#it's MY poem and I get to put silly little puns in it!!!!!!

[trickstersaint]

a bit(e) of advice // april 3 2023

[nikofortuna]

JTTW Chapter 15 Thoughts

Chapter 15 for the @journeythroughjourneytothewest Reading Group!

Yes, dragon is very snake-like! Swallows prey whole.

Honestly I am good with Sun Wukong putting Tang Sanzang in his place here. Especially when he started crying at the mere prospect of walking. If anything he should have cried at the life of the poor horsie lost! Not because it inconveniences him a little.

Truly he encounters a problem and goes ‘Oh, woe me!’ right away! Instead of trying to figure something out he basically gives up, it really is no wonder that the largely self-sufficient Sun Wukong who has encountered far greater trouble in his life already gets annoyed with him.

There’s a little typo in the Anthony C. Yu version! The first line of the combat poem reads “The dragon extending sharp daws” when it should be sharp claws!

In the German translation Sun Wukong specifies that if the dragon doesn’t give the horse back he will kill him to avenge the horse’s death, which I find to be a very sweet addition. Horsegirl Wukong all the way!

A longer bit about writing ahead. I played a game with lovely worldbuilding and lore which has been given out very naturally, so my eye easily fell on this detail.

Hm, I don’t know but some of the infodumping about the lore of locations just doesn’t feel very natural. In this instance I have various ideas on how to better it.

Perhaps they could have just mentioned the name of the river and Sun Wukong in his boundless curiosity could have asked why it’s called that.

Or they could have just mentioned that there has been nothing evil about this stream and then the name of it upon which Sun Wukong could have asked something along the lines of ‘If there was never anything evil about it, why is it called that?’.

It could have also been established beforehand that he likes to know a bit of history behind locations and their names specifically and note that others know about this. Then they may tell him these things right away as they know he’ll want to know anyway.

Or is it actually that local spirits have a habit of dishing out info about the location they inhabit with this much detail? On the off-chance that this might be so, it would be good to mention in a footnote at least.

Though even just restructuring it a little would have worked as I found in the German translation, which summarize the history behind the name in one sentence. Roughly translated it says “There was nothing to complain about this stream, it is merely very deep and broad and the water is so crystal clear that birds of prey, when they look down while flying over it, mistake their mirror image for members of their own species and plunge themselves into the water. Hence the name Eagle Grief Stream.” Flows far better in my opinion, pun intended.

Back to the story at hand jumping straight to killing instead of negotiating how else the dragon could pay them back like say get a new horse is a little hasty. He’s a dragon, he could probably get a new one somehow. A lot of this conflict could have been solved through proper communication as is literally explained during the conflict resolution.

Human form Ao Lie! With fashionable pearl jewellery I see! Why did Guanyin take those I wonder? Perhaps it was to make the new harness.

Horsegirl Wukong strikes again! This time making sure the horse gets good quality gear only.

And Tang Sanzang falls off the horse again. There will probably be two types of falling of the horse. One is getting knocked off somehow during tense moments and one is just sliding off the horse in a silly manner during more light hearted and comedic moments like this one.

Ehm… Why are Muslims listed with minor threats? I don’t like that, I don’t like that at all. This was omitted from the J. F. Jenner translation. The German translation kind of kept it, but used the specific groups mentioned in the original text, which isn’t all that much better.

This chapter made me really consider how nice it might be to get a remake of the story, which sticks as close to the original as possible while ironing out plotholes and contradicting parts as well as all these less than stellar outdated details. It’s a great story with a ton of intricate details and much if it holds up to this day, but it has flaws that just don’t need to be there.

[ughgclden]

bee, love, don’t apologise, please, it’s okay, and first and foremost, are you alright?? i hope you’re taking care of yourself, love, but i understand, i don’t think there’s been a year since third grade that i haven’t gotten pneumonia in the winter. I hope you’re feeling alright!!

honestly, dead poets society is one of my only personality traits anymore, i find myself drawing parallels to it constantly, for no reason but i love thinking about it. i’ve watched it so many times at this point, it’s,,, concerning. those tests always take me way less time than they give me, and i used to feel really awkward, i remember i took a bio one once, four hours they gave me, 45 minutes in, i was finished, and the moderator didn’t believe me. i aced it too, like the silly little neil kinnie i am. i’ve gotten used to the ‘worse’ side of being a neil kinnie, and honestly, now that my mum isn’t as controlling about everything as she used to be, it’s easier to deal with. i remember once, i’d gotten an 89 in algebra, and she threatened to pull me out of the fall show. that was a neil perry moment if i ever had one lol. the biggest thing these days is just imposter syndrome, imposter syndrome like oh you’re not hispanic enough, but also, you’re not queer enough, nonbinary enough, things like that. It’s exacerbated some days, but i try.

i watched the it movies on my cousin’s hbo,,, i may or may not have used it without her permission since she forgot to log out of my computer, but that’s neither here nor there. i remember having such a hard time taking the first one seriously initially, because of all the new kids on the block jokes, having a mum who was obsessed with them made it hard, especially when i actually got them all- in truth, the only midnight premiere i’ve been able to make was the force awakens, and i had school the next day too. i’m definitely a richie kinnie, and i have the internalised homophobia (only towards myself though) to prove it /hj my waterbottle has both a sticker of neil on it and a sticker of the r + e carving on it. in case there was any doubt about me lmao. stan kin makes sense for you, honestly, i can see it, i can see it.

okay so listen- no really, i’d bought them with the intention of only drinking half of one that night and spreading them out like that, but then came 9:45pm, and i had a research paper (on womens’ pockets/lack thereof) due at 10am that i simply hadn’t even started, so i downed them all in an hour and got the paper turned in at 5:56 in the morning. but i scare you huh? /hj bee, you’re too sweet, in truth, i’m fairly inelegant, but i try, as for the comforting and cosy, i’ll take you at your word, since that is something only someone interacting with me could discern. i do try to be kind to others for the most part. mainly i think because i’m usually on the other end of mean people.

i’m just perceptive like that bee, i dunno what to tell you, something just tells me, you know? /j and thank you, i always feel a little silly talking about it, because most of the tattoos i want are dead poets society tattoos, i guess some part of me, within the part of me that feels so incredibly tied to it, feels as if if i were able to get a tattoo i’d owe it to the movie in some way, if that makes any sense. i’ve already begged a friend of mine to go with me to get my first once i get to new york, the question though, is what to get first. i’ve got time to make a decision (for once in my life) i just spend a lot of time thinking about it.

honestly, i have never known a school rule to make sense. banning ripped jeans? banning dyed hair? it’s almost as if if they don’t stifle everything natural about kids expressing themselves they dont feel like they’re doing anything. but i digress. the same-sex couple rules were. awful. 12 year old me had enough going on without having an administrator yell at my friend and i for hugging in the courtyard and not leaving until we were a foot apart, but hey.

okay, jumping over a fence to go to a mcdonalds? how coming of age indie movie manic pixie dream girl of you /hj

200k words, is that a challenge? also ahaha not at all like my italian uncle up there just opened a ‘pizzeria’ /hj but mob!star au? might be a project i should start… granted, i’m not as good a storyteller as you, but i can try.

when i was little, i wanted to revolutionise things, i guess. i even actually wrote out a campaign, i wonder if its still somewhere. thank you for believing in me, but these days, bee, i’m thinking less about changing the world, and more about making it the next few weeks, and then the ones after that. little star was aware of so much, but also so little. i wonder what they’d think of me now, honestly.

i did, in fact, teach archery, it was so fun but my arms got SO SORE, and the kid who challenged my archery skills seemed surprised when i actually,, hit the bullseyes. my inner susan was happy then. incidentally the experience is also why i made a playlist called “touchstarved and wanting to teach you to shoot a bow” which low-key slaps when i’m lonely. and bee omg i cannot believe you said im better than susan pevensie i will be thinking about this for the rest of my life thank you- and yes, yes it was named aslan, however did you guess? /j prince caspian<33333

i’ll let you know my results from the tournament, as soon as they come out, and i say this having just put on pjs after taking off my suit, and sitting in the room with my cat in my dear evan hansen hoodie, frantically refreshing the results page because i’m anxious and impatient.

i hope you have a good night, with fitful and restful sleep, i’m sorry this got to be so long, but you know me, i certainly can talk. i’m honestly shocked i even made it to finals, considering i was running off four hours of sleep, having gone to bed at three last night. whoops.

all my love, hugs, and a warm mug of tea,

yours,

star✨

p.s i said yes so that?? happened?? it honestly feels surreal but we’re not gonna be in the same place anymore come the end of this year, so that’ll be something to deal with

P.p.s might just start adding spanish or latin or russian phrases to these if i keep having to translate your cute french bee /lh /hj

star my love, i know you said don't apologise, but i think the word 'sorry' makes up about 60% of my vocabulary. i'm okay!! was just a bit icky, but luckily i've recovered now!!

that's so nice - and again, makes so much sense for you. i think you would work perfectly in welton, i know it. i love bringing the messages from that film into my own life, as silly as it may sound. i'm astonished, and so fucking jealous of you. i used to finish tests maybe half an hour early, but hours is so impressive??? fun fact i did finish my physics final in about 45 minutes and slept for the other hour <3 neil would b proud my love!!! oh my god - i'm so sorry that happened??? but that is also so neil kinnie??? it seems futile me saying this, but i assure you that you are hispanic enough, and queer enough, and non-binary enough. you are enough, period. more than enough even. imposter syndrome is the worst, and i'm so so sorry you're dealing with it.

she did that to herself, you just saw an opportunity /lh a midnight premiere of the force awakens sounds so cute though omg - i hope you had the absolute best time. the r + e carving actually broke me. as a die hard reddie shipper since 2017, seeing the movie make it basically canon?! had me a mess in the cinema.

you are ridiculously comforting and cosy, everything about you feels like a warm hug from a familiar face and i love it. and the way you write is so smooth, it makes me think of a quill smoothly gliding across parchment, the deep black ink unsmudged and pristine. that seems a little pretentious of me, but oh well.

i also want some dps tattoos!! i desperately want "and still we sleep" from todd's poem, and was also so so tempted to get an outline drawing of meeks + pitts dancing on the roof. i love that, and i can't wait until the day you get it, whichever one it may be. my one concern is becoming addicted to them and making my bank account suffer - at least my piercing obsession is a little easier to fund /hj

i've NEVER gotten that - they claim it's 'distracting' but how on earth would it be?? when i got to college, no one was distracted by my dyed hair, and i certainly wasn't distracted by other people's outfits or painted nails. you were yelled at. for hugging. a friend.. what the fuck is wrong with these people??

just call me ramona flowers star /j it was possibly the highlight of my school career, sans hiding in the back room of the music room to avoid a maths test

i bet you're an amazing storyteller, if these letters are anything to go by. it would be a new york times best seller, i know it

we all have to take things one step at a time, i think. that's the only way i really get through things if i'm honest. one day after another and the cycle repeats. i love wondering what young me would think of me now - i'd probably be intimidated of myself, but i like to think i'd be proud that i'm still here, pursuing something i love

that playlist. sounds nothing short of sheer perfection. i too am touch starved and want to teach someone to shoot a bow - even though i.. cannot shoot a bow... but i can wield a sword so, it's close enough.

i saw your message about the tournament results - im so fucking proud of you!!!! you deserve it so so much and i couldn't be happier for you. see, your words and ideas are changing the world, even if you don't realise it.

ps; that is so fun???? omg im so happy for you star, you deserve tis <33 i hope towards the end of this year whatever happens leaves you both happy, no matter how far the distance.

pps; omg no.. please don't do that.. aha that would be awful... definitely wouldn't make my heart race.. haha not at all

all of my love, star. pardon the pun, but you are out of this world ;) i'll leave you with one of my favourite quotes;

il n'y a qu'un bonheur dans la vie, c'est d'aimer et d'être aimé <3

[almostunadulteratedmiracle]

Good Omens Celebration, Week of Sharing

I have slithered into this fandom in an acute, unusual angle, rediscovering the book after finding some amazing fanfiction - a couple of stories that resonated with something in my heart or my situation in a way I can still barely grasp. The main thing that drew me in was a spin-off of a reverse AU. The story’s wonderful author, Sister-to-the-Queen, was very kind, and she encouraged every shaky first attempt I made at fanart and fanfic in here (and I’m still eternally grateful to her for that and so much more). So it started out with some wildly depressing, heavily angsty fanart of a fanfic of an AU... and it turned into every random thing my imagination could conjure. I dived into the darkness of Sunday nights every week, waiting for the update and immediately starting to draw something (Monday morning lessons be damned). I lived vicariously through meandering discussions in the comments, and I found a great friend in an unlikely way. 

I made up for the lack of experience in drawing by making strange, in-between things, combinations of art forms that I had learned about years ago and filed away as things I would never use. I wrote/drew what I like to think of as an “inverse picture poem”, filling up the page, creating the missing parts of a drawing from winding, rhythmic words:

(Above: The words that guide)

I delved into possibly convoluted symbolism, and looking back on it now, I can’t help but smile a little at the progress I made over the years (because yes, that first story I found still haunted me - it does to this day).

(Triumph)

Blatantly ignoring the fact that I knew exactly nothing about composing music, I kept returning to a keyboard like a bloody-minded comet, and I refused to stop until some of the (still only rarely sweet) feelings the stories left me with turned into music. Possibly not very good music, but music I still like to hear.

Then different, lighter stories came along, and they gave my inner angst-demanding Langolier a start: peppered with softness, silliness and sweetness, my usual brand of “stuck in a dark and serious land” tasted better, too. (You know, finally returning to the spirit of the book.) I made clay figurines - and I still slightly regret I never got to finish that project, but anyway, here’s a Crowley from back when I fell for his cool facade:

At the next story, BAM! I could suddenly ignore my ancient belief that I could not and would never be able to paint something I wouldn’t flinch at in a couple of years’ time. And oh, Somebody, I am so thankful for this fandom teaching me that. Still not a great painting, but it makes me feel so warm - look at these soft, beloved idiots:

(December Dilemmas)

And look, colours! An angel and a demon plotting, and a duck who swam into the picture but has much better things to do:

(Frosty autumn plans)

In the meantime, the fandom and the book taught me to appreciate Death, the character (and sent me tumbling into the Discworld-novels). And the online friends made, and the lessons learned also helped me deal with death in the real world - I’m one of those people who would quite possible be much more lost and clueless if not for Good Omens and everything it brought me.

(You know it now)

Putting even more fun in fandom (and getting me hooked on bad puns), these stories motivated me to attempt the impossible: animation! (Gasp!) And you know what else? Making an actual, fake-old-looking book of some of my favourite stories to send to their author (with tiny surprises included, like the letter one of the characters sent the other in-story):

Additionally, I have to love that Good Omens has been a constant in my life for a long while now. It’s brought all the necessary outlets I needed when I got into it, there is a high chance that it made me a more cheerful person, and there is an absolute certainty that it introduced me to wonderful people and stories. 

Lately, I haven’t really had the chance to continute my adventures in hand-made / traditional art, but thanks to not-a-space-alien, memes happened instead:

(Your Own Side meme collection 1 2 3)

And also, an attempt at a comic book format ensued. (Look at it at your own peril, it’s weirdly drawn, but it shows injuries that would be pretty gruesome IRL.) 

I might have lied a bit above (hey, if Aziraphale could lie to the Lord, I can fudge the timeline a bit for narrative purposes). One more hand-made thing did see the light of day:

(Inspired by ask-agnes-nutter’s brilliant answer to someone’s ask, also, the most motivational thing I think I’ve ever made.)

I promise I’m coming to the end of this ramble now, but it’s been a decade, and I owe so much to this book and the lovely people who love it just like I do. I’ve intermittently written a bit of fanfic, too, which is what I seem to be shifting towards nowadays - and I can’t wait to discover what else Good Omens will make me do. Dear fans and creators, thank you for being awesome!

[fxundingfxther]

Idk if you ship this but Henry x William for the OTP questions

Do I ship them? THEY’RE MY OTP LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOO!!! 1) Who rocks the Ferris Wheel seat and who flips out and begs them to stop? William absolutely is the chaotic bastard to rock the Ferris Wheel seat while Henry blubbers like a baby and hisses at him to stop. 2) Who is always horny and will have sex at any time, at any place and at any time? Absolutely William. 3) Who is more into taking showers/baths together? Who tries to make it relaxing and who tries to make it sexy time? I feel a combination of both. While I feel William is more hands on with making things sexy when it’s time for it Henry is more for them both relaxing each other after a hard day of work. 4) Who likes to walk around the house naked and who tells the other to go put some clothes on? I don’t feel like either of them would be the type to do this but I feel Henry would be more likely to be nude than William considering his scars. 5) Who sleeps on the couch when they get into a fight? Probably Henry, Willingly so, he wouldn’t want to agitate William any further. 6) Who takes photos of the other while they sleep? Both of them, William taking silly photos to pick on Henry about and Henry taking cute photos because he loves his partner enough. 7) Who said “I love you” first? and who ends their arguments in a fight with “Because I love you”? I feel that Henry would say I love you first and probably also end an argument with becasue I love you. I feel in specific occassions william can be the one for the latter as well.

8) Who likes to wear the others sweatshirts? HENRY HENRY HENRY. it brings a sense of comfort for henry. Henry has a little bit of an abandonment issue so something warm and reminding of his partner is helpful for him. 9) Who wakes the other up in the middle of the night to tell them a cool dream they had? Who has the most nightmares, and who sings them back to sleep after? William wakes henry up to tell him good ideas he got from his dreams, I feel considering things they’ve both done or been through they both have nigmares but William never talks to Henry about them it’s always henry whining to william about his and he just comforts him to sleep. 10) Who is more likely to cheat? nope neither not happening nada zilch zero 11) Who makes fun of the other for having a crush on them, and who has to remind them that they are in a relationship? William on both ends, I feel since he has known henry for so long since before they even got together he knows how to push his buttons and probably even finds fun in it, but is also a bit posessive so he can much often reaffirm their relationship 12) Who starts a food fight in the kitchen? HENRY. 13) Who initiates duets? and who is the better singer? Henry initiate duest while william begrudgingly joins in, henry might be the better singer. 14) Who starts the hand holding? Who grabs the others butt? Who slides their arm around their waist? Who likes to put their fingers in the belt loops? Starts hand holding- henry grabbin’ butts-william arm around waist - william fingers in belt loops -both but mainly henry 15) Who likes writes the others name on their wrist? Henry 16) Who is more seductive when they are drunk? and who is louder in bed? William is quite the charmer both sober and drunk, Henry would absolutely be louder. 17) Who is more protective? Henry 18) Who talks to the other while they are sleeping? William 19) Who drives and who has the window seat? They take turns driving. 20) Who falls asleep in the others lap and who carries them to bed? Henry falls asleep in williams lap so he carries him to bed 21) Who cuts the others hair? henry cuts williams hair, or offers at least 22) Who is super bad at sexting? and who sends them encouraging messages throughout the day? Both for henry, he’s a bit awkward and doesn’t know what he’s doing but he’s loving and wholesome and william loves him for it even if he is a little bit of a fool. 23) Who thinks they are not good enough for the others love? and who’s more afraid of loosing the other? Who thinks they keep messing up, only for the other to tell them they don’t need to worry? Henry often things he’s not good enough due to the loss of his wife and daughter, he often fears losing william and messing up but william gives him the reassurance he needs.

24) Who starts random slow dancing with the other in the kitchen? Who holds the other just above the ground and kisses them? Henry when he’s cooking, however william takes him off guard and holds him above ground to kiss him. 25) Who says shitty puns and sex jokes just to see the other giggle and blush? While William probably wouldn’t be the type to giggle and blush henry absolutely adores puns 26) Who kissed first? William 27) Who orders take out at two in a morning? and who wakes the other up at three in the morning to go downstairs with them to get a glass of water because it’s too dark? Absolutely henry for both 28) Who writes poems/stories and love songs about the other? Do they sing the songs the write for them? Henry loves expressing his feelings in any kind of way so I could see him writing stories or poetry for william. 29) Who does some crazy stunt to try and impress the other and who ends up driving them to the emergency room after it backfires? Henry, he’s very accident prone adn wants to impress william 30) Who is embarrassed when they have to wear their glasses and who thinks they look super cute?

Henry of course, william thinks the glasses make him look a bit dorky but he loves that about him

[washing-machine-headcannons]

could i please get a haikyuu matchup? i’m a 5'3" bi girl. i’m curious, pretty open-minded & enjoy learning new things. i try my best to be a good friend, as well as a decent conversationalist & listener. i’d say i’m extroverted, but i come off as quite reserved at first. i’m patient & affectionate with my loved ones, & usually compassionate. but i can be indecisive, sensitive & prone to catastrophizing. i have a tendency to overthink, & i’m very talkative; i also love analyzing things!! 🦋(½)

my sense of humour can be quite flexible, but i think “chaos goblin” is the best way to describe it? i’ve been described as a “mixed bag of human”. i’m majoring in anthropology, but my other interests include history, mythology/folklore & writing (when i’m not procrastinating/being lazy akfjdkj). i can be prone to melancholy, but i try not to take life too seriously. all in all, i just have a lot of love to give, & i really don’t shut up. thank you so so much!! 🦋 (2/2)

So... I may have gone a little overbored and did two people for your matchup! I hope you don’t mind! ack, i’m nervous.

♥ Kiyoko Shimizu ♥

↪  Kiyoko's personality would be absolutely excellent and adorable with yours! Her more calm and quiet outlook on life would combat your extroverted personality in the best way. You would surely bring out a lively side to her.

↪ Your catastrophizing would be easily calmed by the rational black-haired female. She would talk you through what you're concerned about, convincing you that it won't happen or won't be as bad as you think it is. While you're anxious she'll run her fingers through your hair and press herself close up next to you.

↪ The constant talking may annoy some people but Kiyoko absolutely adores it. She doesn't always have something to say so the fact that you talk a lot makes her at ease. When you prompt her to talk she will happily do so.

↪ Whenever you bring your writing to her, Kiyoko will read every word with extreme interest. The way you put your words together makes her extremely immersed in the story. Write her a letter or some sort of poem and she may just start to cry.

↪ Kiyoko will occasionally use pet names while in private such as, "Darling" or "Hun". She won't use these in public unless you're comfortable with it. During high school, it will mostly stay to when you both are by yourselves or talking on the phone. Once highschool has finished she will get more confident with calling you these in public.

↪ If you were to ever start ranting about history, she would be very entertained seeing as she also finds it fascinating.

↪ Overall your relationship would be very sweet and gentle. The occasional teasing and neverending laughs make it something worth looking forward to.

                    🐱 Kuroo Tetsurō 🐱

↪ Kuroo is known to be quite the pun master along with being a giant tease. One of his favourite activities is teasing you on your height and your tendency to overthink things. It may seem like he's doing it to be mean sometimes but that really isn't his intention. You being quite patient would be a good thing for him, you would be able to handle his comments.

↪ If he had ever overstepped your boundries he would be very quick to apologize and try to make it up to you. He would never hurt you or your feelings on purpose.

↪ At first, Kuroo will seem quite annoying, being a "cool" and "scheming" person but later on, you'll get to see how silly he truly is. He would understand why you're quiet at first, determined to get you to open up your more extroverted side with time. You both could be capable of some pretty stupid stuff.

↪ Kuroo has a variety of names for you, such as; Worry Wort, Shorty, Gremlin and Troll. Those at least are some of the more playful names but there are more intimate ones as well. Kitten, Dolly and Sweets are just a few that are used in a more endearing manner.

↪ The fact that you enjoy history and learning new things is a bonus for Kuroo since he's quite intelligent. His intellect is displayed multiple times, being in college preparatory classes and knowing some complex scientific definitions. It may seem like he's not listening sometimes but in reality, he's very interested in what you're saying.

↪ Kuroo is quite open to PDA [public display of affection], he loves to hold your hand or have an arm wrapped around you. If you're open to it he'll always have you like that. He is very touchy so expect lots of kisses and hugs when around people and in private.

↪ Due to his height, Kuroo can and will rest his chin on your head just because he wants to. He'll have a shit-eating grin while he does it as well, the more it annoys you the better.

↪ If you start to get worried about something, a lot like Kiyoko, he'll reason with you. He'll talk you through it and crack a few jokes, none that may hurt your feelings though. He is very observant and can easily tell when you're upset or not in the right headspace.

↪ Your relationship would be filled with lots of dumb moments and laughs, that is a guarantee. Not to mention the cuddles, annoying his teammates and teasing each other.

[iffeelscouldkill]

Roses Are Red (Valentines Are Hard)

A/N: A late Valentine’s Day offering. (Which is in keeping with the theme of the fic, if you read!) Just a silly and (hopefully) cute thing.

Cross-posted to AO3

Violet does a double-take when she sees the date on her holo-display upon waking up that morning. 92-02-14. February 14, 2192. Valentine's Day.

Crap. She'd forgotten about Valentine's Day. Well, more like she'd stopped thinking about Valentine's Day given that the last time she was in anything resembling a 'relationship' had been those four months with Terry right before finals. Ugh. No, she doesn't need to be thinking about that right now.

Is it too late to plan something? she thinks, followed by, Would Arkady even celebrate Valentine's Day?

Arkady isn't exactly the hearts and flowers type, granted, but neither is Violet. She likes genuinely sweet and thoughtful gestures - like using your favourite mint plant to make someone a cup of tea - not saccharine Hallmark declarations of affection. Besides, with her name being Violet, she's heard way too many puns over the years involving that stupid 'Roses Are Red' poem.

Anyway. Violet returns to thinking about Valentine's Day plans. She remembers Sana saying that they would be making a call at Pangu, a small planet with a bustling market, in a couple of days to refuel and resupply. In fact, were they due to land today? If they were, then she had an idea for what she could do to mark the occasion.

After getting dressed, she wanders into the kitchen to make breakfast - and runs into Brian, who is inexplicably wearing a plastic crown on his head.

"Uh, morning, Brian!" she greets him, amused.

"Hey, Violet. Do you do Valentine's Day? If so, Happy Valentine's," says Brian, slicing a banana onto some oatmeal.

"Yeah, I kind of do, as long as it doesn't clash with the Lunar New Year, anyway," Violet replies. "Happy Valentine's Day. And uh, nice crown?"

Brian laughs a little and touches the crown on top of his head. "Thanks. It's a tradition, kinda?"

"Between you and Krejjh?"

"Yeah," Brian says and smiles fondly. "Dwarnians don't really celebrate Valentine's Day or anything like it, though they have a couple of festivals dedicated to bonded couples - married couples, that is - and to intended couples, or-"

"Engaged couples?" Violet fills in. "Yeah, I remember Krejjh referred to you as their "intended", to Eejjhgreb."

"Right. But there's not really a day for like, romance in general? Or for newer couples. So, Valentine's Day came up a couple of months after we sorta, finally, became an official 'couple', but Krejjh didn't know about it. I wasn't expecting us to do anything for it, but we happened to be docked on Bathala, a kind of lawless planet wayyyy on the outer reaches of charted space, almost in the Deep. It's mostly a human planet, but it's not unheard of for humans and Dwarnians to mingle there in peacetime.

"So, Krejjh and I went out to this - cafeteria? A really cheap and kind of commercial place, really hilarious. And Krejjh wanted to know what was with all of the pink, and the hearts, and the flowers. So, I kinda explained it, and they got upset that they didn't have anything to give me, to "symbolise their undying affection"."

Violet giggles.

"I told them I didn't expect anything, but I think part of the appeal was understanding and taking part in a human romantic tradition, so... anyway, they were doing this ongoing competition - eat a huge plate of this legendarily spicy house chili, and win a crown. And a spot in the cafeteria Hall of Fame."

"I think I see where this is going," Violet laughs.

"Right, so Dwarnians also have this thing about competitive acts of bravery to prove their affection. Add to that a love of spicy food, and - that chili didn't stand a chance. Krejjh's portrait is still hanging in the House of Tantalising Tastes Hall of Fame. And I wear this," Brian touches the crown on top of his head, "every Valentine's Day in honour of their victory."

"'House of Tantalising Tastes'?" Violet repeats with glee.

"The finest establishment we ever set foot in," Brian says solemnly.

"Clearly, a sign of great things to come," Violet agrees.

The door whooshes open and Sana comes into the kitchen. "Morning Violet, morning, Brian," she says, cheerfully. Looking between Brian's pleased face and Violet still snorting with laughter, she says,

"Has Brian been telling you the plastic crown story?"

"I don't think I've ever heard a more classic Krejjh tale," Violet laughs.

"Oh, dude, you haven't even heard the story of our first date. I have so many more where that came from."

"Well, you can tell them on the way to the market," says Sana. "We'll be landing on Pangu in half an hour. Violet, are you up for a market run?"

"Yeah, that sounds like fun," says Violet, thinking of her Valentine's Day plan. "Is Arkady coming?" she adds, hoping she sounds casual.

Sana frowns slightly. "She hasn't actually emerged from her room yet, but she usually comes on a market run. I'll knock on her door again in a few minutes and see."

Violet hurries to finish her breakfast and get ready to go out. She's not dressed up, exactly, but she puts on just a little bit of makeup - which she doesn't normally bother with - and a pair of cute, dangly earrings with clusters of flowers hanging down. She smiles at her reflection in a small hand mirror.

However, when Sana knocks on Arkady's door a few minutes later, she's met with a muffled, "Go out without me!"

"Arkady?" Sana calls through the door, frowning. "Are you okay?"

"I think I'm sick," comes the response, followed by a slightly forced-sounding bout of coughing.

"Do you want me to check you over?" Violet calls.

"Nah, I'm probably contagious. I don't want to get you sick," Arkady calls back. "I'll be better this afternoon, probably."

Sana looks sidelong at Violet and then replies, "All right, make sure you get some rest. It'd be really good if you can make it out later on."

"Count on it," Arkady calls. "Have fun at the market."

Violet is a little despondent over Arkady's absence, but her mood picks up as soon as they get to the market. It's a nice day outside. Pangu has two stars that rise and set at different times and provide light to the planet; one is rising as they step outside, while the other is just past its peak. The combined effect is bright and pleasant.

Normally, Sana and Arkady and occasionally Violet do the market runs while Brian keeps Krejjh company on the ship, but this time Brian comes with them, on the lookout for some kind of mystery item for Krejjh.

Violet winds her way among the stalls, keeping her eyes open for something suitable. There's such a huge variety of stalls and goods on offer - food and clothing, accessories and crafts. She is eventually drawn towards a jewellery stall with elaborate, gothic necklaces and bracelets wrought in silver.

She toys with a cuff with a pattern of interlocking vines, before she spies a black velvet choker with a delicate design in the centre: two silver flowers nestled side by side, with leaves arching around them in the shape of a heart. Violet can't help reaching out to touch it. She loves it, but is it too much? Would Arkady wear it? She feels like she needs a second opinion.

She looks around for Sana, but the Captain is deep among the food stalls, bartering for supplies. Instead she spots Brian, browsing a couple of stalls over.

"Hey, Brian," Violet calls. He looks up and trots over.

"Oh, hey, do they have crown jewellery on this stall? Ooh, they do!"

Brian picks up a large, ostentatious crown pendant hanging off a chain, and beams at it.

"Brian, do... Do you think Arkady would like this?"

Brian looks over at the choker Violet is holding, and smiles. "That's super nice! It's totally Arkady's style, too."

"She doesn't already have one like it, does she?"

Brian tilts his head slightly, thinking, and then shakes his head. "Arkady doesn't really splash out on jewellery that often," he says. "I think she might have a plain one, but that's it."

"All right," says Violet determinedly. "I'll get it for her."

She haggles briefly with the stallholder before buying the choker, and Brian does the same with his crown necklace. Carrying their purchases wrapped in tissue paper, they meet back up with Sana, who is looking triumphant with several bags full of dehydrated food packs, fresh ingredients and other necessities.

"Looks like you made out okay, Captain," says Brian approvingly.

"I'd say I did," Sana agrees, satisfied. "Would you mind taking one of these each?"

They help her haul the bags of supplies back to the ship. To their surprise, as they approach the Rumor, they can see a small delivery drone hovering outside the airlock.

"What's this?" Sana asks, frowning. "I don't remember ordering anything. Did either of you...?" Violet and Brian both shake their heads.

Sana takes hold of the drone's package, which is a matte black cylinder about a foot long, vacuum sealed. Relieved of its delivery, the drone flies off.

Sana peers at the little screen that details the sender and recipient. "It's for me," she says with some surprise. "But there's no sender listed..."

"Do you think it's dangerous?" asks Violet, worried. "Should we get Arkady?"

Sana shakes her head slowly. "Whatever it is, it's passed through an official interstellar Customs checkpoint," she says. "The contents have been certified."

"What does the label say?" Brian asks.

"'Flora,'" Sana replies.

"So, a plant of some kind?" Violet suggests.

"Time to find out..." Sana twists one end of the cylinder, and the vacuum seal releases with a hiss. She hands the cap to Brian and from inside the tube, gently draws out a bouquet: delicate white flowers with dark green leaves and a pale yellow centre.

"Oh," says Sana in a strange voice. "These are my favourites."

"Is that jasmine?" asks Violet, recognising the scent. She's amazed that the flowers have survived the journey from - wherever they came from. It's definitely not a local delivery.

"Hey, there's a note," says Brian, peering into the not-quite-empty delivery tube. He pulls out a folded piece of paper and opens it to reveal a drawing.

"What is that?" Sana asks, puzzled - but Violet recognises the shape.

"Isn't that a soup can?"

"Oh!" says Sana again, in understanding, and her cheeks tint pink.

"It's from Campbell?" Brian asks, delightedly.

Sana nods slowly, leaning forward to smell the flowers. Violet shares a grin with Brian.

"I'll see you guys a little later," Sana says, almost to the flowers. "I have to go make a call."

As she disappears into the ship, they hear her murmur,

"Jasmine... I can't believe he remembered."

Roses are red Violets are blue Wait, your name is Violet, that sounds weird

Roses are red Flowers are pretty This poem is shitty

Roses are red Flowers are lame At least I didn't make A pun on your name

Arkady groans and puts her head down on her arms. With one hand, she reaches out for the closest sheet of notepaper and crumples it, then listlessly flings it across the worktop.

She rubs her eyes as a knock sounds at the door. "What?" she calls, trying to sound croaky and hoarse.

"You can give it up, Arkady, I know you're not sick," Sana calls through the door, quietly.

"I don't know what you're-" Arkady breaks off mid-sentence to fake a coughing fit. "-talking about."

"Right," Sana says drily. "Look, I know you're not much of a one for days like today. I know you'd rather just skip the whole thing. But I don't think... anyone... is expecting something huge. I think they'd just be glad to see you, honestly."

Arkady looks at the crumpled notepaper spread across the worktop, at her failed attempts to write even a clichéd four-line poem.

"I'll be out real soon," she promises Sana.

If she leaves her room now, it'll all have been for nothing. She can't give up.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? How the fuck does the rest of it go

La fleur que tu m'avais jetée Je ne parle pas français

“No, and hell no,” Arkady mutters, tearing the page from her almost empty memo pad. "Fuck. Why is this so hard?"

She sweeps her arm across the metal worktop, clearing it, and stares at the empty surface. Just write from the heart, Kady, she thinks to herself. You've listened to how many flowery declarations of love in operas? It's not that hard. Just project confidence. And your voice. Okay, not your voice.

Hey Violet I think you're super cute and also I want to make out with you

Arkady scribbles violently across the page and contemplates breaking her pencil in two. She should have just gone with her original plan of doodling a bunch of flowers and sliding it under Violet’s door. Or making her a bouquet of mint plants. Or a cup of tea. Something.

Arkady catches sight of the time on her holo-display and feels the bottom drop out of her stomach. 11:42 PM. “Fuck,” she swears vehemently. No, that doesn’t quite cover it. “Breesht.”

She has 18 minutes left of Valentine’s Day. 18 minutes left to come up with the perfect poem. Or even a passable poem. Arkady frantically reapplies herself to her task, ignoring the part of her brain which intones that she’s definitely already fucked it up beyond repair by ignoring Violet for the whole day. She can fix this. With a good enough poem, she can fix this.

Violet isn’t normally an early riser. She gets out of bed at a reasonable hour, and she’s always up and dressed in time to carry out her allocated chores around the ship, but she’s not one of those people who relishes getting up at the crack of dawn. Sana rises with the sun, and Brian and Krejjh keep odd hours, but when neither of them has a night shift, they’re up early to do some kind of Dwarnian meditation. Arkady rolls out of bed at the last possible second, while Violet makes a point of being up by 8 AM at the latest.

The morning after Valentine’s Day, though, she wakes up much earlier than usual – 6:20 AM, ugh – and can’t get back to sleep. She can’t stop thinking about Arkady’s non-appearance yesterday and wondering if she had anything to do with it. Did she do something wrong? Was buying the choker too presumptuous? Should she have tried to talk to Arkady? Slipped the gift through her door?

Several times, Violet had hesitated outside Arkady’s door, wanting to call through it and check on her, but something had held her back. She couldn’t help but think that it was her Arkady was avoiding by staying in her room, and if that was the case, she didn’t want to make things worse. But the anxiety eats away at her.

Sighing, Violet gives up on sleep and sits up, deciding to go to the kitchen and make a cup of tea. She knows she’ll probably run into Sana, if not Brian and Krejjh as well, but it’s better than staying inside her room and stewing.

As she leaves her room, she pockets the tissue paper package containing Arkady’s choker – just in case.

As she’d suspected, Sana, Brian and Krejjh are all awake and drinking coffee in the mess hall as Violet shuffles through on her way to the kitchen.

“Violet!” Krejjh calls out happily. “You’re awake so early! Good morning!”

Violet is barely able to deal with Krejjh’s level of energy before tea on a normal morning, let alone at this hour and with her current level of anxiety. She just about manages a, “Morning, Krejjh.”

Sana is definitely looking at her with sympathy, and Violet prays that the captain doesn’t say anything. While she normally appreciates what Arkady likes to call “the feelings corner”, if Sana tries to comfort her right now, she thinks she might start crying.

But before anyone can say anything else, Arkady bursts into the room.

“Violet!” she cries, skidding to a halt. Her hair is a mess, and she looks like she slept in her clothes – if she even got any sleep. There are dark shadows under her eyes and her expression is slightly wild.

“Arkady?” Violet begins tentatively, but then Arkady is barrelling on, reciting something off a crumpled piece of paper.

“Roses are great, Tulips are too, But of all the flowers, My favourite is you!”

Arkady finishes and looks up at Violet with a mixture of expectancy and trepidation. Uncaffeinated, and taken aback by the sudden – and very public – declaration of affection, Violet is frozen for several seconds. She sees the panic begin to creep into Arkady’s expression, and knows that she’s seconds away from bolting – she needs to do something, quickly.

“Uh…” Brian begins uncertainly, but stops as Violet steps forward and kisses Arkady in front of the whole crew.

Arkady’s eyes widen, and for a second she seems like she might pull away and bolt anyway, but then her eyes flutter shut, and she tenderly returns Violet’s kiss.

The whole thing only lasts for a few moments, but Violet is almost delirious with happiness as she pulls away. She thinks she might literally be floating. Arkady looks slightly dazed, but smiles and rests her forehead against Violet’s.

“So, you liked the poem?” she asks quietly.

“It was perfect,” Violet tells her sincerely. “Oh, I got you something as well-” She takes the tissue-wrapped package out of her pocket and hands it to Arkady, who looks stunned.

“It – you got this for me? Really?”

“Yes,” Violet confirms shyly. “Uh, you can open it back in your room, if you want to-”

“Crewman Jeeter, please can I applaud now?” Krejjh stage whispers, breaking the moment.

“Oh my god,” Arkady complains. “No, absolutely not. Go away, all of you.”

“Uh, you burst in on us, dude,” Brian says with great amusement. “Also, did that rhyme really take you, like, thirty-six hours?”

Arkady flips him off before carefully undoing the tissue paper around Violet’s gift. “It was twenty-four hours at most-” she returns, and then stops short as she uncovers the velvet choker.

Violet realises that she’s unconsciously holding her breath as she waits for Arkady’s reaction. She would rather not have given her the gift in front of the whole crew – would have been happy to let her open it in private, in fact, but she’s desperate to know that Arkady likes it.

“Is it okay?” she asks quietly as Arkady gazes at the gift without speaking. “I saw it at the market yesterday and thought of you, but if it’s not your style, I don’t mind if you-”

The rest of her sentence is lost as Arkady kisses her enthusiastically. This time, Brian doesn’t stop Krejjh from applauding, and Arkady manages to refrain from making obscene gestures until after she and Violet have finished kissing.

“Thanks,” she says quietly to Violet, under Krejjh’s delighted commentary, Brian’s good-natured teasing, and Sana’s encouragement. “I… yeah. Just, thanks.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Violet says, and squeezes her hand.

A/N: "La fleur que tu m'avais jetée" is a romantic aria from the opera Carmen. I doubt Arkady would have had the opportunity to learn any French on Cresswin Landing (outside of an operatic context), but I figured it wasn't out of the question for her to know the phrase, "I don't speak French" (which is what the line after that says).

Also, credit to @thevoicefromthestars who came up with Arkady’s final poem in the Starship Iris Discord. Thank you for inspiring this fic! <3

[the-textbased-jiaqiverse]

[Start of Log 073]

Log 073: The Cigar

*sighs* This is my fault... well not all my fault! Why do I have this story to tell today you may ask—if you may ask I mean—it all begins with John and James.

Yes, I write and save little love letters and love poems to Dice, yes, I do that ok? Just dunno how to up and say it to him sometimes... but I think he might have read them though, somehow... I probably deleted thousands of drafts and stuff. Hey why do I mention stuff I deleted? Well...

I needed this file from our archive, I needed John and James to pull it out, what happened is that I wanted to get it as fast as possible so I forwarded these wishes to John and James, I didn’t want to hang around them when it seemed like they always have the words *quotes*“we want to embarrass you BADLY” written on their faces recently. Right, I told them to look for file 021125, and observed them type in 155... not a joke! 115 oops, 155! I was like, “I was NOT telling you how many of these numbers are there, it’s 1 zero, 1 two, 2 ones, then 1 two and 1 five!” It was when they literally typed in 1012211215 that I realized they were trying to stall me, and well, build tension for something they possibly waited for a long time to do. I didn’t want none of that crap, so I shouted, “just type this in! Digit by digit alright?!! 0, 2, 1, 1, 2, 5!” That was easy right? No they entered sloth mode!

“0”, yes you typed zero, hooray! Now go for two, that’s right, it’s right there, look IT’S RIGHT THERE! Just put your finger on it, no no no why are you now pointing to 1, I said 2!! Oh that’s right now you’re there, type 2, 2, 2!!!!!!

“2” oh thank God! Now go for 1, yes 1, no not 0 NO NO NO! Ok yes, 1, yes. Should I remind you of the next three numbers? Because at this rate when you finished typing the 1 you would’ve forgotten the next three numbers already!

“1” on second thought, if I reminded you the 125 you might just mess up the entire file number so we have to start over if I can guess what you are thinking. WAIT WHY ARE YOU GOING TO 0? Look you don’t have to start from 0 and move to the number every flipping time!

“1” this is an eternity! Wait is it just me or did you slow down? Can you be ANY slower than you were just now? Apparently yes! OMG I can feel my life flash in front of my eyes. I still have so much to do and so much to fix! Have I told Dice that I loved him?

“2” if it wasn’t for the little screen with the search bar I would have forgotten where we were at myself! ............................................................

*reenacts the scene himself* “5” FINALLY!!! Now you just have to click “search”... wait a sec...... UUUUUUUUHHHHHH!!!!! They can still drag this on!!!!!!

*keeps reenacting* right so John finally clicks “search”, and the file shows up right? So I directed, “tap on it!”, so the file would be extracted, but........... how does one accidentally click on the delete button while opening up the file??!!! Especially when you are made to do things for us with precision and elegance?!

*reenacts the convo* “Hey boozoos! You know I would go to Dice about your, INCOMPETENCE right?” “Aw chill out, don’t go yet, we can still recover the file,” John said it without a thread of dread, so I know something had to be amiss, because they are usually scared of Dice hearing about them messing with me. “JUST GET ME THE FILE!!!” “Ok Boss,” but recovers something else, “oh what’s this? ‘Dice, not a moment passes without me thinking of your soft skin, oh how I longed to have you in my arms!’ What is this cringe Boss? Oh and, ‘you are life’s greatest gift for me’, why is this in the trash Boss? Little pieces like ‘when you and I are alone I gained my own piece of heaven,’ why this cringe Boss? You know practically everyone working in this casino can see this, don’t you? Why don’t you report your little works of art to Mr. King Dice too?”

I practically broke into Dice’s office after that!

Dice just stared at me knowingly and said, “it was John and James again wasn’t it?” I almost cried and I thought it would be very clever to say “Dice you love me right?” And confess that I wrote some cringeworthy stuff about us two, just before I let Dice get back to work... probably became one of the reasons why Mr. Wheezy turned out like this...

I thought Dice couldn’t look more dumbfounded than he did then—when I confessed, but I had a whole new idea after seeing his reaction to Wheezy’s nonsense.

So, Wheezy’s first day on the job. I actually liked him a lot, Wheezy is really just a simple guy, he fit right in with our existing staff, he is very down to earth, everyone liked him. The best part? Wheezy is not trying to play tricks all the time like John and James would do, he was so enthusiastic and was very good at his job. I heard from James that Wheezy threw that arson rat out long before he got mad and torched our property again, just because he thought that guy didn’t feel right. Wheezy was lit, literally. Every one of our employees cheered for him.

Huh... you know, why would Dice light that stupid cigar right? Probably because of the fact that he was really distracted by my cringe stuff...

I was happy about all Wheezy’s hard work, but James up and said that guy was for some reason very off, and I should keep a good eye on him. At the time I even teased James, “Aww you probably thought he’s off because you are jealous that I liked him more than you and John, Wheezy listens to me without trouble at least, UNLIKE YOU TWO, haww-hawww, be jealous pal, be very jealous.” I should have paid attention when he said, *impersonates, reenacts the tone of urgency* “I am not joking around this time, I’m being serious! John thinks so too.” But I didn’t think much of it, I mean, Wheezy’s perfect as long as he does whatever Dice and I wanted him to do without overthinking or messing around, the casino is never this in order—something would always go wrong with those costumers—this peace and quiet is all thanks to Wheezy kicking the rat out. I seriously thought Wheezy is like a lucky charm! Why didn’t I realize that those days could have been just some of our quieter days.

Wheezy ended up not being very busy, then he apparently wanted to just walk around and find somethings that he can lend a hand to. He did find something...

Right after offering to heat Mangosteen’s dinner, which is NOT part of his job, Wheezy found out Pip and Dot had a gas leak going on in their room, he volunteered to fix the issue, which is also NOT part of his job. Needless to say, lit cigar plus gas right?

BOOOOOOOOM!!!!!

Now I get it! Wheezy is trying way too hard to do ALL the jobs just because he might want to feel validated and he liked that feeling.

Dice told me later that night that he intended to be calm and collected when he had to talk to Wheezy about how half our staff quarters exploded, but he just can’t hold it in... when Wheezy accidentally made a pun. He tried his best to calm himself again and explained why the explosion happened to Wheezy—Wheezy had no idea why!—he has to explain as best as he can. It seemed that Wheezy did understand, and he said he would stay far away from future gas leaks. After all this Dice is just completely and utterly exhausted.

As we were drifting off to sleep, Dice got a call and this is when his jaw just dropped, that was the most dumbfounded he had ever appeared to be. John and James were tasked to fix the gas leak, clean up and restore our staff’s rooms, that should have taken no longer than 5 minutes, but somehow in that little interval of time mangosteen was just UNBEARABLY hungry and wanted more food, mind you he had dinner—the dinner Wheezy heated for him remember?! His room was one of those that was completely taken out by the explosion, and he can’t wait 5 minutes. So being the good *ironic*“resourceful” person he is, Wheezy offered to heat a can of food from his room for Mangosteen, HHHHHHH...... HAHAHAHAHA, I shouldn’t be laughing but, let’s describe it with Wheezy’s own words like how John did on the call, *clears throat* “I read the label on that can, it said ‘DO NOT PUT CAN IN MICROWAVE OVEN’, so I poured out the food into my metal pot and put that into the microwave, I’m not stupid.”... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... and then “Well of course I put the metal pot in there too! Geez I’m not going to just put the food in there silly” And the microwave caught on fire, our staff tried to put it out but it didn’t work, so now the remaining half of their quarters is gone as well, John and James didn’t even know how to tell us about that! After 1 minute of silence Dice finally told them to split up, keep an eye on everyone as the other quickly rebuild everything, otherwise no one would get any rest at all. Guess who got no rest in the end, Dice, he was so... shocked, he spent this whole night making this group of cigarettes to “assist” Wheezy—actually to keep him under close watch.

Fast forward to yesterday, 3 days after the last gas leak incident.

Everyone got along just well, especially Wheezy and the cigarettes, they bonded like brothers. They are like heroes to the majority of our staff, lending helping hands and keeping potential troublemakers away. You think everyone would hate Wheezy’s guts after what happened with their quarters right? Apparently not... For some reason. This time they really want to impress Dice and I, maybe to make up for the fact that they made such a mess, or get more validation, idk. The problem is that they went to an extreme length. They were everywhere, and they are *quotes*“nice” to the point that it’s intimidating! Once, Wheezy and two cigarettes actually followed Dice into the washroom and asked if he needed assistance there, I didn’t hear that part at that time but I did hear a loud “EXCUSE ME?!!” from Dice. I dragged them out and nearly beat them dead. Dice stopped me, why Dice I should’ve beat them dead so they wouldn’t cause all this trouble yesterday! At that time Dice probably wanted to believe that they’re just not clever enough and we have to patiently explain EVERYTHING to them, including personal boundaries, and what their jobs actually include.

John and James couldn’t focus on their jobs because they spent so much energy on watching the cigarettes, still had that lingering doubt about them. You see, John and James didn’t check the pressure of our gas lines or something and there was an even bigger leak starting out from our basement. Guess what, being the room closest to the basement, Pip and Dot’s room is once again filled with the smell of gas, and they just assumed there’s a leak in their room again. What did they do may I ask? Did they go to John or James, or Dice, or me with the problem? NO, they turned to their group of friends, which unfortunately includes Wheezy......

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!!!!

Half of our casino was gone with the blast!

And yeah... we somehow managed to be calm enough to clean ourselves up and have a late dinner like nothing stupid happened.

I checked with everyone, and imagine my surprise when I found John and James working alone on rebuilding the casino. Then it hit me, I really haven’t seen Wheezy and his cigarettes!

This is what I found them doing...

At that point it was already late, and Dice was still covered in ashes, I had to pull him away from the situation because I can clearly see that they are not on the same page.

It was then I found out from Dice, that he found out from our staff, that Wheezy did want to dive headfirst into the gas again! Wheezy completely forgot about the last incident and what Dice tried to tell him! Which means he had to repeat all that once again... Luckily the little cigarettes stopped him and reminded him that HE cannot go near the gas leak and Wheezy was all “yeah yeah yeah”. According to our staff the cigarettes also prevented him from putting metal into the microwave YET AGAIN, so thumbs up for them there. Then why was there still an explosion? That’s because Wheezy worked his magic and convinced one of the cigarettes to go repair the leak in his place! Why not ANYONE ELSE? I DON’T KNOW! It was then I knew stupidity is probably contagious... all I need to say is, that little cigarette that went in is of course, lit!

Now I get it, saying Wheezy is not allowed to fix gas leaks was not enough, we have to address each and every cigarette and tell them they are not allowed to do so as well! But what’s weird about this is that while this time Dice tried to tell them all that they can’t help with a gas leak, because they are lit cigarettes, Wheezy just blew into this sudden rage and exploded about how being cigarettes didn’t mean that they can’t help and he didn’t like how Dice kept thinking cigarettes are not good enough. Then he called Dice every name in the Inkwell version of a dictionary. This came out of nowhere whatsoever! Did something ridiculous just click to him somehow? We never said or indicated ANYTHING like that to them right? Knowing Wheezy he probably wasn’t trying to, or plainly couldn’t make this kind of a joke for laughs, he basically accused Dice of thinking all that. The biggest issue is that Dice couldn’t get them to understand that they took what he is saying wrong, therefore the conversation went between Dice talking about how scientifically, LIT cigarettes can’t mix with gas, and Wheezy taking that and applying that to all things unrelated and believing further and further that Dice is just not willing to give him this pet on his back no matter what he does, because of an unrelated reason, so Wheezy hates an idea that he gets out of whatever Dice is trying to say even when that’s clearly not what he meant AT ALL, and he feels the overwhelming need to attack Dice for it. UHH!! Wow I wish I listen to John and James, I mean they were right about most people!

Hey I hope Wheezy snaps out of this eventually right?

[End of Log 073]

Lmao when Mr. Wheezy says “I’m not stupid” and proceeds to tell someone else that they’re “silly” after burning his microwave oven

Inkwell version insults, what would all of those be like?

Piece the timeline together (use hints like the log numbers and certain contents), otherwise it wouldn’t make sense how one minute Wheezy hated KD then the next he worshiped him

There’s a follow-up to this!

[texanredrose]

Celebrity Matchmaker (Part 4)

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 (here) / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8

Weiss watched as the blonde took her spot, greeting both Blake and Pyrrha with hugs and a quiet little quip that made the former smile and the second give a surprised laugh. It brought a smile to her face, watching them interact like good friends who'd been together years rather than effective strangers a mere four months ago. Meals throughout the past week had the same air of familiarity hanging about them, all four trading jokes or raving about the food- Yang and Pyrrha had a knack for cooking, surprisingly, and they were more than willing to teach Blake and Weiss- and it had quickly turned into perhaps the best week the movie star had ever experienced. Aside from one-on-one segments and the aside interviews, the four spent the majority of their time together, watching movies or sporting events or reading.

Well, not reading together; Blake, Pyrrha, and herself would each be engrossed in their chosen literature while Yang idly picked at her guitar, pulling a melody from thin air to fill the room. Every now and then, Weiss would join in with humming, weaving a counter melody between the notes, and once or twice the Faunus had chimed in with a soft poem. The redhead sometimes joined in as well, tapping a beat with her fingers, but more often than not preferred to remain silent and simply bask in the impromptu accompaniment to their quiet time spent together.

The prospect that those lazy afternoons were now a thing of the past made her heart ache in her chest. Once she made her decision and Remnant confirmed it, they would depart the manor permanently, except for Weiss who would be called back to host the next season; she wasn't sure if Coco volunteered for the position or if the producers made that decision in the end but, she supposed, it didn't matter. Her return to the show was part of her contract, so she would be there again regardless. The manor wouldn't be the same without Blake sitting in a corner somewhere, Pyrrha on the couch engrossed in her shows, Yang running down the hallway laughing maniacally after pranking someone- without any of them, it would feel even more empty regardless of how many people physically inhabited the space. It hadn't felt empty until the four were separated for the last aside just before the finale aired, when she had only the camera crew for company while the others were taken for fittings and rehearsals; in regular episodes, they would take the entire week’s footage and chop it up, but a live finale meant they only had one try for everyone to hit their marks and follow the scripted flow. Then, once she’d recorded her final thoughts, it was a rush from one thing to another, preparing for them to go live- fittings, rehearsals of her own, a last minute check with the producers. To some extent, these  long, drawn out portions where she was given entirely too much time inside her own head were fraying her nerves, but she managed to hide it well enough that lilac eyes didn't fill with concern when they fell upon her briefly, though the blonde's smile pulled a little wider.

"Alright, Yang," Coco said, patting the rock star on the shoulder. "I'm sure I'm going to regret this but- any final thoughts on your experience the past sixteen weeks?"

"Well, it wasn't a world tour, but I definitely feel like I've gone around the globe a time or two," Yang replied, spreading her hands. "I mean, some of these beautiful ladies are out of this world! It was a total trip to get on their level."

The host shook her head amid laughter from the audience and contestants alike, a few people joining her in reluctant sighs. "That's about what I expected."

"Hey, don't say that!" She frowned, pushing a few errant locks of spun gold out of her face. "People might start thinking I'm predictable! That's not good for my wild image, you know."

No more ironic statement could be made as she stood there, in a pressed suit and with her hair tied back, obviously putting forth the effort to appear like she was taking the situation seriously. Weiss had no doubts to that; even if she'd shown up wearing her beat up leather jacket and aviators, it wouldn't diminish her sincerity.

"Right." Coco laughed, turning her attention to the camera. "Well, on that note, we're going to take a look at the final thoughts of our remaining contestants and the woman whose heart they’re trying to win. And after that, a quick commercial break. So stay tuned, Remnant, as our three finalists make their last, heartfelt plea to our charming romantic lead, and have those devices on stand by for the live voting coming up so you can be... a Celebrity Matchmaker!"

The crowd cheered while they were counted out, the green light signalling them off air as crew members began setting up the nearby gazebo for the last portion before the big reveal. Weiss could feel her stomach attempting to tie itself in knots but shoved it aside; she'd spent enough years working in front of a camera, pushing through illness and injury, to not be bothered by something as mundane as anxiety.

Even if it was nigh overpowering.

"Weiss?" She blinked, turning to notice concerned amber eyes turned her way, the Faunus flanked by her two co-finalists while Coco and the eliminated contestants were gathered in the center of the stage, trading last minute pleasantries and keeping just about everyone else from noticing the slight bend in the rules. Technically, they weren't supposed to interact at all until the commercial break ended and they were live for the final pleas, but she supposed a little leeway wasn't entirely unwarranted. "Are you alright?"

"I suppose there's no use in lying, now is there?" She offered the trio a rueful grin. "Just a tad nervous."

"You needn't be." The redhead smiled, eyes sparkling like the emerald gems dangling from her ears. "Whatever decision you make, we'll support you."

"Yeah, Princess, lil Miss Amazon over here's right." Yang gave her that megawatt smile, the one that could brighten even the darkest room. "We've got your back. And, uh, ya know, this isn't goodbye." She coughed into her hand, trying valiantly to hide the slight flush creeping into her cheeks while fiddling with her hair. She never did like having it tied back, for any reason. "I mean, we can still hang out after this. No one's stopping us from staying friends."

"It'll be difficult," she said, having had far too much time alone not to contemplate what the end of the show's run would bring. Every scenario, every outcome playing in her head at light speed in an infinite loop, but she pushed those thoughts away for the time being. "We all have very demanding schedules. Coordinating time to simply 'hang out' may come few and far between; we'll need to exchange e-mail addresses and scroll numbers, and-"

"Then we'll do it." The blonde offered simply, stymieing the flood of considerations and measures that had begun to pile up in the back of her mind. "You ain't getting rid of us that easy, Babe." The moment the word left her lips, Yang's expression faltered, her gaze drifting off to the side. "Guess I gotta kick that habit. If I'm not the one, I mean-"

Quick as lightning, a lump formed in her throat, preventing her from offering a response immediately. Blake stepped up, though, speaking where the movie star couldn't and saving her from whatever mess might tumble from her mouth otherwise.

"Let's not get into that right now." The Faunus gently nudged the woman beside her with her shoulder. "Wherever things go from here, regardless of the outcome, we can still all be friends."

"Absolutely." Pyrrha nodded, clasping her hands in front of her. "It's been truly delightful getting to know the three of you; I think it'd be rather silly to disregard that."

Lilac eyes darted to her for a moment. "So... no hard feelings, no matter what?"

Blake and Pyrrha nodded, all three looking towards the movie star for final approval. To be frank, it was something of a relief to hear that agreement, the idea that her choice wouldn't negate the wonderful moments she'd shared with each of the three before her something of a soothing balm. Although she might've started the show with a cynical point of view, her opinion had changed drastically, and the very thought of turning her back on the ones she'd chosen to be with her here at the end... no matter what any tabloid might claim, not even she could pretend to be so heartless.

But that would also be more difficult in some ways, wouldn't it? Would it hurt worse? Having them with her, but not like when they were in the manor; having them as friends and nothing more. It seemed like a cruel twist of fate, and she silently wished she'd been able to keep herself at arms' length if only to spare herself the torment.

Because right here, right now, she didn't have a clear choice, no obvious answer shoving its way to the forefront of her mind. She admired each of them, their strengths and faults, and she'd fallen in love with all three. She loved Blake's quiet laugh, the way she tried to keep a cool head but acted with her heart more often than not, her clear passion and quiet murmurs. She loved Pyrrha's firm and steady hands, her unwavering dedication, her sweet encouragement, and even her humble disdain for the way others portrayed her. She loved Yang's smiling eyes, her brash demeanor, her gentle manner of caring, and even her ridiculous, stupid, groan worthy jokes and puns- some part of her couldn’t believe it. All three held a piece of her heart.

And she could have but one in return.

"No matter what," she said, smiling at them and willing the storm in her mind and heart to calm for just long enough to get through the rest of the night. No matter how little she could sort through at the moment- or over the past week, or three, or however long since she’d rather suddenly found herself hopelessly infatuated with the three all at once- time marched on regardless and the commercial break would be over far too soon. She couldn't even tell if she wanted it to be over and done with or some cataclysmic event to stop the proceedings dead in their tracks, because she didn't want to confront the niggling sensation that, no matter which choice she made, it would be the wrong decision.

But the three beaming smiles she got in response- all different sizes, unique to the one who wore the expression but conveying the same emotion regardless- calmed her somewhat, steadying the twisting in her gut long enough to be surprised when Yang reached out, putting a hand on her shoulder and pulling her forward. Before she could process it, she was in Blake's arms, the Faunus giving her a firm hug while the other two women joined in from either side, surrounding her completely.

"Group hugs are awesome." The blonde chuckled, pulling affirmative hums from the other two.

"You dolt, you'll ruin the moment." Her halfhearted scolding carried no weight, though it did bring a sting of tears to her eyes. 

How could she possibly choose between them when every embrace felt so right?

"Hey, you four, knock that off!" A raised whispered pulled them from the moment abruptly, all turning to see Coco throwing a glance around. "Geez, we're twenty minutes from the big moment, and you guys choose now to start the PDA-fest?"

"It's not our fault she's so huggable!" Yang offered in response, reluctantly pulling away.

"That's not really a word." Blake lightly admonished, though she followed the rock star's lead.

"Though apt regardless." Pyrrha did the same, a soft sigh escaping her lips. "I suppose it's time to take our spots?"

"Yeah. Yang's first up; we're going in reverse order for the last stands." The fashion-designer-turned-host adjusted the ascot around her neck, lips curling into a small grin at her little joke. "We'd better hurry up. Less than a minute until we're live again."

While Pyrrha and Blake went to wait a little ways away, in a little sound proof booth so they couldn't improve on a previous contestant's material, Weiss followed Yang over to the gazebo, which was decked out in the most cliched of romantic trappings- rose petals on the ground, ivy and baby's breath strung throughout the latticework, candles lit to provide ambient light. Were it not for the inherent artificiality of it, she might find the effects charming.

"Hey." The blonde quickly stepped close to her, lowering her voice as they walked towards their spots. "Don't get lost in your head, okay? Listen to your heart." She winked. "You've got a good one, I know it. It'll steer you true. And you'll have all of us, no matter what."

She couldn't help but let a chuckle slip past her lips. "Thanks for the pep talk, Firecracker."

Although Weiss was loathe to do so, she continued on into the gazebo while Yang hung back, waiting for her cue to approach. Her heartbeat spiked as she stood there, the anticipation of what was to come making it all the harder for her to keep herself in check. But, she'd handled countless award ceremonies before this one, and she'd managed each with the grace and dignity befitting her lineage. If there was one thing a Schnee could accomplish, remaining poised under the scrutiny of Remnant certainly topped the list.

That didn’t mean it was easy or that she could think of at least ten places she’d rather be at that moment, though. But she also didn’t have much of a choice.

For clarification: I’m genuinely unsure if ‘huggable’ is a ‘real’ word. I’ve seen it used in fanfiction and country songs, neither of which are exactly reliable, but I’ve found evidence it’s been used since about 1863. At the same time, every word processor I have insists it’s spelled wrong and the English language is just awful at adhering to its own rules. So... I’m going with it’s not a ‘proper’ word, so Blake wouldn’t use it in her writing.

[fandomsandfeminism]

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a weird and wonderful story, full of odd surreal encounters and wacky nonsense. Despite it's strangeness though, I promise that drugs were not involved in it's production.

To read all of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass as a PDF: http://www.gasl.org/refbib/Carroll__Alice_1st.pdf

Full text version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11/11-h/11-h.htm

Full text version of Through the Looking Glass: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12/12-h/12-h.htm

Closed Captioning coming soon

Transcript below

Alice in Wonderland isn’t about drugs.

Now, I know that may come as a surprise to some people. It’s pretty standard internet fair to point at Alice, with all the trippy visuals and the mushrooms and the Hookah caterpillar, and declare that it was REALLY all about drugs this whole time, oh ho ho, and Disney made a movie about it!

But it’s not. It’s not about drugs.

I want to talk about Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass a little bit today, what they are really about, where this idea of them being about drugs came from, and why I find it to kind of be bullshit.

So, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English novelist Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carrol. The sequel, Through the Looking Glass, was published in 1871. I’m going to focus mainly on these two original books, and  not the dozens and dozens and dozens of adaptations and remakes that exist. For the record, both books are in the public domain, so it's very easy to find pdf copies of them on the internet.

Almost every movie version of Alice, including the Disney one, splices together elements and plot points from both of the books, rather than simply adapting one story or the other. It’s not particularly important to know which characters and events happen in each, since they are very often published as a pair anyway. But we’re going to have a quick overview.

-

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice is a young girl who is in the garden of her home playing with her cat Dinah when she sees a white  rabbit in a waistcoat run past, apparently late to an appointment. She follows the rabbit down the rabbit hole and thus into wonderland. What follows is a quintessential example of literary nonsense, filled with word play,  puns, and absurdity as Alice works her way through Wonderland.

She eats an odd bite of cake and drinks a potion which change her size. She cries so hard she creates a sea. She recites some poetry she had to memorize for school buts gets it all wrong. She meets a mouse that won’t answer her call in English, so she tries talking to it in French. She wonders if this assumed French mouse came over with William the Conqueror, because Alice doesn’t know much about when things in history happened. They reach the shore where other animals are. The mouse then gives a lecture on william the conqueror and the animals agree to a Caucus race to dry off  (Because Alice doesn’t know what a caucus actually is.)

Alice meets the Caterpillar, who seems to speak in riddles, correcting her grammar and not making sense. She meets the Duchess, who yells a lot and seems to ignore her baby. She meets the Cheshire Cat, who again, doesn’t make a lot of sense, and then the Mad Hatter and March Hare. More and more riddles. She plays a VERY silly game of croquet with the Queen of Hearts where the rules don’t make sense and the Queen cheats a lot. She meets a Mock Turtle (a pun on Mock Turtle soup, apparently Alice thought Mock Turtles were an animal). Then the world’s silliest court scene, where everything is unfair and doesn’t make sense, and then Alice goes back home, waking up as if from a dream.

Set presumably about half a year later, in Through the Looking Glass, Alice is playing inside the house with two cats, Dinah’s kittens, when she contemplates the mirror in the room. She finds that she is able to walk through the mirror and back into Wonderland.  She discovers a mostly nonsense poem, Jabberwocky, which can only be read if you hold it up to a mirror. She also finds that the chess pieces in the room have come to life. What follows is another adventure in mostly absurdity, though if you know how, you can actually use Looking Glass as a step by step guide for a real chess game. Alice plays the part of one of the white pawns.

She wanders through the garden of living flowers, meets Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, talks to Humpty Dumpty, and eventually makes all the way across the “board” and becomes a queen herself. The Red and White queens throw her a party,  and then confuse her with riddles and wordplay. This actually results in Alice physically confronting the Red Queen and “Capturing her”, putting the Red King into “Checkmate” unintentionally, and thus, she wakes up in her arm chair back home having won the game.

Quick recommendation, if you want to get all of the little wordplay and puns and references in Alice and Looking Glass, I recommend the Annotated Alice by Martin Gardner. It’s awesome.

- These books are pretty strange. So, if not a psychedelic reflection about a weird acid trip, or whatever, what’s up with these books? Why are they so weird?

Well, Carrol said he wrote the book after he and a friend spent a day on a river trip with the 3 young daughters of Henry Liddell in 1862. During their journey, Carrol entertained the girls with a made up nonsense story about a girl named Alice. Alice Liddell was so entranced that she told Carrol he should publish it. And so he did. He spent a few years refining the story before it was finally published, and the real Alice got her copy.

So on the surface, it’s just that- a silly story meant to amuse children, a celebration of imagination and childhood silliness.

But there are some underlying themes in these books. The encounters Alice has have a sort of pattern to them- Adults in the books, whether they are the Queen of Hearts or the White Queen, the Duchess or the Hatter, often speak in riddles. They make up rules that don’t make sense and refuse to explain them. The white rabbit is obsessed with never being late, and much of the word play or silliness comes from Alice not understanding adult or unfamiliar concepts (like the Mock Turtle or a Caucus race.)

And so the books become a very silly exploration of how a child, viewing the adult world, might feel confused and lost. Wonderland is Adulthood cloaked in familiar childhood clothes. Nursery Rhymes and game board pieces doing a fumbling pantomime of adulthood, discussing mathematical concepts and latin grammar, through the eyes of a child who doesn’t understand it.

There are many things that can be pulled from Alice- ideas of innocence, of escapism, of identity and sense of self,  of intentionally bucking order in favor of disorder. But none of those things are drugs.

(Sidenote: There is a whole other issue about Carrol’s….relationship with the Liddell daughters, and his...fondness for young girls in general. This is a whole separate debate, and it  gets kinda messy with contemporary views of childhood and adulthood and whether there was anything...untoward about his fondness for them. But that’s really not what we’re talking about today. )

- So, why do people think this is a story about drugs? Carrol wasn’t known for opium use, or even heavy drinking. He had no exposure to psychedelics (magic mushrooms wouldn't be discovered by Europeans until 1955) So why?

I think the easiest answer is that people want stories to make sense. I want stories to make sense. I spent a lot of money going to college to get a degree in “Making stories make sense.” We want there to be a reason that things happen in stories, and so when a story feels as random and silly and surreal as Alice, we want to figure out what it’s REALLY about.

This is kind of the underlying idea behind surrealism in general- creating art and meaning out of the absurd and random images of dreams and unreality. [Side note, there is an edition of Alice with illustrations by Salvador Dali, which is...amazing.]

And thanks to the culture of the 1960s and 1970s, there is a heavy association between reality-bending images and drug use, especially hallucinogens. And depending on which adaptation you are looking at, some movies really play up this trippy psychedelic aesthetic for Alice.

But I think there’s another level to this one, and one that I find much more grating. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a story for children, especially for girls. And there is a certain segment of the population, especially among young adults on the internet, who really seem to enjoy taking things aimed at children and declaring NO, this thing isn’t for kids, it’s actually FOR ME, and slapping an edgy dark interpretation on top of it, however sloppily.

Fan theories like...Ash is in a coma all along, or all the Rugrats are dead and Angelica is just imagining them, and...yeah, a huge slice of the Brony fandom declaring that adult men are the real audience, they aim at appropriating and co-opting child media for adult consumption

And there’s something about that which leaves a sour taste in my mouth over all. - I don’t think there’s anything inherently bad about reimagining child stories in more adult ways. But I do think it somewhat misses the point when people begin to insist that these mature reimaginings are the CORRECT or more valid interpretation, especially if they lead to the exclusion of children from that media space.

With Alice in particular, I think the story gives adult readers a chance to empathize with children, not as dolls or objects of cuteness, but as people interacting with a confusing and strange world as they grow up. It is an opportunity to revisit childhood, with all it’s familiar characters and uncertainty and wonder, and rather than corrupt that story, I think it should be embraced.

I’m going to leave you with the end of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alice’s adult sister, having heard her story, lays back, and herself begins to dream, of Wonderland and of her sister Alice. And This is what it says, “Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.”

And that is what Wonderland is about.

Thanks for watching this video! I’ll see yall down in the comments, so if you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions, head on over. If you enjoyed listening to this queer millennial feminist with a BA in English ramble on for a while, feel free to subscribe.

[love-andpeace]

SemiGata- 20, 21, 23-28 & 30 :D

*cracks knuckles* You know I’m always down to talk SemiGata, so you got it! I seriously enjoyed answering these, so hope you enjoy them too!

20) Who falls asleep in the others lap and who carries them to bed?Semi tries not to, but he is always the first to fall asleep while he and Yamagata are watching TV. Hayato doesn’t want to disturb his sleeping beauty, so he always tries to carry him to bed and Eita always ends up waking up.

21) Who cuts the others hair?They’ve tried to cut each others hair, but hairdressers these two are not. They leave their hair to the professionals.

23) Who thinks they are not good enough for the others love? and who’s more afraid of loosing the other? Who thinks they keep messing up, only for the other to tell them they don’t need to worry?Semi has always had self-esteem issues, he constantly questions whether or not he’s good enough and worries that one day Hayato will get tired of him and won’t want to be with him anymore, that he’ll want to be with someone who’s a better fit for him. Hayato reassures him constantly that he’s most definitely not going anywhere and he loves Eita no matter what.

24) Who starts random slow dancing with the other in the kitchen? Who holds the other just above the ground and kisses them?Hayato loves listening to cheesy love songs, and when Semi least expects it, he always manages to pull his boyfriend into a slow dance. Of course, he always ends each dance with a little dip and a kiss to Eita’s nose.

25) Who says shitty puns and sex jokes just to see the other giggle and blush?We all know Hayato is the king of silly puns that everyone just rolls their eyes at, but Semisemi loves Hayato so much that it always puts a smile on his face when Hayato goes into cheesy sexual pun mode. “What do Eita and police cars have in common?”“Hayato…”“They both make a lot of noise when they come!”“You’re not funny at all…” *trying so hard not to smile*

26) Who kissed first?Hayato just went for it, but it’s not like Eita minded. Not at all.

27) Who orders take out at two in a morning? and who wakes the other up at three in the morning to go downstairs with them to get a glass of water because it’s too dark?“Hayato, why the hell did you order takeout at three in the morning?”“You don’t get it, Eita! My stomach was making the rumblies! That only the delicious taste of pizza could satisfy!” “Hayato…”“It started off with me being thirsty and it just spiraled from there, I don’t know what to tell you.”*heavy sigh*

28) Who writes poems/stories and love songs about the other? Do they sing the songs the write for them?Hayato is so freaking adorable I can’t even. He tries to show his love for Eita in song and poetry, but his poetry are like his puns. They’re just not good at all, but he’s got the smoothest singing voice so Eita puts up with the cheesy songs just so he can hear Hayato’s singing.

30) Who is embarrassed when they have to wear their glasses and who thinks they look super cute?Megane Eita activated! He usually wears contacts because his glasses are so thick he thinks he looks dorky, but one day Hayato catches him with the glasses on and his heart instantly goes doki doki~ and suddenly he can’t get enough of his beautiful boyfriend in his glasses.

[imaginefefates]

Could you do Corrin asking the royal boys + Shigure to be their valentines for the first time?

Leo: You want to do something that’s not something he’ll laugh at. Cookies...you’ll burn. Flowers--he might be allergic...a letter? He might point out your spelling errors. You’re venting about just how to figure this out to a trusted comrade, not knowing that Leo just happens to be around the corner and listening to all of this.

He waits for you to approach him all day--and it’s only right before bed that you do. You don’t go with a note, or a gift, or a treat of any kind. Just you and yourself. You have your fists balled up in determination as you confess to him.

He looks a little serious, and then walks over to ruffle your hair. “Of course--was that so hard, silly ____? You should know by now I would accept. I’m not difficult, you know.”“I doubt that last bit,” you mutter under your breath, and he tugs your cheek playfully. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Leo,” you say sweetly, and kiss his cheek to distract him from any complaining on your part.

Xander: You wonder if there’s any point in trying. He’s always doted on you and cared for you like a younger sibling, even though you never were. What if he just sees you like that, and goes along with all of your whims so he doesn’t disappoint you.

You’re nervously piping a heart shape cake that you made for him, when he comes into the kitchen looking for you. “Ah, ____, there you are,” He comes over and leans over your shoulder to see your work, his chest lightly pressed against your back as he watches. Immediately your cheeks heat up, and you plan to attribute the flush to the heat of the kitchen. “Baking? I look forward to trying anything you make.”Sweet as always, you think shyly--no pun intended. “That’s good, Xander...because...it’s for you.” You carefully put the message on the cake, and you hear a soft ‘oh’ from behind once you finish. ‘Will you be my Valentine?’ the cake reads. (Actually, the last few letters are squished in and tilted down, but the effort counts.

“My _____...you needn’t go through all this trouble to ask--”You expect a rejection and hang your head.

“I--I’m very happy for your efforts, and will enjoy this dessert heartily and selfishly...but all you had to do was ask. My heart is yours...but the cake is not.” He lifts it up and above your head and out of reach.“Really? Won’t you share a little?” You’re grinning ear to ear, happy he’s accepted you and teasing you like this. He shakes his head gravely. “I’m afraid not--although, there is a small price if you do want some.” He taps his lips with a small smile and you’re pinker than the cake.

“Xandeeeeeer!”Is it too late to back out now...Your Valentine is more mischievous than you bargained for.

Ryoma: You’re a little intimidated. How do you ask a serious man like him? You wait for him outside his room, peeking through the slightly open door. He’s kneeling on the mat, and practicing his calligraphy. Knowing how much the hobby comforts him, you decided to write your message to him in a similar manner.

You spy his little dog running around the room, and catch his attention. “Come here, little puppy--” After he bounds to you, you take the rolled up note and tie it to the dog’s collar. “Alright, go on no--” The dog ignores you and instead runs to play outside. Your plan has now backfired very much and you spend the next hour or so tracking him down.

Just as you have him cornered, he runs past you again--and right into Ryoma. “What’s this? And why do you look so out of sorts, ____?” He unties the note, though a mild look of concern lingers on his face. “I was chasing him--I gave him the note and, well…”He looks at you, and then at the letter. “Ah…” he coughs into his hand to hide his face. “I see. Well. I humbly accept...I’m sorry for all the exercise this has put you through...Shall I make you some tea?” He pats your head with a gentle smile, and you smile back at him.

“Some tea would be nice...You’re lucky I like you Ryoma.”“I’m most fortunate that you do--to think you’d work so hard--I’ll have to make it worth it.”

Takumi: This is a tricky one. You want to confess to him in a way that he doesn’t get too embarrassed over. Which is hard, considering any time that you're in close proximity together, he turns into a blushing mess. You assume that means he likes you a lot back--or he’s just secretly very angry at your mere presence. Which is very likely, but you hope not.

You just...tell it straight to his face. Very fast, and loudly, so he can’t interrupt you at all with any stuttering or yelling or running away (you hold his arm to make sure he can’t do that last bit). He turns pinker and pinker, and is so red, you’re afraid he’ll burst.

“I--” he pauses, takes your hand, and starts walking at a very brisk pace.

“Hey where are we going?” Is he going to murder you in an alley? The thought crosses your mind several times, until he assuages your unreasonable fears.

“On a date! Gods, isn’t that obvious?”What a Valentine you picked--still--it’ll work out...somehow.

Shigure: He’s such a sweet and gentle boy, you know that so long as he returns your feelings he’ll accept. The part that makes you nervous is wondering if he does..he’s so kind, you don’t wish to mistake his kindness as affection. You’re brushing the mane of his pegasus and complaining that you don’t know what to do.

Could you sing a song? No, that would be ridiculous. Maybe...write a poem! Yes! You put your heartfelt feelings into a poem, and then proceed to read it to the pegasus. You assume the snorting noises is laughter in horse language, and feel your spirits fall. Great. You’ll never get anywhere with this.

Just as you try to crumple it up, a warm hand closes over yours and stops you. Light breathing washes over your neck, and Shigure’s sweet voice fills your ear. “What a lovely poem--I’ve never been confessed to before but--this would surely top any. May I keep it, dear? I hope this is meant for me?”“Did the sky-blue hair line tip you off?”“It was the singing in the sky bit, actually--I’m flattered, although, a little embarrassed--you put so much care into this. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this.”

“You’re my sweet Valentine, and are always so gentle to me...you do like me...right?”He contemplates for a second on how to convey his feelings, and settles with a light brush of his lips against your forehead as his answer. “How is that?”

“V-v-v-very good--” you stutter out, and he holds you in a sweet embrace. Just before the two of you leave together, hand in hand, you poke your tongue out at his horse. So what if it was a terrible poem...it worked.

[lizardlicks]

Baubles and Other Fine Things Part 2

Part 1 here ===> Link

A heap of boxes, all wrapped perfectly in brightly colored paper, and glittery bows greets you.  They’re piled in the middle of the formal dining room table, formed into an intimidating tower of fake cheer and misery that you’re compelled to face, again, just like every year before this one.  There’s an envelope propped against it.  You slink forward as that familiar, numb fog fills you up again.  The envelope is thick, smells like something expensive, and burns your sinuses.  The card inside has a seahorse on the cover, and some trite little nautical themed pun.  You ignore it, and pull out the folded stationery paper that’s been defaced by your father’s jagged handwriting instead.

‘Eridan,

Happy 17th!  Hope you didn’t think your old man would be getting too slow witted to remember your birthday.  I’m sorry I’m not there in person right now.  It looks like this deal is going to push out another three weeks but I promise I’ll come home soon.  There’s blood in the water and I’m homing in on that kill, ha ha!  When I get back we’ll go out and celebrate for real.  Whatever you want to do, my treat.

Your counselor tells me you’re starting to adjust to the new school.  I’m so glad, I can’t wait to meet your new friends.  I know how you teens are, but hope you won’t be too embarrassed to introduce them to your dad.  I know that last year was really rough, but I’m so proud of you.  If you keep trying, and applying yourself, you can put that little episode behind you.  Keep up the good work, kiddo!

- Love, Dad.’

The paper crumples easily in your fist.  You let it drop to the floor without bothering to note where it lands. The maid will probably find it and throw it out in the morning.  You grab your school bag, and drag it back to your room, but all of your focus seems to have evaporated into the air, along with your ability to feel anything.  You try to reach for worry, anxiety enough to kick start you into pulling out your books to study, but it comes back empty.  Everything is a yawning hollow where you’d expect a person to be, and around you the house is as quiet and still as a mausoleum.

———-

Kar slams his bookbag down next to you, and you jump.  He’s glaring.

“What’d I do?”

“You didn’t tell me yesterday was your birthday.”

“Oh!”  Oh is that all?  “Yesterday was my birthday.”

“No, dummy!  You need to give advanced warning about this kind of shit!”  He pushes the bag aside to plop down his lunch tray, and sits.  You only have a moment to wonder where his shadow went before Sol materializes to your other side, and blocks in your exit.  Their elbows and thighs touch yours, giving you a blessed sense of grounding that you’ve been missing all day.  “I don’t have time to plan anything now, it’s all gonna be rushed.”

Sol snickers.  “Get ready for the Vantas birthday party experience.”

“What?  No, Kar.  You’ve got important things to do.  You shouldn’t be fussin’ over silly kid shit for my sake.”

“Is the idiot done letting flies into his mouth?  Okay, good, shut up time now.”  He stabs at his lunch- you think it’s salisbury steak, maybe- but he waves the mystery meat toward you like an accusatory finger rather than eating it.  “It’s not silly kid shit.  Your birthday is the one day of the year where the world is required to stop and acknowledge the fact that you continue to exist in spite of its efforts to make that stop being a thing.  We are going to celebrate it right.”

“Yeah, no one should be alone on their birthday.”  Sol agrees.  “Not even assholes like you.”

Your mouth opens, but no words come out, so you close it again.  Under the table, you grope for their hands, find Kar’s first, then Sol’s, and they both squeeze tight.

———-

Kar’s place is a modest little building that’s stuffed full with people at all times of the day.  His dad is some kind of minister, you think, but the nice kind.  He’s never proselytized at you, and you’re pretty sure he’s supportive of the fact that you and his son are some kind of thing, even when Kar and Sol are also some kind of thing…  His mom has tattoos and a belly laugh, and his grandmother made you pancakes that one night you spent over, and she talks about Stonewall like she was actually there.

When you pull up to the house, it’s brightly lit, as usual and there’s a hoard of cars, as is also usual, but you don’t think you’ve seen them all there at once before.  It makes you nervous for absolutely no reason  you can fathom.  Rather than go in right away, you go around to the back of your car and start pulling boxes out of the trunk.  Their wrapping glitters in the fading sunlight reflected by the snow.  Kar appears on the porch, followed shortly by his dad, and they hustle over to greet you.  

It’s Vantas Sr. that speaks first.  He laughs, kind, and a little surprised.  “What’s all this then?”

“My dad sends me a bunch a stuff from overseas whenever he misses a birthday,” you explain as he and  Kar both reach to take packages from you.  “I never have any sort a use for it, but I thought maybe…  I just wanted.  If you want it… thank you.”  Your words stall out.  They both stand there blinking at you, still confused, and your face heats.  Then Mr. Vantas cracks the biggest smile you’ve ever seen, and he pulls you into a side hug with his free arm.

“That’s mighty thoughtful of you Eridan, thanks gladly accepted and returned.”  Kar’s smiling at you.  You did something right, and that’s all the matters.

———-

You have never seen this many people stuffed into a single contemporary living room in your life.  Karkat, his parents, grandmother, brother, and sisters, and at least half a dozen cousins, plus Sol, his dad, his brother, and his brother’s nurse-slash-girlfriend finish up the loudest, and most off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday” you have ever heard.  The cake is lopsided.  It’s covered in those cheap little twisty candles, half of them set in crooked, and crowded around ‘Happy B-Day Eridan!!!!’ piped in purple glitter frosting.  Muelin picked it for you, and she also opted to leave out most of the word ‘birth’ to fit more exclamation points with little heart dots.

You blow out the candles, and the room erupts into near deafening cheers.  And then you hiccup once as the tears start to fall.

“Why’s he crying,” you hear Nep failing to whisper at her sister.  “Do birthdays make him sad?”

‘They used to’, you think, and Mr. Vantas gently rests a hand on your shoulder while Kar wraps around you from the other side.

“He’s just a little overwhelmed right now, sweetheart.  Let’s have some quiet time while we eat for a bit, okay?”

The lopsided cake tastes absolutely amazing.

———-

The smallest cousins are absolutely delighted by the idea of getting presents on someone else’s birthday.  They squeal over the Harry Potter complete blu-ray set, and one of them looks fit to burst when they open the box with a drone in it.  

Kar is nuzzling against your ear.  Sol’s pulled up a chair to rest his shoulder against yours while he browses on his tablet.  Someone pushes a lumpy present into your hands, and sweetly kisses your temple, and you know it isn’t either of them when Porrim says, “happy birthday, sweetheart,” from somewhere behind you.  When you open it, you find a hand knit sweater in navy and dark purple; the material is so soft to your fingers you think she must have spent a small fortune on the yarn.  You put it on immediately and can not be separated from it for the rest of the evening.

She starts off the slow parade of gift givers, a single drop that becomes a steady trickle.  Almost everything is hand made.  Pictures, poems, little crafts, each one made with care with you in mind.  You marvel at the fact that you’ve hardly known these families more than a few months, yet they already consider you theirs.  You belong.  You’re wanted, fully and unconditionally.  It doesn’t take much more than that to start the tears back up again, but you decline the offers for another break, at least for a while.  There’s a lot to take in, and you won’t fully process it until later, when you’re alone with Sol and Kar, snuggled between them in Kar’s bed.  For the first time in a long, long time, you feel as if you’ve found safe harbor in the midst of your personal storm.

[adlibitum-writings]

In a far more lighthearted train of thought than last week, I’ve recently noticed an incredible increase in the numbers of students just… walking! Kind of a banal observation, but after spending a month at home (which, for many of us, was a generally unpleasant ordeal) and coming back to campus in the middle of a pretty dreary and biting season (not to mention the whole pandemic thing, of course), seeing people and the sun out and about again is like a rush of serotonin in itself. I’m more of storm person myself - I’ve been very happy with the recent weather - but I’ll admit, sunshine has been a welcome gift as of late. This is the first time since I can remember that I’ve really understood the craze around spring fever. I think we’ve all needed something bright, and spring feels a bit like a fresh start. (A start for what, I’m not sure, but I suppose that means it’s up to you!)

Though it is getting warmer here, we’re at the lovely point of the season where the nights are a soft kind of chilly - breezes that give you goosebumps, without the pain of actually being cold - and there’s something like relief in standing in the wind despite a chill. There’s a poem by Franz Wright, “Night Walk,” where the narrator goes to a convenience store late at night, leaving money for cigarettes at the empty counter before they walk back outside and walk past all the lit-up windows; there’s a line in the poem that goes “It is freezing, but it’s a good thing / to step outside again.” It’s a sentiment that rings a bit more true lately (given quarantine and all), but even then, after the garbage fire that has been this past year, it’s a relief to just step outside and feel something so mundane as a chill. Stand outside, close your eyes, and let the breeze give you goosebumps - it’s a small reminder that not all the discomfort of being human is a burden.

There’s another line in that poem - it’s one of my favorites, if you couldn’t tell - right at the end, when the narrator is looking around at the lit-up windows and says, “Walking home for a moment / you almost believe you could start again. / And an intense love rushes to your heart, / and hope. It's unendurable, unendurable.” It puts into words a very endearing aspect of people, I think: the way we are so easily able to adore simple things. Light coming through a window, for one (and it does feel so warm, the proof that there are people living their lives and returning home at the end of the day to something golden), but so much more - there was a girl in the courtyard the other night who stopped halfway up the stairs to stare at the sky. She stayed like that for a good few minutes, just looking up at the stars, until she just smiled and kept moving. Another person, when it was raining a few days ago, walked out of their dorm building and stood in front of the doors, closed their eyes and tilted their head up against the rain, then walked right back inside afterwards. There was a group of people under the tent a couple nights ago, sitting in a loose circle and having a pretty serious conversation about cookies, and as silly as that might sound, it shows so perfectly how much passion and energy people have for miscellany! We will stop and stare at stars and stand in the rain and discuss random desserts, devoting our time and mind to admiring the details of our lives, just for the sake of it. How wonderful is that?

I read once that life is so much easier when you start romanticizing the little things - making coffee in the morning, your commute from home to school or work, the passing smell of bonfires when you’re out walking, laughing at stupid puns and telling them to your friends to make them roll their eyes. A late night chill and the goosebumps it leaves behind, and the golden light in windows. Stars and rain and cookies. Finding affection and awe in the tiny details of the world is a brilliant effort, I think. How brilliant we are for trying!

With that said, I think I’ll leave this ramble here. This is certainly a much shorter letter than last week (and much more disorganized, I’ll admit), but I hope you all can find something small to adore in the coming days. Keep those lights shining strong, folks.

- Ophidia

[limejuicer1862]

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following poets, local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger. The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Matt Duggan

Matt was born in 1971 and lives in Bristol in the U.K. with his partner Kelly his poems have appeared in many journals across the world such as Osiris Poetry Journal, Ink, Sweat, and Tears, The Blue Nib, Into the Void, The Journal, The Dawntreader, Midnight Lane Boutique, Anti—Heroin Chic Journal, The High Window, A Restricted View from Under the Hedge, Ghost City Review, Laldy Literary Journal, L’ Ephemere Review, Carillion, Lakeview International Literary Journal, Levure Litteraire, erbacce journal, The Stray Branch, Prole, Black Light Engine Room, Militant Thistles, Matt won the Erbacce Prize for Poetry in 2015 with his first full collection of poems Dystopia 38.10 and became one of five core members at Erbacce-Press. In 2017 Matt won the Into the Void Poetry Prize with his poem Elegy for Magdalene, and read his work across the east – coast of the U.S.A. with readings at the prestigious Cambridge Public Library Poetry Series in Boston, a guest poet appearance at The Parkside Lounge and Sip This in New York, and also read at his first U.S. book launch in Philadelphia. Matt has two new chapbooks available One Million Tiny Cuts (Clare Song Birds Publishing House) and A Season in Another World (Thirty West Publishing House) plus a small limited edition booklet The Feeding ( Rum Do Press) Venice and London. He has also read his work at Poetry on the Lake Festival in Orta, Italy, the Poetry Café in London, in Paxos in Greece, and at various venues across the U.K. he runs and hosts his own poetry events and was highly commended in the Road to Clevedon Pier Poetry Anthology Competition, his second full collection Woodworm (Hedgehog Poetry Press) is due in Spring 2019.

The Interview

1. What were the circumstances under which you began to write poetry?

I started writing poetry and prose when I was a young boy, the first poem I wrote won the best poem in my class at the age of twelve, I also remembered the time that we’d have to read a play in class and I’d end up reading four or five of the main characters from the play. I suppose the first real poems were written for the affections of young girls, from then it just progressed, almost like an obsession that I had to keep writing. I then started becoming political and writing about Thatcherism  and neo-politics and I never really wanted to be put myself into a category as a political poet that solely writes about protest and politics, but I think today and what surrounds us it’s necessary.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

Who introduced me, well, that would be a good teacher at my local school called Mr Ford who used different ways to teach us about poetry, I became fascinated with the world of poetry and poets and he would tell us stories about Dylan Thomas, Thomas Chatterton, Verlaine, and many others, he brought the poems and the poet’s life into his teachings and had most classes absolutely transfixed, I just wish I could go back and thank him. It was around this time that I started writing a lot of material and sending them out to journals, of which 80% were rejected, but I do remember getting my first hand written acceptance in 94 / 96 from a lovely editor by the name of Jenne Conne who edited a magazine called ‘Connections’ based in London.  I still have that very letter which I do look at from time to time, she inspired me to continue writing and I just wish I could of thanked her.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

Very aware, over the years I devoured large collections of  Ted Hughes, Shelley, Auden, Keats, Homer, Coleridge, Ashberry, Ginsberg, but I never really involved myself in the local scene at that time it was much later when I felt that I gained enough confidence to read in front of an audience, and sometimes, I do wish I took the plunge earlier.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

I don’t really have one but I have stuck to a few rules that I can’t break. I only write with a pencil and notepad and I never use any mobile devices apart from writing up the final drafts of poems onto a computer. I always write from the hours 3am to 6am and have around five notepads full of lines, themes, and half written poems that I work through when I have the time.

5. What motivates you to write?

Lots of reasons what motivates me from highlighting certain aspects of life that people generally don’t know about, such as media, history, politics, right wing propaganda, for me it’s about telling the truth about experience to the more day to day mundane. I also write to overcome feelings, and to face truths.  I try to operate on an open canvas and I suppose most things that I encounter on a daily basis can motivate me in some way to write, it could be a snippet from a conversation, a scene in a street, or a more imaginative image to conjure with, for me, poetry is everywhere.

6. What is your work ethic?

I have a very strong work ethic that I need to be constantly busy from reading submissions, reading competition entries, doing interviews for the erbacce journal, organising events to support and promote other poets in my hometown of Bristol, and my own writing which I’m concentrating more on these days. I do try to immerse myself in too much work which feeds me even more, it’s a little like getting rejections from journals I seem to feed on this, and hit back with something that they will in the end accept, I enjoy this a bit too much at times to be honest.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

The writers that I read when I was growing up were writing about social equality, rise of fascism, corporate takeovers, so I suppose it never really never went away and in that way they have influenced me to keep at it, to keep telling the truth, to challenge and to be honest with yourself , so I would say they have had a huge influence on my progress into the poetry world, there were also several writers who just didn’t do it for me and I remember reading all the Liverpool poets as I’d always liked Brian Patten work it just spoke to me as an adolescent, yet others in that same group did nothing for me then, and they still don’t.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

This is a hard one as I read a lot of collections and it can change from month to month, but I would say Tony Harrison especially for his poem V and A Cold Coming I remember watching V on Channel 4 which had such a huge effect on me as a young boy, this was someone who was saying what I was thinking, and it was on T.V. plus a favourite of mine of his is The Gaze of the Gorgon I still pick up that collection and can never put it down,  I suppose because of the truth behind the poems, poetry for me is about telling the truth and being honest, a poem should make you think and should make you re – read the poem. The last Harrison book I picked up was Laureate’s Block and the title poem is simply sublime, I’d advise anyone thinking of entering into the poetry world to read this collection, other writers I admire are Andre Naffis- Sahely his debut collection The Promised Land for its themes on travel, displacement and disposable cities, his control of a poem is a delight to read as is Maria Castra Dominguez collection A Face in the Crowd, which is such a magical and beautiful experience. I’d also say Thomas McColl, Penny Rimbaud’s collection America, and How! (1973-2012) which I read while travelling across the U.S. recently I loved the poems and the bio which states ‘ He did not study at Oxford, he does not have a dog, a wife, a flat in North London or a house in Buckinghamshire. He has been a writer throughout his life.’ Brilliant! Also Simon Darragh,  and I’ve also just started re-reading John Tottenham’s The Inertia Variations it’s the best collection of poems written on the themes of sloth, inertia, and laziness, you’ll ever likely to find.

9. Why do you write?

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write I suppose there are many reasons why I write sometimes it’s just for a little fun with silly puns and quirky poems of which I’ll never read out or would add to any collection, also, when I feel emotionally charged about a certain theme or subject it almost takes over my life, mind, and body, and becomes like an addiction until its finally finished, and then I get grumpy and very moody when I’m not writing.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

Firstly I’d advise them to live life and maybe travel the world, live on a mountain, swim with dolphins, take notes, live with different cultures and experience as much of life as possible before putting pen to paper and especially read as many poetry collections as possible before finding a voice and then submit, submit, submit, and don’t be put off by bullies and editors who think that they know best, always be firm and believe in what you write and don’t take any shit from anyone.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I’ve just finished two articles about my recent readings in the U.S.A which will be published in A Restricted View from Under the Hedge, and The Journal. I had two new chapbooks published  this year One Million Tiny Cuts

http://www.claresongbirdspub.com/shop/poetry/

and A Season in Another World

http://www.thirtywestph.com/shop/aseasoninanotherworld

also  involved with the upcoming 70th NHS anthology for erbacce-press. I’m also working on two new commissions with publishers, and  editing the final draft of ‘Brexit and Bandages’ journal, also, my second full collection of poems Woodworm (Hedgehog Poetry Press) which I’m so excited about will be published in Spring 2019. And I’ve also been asked to judge a new poetry competition called Songs of Lenin and McCarthy, based on protest poems in the form of songs by Lennon and McCartney.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Matt Duggan Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following poets, local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

[littlethoughtsandfeelings]

The Bachelor Australia 2017 Recap – Episode 4

“Hey! Your reviews are too boring!” They say. “Get some screencaps like the other reviews!” They say.

Well, I can’t get copyright free screencaps at this stage, but do you know what I can get you? Stick-figure drawings.

That’s right – I will now be adding my (very bad) stick-figure drawings to the reviews. And you’ll damn well enjoy them.

We open with Matty overlooking a pond, which is apparently at the Sydney Polo Club. It’s raining, and he’s a little too proud of himself for making a pun about dampening the spirits of the day.

Matty says, “Cobie loves animals, and I love horses, so I thought it would be good to join our passions together.” A horse is an animal, though. So it’s not really a joining of two passions, but more like the same passion?

Wait, we’re going straight to the date? No Osher delivering a card or anything? Righto then.

Matty rides in on a horse… with a helmet. I’m all for being safety-conscious, but it definitely takes away a bit of the fairy-tale element. 

He hops down, he greets Cobie, and then… Harry the horse does a massive wee. Wow, horses do really big wees, don’t they?

Back at the mansion, the girls discuss how Cobie is going on the date. They’re all super jelly. The evil squad decide that Matty’s tactic is to “save the best for last”, Villain Number Two Jennifer makes a comment that she’s the greatest, someone compares Matty to a schnitty, which I’m assuming is a chicken schnitzel… a lot is happening.

Right, back to the date. Cobie has never ridden before, so Matty has to instruct her. He says, “I’m well aware that she’s on the back of a horse for the first time”, proving his ability to state the obvious.

Cobie uses the word “beautifulest”, so we’ll deduct points for that, however she does acknowledge that it’s not a word, so I guess the points go back on?

They horse ride for a bit, and then get to wash the horses. Peppy, Cobie’s horse, is loving the bath.

But then things escalate and soon Matty and Cobie are hosing each other down, she’s wearing a white singlet, and he’s already calling her “Cobes”… dude, calm down.

Matty’s talking head says, “I know that Cobie and I get along the best when we’re being silly and having a laugh.” Dude. You’ve met her once. How do you even know how you get along at all?

Back at the mansion, Villain Number Two Jennifer thinks that Cobie will fall in the friend-zone because “she’s too cutesy”. Her talking head says that, “Matty’s a man and he wants a woman… I know I give off sex appeal, and for me it’s quite natural.” So, let me get this straight, he doesn’t want an adult acting like a bitchy teenage girl, then?

Still on their date, Matty and Cobie find a SEXYTIME couch in a room “that Matty’s planned out”. Yes. It was definitely all his idea. Wait, this is the date? Horse riding for five minutes and then washing a horse? So we’re saving the big-budget dates until the fifth episode, right? Then it will start to get more interesting, right?

They discuss their dating history, and Cobie opens her heart. She says that she wants to date her best friend, but wants to have a connection too. Matty agrees, saying he wants to be friends first and then have it progress from there. Ha! Take that friend-zone naysayers!

Oh God. She wrote him a poem. It’s the first poem she’s ever written. She explains that because it’s her first time dating in a while, she’s finding it difficult to express herself. So she should definitely try a medium she has no experience in. (Side note: Remember last year someone wrote a poem? Or was it Sam Frost’s season where there was a rap? Let’s hope it’s not as cringey as that.)

It’s a bit cringey, and a bit sweet, and they’re playing romantic music so I think she’s in the clear.

Matty pulls out the rose. She says she really wants to kiss him. I’m cringing so hard. She wants him to go halfway. He’s being all romantic. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH THEY’RE MUSHING! IT’S ROMANTIC! IT’S GOING A LONG TIME! Hghghghghghghghghghghghghghghghghghghghgnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

I can’t cope. I’m not coping. I have lost the ability to cope.

We cut to the next day, and the girls interrogate Cobie. Nothing much is said, but now it’s time for the HYUNDAI SPONSORSHIP. There are literally twenty shots of the car from all different angles. I feel like the cameraman was like, “Yeah, work it, work it.” 

Anyway the point of this sponsorship is that Matty is driving to the mansion to surprise them all.

They go to another part of the mansion, which is miraculously sunny, as opposed to the first part of the mansion, where it was pouring with rain.

Osher is holding a giant dice (or die, I guess), and that is not a euphemism. Although it might be, I have no idea.

Osher reveals they’re playing The Bachelor board game and I AM SO ON BOARD. For those who don’t know, there are few things I love more than board games. If you could purchase this game, I would literally be signing over my life savings.

So, the Monopoly knock-off game works like this, they roll a dice, and move a set number of squares. If they land on a square with Matty’s face, he asks you a question, if they land on a square with a rose, Osher asks both of them a question. There’s also a golden cage, for reasons that I’m hoping doesn’t involve BDSM.

Alix goes first, and she and Matty choose different answers for the multiple choice. Thrilling.

Simone is up next, and she lands on “choose a girl to cream pie in the face”. She picks Liz, who she says “never smiles”. It appears that Leah (Villain Number One) and Jennifer (Villain Number Two) also don’t like Liz. What the heck has Liz done? And who is she?

Michelle is next and she lands on a “go to jail” square, which involves the golden cage. But she’s allowed to take her glass of wine, so it’s not that bad really.

Some other girls go and I have no idea who they are. Basically, we learn some facts about Matty: his bike is named Cindy (no you did not read that wrong), his worst trait is that he’s late, and he has no pets.

Matty says that Florence is the biggest surprise, and I agree – the biggest surprise to us is that she’s there.

Cobie lands on “move ahead or free kiss” with Matty. Her talking heads says that she wanted to kiss him, but decided to move forward. Jennifer says that if it was her, she’d totally do it, because she understands and that “everyone’s here for the right reasons”. Yes, Jennifer, I can definitely envisage you being very calm and accepting of it if Cobie chose to kiss Matty in front of you. It seems like your tolerance of the other girls is very selective. 

The rest of the game is heavily edited so I don’t really know what’s going on. Basically some ladies get swapped for others, there’s more cream pies to the face, and Michelle gets out of jail. Jennifer is one of the women with a pie to the face, and makes sure to get Matty’s attention before rubbing the cream all over her cleavage. I’m willing to give her characterisation to the producers of the show, and she is doing very well being so unlikeable.

Michelle wins the game, and won… a hug? No extra time? Nothing? What was the point of this stupid game then?!

Afterwards, Cobie says she’s disappointed for not taking the kiss, because as she says, it could have just been a kiss on the cheek. She flags that she wants to raise it with Matty tonight, which seems perfectly reasonable to me, but I guess I haven’t been plied with alcohol and locked in a mansion with 17 other girls who want to date the guy I’m into.

Cocktail Party Time!

Cobie says that she came into this experience not wanting to have any regrets, and she regrets not kissing him, so she wants to clear it up. See, perfectly reasonable.

Florence (who? Ah, the Dutch one) has something to show Matty. He’s getting a lesson in Dutch (side note: what’s that thing to do with fluffs and blankets? Isn’t that something about Dutch?). She puts Matty in a red, striped tie and circular glasses. She dresses up in a half-open white shirt over her black corset-dress, also dons some glasses, and holds a cane/pointer thing, which just gives the overall feel of some light BDSM. Is this the theme for this episode or something? 

She teaches him how to say, “You have beautiful eyes” in Dutch. She then teaches him to say, “Will you accept this rose?”, and the whole thing is lightly flirtatious and a bit weird and a teensy bit awkward, like the time we played ‘Let’s Get to Know Matty J!’. 

Next girl to chat with Matty is Simone, and it seems like she spends three minutes talking about how nervous she is.

So then the dramahhh: Cobie sees them talking, and approaches. She asks (very politely, I might add) if she can borrow Matty once she’s finished talking with Simone. I’m not really sure why this is an issue, because she gave him an option, but I guess the weirdness was the fact that she just stood off to the side, staring at them. 

Simone leaves Matty, and goes to chat to… the Evil Squad? Wait, I thought she was one of the good ones. Simone, wasn’t it like two episodes ago that you hated these girls? And now you’re confiding in them? She says, “[Cobie]’s had two group dates and a single date”, and she isn’t impressed with the interruption. 

Villain Number Two Jennifer says that Cobie “plays sweet, she plays cute, but she’s a hustler, she’s a bitch.” She also uses the word “hustler” again in a talking head. Jennifer, I’m not sure that word means what you think it means. Isn’t a hustler a gambler? Someone who, in fact, hustles? Looking this up, there is an alternative meaning, which is a prostitute, but I’m not sure she was going for something that aggressive. I can only assume she was going for “hussy”, which Google says, is a “brazen or immoral woman”. And that’s been your vocabulary lesson for today, class. Just, use words correctly, Jennifer.

Anyway, in the actual chat with Matty, Cobie explains why she didn’t choose to kiss him. Matty’s totally cool with it, saying it totally wasn’t an issue, unlike last season when Georgia Love had the issue of Courtney not giving her enough attention in group situations. You can’t win with this show.   

Now for the second dramahhh: Leah walks in on their chat and asks if she can take Cobie back because she upset a lot of people. Cobie says she just needs two more minutes, and Leah says again, that she upset a lot of people. It’s very awkward and Matty seems annoyed. 

Then, histrionic Leah takes her information back to the Evil Squad, saying that Cobie said she doesn’t care that she hurt other people’s feelings (for the record, she did say “I don’t care”, but to me it came across as more of a “ok, cool, leave me alone” than a “I hate everybody!” kind of thing).

Some of the girls try to defend Cobie, including Laura. You know what, Laura? You’re really growing on me. Anyway she says that Cobie wouldn’t have meant it in a malicious way, which is the way Leah is relaying it, and she’s so done with this shit.

Oh man, now she has to bloody deal with Jennifer. FFS this is so bloody frustrating. Laura says that she loves Cobie, and Jennifer says, “WE ALL LOVE COBIE”, and I let out an actual witches’ cackle. Lisa says she’s really happy Laura stood up for Cobie, and I’m on any team with Lisa and Laura on it. (Readers, I know what you’re thinking. Last episode I was on Simone’s side, and now she’s turned out to be one of the bad ones. Look, I guess I’m just on the side against evil, ok? I’m bloody Harry Potter.)

Cobie and Matty walk out into the group of girls, and Jennifer basically pounces on her, saying, “Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Cobie.”

It’s a bit awkward, but that’s mostly thanks to the editing and sound effects. We don’t get to see any more of the fallout, because this is The Bachelor, and if there’s one thing this show doesn’t know how to do, it’s transitions.

Rose Ceremony time!

Osher introduces Matty, saying the ladies look a bit better than during the “Crème de la crème of board games”. They have literally said that phrase three times this episode, and for once, I’m not exaggerating.

Matty picks a few girls, and he asks Florence to accept her rose in the Dutch he learnt, which is pretty sweet.

For a second, I’m thinking that maybe he’ll get rid of one of the villains tonight, and squash the issues in the house. It would be fitting with his ‘I’m not taking any shit this season’ attitude he’s displayed so far. Like he gets a say in it.

He clearly doesn’t, and Jennifer and Leah both get roses. Jennifer sashays up to him, and I feel like she really treats him like a prize to be won, which in fairness, he kind of is in this context, but you don’t have to treat him like that.

This is the one thing I really dislike about this show. It’s not like Matty is going to pick either of these mean girls in the end. They’re clearly there to further their radio career, or their red carpet reporting career *cough Laurina cough*. They’re easy fodder to just add some manufactured dramahhh to the show, and look, it works: the show is selling a product, and we’re all buying it. But how cool would it be to just see a bunch of nice people and them all behaving respectfully of each other, and Matty just picks who he likes best? Huh? WHAT’S WRONG WITH THAT UTOPIA?! 

The other thing is that it is definitely not his choice to keep all of these girls. There’s clearly a stipulation in his contract that the producers would get a say in some (if not all) of the girls chosen. Which means we’re basically waiting ten weeks for him to get rid of the ones he knew on the first night that he didn’t like. 

Anyway, tangent over – It’s down to Elise (apparently a montage girl) and Belinda (apparently the Love Coach who made Matty stare into her eyes). Elise gets the rose.  

Later, Belinda. Good luck with your love coaching.

 Next Episode: A high building, and some more dramahhh with Cobie. And a face-off date?! Not like the movie, I’m assuming, although that could be cool. (Side note: Remember when Sam the model was on that kind of date and he had to go home? Hahahaha it was great.) And Sian gets grumpy at the cocktail party. Ummm… who is she again?