#mama really seems worth including as its own option

[charleslee-valentine]

Chance

For the Texas Chainsaw Massacre Disability Pride Month Event: Day Five- Victims

Word Count: ~1,600

Warnings: Death mention, mild internalized ableism, grief and anxiety.

_________

Turns out a giant grenade blast echoing around cave tunnels could do some pretty serious damage to the ear drums. Also turns out hearing aids ain’t some magical fix for hearing loss like Stretch might’ve once thought. Curse her former self for being so clueless about this way of life. Privileged little lady she used to be.

Bopping her head to music of any quality, let alone the shitty radio approved stuff, ain’t an option any more, took it for granted while it lasted. Hated that job and loved it at the same time, but she was too hard on it all. Only way they’re getting any of her ears back to working is surgery and tapping into bone, which Stretch ain’t willing to allow. Stitches and blood and metal in her head, just seems like a bad omen still.

Losing Lg would always be the worst part though. Take all her hearing, take her vision and her tongue and her spine, none of that would matter if sweet Lg hadn’t been taken down as a pawn.

They’d’ve found a way to talk without words and deafness getting in the way. Lg would’ve been patient and calm when she had her fits of frustration over the tinnitus making the inside of her head ring like a church bell.

She wears his keys on a necklace chain and as many of his clothes she could track down on her back. Keeping at least his memory close if he can’t be there in person. Guilt and regret and all can’t last forever when they were the sacrifices. The fault, if they’re really gonna place it, can only go to Lefty Enright, but he’s dead too. Checked to be sure when they were investigating that damned explosion and started pulling bodies out. He’s still legally a John Doe, but she recognized his mangled face.

Three hundred and eleven unique sets of bones were recovered from that place alongside him. Almost none of them complete, maybe being just a finger or two that didn’t belong to one of the more full bodies they were finding and had to be classed on its own. Among them, most of Lg was recovered and buried, gratefully including his face and his hat. That meant her business was done.

That’s her reason for stayin’ inside so much now. Her mama calls and she screens it right away. Writes a letter or a card instead that never gets a response. Doesn’t leave the house except for to restock on supplies. Food, hygiene, bullets. That kind of thing.

Against her better judgment she has a television in her kitchen, watching adverts for things to grab on her trips instead of browsing the shelves. Tries new things and usually hates them so bad she reverts right back to the routine that’s keepin’ her living. Stretch won’t stay out in the world a second longer than she has to.

Unless it’s to drop by the bulletin boards.

Stretch keeps track of the missing posters. The immortalized ink-blot faces she hopes she doesn’t ever have to recognize. When new ones appear, that’s her sign to make herself scarce again until it feels safe, and even then she’s got her pistol in her purse and a knife in each pocket. Never too careful. No such thing.

But nothing could prepare her for the day Lefty’s face joins the sea of forgotten souls.

“Enright, Boude AKA Lefty. Last seen in October of 1986. The missing person suffers from schizophrenia and is likely off of medications. He may be confused and in need of medical attention. We ask if you see him not to confront him. Contact The Hardesty family investigation in cooperation with Fort Worth police.”

The phone numbers listed included the police station, the sheriff's personal line, and one Sally Hardesty.

The last time Stretch saw that name she was readin’ in the paper that Sally’s tormentors had struck again killin’ those two kids on that bridge. Following that lead had doomed her to a similar fate. Similar losses. Everyday she regrets being stupid enough to play that tape and believe Lefty was going to call in backup and help. Turns out he wasn’t even a ranger anymore when she met him, but it’s too late to stay furious.

Stretch scrawls the numbers on the back of a receipt and gets the hell out of there before she breaks down inside a super store. Might be a hell of a sight to take her little ass to the garden section and wield a hedge trimmer like a saw against imaginary threats. Could go down in flames like the man ‘ come before her.

Instead she goes home and cries into her couch pillow ‘til she can’t breathe through her nose and passes out into a feverish sleep. Real badass now, huh. Sometimes she wonders how she even survived. If all of her did.

All by herself she crawled on her belly through Hell and she’d be damned if she just laid down and died after all of that. So why is she so nervous to just dial the phone and tell Miss Sally Hardesty the truth and the full one at that.

Well, maybe she wouldn’t have the heart to tell her the kind of man her uncle was. Sacrificing her and Lg when he knew better than most the brutality of that family. At this point it’s not even a complicated ordeal. She doesn’t forgive Lefty, even dead and gone. Why should she? She hasn’t just stopped loving poor Lg.

Still Sally deserves to know he’s dead. Closure and all. There’s just the problem or Stretch’s ears. Phone calls don’t work for her, the fuzz of traveling voices blocking out just about anything she might’ve been able to hear in the muffled way she does.

To the library it is. Computer records, phone books, she’ll be able to get an address for Sally off of that phone number and send her a letter.

It takes two trips, but she succeeds, her letter already written between all her frantic digging. The chase, the investigation, it makes her heart race and catch in her throat and she struggles to breathe. Actions like scrolling, filing, flipping through pages, it all reminds her of her job at the radio station. Of the beau who was by her side back then. Has to shake off the nostalgiac haze when she leaves.

Stretch is grateful once she can just mail the letter informing Sally her posters are futile, then maybe take her mind off it for a while.

The response comes only about half a week later, a good sign for their proximity and ability to meet up. Because that’s all Sally asked for actually. She wasn’t disturbed, didn’t call the police like Stretch might’ve if someone admitted to finding her address as public information.

Sally’s letter reads:

“Miss Brock.

I heard your situation down the grapevine. I wondered myself if I should reach out. I’m grateful you did first. My worried heart couldn’t decide one way or the other.

How can I begin this? Maybe with ‘I’m sorry.’ I’m sorry that I couldn’t convince them that Hell on earth was real in time. I’m sorry you got dragged into it and further down by my uncle. He’d always been that way, too headstrong for his own good. I guess I suspected all along he was dead. Two years is a long time to be on his own somewhere.

I hope it’s been long enough for you to heal somewhat. At least physically. I haven’t been quite the same since my survival and it’s been sixteen years for me. Please pardon the wobbly handwriting, my hands still shake. If it’s alright, I’ll pray for you. That the doctors may find a way to help your hearing, or better, that inventors might create a way to make the world easier without having to change you. It would be nice if the world could change for us once.

Miss Brock, it would mean a lot if we could meet in person. I trust you’ll bring protection and I will too. I carry a Cobra everywhere I go. Together I think we’d be safe enough to at least grab a coffee. I know a place. Write me back if you’d like, or don’t. I’m grateful for having the chance to have ever written you either way.

Thank you for sharing the news about my uncle, and for bringing some light back to this broken old wench’s day. I’ll get over my heartbreak eventually.

-Sally Ann.”

Stretch reads it over and over, like if she does it enough times the letter might reveal itself to be a trick or trap of sorts. Nothing stands out. Really, she figures their mutual tormentors likely wouldn’t even be able to spell well enough to write a letter like that. Or mail it in a darling pink envelope.

Scared as she might be, to accept leaving the house, and communication with a stranger she had to essentially stalk to find and the moral qualms of all that, on top of struggling to communicate at all with her deafness- Stretch finds this is the first time in two years she’s had something to look forward to.

She cries again, not ashamed of al the tears that fall by this point, gettin’ little wet splotches all over her page while scrawling her confirmation. Sally will likely understand.

“Blessed Miss Hardesty.

I’m there. Let’s do this next week sometime. I won’t go out ‘til after Friday, the 13th. Is that alright?

-Vanita Brock, but you miss, can call me Stretch.”

[oh-boy-me]

:0 could I have a beel,asmo,belphie,lucifer,mammon, satan (not including levi) and diavolo playing videogames? I thought it would be kinda funny since they're all really old- except for levi of course haha

Ohhh this should be fun!

Decided to do individual HCs for this one instead of a group thing so they wouldn’t be limited to multiplayer games.

Most of them, save for a certain prince, have been exposed to games a fair amount by proximity to Levi.

---

Lucifer:

Lucifer has a Mononoke Land account so that he’ll get the email notifications for events and can therefore keep track of Levi’s whereabouts.  He’s never played the game, though, nor downloaded the app, and he has no intention of doing so.

In general, he’s not much of a gamer.  The most gaming he gets done is minesweeper on Windows XP.  He doesn’t have the time, and it was never something he could get into.

That isn’t to say that he owns zero games, though.  His favorite genre is turn-based strategy, because he can afford to look away from them, and they make him think and plan.

He doesn’t like the hyper-realistic ones, though.  Things like Civilization and Here Be Dragons are up his alley, Hearts of Iron not so much.

He doesn’t care too much about the story, but a good soundtrack is mandatory.

Also he’s an old man so the controls also have to be intuitive or he just won’t be able to play.  Why is he jumping when he presses A he thought that was the attack button.

The type of player who needs to get every achievement.  A completionist.

When the group gets together for the rare multiplayer night, he has no idea what he’s doing and yet still manages to do well.  It’s kind of infuriating.

He won’t make alliances with anyone, no, it’s every man for himself.  He also actively targets Mammon no matter what game they’re playing.

The fact that he doesn’t really get it protects his pride when Levi inevitably wipes the floor with him.

Mammon:

Mammon actually does game a little bit in his spare time, mostly with Levi.  He’s got a couple consoles and is more open to different genres than Lucifer is.

He thrives in any game where the main goal is to rack up as many points or as much profit as possible.  He’s undefeated in tycoons and pinball.  (Tetris is an exception; he’s terrible at Tetris.  Stupid spacial recognition.)

The RNG elements boil down to his insane luck, but he’s actually very smart when it comes to investments and stuff, so it’s not like he’s only using his luck to get by.

If the games have multiplayer, even better!  Nothing like kicking Levi, MC and Belphie’s asses in a game of Fortune Street!

He also tends to like the action-focused games that Levi plays.  Not so much into turn-based RPGs, but he enjoys stuff where the enemies spawn, like in Zelda or Rune Factory.  And he’s great at button mashing in fighting games, although Levi, who actually knows how to play them, always beats him.

Mammon uses items as soon as he gets them, and is too busy rushing a boss to care about learning its patterns and strategizing.

Skips cutscenes even on his first run.  Levi and Satan hate him for it.

Like mentioned before, he gets an unfair disadvantage in game nights because everyone targets him.  Especially in those games with RNG, because otherwise he WILL win.

He’s banned from PTW games because he will indeed PTW.

Satan:

Satan is another one who doesn’t play too many games, and that might be for the best because he’s a nightmare to play with.

The sorest loser, and a pretty nasty winner too.  He insists on the hardest difficulty and then rage quits at the slightest inconvenience.

He will play when prompted, though; he’s not above hanging out with his brothers.  His favorite sorts of games are ones with a good story and/or good puzzles.  His planning is more on the tactics side, as opposed to Lucifer’s strategy, so he would love Fire Emblem.

He WILL drop a game if the story isn’t holding his attention, and he’s done so in the past.

Overly cautious and hoards resources.  He takes the safe route every time.

Also another completionist.

Beel would often ask Satan to help him find out which art pieces were originals and safe to buy in Animal Crossing, and Satan got a little bit interested and ended up making a resident on Beel’s cartridge so the donations could be in his name.  He went on a mini-campaign to drive out the residents he didn’t like, but one of them turned out to be Beel's favorite and he felt terrible about it for weeks.

During family game nights, everyone is always torn between appeasing Satan and telling him to deal with it when he loses.

He also gets angry if he catches on to the fact that they’re letting him win, though.

Probably a genwunner.

Asmodeus:

Asmo enjoys video games.  They don’t fit into his aesthetic so he’s never really tried to understand them, but he doesn’t dislike them by any means.

Gaming is becoming more mainstream though, right?  That’s a whole new audience that could appreciate him.  Maybe, just maybe, he can let himself be a bit of a geek.

Unsurprisingly, he’s got a penchant for games with customization options.  Surprisingly, he also really enjoys FPS games.  If he and Levi ever played at the same time, it would be chaos in the House of Lamentation.

As opposed to his in-your-face attitude, he likes to play sniper units.

He said he wants to tap into the gaming community, but he’s not very good at most of the games he plays so he’s too embarrassed to actually do so.  He does, however, play the Sims on livestream.  He does his best to make the steamiest and most dramatic scenarios happen, and he’ll hold strawpolls to let his viewers make some choices.

Asmo also plays Animal Crossing like a few other brothers, but his island is so well groomed and with just the right residents, it feels like you’re touring an uncanny dystopia and Asmo is the dictator.

When the group gets together, he usually ends up doing the worst.  He’s more interested in executing perfect combos than actually dealing damage, so he’s not aggressive enough to get anything done against players like Levi and Satan.

He’s also not very good at teamwork; he starts yelling at his partner very quickly.

Beelzebub:

Beel doesn’t have a lot of “gamer” in him, but some of his brothers seem to like it so he decided to give it a go.  Turns out his hands are too big, but he makes do.  Kind of.

You’d expect a sports game to be the best for him, since he’s so athletic.  However, it’s BECAUSE he’s so athletic that this sort of game isn’t in his library.  He gets too antsy and bored tapping buttons instead of actually playing the sport.

Beel’s also not an aggressive player in any sense of the word.  He feels guilty even hurting the most basic of slimes.

No, no games are better for Beel than the stress-free, casual life simulators.  Animal Crossing is no surprise his favorite one right now.  Satan handles the museum for him while Beel gets to do whatever he feels like in a world where the biggest threat is a wasp.

He’ll also play other low stakes games where living your life is the main goal, like Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley.  His big heart can never choose who to marry in those games.

Horror is also ok for him, because while aggression is hard for him, self-defense is not.

He got the Cooking Mama app on his D.D.D. and bit the device in half, so he’s not allowed to touch that franchise anymore.

When the gang meets up, his non-aggressive side sticks around.  In fighting games, he’s more likely to dodge and steer clear of the others, and in other versus games he’s so open to compromise you’d think you were on the same team.

Satan did get him his favorite resident back.

Belphegor:

Belphie probably games the second most after Levi; it’s something that keeps him entertained but doesn’t require him to move very much at all.

I actually have no idea how to describe his preferred genres, but League of Legends and Dark Souls is basically all you need to know.

League lets him socialize a bit, and it’s the game that he and Levi play together most often.  As for Dark Souls, he loves the sort of game where learning your opponent’s every move and outsmarting/outmaneuvering them is the only path to victory.

I guess that would be described as “really hard action-adventure” games?  He’d also like Sekiro.

He also has his own copy of Animal Crossing to visit and play with Beel, but his island is so underdeveloped you’d think he started that same week.

Belphie is the true wild card of family game nights; sometimes he sleeps through the whole thing, while other times he can take down even Levi.

He has everyone’s habits down to a T--Mammon charges in, Asmo does too much setup, Levi’s overconfident--and he knows how to counter each and every one of them.

For someone who’s so much of a cunning player, though, he also misclicks a lot.

He’s the most likely out of his brothers to make alliances.  He’s also the most likely to break alliances.

If he doesn’t think he can win, he’ll choose a player and start sabotaging the game in their favor.

Diavolo:

Lord Diavolo had read about like, Mario?  The little blue hedgehog guy?  But he’d never owned a gaming console before.  He probably thought Neopets was peak gaming.

Levi swore to fix this grievous error, and this was also a mistake, because now Diavolo keeps trying to get Lucifer to play all these hack and slash games with him.

He has legitimately told Lucifer that “if you don’t play Devil May Cry with me THIS devil may cry!”

The games need to always have something happening in them or he’ll get bored, kind of like Satan’s need for a good story, except with action.

It’s also worth mentioning that “play a game with Diavolo” actually means “sit in the same room as Diavolo while he plays.”

And oh boy… is he terrible at these games.

He just button mashes until either he dies or all the enemies die.

Never uses any of the items he gets because he’s sure he’ll need them more later on.  When, Diavolo?  During the staff roll?

Will bomb a door before trying the knob.

Since he’s usually only around Lucifer, who doesn’t want to get sucked into this, and Barbatos, who honestly couldn’t care less about this, he’s been left alone and free to develop these terrible gaming habits.

It’s rare that he comes to family gaming night.  Legend has it that Lucifer’s piercing glare is somehow connected to the fact that his brothers always let Diavolo win.

Masterlist

[meltingangels]

As it’s been up on AO3 for a while now, I am making my first Cyberpunk fic available to read on tumblr!

Fic Title:

It's Not a Shrine

Fic Summary:

"What the fuck, V?" (I made a post on tumblr about how funny it would be if V was some kind of Samurai/Silverhand superfan. And how Johnny would react if he walked in and saw all these posters and shit on the wall. And I needed some serotonin, so here we are)

So I made this random post on tumblr and someone said they’d like to see it ‘made canon’ so here I am with this. Whether it progresses or stays as a oneshot depends on the reception.

Basically, I thought of what would happen if V was into older/indie rock music, and a big fan of Samurai- Johnny Silverhand’s group. And how he would react (if he didn’t show up in V’s apartment like he does that first time) if he walked in and there was this huge-ass poster of him on the wall.

Just have at it, lads. This starts off kinda serious, to set the scene. Also because I feel starting off serious makes the end part all the funnier.

Also because I don’t know how to do a short oneshot.

V figured that whatever was on that fucking relic had to be a pretty big deal, if Dexter Deshawn and Evelyn were willing to up against Arasaka to get it. Sure, it would have been nice to know exactly what that was, but given how much time and planning had gone into every other aspect of this insane heist, they’d just shoved any thoughts about the relic itself to the back of their mind. 

They just had to focus on somehow pulling this off, which...even with all the planning...was going to be a fucking miracle. Any aspect of the plan could end up getting fucked up, or someone could end up fucking them over, but the fact that a successful heist would propel them into the fucking stratosphere of Night City’s underworld- with a paycheck to match- was just...well.

Too much to resist. Who wouldn’t want to take up that sort of opportunity? They’d be insane not to try. Anyone who was worth anything in the sprawling underground network of the city’s gangs would know who they fucking were. 

It’d come with it’s drawbacks of course, but once people know they’d gone up against fucking Arasaka and stolen a relic from right under Yorinobu’s hands? 

Most wouldn’t even dare to touch them.

Yeah, the idea of ‘making it to the big leagues’ as Jackie had said it, was too much for either him or V to resist. Sure, they’d talked about it a hell of a lot, going over the risks and all. Which outweighed all their past jobs put together. What they’d done so far was small-time stuff. Just general merc business, nothing to be overly proud of. Certainly nothing to attract any big names. Truth be told, V still wasn’t sure how Jackie had managed to get them the gig in the first place. 

But they hadn’t questioned it. Just like they’d stopped questioning the heist when presented with Dexter’s plan and the hefty reward they’d negotiated. Which, again, was more than most of their past jobs put together. Given how much money and time was going into the heist, despite the fact it would take a miracle to pull off without a hitch, it seemed almost foolproof.

But it had gone wrong in every possible way. Despite claiming the plan was pretty much bulletproof, and he had some of the most reliable sources for all his information, Dexter had still somehow missed the fact that the fucking Emperor had come to talk to his son. A huge factor that had turned everything upside down. Not only had they been made unwilling witnesses to the heir of Arasaka murdering his own fucking father, the entire hotel going up on alert had sent literal shockwaves through their oh-so-foolproof plan. 

V and Jackie couldn’t get back out through the elevator and ended up shimmying along the literal edge of the balcony, with a fucking glass roof on one side, and a sheer drop on the other. And because everything had gotten completely screwed, they’d had to take the glass roof option. The rush of adrenaline and fear coming from sliding down the tilted roof, with dozens of bullets raining down way too close to their backs, was nothing compared to having pain ripple through them as every last breath was knocked out of them.

Then there had been the sense of terror, sending chills down V’s spine, when they turned to Jackie and saw the blood seeping through his white-collar shirt. The knowledge that they somehow had even less time than they thought. That was...honestly...V didn’t think anything could have been worse than that. Looking up from the scarlet red, to the sudden paleness of Jackie’s face. A face that looked more in shock than anything else, eyes hinting at the fear he quickly tried to hide behind his usual jokes and bravado. 

V had barely taken her eyes off of him the entire time, terrified that every time they looked over, he’d be dead on the floor. But, somehow, against the odds of that stomach-turning injury- and the countless waves of Arasaka guards armed to the teeth, they’d made it. Made it out, the chip safe and secure in Jackie’s head, to the relative security of the Delamain vehicle. Where V had almost let out a laugh at the fact they’d made it.

Only for Jackie to bleed to death in the back seat, while she was powerless to stop it. The feeling of his blood seeping out over her fingers, bunching her jacket up against the wound, had somehow been fucking nothing compared to how he’d reached out to touch her face and smile. That same crooked, warm smile, eyes shining like this wasn’t the last time they’d be doing so. Or how her heart had finally shattered into a million pieces when that hand fell down, and his body went slack. Honestly, no amount of alcohol or drugs that Night City could offer would ever get that out of her memory. 

V knew it would haunt her nightmares for years, if those ever stopped. Then there was those first moments without Jackie, with her stumbling out of the car covered in her best friend’s blood. With the scarlet fucking covering her up to the elbows, staining her own white shirt the same way it had ruined Jackie’s. 

She could remember stumbling into the motel, and before she had it in her to find her way to Dexter’s saferoom, there had been a thought just as terrifying as the idea of Jackie’s body being back in the car waiting for her. 

The thought of having to take Delamain round to Mama Welles’ place and show her that her son was gone.

And as if that wasn’t enough of a clusterfuck for her mind to deal with, she’d then been left reeling with the bitter sting of betrayal. Panicking in a way that showed the exact opposite of the slick, cool gangster he always portrayed, Dexter had shot her in the fucking head. After his goon had beat her to a fucking pulp. Which, of course, V assumed would be the end. A world class beating and a bullet to the brain did tend to bring an end to someone’s life. Well, the bullet would do that by itself. All the implants in the world couldn’t save you if your mind was completely fucked. 

But somehow she’d fucking made it through that. Left in a pained daze as confusion overrode any sense of fear or anger. Jackie had died. Why hadn’t she? There was a bullet in her head, so why the hell wasn’t she wherever you went when you died. If there was ever any such place, that is.  Why had she somehow survived, not only through said beating + bullet, but through the insane fucking car chase after? 

That had ended in a crash that almost took out the guy who pulled her through all that.

As if all of those events weren’t consecutive, metaphorical and literal hits to the heart, there was then the mind-fucking revelation that followed. That the relic wasn’t just any piece of fancy tech. No. Well, sure, it was a fancy piece of tech. But it was also so much more. As were the memories V had previously believed were some kind of hallucination. This piece of tech, buried in their own fucking head, was a digital construct. Something that was almost like a human soul . Which was mind blowing as it was. 

But then there had been the moment V realised the truth of what Viktor was saying to them. 

They had Night City legend Johnny Silverhand in their head. His construct had been what Dexter and Evelyn had risked everything for. What Jackie had given his life for. 

Yeah, the guy was no doubt a terrorist. But there had been some kind of method to the guy’s madness. And even with that, they couldn’t work out how to feel. Yeah, the idea of being wiped clean was fucking terrifying, but the fact that neither of them would be able to do anything about it? That changed things. V thought the tech was conscious in its decision to take over her body. But it was just that. A piece of tech, going on what it had been programmed to do.

Of course, they were still terrified. They’d beaten death once, only to have it looming at their back again. But there was some sliver of hope. The guy who saved them, Goro Takemura, had ultimately saved V because they were the only other living witness to the Emperor’s murder, but their first meeting had given V that hope. He’d given them some leads to follow, promising more information if V helped out on his end. 

And that had been just enough to keep V going. Whilst they’d yet to see any sort of physical manifestation of Silverhand’s construct, what they were dealing with outside of that was still more than any sane person would want to deal with. They’d found out, in the absence of her return, Delamain had returned Jackie’s body to his family. 

Meaning some strange, shot up car had arrived on Mama Welles’ doorstep, carrying her son’s broken and bloody body.

Facing the woman after that had been almost as terrifying as staring their oncoming death in the face. But she’d shown V compassion they still didn’t believe they’d deserved, including them in every part of Jackie’s memorial celebration, letting them contribute to the ofrenda and speak of just some of the many fond memories V had of her son. Who had been taken from the world far too fucking early, right when they’d really started their climb to the top. 

Then there had been the sucker-punch of emotions that resulted when the woman gifted Jackie’s motorcycle to her. The piece of hardware he’d saved up for months to get, buffing it up and tweaking it every chance he’d got. The one vehicle he never, ever, let V drive. 

God, that...that had been something else. Picking up the keys, turning them in the ignition, and being sent to their knees by the rush of memories that resulted. Memories that turned into an agonising blur, sending spikes of pain into their head, leaving V unable to move from where they’d knelt against the unforgiving ground.

That, of all places, had been the first time Johnny Silverhand had showed up. In the flesh, so to speak- standing before V almost as clear as a real fucking person. It was also the time they learned that a hell of  alot of the stories about the guy were true. If she had his memories, he had hers, so he’d no doubt have known the sequence of events that brought him here. 

But he’d still gone into some kind of rage, taking control of V’s body for a few terrifying moments, scattering some of the clutter that Jackie had clustered in every corner of his garage. Slamming her head against the fucking wall . The guy had been fucking terrifying, all but holding V by the throat, going off on some tangent about how he now had a chance to end the shit he’d started with Arasaka half a decade ago, with that fucking bomb that wiped out damn near all the tower- the blast of orange light shattering every single window in a several mile radius. 

A blast that had been powerful enough to shake the foundations of the buildings around the tower, in a way that signalled the start of something. Or what Johnny wanted to start back then, at least.

V shouldn’t have expected much more from someone who was a known anarchist, but they did. Because in a way they’d been dodging talking about, they knew a hell of a lot more about Silverhand than they were letting on. How he’d not seen certain memories, V wasn’t sure. But they were grateful to that twist of fate. Because yeah, they knew way more than they should. That was an understatement. When they’d been tossed from foster home to foster home after their parents died in an armed robbery, one of the few things V had been able to do to escape it all had been through getting into music. 

One of the handful of friends she had at her last home, before turning 16, had saved up from this little waitressing job they had at some tiny diner- all so they could gift V with a retro music player she’d been coveting. It was second hand, perhaps a few times over, bought from some old rocker- but it was one of the best gifts they’d received.

At first, they’d thought about using the tech skills they’d learned in their research outside of school to wipe the device clean. But something had stuck out. The device showed up the album covers on the screen, but would also play a holographic image of the main performers via a tiny projector in the device itself. And, bored of waiting for other music to download through the home’s crowded, outdated internet, they settled in to scroll through what the old rocker had left on there. One particular album had stood out to them amidst the black and silver of metal and old rock. 

It was a dark cover, upon which was set a distinct logo. A black and red Samurai-type mask, eyes seeming to be set ablaze even as a still image. When they’d selected it, they saw the projection. Admittedly, it was a bit fucked up- blurry and glitchy in places. Not in as high quality as the rest; clearly recorded by a fan in the audience. 

Patched together. But patched together in a way only a devoted fan could. 

That, and the bright-ass logo, convinced V to listen.

And that had been it, pretty much. They’d gone through the entire album in one sitting, and that was all they listened to for three days straight. At first, it was just the general tune and the lead singer’s voice that drew her in. But then she started really listening to the lyrics, and that’s what truly started her down that twisted rabbit hole. She started digging into who Samurai were, and, more specifically, who their lead was. They were a proper, kind of old school rock band, who had a pretty decent and dedicated following. 

But they never went mainstream. Which, given their lyrics and what happened with Silverhand, made sense. When V first read about how Johnny Silverhand started a one-man war against Arasaka, the figurehead of the monopolising corporations that had taken over the world, they were hooked pretty much instantly. They saw and heard way too many stories growing up on the streets, of shops being taken over and homes being demolished for shiny skyscrapers and luxury hotels. 

Of how the streets became laden with neon logos and signs blaring into your vision as far as your orbital implants could see. How they held a terrifying amount of control over the NCPD and major leadership positions. That the city was basically a monopoly board for the ultra rich to play in. To fuck with in whatever way they saw fit.

So yeah, like any sane person (or angsty teen) would do, V found themselves in Samurai’s music. And as the years went by, and they learned more about Silverhand and how he’d somehow managed to bring down Arasaka’s own fucking tower in Night City- at the cost of his own life now less- for the chance at bringing down the megacorporations ruining people’s lives, they found it being a part of themselves. Especially as they got into the mercenary gig at 18 and started working their way up, seeing the deepest and darkest parts of Night City’s underworld. 

Ok, it was kind of an obsession. 

But it wasn’t only an ideal that V could get behind, it was also an escape from the chaos of her life. 

Fucking hell, she even spent a huge chunk of her first well-paying job on tracking down and obtaining one of Silverhand’s original guitars. Sure, him and Samurai weren’t the only band with posters and memorabilia decorating her apartment walls (which she carefully took down and carried with her as she moved from place to place), but they were definitely the majority of it. There was even an original poster, taken and edited by a photographer who got into one of Samurai’s last concerts. 

A photo of Silverhand all but screaming into the mic, one hand on said microphone, and the other on a gun that gleamed as silver as his cybernetic arm. The crowd reaching out to him amidst a haze of blazing lights and dense smoke.

Which, after all that and a string of events that were like something out of an old Hollywood action movie, left V where she was now. After spending 3 days hopping around Night City, taking on job after job, and switching between motels, they’d finally gotten the courage to go back to their apartment. Because yeah, they were definitely still scared shitless about the idea of their brain essentially being wiped clean. But the immediate issue was that, in the few days she’d had with him cropping up everywhere, she’d gotten to know Silverhand a bit. 

The guy still scared her half the time; not that she’d admit that to his fucking smug (and annoyingly good-looking) face, but the other half of the time? He was pretty interesting. Definitely still holding on to a metric tonne of anger towards Arasaka, and more blunt and abrasive than any person she’d ever met, but interesting. Beneath the layers of anger and resentment, as well as more cockiness than one person should ever fucking possess, there was hints at the shit beneath all that. 

Of who Johnny was, beyond the legend attached to his name.

So yeah, that left them stuck outside the door of V’s apartment, Johnny crossing his arms as he leant back against the wall with a huff- the former being more than a little afraid to open the door. They’d lucked out with the memories of hers that he’d seen so far, but that was going to run out sooner or later. Especially with the both of them being on borrowed time. So it was better to get this shit out of the way sooner, rather than later. 

Didn’t make the prospect any more appealing, of course. She knew how Johnny felt about the so-called fanatics and groupies. Good for a one night stand, but nothing else. 'Just following the slightest sense of fame' as he put it. So V could only imagine how he’d react to not only seeing a room half full of Samurai memorabilia, but also the knowledge he was stuck in the body of the owner of said memorabilia. 

One of the ‘wild fans’ he’d said he despised. Sure, V wasn’t exactly ashamed of liking Silverhand’s music (or him, because fuck) but having your teenage hero seeing a room full of his band’s shit was on another level.

And she couldn’t even duck away afterwards. They were literally stuck together for the foreseeable future.

Fuck.

Fuckfuckfuckfuck fuckfuckfuck.

“Any reason you’re stood there with your eyes wide as hell, like your fucking brain already got wiped?” Johnny spoke up, abruptly bringing her back to the present.

“No. No reason.” V shrugged, hoping to appear nonchalant whilst internally screeching.

“Something in there you don’t want me to see?” Johnny showed up in the corner of her vision, leaning against the wall. “Can’t be any worse than the shit out here.”

“You that interested in seeing my apartment?”

“With the alternative being stuck in your head staring at a fucking door, yeah. I am.”

Okay, he was definitely getting more and more pissed off as the seconds ticked by. To be fair, she had been staring at the door trying to gather the courage to open said door...for about...five minutes. Truth be told, she was surprised Silverhand lasted that long. Guy wasn’t exactly one for being patient. 

Which was the understatement of the fucking century. But the idea of him fucking her up for making him wait was somehow, somehow, worse than the idea of who was basically her (he was an anarchist asshole, but damn if the guy didn’t make a good point sometimes) idol growing up, seeing her apartment plastered in his band’s memorabilia. There was already an onset of cringe overtaking V’s system, grimacing as she anticipated the barrage of fucked up questions that would be coming her way- but somehow she finally got in in her to swipe the key across her door. 

At least she hadn’t left it in a fucking mess like she normally did. 

That would be something.

When Johnny casually walked through her to examine the apartment, V stepped in after him, the door sliding shut agonisingly loud behind her. Those first few seconds were some of the longest of her life, and given all the shit that had happened recently, especially what got her to this bizarre fucking moment in the first place- that was saying something. Saying something. Which was, V realised, something that Silverhand wasn’t doing. 

In the few days they’d spent together, he rarely shut up. So this was about as miraculous as her rising from the fucking dead. Of course, the silence had it’s drawbacks- V could practically feel the tension rising...as Johnny scanned the room. As he no doubt saw the countless Samurai poster variations amidst the swathes of rock memorabilia. And, of course, landed on the huge fucking poster of him on the opposite wall. 

Which went literally floor to ceiling, beaming out amidst the cluttered apartment like the fucking neon lights of the city outside.

Something that made the silence all the more-

“Hey, V?” Johnny spoke up abruptly.

“...yeah?” V braced herself.

“What the fuck?”

V opened her mouth to say something, but all that came out was a nervous laugh. Sure, she was mildly terrified, but the way he just said it so deadpan and blunt as he slowly turned halfway- eyebrows raised so fucking high you could see it above those trademark sunglasses...it was honestly one of the funniest things she’d ever seen and heard. 

It somehow sounded simultaneously unlike him, without any of the usual spite or anger, but so much like what she’d expected all the same. He sounded a mixture of disappointed, and outright freaked the fuck out. Which was...understandable. The guy had been brought back from the dead, stuck in some random ass stranger's body, only to walk into their apartment to see half of the wall was like some fucked up poster shrine to him and his band. 

Yeah. V could understand his reaction. Didn’t make it any less hilarious. (Or make her any less scared of the inevitable fallout, but hey)

“You gone deaf or something? Relic malfunction?” Johnny tried getting her attention. “I said...what the fuck, V?”

“I...uh...can...explain?” V spoke hesitantly, hands raised in mock (no, totally real) surrender.

“Uh huh. Really?” Johnny didn’t look or sound convinced, arms crossing in front of his chest as he turned to fully face her. “Going to make this worse and tell me what I think is going on?”

“What...do you think...is going on?”

“This shit isn’t in bad condition, but I can tell its old as fuck.” Johnny gestured to the wallpaper-like swathe of posters. “And not because its Samurai shit either.”

“So…” V wrung her wrists together nervously.

“You’ve probably had it since you were like, what? A fucked up hormonal teenager?”

“I…”

“Great.”

“Look, this-”

“Is somehow worse than waking up in your body?”

“Hey!”

“How would you feel if you rose from the fucking dead and found a shrine to yourself?”

“It is not a shrine- ”

“Sure looks like it.”

“Don’t flatter yourself-”

“Says the asshole with a huge fucking poster of me on their living room wall.”

“How am I an asshole?”

“Because this shit is weird, V!”

“Liking a band is a bad thing?”

“No. Having a fucking shrine is-”

“IT’S.NOT.A.SHRINE!”

Yeah, V was definitely considering that she was going crazy. Here she was, after almost pulling off the most insane heist Night City in years, the death of her best friend- and rising from the dead...arguing with the digital construct of the guy she’d looked up to for half her fucking life. Over whether her (admittedly kind of oversized) poster of said idol made up the centerpiece of some kind of shrine. If you’d told her this was what her life would amount to, trying to defend her teenage-borne obsession with an indie rock band to their resurrected anarchist/terrorist lead singer, she wouldn’t have believed you. 

Not even after overdosing on every fucking drug Night City had to offer.

God, worse than the insanity was how fucking embarassed she felt. Because even she was starting to realise how weird it would be for Silverhand to wake up in someone’s head, only to walk into their apartment and see said person was pretty much obsessed with him. Because yeah, she had to admit to herself it was an obsession.

 How could you blame her? The guy’s music was pretty fucking awesome, he had somewhat understandable views on corporate overlords... and he was probably one of the most attractive guys to ever walk the streets of Night City.

But he hadn’t seen every poster yet. He’d turned back round, talking about something V couldn’t hear over the rising mix of terror and cringe running through her veins, fixated on that huge-ass poster of him on the wall opposite them. And he’d yet to almost crack his voice with another what the fuck , meaning yeah. He hadn’t seen every poster. 

Namely, the one she’d stuck on the square wall behind her bed. Which was worse than the gigantic one taking up a quarter of one of her living room walls. It was some reporter’s photo from a backstage venture at one of Samurai’s concerts. (Taking up that whole section of wall) Silverhand was sitting on top of an unused amplifier, looking at someone outside of the camera’s point of view. Signature vest top nowhere to be seen, leaving him shirtless. In those stupid tight leather pants and boots combo. With his trademark sunglasses on. Smoking a cigarette, smirking, skin shining-

Possibly the thirstiest fucking image that photographer could have taken.

“V?” Johnny snapped her out of it.

"What?" V bit back.

Shit, she’d gotten distracted by the somewhat spicy photo. (Another thing she’d take to her fucking grave) She had to move while his attention was still on the other poster. Because if she could just cross the few feet over to her bed, unnoticed, she could carefully pull the poster down and stash it under the bed. She could say some shit about how yeah, it was pretty fucking weird, and take down the other one after.

Yeah, if V could just make it across the floor, she’d get through this with at least a shred of her dignity intact.

However, Fate (the bitch) seemed to have even more fucked up plans for her.

Because today, of all days, in this one shitty moment…

Her foot landed on the creakiest fucking patch of flooring in the entire goddamn apartment.

Johnny instantly turned to face her, downed eyebrows raising once more when he took in her almost cartoon-like sneaking stance. Even though she knew she looked fucking ridiculous, V couldn’t quite bring herself to move. She was literally frozen in fear, knowing that any second now...

“The hell are you-” Johnny started, before turning his head.

As he started to follow her line of sight, V relaxed her cartoon pose and started slyly backing away, (Like that would help her. The guy was literally stuck in her head) following his gaze. When his eyes finally crossed over to her bed, V felt herself get struck with the hugest fucking sucker-punch of cringe she’d felt since she was the angsty teenager that had inadvertently gotten her into this mess.

But then Johnny finally fixed his eyes upon the shirtless photo of him, stuck up next to her bed of all places.

“Oh for fuck’s sake-”

[ryqoshay]

How to Handle a Nico: Nico in Paradise

Primary Pairing: NicoMaki Words: ~3.6k Rating: T Time Frame: Maki may still be working through her residency, elsewise is a doctor. Nico is working as an idol producer. They are living together as a happily married couple. Story Arc: Stand Alone

Author’s Note: My apologies to Nico for being almost a week late. Happy Birthday, belated.

Maki was excited.

She stared out the window at the endless expanse of blue; water below and sky above with the occasional wisp of white cloud for contrast. It was quite picturesque, to say the least.

Picture… Maki was suddenly tempted to retrieve her camera from her bag. The urge was quickly quashed, however, as she realized getting up would disturb the sleeping woman leaning against her.

Phone… there was a camera on her phone. Not as good has her dedicated device, but good enough for a casual shot through the double panes. Where did she leave her phone? She couldn’t trace the cord of her Bluetooth earbuds, which she was using because she wasn’t currently sharing with a certain someone.

Ah, there it is… Of course, it was just out of reach.

Oh well. Maki gave up. There would be plenty of picturesque scenes at their destination. And one picture wasn’t worth waking Nico. Well, a picture of Nico sleeping, just before waking might be worth it… Maybe…

Nico-chan…

Maki smiled and turned her head just enough to catch ebony tresses at the edge of her vision. Nico was sleeping soundly after a busy few weeks at work. Maki had been busy as well, but it had been surprisingly calm at the hospital recently, at least as far as dealing with patients was concerned. This left her with some much needed time to catch up on administrative duties. And as such, she was nowhere near as tired as Nico. Still, both were overdue for a change in latitude and some time away from the chaos of running a hospital and a production company.

But instead of joining her wife in slumber, Maki calmed her anxious energies with music, a lovely view and Nico’s comforting warmth. She also continued to run through the plans she had laid out for the next few days. She couldn’t wait to see Nico’s reaction to the surprise awaiting her at the end of her special day.

“It’s so beautiful!” Nico exclaimed, holding her arms out wide as she took in the scenery before her.

She stepped off the veranda on the seaside of the bungalow. She had barely dropped her bags in the bedroom before changing course and heading outside.

“Mmm…” Maki replied, following a few steps behind and idly considering how much said beauty was currently being enhanced by the presence of a certain someone within her view.

“Let’s go for a swim!”

“N-now? But we just got…”

Maki’s protest was abruptly halted when Nico began peeling off her shirt to reveal a floral-patterned bikini top underneath. As the skirt was shimmied down and tossed haphazardly across the back of a nearby lounge chair, Maki found herself remembering an article Nico had shown her way back when. The general premise was that certain outfits were not always appealing due to what was revealed, but what was covered and how.

The swimwear in question was fairly simple when compared to others of its kind. No frills or ruffles that so often adorned those worn by Nico in her younger years. But there was pink. Of course there was pink. Maki wasn’t quite sure, but she believed the scattered flowers to be hibiscus, though they could easily be some other tropical flower. Either way the petals seemed to dance along with…

“Entranced by Nico’s beauty?”

Maki blinked back to reality to meet her wife’s teasing gaze. “… Yeah…” She admitted somewhat sheepishly.

Nico giggled. “After all these years, Maki-chan is still embarrassed about staring at Nico.”

“I… but…”

“And can’t take her eyes of Nico despite all the rest of the gorgeous scenery.” She twirled on one foot for effect, obviously thrilled with the attention.

“I’ve seen the ocean and the beach and palm trees before…” Despite the heat in her cheeks, Maki found a foothold to use in her defense.

“You’ve also seen Nico in a swimsuit before.”

“But…” Apparently her reprieve was short lived.

“And many times in even less…” The raven-haired woman smirked seductively as she sauntered over to close the distance between them.

“…” The redhead felt heat gathering elsewhere as well.

“You know I’m just teasing you, right Maki-chan?” Nico’s smile returned to normal, happy joking. “Now come on,” she said, reaching up to the bow behind Maki’s neck that secured the strap of her dress, “if Maki-chan gets a nice view, then Nico deserves one too. You did wear your own swimsuit as well, right?”

“N-Nico-chan…” Maki breathed as fingertips brushed against the nape of her neck.

“What, does Maki-chan wants to do something other than swim?” And just like that, Nico was back to pushing Maki’s buttons for a specific reaction.

And it was working. Far too well. As the tie came undone, her fingers slid down toward Maki’s collarbone.

Maki couldn’t resist anymore. Giving in to her desires, she pulled her wife into a hug and leaned down. Nico flashed one last self-satisfied smirk before tilting her chin up to meet the incoming kiss.

“Ah, that was fun.” Nico said in a content tone as she made her way back indoors.

The couple had spent the last several hours out on the beach, playing in the water or just soaking up the sun on the sand. As well as a few other activities. Multiple times.

“Nico is thirsty now.” The raven-haired woman said, heading toward the kitchen.

“It’s important to stay hydrated in this heat.” The redhead stated.

“That much is obvious.” Nico replied with a shake of her head. “And we’ve been doing fine with that. I meant something different.”

“Mmm…” Maki hummed without commitment.

“Want anything?”

“I’ll just have whatever you have.” Maki replied, heading to the bedroom to change out of her swimsuit.

“Wow… they really stocked this place up.” Nico considered the options as she opened the cupboard to reveal a sizable selection of booze.

“Isn’t that normal?” Came the reply from the other room.

Nico wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. Under different circumstances, she would snark back to the still occasionally naïve rich girl. But since she had personally never been to a private resort like this before, she had nothing for comparison. So, it looked like teasing was the best response.

“Let’s see, we have Grey Goose, Aspen’s Peach, Chambord, plenty of fruit juices… I could make…”

“No, don’t say it.”

“What? Why?” Nico inquired. “Nobody else is here and it can commemorate what we just did.”

“Nico-chan…”

“And for that matter, we should probably have more than one.”

Maki groaned, earning laughter from her wife.

“Oh, here’s a blender. How about daiquiris? Those are classic tropical drinks, right?”

“I thought margaritas were the stereotypical tropical cocktail. How did that song go about Margaritaville or whatever?”

Nico scrunched her nose. “You know how I feel about tequila.”

“Yeah, you hate it almost as much as vodka.”

“Exactly.”

A thought occurred to Maki. “So why was your first suggestion s…” She cut herself off before saying the drink she had stopped Nico from naming.

“First suggesting… what was that?”

“Nevermind…”

“Anyway, daiquiris are pretty much the same as margaritas, right? Just with rum.”

“I guess.”

“Oh come on, I know even lightweight Maki-chan likes rum.”

“I like tequila too…”

“Well Nico is making daiquiris.”

“I suppose the rum is for all your good vices or something like that…” Maki mused as she returned to the living area.

“Got any vices in mind?” Nico smirked.

“Not really, no…”

“’Cause Nico’s vice would be Maki-chan.”

Maki’s blush was all the response Nico needed for a good laugh.

“Ne, Maki-chan?”

“Mmm…?”

“Why did you bring me here?”

“Eh?”

The two women were sitting together near a fire built from wood brought by employees at the main lodge. They had watched the sunset over the ocean and were now counting stars.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound how it probably did. I know this vacation is for my birthday, I’m just curious about this particular location. Why not one of your family vacation homes or one of those you have access to or whatever?”

“I wanted to go somewhere we hadn’t been before.”

Nico wondered if she should point out that she hadn’t personally been to all of the vacation homes.

“I mean, Mama and Papa and I have gone to our places often as a sort of family tradition.” Maki continued. “And don’t get me wrong, I was happy to start including you in such traditions once we started dating.”

Nico sensed a “But…?”

“I wanted somewhere new. Somewhere that was just for the two us. Somewhere where we could start our own tradition.”

Nico felt warmth spread through her that had nothing to do with the fire in front of her. Smiling, she pushed herself up and out of her chair.

“Nico-chan?” Maki questioned.

Without a verbal reply, Nico set her drink in the holder opposite Maki’s before pushing her wife’s knees apart. Next, she turned and sat in the spot she had opened for herself. Finally, she leaned against the younger woman and pulled one of her arms around herself.

“A new tradition, huh?” Nico finally said after a moment.

“Yeah…”

“So, does this mean Mak-chan is spoiling the surprise of Nico’s next birthday?”

“No, I… uhm… maybe?”

Nico giggled. “It’s fine. It’s fine.” She assured. “This place seems nice. And I’ll happily go wherever Maki-chan wants to take me.”

“Thank you.” Maki said, wrapping her other arm around the other woman to complete the hug.

This earned more laugher. “Nico should be thanking Maki-chan. So, thank you, Maki-chan.” She reached over to retrieve her drink. “We haven’t even been here a day and I’ve already had a ton of fun.”

“You’re welcome.” Maki tilted her head down so she could plant a kiss on top of Nico’s head. “Happy birthday, Nico-chan.”

Nico glanced over to see Maki’s phone displaying the time as midnight. “Thanks, Maki-chan.” She said, snuggling in more. “I love you.”

“I love you to, Nico-chan.”

Something smelled good. Really good.

Maki slowly opened her eyes to the disappointing, though all too familiar sight of empty sheets beside her. Frowning, she tried to recall if Nico had agreed to sleep in this morning due to it being her special day, but the lingering alcohol in her system hazed her memories. Sighing, she crawled out of bed and headed for the kitchen.

There she was. Standing at the stove, sleepshirt slipping off her shoulder and hair unkempt from the previous night’s activities, Nico hummed to herself while she cooked as part of her morning ritual. And like so many mornings before, Maki obeyed the magnetic pull that drew her toward the woman she loved.

“Morning, Maki-chan.” Nico chuckled as arms wrapped around her waist and a chin dropped down on her shoulder.

“I thought we were going to order out for breakfast.” Maki mumbled, mostly intelligibly.

“I did, sort of.”

“Mm?”

“I had them deliver the ingredients, since we didn’t have anything on hand.”

“But…”

“Shush.” Nico gently swatted her wife’s nose. “It’s Nico’s birthday today so Nico gets to do what she wants.”

Maki wasn’t quite awake enough to give voice to her thoughts about how Nico pretty much always did what she wanted anyway, even when it wasn’t her birthday.

“And Nico wants to make breakfast for her favoritest Maki-chan.”

“… Alright…” Maki agreed after a moment. Despite her initial protest, she couldn’t deny that she loved when Nico cooked for her.

“And this place really goes all out.” Nico commented as Maki shuffled over to the counter to sit on a stool so she could watch. “I don’t think these eggs even had a chance to hit the refrigerator. And Nico can’t remember the last time she cooked with goat cheese. And these herbs.” She held some up to her nose for effect. “They must get fresh local deliveries pretty much every day or something.”

“Probably.”

“And vine ripened tomatoes.” Nico motioned to what she had prepped.

“…”

With no verbal response given, Nico turned to see Maki’s face. “Hey, no drooling on the counter.” She pointed her spatula at her wife.

Maki pouted, earning a laugh from Nico.

“Anyway, I’m almost done, so just be patient a little while longer.”

“Alright.”

“Ooo, a food truck! Nico is hungry! Let’s get lunch there.” Nico grabbed her wife’s hand and pulled her toward her target destination.

The couple had taken the shuttle into town and spent the morning exploring several touristy shops and local points of interest. As they had slept in and had a late breakfast, as well as snacked on treats from the shops, they had put off lunch until well past noon. However, once Maki’s stomach started grumbling, conversation had turned to food.

“Burgers?” Maki inquired, glancing at the menu. “You don’t want to explore more and try to find something more… exotic or tropical? Something you haven’t had before?”

“I’ve always wanted to try a <Cheeseburger in paradise.>” Nico sang the last part in English.

Maki raised an eyebrow while the young man in the truck grinned.

“<Medium rare with Muenster’d be nice.>” He sang back.

“<Heaven on earth with an onion slice.>”

“Nico-chan…” Maki couldn’t help feeling that people were staring.

“<I’m just a cheeseburger in paradise!>” Both Nico and the cook finished in unison before laughing.

“Two cheeseburgers then?” The young man inquired, indicating the two women before him.

“You want one, Maki-chan?” Nico asked.

“… Sure…”

“<I like mine with lettuce and tomato.>” Nico chanted.

“<Heinz 57 and french fried potatoes.> The young man continued.

Maki’s blush bloomed even more.

“<Big kosher pickle and cold draft beer.>” The two sang together again. “<Well, good god almighty which way do I steer?>”

Nico turned to her wife to observe her reaction. “<I dunno where Nico gonna go when Nishikino blows!>”

“Ughn…” Maki groaned, shoulders slumping.

“Nico is just fulfilling her role as an idol and making people smile.” The producer motioned to the cook as well as several people who had paused to watch the little show.

“I know but…” Despite her own years as a school idol, as well as recent piano concerts in the local mall, the doctor still had some issues with public attention.

“Let’s get you something to drink to take your mind off of it.”

“I’m sorry,” The young man in the truck apologized “I don’t have a tap, but I have bottles. Ice cold.”

“That’s fine.” Nico stood up on tip toes to check the selection. “Two of those.” She pointed.

The couple continued to chat with the truck attendee while he prepared their meal, though more Nico than Maki. The latter contented herself in her beverage and watching her wife do one of the things she did best; turn on the charm and schmooze with anyone. Eventually, it was time to move on and continue their tour of the town.

“You know, I didn’t know you knew of Jimmy Buffett.” Maki commented as she stood from the dinner table.

The couple had decided to eat at the restaurant in the main lodge before heading back to their bungalow.

“Mmm? You mean that thing at lunch?”

Maki nodded.

“That’s because Maki-chan mentioned Margaritaville and the rum thing last night and we’re on a tropical holiday and such.”

“I guess I just didn’t think that would be the type of music you would listen to.”

“Not everything Nico listens to is idol music. Maki-chan should know that by now.”

“I suppose.”

“And besides, I could just as easily turn that around to you.”

“Mmm…”

“Anyway, the only thing missing from our Boats, Beaches, Bars and Ballads collection now is the boat.”

“We can take a tour boat tomorrow if you want.”

“No romantic boat ride by moonlight tonight?” Nico drawled into teasing mode.

“I, uhm… actually had something else in mind…”

“Oh?”

“Yeah… So, if you’ll come with me.” Maki took the other woman’s hand and lead her down the hall away from the lodge exit.

“Maki-chan?”

Even after all these years, it was still uncommon for Maki to take the lead like this. As such, Maki couldn’t help but revel in the switch and for what she knew awaited just behind the door. She also wondered how quickly Nico would realize the situation.

Coming out from backstage, the couple were greeted by applause from a modestly sized but enthusiastic audience. Without hesitation, Nico stepped past the speakers and grabbed the mic.

“Nico Nico Ni~!” And just like that, her idol persona switched on.

Of course it would be instantaneous. Maki knew she shouldn’t be surprised. Nico was an entertainer through and through. And Maki doubted she would ever cease to be impressed by, and even a bit envious of Nico’s skill.

“Nico Nico Ni~!” The audience cheered in response.

Nico turned her beaming smile toward her wife. “What’s my first song, Maki-chan?”

“A fan favorite.” Maki replied, moving to the karaoke machine off to the side.

Her finger hovered over Play as she gave a countdown to begin the concert. She then settled down to watch Nico immerse herself fully in her element. Wearing street clothes with her hair down and minimal makeup didn’t stop the No. 1 Idol in the Universe from shining brightly on stage. No lack of preparation or rehearsal would prevent Nico from giving everything she had to an impromptu live. And it was all Maki could do to keep herself from being completely starstruck so she could queue up songs to keep things moving along.

“And now we have a special surprise for you all tonight!” Nico suddenly announced as a song concluded.

“Eh?” Maki blinked as her wife motioned to her and all eyes followed.

Movement at the edge of her gaze drew Maki’s attention to a resort employee setting up keyboard and stand.

“Don’t be shy, Maki-chan.” Nico beckoned. “Come on over here and play with Nico.”

“Wh… wh… What was that?” She fell back on her habitual phrase.

“You don’t get it?” Nico reworded the second half with a smirk. “What’s not to get?”

“You… knew?”

“Maki-chan is horrible at keeping secrets.” Nico laughed lightly. “Nico found a flier under your desk. Maybe if Maki-chan was better at cleaning, she’d’ve found it herself.”

Maki pouted, earning more laugher. This time the audience joined in as well.

“I will give Hanayo credit though.” Nico continued. “She did her best to avoid answering my questions until I showed her the flier I found. Then I had her help me set up this. So stop stalling already and get over here.” She made exaggerated beckoning motions using both arms. “It’s not all that different than your birthday a few months ago.”

Finally working her way past her initial shock and embarrassment, Maki slowly moved toward the keyboard. As she ran her fingers gently across the keys, she allowed her desire to play take over. Audience or not, Maki’s love of music seldom failed to triumph.

For her part, Nico obviously recognized the change in demeanor. “Ready?”

Maki nodded. And without further hesitation, began to play. Then, flashing one more smile at her wife, Nico turned back to the audience to sing.

A second night and second fire. The sunset was missed due to the concert and following impromptu meet and greet session. Nico was still buzzing from the show and was grateful to have Maki around to help her come down. As such, she had dropped all pretense and immediately reclaimed her place on Maki’s chair, comfortably nestling into her wife’s warm embrace. It was so better than an empty hotel room or mere skype session.

“I could really get used to this, you know.” Nico broke the silence after a while.

“Mmm…”

“I wanted to stay awake until the date change last night, but tonight I could honestly just fall asleep like this.”

“Mmm…”

“Is Maki-chan still pouting about the live?”

“No…”

Nico giggled. “It was still a surprise, I assure you. Just a bit earlier than you intended.”

“…”

“And Hanayo was sure to point out how little you actually let her do. You wanted to do as much as possible on your own, and I love that you did. That concert was your doing, Maki-chan. You made it happen. And in doing so, you made a lot of people happy; Nico included, obviously.”

“… Yeah…”

Nico pulled Maki’s arms tighter around herself. “You know how important being an idol is to me, and that means a lot to me. And I know how important music is to you, which is why I wanted you to join me.”

“I know.”

“So stop being upset about the details and just enjoy this paradise with me.”

“… Alright.”

“Of course, as amazing as this place is, it’s only really paradise because Maki-chan is with me.”

A nose nuzzled into her hair and lips pressed lightly against her head before a voice said softly, “It’s paradise for me as well because Nico-chan is with me.”

Nico smiled as she pulled Maki’s hand to her lips to place a kiss of her own on the back of it.

“Oh, a shooting star!” She suddenly pointed out, returning her wife’s arm around her waist. “Make a wish, Maki-chan!”

“Alright…”

Nico wasn’t sure what her wife wished for and wasn’t about to ask. However, she hoped it was somewhat similar to her own; that she and Maki could continue to celebrate together for many birthdays to come.

Author’s Note Continued in Followup Post.

[infinity-warfare]

Death Eaters is a group of dark wizards, followers of Lord Voldemort, who fought as elite fighters in the First and Second Magic Wars. Dreadful? No, not at all! Especially when you are the future wife of one of them. How to handle this? An exclusive report by word of mouth of a young bride of one of the Death Eaters. 

To Marry a Death Eater

When it comes to the fact that mama and papa want to engage you with one of the Death Eaters, you should not faint immediately and voluptuously wait for the hour when this very exciting event happens. What if this marriage turns out to be not as perfect as your mama and papa marriage? Well, let us look closer to all main aspects of such a marriage.

Engagement

When we are referring to an engagement, for some reason most girls imagine a diamond ring and jewellery immediately. Not ordinary, but special, which settle in your casket in the boudoir. All the space covered in flowers, pleasant music plays, and nothing seems to spoil this sweet moment. However, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. The ring does not look catchy and most likely it has been demolished by four generations of women of this family. Most likely, you will have a rich inheritance in the future, but now this is something that you have to be content with for at least another six months. Moreover, couples do not marry immediately after the engagement! It is time to know this thing, girls! The thing that can really spoil this day... Probably it is the very first time when you first see your hubby. Traditions are traditions and love in noble families is not obligatory. Ew... I should remind you that not all young and promising ladies are lucky! You will certainly not have an ugly and blind husband, but… Not only his look matter, is it?

Wedding

If a white veil, treats, and dances are the first things to come to your mind, forget it! You will probably spend more than one evening together just making a list of all his relatives, who, undoubtedly, should be invited to the celebration. And no one will tell you facts that grandfather Roderick can be wildly drunken with ordinary apple cider and will certainly sing obscene dirty ditties and aunt Morgana will aggressively shout “Now a kiss!” every five minutes, of course. Oh, those vile Death Eaters! They will do anything to a noble lady kissed them all evening! The very same wedding day can be remembered by the endless number of relatives who are drunk with firewiskey, rubbing shoes from Madame Malkin's shop and passionate desire to take them off. In addition, when it seems that there is more blood in wedding shoes than your feet, then a granny-toastmaster named Sulpicia will organize a festive relay race for you, dividing all relatives into the bride and groom teams. Perhaps only there you will understand why the hubby mother rubbed her hands so hard when she emphasized her in the guest list. Relatives from your side, whom you have always considered adequate, already being slightly drunk, will perceive this idea as the most valuable diamond in the mud compartment. And do not forget that you have to dance with all the drunken and sober relatives, including other Death Eaters.      If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen! The result is miserable: the legs are not felt at all, it seems that something valuable was stolen from the house, several fights and unforgivable spells, broken windows in the smoking room, everything around in the garbage and even when you want to retire with the groom, most likely Auntie Albertina will go with you to conduct the initiation rite? What the hell?

The wedding night

As it is clear from what was written earlier, you will remember this first wedding night forever. Salutes and fireworks are still exploding around the house, the house is full of all sorts of psychopaths from the bride and groom sides, some floors resemble ancient Greek ruins more than the Parthenon in Greece, and Aunt Albertina drags into your bedroom. Therefore, close the door on fifteen protective spells, having stunk out Roderick and Morgana before. If you thought that intimacy begins here, then you are deeply mistaken. What did these psychopaths give you? Half the night passes in a wedding rush over the gifts that all those familiar and unfamiliar people bought for the young family. And when it turns out that the celebration cost more than all that was given by all these people - it certainly will not be up to sleep. How could they? Hasn’t even a three-story wedding cake paid off? All gifts to the last will be examined in the most thorough way, up to such household things as services. One of which, will break, of course, for good luck. Or was it originally broken? After all, when it turns out that, there is nothing in the last envelope except the greeting card; it will already be five in the morning. What a wedding night, think again! In addition, these bloody legs, after dancing with relative psychopaths. In the furnace. I am a bride. I was tortured all day, I survived and deserved to sleep. Intimacy? Some other time, honey.

Honeymoon

The honeymoon is not always going after the wedding and you should understand this especially when your husband is a Death Eater. No Bahamas and Caribs, a suburb of England and constantly leaving for some races (or maybe raids?) on the instructions of Oz, the Great and Terrible (wrong story villain?). If you suddenly want to spend time together (I do not exclude such a possibility), then you can go with your husband to do the task. And how do you like this? Yes, you have to dress all black and kill a couple of Order members, but is this really a problem? Good girls very rarely become wives of such bad boys. Therefore, you have enough gray matter. And generally speaking! The golden time that you spend before the birth of your first child is your honeymoon. Enjoy! It is possible that you are the same lucky girl who still gets to pull her hubby somewhere on the beaches and into the luxurious life by the sea - for this kind of rest, this instruction is very useful! First, stick down the mark on your husband's hand so that its signals are invisible and imperceptible; attach a cold for the latter. In case your man looks at other ladies in bathing suits, pull sharply on the plaster and remind this handsome man where to look! After all, the real goddess is you. If after this your husband is indestructible, there will always be a little witch mate – “Imperio”. What? All is fair in love and war!

The first year of marriage

According to statistics, the largest number of divorces occur in the first four years of marriage, and the first year of marriage is considered the most difficult and to some extent decisive. If you didn’t kill each other during this long busy year of joint scandals and tantrums on the basis of the husband’s constant absence at home (but the presence of the one at work and the service of the Lord, no brothels and the vail), you are a pretty promising couple for the magical world. It is possible that mama and papa were right, matchmaking you to this Death Eater. The art of marriage is to allow as little spoilage as possible! Try to be tolerant of your sweet Deathyeater. And then you will find the same answer in the form of jewellery, flowers and expensive things. This is a time when you can EVEN love your husband. But do not overdo it. So that a man does not get bored in a relationship and does not go in search of emotions on the side, you need to periodically drive him crazy. The main thing here is to drive him crazy, but not to screw the poor man’s brains out. And this is already a great art that not every nymph can master! But it is also worth remembering another, rather important rule. The less DE we love, the more he loves you back.

Everyday life

What you should not bother with is life. Cooking, washing and cleaning, all this will take home elves or house cleaners, as you wish. Now you are the lady who controls this infinitely troublesome process. Make sure that the poison for the Order of the Phoenix in the cauldron is cooked correctly, the bloodstains were washed down to squeak and snow-whiteness and the rooms of the house is clean and pleasant. If something is wrong, shout at the little minions, if they are guilty that something is wrong. And yes they all burn in hell ... You can follow the example of the Walburga, which hangs their little heads on the door handles. Another option is to tell your husband. Damn them, the next time they will be neater. Then why do we need living OP members, problems at work and dirty carpets for aristocratic clean feet? Remember that the house is in the first place and it is the face of the family. Finally, yet importantly, it must be clean. Several tactically correct decisions and your reputation will rise to a new level.

Husband's friends

Since your husband is a Death Eater, you should still accept the fact that all his friends are likely Death Eaters too. The first forty years in the boy's life are the most difficult. It is precisely for this reason that he communicates with them in order to make his own good way into life and provide it for your family too. Devoured circle, which is brought along by raincoats and masks from papier-mâché. Do not be angry with your husband, because this is not a club for trips to the Vails, but really for work. The better the job, the better your financial position and status in society. Stroke the raincoat, wave with a hand, and send a sweet kiss. This means that you will have a whole evening in the company of your beloved books, music, movies and a bottle of champagne. The main thing is to ensure that the husband returns home and does not cover the bed with blood, which in turn is made of very silk. Sometimes it may happen that the husband invites his friends to you for tea - in this case, offer all possible types of tea and bring a little house with a tray for tasting. Perhaps right now your husband will promote, and the promotion, as they say, is always only for the benefit.

Society

In any case, your family life should not end in seclusion as in lives of some noble ladies. Attend secular receptions as often as possible (especially those of Mrs. Goyle) and then your life will shine in new colours. Snake girlfriends will immediately understand your significance by the weight of the diamond necklace on your swan neck. Restaurants, expensive boutiques, and luxury items, this luxurious world is open to you like never before. Spending your husband's money is a pleasure with which nothing can compare, for sure, nothing in this beautiful, perfect world. Even if your husband is unpretentious and rather sparingly dressed for his billions, you should definitely shine for everyone to think for sure. “Yes, he spends all the money on his spouse, he loves her so much. It must be an excellent family. ” Image is quite important in modern society. Also, do not forget to invite pureblood relatives to you and send postcards with congratulations on all kinds of holidays. Who is Giovani Bulstrode? Nevermind! Happy New Year, Giovani. Happy Holidays. xoxo Aurora Travers.

Husband's family

You should not hope that the husband’s family will meet you with open arms. Yes, you are an enviable bride, but nevertheless, in their opinion, their son deserves much more than such as you. Without a doubt, in their eyes you are a beggar woman, without brains, you don’t do anything around the house and my little son could marry many better girls. Sooner or later, you will have to go into battle with the boss named Mother-in-law. Mother-in-law is still a leech. If you have ever heard the cry of Mandrake without headphones in the Miss Sprout greenhouse, then, believe me, these are the sounds you will wake up with every morning! So what are you, say, a ballet dancer and can you do all 32 fouettes? But can you cook borschsch like mom? And spit on her that she had never cooked that borschsch in her life! You just can not! But the photograph of the mother-in-law on the fridge is great for losing weight, I checked it myself.

Frequent problems

If your husband’s greatness increased exponentially, the Ministerial rats most likely began to suspect him of belonging to the Death Eaters. Visit your husband at work often, it is desirable to wear a badge with a quote “the Slytherin is just a slightly different side of Hufflepuff” on your chest. Smile to all the people in the Ministry and fill up your husband’s shirt where the mark is on or cover with your hand. And then the problems just get avoided. With such a wonderful wife.

Children

If your son or daughter grew up Gryffindor - then he or she, clearly, the shame of your pious little family. Since childhood, this is a little lump, tormenting you all nine months with kicks and pressure on the bladder. If after this hell, he or she did not stand in the way of truth, I mean Slytherin way; burn the child from your family tree so that the hole remains not only in the tapestry, but also in his or her heart, and in the whole Universe. You, as a wife and mother, should take care of raising your children. Around this point, you have to share sleepless nights with your hubby, because a one-year-old baby is an even bigger demon than any of the dragons of Bill Weasley. Kick your husband harder at night to get up to the baby, too, muttering sleepily under his breath that the first year is sure to nurse the little one yourself. Even after, when the child gets used not to cry in the arms of his father-devourer, you can change the tactics of education (for both father and son). By his or her five, the child should already be the subject of wealth and all sorts of investments. The best education. The best tutors. Severe upbringing. Ambitions are grafted from birth. Prospects for the future. Already before his first trip to the school of magic, the baby should know which faculties should be downgraded. Never let him or her just try to cheat and doesn’t get the faculty of Slytherin! Just not to say later that the mother 11 years raised a piglet, and he or she did not even congratulate her on March 8.

Decembrist's wife

Nevertheless, it may happen that your life will go downhill because your husband is a Death Eater. Not everyone justifies, not everyone manages to pay off his lot in Azkaban, and only a few can return to the ordinary life of luxury and nobility. Get ready to become the wife of the Decembrist and carry her husband to Azkaban, if that is at all possible. There you have to try so that the Dementors do not steal your soul, and so that the husband ate a little in this prison cell. Some husbands are somewhat more demanding, and then they will have to put in a shaving gel, new financial publications, and necessities, such as an elegant suit to get out of the slammer. Someday he will be released, that is for sure (in fact it is not accurate).

In general, that is all. I wish everyone to think carefully before marrying a Death Eater and have enough brains not to take credit for the wedding! With you was your favorite Miss Aurora Travers! Only love marriage matter! P. S. LOL

[bestbabygiftsnrry600-blog]

Some Ideas on Mother And Baby Gifts You Need To Know

If your vintage-loving GF misses her pre-preggers closet offer her this cute vintage-inspired Mother tee to make her seem like she's not losing out on design. Offer the present that keeps offering as that infant continues growing. Bump Boxes consist of a great deal of the items included in this post, plus vouchers to various other helpful services the mom-to-be might not currently learn about.

This practical and also humorous guide will certainly be a lifeline for that first year of being a mother. Obtain your bestie unwinding at the end of a lengthy day when she adds this mix of eucalyptus, arnica, rosemary, as well as sweet marjoram for those pregger pains and also discomforts. (Heck, we'll take some also!) Assist that bump be comfortable as well as supported whether your pal is she's sleeping, analysis, or Netflixing.

This best-selling book offers some understandings on a different take on parenting, created from the perspective of an American living in France. She has actually already given up margaritas and soft cheeses (exactly how heartbreaking!), yet with this stomach belt, she will not have to quit her preferred pants simply yet. Couples can hear their babe's heart beat via all the months with this dependable monitor.

The 30-Second Trick For Baby Gift Ideas

This package has everything: Erbaviva's Baby Triad, Infant Soap, Lip & Cheek Balm, Sniffles Breast Balm, Belly Rub, Nighty Evening Bath Significance, Infant Body Wash, Baby Shampoo & Baby Diaper Lotion! This hot seller is most likely on every bookshelf of every mama you've ever before satisfied. Make sure your mommy-to-be friend has her own duplicate, which addresses every concern she could ever before think about pertaining to her pregnancy.

Is there anything it can't do? Has maternity pestered her with morning illness, or even worse, all-day health issues? This natural, drug-free option targets unique stress factors to soothe her nausea or vomiting. Couple it with a pack of saltines and also you'll be her brand-new favored person. Get her out of those old sweats and also right into among these comfortable PJ and also robe collections, as well as she'll be seeming like her together self quickly.

These bathroom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/?search=maternity gifts salts are made from the restorative Dead Sea and can assist with morning sickness, sleep high quality, as well as stress decrease. Wrap her puffy feet in these moccasin slippers constructed from water-proof suede and also lined with luxurious shearling woollen. These children are the supreme combination of comfort and also style. She may be yearning ice cream and pickles, however if you obtain Blue Apron's meal sets provided to her home, she'll be eating a healthy diet plan with minimal effort.

How Unique Baby Gifts can Save You Time, Stress, and Money.

It's written by an OB-GYN with an ahead from celebrity mom Jessica Alba. These individually covered decreases are perfect to maintain in your pockets or handbag whenever early morning illness strikes. They're made with important oils of fruit as well as plant botanicals as well as be available in four yummy flavors sour raspberry, environment-friendly apple, sour tangerine, and sour lemon.

These comfy socks are excellent for walking about in your home or in the hospital, and they have cute messages on the single to advise her of just how remarkable she is. Assist her obtain a running start on maintaining every person's hands tidy with an alcohol-, scent-, parabens-, as well as sulfates-free sanitizer. This lactation enhancing cookie mix has actually blessed thistle natural herb baked to aid boost bust milk, and it also supplies a scrumptious reason to consume a cookie.

Let's encounter it, new mothers have a lot on their to-do listings to invite their brand-new package of pleasure right into the household. While finding cute onesies as well as acquiring child gifts is enjoyable, the real star of the program is your expectant mom close friend. Given that she will certainly be experiencing her body quickly altering, kicking up her feet and taking pleasure in some much-needed pampering is simply what she requires.

Expectant ladies intend to unwind as well as relax at the end of the day, so why not gather some treats she can enjoy in the bathroom. A present basket complete of lotion, gel, soaps, candle lights, and also much more will offer the new mother an extra boost to alleviate any kind of discomfort that maternity may bring.

A leisure gift basket or package is the excellent method to give the brand-new mommy a little "me time" feeling rejuvenated as well as spoiled from head to toe. A couple of things you might include for a relaxation package might be a bathrobe, a publication( perhaps even maternity publications!), comfortable cushion, cream, treats, as well as also a few of your favorite flicks.

Several of the most effective pregnancy presents for newbie mamas are presents she will value for a lifetime. You might make a full day from it by establishing a hair and makeup consultation for her adhered to by an unique image shoot. Do not neglect to add an extremely charming image frame to make sure that she can frame these special pictures and also record this remarkable time in her life.

More About Maternity Gifts

A few items new mom usually need (or would certainly love to have helpful) are a covering, pillows, snacks, baby diapers, wipes, a book, a onesie for the infant, and also certainly coffee for the tired mom! Remaining healthy and balanced is at the top of every expecting mama's checklist. Certainly, she'll delight in her yearnings, but it is necessary to maintain health and wellness a top priority not simply for mama, however additionally for the child expanding within.

Today, the largest patterns in fashion jewelry are little as well as dainty items like straightforward lockets with a first or a dainty adorable bracelet. Another terrific way to make that new moms in your life really feel special is with maternity apparel. New mommies may not intend to splurge on garments they wouldn't be wearing for long, so when a close friend purchases her a few brand-new clothing, she will immediately felt better regarding herself.

So I conserved among the best presents ideas for last. What regarding a very elegant and useful diaper bag!.?.!? This is the best way to store as well as lug every one of the infant basics while on-the-go. Be certain to locate a baby diaper bag that has whole lots of storage room, comfy bands, as well as bonus factors if it includes an altering pad! We wish you appreciated our checklist of the most effective presents for new mothers.

It is created for mommies to delight themselves and also leave for When someone close to you announces that they are anticipating an infant, congratulation presents for pregnancy can be a purposeful means to allow them know you care. A maternity can cause a great deal of anxiety. To find out more concerning one If one infant is enjoyable, 2 are double the happiness.

Kind by Kind by Featured Finest Marketing Alphabetically, A-Z Alphabetically, Z-A Cost, low to high Rate, high to reduced Day, brand-new to old Day, old to brand-new $108.00 $102.00 In Supply 154 testimonials 15 For baby diaper task failed Peanut Changer Keekaroo bedbathandbeyond.com $129.99 Remember when a blow-out indicated a peaceful see to Drybar that led to a sleekly styled hair? Ah, those were the days. The Keekaroo has made dreadful baby diaper adjustments a lot more sanitarythe polyurethane pad limitations germs development and can merely be wiped cleanand my washing tons all the lighter.

Yet it has given that become my outright favored feeding product. We swiftly ascribed to the fed-is-best mindset when our little monster infant was six weeks old and also weeping for food every 90 minutes, all day (and also evening), each day. Supplementing was a game-changer and also, at first, I hand-shook bottles of formula when neededuntil I ultimately unboxed the Brezza.

About Gift Ideas For New Moms

17 For restroom breaks (since you need them, too) Baby Lounger Keep your boppy on the floor, plunk your child in its facility, and also enjoy a couple of hands-free moments while you have them. 18 For the days when rolling is just around the edge Baby bouncer Fisher-Price target.com $24.99 Rolling over is a milestoneand a huge reminder that you can not take your eyes off your youngster regardless of how badly you require to shower.

It took him three months to ultimately get the monkey between to do a full flip, but our kid loved this. As well as I liked showering without having to jab my go out every five secs to look at him. 19 For brainless clean-ups Roomba 675 App-Controlled Robotic Vacuum cleaner iRobot bestbuy.com $269.99 Our pup began shedding like crazy when we brought our kid home from the health center.

I was bewildered by the layer of dog hair that appeared to cover our living-room. So we spent lavishly on a Roomba and also our floorings (and dust rollers) are grateful. 20 The Peloton Bike They state 9 months on, 9 months off. I'm quite certain my body will never ever go back to the shape it when was, but who cares? I brought a human into the world as well as he is worth much even more than washboard abdominals.

For more stories such as this, including star news, elegance as well as style suggestions, savvy political commentary, as well as interesting functions, enroll in the Marie Claire newsletter. This material is developed as well as preserved by a 3rd party, as well as imported onto this web page to help individuals offer their email addresses. You might be able to locate more details concerning this and similar content at piano.io This commenting area is created and also Find out more maintained by a third event, and also imported onto this web page.

An Unbiased View of Pregnancy Gifts

Ladies undergo so much while pregnant. There are highs, there are lows, there's great deals of waiting, stress and anxiety, terrifying moments and even more. As well as it's the excellent opportunity to offer those females you like something extra special during this rollercoaster of a time. And right here are 25 of the most ideal Do It Yourself gifts for the pregnant women in your life.Todayi has one of the finest and also simplest to work up suggestions on the listing. DIY Maternity has all the details.See Kate Stitchmakes a ruffled tummy band that's simply as well lovable. Make her among these and also enable her garments to fit better while making her more comfortable as well as stylish. Head on over to Somewhat Straightforward and get some inspiration for this maternity journal Do It Yourself. If she's close to her due date, do her a large support! Whip her up some of these registered nurse.

thank you bags suggestion from Deer Park Farms. She can pass them out when the hard part is around. What better method to a pregnantfemale's heart than with food? Create a breakfast basket like you see below from Everyday Affairs and also really make her smile!Garden Therapy has an excellent DIY dish for a natural foot soak. Over at Something Turquoise, you'll find an eat DIY present to work up as well as amaze your pregnant good friend with. The method to her heart is with.

The Of Baby Presents

her stomach!Unoriginal Mama has one of the most time-saving, life-saving Dos it yourself on the checklist. The mommy-to-be will definitely enjoy these child submits to arrange LIFE with!Make her work a little much easier in your home or when she goes into the healthcare facility. Have her indulgene a little bit and offer in to a yearning with these healthy and balanced delicious chocolate truffles from Wellness Mama. Take place and work up a set for her!Pamper her a bit with some home made strawberry body scrub, that's secure for the baby! Head on over to Superstar Baby Washing for the recipe.See Kate Sew likewise has this cool DIY featured. Aid her keep stretch marks and also itching as bay by whipping up several of this Do It Yourself maternity stubborn belly butter. Jellibean Journals has the recipe!Homemade Salute shows us just how to make a shape cushion for the mom-to-be! Make her naps and also overnights so much a lot more comfy throughout her maternity this method. Discover how to develop them over at Made by Rae. If she's having a little woman, this DIY project is the excellent present to help her obtain organized and also delighted! U Develop has all the details. Here's another item of charming apparel you can make for the mommy-to-be in your life. Make the mom in your life really feel remarkable with pregnancy presents from Gap. Store pregnancy vacation presents for the anticipating mama on your list. Maternity fashion has come a lengthy method as well as now resembles the most up to date patterns as well as designs, no matter size. Our maternity collection has those wonderful very easy gifts an expecting female wishes to make her trip fashionable yet comfortable. Pick from crewneck, V-neck and turtleneck styles in a range of striking shades. There are fundamental neutrals like navy and also grey plus abundant colors like siren red and also canary yellow. Many are tunic length styles which makes it easy for the expecting mother to move with ease. Include one of our comfy tights from the Pure Body collection and also she has a comfortable, casual clothing that functions for numerous occasions.

Shop light-weight knits, amazing draped gowns as well as jeans for trend-driven fashion for anticipating ladies. The expecting mama wishes to kick back in vogue, even if she does not understand it. Seek to our jersey mix as well as cotton PJs for expectant moms. Liquid two-piece collections with comfortable button-up t-shirts or carefree sleep t-shirts wrap the expecting mama in simplicity as she relaxes. Several expectant ladies continue their workouts throughout the maternity. Gift her exercise equipment developed for anticipating mamas. Storage tank tops with extensive panels that sit tight throughout yoga exercise postures or runs and leggings that keep at the midsection are several of the leading gifts desired by active pregnant females. Show her you support her ventures with a special gift aimed at making her feeling great as she trains.

[gethealthy18-blog]

311: Getting Unstuck From Self-Sabotage With Erin Pheil of MindFix

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311: Getting Unstuck From Self-Sabotage With Erin Pheil of MindFix

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

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Katie: Hello and welcome to “The Wellness Mama Podcast.” I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com. And this episode is all about self-sabotage and imposter syndrome and self-confidence and removing mental roadblocks that are barriers to success or happiness or just to functioning the best that we can in daily life. Because I am here with Erin Pheil, who’s the founder of The MindFix Group, and she has a track record of helping people get permanent fast results from a lot of these things. Her work and her words have been featured all over and she has an unheard-of 95% success rate with the average time it takes her clients to see measurable results in areas where they have been stuck for years. Most people think it takes a lot of time and effort to remove these mental roadblocks or to alleviate self-sabotage and it needs therapy and action. And she explains why we cannot think ourselves out of these kinds of situations or even therapy ourselves out of these situations and how to really truly get unstuck.

So I’ve worked with Erin myself and it was fascinating to see the mental changes that happened, and she explains today how to start that process in your own life and also a magic question that we can ask to help make sure that we’re setting our kids up with a good mental state from a really early age. So I hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I enjoyed recording it.

Erin, welcome and thanks for being here.

Erin: Hello. Thank you for having me.

Katie: Well, I am so excited to chat with you and I knew I had to have you on when I heard you present at a conference I was at recently. And in fact, the room, they’re like a lot of entrepreneurs and highly successful people and I watched you speak to them and I also watched the room as everybody just got quiet and was really tuned into what you were saying. And then I talked to a lot of people after who were like, “That was just worth the price of being here.” And so I knew I had to have you on and to share you. And I think for context, it would be really helpful if you could start with your own background and kind of your story and how you got to this place that you are today.

Erin: Sure. I have a bit of an odd story in that I never could have planned it out, even if I had a million years to plan and I’m the planning type. And it’s not really a story I would have asked on myself or anybody else. So I’ll share that. I actually got my graduate degree in digital media after a undergraduate degree in psychology and it was right around the dot-com boom. And I had, I was at a crossroads of what to do and I just was so in love with this idea of websites and being able to build and design and create that I ended up, straight out of graduate school, going off and building a web agency. And it was just me. And then I brought on one person and then we grew and we grew. And over the next 16 years or so, we grew into an award-winning nationally-ranked web agency.

And on the outside, everything looked really good. You know, we were increasing revenue and profit every year, we were making millions for ourselves and for our clients. We were winning awards. We had Fortune 500 companies as our clients. It looked good from the outside and it was for a while. After around a decade and a handful of years or so, though, I started to have this really weird nagging feeling like, “I don’t wanna do this the rest of my life. I don’t want it. This is not fulfilling anymore.” And yet I didn’t know what to do with that. Building websites and strategy and consulting is all I’d ever known.

And so this idea of “I’m supposed to be doing something different” was terrifying for me, and I had no clue what else I could possibly do in the world. So, while I was continuing to build the agency in the background, I started reading all these books and taking courses about what’s my unique ability in life and what else could I possibly do and what else am I interested in. And I didn’t find anything. And so this low-level terror kind of kept creeping up every, you know, a few times a month as I realized like, “Oh, my gosh, what am I gonna do with the rest of my life?”

And then one day, one day I woke up, I went on a bike ride as I do most days as I was training for this mountain bike race. And I stepped off my bike and there was this little twinge of electricity in my left ankle. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but within one week, suddenly I was this person who had chronic pain, chronic mystery pain, pain that had no real cause, no reason and no doctors could figure it out. So I started going to physical therapists and massage therapists. And then I started to go see chiropractors who then referred me to orthopedic surgeons. And this kept escalating. And every time I’d go to more and more doctors and they’d go, “There’s nothing wrong with you. The X-rays and the MRIs are showing nothing. But I’m really sorry the pain seems to be spreading, but we can’t find anything.”

So imagine me living this Groundhog’s Day of increasing pain that was spreading throughout my body, spending all this money every single day, literally five days a week going to more and more doctors and specialists, and everybody shrugging going, “I don’t know what to tell you. Go see this guy.” And over the course of the year, this escalated to the point where I found myself sitting in a brain surgeon’s office having, like, this panic attack going, “I thought I was this healthy, 30-something entrepreneur and now I’m having a panic attack in a brain surgeon’s office, not knowing what the rest of my life is gonna be. I can’t have fun. I can’t grow my business. No one can help me. I’m helpless. I’m hopeless. There’s nothing to look forward to.”

And my anxiety shot through the roof, my depression shot through the roof. I became fully suicidal because I was like, “There’s nothing to live for. There is no hope. No one can help me. I don’t wanna keep doing this the rest of my life. It’s been 500, 700 days. Every day I wake up and it’s the same thing. And I’m no closer to getting, being better,” and I almost wanna start crying just thinking about it, how horrible it was. Like every day, all day, go to sleep, wake up. And it was the same.

So what ended up happening and where everything took a turn and my life path veered off in a different direction is because my mental health got so bad, I started to go see kind of this therapist or counselor, kind of adviser woman. And one day I was sitting in her office and she looked at me and she said, “Erin, do you know why you are so miserable and in so much pain?” And I wanted to, like, smack her. I’m like, “It’s because I’m in chronic pain. That’s why everything is awful. It’s horrible.” And she said, “‘No. No, no, no, no.” She goes, “The lens through which you see your life is so dirty, it’s so clouded. Everything you’re experiencing as you go through your day today is just skewed. You have these bizarre, weird, unhealthy beliefs that you’re clinging on to that are literally changing everything that you see. Everything you’re perceiving that’s happening to you is really, really distorted.” And I said, “Give me an example, give me two examples. I don’t know what you mean.”

And she said, “Well, for example, you are so strongly attached to the belief that if you slow down with work or life, it means you’re lazy and not valuable.” And she’s like that belief by itself is keeping you from being able to slow down and take rests and allow your body to heal. You’re go, go, go, go, go, go, go every day and your body’s asking for rest. But you are clinging to that belief and it’s crushing you.”

She also said another example is you truly believe that your entire self-worth is based on what you achieve. And right now you can’t achieve a lot because you need to take a break. And so your whole self, like everything that you feel about yourself and who you are and your value as a person, has drastically just plummeted because you can’t achieve. And she’s like, you have a bunch of these things going on in your head with the way that you think and what you believe to be true. And it’s that, that’s what’s crushing you. The things that you believe and how you see your life, those are what’s crushing you, not what’s actually happening and it’s creating this spiral.

So, turns out she had this brilliant insight, but when I asked her how we could fix it, she actually didn’t know. She gave me some answer like you’re gonna have to increase your visits and come in three times a week and we’ll explore it over the upcoming years with love and faith and stuff like that. There was no answer. So, I got super motivated to go out on a journey and explore how the heck I could actually change what I deeply, deeply believe to be true. Not just on an intellectual level like when you read a book, but what I could really, like, I’m pointing at my heart right now, at my chest. Like what I could change in here, like what I could really, really change and how I could convince myself that what I’ve been clinging to all these years maybe wasn’t the truth.

So, I took the next year and I traveled and I studied and I researched and I became my own science experiment. And along the way, combined a number of different methodologies into my own method that not only worked on me, but rapidly started to help colleagues and friends and people who saw the change in me and were asking for help. And before I knew it, as my agency was still growing, I had a line out the door, a wait list of people who wanted help from me to change the direction of their lives and change what they believe to be true and get unstuck from things that had been holding them back. And that is how I ended up with this new business. You know, new for me, at least back then, called “The MindFix Group” that I never ever would have planned or could’ve planned out even if I tried.

Katie: That’s amazing. And it reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from, I have a lot of favorite quotes from Marcus Aurelius, but one of them being, “It’s not events that disturb people, it’s their judgments concerning them.” And, like, he talks a lot about how we have complete control over our attitude and our reactions and our internal reality even if we can’t control the external. And I feel like that was something that, you know, was really pivotal in your journey that you found out. And I hear so much in my own story of what you said about, like, kind of growing up with that idea that you aren’t good enough or internalizing that or that you are the sum of your accomplishments. Those were things that I internalized early as well. And I love that you started with also the mind-body connection and talking about how you were in physical, chronic pain, but that the answer wasn’t necessarily just a physical answer. And I think that’s something that’s more well known right now and so important, which is that, how our brain and our emotions and our heart can affect our biology in a very physical way. So, can you talk a little bit about that? Like how there is actually such a connection there?

Erin: Absolutely. And it’s interesting because for the first, I don’t know, a year, year and a half, that mind-body connection, it never crossed my mind. I had physical pain. So, of course, all I invested my time and energy into was going to doctors. That was it. And the reason is, when I reflected upon this, I went back and thought about my upbringing and my dad owned his own business. And back in the ’80s, we had, you know, this PPO insurance plan, which they would brag about and say it was so much better than everybody else’s health plans. And it was fantastic. So whenever my brother or I or my mom had any physical pain, the first thing we did is we went straight to the doctor. The doctor, the medical doctor would always know what was best. You know, allergies or sniffling, straight to the allergy doctor. You know, we had a pain in our arm, we went straight to the doctor. That was the old way of thinking.

And because I had been raised in that environment, of course, I had this belief that if you feel physical pain, the thing that you do is you just go straight to a doctor and the doctor will know the right answer. I had absorbed that and that’d become a belief. And so, not shockingly, when this happened to me, it didn’t cross my mind that there could be anything mental or emotional going on. And then with all of the research and all of the books and all of the incredible information that’s come out in the past decade, there’s so much now that shows that physical pain can be a byproduct of emotional and mental issues that go unaddressed. That’s why so many people, I think, myself included, experience these bizarre physical pains and can’t find answers as we keep looking for a purely physical solution.

What I found, though, as I continued to do research was this remarkable connection between our emotional and mental health in the state of our emotions and how our bodies feel. I came across these really interesting studies, like they took two groups of people and they scratched them like, so that there were bloody scratches, I think, on their arms. And one group of people, they kind of set off, had them go on their own way. And the other group of people, they subjected them to a tremendous amount of stress and made sure that their stress hormones kind of went through the roof. And what they found was after, I forget, it was like a week or something like that, a short period of time, the people who had gone on in their normal lives, their cuts, not shockingly, were healing and they were healing beautifully. But then they looked at the people that they had subjected to tons of stress and what they noticed was fascinating in that their cuts were not healing. Like stress, the stress hormone actually starts to shut down your immune system and your capability to heal your body. So when people are like, “It doesn’t matter, I just live a stressed lifestyle,” it’s actually impacting your ability to care for your body in a massive way.

Katie: Yeah, that makes so much sense. I read a book a while back called “The Body Keeps the Score,” and it was fascinating to me to, like, really have that explained on a scientific level as well, just how important that connection is because I was one of those that for so many years just thought like, “I’ll deal with the emotions later,” “I’ll sleep when I die,” “I can push through anything.” It turns out that’s not actually the case. And that you tend to get, like, really stuck when you don’t deal with emotions. And that was something in your presentation at the conference that really stood out to me because you explained kind of this model of the brain and how a lot of the stuff we do, even when we’re trying to work through mental stuff, it’s like we’re working on this little tiny part of the conscious, but that there’s so much more to it. So can you kind of walk through the explanation you gave for that?

Erin: Sure. So what happens is between the, from when we’re born up until the age of about seven or so, we are walking around in this kind of theta brainwave state, which is similar to what people experience when they get hypnotized. So this means that as children, we are highly, highly suggestible. We’re like little sponges running around. And it’s almost as if we’re carrying around these tape recorders and microphones and we’re absorbing and we’re on auto record for everything that our parents and adults are saying. And we’re just recording. We’re recording, we’re recording. So the things that we hear, whether it’s, “I’m a good girl,” or, “Cats are nice,” or, “I’m not good enough,” or, “I don’t deserve things,” or, “Money is very hard to make,” or, “Work must be stressful,” whatever it is, whatever we hear, we don’t really have the capacity to empathize. We don’t have the capacity to analyze or reason what we hear. We just record it and it gets stored kind of like in these little auto-loops that play in the background. And those get locked into our subconscious mind.

So, people walk around thinking that they’re fully aware of all of their thoughts and all of the reasons why they take the actions they do during the day, why they’re feeling the way they feel and why they think the thoughts that they think. But really, what we’re aware of is our conscious mind. You know, the stuff that’s going on in our prefrontal cortex. And that’s like, depending on who you talk to, somewhere around 5% of our decisions and our choices as we go throughout our day. Ninety-five percent of what we do and feel and think during the day is actually powered by our subconscious mind. And people like to scoff at that and go, “Absolutely not.”

And it’s easy because you’re not aware of it. It really is the stuff underneath the iceberg. And the subconscious mind does not learn the way that our conscious mind does. So, you can read a book and you can read all about emotions and you can read about meditation and you can read about how to be a better spouse or how to be a more effective entrepreneur or how to be a better mom or how to be a better friend. And that information can be learned by your conscious mind. It’s not being learned by your subconscious mind, though. That is just worrying in the background with these tapes of what was learned in that theta state from zero to age seven. So you might read a book about being a great friend, but you might have learned during elementary school that friends will leave you and that you aren’t likable.

And if those tapes are playing in the background and yet you learn things and put those into your conscious mind, it’s really hard for that 5% to override those deep tapes that keep playing over and over and over again in that 95% that is your subconscious mind. So oftentimes, we’ll be trying to achieve something or work towards a goal or improve relationships. And yet in the background, we have all these things in the subconscious that are literally pulling us in the opposite direction, creating tension and creating a lack of alignment between what we believe at a deep, deep, subconscious level and then what our conscious mind says that we want.

Katie: That is so fascinating to me. And in like another analogy you used, you talked about like if, you know, if you have this story that you’re not likable, you’re gonna see proof of that kind of everywhere. Just like I compared it to like, if you’re going to buy a new car, you see that car everywhere because you’re paying attention to it. And so, like, that really struck with me and I would love if you could also explain it through the Santa Claus example. And I will say if anyone’s listening with children and Santa is an important thing in your family, this might be a part not to listen to but would you explain the concept there because I think that, like, really hit home, I know, for me and for a lot of people in the room who were like, “Oh, wow.”

Erin: Absolutely. So I’ll explain kind of two things in a row. I’ll explain how, what our subconscious beliefs, how they work as lenses, which is what you just alluded to, which I think is so beautiful. And I just wanna provide an example so that people can really get that because if they can walk away with it, with this understanding, they can start to see it everywhere in their lives and when they’re talking with other people. And then I can dive into the Santa Claus explanation. Does that work?

Katie: That sounds great.

Erin: Okay, cool. So what you just mentioned is how, what people believe to be true in their subconscious impacts how they perceive literally everything that they see during their daily lives. So let’s take an example of a kid who goes off to elementary school. And for some reason, they’re, you know, they’re very smart and maybe they’re not super cute yet, or they don’t wear the coolest clothes and they’re not popular. Maybe they get bullied, maybe they get teased, maybe they don’t get picked for the sports teams out at recess. And over the course of time, you know, age five, age six, age seven, the child reaches this conclusion just based on their experience at school that they aren’t likable, right? And so that gets locked into their subconscious. They’re in this theta state. It’s a conclusion they come to. And then that becomes one of those tapes, worrying in the background over and over and over and over and over again in their subconscious, kind of like locked in there for eternity. Unless there’s, one of the few ways that you can unlock subconscious beliefs is dealt with or comes along later in their life. But that just keeps going over and over and over. “I’m not likable.” And that gets locked into the subconscious.

That person goes off into high school, becomes popular, becomes a successful employee at their job later in life. So you’d think they would learn that they are in fact very likable and they end up having a bunch of friends. So it seems like no big deal. But here’s the thing, that belief becomes this tape, right, that’s playing in the background. They’ve got, “I’m not likable.” That’s sitting in their subconscious. So even if their conscious mind is like, “No, I’m very likable,” it’s still there causing challenges in the background and the subconscious.

So what happens when you have a belief that’s sitting in your subconscious? We can talk about, later, how to test if you have a belief. There’s some really simple things people can do to see if they have a subconscious belief or not. But let’s say you have that, what happens is it acts like a lens, almost like a pair of glasses through which all of the experiences that you, all the events that you experience in your day-to-day life get filtered.

So Katie, if you and I are having a conversation in a hallway and Susie walks by us and we both look at her, and Susie glances at us and then glances away and keeps walking and she doesn’t say anything, if I was that little kid who had created that belief and come to that conclusion, “I’m not likable,” that’s going to filter that experience for me. I’m going to see Susie walk by, look at us, and because I have the belief deep down that I’m not likable, the possibility, the thought, “Oh, Susie doesn’t like me. Susie is angry at me. I did something wrong. Susie is not a fan of me. Oh, shoot,” those are the kinds of thoughts that may trickle up. They may not be at the forefront of my mind, but they may cross my mind and literally make me pause, even just for a millisecond as I’m talking to you. It will cross my mind that Susie is angry at me or she doesn’t like me or that I’ve done something wrong.

Meanwhile, if you don’t have that belief anywhere in your subconscious and you see Susie look at us and she keeps walking, it won’t even occur to you that Susie is angry at you. And if it does, it’ll just be out of curiosity. The types of thoughts you may have are, “Oh, wonder if Susie’s having a bad day? Huh. I wonder what’s going on with Susie. I wonder if she even noticed us. She looks like she’s in her own little world.” So the way we both perceive this exact same event, the way our, you know, I might have feelings of anxiety, you might have feelings of curiosity, what we think and what we feel are going to be impacted by the subconscious beliefs that we do or do not have.

So that’s how our beliefs can act as these lenses that literally impact how we perceive what’s going on. So these events that occur that are actually neutral, we can take them as negative or scary just because of the beliefs that are in our subconscious that were picked up at a young age. Does that make sense?

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense.

Erin: Cool. So then you had asked me to talk about kind of the Santa Claus revelation. One thing that we do at MindFix is we have found that there are a number of, for every pattern that someone has, whether it’s getting triggered by a spouse, getting upset when kids do something specific, dealing with really bad perfectionism, having fear of rejection, whatever somebody’s pattern is that they experience regularly and that frustrates them, there’s usually a cluster of subconscious beliefs kind of worrying in the background that are causing people to act in that way. And they sit there and they go, “I’m broken. Everything I’ve tried, it won’t work. Like, nothing can change. I’ve been trying to change for so long, I don’t get it.” And it’s not, people don’t need more information added to their conscious mind. They don’t need more girlfriends sitting there going, “You go, girl, you’re powerful, you’re amazing. You can do this.” Because that just gets added to the conscious mind.

What people need is to go in and investigate what those old tapes and beliefs are that are pulling in the opposite direction and that are causing people to act in a certain way. So once you can identify, say, what the beliefs are that are causing the problems, it’s actually possible to eliminate them. And once you eliminate a really old, outdated subconscious belief, it’s really magical because what happens is your thoughts change, your emotions change, and your actions change immediately, effortlessly, without practice. And the most beautiful, easiest, elegant example I can give is when a belief in Santa Claus goes away for a child.

So up until a certain age, different for every kid, they sit there and they believe with all of their might and all of their heart that Santa Claus is real, that Santa Claus loves them and that Santa Claus is going to show up and bring them gifts on December 25th each year. And if you talk with them and you go, “I don’t know if Santa Claus is real,” they’ll go, “He absolutely is. I’ve got books with pictures, we sing songs about him. I have so much proof. I have so much evidence. He is so real. This is not up for discussion. He is real.”

And then, there comes the day, you know, like cookies get left out, milk gets left out, songs get sung. And then there comes the day when, whether it’s with a friend or a parent, there’s “the discussion,” “the conversation” where this child suddenly realizes, like all the dominoes fall. And he realizes he never actually saw Santa Claus ever. Those boots were dad’s boots. That Santa Claus was the mall Santa Claus, that’s why his beard fell off. Timmy was talking about Santa Claus doesn’t fit. Oh, my God. And everything kind of comes together. And the realization happens that Santa Claus isn’t real.

And in an instant, that belief is completely dissolved. It is completely eliminated. It goes away in the blink of an eye. And what’s interesting to notice is it doesn’t come back. You know, people go, “Oh, if you get rid of a belief, it’ll come back.” Well, the belief in Santa Claus never comes back. I’ve never heard of somebody turning 47 and suddenly they’re like, “You know, I kind of think, I’m starting to wonder if Santa Claus might actually be real. You know, I’m really questioning that.” Like, it doesn’t come back. And not only that, if you think about the thoughts that a child has, they stop thinking about writing letters to the North Pole. They stop thinking about asking questions about Santa. If you think about their emotions, if you ask them, “Do you love Santa Claus?” They’re gonna laugh. They’re like, “Love him? He’s not real. Why would I experience love for someone’s that’s not real?”

And then if you look, their actions instantly change. The moment the belief goes away, there’s no reason to leave out milk. There’s no reason to leave out cookies every single December 24th. The kids will just stop doing that. So thoughts change, emotions change, actions change instantly the moment a belief is eliminated. And the same is true for different beliefs, whether it’s self-beliefs, beliefs about how the world work, beliefs about how others interact with us. When we are stuck, oftentimes, we go about and we try to collect more information or we try to change our actions or our behaviors or our habits. But that’s the wrong way.

Imagine trying to get a kid to stop leaving milk and cookies out. “Hey, just stop it. Just don’t do it anymore.” And they’re sitting there and if they still have the belief that Santa Claus is real, they’re gonna push against you and go, “No, but I got to leave the milk and cookies out. I’ve got to.” And if you’re trying to change their behavior and just asking them to change their actions, that’s gonna be extremely stressful for them. Can they do it? Sure. You know, gun to our head, we can do anything. Forced, you know, if we’re forced, we can do anything, but that’s gonna be really stressful for a kid if you tell them to stop acting in a certain way and tell them to stop leaving out milk and leaving out cookies if they still have the belief that Santa Claus is real.

If you really want them to change their actions and you’re like, “Okay, this is enough with having to make all these cookies on Christmas Eve and this is enough, like we don’t drink milk in this household. I don’t wanna have to get the milk anymore,” the way to change their actions is to go in, pluck out the belief in Santa Claus and then suddenly, the thoughts, the emotions and the actions all cascade and change automatically.

Katie: I love that explanation. And it makes so much sense. I think… Well, I’ve gotten to work with you a little bit and I’ve seen it firsthand in my own life, and I also relate it to, I experienced sexual trauma when I was younger and not in the zero to seven age. I was in high school. But on that, I think I had internalized a belief that I was not safe in my body. And so as a way to protect against that, I think I like, because in the time after that, I gained quite a bit of weight and I think that was a physical shield. It was a protection that my brain was using to make me feel safer in my body. And part of, maybe the story was, you know, “If I looked like this, that will never happen again,” or whatever it may be.

And I tried for years to change the actions and to just eat less and less and less and less and less, which I did and still didn’t lose the weight or exercise more or just be so stressed about it. And it wasn’t until I changed that belief and realized I am safe in my body that all of the rest of it changed effortlessly. Now, if I tried to eat more than I was hungry for, my body just won’t let me. It’s like, “I’m full, stop eating.” But I tried for years. It just changed, like you said, change the action, change all the external expressions and it wasn’t until I got to that core subconscious that I didn’t realize was even running that I was able to just kind of, like, it was overnight, like a switch. My brain just changed. So you mentioned before, like, there’s ways to know if you have a subconscious belief and I think that’s a great starting point. So can you walk us through some examples of how you can know?

Erin: Absolutely. And before I do, I just wanna touch upon what you just said because it was so, so brilliant. First, I wanna clarify, not all beliefs or subconscious beliefs are stored or locked in by the age of seven. There’s just a large number that are, and during that time period, we literally are just sponges. So beliefs can be formed with repetition as we get older, they can be formed from like what you experienced with traumas. Like, one trauma can lead to a whole host of beliefs that get formed. And then as we go through life just repeating experiences over and over and over, if we, you know, get out of high school and our first four jobs, our bosses are terr-, you know, super mean, we might come to the conclusion that, you know, work is a frustrating place and bosses are bad people.

So, I want just wanted to make that clarification. It’s not like, zero to seven, everything’s locked in and done by that age. It’s just a lot happens during that time period. And it’s also, you gave such a perfect, beautiful example of what happens where you can have a belief that gets stored. You know, “It’s not safe to be in my body.” “Perhaps if I look a certain way, I’ll be creating safety.” If that gets locked in, but then your conscious mind is like, “I wanna lose weight,” you’re gonna experience an internal tug-of-war where part of you is like, “Let’s lose weight,” and part of you is like, “Hell no, that is not safe. I’m going to do everything against you possible.” And people experience things like that when they want to maybe get a raise or start a new business.

And yet part of them grew up and they were raised in, you know, believing that if you make a lot of money, you can’t possibly have a happy family or you will have absolutely no free time to enjoy your life. So we can have these conflicting, conscious desires that go against what we subconsciously believe. And that’s where we begin to really deep self-sabotage, where we feel stuck, where we feel like we’re holding ourselves back. Where we keep saying like, “I keep trying to change. I keep trying to do this over and over and over and yet it’s not working.”

So I can almost guarantee that anytime someone feels like they’re holding themselves back, they’re stuck or they’re just going in loops or, like, there’s an invisible tug-of-war that they consciously want something, but there are loops in their subconscious that are saying, “Go the other way. I am going to sabotage this because it’s not safe. It’s not gonna be good. I don’t actually want what’s gonna come. The consequences are gonna be really bad.” So I just wanted to kind of clarify those two things. Does that make sense?

Katie: Yeah, it does. Thanks for clarifying that.

Erin: Okay, cool. So you had asked how can someone know if they have a belief? Like, if it’s in the subconscious, how can you possibly know if you believe something to be true? And there’s a handful of really interesting filters, very simple, that absolutely anybody can use. They can run any statement through these filters. And if any of them come out positive, it’s very, very, very, very, very likely that their subconscious or even conscious mind believes them to be true. So beliefs are a bit like being pregnant. You’re not, like, kinda sorta pregnant. You just are or you aren’t. You have a belief or you don’t. So even if it’s a kind of, “It’s kind of there,” you have the belief. It may not be as strong, but it’s either there or it isn’t.

So, what we can do is we can take any statement at all, you know. “Men are evil,” or, “I’m not good enough.” “Making money is stressful.” Anything that is a statement and what we can do is run it through three filters. So the first thing I do to see if someone believes something to be true is I ask them, “Does it feel real? Does it feel like the truth?” This is really, really simple. Like, “Does it feel like saying, ‘I am a woman’?” “Does it feel like saying, ‘Two plus two equals four’?” Oftentimes when I’m working with someone and they have a belief, I say something, they’ll say it out loud and they literally physically start nodding their head up and down because it just feels so real. It feels like the truth. It feels like saying the sky is blue. And that is the first easiest way is just when you’re sitting there and you’re like, “Yeah, it feels like the truth. It just is the truth. It feels like saying, ‘I am a female.’” So that’s the first filter.

The thing is, as you can imagine, our mind is pretty darn effective. And so if we took all of these beliefs that are sitting on our subconscious and we really connected to them and we really fully felt into, “I am stupid,” “I am not good enough,” “I am not important,” “Making money is hard,” and we really connected to that, we’d probably have a hard time getting out of bed every day. So, our mind, being this really effective machine, kind of disconnects us from some of these beliefs. Kind of pushes them down, like a beach ball underneath the water, kind of suppresses some of these things and goes, “Nope, nope. Consciously, you don’t believe that at all. You know, you’re a smart, successful, powerful woman. You’re fantastic. You’re an incredible mother. You’re amazing. You’re a kind friend. You’re a fantastic spouse. You’ve got this, girl,” you know, and we pump ourselves up with these positive things and we wanna disconnect from some of these uncomfortable beliefs and loops that are sitting in our subconscious.

So I’ve had people where I’ll ask them to say something like, you know, I was at an event recently and someone was walking around and not connecting with people. And she came over to me and I said, “Just out of curiosity, say out loud, ‘I am a burden.’” Because she was saying like, “I just, I can’t ask people for their time. I feel weird and guilty if I interrupt a conversation or if I ask people to talk about myself,” I said, “Say out loud, ‘I am a burden.’” And she said it and her eyes were kind of glazed and she was disconnected and she’s like, “No, no, that doesn’t feel like the truth. Sorry, I don’t think I believe that.” And I was like, “Okay, cool. So, that didn’t work with the first filter. Let’s try something different.”

So we tried the second filter on her and the second filter is when you say something out loud, even if it doesn’t feel like the truth, filter number two is, do you feel an emotion with it? So some people I’ve worked with will say a statement, they’ll sit with it and they’ll go, “Oh. Ooh, that was uncomfortable.” Or they’ll say, “Oh, my God, that makes me sad to say it.” Or, “Ooh, I don’t want… Oh, gosh, that makes me kind of angry. I don’t…” Like, there’s some emotion that comes out.

If you make a statement that you just don’t believe to be true, something like, “I am a vampire,” you don’t get a big surge of emotion. You don’t get a sad feeling when you say that. There’s just no emotional reaction. So if you say something and your subconscious believes it to be true, it’s quite possible you might feel an emotional reaction. Now, this woman at the party, she’s like, “Nope, no emotion there. I really don’t believe I think this is true. I’m sorry. I think you’re off-topic.” And I said, “Let’s try one last thing. I want you to say it out loud one more time and I want you to feel into your body. I want you to tell me if you feel any physical sensations.” And she’s like, “Okay.” So she said, “I am a burden.” And she paused and then she looked at me with, her eyes just went huge and she went, “Oh, my gosh.” She’s like, “I have a little pain in my stomach and it feels like my throat is tightening up.”

So the third filter you can use to see if you have a belief is do you feel it physically somewhere in your body? And again, this is your subconscious going, “Okay, I’m not gonna have your conscious mind actually believe this, but I’m storing it down here and this is my way of telling you that, yes, you believe it.” Because, again, try saying “I am a giraffe.” Try saying, “I wear a size 36 shoe,” something that you just don’t believe. Your body’s not gonna send you any physical sensations. It doesn’t have to be pain. I’ve had people go, “Oh, there’s this weird energy over the bridge of my nose,” or, “My toe wants to start tapping.” But that’s only the case if some part of you believes it to be true.

So the first filter is, does it feel real? Does it feel like the truth? The second filter is, do you experience an emotion when you sit with the statement? And the third filter is, do you feel it physically in your body? There’s is a fourth one sometimes that I see on rare occasions and that’s when you ask somebody something and it’s almost like it’s so uncomfortable for them, they zone out and they literally forget the question. They forget what they were asking themselves. They’re like, “Wait, what’s going on?” And the brain is kind of, the mind is making them seem confused. “I’m not clear on what you’re asking.” And it’s almost like it’s trying to throw up hurdles. Like, “Don’t come near here. We don’t wanna look at this.” So, but the first three, for 99% of people, you can use to determine, do you feel, do you believe something to be true?

And I’ve had, you know, professors, professional athletes, businessmen making, you know, over $100 million. I’ve had people of all walks of life, incredible successes, use these filters on basic statements like, “I’m not good enough,” “I’m not important,” “I’m stupid.” And they’re shocked to find that when they peel away, you know, and look underneath the surface and look underneath the carpet, “Holy cow, look at this little bit of dust that’s been accumulating that I’ve been fighting against and trying to convince myself my whole life that those things didn’t exist.”

Katie: That’s amazing. And I know, like I’ll share my own experience which was that I had one that was deeply internalized, which was that I was not good enough despite, like, there was evidence that obviously would’ve shown I was at least good at some things. And I had internalized that a lot. And after, so before working with you and I said that out loud, it felt like there was like a lead vest on my chest. Like when you get an x-ray and they put a lead vest on you. And by the time I had let go of that, it felt like just saying, “I am a giraffe.” Like, it’s just words. So I know the next logical question that people are gonna have if they’re listening is like, “Okay, great, cool. How do we change a belief?” And I know you have a system for this, but walk us through at a high level, like, what happens when we’re able to change the belief and how that works.

Erin: Yeah. So, it is one of my life goals to be able to teach this to people so that someday, people can do it on themselves. But I have yet to figure that out. I still can’t do it on… You know, I do this thousands of times a year over and over and over and I still can’t do it on myself. I need someone else to do it with me. So we have a really simple process that is a series of questions and it kind of simulates what happens when a parent has a conversation with a child and the child goes through this process of rearranging what’s in their mind and understands that everything they ever saw didn’t actually mean that Santa Claus was real. It actually meant the opposite. So it’s helping people understand and really get that what they’re convinced they saw, they didn’t actually see. And it allows the mind to let go of its death grip on, “This is the truth. This is absolutely how it is. I’ve seen evidence of it,” and it allows the mind to let go of it. And when it lets go of it, it’s a permanent opening. It doesn’t come back.

Katie: I got it. Okay. Yeah. And having an experience that I know, like it makes so much sense now.

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Katie: I know a lot of people listening are parents, most of the people listening, in fact. And that was a question I had for you personally was if so much of this is formative in those first seven years, obviously, we’re all as parents going to do things that affect our kids in a way that we don’t want. But are there things we can do to help our kids in that zero to seven, kind of theta state to develop good beliefs?

Erin: Yes. Oh, my God, this is my favorite question. There is one, literally one magical question that if all parents left hospitals with this one question, our entire world would be so different. It would be so different. There’s one question you can use as a parent to totally change, like, how your child feels about himself or herself. And I’ll share that question with you. So the question that you want to be asking yourself every day as you have interactions with your kids, as you teach your kids lessons, as you have conversations with your kids, is this, “What is my child concluding about this interaction?” That’s literally it.

So let me give an example. Let’s say you have a mom who just got a really shocking phone call from the hospital. So she needs to be on this phone call. Somebody in the family is in the hospital. It’s an emergency. She’s on the phone, she’s getting the news, and then suddenly, you know, her child comes walking in and says, “Mommy, mommy, look at my picture. Look at my drawing. I want you to look at my drawing,” because all children want three things, attention, affection, and acknowledgement, right? So the child comes in, “Look at me, look at my picture. Mom, look.” So a, you know, “normal” parent or someone who’s not asking themselves this important question all the time might go, “Shhhhh, Honey,” and then kind of, you know, wave the child off. “Go in the other room. Don’t… Mommy’s busy. Just go, go, go, go. This is very important. Go away.” Right? Something like that. “Shh,” shush our kid away.

And most people would say, “Well, that’s understandable. She’s on an emergency call. That’s fine.” But children during this stage of development can only come to conclusions about themselves. “This is happening because of me.” They’re in the egocentric stage of development. So, when they experience mom doing that, they don’t have empathy. They can’t put themselves in mom’s shoes like an adult can. The only conclusion they can come to is about themselves. And so the conclusion they’re gonna reach in that interaction is going to be about them. It’s gonna be, “I’m not important. I’m not lovable.” And they’re gonna walk away. And those are the only conclusions they’re gonna reach.

Now, if a parent, if you’re on the phone and you’re having this conversation with the hospital and the child comes in, even though you’re under stress and that one question rolls through your mind, “What is my child going to conclude from this interaction?” You might just take an extra four seconds and act differently. And you might go, “Honey, mom is on the phone with the hospital. This is a very urgent, very important conversation. I love you deeply. I care about you so much and I cannot wait to see your picture. Can you please give mommy 10 minutes and then I am gonna spend lots of time with you later looking at your picture and giving you lots of hugs. Can you please go to the other room? I love you so much.”

You add in a few additional statements and you can still be stressed. You can still send your child away. You can still do what you need to do. You can still have the time to yourself, but with the, and the child may still be cranky. They may still want your attention. They may still pout and leave the room and go Wah! and whine, but they will not conclude that they are not loved. They will not conclude that they are not important. That is what changes everything because children cannot come to adult-level conclusions. They cannot empathize. They cannot put themselves in your shoes. They cannot understand what they’re going through. All of their conclusions are, “I caused this. This is happening to me because I am “blank’.”

So if you can always ask yourself, “What is my child concluding?” especially about himself or herself from this interaction, you’ll be providing a lot more statements like, “I love you,” and, “You’re very important to me and”, “You’re very special. You’re very smart,” and so that children don’t come to false conclusions about themselves because they’re not able to come to these logical interpretations of your actions that makes sense for an adult but not to them. That can literally change the entire, your entire future for your child, their sense of self and their sense of self-esteem.

Katie: So as a, like a short follow-up to that plea, is it, I mean, because as you said that to me when, when you said it in person, I was thinking, “Oh, I wish I could go back and kind of redo so many things in the past with my kids.” And I’ve got kids who are past seven years old. Is there still a way we can start, like, using that language even when they’re older and hopefully help, like, rebuild that even though that, we weren’t using it when they were really young?

Erin: Absolutely. And I think these are the kinds of conversations where we can say like, you know, “I made a mistake,” or, “I got angry, I’d like to apologize and show them that this is what happens when we make mistakes. This is what happens when, you know, apologies are things that we do when we mess up.” It’s never too late and even though it’s harder to override things that were kind of locked in at a young age, we definitely don’t wanna go around going, “Well, past seven. Nothing we can do here,” and kind of like, “There we go.” We do wanna continue to set examples and we can’t override things as kids age.

Katie: Got it. And I know I wanna respect your time because you have another interview today. I will make sure that, you’ve mentioned a few things and you’ve written about them on your website. I’ll make sure I link to those in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm. And I know that you also have a blog on your site as well as a free training and people can find you there. But really quickly, where can people find you online and any parting advice for someone who’s like, “Oh, my gosh, how do I take part?”

Erin: Sure. So people can find me at my website, which is mindfixgroup.com. I’m also pretty active still on Facebook on just my personal profile. You can look me up, Erin Pheil, I’m literally the only Erin Pheil on Facebook. Pretty easy to find. If someone’s curious and wants to learn more, I’d invite them to take a look through the blog on our website. There’s plenty of articles there. And then, like you mentioned, we also have a training that’s still being offered for free. It’s one full hour, it’s in video, it’s a video and anybody can watch it and that’s… It goes a level deeper than what we talked about today in the interview and would be a really great addition to anybody who’s curious and wants to learn more.

Katie: Perfect. Erin, I know how busy you are. Thank you so much for sharing today and for the time. Like I said, it made a big difference for me personally and I think, hopefully, you’ve helped a lot of our listeners today as well.

Erin: Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun.

Katie: And as always, thanks to all of you for listening and sharing one of your most valuable assets, your time, with us today. We’re so grateful that you did, and I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of “The Wellness Mama Podcast.”

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/mindfix/

[retrowarriors]

Le Freak Ç’est Chic

Taking a look at CyberGadget’s Retro Freak, another competitor for your retro hardware dollars

By: Chris Saturn

When the Retro Freak was first announced, two things immediately caught my attention: PC Engine/TurboGrafx support, and the ability to save your games onto the installed microSD card. But could I really justify the price, after I’d already invested in a Retron 5?

First, I should probably catch up the people who aren’t familiar with the device. CyberGadget’s Retro Freak is a clone console. Retro gamers should be used to these things by now; modern hardware takes on classic game systems that are often in short supply, or may be starting to degrade from age. It’s a welcome concept, more so as our classic consoles continue to age. Like the Retron 5 before it, the Retro Freak does some things a little differently than clone consoles of the past. Namely, it doesn’t use clone or recycled hardware to attempt to replicate the actual functions of the original consoles. Instead, it uses emulators to playback ROM images made from your game cartridges. This allows some extra leeway over the original systems. Emulators allow for save states, frameskip, cheats, and other modern amenities that make our games less like what we once played, and more like what we remembered playing.

As you can see in the title image above, the Retro Freak comes with a few pieces. That tiny rectangular piece on its own? That’s the actual console. The rest is purely optional. Once you’ve installed some games to a microSD card, the rest can be stored away for future use. Two front USB ports allow for plugging in the included SNES-like controller, or the Retro Freak’s controller adapter (both also pictured). The controller adapter doesn’t come with all configurations of the Retro Freak, but it’s absolutely worth it. This little box, which is roughly the size of the console itself, allows you to connect Famicom (expansion), NES, AV Famicom, SNES/SFC, Genesis/MD, and PC Engine/TurboDuo controllers to the device, so you can play games the way you remember. Without this, you’d be forced to rely on either the bundled controller or another modern USB controller. This isn’t too bad, and the console even natively recognizes PS3 and PS4 controllers that are connected via USB.

The final and largest piece of the puzzle is the cartridge connector. This big mama jamma allows the Retro Freak to dock inside of it to allow you to connect your games. The included ports support Genesis/Mega Drive, Famicom, Super Famicom/SNES, PC-Engine/TurboGrafx/SuperGrafx, and Gameboy/Gameboy Color/Gameboy Advance carts/cards. That’s a massive library of games already, but with a couple of adapters (obviously sold separately), you can also plug NES games into the Famicom slot, or Sega Master System, SG-1000, SG-1000 Mk II, Mark III, or Game Gear games into the Genesis slot. This allows for a ludicrous library of games to play on a tiny little device. The biggest difference in the Retro Freak vs. previous clone consoles is that it will allow you to archive your games onto the microSD card. The first time you insert a game, you’ll get a prompt asking if you’d like to copy the game, so that you can play it later. No more swapping carts, just insert once and be done.

For owners of the Retron 5, the question begs to be asked: how does it stack up? Emulation-wise it does very well. I’ve played several dozen hours of games across the various supported platforms, and I’ve encountered no issues. The menus all feel intuitive, and I’m able to easily turn on or off features like scanlines, texture filters, and ratios. The output looks great, too. Like the Retron 5, the console is locked to 720p, which is more than enough for any of our classic favorites. Unlike the Retron 5, though, the Retro Freak supports Super Gameboy emulation (although it is still less than perfect), meaning games like Donkey Kong and Mario’s Picross benefit from greater palettes and borders. The bundled controller is significantly better than the Retron 5 controller, too. Unfortunately, it connects via USB, so you will have to stay tethered to the console.

The view isn’t completely rose-tinted over in Retro Freak land, though. The price is noticeably higher than the Retron, sometimes going for as much as twice the Retron’s already hefty cost. Load times can be a pain, too. If you have a sizable collection of games on your microSD, be prepared to wait several minutes upon powering on the device. Recognizing a new cart also seems to take a few moments more than the Retron, and the Retro Freak seems to be pickier about recognizing games the first time. That said, once they’re recognized, you can just back them up and never worry about the cart again. I’ve also encountered one or two crashes when playing games with frequent and abused fast forward features, so make sure to save often.

What does the Retro Freak offer to RetroPie users? Not a lot, beyond a sense of legitimacy. Since you can backup your own games, it feels a bit more genuine to play a game on the Retro Freak over the RetroPie. That said, there’s nothing stopping you from dumping ROMs onto the Retro Freak’s microSD and playing those, either. In fact, intrepid pirates have even learned that the Retro Freak even has full support for Famicom Disk System disk images, despite no native support to copy the games from the FDS’s disk slot. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about Sega Mega CD or PC Engine CD games (yet).

Overall, is it worth it? I suppose that depends on what you’re looking for. Knowing that I have all of my carts legitimately backed up to an SD makes me feel great. Sure, I’ve been able to download copies of those games for ages, but these are my games. This isn’t someone else’s copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 or The Legend of Zelda. I can, in an instant, see my mother’s Final Fantasy III save, copied straight from the SNES cart. And I can then take that save and move it to my computer, or to the cloud. That may not be worth the price to some people, but it was enough to sell me on the system. If you’re just looking for a cheap way to play retro games, and you don’t have a ton of carts laying around, this isn’t for you. But if you’re looking to preserve your nostalgia, and have a convenient way to relive it then I can’t imagine a better way to do it.

[arecibomanual]

It seemed like the transcripts of some of Chronos' videos were lost, so I went ahead and redid them myself.

I strongly believe that my mom was being monitored and harrassed by Youtube, Universal Pictures, and their affiliates, due to a secret, of sorts, she had uncovered within the original trilogy of Jurassic Park films Let me start by saying as early on as I can that I am not crazy - never been diagnosed with schizophrenia, [????] disorder, or any other mental illness. I'm just good at noticing patterns I've always been a big Jurassic Park fan. [near illegible, but I tried my best] I saw the first[firat?] film in the [??] when I was five years old, [etc] It's possible that Youtube's part in the harrassment campaign may have started with the removal of her various tribute videos to Jurassic Park after her passing but those may also merely be the result of the vast machine that is the automated copyright-takedown system. As big of a JP fan as I am though... [yes, just one word gets its own entire block.] [The next two slides are both on screen for like a second or less each, and both very hard to read.] I was never as [Jebus??] into the franchise as my mom was. She would watch the entire trilogy [something something] weekend [something] month She would buy JP-branded oatmeals and sugary cereals, long after her doctor advised her to steer clear of these for [sdffghjh] tribute videos [sasfsds] like those Linkin Park anime music videos, [there seems to be another line below this in smaller text, but all that can be seen due to the "Lost World" logo is an 'n'] I started noticing their absences toward the end of 2015 Without access to her Youtube password [again, the logo obscures a second line of smaller text] videos s[asdf] eate[n???] on her old laptop I contacted Youtube many times regarding the videos, but have only recieved canned auto-responses and unhelpful, yes sympathetic responses from actual employees after pressing the matter

Sudden huge increase in views... I hope anyone reading this is good with computers. Can you help a dude out? Anyone with experience in the "Eratas" or "Erratas" system, if you could send me a message I'd be extremely grateful. I realise reaching out to my Youtube viewers is a stretch, but hey I guess it's worth a shot, right?

This is the current automatic transcript of the song lyrics- note the address is gone.

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And here's the transcript for the QnA video, copy-pasted from KYM because it's under a spoiler tag on that page and thus won't archive. I don't know why KYM thinks this video was deleted, as it's very much still available.

TRANSCRIPT: [start of video] I’ve been fairly reluctant to really ask anyone for help since the nature of ] like pre[ classic paranoid nutjob ramblings - algorithms controlling things behind the scenes, weird stuff in that vein. But I would never waste anyone’s time with stuff like that. In the past couple of years I’ve asked for help from friends in programming and business circles. but over time, friendships fade, people move, people stop talking to you. You know the drill. As such, I’m very grateful for the help people are giving and I’ll try and answer as many questions as I can here. Cork Top writes: Q: "So with this video, are you essentially trying to see if this system called “Erratas” or “Eratas” will attempt to take down the video because it’s some system/algorithm that takes down videos that… I don’t know, include the term “Eratas”/“Erratas” in them? Which is why you used asterisks for letters in the word in the description, to see if the system could detect text on videos?" [Cont…]

A: Thanks for writing, Cork. Yes. I don’t know much about programming or computer systems, so I’m not too savvy about how to trick them. All I really know about Erratas is that it’s used by dozens of companies. (“recent”, as in, within the last 5 or 6 years) they seem to use it as a copyright-enforcement tool which works as an excellent [?] if you want to take down other things as well. But it has its limitations, and I’m fairly sure that my “test video” helped ferret those out. Maybe. The original Jurassic Park trilogy is excellent, by the way, I highly recommend it. The second film is my favorite, in spite of its flaws. Frank Horrigan writes “what is the erratas system? any documentation?” A: Thanks ]ing, Frank. “Erratas”[?] is something I [?(I’m not sure if there’s a word here or not)] crossed paths with over the years, and in[scope[?] disturb[??(this word MIGHT be “disturbance,” or it might be “disturbs me”)] … The fact that it went after my mom in her twilight years is either evidence of its enormous and uncaring[?] reach in other words, a coincidence, or it means it’s specifically still coming after me after all these years, and to be frank, both options freak me out equally. 3M and Unilever were early adopters, which shows the versatility of the system. Too much faith is put into computers in general, and WAY too much faith was put in Erratas. Lots of people lost their jobs. And Aaron4420 [referring to a YouTuber who posted on one of his videos], it’s easy to talk shit from behind a computer screen but takes a real man to back it up so suck my dick through a straw [end]

rip aaron4420

[bubblesthewaterbender]

A journey (kind of rant ish?)

cw: sexy song lyrics, helicopter parents, sl*t shaming, specifically of a child who doesn't know what's going on

Okay so I'm actually at the point now where I think TikTok is pretty alright. It had some immediate detractors and that kind of rubbed off on me but for the most part it's come to be its own thing. So I found a TikTok compilation a little bit ago, which meant basically finding vines that I'd never seen before, just under a different name.

The very first one (here's the compilation btw)

Was a very specific joke about a song from the early-mid 2010's which meant I for sure listened to it a lot when it was popular. Turns out it was Hey Mama by David Guetta, and the line (yes I do the cooking, yes I do the cleaning, plus I keep the nana real sweet for your eating) was from Nicki Minaj. Standard 2014 faire.

(btw despite everything the song David Guetta later did with Nicki, Turn me On, is legit good and I have no clue why but it's easily one of my favorite songs by Guetta and that includes everything he did with Sia. But only if you go with the interpretation that the song is about a robot or alien. Or I have shit taste. Anyway not important).

So I forgot what the song was because it's been 5 years since I've thought about it (holy shit), so I looked up the lyric in question. In the process I found this amazing headline (the actual article sucks).

"what do I do when my four year old thinks a song about keeping your genitals tidy for visitors is a ditty about bananas?"

Why did I cry laughing at this headline? Was it because of how absolutely pure that is on the part of the kid? Was it because "for visitors"? Was it the mental image of a bunch of adults being like "oh okay so we have to listen to this for a while"? Nobody will know.

The actual article is not worth your time though. It's mostly this woman gasping and grabbing at pearls because her kid has misinterpreted lyrics that she wouldn't know the meaning of anyway and considering it a moral outcry, or even worse a failing on the kid's part? With great quotes such as:

"Dance music behemoth David Guetta’s “Hey Mama,” featuring the pornographic vocal stylings of Nicki Minaj, is decidedly not a song about motherhood. Actually, it might be a song about unintended eventual motherhood, but let’s leave that pee stick aside for now." (I can *smell* the tone behind the word "pornographic" there. Also, ew)

"The current speed of precocity is not a concern for [her husband I think] – even when he is reminded that as a child in the mid-1970s, he was still listening to “Purple People Eater” and tracks about meatballs when he was more than twice Bea’s age." (She doesn't know what it's actually about? You don't have to tell her - though frankly I'm one of those people who thinks that things like that should be normalized so shame doesn't happen later on - but it's not that much of a problem when she doesn't actually know)

"Mike and I had our children later than most of our friends. They all have nine- or 10-year-olds; some even have teenagers. When those kids happen to be girls, the main project, from what I can see, seems to be holding them back from the full catastrophe of adulthood, against the cultural tide that will have every female twerking and wearing plastic princess heels before they’ve learned to use a fork properly. When I recently asked a family member what I should buy his eight-year-old daughter for her birthday, he sighed and said, “She likes any clothes that look like they are for a very small prostitute.”" (there's been a lot of people online giving really different, very good takes about the way that kids, especially young girls, are dressed, but idk am I the only one who sees a problem with the people who respond to their kids reacting to what they consider to be mature media (and the kiddo sees as just,, what's popular) by /not/ telling them what's up with it? Kids are very understanding if you talk to them like humans, and if you tell them why you don't want them doing x thing, they'll probably be fine unless you demand or they really had their heart set. Shaming behind their back because they're just wanting to follow trends and don't know what any of it means is not okay. There's a full musical about why shaming instead of educating is such a bad thing, all parents should know the plot of Spring Awakening.) (Also I didn't know that heels were the sl*tty option? I just thought that it was a thing for women to wear for some reason that I never understand and for little girls to try on because they like pretending they're older. And they still don't know why you think this is a bad thing.)

This didn't mean to be a rant, I just realized that an article I died at was actually advocating for not getting what little girls like while also shaming them for what they like for, as far as they can see, no reason.

[yesterdaysdreams]

Board and Batten Bedroom Makeover with Arhaus (+Giveaway!)

In the midst of a home renovation, it’s so comforting to have at least one clean and organized space where you can go to escape the chaos of it all. For me, this space was my bedroom—until the renovation chaos invaded my safe space! The situation might sound a little stressful at first (and even more so if you could see my still half-demolished first floor), but now that this quick master bedroom makeover is over, this space is even more of a peaceful retreat than it was before!

When I was given the chance to work with Arhaus on this project, I had a mini freak out moment, because I’ve always been an admirer of the brand. I grew up in Northeast Ohio and stuck around to put down roots, so I’m really proud of what we have and businesses that are based here. Arhaus is one of those businesses, its headquarters are actually on the same road as the button factory where my dad worked. As a kid, I learned about quality craftsmanship and the importance of details as I worked alongside my dad in his wood shop on Saturday afternoons. That probably explains why I’ve always been drawn to a fine furniture shop like Arhaus and even applied to work at their Canton store when I was in college earning my interior design degree. I didn’t exactly qualify for the job back then, and ended up waiting tables instead, but now it feels like things have come full circle!

As happy as I was to do my own shopping at Arhaus for this project, I’m just as happy to let you all know that you can win $500 towards some Arhaus goodies of your own! Read on to the end of this post to see the details.

I have to say that Phil and I were happy enough with our bedroom as it was, but I hadn’t spent much time hanging art (obviously) or really doing anything with the space besides moving in furniture and accessories that we already owned. It’s been really hard for me to give up my old bed, but we wanted to upgrade to a king-size bed since we finally had a house with room for one. This bed is very special because my dad crafted it out of raw materials when he and my mom were newlyweds. It’s going back to their house in my old bedroom for guests to use, so at least it’s not goodbye forever!The new Arhaus bed I chose for our makeover feels simultaneously casual and luxurious, and it also looks pretty fly alongside some Arhaus bedding, pillow and decorative accessories like the white vase on my dresser. But obviously another major element in the design of this space is my pink board and batten wall! I’m all about mixing bold and modern design choices with more traditional elements, and this room feels like the essence of all the things I love.

Installing the board and batten ourselves was a relatively easy project, though it certainly takes a substantial amount of time to do if you’re putting up more than one wall. It’s worth the effort, though, amiright?! Look at those before and afters! I’ll talk you through how Phil and I installed the board and batten, and also give you some insight as to how long each aspect took us to accomplish.

Materials: 1×4 or 1×3 boards (I used pre-primed ones) Nails and/or screws Construction adhesive Spackle Sandpaper (I used 60, 80, and 120 grit for various aspects) Paintable caulk Primer + Paint Masking tape (optional) Breathing mask

Tools: Nail gun and air compressor (not necessary, technically, but very helpful!) Stud finder Putty knife or spackle spatula Power sander (not necessary, but again—SUPER helpful!) Level Chop saw Caulk gun Pencil

Before beginning the project, you should measure your walls and determine the size you want your squares to be, factoring in the width of the boards you use. I began with one size square in mind before laying it out and realizing it wouldn’t fit the height I wanted, so I used smaller squares to fit the width of my headboard wall, then stopped the board and batten where it ended vertically on the wall, even though it wasn’t on the top of the wall. You don’t need to make yours perfect squares, but I liked the idea of doing that in my room.

Step One: Mount your horizontal boards into the studs of your wall using heavy duty nails or even screws. (If you use screws, they will need to be countersunk.) I used a spacer I had precut to the square height and used that to begin each new row. Use a level to ensure each row will be perfectly even all the way to the opposite wall. Putting up the horizontal boards was the fastest part of this whole project!

Step Two: Cut the short boards for your verticals. I used a pre-cut pacer for each vertical board placement. I didn’t use a tape measure for this, but instead would hold a board up in the place it was to go, then mark where I needed to cut the board. After I cut the board, I would put it in place and move on to the next one, without gluing or nailing yet. This part of the project was something I worked on solo as Phil (husband) came along to glue and nail them in place as I was halfway through with the cutting and dry-fitting process.

Step Three: After each vertical is in place but not yet glued or nailed, use a level to mark where it should be glued in place, at the same time marking where the verticals in the next row up should be placed.

Repeat steps 2-3 until you have the whole wall dry fit and ready for nailing and gluing.

Step Four: Glue and nail each vertical board into place. Use the marks you created in step three to make sure they’re perfectly in place.

Step Five: Sand, spackle, and prime. The most time intensive part of this project is all of the sanding and filling of gaps! Whatever you do, do not skimp on sanding. It gets exhausting, but you must make sure that all of the boards are even across the surface of the wall, or after painting you’ll notice all of the spots where the vertical boards stand proud of your horizontal boards, or vice versa. Thankfully my newly retired dad stepped in to help with sanding, because I was beat! After sanding, fill all of the holes and cracks between boards with spackle. When it dries, sand smooth then clean. Next caulk. Sounds so simple, and sure, I could use less words to tell you about it, but I really feel the need to prepare you for the agony and boredom that comes with caulking every single square on the wall! You’ll want to have a few good podcasts lined up, believe me.

But again—worth it!

Step Six: Prime and paint. We decided to spray paint the walls because it would’ve been a pain to brush around all of the boards. Such a good choice, but we should’ve had a box fan in the window to suck the air and airborne paint out of the room. But we didn’t. I had to touch up some overspray due to the cloud of paint that tinted areas of the white wall above the pink. The touchup ended up only taking about five minutes, so no biggie! Definitely worth the time saved in brushing and rolling.

Did I mention how all this work was worth it?! The board and batten treatment is such a classic design element, I know I’ll be happy with it forever, even after the pink paint is covered up one day with the next color that strikes our fancy.

My gorgeous bed from Arhaus just tickles me with its beauty and craftsmanship, but honestly it was hard to choose between the offerings at Arhaus because I love so many things! I pulled together a few of my favorite items I would’ve loved to include in our bedroom as well. I love a good basket light, and after experiencing an Arhaus linen duvet cover, I don’t think I can go back to plain ol’ cotton. Such simple elegance!

Globe Ratan Pendant

Lincoln Bed in Oatmeal

Casey Task Table Lamp

Palmer Nightstand in Natural Oak

Kaira Rug

Eva Vase in Cream

Cotton Knit Baisley Stripe Throw

Boho Striped Knot Pillow in Black

Serena Antique Mirror End Table

Tansy Upholstered Sheepskin Chair

Ava Hem-Stitch Duvet Cover in White

Boho Ivory Fringe Rectangular Pillow

Stone Washed Velvet Rectangular Pillow in Blush

It seemed like such a simple and small thing, but the cotton striped throw from Arhaus is one of my new favorite things in my house. It’s so soft and cozy, is sturdy yet doesn’t pill like synthetic blends do, and has classic appeal with a luxurious feel. I’ve been taking it from room to room in our home for cuddle sessions.

We’re all excited to have a hotel-like oasis at the top of the stairs right at home, but I forgot how exciting it is for kids when a room is transformed. Maybe this quick makeover looked like magic to my girls, but man, Mama is ready to take a big ol’ nap in her new king-size bed! When I wake up, I’m sure there will be two little munchkins still managing to push me off the edge, even though I feel like I have mattress space for days!

The board and batten and my vintage campaign-style dressers provide a great classic backdrop for some of the quirkier elements I used to decorate our bedroom, like this big cat poster a good friend of mine dubbed “Jaba the Catt.” We have a thing for kitschy animal decor around our house! And check out this little clay hand dish I made for one of my first ever crafts as a contributor for A Beautiful Mess back in 2013. Still love this thing!

After experiencing the dramatic change applied moulding (or in this case, simple 1x4s) can give to a boring room, you better believe I’ve been concocting more plans for batten and moulding details in other unfinished rooms in our house! I can’t wait to share them with you all.

Before applying the board and batten in our bedroom, I thought the angled ceiling of this space made an awkward design situation for someone who is drawn to symmetry and balance. The board and batten was the perfect solution for grounding the space and giving the furniture better context in the room, without taking away from the airiness of the high ceilings. The room now feels so cozy and inviting thanks to the warmth of the walls and the sumptuous upholstered bed, but the room also feels surprisingly spacious … even though we now have a larger bed. I’m still trying to figure that one out! Ah well, best not to question and just to enjoy little miracles when they come along. (But I’ll credit the low-profile bed in this case!)

Thanks for following along with my bedroom makeover! If you have any questions about how to make a board and batten wall in your own home, be sure to ask in the comments section below and I’ll help as much as I can.

Ready for your chance to win a $500 Arhaus gift card?!? All you have to do is visit their site and comment below on what you would purchase if you won the gift card! This giveaway is open for U.S. residents only and through 4/11/2018 at midnight CST. The winner will be selected at random and contacted directly. For full ABM giveaway rules and details, please visit this page. Can’t wait to hear what you would pick out for your next space!! – Mandi

Credits // Author and Photography: Mandi Johnson and Megan Easterday. Photos edited with A Color Story Desktop.

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[sentrava]

Swim with Manatees in the Florida Springs

It’s hard to believe after visiting 100-something countries and all 50 states that there are still several very attainable bucket list items like swimming with manatees in the Florida springs that I hadn’t tackled until last week.

And yet, sometimes those are the last ones we get to because they seem just that: so easy.

But while visiting Orlando last month, we were traveling by car and I decided, there’s never going to be a better time than now to see those OG mermaids. So we planned a quick little 24 hours on Crystal River en route back home. And it was worth the 11 hours we had to spend in the car to make it back because it was, quite simply, magical. Particularly, this little baby siren going in for a suckle at 1:20 in the video below. Squee!

Headed to Florida? Here’s what you need to know about planning your own jaunt to Crystal River:

When to See Manatees

Manatee season is November through mid-March when the manatees retreat from the cold sea to the warmer waters of the spring heads. The bonus is that, if you’re coming to Orlando to do the theme parks, you can do a double-header: hit up Universal during the shoulder- or off-season during the week (consider visiting during the holidays at the park), then head over to Crystal River for the weekend afterward.

Where to Stay on Crystal River

We booked at the Plantation on Crystal River upon my friend Alex’s recommendation. It felt very Old Florida, not many bells and whistles, but absolutely perfect for what we needed: a clean, convenient hotel that gave us easy access to the springs. Plus, it was pet-friendly, and we had Ella with us, which significantly limits our options by way of lodging.

The staff was super friendly, the property was truly welcoming of dogs (unlike so many others that claim to be and aren’t), and I would recommend this hotel for anyone looking to snorkel, swim or dive with manatees—or simply experience the natural oasis of Crystal River and its surrounding springs.

Paddling, Snorkeling or Diving with Manatees

We had brought our paddleboards on this trip, so within an hour of us arriving at Crystal River, we’d loaded up Ella (after double-checking that the area was clear of alligators, of course!) and our camera gear on my board and set out into Kings Bay. We weren’t even past the resort by the time we saw a manatee and her calf cruise by us! I had no idea it would be that easy to find them. The resort where we were staying also rented SUPs and kayaks for those not traveling with their own.

The current was strong that day, so we didn’t get too far as we knew we’d never make it back. Instead, we paddled into a protected cove and just floated along, and moments later, a few manatees joined us! It was hard to spot them from the surface at first as the water there wasn’t super clear, and we almost mistook one mamma jamma for a boulder. Manatees spend most of their days eating, but they have to surface every few minutes, so keep on the lookout for a snout breaking the glassy surface of the water and then you’ll be able to keep eyes on them after that.

The next morning, we set out for a snorkel tour, and I debated long and hard between snorkeling and diving. Ultimately, snorkeling won out as the water isn’t that deep and you aren’t actually allowed to swim up too close to the manatees in dive gear anyway. If given the choice again, I’d still choose snorkeling.

Which Tour to Book

There are dozens of tour operators to choose from; some are legit, others not so much. Ultimately, we booked with Plantation for pure convenience; we were staying there, and the boats left from, literally, right outside of our room. And our tour was awesome; Brian was our captain and Steve, a dive master, our guide. They were friendly, funny blokes and knew exactly where to find plenty of manatees. Even if you’re going to Crystal River and not staying at the resort, I’d look into booking this tour at Plantation Adventure Center.

While we were there, there were three options for time slots (this seems to vary based on the season): 7am, 10:30am, 1pm. We opted to take the first tour of the morning, as several experienced manatee spotters told us our best bet of seeing a whole herd of them was in the wee hours of the morning. I woke up at 6am very ill and almost bailed because I didn’t think I could handle three hours on a boat feeling the way I did. But I’m so glad I just bit the bullet and went anyway, as the manatees were out in full force that morning.

Within moments of cruising into the river from the bay, our captain spotted a mom and a calf, so he turned off the boat as we all dropped into the chilly water in the river. Despite wearing a seven-millimeter wetsuit, the water was biting at first—it hovered around the same temperature as the air, which was in the 50s that day—but you quickly get used to it. The visibility was really low, so after we drifted around for a bit, our guide steered us toward a channel that led to a magnificent spring.

Swimming Into Three Sisters Springs

Our favorite part of our tour was when we snorkeled from the river through a narrow channel and into Three Sisters Springs, which is the best place to spot manatees in this area of Crystal River. Not only was the water clarity (and taste, according to SVV) amazing, but the manatees were out by the dozens! I was in manatee heaven. I wasn’t sure which way to look, there were so many in every which direction: mama manatees, daddy manatees, fresh baby manatees nursing—it was all sensory overload.

There are roped off areas where the manatees sleep (and nurse) that you’re not allowed to swim in, but you can get close enough for a good view and a snapshot or two. It’s discouraged to disrupt the manatees (or touch them, obviously), so you should plan on floating peacefully above them and do your best to stay out of their way.

What to Pack

A camera with underwater capabilities. We took both our Canon G7X Mark II (the camera we use to dive with the underwater housing) and also a GoPro Hero mounted on a floating hand grip for stabilization. Water visibility is iffy and can vary day to day and spot to spot. We only had a couple feet of vis in the river, but once we swam into the spring, it significantly cleared up to a solid 50 feet.

A mask and snorkel if you have it. You won’t need fins—in fact, tours don’t allow them—but if you have a reliable mask, it behooves you to use your own instead of borrowing one from the adventure center. Your boat should have defogger to use prior to your dip.

A bathing suit and a towel (or something warm to wrap up in afterward). Your wetsuit rental is included in the tour, but it was cold after we got out—a chilling 50 degrees in the air—and I was happy I had packed my warmest, snuggliest beach towel. Our captain also had hot chocolate ready for us, which was an added bonus.

What It Costs

We paid $139 for our hotel room including sales and occupancy tax, $14 for the resort fee and $65 each for our tours. To be honest, I didn’t even do any cost comparison, as this seemed like a fair price and we could head out to see the manatees directly from our hotel room. We ate lunch on site ($30 for two people, including tax and tip), had a couple of cocktails ($20) and had dinner in the restaurant ($74, including tax and tips). We brought our own paddleboards, so incurred no additional fees for equipment rental.

Factoring in gratuity for our guides, we spent $407 for this once-in-a-lifetime experience—such a fun and affordable getaway. Note: This would have been pricier, of course, had we had to fly in and not already been in the area with our car for transportation. Also, be sure and check out any special offers the Plantation may be offering, as they had a number of different promos going when I called to make our reservation.

Have you ever spotted a manatee in the wild? Better yet, do you want to?

  PIN IT HERE

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