#the eve songs were motivating me so i wanted to see what i could animate and what i couldnt

[angryborzois]

small perspective practice feat. baji trio

[snowbellewells]

Self Promo Sunday: “Kingdom Come”

This is another one of my early Captain Swan one shots, this one written during the hiatus between 3a and 3b.  The idea entered my head when I first heard "Demons" by Imagine Dragons, which is where the title and the lyrics included come from. There was also some added inspiration from episode 3x06 "Ariel" and episode 3x07 "Dark Hollow". I don't think there is anything in here that goes against show canon; it's mostly imagined thoughts and missing scenes that go along with what has happened, and some guesses at what we may see when "Once" returns again in March.

As always, I have no claim to the show, the characters, or the song used. They belong to their creators and I'm merely celebrating their genius!

Also available on both AO3 and ff.net

“Kingdom Come”

by: @snowbellewells​

He knew that he should have kept his distance. She was shining light in contrast to his dark shadow, and a villainous wretch was the last sort she needed to have dogging her steps. Yet from their first meeting – knife at his throat, fingers fisted in his hair, hard, dangerous eyes hiding tense, nervous fear – he hadn't been able to pull away. He had no choice but to follow her. Call it a compulsion, an addiction, but he was as drunk on her as he had ever been on his chosen rum, and he despaired from the moment she left him chained atop that bloody beanstalk to any time she had left his side since.

The words Cora had hissed at him in warning echoed back to him, "You chose her…and the consequences of that decision…" Whether it was good or bad for either of them didn't seem to matter to his black, barely-beating heart. It was true: he had chosen the Swan girl…

When the days are cold

and the cards all fold

and the saints we see

are all made of gold

When your dreams all fail

and the ones we hail

are the worst of all

and the blood's run stale

It had become even clearer to him after the Echo Caves. When he had bared his soul and the feelings he harbored for her to be met with only silence and Emma's panicked uncertainty, fearless pirate he might be, but Killian Jones knew he should take a step back. The incredible, unparalleled kiss they had shared in the Neverland jungle told him the Savior was as attracted as he, but she was not ready for him. Her sole focus was on her boy – as it should be – but beyond that, she was running scared from anyone else who might try to breach her emotional defenses.

He knew it had been too much, too soon, to unload the truth about feeling that he could love again upon meeting her, and if he had been free to proceed as himself – as Killian Jones wooing a lady properly – he would have never been so clumsily blunt, but instead he was a pirate captain desperate to prove his loyalty and worth, while stuck on Peter Pan's nightmare island. They had needed to get Neal back without further delay and return to seeking Henry, and so he'd had to make clear that he was correct in the way the infernal cave worked. It had not been easy to look into her beautiful, tormented eyes when he had offered his confession, hoping he hadn't driven a wedge which would push her even farther away. It had been even worse to see her run across the bridge formed for her of their painful admissions, right up to Baelfire without giving him a word of comfort, encouragement, or thanks. He felt his shoulders slump in defeat, hurting more than he had imagined, when the cage holding the Crocodile's son vanished at words from Emma which he could not hear, and she fell into the embrace of her first love.

Killian felt her slipping away – if she had ever been within his grasp at all. Bowing his head, he hid the pain in his eyes from Snow White and Prince Charming's curious, searching gazes. Burning fire within him seared away the tentative hope he had foolishly let kindle within. He was nothing but a pirate, as the Prince had reminded him not so long ago. Though he couldn't help wanting to hold her, it was probably for the best…

I wanna hide the truth

I wanna shelter you

But with the beast inside

there's nowhere we can hide

No matter what we breed,

we still are made of greed

This is my kingdom come,

This is my kingdom come

There was no longer any doubt. He was a fool – a sodding, pathetic fool. For him to let a glimmer of belief take root in his chest again was begging for misery, but Killian Jones had felt it growing all the same.

Venturing into the Dark Hollow had been a risky, desperate move at best, but after his face-off with Baelfire and discovering that Emma had not even deemed what had been brewing between them worth mention, self-preservation had not been so high atop his list. He had barely cared what happened to him in their suicide quest to capture Pan's shadow.

Of course, the fiend trying to rip his shadow from his body had jolted things into focus with frightening clarity; especially when he realized that Baelfire was facing the exact same fate, but it was his moniker of 'Hook!' that Emma cried out in horror. That she found the power to magically light their star map shadowcatcher just after her concern for him surfaced was not lost on Killian. No matter how much he cautioned himself not to dwell on it, he couldn't ignore the implications. Emma might not want to admit it, might not be free to show it, but when push came to shove, she cared more for him than she wished to admit.

He had not lied to her when he had promised no deviousness or trickery. If Emma Swan – the Enchanted Forest's lost princess – ever gave him the chance to truly win her heart, he would use no dishonorable means. He understood good form and had once dreamed of being a hero. He might be an orphan and a pirate, not some prince or man of noble blood, and his thirst for revenge had kept him lost in villainy for countless years, but he still had honor, could strive to show it valiantly once again. He knew deep down that she wanted him; what he did not know was if Swan would ever allow herself to acknowledge her desires. He could only vow that he would endeavor to deserve her if she came to him with such a golden opportunity.

Swan needed some joy and lightheartedness in her life. Though she looked fragile, she was hard as steel; she'd had to be for far too long. To him, her beauty was unrivalled, but it was clear that Emma did not see that in herself. He wanted to worship her as she deserved, unfit as he might be to do so. Killian Jones wanted to restore her lad to her, heal the wounds of her past, love her unconditionally, and never leave her side. He trembled to risk pulling her that close; his history proving over and over that anyone he dared to love had suffered a horrible fate. It was better his own heart be crushed than for her to suffer harm by nearness to him. Still, if he fought back the darkness he had sunk into, shouldn't he be allowed to step into the light?

When you feel my heat,

look into my eyes

It's where my demons hide

It's where my demons hide

Don't get too close

It's dark inside

It's where my demons hide

It's where my demons hide

She came to him at the helm of his ship once Henry was truly safe and resting peacefully with Regina watching over him. There had been a scare when Pan had tried to take Henry from them once again, but it appeared Rumplestiltskin's strength had indeed been greater than the ageless boy's, and their antagonist was now trapped safely in Pandora's Box. Sighing as she came to a stop just beyond arm's reach from him and leaned against the Jolly's hull, Emma didn't know if weariness or relief was winning within her at present. She was not sure that seeking out Hook when her emotions were such a mess was a good idea, but it was a need all the same. She was drawn to him like a magnet – impelled to speak to him, to thank him for helping them to get this far…to make sure that he was alright.

Emma knew he had been left hanging, knew he wanted more. What she didn't know was what she had to give. It had nothing to do with still doubting his motives or that he was a pirate; Hook had long since proven himself in her eyes. She simply wasn't sure her heart could let any man in the way he would want and deserve. She found it didn't matter though: she still ached to be near the Captain. He calmed her, despite the turmoil she had been in ever since this voyage started, and his constant support at her back, whatever the situation or whatever her decisions, had given her strength. She wanted to tell him so; if nothing else, he ought to know what it meant to have had him in her corner and that she would not soon forget it.

"Hook…" she began, then shook her head to cut herself off, knowing that wasn't right. Her corrected word came out breathy and more ragged than she had intended, "….Killian…"

He turned to face her when she spoke his name, though he had already known she was there. Just then, she could see everything he was feeling in those ocean blue eyes. Though their decadent depths often smirked, prodded, threatened, or demanded as the situation called for, at that moment they were raw, reflecting mirrors letting her see right into his exposed inner soul.

All the words she had intended to give him flew from her head, and Emma was left standing frozen, swallowing hard and wondering why she wanted to talk at all. With that in mind, she moved to stand before him, just within his reach, when one corner of his mouth tilted up in a tempting smirk as he beckoned her closer. Obviously pleased with himself, he took things a step farther, resting both hand and hook at either side of her waist, his thumb rubbing soothing circles that she could feel the warmth of through the waistband of her jeans, as if he were stilling a skittish animal so it didn't flee. "Was there something you wished to discuss with me, Love?"

"I…" her mouth went dry staring into his eyes and she struggled to focus on anything other than the desire for a second kiss from him, but she finally pieced together coherent words. "I just wanted to thank you…for everything. We couldn't have even followed Henry without your ship and your help. David would be dead by now. And I, well, I just…"

"Come, Lass, it's just me. There's no need to be so formal. I offered you my ship and my services, and I meant it." As he said these words, he was slowly, deliberately, pinning her in his gaze so she understood just how much it did mean to him. He placed the cool, smooth curve of his hook under her chin, tilting her face up to meet his.

"But – it's just – it's so much more than that," she floundered, and if she weren't so grateful and attracted and muddled all at once she would have been irritated that he could sound so composed and romantic while she struggled to get a sentence out. Emotional tears almost welled over her eyelids, but she blinked them back and stepped closer yet, almost begging him to hold her, causing their noses to nearly brush. Looking up at him, she hoped that just maybe her eyes could convey her affection, gratitude, and want without the words that seemed lost to her. Biting her lower lip in nervous anticipation, Emma raised her eyes, blinking, to his cerulean gaze and prayed he would simply read her scrambled mind.

Chuckling low in his throat, Killian seemed to do just that, and wrapped his muscled arms around to reel her in. "All you had to do was ask, Love," he teased, lightly ghosting his lips over her forehead, her nose, her cheeks, forestalling the inevitable and making her heart thud erratically even as she grew impatient for his lips to reach hers. Just as she had grabbed him and driven their first kiss – fast, desperate, bruising – he was taking over this second one, creating a slow, languorous, building simmer that Emma wasn't sure she would survive.

Killian's hand came up to cradle her head, hook resting along her neck on the other side, the one bit of cool relief to the fire in which he had engulfed her. His calloused fingers stroked along her jaw as if hoping to coax her nearer still. This kiss carried their feelings in it; there was still heat and passion, but below it thrummed something more, something deeper: it required a decision. Emma's breath caught at the realization that this kiss was something which might last.

Killian was thinking, hoping, the same thing, hardly daring to believe, but unable to stop it either. Greedy thief and pirate that he was, he wanted more of Emma; it would never be enough. Fool he might be, but he did not aim to stop until he had stolen her very heart. Not so long ago, he had been rudderless, with nothing in this world to keep him but his vengeance. Now, he prayed that he could change his course. At last, he had something to fight for, someone to hold dear. Killian Jones – Captain Hook – had despaired of being anything else but hell bound…until she crossed his path. Perhaps he might still find redemption in Emma. Heaven had to know his every effort and act for good has been due to her. It's all for her.

Don't wanna let you down

but I am hell bound

Though this is all for you,

don't wanna hide the truth…

This is my kingdom come

This is my kingdom come

The door slams in his face – her door – and Killian lets himself slump against the wall, dejected. It all happened so quickly and now Emma is gone. She is beyond his grasp, as he had always known she was. He has waited so long to see her lovely face again, traveled so far, and though he tried to prepare himself for the very reaction he received, it didn't hurt any less when she gave him the blank look which told him his Swan no longer knew him.

Upon their forced return to the Enchanted Forest, he had tried to steer clear of everyone. Angry, wounded, and bitter, he had wanted nothing more than to hide himself below deck on the Roger and drink until he couldn't think of how being ripped from her just when she had given him a chance had hurt. He had not wanted to be near anyone and had made horrible, snarling company when someone forced the issue, but that had not stopped Snow and Charming. Emma's parents were a painful reminder of her, but no matter how he strove to avoid them and steer clear, they would not leave him alone.

It was exasperating how they kept trying to draw him into rebuilding the castle and their kingdom, tried to cheer him up, provided work for he and his crew as supplies were needed from other ports, and generally would not allow him to wallow in his misery as he had desired. They kept repeating that they had faith this separation would not last forever. For some unfathomable reason, he seemed to have found his way into their affection, and they would not let him despair either.

When Regina had finally put together a memory restorative potion, he had been willing to concede that these royal types and their unending hope were not so completely off base. The former evil queen had been almost pleasant and much more willing to help ever since meeting Robin Hood – apparently the man she had been destined to meet long ago. Some of the dangerous emptiness and hurt left her eyes when she was around the archer, and especially near his young son. Killian knew that she hoped Emma would find a way back and bring Henry if she could be made to remember. Regina also knew the rules of the second curse well though; she was to give up the thing she loved most. She couldn't be the one to go after them, couldn't force her hand. She would have to trust those whom she had spent so long fighting against.

Killian had been stunned however when David and Snow both championed his undertaking the quest. Something knowing flickered between the Prince and Princess' eyes, but he didn't waste time trying to figure it out. He was too grateful, touched, and ridiculously anxious to get going, whatever the mode of travel, to ask questions.

Now, faced with the harsh truth, he almost forgets the potion tucked into a pocket of his vest. He had to try True Love's Kiss, had to see for himself if it were possible. He shouldn't have even entertained the dream, and yet he couldn't help himself. He truly thought she loved him…but maybe she still does and has simply forgotten. He has come too far to turn back now without seeing his mission through. Any realm he tries to make his life in now will be empty without her regardless. He will wait for his moment, and he will try again…

They say it's what you make

I say it's up to Fate

It's woven in my soul

I need to let you go

Your eyes they shine so bright

I wanna save that light

I can't escape this now,

Unless you show me how…

Killian stands outside the large, several story building where Emma and Henry now reside, oblivious to the crush of people rushing around him on all sides, looking up to the window he knows is theirs, comforted by the fact that, though she may not remember him right now, they are once again in the same place and time. He can get to her, and he will succeed in bringing her back to her family…and to him.

That she wants him to keep his distance right now means little. He is sorry that she is at last safe with her son and free of the heavy weight of her destiny and he seeks to interrupt that. However, he thinks he knows Emma well enough to believe she would not wish for an illusion over truth; even if it pained her, she would rather face reality. He knows that much of his Swan.

Villain that he has been, that the world has always seen, the selfless action would be to let her go, but he cannot allow himself to admit defeat. Emma has never truly been loved – treasured – as she ought to have been, as he had planned to do. He fervently wishes to be the one to show her what it is to be wholly adored. He wants her to know that she is his whole world, and he needs the chance to see if she can love him in return, keep him striving to live again. The demons that still haunt him, that say her kingdom and his black soul are already lost, try to whisper that he will fail. Their voices hiss that he will never bring her back, that her knowledge and memories are lost forever. Killian pushes those insidious echoes from his mind. Soon, he will meet her haunting, storm-tossed eyes again, and he will make her see.

This is my kingdom come…

Tagging a few others who may enjoy: @searchingwardrobes @kmomof4 @jennjenn615 @laschatzi @whimsicallyenchantedrose  @thislassishooked @resident-of-storybrooke @ilovemesomekillianjones @teamhook @revanmeetra87 @scientificapricot @tomeandflickcorner @lfh1226-linda @xsajx @stahlop @donteattheappleshook @hollyethecurious @winterbaby89 @darkcolinodonorgasm @elizabeethan @wefoundloveunderthelight @jonesfandomfanatic @spartanguard @tiganasummertree​ @optomisticgirl​

[aestheticallyunaesthetic17]

100 questions and answers

Who is your hero? Probably future me, i want to be able to grow up and be the better person that i hope they are, and the only way of knowing that is by making it happen.

If you could live anywhere, where would it be? New Zealand, Canada or USA. I lived in TX for 3 months and loved it there and I have family in NZ and Canada.

What is your biggest fear? Wasps, 100%. Not being stung but the way they look scares me.

What is your favorite family vacation? When we went to Krakow in Poland.

What would you change about yourself if you could? My skin color. I hate it so much.

What really makes you angry? People hating others or stopping others from being themselves.

What motivates you to work hard? To make future me happier than I am now.

What is your favorite thing about your career? I want to be in cabin crew, so probably the traveling.

What is your biggest complaint about your job? Being away from family.

What is your proudest accomplishment? Getting through the shit 2020 brought me without killing myself.

What is your child's proudest accomplishment? No kids rn.

What is your favorite book to read? Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

What makes you laugh the most? My boyfriend.

What was the last movie you went to? What did you think? Freaks. I was a bad movie, a little like the scary movies franchise. My friend was scared at parts which was super funny to watch

What did you want to be when you were small? An actor. Typical Leo ;)

What does your child want to be when he/she grows up? They can be anything they want to be.

If you could choose to do anything for a day, what would it be? Visit Edinburgh alone.

What is your favorite game or sport to watch and play? To watch, American Football. To play, archery.

Would you rather ride a bike, ride a horse, or drive a car? Drive a car, it's peaceful and warm. I would blast music.

What would you sing at Karaoke night? no idea.

What two radio stations do you listen to in the car the most? Heart and Capital

Which would you rather do: wash dishes, mow the lawn, clean the bathroom, or vacuum the house? Dishes or vacuum.

If you could hire someone to help you, would it be with cleaning, cooking, or yard work? Yard work!!!

If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be? Tandoori Prawn curry.

Who is your favorite author? Jacqueline Wilson or JK Rowling (only her books, not her)

Have you ever had a nickname? What is it? Just Em. But id like to be called Millie.

Do you like or dislike surprises? Why or why not? Depends on the surprise tbh, I like to plan a lot.

In the evening, would you rather play a game, visit a relative, watch a movie, or read? Watch a movie.

Would you rather vacation in Hawaii or Alaska, and why? Hawaii. I was meant to go this year but covid and leaving the US fucked it up.

Would you rather win the lottery or work at the perfect job? And why? Work the perfect job, id get bored sitting around all day.

Who would you want to be stranded with on a deserted island? my boyfriend.

If money was no object, what would you do all day? Travel and see the world.

If you could go back in time, what year would you travel to? 2012. To see my Nana again.

How would your friends describe you? Stupid.

What are your hobbies? Traveling, photography, music and shopping.

What is the best gift you have been given? Forgiveness from myself.

What is the worst gift you have received? Sixe XXL jacket when im an XS

Aside from necessities, what one thing could you not go a day without? My macbook.

List two pet peeves. - Breaking trust - Bad table manners

Where do you see yourself in five years? Hopefully working my dream job, maybe moved to a different country and traveling the world.

How many pairs of shoes do you own? too many, roughly 16

If you were a super-hero, what powers would you have? Invisibility or teleportation.

What would you do if you won the lottery? build my own house

What form of public transportation do you prefer? (air, boat, train, bus, car, etc.) Train, its so relaxing. Then planes.

What's your favorite zoo animal? Lions or tigers.

If you could go back in time to change one thing, what would it be? My time in America.

If you could share a meal with any 4 individuals, living or dead, who would they be? - My nana - my bf - Princess Diana - Obama

How many pillows do you sleep with? 4, two on each side.

What's the longest you've gone without sleep (and why)? 26 hours, traveling to Texarkana from Edinburgh.

What's the tallest building you've been to the top in? Idk tbh

Would you rather trade intelligence for looks or looks for intelligence? looks for intelligence because then you can earn enough for plastic surgery.

How often do you buy clothes? 1/2 a month

Have you ever had a secret admirer? Idk I guess so.

What's your favorite holiday? Summer vacation Christmas for an actual holiday

What's the most daring thing you've ever done? Moved half way across the world and lived with strangers.

What was the last thing you recorded on TV? Nothing

What was the last book you read? 1984

What's your favorite type of foreign food? Indian

Are you a clean or messy person? Both, but relatively clean

Who would you want to play you in a movie of your life? Millie Bobbie Brown probably

How long does it take you to get ready in the morning? 1 hour

What kitchen appliance do you use every day? Kettle

What's your favorite fast food chain? Chick fil A (i know, i cant buy it now tho)

What's your favorite family recipe? Nana's bacon and egg pie

Do you love or hate rollercoasters? LOVE

What's your favorite family tradition? Opening gifts on Christmas Eve

What is your favorite childhood memory? I dunno really, Ive forgotten a lot of my childhood.

What's your favorite movie? Ferris Bueller's Day Off or Beautiful Boy

How old were you when you learned Santa wasn't real? How did you find out? Probably 7/8 but I dont remember.

Is your glass half full or half empty? Half empty.

What's the craziest thing you’ve done in the name of love? Said i'd come back one day.

What three items would you take with you on a deserted island? A boat and food. Yes i am that person.

What was your favorite subject in school? Scottish school, geography. US school, government.

What's the most unusual thing you've ever eaten? Haggis

Do you collect anything? Foreign coins

Is there anything you wished would come back into fashion? Skinny jeans, my ass looks gooood in them

Are you an introvert or an extrovert? introvert that likes being sociable

Which of the five senses would you say is your strongest? hearing

Have you ever had a surprise party? (that was an actual surprise) nope

Are you related or distantly related to anyone famous? my dad is well know in the whisky business. Has his own prime tv show

What do you do to keep fit? Walk a lot and swim.

Does your family have a “motto” – spoken or unspoken? nope

If you were ruler of your own country what would be the first law you would introduce? everyone is equal.

Who was your favorite teacher in school and why? Scottish School, my geo teacher. US school, my english teacher.

What three things do you think of the most each day? My bf, my mum and America

If you had a warning label, what would yours say? Sad, angry and anxious

What song would you say best sums you up? 17 again

What celebrity would you like to meet at Starbucks for a cup of coffee? Timothee Chalamet or Tom Holland

Who was your first crush? a boy called Finlay who i rode the bus with

What's the most interesting thing you can see out of your office or kitchen window? sheep or cows very often

On a scale of 1-10 how funny would you say you are? 5

Where do you see yourself in 10 years? kids, married, settled down and happy. moved countries 100%

What was your first job? never had one

If you could join any past or current music group which would you want to join? 5sos

How many languages do you speak? 1 - english

What is your favorite family holiday tradition? opening gifts on Christmas Eve

Who is the most intelligent person you know? my mum

If you had to describe yourself as an animal, which one would it be? a cat probably or a tiger

What is one thing you will never do again? trust people fully

Who knows you the best? my bf.

[eclats-de-diamants]

Asami Jun “Research 100″ translation part.1/2 ❄

This translation is from her first photobook that was published in 2019. This is an interview segment where she answers 100 questions about herself, what she likes etc... (a bit like the “This or That” interviews in older photobooks)

This post contains the 50 first questions and I’ll soon post the other part with the last 50.

You can buy a copy of her photobook here 😊

Lil’ disclaimer before putting the translation, I’m in no way a native speaker, nor bilingual so there /may/ be errors but my dms are open so if you see something that’s mistranslated dm me and I’ll change it. Also I couldn’t translate questions  29, 34 and 36 sorryyyyy 

 (+ English is NOT my first language so yeah sorry in advance for the grammar mistakes).

Also I tried to add links to some of the things aasa mentions (like music, movie etc…)

The questions are labelled as “Q...” and the answers are quoted and labelled as “A”, if you see /this/ it’s just my notes

enjoy :)

Profile

Name: Asami Jun

Troupe: Snow Troupe

Birthday: 11/6

Blood Type: O

Nickname: Aasa, J

Height: 169cm

Eyesight: It’s bad. I wear contacts.

Shoe size: 24cm

Ring size: For my smaller fingers I wear size 9 and for my bigger fingers I wear size 12 (Japanese size)

Charm point: People often say it’s scary, but the ability to convey emotions through my eyes (laughs)

Strength: I’m always relaxed/natural.

Weakness: I don’t plan things

Catchphrase: Motivation, energy, and patience

Birthplace: Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture

  Your favorites…

Q1: What’s your favorite season?

A: Summer

Q2: What’s your favorite event of the year?

A: New Year’s Eve. I like to watch end of year tv programs with my family

Q3: Which countries do you want to visit?

A: Spain and Italy

Q4: What’s your favorite animal?

A: Dolphin

Q5: What’s your favorite music?

A: My fav of all time is “Kibou no Wadachi” from Southern All Stars

Q6: What’s your favorite movie?

A: The Notebook (romanized name: Kimi ni yomu monogatari), I cry everytime I watch it

Q7: What’s your favorite stage genre?

A: “Straight play” I also like small theater stages

Q8: What’s your favorite tv program genre?

A: Travel programs. I love “Another Sky” and programs where they introduce resorts hotels

Q9: What’s your favorite color?

A: Purple and shades of blue

Q10: What’s your favorite (kind of) books?

A: Books that explain history in an easy way. I’ll use them as references for my stage performances

Q11: What’s your favorite scent?

A: Sage wood, wooden scents

Q12: What’s your favorite food?

A: Gyoza

Q13: What’s your least favorite food?

A: Crab innards /ngl this looks disgusting/

Q14: What’s your cooking specialty?

A: I can do really delicious gyozas /not sure about this translation/

This or that

Q15: Meat or Fish?

A: Meat!

Q16: Japanese food or Western-style food or Chinese food?

A: Chinese food. I like any type of Chinese food

Q17: Japanese sweets or Western-style sweets?

A: Japanese sweets. I love Neri-kiri 

/a colourful japanese pâtisserie made of white bean paste and white rice paste/

Q18: Coffee or Black Tea?

A: Coffee. Black coffee

Q19: Salt or Soy Sauce or Sauce?

A: Salt

Private me

 Q20: Are you more of a morning person or a night person?

A: I'm both

Q21: The first thing you do after waking up?

A: I make coffee

Q22: When you take a bath, do you use hot water or lukewarm water?

A: Hot water. But during summer, I take half body baths

/from what I understand she only dips her body till her hips/

Q23: When it’s time to sleep, do you sleep with a light on or in pitch darkness?

A: In pitch darkness. When I’m in the dark I fall asleep in 2 seconds (laughs)

Q24: Until now, what’s the longest time you have slept for?

A: Approximatively 12 hours

Q25: What do you do to change your mood?

A: I drive to places with abundant nature

Q26: How much time do you spend on your phone ?

A: A lot of time

Q27: When you want to contact someone do you prefer to write a mail /I assume it’s the same as texting/ or calling?

A: Mail

Q28: Usually are you more of a talking person or a listening person?

A: I think I’m more of a listening person…

Q30: Are you more sensitive to heat or to cold?

A: I’m more sensitive to heat but I like summer (laughs)

Q31: Do you prefer to be in a group or by yourself?

A: By myself. I’d rather go shopping by myself

Q32: Which qualifications do you have?

A: I have a driver license, an English certification (grade 2) and a diving license.

Q33: What kind of shoes do you prefer?

A: Shoes that are easy to walk in. Also thick heels

Q35: A habit that you can’t stop yourself from doing?

A: Clap my hands when I laugh

Q37: The thing you’re afraid of?

A: Natural disasters

Q38: The thing you treasure?

A: A photo file with a message made by everyone when we starred in a performance together

/Not clear of who she is talking in particular/

  During your day off

Q39: Are you more of an indoor or an outdoor person?

A: If I go out in the morning I’m not able to go home until night (laughs)

Q40: What’s your karaoke specialty? /as in in which song are you the most confident singing when you go to a karaoke/

A: Nakamori Akina’s “Shoujo A”. I like “Shoujo A”

Q41: Where do you often go shopping?

A: In Umeda, it’s big 

/She says “Umeda is big”/

Q42: When you go shopping do you hesitate on what to buy or do you choose quickly?

A: I choose quickly! I think that if you hesitate it means that you don’t really need it

Q43: When you’re on holidays what’s the first thing you want to do ?

A: I want to pass all day driving to temples and sanctuaries

Q44: During holidays are you more carefree or do you plan everything?

A: I’m the type who has a schedule tightly planned.

During your childhood

 Q45: Your nickname when you were a child ?

A: Mossan

Q46: Your favorite subject at school ?

A: History. Because that was where the content related to Takarazuka’s shows came from (laughs)

Q47: The school subject you hated the most?

A: Science in general

Q48: The game you often played?

A: Dodge ball and Kickball

Q49: Which clubs were you in? What did you learn?

A: In elementary school I was in the track and field club

In middle and high school I was in the dance club

I was also learning classic ballet. During elementary school if I was in the track and field club I could play dodge ball /i guess that’s why she entered/ (laugh)

Q50: What did you want to do as an occupation ?

A: Except for being a takarasienne I wanted to be a dolphin trainer (laugh)

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #459

“i wanted you to know that i love the way you laugh  /  i wanna hold you high and steal your pain away”

Does the person you like have any flaws? He's never seemed very expressive of what he feels. Has anyone ever given you a ring? Why? Yes. Because it was our anniversary and he wanted to, ig. If you ruled your own country, what type of government would it have? I'm not educated enough to answer this. Creation theory, Evolution or the Big Bang theory? I really don't know what I believe about the origins of the universe, but I do believe in evolution. Describe one of your most emotional farewells. The last time I saw Jason and we talked for a long time, and I finally got my closure. It was all so heavy. It started so stiffly, but it ended with us just chatting and smiling and, to my absolute shock, a hug from him. I'm getting emotional so NEXT QUESTION. What was your last serious conversation about? I was reassuring and comforting Sara about some stuff. Is there a city that you have a particular fondness for? If so, what city is it and why? No. Are there any gnomes in your yard? No. When was the last time you were stung by a bee? What kind was it? Years ago. A bumblebee. Are you gonna buy lottery tickets when you’re old enough? I am old enough, and no. The odds are way, way too small, and I don't really dabble in addictive behavior. Have you ever been into a real cave? No. :( That's a life goal, though. Have you ever posted mean comments on YouTube? I know I did once as a kid. It was regarding Meerkat Manor and I thought it was really disrespectful to Flower just because of the music chosen lmao. The drama. What color is your digital camera, if you have one? Black. If you had to spend one day in any movie storyline, which one would it be? Alice in Wonderland, I suppose? Name the strangest game you’ve ever played (video game or real game): Oh man, I've played waaaaay too many video games. I suppose Silent Hill with how confused it left me at first. Its concept is definitely wild. Parasite Eve is high on the list, too. In your opinion, what is the saddest movie you’ve ever seen? Boy in the Striped Pajamas destroys me. What is the best song to make out to? I could answer this but I'm not gonna lmfao Is there anyone right now that you are simply/overly infatuated with? story of my life ayyyyeeeee Who was the last person to play with your hair? Are they cute? Not a clue. Who was the last person close to you that died? Did you cry? Jason's mom. I sobbed on-and-off for days. Do you consider yourself a healthy person? Physically and mentally? No, in either way. Do you know anyone who owns a boat? My dad does. I'm sure others, too, with how popular fishing out on a boat is here. Do you know anyone who uses medical marijuana? I don't know. Even for medicinal purposes, it's not legal here. Do you know anyone who’s died in childbirth? No. What did you do for your 21st birthday? I was in the psych hospital, so... lmao. Therapy, reading, and coloring. Lots of reading and coloring. Because they did NOT fill your schedule enough there. We only had two group therapy sessions a day, and the rest was just... blankness. If dinosaurs could be tamed, would you want one as a pet? I know I'd be one of the dumb ones that absolutely wanted a tiny raptor, lol. Do you own more than one copy or edition of a book? No. If you could see any musical on Broadway right now, what would it be? Not interested. Do you eat soup when you’re sick? I don't like soup. If you read, which book or series did you enjoy most as a child? My first real series that I read religiously was Hank the Cowdog. Then it was Warriors. Do you buy Halloween candy when it’s on sale after the holiday? No. I really don't need candy available to me. Do you agree with the “they’re just being kids” excuse? It depends on what they're doing. In a lot of cases, no. Do you ever watch talk shows? No. Do you have a/any hero(s)? Mark Fischbach, Steve Irwin, my mom... Have you told your parents all of your secrets from when you were a teen? No. Though Mom has playfully once told me that she knows a lot of things I don't think she does, and that's terrifying lmao. You’re getting married. Who’s your maid of honor and best man? M.o.H.: Mom or Sara. Best man isn't my choice. Would you rather get highlights or dye your whole head? DYE IT ALLLLLLL. Are you wearing anything of any sentimental value? Describe? My friendship ring w/ Sara. It has a heart carved on the outside and "bitch" engraved inside so no one can see when you have it on, lol. She has one that says "jerk." It's a Supernatural reference. Who challenges you the most? In what way? My therapist and psychiatrist. They just help ensure I pursue my goals and give me little nudges forward to reassure me. Who seems to hold you back? In what way? PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT ME. I listen to my anxiety WAY too much. What was the last opportunity that you passed up, and why? Going up to Lake Gaston w/ Mom to visit Ash and her fam. They go there all the time, and it's a real nice place. I just didn't want to go because of the heat. Should there be an application process for having children? Hunny, that would not stop people from fuckin lmfao Name one thing that you think defines you as a person? m e e r k a t s What is a fear you have about living on your own? That depression would get the better of me and I'd neglect taking good care of my house. One of the many reasons I'll never live alone. Not at all saying I'd leave the responsibilities to my partner, but they'd be motivation for me to get stuff done. What’s the worst name your mom has ever called you? I don't know. Nothing that bad. What’s your stance on spooning? It helps me feel safe and loved and alsdkfjalwe I just love cuddling in all sorts lmao What’s your most recent obsession? Violet Orlandi & Melodicka Bros' cover of "Somebody That I Used to Know." Have you ever been scammed? Ha ha, yes. I once wanted to get Jason a Joker and Harley Quinn pillow from deviantART; talked to the artist, paid 'em, never got it. :^) Have you ever fostered an animal? No. I would get WAY too attached to foster. I wouldn't be able to give them up without breaking down, probs. Do you know anyone who acts way younger than what they are? I'm sure I do, but no one is coming to mind atm. Would you say you’re a pretty independent person? God no. Does the last song you listened to, remind you of someone? JASON. Do you currently want a new computer? Yes, actually. I want a desktop PC for better gaming quality, honestly. Also, the "escape" key doesn't work on this laptop, one key is missing so I have to hit the sensor JUST right, and it restarts randomly sometimes. I want a PC mainly because I want to get out of the habit of being on my laptop in bed all damn day. How would your parents react if you got a tattoo? I already have like six or seven, so they wouldn't be surprised. Is there anyone you can picture yourself being with forever right now? Maybe. Who is your truest friend? Sara. What is the strangest thing you’ve ever seen outside of your house? THIS house? Idk. Nothing that I'd consider odd. What bug frightens you most? STAG BEETLES lkadjslkfja;lwekjawl;kejrlawer Who is your oldest friend? That would be Sam, and he's in his mid-30s. How long have you known them? Many years. We met via WoW, which I've been playing since '14. I don't really remember how far into it we met, though. Where are they right now? lol I wouldn't know, he's all the way in Jersey. Plus we haven't talked in a while. Have you ever dated a friend of one of your siblings? God no, that would be so weird. What is the best gift someone can give you? An ear to listen without it feeling like a chore to them. Have you ever dated someone who had a child? No. I don't think I could do it. What is the last movie that made you cry? The The Lion King remake made me tear up. Have you ever played in a waterfall? No. Ugh, that sounds like a blast. In your life who has meant the most to you? Let's not get into this. What has been your biggest failure in life? Letting depression and my other conditions take away my identity, becoming my new identity. Do you trust yourself? No. I second-guess EVERYTHING and never know what I should listen to: my heart, my head, my gut... or which voice is what. Would you ever consider getting an abortion, under any circumstances? Yes. What was the last bug you killed? Some kind in the bathroom. Idk what it was. Just a little thing that sort of resembled an earwig, but not completely. Do you prefer profile pictures by yourself of with someone else? By myself, since it's my page. Do you know anyone who has written a book? I don't think so? Do you drink milk/juice from the carton if no one is around? Ew, no. I live with another person, and even if I didn't, what if I had guests? Has anyone ever told you they liked you in a realllly sweet way? Maybe? Has a member of the opposite sex ever given you jewlery? Jason has. Do you find sleeping in cars easy? NOOOOOOOOOO. I'm too scared to let my eyes close and not see what's going on on the road. Has a boyfriend’s/girlfriend’s parents ever gotten mad at you? Why? I don't believe so, no. What is the funniest thing a child has ever said to you. Definitely something my niece has said, but idr what it was. What’s been on your mind lately? Y'all know, lol. Do you feel like you need to get something off your chest? No. Sara was recently there for that. ♥ How would you react if someone told you they had feelings for you? Be very very excited if it was from a certain person.

[apparitionism]

Hark

A merry early Gift Exchange to @kla1991​, whose not-so-secret Santa I am this year. This is the first part of a story set somewhat in-universe: there’s no season 5 (what could that even be?), and only the first ep of season 4—basically, time wound back to right before the Warehouse exploded in Stand, which aired on Oct. 3, so the Christmas during which this story is set is happening less than three months after that momentous occurrence. I’m postulating that Helena became an agent again, and there was no Artie/Father Data business. (Oh, and Steve didn’t die, so no metronome. I refuse to force Helena through witnessing anyone being brought back non-nefariously from the dead.) I’ll do my best to post the concluding part(s) by New Year’s Day—no promises on that, but I’ll finish as soon as apparitionally possible. Anyway, happy holidays to everyone. Continuing to participate with you all in this wondrous exercise in fandom is a blessing in every tradition, and I’m profoundly grateful.

Hark

“Your upstart nation stole ‘God Save the Queen’!” Helena seethed at Myka.

For whom “upstart nation” was really too much. “Nobody owns that melody!” she fumed, reciprocally, at Helena. “You can’t steal something nobody owns, our version is perfectly valid, and anyway I’m pretty sure other countries stole it too. Look it up!”

“I’m not in other countries. You look it up.”

“I’m driving! Since when are you such a fan of the monarchy anyway?”

“Stop questioning my patriotism!”

“I couldn’t care less about your patriotism!”

“You brought up citizenship!”

“Because you don’t have any!” Myka had genuinely thought they would be having an intellectual conversation, one about documentation and—

“I did at birth!” Helena raged, and then she scowl-sang, “God save our gra-cious Queen.”

This gave Myka pause. She reflected that she had actually never heard Helena sing before. She then concluded that she never wanted to hear Helena sing again... because Helena could not sing.

However: “My country ’tis of thee,” Myka sang back, frustrated. It was the only reason she herself would ever have sung, because—

“You can’t sing,” Helena informed her, in the tone of a doctor trying to conceal joy at having to report that the patient would not recover.

“Neither can you,” Myka informed back, aiming for straightforward “snide.”

“And I never want to hear you sing again,” Helena continued.

All Myka could come up with in response to that was an inadequate “Ditto.”

Helena sniffed. “You just wanted the last word.”

Myka pointedly let Helena have that last word. To make her stew in it. In the ensuing silence, she continued to drive. On this last leg home from a retrieval, late on Christmas Eve—their very first Christmas Eve—the air between them was frostier than the South Dakota winter outside the car could ever dream of matching.

She was under no illusion that Helena cared at all about anybody saving the Queen, and she herself, while reasonably patriotic on the American side of things, hadn’t sung her way through that song since her childhood. She knew this dispute was ridiculous, and she suspected Helena knew it too. She suspected also that they both understood they were developing a pattern: A period of calm—a deepening of accord—that would sooner or later, particularly in the adrenalin-ebb aftermath of a dangerous retrieval, dissipate into some minimally motivated squabble, the respective sides of which they entrenched themselves into with such commitment that it seemed there could never be an unentrenching.

*

An early instance: Myka had threatened to storm out of their shared hotel room because Helena had mulishly refused to concede that it had been foolish to open a bottle of mini-bar water for which they would be charged five dollars.

“Go right ahead,” Helena had “suggested,” so Myka did.

In the lobby, she’d run into Pete, who wasn’t storming anywhere, just looking for free snacks. “See?” Myka demanded of him. “Like a normal person.”

“If you were normal, you wouldn’t be out here with me. ’Cause you’ve got a hot girl in a hotel room, and I know things got a little uh-oh chasing that guy today, but you’re both still in one piece.”

“Maybe not for long.”

“You volunteered for this.”

“No I didn’t. Artie said ‘Pete, Myka, Helena, get on a plane for Montgomery, Alabama,’ and so we—”

“You know that isn’t the ‘this’ I meant.”

Myka did. But she hadn’t volunteered for that “this” either. Nothing about her response to Helena was voluntary. Nothing about it had ever been voluntary.

“Fights and all,” Pete added. “After the thing”—he always called the barely averted explosion of the Warehouse “the thing,” and so did Claudia—“you could’ve let her leave. You could’ve made her leave. She would have done anything you said.”

“Not anything,” Myka said, to be contrary.

“Maybe you don’t remember how she’d hardly even sit in a chair without your say-so. Oh, but wait, I think I know somebody who remembers everything, some tall lady with a lot of hair, name rhymes with Opelika... hey, that’s you!”

“Shut up. It wasn’t... that simple.”

“It is now.”

She crossed her arms at him.

He sighed. “Lemme show you: ‘Sorry, baby,’” he said in his “Myka” voice, which was terrible. “Me too, darling,” he then said in his “Helena” voice, which was even worse. As himself, he finished, “It’s like you’ve never been in a relationship.”

In a conversation in which Pete had said several annoyingly true things, that one was the most annoyingly true. But: “It’s like,” she conceded, and he slapped the side of her head, very gently.

“Hot girl hotel room,” he said.

When Myka went back to that hotel room, the hot girl said, “I’m sorry,” as if she’d received the same instructions from Pete. “I was precipitately thirsty.”

“I’m sorry too,” Myka told her. “I was precipitately miserly.”

Myka kissed the hot girl, the hot girl kissed back, and they fumbled their way to fine.

Until the next trivial-yet-entrenched tiff... because apparently, peace was for normal people.

*

Normal people. When Myka and Helena finally made it back to the B&B, Leena, Claudia, and Steve were doing reasonably convincing “normal” impressions: drinking hot chocolate, eating cookies, and playing board games. They seemed to be playing all the board games; Leena was replacing the lid on Monopoly, which she set aside, reaching for the next box in a towering stack. “Chef’s-kiss timing,” Claudia told them. “I just bankrupted these two pathetic poser slumlords, and we’re about to start Sorry. It’s funner with four, so siddown, and you two can be a team.”

“Or not,” Myka said, glancing at Helena, who glanced back and gave a definitely not yet inhale-exhale. “Why isn’t Pete playing?”

“We’re supposed to tell you it’s because he’s doing some last-minute Christmas shopping,” Steve said.

Myka was about to ask, “This late at night?” but Claudia supplied, “Except it’s really that he goofed off today and didn’t finish inventory and thought he’d get away with it but then Artie called and yelled at him.”

“And you left him alone to keep working on it? It’s the night before Christmas, and—”

Claudia waved her hands. “And all through the Warehouse, not a creature was stirring, I swear.”

“Besides,” Leena added, “he’s a grown man.”

“Who always ruins Christmas!” said Myka.

“Always almost ruins Christmas,” Claudia corrected.

Myka demanded, “Is there anything about me that says ‘I like a close call’?”

All eyes turned to Helena, then back to Myka.

*

Of course Helena had been part of the closest of calls, and Myka hadn’t liked it at all: nothing but the outcome. The Warehouse, the saving of it, yes, the thing—but the real outcome had been the aftermath at the B&B.

That outcome was real, but it was also a dream, one that Myka had dreamed more often than she would ever have confessed to pondering in her heart, this dream of being alone with a present Helena, no disastrous endpoint looming. The dream-logic of it: I can touch her? And Myka put a hand to Helena’s elbow. Reached and did that. Helena looked at the hand, the elbow. She looked in Myka’s eyes then and said, “Don’t spare my feelings.”

Feelings? Are you really you in your skin, Myka wanted to ask. Is this your elbow. Instead, because she needed to know, she murmured, “What do you want.”

Helena didn’t say words, but she made a noise that evolution had found fit to preserve from a deep, animal past, a guttural push of sound through the throat-column: it told Myka everything. Told Myka: “Everything.”

No speaking then but by bodies, a language of desperation and culmination. Helena had a mouth that could be met by Myka’s own, clothes that could be removed to reveal a palpable body, with every response of that body real under Myka’s hands. Myka held her eyes closed for much of that night, lest sight confuse her about presence and its proof, lest she fail to attend to what her eyes could never offer: The fleshy heaviness of a tongue in response to her own. The soft give of a thigh interior under her insistent thumb. The steady pressure of a body that pushed back. No empty air, no absence; only presence.

No question marks intruded on their immediate intimacy, their immeasurable, embodied relief. Two days prior, Helena had been a sacrificeable hologram, but all at once she was Myka’s living, breathing, at-last lover. All destined... like meeting at gunpoint.

That night precipitated a fast fall into full couplehood, with seemingly little conscious choice on either of their parts. As inevitable as the gunpoint meetings, the wrenching betrayals, even the miraculous redemption.

But nothing good can possibly be so simple, Myka told herself. Or so inevitable.

“Is that what you believe?” Myka imagined Helena asking this, Socratically. She’d had so many internal conversations with Helena that she found the habit—probably a bad one—difficult to break.

“I’m tired of belief,” Myka told her beautiful, imaginary Socrates. “Sometimes I want to go back to my regular non-Warehouse life, where belief didn’t matter.”

Helena said, still in Myka’s head, still Socratic, “Or did you merely act as if it didn’t matter? Artifacts were born. Religions carried on as they do. Your ignoring belief had no effect on any of it.”

“My not ignoring it has no effect on any of it.”

“So you yourself, regardless of attitude adopted, cannot affect belief.” Socrates paused. Smiled. “Or that which is inevitable.”

Myka did, in such moments, briefly wonder why she needed the real Helena around, if the one in her head was such a reasonable facsimile. A hologram could have done that job just as well.

But the answers, the “here’s why,” came fast and thick, and Myka rejoiced that they could. The real Helena could make Myka laugh an easy laugh, because circumstances were not as they had been with that hologram, when laughter was an impossibility. The real Helena could touch Myka’s neck—not wonderingly, as Myka had known that elbow—but instead quick and hot, in that way that said “we have been intimate recently and will soon again be.” The real Helena could fall asleep and in relaxation display a face so devastating in its symmetry that Myka was inclined to regret not being Michelangelo, so as to recreate it in appropriately tributary marble.

Strange, though, or probably just ridiculous, to feel that your romantic relationship had made more sense when one of you was a hologram.

Myka should have expected Christmas, also a fraught inevitability, to loom as an existential test—yet another existential test—of that relationship.

She should have expected also that when this new existential test was administered, Pete would be the one helping to shove answer sheets and no. 2 pencils into their hands.

*

“Might be a close call or two in Sorry. Sorry!” Claudia cackled. “Anyway, go put your stuff away so we can get our Sorry on. Also our merry. We might even sing.”

“Or not,” Myka said again, and this time she got an eyeroll in response rather than meaningful breathing. An improvement? Hard to tell.

“Nobody’s required to sing anyth—” Leena began, but then she sat up very straight and cocked her head. “Do you hear that sound? Or I guess I mean, do you feel that sound? It’s not singing.”

Helena moved her head too, and not in a way Myka recognized. “I do feel that sound. In fact I believe I know that sound.”

“I do too,” Leena said.

Steve squinted. “Feels like... a weird earthquake? Is it happening all over Univille?”

Claudia said, “This is the kind of thing they blame on us even when it isn’t us. It’s why they look at us weird at the supermarket.”

“I can’t feel anything,” Myka said. “What is it?” She looked first to Helena, who was shaking her head—not at Myka, not with anger, but as if she might be able to find the right shake to rid her ears of the sound, or the feeling, or whatever it was.

“Agitated artifacts,” Leena said, performing a very similar shake. “They... rumble.”

“Agitated artifacts,” Myka repeated. “Pete’s alone at the Warehouse, it’s Christmas, and artifacts are agitated. Okay.”

Naturally, Pete chose that moment to march in, proclaiming, “I hope everybody’s ready to apologize to me.”

Steve asked, “Why should we apologize?” Now he was shaking his head too.

“Because everybody always says I ruin Christmas.”

Helena said, “As I understand the situation, the salient fact is not that they say you ruin Christmas. The salient fact is that you do ruin Christmas.”

“Almost,” Claudia corrected again. She canted her head, righted it. Canted it again.

“But this time I saved it.”

“By agitating artifacts?” Myka said, but of course he would think that. Probably encouraged them to have a party...

“More so by the minute, from the sound of things,” Leena told him.

“What? No! That isn’t what I did!”

“The artifacts are telling a different story,” Helena noted.

Claudia offered, “It’s more that they’re humming it real low. Like some geologic event that worked its way into a Björk track. Or vice versa.”

Myka—very calmly, she believed, under the circumstances—said, “What. Did. You. Touch.”

“Nothing, Mom,” he said, and his tone caused Myka to spare some sympathy for Jane Lattimer. He then said, as if it were some magnanimous confession, “Okay. Fine. I did, but I gloved up.”

“What did you touch after you gloved up?” Leena asked. “And why?”

“It was like it tapped me on the shoulder...” he began.

Still canting her head, Claudia muttered, “Sallah flashback, Sallah flashback...”

“And said ‘hey big guy’...”

Steve said, “This is already a longer story than I feel like it should be.”

“And told me it had to go the Christmas aisle...”

Myka had had enough. “If you don’t spit it out right now, I personally will Heimlich it out of you. Joyfully. WHAT had to go to the Christmas aisle?”

He turned to her and gave a palms-up shrug. “You know I don’t know anything about classical music.”

She reached to the table for the nearest board game, to throw it at him, but Helena preempted that move by saying, “Judging from Myka’s face, now is not the time for non sequiturs.”

She probably couldn’t have done much damage with a travel-size Aggravation anyway, but travel and aggravation made her think, in Helena’s direction, Oh, now you can read my face. An hour ago in the car, not so much. Then she sighed internally. Or maybe, an hour ago in the car, too well.

Pete was continuing, “But the Messiah had strong feelings.”

“Oh no,” Leena said, and Myka knew that Leena saying “oh no” in that particular way meant she knew something, and the something she knew wasn’t good, but Pete kept on, still enthusiastically proud of himself: “So I gloved up, took it where it wanted to be, and then came home. Because it isn’t Christmas till I’ve won the Trivial Pursuit Star Wars Classic Trilogy Collectors’ Edition!”

“Do I seriously have to remind you I’m the reigning champ?” Claudia demanded. “What you’re saying is, it’s never gonna be Christmas.”

“Not for a while yet,” Leena said, “because we’re going back to the Warehouse. Because I’m pretty sure I know what’s happening.”

“Why do I have to go if I can’t hear whatever it is?” Pete whined.

Myka told him, “I can’t hear it either, and it’s your fault.”

“Your ears are your own problem.”

“I might Heimlich you just for the fun of it.”

Steve said, with concern, “I’ve heard that ribs tend to break.”

Myka nodded. “Exactly.”

“Santa would not approve of that attitude, young lady,” Pete chided.

“All I do is lug around stockings full of coal,” she said. “Do your worst, Santa.”

She made the mistake of glancing at Helena, whose face betrayed a responsive ripple of disquiet. Exactly the wrong sentiment for ending a fight, even a foolish one, Myka realized: imply that nothing you carry with you is what you want. “I didn’t mean...” she began, but Claudia was demanding of Leena, “How do you know what’s happening? And what is happening?”

“He put the Messiah sheet music in the Christmas aisle,” Leena said, with what Myka considered enviable patience.

“You say that like it means something!”

“It does mean something,” Leena said. “You’ll see. More importantly, you’ll hear.”

*

At the Warehouse, when they reached the floor, they were greeted by... “Curtains?” Steve tried, because that was what they were. Tall, cream-colored damask curtains with a green floral pattern. Freestanding, blocking their path. Insistently blocking their path.

“For all of us!” Pete tried back. “Dun-dun-DUN!”

“No...” Leena said. She regarded the curtains. “I know who you are,” she said, and Myka found herself unsurprised to see the curtains rustle at that, as if in appreciation. Leena then said, “And now I know exactly what’s happening.”

“A play is beginning?” Helena suggested.

“Not quite, but you’re in the neighborhood. Surely somebody other than me knows who these curtains are really for.”

Pete leaned close to the curtains, then jumped back like they’d bit him. “Oh my god. Now that I look close—the von Trapp kids!”

“Good boy,” Leena said.

“I thought we were calling him a grown man,” groused Myka.

“Leena is providing positive reinforcement,” Helena said. Pedantic, as if Myka had never heard of such a thing.

“I know she’s providing—” But she shut herself up, sighed in frustration instead.

Leena made sure everyone was wearing gloves, then said, “Claudia, keep your goo gun in your pocket; we might find more of them taking their frustrations for a walk.”

“So do we just put things back where they belong?” Steve asked. “And they calm down and the rumble-chatter stops?”

“Any that got themselves where they aren’t supposed to be, we take them back. But here’s what else we have to do.” She paused. “Sing.”

“No,” Myka said, and “no,” she repeated. She chanced a glance at Helena, but she had closed her eyes and seemed to be pre-massaging a headache out of her temples.

Leena appeared not to have heard Myka, for she went on, “We’ll deal with the curtains first. Next, the Messiah goes back where it’s supposed to be—because that’s what started it all. After that, I think Claudia should tell us what we need to do.”

“Oh god,” Claudia said, sounding just about as dread-filled as Myka felt. “This is Caretaker practice, isn’t it?”

“What if it is?” Leena asked.

“Ugh. Thanks, Pete.”

He said, “Maybe it tapped my shoulder because it thought you needed Caretaker practice.”

Myka snorted. “Maybe it tapped your shoulder because it could tell you’re an easy mark.”

“Hey!” he protested.

“Particularly at Christmas.”

“Hey!”

Leena said, “I think the Messiah might have sensed you’d be an easy mark... mostly because you want to make everybody happy. Particularly at Christmas.”

“See? Leena understands,” he taunted Myka.

Myka once again considered the Heimlich.

They escorted the curtains back to the musicals section, passing by Ginger Rogers’s dancing shoes, and Myka was unnervingly tempted to put them on and bleed her way backwards and in high heels out of the entire situation as Leena explained, “People repurpose ‘My Favorite Things’ as a Christmas song. The curtains find that... troubling.”

Pete scratched his head. “I guess I don’t really get that. Isn’t it kinda great?”

“Wait,” Claudia said, “and this might not even be practice: I think I do get it. How they feel. So let’s say you’re you.”

“I’m me,” he said. “Gotcha. Awesome. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Exactly. But what if some holiday thingy came along and made like it was changing you into something else? They’re afraid we’ll put ’em in the Christmas aisle, and they don’t want to be there. Unlike the Messiah, I guess. Am I wrong, Leena?”

“You’re not wrong,” Leena told her, smiling.

“I feel that too,” Steve agreed. “They’re... afraid? Afraid it’ll diminish them. They’ll be about Christmas and that’s all. That’s why they’re so agitated.”

And so the curtains were serenaded with words about raindrops, kittens, kettles, mittens, and all the rest.

“Are they happier now?” Pete asked. “Do they not feel so bad?”

Leena, Claudia, Steve, and Helena all nodded, if not entirely vigorously. Helena said, “Marginally happier. Not knowing the song, I of course couldn’t participate. I hope they aren’t offended.”

But she hadn’t seemed apologetic at all while the singing took place. In fact she’d smirked. So Myka murmured, “Thrilled, more likely.”

Helena pretended to ignore her but also bared her teeth, minimally, in Myka’s direction, as she said, “Popular culture, alas, remains a largely undiscovered country.”

“It’s just one song,” Claudia said. “You’re getting your head around more stuff all the time! Take the Muppets.”

“Last week’s Christmas special,” Helena said, and Claudia nodded. Myka knew they’d been going one per week, because that was as much as Helena could take, whereas Claudia would have set up a holly-jolly IV drip if she could. Helena continued, “The one you called a ‘crash course’ in several shows’ worth of puppets?”

Claudia nodded again, even more enthusiastically. “Muppet Family Christmas! And now you’re up to speed, so for example when I say ‘Oscar,’ you say...”

“I still fail to understand how the large bird, which seems more accurately a costume than a puppet, qualifies.”

“The answer we were looking for was ‘the Grouch,’ so maybe we’re not quite as far along as I thought. I’m not going to bother with when I say ‘Fraggle,’ you say.”

“Consumer of the structures built by the devoted little workers who wear hats.”

“Aaaand that’s why not. Although your essay answer isn’t wrong.”

“Thank you,” Helena said, performing her funny little bow that struck Myka anew, each time she saw it, as a Victorian tell.

*

In fact, Myka had come home from the Warehouse just as that “crash course” was ending: Helena, as always after such a lesson, looked bemused but relieved, while Claudia was fidgeting with post-lecture satisfaction and, most likely, disappointment that she’d have to wait an entire week till the next one. Myka had asked, “Why does Helena need to know about the Muppets?”

Claudia responded with a puzzled, “Why doesn’t she?”

“Bert, Ernie, and the distinctions therebetween,” Helena said to Myka. “Would that I were you and could retain it all.” She smiled a small “but here we are” smile, and Myka leaned over the back of the sofa and kissed that smile. Because she wanted to; because she could. The smile then widened, and Myka tried not to make the mistake of wondering why every moment wasn’t like this one.

“You two can be pretty soft when you want to be,” Claudia remarked.

Myka had thought, No, we’re not this way when we want to be. It was when they weren’t actively wanting it—or needing it—that this ease stole upon them. But here it was... so Myka kissed Helena again, then asked, “What’s for dinner?”

The asking of that question, in the softness of that moment, had seemed an ideal step forward, one not about destiny or fraught inevitability, but balance and consistency. And then Myka did make the mistake: Why couldn’t every moment be like that? What was it that disturbed all the other moments?

*

Now, as they all headed for the Christmas aisle, Pete pulled on Myka’s arm and held her back a bit from the rest. “You mouthed the words,” he accused, very quietly.

“So what if I did? You know I can’t sing.”

“Maybe it makes a difference. H.G. said the drapes were only marginally better.”

“She didn’t sing either, by the way,” Myka pointed out.

Apparently her feelings about that were clear, for Pete said, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“I meant you and H.G. Incidentally, you walk a little bit like Big Bird.”

“We’re fine. Incidentally, if you got a chicken bone stuck in your throat I wouldn’t be at all upset about what could happen while I was saving your stupid life.”

“I sort of feel like if she choked on a chicken bone, right now, you wouldn’t want to let anybody else do the rib-breaking.”

Myka almost said a dark “you bet I wouldn’t,” but then she realized: “I think that’s always going to be true.”

Pete nodded. “Kiss her, kill her. I get it.”

Unless he was talking about vibes, he didn’t get it, not fully—Myka herself didn’t get it fully, and in everybody’s defense there was a lot to be got—but it was Christmas-sweet that he got as much as he did. She said a mollified, “Look, just don’t make me sing, okay?” Because if there was anything Myka was sure she and Helena definitely did not need right now, it was a replay of “you can’t sing” and “neither can you.”

“No promises, partner. When Leena says ‘jump’ I say ‘my knees are shot.’ You, on the other hand, when she says ‘sing’? Better say ‘how high.’”

“This is kind of a ‘my knees are shot’ situation,” Myka observed.

“What’s the matter with your knees?”

“Never mind.”

And then they reached the Christmas aisle. About which Myka felt, and felt she had a right to feel, a certain amount of post-traumatic stress.

“If you touch anything,” she told Pete, “I will turn your ribs into chicken bones.”

“That makes no sense.”

“And yet you understand me perfectly.”

He took a step away from her. “In a very mobbed-up way, yes I do.”

Helena, Claudia, Leena, and Steve had ringed themselves around a shelf, and Myka peeked over Helena’s shoulder. Only in the Warehouse, she figured, could a piece of music manage to project the idea that it was pleased with itself.

“It’s gloating at me,” Pete complained.

“It did make you do what it wanted,” Steve pointed out.

Claudia said, “It’s like it knew we’d show up right at this moment.”

“I’m pretty sure it did,” Leena said.

Myka, still at Helena’s shoulder, felt a tension in the body that was not quite touching hers. She felt a tension, too, in words that were not quite meant for her to hear as Helena murmured at the music, “What else do you know...”

TBC

[kyn19]

1 THROUGH 98! I WANT TO KNOW THE ANSWERS AND I CAN'T STAND GETTING THEM PIDDLING BIT BY PIDDLY BIT!!!!!

Lmaooooo what a fuckin Mood. Thank you!!!!! Also, you’re getting Drunk Kylie answers which are arguably the Best answers. For the courtesy of everyone’s dash, answers are below the cut!! <3 <3 <3

1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans?

Coffee mugs! I have a sizable collection lmao #WriterLife

2. chocolate bars or lollipops?

omg such a tough one, both are aces. seriously I can think of so many combatting pros & cons!! the only fair way i can currently conceive is which i would want weed in. Which is lollipops bc (#UnpopularOpinion) pot makes chocolate taste bad.

3. bubblegum or cotton candy?

both are great, but def bubblegum.

4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you?

“Pleasure to have in class” in true Gifted Child fashion

5. do you prefer to drink soda from soda cans, soda bottles, plastic cups or glass cups?

i’ll rate them in order: 1) can (absolutely preferred), 2) bottle if alone but plastic (lez be honest, Red Solo Cup) if with company, 3) glass (do not like)

6. pastel, boho, tomboy, preppy, goth, grunge, formal or sportswear?

#1 goth all the way. Pastel and Formal guest appearances

7. earbuds or headphones?

headphone, bc earbuds usually hurt my ears.

8. movies or tv shows?

first of all, how dare you. second of all, tv shows ONLY BECAUSE if all my fave movies were given tv shows so that they could last longer i would choose so

9. favorite smell in the summer?

idk i guess pool chlorine? dislike summer

10. game you were best at in p.e.?

bruh fuckin none. elementary school: too long ago to recall. middle school: escaped having to take gym at all. high school: had a medical excuse to take online PE. least athletic girl u know

11. what you have for breakfast on an average day?

i don’t have bfast bc eating close to when i awaken makes my tummy upset

12. name of your favorite playlist?

hmm 4-way tie between “#motivate #bitch” (gets me pumped to work) and “Friends Of The Illness” (my playlist of songs about and/or artist who are mentally ill) and “Ominous/haunting” (speaks to my creepy side) and “Bad Bitches” (self-explanatory amirite)

13. lanyard or key ring?

Key ring. Straight up I use an extra shoelace as my key ring string, despite owning multiple lanyards.

14. favorite non-chocolate candy?

god another fkn hard one. Listen y’all, you dont understand how much of a sugar fiend i am. candy is my JAM. Starbursts, Sour Straws, Skittles, Jolly Ranchers...who can choose?!

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment?

“Ceremony” by Leslie Marmon Silko. Highly recommend!!!!!!!!!!!

16. most comfortable position to sit in?

laying down lol sitting is for suckers

17. most frequently worn pair of shoes?

combat boots like the gay i am

18. ideal weather?

low 70′s degrees (F*), intermittent showers during the day but clear starry skies overnight

19. sleeping position?

mostly fetal, mostly on my side but chest is towards the bed, one arm under the pillow under my head

20. preferred place to write (i.e., in a note book, on your laptop, sketchpad, post-it notes, etc.)?

Laptop. I used to love writing in notebooks, but ya girl got weak fingy joints nowadays

21. obsession from childhood?

pfft as if they aren’t the same obsessions i have now

22. role model?

so many!!!!! Jameela Jamil is the first that comes to mind

23. strange habits?

lmao i am ass-deep in idiosyncrasies, if you ain’t read the blog title already

24. favorite crystal?

i don’t know anything about crystals. does blue topaz count? cuz that’s my birthstone and i like that one a lot. i even had the foresight to pick that as my engagement ring’s stone in my utterly preposterous & failed relationship

25. first song you remember hearing?

oh wow, no idea. music has always been huge for me. probably either a Britney Spears or Mary J. Blige song???

26. favorite activity to do in warm weather?

stay inside lmao

27. favorite activity to do in cold weather?

WEAR SWEATERS & DRINK HOT CHOCOLATE, BITCH!!!!!!!!!

28. five songs to describe you?

oof ok, hard, but here goes:

“Here” by Alessia Cara

“Wannabe” by the Spice Girls

“I’m Just a Kid and Life Is A Nightmare” by Simple Plan

“No Daddy” by Teairra Mari

“Brick By Boring Brick” by Paramore

29. best way to bond with you?

i am straight up not easy to make friends with (bc my own bullshit, not trying to be pretentious), so bonding is hard. the best way is probably a combo of queer + memes + loves food + correct morals + being the dominant talker

30. places that you find sacred?

Libraries, locally owned coffee shops, Walmarts at 3am, playgrounds in the middle of the night, side of a rural road at 12am, my bed

31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names?

Blazer + shirt with a titty window + high waisted plaid pants + platform booties

32. top five favorite vines?

OMG I LOVE VINES OK OK OK OMG I LOVE SO MANY SO HERE ARE JUST THE ONES I QUOTE THE MOST OK:

Josh Kennedy: “What’s up my name’s Jared I’m 19 and I never fucking learned how to read”

Sarah Schauer: [dont remember the beginning] “didn’t you..?” “sleep in this? yes. mama needs A DRINK”

Evan Breer: “What’s up my & my boys are going to see Uncle Kracker - give me my hat back Jordan, do you see Uncle Kracker or no - *gasp!*”

Drew Gooden: “Road work ahead? Um yeah, I sure hope it does...”

Nathan Enick: “Yo how much money do you have?” “69 cents” “Oh you know what that means!” “...i don’t have enough money for chicken nuggets :( ...”

33. most used phrase in your phone?

bruh like how even am i supposed to answer this?? like texts or Siri requests or????? bc if it’s Siri requests then it’s 100% for arithmetic

34. advertisements you have stuck in your head?

Stanley Steamer. you kno the one

35. average time you fall asleep?

3:30am

36. what is the first meme you remember ever seeing?

bitch i’m a 90′s child of the internet, i was around the web before YouTube launched, i was there when the first modern memes were fucking conceived. i will say the biggest repository of meme culture that i was a part of was YouTube and icanhazcheezburger.com & its side-sites.

37. suitcase or duffel bag?

duffel - Tie-Dye Girl from the Lindsey Lohan “Parent Trap” made quite the impression on me

38. lemonade or tea?

Lemonade! hate the leaf water

39. lemon cake or lemon meringue pie?

Lemon cake! Not a meringue pie girl saly

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school?

I’ve been to a lot of schools yo lol. My undergrad college was def the “weirdest” ofc, bc it was an art school lol. An instance that stands out was a string of “Solid Gold Clit” graffiti after a Sophia Wallace visit to campus right before i started there.

41. last person you texted?

My bff triad pals @backwardswriter and @bristarshine

42. jacket pockets or pants pockets?

damn tough call. Probably jacket pockets bc i’m more likely to have those as a lady who wears lady-targeted pants

43. hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket?

Hoodie

44. favorite scent for soap?

Plum!

45. which genre: sci-fi, fantasy or superhero?

Fantasy, though sci-fi is a solid 2nd. Not much of a superhero gal

46. most comfortable outfit to sleep in?

.....underwear only. Sometimes an oversized t-shirt too.

47. favorite type of cheese?

Mozzarella!!!

48. if you were a fruit, what kind would you be?

I would want to be like a pomegranate, but i’m probably a nectarine

49. what saying or quote do you live by?

“If you hope for the best but expect the worst, you’ll never be disappointed.”

50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have?

bitch i’m a giggle monster, i taught myself to be easily amused as a survival mechanism.

51. current stresses?

My own lack of discipline.

52. favorite font?

oooooof i have so many ok. too name a few: Centaur, Garamont, Book Antigua, Times New Roman, Montserrat.....mostly Serif fonts bc I’m an old books bitch

53. what is the current state of your hands?

I don’t love my hands (how homophobic of me, I know). Currently they’re kinda dry and full of sandwich

54. what did you learn from your first job?

what kind of boss I like. also that my customer service voice is frighteningly pleasant

55. favorite fairy tale?

Original tale: Thumbelina. Adaptations: Snow White.

56. favorite tradition?

uhhh Thanksgiving feast I guess? i am not a traditions gal

57. the three biggest struggles you’ve overcome?

I am very very fortunate to not have a lot or a severity of these. The ones that I’ve had the worst of are: gender discrimination/harassment as a woman, hardcore emotional abuse in a relationship, and heavy heavy mental illness

58. four talents you’re proud of having?

Tangible talents: writing, lying. Intangible: A+ imagination, useless trivia.

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?

“I support you!”

60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be?

like if Tokyo Mew Mew and Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni had a baby

61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.?

Again, how dare you. Like literally, asking me to pick a favorite line from something is like asking what my favorite breed of dog is. Legit impossible

62. seven characters you relate to?

Ananka Fishbein (Kiki Strike series), Mermista (She Ra & the Princesses of Power), Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter), Gwen (Total Drama), Rori Gilmore (Gilmore Girls), Villanelle (Killing Eve), Andrea (St. Trinian’s)

so like all very- to semi-weird white girls lmao

63. five songs that would play in your club?

[by the term “club” i assume that i’m limited to pop and electronic music. even with the limitation, though, a super hard question]

“Talking Body” by Tove Lo

“Hot in Herre” by Nelly

“Because the Night” by Cascada

“Nails, Hair, Hips, Heels” by Todrick Hall

“Break Free” by Ariana Grande ft. Zedd

64. favorite website from your childhood?

pretty much any doll franchise’s site (Barbie, Bratz, My Scene, Polly Pocket, Diva Girlz, everGirl, etc you name it)

65. any permanent scars?

Yep. One by a dog scratch (it was honestly a weak/shallow/innocent scratch, i still have no idea why it scarred at all), and a few from a car crash last year

66. favorite flower(s)?

i don’t really like flowers? i usually just say Forget-Me-Not’s for ease

67. good luck charms?

bitch idk but i’m knocking on wood just from thinking bout it

68. worst flavor of any food or drink you’ve ever tried?

you ever taste that chocolate Laffy Taffy? vile bruh

69. a fun fact that you don’t know how you learned?

I am annoying enough to know how i learnt all my facts, but the funnest fact I like to annoy people with is that ducks have corkscrew penises evolved from their main form of mating being rape

70. left or right handed?

Right (like any ol’ simp)

71. least favorite pattern?

polka dots

72. worst subject?

MATH and also PHYS ED

73. favorite weird flavor combo?

One time whilst high, I put nacho cheese Doritos on a tuna sandwich. Winning combo, I’m telling you

74. at what pain level out of ten (1 through 10) do you have to be at before you take an advil or ibuprofen?

My pain tolerance is straight up unpredictable, so like anywhere from a 3 to a 9

75. when did you lose your first tooth?

5 years old

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?

Mashed potatoes

77. best plant to grow on a windowsill?

I am not a plant person. Moss.

78. coffee from a gas station or sushi from a grocery store?

fucking neither but i at least like coffee so i guess the former....

(i know, it’s tragic and barbaric that i dislike sushi, i wish i had another answer for you)

79. which looks better, your school id photo or your driver’s license photo?

Neither lmao - I got them within a month of each other (six years ago) so they’re essentially the same photo.

80. earth tones or jewel tones?

Jewel!

81. fireflies or lightning bugs?

I mean those are the same bug so I assume this is asking about which terminology I typically use/prefer. Which i would say both bc I’m a cultured ho

82. pc or console?

I don’t game so I guess PC lmao

83. writing or drawing?

Writing but I like both

84. podcasts or talk radio?

damn neither lmao I can’t focus on non-music audio only. I guess talk radio, just bc I can do like ten minute radio segments at least lol

84. barbie or polly pocket?

both were lit but I had more Barbies

85. fairy tales or mythology?

not to sound like a broken record but FIRST OF ALL HOW DARE YOU? second of all, I essentially consider them in the same category at this point in modernity, so my answer is Yes.

86. cookies or cupcakes?

Cupcakes, but both are exquisite

87. your greatest fear?

spiders, heights, clowns, seeing bad things happening to animals, that my consciousness will exist even after death, y’know normal stuff

88. your greatest wish?

to transfer myself into one of my fave fictional worlds

89. who would you put before everyone else?

dogs, next question

90. luckiest mistake?

i make a lot of those honestly, so who knows

91. boxes or bags?

LISTEN I LOVE CONTAINERS OF ALL SORTS, YOU CAN’T MAKE ME CHOOSE, IM PANSEXUAL FOR A REASON

92. lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights?

FLASHLIGHTS, BITCH

93. nicknames?

Ky, KyKy, Moonshine, SugarTits, Goog Bones

94. favorite season?

Autumn (yes i call it that instead of Fall bc i’m a pretentious ass bitch lol)

95. favorite app on your phone?

Tumblr, c’mon

96. desktop background?

Currently a digital art painting of a flowing stag in a swamp that I downloaded from DeviantArt. I change it every few months though (to other downloaded digital art from DA that I collect periodically lmao)

97. how many phone numbers do you have memorized?

Seven - mine, my mom’s 2 numbers, my grandma’s, my pop’s cell and office (also my old office) numbers, and my childhood house phone number lol

98. favorite historical era?

Golden Age of Piracy, specifically bc the piracy lol

Thank you so much for the asks, this was so much fun!!!

[displacedprincess]

y tú nunca juraste que saldría ileso || eleteo

Elena has a secret, and it’s time to tell Mateo.

Alternatively: McKala continues her tradition of titling Elena threads with a lyric of a Spanish song that only 12% fits because she likes the lyric 

@wizardroyale

ELENA

She’d known for a week she was pregnant. She was approaching three months pregnant by now, and now that she’d cried her eyes out to Naomi, discussed her options with her, and determined before anything she had to tell Mateo, it was time to do just that. God, but it was the last thing she wanted to do.

Naomi had, thankfully, cleared the apartment of everyone but Elena ahead of Mateo getting home from work which gave Elena enough time curl up in bed and panic over what she was going to say to him. In the end Naomi’s effort was fruitless and Elena had nothing nice and neat scripted. 

Elena had managed to stress cook. Not that shrimp fettuccine alfredo was fancy but it was something.

When the door opened, she was in the kitchen, portioning out two plates of her shoddy early dinner. “Mateo! I boredom cooked super early, you’re just in time for first dinner.” She hoped her plastered on smile was bright enough to hide how fucking terrified she was, but she should know better by now.

There was no hiding anything from a sorcerer, was there?

MATEO

It was a little after 3 o’clock in the afternoon when Mateo walked through the door, calling out a greeting to Elena. He’d immediately smelled the garlic in the air and knew that Elena had been cooking before she even had the chance to tell him from the kitchen. 

Before that, however, he had sensed the now familiar tension as he walked up the stairs. It had been clawing at his insides like a restless animal pacing for awhile now—anytime he was around Elena, actually. Between that and the Anxiety and Fear constantly swirling around her like a storm cloud behind the False Smile she wore, he’d been worried for her. 

He’d asked a few times if she was ok and had always gotten the same casual rebuff, so he’d decided to sit back and wait for her to tell him whatever was troubling her—whenever she was ready to tell him.

He grinned, dropping his backpack on the sofa before marching into the kitchen and catching her around the waist as he pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Ooh, that smells amazing, mi amor! I forgot to pack a lunch so first dinner sounds really good right about now.”

ELENA

Elena was very good at fake smiles. At the one year anniversary of her parents’ assassinations, she’d had to give a speech to Avalor honoring them and she’d be damned if she didn’t smile even while her heart was cannibalizing itself, was tearing itself into pieces. Right now, even her eyes almost looked like they believed the smile she wore.

At the kiss to her cheek, Elena did genuinely giggle. No amount of anxiety could make her love him any less and at least that bit of happiness she didn’t have to fake.

“Great, because I’m starving,” she said, bringing the plates and two forks to the table. She wasn’t all that hungry - throwing up almost everything you eat kind of makes you not want to eat - but having a fork and a plate of pasta gave her something to nervously mess with. 

She’d been careful not to eat anything she wasn’t sure was safe around Mateo since she found out she was pregnant. Elena wanted to be the one to tell him, not her stupid morning (terrible misnomer, by the way) sickness. 

“How was work? Didn’t get bitten by any clients?”

MATEO

Mateo loved it when Elena genuinely laughed, even if it was just a small giggle. Laughter was a sign of happiness and happiness meant he was doing his job as her boyfriend well. Truly, he wanted little more out of life than to make her as happy as possible.

Following her to the table he held a chair out for her, pushing it in before taking the seat beside her. He didn’t care how much she teased him for being silly or sappy, chivalry wasn’t dead and he would hold doors and chairs for her until the end of time. 

“It was fine,” he commented, swirling a few pieces of pasta onto his fork and taking a bite, “And nah. The clients all love me. I apparently have a calming presence or whatever.” He laughed, taking another bite before adding, “Mmmm! The shrimp alfredo is so good! Did you do something different this time? Like—I dunno, did you add more garlic, maybe?”

ELENA

Elena normally would’ve teased him, or at least acknowledged how sappy he was with a soft chuckle, but was such a mess of nerves all she could do was smile. It wasn’t fair that she’d kept it from him until this long, but at the same time...Mateo wasn’t the one pregnant. It was her body and she deserved a few days to sit with it and wrap her head around it for herself before telling him.

She’s only intended three, maybe four days, but it had been a week and she did think it unfair to let it get to eight days.

Still, the words weren’t coming and she wanted to talk about anything but that. Luckily he gave her an out.

“More garlic? Is it particularly garlicky? I haven’t tasted it yet, let me see.” Elena twirled some pasta onto her fork and stabbed a shrimp, pretty certain she’d be okay eating it. She’d eaten some pasta dish at work the other day with crab and didn’t throw up her guts, so! Shrimp alfredo had to be safe, right?

...right?

Wrong. Elena hadn’t yet swallowed her food before her stomach rejected it, doing its best to keep the offending food out, but Elena was like her father. King Raul and Elena shared the horrible habit of nervous-nausea, and Elena’d become an expert at willing herself not to throw up. The fear of the shame of vomiting on national television was a great motivator to just keep it down.

She wasn’t able to stop herself from heaving with a closed mouth though, clapping a hand over her mouth to keep from opening it. Elena swallowed hard, forcing her food down, and willed it to stay down.

“Fuck.” Elena mumbled behind her hand.

MATEO

Mateo did not miss the closed mouth heaving. He’d noticed she’d been nauseated a lot over the past few months—going back to their date on New Years eve—and every time he’d said something about it, she claimed to just be feeling under the weather. As if it were a lingering flu or something—a going-on-three-months-now flu. 

So when she covered her mouth with a muttered curse, he went on instant high alert. He had managed, however, to learn to remain calm during these instances—and that was progress, right? 

Instinctively, he reached over to place a comforting hand on her back and rubbed it gently, though worry sparked in his eyes. “Hey, you look like you’re going to be sick. You ok? Do you need help getting to the bathroom? Or I can grab the Tums? Some ginger ale? Whatever you need, just say the word.”

ELENA

Elena shook her head at everything Mateo suggested, keeping her hand clapped over her mouth. God, she really couldn’t deny it anymore, could she? 

“It won’t help!” Elena snapped, the pent up anxiety and tension just exploding. “It won’t help. I’m not sick, it’s- it’s worse. How can we both have been so oblivious, especially me? How did I not notice-”

She buried her face in her hands to hide her watering eyes. “I’m-” no, she should turn to face him. “I’m pregnant, Mateo. I’m pregnant.”

MATEO

I’m pregnant.

How could two little words have such a huge effect on one person. Ice coated his insides as a storm of thoughts and emotions burst into Mateo’s mind at those words. Shock. Fear. Panic. Worry. More fear. More shock. More worry. All of these emotions and more swirled in his mind as he stared unseeingly ahead, shaking his head in denial. 

Pregnant? Elena? How? When? Was it even possible? How long? Oh. My. God. What had he done?!

He was having trouble taking a breath as he tried to process the implication of what she’d just told him, though coherent thought alluded him. Did that mean that he—he being, Mateo—was going to be a dad? To a baby? With Elena? Oh. My. God.

A moment later, he snapped out of it, noticing Elena crying and realized that this had been the source of the fear and anxiety he’d been sensing coming from her. Words failed him as he scooted his chair closer and reached to wrap his arms around her and gently pulled her against his chest. 

“I—I don’t know what to say—” he finally managed to croak quietly, “Except that I’m so so sorry, Elena.” His own eyes filled with tears, stinging as he tried to blink them away, only managing to send them trickling down his cheeks. 

ELENA

Elena laughed mirthlessly and wiped at her eyes. Why was he crying? He’s not the one pregnant, she thought bitterly. It wasn’t fair to be so angry over his reaction because the logical part of her knew it was justified, but the emotional part of her was only thinking about herself. That was what made him a better person than her.

“Why are you apologizing, I’m the dumb bitch that can’t remember birth control pills.” Elena muttered, covering her face with her hand. 

“What are we supposed to do, Mateo? I can’t be pregnant right now. I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, and I’ve talked over all my options with Naomi and I can’t - I can’t think because I can’t wrap my head around it, and I want it to be a false positive but the hospital did a blood test and I really, really am like three months pregnant. Almost.”

MATEO

Why was he apologizing? Because he knew he was the dumb ass who had caused this, that’s why! It was all his fault, and he knew it! 

“Three months?” he echoed back in a hollow tone. He cast his mind back three months and that—that was right about the time they’d decided to ignore the doctor’s orders and just have sex anyways. And there was only one time in that time he could remember having completely unprotected sex—that very first time when they’d both literally lost their minds. 

He just—he needed to hold her, to help ground him and keep the panic at bay. He knew that as long as they were together, they could handle anything. 

But he also needed to look her in the eye, to tell her what he needed to say. So he pulled away, just enough to meet her gaze, keeping hold of her shoulders. He worried his lip, trying to find the words to say that might help and not make things worse.

Brushing a strand of hair from her eyes, he watched her with his eyebrows furrowed together, worried. “I—honestly don’t know? Just that, whatever we do, we’ll do it together. If you’ll let me, that is.”

He reached down and took her hands in his, saying, “I swear, I’m with you, Elena. Every step of the way, ok?”

ELENA

Elena shook her head and let it hang low as stray tears fell on their hands. She didn’t know what it was she wanted him to be there for her through, though. Yeah, she and Naomi had laid all her options out there on the table when they talked. They were both ardently pro-choice and Elena had not completely eliminated that option yet actually.

Still, not all of Avalor was on the same page as her and Naomi. Avalor was much less religious than the rest of Latin America, but Elena would have caused a scandal if she didn’t show up in public with an ash cross on her forehead on Ash Wednesday. Just ending the inconvenient, poorly timed, unwanted pregnancy would be her decision if she actually felt like she had the freedom to make the best choices for herself.

Elena wasn’t just Elena though. She was the rightful queen and deposed princess of Avalor. Every action even in secret could come to the public light even years later. Imagine the public shame if anybody found out.

So, no. Elena didn’t have a choice. Like it or not - and she hated her situation - she was pregnant, and going to remain pregnant.

“Having an abortion would cause a scandal if the hyper-Catholics in Avalor ever caught wind of it.” Elena said plainly, letting go of Mateo’s hands and holding her head high, blinking away the rest of her tears. “So that’s out even if I wish I could give it a fair shake as an option. If I was anybody but who I am, I would probably go that route.”

That wasn’t to say she didn’t want...she did want, one day, to marry Mateo and have children with him. Right now, while they were in exile from their home, was not the time. But Elena was not a woman whose body belonged to herself. As the first in line to the throne of Avalor, Elena was always expected to reproduce someday, and it was fortunate that Elena always knew she one day wanted to. 

As the ruling branch of the royal family of Avalor, the heir to the throne had two jobs. To prepare to rule with a fair hand, and to bear heirs to the throne. 

“So I have to have the -” she swallowed, unable to bring herself to say the word ‘baby.’ Not yet. “- I have to stay pregnant.”

Soon, when she was done processing what was happening to her life and to her body, she would be able to acknowledge it fully. As of now, she was still numb, still full of regret, and still felt so betrayed by her own body.

“That’s what is going on, so.”

MATEO

Having an abortion–– 

Now, Mateo was not the type to have an opinion on, let alone speak up about controversial topics the way Elena and Naomi were. The very idea of getting involved in such things filled him with anxiety to the point where he was useless and unable to function. Honestly, for the most part, he felt that most of those issues were best left to each individual.

Live and let live, right?

But when the word “abortion” came out of Elena’s mouth, directed towards her pregnancy––their unborn child that was part him––a fresh wave of sorrow, overwhelmed him. He didn’t know what to say, because of course it was her body and he had no say over what she chose to do with it. 

But their baby––the thought of never having the chance to meet them was upsetting to the point of tears. 

It was all so confusing. 

He loved Elena and wanted what was best for her, and their unborn child was part of her. Though, to a lesser extent, it was part of him too. He wanted Elena to be free to do what she needed to do for her own well being and happiness. But he also had this strange sense of wanting to do what was best for the tiny person that was growing inside her.

Regardless, he knew he would support whatever decision she made, even if it broke his heart.

And then there was the fact that she was doing that cold, calculating political thing she did whenever she talked about her position as ruler of Avalor. It made him crazy when she did that, when she put her own needs aside because of “the way it would look” to the idiots who had done nothing to help her since all of the political unrest began so many years ago.

“Just stop. Please.” he said, his tears drying up as he scowled, shaking his head. “This isn’t about what THEY think. They aren’t doing a damn thing to help you while you’re stuck in exile, so I don’t think they get a say in this. This is about what’s best for you and, to a lesser extent, what’s best for us. We’re the ones who have to live with our choices, not them.”

He sighed deeply and reached out for her hands again, giving them a squeeze. “Please, Elena. You know how I feel about the political image stuff. I get that its part of the “rightful queen of Avalor” package, but I don’t believe you have to do anything. You always have a choice. However, should you choose to stay pregnant, then I will be here for you every step of the way.”  He met her gaze evenly, determination sparking in his eyes as he insisted, “I’m not going to run away from this, I swear, Elena. I’m with you, always.”

ELENA

“Because they’re suffering more than me, living under a dictatorship! I forgive them, I do, even though there’s nothing to forgive.” Elena argued. “And you don’t understand. You don’t understand because you’re a commoner. You’re a private citizen whose life was always your own.”

Since her first breath Elena belonged to Avalor first, her parents second, and then herself. Her parents never said as much but her life experiences made that abundantly clear. 

Elena let out a cold, bitter laugh. “Sure, I have a choice. Nobody is holding a gun to my head. But neither option is ideal, so is it really a free choice? What’s best for me is undoubtedly to not be pregnant. But I don’t think you agree with me there. You don’t have to see reagents to see the face you just made. God, I should have just handled it on my own the second I knew and avoided this conversation, but now I’ve told you and — and now I can’t even look you in the eye and say I don’t want this. If you keep telling me I have permission to think selfishly then I might make the choice that’s best for me and I’m not convinced you’ll forgive me.”

She wriggled her hands from his grasp. “I never had an actual choice. My body belongs to the Flores royal family line. So I’m pregnant. And abortion is out of the question, so here we are, Mateo. Both on the most wanted list of a dictator and about to complicate things further.”

MATEO

At her words, Mateo flinched away with an audible gasp as if he’d been slapped, his eyes going wide and his brows knitting together as he stared, speechless. 

Really, if she’d wanted to hurt him, she’d found the perfect angle of attack—using his social status compared to hers against him. He knew all too well how common he was, and how not evenly matched he was for her. 

But then she started putting words in his mouth and making assumptions about his motivations and his eyes narrowed. 

“I think I’m starting to understand,” he said cooly, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms as if to warm himself, “First, you think I’m too common and too stupid to understand your position—not that I’m surprised, I mean, I’ve always thought so, so why shouldn’t you? And now I’m apparently not important enough to have thoughts and feelings worth even hearing if you already regret telling me before taking half a second to listen!”

The volume of his voice increased as he spoke until he was nearly shouting. It was the strangest thing—he wasn’t one for yelling, and certainly not at Elena. But everything in his mind was still spinning and he did not know how to navigate this new territory. 

He pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, willing himself to calm down—and willing her to calm down while he was at it, hoping it would work. He didn’t want to be mad at her, he wanted to help—even if letting her lash out at him hurt. He had it coming, didn’t he? This situation was at least half his doing.

“Look,” he said, quietly now, choosing his words carefully, “I’m sorry. Forget I even said that. This isn’t about me. I said I would support you, no matter what you choose, and I mean it. Take that however you want.”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and looking at the floor as he finished, “I just don’t want you to make a choice in either direction that you will regret, alright? And—I mean, like I said, its your body, your choice, right? But, if you want to know the truth, I will take a complicated life with you any day over a life filled with regret—because I’m not convinced you wouldn’t regret terminating this pregnancy later—wondering what might have been once its too late.”

ELENA

“Typical man.” Elena scoffed, not really meaning anything she was saying at this point. She was hurt and scared and when she was either of those things her instinct was attack, attack, attack with a poison tongue. 

“I wouldn’t regret it, because it would be the smart thing to do. I’m twenty-five years old Mateo, I think I understand my mind perfectly well. But.” She held up her hands and stood up from the table. “I told you I’m going to remain pregnant, so you don’t have to worry about it.”

She began to pace the floor, afraid she’d snap at him even worse if he touched her again, gave her comfort she didn’t deserve. 

“So I really don’t think we have to talk about it more.” They did. But Elena was trying to avoid it. 

MATEO

Typical man? His head snapped up at the barbed words. What the hell was that even supposed to mean? 

He watched her pace a moment, sympathetic. He couldn’t help but notice the way the venom coming from her mouth didn’t match with the reagents now swirling around her. She was scared and anxious and hurting and he knew that was a recipe for one angry wolverine of a princess. 

He made a split second decision, understanding that she was probably going to yell at him again, but also knew that she needed him—even if she was in 100% denial of any such thing.

Standing, he moved the few steps over to where she paced, folding her in his arms as soon as she turned around and held her tight. He didn’t have the words to fight and honestly didn’t think anything he could say would help. Actions would speak volumes where he couldn’t. 

He could feel her fear and tension pounding into him like a tidal wave, so hard it was almost painful and he struggled not to give into her frantic panic. He willed his magic to calm the fear, imagining it wrapping around her like a warm blanket or a hug. It wasn’t a skill he’d quite mastered yet, but he hoped it would help, if even a little. 

“It’s going to be ok, mi amor,” he murmured, so quietly it was almost a whisper, holding her close. “It’s going to be ok.”

ELENA

Elena made to throw Mateo’s arms off of her, but his presence that one second infuriated her just as quickly calmed her. Barely. She did not smile and she did not feel at ease but she didn’t feel like her heart was going to fly out of her chest. She didn’t want to lash out at Mateo anymore. 

She didn’t want to get away from him, and instead, wanted to be held. 

“You don’t know that.” Elena said quietly, almost a whisper. “But thanks for the sentiment.”

MATEO

Mateo sighed with relief when she neither pushed him away, nor did she yell at him. She relaxed ever so slightly in his arms, the raging storm of emotion receding a bit.

Perhaps the worst was over? He could only hope. 

“I do so know that,” he insisted, stroking her hair with on hand. “Because I know that as long as we have each other, we can handle anything that comes our way.”

Was that cheesy as hell? Yes. Yes it was. But he didnt’ think that made it any less true.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m shocked and terrified and have no idea how to do any of this,” he continued, his voice shaking with emotion, “But, I feel a lot better knowing we’re doing this together.”

ELENA 

Elena would’ve called him cheesy and smiled had she been capable of either of those things right now. While she couldn’t yet smile at or tease him, her white hot anger was still keeping its distance, and her anxiety was replaced with an uneasy calm. 

A numbness. 

“I really, really do appreciate that you’re trying to say things to make me feel better. And maybe you mean them, I know you mean them, but I’m just not able to believe them right now. Do you understand?” Elena said, apologizing with her facial expressions and tone but not with the actual words ‘I’m sorry I’m pregnant and not happy.’ 

“You have to understand that I am dealing with a lot right now. And so are you, I know that, but I’m the one—” she swallowed. “— I just want you to know that I appreciate you trying to make me feel better. I’m not going to feel better today but thank you for trying. Can we… can we give up on trying to make me feel better for today? I do feel better than I did an hour ago. But I think that’s the best we can do for today.”

She laced her fingers with his and did manage a thin smile. 

MATEO 

The truth was that Mateo hadn’t been aiming for sunshine and roses. Really, he wasn’t so foolish as to think that anything about their current situation was going to be easy and nothing but time would bring peace. 

If he was being honest, he was terrified and felt the old self loathing and guilt creeping in with whispers of “I told you so,” and “Look what you did, you’ve hurt her” and “They’d all be better off without you.” It took every ounce of courage and determination that he possessed to keep telling that voice to shut the hell up, and this was not about him. Elena needed him and he would be there for her. 

He could sense Elena’s panic and rage had receded, and that was enough for him. 

Returning her smile with a nod and a tiny smile of his own, “I understand,” he said quietly, ���I won’t say another word about it until you want to talk.” He glanced around to the living room and their bedroom door beyond and then back at her, asking, “I think we could both use a quiet afternoon—how about a nap? Or maybe we could watch a movie on the couch? Or—” he cringed, shooting her an apologetic look before finishing, “If you don’t want to be around me right now, I—I understand. I can take the couch if you want to be alone in the bedroom.”

ELENA

“I wish I could sleep for weeks.” Elena lamented, burying her face in Mateo’s chest. 

Elena closed her eyes and just stood there pressed against him. She stayed safe in his warmth for a moment before sighing and figuring it was time to use words again.

“You can nap with me.” She said quietly. “I’d like that.”

MATEO 

A sigh of relief escaped him as she rested in his arms, perhaps not the same as always because this moment felt so big, like they were standing on the edge of a completely different unknown than any they’d faced before.

But she didn’t hate him for what he’d done to her and so long as that was true, he believed they would find their way.

He held her and petted her hair, more than willing to just be there in the moment as long as she needed him to be.

At her words, he simply smiled and nodded quietly, murmuring, “That sounds perfect,” before taking her hand and tugging her to the bedroom. He kicked his shoes off, pulling off his hoodie and jeans and slipped under the blankets, pulling the covers back to wait for Elena to join him. 

ELENA 

Elena couldn’t say anything. She was afraid if she did she would yell at him again and say things that she didn’t mean like “you wouldn’t understand, you’re a commoner.” The C-word wasn’t fair. It was too harsh.  

She curled up next to him and laid there in silence for so long that she thought he’d fallen asleep by the time she craned her neck up to look at him.

“Mateito. Are you asleep?” Elena whispered. A beat. “I shouldn’t have accused you of not understanding. I know how thoughtful you are and how much you think of me.”

MATEO 

Mateo was not, in fact, asleep. His arms had curved naturally around her when she snuggled up to him and he’d been lying there with his cheek resting against the top of her head. There were too many thoughts and worries and questions plaguing him and his chest far too tight to actually find sleep, but having Elena so close had brought a small amount of calm to the storm in his mind.

“Hmmm?” he murmured quietly, smiling a little at the familiar, childhood nickname. “Oh, don’t worry about it. I get it, you were upset. And maybe you’re right. I don’t understand the royal obligation thing as much as I should, seeing as I’m dating literal royalty.” He shrugged. 

“But I will always try to make sure you, Elena Flores, the woman I love, are taken care of first and foremost—even before our people. Because if I don’t look out for you, who will?” He said this matter-of-factly as he kissed her hair and tightened his arms around her.

ELENA

Elena craned her neck to press a kiss to his cheek and then buried her face in the crook of his neck. She did not feel like everything would be okay, no, but she felt a little bit better knowing that Mateo was in her corner no matter what. Not that she actually truly worried he wouldn’t be - this is Mateo she was talking about! - but the explicit verbal confirmation was a comfort.

“I forget, sometimes. That I’m a person, and not just an extension of the royal institution.” Elena admitted as she stayed pressed against his warmth. “Keep looking after Elena the Person, because Elena the Princess has enough people over her already.”

She exhaled through her nose and closed  her eyes. “Thanks for letting me have time to...sit with you and this information and let it really sink in. We can talk about it more tomorrow, but for today, just. Thank you. Thank you, Mateo. For being kinder than I deserve.”

MATEO 

Finally starting to feel a little drowsy, he held her a bit closer, resting his cheek against the top of her head and murmuring a simple, “You’re welcome.” A yawn slipped out as he added, “Te amo, Elenita, and I’m here for you. No matter what.” 

In spite of the whirlwind of emotion still going on in his mind, he closed his eyes and snuggled down under the blankets, feeling warm and sleepy with the woman he loved in his arms. Though he knew their lives would never be the same from that moment on, at the same time, it felt like nothing had changed. They still loved each other and they were in this life together.

He knew deep in his gut that even though nothing felt like it was ok in that moment, as long as they had each other, everything would somehow work out in the end. 

[me-mindfulexistence]

100 Ridiculous “Get To Know Me Questions”....And What My Husband Guessed I Said.

 Need something to do?  Share some “get to know me questions” with your friends and family”.   

I answered 100 “Get to know me questions” alone...and then later I asked my husband what he thought my answer would be. How many did we match? 

1.Who is your hero?  (me) No one in particular. Anyone who stands up for the underdog, (Fights for the weaker person, feels compassion and empathy for humans and animals....but actually does something about it besides running their mouth) Ron:  No one      CORRECT

2.If you could live anywhere,  where would it be? Somewhere very very warm, with very few people and all  of my children (Ron) Somewhere warm and sunny           CORRECT

3.What is your biggest fear?   Losing my husband or children. (Ron) something happening to my kids/family            CORRECT

4.What was your favorite family vacation? N. Carolina, time on the beach with my family. (Ron) N. Carolina           CORRECT

5.What would you change about yourself if you could?  Rid myself of self-doubt and anxiety. I’d be unstoppable! (Ron) To be more extroverted and outgoing.                        CORRECT

6.What really makes you angry? Oodles  of things. People acting like the boys we took into our family, aren’t “real” family, racial discrimination, animal abuse, bullying, gender stereotypes, and religion (Ron) “Oh jez! Incompetent people”                       WRONG

7.What motivates you to work hard?  My family and their success. (Ron) To Help others                           WRONG.

8.What is your favorite thing about your career?  Wanting my patients to feel better about themselves and giving them an improved quality of  life. (Ron) Helping people                     CORRECT

9.Coke or Pepsi? Coke (Ron) coke             CORRECT

10.What is your proudest  accomplishment? Besides my having family, getting my BJJ black belt. (Ron) being a mother         CORRECT

11.When did you meet for the first time? Was it a connection? Friends introduced us at his work, Moyer and Son. Nope, no connection!. (Ron) Moyer and son, I don’t think you spoke to me. no connection   CORRECT

12.Favorite TV cartoon growing up as a kid?  Scooby Doo. (Ron) I have no idea, I didn’t watch cartoons as a kid, Tom and Jerry?   WRONG

13.Who makes you laugh the most?     My husband. (Ron) me   CORRECT

14.What would you be willing to do for a million dollars? Almost anything as long as my husband was okay with it and it didn’t hurt anything else. (Ron) eat red meat      WRONG

15.What did you want to be when  you were small?  A teacher. (Ron) heavier                WRONG

16.Do you want to be buried, Cremated, have your body donated to science or do some kind of eco-friendly burial when you die?  The funeral market is a scam and it’s polluting the planet! Eco-friendly method on a green burial site. NO Coffin! (Ron) eco-friendly burial, or some shit like that.                  CORRECT

17.If you could choose to do  anything for a day, what would it be?  African Safari.  (Ron) nothing               WRONG

18.What is your favorite game or  sport to watch and play?  Brazilian  Jiu-jitsu. (Ron) BJJ                     CORRECT

19.What household chore do you like the least? Cleaning the bathroom.  (Ron) cleaning in general               WRONG

20.What would you sing at Karaoke night?  LOVE LOVE LOVE SINGING!  Sinead O’Connor, Nothing Compares To You (and about 100 more songs). (Ron) Beastie Boys, fight for you right to party      WRONG

21.What two radio stations do you listen to in the car the most? SiriusXM 100, 101. (Ron) The two Howard Stations         CORRECT

22.Which would you rather do: wash dishes, mow the lawn, clean the bathroom, or vacuum the house? Mow the lawn (if it’s hot outside), otherwise vacuum. (Ron)   mow               CORRECT

23.Favorite color? Yellow.  (Ron) black          WRONG

24.If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be? salad with lots of stuff in it. (Ron)   lobster         WRONG

25.How do you feel about adoption? Bring em’ on. Babies of any age! The more the merrier. (Ron) strongly           CORRECT

26. Have you ever had a nickname? What is it?  Sher (pronounced “Share”). (Ron) Dukers              WRONG

27.  Do you like or dislike surprises? Why or why not? Hate surprises. I wanna know.  (Ron) no, don’t like being center of attention     CORRECT

28.  In the evening, would you rather play a game, visit a relative, watch a movie, or read?  Ummm. Do nothing, so watch a movie I guess. (Ron) movie     CORRECT

29. Would you rather vacation in Hawaii or Alaska, and why? Hawaii b/c it’s hot. (Ron) Hawaii b/c it’s warm and has beaches           CORRECT

30. Would you rather win the lottery or work at the perfect job? And why?  Lottery b/c then I could still work at the “perfect job” as much or little as I wanted. (Ron) work at perfect job, b/c you’d be happy and help people   WRONG

  31. Who would you want to be stranded with on a deserted island? My husband. (Ron) me         CORRECT 

   32. If money was no object, what would you do all day? Create my utopia, an animal rescue. (Ron) Some kind of crap with animals         CORRECT 

     33. If you could go back in time, what year would you travel to? 1995 (after college).  (Ron) 1978        WRONG

   34. How would your friends describe you?  I’m not sure. Stubborn, strong willed? Sensitive. (Ron) passionate          WRONG

   35. What are your hobbies? Momming. Jiu-jitsu. Animal stuff. (Ron)  teaching bjj and pets              CORRECT

   36. What is the best gift you have been given?  My family. (and my jukebox that breaks all the time). (Ron) children           CORRECT

   37. What is the worst gift you have received? Anything that has to do with cleaning. (Ron) dryer vent              CORRECT

   38. Aside from necessities, what one thing could you not go a day without? My animals….esp my dog Mable! (Ron) exercise    WRONG

   39. List two pet peeves: My husband yelling about my animals, my kids not doing their chores. (Ron) me groping you, bad drivers      WRONG

   40. Where do you see yourself in five years? Wanting more kids (Ron) here                        WRONG

41. How many pairs of shoes do you own? idk10?,  the same shoes I had 5 years ago (although I’ll replace my sneakers once or twice a year). (Ron) 10     CORRECT 

   42. If you were a super-hero, what powers would you have? I could be invisible. (Ron) strength                WRONG

   43. What would you do if you won the lottery? Quit my  job and Open an animal sanctuary. (Ron) pay off all debt             WRONG

   44. Finish things as soon as possible or wait until the last minute? Wait until the last minute. (Ron) wait until the last minute            CORRECT 

   45. What unconscious mannerism do you display if you are upset or uncomfortable in a situation?  I become very quiet... (Ron) chew face   WRONG

   46. If you could go back in time to change one thing, what would it be?  How I acted as a teenager. I could be pretty rotten. (Ron) not throwing poop out a window            WRONG

   47. If you could share a meal with any 4 individuals, living or dead, who would they be? Jim Morrison, Jimmy Hendrix,  mommom, and God. (Ron) all your grandparents but especially your mommom Knipe           WRONG

   48. How do you feel about group vacations with other couples? That sounds awful. (Ron) not happening               CORRECT        

         49. What's the longest you've gone without sleep (and why)?  An entire day when I was young, partying all night. (Ron) 24hrs partying       CORRECT 

   50. How Do you handle anger?  I bottle it up for a while and get quiet. (Ron) not well, you get quiet             CORRECT

51. Would you rather trade intelligence for looks or looks for intelligence? Interesting question! I’m already getting close to hitting the wall with looks….but I also can’t afford to lose any intelligence either. I’d have to trade looks for more intelligence.  (Ron) intelligence for looks             WRONG

   52. How often do you buy clothes? Almost never. (Ron)   not often     CORRECT 

   53. Have you ever had a secret admirer?  Probably (who hasn’t). It would be secret. (Ron) probably              CORRECT 

   54. What's your favorite holiday? CHRISTMAS! (Ron) Christmas        CORRECT 

   55. What do you drink when you go out for social occasions?  Coke (not diet either). (Ron) water or coke                  CORRECT 

   56. What was the last thing you recorded on TV?  True blood. (Ron) SNL   WRONG

   57. Do you prefer the live version or studio version of an album? Studio. (Ron) Studio             CORRECT 

   58. What's your favorite type of foreign food? Mexican. (Ron) mexican      CORRECT 

   59. Are you a clean or messy person? Pretty Messy. (Ron) messy       CORRECT 

   60. Who would you want to play you in a movie of your life? Uma Thurman. (Ron) Uma Thurman             CORRECT 

   61. How long does it take you to get ready in the morning? 30mins (Ron) 1hr             WRONG

   62. What kitchen appliance do you use every day? Dishwasher. (Ron) microwave              WRONG

   63. What's your favorite fast food chain?  Taco Bell. (Ron) taco bell       CORRECT 

   64. What's your favorite family recipe or dish?  mommoms apple pie.  (Ron)  Mommoms apple pie           CORRECT 

   65. Do you love or hate rollercoasters? Love. (Ron) Love      CORRECT 

   66. What's your favorite family tradition?  Christmas Morning Breakfast at my moms. (Ron) Christmas Eve          CORRECT  

   67. What is your favorite childhood memory? Having baby bunnies with my dad. (Ron) I have no idea           WRONG

   68. What's your favorite movie? Natural Born Killers (Ron) Pulp fiction  WRONG

   69. How old were you when you learned Santa wasn't real? How did you find out? Devastating. I wanted to believe forever. I was forced to “not believe” at about 12. My aunt said on Christmas day “You know Santas not real, right?”.  Ugh. (Ron) 8, I think your friend Dorene probably told you.   WRONG

   70. Is your glass half full or half empty? Half empty….just waiting for the other shoe to drop. (Ron) Half empty         CORRECT 

   71. What's the craziest thing you’ve done in the name of love? Dating my husband was risky. (Ron) got married          WRONG

   72. What is your favorite chip flavor? Salt and vinegar. (Ron) salt and vinegar             CORRECT 

   73. What was your favorite subject in school?  Science. (Ron) none   WRONG

   74. What's the most unusual thing you've ever eaten?  I’m not very daring. Seaweed. (Ron) I have no idea, you really don’t care for food   WRONG

   75. Do you collect anything? Unwanted animals. (Ron) records     WRONG

   76. Is there anything you wished would come back into fashion?  Bell bottoms. (Ron) The 70s                  WRONG

   77. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Introvert.  (Ron) Introvert        CORRECT 

   78. Which of the five senses would you say is your strongest? touch. (Ron) You have a nose like a dog                   WRONG

   79. Have you ever had a surprise party? (that was an actual surprise)  Nope…and I don’t want one. (Ron) No                  CORRECT  

   80. Best quality and worst quality?  Best-compassionate/empathetic,  Worst-Too compassionate/empathetic to a fault. (Ron) best-caring, worst-caring too much                    CORRECT 

   81. What do you do to keep fit? Brazilian Jiu-jitsu but I also just exercise to not be a big lump of (Ron) BJJ and exercise            CORRECT

   82. Does your family have a “motto” – spoken or unspoken?  I say “wrong is wrong, damn it”. (Ron) Never a wrong time to do the right thing never a right time to do the wrong thing                   WRONG

   83. If you were ruler of your own country what would be the first law you would introduce?  ALL KINDS OF RULES about limiting the use of animals for consumption. NO FACTORY FARMS! (Ron) NO killing of animals      CORRECT

   84. Are you a leader or follower?  Leader (Ron) leader       CORRECT 

   85. What three things do you think of the most each day?  Work, family, how tired I am. (Ron) something happening to my kids, something happening to ron, or me                     WRONG

   86. If you had a warning label, what would yours say? Proceed with caution. (Ron) warning fragile                     WRONG

   87. What song would you say best sums you up? Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd. (Ron) someone left the cake out in the rain, AKA MacArthur Park by Donna Summer                 WRONG

   88. What is your favorite drink? Vanilla Chai Latte. (Ron) water    WRONG    89. Who was your first crush?  Bo Duke (on Dukes of Hazzard). (Ron) Shaun Cassidy           WRONG

  90. What's the most interesting thing you can see out of your kitchen window? My chickens. (Ron) chickens              CORRECT 

   91. On a scale of 1-10 how funny would you say you are? 6. (Ron) 8  WRONG

   92. Where do you see yourself in 10 years? Working like a dog and getting no where. (Ron) here                WRONG

   93. What was your first job? Working at an awful pizza shop. (Ron) pizza shop                 CORRECT 

   94. If you could join any past or current music group which would you want to join? The Doors.  (Ron) The dead              WRONG

   95. Do you believe in an after life?  Yes. (Ron) yes            CORRECT 

   96. You’ll never understand people who do what.....?  Fart in front of anyone intentionally. (Ron) hunt              WRONG

   97.  Who would i hate to see naked? Any parental figures. (Ron) parents     CORRECT 

   98. If you had to describe yourself as an animal, which one would it be? Probably a cat. I can be affectionate one minute but turn and walk away b/c you are boring me the next. I don’t like to be told what to do…and I’m not easy to control. “Obedient” isn’t my strong point. (Ron) cat, b/c you can be a loner and snobby (or some might perceive you to be that way).          CORRECT 

   99. What is something that turns you off about another person?  If they don’t like animals.  (Ron) people who are loud              WRONG

 100. Who knows you the best? My husband. (Ron) Me            CORRECT

The end

[twistednuns]

February 2020

I managed to use my iPad as a second monitor for my computer. So tech savvy. Yay me!

Joking about developing a sex-based cardio programme with Manu. Powerfucking! Might help against aggression as well.

A late night phone call with Tom. Not saying much.

Making a huge pot of my grandmother’s signature veggie stew.

More Bon Appétit test kitchen videos. Chris recreating tacos. Claire making Ben&Jerry’s. Priya making her mum’s Indian curries.

Writing a letter to Lena. Drawing upside down bats (which makes them look like they’re having a wicked dance-off). Just the act of writing. I thoroughly enjoy looking at my handwriting.

Using the Salted Coconut handscrub by Lush. Especially now that I wash my hands so often when we’re working with clay at school. I feel like the peeling triggers some pressure points on my palms.

That Saturday productivity high. Cooking and preparing heaps of stuff, cleaning the windows, doing laundry.

Painting my nails like an expressionist artist.

Some portrait studies. Accidentally drawing Sirius Black.

Being really motivated to improve my Spanish. Working with Lorena, the Duolingo app and even starting my own grammar/vocabulary book.

This ultra quirky ASMR video. Also: watching videos with Erin an her boyfriend Chris. It’s amazing how well they work together. How you can almost feel their connection, how similar they are.

Carrot cake oats.

Seeing the The Darkness live again, this time with Margit. Justin’s outfit and personality, singing along, especially to Time of my Life, the band’s traditional first song after the show.

Meeting Chris. Having a Bramblette cocktail at Pusser’s. I like that place. Feels very old-timey with a rowing boat right under the ceiling. We made out in front of a tiger slide in a toy store window on our way to the next bar.

Peeling fresh carrots.

Pickling onions and making kimchi. My fermentation game is strong these days!

Looking through Dominik’s sketchbook. I loved the tree whose bark resembled a mole burrow with its underground tunnel system.

The flu. Yes, really. Fewer pupils at school. Quiet times. I’m actually surprisingly healthy. I’d guess my probiotics must play a role here… Who knows.

More sourdough experiments. Writing about it (DELICACY - a haiku. Oven-warm sourdough / salted butter, alpine cheese / and a strawberry).

Finding a really interesting list of SanFran hippie era book recommendations at the end of Robin Sloan’s Ajax Penumbra: 1969. In the mood to read Maya Angelou, Tom Wolfe, Jack Kerouac, Richard Brautigan.

Even more beautiful books: I really enjoyed Die weiße Stadt by Karolina Ramqvist, a feminist author from Sweden, and the graphic novel version of To Kill a Mockingbird. But two books that literally (well, figuratively obviously) blew my mind were Circe by Madeline Miller (mythology, loneliness, animals and plants, magic and monsters, some desperate kind of feminism, independence and strength) and Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo (magical realms, university setting, psychological depth, unexpected twists and turns). I haven’t read anything comparable in a very long time and I desperately hope that there’s more to come from these authors.

A beach collecting all the world’s single socks in The Magicians. Oh and of course seeing them break the moon. What a sight. The show is super confusing, obnoxious and absolutely fabulous at the same time. Best example: the Freaky Friday szene in which Margo and Eliot switch bodies. I love how the actors took on each other’s speech patterns and behaviour.

A new addition to my colour vocabular: celadon (a greyish green; there is a type of ceramics you’ll only see in this colour which is not surprising since the shade provides such an interesting contrast to the the earthy, rusty orange of burnt clay.)

Manu telling me that he had rarely seen people with more joy in their eyes than me (“Ich habe schon Freude in deinen Augen gesehen! So ein Leuchten kann man nicht simulieren.”) after complaining about being bored and lifeless. / Making curry with or, well, for him the other night. Drinking Liqueur 43 with cinnamon and milk. Playing the Jackbox party games for which you can use your phone as a controller.

Finding myself in a well-known sitation from the past. Lying in Frank’s bed in the early morning hours, not that tired yet, when he starts talking about his life and his depression. In English, obviously, because that’s our emotional filter. Relating, since I feel quite similar. Coming up with a suggestion for a reciprocal support system. Let’s see what we can do for each other.

Looking at travel photographs. The sea, the cenotes. Longing to go back to Mexico or Australia. Diving. Taking it all in.

Dreaming of my grandmother talking about her biggest regrets in life. Weirdly she was in a little bundle under a coffee table, much like Voldemort in the last Harry Potter movie.

My weird, weird brain. How both pleasure and pain enhance my sense of smell and increase my brain activity, almost causing hallucinations and fixations on ideas. Like geometric shapes in gloomy off-colours and a beige silicon-like surface the other night. All I could think of was a benchscraper.

Blue eyeliner.

Brainstorming three-letter-words with Frank since I’m thinking of getting personalised Nike Blazers. Sad cat. Yes but. Dat ass. Why tho.

Flying squirrels. Watching them wobble through the air. How they look like cute exhibitionist when they’re extending their limbs and thus stretching their, well, let’s just call it wings.

The fact that red cabbage has an intricate pattern like brain convolutions when you cut it open.

Talking to Sonja for the first time in over two years. What a strange person. Interesting, too. At least in homeopathic doses.

Ripe strawberries and nectarines. Oh my god. I love fruit.

Meeting Eve at Pub Quiz. She identifies as female, loves swing dance, used to be an animator and I love her style. Also, I realised that really like Betty. And Dennis wasn’t mean to me for once. I love my nerd friends <3 And I learned that Starbucks was named after the first mate in Moby Dick! Also, coincidentally they asked a question about the city where To Kill a Mockingbird takes place (Maycombe, Alabama) after I had read it the week before.

Inviting Lorena to the Botanical Gardens. I always feel very happy and very much myself when I’m there. I sometimes wish I was a gardener. Lorena was late so I walked along the Spring Path outside and it might have been the first time I’ve seen a brussels sprouts plant. Inside I learned lots of Spanish words and marveled at the incredible butterflies. The huge yellow one right behind the entrance was my favourite. Its delicate feelers were fascinating.

Washing my hands at the Keg’s bathroom. Looking into the mirror. Suddenly thinking of the perfect karaoke song… Rescue Me by Bell Book and Candle! I kept singing it for days on repeat. My neighbour must hate me (nothing new here) especially since my voice is too low for the chorus.

It isn’t hard to see how such attachment patterns can undermine mental health. Both anxious and avoidant coping have been linked to a heightened risk of anxiety, depression, loneliness, eating and conduct disorders, alcohol dependence, substance abuse and hostility. The way to treat these problems, say attachment theorists, is in and through a new relationship. On this view, the good therapist becomes a temporary attachment figure, assuming the functions of a nurturing mother, repairing lost trust, restoring security, and instilling two of the key skills engendered by a normal childhood: the regulation of emotions and a healthy intimacy. // An interesting article on attachment styles and why theraphy works; it makes me want to learn more about attachment theory. This School of Life video is a nice addition as well.

That dream. About a book shop modeled after my picture of Penumbra’s 24-hour bookstore. There was an old man in a very narrow but high-ceilinged room full of books. There was no light source except for moonlight or some street lights. There were loads of stairs, very steep, leading to the back of the house. Upstairs the man would set out cat food and on the rooftop there was an old sailing boat. One day the man decided to open the door to the roof and let visitors see the ship, much like a museum; perhaps to attract customers. However, in the next night a cat-shaped ghost appeared who reminded me quite a lot of Kot Behemoth character in Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. The ghost was not amused about the old man’s decision and took away his key, a big golden one adorned with a red ribbon.

Toasted sesame makes pretty much every dish so much better.

Watching High Fidelity with gorgeous Zoe Kravitz (I adore her effortless style and her outfits), getting in the mood for making a playlist and listening to more music in general. There are all these great songs out there I forgot about.

Remembering the xkcd storm chaser comics.

Making a wicked good batch of Pho for Tom.

Spending a nice evening with Alex at Shamrock. Singing along to American Boy by Estelle. Confirming the hypothesis that the nerdy, quiet ones usually have a freak streak. That moment in the morning. Eye contact and kegel exercises.

Karaoke with Margit and Betty. Meeting Manu’s doppelganger. Same type, looks, voice. Eerie.

Making a BA Gourmet Makes meme for Steffen after he had passed his law examps. Strangely Gaby kinda looked like him after I was done with it.

Saturday morning in bed. Reading comics and graphic novels. Fresh bedclothes, surrounded by books. Since it was February 29 I thought about leap years and asked a few friends what their inner seven-year-old would have done that day (based on the thought experiment that your birthday was on February 29 and you’d age in 4-year-steps which would divide your age by 4 obviously).      

I came up with: visiting grandma / eating Cini-Minis / falling asleep with my face buried in a cat / beating my neighbour Anna at Memory / drawing while listening to a Bibi Blocksberg cassette.

Alex said he’d have been outside all day, building a snow igloo. Not noticing his mum telling him to come to dinner. If the weather had been bad he would have played with his dinosaur collection. His inner 7-year-old was a hopeless dreamer who got agitated whenever his parents had a fight. Who came home late from school every day because he forgot about time when he was talking to his friend next to a hedge with thorns that looked like tiny airplanes.

Lena said she would have been outside all day long, playing in the mud with the neighbours’ kids. Of course.

[hoovesmadeofsteel]

MODERN PRISON AU (RDR2)

cw/tw: mentions assault, death, police brutality, racism, and unlawful imprisonment.

I hope you all like this, please let me know if there are any concerns or anything I’ve failed to acknowledge. sorry for spelling mistakes/grammar, I try! enjoy!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

INMATE: DUTCH VAN DER LINDE

Dutch previously ran with an infamous biker gang, where he would make fake deals with other gangs, kidnap/hold people for ransom and kill whoever wronged him or the gang. Funny… After being screwed over by a previous gang member who was working with the law, it landed him in a federal penitentiary.

Dutch is known to be highly dangerous and a violent individual, best to be on his good side. He is also covered in tattoos. On his upper back, there is a tattoo of two revolvers and some roses, on his right forearm, a portrait of Mother Mary. Numerous tattoos dedicated to gang. bloody dagger & bull skull on his back. scorpion tattoo on his arm, as well as other American traditional work. teardrop under his left eye. 

INMATE: ARTHUR MORGAN

As a young poor man, Arthur lived a normal to not so good life. Becoming an orphan at such a young age, caused him to always be on the move, making it extremely hard for him to trust anyone. Until he one day fell in love with somebody, who ended up being his everything. After horrific events, seeing, hearing, and knowing the physical and mental damage his love was going through after an assault, he was worried about their safety, knew what was best for his significant other. Death to who has harmed them. And not a quick one.

Two years after what was dealt with, law enforcement came to arrest Arthur for his crime. A life sentence. Possibility for parole after 25 yrs, but unlikely.

Arthur spends most of his time sketching the landscape outside of his cell window, trains that go by, writes update/love letters to his partner, poetry, and loves to whistle old johnny cash songs to past time. He doesn’t talk much to the other inmates, he just tries to stay sane, and out of trouble. Hope he does have... for a good life again. He’ll never regret what he has done.

INMATE: CHARLES SMITH

The story of Charles’ imprisonment is much different. Unlawful most could say, but definitely immoral and cruel. Racist. Charles lived on family and sacred land that was in his family for generations. Raising cattle, raised horses, and other farm animals. Living a very hard life, not making much money at all.

The day came when the government told Charles that his land was in fact not his or his family’s. They claimed it was public land and that he would be forced out if he did not leave. His land was being ceased illegally. This is something Charles could not lose. After a fight for what was his, being beat to near death, police arrested Charles.

A wise, respectful and perceptive man Charles is, he dove into everything he could about the law while serving his time in prison. Getting his home back. Charles also helped other young indigenous/POC understand the law, and help them get justice for themselves and others.

In the end, after serving 3 years, Charles won back his land and was granted money for his false imprisonment. It wasn’t really winning since it was always his. He was proud, he was always proud.

INMATE: JOSIAH TRELAWNY

Working as entertainment in big name casinos in Las Vegas, Josiah always wanted something a bit more than he had to offer. Doing petty crimes and embezzling money, Josiah soon saw himself with a lot of “dirty” money. He quickly realized he could get away with something much bigger. He thought. A counterfeit high roller he became, buying thousands of dollars in poker chips, turning his dirty money into “clean.” This didn’t last long. One Christmas eve, he was detained and arrested for casino money laundering.

An immense flirt, sweet talker, and all around social man, Josiah found it easy to fit in with other inmates. He is highly intelligent, so, bribing is second nature for him. When it comes to ways to scam and make quick money, he is the man to talk to. Although, it would be in the best interest of people if they were weary of Josiah’s motives and trust.

[rubberduckyrye]

Bls do the list stuff for Kurochi... my son... but also Kaede, hit me with ur thoughts on her

Send me a character and I’ll list: (Kurochi)

Favorite thing about them - Everything??? Like literally everything??? I love his sass, I love his personality, I love his motivations and character........ and is it vain of me to say I love his design? Ehe~ 

Least favorite thing about them - He’s not canon and this is absolutely unacceptable.

Favorite line - Oh gooood. I have no idea. He’s got so many good lines. Though I think I’ve gotta chalk it up to this specific line: “If that’s what you think, without thinking through it at all, then that really does make you a pathetic detective.” This is the first of many iterations of a post chapter 4 trial scene, specifically a response to when Shuichi calls Kokichi “dangerous”, but this one??? This one is my favorite for some reason. It sums up nicely the issues with both Kurochi, who is biased and loyal to Kokichi to a fault, and the rest of the class, who are using Kokichi as a scapegoat and not thinking about the consequences of their actions.

BrOTP - The twins, ofc! But I also brotp him with like.... everyone.... but I think that I kind of brotp him and Kiyo a lot tbh? Also Miu and Kaede.

OTP - Shuochi, Kairochi, Jadochi, Kurochi dating all three??? Yes pls. (Also why Shuichi isn’t a Brotp for Rochi, though I can also see them as bros)

NOTP - I don’t really have strong feelings. Probably Kurochi and Maki tbh? More so because I laugh at the idea of that ever happening.

Random headcanon - While Kokichi has Mr. Hopps, I imagine that Kurochi has a stuff animal that was made by his mother that is equivalent in sentimentality. Probably an animal that Kurochi was a huge fan of as a toddler. Umeko wouldn’t just make Kokichi a plush, she’s make both her babies plushies.

Unpopular opinion - Uuuuuhhhh that requires me to know popular opinions and not agree with them. Except the popular consensus is that Kurochi is a precious baby and I mean. That’s just canon.

Song I associate with them - This is totally cheating but Lollia’s cover of Exorcism is still His Song to me. Lollia’s cover of Rolling Girl fits both twins imo. This World To You by Eve and Rachie’s cover of Circles makes me think of Kokichi thinking of his brother in a dead!Rochi AU. Juby’s cover of Self Inflicted Achromatic also reminds me of Rochi... okay there’s a lot of songs I could associate with him okay???

Favorite picture of them - Uh this feels weird cause a lot of stuff I made fndnajdnka but honestly??? I love all of the fan art people have made for Kurochi. They’re all so cute and good and I always want to see more hhhhhh

Send me a character and I’ll list: (Kaede)

Favorite thing about them - I just love how relatable I find Kaede tbh? Like the fact she’s very ADHD just makes me happy. I relate to that so much. I feel like personality wise, I’d be most like her too. 

Least favorite thing about them - Hmmm, I gotta say the kinda creepy sexual stuff is gross but bad writers are bad and the Author is Dead to Me

Favorite line - Oh Geez... Nothing really sticks out to me sadly? TBH I can only think of the great one liners Kokichi and Kaito had fnjndkjndjka. I do like it when she’s v done with Miu and like “You haven’t learned anything!”

BrOTP - Saimatsu. I personally really like this ship as platonic friends more than romantic. 

OTP - Uuuuuh, I kind of like Momomatsu, Irumatsu, Oumaede can be good... I haven’t seen much else for other ships that I liked

NOTP - If we’re talking about romantic ships only, Saimatsu. I think the ship’s been kind of soiled for me from all of the Shuichi haters that were just salty the first main game girl protagonist died. I can’t see them in a good relationship now, sadly.

Random headcanon - Kaede is on the chubby side and you can’t convince me otherwise

Unpopular opinion - Ya’ll saw this coming but I don’t actually hate it that Kaede died and was replaced with Shuichi. I think both had potential for character growth, but Kaede’s growth would have leaned more into the negative side of things. with how bad the writing can get, I wouldn’t be surprised if Kaede would’ve been written in such a way that made her unlikable. 

Song I associate with them - Anything with piano in it tbh. I don’t actually have any songs that I listen to that make me think strictly of her though.

Favorite picture of them - Something about this picture of Kaede is just so cute tbh

[littlelovelymemes]

✰  —  —  *  MORE POPULAR TEXT POST STARTERS

‘  when i figure out how to die without hurting my mom’s feelings it’s over for me, bitches  ’ ‘  420 stands for “4got 2 0pologize”  ’ ‘  all millennials do is commit minor felonies and be gay  ’ ‘  hoodies are one of the most powerful and underappreciated articles of clothing. cold? put on a hoodie. raining? put on a hoodie. no bra? put on a hoodie. nothing to wear? hoodie. cripplingly low self esteem? you already know. so versatile! so multifaceted!  ’ ‘  i thought christmas was like… next friday or something its in like 3 days fuck  ’ ‘  if you’re not in love with me by 00:00:00 jan 1 then just block me. i don’t need that kind of energy following me into the new year  ’ ‘  who needs ghosts? haunt your own house. wander around your own living room wailing and crying  ’ ‘  my kink is not opening messages and pretending theyre not there  ’ ‘  u know when ur growing out of phases and mindsets but u haven’t found where exactly ur shift in identity is going yet? that’s tonight’s mood  ’ ‘  me @ me: don’t start buddy don’t you dare  ’ ‘  there are people you haven’t met yet who will love you  ’ ‘  god knew what she was doing when she made bruno mars short if he had been tall he would be too powerful  ’ ‘  motivation? haven’t heard of her in years how she doin  ’ ‘  Do you think people with LED headlights know that everyone hates them? Like…really hates them in an oddly personal way? Do you think they know?  ’ ‘  and the final mood for 2017 is: you know those days where you’re like, this might as well happen?  ’ ‘  putting more importance into self care, spirituality, love and peace of mind. start with stretching and deep breathing.  ’ ‘  dont forget to tell someone you love that you love them, thank people who deserve to be thanked, be more patient on people having a hard time, be more considerate, understanding, and be kinder, always.  ’ ‘  do you think in the 1700s there were people who were like nah man Mozart’s a total sellout I only listen to peasants beating things with sticks it’s way more authentic  ’ ‘  2032 is gonna be my year just u wait  ’ ‘  I want a “I made a playlist for you” typa love  ’ ‘  @ 2018 the bar is literally so low  ’ ‘  Just because you don’t look like somebody who you think is attractive doesn’t mean you aren’t attractive. Flowers are pretty, but so are sunsets and they look nothing alike.  ’ ‘  i have a “why am i like this” moment at least five times a day  ’ ‘  very sad to hear about donald trump. nothing happened to him i’m just sad to hear about him  ’ ‘  *me, eyes wide open at 3am* what happened to chandler bing once he got to yemen  ’ ‘  tonight’s mood is the deep desire to be held close in a dimly lit room, covered in blankets while rain is softly falling outside  ’ ‘  do ya ever bring your pet up to a mirror and ur like “that you”  ’ ‘  i guess im just too fucking dumb to lucid dream. cant ever realize im in a dream, i’ll look around me like damn i’m in my old elementary school and my teeth are falling out and im naked? well shit guess this is my life now. got fooled by my subconscious again lads  ’ ‘  u ever get no sleep and the next day ur body functions like the tumblr app  ’ ‘  you ever wonder how many people you’re in the “we’re friends but i would kiss you if you asked” club with  ’ ‘  is anyone else just going through life like “yeah i just gotta get past this last difficult week and then it’s smooth sailing from there!” but like… every week  ’ ‘  The only thing toxic that you should still be in contact with is that song Britney Spears made, because that song is lit.  ’ ‘  imagine if you named your kid dad. just dad.  ’ ‘  take care of yourself, please. i don’t know what id do if anything happened to you.  ’ ‘ crazy how personal growth can make you let go of people you swore you couldn’t live without.  ’ ‘  im in no position to have high standards but it doesn’t stop me  ’ ‘  you can start over at anytime. your day is not ruined. your world is not over. take a deep breath. start over.  ’ ‘  I’m gonna have a bomb ass life and I know it cause I’ve suffered so much and I know that wasn’t for no reason  ’ ‘  you ever just get in bed and ur like yep this is where i’m meant to be  ’ ‘  an unstoppable force (my love of books) meets an unmovable object (my lack of a desire to actually read anything)  ’ ‘  i just have this persistent feeling of “i’m not doing enough” combined with “i don’t have the energy to do anything” and it just really fucking sucks  ’ ‘  sorry I haven’t replied to ur texts I’ve been overwhelmed by literally anything that’s ever happened or will happen  ’ ‘  me when i see a wild animal in a metropolitan area: reclaim your space, we are the invaders, retake what is yours  ’ ‘  no offense but money would solve literally every single one of my problems. like all of them. i dont have a single problem that money wouldnt immediately solve  ’ ‘  i am not enough and it’s eating me alive  ’ ‘  what do u mean “what have i been up to” … i’m out here ruining my own life as always bitch  ’ ‘  always remember that love will always come back to u. in a different form, different person, different hobby, different touch. but in any way, love will always come back.  ’ ‘  The struggle between me wanting to be successful and me wanting to lay in bed 24/7  ’ ‘  If you play “Feeling Myself” by Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé at exactly 11:58:50 pm on New Year’s Eve, Beyoncé will say “World Stop” in 2017 and “Carry On” in 2018.  ’ ‘  Self care is putting absurd amounts of parmesan cheese on your pasta  ’ ‘  you ever just like “wow that’s my voice? people listen to this clown on a daily basis?”  ’ ‘  ravioli ravioli give me a reason to live  ’ ‘  finally worked up the courage to tell the starbucks girl she was beautiful and i only puked twice  ’ ‘  do i wanna know??? no. but thank u monkey friends  ’ ‘  hey this is kinda ns.fw but i wann h*ld your h*nd  ’ ‘  talent: overthinking  ’ ‘  have you ever had that feeling that you really wanna workout to get a flat stomach… but you also just wanna eat pizza and watch netflix.  ’ ‘  if you google eyebrows are you eyebrowsing  ’ ‘  *skips tutorial* how the fuck do you play this game  ’ ‘  Literally heard a convo at the library where a guy was telling a girl that he’s an omega and the girl telling him that she’s a beta, and my mind just did not automatically connect the context to fraternity pledge classes at all and I just whispered to myself “what the fuck?? What the fuck??”  ’ ‘  my hands? ready to be held  ’ ‘  Catch These Hands! with your hands. we’re holding hands now. this is nice  ’ ‘  kinda weird that u can think about someone as much as u want and they have no idea  ’ ‘  physically, yes, i could fight a bird. but emotionally? imagine the toll  ’ ‘  I would rather wander around a store for 9 hours than ask an employee where something is and this I do not understand  ’ ‘  my childhood, or, as i like to call it, the general abyss with one or two memories attached to it   ’ ‘  i know ‘gay’ isn’t an emotion but let’s be real,,,,,,,,,it kind of is and i feel it 24/7  ’ ‘  babe get ready for a night on the town, i just found an old Subway gift card and there’s still $9.45 left on it  ’ ‘  just because the past didn’t turn out like you wanted it to, doesn’t mean your future can’t be better than you ever imagined  ’ ‘  i’m the person who’s 100% down for spontaneous adventures but also 100% down to lay in bed all day. i’m on both ends of the spectrum  ’ ‘  this year has changed me more than I ever thought it would.   ’ ‘  it’s ok to disappear for a lil while and get your shit together.  ’ ‘  if you wanna love me hmu  ’ ‘  calling me baby makes me so freakin weak  ’ ‘  i’m that one guy on spongebob always screaming about his leg  ’ ‘  remember to drink a fucking shit ton of water every miserable day of ur life  ’ ‘  i just want someone who’s excited to make out with me and text me all the time.  ’ ‘  never apologize for your giant dogs getting overexcited, if i get taken down by a 100 pound mass of fluff then that’s how i go.  ’ ‘  when i figure out how to die without hurting my mom’s feelings it’s over for me, bitches  ’ ‘  THIS GUY JUST ASKED ME WHAT MY NAME WAS AND I DIDNT UNDERSTAND WHAT HE SAID SO I SAID 4:45  ’ ‘  my blood is glow stick juice. thats why all my bones crack when i move.  ’ ‘  are cute dates and rough sex too much to ask for  ’ ‘  honestly, my goal in life is just to be a very warm person. i want to be as loving and as kind as i can be.  ’ ‘  just a small dumb bitch…. living in a lonely ditch  ’ ‘  you’re not selfish for wanting to be treated well  ’ ‘  when y'all fake conversations in your heads do you sometimes say random sentences out loud too? i was just tying my shoes and said very sternly and loudly “i DO know how ants work, fucker”  ’ ‘  true space facts: if u look up there it is  ’ ‘  anyone else bummed they have 2 sleep alone tonight and uh not in some1s arms  ’ ‘  how am i sensitive and a bitch at the same time  ’

[17piesinseptember]

Tagged by @bkmarchand :) I was looking for something to do so this has come at the right moment (apologies to the fic I should be working on).

the rules are:

✰ post the rules ✰ answer the questions given to you by the tagger ✰ write eleven questions of your own ✰ tag eleven people

questions (Beth put in two question 5′s so you’re all lucky):

1) your favorite animal and why? When I was younger my fav was a seal. I don’t remember why. Maybe coz it could balance a ball on its nose :P

2) what is your funniest memory from when you were a kid? The first thing that comes to mind is one Christmas Eve, myself and my two sisters were sharing a room at the time and we thought it would be brilliant to stack all the mattresses on top of each other and try to get on top of them. Lots of laughter. Minimal success.

3) what would your goal song/theme song be? It took me a while to realise that ‘goal song’ is referring to a hockey thing (I think?). Jokingly, Gold by Spandau Ballet was chosen by my family as my motivation song during the HSC but since then I’ve always thought of it that way. ♪ Always believe in your soul/You've got the power to know/You're indestructible/Always believe in, because you are/Gold ♪

4) what’s your dream job? Writer (novelist or screenwriter)

5) Do you have any goals for this year? Be more active, which is going well so far!

5) who is your favorite celebrity (or athlete) and why? Well, it’s not an athlete coz I don’t follow sport. Um...I barely keep up with celebrities. Maybe Britt Robertson, in the sense that if she’s in a thing, the chances I’ll watch it increase 200%. I think it goes way back to her being in Avalon High (that terrible Disney channel film of one of my most-read/-loved books).

6) favorite book? (When I write my questions I’m going to try and avoid ‘favourites’ because they trip me up so much!) I’m a big fantasy reader, but it’s too hard to choose one from that genre (and so many are series). I’m going to go with Saving Francesca, by Melina Marchetta, one of my favourite Australian authors.

7) best concert you’ve ever been to OR concert you really want to go to. I go to A LOT of concerts, but recently I saw Foster the People and they were fantastic. The most fun I’ve had at a gig in ages :D

8) what event are you most excited to watch in the 2018 Winter Olympics? Haha um... I like the weird ones (but living in Aus, most winter sports are ‘weird’ to me). So like curling, skeleton, luge etc. But also ones that I can appreciate with no foreknowledge like ski jumps, which just looks cool.

9) If you could go back in time, where/when would you go? I’m going to steal and answer I think I read someone else use for this question: I’d go back to the era my parents grew up in, see what’s different and what’s the same.

10) Silver or Gold? Gold. (Though I’ve been told silver is better for my skin tone, but whatever, I do what I want :P)

11) what’s your favorite thing about yourself? I’m pretty positive about myself but I don’t think I’ve ever thought about a ‘favourite’. I’m trustworthy/reliable - I’ll stick to commitments, keep promises and the like.

And I’m going to tag 11 people even if it takes me all night! Participation is non-compulsory, of course :) @notenoughgatorade @happyzimm @bittiesjack @teluete @loveyoutoobits @alocalband @itsybittle @actualhockeyrobot @jckzimmermanns @whoacanada @wrathofthestag

List the first five words that come into your head.

Fill in the blanks: If I woke up tomorrow and was ____ years old, the first I think would do is ____.

If you could request an illustrated version of any novel, which would it be?

Are the decisions you make under pressure generally good/sensible or bad/rash?

Summer fruit or winter fruit?

Bitty’s baking you a pie! What flavour do you ask him for?

True or False: I’ve (as in you) been in the OMGCP fandom for over a year.

You’re about to embark on some epic house-cleaning. What music do you put on while you work?

If you could switch bodies with someone for 48 hours, who would it be and why?

What is a ‘scone’ to you?

Uh-oh, your computer died. What are you most cut up about losing from your hard drive?

[4birds-of-a-feather]

Chapter 26 - Man, it doesn’t show signs of stoppin’ [part 3]

Birds Of a Feather

(In the previous chapters: Layla’s stuck at SeaTac and gives a call to WC Boyfriend who, once more, confirms to be the shittiest boyfriend ever; in the meantime, Sara has reunited with her long-lost cat and an acquaintance of her family, but it wasn’t all peaches and dandelions. WARNING: the other super-short update – we know that we had promised you to update sooner, but we were busy with our job, studies and festivities – just in time to wish you a fantastic 2018!)

Sara walked upstairs back to the loft, frantically rummaging in her shoulder bag to find the apartment keys. When she arrived on the landing, she jumped. “Fuck, mr. California! You scared the shit out of me!” the girl angrily shouted, almost dropping her headphones “The fuck are you doin’ out here???” The singer was in fact sitting on the floor, next to the front door – notebook and pen in his lap. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…” he quickly grabbed the objects and hid them behind his back “It’s just that I went for a walk but forgot my keys on the table, and Jeff’s gone to a party, so…” “No problem: Layla left me hers” she made the keys clink under Eddie’s nose, so the singer smiled and stood up while she made the lock spring open. When they went inside, Sara stopped in the hallway to hang her coat, scarf and bonnet, while Eddie was looking at her, scratching his nape. “Weren’t… weren’t you supposed to spend this day with your family?” he finally asked, almost startling her. The girl gulped, rubbed her blubber eyes and put on a rather convincing cheerful voice, trying not to let him notice her real attitude. “Oh, yes, it’s just-I went to my parents’ house and I noticed that my mom’s relatives from Portland were there too… They’re annoying and know-it-all and kind of churchy too… <Why in hell did I mention Portland? Fuckin’ A, Fancini! Congrats!> … So I just drew the attention of my dad, without making the others notice me, and I explained him that I couldn’t tolerate ‘em, so he agreed and made up some persuasive excuse too… I guess my mum will understand, even if they’re her siblings and shit like that” she ended her monologue and finished to hang all her things, while Eddie was still looking at her. “So… this means you survived” he gave her a warm smile and she did the same. “Yeah, I guess so… Man, I fuckin’ hate these festivities! Hypocrisy flows in torrents” “Don’t tell me… The fuckin’ triumph of bleeding hearts, ugh” the singer soon joined her in that anti-Christmas rant and the two of them quickly ended bursting into laughter. “Glad to see another cynical and black soul around here – the world is too full of retarded Santa’s little helpers” “Man, I hate those lil’ fuckers!” Eddie laughed again, then his eye fell upon a packet full of ribbons that was under the Christmas tree – Sara’s gaze followed his own one. “Oh, you noticed Layla’s work of art…” “… How the fuck does she know that yesterday was my birthday?!” he finally exclaimed, making the girl look at him in disbelief. “Wait a minute: yesterday was your birthday?!” “… SHIT” “Why the fuck didn’t you tell us, Eddie??? You really are grown up in the woods, for fuck’s sake!” Sara scolded him, her eyes plopping out of her head. “I don’t know… I just didn’t want to bother, that’s all” he shrugged, not knowing what else to say. “… you really are weird” the girl sighed, shaking her head “Anyway, that’s your Christmas present… Layla always remembers this kind of things so, in your shoes, I wouldn’t be bothered…” “Didn’t she buy you anything?” Ed asked her, noticing that his pack was the only one under the Christmas tree. “Who do you think you’re talkin’ to??? Of course she bought me something, I’m her fuckin’ best friend!” she gave him a little slap in the nape “But I’ve already hidden it… ya know, with that animal of Ament that freely scampers in this loft, you’ll never know what he could do to my wealth” The guy laughed again “I think I’ll take the risk – I’ll leave mine here” “As you wish, mr. California – I won’t be the one who’s gonna stop you… don’t say I didn’t warn ya” He nodded and started to go in his room’s direction, then stopped and looked at her. “I guess I’m goin’ in my room to listen to some records… Wanna join me?” Sara winced a little, but quickly regained her usual aplomb. “Yeah, why not?” she shrugged “Just gimme a minute and I’ll come” “Ok, great – I’ll leave the door open, no need to knock” The girl nodded and made her way to the bathroom, while he stood in the hallway a few other seconds; when he saw the ringlets at the end of her ponytail disappear, he finally went in his bedroom.  

<Nothing happened – you’re perfectly capable to have a natural conversation without embarrassing yourself… you’re gonna fuckin’ own this, you’ll see> Sara splashed her face, then looked at her tired reflection in the mirror: she could still spot some glitter but decided that her cheeks had already been rubbed enough – oh, and her face was the embodiment of misery. <I’m gonna be fuckin’ owned, ugh – this motivational bullshit is pathetic> She took a deep breath and made her way to Ed’s room, stopping just outside: Quadrophenia had just started playing when she peeped out from the doorjamb. “Am I still welcome?” Eddie raised his eyes from the books he was browsing and gave her a smile. “Always – come in!” he went to close the door and gestured for her to find a place to sit; she decided to take a seat on the floor, near the bookshelf where he was standing before. Soon after the guy approached her, waving something with a playful grin: “What did I tell you? Here, see for yourself” He handed her the infamous Polaroid he had taken with Joe Strummer and the girl sneered. “Since a month has almost passed, I thought you had made the whole story up…” she provoked him, without tearing her gaze from Strummer’s autograph at the bottom of the picture. “Yeah, in fact this photo is false as the fact that in 1977 I saw Springsteen and the E Street Band…” he casually added, going to sit next to her. “… you did what???” “… and I also saw The Who in 1979, when I was almost fifteen years old” “YOU LUCKY BASTARD!” Sara kicked him, making him laugh. “Why, are you telling me you never went to a concert?” Eddie mocked her with an evil smile. “Yeah, in fact Fleetwood Mac in 1980, Cat Stevens in 1976 or Led Zeppelin in 1977 were just hallucinations” “HOLY SHIT!” the guy exclaimed, surprised “Wait a minute, Cat Stevens in 1976? How old were-” “Eight years old, and he played divinely” she smiled again “Anyway, I won’t be jealous about you seeing The Who – Moon The Loon was already underground, I can tolerate it” “Shit, you were just a child! And Zeppelin at nine years old – I’m not surprised you turned out like this” Eddie spoke again, then laughed for her second statement. Soon after The Real Me began to play and Sara’s smile turned into a big grin. “The Ox is fuckin’ awesome here – I mean, I can totally say that he’s my favorite bass player without any doubt” “You love Quadrophenia too?” Eddie’s eyes lit up at the thought of a fellow fan of The Who. “Well, that’s not my favorite album made by them, but my second favorite song that they composed is here, so I guess I have to give it some credit” “Just spit out the title” “Love, Reign O’er Me, obviously” “I knew it – sooo, this means that your favorite album’s Tommy…” “Nope – Who’s Next” she gave him a mischievous grin “My favorite song is there, guess it!” The guy mentally listed the tracklist, then answered: “The Song Is Over, right?” “… you’re starting to impress me, ya know?” Sara mocked him, and he laughed. “Sooooo” after a while Ed cleared his throat “what are our plans for Christmas’ Eve?” “Well, since our beloved chef’s not here… I guess we’re fucked, mr. Surfin’ U.S.A.” “Nope, listen: food problem will be solved with pizza delivery… but what about after dinner?” “Why are you lookin’ at me as if I were the life and soul of all parties?!” “Hmm, maybe we could go out and drink somethin’…” he ignored her and went on with his suggestions. “… so then we would be surrounded by stupid people with their fuckin’ stupid Santa Claus hats or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer antlers?! No, thank you!” “Or we could reach Jeff at the party he went to…” “You really want a Seattle remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night, don’t ya?” The guy laughed again, then raised his hands in order to declare himself innocent: “Oook, I get it! How about stayin’ at home and watchin’ some old movie provided by yours truly?” “Are you really makin’ me responsible for our pre-Christmas entertainment?” “C’mon, don’t be too modest! I liked Neighbors and I’m sure-” “Of course you liked it, I kept tellin’ you that you’re Belushi’s alter-ego!” Sara interrupted him, while he stuck his tongue out. “… I was telling ya that I liked Neighbors and I’m sure you’ll do a great job this evening too, that’s all” “… Whatevs” “Great! An Italian one, please” “What? Don’t tell me you’ve ever watched one of them!” “Yep, Miracle in Milan” “NO FUCKIN’ WAY!” the girl exclaimed, sincerely enthusiastic “D’ya know that its last scene inspired the E.T.’s one with the bicycles lifting into the air?” “Shit, that’s why I had a déjà vu when I first watched it!” “Sorry, I’ll stop immediately with my movie geek act – I know it’s weird, I just can’t help it” “No problem, I learnt something new” The girl gave him a grateful smile, then resumed her considerations:  “Hmm, so you watched somethin’ from Neorealism… What about Commedia all’Italiana? Err, I mean, Italian-style comedy?” she quickly corrected herself, while Ed smiled because of those few Italian words. “Yeah, why not? I mean, Neorealism is great, but I’d like somethin’ lighter” “Well, ‘lighter’ is not the word I’d use to describe I Mostri, but it’s an awesome example of how great satire could be” “I’m in your hands, I’m sure you won’t disappoint me” Eddie cracked another smile “Dubbed?” “In your fuckin’ dreams, Vedder! I’ve got the subtitled version, this is no place for heretics!” “Yeah, I thought so… I also bet that on March you showed off the Italian flag when Cinema Paradiso won the Academy Award, am I right?” “… you almost got it” was her embarrassed answer, while the guy laughed and stood up to put his notebook in a drawer. “That’s your holy Bible full of personal lyrics, huh?” she asked him, and he immediately turned to face her, as if he had just received a punch in the face “Because that’s what your songs are… Autobiographic, like a diary” Eddie didn’t say anything and lowered his head, and soon Sara was forced to interrupt that awkward silence. “I’m-I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to sound like a bitch but, well!, apparently that was the final result…” she wrung her hands “Man, I really suck with social interactions” “It’s ok, don’t worry” the guy finally opened his mouth again and went to sit on the floor, next to her. “Did all that stuff happen to you?” she asked, after a while. “Except for the incest, yeah… I have lacked for nothing” “… shit” she took a deep breath, trying to clear her thoughts “I’m-I’m so sorry, Ed” “Yeah, I know you really mean it” he said in a low voice, then brought his knees to the chest. “Would my humble singing your praises make you feel a little better?” “Why, did you really like the songs or are you just givin’ me a lump of sugar?” he abruptly raised his head and shot her a nasty glance. “Fuck, do I really look like a person who gives compliments away?!” she retorted, starting to get worked up. “Are we really assembling a conversation by using only questions?” he went on, finally being able to chuckle, while the girl soon followed him – she mentally thanked him for making both of them a bit more relaxed than before. “Anyway – yes, I really liked ‘em, I think you’re a worthy lyricist… At least, the few times I can understand what the fuck you’re singing” At those words the guy laughed heartily and gave her a playful push, to which she answered with another one, a bit stronger. “But yeah, jokes aside: we can totally say that I’m in presence of talent” she winked at him and he thanked her, a bit embarrassed but pleased all the same. When Eddie resumed to talk, I’m One was playing in the background. “Oh, I was almost forgetting to tell ya that I really like your voice” Sara immediately froze, then slowly turned in his direction. “I beg your pardon, what did you just say?” “I said that I like your voice… I heard you, you sing pretty well” “WHEN DID YOU HEAR ME?!” “Well, a few days ago, when we hung out at that bar and-” “Holy Marvin Gaye, I knew that the whole karaoke thing was a shitty idea!” she facepalmed. “… but I heard ya yesterday too, while you were taking a shower” “Fuckin’ A, Vedder! Since when are you overhearing me?!” the girl asked him, her eyes almost plopped out of her head. “Err, since when you’ve started to sing Elton John out loud…?” “That’s because I thought I was alone! I thought that nobody was at home, except me! And instead you were there, lurkin’ like a vulture!” At that last comparison the singer laughed out loud, making Sara even more irritated. “C’mon, don’t be offended! I just wonder why you’re freakin’ out like that!” he tried to ease the situation, given how she didn’t seem to relax. “Because I don’t want anyone to know it, genius! I don’t like it, it’s just a personal thing” “… a personal thing?” “Yeah, a promise I made to someone – someone really important, but that was just a thing between the two of us” “Hmmm, understood” he thought over something, then resumed to talk “My father… he sang too. I mean, that’s what other people told me – I met him a few times, as a family friend, but I didn’t talk to him that much… And then one day my mum took me aside and told me that who I thought was my father was actually my step-father, and that my real dad was ‘that man that once in a while came to visit us, you remember?’ but he had already died, and I-I didn’t know what the fuck I was supposed to do, or say, or think, or feel, and-” Eddie stopped talking and took a deep breath, probably in the attempt to not cry, but Sara had already noticed his eyes becoming bright with tears. “It’s ok, Eddie, you don’t have to talk about it” she carefully put a hand on his shoulder and softly squeezed it, while he let out a deep sigh. <Am I the first one to hear his story? Well, who cares! I mean, he trusted me and told me all these things –  maybe I should tell him about-> The girl’s thoughts were interrupted by the noise of a guitar’s sound box – Ed had grabbed the instrument and now was strumming it absent-mindedly, trying to tune it. “You play guitar?” “Yeah, a little bit… Well, playing is a huge word: let’s just say that I strum away on it” “Hmmm, I see” “You’re gonna make me listen to somethin’, right?” “What?!” she almost choked “Absolutely not – this is a categorical no!” “I’m sorry but I won’t accept refusals of any type” “… are you blackmailing me?” “Hmmm, maybe… you think I am?” “I think so, Alvin without the Chipmunks!” The guy laughed: “C’mon, just a song! It’s just the two of us – nobody will ever come to know this, I promise” Sara rolled her eyes, so Eddie went on: “Silence gives consent… fine, let’s do this!” He casually plucked some strings, then finally had a flash of inspiration and began to play. “I’m sure you know this one, I saw this album in your collection” “Great! Have you searched my bedroom too?!” she hysterically asked him, but he ignored her. “C’mon, be ready! Your turn is finally coming!” the guy played the last introductory chords and Sara finally began to sing, her eyes still rolling. “Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly… All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise…” Eddie smiled to himself and the two kept on performing the song; at a certain point he slowed down the fingerpicking and started to whistle, imitating the birds chirping, while the girl looked at him in a perplexed way – but then burst into laughter. “The hell are you doin’???” “C’mon, try it – be a blackbird too!” he suggested her, still laughing, and when she emulated him he smiled satisfied “See? That was easy” “… idiot” the girl laughed again, and resumed to sing the final lines: “You were only waiting for this moment to arise, you were only waiting for this moment to arise, you were only waiting for this moment to arise…” Eddie finished to play, then smiled at her. “Well, you did learn to fly… Congratulations on your voice” “You’re just a flatterer, but thanks” she blushed, then cleared her throat “Instead, congratulations on your guitar style! You don’t limit yourself in strummin’ away on it… you play it, Ed” “Nope, I’m not that good” “Have you ever considered the possibility of playin’ in the band? Like, for real” “In the band? A band with three guitars?” “Yeah, why not? Kind of a Lynyrd Skynyrd thing, ya know” “Well, I’m just the new guy – I don’t know if Mike and Stone would agree…” he shrugged “Plus, as I said before, I can’t seriously play it” “Hmmm, as you wish… But, in your shoes, I’d give it a try” “Who knows, maybe in the future? Like ten years from now, just gimme enough time to practice…” “Why, are you really believin’ that you guys are goin’ to last that long?!” she provoked him, and the guy laughed. “No, you’re right – but, in the meantime, I’d be really glad to make at least a duet with you at the karaoke” “No fuckin’ way, I’ll never set foot again on that goddamn place, sure as hell!” “Ok, as you wish… but, sooner or later, you will sing somethin’ with me” he pondered “Like a collaboration… I should seriously write somethin’ for two voices” “Don’t you fuckin’ dare, Vedder! This is a secret, I told ya once and I won’t tell you again: keep your mouth shut or there’ll be big troubles!” Eddie pretended to go along with her wishes and gave her a mischievous smile – then his gaze fell on something that was peeking from the pocket of her sweatshirt. “What’s that?” “Oh” the girl suddenly remembered its existence and pulled it out “Just a mixtape I was listening to before” “Can I?” he extended a hand and she gave it to him “Footprints like puddles – strange choice for a title… I like it” “It’s-err… It’s just a silly title, I wrote down random words” “It seems well put together to me…” Ed fumbled with its case and finally pulled out the tracklist. “It’s just a couple of songs for the days when I get the mean reds, nothing serious” “The… the mean reds?” he hadn’t even started to read through the track titles but stopped immediately “What’s that?” “Well… ever watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s?” the guy nodded and she went on “When Audrey Hepburn gets ‘em, she jumps in a cab and goes to Tiffany’s – and it calms her down, just like that” “Ok, now I get it – this right here is your personal Tiffany’s, right?” “It is” “Then it’s better if I don’t intrude” he quickly opened again the case and started to put away the tracklist, but her hand stopped him. “… Go on, I think you could appreciate it” He looked at her, a bit puzzled: “You sure?” “Yep – go on” The guy smiled and finally began to read it. “Let’s see… we’ve got Leonard Cohen – woah, Ella Fitzgerald! – Brian Eno and Tom Waits… you put The Boss too, awesome” “Yeah, Racing In The Street reminds me of the way I feel when I choose not to open my umbrella on rainy days” “I think he’d be honored to know it… well, you should totally lend this to me, there are a couple of songs in here that I don’t know and I’d like to hear ‘em” he stopped, scratching his nape a bit embarrassed “… of course, only if you feel ok with that” “Yeah – err, yeah, that’s fine… I don’t mind” “Great, thanks” “You’ll tell me what you think about it, ‘kay? And I also wanna know if you appreciated the ones you hadn’t heard before my magic tape came to your rescue” “… you just got yourself a deal” “That’s what I like to hear” Sara looked around, her gaze stopping on the surfboard in a corner, the big waves painted on some walls, the books and vinyls piled on the desk and shelves – a few were also scattered on the floor; she found out that the room really reflected Eddie’s soul – at least, for the little bits she knew about him. The girl also found herself really missing her old chamber, the one that was waiting for her in that godawful mess of her loft, with most of all her belongings stocked there and the furniture apparently put in a random way – when in reality it had been carefully arranged by her. Out of the corner of his eye Eddie clearly saw her sigh, so he quickly tried to introduce a new topic in order to offer her a little distraction. “Say… can you play some instrument?” Sara startled, a confused expression upon her face. “Who? Me?” the guy nodded and she went on “Nope – when I was a child I used to play the harmonica from time to time, but it was nothin’ serious” “Oh, I see – and you got a favorite instrument? One that you really enjoy listenin’ to, and maybe you’d also like to learn how to play?” “HA! Lemme surprise you: banjo, mandolin, kazoo – ya know, all those weird things” she listed, all proud  “Oh, and I love bass too… but don’t tell Ament, pretty please!” “Ahahaha, ok! Pinky swear” he laughed, then they entwined their little fingers and the deal was made “But yeah, really unusual choices… I was expecting something entirely different” “Like what?” “Like… I dunno – violin? Piano? Maybe the harp too… You strike me as someone who would enjoy these instruments a lot” “… I strike you as someone this ordinary? Wow, Ed – you really have a way with words” “Shit, I-I didn’t mean that, I just-” “Relax, I was just teasing you!” Sara let out a carefree laugh “I know that on the outside I may give this impression… and let’s not talk about this squeaky, little voice of mine – it’s obvious that you’d link it to a violin instead of a kazoo” The guy laughed and gave her a playful push, then resumed his observations: “See? That’s why a collaboration of the two of us would be so interesting – and stop it, your voice isn’t squeaky” “You’re the one who has to stop it, Ed! Erase this crazy idea of yours right now or-” “Or what? You’re gonna kick my ass? Punch my cute face with those small, childish hands? I don’t think so, Fancini” “VEDDER, YOU’RE SO GOING DOWN” she roared and threw a cushion at him that perfectly landed on his face. “Ouch! How can such a little person be this evil???” he grabbed another pillow and did the same with her. “You’re one to talk! Beware the mighty Big Foot!” “See?! Well, I’m going to expose you in my next song, which is gonna be this caustic piece about how one should never trust Italian girls with big, brown eyes because in reality they’re Satan’s daughters – and, the good news? I’m so gonna force you to sing some lines, the ones with the nastiest insults” he laughed again, avoiding a cushion “I can’t wait to hear your angelic voice singin’ something along the lines of ‘you’re a sewer rat decaying in a cesspool of pride’…” “Angelic my ass! Stop talking about me singin’, nobody has to fuckin’ know it!” Sara gave him a strong push that made him fell legs in the air, her irascibility growing as she heard him guffaw without restraint. “Ok, ok, nobody will ever know this thing! I swear!” he shouted breathlessly among his laughter. “… nobody will ever know what?” were the words that came out from Layla’s mouth, as she suddenly peeped out from the door.

[lewigm-blog]

A Year In...

Published February 23rd, 2020 

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: “But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.” Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”                             - Matthew 2

Sometimes I feel that I can relate to the Pharaoh with his fears and anxieties regarding the newborn Jesus. I don’t know about everyone else, but I find the knowledge and awareness of Christ’s existence to be both terrifying and comforting. I know that there are plenty of things that I have done or thought that need forgiveness. His presence alone is enough to make me feel guilt and even shame. While I understand that we are constantly being forgiven because of His sacrifice, it doesn’t make owning up to those errors and flaws any easier. In fact, this makes me more resistant to the call to conversion and change at times.

“But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’ s heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said to Moses.”                                                                                                               - Exodus 9:12

As strange as it sounds, I have found myself feeling less vulnerable one year into the JV-Peru experience than when I first arrived. I’m not directly saying that God has hardened my heart since coming to this land, as was the case with the Pharaoh during the time of Moses and the Exodus, but that I now find myself growing empathetic and sorry for this figure. I would like to imagine that, like most leaders, the pharaoh wanted the best for his people and that his intense desire and love for that mission was misguided and perverted slowly, little by little, without him even realizing the harm he was causing his people. By the time he realized how far it had gone, it was too late, but I suppose that this was the way it was supposed to play out for him. Perhaps this is an overly optimistic perspective on the Pharaoh, but who can know for sure?

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Nostalgic Swimming

During this Christmas season, I find myself in a similar boat as the pharaoh, or rather without a boat in the Red Sea. The transition of new and old volunteers ebbing and flowing through Andahuaylillas have begun to stir and blow away the dust from the corners of my heart that were dormant and unexplored for quite some time. I have also been thinking about what it means to prepare our hearts as a stable for Jesus. We recently had a Christmas reflection and prayer regarding this “preparation” this past Sunday, so this wasn’t a casual thought from me for those wondering.

It is currently 2:18AM on Christmas Eve and, after spending a full year as a volunteer, I have woken up with a desire to write about the preparation process of my own stable! I hope that I can somewhat describe my mini experience of metanoia or “change of heart.” At least, this is what I hope to experience regarding my frame of thinking, feeling and being for this next year.

Although this re-connection with myself and my emotions is difficult to describe, I can compare it to the feeling one has with the rediscovery of a childhood toy, film, or favorite song that makes one go “OOOOOOOHHHH MAN!! THIS IS MY ____”. It is this feeling that reunites us with old memories of tender love and nostalgia, but along with this can come traumatic emotions of fear and anxiety. Both are equally helpful to revisit from time to time as they are a part of the human experience, but this current visit has moved me, especially after being away from what was familiar for over a year now.

My current emotions are of sadness and frustration regarding the ways in which I have not yet fully immersed myself into my JV experience. These emotions have brought me back to my time in Nicaragua, and to the initial shock and awe experienced with those who were there. I remember this particularly with the children. Their ceaseless outpouring of love and affection seem to be more apparent during that time than with my daily encounters today with students in Andahuaylillas.

I wonder why I felt that these old feelings weren’t being translated or carried over into this new experience. How have I grown calloused to the injustices that I see on the street with alcoholism, violence, and child neglect? Why was simple living a seemingly achievable and reasonable concept then, when I rarely uphold that value consistently today? Where has my prayer life gone? Why do I find that community has not been helpful for engaging in this sort of discourse and keeping each other accountable? All these thoughts, or more aptly, these accusations hit harder and harder the more I reflected.

Then I began to think about my trip to Guatemala as a peer facilitator. I remembered feeling anger and frustration throughout that experience. I felt that I had failed my group because I did not meet them where they were. I was challenged by how the group wasn’t taking advantage of the experience, or at least to my liking. It was at this point, perhaps in the fogginess of the early Christmas Eve morning, in which I came to the realization that I was pushing some too hard.

I wanted to take people deeper into something they might not have been ready for. I hoped to push them somewhere in between awkwardness and un-comfortability, a hard tone to hit in any intercultural experience. I wanted others to move beyond the “lighter discomforts” of food, language, and culture shock so that they could move into questions and reflections on privilege, social inequality and access to resources among other things. I mean, what did they expect would happen? Everyone chose to be here, they chose to fundraise, and attend several of my country prep meetings to prepare! Weren’t we all expected to be open and dive into the experience? Well, the short answer is no, they were not!

Father Boyle mentions this sort of “measuring up” in Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion. He speaks about this limiting way of putting God in a box and the way that we often restrict ourselves and each other. In a lot of ways I believe that I was also disregarding and boxing people in rather than letting them surprise me with who they were and what they had to say.

I distinctly remember feeling dissatisfied by how the group talked about their experience and, without realizing it, dismissed their reflections. I thought about how they weren’t offering much on the trips. Their reflections never seemed to move beyond “surface level” discomforts (whatever that meant). Anything that wasn’t helpful to me was tossed aside, dismissed like many of the motivational posts seen on social media.

“In this place of which you say it is a waste… there will be heard again the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness,,. The voices of those who sing,”

  - Jeremiah 33: 9-11 (quoted from Father Greg Boyle’s Tattoos on the Heart)

Although personally what the group shared didn’t always seem profound or groundbreaking, it was for them! In their own way, they were attempting to grasp this new reality and were greatly affected by it. I too was experiencing great change by what I was experiencing in both Nicaragua and Guatemala, but it was just different. While I may have appreciated and invited moments of existential crisis and feelings of ineptitude and solidarity, they were out finding the joy in the lives of the children in other ways. Where I thought I had found waste, they found their fruit and enjoyed sharing their struggles and laughter together.

We all came from various backgrounds with different skills and interests. I was able to lean in a because I was familiar with their language and some of the cultural norms. They were doing their best to live (for some survive) with the constant rice and beans, the quick paced gab that is Central American Spanish, and the ways in which animals on the street were treated among other things. This newfound sense of community is what brought them closer and allowed for them to be there for one another.

One of the main factors that led to my own decision to become a volunteer internationally were the volunteers at the sites in Nicaragua. They received us warmly and openly. They helped guide our group closely and allowed us to grow deeper by listening to our needs individually and presenting both challenging and beautiful opportunities to connect with the culture, people and life in the community. In Nicaragua, Lucia and the three German volunteers saw the need for my friend Kyle Hill and I to participate more with the boys at the site, since they couldn’t connect as males with the boys. My way in was through sports and language which allowed me to relate to the boys and get them to open up. Similarly, in Guatemala, I connected with the workers through soccer as well. For others in my group, it was through afterschool homework help, dance and playing tag, something that I wasn’t necessarily apt or predisposed to.

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Rediscovering the “Why”

Ultimately these experiences were all things that I wanted to live out for my own. This is what I would be saying yes to when I was applying to the JVC program, but it was also one of the first things that I would forget after a few weeks of “adjustment” and observation in Peru. As time passed on, so did my patience and I had let my heart grow harsher and unwelcoming to those around me. It became a cold place that said “No!” adamantly to Jesus and his family many times over. It wasn’t obvious to me at first, but I found this to be the case after my first year with my JV community.

I wanted to dive deeper into the tumultuous waters of intense conversation and challenge with others but didn’t realize that in this exploration and desire to have others follow, I failed to show the kindness and love that I was shown as I became a stronger swimmer, so to speak. My desire and methods to “invite others” into the deep were intense and not always pastoral or even kind. It was actually traumatic for some! I had failed to recognize the gifts in others, the variety of ways in which others swam whether that be through the breaststroke, butterfly, doggy paddle, and their various distances! All should have been appreciated in their own way and I wish I had the trust in my group (and community) described in Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.’s prayer “Patient Trust.”

Why was I seeking to bring people deeper into the world by “offering” a challenge, when it should have been the other way around? This “new” and foreign world was already doing enough of that! It was others who were offering me the challenge of meeting them where they were, to walk with them at their pace to grow. In retrospect, it was ridiculous to think that I would serve as the impetus for their change. At the time however, I thought my intentions were pure and ideal for them to lean into the experience. And to be fair, my ideas and wishes for others were good willed and honest at first, but slowly I grew to feel “above others” as may have been the case with the pharaoh.

A recent conversation with a friend from one of my retreat experiences had me reflecting on my role as a volunteer and participant in these experiences. I have always appreciated ways in which retreats helped me to become more empathetic and active listener, but I felt that I wasn’t getting much out of it at a certain point. After 10 retreat experiences it can become a challenge to be… well, challenged (I would finish college with 15 total retreats)! My friend and I talked about how now that we are beyond the “freshman” perspective of retreats and were now in more of a grad student-facilitator mindset. Our roles shifted from being sharers, to listeners, being guided principally by the one sharing. That isn’t to say that our roles are now to be valued more or placed on a pedestal, but that based on our experiences we now prefer this new role as it is helping us grow. I may have already been through the wonderful experiences of Search, Kairos, and other retreat experiences, but I experience and view them now very differently.

This conversation helped me realize that the same thing is now happening to me in the international context. Although I had been on other immersion experiences, this was something completely different. My heart was becoming hardened and calloused after “training” and forming myself within the Ignatian tradition during my time at Scranton. While I have grown more aware of different techniques to engage with others, I have also failed to adapt to the new situations and began to lose myself in the international context. I shouldn’t be too hard on myself given that this is the first time I live outside of my home with 3 “Woo” girls away from friends and family (Click here for the reference).

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End of the first year…

With all that said, I should probably describe some of the moments that I have experienced so that it might make more sense! The first moment comes from a fellow Cadis born Spanish volunteer who lived with us, Pablo Lobato. I was initially excited by the idea of having a male volunteer that was to stay with us for two years. However, once work started it became difficult to enjoy his company for a number of reasons. Having the same responsibilities at Fe y Alegria grew to be cumbersome with the amount of time we were spending with each other and when it came to organizing lesson plans that may not happen. Our states of mind and emotions influenced each other heavily. As you may remember from the previous newsletter, the challenge at Fe y Alegria was that there wasn’t a great deal of organization at the school and had I lost much interest and passion in the work. The same was true for Pablo. The situation affected Pablo so much that he was burnt out after a few months. It would lead to him ending his volunteer experience a year early.

Curiously enough, once Pablo made the decision to leave, things seemed to improve for him. He still had a few months to go and made the best of it. He joked around with folks from Fe y Alegria more and at his other worksite in Urcos. His openness and sense of humor brought him closer to those at work and even with others at the parish. He would often be out spending time with folks outside of our home and he really began to enjoy Andahuaylillas, even with its Oh Peru moments. Once December hit, the love and sadness expressed by everyone he knew was quite moving and made me think about how I would feel if I were leaving that year.

I realized that my own approach to developing relationships was perhaps a bit too cold. A few months in, I remembered pushing away a few of the local parish workers after having made plans to play soccer. I was angry because they had stood me up for over an hour on three separate occasions. So I (regretfully) called them out and told them that I wouldn’t go to anything they invited me to because it probably wouldn’t end up happening or would go on too late. In the moment, I thought that it would make clear that I don’t really abide by the “Peruvian Hour,” when it really only alienated me more than I already was as a gringo. My stable was becoming unwelcoming and standoffish, and its love, conditional. It is important to note that Peruvians and Latin Americans have an interesting concept of time. Time is a social construct where 30 minutes can mean an hour or two. This all seems to be universally understood amongst Peruvians, but it continues to frustrate me to this day.

A master of this concept and someone who helps me manage my struggle with punctuality is one of my closer friends in Andahuaylillas, Amilkar or Micky for short. He helps out at the parish and our mutual love for FC Barcelona has us meeting at least once a week to watch the game or play soccer at the Maracana turf field. We also play guitar at mass together whenever either of us can. Aside from that, we don’t spend too much of our time together discussing our personal lives. Since I play mostly on Sundays in the Temple, Micky is a part of the Saturday crew which included Pablo on the cajon or sound box. When the pastoral team at the parish and Pablo and I from Fe y Alegria had to come together to organize the kids’ First Communion I saw what the dynamics were like with Pablo and Micky.

They were constantly bagging on each other and Pablo seemed to be a much livelier person than I’d ever seen him. They would share in each other’s qualms about the lack of organization on both fronts and take joy in staying late after mass to chat about life. It was refreshing to see Pablo in this light. Once we had finished coordinating the First Communion, which took place on December 8th, we had a plethora of despedidas or going away parties. Given that 4 volunteers were leaving Mountain house, there were no shortage of cakes, meals and tears. It was quite a beautiful thing to witness and it all came to a culmination when we celebrated our final misa together.

El Estadio de Maracana de Andahuaylillas. Quite arguably, my favorite turf field with a view of the Coriorco Mountain

The Weekend Crew

So happy to have finished with Primera Comunion. It was a tough and beautiful year indeed

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Final Misa

With it being Christmas time, a number of masses had already been “booked” by other groups leaving me without a clear role at mass. It was nice to not have to play and to participate in a different way. I was able to immerse myself more fully and reconnected with my old self that wasn’t being brought out. All my motions had purpose, the readings were clear, and I felt connected with the church. Ever since I began to lead the chorus on Sundays, I have been focusing more on playing the songs well instead of listening to what the songs were saying and what the readings were for the day. I used to always find solace and a “lighter” sense of myself when at mass. When our inchoate chorus sung without confidence early on, I began to lose this magical feeling at mass.

I think my failure to pray and reflect WITH God instead of just going through the motions was affecting me greatly. Once this responsibility was lifted temporarily, I enjoyed mass once more. This is, of course, all in retrospect and doesn’t include the misas at home, which were also scarce due to Padre Gonzalo’s limited availability. I don’t know if any of you reading this have had a similar experience at mass, but I am looking for ways to stay intentional and focused during mass (so please share!). It’s challenging when playing for a folks who should believe that all voices singing to God are beautiful. This is not always the case though!

As per usual, the initial impetus comes from the Misa that was celebrated this past week. It was our last misa with a majority of the house, whom we had spent the past year or so with but also the first Misa experience for the new volunteers. It wasn’t so much the scripture readings that affected me, but the fact that this was the last misa we would celebrate as Mountain House 2019! Even with all the frustration that I had experienced the past year, there was a lot of joy and fun too. It all hit me at once when Pablo admitted that he would miss us all dearly and alluded to his regret in his decision to leave. It was a touching moment that was only made worse by my slowing down of the ofertorio song Tomad Señor y Recibid (which is Saint Ignatius’ Suscipe Prayer).

The question now is “What now?” This, like all reflections, means nothing if these “airy “topics and subjects are not made incarnado or made flesh/incarnate. St. Ignatius does ask us to be contemplatives in action after all! After a long pattern of closing up my heart and stable from others, I have begun re-open up shop. It’ll take time, but I hope that with the arrival of the new community we can start fresh and find our rhythm early on! Can’t wait to MAGA it up for 2020! Here’s to Making Andahuaylillas Great Again!

Google Photos Link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/3hbgZLo3USHxDDU57

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“Heaven only knows”

As a random or connected note, these thoughts and reflections come at a time when I realized that many of the songs that I had once cherished and appreciated as a child, mostly from my beloved first CD “album” Now That What I Call Music 19, released in 2005. I was thinking about John Legend’s Heaven and when I went to search for it in my files, there was no trace of it anywhere! I went to search for Ordinary and could not find that or several other songs from that time period. I was most upset to find that all things Coldplay were absent. Speed of Sound really helped kickstart my passion and love for music during my VH1 viewing days.

I mention this because music was what really helped me capture the moment in a sort of time capsule. It inspired and reaffirmed me during difficult lulls and times of change and transition. It is a categorized portal into my life, especially the ways in which I organize my own music.

Exhibit A: 2017 was certainly a coming of age year for me…I don’t know what every hashtag means, but some things definitely stand out for me.

           I hope that this rediscovery of old music will also motivate me to begin the new year with some chispa and passion. Perhaps this new year and community can be an opportunity for me to take advantage of what Peru has to offer. I wish for more openness with the Oh Peru moments, less judgement and heart hardening moment and enough discipline to actually read and write often. So I bid 2019 farewell with a few lyrics from John Legend’s Heaven. Cheers to second chances and to this next year!  

So will you come back to me?

Make this night the best night It's time for second chance Turn the beat up on repeat, and we can start to dance…

Heaven only knows

Our final Tiny Airport (Desk) Concert was pretty awesome

They are definitely smarter, taller and more hilarious a year later. I miss them so much!