#I mean I had a high school resource teacher who I viewed as a mom to me and she treated me with close familiarity but

[werewolfdog]

I really do appreciate our mutuals supporting me with my rambles about M as I go terribly insane over him, honestly. 😭 Part of me still feels awful being like this because um, That's My Coworker™️,,, but I can't help it with my emotional attachments. Also, it's not fully my fault being like this when he says and does so many things to + for me that makes me feel and think more intensely...

[mayor-mclikeme-please]

To Be Hateful

By E.C. Bond

Sammy Mudd

4/24/2115

Mrs. Shibboyan

8th Grade Social Studies

My Hero rough draft

By Sammy Mudd

Mark Twain once wrote “You behold before you a man whose life-conflict is done, whose soul is at peace; a man whose heart is dead to sorrow, dead to suffering.” (Twain June 1876) I believe there is no better description for the subject of My Hero essay, noted Humanist Lawyer Marcus Becket. Marcus Becket is a very misunderstood figure. People went from hailing his objections to intermarriage to denouncing him wholesale. Upon his death, he was called by several journalists and television komoisophers, “The most hated man on two worlds”. I think this view is too simple of a view. No person is ever entirely black or white. Jesus killed a fig tree. Hitler loved his dogs. Fred Rogers had a temper. If all of them can survive complexity then so too should Marcus Becket. The aim of this paper will be to show Marcus Becket to be more complicated. I will show this by going into his life story, his relationship with the Dieithryn, and the arguments against Xeno-human marriage.

I think the life of a person can tell you a lot about them. Marcus Becket is no different. You will see in this paragraph how much more complex Marcus Becket was. People simplify him as a racist hick from nowhere, but in truth, he was from a cosmopolitan background. He was born in Topeka, Kansas on November 13th 2029. The second of five children, Becket’s family were transplants from Los Angeles who had signed on to the Infrastructure Administration as what were then called, “Human Resources”. My mom said that after the Cardiff Crash, business started rewording departments and positions to be more inclusive. So, “Human Resources” was changed to what we now call “Labor Attitude Realignment Specialists”. The Becket parents were part of an effort to introduce broadband internet into more rural regions. Thousands of workers, like the Beckets, had to relocate in government built facilities. This massive influx of people from the old metropoli of Los Angeles and New York among a few others, to the underpopulated territories had the domino effect of making Topeka the “Silicon Mecca of the Middle West”.

Becket said that his parents often felt displaced within this new migrant community. A community of professionals, literal tons of white collar types, that had once lived in their own alternate universes within the private boundaries of their own cozy suburbs, only now made to reckon with suddenly being piled on top of one another within a single complex. Marcus Becket’s view differed from the dissatisfaction felt by the building block’s elders. To him this way of living in sync with other people installed a sense of shared humanity . He writes in his autobiography I am The Captain of my Hardship “Friends, neighbors, and schoolmates were happily inescapable, although, my awareness of being happy didn’t become clear until my parents began working for a private firm. Meaning after we had a house of our very lonesome, did I come to know what community truly meant”.

There were other ways though that Becket regarded his own parents as a positive influence on his world view. Because their job required them to be obliging and helpful to people (so long as it did not inconvenience their job-gifters), it made him want to become an advocate for anyone who felt abused. Becket’s freshman year of high school records nothing less than 12 instances of talking back to teachers and being beaten up for standing up to bullies. It was during his time at Charles Davenport Memorial High that Marcus would meet his future husband and law partner, Fred Waldron, for the first time. They would share a biology class, discussing the immorality of crossbreeding animals for either commerce, research, or pleasure. The root of this shared disgust was that often these hybrids could not further breed amongst themselves or procreate with either parent’s species. For instance, Ligers and Zedonks are doomed to die alone for the idle curiosity of some zoo hand. How is that fair to either the parents or their imperfect baby? Their final biology project would argue as much, foretelling of their future practice. This common passion for reproductive justice, namely its application against Human-Dieithryn mingling, would unfortunately eclipse their primary work toward ending “soft segregation” in schools and promoting LGBTQA+ rights.

It was in May of 2053, Becket’s last year of law school, that the Dieithryn impregnated Cardiff, the capital city of Cymru. My great-aunt Luna told me that when she first heard about the aliens, she, like everyone, assumed it had been a hoax. Even up to a month, she and the family were in blank disbelief of the forthcoming lounge. All the pundits assumed this was the new country’s way of mocking their dissembling parent state, England. They were only to be shocked when their gator visages made international news. Welcomed by the Cymru Senedd as a refugee species from a dead world. They were given the name of Dieithryn as placeholder since their language was closer to morse code. The word Dieithryn is Welsh for stranger. They quickly sought resettlement from the U.N. as the dank climate of Cymru was not to the liking of garden snakes, let alone 5’7 dino-bird people.

In the movie made about the court case Tender V. Puerto Rico, they have the actor playing Marcus Becket relate a feeling of biblical doom from their arrival. This could not be further from the truth as Becket's own autobiography records “So, we aren’t all alone. At last we have met our neighbors. A little gruesome, but they speak as we do. Adequately enough, anyway. Ashamed as I am to say it, perhaps they could tip the scales (ha ha) in helping to liberate all peoples of earth from division”. As Machiavellian the sentiment was, it proved, indeed, prophetic. With a new people to fear, one truly inhuman, the laws changed everywhere. Within the decade, Trans children could seek reassignment, Non-Heterosexuals could donate blood easily, and white kids got on buses without their parents committing legislative race riots.

It was a great time to be a human being, but admittedly tougher to be an alien. For soon people began to fetishize and proposition the Dieithryn. Becket and his husband/partner Waldron saw the problem and fought to protect the refugees. Only the predators called it discrimination then. In Pullman V. Douglas Commonwealth, Becket was called as witness for the state to argue that their laws against the miscegenation of public spaces was an effort to prevent the Dieithryn from comingling with humans, but to ensure their equal treatment as a citizenry within themselves. This was to respect the Dieithryn’s agency as equal to humans, yet quarantine them from potential human abuse and usury. Though the ruling was a success at the time, it began a campaign that would consume much of Becket’s professional life. He was always agitating for legal bans on Xeno-Human marriage to be written into the constitution. He would publish books and articles on his reforms while also trying to cement the legal protection of Dieithryn Americans as fully fledged citizens.

Unfortunately, this would be for not as he died in his home on May 13th of 2114. The most hated man on two worlds, per the media (Despite the Dieithryn home world of Di-gar being dead and uninhabitable for decades at this point). Much maligned in his own time, the one year anniversary of his death inspired my mom and dad to suggest writing this exploration of his ideals. Especially given how they’ve helped to foster a pan-human world view. Before we can process the controversy of his objections to Xeno-Human marriage, I feel we must explore his own relationship with the Dieithryn community at large.

Marcus Becket did not hate Dieithryn. I know this is what people typically assume of him when they see his picture or the recordings of his rallies, but nothing could be further from the truth. As I shall show in this section. Yes, he had some initial shock to their appearance, but that was hardly an uncommon response. Even the old komoisopher king of late night, Stephen Colbert, said “Once you get past the lidless eyes, they’re rather comely. Well, the lidless eyes, and the neck frill. The lidless eyes, the neck frill, and the feathered skin. The lidless eyes, the neck frill- You know what? They’re clever girls.” (Colbert, 2054). Although Colbert did later issue an apology, humans knew no matter how equitable in speech and intellect the Dieithryn were to us, it didn’t detract from the squirming of our bellies.

We accepted their appearance. Normalized it. Welcome those who had wanted to be part of a decent society into our society. Beckett was never opposed to this integration. Becket himself was a job-gifter to any Dieithryn, who was qualified to work in his offices. In 2067, he even went so far as to defend a Dieithryn who was denied the right to vote in his county. From the court case of Burnside/**_*__ Vs. Klickitat county, Becket said “Although my client was not born here, raised here, or until recently, spoke the language that our laws are written in, they are a citizen. They are no different from any immigrant who has sought to take part in our great society. The actions of this county against my client's right are an affront to our history and to the United Nations rule of nationality and statelessness”.

IS this the language of a bigot? IS this the argument you’d expect of a monster? No. This is a man who believes in the equity of citizenship and those in need. So, why is he famously derided as, as he described himself, a humanist? To quote his forward from the 2100 edition of The Principles of the Elders of Di-gar “I am a Humanist because I know what Humanist means. From the Latin Umanista. A lover of humanity and its culture. That’s all it means. There can be no exclusion in the love of anything. We have brought Dieithryn into the fold of our sphere and ask them to obey the rules of the house. Just as the Latins brought those errant Trojans to their shores. How can it be impolite, let alone wrong, to request your guest not seize a Sabine?” (Becket 2100)

Hatred is unnatural to the human condition. Hatred is taught, not borne. I ask that you throw away your mentored dismissals of Markus Becket and listen to what a lover of humanity has to say as we delve into his arguments on inter marriage.

Let us begin with a reaffirmation of Joshua’s teaching to not judge. “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” (Mathew 2115). This is an objective presentation of the arguments made by Marcus Becket. I can only hope this will help to illustrate why I believe him to be a hero. After the first marriages took place between humans and Dieithryn, Beckett felt he had a responsibility to challenge them in court. As we covered before, he became a legal aid for the state of Puerto Rico in Tender V. Puerto Rico. He did not seek to fight on the ground that some had advocated saying the Dieithryn were by nature inferior to human beings. “Since they aren’t native to Earth, they can’t be considered ‘natural’, now can they?” he quipped on a Tomlin Talk interview with Dame Taylor Tomlinson.

The irony of Tender V. Puerto Rico being seen as some great landmark case for civil rights is that Wade Tender later left his Dieithryn partner and became an advocate against Xeno-Human marriage himself. Later investigations showing he was financially encouraged to divorce his spouse by anti-xeno-human marriage groups, does not detract from his credibility. Rather, the fact he took the money at all shows how committed anyone could be to such a union. They left all of that out of the Oscar bait movie I talked about before. Anyway, during the court case, three basic arguments were leveled by Becket against Xeno-Human Marriages.

Although Dieithryn could think and express themselves as easily as any man, they did not think like a man. Meaning that although the effect was the same, the nature of the Dieithryn mind was too different to be on the same emotional level as a human being. Thus making it impossible for Dieithryn to provide consent as Humans understood it.

Dieithryn were of an entirely different species, not native to Earth. Again, while they could communicate and work with Humans, they were not related to humans whatsoever. Humans from a strictly genetic purview had much more in common with the Swine or Apes of Earth, but we do not allow humans to mate with Pigs and Monkeys because that would be Bestiality. So would be any sexual act between a human and a Dieithryn.

Humans could not reproduce with Dieithryn except hypothetically with the genetic resequencing of either party. Humans, by social pressure and mortality, are obsessed with producing offspring of their own (Although Becket issued his tentative support for a human or Dieithryn couple to adopt a child of the other’s species). We should not condone human genetic experimentation. An act that had been illegal already.

Unfortunately for Becket, a majority of the Supreme Court panel threw out these arguments as inadmissible since the case in question was only about the tax benefits that Xeno-Human marriages were being denied. If he were to offer any challenge to the institution based on his concerns about consent, bestiality, and/or genetic engineering, he would need to open his own separate case. No court would ever accept his petition once the case had been settled. By that time, his character had been fully assassinated in the media by his enemies.

As Joshua was before him, Marcus Becket was abandoned by those fair weather allies and left hung out to dry until his early demise at 86. He was recorded as saying “How did this happen” upon his death. He passed away whilst clutching a small bust of his hero, the abolitionist John Brown, in his hand. I like to think Becket’s final question was in response to Wade Tender offering his apologies to Marriage Purity activists over CNN. This apology was all the blitz the day of Becket’s passing, shortly before Becket’s passing was declared anyway. Perhaps he was watching it in his bedroom and was shocked to see his once erstwhile enemy ask for his forgiveness now that he had seen the truth.

No matter what you thought of him, you can’t deny the importance of Marcus Becket. Defender of equity and a lover of humanity. Despite being run over by the press again and again, Becket never tired. He was always reaching out to those poor displaced and confused folks to jog their memories. To reignite their humanity and connection to it. I tried finding a primary source from a Dieithryn perspective, but I couldn’t find anything objective. Nevertheless, Becket was a hero to Dieithryn as well. Fighting for their rights as a separate, but truly equal class of people. That and so much more, is why Marcus Becket is my hero.

Works Cited

Twain, Mark. “The Recent Carnival of Crime, a Story by Mark Twain.” The Atlantic, June 1876, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1876/06/the-facts-concerning-the-recent-carnival-of-crime-in-connecticut/306240.

Becket, Marcus, and Fred Waldron. Principles of the Elders of Di-Gar. 2nd ed., vol. 5, Topeka, KS, Becket-Waldron Publishing LLC, 2100.

“Matthew 7:1–6 (NIV).” Bible Gateway, 90AD, www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%207%3A1-6&version=NIV.

Feedback:

I know I said you only had to cite three references in full, but please try to cite anytime you use a resource.

It is Marcus Beckett. You keep changing the spelling. Stop it.

You are utilizing APA for your style of citation, This is a no-no. Please revise and format this an MLA Harvard Plus

Please eliminate any reference to your personal feelings or family anecdotes. This is social studies and not a human interest piece.

We cannot call them Dieithryn anymore, as that is now considered a slur by them. They ask to be called Gwestai or Gwestai American. Which is Welsh for Guest. Although, this moniker will probably change by the time you finish your final draft and change again by the time I grade it as well.

SAMUEL MUDD. NEVER USE “I” OR “YOU” IN AN ESSAY. ANY ESSAY. We have talked about this before, Sammy. This isn’t a conversation.

From a content perspective, this is really interesting stuff. You just need to work on grammar and word choices.

Grade: B- Like I said, those You’s and I’s cost you an automatic ten point lost.

[sassypotatoe1]

I should be working but this thought is plaguing me I have childhood friends that are kinda dumb /aff who have certified genius parents and I have childhood friends that are certified geniuses with certified genius parents and y'all wanna know what made the difference? Not genetics! The patience their parents had for them.

The kinda dumb childhood friends had strict af parents. The mom is a high school science teacher who got snappy if they said or asked anything "dumb" and refused to help them with school because she got frustrated when they didn't get something. It was their dad's responsibility to help them with homework and school projects, and he's a religious nut, white supremacist and was more interested in their performance in sports. He has his own high school sports medals and trophies on display in their house. Neither of the kids are white supremacists or religious nuts but they were kinda stunted on how they could develop their world view and knowledge base because of their parents, who for all intents and purposes aren't dumb.

Their mother is a brilliant science teacher, she understands chemistry and physics like no other high school science teacher I've ever met, she frequently reads new studies and research to expand her knowledge and understanding of the things she teaches. Their father is brilliant at sport, and I don't mean strong or fit or skilled I mean he is an excellent strategist and coach. He understands the human body like no one's business and can accommodate his coaching method depending on a person's individual needs, including for disabled athletes.

They're both certified geniuses, but because they didn't have the patience or grace for their children, those children are just perfectly average and sometimes a little stunted in some areas.

The other childhood friends are certified geniuses. The daughter has like 6 degrees at this point and is a year younger than me at 23. The son is an excellent pool player, chess player, coder and programmer, and also good at art for some reason. Bro maxed out left and right brain use (a myth I'm saying this for the meme). Their parents actively participated in helping them grow and develop.

The mother has a psychology degree, a management accounting degree, an IT diploma and 35 years of experience in programming. The father is a mechanical engineer. They (with the help of the psychology degree) started supporting and developing their children early. The daughter was in lessons for like 8 musical instruments at like 4. The son started playing chess at 5. They had every resource poured into their education, both in terms of money and in terms of support. Mother and son worked together on programming, father and daughter on math.

The daughter, with the help of her mom, had like 3 jobs while studying her 6 degrees. She did house sitting, tutoring and sign language interpretation. She is paying for her current applied mathematics degree in cash on her own.

The son, after we spoke a bit about art and digital art and game design, bought his own tools and programs, joined the art class at his school, went on YouTube and taught himself how to draw. And I don't mean doodle. He learned perspective, lighting, color theory, all the techniques and shit in less than a year. His dad had him do extra chores for more pocket money so he could fund this. He's studying game design and programming this year.

They turned out like this because their parents put in the effort to focus on their needs, desires and challenges rather than their performance. They had patience and grace for them, they supported them immensely and when they couldn't they gave them the tools to support themselves.

So no intelligence is not genetic, and strict parentage don't a genius make; but support, patience and grace does set up your child for incredible success. It is your job as a parent to help your kid build a better life for themselves than you had for yourself, and it's your job to do it with kindness, not shame.

[leftonraed]

The Night We Met - Episode 7

pairing : Taehyung x OC  genre : bodyguard!au, singleparent!au, idol!au   word count : 5.9 k summary — Everything seems set fair for Taehyung and his niece, except you’re not in the picture much to their dismay. Warnings – smut scenes ahead, nothing too extreme I promise ;] Prologue | ep.1 | ep.2 | ep.3 | ep.4 | ep.5 | ep.6 | ep.7 

It must have been the tenth time Taehyung’s skimming his completed adoption request. His parents who arrived a little while ago let him have some peace and quiet in the short minutes they’ve got left before the hearing.  

His arms are resting on his knees and his hair hides his face from anyone walking down the large hallway. He relaxes his wrists, forcing himself to stare at anything else but the paper in his hands and calm his nerves.

He closes his eyes and tries to think of anything to disconnect from the noise of people buzzing around.

His mind takes him away for a moment, far enough to make his parents’ conversation nothing but a string of indistinct words. He’s being taken back to this morning, back to his earliest thought of the day – you.

He’d instantly conjured up a picture of you as soon as he had felt your arms wrapping around his body beneath the covers. His lips had stretched in a lazy smile while his hands slid down above yours. The feeling of your lips kissing the skin of his nape had thieved a soft groan of pleasure.

He’d turned around, taken his place between your legs, rubbing against their softness in slow moves before seeking your mouth blindly. You’d hugged him tight, answering his kiss just as zealously.

Taehyung isn’t sure how but he can still smell the scent your neck was giving off. It’s like you’re with him all over again.

The needy moan you had let escape once you had felt him pushing deeper within, had had him rolling his hips against yours for the first time, silently requesting more of those.  

The notion of your presence in his embrace was overwhelming. He couldn’t get enough of you.

He’d offered you some respite and buried his face in your neck and hair, thrusting harder, squeezing tighter, inhaling deeply as much as possible.

He could hear you, gasping by his ear while stifling you with his love. Your nails had dug in his back as his name had escaped you in a tired pant. He’d smothered you in a possessive and comforting hold as he had helped you ride out the sudden burst.

He’d followed closely, trapping his throaty grunts in your mouth with a demanding kiss while he was filling you up with more of himself.

Taehyung had never opened his eyes the whole time, he didn’t want to, he wanted to keep you here, underneath and stuck to him simply because it felt right.

Once the pleasurable feeling had worn off, he eventually blinked himself awake, only to be surrounded by a deafening silence and the absence of you.

He felt hot, exhausted and wet. The pillow was sticking to his face uncomfortably when he pulled himself up on his arms to glance down where you were supposed to be. He was left to discover himself in the mess you had driven him to make.

“Taehyung!”

He opens his eyes and looks up in surprise at the loud call from his father.

“You left the poor girl calling for you for a whole minute.”

He recognizes and finally acknowledges Hina’s teacher bent towards him. She had graciously accepted to take part in the hearing in his favor.

“Oh- Hum, I’m- I’m so sorry. I-”

“Don’t worry. I was telling your parents that I’d probably be elsewhere if I was in your shoes.”

“Right,” he trails, smiling awkwardly.

“Your face… It’s hum- a little red, are you okay?”

He shakes his hair in front of his eyes, hiding away in embarrassment, ineluctably forced to remember the last image he had of himself from this morning.

“You sure? You’re getting redder.”

Luckily, she’s cut off by Hina’s sudden burst of joy at his sight, who comes running their way under the smiles of his parents. Her grandparents are walking behind along with Choi Seoyoung.

Just as everyone is done greeting each other, the door leading to the adoption court judge opens welcoming everyone in.

********************************

Now reunited for good, it feels like the past three months away from each other never happened. Taehyung learns to cherish even more the moments in Hina’s company, indirectly ensuring himself he’s still a special place in her heart.

He makes time for her, from now on family will always come first. It took a couple of weeks for Hina to feel safe in his absence again and stop feeling like being him was going to be ephemeral.

On the other hand, Taehyung’s insecurities were directed towards his career, he struggled to make sense of his desires and priorities. Should I take a break? Should I quit? He still very much liked singing and writing music but one thing he was certain of, he’d need to make some changes in their interest.

One day Hina asked where you had gone and he realized all this questioning made him almost forget about you for the longest time ever.

After she had been taken away from him, he’d become aware he had no means to get in touch with you. He’d never needed your phone number because you had always been around. He’d never seen you use one when he came to think about it. He remembered the gym place you worked at but his touring abroad and busy schedule prevented him from visiting it right after you’d left.

He questioned one of the staff members in charge of human resources but the equipment had been improved and the data with any reference to you had been lost.

He just couldn’t believe it. In this day and age, he couldn’t find you. Just like this, you had vanished.

Hina was just as disheartened when he told her. She made him hate his helplessness all the more.  

*********************************

It’s the end of the year.

Parents and children are huddled in front of the school doors, talking animatedly. Taehyung keeps his distance as he ends his chat on the phone with his mother.

“I think I got it the first fifteen times you said it,” he whines. “I’ll give you 4K HD Hina, the singer. Don’t worry. I won’t miss a thing from it. No, still nothing. I don’t think I’ll- we’ll ever see her again. Hm… She tries her best, you know, to not be sad about it but- yeah… It sucks. You should’ve come with dad. It could’ve helped her cheer up a little... I know. Make sure he waits three hours before he takes those pills again.”

The afternoon sunlight is harsh on his eyes when he takes a look and he has to turn around. He’s on his own, save the two or three people lingering outside, on their phones as well.

“You know, your brother must be very thankful to have you.”

Taehyung smiles awkwardly at his feet, shifting his weight.

“I hope she’s not disappointed because it’s just me. I hope he’s watching too, she rehearsed very seriously.” He makes his mother giggle. “I listened to her so many times… I just might as well go and sing with them.”

“You’d look cute.”

“I hope you really don’t plan on doing that. That’s not what I came here for.”

Taehyung turns around instinctively when he hears the sudden voice behind him but the sun hits his face barely letting him see anything even with his eyes covered.

He frowns, blinking as his eyes adjust and freezes.

That dress, he wonders.

The stranger gets closer until the sun is fully hidden behind and Taehyung feels blessed with an even more dazzling view when he recognizes you.

“Mom, I- I’ll call you later.” He trails, locking his phone as he can’t look away.

“Hi,” you say.

You’re here. You came.

You stare back, breaking into a lopsided smile when he’s still not replying.

His mouth opens but nothing comes out.

You wait, the time needed for you to take him in after all those months away and appreciate how he’s changed.

It’s your first time seeing him looking this elegant and formal and it suits him. His hair looks a little shorter. You’re glad to find him doing much better than when you’d left.

Your name is the first thing that he eventually lets out. “You’re here.”

“Of course,” fixing your eyes on him with a soft smile. “I made a promise, remember?”

******************

Taehyung lets you lead the march after you’ve scolded him for making you two late. He finds himself glancing down at your hand holding his and at your back, staring shamelessly at the way the fabric hugs your flawless figure.

“It’s packed.” Your voice snaps him back in reality.

“Shit,” he mutters while looking around. “I promised her I’d sit in the front row.”

“This way,” you say but he doesn’t have time to react as you pull him strongly.

You find a bench on a high level.

“What are you doing? We’re all the way back now.”

“Stop whining and take my hand.” You say after climbing up the bench.

He listens and pulls himself up next to you. From this position, you can see the stage with no hindrance but it’s still quite distant.

The curtains are drawn and a group of toddlers is seen waiting behind. A few of them seem not to have moved away from their assigned position but most are either fooling around or look distressed, seeking their teachers and own parents.

Taehyung and you immediately find Hina, right in the center, standing tall and quiet as she skims the crowd. She slightly frowns when she still can’t see him after a third try until��

“Hina!”

She looks up and gazes further away where she’s heard the sudden call coming from. Her eyes widen at your sight.

You wave energetically ignoring the curious looks you’re drawing to yourself and Taehyung. He is staring as well, surprised. He looks back and feels warmth spreading in his entire being at her happiness.

“You can do this!”

Hina lifts her small arm to wave back, fighting the urge to run to you two.

“Yes, Hina! You can do this! Papa is so proud of you!”

“Thank you dad for your supporting words.” A voice suddenly announces in a microphone and laughter rises in the room making Taehyung turn a bright red while you stifle a chortle.

The voice continues, establishing silence, claiming the beginning of the show as the lights are dimmed.

He remembers to get his phone camera ready before the first notes echo. You never lose sight of Hina.

The children’s voices mingle in a surprisingly good harmony when the first lyrics are heard. You feel your heart thumping loudly in your chest as you listen to them, recognizing the lullaby you used to whisper to Hina so she’d fall asleep back during the trip.

Taehyung falters a quick second when you suddenly clasp your finger around his wrist. Making sure Hina’s still in the frame, he turns his head to look at you, noticing how emotional you’re getting.

***************

Less than an hour later, the show ends to thunderous applause. Taehyung guides you to the side where children come out to join their family. You don't have a chance to think of something to say to each other when you suddenly feel small arms wrapping around your knees in a tight embrace.

You instantly smile at Hina when you see her looking up delighted and crouch down to pick her up.

“Did you miss me?” You feel her nodding against your shoulder while she hugs your neck tight. “I missed you too. So much. You did so well back there. I really loved your singing.”

She leans back to look at you and holds your face to crash kisses all over your cheek under Taehyung’s jubilant gaze.

You put her down but she quickly catches your hand in hers and hugs one of his legs.

He pats the crown of her head and looks up at you. “I’m really glad you made it.”

You share a smile but get interrupted again as a small group of children comes surrounding you three.

“You’we Hina mommy?” asks a little girl, her neat ponytail swinging behind her.

Five pairs of eyes stare up at you in total amazement as small ‘ahhs’ and ‘ohhs’ are heard.

“Hina mommy is so beautiful!” Cheers a little boy, more excited than he should be.

“I’m not-” You begin, a little taken aback, looking for help from Taehyung but he only keeps smiling. He’s taking too much pleasure in seeing you flustered.

“I know.” Hina boasts with closed eyes.

A couple of looks lingers before one of them suddenly suggests playing elsewhere.

You decide to get out of the school when Hina complains about being hungry.

She peeks over his shoulder to ask, “you coming home with daddy and Hina?”

You meet Taehyung’s expectant eyes and your chest squeezes at their seemingly hopeful looks.

“I can’t, I’m sorry. I’ve somewhere to go.”

“I could drive you if you want,” he starts, tilting his head in the direction you guess his car is parked.

“Don’t bother, I-... You remember Shownu? I told him to come get me.”

They pout at the same time and it makes you chuckle lightly at their likeness though Taehyung tries not to look too affected. He’s hesitating and not so sure anymore about what he initially wanted to say.

Hina suddenly turns away from you to frown in his neck.

“What’s that?” He asks when he doesn’t understand her the first time. “You want _____ to come home with us?”

You gaze at the back of her head with a sad smile and meet his gaze in silence.

I’d like that too.  

“Seems like I was right, huh,” he snaps you out of your thoughts. “That dress looks really good on you.”

You look down, blushing a little and nod in agreement. Silence falls again between you. You don’t show any intention to go yet as Taehyung gets lost in his thought.

What are you waiting for?

“CanIgetyournumber?”

“What?” You cock your head.

“Your number? So we can see each other. I mean with Hina too.”

You nod, seemingly accepting his suggestion because the reason he mentioned is a self-evident fact. “Sure.”

You exchange your contact information and you eventually walk away much to his dismay. Hina finally decides to look back when you’re already so far away.

She frowns at your silhouette. “Hina sad.”

“Don’t be, baby,” he cups her cheek to kiss her other one. “We’ll see her again.”

**************************

You’re the one texting first and Taehyung’s glad you do when he’s too upset with himself for not finding the courage to do so. You agree to meet one night and make sure either of you doesn’t do anything the following day because Taehyung wants to invite you to his concert he’s currently holding in the biggest stadium of the country for the whole weekend.

When you arrive half an hour before the beginning, you’re taken to a corridor left inaccessible to fans that leads to a platform positioned in front of the stage and in the middle of the pit above the fans gathered around. You notice some curious look thrown your way.

There you get to meet the CEO of the company Taehyung works for along with some of his employees.

The show is a big hit.

You’ve felt it the first seconds after Taehyung was revealed and the audience roared impressively.

It all feels a little overwhelming but seeing him in this new light makes you feel all kinds of way. You recognize the man you’ve worked for but he seems so foreign. The aura coming from him is nothing you’ve seen before yet has you enticed through his moves, his looks, his voice.

The crowd leaves bit by bit. You remember him telling you to wait for him right where your seat was assigned to you, saying your goodbyes to his boss.

The venue is now empty, you go down the stairs and notice Taehyung down the corridor chatting with someone on his way up.

You exchange a smile.

You shorten the space between you, you watch him eye you from head to toe as his thumb grazes his bottom lip. You look away. He stops before he gets a whiff of your fragrance, eyelids heavy. You take his hand when he stretches it to you.

“I took some time cause I was showering.” He explains pulling you to the parking lot.

You climb in his car.

“You okay with eating out? We can always order something and eat at home if you’re too tired.”

He swivels the wheel with one hand, running the car out of the premises and making the powerful engine roar while looking at you. “Don’t worry about me.”

The silence between you is comfortable but the atmosphere feels heavy with secret intentions.

“I really liked the show by the way,” you say softly while keeping your eyes on the scenery passing by.

“Yeah?”

“Hm,” you turn your head towards him with a playful look. “But I still prefer Hina’s singing.”

“I have to admit, she rehearsed that song more than I ever did my whole discography.”

Dinner is nice and quiet. Taehyung isn’t fond of talking while eating and you're thankful, it allows you to enjoy the food and himself in a comfortable way.

*************************

You’re back in the car and driving away after you’ve agreed to go to his home and see Hina.

“I got my diploma. Last week.” You share, “I’m finally able to work as a personal trainer.”

“Really? Congratulations,” he genuinely exclaims while checking the rearview mirror. “That’s awesome.”

“Yeah, but for some reasons I’ve also managed to get a contract with a model agency? I don’t know where this is coming from.”

“Well, they simply saw potential in you. I mean your body is perfect- I-I- I mean you work hard to stay fit so… They’d miss out if they didn’t take you..” He trails, mentally slapping himself.

You simply smile to yourself.

************************

The door unlocks and you both see Hina and the babysitter he got for the night sitting in the living-room. As soon as Hina notices you, she darts your way to crash against your legs.

“________!!”

“You’re still awake?” Wonders Taehyung, looking down not to step on her toes.

You hug and lift her in your arms after getting rid of your shoes. You greet the young girl as Taehyung takes care of paying her. You hear her letting him know she tried everything in her power to get the little girl to bed as you sit down and cover Hina with kisses and sweet words.

The door closes a little after.

“Come here. Brush your teeth, go pee and right to bed.”

“No!” She challenges with a frown at him. “I staying with ________.”

He calls her name with a strict tone making her pout and you can’t help but hug her protectively.

“Let me take care of it,” you suggest softly to him.

You carry out her nighttime routine like you used to, noticing how independent she has become which makes you yearn younger Hina.

You let her lead the march to her room, meeting Taehyung on the way and chuckles when she closes the door to prevent him from interrupting your time together.

“Do you want me to read you a book?” You smile once she settles under her covers.

She shakes her head and reaches for your hand. You understand she wants you to lie next to her. You indulge without a word.

“_______,” her voice is already filled with sleep some time after you’ve started running your fingers through her silky hair. “You staying with Hina foweve’?”

You hum back.

“Daddy likes ______.”

You look down at her, smiling faintly.

“He says it a lot. Hina likes _______ mowe.”

You squeeze her gently against you.

“________?” She’s speaking more slowly now. “Pwomise... mommy staying with Hina... and daddy... foweve’.”

***************

“Sleeping?”

You noticed Taehyung’s already changed in his sleepwear. You nod while closing her door as quietly as possible. “Like a log.”

He stands up before you get the chance to get close to one of the couches and leads the way to his bedroom.

You wait at the doorstep, watching him browsing clothes inside his wardrobe while in the dark. He shuffles towards you, holding what looks like to be a silky pyjamas.

“I think this will do,” he trails. You take it, thanking him. “You can change here. I was going to open a bottle of wine. You want some?”

You shake your head.

Taehyung walks back in his room when you don't come out, holding one glass and minds turning off the lights on his way.

It takes him a couple of seconds to remark your silhouette on the other side of the curtains, standing in the balcony where you’re enjoying the weak, gentle breeze of this summer night.

He draws one curtain and immediately notices you’ve decided to do without the pants which pulls a knowing smile from him. It shouldn't surprise him. The shirt is long enough to work as a mini dress on you.

You look over your shoulder when you hear the door sliding. He’s staring longer than he’s meaning to but you find it adorable.

He comes to stand right by your side and takes a sip, looking for something to say.

“It’s so quiet.”

“You don’t like it.”

“You should put on some music.” You suggest, tilting your chin towards his phone in his pocket.

“What do you want to listen to?”

“I’m sure you got some exclusive sounds, I could brag about. It’s your chance to upgrade your raking.” You smile when you see him grin too as he goes through files. “You’re not working on anything?”

“I actually am. But it’s a secret for now. I’ve made... thirteen songs. But they’re still very rough. I don’t think we should listen to them.”

“Come on, you know I won’t judge you.”

He looks down with an embarrassed smile, frowning a little. “They’re really not good.”

“I’m not pressuring you. It’s just the two of us now.” You say softly, not breaking eye contact. “We can always find something else.”

He can’t hold your gaze long enough without feeling his face heat up. “Okay, I’ll share one or two.”

You look down at the streets when the first notes are heard, knowing he won’t want to meet your eyes.

“So where’s your manager?” You ask to ease his anxiety. You’re too aware of yourself trying not to sound too interested while keeping your gaze on the cars driving by. “I thought I’d see her at the concert.”

“Uh oh, we’re not working together anymore.” You hum in response. He explains,“conflicts of interests.”

You’re now hearing lyrics sung very softly, setting a comfortable atmosphere. “Does that mean…”

“Yeah, I’m basically managing myself.” He chuckles to himself, smiling a little at you. “I think there’s no other way if I want to live life the way I have in mind.”

You agree silently, not really knowing what to say back.

“I think she liked me. Too much.”

“You didn’t?”

“Of course I enjoyed being with her but not exactly for the same reason I think.”

The song is the only thing heard for a couple of seconds but Taehyung doesn’t seem to be minding it anymore.

“Are you and Shownu…?”

You instantly look up at him when you hear him mentioning his name and rephrase his question when he’s not finishing. “Are we a thing?” He nods slowly once. ”No. No, no, no. I mean he’s nice but... He’s not really… my type.”

He looks away, humming a quick acknowledgement. He finishes his glass. “What’s your type?”

You tilt your head away from him, smiling to yourself. His phone plays the second song.

“I wouldn't know how to describe it. I just know when I meet the person, you know?”

“Yeah, I- Me too.”

You hesitate a little before you speak again.

“Apparently,” you wait for him to look at you to show your innocent eyes. “You like me. A lot.”  

He smiles but doesn’t flee your gaze, “who told you that?”

“I can’t reveal my source,” you turn your head away, closing your eyes. You open one to see him looking at you, amused. “I can only say it has the figure of a…  little snoring cutiekins.”

He shakes his head to himself. “Of course.”

You find yourself staring at his gorgeous-looking profile, admiring the way his perfect hair falls around his face. “So… You like spending time with me?”

“It wasn’t obvious enough?” He gets shy again.

“Honestly, I can’t recall.”

“What?” He asks with surprise. “Are you being serious?”

“I mean, I was working for you. And we weren’t always on our own. Making assumptions about these things would have been wrong on my behalf. Especially with you. I didn’t want to risk my job.”

“I see.”

He looks down at his empty glass then back up at you when he hears you take in a deep breath.

“I also didn’t want to risk never seeing you or Hina ever again.”

You can see something kindle in his dark eyes, rendering you quiet and captivated. He doesn’t seem like he’s moving but you can definitely tell you’re both getting closer and closer.

“And now?” His voice sounds hopeful.

Your eyes gaze up and down, noticing his lips barely agape. “Now?”

You almost freeze when you feel his breath fanning you delicately. You both remain stagnant for a while which seems to last indefinitely, keeping yourselves apart from each other and foreign from what is to come if you were to give in to those tacit, forbidden desires.

Taehyung can feel his heart beating so vividly at the prospect of tasting your lips. You’re right there. Why is he suddenly feeling so bold? Why is he hesitating?

“_____-”

You don’t allow him to finish and choose to be the one to take the plunge.

The kiss is timorous at first, gentle, barely touching, yet ignites, as intimacy settles, a submerging feeling that diffuses into your two beings.

He’s the first to moan, you to grab onto him, each demanding more of that taste you can’t do without now that you’ve quickly come to like it.

You force yourself out of rapture with reluctance, testing the waters and it only draws him back in like a magnet, quietly surrendering to what you started.

His skin is soft against your face but his arms are strong around your back as they secure you against his chest. His scent overwhelms you, almost in a smothering way but it doesn’t feel wrong. It’s simply foreign. You’ve never got to smell so much of him this long, this strongly. You eventually moan in response.

Taehyung pushes his face harder against yours as a result, tilting your heads. He’s euphoric and he can feel it in his stomach, in his heart, in yours the longer he keeps you rooted against his body, sensing them pulsate in unison, frenzied.

You push back, blindly guiding him to one of the two reclining chairs he got settled for whenever good weather presents itself. He lets himself fall down but not too quickly, not if it means he’d have to break apart from you. You can feel him grip the back of your thighs and have your body straddling his.

You notice his mouth reaching again for yours when you eventually pull away for air. He allows you some respite, watching dazed as you rest your forehead against his, smiling to yourself a little.

When you open your eyes, you stare down at your hand beneath which his chest is heaving with desire.

You feel one of his hands reaching for your hip, under his borrowed shirt. Your eyes fall close again and your breath gets caught in your throat once spasms begin taking over your lower region because of the closeness of his touch.

“You okay?” His voice is barely above a whisper and you yearn for more of that intimacy.

You let out a shaky breath you weren’t aware of holding. “It felt good.”

His fingers squeeze you comfortingly. You meet his eyes and your core tightens on its own, hard. It’s dark out here and in spite of that you can see he’s craving you. So badly.

He drags his bottom lip between his teeth, impatiently.

Fuck.

“Kiss me, _______... Please.”

You stare back, fascinated by so much beauty and yearning. Your mouth falls agape and his eyes instantly glance down.

You chuckle lightly, “if someone saw us right now. You’d be in so much trouble.”

“I don’t fucking care.” He replies immediately, grabbing onto the nape of your neck. Your lips remain at a hair breadth from his now.

You never thought your self-control to be that easily challenged, you want to laugh at yourself. Who would’ve thought?

You poke your tongue to lick his bottom lip looking so inviting, leading him to capture your mouth in a deep kiss. You weave your fingers into his smooth locks, tugging them at the first caress of his tongue around yours.

Yes, you instantly think, fuck them all. This is what matters.

Your other hand takes his off your neck to have it latch on one of your breasts. He’s closing it gently around at the touch of it.

You break the sloppy kiss to trail wet pecks along his jaw and beneath his ear. You hastily unbutton the shirt. “Put your hands on me, Tae.”

He slides an arm around the small of your back at the sight of your bare torso for him to feast on and guides your crotch to push down against his.

Your heart suffers another sudden fit of palpitation at the feeling of his arousal pressing promisingly where you need it the most. His mouth is unsparing against your skin, kissing, licking, sucking it until it has you yielding to your own needs.

Taehyung stops and pants icy, hot air where his tongue wetted you at the feeling of your hips rocking with lustful urges.

He leans back on the chair, head thrown back with his eyes closed, relishing the delightful motions of your body.

“Oh… Fuck…” His nails dig in your ass the more you keep easing tension out of his hard shaft.

You tilt forward, closer, never stopping your sensual dance and he feels it. He gazes up at you under heavy lids, admiring the beautiful view of his shirt open on your naked chest, skin still moist with his saliva, nipples pointing enticingly.

He feels lightheaded.

You comb your hair back to allow yourself a view of the splendor that is Taehyung turned on.

You let out a small groan at the unexpected twitch of his cock. By now, you’re sure you’ve made an embarrassing mess of your panties and you’re also certain he can smell it.

You watch him reach for one of your breasts to suck on the sensitive nipple. You frown down at him, moaning as quiet as you can. He cranes his neck to lick his way up yours to your ear.

“You look great in my clothes.” You smile at his whisper.

“I want to see you too.”

He fulfills your wishes quickly, pulling the back of his tee-shirt above his head, serving you the tantalizing image of his muscular arms and shoulders. You bite your lip, sharing a smile and your hips pick up in pace.

You wrap your arms around his neck, cradling his head to your chest, while he hugs you to him tightly, looking into each other’s eyes. You’re both growing desperate.

“I want you so bad,” he can hear the hopelessness in your voice and it has him oozing more in his briefs. He never thought he’d ever hear you say those words to him. However, he hates how it reminds him of his neglect in equipping himself for the occasion. He never planned any of it.

He’s certain he doesn’t want to put an end to your bliss, not when you’re on top of him, ready to give yourself, not never.

Taehyung mouths at your cleavage, listening to the plethora of pleading escaping you the longer you keep rubbing yourselves together and struggles not to give in already.

The fresh breeze is long forgotten now, it feels hot and sweaty against his body but you’ve passed your point of no return. He’s felt your body becoming tense, seeking the peak of pleasure.

You manage to grunt in between gasps. “... Close…”

“Yeah?” He wonders quietly, trying to keep you on your stimulus.

You furrow your brow, seeing him gazing back with so much adoration it catches you unawares, triggering intense pleasure washing over you in waves. He helps muffling you, comforting your shaking body.

The forceful press of his erection overstimulates you in good pain. Your arms are tight around his shoulders, helping you root yourself while the final tremors wear off.

You don’t want to move away. He doesn’t want to let go either.

He reluctantly moves his arms only when he feels you trying to lean back. He breaks into a shy chuckle but you capture his lips in a needing kiss. You’re quickly out of breath.

“You’re shaking,” he trails softly. You weren’t even aware of it, lost again in his mesmerizing looks. “Was it okay?”

You nod subtly, cupping the back of his head to bring your faces closer. “Yeah… You?”

“Don’t worry about it.” You answer his gentle kiss. “Let’s go inside.”

***********************

You wake up alone in the gigantic bed, almost engulfed in the mess of sheets and thick covers. Yes, even in summer they’re of use, if you get to spend a night in his bedroom.

Your mind is fuddled, partly because of the short night you had but it’s also quick to remember flashes of it, having you musing on them with a blushing face.

You sit up and locate his tee-shirt, his borrowed shirt, your panties, his briefs thrown across the floor and your abashed smile comes again.

You’re walking down the corridor and can’t shake away the strangeness of it now that you’re seeing his home in broad daylight many months after, not as his bodyguard but as you. You stop before either Taehyung or Hina can notice your presence and take your time watching them be around each other, the way it was meant this whole time.

Your gaze travels from Hina’s back facing you to him and you mindlessly begin biting your lips, gawking at him working in the kitchen, attending to her needs and just being the best person for her. His messy hair and bare chest are a bonus.

He’s a natural. Your chest tightens at the sight of him and at the thought of it.

A heavy sigh escapes you.

“Mind joining us?”

You get startled by his voice and find them looking at you with big smiles. You shake your head to yourself.

Hina is elated raising her arms in the air from her seat for you to indulge into a tight hug. You don’t forget to kiss her cheek, unable to keep yourself from grinning from ear to ear at her sudden burst.

You sit on the stool across her where a bowl of rice and a full glass of orange juice have been placed. She can’t take her eyes off of you. You mind the frying pan he’s holding as he shakes a fried egg on top of the rice.

“‘Morning you,” he trails in a deep voice. He swiftly steals a kiss and walks away naturally.

You remain stunned a couple of seconds, processing the sudden gesture until you find Hina stifling a titter in her small hands.

[pyroclastic727]

Luz and Amity have the same motives

Anyone who has seen The Owl House knows Luz and Amity’s dynamic. Not so much the fighting one, but the one that Eda refers to as “adorable banter which is literally making [her] sick.” They work together perfectly: two rivals who make peace. How do they do that, though? By finding similarity, mainly in motives.

Both Luz and Amity want to be witches.

However, they pursue this in different ways. Amity goes the traditional route. She enrolls in Hexside at a young age, dedicating her life to witchcraft. This is the only path she knows, and she sees it as a way towards success and (probably) pleasing her parents. Being a witch means proving that she is competent and skilled enough, something she doesn’t believe, as shown by how she points out other people’s incompetence and boasts about her own (this is a thing that insecure people do. I know from experience ^_^).

Luz travels a strange route, which you probably know. I mean, she finds the scrappiest, artificially-aged owl-witch antihero, who hates school and teaches her in a ragtag, reluctant fashion. Most of Luz’s learning is on her own. It’s very much the difference between an art student and someone who draws as a hobby; without pressure, Luz can be thirsty for information. However, information tends to be much harder to access, since a lack of pressure also means a lack of resources. (Thanks a lot, modern school system).

Both Luz and Amity want the other person to stop bullying them.

From Luz’s point of view, Amity starts as a bully, so much so that this YouTube video keeps popping up in my recommended, explaining why Amity is an excellent bully. It seems convincing from this point of view; I mean, their first meeting is comprised of Amity obsessively shaking Luz’s lifeless form. Sure, Luz is making a lot of mistakes and altogether shitting on the rules, but that’s what you do when you come from another world and aren’t even enrolled in the school. And as Luz sees, Amity repeatedly does things to insult Luz, someone she hardly knows. She specifically mentions Luz in her Instagram post, calling out humans as being not invited to her conjuring. It seems like she’s specifically targeting Luz, this person who just stumbled into the world and has had about three interactions with Amity. The other girl has really assumed the worst in Luz, which makes no sense at all, since Luz is, well...Luz. 

Meanwhile, Amity sees Luz as a bully. Remember Amity’s main motive: to become a witch and join the Emperor’s Coven so she can convince herself that she’s competent (which isn’t going to work, but that’s how us top-student types think). Luz has been destroying Amity’s plans. The first thing Luz did was help a student cheat on an assignment that Amity worked hard on, and then take Amity’s gold star, aka her symbol of competence, as a spoil of war. Then she challenges Luz to a duel and cheats on that. Amity has been working all her life to be perfect, and meanwhile Luz goes and cheats and lies and isn’t perfect, and gets what she wants. For Amity to accept that Luz’s actions aren’t bullying would mean to admit that perfection isn’t what Amity wants.

Both Luz and Amity want to enjoy fan content shamelessly.

For Luz, she is openly a fangirl at home. I mean, one of our first lines from her is an admission to making anime edits (what a weeb) and getting sucked into Feminist Harry Potter. She makes art and writes, and I would be surprised if she hasn’t written fanfiction. Yet her mom wants to send her to a camp to stifle her creativity. All the other people at school shun her for having weird interests (you’d think that would be unrealistic at this point). Her original motive for staying on the Boiling Isles was so she could be a creative fangirl in relative peace. Even on the Isles, she continues to be a fangirl, going so far as to cosplay Azura in front of Amity. (Luz is what would happen if Tumblr were a person, I swear).

For Amity, she wants to be a fangirl, too. She stans Azula, going so far as to own the first four books. The difference is, she’s closeted. I’m guessing that her parents put a lot of pressure on her to be perfect (or at least, that they used to). If not that, then there’s the embarrassment her siblings cause her, and her subsequent attempts to make her family name seem respectable. At least there’s a sense of sibling competition, since they’ll always be better than her, as long as they have more experience. All that has culminated in an internalized belief that Amity holds, that she has to be perfect and the top student. Would a top student read stupid books and sink into a fandom? No. A top student spends all her time studying and doing things to make the teachers favor her (wow look it’s my mantra from last year). Beneath Amity’s self-consciousness and low self-worth is the desire to simply enjoy things and be herself. Luz helps her get there, by cosplaying and lending her book. But she still has a long way to go, which probably includes standing up to her parents, and most importantly being vulnerable with herself.

Both Luz and Amity want to be valued.

This is at the base of each girl’s personality. I mean, Luz at home doesn’t seem very valued. Her mom is okay, but she is also willing to send her to a summer camp, and after A Lying Witch and a Warden, they don’t text at all. Her classmates don’t value her. When she comes to the Boiling Isles, part of the reason she’s so happy is because so many people value her: Eda, King, Willow, and Gus. She has a family and friends and is fairly content. Now all she needs is to become a real witch so people will value the part of her that loves magic. 

Amity has it way worse. For the most part, she isn’t really valued. Remember the scene where she’s sitting on her windowsill, staring out the window and brooding as her friends take selfies without her? She doesn’t feel any attachment to her friends, alone in any crowd she’s in. Her siblings, while they love her, are an annoyance to her. They don’t seem to see the real value in her, and if they do, they don’t express it. She would probably cry if one of her siblings said he or she was proud of her. Meanwhile, we don’t see much of her parents (I’m writing this after S1E12, for future viewers). Keeping in mind that Dana Terrace and Alex Hirsch also wrote on Gravity Falls, she probably has the parents that Pacifica Northwest has: a distant, cold nuclear family with high expectations and low tolerance for her. Without any love at home, she seeks some at school. We know that she once valued Willow, but lost her. (My guess is that she pushed Willow away). Her professors give her validation, but judging by how quickly they take it away, it seems more like a toxic dependency than a real relationship. By this point, Amity has spent so much of her life without being valued that when Luz extends kindness to her, she doesn’t even know how to respond.

This sets both girls up to learn from each other. 

Luz is excitable and reckless, and she can pick up some discipline and ambition from Amity. Amity is high-strung and repressed, so she can learn some self-indulgence and emotional freedom from Luz. Usually the best way to learn a lot from a peer and have them learn from you, in fiction, is to form a close bond with them and spend a lot of time together. Fortunately for Lumity, similarity breeds attraction.

[squishybuttercup]

Nam Jaejoong

28 years old - Genius - Slob - Bookworm

@simvicii​ Alex’s Bachelor Challenge

(NOTE: Under the cut is LOOONG story with his earlier life containing tw violence and depression. If you’re okay with that content, I hope you take the time to get to know Jae.)

  Backstory:

Jae was orphaned when he was 10, and he had been keeping to himself mostly ever since then. His family had gone through series of tragedies, but most of those things do not make sense to a child. When he was 6, his older sister was diagnosed with Leukemia. Their parents’ relation started to strain as they struggle to earn money for his sister’s treatments and for their basic needs. They worked multiple jobs, and took turns in taking care for their children, but Jae was mostly overlooked. Both of them had to stop school, and so their only activities at home were reading and house chores (which eventually Jae had to do most as his sister’s condition worsened). Their parents were barely home, and when they were, all they would do is fight (screaming at each other and throwing things around the house). Eventually, his father stopped coming home. Without enough financial aid, medical treatments for his sister halted. She died when Jae was around 9 years old.

After years of struggles and pain, his mother was pushed to a point of experiencing depression. Again, a child wouldn’t know what to do in his situation. After all these things, the worst was yet to come for him. Robbers came to their house one night, and his mother tried to fight them of from stealing what is left of their savings. Jae rushed to help her but one of the robbers attacked him, all he could remember was a sharp pain on his face before he passed out (This resulted in him having a scar on his face). He woke up in a hospital bed, wherein a police officer broke the news to him, his mother was killed in the robbery. The orphanage has sent him from foster families after foster families. Jae spent most of his time on his own, reading books and trying experiments (when he has resources). He had a hard time at school because most kids and teachers just saw him as a weird kid. When he was 17 his genius potentials were noticed by their school principal who decided to give him a test, wherein if he passed he is then qualified to continue on to college despite him stopping school for a few years.

After passing the exam, Jae was then introduced to a couple willing to adopt him even though he is almost in legal age. The couple were both middle-aged doctors, who never had a chance to have a child of their own. They think that he will fit right in their household, and he did like it there. He had access to a library with a lot of medical books, a comfortable bed, and supportive guardians. During his time spent with them and in college, he slowly started to open up to other people. It was a little awkward for him at first to call them “mom” and “dad” but he got used to it.

For his bachelor’s degree, he took up BS Psychology. His course was a big part of how he was able to help himself heal and to also attend therapy. His social life also started to grow as he participated in different organizations that are about healthcare and environment preservation. When it comes to his dating life, well, college girls and boys don’t usually take interest on someone who has his face buried in a book. He went on a few first dates, but none of those developed into anything serious.

He did of course still spend most of his time reading, especially fictions which are fantasy genre since that was his interest when he was a kid. Jae was usually submerged in studying; this applies to all kinds of topics ranging from social issues up to medical discoveries. Whenever this happens, he tends to ignore the random papers, candy wrappers, water bottles littered in his room so his mom describes him as bit of a slob. (Their housemaid confirmed this).

His motto in life is “Keep Learning”. He values individual growth and always finds ways on self-improvement. He tried out sports during this time too, which are basketball and tennis. They were fun for him but they didn’t exactly become his favorite activities. But his experience did help him realize that hobbies aside from reading are important as well. This was how he developed the habit of jogging every other day, and he also tried going to the gym but that didn’t work out for him so he opted for exercising at home instead.

Jae entered medical school when he was 22, and he originally planned to pursue being a General Practitioner. But during his third year, when he had to choose his field of specialization in medical practice, he chose to focus on being a surgeon. Furthermore, his goal is to be a neurosurgeon.

When it comes to family bonding, they genuinely enjoy discussions related to their field of expertise. His dad is a Physician and his mom is an OB-GYN. But medical field aside, they enjoy watching action movies together. They also go out to eat ice cream during summer, and their favorite food to eat during winter is ramen.

  Right now, at age 28, he has finished 2 years of internship. He is currently evaluating his life and his goals in life.

“I’m working as an intern in the same hospital where my parents work. But I decided to take a small break from that for now. I am passionate about my career, but I’m also the kind of guy who dreams of having his own family. And uhm.. I’ve been thinking that I’m not getting any younger, and now more than ever I want to take this shot at love. I talked it out with my parents, because they’ve always been supportive of my career, and they said they want what’s best for me, and that I’m the one who knows that. I’m going to admit that the idea of my own family also terrifies me, but I also know that with the kind of person I am now, I’m going to be a responsible and loving father/husband.”

The reason why Jae is even able to make this choice, despite the well-known fact that doctors are busy as heck, is because of his security in his workplace and the support from his parents and friends. The hospital he works on ensures not only the best care for its patients, but also to its workers. The board members and all staff are aware of Jae’s capability as a doctor and treats him with high regard even though he’s only an intern so far. He had a discussion with the Director of the hospital before he started internship, to which he expressed his intentions and wishes regarding his working hours incase he decides to start a family. The Director is a good friend of their family, and one of the few people who knows about his past. Which is why he has made arrangements for Jae, with the knowledge that he will still be able to work his best.

Jae doesn’t really know what to think of fate or coincidences, but just during the start of his break, he saw “The Bachelor: Alexander Goth”. He wasn’t one to have crushes immediately on someone, more so on someone he hasn’t met. But boy did Alex leave an impression on him. The more he read about him, his interest in him develops and he hopes to get to know him in person someday. He deeply respects Alex’s work as an author, and he’s pretty excited to read his works!

“I’m entering this challenge and I view it as me spending time with possibly the love of my life. When it comes to what I look for in a relationship, I want someone I can grow with. People are so obsessed with finding their Perfect Match, and most of the time they just look for someone who is completely compatible with who they are at the moment, and worse they only want these ideal soulmates. I think that it’s important for partners to respect, trust and love each other. But they should also be aware that people continuously change overtime, and that as partners they must grow together and always choose each other.”

  Here is a CAS picture of him where his scar is now visible:

squishybuttercup’s notes: hi love!! I know that your aim with this challenge is to have gameplay-centered legacy. But the reason why I wrote this much detail about him is for you (and alex) to get to know him well. Gameplay-wise he can just work as doctor in the sims world and be one of the two best dads in the sims world. Also Jae isn’t the type of person who shares his life story away, so I imagine him telling Alex himself about that part ^_^ I’m super excited for this and I hope Nam Jaejoong gets picked! Anything else not mentioned here you may ask me or opt to have your own interpretation I don’t mind as I am literally offering him to be in your game ajsdfsjkl this also means i acknowledge that you might change his looks to fit your game’s aesthetics. also ily :p

[jewish-education]

As someone who is half Jewish I feel I’ve missed out on a lot because of how my fathers mother insisted me and my brother be raised catholic neither of us speak Hebrew yet my mom is fluent we hardly celebrate any Jewish holidays or went to temple but as a soon to be adult religion is something I want to have more of it my life and my mom has beautiful views on the world because of her religion because of this I wouldlike to practice Judaism however as a lesbian I do not know if I should convert?

Hey anon!

You probably don’t need to go through the conversion process to be involved in Jewish religious life as a religious person. Since your mother was Jewish, you’re already considered Jewish by Conservative and Orthodox Jewish movements. In addition, because you had sort of some Jewish experiences growing up, it’s quite possible that Reform and Reconstructionist communities would count you as Jewish.

In addition, being lesbian totally doesn’t exclude you from being Jewish! Lots of movements and communities are welcoming of LGBTQ Jews. The Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist movements are welcoming of LGBTQ Jews across the board. If you’re looking to join an Orthodox community, Eshel can help you find a community that is accepting of lesbian Jews. In addition, even if you come across an individual or community that isn’t accepting of you as a Jewish lesbian, oh well for them because you’re still Jewish! Once someone’s Jewish by birth or conversion, they’re Jewish no matter who they are or what they do. 

Even though there might not be anything stopping a community from considering you Jewish, you would still end up needing to spend some time learning how you want to live Jewishly. It’s likely that any rabbi/community you reach out to will recommend an Introduction to Judaism class, or at least some introductory reading/resources. A Reform or Reconstructionist community may want you to follow up this learning with some kind of commitment process; they might call it “conversion,” “reclamation,” or something similar, and it might also include a dip in the mikvah or talking with a Beit Din.

I generally encourage folks on here to get in touch with a rabbi right away. (Even if someone is just curious about Judaism and not looking to convert, rabbis also serve as teachers and communal hubs so they’re a great to reach out for local learning opportunities.) However, right now we’re getting close to busy holiday season for rabbis and it’s likely any messages will get lost in their inbox or voicemail as they try to juggle religious school starting with the five-ish holidays coming up in September. Over the course of the next month while you wait for things to calm down, I recommend that you start thinking about what you want in a community and looking into what communities exist near you. By early to mid October, rabbis and other Jewish community leaders will have had a chance to catch their breath and will likely be better able focus on helping you out. (Converts and conversion students please correct me if I’m wrong on this and anon should be reaching out like right now to start fall Intro to Judaism classes when they typically start?)

In the mean time, given the very solid argument that you’re already Jewish, I feel comfortable helping you start on Jewish practice. If you float around this blog, you can find lots of ways to start Jewish practice. We’re coming up on some holidays too so here are some seasonally appropriate ideas to get you started:

Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, is every week from Friday night at sundown to Saturday at sundown. Lots of Jews celebrate it by refraining from certain kinds of work, and by praying, studying, eating special meals, or enjoying time with friends and family. You could start experiencing Shabbat by taking some time to relax or spending time with friends and family. You could also try lighting Shabbat candles. 

Rosh Hashana is one of several Jewish New Years (the Jewish calendar is kind of complicated if the fact there are 5 holidays coming up wasn’t enough of a warning). You could start celebrating Rosh Hashana at home by enjoying a meal with friends and family, or by eating apples dipped in honey (symbolizes a sweet new year).

Yom Kippur is a Jewish holiday focused around ethical responsibility, namely teshuva (typically translated as repentance or return). The month of Elul that precedes the High Holidays (Rosh Hashana & Yom Kippur) is also a special time for teshuva. While for many Jews Yom Kippur involves fasting and spending lots of time in synagogue, you might want to start by taking stock. A month from now when Yom Kippur rolls around, you might know more about what Judaism and the Jewish community are starting to mean to you. Yom Kippur would be a good opportunity to make some goals for reaching out to a local Jewish community, and to consider how to respectfully navigate your family’s expectations as you find your own way. If you want to focus more on the repentance aspect of Yom Kippur, there’s an Elul journal series I’ve been posting. You can find it by searching #Elul2018 on this blog or on tumblr as a whole. You’re more than welcome to join in, and if you poke around this blog to learn a little about teshuva it shouldn’t require much other Jewish knowledge/experience to get started on.

You also mentioned wanting to learn Hebrew and your mom being fluent in it. If you’re interested in more cultural resources, it might be worth looking into whether there’s a JCC (Jewish Community Center) in your area. Sometimes JCCs offer courses in Hebrew, other times local synagogues have courses. If there aren’t any Hebrew courses available in your area, there are resources online and in books. If you aren’t able to practice with your mom or want to work with someone else too, a rabbi or JCC might know of a tutor or a native speaker who’s willing to help you out.

[serpentsong]

A Siren and a Serpent-3/?-Sweet Pea x OC

Chapter 3: Siren Territory

It was three weeks later and Amatheia was ready for the week ahead. She had finally become accustomed to South Side High and it soothed any minor nerves. She had also become increasingly close to a certain tall Serpent. She looked over her outfit, black jeans, a grey crop top, and black combat boots. She finished the look with her signature Siren jacket, leaving her hair down. She threw her bag in the saddlebag of her motorcycle and hopped on, kick starting her day.

In Government, she noticed a girl who got around, Jasmine, messing with a Ghoulie under the tables. With a sigh, Amatheia rolled her eyes, facing front and trying to pay attention to the repetitive nonsense the teacher went on about. Jasmine and the Ghoulie walked out of the classroom, hand in hand.

Lunch time rolled around and Amatheia sat between Sweet Pea and Toni at the Serpent table. Currently, she was pulled in a conversation with Toni about the girl she was infatuated with.

“I don’t know, Amatheia, there’s just something about her, ya know?”

“Yeah girl, I get you. Just be careful, I’ve heard those north siders are ruthless, especially the Blossoms.”

“I know” Toni replied with a sigh. Amatheia was about to respond when she felt a presence behind her. She turned around and noticed the spot on the other side of Sweet Pea was taken by Jasmine. With a quiet chuckle and a smirk, Amatheia took notice to the one sided conversation.

“C’mon Sweet Pea, let me show you a good time.” she had her hand on his arm, looking up at him as she pushed her chest out. He just grunted at her, trying to ignore her.

“Come on, honey, don’t insult the man. You think he’d want a ghoulie’s sloppy seconds?” Amatheia looked at Jasmine, raising her eyebrows. Attention focused towards them as Jasmine responded, appalled.

“And who are you to care? His girl?”

Amatheia shook her head with a laugh, “Honey, he couldn’t handle me. I’m no one’s girl, just would hate to see such a fine young Serpent fall into a loose pussy.” she paused to shrug, “I mean, I’m all for sleeping with whoever you want. Go on with your bad self. But, at least have the decency to wait more than a class period before trying to hop on a Serpent when you fucked a Ghoulie in Government.”

Jasmine gasped as she stood up, stomping away with her arms crossed. Light laughter broke out at the Serpent table as everyone went back to what they were doing.

Sweet Pea looked down at Amatheia with a smirk, “So, you think I can’t handle you?” She laughed, “Sweets, there isn’t anyone who can.”

His eyebrow rose, “Is that a challenge, princess?”

“Only if you think you can take me,” Amatheia grew a smirk of her own.

“You’re on, babe.”

They had gotten the news that they would be transferring to Riverdale High School earlier that day and were celebrating the idea of a good education currently. Amatheia clicked off the phone, heading inside the Wyrm with a sigh. “You three down for a Greendale trip tonight?” she asked.

“Why? What’s up?” Toni asked, wiping down the bar.

“My cousin just called. She owns a club in Greendale. Apparently there’s been an ex serpent hanging around, talking down on the serpents and talking about old serpent secrets. She figured Serpents should handle it.”

They nodded at her words. “You coming with?” Sweet Pea asked her.

“Gotta. It’s a Siren owned club, they’ll only let you in if you’re with me.”

He nodded. “Thanks, Amatheia.” he said.

She nodded in response, “Club opens at 9. We can leave around 8:30?” Amatheia asked.  They nodded in unison.

“Alright, look presentable.” she laughed, heading out to her bike.

A few hours had passed and Amatheia was waiting for the trio at the Wyrm. She had changed into high waisted black shredded skinny jeans, a worn out Pantera t-shirt, with her Siren jacket on top. She finished the look with some black combat boots.

She leaned against her bike and heard the roar of her friends coming down the street. When they got close, she noticed it was only Toni and Sweet Pea. Confused, she hopped on her bike and motioned for them to follow her, heading in the direction of the Greendale club.

Once there, they dismounted from their motorcycles and Amatheia asked, “Where’s Fangs?”

“He couldn’t make it, his mom needed his help.” Toni responded.

With a shrug, they headed past the line of people waiting to get in and stopped at the bodyguards.

“Ms. Amethyst.” the one on the right spoke with a nod in her direction.

“Joe, Scott. We’re here for the rat problem.” She said with a raise of her eyebrows. They nodded and stepped aside to let them in.

“He’s in V.I.P tonight. Secluded.” Joe whispered to her.

The three walked further into the night club, music blaring through the speakers. When they spotted the V.I.P table, there sat the former serpent with a few girls. At the sight of a Siren and two Serpents approaching, the girls got up and left for the dance floor. Amatheia took a spot at the entrance to the table, letting Sweet Pea and Toni inside to handle their Serpent business.

At the table, Toni and Sweet Pea slid in on either side of the former serpent. “Steve, Steve, Steve…” Toni shook her head, turning to look at him.

“What’s this we hear about you spreading Serpent secrets around Greendale, hm?” Sweet Pea asked, flicking open his switchblade, in view for just Steve.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about kids.” Steve stumbled over his words.

“Now, Steve. We have very reliable resources that say otherwise. Don’t deny it, it’ll only make it worse,” spoke Toni.

“Alright, alright. Yea, it was me.” Steve surrendered.

The two Serpents proceeded to do what they needed to and when finished, Amatheia raised her hand up high and Joe came to escort Steve out.

“You can either stay here or head back, I have to talk to my cousin before I leave.” Amatheia said once they were all settled.

“I think I’m gonna head back, but you guys can stay.” Toni responded.

“I’ll stay, if you want.” Sweet Pea looked down at Amatheia and she nodded. With a quick hug, they sent Toni off before walking up the stairs to the head office. Inside, Amatheia’s cousin Louise sat at her desk, typing away.

“Hey Lou.”

“Hey Amatheia, this is…?” She trailed off.

“Sweet Pea. A Serpent. He and Toni Topaz came with me tonight.”

“Good, so I assume the rat problem is taken care of?”

“All good, Lou.” The two occupied the chairs across from Louise at the desk and Louise looked up, mixed emotions on her face. “So, there’s something else.”

“What is it, Lou? Whatever you need to say, you can say in front of him.”Amatheia confirmed with her cousin.

“It’s Alexis. Been asking around about you.”

A look of disgust reached Amatheia’s face, “He gets the balls to face me again and it won’t just be a black eye he leaves with.” Her voice portrayed her annoyance.

“I know, that’s why I’m telling you. Expect it. When he finds out you’re in Riverdale, you know that’s where he’ll come.”

Amatheia just shrugged, “He’s not worth my time and he’d be even more of an idiot if he did. He can stay his cheating ass in Greendale. I’m perfectly content where I am. Without him.”

Yes, she was over him. However, that doesn’t mean that thinking of what he did doesn’t hurt her. Sweet Pea could sense that and placed a hand on her back.

“I know you’ve moved on,” Lou smiled, “I’ll try to relay the message.”

“Thanks Lou.” Amatheia smiled.

“Course, always.” Lou responded, standing to hug her cousin before looking at Sweet Pea, now standing, “You, make sure she gets home in one piece, will ya? She drives like a blind woman.”

Sweet Pea chuckled and nodded, “Will do.” And with that, they descended the stairs and left the building.

They mounted their bikes and started their drive to Riverdale. At a stop light, Sweet Pea spoke over the rumble of the motorcycles to Amatheia, “Follow me.” Amatheia nodded, following him in the direction he took her.

They stopped at a clearing where you could see every star in the sky. They both switched off their bikes and Amatheia stepped off, looking up with a smile on her face.

“How did you find this place?” she asked.

“I went for a drive to clear my head a while back, found it then.” came his response.

They both took seats on the grass.

“Why’d you bring me here?” she asked, looking up at him from her crossed legs across from him.

“You seemed like you could use some time away from the world. What better place?” He smiled at her.

“You know, Sweets, you’re not as much of an ass as you front.” Amatheia shook her head with a smile.

Sweet Pea scoffed, a side smile reaching his face, “Ah, well, I try.”

They laid in the grass in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, just enjoying the sky and each others company, before Amatheia broke the silence.

“Are you ready for Riverdale High?”

Sweet Pea sighed, turning his head to her, “Honestly, anything is better than South Side High. Yea, everyone is gonna be obnoxious towards us, but it’s worth it for a good education.”

A sad smile made its way to her lips as she met his eyes, “Yeah, I just wish everyone wasn’t so prejudice against everyone they meet that’s slightly different.”

Sweet Pea nodded, turning on his side to her, “Yeah, but that’s the way it is in Riverdale. Till we can get out.”

“You’d leave Riverdale?” Now Amatheia was on her side.

“I mean, the Serpents’ are my family and I’ll always be a Serpent. That will never change, but I know there’s more to life than this town. Riverdale will always be a part of me, but there’s more than just Riverdale.”

Amatheia nodded with a smile, “It’s good to hear, that you don’t want to stay here forever. I’m a firm believer in exploring.” She paused before continuing, “Maybe, when we both graduate, because you will graduate if I have to drag you there myself, we’ll go on a road trip.”

Sweet Pea smiled big, “Sounds like a plan, princess.” 

A/N: I’m so sorry it took so long! Let’s just say the last few weeks had a lot of personal stuff going on, but I’m back! I’ll try to be posting more often, as I am also attending college so be patient with me please. As always, thank you all so much for reading and feedback is always welcome. xx bec Tags:

@notalwaysfair 

[ultramomgift]

Single Moms Living Well - Yes You Can!

Many single mothers are raising their families on one income. Often that income is small to medium, and often child support is iffy at best. But single moms can live well, manage stress, and instill in their children a sense of self worth and stability.

Following are some tips on how to save money and build self-confidence in the family's ability to cope on one income single parent budget 2018.

Five Guidelines for Managing Money and Stress

1.Attitude matters. How you think about the facts of your life will affect how much stress you experience 2.What you say (and how you say it) to your kids will affect the way they view you, themselves and their family. 3.Budgeting is a process that will build stability by showing you what you have and what you don't. 4.There will be activities and supports in your city, town or community that do not cost money. 5.Demonstrate to your children that you believe in them and in your family.

Nine Tips for Managing Stress and Money and Helping the Kids Cope

1. Build a budget that is a firm but flexible. Organize and stick to your budget. View it as a tool to build structure, rather than as a punishment. As children's ages become appropriate, include them in information about the family budget. Living within the budget in a way that is firm, but flexible where necessary, creates stability and predictability children need, and gives you the confidence.

2. Believe in your ability to manage within your budget. Keep your thinking from dipping too often into anger, fear and frustration. Trust in your ability to manage even when you don't have what you wish you had. Believe this and tell this to your kids: "Many families live within a budget, and we can too. If something special comes up that is not within our budget, let's talk about whether it is something we can manage. I love you and I will do my best to see to it that you have what you need, even if sometimes our budget may not allow you to get everything you want."

3. Find activities in your area that fit within your budget. Participate in school programs and projects that your child's school offers; utilize free or low cost city or town recreational activities; attend free concerts, and library programs. Depending on where you live, enjoy parks, beaches, wooded (safe) hikes, and other outdoor activities. Show interest in the ways your children play. Your love and caring does not require buying or spending, but your attention will build self esteem in the kids

4. Explore ways to cook nutritious low budget meals. Recipes for low budget and nutritious meals can be found on-line. If you don't have a computer in the home, try the library. If you do not use a computer, call the home economics teacher in your local high school and go for a consult. Share recipes for economic and healthy meals with other mothers, single or not.

5. Shop wisely. Apply for food stamps, clip coupons, and locate food banks through churches, community centers or other community agencies. Shop in the recycle stores. These stores often benefit worthy causes and sell much of what you need, including toys, at very low cost. Avoid thinking negatively about using food banks or food stamps. These resources exist to help you manage, not to make you feel bad about yourself.

6. Refrain from burdening your children (or yourself) with resentment. While you may have negative feelings toward the parent who does not come through with support, expressing these feelings to the children can burden them with fear about the family's ability to manage. Use adult support to work through your resentment. Stay as positive as you can about your life. If you think of yourself as poor, you will feel poor. Worry less about what you think you should have, but rather deal with what you do have. Believe this message and tell it to your kids: "What you have in your wallet does not equal your worth as a person."

7. Learn how to stretch your food to save a bit of your budget. Consult with a home economics teacher or look on line for tips on how to stretch your food. For example, a cooked chicken can provide several meals. You can make casseroles, soup, or salads that offer balanced nutrition and taste. Put the bit you save into your rainy day fund. The pennies accumulate!

8. Establish supportive relationships with other single mothers. There is strength in numbers. You can take turns watching each other's children in order to have some cost free reenergizing time. You can share meals. (Sometimes four or six can eat as cheaply as three.) You can trade toys as the kids' ages change. You can organize joint savings clubs that make provisions for members to share resources if there is a "rainy day." You can form support groups where you and other single mothers can share your own management experience, as well as express the fears and insecurities that are best not discussed with the kids.

9. Help your kids make sense of the family's financial situation. Believe this message and tell it to your kids in age appropriate words. "We are doing our best with what we have. There are many families today who have to pay attention to what they spend. Remember, It is not what you wear on the outside, but what you are inside, that is most important. There are people who will be able to see beyond the surface into the deeper worth and meaning of you as an individual. These are the people you may want as your friends."

[pinoyscientists]

Meet Billy Almarinez, entomologist

1) What do you do? 

I’m an entomologist specializing on the biological control of insect pests. In particular, I study the taxonomy, biology, and ecology of natural enemies--parasitoids and predators, in particular--of insect pests of agricultural and medical importance to assess their potential for biological control. Eventually, our goal is to develop mass rearing protocols, field conservation, and release strategies for these biological control agents. 

I tend to view what I've been studying both in the laboratory and in the field as being like a crossover between the films "Alien" and "Godzilla" (the 2014 Hollywood version), so my work has never been boring.

2) Where do you work? 

I work in De La Salle University, currently as a postdoctoral research associate under the Biological Control Research Unit (BCRU) of the Center for Natural Sciences and Environmental Research (CENSER). 

BCRU's research laboratory and insect rearing facilities are located at the DLSU Laguna Campus (previously known as the DLSU Science and Technology Complex, the former De La Salle Canlubang).

3) Tell us about the photos!

[Top:] Here I am counting Aspidiotus rigidus (a.k.a. "cocolisap") under the microscope. These pests caused a major outbreak in the coconut planting areas in Southern Tagalog from 2010 to 2015. 

In 2014, my collaborators and I discovered a native endoparasitoid that can be used as a biological control agent for "cocolisap", Comperiella calauanica. We found and described this encyrtid wasp as a new species, hence my name is among the three authors appended to its scientific name.

[Bottom:] This photo was taken at the XXV International Congress of Entomology (ICE 2016) in Orlando, Florida. I am with the Florida branch of my academic lineage: Dr. Divina Amalin, my Ph.D. supervisor (academic "mom") and current head of the DLSU-BCRU, Dr. Jorge Peña, University of Florida professor and biological control specialist and Dr. Amalin's Ph.D. supervisor (thereby making him my academic "grandpa"), and Mr. Daniel Carrillo, Dr. Peña's Ph.D. student (my academic "uncle"). 

I would never have had the chance nor the resources to go abroad and experience the US (and most recently China), meet my academic "lolo", and make new friends and potential collaborators internationally if it weren't for my Ph.D. "mom", my work as a scientist, and my home institution.

4) Tell us about your academic career path so far. 

I completed basic education at the now-defunct Colegio San Antonio (formerly Saint Anthony School of Biñan) in Laguna. After obtaining my Bachelor of Science in Biology for Teachers degree from the Philippine Normal University and a 1-year stint as a college Biology instructor in the same institution immediately after graduation, I pursued my Master of Science in Biology degree at DLSU (where I eventually ended up working as a faculty member of the Biology Department) as a full-time graduate student under scholarship from the Department of Science and Technology.

I obtained my Ph.D. in Biology also from DLSU, which very kindly afforded me with much-needed financial support (through the Student Financial Assistance program, and later through the Ph.D. Research Fellowship program) for my doctorate studies. I can attest to the not-so-known fact that even the cash-strapped can actually earn a degree from what is probably considered by many to be "the rich kid's institution" among the Philippines' so-called Big Four.

5) Anything else you’d like to share?

Unlike some scientists who see scientific discoveries as independent of their faith (or lack of it) and perhaps even see conflict between scientific concepts and the Holy Scriptures, I am one who views and does science as a means not only to understand how our world and the universe works, but more importantly to be able to better understand and appreciate the truly awesome ways by which God actually works in everything in our world and in the universe. For me, there is complementarity between science and Christian faith, hence, my motto as a scientist: #SoliDeoGloria

It has also been my advocacy to promote the culture of scientific research to our youth–the potential research and innovation drivers of our country. Our country may lag behind our international counterparts in terms of financial resources and facilities for research and innovation, but we have never, ever run out of intellectual resources (both tapped and untapped). For this reason, I have considered it my "side quest" to encourage young people in high school, college, and graduate school to strive for excellence in their chosen field and get into research. And I'm not talking about doing research just for the sake of having one's name either appended to the name of a new species, or included among a high-impact publication's co-authors. I'm talking about research whose fruits can really be appreciated by and actually benefit not just the scientific community but all the stakeholders in our society. #AghamParaSaLahat

[femmesfollesnebraska]

Nikki Yeager, artist/writer

LFF is pleased to feature a q-and-a with artist and writer Nikki Yeager...

Where are you from? How did you get into creative work and what is your impetus for creating? 

I'm from Wickliffe, OH originally, but I consider New York City home. I think many creative people don't have an impetus, so much as a compulsion to create. By the time I hit puberty I couldn't stop myself from writing and painting. Luckily, my mom recognized this and got me into a vocational art school that allowed me to skip out on advanced math and science classes during my last two years of high school. I may have been creative before then, but my art teacher, Ms. Mellen, made me into an artist.

Tell me about your current project and why it’s important to you. What do you hope people get out of your work? 

I recently illustrated a book my dad wrote many years ago, Nikki Durant and the Terrible Can't. When I was still a toddler, my dad wrote a book about a girl who took off for "There" and overcame all sorts of obstacles including a Stomping Moeleet (who likes to stomp people right into the ground) and a Terrible Can't. His hope in writing the story was that I'd one day grow up to be brave enough to overcome real life versions of those obstacles if I encountered them. I hadn't read the story in many years, but when I circled back to it as an adult, I realized that he had written my entire life's story before I'd even lived it. When I was 17, I left Ohio, even when people told me I couldn't/shouldn't. I started businesses, moved to other countries and followed creative pursuits even when my peers said it couldn't be done. I know now that so much of my ability to do those things came from my dad intentionally instilling those values in me. I view this book as a way to share that confidence with the next generation. I want children all over the world to learn the same values I did. I want girls everywhere to feel brave and strong when faced with opposition. 

What does being a womxn mean to you/your work?

Being a womxn means that I feel an intense obligation to give back to the female community. That might mean supporting other women, or it might mean putting out more female-led children's books to inspire the next generation.

Does collaboration play a role in your work—whether with your community, artists or others? How so and how does this impact your work? 

For this project, I'm just half of the finished product. My illustrations completed the story my dad told. However, I typically avoid collaboration. I love to brainstorm with other creative people, especially women who have similar responsibilities to their families and career, as they are usually supportive of my unconventional ideas to make things work. However, when it comes to completing a project, I prefer to work alone. 

In everything, art included, I work quickly and tend to be all-consumed by the task at hand. That type of work style doesn't lend itself well to collaboration. 

Considering the political climate, how do you think the temperature is for the arts right now, what/how do you hope it may change or make a difference?

I don't think the political climate has directly effected the arts, except maybe by giving long-overdue credit to artists of color thanks to art exhibits focused on topics like Black Lives Matter and police brutality. Because these subjects have gained more attention as our political climate becomes more hostile to minority groups, larger museums and exhibition spaces are dedicating time and resources to artists who focus on those topics.  

Outside of politics, I do think art has become more and more tied to financial gain in the last decade and will continue to change because of that. The popularity of art investing is increasing every day, thanks in part to celebrities like Beyonce and Jay-Z discussing the value of strategic art holdings. Now crowdfunding for well-known paintings is available for entry level investors. Because of that, the traditional art world is becoming even more powerful and emerging/underground artists seem to have even less financial support. Even lower-net-worth-individuals are starting to think about the monetary value of paintings rather than their value in beauty or cultural significance.

Artist Wanda Ewing, who curated and titled the original LFF exhibit, examined the perspective of femininity and race in her work, and spoke positively of feminism, saying “yes, it is still relevant” to have exhibits and forums for women in art; does feminism play a role in your work? 

Feminism impacts everything I do on some level. Women and men are born as equals and we should be treated as such. That's not a belief I hold when convenient, but a foundational truth in my life. I see myself as inherently equal to any man I meet. One day, I expect the rest of the world to catch up, but I don't think we're there yet. 

As for my book, I think every child should feel brave enough to stand up to anyone who tries to tell them they can't do something. However, I think it's even more important for girls to see a female character doing that, because we are still under-represented in similar stories. So for now, this project is a female-forward one. One day, I hope that will become a moot point. When that happens, I think it won't be relevant to have forums focused on feminine perspectives, so much as continuously including all "human" perspectives, even those on the feminine end of the spectrum.  

Ewing’s advice to aspiring artists was “you’ve got to develop the skill of when to listen and when not to;” and “Leave. Gain perspective.”  What is your favorite advice you have received or given? 

"If you need feedback before showing your art to the world, you're not ready to show it." I don't remember where I read that, but it's always stuck with me. There was a time when I'd get a lot of feedback on a piece in order to tweak it before showing it publicly. Those pieces are now my least favorite. Instead of feeling like part of me, they feel like pieces of art I made on behalf of others. I never get criticism on my writing or art beforehand now. I spend a lot of time self-editing and then I release it to the world when I feel ready.

My Website: www.nikkiyeager.com 

My LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nikkiryeager/

~

Les Femmes Folles is a volunteer organization founded in 2011 with the mission to support and promote women in all forms, styles and levels of art from around the world with the online journal, print annuals, exhibitions and events; originally inspired by artist Wanda Ewing and her curated exhibit by the name Les Femmes Folles (Wild Women). LFF was created and is curated by Sally Deskins.  LFF Booksis a micro-feminist press that publishes 1-2 books per year by the creators of Les Femmes Folles including the award-winning Intimates & Fools (Laura Madeline Wiseman, 2014) , The Hunger of the Cheeky Sisters: Ten Tales (Laura Madeline Wiseman/Lauren Rinaldi, 2015 and Mes Predices (catalog of art/writing by Marie Peter Toltz, 2017).Other titles include Les Femmes Folles: The Women 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 available on blurb.com, including art, poetry and interview excerpts from women artists. A portion of the proceeds from LFF books and products benefit the University of Nebraska-Omaha’s Wanda Ewing Scholarship Fund.

Current call for collaborative art-writing: http://femmesfollesnebraska.tumblr.com/post/181376606692/lff-2019-artistpoet-collaborations

Current call: What does being a womxn mean to you? http://femmesfollesnebraska.tumblr.com/post/183697785757/what-does-being-a-womxn-today-mean-to-youyour

[imyourliquor-youremypoison]

Too Close for Comfort (Teen Wolf - Stiles x OC)

Request from anon : Could you do a stiles imagine where you are Scott’s sister and you are secretly dating stiles.

Word count : 7,4k (I feel like I’m making progress, they used to be twice as long!!)

Synopsis : Just the everyday struggles that come with being the twin sister of a true Alpha.

A/N: For the sake of the plot and nothing else, Allison is still alive, although she does not appear in the story (Allison, I’m so sorry for turning you into a plot device). I made Sasha (the OC) Scott’s twin, because it was easier and spared me the trouble of coming up with an age difference. This took me literally ages (read: months), I’m sorry for being such an unreliable writer, I  have little to no sense of priority and I keep postponing everything I’m asked to do. That’s how strong my contradictory spirit is. Here I am, dropping this imagine when everybody least expects it. Surprise!

MASTERLIST

You know what really sucks when your brother is a werewolf? Everything.

And that doesn't even come close to reality, Sasha's life has become so much more difficult since Scott was bitten by Peter. Having an asthmatic twin brother whose main concern in life was to pass his math class was boring, but it was safe and Sasha had the privilege of being the most extra of the two – ah good times ! But then of course Scott's asthma became a thing of the past, added to his new found super strength and speed, his popularity went from zero to ten real quick, leaving Sasha in the dust, far behind him.

Not that he wanted to leave her behind. Scott was the absolute best brother one could possibly dream of in terms of loyalty and support, but it just happened. He couldn't exactly fight against the natural course of the events while also learning to control his powers – and trying to win over Allison with his awkward charm. And then Peter happened, which only compelled him to push Sasha farther away for her own safety. At the time, she thought it was the worst thing that could happen, and once Peter was defeated, she thought everything was over and life would go back to normal.

Except it didn't. It only went downhill from there. And her only solace in this new, unwanted, unasked for life of hers, was Stiles. Stiles, the only other supernatural-power-less person in Beacon Hills apparently. Lydia was a high-grade ally of hers too, she was Sasha's closest and most cherished friend right behind Stiles whom she grew up with alongside Scott. The three of them – Stiles, Lydia and she – were not the strong ones, they were not mighty werewolves, they didn't possess super speed and inhuman healing powers, they were not physical people, they were the brains. The ones who untangled the ropes and cast light upon the twisted schemed of their enemies. Finding the solution to a problem was always a great moment of joy, but being physically incapable made Sasha a weakness – the others had to protect her, shield her with their own body even, and she stopped counting the number of times her, Stiles or Lydia were used against the pack. They were just easier to attack, to kidnap, to threaten. They didn't heal magically, nor did they have anything other than their intelligence to count on. Expect Lydia, who had the small advantage of being a Banshee.

During the last few years Sasha had been thrown around, mishandled, kidnapped, committed to a psychiatric hospital, her bones were broken, her flesh cut, her mind tortured- and yet... she was here. She survived all of it, and she went to school like any other person of her age. She struggled to open her locker, she arrived late to class, failed PE and finished her homework the night before the due date. She stressed over what she was going to wear, yelled at her brother for taking so much time in the bathroom, worried their mother because she come home late sometimes. Sasha was a teenager despite it all.

“Hey, you ready?” Scott asked her, his head showing through the door of her room that was ajar.

Sasha grabbed her zipped sweater from the chair back and her bag on the floor.

“I haven't eaten breakfast yet,” she said, suddenly realizing they were running late for school – again.

“Mom bought croissants, you can eat them in the car,” Scott said while running down the stairs, urging her to hurry up.

On her way down, she had had the time to throw her sweater on and secure her backpack on her shoulder. She made a quick loop by the kitchen to grab some food and followed Scott out the door.

“You say that like it's your car and it's up to you to decide if I'm allowed to eat inside!” She laughed, shoving the croissant in her mouth to free her hands.

Stiles was already here, parked in front of the house and seemingly too absorbed in whatever he was doing on his phone to notice them coming.

“Stiles' jeep is already garbage, Sasha,” Scott pointed out while opening the door. He always rode shotgun.

“Hey! I heard that!” Stiles protested, putting his phone away. “Next time I'm just taking Sasha to class, and your sorry werewolf ass can just run behind the garbage,” Stiles threatened, narrowing his eyes at Scott who didn't feel threatened at all.

“He'd be there before us,” she laughed, and Stiles looked at her as if saying 'not helping Sasha'. She bit the inside of her cheeks to suppress her smile and pulled a severe face before saying, “I mean, yeah he'll be there before us but he'll be all sweaty and gross and we'll look fresh and fabulous.”

“Nice try Sasha,” Scott mocked her poor attempt at supporting Stiles. “But I wouldn't even break a sweat.”

“Yeah, yeah we get it, you're a true Alpha, you don't sweat like us mere mortals,” Stiles grumbled in defeat and started the car. “Life's so fucking unfair.”

Before leaving the sidewalk, Stiles looked at Sasha in the rear-view mirror, and winked, a faint but still noticeable smile tugging at his lips. Through the years she had mastered the art of not blushing all the time, but she had yet to learn to steady her heartbeats in the presence of a werewolf.

“Sasha?” Scott turned around and gazed at her in concern. “You alright?”

“Yeah, I- I just remembered I forgot to read the book we were supposed to read for our literature class,” she lied.

Fortunately her heartbeat was already going fast and her lie passed unnoticed.

“Shit, me too,” he swore.

She sighed silently in relief and focused on the landscape. There were in fact a lot of things that changed over the years since Scott was bitten, and no matter how many times Sasha would be beaten and bruised because of a supernatural being, nothing, absolutely nothing, was worse than having a twin brother with heightened senses.

Now try to hide from said brother that you're dating his best friend behind his back.

*

Luckily for Sasha, Stiles was very resourceful and while it sometimes weighted on her shoulders to lie to her twin brother, the perspective of the conversation they would need to have if they decided to come clean to Scott kept her guilt at bay. Stiles was not keen on imagining the kind of threatening tone Scott would use on him to passive-aggressively promise him major bodily harm if his beloved sister's feelings were hurt. Sasha tried to convince Stiles that Scott was his brother too and that he would never do anything against him, but then Stiles cracked a joke about their relationship being kind of incestuous based on her reasoning, which caused Sasha to smack him upside the head.

“Don't be thick!” Sasha affectionately scolded Stiles. “It's not like he can do anything about it, and it's in his nature to be understanding. He wouldn't be mad.”

“He would be upset that we lied,” Stiles pointed out, shutting his locker. “Shouldn't we have this conversation elsewhere? There are way too many werewolves in this school, and most of them are part of the pack – I'm betting they'd tell on us first chance!”

“You're exaggerating!” Sasha sighed, shrugging off her jacket and shoving it into her own locker. “Lydia already knows and she hasn't told a soul,” she added, causing Stiles to choke on thin air.

“What?” He squeaked out. “How does she always know everything?”

Sasha's face lit up and she raised her hands in defeat.

“Right! That's exactly what I asked her, word for word!” She said, both of them stunned at the strawberry blond's ability to somehow always know what was going on before anyone else.

“And what did she say?” Stiles inquired, curious to know the answer.

“Nothing, she just looked up from her nails, raised an eyebrow at me as if asking 'are you serious right now' and I let it slide because I thought some things are better left unsaid,” she told him, grabbing a couple textbooks and closing her locker too.

“Yeah, it's probably better this way, if we had the answer to that question it would deprive the world of some of its mystery,” Stiles snickered and scratched his chin.

It was their sign. It meant Scott was coming this way.

“Absolutely,” she agreed and hugged her books closer to her chest. “I should go, my French teacher doesn't like tardiness,” Sasha said as she walked a few steps backwards and waved goodbye before turning around and smiling to her brother.

“What were you two talking about?” Scott inquired when he reached Stiles.

“Oh uh, nothing,” he said in a rare instance of lack of inspiration. “Who even takes French classes? This language doesn't make sense! Half of the words are food related,” Stiles said in hope to drift Scott's attention to something else.

“I could use some food right now,” he said, placing a friendly hand on Stiles' shoulder. “Let's go to the cafeteria.”

*

Nine times out of ten it went pretty alright, although it was mainly due to Stiles and Sasha putting extraordinary effort into not getting caught red handed by Scott or any of their friends for that matter – apart from Lydia who knows everything apparently. The trope of the teenager who climbs out of the window – or has someone else climb in through the window – was an easily avoidable cliché for them since Scott's acute senses would immediately work against them and tell him that either Stiles was trying to sneak into his house or Sasha was sneaking out.

It required a little help for them to see each other privately, at night that is. Since Lydia found out, Sasha put her to good use and asked her – told her – to lie and pretend they established a weekly girls' night at her place. This way Sasha could simply walk out the door, with a bag stuffed with her belongings and say goodbye to both Scott and her mom, without having to worry about anything.

But that's far too perfect of a plan to really work out on the long term. Came a moment when Lydia was tired of spending her Tuesday night alone in her room, pretending to be with Sasha to cover her. She couldn't go out because what if someone saw her when she was supposed to have a girls' night?

“I have a life, Sasha,” Lydia told her with a scolding look on her face as she secured her bag on her shoulder. “Actually, some might even say I have a busier social life than you-” she ventured, trailing off when she saw Sasha squinting her eyes at her.

“It's a Tuesday night!” She protested, raising her hands. “What else do you want to do on a Tuesday night?”

“I don't just stay inside and study, you know?” Lydia sighed. “I'm already five years ahead in math and physics, and I've ran out of textbooks that challenge me.”

“Heavens, Lydia!” Sasha giggled with a small frown of utter disbelief on her face as she grabbed Lydia's arm to walk with her to her next class. “I was thinking about some light reading or binge watching, not school stuff!”

“It is light reading for me,” she replied, her left dimple popping out when she pursed her lips. “Sasha I just don't wanna do this anymore,” she stopped walking and took her arm out of Sasha's grasp. “I don't see what I get out of it?”

“My eternal love and gratefulness?” She tried and miserably failed according to the ginger's face.

“It's been months,” Lydia deadpanned. “You and Stiles should just tell Scott! Or just go back to how you did it before getting me involved!

“Oh my god Lydia, could you speak a little louder? I think all the werewolves in this High School haven't heard you,” Stiles suddenly said, seemingly coming out of nowhere.

“Scott is the most understanding person I've ever met, what bad could happen? He might be happy for you,” she said.

“Or-” Stiles began, “-he could be mad. Is it worth the risk when we could just dodge the problem?”

“Exactly!” Sasha added, siding with Stiles to try and make Lydia be reasonable. “That's a great philosophy of life; just avoid the problem until it goes away by itself.”

“That's a terrible philosophy,” Lydia said with an eye roll before resuming her walk – they were going to make her late for class. “I won't change my mind, now sorry-” she said as she squeezed Sasha's hand, “-but I have to go.”

“Lydia!” Sasha called behind her but failed to make her turn around.

“You're being unreasonable Lydia!” Stiles shouted in the middle of the hallway.

Just then the bell rang and soon waves of students flooded the hallways, making it impossible for Stiles to do anything more than give a wink and a goodbye wave before parting ways with his girlfriend as he walked to his next class. Less than a minute into her History class, Sasha felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She knew it was Stiles before checking it. She pulled it out discretely and read the text.

From: Stiles

We'll figure it out, already working on it!

“Sasha!” Mrs. Martin called her name to get her attention. “Please don't fall asleep in my class and pay attention.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Sasha said sheepishly and nodded her head. It took another ten minutes before Lydia's mom stopped constantly checking if she was indeed giving the lesson her full attention. In a swift movement she grabbed her phone and typed an answer, then she put the device back in its rightful place and actually paid some mind to the lesson.

To: Stiles

If our joined super brains can't find a solution then no one can.

*

“That's a stupid plan Stiles,” Sasha said for the tenth time in a row while watching her hyperactive boyfriend gesticulate all over the place and explain all the details to his 'brilliant' and 'flawless' plan.

“Oh please Sasha!” Stiles protested. “When has one of my plans ever failed us?”

She barely had the time to open her mouth to answer before Stiles interrupted her.

“Never mind, don't answer that.” He put his hands on his hips and zoned out like he usually did when he was thinking hard about something. “Listen, you'll just pretend you're still going to Lydia's tomorrow, this'll give us one more week to figure something out. What are the chances Scott runs into Lydia on a Tuesday night?”

“I'd rather not think about this right now. Probabilities never work in our favor,” Sasha shook her head.

She distractedly played with her empty milkshake glass with the tip of her fingers and chewed on the straw. They have been sitting in this diner for hours, initially working on an impossible math assignment due in a couple days but now surrounded with notebooks, scribbled paper sheets and empty plates.

“Did you just make a math joke?” Stiles asked, lifting up a paper with one of their inconclusive math problem on it. “I'm rubbing off on you!” He exclaimed proudly, a huge smile on his face.

“What?” Sasha cringed and raised both her hands up in defeat. “I can slow down my heart beat to a normal pace but I can't stop from speaking like you!”

“You're right we can't get busted like this, it'd be way too anticlimactic,” Stiles agreed.

“Hey, what about we tell Allison?” Sasha suggested.

Stiles looked at her with wide open, bewildered eyes and blinked a couple times before saying, “No, Sasha! The point is to not let people know!”

“But Lydia already knows so why not Allison? She's reliable - she could tell me when she's hanging out with Scott and when the coast is clear.”

“You're making a point, but I still cannot come to your house because he or your mom could come back any time and also Scott's werewolf super sense of smell will-”

“Yes, yes, I know! I'll just come to your place, it's safer this way,” she said, pushing away the empty milkshake before she ate the entire straw. “We're making this so complicated.”

“We could just go to the movies or drive to the next town if you wanna go on a date without looking over your shoulder all the time,” Stiles suggested – though he didn't sound convinced.

“That does make sense!” Sasha agreed. “Do you think there's enough room in your Jeep to have sex?”

“We won't know unless we try it,” he said with his low, full-of-wisdom voice, and Sasha nodded with a conniving smirk tugging at her lips. “You know I'm seriously considering asking someone to turn me so we can finally fight on equal footing – we should get a medal for managing to keep our relationship a secret so long!”

“We didn't,” Sasha pointed out, leaning back against the seat. “Lydia knows, your dad has suspicions and-”

“Oh yeah, my dad definitely knows, he saw you coming out of my room three weeks ago,” Stiles cut her off.

“What does that prove? I'm always hanging out at your place to do homew-”

“-in my flannel,” he finished with a pointed look.

“Okay yeah, that must have given it away.”

“He's happy for us by the way and he said he called it,” Stiles added with his lips pursed as if he had just eaten something bitter. “I don't see what we're doing wrong.”

“Maybe if we didn't spend so much time alone in a diner after school or at one of our places it would seem less obvious?” Sasha said sarcastically, earning a squint-eyed stare from Stiles.

“Nah it must be something else,” he replied with an equally sarcastic voice. “It's getting dark outside, this is our cue to leave and go back to pretending we're just platonic friends with no romantic feelings for each other whatsoever.”

“God we suck at his, don't we?”

“Totally.”

*

“I can't believe it's working out,” Sasha laughed before plopping down on Stiles' lap – he was sitting on the old leather chair in the corner of his room.

This was her favorite place to be – Stiles' lap but also in the old leather chair. It was so worn out they practically sunk down to the floor but it was the comfiest chair in the world. If Mr.Stilinski tried to throw it away, Sasha would probably chain herself to it.

“Told ya – I'm a genius and so are my plans,” Stiles grinned and wiggled his eyebrows before planting a possessive kiss on her lips.

“I kind of remember this being my idea though,” she giggled. “It's not nice to take credit for your girlfriend's ideas – haven't you reached that chapter yet in your copy of Relationships for Dummies?”

“You know what? I was just starting it but then my dog ate it,” Stiles said, looking all sorry.

“Stiles you don't have a dog,” Sasha laughed.

“Actually I was talking about Scott,” he replied and earned a shove.

“Werewolf joke, so subtle,” she giggled. It was a little mean but not nearly as much as it was funny.

Sasha's hands traveled upwards to Stiles' chest then his shoulders, and she gently massaged them through his shirt while leaning in. The tip of her nose brushed against his cheek and lightly traced the outline of his jaw. She felt Stile's breath hitch up and for a second he held back his breath and silently endured the teasing. When she placed the first kiss on the soft spot right under his ear, Stiles had to bite down on his lip – it wasn't fair, she knew his weak spots.

“Sasha-” he mumbled.

It made her smile against his skin but not stop kissing his neck and jaw. She had this kind of influential power over him even without supernatural powers and that was exhilarating.

“I thought tonight was just studying and cuddles? You know, PG rated stuff,” Stiles snickered even though he didn't do anything to stop Sasha.

“Are there any kids in this room Stiles?” She laughed, pulling away enough to look at him and slightly tugging at his shirt's collar.

His brows suddenly knitted together in concentration. He was thinking about it! He was actually giving a though to her sarcastic question.

“Would you say eating Count Chocula in the middle of the night is something an adult would do?” He asked. When Sasha's expression contorted into one of confusion, he added, “Hypothetically of course.”

“Sure,” she answered, unconvinced. “It's definitely an adult thing though.”

“Good. I guess I'm an adult then – maybe not legally but at heart,” Stiles said.

It made her laugh – he always made her laugh. Stiles was silly and sometimes unintentionally funny, but either way Sasha was the happiest when he was around to make her smile.

“You're a dork. You're the dork king of dorkdom,” Sasha told him. “Instead of 'male' there should be written 'dork' for your gender on your ID, because that's what you are.”

“I think you got your point across Sasha. Also ouch!” Stiles clenched his hand over his heart to illustrate.

“C'mon,” she giggled. Sasha touched the tip of Stiles' nose with her finger, making him blink and sigh fondly. “You know I love you.”

“Even if I'm a dorky boyfriend?” He asked, obviously fishing for some compliments.

“Especially because of this,” she reassured him. Her hand was still on his collar bones, occasionally smoothing out Stiles' shirt or wandering all the way to his shoulder blade then back to his chest. “I have to say cereals sound real good right now. I'm starving and we haven't had a break from that stupid homework in two hours!”

“Three, it's been three hours,” Stiles corrected her, gesturing to his alarm clock on which red digits showcased what time it was. Past eleven. “I say we deserve a reward, something more gratifying than cereals.”

“Are we thinking the same?” Sasha asked in an excited tone.

“I think we are,” he replied.

“Pizza!”

“Thai!”

“What?!” Stiles squealed out the question and raised his hands in a what the hell gesture.

“I thought we were good this time!”

“Never mind, one day we'll get it right,” he assured her. “We can always order both. Or a Thai pizza? Does it even exist? I feel like it should exist.”

“You're rambling,” Sasha gently point out and Stiles gave her a sorry pout. “Can I change my vote? On one condition though!”

“Oh so we're negotiating now?” He sniggered. “No pineapple on the pizza though, I use my veto.”

“Fine,” Sasha agreed. “But extra pepperoni.”

“No need to tell me twice!”

Stiles pushed Sasha off his lap, making her land on the chair's armrest and stood up to grab his phone which was safely tucked away in his back pocket. He made an expeditious phone call while Sasha rummaged through her bag to find her own phone and check her messages. Stiles was quicker than her though and grabbed her phone from her hands.

“Wh-” she was about to protest but Stiles threw her phone on the chair before picking her up in a swift motion. “Stiles put me down!” Sasha began to laugh.

“No phones tonight, you're entirely mine!” He declared and dropped her on the bed. “I demand your undivided attention for the whole evening... night. The whole night,” Stiles told her and leaned down to kiss her. Sasha wasn't resisting him and easily gave in and forgot about her phone.

Sex – or simply making out – was equally fun as all the rest. With Stiles there was no pressure for anything, it was comfortable. Soft and demanding at the same time. He kissed her once to shut her up. He kissed her a second time to wipe away her pout and make her smile. He kissed her a third time because he couldn't resist when he saw her bit down on her lip. He kissed her a fifth, sixth and seventh time for the sack of it.

It wasn't steamy, hot make out. Stiles apparently was in the mood for something sweeter than that. Which didn't mean there were no wandering hands. Sasha's hands were grabbing Stiles' neck, pulling at his hair in as gentle a manner she could. His hands where on her sides, sneaking beneath her shirt merely to be in direct contact with her skin. It was a little tricky getting Stiles out of his clothes sometimes because of all the layers he put on, but Sasha became a pro at taking off flannels. She on the other side was quickly in her bra and seconds before she returned the favor, her phone's jingle began to play. Had it always been this annoying or was it just the timing?

“Fuck,” Sasha groaned and turned her face to the right. Stiles' following attempt to capture her lips turned into a kiss on the cheek. “I have to get it.”

“Said who?” He asked as he rolled his eyes and certainly did not let her out of his grip. He merely planted a kiss on her jaw and Sasha giggled.

“Be reasonable,” she replied, giving him an amused pointed look.

“That is the single most ridiculous thing you ever said to me. And yes, I'm counting that time when we got drunk because Scott and Allison had a fight, and you admitted that when you were a kid you thought Scott and I would get married one day.”

Meanwhile the phone kept ringing.

“You swore you'd never bring it up again!” Sasha poked Stiles' chest with her pointer finger. He mimicked to zip his lips closed and smirked playfully.

Sasha finally wiggled her way out of her boyfriend's arms despite his weak protesting. Stiles was still slouched on the bed, leaning on one arm and watching Sasha walked away from him. He wasn't going to say it out loud but as much as he disliked having her walk away instead of towards him, he didn't exactly mind looking at her. He was the luckiest nerd in the galaxy. A faint, impossible to repress smile appeared on his face and he smirked until he saw his girlfriend's smile drop when she sat on the chair and picked up her phone. She had five messages and two voice mails from Scott.

“Shit!” She exclaimed as she jumped to her feet, standing straight as an arrow.

“What is it?”

Stiles' tone had suddenly changed entirely. The urgency in her voice must have alarmed him because he reacted the way he would in a dangerous situation. That was the biggest difference between them and other teenagers: they were constantly on edge, on their guard, watching out for potential threats. In a split second Stiles was standing behind Sasha and looking at her phone screen to see what the matter was.

“It's Scott, he's-”

The doorbell rang and any trace of color left their faces. Their eyes briefly met and there as no need to voice the panic that overwhelmed them. Sasha was in her bra in Stiles' room and someone – who was definitely Scott – was at the door. Stiles and her began to silently scream, their mouths open but not a sound falling from their lips, they gesticulated around as Sasha tried to find a place to hide. Except there was no place in the house she could have hidden. Playing hide and seek with her werewolf twin was a game she'd never win.

Sasha vehemently pointed at the door and tried to signify Stiles to go and open the door and act normal while she hid. It was a very difficult thing to explain without talking so she whispered.

“Go down and talk to him! Make him leave, I'll go out through your window just in case he stays.”

“That's madness, you'll hurt yourself Sasha!” He whispered back. Stiles tried to reach out for her but she urged him to go when the bell rang again.

“I'll be fine, I've climbed plenty of trees in my life, a house can't be that different.”

It would be an understatement to say that Stiles was unconvinced by her logic. A severely flawed logic that was based a hope more than common sense. But he saw the determination in her eyes and he trusted her not to be reckless. She was already at the window the moment Stiles threw her shirt under the bed and stormed out of his bedroom and almost tripped on his way down the stairs.

He was out of breath by the time he grabbed the doorknob and abruptly opened it. As expected Scott stood on the other side. Scott as per usual simply stepped inside like he was home. Mi casa es tu casa, yeah?

“Hey man!” Stiles said, immediately wanting to roll his eyes at himself for so unnaturally stretching the syllables and going as far as leaning against the frame of the kitchen door. Play it cool dude, play it cool.

“Are you okay?” Scott frowned. He looked slightly worried but after a lifetime of friendship with Stiles he's learned not to draw conclusions too quickly; sometimes he just acted weird for no particular reason.

“Perfect, why wouldn't I be okay?” He shrugged and further leaned against the door frame. Does this look casual enough? “I stumbled down the stairs to open you the door man, what are you doing here? Weren't you supposed to spend the night with your girlfriend?”

This seemed to make him forget about Stiles' erratic breathing or odd behavior.

“I was but her dad walked in on us making out in her room and I had to leave. Well- I ran out actually. I forgot my jacket with my keys inside.”

“You're a werewolf man why don't you force the door open?” Stiles asked him but Scott sighed.

“Mom's going to kill me if I break in once again,” he told him and Stiles could swear he saw him shrink. Only Melissa could instill fear in an Alpha werewolf. “I tried calling Sasha to ask for her keys but she won't answer.” He frowned and stared at Stiles. “She was here.”

“Y-yeah uhm, she dropped by earlier. She wanted someone to review her History assignment,” Stiles blurted out the first lie he could think of. It was a complete lie and everybody knew a half truth was always better than a complete lie. Sasha often asked Stiles to review her work and vice versa.

“Oh. And she's gone now?” Stiles nodded and Scott seemed disappoint. “Do you know where she went after leaving? She's not home.”

“It's Tuesday, isn't she with Lydia?”

Stiles knew Lydia was out of the game but maybe she didn't tell everyone yet. Maybe she really is home reading some University level math book and could still serve as alibi. That is if Scott hadn't already contacted her to ask if Sasha was with her. If he thought she was having her weekly girls' night at Lydia then it would be the logical place to go.

“I saw Lydia drive to the movies earlier and she was with a guy,” Scott told him. “Where else could she have gone?”

“I don't know, Malia?”

By now he just threw random suggestions around in hopes to make Scott leave without seeming to kick him out either. It probably didn't help that he looked out of breath and fidgety. Although by now you'd think his best friend knew better than to question his strange behavior.

“Malia doesn't like Sasha, and you know that. Are you hiding something from me? You're acting weird- weirder.”

Or maybe Stiles was acting even stranger than usual. He had to check himself. Play it cool man, play it cool, he told himself.

“I don't know Scott, I'm not her babysitter. Sasha can take care of herself, maybe she's just running errands on her own, grabbing a midnight fro-yo or something.” Stiles finally let go of the door frame and stood up straight.

“What is up with you tonight? Have I interrupted something?” Scott was beginning to be suspicious and kept frowning at Stiles.

“I'm sorry,” he apologized. “I've been working on the Coach's assignment for two hours and I'm nowhere near finished,” he explained.

“What?! But it's due tomorrow!” Scott exclaimed.

“Yes, I know, thank you for the extra pressure!” Stiles fired back. “I need to go back or I won't be getting any shut eye tonight.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Scott said and nodded. He was already turning around when he stopped and added, “If you hear of Sasha let me know, okay?”

“Sure.”

The moment Scott's hand was on the doorknob, the doorbell rang again, and naturally he opened it.

“Two extra pepperoni pizza for Stilinski?” A guy dressed in black and white stripes and a red hat asked his rehearsed question. The look of boredom on his face spoke volumes about how much he loved his job.

“Yes!” Stiles pushed Scott aside and reached for the money in his back pocket. “Here, keep the change,” he told the guy, whose expression didn't change in the slightest. He didn't shut the door and waited for Scott to follow the pizza guy but he didn't move.

“Two pizzas?” Scott asked with a raised eyebrow. “For you?”

Stiles could tell he was beginning to be suspicious. He suspected he was lying and that someone else was up there with him and that this someone else was his sister.

“Pfff no!” Stiles huffed. “No- I ordered one for my dad too. He's working late.”

Scott nodded but his eyes remained squinted.

“But, didn't say you put him on a diet?” He inquired, still not dropping the subject.

“And he's been doing great!” Stiles exclaimed with emphasis on the great. “Gotta reward him to encourage him to keep up the good work.”

This time Scott bought the lie and simply shrugged and walked out. Stiles put extra effort into closing the door gently and not seeming in a rush but the second it was closed, he dropped te pizza boxes and ran up the stairs two steps at a time.

“Sasha! Sasha!” He called her name but got no answer and his half undressed girlfriend just climbed out his window a few minutes ago. She obviously hasn't come back inside since the window was still wide open. “If you're not dead please say something!”

“I'm not dead you dramatic idiot, I'm stuck!” Sasha eventually told him. Stiles' head was sticking out of the window but he didn't see her.

“Where are you?”

“Up here!”

When he looked up and saw Sasha clutching at the gutter and trying to move back down unsuccessfully, Stiles didn't know if he should laugh or face palm. He settled for a good old 'what the fuck' look.

“Do no ask questions. Just help me down, my arms are tiring and I'll let go if I have to stay here one more minute,” she warned him and Stiles didn't wait another second to rush out again, this time to his garage to get the ladder. He was quick to drag it to the backyard. He climbed up there and wrapped an arm around Sasha to help her get a grip of the ladder.

“I can't decide if that's the best or worst date we've had so far.”

“It was way too close for comfort,” Sasha told him. “And I'm freezing!”

“But we did good given the circumstances, right?” Stiles insisted. “It was an eventful evening, at least nobody can say we fall into routine.”

“Nobody can say that because we're hiding Stiles,” Sasha chuckled and fondly messed up his hair with her hand. “Only you can make this train wreck sound positive. That's why I love you so much.”

“Love you too,” Stiles answered with a kiss. “Now we need to go back inside before someone sees us.”

It was a sensible thing to say since Sasha was still in her bra and the ladder was still there. They each grabbed an end of it and made their way around the house and to the garage as discretely as possible.

“Is this thing supposed to fit in there?” Sasha asked when Stiles tried to store the ladder away behind a door.

“That's where I found it!”

After a bit more pushing and forcing, they were done and good to go. Stiles' arm was around Sasha's shoulders as they walked inside the house. The second they stepped inside, they froze. Sheriff Stilinski stood there, speechless. They all stayed silent and still for a moment, until Stiles' dad broke the silence.

“I don't even want to know.” He turned around and walked into the kitchen. Away from those crazy teens.

*

“You two are ridiculous,” Lydia felt the need to tell them. “It's a miracle you managed to keep this a secret so long! If by the end of the week you still haven't been busted, I say there's divine intervention involved.”

“Are you kidding? We nailed it!” Stiles exclaimed, shutting his locker. “It was Mission: Impossible level.”

“She's not wrong Stiles,” Sasha replied, causing her boyfriend's enthusiastic smile to drop. “Allison thinks the same, and although she agreed to text me whenever Scoot came over at her place, she doesn't wanna be part of this if it means lying to him.”

“She's not lying, she not telling him something, there's a difference!” He argued but he merely earned him a slap on the shoulder from both the girls at his sides. “Aouch! Why did I say?” He whined and rubbed his arms in a way that suggested they hit harder than he expected.

“The definition of lying is not telling the truth Stiles!” Lydia pointed out. “Is there anything you accidentally forgot to tell Sasha?”

The brown haired girl glared warning daggers at her boyfriend and he swallowed down.

“I would never!” Stiles said in a somewhat shaky laughter.

Lydia rolled her eyes and decided she was done with these two. She gave a sympathetic pat on Sasha's shoulder and walked away with a stash of books piled up in her arms.

“C'mon, you know I'm not hiding anything from you. If there's anything I've learned over the past few years during which all the most ill-intentioned evil creatures in creation tried to kill us, it's that secrets are dangerous. Especially secrets you keep from a girl. Girls always find out.”

“That's right,” she scoffed but smiled nonetheless and uncrossed her arms.

She saw Stiles' hand reach out to push a strand of her hair behind her ear and she froze. It wasn't unusual for him to do that, he always played with her hair, but never in public. He must have realized because as soon as his fingers grazed her cheek his smile fell and he tensed up. Sasha felt her heartbeat speed up the moment Scott turned round the corner of the hallway and spotted them. Luckily for all of them, Stiles was quick to read the situation.

“Don't move! There you go, it's gone,” he said. Sasha was confused, she didn't know what he had come up with to explain his gesture, she couldn't help him.

“What's going on?” Scott asked when he finally reached them, reading into his twin's stiff demeanor and odd expression of panic. She usually did way better than that, this took her off guard.

“A spider. Sasha had a spider in her hair but don't worry, I saved the day,” Stiles' declared proudly, puffing out his chest.

“You know I hate spiders,” she laughed nervously when Scott shot her a worried yet amused smile. “Small, hairy, eight-legged bastards,” she grumbled.

Last time there was a spider related incident, Scott found her wrapped in the curtain shower, standing on the edge of the bathtub and screaming at the tiny creature. She couldn't possibly come up with a more believable explanation for her sudden increase in heart rate.

“The whole neighborhood knows it,” Scott laughed, soon joined by Stiles. “Have you guys seen Allison? She said she'd bring me my keys and my bio textbook before class.”

“Yeah, she said to tell you she's at the usual place?” Sasha told her brother hesitantly. “Whatever that means, she said you'd know.”

“Cool, thanks! See you two at lunch?” He asked while walking away backwards.

“Yup!” Stiles answered for the two of them and waved goodbye. “You don't know where their 'usual place' is?” He then asked Sasha.

She shook her head.

“Should I? Do you?”

“Of course I know, who do you think I am?” He sniggered. “It's the bench outside the school. It's where he first saw her.”

“So romantic,” she chuckled. “We're going to be late to coach's class.”

The hallway was now empty and that's exactly why they always ended up late to their classes. They always waited until everybody was in class before walking to their own; just so they could kiss.

Sasha was already inching closer to Stiles when they were once again interrupted.

“Hey guys what are you still doing here?” Scott asked them when he came back from his and Allison's spot. He was late too but that wasn't unusual either.

“Oh shit! I didn't see how late it was, better get moving!” Sasha exclaimed.

She grabbed Stiles by the strap of his backpack and dragged him to their next class, leaving a confused and amused Scott in their wake. Not another word was spoken between the two of them throughout coach's eco class. Then they didn't have class together before noon, so really there was no occasion for them to talk before the bell signaling it was noon rang. Unbeknownst to each other, Stiles and Sasha both ran out of their respective class and met half way to the cafeteria where all the other would keep seats for them at the table they all shared.

Stiles knew what Sasha was about to say before she opened her mouth. It was written all over her face.

“Don't.”

It sounded final but Stiles merely wanted to tell her that this wasn't the right place to discuss the matter. They were surrounded by their fellow students some of whom had heightened senses. But she wasn't in the right state of mind to listen to his warning and talked anyway.

“You know we can't keep it secret any longer. It's bound to come out and it'll be better if it comes from us.”

“Agreed, but it's still not the best moment to talk about it,” Stiles said and made a funny face. He wasn't thrilled about the idea but she was right – like always. “Can't we keep it to ourselves a little longer? Give me time to think of a good way to break the news!”

Sasha shook her head. Stiles sighed in defeat. Yeah of course this wasn't something they could delay any longer, there was no running away from it. He had to trust his friend not to be mad or pissed because they lied to him. Or hid the truth. Whatever since there seemed to be no difference according to Lydia and Sasha.

“Stiles, I really think we should tell Scott soon, it-”

“Tell what Scott?” Scott's voice cut her off, making her jump back in surprise as he opened the door behind them wide open. For fuck's sake, they had to start this conversation right outside Scott's previous class!

Stiles' hand flew to his chest to cover his heart and Sasha felt her heartbeat accelerate. It was funny how she became hyper aware of this since Scott turned. It was never an issue before, but now she panicked whenever her heartbeat got out of control, as though it would give away where she was or what state she was in. Right now, she was quietly panicking and mentally cursing herself for not waiting until later to have this conversation. Or maybe it was a good thing?

“Man, never do that again!” Stiles said, still recovering from the shock. “I think my heart stopped beating. Is it still beating?” He asked, frenetically touching his chest as he visibility tried to distract Scott.

According to the look he was giving them, Scott wasn't buying it and after a sharp intake of air, Sasha bravely took Stiles hand in hers, effectively silencing him as he stared down at their joined hands in bedazzlement and fondness. Stiles stopped joking and gently squeezed her hand to reassure her while she stood there, biting down on her lip. He bumped his shoulder against hers and she looked up, smiling faintly and awaiting Scott's judgment.

Which never came. He simply crossed his arms over his chest and allowed a triumphant smile to stretch his lips. The tension was growing unbearable when he finally spoke up and erased the look of anticipation from Sasha and Stiles' faces, only to replace it with utter confusion.

“Tell me something I don't know.”

If you like my work please consider buying me a coffee <3

[dippedanddripped]

Kaleidoscopic London-based menswear labelAhluwalia Studio wants consumers and fashion industry leaders to rethink the way they purchase and discard clothing. Founder Priya Ahluwalia has a point — with nearly three-fifths of all fashion ending up in incinerators or landfills within a year of production, our unsustainable consumption patterns are in desperate need of disruption. Thankfully, consumers are increasingly demanding that brands act more responsibly, and Ahluwalia is leading the charge, one upcycled garment at a time.

Mass consumerism has reached an all-time high. Between 2000 and 2014, global clothing production doubled, with the number of items purchased each year increasing by 60 percent according to a report by management consultancy McKinsey & Company. Fashion has become disposable and a rise in consumer spending, clothing becoming more affordable, and operations being more efficient are all to blame.

There’s an ugly truth in the fashion industry: consumers discard clothing after just seven or eight wears. Fast fashion companies in particular are taking advantage of that fact by churning out up to 25 collections per year. Luxury houses, too, have upped their production cycles as lead times have shortened.

But change is afoot. While excessive consumption is an ongoing cultural issue and consumers remain largely disconnected from the negative effects their buying habits have on the environment, a new generation of shoppers is increasingly urging companies to be more transparent about who makes their clothing and how it is made.

Brands wanting to connect with Gen Z and millennials need to align themselves with the values of their clientele and find sustainable, even circular, solutions to reduce their carbon footprint across the supply chain. The most successful companies of the future will be driven by purpose, not just growing profit margins.

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Smaller brands might not have the same scale of impact as multi-billion-dollar businesses, but they can certainly set the right example for generations to come. Among the flock of fashion startups putting sustainability at their core — without making it the centerpiece of their brand marketing — is Ahluwalia Studio, founded by Priya Ahluwalia, winner of the H&M Design Award 2019.

Born in the UK to Indian and Nigerian parents, Ahluwalia had just one goal growing up in Southwest London. “I’ve wanted to do fashion for as long as I can remember,” she recalls. “I’ve always been very academic, getting straight As, so my parents were hoping I would become a doctor or something. My mom told me that if I was going to get into fashion, I had to be the best at it and work my ass off.”

Obtaining her BA at the University for the Creative Arts in Epsom, she did a stint at IVY PARK — the activewear brand co-founded by Beyoncé — where she was among the first six employees. “Within six weeks, there were 30 of us,” says Ahluwalia, who within a year had moved to Wales Bonner, where she learned the importance of protecting your brand identity.

“Grace [Wales Bonner] really showed me how amazing it is to develop a world for your clothes to live in,” Ahluwalia explains. “What’s so good about her is that you could spot a Wales Bonner man walking down the street even if he wasn’t in her clothes.”

After a year, Ahluwalia enrolled in the University of Westminster’s prestigious MA Menswear course. The school’s alumni include Vivienne Westwood, Christopher Bailey, and Coach’s Stuart Vevers. Course tutors regularly challenged Ahluwalia and her peers to come up with inventive ways to tackle fashion’s sustainability conundrum.

She was confronted with big piles of surplus garments during a visit to her father in Lagos, Nigeria. A later trip to Panipat, India — known as the global recycling capital of secondhand clothing — with her grandmother added to her revulsion at the industry’s excessive waste.

“It was mad,” she says. “Bear in mind that one of the [recycling] companies I visited said they were only at 30 percent capacity and that was just one of 500 companies in Panipat.” Ahluwalia documented her journeys in a photo-book titled Sweet Lassi. “This factory in particular recycles old clothing into new yarn and relief blankets. If it wasn’t for places like this, it would be even more horrendous.”

As well as inspiring the book, her experiences became the main point of reference for Ahluwalia’s Spring/Summer 2019 graduate collection. Her work includes patchwork trench coats, oversized denim jackets, and vintage football jerseys, an homage to the designer’s love of the sport that includes beading developed with Indian women’s union SEWA Delhi, which supports artisans and textile workers.

All items were produced using secondhand clothing donated to Ahluwalia or found in charity shops. It’s her way of contributing to a new, socially responsible fashion ecosystem that is as environmentally conscious as it is business-driven. We spoke to Ahluwalia to get her thoughts on how fashion can change and what inspires her work.

When did you start thinking about sustainable fashion?

I’m Indian and Nigerian, so it’s already in my DNA to not be wasteful — ask anyone from those cultures. You use every last bit of everything.

[However], it was during a project in my first year at Westminster. We got an online design project about working internationally. The brief was about the world in 2043 and it stated the world was almost in a post-apocalyptic state. It made me really think about how I would design if the world’s resources were depleted and certain trades were being wiped out. It made me think about using waste and working with communities and their traditional local textile trades.

In a micro-scale, you already see it happening in some places. But it’s not booming like it could be because with globalization you can get everything cheaper somewhere else.

What made you go to the University of Westminster? What did you learn there?

I sort of knew that in fashion design you always did better if you had done a masters, and me living in London with my mom put me in a position where I didn’t have to pay for loads of outgoings, so I took the chance while I had the opportunity.

My classmates were great. It was a very international course — people from New Zealand, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Denmark, Ireland, everywhere. We really bonded and learned from each other. The teachers were great as well. We had Simon Foxton, Charles Jeffrey, Eugene Reeder from Neil Barrett.

Loads of people who finish the BA go on to work for [companies like] Louis Vuitton, Dior, and KENZO. It’s a really good school to teach you to actually work, as well as being concept-led.

What do you think is the biggest threat currently facing the fashion industry?

It’s people’s insatiable need for something new all the time. Everyone’s always looking for the next thing instead of enjoying the current thing. This means things get thrown away and people’s work gets copied.

The speed is what’s bad in a lot of ways. You can work your ass off for a collection and then six weeks later it’s in ZARA. That’s not good for anyone or for the planet. It creates a culture where people think they can’t wear something again. That needs to slow down and change.

Yet things are so expensive because of the wholesale model. You pay for your fabrics, that goes times two, then that goes times 2.8 when it goes through the stores. The price goes up so high. And then I know people ask why things are so expensive, but if everyone’s paid fairly along the way and you’re getting good materials, it does end up like that.

Are consumers or the companies producing fashion driving that speed? And who’s ultimately responsible?

I think everyone is responsible on some level. Big fashion businesses are responsible for the constant advertising and slashing of prices, which encourage people to buy things they never even thought they wanted. For example, Black Friday sales get people buying three pairs of trainers just because they can. What they’ve done marketing-wise is something to be admired, but the fallout isn’t so great and the big companies need to be on the right side of history.

I also think consumers are responsible because I know it’s easy to turn a blind eye, but if you do that, you’re culpable. When someone buys something for £5, you must not have thought about how the fabric got spun, cut and dyed, and who designed it, who sewed it, and who shipped it, all for £5. It’s easy to get caught up in buying a bargain because it feels good, rather than thinking about the implications of the purchase.

[Today], if you don’t have something to wear, you can get it on the same day. That’s absolutely mad. If you want something that’s so easy to get, you don’t even think about it. The gratification is so fast. It’s easy not to think about people as people when they’re far away, but being fair to people is something the fashion industry could do with.

Sixty-six percent of consumers are willing to spend more on brands that are sustainable, but then they don’t shop this way. The deciding factors are still price and product availability. What is driving this gap?

I do agree that the accessibility of sustainability isn’t good. I know that I’m working on a collection that’s made responsibly and I’m using waste, but it can be off-putting to people because sustainability doesn’t have a good rep aesthetically and it means different things to different people.

From a designer’s point of view, it’s costly to produce products with an aim to be sustainable. The fabrics, components, and production methods cost more, and all of this needs to be passed on to the consumer through prices. I think the expensive price tag can put people off. But such spending should be thought about deeply and seen as an investment.

Luxury fashion brands are now speeding up their delivery cycles and increasingly adopting the drop system popularized by streetwear brands and fast fashion. How sustainable is that?

It seems the opposite. It’s extremely expensive fast fashion. A part of the allure of luxury is the time put into it — you look forward to it.

My friends and I call it “image gang.” Everyone wants to be part of the image gang today. You want to go somewhere to be seen in something. That’s what it’s like with labels and logomania. That kind of stuff can make people buy stuff just for the picture, and then they don’t really care after that. Even though I hate the resell market, at least luxury can be resold, but it’s turning instant gratification with certain brands and it’s turning too fast in a very expensive way.

The press and consumers often like to put labels on young designers. How have you experienced that?

I feel like the word sustainability has been thrust upon me, rather than me saying it. Which is fine, but I feel that if you would be really sustainable, you wouldn’t do anything: just sit in your house, do nothing, grow vegetables, and that’s it. All I can say is that I’m trying my best to work positively and not make my impact on the planet horrendous.

In the past, societal values and company values didn’t mix. Now businesses are forced to take a stance on social and environmental issues or risk losing credibility among the younger demographic.

I definitely think fashion will become more democratic this way. People’s voices will be heard more because they’ve now got a platform to say it. Now if you want to cause a stir, you can do that on the internet. I hope consumers become more enlightened.

But not everyone’s the same. For example, if you look at what happened with Brexit [in the UK], we live in a London bubble and can sometimes think that everyone thinks like this, but do they? So, in comparison, I do hope this drive for sustainability is happening around the country, but I haven’t gone and asked someone in Liverpool or Rochdale. I can’t speak for everyone, but I hope it tremors out and it’s a slow revolution.

When it comes to the big companies, I do believe they’re doing great things. I think [Balenciaga’s] World Food Programme initiative is a great idea and it brings millennials who are concerned about certain things into this other stuff. I do wonder if they’re still overproducing, which is the big problem.

Overproducing has never made sense to me. Surely brands would want to create a limited supply, as that’s what drives scarcity and gives a brand its allure.

Exactly. That would make it more luxurious and things wouldn’t have to go on sale. If you can create a brand that does that, you’ve arguably won. I just don’t get it. If it’s all going on sale, surely it doesn’t make sense to have so much stock.

I feel like the wholesale model might become redundant. In a way, wholesale is good because you sell product to a store so you don’t have stock sitting there. But that’s what really drives up the pricing and stores end up buying too much. But then if I would sell it [directly], I could produce too much. Unless you sell it made-to-order, but you can’t scale that business.

So how do you grow a business that remains appealing to consumers without overproducing?

I source my materials from different places. Most of it’s in the UK and some of it I got in India when I was there. Each piece is unique. Every pair of trousers that gets ordered will be made with the same lines and shapes, but the patches might be different. So if I can’t find enough of a certain fabric, it might be a different fabric or shade. Each piece will be different than anyone else’s — it will be unique to you. Logistically, it’s hard work, but the H&M Prize will really help me with that.

The production is time-consuming, because when someone invests in a made-to-order piece, it’s the only one in the world like it, so I’ll cut the materials only for them and it will make someone keep it forever. That’s something I want to look at as well. I like stories around stuff, and if you can make someone sentimental about something, they’re less likely to throw it away.

When you visited your father in Lagos in 2017, and later went to Panipat, you saw the amount of waste the fashion industry produces. The images you took during these trips became the subject of your book Sweet Lassi. Tell me what you saw.

My dad moved to Nigeria about 10 years ago, so I went to see him with my Jamaican stepdad. I’ve always seen the waste when I travelled, but at the time of this trip I was in the middle of my masters, so I might have had a critical eye.

The traders there are so fashionable. They walked through traffic jams impeccably dressed, but they were wearing weird stuff like community “mud run” T-shirts and I didn’t get where the hell they were getting this. They said there’s this market for secondhand clothing, so I went there.

That’s when I found out that secondhand clothing gets sold and it doesn’t get given. I don’t know what’s worse, as it means the local textile industry suffers. In Lagos and in India there are these traditions of going to your local tailor, but because of this resale, the clothes end up getting dumped and people buy it because it’s cheaper than going to your local tailor.

India has banned the import of resale because it destroys the local industry. So before it crosses the border, it has to be slashed, twisted, or warped in some way. I started photographing it.

To what extent did these trips inspire your debut graduate collection?

In a way, the collection was a regurgitation of everything I’m interested in. When I was in my BA, everyone would put me in a sportswear bracket. But it doesn’t have to be just sportswear, it can be more of a streetwear thing. For the collection, I was thinking about how things can travel around the world and this idea of globalized dressing, while using traditional textile techniques.

It was about looking at what people in these countries were wearing. I saw little kids playing football wearing massive T-shirts like dresses because when secondhand clothing goes to these countries, they’re often too big, as people in the US, UK, and Canada are bigger than them.

So I started playing around with changing the sizes of stuff, making things bigger by putting fabrics from sports jackets in between denim. You would see people in Lagos figuring out ways to change the size of their clothes in interesting ways, as well as customize it.

In both [Nigeria and India], people move very fast. People are always hustling for something and I like that — being in charge of who you are, more than here. People here are more on a rat race from nine to five. I wanted to use that spirit for my graduate collection.

Will that same ethos be the foundation for your Fall/Winter 2019 collection?

Yes. The next collection is a carry-on, as there was so much stuff I didn’t get to explore with this one.

When I was in India, I looked at family photos of my uncle and mom in the 1980s and 1990s. For this collection, I’m looking at these ritualistic ways of passing things on through families. My nan gave me three bangles that she got when she was married at 18. I would never take them off, as they have a lot of meaning. I also have shirts of hers and jumpers from my grandad when he passed away. If you’re going to have things that have that much meaning, it’s a really nice thing.

The context of how one person would have worn something that’s passed on compared with someone else is interesting. I wear my stepdad’s shirts a lot. Obviously he wears them to business meetings. I wear them tied up like a hoochie mama to go clubbing.

What can we learn about changing our consumption habits when it comes to fashion?

I would say take your time with purchasing stuff. You don’t need to feel the pressure to wear something new all the time. I’m not saying don’t buy anything new, but buy your wardrobe really well. My friends and I also swap stuff, for example. Also, question who made your clothes. If you really love something, you’ll keep it. Buy something that you love rather than buying two for £10 because it’s cheap.

How should fashion houses evolve when it comes to their interaction with shoppers?

Luxury needs to stay luxury, but it also needs to become accessible in the right ways. Not accessible because of a sale, but accessible by letting people into their world by showing how it’s created. That’s what gets people really interested.

High-end brands need to remember that people love their products because of the story and the craft behind their brands. These “how it’s made” Dior videos or Burberry’s Makers House, for example, show what happens behind the scenes and make people fall in love with the product.

That’s what people like Charles Jeffrey do so well. He’s great on his Instagram — he asks people questions and talks to them. He becomes accessible, so people then want to become part of that world without negating or lowering any standards. He just opens the doors a little bit. That’s really what high-end brands should concentrate on. Let people in in a way without telling them your secrets.

Who is working the industry in the right way?

I think Stella McCartney does amazingly well. Her label is made responsibly but also beautifully. The desirability is still there while she’s responsible, and you need that desirability to be there if you want people to buy into you. You need to sell a garment, not the idea of a garment just being sustainable.

I also think Martine Rose is phenomenal. I admire people like her. She’s so smart and does things on her own terms. She’s not a slave to the system. The fact that she sold her Nike collaboration on Craigslist is amazing. She’s genius and makes everyone so excited about her and her world.

Can fashion ever reach a place where its operations are fully sustainable?

No, that’s utopian nonsense. Because of the internet, people can read up on things — you can’t just feed them shit and think they’ll believe it. Just look at this plastic straw debate. Everyone is against it because people on Instagram and Twitter went crazy about it. People will become more educated and push for change. We will never be fully sustainable, but we’ll get better.

[2700fstreet]

OPERA / 2018-2019

THE ME I WANT TO SING

TEACHER AND PARENT GUIDE

Created and written by Tom Minter Originally commissioned by the Washington National Opera Roderick C. Demmings, Jr., piano Christine Lyons, soprano Laree "Ree" Simon, soprano

Student Guide: The Me I Want to Sing

Parents, Teachers, and Caregivers: Get the Conversation Going

Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price—their voices helped change the soundtrack of the twentieth century. Their determined efforts to perform were also instrumental in eroding prejudices that were barring African Americans from classical voice performance and opera, as well as other artistic and social realms.

The Me I Want to Sing interweaves the music, narratives, and images of Anderson and Price. It dramatizes the changes they helped bring to the American cultural landscape by means of their artistry and resolve.

This adult guide is designed to facilitate conversations about the living links between present and past for artists of color.

Conversation Starters

To set the tone for discussions with young people, consider sharing something from your personal experience that relates to the show and its themes—perhaps the story of a public figure or personal hero who successfully challenged convention. The intention is to invite reflection and conversation among your young theatergoers.

In leading discussions of The Me I Want to Sing, you can use open-ended questions to help students spot details they may have missed in the show, to dive deeper into the show’s content and themes, and to engage with potentially controversial content that may come up in discussions—issues such as racism, discrimination, and prejudice. When necessary, you can encourage students to back up their views with supporting evidence from the production itself or a trustworthy third-party source.

Here are a handful of open-ended discussion points to consider together:

What were the social and racial landscapes during the careers of Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price? How do they compare to the social and racial landscapes of the United States today?

As a collaborative exercise, recount notable moments in The Me I Want to Sing: What got your attention or surprised you?

What new information or ideas came to mind by the end of the performance?

How do we define, describe, and demonstrate identity? What role do people’s identities play in their creativity, artistry, and the arts?

Work with your young people to create a list of performing artists of color—singers, actors, dancers, etc. Why do some artistic disciplines seem more diverse than others? What is the historical context of that diversity?

What are ways media, especially social media, shape today’s ideas about artists and their artistry?

Before the Show

Along with your young theatergoers, discuss and decide how they want to prepare for attending The Me I Want to Sing. First stop, review the Student Guide together. Follow their lead, but you might pose questions like:

What do they already know about race relations and segregation in the first half of the twentieth century? What more would they like to learn?

What do they know about African American performing artists of that period?

What do they know about—and what are their feelings toward—opera and classical music?

Would they be interested in listening to recordings of Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price?

Would they like to take an online tour of the Kennedy Center?

Follow their lead on how they want to prepare, from theater etiquette and stagecraft to background research on Marion Anderson and Leontyne Price. You will find some ready resources below.

After the Show

Collaborate with your young theatergoers to determine how they want to process the production afterward. Let them brainstorm ways to get the most out of the experience and make the subject relevant to them. You may also revisit the questions discussed in the “Before the Show” section above.

The Student Guide

Revisit “Check This Out…” and “Think About This…” in the Student Guide. Use these sections to stir discussion about the production, its music, and the social realities the show recounts.

Consider the Themes

Consider focusing on three main themes in The Me I Want to Sing: Identity, Empowerment, and the motto, “Lifting as We Climb.”

Identity relates to how we see ourselves and others, and how we form and apply ideas about who we are. Ideas of identity profoundly affected Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price, as dramatized in The Me I Want to Sing. Their identities were front and center in the racial discrimination they encountered, as well as their presence as women of color in the world of classical music and opera.

Empowerment is the active effort of individuals or groups to tend to and meet their needs. Empowerment can be as simple as making breakfast for ourselves or taking on a job to pay our own way. It can be as complex as pursuing a long-range personal dream or organizing with others to overcome barriers to equity and fairness.

“Lifting As We Climb” is the motto of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACWC). The motto refers to ways communities and individuals of color can work together to help each other reach their potential. In Marian Anderson’s case, her church community supported her efforts to receive classical training as a young woman. For Leontyne Price, her family and community also helped her begin her life as a vocalist. Along their journeys, both women continued to act on a responsibility to help other young artists achieve their ambitions.

Use activities in the “Take Action” section of the Student Guide, such as creative writing and artistic projects, that students can use to explore these ideas in relation to their own lives. These activities are designed to be scalable for a diversity of learning styles and/or abilities.

Q & A with Tom Minter Creator and writer of The Me I Want to Sing

The work of playwright and author Tom Minter explores the dynamic nature of diversity. In the 2014 commission of Blues for a Royal Flush, he weaves together the lives of singers including Ethel Waters, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, and Billy Strayhorn, all in the orbit of D.C. native son, Duke Ellington.

Along with Washington National Opera, Minter has focused on creating work that reflects the individuals who make up the tapestry of our communities. The libretto for his one-act opera, Graffiti Corner, celebrates the life and neighbors of Washington’s Northeast neighborhoods. Most recently, Just Out the Window examines the gentrification of Washington, D.C. through music, and the eyes and cameras of students from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts.

Caption: Playwright Tom Minter

Kennedy Center: Was there a specific seed of inspiration that The Me I Want to Sing grew from?

Tom Minter: This show was a commission from the Washington National Opera, and meant to specifically celebrate Marian Anderson, who is a Kennedy Center Honoree [1978]. With that I saw an opportunity to celebrate intergenerational connections, between classical singers of color, in the ways in which Marian Anderson opened doors for others.

Marian Anderson wanted the freedom to sing art songs; opera came later in her career. From the beginning, she embraced a mission to show “what is possible,” especially to people of color, and possessed an innate understanding that dreams need nurturing, especially those of children. In the span of her long career, Marian Anderson crossed thresholds into rooms that had been closed to others, and in so doing opened doors, and windows, and eyes along the way.

One significant pair of eyes she reached were those of a nine-year-old Leontyne Price whose mother had brought her to the balcony in a segregated theater in Mississippi to watch a woman of color sing. That little girl didn’t necessarily know what Marian Anderson was singing, but she saw a woman of color onstage, in dignity, looking magnificent, singing beautifully, and seemingly speaking to her.

KC: You’re a playwright and writer with a strong relationship with classical music. What does that relationship stem from?

TM: My father started out as a teacher of choral music in junior and senior high schools in East Harlem. My mom was [a] singing artist and sang opera. So the legacy of music in my family runs very deep.

As a child I experienced first-hand what opera allows to be amplified, in terms of storytelling. There’s a family story about when I was growing up. I was with my father in the car, driving somewhere, with the classical music station on. The “Triumphal March” from [Verdi’s] Aïda came on and I apparently got very excited. Dad, being an educator, immediately followed up on this teaching moment. He went out and bought a recent recording that featured Leontyne Price and Jon Vickers under the direction of Georg Solti.

My father introduced me to the libretto, showing me how the Italian appeared on one page and the English translation on the other. He didn’t know what to say when he found that I was captivated, and sat between the stereo speakers for three straight hours!

I have had a several great passions in my life. They include the career of Leontyne Price, as well as studying the journey of Giuseppe Verdi and his revolutionary impact in melding words, emotion and music into drama.

KC: What would you say to young people who might roll their eyes at classical music or opera?

TM: Music is a natural form of expression for children. Too often, I think we over-mystify music. We need to knock down every single wall that stands between young people and musical experiences. I am deeply grateful to my family for creating an environment where music was not mysterious. I have had the freedom to roam in any kind of music that engages me.

Opera is a way of amplifying stories in a unique way. For parents and caregivers, they can facilitate how a child interacts and responds with the world-enhancing experiences of word, music, and story as part of their inherent playfulness.

In Italy, France, and other countries, there is a rich history of connecting music to word and storytelling. (Perhaps not as much in the United States in such fashion.) The reason Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price are so incredible is the way they glow as they perform their art, imbuing an audience with desire to experience their own gifts of song in such a way. How can we not have children understand that empowerment and the gift in this art form?

KC: In The Me I Want to Sing, you make a point of emphasizing how Ms. Price’s career in a sense stood upon the opportunities of Ms. Anderson’s. How important has that solidarity been in developing the talents of artists, especially artists of color?

TM: I think it’s critical. Audiences need to be able to see themselves reflected in the art—any art. And that solidarity is important for people of color, youth of color, who are interested in any of the arts, or anything in life.

In Marian Anderson’s case, it was her church community that gave her the support she needed as a young person and vocalist. Historically, the church has been such a mainstay for black families, especially at that time. They saw that this young woman should be allowed to sing anything that came out of her mouth!

It is unfortunate, but in the case of opera, artists of color continue to be underrepresented, or find themselves involved in new iterations of Porgy & Bess, Showboat, or even Scott Joplin’s Treemonish. Perhaps having focus on newly composed operas, such as Champion, by Terrance Blanchard, there can be room for Troubled Island, by William Grant Still with a libretto by Langston Hughes, which speaks for itself as legacy of black talent in this art form.

But in saying that, we should not forget such talent should also be represented across every facet of performance, from stagehand to Executive Director.

KC: What would you say to educators and school administrators about the importance of this artistic process in our schools?

TM: We need to educate on a spectrum that includes the arts in the mix of other aspects of critical thinking that our youth are already aware of. They are doing things with technology, for example, that are astonishing to me! They are already being creative artists every day, creating intuitively on social media and in their own paths as young artists, and not always within the scope of a classroom’s stream of education.

What do we educators have to offer? In my mind what’s slipping most is context. We must remember that “context is everything” in being able to apply critical thinking, and that our collaborative help in framing events and experiences is valuable for young people.

That’s a realization Marian Anderson came to early on. She wanted her music, her art, to reach beyond the limits of what American culture allowed at that time. It was important to her that African Americans be able to see and hear her without being segregated and treated as second-class citizens. In doing so, and in igniting the dream of a Leontyne Price, she was instrumental in showing the way to breaking down some of the barriers that were blocking African Americans from the arts—and the arts from the contributions of African American artists.

Resources

“The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow.” California Newsreel. Online guide to the award-winning PBS series. newsreel.org/video/the-rise-and-fall-of-jim-crow

“Marian Anderson.” PBS Biography. An hour-long program that explores Anderson’s life.

“NEA Opera Honors: Interview with Leontyne Price.” National Endowment for the Arts. June 3, 2010. Reflections on her life and career.

“How to Start Appreciating Classical Music.” Deep Cuts. March 21, 2017. A video survey course defining and exploring classical music.

“Opera 101, Opera Basics.” The San Diego Opera Podcast. June 10, 2013. When we want to know more about the art form. Start at about the two-minute mark (2:00).

STANDARDS CONNECTIONS

English Language Arts—Literacy in History/Social Studies (RH.2, RH.7)

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Writer: Sean McCollum

Content Editor: Lisa Resnick

Logistics Coordination: Katherine Huseman

Producer and Program Manager: Tiffany A. Bryant

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David M. Rubenstein Chairman

Deborah F. Rutter President

Mario R. Rossero Senior Vice President Education

Presenting Sponsor of Performances for Young Audiences.

Additional support for The Me I Want to Sing is provided by A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation; the Kimsey Endowment; The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation; Paul M. Angell Family Foundation; Anne and Chris Reyes; and the U.S. Department of Education.

Funding for Access and Accommodation Programs at the Kennedy Center is provided by the U.S. Department of Education.

Major support for educational programs at the Kennedy Center is provided by David M. Rubenstein through the Rubenstein Arts Access Program.

Kennedy Center education and related artistic programming is made possible through the generosity of the National Committee for the Performing Arts.

© 2019 The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

[scripturient-manipulator]

Native American Lakota Research

So I’m working on my trigger-laden story, and I love doing research, so I figured I’d share the parts I’ve saved with you guys! This is absolutely not the only research you should do if you need to; it’s just what I need. Anything in italics are my thoughts.

~

Mom: Ina    Dad: Até

It’s gonna be real fuckin’ annoying to go up to Insert Special Characters every time I want to show their dad but that’s okay #firstworldwriterproblems

This tribe views death as an inevitable equalizer, something that happens to all living things despite their achievements on earth. The Lakota believe that the dead depart to a spirit world free of pain and suffering.

Okay so this link was some good shit right here

 Typically, the Lakota bury their dead. Custom dictates that the tribe wait about a day and half before burial when a person dies at home, in hopes that the deceased might revive.

That’s fair, I mean the natural reaction to someone you love dying is wishing that they hadn’t, so it makes sense, plus I know ghosts are kinda an issue

 Bodies are typically placed on a scaffold to encourage the spirit's journey into the sky. Burial practices vary and include traditional earth burial, air burial -- in which bodies are left in the open, a practice often used for warriors who have fallen in battle --, burial under mounds or rocks and even tree burial, in which the limbs of a tree stand in for a scaffold. These methods vary depending on the tribe, location and resources.

Oh nice, there’s a religion (Jainism, I think?) originating from Asia that does the air burial for everybody to offer sustenance to the earth and birds and everything.

 Journey to the Spirit World

Much of the Lakota's beliefs about the spirit world manifest in their burial ceremonies. To help them on their journey to the spirit world -- a parallel plane of existence that can be reached by the living -- the Lakota take bundles of their belongings with them to the grave, including items such as weapons, pipes, tools and medicine. Mourners also place food and drink at the scaffold of the deceased and kill the departed's horse at this location, tying its tail to the scaffold.

Grief and Respect

Above all, the ceremonial beliefs and funeral customs of the Lakota are meant to show respect and reverence for those who have passed; in a mourning process that may last up to a year, this respect is often expressed through grief. Mourners express grief for the departed by singing, crying, wailing and running pegs through their limbs, cutting their hair or even -- in the case of female Lakota -- cutting off a part of their little fingers. To symbolize their grief for young children who have passed, the Lakota practice ritual crying and wound their own arms and legs.

I’m so happy, this is all perfect, this is exactly what I need. Should I do the whole wounding their arms and legs in term of Chelsea’s father? It’s been seven months for them and I also don’t wanna give anyone’s brain more fuel to prompt a trigger. I’ll think about it.

 Like the belief systems of many indigenous people groups, the Lakota embrace the notion of a balanced universe and see death as a sacred and natural part of the life cycle. In fact, David recalled having attended dozens of funerals during his childhood and teen years, and saw to it that his own children attended funerals-not only for family members but for neighbors and friends, as well.

 In keeping with Lakota custom, David's wake was an around-the-clock event with some members of the family or community present throughout the period of three days. Friends of David's took turns playing a funeral drum and chanting during the wake, and a traditional star quilt hung behind the open casket. Inside the community center where David's wake was held, his casket was placed inside a large tipi, in the belief that his spirit would commune with ancestors who would guide him to the spirit world.

 So this is from an article about a specific Lakota man (David) who died and how his family followed traditions and customs in looking after him. I relish case studies in psychology so this is just delightful.

 During David's funeral, several people shared memories of the ways his life had positively impacted the world, calling on the Lakota values of generosity, wisdom, fortitude (bravery) and kinship. Robert Davis, a middle school social studies teacher recalled David's wisdom as he told of visits to his classrooms and how students sat spellbound as they learned from this friend who had grown up on the reservation. "How was I to know that Sioux was a derogatory name?" Robert asked to the knowing laughter of many of the mourners. "But David had such a gentle way; he just quietly taught me the terms that better defined his tribal heritage. My kids and I all learned something important that day about using care when using 'labels.'"

Shit, I didn’t know that either. Since they’re using Lakota so much and there wasn’t any expansion on the terms I’m gonna go with Lakota being safe

  At all times a surviving family member is with the body and available to visit with those who attend the wake. The casket is flanked on either side by a table filled with flowers and memorabilia of the deceased, and star quilts are hung on the wall behind the casket. All of these items will be given away. This is a time of open sharing, mourning, respect, and compassion. It is not uncommon to see people from all walks of life attend a Lakota wake. People take time off from work, travel long distances, even get a pass to leave jail for this sacred event. The concept of family is far reaching in this culture.

Those who attend the wake are welcome to add their own mementos to the casket as a parting gift to the deceased. Joan wryly commented that during a recent funeral home tour during her seminary education, the funeral director displayed a casket supplied with ‘secret’ pockets that could be filled with small mementos. She thought, “ This is nothing new, we’ve been doing this for years!” Another parishioner told me of witnessing this tradition as he attended a Lakota wake saying, “ My gosh, people kept putting things on top of the dead body that I thought we wouldn’t be able to see it finally.” Such an outpouring of presence and memorabilia frames the Lakota wake.

Oh I love the mementos thing, I want that at my funeral, fuck I’m tearing up

 Buffalo meat has more protein and less fat than beef. It also has less cholesterol, yet a mere four ounces provides more protein than a half a dozen eggs. Wasna, because of the protein it contains, can raise a person’s iron level within 15 minutes. Today’s Lakota believe that their ancestors did not suffer from diabetes, heart disease, or cancer due to the healing powers of Wasna.

The Lakota diet was high in protein and often the tribe either had much food to eat, such as after they killed a buffalo, or very little. One of the traditional Indian food recipes that the Lakota have passed through the generations was Wasna. Wasna is a Lakota word with the "wa" meaning "anything" and the "sna" meaning ground up, although non-Lakota people refer to it as pemmican. This dish consisted of dried buffalo, dried berries, and fat or bone marrow. The Lakota’s would grind the ingredients together with a pounding stone. Wasna was a very good source of protein and the Lakota valued this traditional recipe not only as a food, but also as a healing instrument. Therefore, Wasna is often seen as a sacred food and was often used in ceremonies and rituals.

Another of the Indian food recipes that is a favorite is Lakota plum cakes. This recipe included dark raisins, purple plums, toasted hazelnuts, butter, flour, baking soda, cloves, honey, and maple syrup.

Okay, sweet. The food is only gonna show up for like five seconds because they’re having breakfast, but Wasna sounds perfect. Lakota plum cakes sound yummy too. But these seem like harried yet “responsible” parents, and they hold with plenty of traditions so I don’t think they would give their kids something that might be a dessert. I can’t tell, it doesn’t quite seem it even though the word cake throws me off. But best not to chance it; Wasna gets eaten not just during ceremonies and rituals by the looks of it.

The Lakota used honey and maple syrup as sweeteners

Nice, it’s always good to have something else to dribble on the readers’ senses

 http://www.elexion.com/lakota/iyapi/words2.html

 http://peopleof.oureverydaylife.com/lakota-burial-ceremony-beliefs-3711.html

 http://www.selectedfuneralhomes.org/A-Lakota-Family-Remembers-199

^^^^^^^^This was so fascinating^^^^^^^^

 http://www.indiana.edu/~famlygrf/culture/minton.html

 http://indians.org/articles/indian-food-recipes.html

 http://peopleof.oureverydaylife.com/did-lakota-indians-eat-7581.html

[tannerahonesti95]

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