#one day i will learn how to do rim lighting and paint using a program that isnt autodesk sketchbook

[aulerean]

please hold :)

[spectraling]

Would you do a shading tutorial? How do you set the light and that wonderful white glow? What brushes are good and what program do you prefer? It would be nice if you could teach us how to do it so nicely 🥺 (btw Have a nice day!)

You too!

And sure! I love talking about art! Gonna put a keep reading on this one, though, it's gonna get a little long:

So, before I do any kind of shading or lighting I build up the illustration to this point, where I've settled on what the base shapes look like and what kind of colors I want to use as a base:

Once I have those local flat colors down, I do a pass of initial light and shadow before I start painting for real. This usually consists of multiple layers layered on top of each other, set to the multiply blending mode (that I totally always name and didn't do so after the fact for educational purposes). What multiply tends to do is darken and blend your colors with whatever color you put on the multiply layer. In this case it makes the color darker with a blueish tint.

Not sure how to explain this process if you've never used an editing software before, but I think it's fairly similar no matter what program you use. I lock the layers to the grouped flats so the shadows and light only appear on the figures and not on the whole canvas.

When painting it's usually a good idea to go from big shapes to small. I tend to flood the object(s) with whatever is my shadow color and then "carve out" the lights using a mask. You can just erase away if you want, but I recommend learning about how masks work because then you can more easily play around with the shapes.

I've noticed that doing it this way creates bigger and more consistent shapes rather than doing it the other way around. It also shortcuts you right into dramatic lighting territory lol, which was the goal here.

After that it's simply a matter of creating more layers with the same multiply setting to deepen shadows wherever it's needed. I also might add something like bounce light, subsurface scattering, ambient or secondary light sources to give some more life to the colors.

Final stage is render and clean-up, where I merge all of the shadow/lighting layers with the flats and lineart to have the entire object on one layer. I was terrified of doing this for the longest time, but it really makes the process so much easier. I always leave a copy of the original setup layers should I need to go back to it.

At this point most of your colors, shadows and lights have been sorted out so you can simply color pick from the source as you paint.

This is also where I add the rim light! Super effective way to make your object pop and add some drama! It's a fairly straight-forward process where you sort of outline the object with what is usually a pretty stark contrasting color. Don't forget that rim lights are *not* outlines, though! It's a light source, so it affects the object just like any other light. It doesn't only hug the outline of the object, but seeps into it at points where the light can reach:

You can play around with different blending modes for lighting, sometimes you get a really cool effect!

Lastly, that faint glow? Just a layer of using a soft airbrush in the same color as the light and paint it on top. Don't lock this layer to the object so that you can have the brush spill out a bit around the edges to create that soft glow effect.

And then you're pretty much done! There's a lot more to it, but I'd say that's a simple breakdown of how I usually approach paintings in the shading/lighting stage.

I don't make things out of thin air, though. One of the most important aspects of painting and drawing is reference! Go look at nature! Look at tons of paintings, drawings, photographs, illustrations and anything else that inspires you. For this particular piece I was very inspired by "The Garden of Hope" by James Gurney.

As for brushes and program it doesn't matter too much honestly, I'd say use whatever you're comfortable with. I still use Photoshop against my better judgement out of habit, but there's a bunch of alternatives out there like Procreate or Clip Studio Paint. You could also use something like Krita if you don't want to pay for it.

In my case I almost exclusively use the hard round brush (and airbrush as needed) that's default in Photoshop because it works fine for the kind of style I tend to go for, but there's....thousands of brushes out there. Just google it, you'll find free packs. Kyle T Webster has a pack that's pretty well-known, and that I also use occasionally. I'd say start with what's in the program of your choice by default, just to get a feel for it. It's easy to become overwhelmed by all the textures and shapes of custom brushes, but it can also be a lot of fun to play with so go ham if you want!

Hope that was somewhat helpful!

[themetaphorgirl]

So I wrote this yesterday

and I just really wanted to get Hotch’s reaction to the whole situation (and a few more cuddles) so HERE WE ARE!!

---------

Hotch opened the door and immediately collided with Emily.

She held up her hands in surrender. “Okay, first of all, don’t freak out!” she said quickly.

“Jesus, Prentiss, what the hell is wrong with you?” he said. “You scared-” He stopped. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said. Her eyes were wide, almost panicky. “Not like...really wrong. But...it’s kind of wrong.”

“Emily, you need to fucking spit it out,” he said, taking her by the elbow and pulling her aside. “What happened?”

“Spencer freaked,” she blurted out. “He just...he walked in, and I...god, I think I upset him, and he started crying, and I’ve never seen him cry like that before-”

“Where is he?” Hotch demanded.

“Upstairs, in the common room,” Emily said quickly. “Alex is with him, JJ called her as soon as he asked for her and she came right over.” 

He strode up the stairs, Emily jogging behind him. His heart squeezed in his chest. Spencer was a tough little kid, he could take most things in stride, and he was by far the smartest in their little family...and sometimes he just forgot that he was only a kid.

He ran up to the top of the stairs and made it to the seventh floor common room. It was cleaner and quieter than he had seen it in weeks; Penelope, Derek, and JJ sat on the floor watching a movie that played at a soft volume. Alex sat on the couch, still in her uniform, the velvet ribbon in her long hair half untied, and she was holding Spencer, stroking his hair back from his forehead. 

It wasn’t unusual for her to reach out for him and ask if he wanted a hug, or offer to let him sit on her lap. But the crawling sensation of worry prickled at the back of Hotch’s neck. Spencer was an antsy kind of kid, always fidgeting and spinning in chairs and busying himself with books and asking a million questions. The only time he was quiet was when he got tired, or sick.

This was different. Spencer was quiet, but his eyes were alert, watching the screen in mute concentration. He hugged a soft ivory blanket to his chest- it had been one of Derek’s, but it had silently become Spencer’s-  and he wasn’t seeking warmth, he was seeking comfort, pressing it to his cheek and tangling it in his fingers.

Alex looked up and caught his eye. She tapped her finger to her lips lightly. Hotch approached with caution. Emily hung back, her arms crossed over her chest, hovering, and the other kids pretended that they weren’t watching. “Hey, kiddo,” he said, kneeling down beside the couch. “I heard you’re having a rough time.”

Spencer nodded. Now that he was closer he could see how red-rimmed his eyes were, and his hazel eyes were too bright. “I had a bad day,” he rasped. 

Hotch sat down cross-legged on the floor. “You want to talk about it?” he asked.

Spencer hugged the blanket tighter to his chest and shook his head, pressing his lips tight together. Alex kept stroking his hair, and her other hand rested on his side. “Okay, okay, you don’t have to talk about it,” he reassured him. “Do you feel better than you did earlier?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Good,” Hotch said. He touched Spencer’s chin lightly. He didn’t know what else to say, but at least Spencer seemed calm. 

He got up from the floor and tugged Emily across the hall into his room. “Tell me what happened,” he said in a low voice. 

Emily shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know,” she said. “He...I asked him if he would help me with my trig homework, and Derek told him he was going to play video games when he was done. And he started crying.”

She chewed absently at her nails; Hotch wanted to tear her hand out of her mouth. “What else?” he asked. “What else was happening? Right when he walked in, what was happening?”

“I don’t know!” she said desperately. “It was...it was loud, I guess, the kids had their video game turned up really loud, and they were yelling. I was painting my nails. And Spencer...god, he got stuck in the rain, I didn’t even notice right away, but he was drenched…”

He could put the pieces together from there. Most likely there were more things that he had missed, more things that had piled on Spencer’s shoulders until he couldn’t bear it anymore, but it made sense. “But he asked for Alex?” he asked instead.

Emily nodded. “She took care of him,” she said. “She got his clothes changed, got him something to eat. The kids and I cleaned up and put the movie on for him.”

“That’s good,” he said. Emily sighed, covering her mouth with her hand. “He’s okay, Emily. This happens with little kids.”

“I forget he’s a little kid,” she said. “He’s Spencer, and he’s so smart, and- fuck, I don’t know anything about little kids.”

Hotch bit back a rueful smile. “Spencer’s brilliant, but he’s ten years old,” he said. “He’s got emotions that are too big for the rest of him, and he hasn’t learned how to express them. For kids, sometimes this is the only way they can work out feelings that are too big to handle.”

She snorted. “God, why are you always so calm and sensible?” she said.

“Years of practice,” he said, giving in and grinning at her. “Spencer is fine. He’s not going to be permanently damaged or anything. He’s a little kid who had a shitty day.”

Emily sighed, a little less shakily. “Yeah, well...I’m still gonna let you and Alex handle the meltdowns,” she said. “I don’t have the programming for this.”

He didn’t let on that he’d been just as worried as she was. Instead, he went back into the common room and sat down on the other end of the couch, where he could keep a safe eye on Spencer. 

The movie was almost over when Alex got his attention. “Hey, he’s asleep,” she whispered. “Can you give me a hand?”

He got up carefully, trying not to jostle him. Spencer was out like a light, his mouth dropped slightly open, the soft blanket still clutched to his chest. Hotch slid an arm under his shoulders and another under his knees, scooping him up like a baby. It was a good thing Spencer was small for his age- it wasn’t the first time he’d fallen asleep in a strange place and needed to be carried to bed.

Alex followed behind him, leaving the door open so the hallway light could filter in the room, and pulled the covers back from the bed. Hotch eased Spencer down carefully; Spencer mumbled something sleepily and shifted around, getting comfortable. Alex tucked him in snugly, smoothing out the blankets, and kissed his temple before switching on his nightlight.

The second they made it to the hallway and the door closed, she let out a wobbly exhale, flexing her hands. “Are you okay?” Hotch asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” she said, but her voice shook. “Oh god. I just…” She dragged her hands over her face. “God, that scared me.”

“Emily filled me in on some of it,” he said.

Alex dashed at her eyes. “I’ve never seen him cry like that,” she said. “He was on the floor, just sobbing like his heart was broken. He was just...he was so overwhelmed.”

“But you took care of him,” he said, trying to reassure her. Alex was usually so calm and so put-together, it was slightly unsettling to see her on the verge of tears.

“I’m just...always nervous I’m going to say the wrong thing, or do the wrong thing,” she said. “He’s so vulnerable, and I don’t want to make anything harder on him.”

“Have you been able to get in touch with his parents?” Hotch asked quietly.

She shook her head. “I found his dad’s law firm and I’ve sent a couple emails, but no answer,” she said. “And his mom’s university email keeps bouncing back.”

“Well, in the meantime, he has us,” Hotch said firmly. “And he’s okay now, and we’ll make sure that he’ll stay okay.”

Alex laughed. “The eight of us will just have to raise him ourselves, I suppose,” she said. 

[yelenasdog]

winter’s delights (the winter soldier x fem. hydra agent!reader) ch. 1/?

words: 1,384 (yes ik it’s short don’t bully me it’ll make sense later LMFAO)

warnings: death in future chapters, choking, blood, bruises, mentions of men being disrespectful to girls, r*pe implications in future chapters, smut in future chapters, and the obvious foul langauge lmfao. 

☆☆☆☆☆✰✰✰✰☆☆☆✰✰✰✰ 

 Experiment Day 1

The Soldier

click clack, click clack

The sound of heels clicking became louder and louder as it came towards me, causing me to become all too aware of my surroundings. Two small hands made their way to either of my shoulders. They shortly after moved to the railing next to where mine were placed. The situation seemed familiar. I wasn’t sure as to why.

“Good morning Soldier.”

Her voice was like a flute, surprisingly cheery and light despite our current dreary atmosphere. I turned to face the woman.

“Ready to comply.” I responded as I had learned to, or rather been programmed to.

She laughed. I was immensely confused by this action. The small Voice in my head that told me what to do and every response I needed to have all the time was seemingly absent.

“None of that, Soldier. I’m your friend, not your Tyrant.” She told me her name, but I didn’t pay much mind.

My instincts told me not to trust the girl.

She tutted.

“Soldier, if we’re going to be friends we need trust, yes?”

Her question was followed by silence.

“I won’t ask again, Soldier. Yes?”

I turned away from her towards the landscape view in front of me. Mountains could be seen if you squinted, everything covered in a blanket of snow, glistening in the rare sunlight of Siberia. I wasn’t sure why I was here rather than in cryo. It wasn’t for a mission, not an assassination of any sort, so why? I wasn’t sure of anything, my mind without the Voice was blank.

Suddenly, the woman’s seemingly gentle hands from before roughly grabbed my stubble ridden face, turning me towards her. Her grip tightened and her hand moved down to my throat, her cherry red nails digging into my skin, being sure to draw blood.

My breath was being cut off, and I assumed my skin was beginning to take a purple hue. Darkness began to cloud my vision as I started to slip into unconsciousness. I used my last ounce of strength and nodded.

She released me, tucking a stray strand of hair back into her bun. I fell down with a loud thud, supporting myself using the railing as I struggled to catch my breath. I looked up through hooded eyes and watched as the woman turned, speaking simultaneously as she did so.

“Very well. I’ll find us to be good friends, Soldier.”

She walked away, her heels clicking against the cold tile yet again. The guards came from either side of me, taking my arms and putting me into restraints, pushing me around like a ragdoll in the process. The cold metal stung on my pale and bruised skin, leaving a red ring to match the star on my left arm. 

The men surrounding me smelled like cigarette smoke and what could only be described as pure filth. The scent matched the words coming out of their mouths, talking loudly about the different women they had encountered in the past days and the things they wanted to do to them. 

The walk to my concrete chamber was treacherous, but nothing I wasn’t used to. I blinked, coming to attention at the sound of a key opening the small hole in the wall I called home when I wasn’t “on ice”.

My eyes turned from their glazed over state as they slammed the door shut, leaving me to wonder about what was to come.

 --------------------------------

The Tyrant

I released the man, tucking a strand of hair back into my too-tight bun. I viewed in horror the mark I had created on his neck, taking in the view that was a disgusting sum of purples, blues, and yellows that were complementing the red trickles of blood on his pale skin. The very sight of it and the fact I had done it gave me the overwhelming urge to throw up. But nonetheless I persisted. I had to.

I spoke, my voice coming across emotionless yet somehow bold, bouncing off the walls.

“Very well. I’ll find us to be good friends, Soldier.” I walked away, shallow breaths leaving my dry mouth. I brought up my hand, smoothing down my hair in an attempt to look put together despite feeling extremely distraught.

The head mental evaluator approached me, clipboard in hand. He squinted at my appearance for a moment, but then continued with his survey of sorts.

“How was he?” His Russian accent was thick and hard to understand. It had startled me in my dazed state. The man looked up, pushing his round, thickly rimmed glasses up his pudgy nose, waiting for a response, similarly to how I was in the minutes previous.

“Subject was unresponsive to exercise.” My voice remained quiet and without any sign of feeling.

He scribbled on a piece of paper attached to the wooden slab, the pen in his right hand scratching against the parchment. His foot was tapping, only adding to the tedious sounds filling the room.

“Was any physical force required for the subject to comply?” He seemed to be bored and tired, as any man would be after asking the same questions to different women every so often. I was not the first to be chosen for this experiment, but I was hoping I would be the last.

I stayed silent, replaying my crimes in my head, the feeling of the Soldier’s grimy skin ingrained in my brain, the coolness of it, the way it was so terribly slick.

“Was any force required?” He repeated, beady little black eyes meeting mine with a judgmental glance.

I blinked, crossing my hands in front of me.

“Yes. Slight physical force required.”

His eyes never left his page once they returned.

“Specify.”

“I grabbed the subject by the jaw, turned the subject’s face towards my own, and then restricted the subject’s breathing until they answered my question.”

“Does the subject require medical attention?”

I internally scoffed, as obviously even if he did, they weren’t going to give it to the poor man.

“No, the subject will be fine on his own.”

He sighed, flipping the page and looking it’s contents up and down.

“Very well,” he motioned to the guards on either side of the entrance.

“Your presence is no longer required at the moment. Return to your quarters. Hail HYDRA.”

I muttered a rushed, “Hail HYDRA” as I turned to exit.

“Also, Agent?” Behind me I heard the man speak up once more. I turned to face him.

“Don’t wear that lip color again, it makes you look like those Americans.”

I nodded, making a mental note to throw away the product.  Resuming my path of twisting corridors leading to my room, I was overly aware of the two guards who were on my tail, following me like a hunter stalking its prey.

“Thank you, I have it from here, gentlemen.” I smiled tightly through closed lips.

They nodded in unison, saluting with a brisk “Hail HYDRA.”

Early on in my time at the base I caught on to the goodbye ritual, and I hated it already.

I replied with the same nonchalantly before turning into my gloomy space and locking the doors.

I stripped down from my black uniform into a more comfortable slip, brushing out my hair and removing my makeup. I ran a cotton pad against my lips that were painted with the same color red that was on my nails. I watched in the mirror as the color smudged on my lips, running like the fresh blood that had streamed down the Soldier’s throat. I pulled away, looking down at my hands that I had only just noticed were trembling.

I let out a sudden sob, guilt taking its toll on me as I thought of what they had done, the victims that they had touched.

The things I had done, the victims I had touched.

I ran my hands through my hair, tugging. I stumbled over to my bed, pulling up the scratchy sheets. A terrible pain ripped through me, pressure building in the center of my head. 

I didn’t want to cry, I couldn’t cry. If my superiors heard, I’d be done for.

I didn’t want to hurt the man from earlier, but I had to. It was me or him.

☆☆☆☆☆✰✰✰✰☆☆☆✰✰✰✰

hello! this isn’t nearly as long as i would have liked but for development purposes i’m saving what chronologically would have come next for it’s own longer chapter rather than mushing a whole bunch of info into one mega chapter. tysm for reading, it means the world!!!! if u wanna be added to the taglist comment on this or the teaser or whatevs and i’ll add you! xx hj

btw my apologies for the extensive tags lolol 

taglist: 

@fangirls94​ 

[les-eaux-d-eunoe-blog]

From Atheist to Pantheist to Catholic - My Conversion Story

These are only life events, and cover the Faith part of the Faith + Reason equation. I’ll need to dedicate another post to the philosophical and theological path that occurred in tandem with these events.

I hope you enjoy. :) It’s been a wild ride.

---

-  I am very young and at swimming lessons for the first time. I must be 3 or 4. I fall off the platforms designed to keep our heads above water. No one notices at first. But I am not afraid, just drifting towards a light before I am suddenly yanked out of the water and coughing profusely.

- I attend Sunday school at the insistence of my Grandma. My dad is annoyed. I come home and ask my papa about God. My dad tells me that God is made up. Later in life he tells me he rejected religion when I was born, because he couldn’t understand how a pure and beautiful child could be stained by sin. He devoted his life to science after that. 

This made perfect sense to me, and I carried this attitude with me throughout my life. I became a very critical observer, especially in regards to organized religion.

- My Catholic grandparents bring us to Christmas mass (and continue to do so every year.) My mom is preoccupied with keeping my sister and I quiet. My young brother causes scandal by slipping out of the pew and taking communion unbaptized. He can’t be more than 6, and just wants to participate. (He is now a Christian, for what it’s worth) 

- I backpack in the Wyoming wilderness with my family around age 10. I feel a sense of peace on the mountain rimmed shore of Tomahawk lake. I feel a pattern in the grandeur, a true and humbling sense of awe. I feel something Godlike.  I tell my pop, and he just smiles at me and ruffles my hair.

- I experience manipulation and physical trauma at the hands of peers I place trust in as a child and teen, which scar me deeply.

- I have several night terrors / hypnagogia as a teen where I experience ghosts, and once, a demon. I’m deeply disturbed by these experiences and don’t know how to integrate them into my beliefs as an atheist. 

- My mom tries to help my bad teen acne and irregular cycles by putting me on birth control.

- I’m an average student, and a decent athlete. School is just okay. I don’t excel at much and prefer listening to music and painting in my room. I become interested in boys.

- I graduate high school, start college, and then promptly drop out. My parents kick me out of the house. I spend two years living with a boyfriend and experimenting with weed and hallucinogens.

- My dad asks me to visit my devoutly Catholic great-grandmother Olive once a month in a nursing home at the height of my rebellion. She sees nothing but good in me, despite me feeling utterly fallen. She loves me immensely, and keeps poems I wrote as a young girl in with her collection of favorite prayers.

- My boyfriend becomes abusive and the economy collapses. I lose my job, and eventually break up with him. I ask my parents for forgiveness and move back home. I return to college.

- I discover pantheism, and feel like I’ve finally found a name for the Godlike awe I’ve been chasing since I was a girl on the lakeshore.

- Eventually, my great-grandma Olive succumbs to dementia. I receive a small inheritance from her, which I put towards the cost of completing a French study abroad at a university in Normandy.

- In Normandy, I feel close to the spirit of my great-grandma Olive. Our program includes visits to churches, monasteries, and reliquaries with weekly if not daily frequency. Everything is ancient. I feel sad and disconnected from my American peers, estranged from Norman locals by the language barrier, but form a tight bond with my host family. I spend a lot of time wandering the narrow streets and drinking wine and cidre in cafés trying to make sense of the world. I buy ranunculus and place them on my night stand.  I find solace in the Gothic architecture, and in the tiny orchard towns of the Old Country.

- The last week of my time in France, we visit Paris. My program director arranges for us to attend mass at Notre-Dame de Paris. There are incense and Gregorian chants. Part of the mass is in Latin, the rest is in French. I sketch the vaulted ceilings. I shake hands with a kind-eyed stranger behind me and wish him peace in English, knowing he may not understand my words but feels my intention. After mass, I walk between the arches, and I cry.

- After returning home, I spend a quick summer in my hometown, and pack to leave for Chicago to pursue a bacheor’s degree. I love Chicago and make friends. My first Easter there, I try to find a Catholic church and talk a new boyfriend into coming with me. I dress up and wear a new silk hat. He hates the service and asks if we can leave. I say no and am disappointed in him, despite neither of us being Catholic. I feel, for some reason, I should be there. Maybe because it makes me feel connected to my great-grandmother. We leave and eat strawberries in Millennium park.

- I move out of the dorms and into other neighborhoods. Subsequent years I begin to practice Lent, because I like the principle of it. It seems like a really positive challenge to me. I don’t make the mistake of dragging others with me to Easter mass anymore.

- I graduate college and struggle to find meaningful employment. My body is in tremendous amounts of pain. The doctors can’t figure out what’s wrong with me though. I quit hormonal birth control to see if it helps. My body reels and tries to stabilize without the consistent dose of hormones I’ve been taking daily for the last decade. I fall into an inconsolable and deep depression for the next two years 

- An acquaintance asks me to join a band. As music has been the silver thread pulling me through the darkness, I agree wholeheartedly.

I learn to play bass, and duet vocals with him as he plays lush, reverby guitar and sings in a low timbre. Over the course of the year, we fall in love. He’s tall, serious, dark, with electric blue-green eyes. He’s fiercely intelligent. His smile makes my heart leap from my chest. His name is M.

- One weekend M. and I are spending the morning together, and he casually asks if I’d like to go to Easter mass with him the next day. I’m overcome with surprised joy and happily agree. I dress up once again, and I smile at him with this unexplained feeling of pride as he leaves my side to go take the Eucharist.

- I continue to struggle with my mental health. M. really loves me and encourages me to find a therapist. I do. We find out I have PMDD, and I begin, slowly, working on improving my health.

- My grandpapa is suddenly diagnosed with stomach cancer and is placed in hospice. I fly out immediately to be with him and my family. Within the week, he’s gone. My family grieves in the small hospice chapel. I find myself praying for the peace of his soul.

During this trip, my grandmother is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, which breaks my heart. I feel like, in a way, I’ve lost both of my grandparents twenty years too early. I return home.

- My relationship progresses with M. He is a cradle Catholic, but isn’t especially devout. It’s a somber year. The next Easter rolls around, and I once again practice lent. I give up alcohol. Despite still not feeling especially Catholic myself, I begin reading the Bible, starting with the gospels “as a cultural experience.” I think it’s some kind of effort to connect with my roots. I read them on the train as I ride to the record store that I work at.

- One morning on the train, I read the parable of the 10 Virgins. I’ve never heard it before, and I don’t quite understand it. I re-read it over and over again. When I get to work, one of my co-workers is playing Johnny Cash.

- The song playing is "When the Man Comes Around." I am shocked to hear the parable of the 10 virgins in the song.  And I start to wonder if what I’m reading maybe is actually trying to speak to me. So I don’t stop.

- Intrigued by my experience, I decide to fast deeply during lent. Out of curiosity, one evening in my room I try to talk to Jesus for the first time and introduce myself. Nothing spectacular happens, but the room seems to smell like sawdust and sweet wood, and I feel peaceful.

- That Easter, M.’s parents are visiting and invite us to the candlelit vigil service. It’s in a church that’s hundreds of years old called St. Michael’s. The choir is perfect and well practiced, and they sing a Capella. I watch the baptisms of the excited canidates and catechumens, dressed in their special outfits, with happy spouses looking on. I feel this sudden yearning to be one of them. I’m delirious from fasting and feel as if I’m floating. I silently cry again, and think about my grandma, great grandma, and grandpapa. We go out to dinner together and the food tastes incredible after the fast.

- In the weeks following, I keep reading the bible. It becomes my secret.

- M. and I decide to move to Arizona together, to find a better life. We are living paycheck to paycheck, and feel like we might find more gainful employment there.  When we arrive, I spend most mornings standing on the edge of desert landscape, trying to achieve deep meditation to help with my mental health. I memorize the “Our Father” prayer, and say it at the beginning of each session.

- M. and I talk about maybe having children someday. He says that he thinks he might want his kids to go to Catholic school, like he did.

- At this point, I’m already deeply fascinated with Catholicism. I read about saints as I commute around town. I read about the formation of the bible and the desert fathers, I decide that I might want to maybe be Catholic. Then I find out what’s involved. The lengthy process of RCIA keeps me away, and I worry about what my fallen-away father would think. So I keep reading in secret instead.

- I want to donate to a food drive, so M. helps me find a local church to take food to for thanksgiving. They have a prayer shawl ministry. I really want to learn how to knit, so I join, despite not being Catholic or belonging to the parish.

- Months later, I become fascinated with the rosary. I decide to pray a “virtual rosary.” During that experience, I see the Virgin Mary in my mind’s eye. I see her as the female form, then as my own body. I recognize that I’m holding a lot of insecurity and tension in my body as sexual shame. Suddenly, I see my female form as completely beautiful and natural. I feel freedom and peace from that shame I’ve been carrying since I was a child. I don’t know much about the Virgin Mary, but I know that I need to learn more.

- That very night, my boyfriend and I go to see The Smashing Pumpkins. The whole set is filled with imagery referring to the Virgin Mary. I find myself saying the Hail Mary prayer in my head, over and over again. It glitters in my mind like it’s made of gold.

- I read more and more about Our Lady. And I find a small coin necklace with her image. It glitters just like the prayer. I make a pact with myself that if I decide to buy the necklace, that I’ll join RCIA.

- A few days later, I decide to buy the necklace.

- That Sunday, I feel compelled to go to mass alone, even though I’ve never done that before. I walk there. At the end of the service, the church announces its new RCIA director, who I meet after the mass. And I begin the inquiry process within weeks.

[shyyynobi]

The Game

Here’s my first contribution for MultiSakuMonth!  I wasn’t going to post anything for SasoSaku, but I got so inspired and I had this idea in my head and it took over. Please forgive any mistakes, I wrote it in a few hours. I’m not even sure it makes sense, but I pushed it out anyway.  Pairing: SasoSaku Rating: M(ish)? Words: 2,559

Her fists could break mountains while his puppets tore through a battlefield.

She would heal him, her touch gently caressing his skin. 

She was refined, built and brought up exactly how he wanted her to be.

But — she was still her own person, a  kinetic ball of energy that would lash out at the world in a hellfire mess of emotion.

As they fought together, an unstoppable duo, their game would start. 

It was in her anger (especially towards him) that he found her most beautiful. Her eyebrows would scrunch and her face would twist as she fought her truth. Her beliefs were strong, so strong that sometimes she couldn’t contain herself. Her raw, viable emotions were painfully apparent, but it’s what made her endearing. Sakura Haruno always fascinated him, his fascination started the day she was brought to his lonely home when he was twelve, puffy faced and red-rimmed eyes from crying.

“Sasori, you’re in charge of this girl. She came from Konoha in the exchange unit program. I take it this won’t be an issue?” the Kazekage’s advisor questioned him, a mere child himself.

He looked over the…Pink haired girl. 

She couldn’t have been much younger than him, maybe a year at most.

“Is she any good?”

The advisor handed over her file, “exemplary grades. Excellent chakra control. I can assume they wanted one less orphan to subsidize and sent her here.” 

Sasori eyed her again, unimpressed. She was small, frail, boyishly thin, and didn’t look like she could harm a fly. 

Though it wasn’t as if he had much of a choice.

“Fine.”

At first glance she looked like any other girl, but when he sat her down in the silence of his studio — she remained frigid and unresponsive, refusing to look at him. Sasori, with an apathetic face stood in front of her and found her beauty. Her eyes glimmered with a renewed vigor for life that wasn’t beat out of her yet, and her skin was remarkably clean and hued in the prettiest color of pink. Her button nose led to wide-cheeks and a dainty pointed chin. Silently, his eyes swept down her slim neck — her worn clothes looked like they hadn’t been washed in a week, and he reached forward to skim the back of his fingers against her shoulder. 

She didn’t budge, but swallowed.

“Don’t be scared,” he tried to reassure her, for reasons beyond him.

Sakura looked at his dozens of paintings and half worked sculptures, but her eyes rested on the two puppets under his studio lights.

Her gaze was stuck there in wonder, and she asked him a question that changed his entire perception of her, “…those your parents, aren’t they?” 

The normally stoic child doubled back from this foreign girl, in awe that she picked up on it so quickly.

She turned to look at him, sympathy for him abundant in her face, when she was the one scorn to the desert by her village.

Sasori saw a new girl in front of him, one with such high perception and intelligence he was thoroughly impressed. 

“Take your shirt off,” he commanded.

Sakura tilted her head, but his serious expression forced her to reconcile with the request.

When she did, her bandaged chest was minimal — and he memorized her body.

Perfect.

“Sit still.” 

He grabbed his sketchbook and pulled a stool in front of this odd girl.

And so he sketched the first drawing of hundreds that would litter their home.

Sasori of the Red Sand quickly found his muse that morning, which most artists search their entire lives for.

Their game was complex and simple all at once. An oxymoron in it’s purest form.

It started on their first meeting, where Sakura would impress him — and each time she impressed him he would gift her with something. Whether it be knowledge, a jutsu, healing, or affection — she strived to be the greatest. It helped mold her to his liking, and she took to this game eagerly — quickly understanding that she could become great. Like a pet eager to please it’s master, Sakura understood the terms of the game well. Most teachers wouldn’t know what to do with a girl like her, a fiery female that drew forth the best in people — even him. Her chakra control was all he needed. After an exasperating spar session on her thirteen birthday when she took him to the ground, the warmth between her thighs settling on him — he decided to teach her how to utilize her chakra to become explosive. It was a technique he witnessed Tsunade Senju use once, and as a legendary puppeteer he easily saw how she mended her chakra to be so destructive. 

Like a fish in water, Sakura took to the method. 

When she destroyed one of his puppets, he knew it had been the right decision.

They trained day in and out. 

They became friends. 

Sometimes he questioned the line of  visibility that was their relationship. 

He hated it, but he became thoroughly attached to Sakura.

He knew on her fifteenth birthday that…Changes were happening.

As an artist he was keen on details, and he could sculpt her body with his eyes closed — so when he noticed her breasts swell miraculously over night and her hips widen, it became distracting. When they would walk in the village men’s eyes would drag and linger as they passed. An odd, stuffy feeling grew in his chest — but he ignored it for the time being. That year he taught her how to create poisons and antidotes, which she learned with a guarded expression, wondering what she did to deserve such rare knowledge — something so precious to him. 

“You’re acting funny,” she accused him, stopping her ministrations on the herbs.

“How so?” 

“I didn’t do anything worthy of learning this. So I’m wondering why you’re teaching me this for free,” she didn’t play around with words like most women, and he was grateful for that.

“You did,” Sasori said calmly, turning to her, “you’re a woman now. I think that’s deserving enough.”

She scoffed at him, “that’s not only sexist, but annoying. Every female turns into a woman. Tell me the real reason.” 

He didn’t want to tell her that he loved her, if that was the correct word. 

Sasori wasn’t sure what love really was, maybe he saw a glimpse of it as a child — but he found himself in an odd predicament. As an artist he found his muse, but as a man there was a new emotion that he was trying to overcome that he didn’t fully understand. This confusion became painfully transparent when he heard her the other night making odd noises, and when he crept over to inspect — her door was cracked open, and on her futon she had one hand in her shorts and the other in her shirt, playing with herself.

He wasn’t acquainted with women, he didn’t find the use in sexual activity — it seemed too distracting and impractical, so this was new for him to see.

And the cheeky girl knew he was there, she flicked her gaze to the door, and he swore in the moonlight he could see the barest smirk on her face. His member stirred to life, and he watched his subordinate touch herself. Slowly, and in pure fascination, he licked his palm and gripped himself beneath his pants. They masturbated to the thought of each other — the only thing stopping them was a door, but the thrill of it was much more enticing.

“You knew I was watching you the other night,” Sasori continued working, stating it matter-of-fact.

Sakura blushed, clenching her thighs at the memory, “no—“

“Don’t lie to me,” this time he looked at her, eyes smoldering.

She opened her mouth to say something, but couldn’t find it in her to lie to him, “I did.”

“I didn’t take you for that kind of girl.”

“I’m not a lifeless puppet,” she threw at him, making him jostle in annoyance,“I’m human — and I’m going to have urges like any other person.”

He didn’t bait her anger any further, “that’s fine. And I was impressed by your bravado, hence why I’m teaching you my pois—“

“You liked watching me, didn’t you?” she leaned on the counter, smirk back on her face.

Sasori hated when she had the upper hand, and he looked away from her, “Sakura—“

“Just tell me, Sasori-sama,” she teased him, inching closer.

This wouldn’t do.

If this foreign brat thought she held power over him, he would make her think twice.

He kissed her.

She was sweet and fresh, like a mint tea in the dreaded summer months in this horrid village. And just like mint tea, she served as a refreshment, a small break in the longevity of his days when he wasn’t creating his pieces.

Fueled with years of repressed sexual urges, their hormones flared as he lifted her onto the work bench, her thighs hugged his middle and he pressed against her, nimble hands treading over her bare stomach. He could sense her fear, and he told her everyday to not fear anyone or anything, but her hesitation drenched the heat of the moment.

Both of their lips bruised, they relented their assault — wondering where this could lead.

“I…I need to go,” Sakura murmured before scooting off the table and leaving him for the rest of the day.

And with an unsightly hard on, at that.

Their game continued, but from that point on it morphed from him mentoring her, to how far they could test one another. They would each impress one another, and when that happened lust would glimmer in their eyes and they would find their hands and mouths sneaking over one another’s body later on, only to forcibly stop themselves. 

They were saving that moment for a sublime test of their game. 

The only time they weren’t playing the game was when she would sneak into his room late at night and cuddle beside him. Two teenagers used as weapons and tools for the sake of their village. Two people caught in a storm, unsure of where to go. 

When they became partners, the game only intensified. 

Paired as possibly the most lethal duo to emerge from Sunagakure — they were sent on reserved missions that a normal team couldn’t possibly take. When Konoha sent a letter requesting Sakura’s skills back in Konoha after hearing about her wide ranging success as a prominent kunoichi and healer, the Kazekage and council adamantly refused. 

Part of him feared she would leave him, but he never said anything about it.

Which is why now — as she’s carrying him on her back, trudging their way through the sand dunes in the hundreds of miles of Sand country, the poison is seeping through his body and he’s slipping into unconsciousness.

“You better stay awake! I’ll kill you if you fall asleep!” her harsh voice berated him. Contrary to that, tears are slipping down her cheeks — she knows he doesn’t have much time left.

These memories come back to him after six years because he’s dying.

But Kami she looked beautiful, like a poised puppet that would be in his memory for eternity, she twisted and fought her way to him. Sakura was the picture of grace as blood covered her body, those eyes that came to him on the first day crying were flooded with worry for him. They managed to take down an army that was leeching their way to Suna. It wasn’t easy task but they managed to do it. They saved their damnable village, but at what cost? 

Sasori didn’t see the blade coming from one of the last remaining soldiers, and before he could stop it with his puppet, the kunai pierced his stomach. 

It was a delayed poison because he didn’t realize he was sick until they were halfway home, caught in a sandstorm. With no medical supplies, no herbs, barely any water — they were stuck. So Sakura decided she would carry him through the storm all the way home. 

When did he become so weak?

“That’s it,” she growled. Deciding enough was enough, Sakura set him down and reserved a minuscule amount of chakra in her fist to create a trench to dodge the storm. 

He can’t remember much from this point because he’s half unconscious. But Sasori reached forward and touched her cheek, his thumb wiping the blood off of her lip, “I’m proud of you.” 

Sakura ignores him, she understands what he’s saying — “this isn’t a game anymore!” she cries.

 “It never was,” he admits.

The irony of him dying by a poison is laughable, some poison master he is -- but Sakura refuses to let go, “no! I’m going to get you home, I promise!”

She uses the last of her chakra to push it into his chest, her soothing chakra makes it easier to pass. But then came pain, a bright red flash of pain that made him sweat and see white as she pulled the poison out of him. His eyes roll into the back of his head, and the sharp, unforgiving pain of the extraction continues until he passes out. Somwhere in his dreams he comes to realize where his life might have been if not for Sakura stepping through the door to his home. He would probably be a criminal by now, wanted by not only Suna but the shinobi nations, his name printed in the bingo book. 

She saved him twice now, he figures.

When he comes to, he’s in their home.

Unsure of how he got there, he can hear Sakura humming in his studio. 

Weakly, Sasori wonders if this is his after-life. He wouldn’t mind it, because being here with her is his haven. For all the men and people he killed, he’s being given a blessed afterlife. 

But he knows he’s alive when he sees her meticulously working on his favorite puppets. The same ones that resembled his parents and held him for years when no one else did. Her hair is in a bun and she’s wearing her spandex and a sports bra to fight the insatiable heat, but she’s there and feels his presence.

Silently, he walks over and sits behind her. 

Neither say a word.

The sight of the three most important things in his life could bring him to tears, and he’s bursting with so much pride he wants to tell her — but instead he rests his forehead on her shoulder and murmurs a small, “thank you.”

She’s contemplating his thanks and stops working on the puppet, “…it was never a game to you?” 

Silence. Then he answers with a simple, “never.” 

The innocence of her gasp perfectly captures the innocence she tries to hide. 

He kisses her neck, her shoulder, her arm until goosebumps rise on her skin.

In his weakened state he wants to show her his form of love. 

She sets down the puppets and turns to face him, tears ashen in her eyes, “…don’t ever leave me.” 

Sasori closes his eyes ad breathes against her skin, “I won’t.”

In hindsight, he should have known when they took each other’s virginity it would be the day after her seventeenth birthday. They’ve played their game for years, but he didn’t want to play anymore. She was his master piece, his crescendo in a life of loneliness, and she proved herself time and time again.

Their bodies are tired and worn by the time they’re done, and in the glowing light of his studio she kisses his lips, naked and cuddled to his side, “we should run away.”

The idea piques his interest, and he smiles down at his devilish muse, “tell me when.”

Sakura climbs on top of him and straddles his hips, ready to go again, “tonight.”

She’s testing him, and Sasori realized that with Sakura, there will always be a game to play. 

[notgonnarememberthis]

Beautiful- Chapter 3

Mentions of anxiety attacks are included in this chapter, please be wary if this could be potentially harmful to you

Okay so I have 2 sets of news, one personal and one fandom-ish related.

Personal: Please be patient with my updating schedule from this week on cause I’m about to move out of state in order to go to college which is a pretty huge move for a girl that hasn’t spent more than a weekend away from her parents so I’m begging you have some patience with me for the next 2 ish weeks I will try my hardest to work out some updates for you guys.

Fandom-ish: I’ve made a Pinterest account (which is weird cause just last year I vowed to never use Pinterest...) Anyways there I will post aesthetics for my fics that I’ve made so if you want to check those out in order to take a peek at my looks into the stories I write I’m “lgbtliu”. 

Do you guys like the layout of the story so far? 2 stories per chapter in order to build up to future narritive?

February 5, 2015 - February 19, 2015

Joan Watson is the epitome of secrecy. Not to say that she has a lot of secrets to keep but rather she keeps to herself. She’d quicker comfort others than allow others to comfort her much less even know anything is wrong at all. She talks to others in the precinct, sure, she even goes out of her way to talk to Not Marcus and Not Gregson. Joan has been lecturing Sherlock for weeks to at least learn the names of the other officers but he just can’t see the purpose when they seem to have a revolving door of them. The blonde with green eyes that’d joined just a month ago was transferred to the ninety-ninth precinct and his partner left shortly after finding out she was pregnant with her first child. Really there are a lot more things that deserve his attention. That’s not to say he doesn’t notice when Watson doesn’t throw her normal smile towards Glasses or when she denies the raspberry muffin Pink Tie offers her when they’d got his order wrong. Strange in itself because that is her favorite flavor.

He’s carefully studying a case when he hears the shattering of a glass echo through the nearly quiet Brownstone. The only other sound being Clyde’s quiet munching on lettuce. Watson had gone to bed nearly an hour ago. Judging by recent patterns she should be sleeping by now. It can’t hurt to check though. He softly pads up the stairs pushing open her door softly. The window is open, curtains billowing in the cool wind of the night.

In the gleam of the hallway light he spies Watson sitting up in her bed, one hand curled up in the sheets the other clutching her chest. She doesn’t look towards him but rather towards an invisible entity. It takes mere seconds to recognize that her body is trembling and she isn’t breathing. A glass lies shattered, likely knocked off her table in a fit.

He springs into action placing himself in front of her. Sherlock flicks on the lamp beside her bed showering the room in a yellow light. Her eyes are glassy and she still doesn’t seem to see him. He goes through a list in his mind of all the people who’d want to hurt her, hurt him… Memories of Watson coming home after Andrew had been killed flood through his mind.

He places a hand on her throat taking her heart rate without potentially startling her or hurting her more. Curiously her heart rate is rapid against his fingertips. At this stage her heartbeat would be slow and weak if it was Hemlock. Now he recognizes the panic reflecting  in her eyes. Woken by night terrors Watson is having an anxiety attack.

He switches his tactics rushing downstairs to fetch a bottle of water. He’s back up in seconds, his mind rushing to calculate the longest amount of time a woman of Watson’s physique could hold her breath before passing out. When he reaches her once more she’s taking shuddering breaths but she’s no more aware of her surroundings than she was before. He takes her hand gently placing the water in her fingers and guiding it to her lips.

She drinks greedily as if she’s been parched for days. Her body settles from uncontrollable trembling to the occasional jerk of limbs in shock. He holds her settling for talking about a case until she stops shaking. She’s not cognizant throughout the ordeal but she seems to be soothed by his voice. The jerking would start up once more as soon as he fell silent. Steadily into the night her body relaxes and she falls into a fitless sleep once more. Carefully he extracts himself from her bed and cleans up the glass. By morning she’s her old self once more and shows no signs of remembering any of the incident.

It becomes a habit now. He leaves something on her nightstand that she could easily knock over without damaging in order to alert him of another fit. He finds new methods to calm her every once in awhile. Once he takes Clyde with him and intertwines her fingers in his in order to trace the patterns of the tough shell. Another time he plays the violin for her. Those two are the more effective of methods. He tries incense, sensory isolation, calming sounds but nothing compares to her relaxation at the sound of his voice. She falls back asleep within fifteen minutes of listening to him ramble on about cases, Clyde’s antics, the whereabouts of Alfredo and Mrs. Hudson. It doesn’t matter what he speaks of as long as he speaks.

When her scream tears through the walls of the Brownstone he’s pretty sure his heart stops. It’s the kind of fear that has his heart sinking to his stomach as he scales the stairs two steps at a time abandoning the evidence lying in his lap. He forces the door open and surely enough Watson is sitting in the middle of her bed, eyes shut tightly screaming as loudly as she can. He leaps in settling his hands next to her in fear of startling her further. That’s the last thing he wants right now.

“No!” Her voice breaks as she sobs, shoulders wracking with pain. He assesses her body for injury and is relieved to find no obvious signs of worry. Of course other than the normally calm and collected woman to be curled so tightly into a ball he’s sure she’ll leave marks on her own legs.

“Easy Watson. It’s me.”

“Please.” She cries. He’s careful to have her meet his eyes. He takes her chin softly into his fingers coaxing her head up to look at him. “Make it stop.” She pleads. He winds his free hand into her hair pulling her close. She goes willingly clutching to the back of his t-shirt wrinkling the material in her fists. He pulls her until she’s practically settled into his lap, pressing a kiss to her hair he lays them both down.

He begins his rambling once more eventually landing on the tale of the one time he’d been with his father on a business trip to America. He’d met a woman with the hair the color of a raven’s wing and skin that was painted with stars dotting her skin. He brushes it off but at one point he swears he feels her spine shake a bit and a chuckle bubble against the skin of his chest where her face lies. He continues because she’s never remembered any of these talks anyways. He’s told her stories once more when she was more aware of her surroundings and no recognition flashed in her eyes. He tells her about the odd habits the woman had regarding the programs she watched. Eating habits that were certainly that of an American college student. He still shivers a little at the idea of kool aid and pickles combined like some Frankenstein concoction.

Suddenly she picks her head up and he swears for a moment he sees clarity flash in her eyes. “Sean?” She asks. His heart skips several beats as his eyes search his. He runs his options through his mind: take a gamble and confess, pretend he never knew her name, soothe her back to sleep and hope she doesn’t remember any of this in the morning like always.

“Sh go back to sleep now Watson.” He whispers pressing a soft kiss to the top of her hair. She doesn’t even protest her hair tickling his chest as she burrows deeper. Funny, he’d never taken Watson for the cuddling type. His eyes feel heavier as he tracks her breathing. So long that it’s even she will be fine he will be able to slip out safely.

In, two three four. Out, two three four. The pattern lulls him pulling him tighter into the sweet serenity. To the smell of lavender and sandalwood that is Watson. The light scrape of nails as she clutches to him as he shifts to make sure he doesn’t fall asleep.

He can’t help it as his eyes fall shut.

When he wakes Watson is sitting up clutching the blanket to her chest. Her hair is disheveled and her clothes likewise. She can feel his eyes on her back. “How long?” Her voice breaks the silence. The question holds so many implications in it only furthered by the silence. There is a lump in his throat and he wonders how much she’s remembered.

“How long?” He questions.

“How long have I been having anxiety attacks?” She clarifies looking back at him now. Her eyes are red rimmed and her face a tad puffy. She’d been crying. “Answer me honestly.”

“Two weeks.” He confesses.

“Two weeks?” She spins around glaring at him accusingly. “Why didn’t you tell me? You mean to say that you’ve spent two weeks in my bed without my knowledge?” She snaps.

“No.” He rubs his face trying to gain some of the clarity that was just dangling right in front of his face but at the same time just out of reach. “I’ve come in here every night since the first incident. You couldn’t breathe. I’d assumed…”

“March.” She sighs.

“You never know with her minions. Dead or not.” He frowns. “I got you a water and stayed with you until you settled then left. Last night was the first time the screaming started. I stayed with you until you fell back asleep like normal but it took longer than the others. I suppose I fell asleep in the meantime. I apologize.”

“Don’t.” Joan’s eyes fall to the bed sheets picking at a tear. “About seventeen years ago I got into a car crash with my roommate’s brother. He’d been asking me out for months and insisted. He was in and out of the hospital for a really long time. One day they just found him collapsed in the living room. He died hours later of an aneurysm. Sixteen years ago today. They said it was directly caused by the crash.” She lets out a long sigh and tips her head back to ward off the tears. “I was supposed to drive that night but he insisted. I walked out of it with nothing more than a few bruises and a broken toe. Michael had lasting brain damaged and died because I didn’t take the damn keys.” She turns from him now. He understands that she doesn’t want him to see her cry.

“I’m so sorry Watson.” He whispers placing his hand on top of hers. The tender moment is gone as soon as her phone rings. She picks it up quickly trying to expel herself from the conversation.

“Gregson needs us at a crime scene. Says it’s urgent.”

With a nod they separate once more from each other.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

December 2, 2015

“Truly you’re making a bad habit of lingering in doorways almost saying what you wish to say.” Sherlock turns over his newest project to find Watson standing in the door frame unbothered by the fact that he’d just caught her in the act of spectating him. He leans over his tattoo gun inspecting it thoroughly. They are currently working on a case that involved poison being laced in the ink.

The victim, Lily Morgan was a twenty one year old female who’d just desired getting a tattoo of her fiance’s name across the base of her spine. Of course that didn’t end well for Miss Morgan. Suspicions bounce between several suspects and they’ve no clue who to pin it on just yet.

“Are you going to say what’s on your mind or am I going to guess.”

“You know I always thought of getting a tattoo.” The statement nearly made him drop his pen in shock. “I never found something with enough meaning I guess.” She shrugs.

“Do you trust me?” The question slips past his lips before his filter even has time to process it much less stop the words from spilling out. Her eyes flash between her own stage of shock then to playfulness. In the look he can see the younger Joan once more. Heat flashes across his body and before he can register she’s shrugging off that red cardigan she holds so dear along with the tank top. She remains standing in nothing but a sports bra and shorts. It’s a challenge, he registers.

“For my eyes only. I don’t want anyone else to be able to see it.” She says with a pointed look and a smirk. It’s as if she’s teasing him. Trying to see if he’ll go through with it. He lays a towel down on the sofa with a small smile.

“Very well.” He gestures to the couch. “Lie down on your left side won’t you?” She does as he says. He knows she commonly sleeps on her left side in order to turn herself away from the door when he suddenly barges in without question. “You didn’t answer my question. Do you trust me?” He pulls on a pair of gloves fiddling with the machine.

“With my life.” His hands stall for a second but he nods it off.

“Good. Now try to relax as best as you can.” He brushes his thumb over a pattern of freckles he could use as inspiration. Yes this will do quite nicely. He grabs a razor just to be safe carefully going over the area of question. He gets to work making sure at all times he isn’t causing her too much pain. Watson isn’t the first person he’s tattooed other than himself but he’s not willing to purposely cause her any sort of harm.

She’s grabbed a pillow hiding her face in it to muffle the quiet whimpers she can’t help from escaping her lips. He smiles softly once he finishes pulling away to gaze at his handiwork. She moves slightly in a move that he believes she intends to look at what he’s tattooed into her skin. He places a hand on her shoulder stilling her. Rather than having her move and cause potential discomfort to herself he snaps a picture of it using his phone and passes it to her.

“Sagittarius?” She questions. He’d used a pattern of her freckles to create a constellation of her zodiac sign just below her breast and on her side. “I thought you didn’t believe in horoscopes?” She teases with a small smirk.

“I don’t believe in them I believe in coincidences. A sagittarius is naturally curious, a clear thinker and tends to look at the bigger picture. Playful by nature they wish to experience life to the absolute fullest whether that be in learning to hone into a new skill or learning the truth. They are optimistic and inspiring in every single way.” Her eyes have not left his and suddenly he realizes the affection of which he was speaking.

“Sherlock…” A sharp knock cuts off what Watson was going to say next breaking the tense moment between the two of them.

“Ah that must be Marcus with the materials I need. I just can’t seem to synthesize the ink that was used in the parlor on Ms. Morgan. Stay put I’ll bandage you up once I get the things I need.”

“Wait are you saying that you used experimental ink on me?” She moves to sit up but the pain shooting through her side keeps her down.

“Of course not. Don’t you trust me?” He asks with a teasing grin before prancing off to answer the door.

“Sherlock!”

[dawnstruck]

dust and devils on my conscience

FMA RoyEd Pacific Rim 'verse. Non-linear story telling. [Read on AO3]

Mankind, like cockroaches, are tenacious little beasts.

i.

A kaiju is a fearsome thing. Vast and vicious and near-on invincible.

But mankind, like cockroaches, are tenacious little beasts.

They thrive, they survive. Even if many of them die. Even if Death, for some, is a promise.

xviii.

The first tentative step a Jaeger takes is always the most exhilarating. Like a roller-coaster ride, only that you are the loop, the sky, and gravity all at once.

Roy used to love this. He thinks he might be able to love it again.

The water crashes around them and then they move forward.

v.

Two truths. Roy wasn't in love with Maes and Maes wasn't in love with Roy.

That doesn't mean it hurts any less.

xiv.

“Revenge?!” Edward snaps. His metal fist beats against the metal wall to his right, just once, but it seems to set the entire room and everything in it ringing. “You honestly think this is about revenge for me?!”

The gleam in his eyes is furious. Roy does not flinch. He has faced down monsters. A mere boy does not intimidate him.

“Al and I have saved millions of lives,” Ed continues, “We've gone out there again and again, just like you and Hughes have, and you dare belittle me by simply calling it revenge?!”

It would be easy to make a quip about Edward's height then, but his rage is a curious thing. It makes him appear larger than he is and yet there is still so much of a child in him.

“If anything,” Ed adds and his voice is merely a whisper now, like the aftershocks of an earthquake, “You should get some revenge yourself.”

vi.

It's a strange feeling, to mesh your mind with someone so intricately and then have it ripped away within what is little more than an exhale. It's hurts and then it heals and then there is still that frayed edge, forever there at the seams of your conscience.

Roy resists the urge to pluck at the lose ends so he doesn't come undone.

xv.

“Sir,” Riza says, “Permission to speak openly?”

“Permission granted, Lieutenant,” Roy says, tiredly.

“Brigadier General Hughes enlisted to protect his family,” she says. She does not pull her punches, but she gives him a moment's notice to brace himself. “You owe it to him to continue doing so.”

Roy knocks back the whiskey and tries to drown the truth. But, like his nightmares, it swims.

viii.

The Elric brothers are the golden boys of the Jaeger program. They are young, handsome, congenial. Their sob story appeals to the public, both of them orphaned when a kaiju attack laid wreckage to the Australian coast line.

Their accents are as broad as their smiles and, all over the world, boys and girls alike collect posters and action figures of them.

Their Jaeger goes down somewhere close to Kyushu and, though official sources report them to be alive and stable, they do not appear in any morning shows for quite a while to come.

vii.

Riza outmatches him in the compatibility test. It's no surprise, really, but Roy cannot find it in himself to be disappointed. He's not sure he wants to let anyone into his head anyway.

It doesn't work with Jean or Heymans either. General Grumman pinches the tips of his mustache but does not concede defeat. He keeps sending other candidates at Roy, new recruits and seasoned pilots, but none of them are Maes, so it doesn't matter anyway.

iv.

Originally, they enlisted because it was the right thing to do and they took the test because they were curious. They hadn't known each other for long, barely enough to really call each other friends instead of comrades, so no one expected them to be drift compatible.

Their Jaeger is called Pyro Polaroid, a beautiful shiny thing, all gold and navy blue. Maes makes a fuzz after every battle, lamenting the scratches in the paint job as one would with a beloved old-timer.

Later, in his more macabre moments Roy thinks that maybe it was a good thing that Maes died because at least this way he didn't have to witness how Roy quite literally single-mindedly dragged Pyro Polaroid back to the shore and let her collapse against the cliffs. He didn't have to see her be decommissioned and ransacked for spare parts. He didn't have to watch Roy break just as efficiently.

ix.

The rumor reaches Roy when its subjects are already there. Then again, it's kind of hard to miss a giant Jaeger being flown into the base.

Roy doesn't have to guess who it is. The flaming red paint and black markings are enough of a giveaway.

Fullmetal Alchemist, despite the extensive damage she must have sustained, was a younger model and had thus been deemed worthy of repair. Similar things can be said for her pilots.

Alphonse Elric is being carted around the uneven floors of the base in a wheelchair, but his handshake is strong and his smile genuine.

“Looking forward to working with you,” he tells Roy as though it weren't unlikely that he'd ever walk again.

“Where on earth has Ed gone?” a young woman behind Al huffs. She has her hands on her hips and grease smears all over. She must be one of Fullmetal Alchemist's engineers.

“Probably making sure his baby is parked correctly,” Al replies, rolling his eyes. To Roy he says, “He's very particular about who gets to touch her.”

Who's going to co-pilot her then, Roy wants to ask but doesn't because the answer sure as hell is not Alphonse.

xi.

Edward fights as though he were participating in an illegal street fight, not looking for a drift partner. He's got his opponents on their backs in a matter of seconds and impatiently taps his bo staff against the floor mats as he waits for his next challenger.

“Come on,” he drawls. His skin glistens with sweat underneath his black tank top but morphs into scar tissue on his right shoulder. Somewhere in the crowd someone mutters how the automail gives him an unfair advantage. But drift compatibility is not about brute strength. It's about chess.

“Was that really it?” Ed asks now. His face is turned toward Grumman but his eyes are on Riza and her neat clipboard. She hesitates.

“There is one,” she says and when her gaze cuts over to Roy, Ed follows.

xxv.

The sunrise is made of seven colors, dyeing the sea and the sky. But the sun, the sun itself is bold and golden and almost bright enough to hurt Roy's eyes.

He does not look away.

xix.

They lose Arctic Briggs in the waves and Greed is rendered useless when Lan Fan is injured.

Ling gets her out, barely, and she survives, barely. Her remaining hand is red with her own blood as she clutches at Doctor Rockbell's bony wrist.

“Automail,” she grits out through the pain, “I can still fight. Give me automail.”

It took three years to get used to automail, one if you were as determined as Edward, but everyone knows that they only have days.

And yet, amid all the chaos and the destruction, it's easy to read Lan Fan's stubborn spite as hope.

“All right,” Doctor Rockbell says and gives a tight nod.

“Set the clock to zero,” Grumman orders and the bleak metal walls of the Shatterdome reflect his words like a mockingbird's song.

xxi.

Ed kisses like their staff fight might make one expect him to. Looking for openings, for weak spots, just this side of dirty. Roy matches him, kiss for kiss, and this is like their fight, too, this feeling of being alive, of being equal, of being in the right place at the right time.

xii.

Izumi Curtis coughs red blood into white handkerchiefs and observes Roy with narrow eyes.

Like him, she had once managed to pilot a Jaeger on her own. Unlike him, she had ended up with physical ruin instead of mental one.

“I found the boys in the rubble, hidden under the corpse of their mother,” she tells Roy what he has already heard on various radio shows, “I saw them grow old enough to enlist and I saw them nearly die at Kyushu. At some point you have to learn how to prioritize the world before your own fear.”

“I'm not afraid,” he says.

“Not of the kaiju,” she agrees.

xiii.

Roy tells himself he is merely embarrassed when he goes down the rabbit hole. He blames it on being unfamiliar with Fullmetal Alchemist and with how long it's been that he's been inside of a Jaeger at all.

He manages to jerk himself free, vaguely aware of the frantic voices breaking through his headset, only Riza's calm and reasonable. He does not look to his left to see Edward's face. He does not want his pity or his scorn. He does not want to think about how that boy has been inside of his head.

“I'm done here,” Roy croaks and runs away once more.

ii.

Roy flirts with show hosts, takes selfies with fans and ruffles little children's hair. He gives autographs and press conferences, wears tailored suits and debonair smiles. He's the bachelor, the playboy, the unattainable dream. Maes is the opposite, the family man, the goofball, the nerd, who makes dad jokes and shows off pictures of his family and his stamp collection.

They work well together, maintaining the perfect equilibrium of what the public wants to see. Dashing heroes, guys next door.

Maes does not talk about how Gracia silently cries whenever she has to watch him leave. Roy does not admit that maybe sometimes he drinks a little too much whiskey to forget the last trampled city and the corpses that came with it.

Instead, they are invited to dinner parties at the White House and appear on a sports car commercial. They are living the life, only that there is a lot of death involved, too.

xxii.

“We will pilot Greed,” Izumi announces. Sig is a mountain beside her, steady and silent.

“What?” Alphonse bursts out, “But you can't! Pinako said if you ever step foot into a Jaeger again, it's gonna kill you.”

Izumi smiles, fondly.

“Look around, kid,” she says, indicating the listless disarray of the Shatterdome, “If I don't do this, we are all going to die anyway.”

She looks over to Ed, catches his eye. His teeth are clenched and his arms crossed, but he holds her gaze. Then he gives a nod.

“Brother!” Alphonse protests. He looks very pale in the lights of his lab and it makes the red veins in his eyes even more glaring, “You can't-”

He breaks off, doesn't finish. It's the moment in which he realizes that he is not only going to lose his mentor but his brother, too.

“Oh,” he says, his voice tight with tears. But he must know that, one way or another, this was always going to happen.

x.

“Don't,” Doctor Rockbell says evenly, never even looking up from her newspaper. Smoking is not allowed in the base but no one seems to have told her that and so she is puffing away on her pipe.

Edward, who had been feeding Den scraps under the table, sends her a withering look.

“It's the end of the world,” he says, “The least we can do is die fat and happy.” It's says it easily, evasively. They all know it might be over soon. He says it as someone who knows better than others. Better than most.

“Why are you still fighting,” Roy asks, not sure if he even wants to know the answer, “If you think it's the end?”

Ed's eyes, even in the harsh fluorescent lights of the base, are as golden as few living things should be.

“Because if I don't,” Ed tells him, “It's gonna be game over either way.”

xvi.

Drift compatibility, generally speaking, makes sense.

Olivier Armstong and Artyom Buccaneer make sense because he has been serving under her for years. Ling and Lan Fan make sense because they grew up together. Sig and Izumi Curtis make sense because they are married and still madly in love.

Roy and Ed, on the other hand, should not make sense.

Ed's mind is a flurry of contradictions. Smiles tucked into the corners of his loved ones, Alphonse, their mother, Winry, Pinako. Izumi with a halo of the morning sun, a dead kaiju at her feet and a defunct Jaeger at her back, Izumi pale and with coughs shaking her asunder. Snippets of Al's mind interwoven with his own. Brandings of the precise moment in which Al lost feeling in his legs, of when Ed felt nothing but the absence of his own limbs. Metal grinding against kaiju scales, metal grinding into Ed's flesh and bone, fusing with his skin. Weeks and weeks of sitting by Al's bedside, waiting for him to wake up. Months and months of being useless, useless, useless. Day after day of dreadful news, broken walls, broken bodies.

And watching, always watching, as Winry and the rest of the team sew Fullmetal Alchemist back into her former glory, some uneven stitches here, some scars there, and Ed knows that you are never just piloting with your partner but with your Jaeger as well. He'll brave the oceans with her yet again and even the idea of doing it without Al doesn't hurt as much as it ought to.

Revenge, Roy had thought, when it had always been so much more than that.

xx.

“Oi,” Ed says, flicking an automail finger against Roy's wrist. The impact reverberates through Roy's bone marrow. “I'm not fucking piloting with you if you're hungover.”

“We share our minds, not our actual brains,” Roy tells him from experience. Maes had never complained about sympathy headaches the morning after Roy had drunk himself into a stupor again. But he had given Roy steady looks, not necessarily disappointed, but lingering a little too long for comfort. Ed is doing the same now, though his eyebrows are pinched, his eyes somber.

“What would you like me to do instead?” Roy says, offering a skeleton of a smile. He and Olivier had never gotten along but she had been Alex's sister and Roy blames himself for his failure. Without her and Buccaneer piloting Arctic Briggs, humanity is one, two, a dozen steps closer to extinction.

“Dunno,” Ed says. He scuffs the heel of his boot against the floor, shivering slightly. He's wearing an oversized sweater to fend of the perpetual cold of the Shatterdome. Does he miss the Australian heat? Does he miss his arm and leg underneath the phantom pain? Does he miss his mother like Roy misses Maes?

“Dunno,” Ed repeats, “But grief's gonna fuck you over if you don't fuck it back.”

“And how do you...,” Roy says, tilting his head to the side in mildly drunk curiosity, “Fuck grief back?”

Edward grins, boyish and brave and full of bad ideas.

“You fight,” he says as though it were a gospel.

A moment of enlightenment and then Roy sets his glass aside. He prays.

xvi.

Roy, to his chagrin, estimated the Elrics. Not just Edward, but Alphonse, too.

There is more to them than sun tanned skin and the lucky coincidence of being drift compatible.

“I had to do something,” Alphonse says with red bleeding into his hazel eyes. Roy wrinkles his nose against the invasive smell of the kaiju brain on the slab, but Edward doesn't even seem to notice, fuzzing over his younger brother like a nervous bird.

“What did you see?” Grumman wants to know.

“Their world,” Alphonse says and then he explains.

xxiii. Sex, in its many forms, is a form of survival. On the one hand, there is procreation. On the other, there is the instinct to affirm life, the urgency of one's last moments.

Cheap whiskey, Roy knows, does not compare to orgasm, but Edward's eyes have the same color.

The boy has not done this often, Roy thinks. Too earnest to bed one of his many groupies, too busy to bother with anyone else. On the surface, Edward seems to consist of little but Jaeger, kaiju, and his pickpocketed family. Underneath that, however, sits a deep-rooted fear of pain and loneliness and abandonment.

So he lets Roy fuck him in the face of death and destruction, and Roy fucks him in spite of it. He puts no promises into his kisses, no reassurances, because he doesn't have any. Instead, he weaves solace into Edward's hair, gentle reminders that for now – for now – they are here and alive and in each others' arms instead of each others' heads. It's little and lacking, but it's all they have and that makes it precious.

Roy does not dream that night.

iii.

“Ah,” Maes says, when they are playing cards without any gambles, “What will you do? When it's done, I mean.”

He never seems to doubt that it would be done, eventually. That humanity would win the fight and that life would return to how it was before the first kaiju appeared.

Roy thinks of how Maes himself would probably leave the military and take up a desk job somewhere else, something that allows him to be with Gracia and Elysia, something that doesn't count down his days like the war clock at the Shatterdome. Tick tick. Reset. Tick tick. Reset.

Roy, however, is not like that. Roy sees the horizon only when there is a new monster appearing on it. Roy never plans beyond that.

“I'd like to watch the sunrise,” he says and reveals his hand.

xxvi.

Mankind, like cockroaches, are tenacious little beasts.

xxiv.

“You mad cunt,” Edward yells against the wind. His hair is already wavy with sea salt, even though it can't have been more than a few minutes. Logically, Roy knows it can't have been more than a few minutes, even though it felt like eternity.

The memories of passing through the portal are both hazy and knife-sharp at the same time. He entered another world, another planet. And, what's more, he almost died. But he didn't.

“Are you all right?” he asks, somewhat numbly. There are voices coming from out of the escape pod, questions on whether everything worked out on their end, promises to come get them soon. He thinks he can hear helicopters in the distance.

“All right?” Edward repeats as though the definition of the word had just been fundamentally altered. The combination of his accent and adrenaline slur the words until he sounds almost drunk on elation. “All right?”

His fingers are on the collar of Roy's suit, a tether that is tender and terrible at the same time. His clammy forehead presses against Roy's.

“This is General Grumman,” Grumman's voice drones out of the pod. He sounds tinny and far away. The moment remains untouchable.

“The breach is sealed,” he announces, “Stop the clock!”

Roy kisses Ed.

[rachelcarsoncenter]

(Adventures in Stavanger, Part 1)

In this mini series you can read about the experiences of Johanna Felber and Malin Klinski, candidates of the RCC’s Environmental Studies Certificate program, during an exchange program with the University of Stavanger in Norway. If you want to find out more about life in the land of the midnight sun, trolls, and vikings, you are in the right place... 

By Johanna Felber and Malin Klinski

Stavanger is a place of contradictions. The fourth largest city of Norway is situated on the southwestern coastline. Depending on who you ask, you will hear quite different stories about the place. Some might talk about Stavanger as being Norway’s (or even Europe’s) petroleum capital. The big-oil resources have not only helped the city of Stavanger to accumulate wealth – they are also a symbol of the nation’s global economic importance. As recently as January 2020, the Norwegian government officially opened a new giant oil field, 140 kilometers off the shore of Stavanger. It is estimated to generate a maximum turnover of US $100 billion. Norway itself obtains its energy mostly from renewable sources, especially wind- and hydropower. Stavanger’s oil and gas are mainly export goods.

The other side of Stavanger is more in line with the picturesque face of the city. Countless ships still sail towards the old port; tiny wooden houses (often white, sometimes colorful like in the “color alley”), narrow streets, the fish market, and cobblestones make up the charm of the gamle (old town). Less well known is the impressive variety of street art, which can be discovered when wandering about.

The fjords around Stavanger are passageways to many of the smaller islands situated close to the shore. The best way to experience Stavanger’s natural beauty is going outdoors and exploring the landscapes surrounding the town. Once you stand on a rocky mountain overlooking the region, you realize how tales of trolls found their way into Norwegian folk tales.

Photo by the authors.

Fun Fact: Norwegians have a lot of words to describe weather, that don’t exist in the English language. Oppholdsvær, for example, means cloudy weather without rainfall, meaning great weather to go out into nature!

  On the Road

Our Stavanger adventure started in Munich. We drove up to Stavanger with Hanna’s red camping bus. It is like a little house, with a bed, a cooking stove and, most importantly in Norway, a heater. Hanna even sewed curtains to cover the windows and keep out the cold. Our journey led us to Hamburg, Aarhus, a beach on the very northern rim of Denmark, Hirtshals, and then to a small lake between Kristiansand and Stavanger, before we finally arrived on the university campus.

Malin lives in a student dormitory, just outside the main building of the University, and she was able to move in as soon as we arrived on campus. Hanna resides in a shared flat closer to the city center, from where she can cycle up the hill to the university. On a sunny day you can see quite far, right out to sea. Getting into town from the university by bike takes 30 minutes, up and down steep roads.

Beach in north Denmark

First morning in Norway, at a lake

  The University

Our courses at the University of Stavanger (UiS) are all connected to the local Master’s in Energy, Environment and Society – an interdisciplinary program. The focus is mainly on environmental and energy politics from a global, comparative perspective. The entire interior design of the university is cozy and thought through. From light installations to plant pots, cushions, colourful wallpapers, fluffy carpets and artistic paintings – Norwegians know how to make spending a lot of time indoors bearable. This is quite important when you can’t leave the house for a short stroll because the wind is howling relentlessly and the rain splashing mercilessly against the windowsills. The Norwegian weather forecast’s website is called yr.no, which means something like “drizzling rain.”

The university library is more of an open, creative space. You can find rocking chairs, beanbags and hammock-pergolas. You are allowed to play games, speak loudly and bring your own food. When we first visited the library and a housemate of Malin’s waved and shouted, “What’s up?” through the hall, we winced in unison. Even though it felt a little weird in the beginning, we quickly adapted to the local habits – and brought some cinnamon buns and tea into the library while discussing the first paper we had to submit.

One of the reasons we have decided to come to Stavanger is the Greenhouse at UiS. Dolly and Finn Arne Jørgensen, two researchers in the field of environmental history, initiated this platform for sharing research, developing ideas and projects, and discussing environmental topics. A couple of professors and PhD candidates join them in the weekly Greenhouse Lunch, where current themes and activities are shared, planned, and promoted. We have also been there once and were heartily welcomed to the group. Unfortunately, the lunch is coinciding with one of our seminars, but we will join them again soon for other events, in a second installation in this miniseries, will keep you updated about what the environmentalists here are thinking and working on.

No, these pictures don’t show a fancy hipster café – it is the university library

  Exploring Nature

Until now, we have tried to get outside as much as possible. Stavanger’s surroundings offer countless possibilities for experiencing nature. We both became members of the UiS friluftsliv group (outdoor sport group), which organizes all kinds of outdoor activities. Most of the hikes in the area are easily accessible by public transport, with some entailing underwater tunnel rides and ferry cruises. It is definitely worth visiting the Vigdel beach, close to Sola. We wandered on wooden planks through pliant dunes, climbed over rugged, craggy cliffs, and saw a rainbow appearing from the depths of the stormy sea. Moreover, it is an excellent spot to have a picnic and eat homemade cinnamon rolls with loads of confectioner’s sugar. Another nice tour is taking the public bus to the island of Rennesøy and wandering along the steep cliff towards the mountain range. It really is an adventure path and no matter where you go, it is impossible not to take dozens of breaks to admire the view. With the friluftsliv group we went on two different hiking trips that both ended with a bonfire. We grilled marshmallows and roasted home-made bread dough on sticks over the flames.

  On another weekend trip we joined some members of the friluftsliv group on a ski tour with the Norwegian mountain club DNT in the region of Sirdal, about two hours drive from Stavanger. We didn’t really know what we signed up for, as the tour was a mixture of slalom, cross country skiing, and snowshoe hiking. The scenery was beautiful, it was an experience we wouldn’t have wanted to miss, but we still found ourselves with incredible muscle aches on Monday morning.

One of the most popular leisure activities in Norway is spending time in cabins. We slept in two different cabins on our ski trip, and learned that there are quite some things to be aware of when signing up for such overnight stays. After eight hours of tour-skiing through the snowy mountains on just the first day, we finally arrived at our cabin.

We felt like doing nothing more than falling into one of the bunk beds and closing our eyes. But two Norwegians girls still had enough motivation to take off all their skiing equipment, run down the hill, and jump into the icy water of the river running by. Malin decided to join in the experience. The water was so incredibly cold that you couldn’t even feel it anymore. It is a miracle how the body still manages to function in these temperatures.

Compared to this experience, lugging the water buckets from that same river back up to the fireplace was a rather relaxing task. After so much physical activity and fresh air we were really hungry, and nothing on earth could taste better than pasta with tomato sauce then. With a heavy woolen blanket thrown around our shoulders and the dim light of the candles (which were lighted to save electricity) the evening was made even more cozy. We played cards and told stories about our favorite hiking trips. One thing we learned from that skiing trip in Sirdal was that the further you are away from a proper road, internet connection, and running water, the more hyggelig it gets!

The word hyggelig can mean a lot of different things. It translates to pleasant, good, nice, secure, intimate, snug, and comfortable. It describes a feeling or impression – if you find yourself sitting content, tired but warm, at a fireplace after a long day, you will know what it really is about.

  The way to the heart is through the stomach

Food is very expensive in Norway. This is a fact. A bowl of simple green salad costs 7 euros in the university cafeteria. The only way around this is making your own food, and being creative. The 20 people that share the kitchen in Malin’s student dormitory come from 15 different countries. Since arriving, we have cooked many different dishes from various regions of the world in this kitchen. We made huge amounts of hummus and falafel and spent hours rolling sushi. One day we prepared pizza dough and tiramisu for the entire house, with instructions from Jacopo, an Italian student from Milan. The more people share the food you cook, the more affordable it becomes.

We even joined in the International Food Festival of the university. Teams received 40 euros to buy groceries and cook traditional food from their country. The winning team receives vouchers for the cafeteria. Unfortunately, we didn’t win – competing with countries like India, Vietnam, and Mexico, we were hard challenged from the outset! In the end, the winner was South Korea.  We made Semmelknödel and Scheiterhaufen –  spinach and parsley dumpling with creamy mushroom sauce, and a sweet dessert made from old bread, milk, cinnamon, apples, berries and loads of sugar. We had a lot of fun and more people than we expected complimented our food.

Team Germany – not expecting to win, but still in a good mood. Hanna, David, Malin, and Kevin are posing for the team photo. David and Kevin study sport science.

Despite the often non-existent sunshine, we really enjoyed our first month in Stavanger. A lot of things are still on our bucket list for the next months, so we will surely not get bored. One of the most important things is learning Norwegian, which will hopefully give us the chance to dive deeper into the culture. We will share our experiences in snakke norsk med nordmanner and everything else that left us sometimes clueless, sometimes smiling, during our exchange in Stavanger in our next blog post.

Opplevelser I Stavanger (Adventures in Stavanger, Part 1) In this mini series you can read about the experiences of…

[cobscookpm]

Winning by doing the right thing

Bill Hoberg is co-owner of Glass-Rite Windows & Doors. The company is being honored this year with an Ethics in Business Award. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Ethics are a matter of basic common sense to the winners of this year’s New Mexico Ethics in Business Awards.

The winners don’t talk much about things like ethics training. Instead, they focus on simply doing right by customers and the people they serve.

Glass-Rite Windows & Doors is the winner in the for-profit business category, while the individual award goes to Ralph Baldwin, CEO of Enterprise Builders Corp.

Sterling Brown, director of clinical services at Haven Behavioral Health of Albuquerque, is the Young Ethical Leader of the year, and Special Olympics New Mexico is the nonprofit organization winner.

Glass-Rite Windows & Doors, owned by brothers Bill and Steve Hoberg, have strived to keep customers happy by delivering a quality product at a fair price. Their business is a winner in the New Mexico Ethics in Business Awards. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)

“It’s not that hard to do the over-and-above to make (customers) happy,” said Glass-Rite owner and President Bill Hoberg, adding, “It makes me happier every day.”

This year’s awards program is hosted by Central New Mexico Community College, which took over after longtime sponsor Samaritan Counseling Center closed last year.

“We’re very proud that these four will be the first winners with CNM as the host,” said Samantha Sengel, chief advancement and community engagement officer for the college. “They don’t know it yet, but they’ll be part of the CNM family.”

The award winners were nominated last year and went through an extensive review by students from the University of New Mexico’s Anderson School of Management. A nine-member selection committee interviewed finalists and chose the winners.

“By the time you get to the finalist stage, they’re all impressive,” said committee Chairman Eric Weinstein, executive vice president of Aon Risk Solutions. “They’re rewarding to learn about.”

He said the winners honor the legacy of the awards program. The committee can select up to three winners in the for-profit category. In the last few years, it chose two firms. This year, it felt strongly about just one of the finalists, Weinstein said.

CNM, CNM Ingenuity and the CNM Foundation will be involved in the program going forward, and proceeds from the annual event will support ethics training programs and help fund scholarships for CNM students dedicated to ethics.

CNM is excited to use the awards program as a springboard to heighten the conversation about ethics in the community and plans to host a community discussion this fall, Sengel said.

Glass-Rite

From the time Bill Hoberg and his brother, Steve, bought Glass-Rite Windows & Doors in 1988, they have strived to keep their customers happy by delivering a quality product at a fair price.

That can be a tough order to fill in the remodeling business, but the Hobergs focus on making things right.

“You may spend more money on a job, but in the end you have a customer who likes you, who recommends you,” Bill Hoberg said, adding that he doesn’t have a lot of unhappy ex-employees or suppliers either. Even employees who have been fired have returned to buy Glass-Rite windows.

The Hobergs built a culture of putting customers first, from the guys who work in the shop to the folks who install their products.

“A lot of it comes down to how much the employees care about the (customers),” Hoberg said. “The ones who don’t care don’t stay for long.”

That attitude is part of what earned Glass-Rite the Rust Award for Excellence in Ethical Business Practice by a For-Profit Business.

Glass-Rite has many repeat customers and gets more than 60 percent of its business from word-of-mouth. The company has won Super Service Awards from Angie’s List in every year but one since 2007.

When the Environmental Protection Agency made lead-based paint testing mandatory for window replacement projects, Glass-Rite faced a potential ethical dilemma. The company could have skirted the requirement, as Hoberg said many other companies have done, but instead it spent about $20,000 to gear up for the testing.

“That puts us at odds where we have to charge more and do more, but I think it’s the right thing to do,” Hoberg said.

Glass-Rite also is actively involved in the community. Employees work on company time to help build ramps for seniors as part of the Home Builders Association of Central New Mexico’s Care program. Glass-Rite has participated in efforts with the Make a Wish Foundation, Habitat for Humanity and Endorphin Power Co.

“Their contribution is significant and solid,” said Doug Keaty, a general contractor and chairman of Home Builders Care. “They’re always willing to help and eager to give back to the community.”

Keaty said Glass-Rite also is a green company, selling energy-efficient windows that are made in New Mexico to handle weather extremes and don’t experience the elevation-related problems of windows manufactured at sea level. Making windows locally also helps the Albuquerque economy and avoids transportation impacts of shipping products from out of state, he said.

Ralph Baldwin

Ralph Baldwin says his company, Enterprise Builders, focuses on developing relationships with clients and earning their trust and confidence. It was a winner in this year’s Ethics in Business Awards. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal)

Just as the Hoberg brothers were taking over Glass-Rite about three decades ago, Ralph Baldwin was starting up Enterprise Builders with his partner, David Doyle.

Albuquerque was in the midst of a severe commercial construction downturn, the firm where they both worked was shutting its doors and there were few other opportunities. So, they took out second mortgages on their homes and founded their own construction business.

“The big motivation, truly, was that we thought we could do it quicker, better, smarter, faster and less expensively for customers,” Baldwin said. “We’ve always held that any business transaction has to be a win-win for everybody. A win-lose transaction in my mind is really a lose-lose.”

Winning the PNM Award for Individual Excellence in Ethical Business Practice has been mind-boggling for Baldwin, who said he was humbled to be “recognized for doing the right thing.”

His company has focused on building relationships with clients and earning their trust and confidence. Enterprise still is doing work for one of its first clients and has built many projects for Presbyterian Healthcare Services and other firms.

It also offers generous benefits that have helped build a workforce of 44 full-time employees, including many who have been with the company more than two decades. The firm has a tradition of promoting from within, resulting in low employee turnover, and has converted to an employee stock option plan.

“Truly, everybody shares in the rewards of the company,” Baldwin said.

Corporate giving and community involvement also are priorities for Enterprise, which donates to the Presbyterian Healthcare Foundation and is a co-sponsor of its Laughter is the Best Medicine fundraiser.

“We really focus on giving back because we understand that the community is what allows us to be successful,” Baldwin said.

When it comes to ethics, he said, it’s a simple matter of respect, honesty and doing what you say you’ll do. “What would you do if mom was sitting at the table?” he asked. “It’s that simple.”

Special Olympics New Mexico

Athletes take part in a Special Olympics hockey tournament in Farmington. The organization offers sports training and competition in 12 sports to people with intellectual disabilities. (Courtesy of Rebecca Rainsberger/Special Olympics New Mexico)

This year’s Hopkins Award for Excellence in Ethical Practice by a Nonprofit Organization went to Special Olympics New Mexico, which has been serving the state since 1977.

The organization offers sports training and competition in 12 sports to people with intellectual disabilities, teaching them teamwork, commitment and the principle of practice leading to improvement.

“We transform their lives through sport, improve quality of life and build inclusive communities statewide,” said Executive Director Randy Mascorella.

At state competitions, volunteer health professionals offer screenings as part of the Healthy Athletes initiative. For example, an athlete might see a dentist or have a vision exam so they can be fitted with eyeglasses that allow them to see the golf ball or the basketball rim when they compete.

The United Champion Schools program partners special education and regular education students to play sports together, teaching acceptance and reducing bullying.

Special Olympics works hard to put the athletes first and, as long as it is doing that, it is doing things right, Mascorella said, adding that the organization must make decisions and build relationships with the highest standards because its actions reflect on the athletes. “If we weren’t seen in the best light, people would think badly of them.”

Sometimes putting the athletes first – all the athletes – can lead to difficult decisions. When Special Olympics athletes gather to compete at the 50th anniversary games in Seattle this year, New Mexico will be the only state not represented.

“We’ve received quite a lot of pressure,” Mascorella said, explaining that she could not justify spending $60,000 or more to send a team at a time when the organization is facing budget troubles. “That (money) would make a big difference here for the other athletes that we’re serving.”

Sterling Brown

Sterling Brown, director of clinical services at Haven Behavioral Health of Albuquerque, is the one of the winners in this year’s New Mexico Ethics in Business Awards. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal)

Ethical challenges come with the territory for licensed clinical social worker Sterling Brown. As director of clinical services at the Haven Behavioral Health inpatient psychiatric facility in Albuquerque, he regularly makes tough decisions.

“In social work in general, there are a lot of ethical gray areas,” he said. “We’re dealing with human lives.”

Brown, 30, is the winner of the Young Ethical Leader award.

At Haven, he has responsibility for the care and legal status of patients and often must decide whether to commit someone to treatment against their wishes or to refuse inpatient care.

“That’s something I have to put a lot of my heart and my decisional capacity into – forcing someone to stay in a locked facility when they don’t want to stay and don’t think anything’s wrong with them,” Brown said.

In other cases, patients want to be admitted but don’t meet the clinical criteria. Brown also must juggle the sometimes-competing needs of patients and the for-profit hospital for which he works.

“I have to constantly walk a line of making sure we have a full census and making sure the patients we’re bringing in need the services,” he said. “I get a lot of really awesome support from my CEO here as well as the other directors. … When it comes to making ethical decisions, it’s always something that requires a lot of support and a lot of experience.”

Brown, who is responsible for intake and social services at the adult hospital, oversees a staff of 23 counselors.

“My passion really is in severe mental illness,” he said. “It can be really intense, but that’s also what I find to be the most fulfilling.”

Brown also is an adjunct teacher at New Mexico State University’s Albuquerque campus, is on track to earn his doctorate in behavioral health this summer and is married with three young children.

19th Annual New Mexico Ethics in Business Awards Banquet WHEN: 5:30-8:30 p.m., April 25 WHERE: Sandia Resort and Casino SUGGESTED ATTIRE: Cocktail/business professional TICKETS: 505-224-4685 or ethicsinbusinessnm.com/rsvp/

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Kennedy Meeks' Personality Has Won Over the Raptors and His Game Might, Too

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports Canada.

Had you walked into any room that Kennedy Meeks occupied during the course of Las Vegas Summer League this week, your eyes would have been drawn to him immediately. At 6'9", he doesn't necessarily stand out in a sea of NBA players and hopefuls, but there is a palpable gravitational pull from his personality. He is often laughing, almost always smiling, and making quick friends of nearly everyone.

"His personality's great, right?" says Jama Mahlalela, co-coach of the Toronto Raptors' Summer League team. "He's kind of that big teddy bear type personality. He's good with everyone, you can tell he's sort of developed those skills."

Ask around the Raptors organization, and Meeks is on everyone's short list of favorite people they've met during years of the pre-draft process. Talk to his current teammates in Vegas, and Meeks is a common, almost unanimous answer as someone players have gotten to know in the chaotic week-plus in which chemistry is either forged quickly or isn't forged at all. Speak to his former North Carolina teammates, and it's clear that Meeks is a connector between people and a link between teams.

It's hard to find someone with an unkind word to say about Meeks, the person, which is a big part of the reason the Raptors have invested in Meeks, the basketball player.

"It's hard to not love his personality," says Raptors assistant general manager Dan Tolzman. "He's gonna come and he's gonna light up a room in terms of his approach. It's hard to not be drawn to guys like that. We talk about it all the time, whether it's assignment players or two-ways or G-League guys—the more that it's easy with them, the less maintenance, and the more they buy in to the situation they're in and being a part of the big extended family, the better it is for everybody."

Meeks helped North Carolina win a national championship in his senior year. Photo by Mark J. Rebilas-USA Today Sports

To be clear, the Raptors are intrigued by Meeks as a basketball player, too.

While he went undrafted after four years at North Carolina, the Raptors moved swiftly to bring him into the fold. The deal hasn't been officially announced, but the Raptors signed Meeks to what's known as an Exhibit 10 contract in late June. It's a deal the Raptors can convert to an NBA contract or one of the league's new two-way contracts but in all likelihood will see Meeks come to training camp with the team then become a G-League affiliate player, earning a $50,000 bonus as a supplement to his G-League salary if he sticks around a certain amount of time.

"I think the Toronto Raptors staff believed in me from the jump. I know the business. They only had one pick, and I honestly think if they had a second one, then they would have picked me," Meeks says. "That's not the way it goes sometimes. Everything isn't a fairytale. I'm the type of person that's always optimistic and likes to think ahead and always believes in myself, so that's the main thing I focus on each and every time."

And so he has faith he'll eventually fight his way onto the roster. For now, he's a part of their Vegas team, scoring 27 points on 22 shots with 13 rebounds in 37 minutes. It's a solid start to his professional career, making an immediate short-burst impact as the team's played to a 3-1 mark.

That's a lot of scoring in a hurry, and he hasn't exactly been shy trying to impress. From an analytic perspective, the Raptors feel his elite rebounding should translate, and his defensive metrics are friendlier than his reputation in terms of impact at that end. His free-throw percentage and a lack of 3-point attempts would suggest he doesn't have much future as a shooter, but there is system context to what range he could show, and the Raptors are believers in his ability to eventually stretch the shot out.

For his part, Meeks was just eager to show that range out of the gate in Vegas. With his friend J. Cole sitting courtside—yes, that J. Cole, with whom Meeks has grown close through some mutual friends, and who hooked up tickets to his concert the night prior (again: people really like Meeks)—Meeks stepped into a feathery triple, his first three since high school.

Not everyone loves Meeks as a prospect, something he's keenly aware of (and willing to debate). Among the primary public draft rankings, Meeks didn't register in any top 60. Four years (itself often considered a negative) of plateaued production make him anything but a sure thing. There are concerns about his athleticism, about his defense, and, as has been the case since he was a 300-pound high-schooler, about his conditioning.

Meeks dropped about 30 pounds over the course of his college career, and the Raptors are hopeful that getting under the umbrella of an NBA organization will help him further refine his body. The Raptors also play more methodically than the up-and-down Tar Heels, and there's now the added incentive of the NBA being in close proximity.

"With the right carrot in front of him or the proper staffers that we have pushing him and getting him to the point and really working on him and driving him, he has the ability to—we've seen it, he's gone from where he was in high school to where he is now, and now with all our resources, where can we get him to next?" Tolzman says. "That's what's intriguing about him."

For now, Meeks is mostly keeping it simple—the effect of small changes like more water and proper sleep know no bounds—and doing what's suggested. It seems somewhat shocking given the limitations that were attached to Meeks' scouting profile entering the draft, but he even has eyes on a transition to power forward. The Raptors are deep at center but a little thin at the four, and Meeks is nothing if not pragmatic.

"It's a little more difficult when you're getting out in transition and you forget to stay outside 'cause you're so used to going down low and running to the front of the rim and posting up, and those type of things. I'm always up to learn something new, and these guys do a great job of trying to help me," Meeks says. "I'm pretty sure I won't play center in the NBA. I'll pretty much be a power forward. I mighta just lucked up, man. To play behind Serge [Ibaka] isn't too bad."

The Raptors can see it, too, though it's going to take some time. He'll need every bit of his nice post footwork to materialize in terms of lateral movement as he slims down further and strays from the paint, and he'll need his soft touch around the rim to materialize in consistent range. If everything falls into place, the Raptors can squint and see an exceptional rebounding power forward with a solid face-up game and at least show-me range.

Always smiling. Photo by Nelson Chenault-USA TODAY Sports

"I think he has an innate skill for the game. I think he has a feel for spacing and where to go," Mahlalela says. "Now, the biggest challenge with him is he's been a five traditionally his entire career, and now we're looking at him [and wondering] can he be a four in our system in an NBA brand of basketball? He's now trying to rework his spacing, so that innate feel that he has for the game, he now needs to replace it and figure it out at a different position. So it's actually been a pretty big growth curve for him, figuring out what he does at the four versus the five. He's taking steps every day with that."

The natural feel Meeks has for the game comes up often. A big part of Toronto's faith in his ability to transition and develop is borne from that intelligence on the floor, and it's something that makes itself clear not only to teammates but to those observing the team throughout the week.

"Meeks is an interesting player in that he knows how to play," Raptors head coach Dwane Casey says. "Not overly athletic but smart, played in a great program at Carolina. He's done a good job of reading situations and doing the fundamental things. Great hands, soft hands, the way he scores around the basket with not a lot of explosion. He's a very interesting player for our team. I know Kennedy's done an excellent job of getting in great shape, he's lost a lot of weight, he could lose more and he probably will. He has some intangibles that you can't teach."

It can be difficult to stare at a depth chart here in mid-July, with several more camp invites to be handed out, and try to figure exactly where an undrafted free agent might fit. The Raptors theoretically have a hole at power forward, but if Meeks' transition is going to take some time, it might be a project better undertaken with Raptors 905. If he's a center, the Raptors aren't exactly in need. He might disagree.

"Oh no, I'm focused on making the team, for sure," Meeks says. "Like I said, I always believe, above and beyond. I think they also believe that, too. I can bring the rebounds to the game, I can bring the low-post scoring, and I can set the big-time screens. My main goal is to make the team and whatever happens happens after that."

Things change quickly, as Toronto's offseason can attest. However things shake out, the Raptors would be thrilled to have Meeks somewhere in the organization, adding another beacon of the culture they're trying to instill. Wherever he winds up, he figures to be the most popular person in the room.

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