put it at the moment. It's Kicks from Animal Crossing. I wanted to do a series of wooden block sprites (mainly Pokemon) and I do still want to. I want to come back to soda can sculpting, as well, so I want to let you all know that I'm here, I'm alive, and I'll persist.

Thank you all for your patience. I promise it will be rewarded and I have a lot of ideas for new sculptures. =]

With love,

- Crystal

(or Cris. I go by either.)

[introvertguide]

Modern Times (1936); AFI #78

The next film on the AFI list up for review is the Charlie Chaplin classic, Modern Times (1936). This movie is pretty universally loved with a 98% score on Rotten Tomatoes. It is one of Chaplin's overtly political films along with The Great Dictator (1940). Chaplin's tendency to poke fun at America for the way they handled the idea of Communism made this film rather unpopular during the 50s and 60s but has won back audiences since. There is not a lot to the plot of the movie, but it is something that I do in these reviews so let me start with a...

SPOILER WARNING!!! IT IS NOT DOING A LOT TO HURT THE FILM, BUT I AM GOING OVER THE EVENTS OF THE MOVIE!!! I HAVE TO WARN PEOPLE FIRST, SO HERE IS YOUR WARNING!!!

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The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) works on an assembly line, where he suffers greatly due to the machinery. His coworkers hate him and his boss pushes him around. As the least productive worker, he is volunteered to try out a new feeding machine that will allow workers to be fed and continue to work. It is all too much and he starts having moments were he can't control his movements. He eventually suffers a nervous breakdown and runs amok, getting stuck within a machine and throwing the factory into chaos, so he is then sent to the hospital. Following his recovery, he leaves the hospital and sees a car drop a red flag that signifies a load sticking out of the back (it is an American thing.) The Tramp is mistakenly arrested in a Communist demonstration when he chases the car waving the red flag and protestors walk up behind him. As a comment on the time, he is immediately arrested (it will happen a lot in this film). In jail, he accidentally ingests smuggled cocaine, and, in his subsequent delirium, he is lost by the guards and avoids being put back in his cell. He realizes what he has done and, when he returns, he stumbles upon a jailbreak and knocks the convicts unconscious for which he is hailed as a hero and given special treatment. When he is informed that he will soon be released due to his heroic actions, he argues unsuccessfully that he prefers life in jail. It is not made super apparent, but he will try to get sent back to jail for the rest of the film.

Upon release, he applies for a new job as a boat builder with a note from the sheriff saying he is trustworthy, but leaves immediately after causing an accident in which the boat is prematurely launched and subsequently sinks. Soon after, he runs into an orphaned girl named Ellen (Paulette Goddard), who is fleeing the police after stealing a loaf of bread. Determined to go back to jail and to save her, the Tramp tells the police that he is the thief and asks to be arrested, but a witness reveals his deception and he is freed. This does not help his plan, so he then eats an enormous amount of food at a cafeteria without paying to get arrested. He once again encounters Ellen in a paddy wagon, however it soon crashes and she convinces him to escape with her.

The two roam the town and consider life with a house of their own and this motivates the Tramp to find work. He gets a job as a night watchman at a department store and lets Ellen in so they have a place to stay. There are some shenanigans on roller skates until the Tramp encounters three burglars led by "Big Bill," a fellow worker from the factory, who explains that they are hungry and desperate. After sharing drinks with them, he wakes up the next morning during opening hours and is arrested once again for failing to call the police on the burglars and for sleeping in the store’s clothes on a desk, shocking a customer and the storekeeper.

He spends some time in jail and, days later, Ellen takes him to a run down shack to live in that she found. The next morning, he reads about an old factory’s re-opening and lands a job as a mechanic's assistant. The other workers then suddenly decide to go on strike, and tell the Tramp to leave with them. Outside the factory, he accidentally launches a brick at a policeman and is arrested again.

He is released two weeks later and learns that Ellen is now a café dancer. She gets him a job as a singer and waiter, but he goes about his duties clumsily. During his floor show, he loses his cuffs, which bear the lyrics to his song, but he rescues the act by improvising the lyrics using gibberish and by pantomiming. Ellen is unfortunately wanted for vagrancy and, when police arrive to arrest Ellen for her earlier escape, the two are forced to flee again. Ellen despairs that their struggles are all pointless, but the Tramp reassures her. At a bright dawn, they walk down the road towards an uncertain but hopeful future.

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One thing fun that happens throughout this film is the music. There is the standard action music and that amazing gibberish number that was performed by Charlie Chaplin, but the lover's theme was written by Chaplin as well and it was later given lyrics, entitled "Smile," and notably performed by Nat King Cole. Here is a link to a YouTube video that has a nice montage of Chaplin films:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rkNBH5fbMk

Charlie Chaplin was also finally awarded with a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award after being unofficially blocked from Hollywood for decades because he refused to speak out against Communism. He received the longest standing ovation in Academy Award Ceremony history and his face is worth a million words although he barely speaks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3Pl-qvA1X8

So the video quality on the version that I saw was remastered and is absolutely beautiful. It is too bad that Chaplin did not get to see his work in such high resolution because it looks great. The jokes are mostly visual since it is a silent film and the crisp picture makes it obvious that the jokes still stand up. The commentary and satire is very straight forward and the slightest knowledge of the country at the time lets the viewer in on the joke. There is reference to poverty, fear of working in a dead end job, never finding love, and becoming irrelevant in an ever expanding world of mechanization. It is much more than just slapstick.

The woman that played the oldest orphan (Paulette Goddard) was in a relationship with Chaplin during the filming of the movie and the two were eventually married for 6 years. She was also the leading lady in The Great Dictator. Honestly, the constant scandal of Chaplin either marrying or impregnating his leading ladies (or both), his ambiguity about his politics, and his tendency to poke fun at the American government really hurt the box office returns for this film. In hindsight, though, it is easy to see that it was the public that was wrong and this movie is genius.

So does this movie belong on the AFI top 100? Oh yes. It probably deserves to be higher than it is, but that is more opinion. It is good satirical comedy that highlights the fears and anxieties of a nation and a major tipping point in history. It is discovering the public identity of a country through the eyes of a fool along the lines of Don Quixote or A Confederacy of Dunces. It absolutely belongs on this list. Would I recommend it? Absolutely with no caveats. This is a great film for any age group and I wish there was a way I could introduce it to the younger generations. It is historical, it is funny, and it is a good story that is relatable across generations. Great film.

[rawwkingrimmie64]

Reviewing Assassin's Creed Syndicate

(and a little re-review of Unity)

So, this game was pretty amazing to play, and as far as the story and characters go, this was one of the best Assassin's Creed games I played in a while. Playing as two main characters was a fun change, and one that obviously set the tone for future games in the franchise. I found myself playing as Evie as often as I could simply because this is the first main game in the series to feature a female protaganist, and the change was very welcoming. Hopefully we'll get a main game with only a female protagonist soon.

The twins' contrast and conflicts were really interesting to see, especially since they were two sides to the same coin. I really enjoyed both Evie and Jacob's personalities and flaws.

Absolutely loved the Gang War aspect. It reminded me so much of liberating Roma in AC Brotherhood, and was an all around blast to play. Leveling up your gang, increasing your status with shops, and screwing over the enemy gang was a really fun touch.

Biggest praise I can give to this game is how the final storyline mission played out. THAT had to be the coolest end memory in the series so far, and I will certainly find myself playing that over again for a long time.

But for as much fun as the gameplay was, and as much praise as I could give it, the game still had flaws. Not only was it still glitchy at times, but the same closed world view was used that there was in Unity. Granted, this one at least had something worth seeing in those moments, but that doesn't take away from the fact that you feel trapped in a room while all of the action unfolds before your eyes. Only slightly better than Unity in this regard.

Where Syndicate and Unity both lose favor is the introduction of Helix Credits, an in-game credit system that can be used to make purchases on items and maps. It's really frustrating to know that this is part of the game, I just never mentioned it in my Unity review because, well, I had no idea it was there. I always wondered what the "H" symbol in my inventory meant, and now that I know, I am not happy.

I should not have to pay real money to unlock maps in the game, and saying that you can pay your way to a higher level character with the best gear and weapons from the start of the game is incredibly cheap and greedy. I already know that this system continues in Origins and Odyssey, which already pushes those games down before I've even been exposed to them.

One final major flaw in Syndicate, that has apparently been around since release and not yet resolved in 2020, is the server issues for the only feature in the entire game that requires an internet connection. What makes it even worse is that this feature, known as "social glitches" is one of the few in game ways to earn Helix Credits without paying for anything out of pocket. The fact that I have to wait hours, or even days, for Ubisoft to credit my account with the credits I have earned from these events is infuriating, to say the least.

Overall, the game is really fun to play, and if you aren't one for making in-game purchase to catalyst your way to the top, then you should be able to have a fun time with this game, despite the bugs and lack of present day exploration. Personally, however, the microtransactions are something I just can't look past, especially when my only way of increasing credits doesn't even work.

I originally put Unity in the same teir as AC3 and Black Flag, but after playing a much smoother game in Syndicate, I realized a few more of the flaws in game, especially taking Helix Credits into account. For as fun as these games are, I'm going to have to rank them below AC1. These issues really sucked the fun out of them at times, and as unfortunate as it is, I'm only expecting the same out of Origins and Odyssey now.

[thomasvol6]

Do you remember? // Phanfiction

Word count: 2.7k

Warnings: slight swearing, fluff, very light smut

Summary: Dan and Phil have been married for 16 years and one night in bed they decide to re-live their favourite moments together

“Can you sleep?”

“Not really”

“Same”

Phil rolled over to face his husband. They had been married for 16 years now but his heart still did that ‘flippy-over thing’ every time he looked in Dan’s eyes, just like it did the first time they kissed, back in 2009 on the Manchester Eye.

“Do you remember our first kiss?” Phil asked softly, still staring fondly at his husband’s eyes

“Oh so that’s where we’re going?” Dan replied chuckling at Phil’s cheesiness. He sometimes had these moments where he just started being incredibly cheesy and romantic, he had always had them and Dan surely couldn’t complain because he loved them.

“I was just thinking at how far we’ve come…I mean, 20 years ago we were lying on our bed, nervous as hell to publish PINOF 10, and now we are married and we have a 15 years old son and a 5 years old daughter together…time flies” Phil said as he started playing with a curl from Dan’s hair.

“Shit we’re going to die like tomorrow”

“Oh c’mon don’t kill the atmosphere with your sad thoughts”

“You’re right, sorry…by the way yes, I do remember our first kiss as well as our last one”

“Our last o-“ Phil didn’t manage to end his question because Dan had moved slightly forward to give him a quick kiss and rest his head on Phil’s shoulder

“We had been walking around Manchester for hours and decided to go for one ride on the wheel and then go home. You payed for both our tickets even though I had insisted that I wanted to pay and the man at the ticket booth pulled the most annoyed face ever because I wouldn’t stop insisting, so you took my hand and dragged me in our cabin. It was cabin number 22 and we were the only people around as it was a monday evening. You kept staring at me and I was like ‘fuck it’ so I leaned in like I was going to rest my head on your shoulder, but then I kissed you and you seemed so shocked that I was afraid I’d hurt you. You re-arranged my fringe and put your hand on mine and we just stayed like that for the rest of the ride, smiling at each other. Wait- are you crying? Oh baby I’m sorry!” said Dan whilst passing his thumb of Phil’s cheeks to dry his tears.

“I…I just got a little emotional, you made me travel back in time there, you know?” said Phil almost apologising.

“Why don’t you make me travel a bit now?”

“Sure, where do you want to go?”

“Mmh…maybe our first time? Too much?”

“No, not at all. Close your eyes though, okay? So…it was a couple months since our first kiss and you were coming to stay at my house for a whole week! I couldn’t wait to spend all that time with you and I remember our last skype call, the night before you came here, where you were so happy you couldn’t calm down so you ended up not managing to sleep a minute that night, and when you arrived here you were really tired. My mom, bless her, had prepared the guests room for you, even though I had told her that we were together. I’m pretty sure she was just fine with it and it was my dad to be over-protective about the whole thing so he asked mom to set up the guests room, but anyways…Where was I? Oh yes, you were knackered so I asked you if you wanted to just lay on the sofa and watch a movie together. Being geniuses, we watched Wall-e, like the saddest movie ever, and ended up crying like two babies by the end of it. At that point it was about 4pm and we agreed that if we had a nap we would never be able to sleep during the night, so we decided to go grocery shopping and cook dinner, since my parents had gone to visit my aunt up in Scotland for the week. We went out without our coats and regretted it immediately but we were both too lazy to go back up to get them, so we decided to freeze our way to the store. I think we had seen this recipe on TV earlier and for some reason decided to bake a chicken and aubergines pie, so we bought what we needed and practically ran back home as it was really really cold outside, you know, december…

As soon as we arrived home we were so cold that we decided to snuggle on my bed for a while before cooking and so we did, but then you started to tease me putting your hand on my thigh and kissing me. When I realised what you were doing, I started to do the same. I started stroking your thigh going everytime a little bit higher and closer to your crotch, until you started complaining about the teasing. You were the one who had started!”

Dan let out a chuckle at the memory but didn’t open his eyes, he was in full immersion.

“So…the rest you know” Phil stopped himself from telling the whole story because he knew it would have gotten both him and Dan horny and it would have been a mood killer.

“Yeah I do. Did you like it?” said Dan still keeping his eyes closed but smiling from ear to ear

“Of course I did, you dingo! It wasn’t as nice as it is now, maybe, because neither of us were experienced almost at all and especially not with each other, but it was a great first time. I mean, I had only been with a girl before you and let me just say it’s definitely not the same thing!”

“I hadn’t been with anyone before you, actually” said Dan, only at this point opening his eyes to look at his husband’s reaction

“Yeah I know babe, it was so obvious that you lied about not being a virgin!” answered Phil surprising Dan

“What?? You knew? Oh that’s embarrassing!”

“It’s not embarrassing at all! I actually like the idea that I’m the only one who ever fucked you”

“Philip Michael Lester Howell, first of all, did you just say ‘fuck’? And second of all, we’re 50 years old. I think ‘fucked you’ isn’t the best of ways to describe our love making”

“I’ll tell you what, Daniel James Howell Lester, I say whatever the fluff I want!” said Phil not managing to keep a straight face and bursting in laughter. They both cuckled for a while until Phil said “Hey, I want to travel more! Tell me about our wedding pleeeease”

He closed his eyes waiting for Dan to start telling the story but he was surprised by a quick soft kiss, and his blood started to go to his shoulder again as his husband had moved his head onto his own pillow.

“Sooo, let’s go back to 2022, shall we? I remember being so nervous I actually threw up a couple of times the night before and I wanted to call you so bad but I decided to be strong and ended up suffering alone, until my brother came to look for me in the bathroom. He knocked and came in without waiting for any reply and as soon as he saw the mess I was he sat next to me on the floor and put his hand on my knee, like a silent ‘I’m here’. After a couple minutes of silence I said something like ‘I really love him’ or ‘I love him so much’ and Adrian hugged me saying ‘I know you do’. I didn’t sleep a minute that night and was about to text you a million times but I actually only did it once, to say goodnight to you. You replied IMMEDIATELY and I remember thinking that maybe you were in my same situation” Dan stopped to check if Phil was still awake

“I was in the exact same situation, just without the throwing up part, you know my stomach is made of iron!” Phil said keeping his eyes shut.

“Yeah, I know. Anyways, when my mom came to wake me up in the morning she was really excited to see that I was already up and getting prepared. She said she had made pancakes for me downstairs and that my suit had been ironed and was waiting for me in the laundry room. I ate my pancakes and put on the suit, then went to check if Adrian was ready. He was still in his pj’s but the ring boxes were ready and his suit had been ironed too so it was no big deal. As soon as I saw you walking towards me in the wedding garden I completely forgot of any worryings or preoccupations and my heart was filled in with just love. I can’t even remember what the guy who married us was saying because all I could think of was how could you possibly look even more beautiful than usual in that suit. Yet, you did. I still remember, though, my votes. ‘Phil, I promise I’ll always be by your side: when you decide to dress up as punks, when you want to have 3-hour-breakfasts and when you want to live the rest of our lives together. I promise I will do the laundry every saturday as we decided 10 years ago, that I will tell you when I finish the milk and that I’ll take Nuki out for walkies more often. I love you Phil, I’ve loved you since when, back in 2008, I would watch your videos to relax, I loved you when you asked me to move in your flat and I loved you even more when you told me that there was powerful wifi- I mean…when you said that you loved me too’ Jesus, I think I will remember that forever” Dan said with a smile on his face

“That was a wonderful speech, I can imagine you remember that I couldn’t contain my tears, too” replied Phil, him smiling too.

“Your turn again! I want…mmh…the day we finally took Noah home please” said Dan closing his eyes again and settling down

“Okay, soooo 2023. It was the 31st march when they called us from the hospital saying that Noah was arriving. I remember literally grabbing our wallets and keys and RUNNING downstairs like the building was on fire. You almost got killed by a taxi whilst trying to get him to stop, which ended up working, but still! Anyways, we got to the hospital in 10 minutes and ran through the corridors trying to find the room. When we finally found it, room 209, and walked in, we were immediately attacked by the nurses who quickly gave us gloves and and masks and went back to the bed where Lauren was. She seemed really happy to see us but also kind of terrified. Mmmh...I guess it's because a baby was about to exit her ladydoor"

“I cAN'T BELIEVE YOU SAID THAT” screamed Dan pushing himself up with his elbows. He didn't scare Phil, though. He was expecting a similar reaction.

“Shhhhh you're gonna wake Emily!” said Phil, now on his elbows too

“From here it's much easier to wake Noah, Emily is three rooms away!”

“Earlier, when I went to the loo, I checked if the kids were alright and Emily had crawled in Noah’s bed. She’s probably had another nightmare”

“Oh bless her. By the way, our 15 and 5 years old kids sleep together every now and then?? You realise that's parenting goals, yeah?”

“Well my brother and I used to do that every now and then too, but I guess it's because he's only a year and a half older than me"

“Exactly. Plus, 15 is a critical age! You know, he's starting to seriously grow and that kinda scares me"

“First of all, we’re freakishly tall so I don't think he's ever going to be taller than us. Second of all, he's only like 5’5. Third, I'm really scared too. What if he's going to meet someone on the internet and run away with them??”

“Oh you mean like I did? Yeah I hope that doesn't happen”

“You were 19, Dan”

“No, I was kidding” said Dan playing with his husband’s face “Now, can you resume the story telling?”

“Oh yeah right, so Lauren was screaming a lot and I don't know about you but she was holding my hand really tight, I thought it was going to explode!”

“Same"

“But finally, after about 5 minutes, Noah came out, screaming a lot too, and the nurses washed him before giving him to Lauren to breastfeed him. He was perfect, about 3.5 kilos and 50cm long. His big brown eyes stared at us for a bit before closing and then he slept for like 10 hours.

When, three days later, we finally brought him at home, we were both really emotional but his room was so cute! Do you remember it? We had put a tiny little wooden bed and painted the walls of pastel light blue. The floor was a very light green moquette and we had bought those huge Ikea plastic leaves so the whole room looked like a forest.

Being right next to our room, we could (and still can) hear everything he did so for the first couple of months it was really difficult for us to sleep, but then we got used to it and now I don't even notice it anymore to be honest. We were so happy when he arrived home and every free minute we would talk and sing to him our favourite songs, but the only song that managed to make him fall asleep was Interrupted By Fireworks. Do you remember how many times we played it at the stereo? I think probably more than ten thousand times...anyways, I think Noah’s love for books comes from the fact that we used to read to him constantly so hey, that's some good parenting right there!”

“It sure is!” said Dan “My turn, I'm telling Emily’s story.

We had decided, this time, to adopt, so after contacting the agency and signing all those papers and various meetings with various people, we only got to see a photo of Emily in june 2033! She was a week old, so it was the 27th, and she was sooo cute! She had very light blue eyes and very thin,almost white hair. I remember the nurse who was taking care of her telling us to make sure we thought her some Swedish so that she could learn about her origins. I think she knows it pretty well by now, doesn't she?”

“Definitely, plus both her and her brother love Knäckebröd so I think we've done a good job with that too” said Dan, satisfied.

“Yeah...Dan?”

Dan turned on his side to face Phil, as a silent ‘Yes?’

“I love our life. Thank you for giving me all this” said Phil, getting teary again

“Oh baby I love it too. I love our kids, I love our dog, I love our home and I love you, so much”

Phil kissed his husband then went back on his pillow

“Now I'm gonna go make us tea and check the kids, could you go lock the door please?” said Dan getting out of bed

“Sure” replied Phil, him also putting his feet on the floor and slowly standing up to not get dizzy

“I really needed this tea, you know?” said Phil stroking Dan's hand with his

“I think at this point I'm pretty good at reading your mind. Let's see...mmmh...right now you're thinking that you'd like to fuck me" said Dan moving his fingers on his head like he was actually reading Phil's mind

“Hey! You told me off like an hour ago for saying that!”

Dan chuckled and pulled the duvet to his chin, pulling a fake innocent face

“But you're right actually, you are pretty good at reading my mind"