#i love my podcasts and books more than people sometimes and theres nothing we can do about it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

the-walnut · 6 years

Text

Night Vale + Scientists

Alrighty, I’m relatively new to this fandom and all, so I’m not entirely sure how well this actually coincides with canon and whatnot, but I’m going to feel free to vocalize this anyway.

We all know from relatively early on in this particularly lovely podcast that Carlos the “Perfectly Imperfect” Scientist has an unrivalled passion for the unexplained. The idea of mystery drives him crazy, and he chases blindly after anything that doesn’t have a feasible answer, that can’t be understood, that seems far too beyond human comprehension to decode- a trait that, I will argue to my last dying breath, is part of why he fell head-over-kettle in love with Cecil Palmer, perhaps the most mysterious and unexplainable character in the show, and the first impossible riddle he wasn’t hell-bent on solving

Cecil, though, is the exact opposite of his counterpart. See, Cecil’s job is announcing the happenings of Night Vale, not analyzing them. When something occurs out of the ordinary, he doesn’t always need a ‘why’- in fact, in most regards, Cecil’s pretty content to just have a general grasp of what’s going on or what to expect from something and roll with the punches. Animal carcasses raining from the sky? Don’t panic, just get a stronger umbrella. The sun didn’t rise today? You know, that happens sometimes. It’ll pass!

It makes sense, in this fashion, for the fandom to naturally come to the conclusion that Cecil is terrible when it comes to science. I’ve seen a lot of posts and fanart about the worst accidents in the lab being Cecil’s doing, and while they’re amusing, I have another perspective to bring to the metaphorical table.

What we often seem to forget is that, while Carlos always seems to come to the right conclusions at the right times, and make sense of an insensible world, he’s still an Outsider. Night Vale is a curious thing to most of its occupants, let alone an individual who wasn’t born and raised there. There’s a lot of stuff about this one unique speck in the desert that even Carlos doesn’t know anything about, and I have no doubt in my mind that it would hinder him sometimes.

So instead, in the early stages of their relationship, I can imagine Cecil waking up to a call from a frustrated Carlos, going off on an absolute venting tangent from the lab at 4:37 A.M. And at first, it’s a bit of a shock to both of them because, well, from Cecil’s end it is 4:37 A.M. on a Wednesday, and he’s talking particle theory with a man who probably should’ve tried getting some sleep three days ago at the rate he’s going, but all the other members of Carlos’ team have long since gone home, and he usually finds it helpful to go step-by-step through his experiments vocally to catch any mistakes or hash out new ideas.

After at least a full forty-five minutes of Carlos rambling into the phone about how the molecular bonding of this solution shouldn’t be even remotely close to what it is, and that he can’t understand why it keeps giving off such staggeringly different temperatures with each batch he makes, Cecil (getting over his initial surprise that Carlos is calling him of all people) gently reminds him that maybe he’d best rest and think about it again with a clear head.

“Try some of that raspberry oolong Intern Stephen dropped off earlier this week,” He suggests brightly, explaining that it’s supposed to help with clarity and that the crushed beetle wings in the mixture hardly throw off the taste at all. “And remember to whisper a compliment to the water before you try to boil it- it can get fussy otherwise, you know. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve forgotten and wound up with a solid block of ice in my kettle or, worse, the kettle itself melting all over the countertop. Terrible to get out of the carpet later in that case, but as long as you’re cordial, it should boil nicely for you.”

And at first, there’s dead silence on the other end of the line, before Cecil can hear Carlos scrambling to make a note on this development, because of course he wasn’t whispering anything to the water he’d used in his experiment, and that’s probably the reason for 74% of the problems he’s come across so far.

It doesn’t take long for this to become a normal occurrence, Carlos calling in regularly with all kinds of questions and, as before, just needing to talk through something, Cecil offering advice on how to handle certain stuff, or even just talking a while about the things Carlos is working with. More often than not, this leads to some kind of revelation, because while Cecil might not understand the science behind why glass stirring rods need to be used only in a clockwise direction, he at least knows that they just do, and that’s what Carlos needs.

Eventually, this extends to the rest of the lab crew as well, because, yes, they might be Night Vale residents, but there’s a pretty large chunk of information about their town that even they are missing. With how quickly things can come up or change in their spooky little town, it can be impossible to keep track of everything on one’s own. Tentatively at first, but with growing speed, the other scientists begin asking for advice and extra help with info as well.

Catching on to the trend, a new addition makes its way into Cecil’s radio show, where, every day, scientists can send in questions for the citizens of Night Vale, and they can respond accordingly, offering insight. If nothing else, it serves as a reminder to those listening in on the broadcast that their scientists don’t miraculously have the answers to everything, and that the downside to having the entire population of your city looking to you for those answers is sometimes not having any.

Even those who don’t have knowledge to offer find ways to help. Scientists return home, weary beyond measure from saving their friends and family from yet another disaster, only to find the lights already dimmed and welcoming, old takeout containers thrown away, and bed made. There’s a note on the table that would be eery and concerning, were it not for the sensation that there had always been a presence in their home, and, if nothing else, this only confirms one of their many hypothesises, setting another theory down to rest. Creatures (that definitely are not angels) appear in the lab every now and then, bringing with them a smiling old woman, and several Big Rico’s pizza boxes, cases of bottled water, and bundles of grapes. Nobody knows why grapes in particular. Maybe the not-angels have an affinity for them. Either way, the mandatory snack break is welcomed by many. Secret police mutter helpful tips from bushes under open windows, and, despite books being banned, once in a blue moon a torn-out page from some volume makes it’s way onto a given scientist’s lab table, curating many more questions, and causing many to reevaluate their perceptions of the harrowing librarians, the hooded figures who show no fear of them, and the public library itself.

Night Vale is a place of mystery and intrigue and danger- but it is also a place of people bonded by experience and survival. It’s a place called “home” by many, even if they do not necessarily understand it, and these are the people who save this city by supporting discovery in their own little ways. Night Vale loves its scientists, and it will do what it can to help them understand it even a little bit more.

#night vale #nightvale #cecil palmer #carlos the scientist #cecilos #welcome to night vale #welcome to nightvale #WTNV #wtnv headcanons

674 notes · View notes

ginasneesby · 6 years

Text

Trying to get on...

So its been a month or so since I've written anything and that’s mostly because its been a bit dull but also a bit crappy. I am still working at the Blind Foundation, i took over the role of another woman who got a full time job somewhere else, and i have been rehearsing for my play which opened this weekend, so i was starting to feel settled. I had made a friend from my cast and she actually wanted to go out and do things, which meant that i was starting to develop a bit of a social life and things were looking up...

I work till 5 and have rehearsal at 7, sometimes the traffic is bad so it takes me an hour or so to get home which means i have about half an hour to quickly eat something and get back out the door. One particular evening, it took me even longer to get back so i had 20 minutes to quickly cook some pasta (trying to stick to an eating plan of some sort!) so i rushed into the house, quickly cooked my stuff, cleaned up my dishes and went into my room to throw on a little bit of make up. My landlord appeared in the kitchen and commented ‘Shoes on in the house, thats new,’ firstly, theres a way to say you don’t like what someone is doing and making a sarky comment is not the way, secondly SO FUCKING WHAT! I explained i was in a rush and they have complicated laces so didn't take them off, i think i even gave a quick sorry and went back into my room. I was listening to a podcast so couldn't really hear him as he mumbled something so i had to ask him 3 times before i then turned off what i was listening to and came to him... ‘I think its time you start looking for somewhere else to live.’

Obviously i was quite shocked, i mean, we are clearly different people as they live a very small life, since they retired, and spend most of their days hoovering or ironing from what i could tell. He is pretty old fashioned (sexist would be another word) and she follows him around and doesn't seem to have much of her own personality, so we were never gonna be bessie mates, but they had never said anything about not liking what i did, how i interacted with them, the things i said... nothing. I asked him to give me a reason, because surely it isn't about my shoes, he tried to say he didn't want to talk about it coz he ‘didn't wanna get riled up’. Well mate, i fucking do, you cant just throw out a ‘you have to leave because of irreconcilable differences’ and then not tell me those differences. We’re adults right, we can have a conversation about this, i mean now its been said, there’s no way i’m gonna stay, but we can at least hash out what you're upset about, how long i have till i need to leave, what you expect of me. Not so much... Apparently being in a rush wasn’t a good enough excuse to wearing my shoes in the house and that when i washed my dishes and left them to dry it made the kitchen look messy. When i explained they were drying he said ‘some people see that mess and then decide to forgo dinner’ ‘Who?” i said “....Its happened’ he replied. I don’t believe this man has ever forgone dinner, but also all i’ve seen him eat is chips and dip or a cheese toastie, so if the mess means you can toast a sandwich then the issue is very much yours not mine! He wouldn’t discuss if further, so i left to get to rehearsal, she was outside hanging out washing so i just asked her if she felt the same or had anything to add, she said and i quote ‘Whatever he said.’ I mean technically she doesn't have to say anything, no one has to say anything, but its not very kind is it. I was pretty upset, mostly coz it felt personal, i mean i have paid my rent on time, i don’t leave a mess, i’m quiet, i haven’t tried to bring people back for a party. So i rang my sister and she got the full force of my anger and upset (on speaker in the car, screaming about them being massive cnuts). Rehearsal that evening was not the best, i wasn't really into giving it my all and then had to face going back home afterwards.

This was on a Wednesday i think, by the end of Thursday i had booked 4 viewings for the Saturday and planned my weekend and next week so i could spend as little time as possible at home; I saw some places found one i liked and arranged when i would move in (in a sleep out too so i would have my own space). On the Sunday evening she called me to say there was an issue with her family or something, it wasn’t clear as she English was not amazing, so i gave her a call. Apparently she had a woman coming to stay in the house, who was a writer and so needed the house alone and was saying that she was very happy for me to move in as arranged, but i would have to move out for 3 months in the middle of the year. This is where i need some sort of meme just going ‘....sorry, what?’ I would live there first, but i would have to move out of my home so some picky bloody writer who apparently needs complete silence as she works (blah!) would like the whole house. Basically it all comes down to money and this writer was willing to pay more than i was so she got priority.

Luckily, my wonderful friend Shona, heard about a flat that had just become free, the woman who owns it was moving back to London for the rest of the year and had someone to live there but it had just fallen through. She was leaving in a week and was desperate, and i told her that id love to water her garden and do some weeding... so we were both happy. Its a flat by myself too, so i will leave my washed pots and pans out to dry and no one will care!

I moved out that next Sunday, i did it all early before they got up so i didn’t have to interact with them, they had not said a word to me since that original night and so i wasn’t willing to rehash it all. I packed up my car and headed off, i received a text about 20 minuted later as i arrived at my friends place stating ‘No bond will be returned until this room is hoovered’ (also i needed to return the coat hangers) You couldn’t get more petty. But i sucked it up, went back and hoovered, and left them with a ‘have a nice day’ thankful that they were out of my life... Mostly

#newzealand #landlords #moving #auckland #devonport

1 note · View note

relationshipadviser-blog · 5 years

Text

Esther Perel: 'Fix the sex and your relationship will transform'

New Post has been published on https://relationshipqia.com/must-see/esther-perel-fix-the-sex-and-your-relationship-will-transform/

Esther Perel: 'Fix the sex and your relationship will transform'

Esther Perels breathtakingly frank therapy podcasts Where should we begin not only make for juicy listening, theyve revitalised the stale private lives of millions. Miranda Sawyer listens to the psychotherapist

Passion has always existed, says Esther Perel. People have known love forever, but it never existed in the context of the same relationship where you have to have a family and obligations. And reconciling security and adventure, or love and desire, or connection and separateness, is not something you solve with Victorias Secret. And there is no Victors Secret. This is a more complicated existential dilemma. Reconciling the erotic and the domestic is not a problem that you solve. It is a paradox that you manage.

Ooh, Perel is a great lunch date. All psychotherapists are, in my experience, but shes particularly interesting. Sex, relationships, children; she covers them all in the two hours we spend together. But also collective trauma, migration, otherness, freedom all the good stuff.

Perel is a practising couples and family therapist who lives in New York. Aside from her clinical work she counsels around 12 couples or individuals each week she has two best-selling books: one about maintaining desire in long-term relationships (Mating in Captivity), the other about infidelity (The State of Affairs). She has released two fascinating podcast series, called Where Should We Begin?, where listeners get to listen in on real-life couples having therapy with her. The podcast is where I first came across her its won a British Podcast Award, a Gracie Award in the States and was named as the Number One podcast by GQ.

On top of all this, she hosts workshops and lectures as well as the inevitable TED talks, one of which has been watched more than 5m times. I went to one of her London appearances earlier this year. Alain de Botton was the host and he introduced Perel with quite some hyperbole, calling her one of the greatest people alive on Earth right now. (Perel dismissed this afterwards, though she likes de Botton: He put me on such a platter.)

Esther Perel sometimes sings to her clients; she tells them off quite a lot, especially if they think sex should come naturally. Photograph: Jean Goldsmith for the Observer

The reason for Perels popularity is her clear eye on modern relationships. She says, rightly, that we expect much more from our marriages and long-term relationships than we used to. For centuries, marriage was framed within duty, rather than love. But now, love is the bedrock. We have a service model of relationships, she says to me. Its the quality of the experience that matters. She has a great turn of phrase: The survival of the family depends on the happiness of the couple. Divorce happens now not because we are unhappy, but because we could be happier. We will have many relationships over the course of our lives. Some of us will have them with the same person.

For a while, Perel wasnt taken particularly seriously by the therapist community: she tells me that when Mating in Captivity came out in 2006, it was only the sexologists that thought it was great. This is because her thinking went against long-established relationship wisdom, namely that if you fix the relationship through talking therapy, then the sex will fix itself. Perel does not agree. She says that, yes, this might work, but I worked with so many couples that improved dramatically in the kitchen, and it did nothing for the bedroom. But if you fix the sex, the relationship transforms.

We meet in a boutique hotel in Amsterdam, where Perel orders her food in fluent Dutch. She has a light Belgian accent (she says boat for both), and she wears some delicate gold jewellery, a bit like the Indian hath panja, on her right hand. (Both of these seem to excite American journalists, along with Perels good looks. A relationship therapist who you might fancy, shocker!)

We begin talking about her podcast series. Its an astonishing listen, partly because you get to earwig other peoples problems (always great) and partly because Esthers methods are so flexible: in the first series she got one young woman to wear a blindfold while her partner inhabited a more assertive sexual character, which he did by speaking in French. She sometimes sings to her clients; she tells them off quite a lot, especially if they think sex should come naturally: Who the hell told you that BS?

Series three, released next month, is slightly different to the last two. This time round Perel very deliberately chooses couples at different stages, because she wants to show an arc of a relationship, all the way to its end. Also, she says, I wanted to bring in the way that relationships exist in a larger, social, cultural, context. That context often gives a script about how one should think about suicide, about gender, about divorce and so forth. So we hear from a young couple coping with enforced distance in their relationship: one is US-born and the other is Mexican, without a US visa. Another is a mother and her child, who does not identify as either gender. Another couple, with a young child, have divorced, but seem to get along much better now: why?

Perel finds her podcast therapees via her Facebook page: they apply in their thousands. Her podcast producers sift through, using guidelines that Perel suggests them: this time round she knew she wanted to cover infertility and also suicide. Then theres a lengthy pre-recording interview process where its explained to the couples that, yes, this really is going on air and, yes, they might be recognised (from their voices; theyre anonymous otherwise). Are you OK in understanding that your story will become a collective story? You will be giving so much to others, as well. Its not just for you, actually. And then they have a one-off session with Perel for three to four hours, edited down to around 45 minutes for the podcast.

She loves the format. The intimacy of it, the private listening of it, the fact that you dont see them, thus you see yourself. You hear them but you see you. It reflects you in the mirror. But also, surely, its quite exposing for you? Oh yes. People can come and hear me give a talk, but theyve never seen me do the work and you cant talk about what you do. But when you write a book, that is the first part of exposure. Then comes TED and the podcast. If you ask, What does Perel do? My colleagues know how I do.

Perel is 60 now; I wondered how she found being a relationship therapist when she was younger, in her 20s. Werent clients put off by her youth? Actually, Ive always found that the age of the clients goes up with me, she says. It mirrors. I dont know why. She doesnt think lived experience is necessary, though sometimes she wonders how she had the chutzpah to counsel parents before she became one herself (now she has two grown-up sons; shes still married to their dad, Jack Saul, who is a professor and an expert in psychosocial trauma). But then I have worked a lot with addiction, and Im not an addict.

Interestingly, she came to therapy via drama. Drama and collective trauma. She was the second child of Polish Jews who came to Belgium as Holocaust survivors (Perels first passport was a stateless passport of the UN). In Belgium, they became part of a community of 15,000 Jewish refugees.

Loss, trauma, dismantlement of the community, immigration, refugees All these themes that I observe in the world today, were basically mothers milk to me, she says. Everybody had an accent, a good number of people had the number on their arms. There were no grandparents around, there were no uncles. Its all I knew. Its different than if it was just your parents. Its every home I went to. One of Perels earliest memories is of card games where her parents would talk of a friend, and someone would say, casually, Ah, he was gassed, he didnt make it.

Perels parents had her older brother in 1946, then she came along 12 years later. This was not uncommon. When people came out of the camps, the first thing they did to prove that they were still human was to have a child. They waited to get their periods back, and then they had a child. But then there was a gap of 8, 10, 12 years before they had another. Perel thinks this was because the parents needed to establish themselves in society. Hers ran a clothes shop in Antwerp. The family lived above the shop. They spoke five languages: Polish, Yiddish, German, French and Flemish. Every evening they watched the news in German, French and Flemish, to get a good all-round view.

Divorce happens now not because we are unhappy, but because we could be happier: Esther Perel. Photograph: Jean Goldsmith for the Observer

As a teenager, she was interested in psychology, mostly because she hated the strictness of school. She read Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child-Rearing, about a British school run like a democracy, and from there she moved to Freud. I was interested in understanding myself better and in people around me. People dynamics. I was quite melancholic and I was often wondering, How does one live better? How do you talk to your mother so she understands you better? Id say the primary ingredient I had was curiosity. I was a massively curious person I still am. She was also a good listener a confidante for her friends. I tell her she would have made a great journalist, and she agrees: That would have been my other career.

After school she went to study in Jerusalem, a university course that combined French linguistics and literature. More importantly, she developed her interest in theatre, which had begun in early adolescence. I assumed she was an actor, but shes talking of improv and street theatre, with puppets, of all things. Big ones, you hold them on two long high sticks, or I did hand puppets. She liked the immediate contact with people and gradually, she found herself merging these skills with her studies, doing theatre with gangs,with street girls,with Druze,with foreign students. At one point she went to Paris to study under Augusto Boal, who created the Theatre of the Oppressed. He would stage fake crises in everyday situations: actors pretending to have a physical row on the Metro, for instance. Perel found it interesting to see which passers-by would get involved and which would turn away.

She moved to New York to do her Masters. She specialised in identity and immigration How is the experience of the migrant different if it is voluntary migration or forced migration? and in how minority communities relate to each other. She led workshops for what were then called mixed couples: interracial, intercultural, interreligious. I knew the cultural issues. I knew how to run a group. I dont think I knew much about couples dynamics.

Around that time her husband, who is a few years older than her, suggested she might enjoy systemic family therapy. I ask what this is. For a long time when people looked at a problem, they thought the problem is located within the person, says Perel. But systemic family therapy thinks that a family, or a relationship, is made up of interdependent parts. What is the interactive dynamic that preserves this thing, that makes this child not go to bed? That makes this man never get a job? That makes this son be such a nincompoop? How is the family system organised around it? You need two to create a pattern, or three or four or five.

Its interesting how therapy has trends, I say, and how those trends manifest themselves in actual life. Couples therapy goes in parallel to the cultural changes and the expectations in a culture, says Perel. During the 1980s her married clients didnt come to her because their sex life was bad, they came because of domestic violence or alcoholism, not because we dont talk any more. Back then, the shame was to get divorced at all, even if one half cheated; now its not to get divorced if one half cheats. She saw clients having problems with infertility, the changing role of women and daughters, the Aids crisis. In the 90s, single mothers, blended families, gay couples with kids. Todays problems, she says, are often centred around people marrying later, after a sexually nomadic youth. Also, modern fatherhood dads wanting to be more involved in childcare and monogamy versus polyamory. Straight couples are becoming more gay, gay couples more straight.

The obvious question, of course, which she has been asked many times, is how Perels own relationship works. She doesnt like to give too many details, but what she does say is that she and Saul give each other a lot of freedom If youve had an interesting life, you have more to bring back, something that energises the couple and that they renegotiate their relationship as it changes. At the moment her husband is entering what she calls a third stage, and he wants to paint more. This means he will be away from New York a lot, while she is usually in New York or travelling herself. We need to, once again, come up with a new rhythm of how we create separateness and togetherness. Its a fundamental task.

She wants others not to copy her own relationship, but to use her work as a way to better their own relationship for themselves. And plenty do. Just the other week a young woman came up to her and asked for a selfie. She said, My boyfriend listens to you all the time, and he comes home and he says, Have you listened to this episode, we need to talk? The podcast is a transitional object, a bridge for conversation. Like a teddy bear that you hold and you say: Its OK, dont be worried.

Like when couples talk through their dog, I say.

Yes, she says. There is such disarray and such hunger about getting help on how we manage our relationships today, on navigating the challenges For the first time we have the freedom of being able to design our relationships in a way that we were never capable of doing before, or allowed to do before. So, I dont give the details of my relationship. Instead I will give you the tools to come up with your own thing.

Season 3 of Esther Perels Where Should We Begin is available exclusively on Audible from 5 October

Try this at home

Three ways to change the way you think about your partner at home

Pay attention to what is important to the other What happens in a couple is that we often give to the other what we want them to give to us. If somebody is upset, you dont talk to them, because when you are upset you like to be left alone. It isnt necessarily what they need.

Roles are often patterns rather than habits If you really want the other person to take out the rubbish, you have to be able to spend two weeks not doing it. You dont say anything. You just wait until the other person finally notices it. When youre not there, the other person sorts the bin. They can do it. Its just that when youre there theyd prefer not to.

Women are not less interested in sex than men, theyre less interested in the sex they can have What makes women lose that interest? Domesticity. Motherhood. The mother thinks about others the whole time. The mother is not busy focusing on herself. In order to be turned on you have to be focused on yourself in the most basic way. The same woman whos numb in the house gets turned on when she leaves. She doesnt need hormones. Change the story.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

0 notes

viralhottopics · 7 years

Text

YA author Mindy McGinnis returns to the book world with new epic fantasy novel ‘Given to the Sea’

Image: Penguin Young Readers

Sometimes the best way to follow a hit novel is to switch things up and try something completely different.

Or at least that’s the case with YA author Mindy McGinnis and her latest book, epic fantasy novel Given to the Sea.

SEE ALSO: ‘All Our Wrong Todays’ is your next fast-reading, mind-expanding, science fiction romance

The novel follows four intertwined characters Khosa, Vincent, Donil and Witt as each struggles to confront fate and loyalty in the warring kingdom of Stille. At the center of the story is Khosa, a girl destined to sacrifice herself to the sea to save her village. After surviving an attack on her village, Khosa is taken to safety at the royal palace in Stille where she finds herself enmeshed in a love triangle or probably more apt, love square that could alter not only her own fate but the fate of her kingdom.

“I had this idea that writing fantasy would be easy because I get to make up all the rules, no research required. Not true,” explains McGinnis. “In fantasy, nothing is a given, nothing is assumed. I have to do a lot of explaining… and keep that interesting. I’ve written post-apocalyptic, historical, contemporary, and now fantasy. Fantasy is by far the hardest.”

The book comes fresh off the heels of McGinnis’ 2016 contemporary YA novel Female of the Species. The novel followed Alex, a teenage girl who seeks vigilante justice on the sexual abusers in her town. Female of the Species was much acclaimed at the time of its release for its exploration of feminism, sexual violence and justice. (The MashReads Podcast actually recommended it. Twice.)

It’s this juxtaposition contemporary YA to fantasy that may shock McGinnis’ fans picking up her latest book. Yet McGinnis teases that Given to the Sea contains something for all types of readers.

“There’s something for everyone here – romance, gruesome deaths, magic, sword fights, scary animals, and inevitable death.”

Given to the Sea doesn’t come out until April 11. In the meantime, check out a sneak peek of the book’s first two chapters below.

Image: Penguin Young Readers

Chapter 1Khosa

It is in my blood.

It is in my bone.

It is in my brain.

One day my body will betray me, dancing into the sea, my mind a passenger only. The water will close over my head and I will drown, my death bringing a reprieve for those who are not me. This is what Ive been born and bred for. The food passing into my mouth, the clothes covering my body, every breath I drawthese are smaller offerings, each a promise that I will endure, bear my own cursed daughter, and then succumb.

How that will happen I do not know. My mother suffered the touch of another at least once, long enough to fulfill her duties and bring me about. I know it was badly done. I see it in the faces of my Keepers, these people who care for me without caring. I hear the small things in their voices. They worry I will not be pleasing to the sea, that my mother and her chosen mate created something less than perfect. I understand their concern, but cannot share it. Why should I care if the tides rise again, if I am only a corpse riding the waves?

To live aware of your own doom is no easy thing. I spend my days at lessons, my body fulfilling the expected duties, though my mind is elsewhere. The Keepers are worried that I have not prepared well, have not set my face in the appropriate response to their commands. Happy, for instance, is an emotion I cannot be expected to parade, but they tell me it is necessary. Melancholy I excel at.

My mother and grandmother had other lessons, ones to please at table and dancing. Proper chewing, proper speaking, proper walkingonly expected, of course, when we are in control of our limbs. My lessons have taken a different course, my other instructors quietly dismissed once I learned all that was expected.

All except how to contort my stone face appropriately.

The Keepers have tried, their emotions chasing through their faces so quickly I cant keep up, my own trying to mirror what I see. They say to me, Pleased, but look nothing like it themselves, and I am easily confused on this point. So I often retreat, my mind escaping the room where I learn to mimic emotion, returning itself to some well-ordered facts absorbed from a musty book, its scent still lingering on my fingers, a source of comfort.

Their pages follow me through the day, their words imprinted on my mind. I know the history of my land better than the Scribes, better than the royals who rule it. I can recite the names of my predecessors, from the woman who gave birth to me all the way to Medalli, one of the Three Sisters whom the sea gave back after the wave that took nearly all. Seaweed was pulled from their hair, their locks drying as they worked alongside other survivors to rebuild what had washed away, not knowing they would be taken again, the first of the Given.

The sea waited until the sisters had married and had children of their own before it called for them, the price of its leniency the blood of their line. For the children went too, and their children after them, the first twitches of their childhood pulling them toward the water, the final coordinated movements driving them deep into the waves, the dance of death one their kingdom deemed the will of the sea. And so it continues. Their footprints in the sand not returning, my feet now itching to follow. Medallis linemineremains strong, the other two Sisters falling short, the last names in their column females who did not produce heirs, the ink that wrote them now faded with time.

I rub my fingers together, drawing the scent of the book pages from them as my male Keeper says, Sad. Sad I can perform, closing my eyes and picturing my name, Khosa, the ink slightly darker than my mothers name before me, Sona.

Dont close your eyes, he says.

I open them again to see my Keepers, their faces so easily read.

Disappointment.

Chapter 2Vincent

Im sorry you have to wait, my lord.

Not a concern, I answer the guard, but my eyes are on my hands, the clean nails freshly clipped, the smoothness of my palms interrupted by the lines that Madda insists hold my future.

In any kingdom other than Stille, the future of a prince wouldnt need to be read in his hands. It would be clear in his actions, the preparations taken to ensure he sits the throne well, does his duty, leads his country. Somewhere else I would be wed already, the announcement of my own child eagerly anticipated, the girl I keep on the side politely excused, with her pockets lined for her trouble. Instead I sit outside the throne room at the age of seventeen, awaiting my turn to speak to King Gammalmy grandfatherhealthy, hearty, capable. At his side, my father Prince Varrick, already gray and lined, but still sitting in the lower throne.

I shift on the wooden bench, and the trapman next to me slides farther away, the smell of sea salt rising from his clothes. Im sorry, my lord. Do you need more room?

More than enough room, I insist, patting the space between us.

Hes quiet for a moment, and the lady on the bench next to ours fills the hall with the clicking of her wooden knitting needles. One foot rests casually on the ball of coarse wool beneath her feet to keep it from rolling away as she works. Shes assured, content. As a citizen of Stille, she is entitled to speak to the king, and her turn will come. Eventually.

I look back at my empty hands and the lines that Madda the Seer wrinkles her brow at. Her answers to my questions are always vague and muttered.

Am I right to say my lord? the trapman asks. Is that what youre called?

The words it doesnt matter are half formed in my throat, but I choke them back.

The womans needles continue to click. Her hands are gnarled and work-worn, but her color is good, and the hat she is knitting small. For a grandchild. Or great-grandchild. They are lucky to have her. I tell myself these things every day: Stille is fortunate. Stille is healthy. Stille is strong. Years of peace and prosperity mean that the old linger and the middle-aged flourish, while the young inherit only boredom and aimlessness.

Just Vincent, I say, finally answering the trapmans question. No title necessary.

Youre of royal blood, the woman says, not glancing up from her work. It should not be taken lightly.

No… My voice fades away. I have no words to explain succinctly, only memories from my childhood when I was called the baby prince, and then the young prince, and now theres a hesitation, a slight pause before acknowledging my rank. There is no name for the third in line, one whose hands will wither with age long before they hold the scepter.

Ive come to hate the blank space before my given name, the deferential glance of the servants as they search for a title that represents nothing. So I make it easier for them, and for myself.

Just Vincent, I reassert. The old woman makes a disapproving noise in her throat and keeps knitting. The trapman smiles at me, his teeth even, strong, and white in a face lined with wrinkles.

Im Agga. He holds out a bent hand, gnarled from years of pulling in the crab traps, the lengthy ropes rubbing it raw. Even the trapmen dont go into the water, letting the tides carry out the traps. His skin feels of age and the scars of work, years of absorbed salt water pressing back against the softness of my own hands.

How is the sea, Agga? I ask.

He shakes his head. Eating the beach with hunger. Well be needing her thats given to the sea, and soon.

I will pass that along, I say. I dont add that my voice doesnt carry in the great hall, only echoes back into my ears.

Here to do it myself, Agga says, and I wonder if he followed my thought.

I saw when the last one was given, the woman says. She danced beautifully.

They all have, Agga says.

But their faces, they do… twist, the woman adds, her own mimicking the memory, a brief mask of horror that slides off easily as she counts her stitches.

Do they want to go? I ask.

Agga shrugs. Its their own feet taking them. No one in Stille makes them go. Were not the Pietra, feeding sea monsters with the flesh of their aged.

No. The woman shudders, dropping the first stitch since Ive sat here. Were not the Pietra.

Theres laughter in the throne room. It reverberates under the closed doors, my grandfathers hearty one underscored by my fathers, which has never ceased to produce goose bumps on my skin, even in a lifetime of hearing it.

Im sorry you have to wait, my lord, the guard says again.

Not a concern, I repeat, looking back at my hands, where lifelines extend forever, marching right off the palm.

Waiting is what Im good at.

WATCH: This futuristic tiny home switches rooms by rotating like a washing machine