#which really has influenced mine over the past 6 years now

[allisonreader]

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11379077/1/Life-s-Highway

@nurfhurdur guess what else I just started to reread again.

Chapter 1 of Life's Highway, where you already had me hooked and interested to see just what your humanized version would be like.

My current take away, is how while you ended up going a little bit different in route for Hard Enough Left, there's still that tie of Joe (and it not being my much beloved Joe Moore who also shows up later.) It still has such an atmosphere to it. I can't wait to get to my favourite arches again.

[immemorymag]

My name is Elena Litvinova, I am Russian living in Spain for past 18 years. I have been doing photography for 6 years. Trying to see what is invisible otherwise, this is what photography means to me.

There is a great film about photography and not just about that, called “The salt of the Earth”, featuring Sebastião Salgado. There are many memorable ideas mentioned, but today I would quote the one that stuck with me the most and which I agree with. 

“The eyes speak volumes, the expression of the face. When you are taking a picture, it’s not just you who’s doing the job, it’s the person in front of you who’s letting you take a photo, the person offers a photo.”

Related to that on a metaphysical level is a story from my grandfather regarding photography maybe 100 years ago, when people in his small Russian village believed that one shouldn’t go overboard about letting oneself being photographed, since every time one gives a part of oneself away and cannot do so indefinitely. This idea of offering, giving oneself away to a photographer is what unites these two ideas. And I believe in that. 

There were many times when I couldn’t understand what was wrong with a picture I took, everything seemed fine, but something was missing. I reckon that the person being photographed influences the outcome. One can shut oneself off completely and whereas you will capture perfectly the looks, there will be nothing more, just a superficial depiction. 

There is no active participation on behalf of the subject, the only thing he/she needs to do is to relax and open oneself just as if it was a silent conversation. Then pictures speak.

I started using film when my friend Victoria Ilina , a talented photographer, who was also one of my mentors in its’ day, suggested almost offhandedly that I should have tried it to see if I liked it. Another thing that played its’ part is that my father was always using the film, well, there was no other way of taking photos anyway, so I was growing up observing him using his Zenith and FED cameras. So I tried and got into it. 

Gradually I have grown to actually prefer analogue photography. For me it is more about implicit things rather than the explicit ones, for example, the look of the photos (grain, etc) taken using a film camera is not a decisive factor.

Logically it was stressing me out since I just had to see the result straight away, but slowly I have learned to let it go. In the end I enjoyed more looking through the photos after actually disconnecting from the session completed. It allowed me to view the images more objectively and profoundly, as if they were not mine.

It is about limitations coming with usage of a film camera, some self imposed, some that I have no influence over. With that comes discipline, patience and improvement.

I remember spending time with my father in the darkroom, helping him with the film development and printing, however it was long ago. So about 4 years ago I decided to acquire necessary skills but instead of going trial and error route I opted for an intensive course with an experienced Spanish photographer Juan Carlos Marugán  and I learnt from him everything I needed to know related both to the development process and to the photography itself. Now I feel in the darkroom as if at home. Also, I knew how to shoot before, but he gave me invaluable insights into details. He is an old school perfectionist and I really like his photos. They are, as they say, picture perfect).

I have seen so many wonderful photographs made by the photographers I like and respect, using digital cameras or even phones. I have discovered that using film perfectly matches my goals and way of working, it has been very beneficial to me. There are times when using an analogue camera is not convenient due to the session particularities, but apart from those singular times I clearly prefer using film. However, this is on a personal, even more intuitive rather than calculated, basis, it doesn’t mean that it would work for anyone who tries it.

In parallel to regular secondary school I attended an arts school in Sevastopol, the town where I was born. Then it was time for a pragmatic university economics degree in Moscow, followed by a masters degree in Spain, where I worked in the export department for a few years. However, I have never lost appreciation for art and as soon as I could I co founded with my friend an arts school-workshop in Barcelona specialising in Japanese sculpture and handcraft techniques.

Some years passed by and I gave birth to my first son, which made me leave that project and consider something which would enable me to manage maternity and professional development. That was how my interest in photography began, for then as an observer.

I watched, admired, watched again and analysed. Some images I liked, some didn’t. Some reached out to me, some left me untouched. Dozens of photographers, hundreds of images. Gradually I was discovering a new world. At a certain point I couldn’t stay put and started a project , which would let me share this new world with other people. Texts accompanied by photographs. Photographs intensified with texts.

Then I started trying myself. Heavy handedly I tried to reproduce beauty. I learnt simple things, wondered, got upset, uplifted by little revelations and success, I studied

So by now I have been doing photography for 6 years. People, their portraits are what attracts and interests me the most.

[transgenderteensurvivalguide]

hey :/ i started to realize that i was a trans man around the same time my ex realized he was, too. we came out to each other and he thinks i’m copying him. advice??

Lee says:

We’ve gotten versions of this question from folks on both sides in the past. People have said things like “I came out and then my little sister came out, I think she’s copying my gender/identity and I don’t like it!” and folks who say stuff like “My friend came out and then I came out, and now she thinks I’m copying her gender/identity and I don’t like it!” 

Indeed, it’s common for one person to come out and then another person follows suit! But this doesn't mean that the second person is “faking” their identity and copying the first person because they were jealous of the attention the first person got for coming out.

It’s common for LGBTQ folks to be friends with each other before any of them realize that they’re LGBTQ. Somehow, we just seem to attract each other! And a lot of trans people only start identifying as trans once they learn more about the trans community and spend time interacting with trans people, whether it’s online or IRl, so someone spending time with a trans person and then identifying as trans doesn’t mean that being trans is contagious, or that the person is faking it- it means they just learned more about being trans and realized it fits them too.

Using myself as an example- I had a friend who came out as non-binary, and the next year I came out as non-binary too. I wasn’t “copying” my friend per se. But I wasn’t really aware of being non-binary before that, so them coming out made it something on my radar. It made me realize that being non-binary is something that exists and something that a person can be and choose to identify as.

Seeing them take that path planted that little seed in my mind and eventually (after having folks as me if I was trans) I realized that yeah I’m non-binary too. I came out after they did because they helped me question my own gender which made me realize that I’m also non-binary, so they did influence me in a way, and seeing them come out gave me the courage/inspiration/motivation to come out myself.

Now of course it’s been several years... and I’m still non-binary! And so is my friend! Just because they came out first and I didn’t know I was trans for a while, it didn’t make their gender “realer” than mine is now, or any more valid.

That’s why friends, family members, and partners tend to come out around the same time. The first person comes out, and that makes the second person question their gender because they didn’t know as much about being trans before, and then they come out too. Or maybe both people knew they were trans already, but one person came out which helped lay down the groundwork for the other person to feel comfortable coming out too because they had a better idea of how someone would react. Or both people realized they were trans and came out at the same time independently- that happens too! 

Regardless of how things happened, you both identify as trans and that’s something that needs to be respected. Even if someone was “faking” for some reason and copying someone’s gender, using a different name and pronouns for them until they get tired of it isn’t really going to hurt anyone- and you don’t know if they’re faking, so you should give them the benefit of doubt. Nobody can peer into someone’s head and figure out their gender for them- if someone says that they’re trans, you have to take them at their word because there’s no “Trans Test” that you can take to determine if they’re truly trans. 

You can talk more about why you identify as trans if you want, but you shouldn’t ever feel like you have to “defend” and justify your identity; you don’t need to share more than you feel comfortable sharing. And even if him realizing he was trans had any influence or impact on your realization, it doesn’t mean that you’re copying or any less trans- there’s no shame in that, and it shouldn’t be something you have to hide or pretend isn’t true. 

If you feel like he’s a good friend to you otherwise and you want to invest your emotional energy into trying to maintain a friendship with him, you can tell him you need to have a serious conversation with him and then explain that you genuinely feel that you are a man and you were hurt that he’s accused you of pretending to be trans/faking your gender/copying his gender, and remind him that it’s never okay to misgender you or say something that invalidates your gender identity. 

If he keep saying shitty things after you’ve had a talk with him, then you need to just move on! Stop wasting your time and emotional energy engaging with this guy. Tell him that you can’t be friends with someone who won’t respect your identity and you won’t be spending any more time with him until and unless he changes his behavior.

Then actually do it! Block and unfollow him on social media and block his phone number and delete his contact if you have to. Hang out with different friends instead!

If you have a shared group of friends, make it clear to them that you’re uncomfortable when people misgender and disrespect you. Make sure you tell them what this guy has said to you and how it’s hurt you, then explain that you don’t want them to hold any group get-togethers with this guy because he’s creating a hostile environment for you (or at least tell them not to invite him to events you’ll be at too unless they’re going to take the responsibility of actively calling him out and correcting him).

Personally, I’d advise just blocking/ignoring him and moving on. While some people can be friends with ex-partners, I have the feeling things aren’t going great between the two of you from the connotation of you calling him your “ex” and not your friend. It can be hard to move on (trust me! I know! I never get over things or move on from anything, ever!) but sometimes you have to remind yourself that this person isn’t actually making your life better and you need to take care of yourself and disengage from them.

Breakups and ending relationships/friendships:

How should I end a relationship?

Ending unhealthy relationships

6 steps to ending a toxic relationship with a friend or partner

How to break up gracefully

wikiHow to Break Up

How To Break Up Like a Grown Up

How To Break Up With Somebody In 7 Steps

How To Dump Someone (Like An Actual Adult)

Fire Your Friends: Drop The Negative People In Your Life

6 Ways To Cut A Toxic Friend Out Of Your Life For Good

3 ways to end a toxic friendship

What to do when one of the friends in your friend group is bad to you

After a breakup:

10 Tips on How to Work Through Feelings of Social Isolation

5 ways to beat loneliness

Coping with a relationship breakup

7 phrases to help you get over a breakup

Dealing with a breakup

Help for when a relationship ends

Beyond codependency

It’s okay to be alone

5 things to remember when you still love the emotionally abusive partner you left

5 helpful things when you end a relationship

How the 7 stages of grief apply to breakups

7 ways to cope with post-split stress

How to deal with losing a friend

Letting go of someone who’s not good for you

What if my ex starts outing me as trans?

Followers, any advice for an anon whose ex-partner accuses them of “copying” their gender identity?

Followers say:

lesbean-on-ice said: I don’t really have any advice, but i can really relate to this post. my best friend, who I’ve known since kindergarten, and I started to question our genders around the same time, and we both went through multiple labels to find the right fit for us. she ended up landing on agender, and I thought I was girlflux at the time, but after reading up on the agender label, I realized that was my gender (or lack thereof, lol) as well!

am-anyone said: It can also be gained confidence that causes people to come out at the same time. I knew I was trans and when my friend came out to our friend group it gave me enough confidence to also come out in short succession afterwards. It wasn’t cause of copying but simply I felt less nervous knowing someone had successfully come out already.

[brandstifter-sys]

Sonnets

Word Count: 2144 (Ao3)

Pairing: Dukexiety with some Creativitwins

Rating: T+

Warnings: Sexual themes, brotherly angst, talk of death

Roman finds a journal and assumes it’s Remus’ but when Remus says it’s not his Roman leaves him with it, so he has some time to read. Little does he know what will come from perusing that book.

-----

Remus was chaos, he didn't bend to anyone else's rules unless he wanted to. Almost nothing was off the table for him—gore, violence, monsters, pain—but he had limits. Don't steal Janus' hat when he isn't holding or wearing it, because an angry Janus meant silence, or worse being silenced and alone. Never ever get too gross with Patton, because he will scream and cry and flash those hideous puppy dog eyes! Stay at least 6 feet away from Logan or suffer through a lecture on how little influence the duke held. Never let Roman hurt himself so bad he can't heal. And never ever read Virgil's diaries. 

Remus was happily throwing shurikens at a large canvas with paint balloons, having fun despite only hitting the ones filled with red. It was just a little annoying to only have one color on a solid white background, and even more annoying when it was Roman's colors staring at him. Roman hadn't been much of a good brother in the past few years, and it stung to think about how they drifted apart. How almost everyone ran from him to Roman. It hurt to be so lonely. 

"Greetings, Your Disgrace!" Roman said as he entered the castle atrium suddenly. Remus threw another star that lodged itself in the canvas with a splash and a thump, and grinned manically at the unsettled prince. 

"Well if it isn't MacBetty himself!" Remus said and cracked his neck sharply, "What hell did I probably unleash on you today?" 

"Don't flatter yourself," Roman scoffed and held up a black journal with sparkling green trim, "You left this in the common area." 

"Did I?" he asked and righted his head with a sickening pop. He was as bad as Roman about collecting cool journals and never filling them, so it could be his, even if he didn't recognize it. Roman handed it to him and crossed his arms. 

"It would appear so. If Logan yells at me for leaving my notes lying about, he will certainly yell at me for yours." 

Remus hummed softly and ran his fingers over the cover, ignoring the jab. The trim pricked his fingers as they glided over it. It was a nice journal, but definitely not something he conjured up. He supposed it might have been a gift, but that would mean someone made something for him—someone other than Janus, and maybe just one other side, but he remembered every gift Virgil ever gave him.

"He likes to yell. Are you sure this is mine?" he questioned, still learning the rise and fall of the trim.

"I assumed, considering the design. I don't like to open other people's journals," Roman answered. Remus knew he was scared of leafing through it, probably expecting some security monster popping out the second he opened it. He didn't blame him for that one, but it stung nonetheless.

"Me neither, but now I'm curious!" Remus laughed and opened to a random page. It was all hand-written poetry. Interesting!

"It's a poetry book! Wanna hear one? It could be a hint!" Remus wiggled his eyebrows. Roman let out a short sigh but went tense. 

"I have other things to do. I came to drop off the book and now I must depart. Farewell." Roman bowed and sank out with flourish. He left far too quickly for comfort.

"Love you too, nice seeing you again, don't be a stranger," Remus pouted and went back to his room, too bummed to paint anymore. 

  He rose up and flopped on his bed with the journal open. Some angsty poetry might make him feel better. He got comfy and let his eyes traverse the page

My mouth is dry Sugary sweet and kind Choking me with my own tongue Out of everything, that saccharine isn't a lie

Remus pursed his lips. That one was really short, and with the talk of lies, he had to wonder. Was this actually Roman's? Did he want to share this with him covertly? Remus bit back a squeal at the thought and kept reading with some hope. 

Lost in translation Obstinate and selfish Get over yourself Avoidance builds pressure Never any quiet when you snap

Remus giggled, knowing exactly who that one was about! Someone pissed the author off! And he knew that that person pissed Roman off a lot! He turned the page, expecting to learn more about this author, believing they could be his brother wanting to reconnect. He was a little surprised to find a skull doodled in the corner but brushed it off.

I want to pull him from the shadows and into my heart Will he see me? Will he disappear if I reach for his hand? Am I blind and staggering in desperation? Someone like him would be better without me Someone like him deserves someone better No star deserves to succumb to a black hole

That one hurt. Remus wiped away the tears forming in his eyes. He knew that feeling all too well. The one side who made him want to obey, the side that made his heart flutter like the bats in his tummy—that side was his best friend and then he left. He missed his partner in crime and he wished that Virgil would come back, just for a visit, and spend time with him again. But that wasn't happening and he had a whole book to read about an author he could really connect with, Roman or not.

He went through several poems that were angsty and angry, full of self-loathing. With each piece he read, the more he doubted it was Roman. The language wasn't formal enough and it didn't match his style at all! It was good stuff, most of it, and Remus kind of hoped the real author would be willing to collaborate with him. He liked this guy.

Like the sun overhead, you're on fire The big man has a little golden boy Pompous and cruel with haughty desire Which one of us are you gonna destroy?

Darkness and shadow that cannot be lit Overshadowing you to make it stop Use that hubris to land another hit I'll keep fighting until the curtains drop

You think you're Hercules when you're so weak Rise like a phoenix Icarus, just try  Maybe you'll learn what it means to be meek Until that day you won't see me cry

I will rain on your parade every damn time Stopping stupidity is my worst crime

Okay so that one threw him for a loop. It would take a few minutes to piece it together. Remus decided that he could assume it was about Roman this time. Princey loved the classics and he had a pet phoenix. This author had some beef with him! Remus hoped for more anger at Roman with the next poem, because he certainly had enough pent up with the snobby, best-friend stealing, always got the spotlight prince. He didn’t get that catharsis, he got more than he bargained for.

I find comfort in breathing in his scent Even if his hands are mine for tonight If he asks, I don't know where his clothes went What I'm doing is wrong but it feels right

If I close my eyes I can taste his kiss A dream in a nightmare clouding my mind Hearing my name on his lips would be bliss To pin him down, our fingers intertwined

I long to stare into piercing jade pools So he thinks of me while I stake my claim I want him to never want to let go I always thought that love was just for fools But on his green sash, love, or something, came I almost regret that he'll never know

This was definitely not a book the author wanted to share. Remus was pretty sure that his face was going to melt off. Now he really wanted to figure out who wrote these! Someone actually liked him like that at some point! It definitely wasn't Princey in that poem—Remus still had the sash mentioned! He was just the tiniest bit turned on, but most of his hype went into his famous wiggles.

"You're so dead!" 

Remus jolted up and beamed. Virgil never stopped by anymore, so when he popped up threateningly, Remus was too happy to care or put the pieces together.

"And how do you wanna kill me? I have some suggestions!" he sang and shimmied. Virgil scowled and crossed his arms. 

"Have Janus wipe your memory and give it back." 

"What, the book?" Remus questioned and held it up. Virgil snatched it and held it to his chest protectively. Remus' eyes widened in horror.

"You wrote all that?! And I read it!? Oh no no no no no! I had no idea—I'll get Hisster Myde and scrub it away with steel wool! Dammit I am so sorry, Sca–Virgil!" Remus yelped and got up to pace. His only rule about Virgil, broken! The only rule he wanted to follow—tarnished!

"Were you about to call me 'Scabby Doo' again?" Virgil scoffed, hiding the fear and hurt he felt. 

"No, 'Scare Bear,' something kinda cute but that’s not important right now!" Remus answered, "I read your stuff without asking! I might be a crazed Camus Stranger boy, but I have some standards!" 

"Remus. Breathe. You're gonna wipe this trash from your memory and it'll be okay," Virgil tried to soothe him, only for the duke to go rigid. 

"Trash!?" Remus snarled and spun on his heels and marched up to Virgil until the lumbering emo hit the wall, confused and scared. 

"It's not trash! I know trash! I eat it for breakfast! That book holds some of the best stuff my critical creative ass has read in ages!" Remus snapped and glared up at him with a fire in his eyes. 

"What?" 

"Those poems are great! I was gonna find the author and beg on my knees like a needy subby bitch to collab with him because holy shit! I felt something with each one!" 

"Even the one with the skull doodle on the page?" Virgil squeaked, his face a beautiful shade of red. Remus smiled sadly. 

"Yeah, that one hit a little too close to home. I got all teary eyed. Thinking about it now after reading that saucy sonnet, it really hurts!" 

"I uh—" Virgil stammered, "I'm, uh, 'm sorry for the sash and the whole—"

"If you apologize for anything else I am going to lip wrestle that apology away!" Remus cut him off, "Because dammit, Virgil, I love you, even if you don't feel the same way anymore. No more self-hate and no more doubting yourself." 

"Puppy," Virgil said and finally took back some control, guiding Remus back and having him sit down, "I can't promise I'll be able to stop that completely, but if you can stand a little bit of it, I wouldn't mind making that collab a date." 

"Really!?" Remus grinned making Virgil's eyeshadow turn purple, "Can we paint too? And watch scary movies? And make out? And then try and woo each other with some dark prose until one of us caves and asks the other to be his boyfriend? And then f—" 

"Yeah," Virgil cut him off and pressed a finger to Remus' lips, "Except for the part about caving. Will you–I mean, only if you want to, would you–and it’s cool if you say ‘no’ since things might be a little weird but—”

“Band-aid, Emoraptor!” Remus cut him off, like he used to do back in the day when Virgil started down one of his nervous tangents.

“Maybe be my boyfriend now?" Virgil said quickly and winced.

"Yes!" Remus cheered and dragged Virgil into a hug, tumbling on the sheets, "Loom over me like a cypress tree and stay with me until I taste death for a night." 

"Stay here and cuddle until we pass out like touch starved gremlins? Only if you visit me in the abyss until this world calls," Virge mused and wrapped his arms around the duke, curling around him protectively. 

"And then the next," Remus hummed softly and kissed his hand, “But you’re always in my dreams!” Virgil buried his face in Remus’ neck and smiled against his skin. Who would have thought that they would wind up here?

Roman sat on his bed and stared at the collage of pictures he had on the wall. In the very center was an old drawing of him and Remus in front of a castle. He sighed wistfully and stared at it, admiring Remus' work. He hoped that sneaking into Virgil's room was worth it—he wanted Remus to be happy even if he couldn't provide that joy. Maybe one day he’d be able to, but until then, he hoped he got his best friend and brother together to make some amends if not more.

[link4eva]

Kiro’s Satisfaction Date Translation (完满之约) [CN] Part 1/2

Hey, everyone! I have a couple of short but important notes to give before reading.

I don’t actually know any Chinese so this translation was done through the power of Google Translate.

This translation contains spoilers for Kiro’s 2021 Birthday Date in the CN server. So if you wish to not be spoiled, please don’t look below the cut. There is a R&S to go along with this date which has been translated by the lovely @keliosyfan​ . I’ll put the link to it here! I definitely recommend reading that first before reading this date.

I tried posting this date earlier but Tumblr doesn’t seem like it can handle all the Kiro goodness in one go. So, this date is split into two parts to try and manage that. You can find the second part here! The call that comes with this date can be found here!

Hope you enjoy!~

*Spoliers for future content below!*

The melodious violin sound filled the lecture hall.

Kiro closed his eyes and the tip of his left finger pulsed gently on the strings of the violin, pulling out beautiful notes.

I stood behind the cameras in the last row of the lecture hall. As I was looking at him through the camera, I couldn’t pull my gaze away.

Kiro’s birthday was finally here, but this year, it is a bit more special.

He was invited by his high school alma mater to come to California for a special performance on his birthday.

And this also happened to be the site of Kiro’s special live birthday broadcast.

Kiro: I am very happy to be back today. I know that you must be very sleepy listening to the song just now, so….  

Kiro raised the corners of his mouth, turned his head back and nodded slightly to the pianist on the side, and then lightly plucked the strings with his right hand; a crisp echo coming through.

Kiro: Let’s be happy. 

The brisk piano sounded, and “Canon” flew in through everyone’s ears between Kiro’s fingertips and the plucked strings.

The students sitting in the lecture hall opened their eyes wide; it was almost as if the notes were like tiny birds flying around in the soft sunlight. *Took some liberty here.*

But this was just the beginning.

Whether it is “Caprice 24”, “Carmen Fantasia”, and other classical pieces, or adaptations of popular songs--

They were all under the influence of Kiro’s fingertips, full of vitality.

It seems that the light of the entire world is focused on him at this very moment, bright and dazzling.

The last piece performed seemed to be a little different from the ones previously. Kiro looked a little cautious. He looked at me from a distance and a smile slowly appeared on his face.

Kiro: The last piece is one that is special to me. It’s a bit rusty as I haven’t played it for many years. 

Kiro: I hope you don’t mind.

He raised the bow, quietly stood still for a few seconds, and then began to play the first few notes.

The tune of this piece is very slow. It seems a bit lonely without the piano accompaniment.

Perhaps no one knows the meaning of this song except for Kiro. We are all his sharers, listening to him tell a story with only a melody.

Listening to this piece, I quietly looked at Kiro’s face and thought of the gift I had prepared for him. I fell into deep thought.

Soon, the piece was over.

Kiro bowed very formally and finally sat on the edge of the stage amidst the applause with his legs swinging in the air, holding the violin and looking at the audience in front.

Kiro: In fact, your principal invited me to come, hoping that I would tell you about my experience and give some advice.

Kiro: But I think you guys don’t want to listen to all that! After all, when I was a kid, I didn’t really like listening to other people’s suggestions. 

In the end, his mumbling was infinitely amplified by the microphone, and the students sitting below laughed together.

Kiro: It’s everyone’s first time coming to this world. Just be happy and be yourself. 

Kiro: I never felt that I was such a special person. Although, everyone would laugh at me when I said this.

Kiro: But I always think, I just have the most love and precious things in my life for me.

He lowered his head and looked at the violin in his arms then hummed a song and looked up in the direction where I was.

Kiro’s whole body seemed to be bathed in the sun, and his smiling eyes met mine.

Kiro: I don’t know if you have encountered it.

Kiro: For me, it has always been with me in countless moments of silence. 

Kiro: It illuminates me and gives me the courage to keep going forward. *Took some liberty here.*

Kiro sat there quietly, peacefully, and sincerely.

Kiro: Today is my birthday. Thank you for your blessings. I also want to share this blessing with you.

Kiro: I wish you all find what you love the most, and stay true to yourselves.

Kiro: I wish that you will always be yourself.

[Second Part]

Kiro: MC, how did I do just now!

After making sure that the students had left, Kiro jumped off the stage and rushed to me.

The bangs on his forehead were drenched with sweat and they stuck together, revealing those bright and beautiful blue eyes.

MC: It can only be said that it is better than the best. As expected of Kiro! 

After hearing my compliment, his eyes curved with a smile like a bear eating honey. He wiped the corners of his mouth with satisfaction.

Savin contacted the school club week, filming and other activities that Kiro participated in during this California trip.

I calculated Kiro’s limited time and pulled him into a corner.

MC: Happy birthday, Kiro!

Kiro: You wished me so early this year. And it also seems that you have something secret to show me.

MC: Actually, I did prepare some special birthday arrangements ahead of time.

MC: But after seeing your performance just now, I suddenly changed my mind.

Kiro was taken aback when he heard me and blinked in confusion.

MC: Last year, you used the treasure map to let us relive all the precious times together. (MC’s referencing Treasure Hunt Date which will be released April 6 on the ENG server)

MC: So now, I really want to ask what Kiro wants to do on his birthday today.

MC: This time I’ve come back to visit the school where you studied. Here are four years’ worth of your past and memories.

MC: Is there anything that Kiro did not realize at that time, or what Kiro wants to do here?

MC: I can help satisfy you. 

Kiro stood firmly in front of me with the bright light hooked onto his face, quietly showing the heedfulness and expectation in his eyes.

Kiro: ….Really?

MC: Of course! Today is your birthday, so naturally, you are the most important on your birthday!

MC: So, I will accompany you in whatever you want.

Kiro smiled.

He tiptoed backstage and took out his violin bag. After exchanging glances, we looked towards Savin and retreated towards the door.

As soon as he stepped out the door, Kiro took my hand and staggered out of the lecture hall.

(Cut to outside)

I didn’t know where Kiro was taking me. But as long as he is holding my hand, I am willing to accompany him wherever he goes.

Kiro ran ahead of me, turning his head back with a smile.

Kiro: Actually, when I first came to California, I was not used to many different things.

Kiro: So for my first birthday here, I was very impressed with all the choices. At that time, I had a lot of things I wanted to do. But in the end, I didn’t do them for various reasons. 

Kiro took my hand and pulled me around the corner across from the playground on the campus. He pushed away a tree branch that was casting a shadow and came to stand under a high wall at the edge of the school.

Kiro: First, I wanted to do this--

In my confused state, Kiro stretched out his right hand pretentiously and raised his palm in the air.

Kiro: Skip class. 

The air seemed to stand still for a few seconds. I looked at the high wall, then turned my gaze back to Kiro who was eager to try and couldn’t help laughing.

Kiro: Okay, I know it’s a little immature.

Kiro: When I was in class, the school was super strict. When I made a wish on my birthday, I had one wish in mind--

Kiro: “Ah! I really want to skip class.”

MC: Have all the big stars ever had this idea?

Kiro: Kiro was not a big star back then, and that big star was also an ordinary person. 

Kiro looked at the high wall with excitement, the scattered sunlight fell on him through the lush green leaves.

I seem to be able to see Kiro, who was 14-years-old, laying his head on the desk, looking at the sky.

The sky is so wide; it seems like you can go anywhere.

MC: It seems a bit difficult to climb but we can try.

I was about to try. Kiro had already stepped on the small holes of the wall, stretched out his arms methodically, and climbed onto the wall in the blink of an eye.

MC: ….?!

Kiro: Sure enough, it’s not as difficult as I had imagined. I will teach you! 

While talking, he jumped back down silently and came back to me.

He pointed to the hole in the wall and demonstrated it again in front of me.

Following his direction, I stepped swiftly on the wall like a clumsy gecko.

Kiro: Miss Chips, give me your hand.

I raised my head and habitually stretched out my hand in response. In the next second, I felt that I was being strongly pulled and I fell into a warm embrace.

MC: Why were you so scared of skipping class?

Kiro: This is just the beginning.

The distant school building faced Kiro’s back. He raised the corners of his mouth and winked his left eye at me.

I suddenly thought of myself; 14-year-old me and 14-year-old Kiro.

I’m in Loveland City and he is abroad in California.

I dozed off at my desk in the warm afternoon, and he was probably humming a gentle tune among the stars.

At that time, we hadn’t become adults and we were separated by a distant time; like two parallel lines that would never meet at all.

But these two lines seem to overlap at this moment.

Kiro: I’m ready to climb.

He whispered in my ear, and before I could react, he gently pulled me towards him and hugged me.

MC: Kiro! Kiro, you….! 

Kiro: In fact, I have imagined skipping class many times.

Kiro lowered his face and the sun was behind him. A golden outline was drawn on his body.

Kiro: But none of this is what it is today.

As he lightly pushed his foot, I couldn’t help but hug his neck tightly.

At that moment of flight, the whole world was silent, leaving only two intertwined heartbeats with similar rhythms to be heard.

Kiro: Sure enough, MC’s existence can revive my imagination. 

[Third Part]

Kiro: The next thing is-- 

In an empty fast food restaurant, Kiro bought two “actually real” meal sets and sat with me in front of the window facing the street.

Kiro: Eat junk food! 

MC: Pff, why are all the things you wanted to do so cute?

Kiro: It’s okay, just laugh if you want, hmph.

Kiro: Since I debuted, I hadn’t touched any junk food. Potato chips were the first things I had finally eaten when I first met you many years later.

MC: Well, what did you do when you were craving junk food?

Kiro: Restrain, hold back, pretend there was a gun to my head. *Translation came out a little weird here so I hope this is right.*

He muttered, opened his mouth and took a bite of the burger, and sighed particularly contentedly.

MC: Why don’t you restrain yourself now then? 

Kiro: It’s different now. 

He answered without hesitation and quickly finished the burger.

Kiro: Because you are here.

MC: Are you trying to say that I seduce you into committing food crimes? 

Kiro: That’s right!

MC: You!

Kiro: But of course it is more than that.

Kiro: Because you are here, it’s okay to indulge a bit. 

He propped his head with his right hand and looked at me sideways. A spot of light fell on his defined eyelashes like he had a secret full of mischief.

With a straw in his mouth, the soda gurgled. As it gurgled, it seemed to have filled my heart at the same time.

MC: Then I will help you sneak some more snacks in next time?

Kiro: Although that sounds very exciting, I still want to have more opportunities to be handsome in front of you.

Kiro: Compared with “snack-loving Kiro”, I’d rather you have “handsome Kiro” in your heart. 

He snapped his fingers, his eyes gleaming.

Looking at him like this, I subconsciously followed along and laughed.

MC: Of course you are the most handsome Kiro in the world!

We were sitting in front of the shop window; I was eating a burger and Kiro was telling me about his time in California.

Some difficult lectures to sit through, baseball games he had to participate in, exquisite violin decorations, yellow balloons from children….

He traced the past for me, like an old movie that spans over a long period of time.

Under the immersion of time, with some nostalgia mixed in, the pictures in the memories appear more vivid and beautiful.

After leaving the restaurant, Kiro rented a car and waited on the side of the road. 

(Cut to the highway)

We are cruising along the highways of California and the endless highways spread to the distant sky; it was almost as if we could reach the edge of the sky.

I suddenly thought of a memory from when I first came to California a long time ago and Kiro seemed to think of the same memory as me.

Kiro: I have checked the car, again and again, this time. It will definitely not break down! (He’s referencing his Los Angeles Date which is a sweet and funny one. Definitely recommend. It’s been released on the ENG server already.)

MC: Are we going to Santa Monica this time?

He shook his head mysteriously at me and jingled some special keys in his hand.

Kiro: This time, I want to take my dazzling pearl to another dazzling place in my heart. 

The scenery along the highway was quickly left behind by us. It also seemed that the time that was always moving forward quickly and impossible to stop was left out of the scenery.

The tides rolled on the coast and the seabirds used their wings to draw a neat arc in the air, in the sea and the sky.

There is a boat anchored quietly by a small port beside a bay.

(Cut to beach)

After getting out of the car, Kiro took the girl by the hand and moved towards the coast. The sea breeze blew her hair gently. He had never felt that his heart had been so at ease.

Here, the excitement is like a flood. And with it is more peace of mind. *Translation came out wonky here.*

The girl stood in front of him, watching him quietly.

At that moment, he seemed to see the blossoming of his dreams.

Many years ago, he had seen himself on a stage amongst the stars.

And now, it is once again full of his entire world.

The third thing is--

He said softly in his heart.

Bring my favourite person in the world to my home in California.

I watched Kiro raise the corners of his mouth, the brilliant light fell into his smiling eyes, but he didn’t speak.

MC: Is coming here the third thing you wanted to do?

Kiro: Bingo! The third thing is-- 

Kiro: Come to this bay with you.

MC: Liar, you didn’t know me at the time, how could you think of coming with me?

Kiro: Of course it is because I reserved a place for you very early on.

MC: Then I am really honoured! Let me guess, this was your secret base in high school, right?

I looked at this “secret base expert” confidently, but he shook his head unexpectedly.

Kiro: This is my home. 

Here is Part 2! 

[amariemelody]

Under the Bonnet Debate, it Smells like Misogynoir

I know that the discourse over Black women wearing bonnets, scarves, head wraps, do-rags, etc. in public is nothing new. I know a lot of the discussion on what Black women can and cannot, should and should not say or do in public period is nothing new. 

I am a Black woman who admittedly would not wear a bonnet (I'll shorten the many coverings we can wear to just "bonnet" from here on out) in public. The most I'll wear it outside is if I'm just checking the mail box, picking up a package outside the door, and/or taking some trash out. Otherwise, I'm inside my home when I wear my head wraps. I sport an afro and admit I've only started wearing coverings regularly as recently as last year. They've helped my hair retain moisture and start to grow even more; they've helped me stop an anxiety tic of mine wherein I pull, tug, twist, etc. at my hair until it's breaking off and my hands have leeched all the moisture out; they’ve also helped protect my hair from the heat of my shower, right under my shower cap.

So I'm a Bonnet-in-the-house Black girl...and I am still 10,000% down for Black women who wear bonnets outside of their home. 

There seems to be a reinvigorated camp for those who say that Black women should never wear bonnets outside of their house. I'm not surprised but one of their justifications stands out to me because it is...an empty, dangerous platitude. That platitude is, to paraphrase, "We should want to look and be our best at all times. Because remember one of us represents all of us."  

One of us represents all of us.

Initially it can sound...comforting and empowering. Simple social common sense for Black women constantly under besiege from misogynoir. It possibly even echoes of popular expressions and movements like #BlackGirlMagic or #BlackGirlsRock, both of which I use and enjoy quite a bit.

But it's not any of those things.

And I don't despise it simply because it's wrong-I despise it because it's actually only half-true and it is a half-truth Black women the world over should reject.

When it comes to bonnets, we're being told that we shouldn't want to be represented on one side of the half-that is, the half wherein we appear less than presentable in public. And bonnets in public are considered less than presentable.

This is playing into a game that all Black women of all shapes, sizes, shades, socioeconomic status, etc. are well familiar: the game of body policing.

Body policing based upon white supremacist, kyriarchal standards. Body policing that neither really benefits anyone nor lets anyone win-not even cishet, able-bodied, conventional white men can win at the end of the day and certainly never Black women.  

And truly the policing of bonnets is but a longtime sibling of overall body policing, which begins even before anyone cares about what we do and do not put on our heads. And that body policing is not just dangerous because of the immense psychological and emotional damage it can create, but because for the most part 1.) black women cannot readily escape our bodies and 2.) a lot of the vitriolic misogynoir is often directed at how our bodies simply naturally occur.

Take my natural body for example. Regardless of the fact that I don't wear bonnets in public myself.

I am a plus-sized, dark-skinned black woman. I am 5"6; weigh well over 200 lbs (stress <i>been</i> making me gain weight long before the pandemic); have broad/wide shoulders; have a natural 'fro; and did I mention that I'm plus-sized?

From the time of my childhood, because of the intersections of misogynoir, sizeism, and fatphobia against my natural body, I have been made to feel that:

Just by existing in public, I automatically take up too much space/more than my fair share of space. It is always space that I do not deserve and I should always work to shrink myself as much as possible and stay out of other people’s way.

I am automatically aggressive, antagonistic, and angry/easy to anger. I'm a hair trigger always just waiting for my moment.

I am naturally dirty/unhygienic and unkempt.

I am neither attractive/desirable (at least not within the context of my own agency and consent) nor should I even <i>think</i> about expressing attraction/desire for someone else.

There's no way in the world I possess any kind of varied, valuable intelligence and thoughts.

There's no way in the world I possess any kind of healthy, mature communication skills.

That was a lot to unpack in not so many bullet points.

And understand this is just what I've learned is projected onto my body as it naturally occurs. This is before I even open my mouth to say "Hello". This is before getting to what I’m wearing. This is before getting to my actual demeanor/aura.

All of this comes before whatever I may or may not be wearing on my head.

On a side note, I hadn't realized how much of this I had subconsciously internalized and how it influenced how the way I moved and navigated my body in public. For example if I need to brush past people, I of course always say, "Excuse me"; I also often give a smile if the person can see it. I do this so easily that it's all but a reflex. But because of the breadth of my body and the brownness of my skin, there's been many a time when I feel that I actually bowled the other person over and shouted at them to get out of my way.

I'm still working on feeling safe and comfortable enough to naturally claim public space.

But yes, that is my natural body which, again, is something that I can neither readily change nor escape. It is often found quite wanting for being positive representation of my fellow Black women.

That means that I have to contend with one side of that half-truth: my natural body as it simply exists is deemed not positive representation of Black women as a whole, is considered to be the rule proven.

And the rule is that, as a Black woman, I am not presentable no matter what I step out of the house looking like. Bonnet or no bonnet.

Now when you get to my personality, traits, habits, etc…I’m very much the opposite of what is projected onto my body. The contradiction people don’t expect often starts with my voice: it’s naturally soft, pretty low in volume, and a little high in pitch. I smile readily and easily (hell, sometimes I smile and make funny faces in my bathroom mirror to make myself feel better). I’m often so agreeable and companionable that when I was a senior in high school I won the senior superlative of “Friendliest” out of 400+ other senior students. And to this day people still say that I am [one of] the sweetest, kindest people they’ve ever met.

I am a giant nerd who absolutely loves to learn and has generally done well in school all my life; when I can quiet and clear my mind enough for it, I am an avid reader. As an adult, I still often find myself being as inquisitive about the world around me as when I was a child.

More or less to White and non-Black people of color, all of these are considered positive representations of a Black woman. And people typically just have to get to the “Hello” phase with me to find out one of my above traits.

But when those positive traits are brought to light-and they’re often brought to light quickly-I am now pigeonholed on the other end of the spectrum. That is, I am no longer the rule proven but the exception to the rule.

The psyche of bigotry cannot and does not want to conceive that their target can ever be anything other than the negativities and deficiencies it projects onto them. When said target proves those projections wrong, it is just often far too difficult-possibly even unthinkable-that that single positive can renew and refresh the perception of the whole. Instead, it is much easier for the single positive be treated as an outlier, an exception so that the perception of the whole can remain the same.

White supremacy has many neuroses in place that make sure to always allow White people to win while people of color, especially Black people, always lose. One such neurosis is that when people of color have negative attributes, setbacks, traits, etc. applied to them, they remain the sore thumb that proves the rule, but if they have <i>positive</i> attributes, accomplishments, traits, etc. applied to them…they then become an exception to the rule.

The true phenomenon is not, “Black women, every time you step out of your house, you represent all of us as a whole” but actually, “Black women, every time you step out of your house and you say/do/are something bad or simply perceived as bad (i.e, wearing bonnets in public), then you represent us as a whole. But every time you step out of your house and you say/do/are something positive or simply perceived as positive (i.e, not wearing bonnets in public), then and only then do you represent yourself as an exception to the rule.”

And to digress a little, in my experience it honestly is not fun being deemed the positive exception. It caused me to grow up suffering a huge disassociation between who I was and what I was. From everyone including other Black girls that bullied me for being different from them to well-meaning White teachers, I started to internalize that my personality meant I was not a typical Black girl. Or barely a Black girl at all.

Long story short, it wasn’t until about my early twenties that I was able to start on the road to un-internalize that terrible mess. I learned that I can say that I am nice and kind and smart and giggly and still Black. I am a lot of good things and I am also Black Black Blackity Black. Generally positive traits are not paradoxical with Blackness because to be Black is not a bad thing that must compensated for.

Black girls and women can be and are a lot of good things and our Blackness is one of those good things.

So I’m definitely not saying that being considered an exception to the rule is any kind of accomplishment. It can actually be very psychologically damaging and take a long, long time to unlearn it.

It’s true that Black women will always be burdened with the dichotomy of the half-truth “One of us represents all of us!” because it is an inescapable part of the many neuroses of white supremacy-we lose no matter what we step out of the house looking like.

The core of the issue is not Black women leaving their houses and being visible in public with bonnets on, but Black women leaving their houses and being visible in public period. For goodness’ sake, once upon a time it was the law for Black women to cover their hair in public-hello there, Tignon.

But being unable to escape such a burden does not mean we should be surrendering to it.

We shouldn’t want to believe and buy into the idea that part of taking care of each other is taking on the impossible strain of all of us representing each other. That is not an empowering statement-it is disempowering to the extreme because it’s perpetuating the mindset that we are a monolith undeserving of our individuality. My god, we Black women come in every kind of shade and shape and size and music taste and food taste and language and dialect and we don’t all know each other and we don’t always even like each other.

I just…I’m not yet that old, but the older I get the more and more I feel that sometimes as black women we can not only be our own worst enemies and each other’s worst policers. And I wish deeply and desperately that black women would stop policing each other and policing each other for, of all things, an arbitrary acceptance that ultimately means nothing even if we could achieve it.  

One of us represents just that: one of us.

[eyesaremosaics]

TRIGGER WARNING:

The past few days, I have been shocked, saddened and disgusted with an artist who I have admired since I was a child. I remember seeing the sweet dreams video when it came on MTV in 1995 when I was 6 years old. I remember being frightened, but mesmerized by him. I pretended to hate him whenever he would come on TV, and my dad would tease me: “oh, there you go it’s your boyfriend Megan.” I would shriek in disgust and say “no!” Secretly I would watch his music videos when no one else was home, there was a hypnotic quality to his voice...something that drew me in. I know many females my age can relate. I bought his albums in secret, and until I was 15 years old I had this very real fear that if my family found out I listened to Marilyn Manson—they would stop loving me. Which seems silly and absurd, I often laugh about that.

However, once high school hit, he became more gimmick and less rock and roll. More self aggrandizing and less of a nihilistic commentator on society. He was once a major influence to me, my style of art, expression and creativity. The women he dated became icon’s to me, something to be emulated. I became a vintage girl because of my interest in Dita Von Teese at age 14. I wore high heels to school, seamed stockings with a garter belt, dressed like a 1950s housewife. I was voted best dressed in my high school senior year (2006).

I never had a crush on him or anything, it wasn’t really like that, it was more like he was a person I looked up to. After his interview in bowling for Columbine, all his interviews, his book, tv appearances etc. he came across as a highly intelligent and creative person who challenged social norms and societal constructs. I appreciated his androgyny, and admired his fearlessness. I listened to his music a great deal in high school, and it got me through some very dark and angsty times.

As the years went on, it became apparent he was losing his edge. I loved Rose McGowan, she was one of the women I modeled myself after as a young person (next to Winona Ryder of course), and she always spoke highly of him, saying he was a good boyfriend, but the drugs were something she couldn’t hang with. When he was with Dita, I fell in love with her too, and found her to be just as cool and interesting.

When he cheated on Dita with Evan Rachel Wood I was devastated. I felt like my idol fell. The stand-up man I thought he was—wasn’t real, and I am ashamed to say I blamed Evan, vilifying her as some “scarlet woman” who destroyed what was (to me) the perfect marriage. Little did I know that this poor girl was suffering. In ways many of us can relate to, and many we can’t begin to understand.

A few girls that I follow on IG have come forward with graphic accounts of the abuse to which they were subjected by Brian Warner (aka Marilyn Manson), and it made me sick to my stomach. I mean... I wrote him off as a has been in 2007, but I still thought he was an ok person, I still respected him for the art he made that inspired me as a kid. Now I feel like a huge chunk of my childhood was a lie. All the things I thought he stood for were merely conjecture.

All this background was necessary to get to what I really wanted to say: this whole ordeal was very triggering for me as a survivor of narcissistic/sociopathic, sexual, emotional and physical abuse. I stand with these girls, because though I can only begin to imagine some of the things they have described in their testimony... other things I know all too well. In fact many of the situations these poor girls were violently subjected to, have happened to me as well. It actually broke me down in tears to read.

My heart goes out to the survivors, you are strong and beautiful. It takes YEARS to survive this type of abuse. I know because I am living proof. I have been in more than one relationship like this, which led me to have zero self esteem, resort to substance abuse, risky self-destructive behavior, attempted suicide etc. I have been in extensive therapy for these traumas for over five years now, and only in the last two, was I able to get a full sense of self back.

There is so much to say on this issue. I am proud of the girls who came forward, it takes an insane amount of bravery to call out your abuser publicly... I still haven’t had the courage to call out mine. However it gives me strength to know there is a movement of women empowering each other to break their silence and speak their truth.

I am disillusioned and sad about this person I used to think highly of, but it’s the same feeling you go through when leaving a narcissistic/sociopathic relationship. In my own situation... I left feeling like Marion Cotillard’s character in “inception”. The top forever spinning...Not knowing when I would wake up into the real world....Not knowing which was the real world, and which was a dream. Wanting to die, so you can finally wake up.

There are stages of grief that you go through, accepting that this person never cared about you, and saw you only as narcissistic supply, or as “food” for their ego. They see matters only as a means for power and control. They don’t feel things the way you or I do. It is in this that you should pull power from. You are not the one who is weak, it is they who are weak. They who lack the emotional depth or compassion to function as a normal human being. They will never know love, or real friendship—and you should feel sorry for them. What a terribly lonely and meaningless existence that must be. To be a parasite.

You ( the survivor) still have a chance for life, YOU will love again. It may feel like you will never reach the other side of it, through the panic attacks, the sleepless nights, the terrorizing anxiety, the bouts of crying, the humiliation, the silence, the nightmares—but you will. I learned a long time to let things build and not destroy me. To any of you reading this who may be able to relate: you can do it too.

I never thought I would survive my demons, I have a history of abuse that goes back to my childhood, which is why I am so protective of children now. It’s almost like I have made it my personal mission to assure that no child will ever be hurt the way I was, not on my watch.

Keeping your inner child alive is so crucial to survive the darkness of this world. We have to be the architect of our own reality, and rebuild a new world, a safe one to live in. One where a man can treat us with love and kindness. That doesn’t mean we should forget. We forgive the abusers not because they deserve forgiveness, but because we deserve peace.

I stand with all women out there living with this kind of abuse. Living with domestic violence. You are not alone. I hear you, I see you. There is a deeper systemic problem going on here enabling this kind of violence, and it Must. Be. Stopped.

#breakthesilence

[bonjour-rainycity]

The Long Way Around ~ Chapter 6

Link to previous part: https://bonjour-rainycity.tumblr.com/post/623283543296049154/the-long-way-around-chapter-5

Pairing: Jasper x Reader

Word count: 1954

Warnings: None

Jasper’s POV

I sigh, trying to concentrate on the papers before me. Once Y/n came into our lives, I had decided to halt my studies at school. She arrived during the summer so it wasn’t like anyone would notice my sudden, and perhaps suspicious, disappearance from class, but my family agreed that we could really only afford for one or two of us to deviate from our cover story. So once classes resumed in the fall, all but I continued attendance at the local university. Once she found out, Y/n had lamented at my loss of education and insisted I continue studying at least something of interest. She didn’t seem to understand how little a year or two out of school would affect me, given how many times I’ve gone through both high school and varying post-graduate degrees. But still, the gesture was kind so I agreed and have sent spent a few hours every day since that conversation brushing up on my world history. Right now I’m camped in the basement where we keep our extensive library (excluding the volumes found in Carlisle’s office and our individual rooms) digging through first-hand accounts of Otto von Bismarck’s rise to influence. It’s interesting enough, but still, my attention is elsewhere. At least half of my focus is upstairs, carefully monitoring Y/n’s moods. She’s become much more even as time passes, but still, not keeping tabs on her makes me nervous. Newborns are so unpredictable and so reliant on their emotions that at any moment, she could react badly and cause herself or someone else harm. It’s not that I don’t trust her, it’s just that I know how this goes. And I would hate myself if anything happened to my family or Y/n, especially if I could have done something to prevent it.

She’s been struggling recently with missing her family and friends, and that’s always difficult. For most of us, we had been immediately taken away from our loved ones plus had been changed during a time when news recordings and social media didn’t exist. Y/n does not have that luxury. At least once a week, she’ll find some news source with reports from her parents or come across a social media page of one of her friends. It breaks her heart. Secretly, I had gone to Carlisle and discussed the benefits of moving. It only adds to Y/n’s pain being only a handful of miles from the people she loves, and perhaps moving away would aid in her healing. But Carlisle shot the idea down, citing our advantageous location and the dangers of moving cross-country with a volatile newborn. So, instead, I sought to distract her. One of the reasons she felt bad about stopping my schooling is because her own had been paused suddenly due to her untimely death. So, I loaned her a few of my old textbooks, which she has been studying relentlessly. Carlisle also offered his services, and it’s not uncommon to find Y/n perched in one of the chairs in his office grilling him about everything under the medical sun. All in all, she’s adjusting well. Still, I worry. At the drop of a dime, her control could slip or her emotions could get the best of her. That’s why, when I feel her switch from a relaxed, curious state to one of annoyance, I take notice, and listen.

“You really need to let your human life go, Y/n. At this point, you’re only dragging out your own pain. There’s nothing you can do about it anyway. That life is as lost to you as your soul.”

Now I feel annoyance at my brother’s predictable morose attitude. Even to this day, Edward grapples with losing humanity and, according to him, his soul, and often pushes those feelings onto others. As far as I can tell, Y/n doesn’t believe vampirism has damned her, and I would like to keep Edward from putting those thoughts in her head. They simply aren’t true.

Y/n responds with a biting tone. “They’re my loved ones, Edward, not yours. Please don’t tell me how to deal with losing them. If you don’t like my thoughts, stay out of my head.”

Rosalie chimes in, always interested in fighting with Edward. “Really, Edward, back off. You’re the one who helped Bella keep her precious humans in our life and risked our exposure, so you’ve no room to talk here.” It was the wrong thing to say. Y/n’s anger flares.

“Hypocrite! That is such a double standard!”

I feel Edward’s anger increase too, and I know they’re filling a keg with powder and readying their matches. I hurry upstairs.

“It’s different. Bella was going through a lot and-”

“And I’m not?” Y/n’s incredulity is plain.

Rosalie scoffs.“What precious Bella wants, she gets. The rest of us are expected to live by a different set of rules.”

“Okay guys, let’s take this down a notch.” Emmett intervenes as I get to the top of the stairs.

“I agree.”

Y/n’s eyes flicker to mine, and I register her guilt. Why?

Whatever’s in her mind causes Edward to scoff. “You’re not bothering him with your emotions, he lives for this stuff. It makes him feel like he has some kind of purpose.”

“You are so pessimistic,” Y/n groans, putting her head in her hands. “Whatever. I am not doing this anymore. I’m going for a walk. Jasper?”

Immediately, I’m at her side, not even needing to think about joining her. It’s just natural, at this point, to be with her.

She smiles tightly as we walk out the back door, and I can tell she’s trying to calm herself down. “Sorry I interrupted your studying.”

I shrug, honestly not bothered at all. “Don’t worry about it. It’s nice to get outside….The leaves are just starting to change.”

Now, her smile becomes much more natural. “Aren’t they gorgeous? It’s even better now that I can see them with these new eyes. And I can hear the crunch when I step on them and the smell of fall is just,” she sighs, a dreamy look in her eye. But then I feel the sadness creep back in.

I’m hesitant to ask, not wanting to upset her further. “Are you alright?”

She bites the inside of her cheek and looks away. When she finally speaks again, her voice is unsteady. “I just really, really miss my family. It’s hard to leave them and come to terms with…what I am. And of course I’m so grateful that I have all of you,—well,” she chuckles darkly, “today I could do without Edward but that’s beside the point.” She trails off, lost in her thoughts.

I look into the horizon, enjoying the light of the setting sun but regretting the added sadness she’s suffered on behalf of my brother. “I’m sorry he upset you. I can talk to him tomorrow-”

“Oh, that’s alright,” she waves a hand, smiling softly. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do with your siblings? Argue?”

I chuckle, nodding. We certainly do argue.

She turns to face me then, stopping her walking. “Thank you though.”

The sunlight filters through the trees, hitting our skin and illuminating us. She gasps softly, and I sense her wonderment. She’s seen what the sun does to our skin many times, but it never ceases to amaze her. It’s really sweet. Slowly, she reaches up and lightly trails her fingers over the side of my face where the sun hits. I freeze, not wanting to make any movement that would cause her to stop. I enjoy her touch much more than I would like to admit. It feels so nice to be handled so softly, compared to the harshness I’d become accustomed to in my past. I close my eyes.

“Beautiful,” she breathes, letting her hand fall.

I smile, enjoying this moment. “It is one of the more mesmerizing attributes of this life.”

Now, I feel her playfulness. “You know what else is great? The speed.”

My mood soon matches hers. “Wanna race?”

She frowns, turning in the direction of the house. “Oh, no I think we should-”

And then she’s off, laughing wildly. I shake my head, realizing I’ve just been tricked and, with a laugh of my own, take off at a sprint after her.

{***}

“Jasper,” she starts, sitting down on the rock next to me. “Where are all the other vampires?”

“All over, really, though most tend to avoid especially sunny cities.” I shake water from the river off my hands. A few seconds prior, I’d reached in to grab some pebbles to skip. “We’re the largest coven in the area. Anyone else around here is likely a loner or part of a nomad coven.”

She pauses, thinking. “Doesn’t anyone ever come to visit?”

“Very rarely, and Alice can sometimes give us some warning, though not always. But the nomads that visit usually leave very quickly. We don’t allow them to hunt in this area, as it could raise suspicion and cause problems for us. That tends to make extended stays unappealing.”

“Well, what about friends?”

I smirk. “Vampires don’t really have friends.”

This confuses her. “Then what are you and your family? You’re certainly not just acquaintances.”

I smile, thinking of the best way to explain the complicated relationships between vampires. “Let me rephrase: most vampires don’t have friends. Carlisle theorizes that, because we don’t drink human blood, we’re less animalistic, a little less reliant on our instincts. Instincts that, under normal circumstances, would keep us from forming bonds because other vampires generally pose a threat to getting a meal.” She nods, understanding. “Because we are slightly more, human, for a lack of a better word, we do enjoy friendships and closer relationships, like I have with my adopted siblings. Realistically, though, that’s not how it works at all. For normal vampires, the only type of close relationship they experience is between mates. Those relationships last forever though, so I guess it’s enough to satisfy the need for connection.”

Y/n raises her eyebrows, disbelieving. “You’re telling me immortal vampires are monogamous for life?”

I chuckle. “Apparently, once you find the right one it’s just natural. I’ve seen it happen, felt the feelings they feel. It’s intense.”

She considers this, but says nothing further. Until, “have you ever felt that way?”

Subconsciously, I study the scars on my hands. “I thought I did.”

“With Maria,” she guesses. Y/n knows most of my history, so it’s no surprise that she’s able to put the pieces together of my involvement with Maria. Strangely, I find myself wishing that I could say no, that I’ve never been with with anyone like that. Or, at least, that I’d never been involved with Maria like that.

“Have you,” I counter to distract from my sudden regret.

She shakes her head, a soft smile playing on her lips. “My human memories are fading by the day, but I’m pretty sure the answer is no. My twenty years of life were nothing to write home about.”

Now it’s my turn to smile, somewhat ruefully. “You’ve got millennia ahead of you. I’m sure at least something notable will occur.”

She chuckles, shrugging. “Perhaps. For now, I should just focus on making it through the rest of this year.”

“We’ll get you through it,” I answer, confident.

She hugs her knees into her chest, feeling peaceful. “I believe you.” Then, her playfulness returns. “But step one should be feeding me, because I’m starving.”

I chuckle, stand, and offer her a hand. She grabs it, allowing me to pull her up. “Lead the way.”

A/n Let me know what you thought of this chapter/the characters and if you would like to be added to the tag list! I hope you all have a good day/night <3

xx, 

Bjr

Link to next part: https://bonjour-rainycity.tumblr.com/post/623476978292555776/the-long-way-around-chapter-7

Tag list: @puer-de-infinitate @charliestuff @hindustani-diaspora @one-thread-can-save-a-life @salsameter @enchantedcruelsummer @meashy-moo

[bugsandchatons]

when you weren’t mine to lose (6)

Summary: Change is a scary thing, especially when it feels like nothing has stayed the same.

It’s been a year since Marinette became the Guardian of the Miracle Box - a year of struggling beneath a burden she never asked for, a weight that has her leaning on her partner more and more as the hours fly by, of letting him come to her, too, when he needs a soft place to land. A year of falling for the boy who takes on the world by her side with a smile made of sunlight, and fighting the growing urge to tell him what he means to her.

After all, they’ll have time enough for that when Paris is safe.

But when the unthinkable happens, Marinette learns the tragedy of loving someone quietly, and the lines she’ll cross to save him.

[[AO3]] {from the beginning}

*****

[six: dear lord, when I get to heaven]

Another sunrise breaks the clouds.

This time, Ouroboros keeps an eye on the comings and goings of Paris from the secrecy of the shadows. She watches Chat Noir emerge from Marinette’s skylight and tracks his movements as he bounds over rooftops, carefree with his ignorance of what’s to come.

What had come. Past tense. As long as she breathes, it won’t happen again. 

She stays hidden as he sails through the sky. If his shoulders tense with every step closer to the Agreste Mansion, she notices, but discards it. She can do nothing about it now, but she’ll remember.

Instead, she lets him go, swearing it’ll be the last time she ever has to.

Revealing herself to him earlier had been a mistake. Tikki had warned her that even outside of Hawkmoth’s direct influence, the Akuma would still make her more easily moved by her emotions, especially negative ones. If she wanted to stay off this Hawkmoth’s radar, she’d have to keep it under control. 

And she would. Nothing would stand in her way when the time came. But she has hours to go, and until then, she does all she can do; she watches.

She keeps watch from the eaves of the clocktower as Adrien leaves his house for the bakery. She takes up a post in the tree across the street to see him leave with a pastry box in hand and his eyes on the back of Marinette’s head with an expression so soft she’s not sure how she never felt it.

From the rafters of the Gare du Nord, she watches Félix disembark his train into Nathalie and Adrien’s care. She notices how, as fans approach Adrien by the minute, Félix grows more and more caustic, and Adrien’s shoulders become more and more strained.

As Ouroboros follows them throughout the morning and into the afternoon while they drift between tourist attractions, she thinks of and learns many things: She wonders what Gabriel Agreste could be up to today that would convince him to allow Adrien out of the house for so long. She wonders how it took her until now to realize that Félix must be the one to become Mirror Image. She wonders, too, what makes up a person; how Adrien could be so different from his cousin, a boy who looks so much like him on the outside but couldn’t be more his opposite, or how Chat Noir could be so fundamentally unlike his father that it leads them to opposing sides of the same war.

She wonders how a boy raised in loneliness and derision could grow up only to be unfailingly kind, and learns that a heart can take so many breaks in so few hours and still keep beating.

As the day slips by, it occurs to her that this is what Chat Noir dies for: Hawkmoth’s insatiable greed and Félix’s poisonous envy. The brightest of them all ends with his light doused, reduced to ashes for nothing worthy of his life.

This is not how his story should end.

It sets her teeth grinding and gives birth to a rage so overpowering it’s nearly enough to have her throwing caution to the wind and storming the Agreste Mansion on her own - nearly. Instead, she takes a breath. She watches, and she remembers.

She watches Adrien trail behind his pitiful excuse for a family and sees the way he casts longing looks in the direction of  Françoise Dupont whenever their journey carries them past the school. What adds a final crack to the fault lines mapping her heart is the realization that, at the end of it all, the day that became his last was a disappointing one.

Let him go, she wants to scream. Let him go back to where he’s loved. 

She’s about thirty seconds from breaking, from swinging down from the Eiffel Tower and stealing Adrien away when the sound of a vortex opening makes her jump. Ouroboros spins around in time to see the blinding white-blue flash and a familiar figure stepping through it. 

“Oh, Minibug. What have we gotten ourselves into now?”

Ouroboros gapes at her. “Where have you been?” 

Bunnyx waves a hand. “Here and there.” Her eyes scan the area before settling on Ouroboros. She arches an eyebrow. “New suit? Edgy.”

Fury, as potent as it is misplaced, swells inside her until she’s seething. “Seriously? That’s all you have to say?” 

“No, not all. Come on, we’ve got to split.” Bunnyx takes a step back toward her burrow portal, but Ouroboros holds her ground. 

“What? No way,” she hisses. “I’m not leaving.”

Something like frustration flickers across Bunnyx’s expression. “Look at you, LB. We’re on thin ice already - all of this can snowball out of control at any second, and you’ve made a choice that’s going to have some consequences, so the best thing to do is-” 

“Where were you?” Ouroboros interrupts, her voice small. “I screamed your name for an hour. I begged you to come and help me, to help him, but now you show up? To try to stop me? Alix,” she drops her voice low, “why?” 

It’s enough to break through the mask of Bunnyx’s composure. She hesitates, then shoves a jerky hand over her rabbit ears. “Listen, it’s not...it’s not easy to be in there, okay?” She throws an arm out toward her burrow. “Most of the time, I can’t change anything, I just see it. The future isn’t set in stone and every choice we make can change a hundred different little things. By the time this path played out, you had already set out to change it. But now things are about to get complicated, so we’ve got to go.” 

“No.” Ouroboros doesn’t move. “I’m here to save Chat.” 

Bunnyx sighs. “And have you thought about how you plan to do that, little Miss Angry Bug-Snake? It’s already in motion. Unless you’re going to swoop in, be seen by half of Paris looking like that, and somehow snatch Félix Graham de Vanily’s Akuma out of thin air, it’s already over. And by the way, I don’t recommend that. It’ll do some serious damage to the timeline.”

“No,” Ouroboros repeats, crossing her arms. If time and fate were an unstoppable force, she would be an immovable object. “I’m going to stop the battle.”

The exasperation in Bunnyx’s expression gentles. “That’s not going to work, Ladybug. I’ve seen this go down, I’ve tried to find a loophole, but it really only ends one of two ways.”

“And those two options are?” 

Bunnyx looks away. “Either Chat dies, or Mirror Image does. If it goes that way, we end up with a guilt-ridden, akumatized kitty situation.” She puts her hands together and mimes an explosion, which Ouroboros supposes is meant to be a crude representation of the moon.

The bottom promptly drops out of Ouroboros’s stomach, and out of her world. “I...I don’t accept that.”

“I know,” Bunnyx says, not unkindly. “But the horrible truth is that if Félix gets akumatized into Mirror Image, he becomes Chat’s bane - someone isn’t going to make it out of that fight alive, and it’s too late to stop it now.” 

“What about me?” Ouroboros demands. “Why can’t I do anything?”

“You’ve lived it, you saw it first hand. His powers mess you guys up, and there’s just no way you can move fast enough between realizing what’s going to happen and Chat using Cataclysm to physically stop him. And this,” Bunnyx gestures to her, “is already a mess.” 

They’re silent for a moment. Ouroboros’s chest heaves while Bunnyx waits. Then, Ouroboros speaks again. “You said I made a choice that’s going to have consequences. If that’s why you’re here, why didn’t you stop me when I made the choice to be akumatized?”

“Because that choice, while wild as hell, is not ultimately the choice I’m talking about. You made it just now before I showed up. Or, well. You’re about to make it, soon enough.” Bunnyx waves a hand. “Minutes, seconds. It’s all semantics, really.” 

Ouroboros didn’t think so. The most memorable things happened in a matter of moments - a shared smile, a turn of luck, a broken heart. The whole world could change in seconds when a life ended and a choice was made.

“You said it wasn’t set in stone,” Ouroboros says, lifting her determined gaze to meet Bunnyx’s. “I’m going to find a way to save him. You have to let me try.” 

Bunnyx stares back. There’s a beat, then another, before she sighs. “I guess if anyone can, it would be you.”

Ouroboros blinks. The clocktower chimes the hour, and her heart pounds hard against the cage of her ribs. Somewhere in Paris, Ladybug is waiting. Somewhere below, in the crowd, Chat Noir is trying to get away. She knows, she knows, but seeing it is a different thing entirely, and she has to get back to Adrien, to know for sure - “You’re not going to try to stop me?” 

Bunnyx already has one foot inside her burrow. She offers a jaunty two-fingered salute. “Let’s see if you can rewrite fate, Minibug. Good luck.”

With that, the vortex swallows her whole, and Ouroboros feels it even more keenly - the slipping of time as it begins to run out.

 *****

She starts running.

At twenty-two minutes past, Chat Noir will make it to where Ladybug is waiting. They will race to Trocadéro, where she will almost tell him her name before the Akuma attack interrupts. By the clamor of the next bell, he’ll be gone.

She has less than an hour to change history.

Ouroboros glances up at the dusk-glooming sky, finds the outline of the waxing moon, and figures she’s managed harder feats than this.

A round, smooth object, hefty for its size, materializes in the palm of her hand. When she glances down, she frowns at it - a pocket watch, vintage and peculiar - but when she focuses on the time, it tells her she doesn’t have much left to spare for pondering at the form it took.

Adrien and his group have not made it far from where Ouroboros let them out of her sight. Every few minutes, he casts his eyes around, looking increasingly desperate. She can sympathize. The busy square alone would be a nightmare for transforming, to say nothing of having to escape Nathalie and his bodyguard’s watchful stare. With every passing moment, Adrien grows twitchier. That could be enough of a confirmation.

Still, she knows a part of her will never believe it until she sees.

An opportunity rises when Nathalie’s phone rings, right as their bodyguard steps away to grunt an order to a café worker. Adrien takes the chance to slip away, into the crowd. 

Félix follows him.

Ouroboros tries to draw close enough to hear without sacrificing her vantage point. This is it, she thinks.

In moments, they’ll go their separate ways - Chat to find her, and Félix to the waiting wings of an Akuma. Whatever it is they say to each other, it’s the final catalyst. 

She wants to know if it was worth it.

It’s a morbid wish, and ultimately one the universe does not grant her. All she’s left with is the frown on Adrien’s face and the sneer on Félix’s. Adrien turns away from him, the line of his shoulders tight. He misses the way bitter resentment twists Félix’s face.

She can’t imagine anything Adrien could say that would warrant such anger from his cousin, but she supposes that’s not the point. In the end, it doesn’t matter; it couldn’t be anything worth the cost.

With a final scowl, Félix goes in the opposite direction, while Adrien retreats further into the spaces between buildings. Ouroboros shadows his steps until he finds an alley away from prying eyes.

Her heart starts pounding a vicious rhythm.

She watches, numb, as Plagg zips out of his shirt, a little black blur, and disappears into the ring on Adrien’s right hand. When the green flash of magic fades and Chat Noir stands in his place, there’s no triumph of a theory proven or a curiosity satisfied. There’s only another splintering crack to a heart made of glass.

They wasted so much time chasing each other in circles.

It makes sense now, why for years she could never confess her feelings to Adrien, just as she struggled to share the truth with Chat Noir. Deep down, she’d known in her heart what her head hadn't - she couldn’t do him the injustice of loving in half-measures. 

She can see the whole picture, now: a lonely boy, intoxicated by the sips of freedom that his Miraculous grants him, stuck under the thumb of a father who cares very little and values his life even less. A broken boy who chose to be a hero, who makes that choice again with every passing day. One who loves loudly and fearlessly, and values her so highly that he’d throw his own life away in the blink of an eye. 

Tomorrow, Ouroboros thinks, swiping away an angry, errant tear. Tomorrow, when this was over and resolved, her partner would begin to learn his worth.

He’ll know, without a doubt, that he’s loved.

 *****

As horrible as the circumstances are, it feels like a gift to see herself this way. She and Chat make a pretty picture as they fly through the darkening blue sky and leave laughter in their wake, just as they do back to back, taking a moment alone to breathe.

A glance at the watch tells her there’s no more time for regrets. She could ache over the time they wasted until her heart gave out, or she could focus on beating the clock and saving him.

It begins any minute now.

When civilians start screaming and Chat Noir and Ladybug spring apart, Ouroboros takes a deep breath and moves. The heroes drop down into the street, and she scales the building closest to the one that provides the setting for their fatal face-off.

Her mind races in time with her frantic heartbeats. She holds out a hand, a silent plea for help - for anything that will help her change the course of this fight.

A dark red recurve bow comes to life in her grasp, bringing with it two slender, black arrows.

She offers a grim smile. One shot, and one second chance.

She’s never shot a bow before, but Tikki must know what she’s doing. Luck, she thinks, wouldn’t dare fail them again.

Ouroboros lifts a hand to her face. She presses a kiss first to Chat’s ruined ring, then to the darkened charm strung above it, and waits. 

When Chat chases Mirror Image up onto the rooftop, Ladybug on his heels, she studies the Akuma the way she hadn’t had a chance to before. He’s barely visible, but the setting sun glints off of something metallic where a pocket might be.

A pocket watch.

She wings a silent thanks to Tikki and a prayer along with it. They’re down to seconds, now.

When Ladybug reaches for her yoyo, Ouroboros lines up her shot and draws the bowstring back until her fingers brush her own cheek. She breathes in and lets her first arrow fly free on the exhale. 

The arrow snags Mirror Image’s pocket, tears the watch free, and pins it out of reach. It dangles from its chain; snared, but not broken.

Ouroboros curses under her breath.

All movement below stops for just a second like someone’s pressed pause, before they resume once more. Her distraction was enough, though - Ladybug calls for her Lucky Charm, and without Mirror Image right in front of her to stop it, the hand mirror she receives is red and black spotted, as it should be.

Mirror Image moves next, his focus on Ladybug. Ouroboros watches Chat’s face change into something fierce and determined and thinks of action where once, she’d been frozen instead.

Someone, she remembers, isn’t making it out of this fight alive.

So she touches a hand to the Miraculous around her wrist and does what she couldn’t, before: she slows the passing seconds down and moves, throwing herself into the open sky. 

As Ouroboros falls, she lines up her next shot and thinks again of what makes up a person - of skin and bone and sinew, of expanding lungs and pounding blood, the impossible, miraculous measure of being alive. She thinks of hard choices and sunbeam smiles, of a stubborn heart, strung together by wild hope and unwavering faith in her partner.

He calls for his Cataclysm right before he sees her. In slow motion, she can see the way his eyes fly wide, how his brow furrows beneath his mask. She looses her last arrow and lets the bow fall, then holds out her hand.

I’m sorry, Chat. He’ll not make it out of this battle unscarred, she realizes. None of them will. 

But he’ll live, and she’ll be there to hold him up through the storm that will follow. 

Her arrow hits its target, this time. The pocket watch shatters, and Ouroboros drops in between the hero and Akuma. She catches Chat’s smoking hand in hers before it can make contact with the fading mirror, or Félix on his knees behind it. 

Cataclysm is a cold sort of burn, Ouroboros learns. She gasps at the ice in her fingers and toes as something in her chest catches fire. She shuts her eyes against the pain and thinks again of where the light goes when the night inevitably comes to claim it. Then, she forces her eyes open and finds it, in glowing green eyes. 

[radramblog]

Halo Through its Guns: Reach

The year is 2010. Bungie has one final game left on their contract with Microsoft before they can make something that isn’t Halo. They were going to make it count.

Reach is the last Halo game that Bungie developed, and the latest non-numbered entry in the series that’s still a First-Person Shooter (unless Infinite dropped the 6?). It came at a time where FPS games were at the height of their popularity, when they dominated living rooms and the fledgling days of e-sports, before the rise of MOBAs and mobile games and the like.

The game is a reflection of all of this. It’s a mirror to both the franchise past and those others that sprung up in its wake. It’s a deliberately different game in story, aesthetic, and play to the others around it. And it’s proof that Bungie’s developers as a whole really loved working on this series, seeing as they put so much into their final entry.

As per usual, I think you can use the weapons as a lens into the game. As such, this is Halo: Reach through its gun- the Grenade Launcher.

In order to talk about Halo: Reach, we have to talk about Call of Duty. I know, I don’t like it either.

2009 and 2010 were the height of what could be referred to as the Halo/Call of Duty rivalry. Halo 3 was still huge, ODST had just released, with the franchise arguably at its peak of popularity- but Call of Duty was faring similarly, with the incredibly popular Modern Warfare releasing the same year as Halo 3 and the series sill riding the high of Modern Warfare 2 in 2009. Moreover, Halo: Reach and Call of Duty: Black Ops were set for release within the same few months of 2010. In effect, if you were, like me, a preteen middle class dude who had touched an Xbox controller before, you had to have an opinion about which one is better. Lines were drawn in the sand over which you preferred (with the other clearly being dirt), though CoD had the advantage of not being a console exclusive.

To those unfamiliar with shooty mans games, the two franchises look incredibly similar, but this isn’t especially true. Call of Duty is what many refer to as a “twitch shooter”, with an increased emphasis on reflexes and map awareness. Engagements between players are typically much shorter owing to their increased fragility, with much more weapons being able to kill in one or two hits. A melee is always a kill in CoD, whereas in Halo that’s only true if you catch someone from behind.

In place of the weapon sandbox from more classic shooters (like Halo), the CoD games of the era featured a huge range of customization options in the form of Loadouts. This kind of completely changes how weapons are treated in the series- since you can spawn in with any weapon in the game, the idea of a “power weapon” cannot exist for game balance, and so traditionally powerful weapons like sniper rifles and grenade launchers are significantly weaker than they’d be in other games. This, combined with the restriction that the guns have to be, you know, real actual guns that exist, makes the guns all kind of blend together. Most of the time, the differences are statistical rather than functional, and minor at that. I’m not saying this is an inherently worse way to go about things, but it’s very different, and something that will likely determine how much you enjoy either franchise.

This brings us to Reach. Bungie was very obviously aware of Call of Duty’s design at this point- they’d already been outsold by Activision twice- but I’m not sure anyone was expecting them to so deliberately change the way their own series works as a result. While obviously the game is still Halo, the way the gameplay has been facelifted in Reach is a clear reflection of the influence of the franchise’s primary competitors.

The biggest, most clear divide is in the massive complexity increases with weapons both old and new. Especially seeing as Reach heralded the final, permanent removal of dual wielding from the franchise, individual weapons were enabled to be more differentiated as a result. Looking at the new weapons from the game, only one of them could be argued as “basic”, and that’s the DMR- yet that’s also a major change, as it replaces the series’s now iconic Battle Rifle, having a longer range and scope to allow the Magnum to reclaim some of its former glory at medium/close range now that it’s been buffed and scoped once again.

I shit you not, every single one of these weapons is fucking odd. The Plasma Repeater’s fire rate slows as heats up, making it worse in an extended firefight, but you can press the reload button to vent it out it a pinch. The Needle Rifle features the Supercombine effect from the Needler on a longer range weapon, with the 3-bodyshot explosion making it much stronger in the hands of less experienced players. The Plasma Launcher echoes the Spartan Laser, but fires homing Plasma Grenades and allows versatility in how much you charge it up. The Beam Rifle has been replaced by the Focus Rifle, a long-range…Sentinel Beam? I dunno I’m not a huge fan of the Focus Rifle actually.

And then there’s the Grenade Launcher. The most obvious comparison to Call of Duty the game has. Modern Warfare 2 had an underbarrel Grenade Launcher available as an option for many primary weapons, with its quick switch option and instant-kill potential earning it the nickname of the “N00b Tube”. Bungie, on the other hand, nicknamed their Grenade Launcher the “Pro Pipe” and it shows in the gameplay. It has effectively two firing modes, requires very precise aim and timing to use most effectively, can shut down vehicles, and most importantly won’t be one-shotting anything anytime soon. It can be used to flush out enemies behind corners, as a trip-mine in objective-based gamemodes, and if you’re good, can even work very well against airborne opponents.

Speaking of airborne opponents, the Grenade Launcher interacts very interesting with most of the game’s new addition of Armor Abilities. Just about every gamemode has multiple available to spawn with, and they all work great in different situations. Unfortunately, just about all of them paled in usage compared to the Sprint ability and Jetpack- Halo not having an increased speed option was a deliberate choice, which Sprint really messes with, making it typically the best option. And Jetpack is so utterly insane for mobility, especially when you’re playing a game with powerful weapons in far-off spots. The Armor Abilities replaced the Equipment from 3, and I’m ultimately not sure how I feel about it. They did, however, contribute to something else, which we’ll get to in a moment.

Before that, I want to talk about factions. Much of Halo 2’s weaponry was dedicated to parallelising the UNSC and Covenant loadouts, to make going between Chief and the Arbiter easier, and 3 continued this with the Brute weapons. By contrast, Reach goes out of its way to deparallelise the two factions, deliberately making the two play slightly differently. You can still pair them up (though some of those are kinda a stretch), but there’s enough difference between each pairing that each weapon feels different, which especially makes playing as a Spartan or an Elite a subtly changed experience.

This is all (arguably) in service of what I’d call Reach’s crowing achievement- Invasion mode. It is the culmination of everything the game has to offer- an asymmetrical, objective-based gamemode with massive maps and incredibly complexity. The default loadouts are fairly basic, but as the game progresses, the power of each player’s equipment ramps up. The round-three loadouts are extremely cool, often letting you spawn with what would be considered a power weapon (albeit a more niche one like the Shotgun), each with a different Armor ability that suits its weaponry, and each forming a different role in an effective team. The Grenade Launcher gets to seriously shine as a part of the Grenadier loadout, particularly on Defense, as a tool to keep vehicles at bay, and the loadout’s Hologram ability lets you get an idea of enemy placement or movement so you can more effectively fire on out-of-sight targets.

Invasion is just such an incredible game mode. It perfectly suits the story and gameplay changes of Reach, and it is just really bloody fun. It has a scale that no other Halo Gamemode has managed to achieve, dwarfing even Big Team Battle. It lets you fully take advantage of everything the game has to offer, from weapons to abilities to vehicles to maps. As well, with Reach’s massively expanded gamemode customization and Forge map editor (with Forge World being a much greater canvas to work with than Sandbox ever was), it can and has been expanded and played with for years, being arguably the game-mode with the most potential for variety of all of them.

This complexity is what made Reach great. It’s what set it apart from its competitors, and what sets it apart from the other games within its own franchise. Sure, it doesn’t have dual wielding, but it really doesn’t need it. Bungie set out to make their last Halo game a memorable one, and its inarguable that with Reach, they succeeded.

Unfortunately, it’s also a level of complexity we’d never see again. While Reach was deliberately different from its contemporaries, the next games in the series would instead fall further in line with them. Join me next week, as we enter the 343 era of Halo.

…I’m going to need to find a way to play Halo 5 real quick, aren’t I?

[jawsofhakkontranscript]

What Yet Lingers: Return to Kenric

(Previous quest - What Yet Lingers: Look for information on Inquisitor Ameridan)

Main questline: What Yet Lingers: Return to Kenric

This is the third part of "What Yet Lingers" questline.

Speak with Professor Kenric about the information on Telana and Ameridan.

Characters involved: Bram Kenric

[1] Dialogue options:

General: We’ve been to the island. [2]

General: What's our next step? [3]

General: Ameridan and Hakkon connect. [4] (If both “What Yet Lingers” and “Storvacker Caged” have been completed.)

[2] General: We’ve been to the island.

PC: A spirit on the island held the memories and possessions of Ameridan's lover, a woman named Telana. It told us that Ameridan was here on orders from Emperor Drakon himself... and where he went next.

Kenric: Andraste's dimples, I may have received tenure from that sentence alone. Ameridan had a lover. Telana, you said? The Inquisitor's lady mage! There was such debate over whether she existed! And there were orders? This was a request from Drakon? This changes everything! [5]

[5] Subsequent dialogue options:

Investigate: Spirits don't bother you? [6]

Investigate: Why do the orders matter? [7]

Investigate: What does Telana change? [8]

General: I like uncovering history. [9] (Becomes unavailable after choosing one of the Investigate options.)

General: This is a useful step. [10] (Becomes unavailable after choosing one of the Investigate options.)

General: Where do we go now? [11]

[6] Investigate: Spirits don't bother you?

PC: You don't have a problem receiving information from spirits?

Kenric: It's not ideal, but since you've found corroborating physical evidence, I see no serious issues. Any study of great wars and battlefields carries an inherent risk of contact with demons or spirits. When spirits are willing to talk, most historians love the chance of a firsthand report. [Back to 5]

[7] Investigate: Why do the orders matter?

PC: What does it change, knowing that Ameridan was on a mission from Emperor Drakon?

Kenric: Everything. One current theory holds that Ameridan was selfishly throwing off his responsibilities to go hunting. Another suggests Drakon had him removed or even killed, because Ameridan opposed the Nevarran Accord. But if this is true, then Ameridan was a loyal servant of Orlais! He was not an embarrassment. He was a patriot protecting Orlais while Drakon fought in the Second Blight. [Back to 5]

[8] Investigate: What does Telana change?

PC: You were surprised to hear that Ameridan had a lover?

Kenric: Yes, this Telana you mentioned. Her existence has been hotly debated. Some scholars took Inquisitor Ameridan's respect for the Chantry to imply that he remained celibate. In ages past, there were stories about him and his lover, a mage. They made it out to be a star-crossed romance. The Chantry silenced the stories strenuously. [Back to 5]

[9] General: I like uncovering history.

PC: It's fascinating to find new evidence about these things. [Go to 12]

[10] General: This is a useful step.

PC: What matters is that we've got useful information. [Go to 12]

[11] General: Where do we go now?

PC: At the very least, we've found something to work with. [Go to 12]

[12] PC: The spirit said to follow the river to the north, and something about spires or spikes.

Kenric: Hmm. Up the river. The scouts have had trouble with the Hakkonites up there… I'll continue my research, but for now, your guess is as good as mine. [Back to 1]

[3] General: What's our next step?

PC: What do you need me to do next, Professor?

Kenric: That spirit on the island said something about Ameridan going upriver to... someplace with spires? While you search upriver, I'll continue studying these buckles. That, uh, sounded better in my head. [Back to 1]

[4] General: Ameridan and Hakkon connect.

PC: When I helped the Avvar at Stone-Bear Hold, we learned that the Jaws of Hakkon once bound their god's soul to a beast. According to the spirit, the dragon Ameridan faced was powerful... and accompanied by hostile Avvar.

Kenric: You believe they could be one and the same? That would mean... of course, of course! Brilliant! 800 years ago, the Second Blight threatened a weak Orlais. A perfect time for the Avvar to attack. This "Avvar-god dragon" could have endangered the Orlesian empire, had Ameridan not stopped it. That explains why he would accept such a dangerous mission... and likely how he died. [13]

[13] Subsequent dialogue options:

Investigate: What if the dragon rose again? [14]

Investigate: Does an Avvar god bother you? [15]

General: Ameridan was a hero. [16]

General: How was this overlooked? [17]

General: Hakkon will not rise again. [18]

(Options [16], [17] and [18] are only available if the dialogue branch [2] “We’ve been to the island.” has not been used beforehand.)

[14] Investigate: What if the dragon rose again?

PC: How bad would it be if the contemporary Jaws of Hakkon bound their god to a dragon again? [Go to 14a or 14b depending on the completion status of “Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts”]

[14a] (If “Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts” wasn’t completed.)

Kenric: With Orlais still involved in civil war and recovering from the mage-templar conflict… [Go to 14c or 14d depending on the completion status of the main game]

[14b] (If “Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts” was completed.)

Kenric: With Orlais still recovering from the civil war and the mage-templar conflict… [Go to 14c or 14d depending on the completion status of the main game]

[14c] (If the main game wasn’t completed.)

Kenric Not to mention the remaining demon-rifts, and Corypheus himself… [Go to 14e]

[14d] (If the main game wasn’t completed.)

Kenric Not to mention the scattered rifts, and remnants of Corypheus's forces still causing trouble… [Go to 14e]

[14e] Kenric: A high dragon given malice and magic by an Avvar god-spirit could hypothetically destroy much of Orlais. At least, I hope that was hypothetically. [Back to 13]

[15] Investigate: Does an Avvar god bother you?

PC: You're not concerned about the literal existence of an Avvar god?

Kenric: Not particularly. If the Jaws of Hakkon once bound their god to a dragon, it is likely just a powerful spirit. That isn't to downplay the important cultural significance to the Avvar. But magic does not equate godhood. Every Blight comes from the "Old Gods," which are also dragons corrupted by some outside influence. Sometimes, I wonder if we really know what we mean by "gods." [Back to 13]

[16] General: Ameridan was a hero.

PC: It seems Inquisitor Ameridan saved Orlais 800 years ago. It's time to honor his legacy. [19]

[17] General: How was this overlooked?

PC: History forgot about an attack by a giant magic dragon? If you want something done right… [19]

[18] General: Hakkon will not rise again.

PC: Let's make sure Hakkon stays dead. [19]

[19] PC: The spirit said to follow the river to the north, and something about spires or spikes.

Kenric: Hmm. Up the river. The scouts have had trouble with the Hakkonites up there… I'll continue my research, but for now, your guess is as good as mine.

(Next quest - On Ameridan's Trail)

[pinkittwice]

LU Headcanons Galore

I got hit in the head and this was the result of the metaphorical lighting strike.

Which Link would be better around kids?

Not to say, who would make the best father. That’s not what I mean by that. I’m talking about a babysitter or at least who would be better to handle children in their general vicinity. This would tap into what kind they may be though.

I will explain.

1. Twilight

Kind of a no-brainer. He’s the go-to babysitter, as shown through his own game. He’s got it down to a T and the kids would love him and the stories he would tell and overall it’s a good call. You can’t go wrong with Twilight. He’s the most rounded out of everyone when it comes to taking care of children no matter the age. Babies? He’s changed diapers before and knows the ins and out of feeding them. Runaway toddlers? He’s chased goats before, what’s the difference? Bored children? He has a new game they can play. Older kids don’t want to listen? He’s dealt with Wild before, no means no. Twilight will be a good dad if he has the chance. 10/10 Best option to offer really.

2. Time

This man has too much dad energy anyway. He’s the one taking care and looking over the gremlins we know and love. Poor guy’s just tired but he loves them all the same. Not the mention he also grew up in a village of only children. So I’m sure he could just teach them all the games he knows and before they know it, it’s bed time. He’s a different person around the children than the group by all means. A little more open, a little more relaxed- it’s not like he’s walking down a path where monsters could jump out a any minute. The kids would love him too. But unlike Twilight, since Time doesn’t have as much experience watching over the kids, he would have some trouble finding a good groove and he’s not sure whether he would be too strict or not. Not too worry though- he’d be a good dad too.

3. Sky

Ah yes, the sky child. The mom friend, if you will. I believe he has a fondness for children anyway- so if the other two aren’t offering or simply can’t watch the kids for the night, he’ll gladly step in. Helping them feel better if (when) they get hurt, making them dinner, lunch, breakfast, telling them bedtime stories- you name it- he loves it. He wants to be a dad. He wants to be a dad so bad. He always gets excited at the idea that he could have children of his own running around and calling him papa. He’s done a lot to make sure that the future he molds would be safe enough for the generations ahead and if another part of that journey is jumping through space and time, he’ll do it. He is doing it actually. Unfortunately, he’s a bit of a push over when it comes to children. He can’t put his foot down for the life of him. He tries- oh how he tries- but his resolve crumbles in seconds. He’s the chosen hero of Hylia herself and has taken down Demise on his own just fine but... he just can’t say no.

4. Four (hah!)

He likes talking to kids and the kids trust him because he sees the world through their eyes (their words not mine). Four has some trouble getting them to listen to him when he tells them to do something because they take him as seriously as they would another kid. It doesn’t matter how many times his tells them he’s actually almost twenty- (a few years off but what difference does it make) the kids don’t believe him. Nothing in his adventure would have prepared him for that but he refuses to let it bother him. If they let him, he talks about the Picori and how only good children can see them and all the adventures he has had with them. His tactic is to distract the kids until mom or dad come back with stories and games- so bossing them around isn’t really necessary. All in all, everyone has fun and the kids would love to have him around again. But Four would feel a lot better if they had someone they would take seriously instead it’s a lot less work on his part and he’s not sure if his tricks would work twice. Not someone who should watch them by themselves unfortunately. Four occasionally entertains the idea of being a dad and he wouldn’t make a bad one either- he’s got the right balance between stern and flexible. But he’d rather be the fun uncle, he’s able to get away with more.

5. Warriors

He also has an affinity for children and arguably the has the second most experience in watching over them.Yes, I’m counting Young Link and Wind. It’s because of these two that he’s not any higher of on the list. Not to say that he can’t do it or that he isn’t willing... he’s just... hesitant. He holds himself up to a high standard but at the same time, lacks the confidence in himself to actually watch them, even if it’s for a little while. Young Link and Wind can take care of themselves just fine, he knows this, and they remind him constantly but he feels responsibly for them anyway. He tends to be a little stricter than necessary and his commander side comes out more often than not. He doesn’t do it on purpose but with Young Link and Wind always charging onto the battle field with all self preservation thrown away with wild abandon- he has a subconscious expectation for most children to do that and eventually get themselves hurt... or worse. And he can’t handle that. If he were to ever be a father one day, he might be even stricter with them than he was on the other two. He’ll remember himself as a child and of Young Link and Wind and be terrified of the thought of his own children being even remotely near danger. He’d love them immensely but over-protectiveness runs through his veins and his soldier side has been burned into his brain. He can’t help it.

6. Hyrule 

He’s actually a bit nervous around kids. He’s been by himself for so long that it took forever for him to open up to the others, let alone some strangers that all seem to be looking up to him, wanting his attention, asking him questions about his journey, thinking he’s cool and hey this ain’t so bad- WAIT NO DON’T DO THAT YOU’LL HURT YOURSELF! Luckily, he has his healing magic to take care of that, which sparks another round of questions and big wide eyes wanting to see him to do more things but he can’t use all his magic. He gets too tired too fast... and the kids are now doing other things... all the things they shouldn’t be doing! There’s too many of them! He’s so strung full of energy that he’s jumpy the whole time and expects some injuries to be worse than they really are. He likes kids- don’t get him wrong- but it’s a lot of anxiety on his shoulders that he would rather do without. He has trouble saying no and he finds himself running after them more often than not because they don’t seem to stay in one place and he’s... so nervous. It’s a mix between being too lax and not being taken seriously. He doesn’t want confrontation but really doesn’t want anything bad to happen while he’s in charge. Nothing gets done and something was surely broken in the mayhem but everyone is alive in the end at least. He’s a nice guy and like to help people but he’s probably not the best guy to pick no matter how much he hates to admit it. Kids are a lot and he can’t deal with them the same way he deals with monsters. He’s not even sure if they would like having him around, it’s not like he has any interesting stories or anything to tell. The kids would disagree with their dying breath (much to Hyrule’s horror) but Hyrule can’t look past his insecurities either. He’s not sure whether or not he wants to be a dad. Before he met the group, he didn’t even think it was possible for them to be married, or have a home for themselves... let alone have children of their own...One wouldn’t be so bad would it?

7. Wind 

Besides the fact that he’s the youngest, he also has a younger sister. It’s old hat for him to jump into older brother mode and do what has to be done. He knows what to do so no one gets hurt. However, it’s a bit chaotic because instead of taking charge, he’d probably start a raid with the kids as pirates in training. The sentence may sound like a fun imaginary game but no- he literally would take them all on a pirate ship and teach them everything he knows. Not to mention he swears like a sailor, pun intended. If he’s left in charge and alone with those kiddos, we’ve got a whole new pirate crew in the making. Whether or not the kids are into it depends on the region but even if he can make sure their alive and safe and happy at the end of the day, he wouldn’t be the greatest influence. He’s still young so having kids of his own isn’t even on his radar yet but if they that day were to come, he would be a different caretaker for sure than the older brother we see now. It’s hard to guess where he’d end up on the spectrum of fatherhood because he still has a lot of life to experience. But one thing is for certain, he’s very protective of what’s his. If he does have children, they would be in good hands- but for now.... best not.

8. Wild

Speaking of bad influences... He likes kids but he’s enough of a trouble maker himself that he might actually be the one to cause the danger to begin with. Not on purpose. Never on purpose. He just doesn’t use enough foresight to think- hey maybe don’t use the weapon near the kids no matter how cool they would think it is. Or hey- maybe don’t bring out the weapon at all. Keep in mind that Wild himself is usually in need of a babysitter so this is to be somewhat expected. As long as there is another adultier adult around then all is fine. Wild watches over the kids better if there is someone else to keep the energy calm anyway. It’s also him in case something gets to be too much for him and he needs a moment to himself. Like...if the children remind of a certain someone from his past and he’s thrown into a memory, for example. If the memory is about a little blond girl with blue eyes like his, he doesn’t talk about it. When Wild has calmed down, and things in his Hyrule are a little more stable, he wants to have a family of his own. He has no idea how that would come about but it’s a nice day dream that he thinks of, especially when sometimes... present and past nightmares become a little too much. He’d still want to explore and show the children everything the world has to offer, even if it means they travel away from home. He might not peg the right age for them to all travel together so it’s a bit more dangerous than intended but he loves telling stories and waits for the day to share all the pictures and memories he has on his Sheika Slate. Who knows? 

9. Legend 

He’s got the mouth of Wind, the nervousness of Hyrule and the strictness of Warriors. Not the most confident of combinations. More things end up broken than ever and Legend prays it was anything irreplaceable under the rubble. He didn’t think to keep his entire hoard of junk out of the reach and when he realized that something was afoot it was too late. Poor guy can’t handle it. At all. The kids reactions vary from being afraid of him to wanting to rile him up more and see what other fun toys he has in his never ending bag. He has no control over the situation and all of his cool has been lost. Someone else better take over at this point. He’s grumpy for the rest of the day... and maybe for longer depending on the damage. Kids... not for Legend. Nope. Let those who want to handle them, take care of it. It’s not like he asked for another job to begin with...they took his favorite ring for Hylia’s sake! He’ll never find that again!

[ilkkawhat]

All the numbers. (If not all then pick and choose a handful to answer).

lol you’re really going for it anon, huh?? 😂 bless your heart. I’ll do all of them and then idk. if anybody wants to send any again, I’m sure I can have a different answer

(I did just answer 7 & 22 so I’ll leave those out. rest below the cut)

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

I guess if you count all of my active WIPs that have been sitting dormant for months or years, there’s those since I like. I know what I’m doing in pretty much all of them, just as I know what I’m doing in some of my unpublished WIPs, but I think I just need to be in a certain mood/energy to do certain ones (ie, Agony esp is a very heavy fic so I gotta be able to Deal with that)

2) what work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

I deleted those 😂😂😂 but some of my reeeeeealllllly old stuff is still out there and I cringe thinking about that and though I could easily delete those too, I’m keeping them just since the harddrive that has the docs for it is corrupted lol

3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

Just all over the place these days tbh. Even chapter to chapter it’ll change, I’ll write snippets in future chapters--and I’m talking like three or four chapters ahead--just to get it out there. But then there’s other days where I’ll sit and just write and not stop.

4) favorite character you’ve written

Nick Stokes, of course 💜💜💜

5) character you were most surprised to end up writing

Any of the Macgyver characters outside of Jack. Cause though I’ll claim not to all the time, I do know that I know the CSI characters (though I’m surprised I’m able to write in their POVs outside of Nick.) I grew up with them. I have a bond with them. The mac characters? I’ve only known for like. two years now and not even that well anymore since I’ve stopped watching the show. 

6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change now

Expanding on details. Almost every fic I write, I’ll read it again later and be like “ah shit I should have run with this idea...” but I guess that’s how I can do a sequel/missing scene

8) favorite genre to write

hurt/comfort (emphasis on the hurt, really I mean we’re talking like borderline horror)

9) what, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

See I haven’t really honed in on any one particular thing that inspires me to write. It comes out of nowhere, and the following list of things doesn’t like, always work. When I’m listening to a song. When I’m driving in the car. When I’m watching something unrelated to the source material (totes got some inspiring vibes watching Falcon and The Winter Soldier yesterday tbh lmao) When I dream. When I go on a walk. When people send me asks and I just go the fuck off and suddenly ten chapters later I’m writing a fic that they probably didn’t even want (coughSpecimenStokescough)

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

I think the last couple times I’ve like, really written it’s been in silence. Definitely alone. Don’t got people to write around, really lmao (unless you count my parents being in other rooms with obnoxiously loud televisions and tablets)

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

All of it. And I’m sure it’ll keep improving.

12) your weaknesses as an author

Dialogue. I don’t know how people talk 😂

13) your strengths as an author

Detail, description, and I also like to think--emotion? but idk. It’s hard for me to assess my strength tbh

14) do you make playlists for your current wips?

Oh YES! At least for the longer WIPs like Last Breath or Agony. And listen to it on a loop when I’m trying to brainstorm or write if I want to write with music on. I’ve been starting to link the playlists when I’m doing with the fic (which is not many so far)

(I think Hellbound is the only one-shot I made a playlist for that I didn’t share)

15) why did you start writing?

I honestly can’t remember, cause I think I’ve been writing stories (fan fiction or not) ever since I was in middle school?? Maybe even elementary? But I do feel like I had gotten more encouragement for it than drawing from the few people in my life that did actively cheer me on, and there’s just something about writing that is so...fulfilling? Esp since I can’t like. Just manifest the images or make the “movie” in my head, at least I can write them down and hopefully convey what I see/feel in my mind through words.

16) are there any characters who haunt you?

All my neglected OCs lmao. I did and I guess on some level still do want to make an original series.

In a chilling way Veronica also haunts me cause I realize how much of that like, darkness in myself I put in her. 

And Nick, well, he’s just always on my mind.

17) if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?

Just fucking go for it! Don’t give a shit if anybody will read it or not. Take your time, flesh out those details. Describe what you see, what they see, what they feel. 

If you think you’re going too far...you’re not. 

keep going

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?

I mean any fan fiction I read in the past has probably influenced me on some level. I know that when I came back to CSI in 2018, reading all of kristen999′s nick whump def encouraged me cause I was like “oh...there’s others like me who like to see him hurt!?!?” and I do think that maybe sometimes after I read a fic, I might like. Try to incorporate those styles I see. The way words are described, sentences constructed. Not like, copy of course but I feel like a long time ago my writing wasn’t really idk, novel-like? very short, almost read like a script whereas now, since I’ve seen the way people write their stories (some novel length stories, too), I flesh mine out a lot more.

19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

I don’t 😂 Thinking of my bigger projects like Agony, I do just kind make up some of it as I go with a rough outline although sometimes it is a bit more detailed--like First Flight actually has a super detailed outline but I know that once I start writing, something might come up, some twist I didn’t think of before--or even one that somebody suggests to me, but idk I feel like I do have a way of tying everything together regardless? Cause especially with those bigger WIPs I will try to go back and re-read if something seems familiar or if I’ve forgotten a detail, or if I’m planning on diving back into it after a long break from it. 

20) do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

Depends. I feel more accomplished with the long sit down sessions so I target that, but lately it’s been little spurts with maybe one big dump at the end of the week.

21) what do you think when you read over your older work?

Mostly cringe, but there are times I’m like “holy shit this is really good???” 

like I remember recently I re-read Agony and loved it, when I wanted to delete it maybe like. a week before that. I think it honestly depends on my frame of mind, and why I’m going back to read the fic? Cause I’ve had times where I’m like “wait what was this one?” and then I read it and laugh at how bad it is, but then other times where I’m like, “I wanna read that one fic I did...” and then I do and it makes me happy.

But, I will always kinda criticize at the same time--”aw, I could do this better, I could have expanded on this,” etc

23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

My life is suuuuuuper boring so. not really lmao. One of my earliest CSI fics that actually created what I consider to be my number one OC (she’d be the lead in that original series I mentioned earlier) came out of me sitting and staring into a campfire lmao. 

also there was this teacher I had (one of those good IRL supports) that told me a story of something that happened to her (or was it her daughter?) and I turned it into a story (back in my teen days) so. I guess there are somethings. 

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

Expert? No. But I will do numerous google searches to try and figure some stuff out and get lost in a rabbit hole of “research” for a while and hope that when I do write it, it comes off as I know what I’m doing when really, I do not lol.

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

haven’t really written much in this past week, and certainly nothing to be proud of, but this line hit me like a ton of bricks for Specimen Stokes and I’m in love with it:

“Because, my dear specimen, I wanted to see if you loved the danger...or if you loved me.”

[doomedandstoned]

In Conversation with KOMATSU

~By Willem Verhappen~

Photo by Patrick Spruytenburg

For the past decade or so, super massive mothersludgers KOMATSU have been crushing eardrums and bulldozing down venues all around the world. While early releases of the Eindhoven, the Netherlands based band, like their 2011 self-titled EP and 'Manu Armata' (2013 - Suburban Records), display a relentless combination of stonerized sludge that lives up to the band's name, Komatsu always kept evolving and expanding their sound.

Their latest record, 'Rose of Jericho' (2021 - Heavy Psych Records), is on the one hand a natural successor to 2018's 'A New Horizon' (Argonauta Records), but surprisingly also introduces the listener to a more rocking side of the band. I had the chance to sit down with vocalist/guitarist Mo Truijens and guitarist Mathijs Bodt and after some chit-chat, we went to talk about the new record, the impact of the COVID-19 crisis and much more.

KOMATSU - Rose Of Jericho by HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS Records

Last year, I was in contact with your bass-player, Martijn Mansvelders, and he told me you were impacted pretty bad by the corona measures.

Mathijs: Indeed. Our entire planning basically went down the drain. It started with the last bits of our recording process. We started recording during Carnaval [the end of February] at the Anker Studio in Eindhoven with Peter van Elderen (TankZilla, formerly of Peter Pan Speedrock). Things went very well and we were just at the point where we could start recording the vocals when COVID hit. Usually, there's always one of us present to oversee the process, but that wasn't allowed. After that you get into the mixing process, where usually the entire band is involved and in the studio. As you can imagine, that didn't go through.

Mo: In this case, it was mostly just me who was there. Also because we still had to do the vocals and the mixing of the vocals.

Mathijs: Right, and we got the mix-downs sent to us after which we had to write down and send in our comments. That took a bit longer than expected, but it worked out nice.But like you said, we had planned to release the record during the summer, do a Brazilian tour in September, followed by a release show, here in Eindhoven at the Effenaar. After that we were going to do a two-week tour through Europe. Initially the release show was planned for October 15th, but that got postponed until January, then early February, then the end of February, then the 12th of June, but thanks to the test events we can finally present our record, which was released in February, on the 25th of April.

Mo: What's nice is that this is certain. We don't know whether we'd be allowed to play on June 12th, but April 25th is certain. We found that we couldn't keep on postponing the date, so we decided that if we couldn't play then, there wouldn't be a release show. You can imagine that we're in a rush now with rehearsals, because we were thinking "soon", but now it's happening "very soon".

Mathijs: You have a point there. You're saying we rehearsed a bit, but we couldn't rehearse in our own rehearsal room. Even with the 1.5 meter distance and a face-mask, we weren't allowed to be in there with four people. I believe we've only had 6 rehearsals.

Mo: The good thing is that we're allowed to rehearse now, because currently we're a performing act. I've checked it with the authorities and it's allowed.

You already mentioned that Peter van Elderen produced the record. What was his influence on the process?

Mo: He has a good view on songs and regarding the vocals, while I had rough ideas, he really helped me improve them. He was a great help.

Mathijs: Of course we also have quite a history with Peter. Mo and Peter used to play in Repomen together and I used to be a roadie for Peter Pan. We know him through things like PopEI, Speedfest, Peter Pan, Repomen.

Mo: The circle is complete, so to say. And Pieter [Kloos] eventually did the mastering. It doesn't get more Eindhoven than that.

Mathijs: We recorded the previous two records with Pieter. That worked out great, but for this one, we wanted to try something different. Not because it didn't work out with Pieter, but we just wanted to try something different this time. Peter was heavily involved from the start and he joined our rehearsals and such. We recorded the record in just over a day and a half. Everything is live, with some guitar overdubs added afterwards.

Mo: We finished those overdubs just before the lock-down started, so all the music was recorded.

Mathijs: I think we spent three, three and a half days on the music, so that was a relatively quick process.

The album title, 'Rose of Jericho' (2021), is a symbol of resurrection. I can imagine that relates directly to your new sound.

Mo: Yes, there is certainly more variation and dynamics on the record.

Mathijs: The rose of Jericho, or resurrection plant, is a plant that can go without water for ten, fifteen years. When it receives water it pops back up as a flower. That concept really spoke to us, and that's why the instrumental title track has a bit of a western feel to it.

Mo: We really went for the desert atmosphere on that one. You can almost see the tumbleweed pass by during the intro. The track was originally meant to be called "Tumbleweed," but then I found out that Candybar Planet already has a song called "Tumbleweed." I still liked the desert idea, and eventually we renamed the track "Rose of Jericho."

Can we expect anything special for the release show?

Mo: We'll be playing all the tracks of the record live. In the past that wasn't always the case. I think a lot of these tracks will remain in our set. Of course we will revise our set when we're playing a real metal festival. We'll probably be playing more of our old stuff then, although the roughness is still there in the new tracks.

Mathijs: At some point you're starting to weigh your choices while writing songs. We want to be able to play them live, because we're still first and foremost a live band. That's where we really shine. This was also a period of reflection and we figured that we had fifty tracks on four records. You start listening to them in a different way and you come to the conclusion that we already have so many hard songs.

Mo: Martijn often says things like "This is a quiet song," but a quiet Komatsu song is still far from a quiet song.

Mathijs: We didn't plan on changing our style. It came together in quite an organic way, as a result of playing live, rehearsing and recording. The COVID period was also quite interesting in that regard, because Mo and I never stopped writing music, and we're currently at the point where we could start arranging songs for the next record.

'Rose of Jericho' is your first record on Heavy Psych Sounds. How did that collaboration come about?

Mo: Gabriele [Fiori] arranged a couple of tours for us, like the ones with Nick Oliveri and Duel.

Mathijs: The first tour after I joined the band was the one with Mondo Generator and he arranged the one with the Freeks, featuring Ruben Romano of Nebula and Fu Manchu. So we were already in contact and at some point we just called him.

Mo: Yeah, that was for the previous record, but for that one we ended up at Argonauta. Now we all just said, let's just do it.

Mathijs: It's really cool to be part of a roster like that, to be part of such a stoner family. Gabriele, one of the two people running HPS, also plays in Black Rainbows and to see how involved in the scene he is and what he does for the scene, to be a part of that is just amazing. We already had the connection through the stages we shared and the tours he arranged for us and this is just the next step. It's not the most logical step, but try and find a label where we perfectly fit in with our distinctive sound.

Mo: When we write music, we don't try to fit in the stoner, the metal, or whatever group. We just make the music we like. We don't have any rules from ourselves, telling us what we can and can't do.

Mathijs: In the end we just make the music the four band members like to make.

Photo by Patrick Spruytenburg

About that, what are your main influences?

Mo: The Melvins is a favorite of mine, especially their quirkiness. Of course there's a lot of stoner bands, but my roots are within 80's hardcore punk music. Due to the whole COVID thing I started collecting records again. I bought a new record player and now I'm searching Discogs for vinyl of records I used to love and used to have on cassette.

Mathijs: I think that I'm the biggest metalhead in the band. You [Mo] are the punk rocker, Martijn is the new-waver, even though he's also into old school hip-hop, and Jos [Roosen, drums]is a Tool fan and he used to play in Dreadlock Pussy. He and I went to the 25th anniversary show of Machine Head's 'Burn My Eyes' together. He's into that as well. He's also really into metal, but also bands like Helmet. I have quite a broad taste. I'm really into Cannibal Corpse, but I also like the Melvins. I actually met Mo at a Melvins show and a week later I got a call on whether I would like to join his band. The Black Sabbath influence is also clearly present on Rose of Jericho. That first riff is basically a Sabbath riff.

Mo: Sabbath is the mother of all metal bands. I saw Blue Cheer live at Roadburn once. It's slightly different, but from the same period, I think. Absolutely brilliant. They did an interview for the Top-2000 once, where they were still living in a house together, blowing and making music.

Mathijs: I also really like those genre-crossing bands, like High on Fire. They're metal, but also have stoner elements, together with some psych and some rock.

Mo: When I used to play in punk bands, there were set rules, but now I can do whatever I like.

Last question, did you guys discover any new music you're really into?

Mo: Absolutely, they've been around for a while already, but I recently discovered Helms Alee. They're a man and two women and they all sing. When they sing together it's just amazing. Mathijs also got me into Made Out of Babies, featuring Julie Christmas. I'm usually not a fan of female singers, but this is something else.

Mathijs: Yeah, I showed you the record she did with Cult of Luna. That's such an amazing record. Recently I've been listening a lot to a Finnish band called Oranssi Pazuzu, especially their latest record 'Mestarin kynsi'. There are so many different elements in there, it's really cool.

Mo: Recently I bought two Floor records. They've got three records, one that sounds like shit and two that are amazing. I got those on vinyl.

Mathijs: I'm also looking forward to the new Mastodon record. They made a record with the guy who produced the best Tool records and they say it will be far more sludgey, slow and doomy than their previous works.

The curfew is rapidly approaching, so I think it's time to wrap up. Thank you for this interview.

Mo: Thank you and see you later. Maybe later tonight in prison if we don't hurry up.

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[hearthandhomemagick]

Cottage Witch Journal Entry

I have a longing for Tennessee. 

I have a pure, unadulterated and wild attraction to the Tennessee Mountains. This is a dream I’ve had, and a yearning I’ve felt, for years. A need to be hidden deep in the mountains in a tiny cottage/cabin of sorts. I’m sure this is an affinity very popular in mainstream culture today, and all I can think of when I hear people say they want a cottage or cabin in the mountains is, “How the Hell does everyone expect to FIT on these mountains?!” But, this is my Shadow Self, the over realistic and overthinking side of myself. And I easily get discouraged from my own wants thinking of others wants. 

This is a side of me to notice in myself. I need to be able to move past thoughts of, “If everyone wants it, I’ll never have it.” and move forward with thoughts of, “This is something I want for myself, and I deserve to work hard for it.” And that’s a goal I have with myself. 

You see, this post isn’t just about my want to be in Tennessee in the woods, it’s much deeper than that I feel. It’s about improvement and wanting to grow. 

I bring up Tennessee because that is not a goal I can easily obtain within a couple of weeks or even a month. But, it is something I want to build up to obtaining. Something I want to do right so that everything is exactly as it needs to be. And I can’t fully accomplish this until I accomplish other goals that take precedent first. For Example, my physical health.

As a witch, I truly believe in loving every part of yourself, the good and the bad. The exciting and the terrifying. The understood and the neglected. Part of this acceptance process is learning what is and is not acceptable for my body. Now, I have struggled with my weight and how I see myself since I was a child. I remember a little boy seeing my tummy in a bathing suit in 1st grade and him telling me I was fat and that his dad said fat girls were ugly. Comments like this, stares and whispers were constant when in regards to my weight. It felt like an overwhelming amount of attention was directed at the way I looked, even if no one was looking at me I felt as though everyone was thinking about it. Over the years, this mental state took a tole on a lot more than I expected, even affecting me today with my Significant Other. The consistent attention to my own weight pulled me into depression, our of depression, into anxiety and out of anxiety. What I mean is I had an up and down relationship with my tummy. 

I felt abandoned most days. I would get this idea that I was too much and not enough all at once. A gentle and cooing tone from my toxic thoughts led to a lot of issues and concerns for me and my health. Some days, I would read something that made me feel as though I was a Queen. A bad bitch lurking in this cruel world and taking it by the throat to stare it in the eyes and say, “I love my body fat.” 

The sad part is your heart, mind and body know when you are lying to it. I didn’t love my body. Not in those confident moments and not in those depressed moments. I was locked away in a cage in my mind that gave me two illusions to choose from, while hiding my third option under the rug. I neglected my feelings because I didn’t want to experience them. I neglected my health because I didn’t want to deal with it. And I neglected my body because I hated it. 

Reality here is that this is the only fucking body I have. Do you understand that? Let me repeat this so maybe you can understand how harsh of a reality this was to me. 

I am on this Earth for goodness knows how long. 50 years, 20 years, 72 days. I don’t know, and no one does. I was literally forced into owning this body, whether I like it or not, it is mine. I can move houses, I can get a new car, I can get a new job. I cannot get a new body. 

I heard this in High School and started what I called my weight loss journey. I lost maybe 20 pounds while attending a workout-boot camp of sorts and trying to maintain a healthy diet. That sentence resonated so much with me that I repeated it every day to myself. My motivation was on point. Then, I stopped going. There are multiple reasons why I stopped, but none of them are rightful excuses.

I just stopped. 

Now, during those days I had lost weight, I was starting to gain confidence in myself and was attempting to genuinely look out for my health. I had more energy and felt amazing! But like I said, I had stopped for terrible reasons. 

Fast-forward to college and you will find a very anxiety filled, sleep deprived and mentally exhausted Carly. Some nights I wouldn’t sleep but for 4-5 hours. Other nights I didn’t sleep at all. I believe my stay up streak was 3, going on 4 nights. All due to homework. My coping technique has always been eating food, too. So when you have a sleep deprived student settled next to a 24/7 pizza joint with half baked cookies, you gain 30-40 pounds. 

At 245 Pounds, I was at my heaviest. This weight gain came on as my roommates were saying I was fat, stupid and were making me question myself frequently. Self hate festers among others who don’t value your worth, remember that. So, through those years of college I weighed an uncomfortable amount of weight that made my body start shutting down physically. 

Mental Health had a lot to do with my physical health, here as well. When I was in a really bad place, I would stop moving completely and just sit still. If I had a terrible feeling, I’d cook something to make myself feel better or would just grab a processed, quick snack. It was a pattern of mine. I’d get just enough motivation to do one or two things, and then I’d stop all together and feel as though that was enough for a few weeks. 

Eventually, when I was done with college, I started back on that rollercoaster of healthy and unhealthy. I’d lose 5 pounds, then gain 7 pounds right back. I started detail critiquing myself and stressing myself out. My weight never could get under control, and I couldn’t break the 200 mark to save my life. I would see pictures and videos of myself and feel as though I had eaten an entire buffet. Not too long after getting with my S/O and starting my job as a Sexual Violence Outreach Advocate, I got sick.

It started as a birthday dinner at a Korean Barbecue in 2019. I was with my two best friends at the time and having a blast. We all ate the same food, but when I woke up the following morning I was throwing up everything in my tummy. 

The throwing up went on for 4 days before I was taken to the hospital, only for them to release me saying it was virus. My personal doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong and it eventually became an everyday thing. I would wake up between 3-6 in the morning, go to the bathroom and be sick for hours before pulling myself together to make it to work. 

Weeks turned into months, and months turned into a year. 

I lost 50 pounds from this thing that no doctor could seem to figure out. I got x-rays and everything, but nothing and no one could tell me exactly what was going on with me. I couldn’t eat anything friend, only raw fruits and veggies, or broth. I only drank water and ginger based drinks, and could not for the life of me stop what was going on with my body. Many doctors tried to pass it as a virus, stomach ulcers, GURD, or even Heart Burn (?). None of them were right. 

After a long time, my mom finally confessed that every woman in our family has Endometriosis. If you don’t know what this is, it is the build up of scar tissue on the outside of your uterus. This leads to nausea, ovarian cysts (which they found on me in x-rays) and sub or infertility. No doctor can diagnose it, either, unless you have a surgery to see if there is scarring. So for many, suffering on your own is easier than seeing a doctor. 

I discussed this with my doctor, and it was as if a light flashed in her brain. This is a disease she cannot say I have, but can say it sounds very much like that. It is hereditary and once you have it, you have it for good.

After this information entered my line of though, I decided the stress from my job was too much for too little pay, and chose to leave. Leading up to my leaving the job, I was sick almost every second of every day. The moment I left, I felt better.

I still feel pain in my ovary area, but because I don’t have the money to see a doctor, and can control my pains with eating habits and physical influence, I choose to work through it alone. 

I said ALL THAT BACKGROUND BULLSHIT JUST TO SAY THIS!!!!!

This is the part that marks my new journey. It is the Journey to Strength and Well Being. The Journey to Feeling Good. The Journey the Choosing my happiness over anything else. And the Journey to choosing the health of my body over my insecurities.

I wrote this because a couple of days ago I had a very graphic and vivid dream about my boyfriend falling in love with the woman I wanted to be. In other words, I seen him with a woman who literally presented all of my insecurities to me. Small, lithe and dainty, gentle and calming, and everything I wasn’t. She was beautiful. And he seen this, and did things for her that he never did for me. I woke up almost in tears, because my emotions were raw, but I had no idea that my insecurities were still very deeply rooted. 

I pondered over the last few days of this dream. What it could mean, what I should do, how I should feel and I have finally come to a conclusion.

This dream is a depiction of my fears. My brain was saying, “You need to address this shit right now.” and did it in the most face slap kind of way I could think. 

I still, even after learning to love myself genuinely, have image issues that need to be nurtured and tended to before I can move forward in my life.

So, I’m making 1-3 goals every month that are attainable and reachable. This will be a brick road to my obtaining that cottage/cabin in the Tennessee Mountains. 

This months Goals start today! 

GOAL 1 -  Learn to do a split, find a healthy yoga sequence, be able to do 15 pushups, & 30 Squats by the end of December. 

GOAL 2 - Make a conscious effort to what you eat/making a new dish once a week to try.

GOAL 3 - Save $100.

This is a process, and I am only human. I don’t want to fall back into the habits of toxic mentality. I don’t want to neglect myself or how I feel and I don’t want to lose myself in to the world in the process of searching for freedom from myself. 

I expect myself to exude self control, self love, and empowerment. I expect to expect better from and for myself, and I expect to accomplish my goals.

I manifest it here, I can do a split. I have a healthy maintainable yoga sequence that I have committed to growing expanding and changing. I can do 15 push ups and 30 squats. I have 100 dollars saved up already and make concious decisions that better my health rather than hurt it. This is part of my lifstyle now! 

And it is for the better!

Thank you to anyone who read this through. These entries are more for my benefit and thought process, but appreciate anyone who recognizes it or even relates and wants to talk about it. It’s personal to me and means a lot. I intend on being on here more often to update my challenges and express how I use my witchcraft in the process of this Journey.

I love you all! Stay safe, warm and full to the brim! Later Witches! xx

[imnotwolverine]

The marriage pact - Hitch

Henry Cavill x OC Alice - multi-chapter

< Part 17 | Part 18 Hitch | Part 19 >

Disclaimer: sad fluff, some body insecurities

Author’s note: Can you tell it’s Monday? It’s Monday. Gosh I feel like I need a hug after writing this. 😭

Word count: 1.764

(Link to my Masterlist)

Dear readers,

Do you ever look in the mirror, just to study the way you are slowly changing? I don’t want to say older. Just, changing. My eyes are practically always the same shade of brown, like milk chocolate, and my hair is often an equally chocolaty mess, pulled up in a bun. And I like it like that, too. 

And then there is my skin. Sometimes pale like porcelain, sometimes sun kissed with a hundred small freckles, dusted over my cheeks and nose. I don’t understand why people wouldn’t like their freckles by the way. I absolutely love mine. Unfortunately now that winter has come, I mostly look tired. Thank heavens for concealer!

I wonder by the way if men also look at themselves in the mirror like that. Especially since it’s generally far less accepted and normalised for them to wear make-up, even if it is just a simple concealer.

Anyways. It’s winter and I look like a walking, talking zombie, my once fresh looking skin now showing some mean little creases and fine lines. Admittedly, I do sometimes rub my skin with a little bit of extra cream when I see those lines. Not that I am willing to invest in those luxury treatments or get my panties in a twist, but still. It does, in some way or form, influence the way you feel about yourself.

I embrace change, but today? I am most definitely wearing make-up. Thank you very much.

Done-with-winter-already,

Ali

With the loudest of sighs I flung the refrigerator door closed, my shoulders slumping visibly as I plopped down on my chair at the dinner table, dinner long cleared away from the table but my parents still sitting there. 

My mom was the first to pick up on my sulking mood, her careful eyebrow raising up over her reading glasses as she put down her Swedish crossword, pen still in hand.

‘Looking for something?’ She asked casually.

‘No.’ I grumbled, looking over at dad who was still hiding himself behind a folded open newspaper. Mom sniffled and shook her head. ‘Then what is it, Ali dear?’

‘It’s just…’ My lip trembled - not even make-up could make me feel any better today. ‘..things are not working out like I want them to and..’ Sniff. ‘..it’s so frustrating.’

Slowly my dad lowered his newspaper. Usually it was my mom who dealt with any off-days on my end, which truly were sparingly. I didn’t really wish to share my troubles and thoughts with my parents too much, fearing they’d continue to see me as “their little girl”. I wasn’t a little girl for crying out loud. I was a grown woman of 37-years. I shouldn’t need my parents anymore, right?

‘Is this about eh..’ My dad started, squinting his eyes as if looking for any signs that I would go for his jugular right here and now. I didn’t. ‘..eh..Henry?’ He swallowed as I started to cry, shaking my head no.

Mom quickly moved aside her crossword and pen, reaching out her arms to smooth her warm palms over my shoulders. Even through the tight knit of my dark grey sweater I could feel the soothing calm of her touch. ‘What’s the matter baby? Tell us.’

‘UGH..it’s just.’ I sniffled and angrily wiped a few rogue tears away. ‘I..ugh..this feels so stupid. I just thought I had found a place of my own. I’ve been looking at some apartments..and..I thought I had found one. Ten minutes from here. Perfect. Finally. But..’ I furrowed my brows. ‘..I couldn’t get it. The owners chose someone else, despite me being first choice. I just got the news.’

Mom was quiet for a moment and dad swallowed harshly, the two of them deciding on how to go about it. I sniffled again and looked up. First at mom, then at dad, the both at them suddenly looking even older then I remembered them to be.

‘Oh..’ Mom finally exclaimed, seemingly relieved. ‘I thought it had to do with Henry. Woof! Thank god for that.’ She quickly pushed her chair closer to mine, wrapping a bony arm around my shoulder and pulling me in for a mom hug. ‘Come here.’ She hummed, squeezing me even tighter to her chest. ‘Hmmm! Well, you know you can stay here for as long as you want. We love having you here with us. Close to us. It gives our life a bit of…’ She leaned back and smiled, shrugging slightly. ‘..joie-de-vivre!’

I snickered, shaking my head in disbelief. ‘You could get a dog too, you know.’

‘Hahah oh we might, we might. We actually discussed it the other day. Would you like that, a dog?’ She asked at me, dad snuffing in amusement - either because he absolutely didn’t want a dog or because this whole shift of moods was amusing him.

Women.

‘That is yours to decide mom…dad.’ I gave him an exasperated look and he chuckled, quickly grabbing his newspaper again, hiding the cheeky grin that lingered on his lips.

‘But really, I am just glad that it’s not Henry. You and him are just such a fine couple together.’

‘Thanks mom.’ I smiled, wiping the last remains of my tears. I laughed. ‘I eh..actually confessed I love him the other day.’

‘OOOHHH.’ Mom near jumped with excitement and my dad quickly duck even further away behind his newspaper - he really felt uncomfortable with all this girl chat. Me and mom both grinned and before long we were deep in conversation about what had transpired between me and Henry the past few weeks. A talk that was long overdue honestly, because of course mom had HEARD  a gazillion things, but in her motherly role she had decided to wait for me to spill the beans.

Well. The beans were spilled. And I couldn’t be happier to hear how enthused and adoring my mom was about everything Henry concerned.

—

Henry carefully read the words on the screen of my phone, the both of us sitting on my parents couch, the rest of the house quiet as my parents were out. 

It was an e-mail I had received that afternoon. Bad news. Again. As if losing that house wasn’t enough, of course more shit had to happen. He slowly furrowed his brows as he licked his lips, scrolling back up - as if checking he didn’t miss anything in his careful read.

‘O..kay..’ He finally said slowly, sighing visibly. ‘Yea..’ I bit my lower lip and reached out for my phone, retrieving it from his hesitant fingers. ‘Are they even allowed to..’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘..make such a suggestion?’

‘I don’t know Hen. Ugh. What is it with this week?! I hate it. Two weeks ago it was all fine and now this? Please let it be over..’ I sulked, reopening the e-mail of the fertility clinic and giving it a once-over. Yep, there it was really in black and white; due to a rapidly growing waiting list they suggested that me and Henry would perhaps first check out “other means of fertilisation”, before enlisting for a sperm donor. Meaning, most probably and quite rudely; just forgo the condom and see where that takes you.

There went my plan B. My back-up plan. At least for another extra 6 months of extended waiting as they had simply pushed me back on the list now I had a “partner”. Could they do that? I don’t know, but it sure was a blow in the gut.

‘What would you do in this situation, Hen?’ I asked quietly, seeing him shift his weight to turn towards me. ‘Well, believe it or not. I think this is my situation too now.’ He swallowed and reached out for my hand, tentative fingertips stroking my palm.

‘True.’ I smiled with watery eyes.

We were after all a team now. Together. Boyfriend and girlfriend.

‘I eh..’ He shook his head. ‘Okay this is going to sound so stupid now, but I want to get it off my chest. Before I did the Durrell challenge, just really a few weeks before, I had a chat with a..’ He sighed. ‘..a woman who would wish to surrogate a ..-’

‘WHAT?!’ I sat up a bit and swatted his hand away.

‘No no..Ali. It..nothing happened. I just..’ He swallowed awkwardly. ‘I guess I just started my very own path in trying to become a father. It’s a thing that’s been on my mind for a long time now. I want it. Though it immediately became clear after that conversation with that woman that I could not do it like that.’ His eyes searched mine, hoping I would not hate him for it, understand him.

I sighed. ’Gosh..I thought you were going to say you had like a kid on the way and..-’

‘Ali.’ He grabbed my wrist and looked me even deeper in the eyes. ‘There is nobody else. There is no kid on the way. It’s just you and I.’ - ‘Okay.’ I quietly nodded and swam through the depths of his stormy blue eyes. I near drowned in them. 

‘So, you want to be a dad, hmm?’ A tear rolled down my cheek before I could stop it and Henry’s eyes instantly tracked it as it moved over my cold skin. With a tender finger he brushed it off, his lips curling in a sad smile. ‘Badly.’ He swallowed harshly.

He suddenly looked so fragile, like I could see right through those big bulking muscles and handsome features and see within, see the most deep and hidden away piece of Henry that I had ever gotten to see. 

With pensive blue eyes he was looking down, his hand re-interlocking with mine, his other hand now aimlessly hanging by his waist. He looked a bit forlorn, lost at the sea that I had found in his cerulean gaze.

The sea that was Henry. Sometimes calm and soothing, something strong and unbending. 

A sea that wanted what I wanted. Badly. 

Without words I crawled over to him, using whatever strength I had to pull him into my chest, his head resting in the crook of my neck and his breath slightly shallow. He was such a large man that it was hard to actually make him surrender and lean into me. Usually he was the one who was to protect and be strong. Now it was the other way around. Sighing harshly he finally gave in, his nose sniffing as his arms slowly folded around my waist.

‘All I learned is that I don’t want to do it alone.’ He finally gulped, softly.

I closed my eyes and let a hand roam over the soft material of his sand coloured cable knit sweater. Poor bear. My poor bear. I nodded.

‘Neither do I, Hen. Neither do I.’ I pushed my nose in his neck and whispered into his skin: ‘And I think you are going to be an absolutely great dad.’

He swallowed back a cry.

‘In fact I KNOW it is so.’ I smiled, pressing up a number of kisses on his skin until I reached his lips. ‘And all other things are just a hitch, a hiccup. What I really, really need.. is.. you. Let’s..let’s make this work.’ I sniffled. 

--

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