#being babied is nice actually - william ideally. in my heart :')

[marshmellowtea]

Tanya: Mike, come here, we have a sick puppy on our hands Mike: ...what?? Tanya: William threw up :( Mike: Oh THAT puppy Mike: Aww :(

[sometimes-i-write-4-you]

seceret’s out - Javier Williams X reader

a\n: i’m honored to be the first one to post a fic for this show. love it so much. request if you want, please, cause my head is empty from ideas.

I sat in my desk at biology class. 3 days have passed since the new kid arrived, Javier Williams. He has those beautiful brown eyes, and his hair is always perfectly messy. His lips are probably super soft. Well, that's at least what I've gathered from staring at him for 85% percent of the class. It's the only class I have with him, but I see him all the time – in the hallway, mostly, and he's always being kind and I just wish I had the courage to talk to him.

"(y\n), would you please tell us about the cell?" Gabriela cuts off my wondering. "the cell has multiple parts. The mitochondria, which is the powerhouse of the cell-" I start, but she sighs and once again cutting me off. "(y\n), we're past that. We learned about the cell a week ago, you should start focusing again instead of daydreaming" Gabriela says, and the class laugh. "I'm sorry, can any of you explain to me how hearts function? No? that's what I thought" Gabriela adds, and the laughter stops.

I sneak a look at Javier, and he catches my glance and smile. I panic and turn my gaze back to the notebook Infront of me. Shit.

"hey, (y\n)" I hear Gerry whisper, "you know, if Willie boy is what's distracting you, I can help you get his attention" he says. I choose to ignore him, but it seems like it's what he wanted. "oh, don't ignore me baby" he said, and I hear the smile in his voice, "hey, if we'll fuck, I bet he'll talk to you" Gerry kept going. It wasn't the first time he suggested it, even though I was the quite type and never bothered him.  "Can I go the bathroom?" I ask, and the teacher approves. I pick my bag up to take with me. "I'm sorry, you can't leave with your bag. Take what you need and hurry up" Gabriela says, and so I take my water bottle and a small box I put in my pocket without anyone noticing.

I closed the bathroom door behind me and took a pill out of the box, trying to stabilize my breath. I hate Gerry so much, and I hate this stupid class, and I hate—

"(y\n)?" someone asks, "it's me, Sophia". I swallow the pill along with some water and flush the toilet. "hey" I say, opening the door and wiping away the tears that managed to escape on my way to the bathroom. "you know, Gerry is kind of an asshole, you should just ignore him" she says, leaning on the counter as I wash my hands. "why-" "what was he whispering? I noticed he was bothering you, but I can't read lips" she keeps talking. "just… suggested to fuck me" I say as I dry my hands with some toilet paper.

"for real?" she asks, turning to face me. I nod. "that's… you should stick with me, I'll walk you to class, and I'll ask Javi to walk you to your next one, I have a double class" she says, and my heart skips a beat at the mentioning of his name. "uh, thanks" I smile at her, and we walk together. The bell rings, and I realize my things are still in the biology classroom, so I ask Sophia to walk me there.

"(y\n), just who I was looking for" a handsome guy says. He hands me the bag, "I put everything there. I'm sorry Gerry is a dick to you, he's just… a dick". I thank him, slowly recognizing the boy as Raul, the rich kid whose father is a corrupt politician or something along these lines. I refused to watch the secret reveal video's, it's not my business, but I heard people talk.

I arrive to my class, and Sophia leaves to go to her's. time passes, and I don't think it could've gone slower. After this period ends, I get to have one on one time with no other than Javier Williams. Will I be able to form a sentence? Highly doubt it, but oh well, I'm not wasting this opportunity.

The bell rings, finally, and at the door I see Javier already waiting. "hi, (y\n), right?" he asks. I nod. "yeah, that's me" I smile. "Sophie told me Gerry is harassing you. Don't worry, I won't let him touch you" he says, smiling. "thank you, Javier" I say. His smile is even cuter from up close. "so, how's biology?" he asks. "well, boring" I say, and he laughs, "how are you enjoying our national school so far?" I ask, highlighting the "national", since the faculty is making such a big deal over that.

"well, it's nice. Met some cool people, met some… less cool people" he says. I laugh, "yeah, it's a weird time to get here, I promise we don't usually reveal secrets on school assemblies and Instagram pages" I say. I was surprised at how easy it was, talking to him. I was so sure I would forget every word I know, but I didn't. "which one surprised you the most? I mean, you know these people, for me it's the first thing I learned about them" he says.

"well, I actually hadn't watch any of the videos. I kinda heard things, but I try to ignore it. It's not my secret to know" I say, and he nods. "that's actually… kinda cool. That you respect them, and their privacy" he says. "you think I'm lame, right?" I laugh. "no, no. no, this is really… I admire that. That's being a good person" he insists, smiling at me. Our eyes lock for a moment, but a high-pitched voice is ruining the moment.

"oh, Javier, are you really hanging put with her now? Poor girl" some girl laughs. I look at her, confused, and he's just as confused. "what, you haven't seen it? All your secrets just revealed a new, juicy, secret" she smiles. Javier takes out his phone as we walk, and a video play.

It's my picture, it's my words. The song in the background, I wrote it yesterday and sent it to my friend, how did the hacker get that?

"oh, he is so pretty

But he will never notice me"

It's my voice, and the other photos, that's my diary.

Shit. I run to class before Javier understand who I'm singing for.

"and when I want to try,

I just end-up being too shy"

Crap, crap. People are looking at me. "I love your song; do you think you'll release an album? You can call it 'Javier Williams, please notice me!' " some guy laughs. This is not happening. The hacker was quiet, I thought he was only after the stupid popular kid, why would he reveal my secret? What's his goal?

After the class is over, I sneak to the bathroom to take another pill. It's supposed to calm down my anxiety, but it's affects fade quick. I leave the bathroom, and Javier is leaning on the wall in front pf the door.

"hey" he smiles at me and pushes himself off the wall. He gets closer and closer. "your song is really good; I didn't know you sing. Your voice is-" "please, stop, Javier. I don't want you to pity me" I sigh, cutting him off. He follows me to my next period. "I don't pity you; I just want to talk. You seem cool, and I'd love to get to know you" he says, catching up to me fast. "why?" I ask, "because the whole school knows I like you?" I stop and look him right in the eyes. Those gorgeous, gorgeous brown eyes. "no. because you are nice, and honest, and you have a beautiful voice" he says. I sigh, "don't pity me, Javier" I insist, and walk away.

A few days pass. A video of Javier and Sophia was sent to everyone in school, including me. It was followed by a "sorry to disappoint you" message, but I think it was exclusive for me. I haven't talked to Javier since… well, the second and last time we ever talked. I exchanged some words with Sophia, but that's it. I was sitting with my friends at lunch, but it got unbearable faster than… I don't know, a cringe compilation full of 13-year-old kids making sex jokes and do fortnight dances. Every second person tried to comfort me over the video, and I escaped to the bathroom for 2 things: quiet, and a pill. I wonder why the hacker chose to reveal the crush, isn't my anxiety a more dramatic secret? Whatever, I don't want to think about it.

I leave the bathroom just in time to start walking to my next class, Biology. "hey" a voice says. It belonged to a particular pretty boy. "what do you want, Javier?" I sigh and stop by my locker to get my biology book. "just… Sophia and I, it's not… we're not together. I wanted you to know that, cause, you know-" because I have a thing for you? Yeah, thanks, Javier" I sigh. He sighs. "can you stop avoiding me? I'm just trying to be nice to you. I know it wasn't ideal, the way I found out, but even before that, I wanted to talk to you. When Sophie asked me to walk you to class, I was actually happy to, and not as a favor for her, but at the chance to talk to the quiet, beautiful girl who I always catch looking at me but never dares to talk to me" he says as we walk to class together. Everybody's looking at us. "Javier, you are such a player" Gerry smiles, looking at the two of us as we enter the class. "it was just a kiss" Javier hisses at him. "if it was just a kiss, kiss her" Gerry offers, pointing at me with his stupid butt chin. "no" I say, "that's-".

"oh, come on, (y\n), I'm helping you out, don't you want to kiss his 'probably super soft lips' and run your hands through his 'perfectly messy hair' " Gerry teases, quoting my diary. I blush and start planning a way to escape this room. The door is right behind me. Who's gonna stop me? However, Javier is not taking any it.

He takes my hand and pull me back to his side. "may i?" he asks. "i-" I want to answer. Turns out I was right; his lips are super soft. He pulls away and smiles at me. "were my lips super soft?" he asks, biting his lips. "uh, i-" "I use Chapstick" he smiles. I laugh.

Gerry starts to clap, and his friends aw. Oh, right, he was bullied into kissing me. His hand still holds mine, and he drags me to my seat and take the open spot next to me. "I really enjoyed talking to you, you know. I swear, I'm not saying that out of pity. Do you think I'll kiss you out of pity?" he asks. "I don't know, I don't know… you" I reply as I put my things on my desk. Biology book, biology notebook, pens…

"would you like to?" he asks. I look at him confused. "would you like to get to know me? Maybe over some… I don't know coffee?" he smiles at me. I nod. "sure, yeah. Coffee's great" I smile back.

[connorspiracy]

Here Comes Santa Claws || Connor & Sasha

TIMING: Just before Christmas PARTIES: @connorspiracy and @sasha-r-blog CONTENT: N/A SUMMARY: Connor has a run-in with The Claw  

Connor hadn’t been out of the hospital for long before he was right back out in the fray. Bug bite. Temporarily paralytic. Typical White Crest shit. It wore off within an hour or two and they’d kept him one night for observation, but he’d been back home the next day, and back out filming the next night. All in all, it’d been a fairly uneventful night. Not too common in White Crest, but it happened sometimes. He’d been heading back to his car when he passed the two drunk college bros in santa hats, probably on the way home from a Christmas party or something. 

“Heyyy,” one of them slurred. “Are you a film student? Can I be in your movie?”

Apparently, it must have been the best joke ever, because they both started laughing. Connor took a drag of his cigarette, shaking his head.

“Nah, mate. Battery’s dead anyway,” he lied. 

“Oh, come on,” the other one said, winking. “Is it, y’know, a dirty movie? We won’t tell anyone.” 

Connor was a pretty jovial dude, but some people were really fucking annoying. He sighed. “No, documentary, but I gotta get home anyway. Have a good night, lads.” 

He kept walking, but felt a hand grab his shoulder. 

“Come on. Don’t be a dick.” One of them grabbed at the camera, snatching it from his hands and starting to record themselves. “Hey, battery isn’t dead, you’re full of shit.” 

Sasha’s night hadn’t gone very successfully, which sucked, but wasn’t that surprising. People were out and about, but nothing criminal or suspicious or even vaguely interesting had happened within the last few hours. Sasha has been keeping a lookout of the streets from the roof of a building, but as her eyes grew bleary she thought it would probably be best to just pack it in for the night. She had a project for class she had to work on anyways. Though if she was being honest with herself she was probably just going to make some hot chocolate and go to sleep once she was back. 

Climbing down the sides of the building, she ducked into an alley to get changed. She brought a pair of jeans and a sweater, enough to cover the spandex while she tucked the rest of her costume back into her backpack. But before she could even start taking off her mask, she heard some sort of commotion. Well, maybe less of a commotion and more of a disturbance. Shouldering her bag again she listened. Three voices. Two sounded like assholes, to be blunt. Also maybe drunk. And what they were saying didn’t sound like it was going in a good direction for whoever the third person was.

Okay, so maybe tonight wouldn’t be so uneventful after all.

Sasha crept through the other end of the alley, towards the noise. And as she peaked out onto the street she could see the three of them about ten feet away. How hard could it be to take down two drunk frat bros? Maybe they’d even be scared off before they got themselves hurt by the justice of The Claw.

Stepping out onto the sidewalk, Sasha tried to be menacing, amber eyes flashing as she tried to do a half hunched, crouch thing, something that looked like a tiger about to lunge. It looked cool in her head at least.

“I don’t think that camera belongs to you. How about you hand that back before you regret it.” 

“Guess it has a little juice left,” Connor answered, grabbing for the camera. The other men were larger than him. He’d always been on the smaller side, a matter that didn’t especially bother him except when it came to people not believing his I.D. was real when he was trying to get a drink. Now, though, it was annoying to be unable to reach. “Give it back, dude. It’s expensive.”

“Expensive?” One of them mocked. “Aw, the widdle baby needs his expensive camera back? Did mommy and daddy get it for you, Prince William?” The words prompted more laughter from both frat bros and Connor rolled his eyes. 

“Very funny. You should be on the improv team. Now if I could just--”

Before the conversation could go any further, he caught sight of the fourth person, a young woman in a domino mask with glowing yellow eyes who stepped out from the alley. One of the men almost dropped the camera in response, causing Connor’s heart to jump into his throat. 

“Please, please don’t let ‘em drop it…” he begged of the stranger, and one of them shoved the camera into Connor’s chest so hard it sent him stumbling backwards. 

“Whoa, nice costume,” one of the bros said. “Girl, you know it’s not Halloween any more.” 

“I’m aware.” Sasha wanted that to sound cool, threatening, unaffected. Too bad she couldn’t keep the offense from her voice. “This isn’t some costume party, so why don’t you get out of here and leave that guy alone.”

She tried her best to stare down the guy who had spoken to her, but curiosity kept making her glance back at the other guy, shorter than the two meatheads and clearly in need of help.  From the sounds of it that camera was expensive, good thing she had heard the trouble before these jerks broke it or ran off with it. It was almost more annoying that they seemed to just be random drunk college students. She was expecting to find some hardened criminal with a gun or knife looking to threaten a man for his money, not some dude bro assholes just starting trouble for the sake of it.

So could anyone really blame her if she wanted to show off just a little? Just like, a little warning shot. Just so they knew she meant business and didn’t get any ideas about harassing more people tonight, or commenting on their costume. 

With surprising speed Sasha rushed up to the closest dude and reached for his collar. Didn’t matter that he was a good several inches taller than her and bulky, she knew she could lift him if she got a good grip. 

Honestly, Connor was just glad someone was helping him out and stopping his camera from being shattered on the frosty pavement. The guy had left it rolling, and Connor saw no need to correct that as he gazed on. He was intrigued to see what might happen. Size wasn’t necessarily an indication of strength or prowess. Rio was pretty much the scrawniest guy in the world, and he had hunter strength, but surely the guys wouldn’t try and fight her, right? 

“Oh, piss off,” one of them scoffed, gathering up a snowball to throw at her, only before he could let loose, the stranger cleared the distance between them almost as if by magic, hoisting the man off his feet. The snow crumpled in his hand and fell to the ground, and his friend let out a yelp.

“Yo, what the hell, lady? We were just goofing around. Put him down!”

It wasn’t visible under her toothy face mask, but Sasha grinned from ear to ear as she watched the dude she lifted up stare down at her. Shock, confusion, a bit of fear. Yeah, maybe you shouldn’t have insulted my costume.

“What the fuck!” The dude was squirming, so probably a good idea actually let go. Soon he’d start punching or kicking to get free and Sasha wasn’t planning on a full on fight unless she needed to. Still holding the one man by his collar she turned towards the other who was sporting a similar look of confusion. Why shouldn’t he be a little more freaked out too?

So Sasha threw the one dude at the other. Okay, well, tried to. Even with super strength, it turns out full on throwing a full grown man isn’t easy. The guy got more roughly pushed backwards than anything, slipping on the slightly icy sidewalk and falling shoulder first into his friend, losing his hat in the process. Maybe not as dramatic as it could have been, but she threw in another flash on amber eyes to make up for that. 

The two nearly toppled to the ground together, but managed to right themselves. Pretty impressive, considering they were drunk. After a moment of getting his bearings the dude huffed out; “This lady’s either crazy or on something, let’s go.” Despite this being a really great plan on the dude’s part, the friend that hadn’t gotten picked up stared Sasha down. His eyes were still confused, but the shock was wearing off and Sasha could see his jaw clench. But the other dude tugged his arm to get him moving. 

“You’re a fucking weirdo. You’re lucky I don’t punch chicks.” The lingering guy said, before finally following his friend, shouldering past the guy with the camera.

Sasha watched them leave, heart pounding in her chest still from the adrenaline, before turning toward the camera guy. Crap, okay, she needed some cool line now. Like “Have no fear citizen!” but less dorky. 

“Are you okay?” was the only thing that came out of her mouth on the spot. 

"You're lucky she didn't punch you," Connor scoffed at the departing dudebro, feeling a little braver now that he'd just had his honour defended by White Crest's own Black Panther. He caught his breath, letting the waves of adrenaline calm a little. The fight or flight was gone. Connor wasn't freaked out. Not in the least. The altercation with the frat boys had been less than ideal, but the sheer exhilaration of meeting this young woman had replaced any fear or concern that might have been hanging around. 

"Dude, that was... awesome!" Connor was practically vibrating out of his skin. Of all the bizarre things in White Crest he was morbidly excited about, it was rare to actually find one who wasn't out to kill or maim him. "Like, actually awesome. You... uh, you saved my arse." He gave a slight chuckle. He wasn't too proud to admit it. In fact, the idea of being saved by a super cool badass chick was kind of incredible. "What's, um, what's your name? I'm Connor." 

Sasha stood up a bit taller at the praise. That had actually gone well! It hadn’t really hit her until the guy with the camera spoke. Sure, it was just two drunk dudes vs. superpowers but still, she had managed to scare them off and save someone. Without thinking she let out a surprised little chuckle and hoped it was muffled under her mask. 

“I’m The Claw,” She said, her grin seeping into her voice. “Protector of White Crest. No need to thank me, it is my job to make sure the citizens of town are safe from criminals and people who want to harm others.” 

Connor...why did that name sound familiar? As Sasha finished her introduction she remembered the guy she had spoken to online, the one who was into ghosts. Behind her mask her grin faltered. She guessed the town wasn’t big enough to completely avoid it, but she hadn’t expected to save someone she kinda knew. 

“Were those people that you know? Do you feel safe heading to wherever you are heading?” She asked, trying to get back into the mindset of The Claw. 

“The Claw,” he repeated, unable to break his gaze on her. A glimmer of recognition stirred in his chest, but not for the woman. It was recognition of a different nature. A spirit. Connor kept his eyes on her, trying to see her expression through the mask, as if that would give him any clue whether she was possessed or not. “That’s, um, very noble of you.” She definitely wasn’t acting anything like the spirit inside Nadia, or almost any other possession cases he’d come across, but not all possessions had to be malicious. Their effects harmed the host regardless. 

“No, I never saw them before. I think they were heading back from a holiday party or something. I’m just…” He held up his camera. Not that she hadn’t seen it when she’d zoomed in like a Knight In Batman Armour to save his arse. “I was doing some filming, but, um… actually, do you wanna walk back to the car with me? I think it’d be best if we stick together.” He wasn’t scared, not really, but he wanted to keep her close for as long as possible, see if he could garner any more clues. “How long have you been, uh, protecting White Crest?”

Sasha paused for a beat longer than intended before responding.

 “Of course. I wouldn’t want those people to come back and try to hurt you again. Even if they were just being troublemakers in the moment, it is my duty to make sure you get back safe.”

She had intended to walk him back if he wanted her too and still did. But there was something uncanny about talking to Connor now the adrenaline was gone and she had recognized him. But she let him lead the way, eyes and ears peeled for if danger did show up.

She hadn’t expected the question either. Sure, superheroes get asked “who are you?” from the people they rescue all the time, but Sasha didn’t know what to do with Connor asking for details. She thought about lying for a second, saying something like “The Claw has always guarded this town,” but considering White Crest’s apparent track record with death and danger that lie would probably make her look bad.

“I only started protecting this town recently. I came when I thought it needed me most. And while those men were just drunken jerks, I’m glad I was able to help stop trouble tonight, however small.”

Was she laying it on too thick? She hadn’t exactly prepared a script for this sort of thing. She tried to keep looking straight ahead, as if somehow her nervousness would show through two layers of masks if she looked Connor in the eye. 

Connor smiled to himself as he walked. She sounded like she was right out of the pages of one of the cornier Superman comics, but there was also something endearing about it. “If any town needs a bloody superhero, it’s this one,” he snickered. He could feel something spiritual about her, but it didn’t feel malicious. He felt drawn to her, a need to investigate beyond just the mere fact he’d seen her use super-strength. 

“So do you have any other powers? Laser vision, telekinesis?” She almost definitely wasn’t going to answer, but hey, it was worth a shot. Connor rarely saw the need to keep his questions to himself. “Oh! Do you have, like, a Batsignal? A way people can call on you when they need you? Maybe a burner phone, although that would be less exciting.” 

He was sure he’d caught some of her antics on camera, even though the footage probably wasn’t great thanks to being passed from one person to the other rather than held steadily. He couldn’t wait to look through it when he got back.

Sasha grinned. Superpowers, now that was something she could talk about easily. 

“No laser vision, but I’m fully capable of defeating evil.” She brought up her hand, but paused for a moment. No, it was fine, she was still in costume and on duty after all, even if she was now just walking with Connor back to his car. And he didn’t seem to have any inkling of who she was.

In an instant sharp, pale colored claws sprouted from Sasha’s fingers. And sure, maybe being seen as cool by someone was going to her head a bit. But who could blame her? She let the quick flicker of amber that helped her see in the dark glow steady from her eyes, causing light to shine from behind her domino mask. The Claw probably looked awesome. Or at least Sasha hoped. When she had done it in the mirror it looked cool to her.

“No signal, just my eyes and ears to keep a lookout.” But maybe that wasn’t too bad of an idea. At least the burner phone idea seemed pretty reasonable, but it might ruin the mystique a bit. “I’ll have to look into ways to let people get in contact with me.” 

“Well, love, you’ll probably find a lot of evil here,” Connor said simply, giving a laid back little chuckle. He’d heard horrific tales about some of the horrors White Crest held, and he’d seen many of them too. “Just be careful, yeah? Not all of ‘em can be defeated by super strength.” As impressive as it might have been. 

He turned his gaze towards her, watching her hand as she brought forth a set of sharp claws. “Whoa!” Christ, he wished he still had his camera rolling. He should’ve worn that GoPro attachment Jasmine had got him, but foolishly, he’d put it in his backpack, thinking his filming was done for the night. Her eyes glowed like jewels in the darkness. “That’s amazing,” he said, in awe. He made a mental note to look through some of Rio’s books later to see if he could find anything about animal-like spirits giving people powers. 

“Uh, this is me,” he said as they approached his black Jeep Renegade. “Thanks for the save. Hope you can use those powers of yours to find me again.” 

“Thank you for the concern, I will keep that in mind.” Sasha retracted her claws and let the glow fade from her eye. Part of her wanted to argue, say confidently that nothing could really go up against her strength, agility, and claws. But she wasn’t that cocky, and there was something about the way everyone kept talking about White Crest that was starting to put her on edge. Yeah, the town felt weird, and the death rates didn’t lie, but it felt like everyone talked like they were dancing around something, as if telling a joke she wasn’t privy to, that she could never hope to get. She didn’t know how to feel about the chuckle as Connor spoke. What wasn’t she getting?

Maybe that is just what it was like, being in a new town. She’d have to make an effort to look around more, maybe even talk to people, despite how hard that felt without her mask on. It was so much easier to jump from building to building under the cover of night or talk to Connor when she was hidden behind cool powers and a costume. It made her feel powerful, cool, “amazing” as Connor just said. People didn’t say that about Sasha, but they did about The Claw. 

“Hopefully you won’t need any more protection, but if you ever run into trouble know that The Claw will be here to help.” She nodded once, more to herself than Connor. She would keep an eye out for him while doing future patrols, but maybe he was right, a way for people to contact her would be helpful.

“Keep safe.” She said, and with that she darted toward a nearby alley, out of view. But she would climb up another fire escape and spend another hour with her eyes peeled, even as Connor’s Jeep disappeared into the distance. She had helped someone after all, and the pride did a good job pushing away her weariness. 

[rachelstwomoms]

CHILDHOOD FRIENDS AU: Rachel’s Birthday  (Part 2/?)

( Previous chapter here )

Spin the bottle truth or dare turned out to be awesome, just like Dana said. Nobody was brave enough to choose truth, so the game just ended up being Rachel and her classmates daring each other to do dumb, embarrassing things while everyone else watched and laughed, but that in itself was perfect for lifting Rachel’s spirits. After three more kids ended up either jumping willingly or being pushed into the pool with their clothes on, Rose came outside to reprimand them. She raised her voice and forbade anybody else from entering the pool because four o’clock was approaching, the party would be over soon, and she doesn’t need anyone’s parents complaining when she returns them a soaking wet child. Despite the seriousness of Rose’s tone, Rachel has to slap a hand across her mouth to stifle her laughter, finding it absolutely hilarious to watch her stepmother scold her friends instead of her.

The game died pretty quickly after that. Getting in trouble with a parent seemed to put a damper on the fun, and some of the parents had started to arrive to pick up their kids anyway. Rachel, Maxine and Chloe return inside and hang out in the hallway, Maxine on front door duty and Chloe handing out goodie bags as the party guests leave. As both the birthday girl and a parent favorite, Rachel is on the receiving end of tons of hugs and birthday wishes from the adults. Rachel preens and basks in the extra attention, all smiles as she thanks everyone for coming. 

At around four thirty, the last guest leaves. Rose shuts the door behind them and exhales a long, weary breath, thankful that the most stressful part of the party is over. Now until tomorrow morning, it’s just going to be Rachel, Maxine and Chloe. Rachel’s had her two best friends sleep over several times already and they haven’t run into any major problems yet. Maxine is such a sweetheart, and Chloe… 

Well, she can handle Chloe.  

“Rachel, honey, are you still up for tonight as planned?” Rose just wants to make sure. 

“Yeah!” Rachel is in the living room, popping the mix CD labeled “Rachel’s Party Jamz” she got from Chloe into the stereo. “When are we leaving?”

“Probably in about an hour. I’m going to clean up a bit first,” says Rose, looking around at the huge mess Rachel’s classmates left behind. She starts clearing paper cups and paper plates from various pieces of furniture. “You three can relax until it’s time to go. No more snacks, though. I’d like you to save your appetites for dinner.”

“Okay!” Rachel sits down on the floor next to her pile of presents. “I can open these now, right?”

“Go ahead.”

Rachel and Chloe cheer and turn their attention to the stack of colorfully wrapped packages and gift bags in the corner of the room. Instead of joining them, Maxine wordlessly wanders out into the kitchen, where Rose is grabbing a trash bag from underneath the sink. The young girl accidentally startles the woman, who stands back up only to find Maxine suddenly standing right in front of her. 

“Oh, Maxine! Sorry, I didn’t see you there. Did you need something?”

“Can I help you clean up?”

Rose’s heart swells. “That’s very sweet of you. I think Rachel’s about to open her presents, though. Wouldn’t you rather watch?”

Maxine shakes her head. “It’s okay. She can show me later.”

Chloe pokes her head over the living room bookshelves. “Goodie-two-shoes Maxine Caulfield strikes again!” 

With Maxine’s assistance, Rose finishes the party cleanup in half the time it would’ve taken her alone. She rinses the soap suds off the very last platter and hands it to Maxine, who is ready with a clean towel. Rose peels off her rubber gloves and drapes them over the edge of the sink, then takes the freshly dried platter from Maxine. “Thanks again for all your help, dear. I think we’re all done.”

Rachel comes running into the kitchen carrying a handful of gift cards. “Rose, look! I got fifty dollars to use at the smoothie place!”

“Let’s open Maxine’s present now!” Chloe waves both of her friends over. “Maxine, get your butt over here. We saved yours for last!”

Maxine was hoping that Rachel would open her gift while she was out in the kitchen with Rose so she wouldn’t have to watch. Instead, Rachel has grabbed her hand and she’s being pulled right back over to the big purple gift bag that she was relieved to get rid of earlier. At birthday parties, Maxine always dreads present time. She doesn’t like when everyone turns to look at her after the birthday kid announces that the next one’s from her, and she always worries that they’re going to hate her gift.  

Today should be fine because it’s only Rachel and Chloe here and they’re her friends, but Maxine’s still feeling kind of embarrassed. She just hopes that Rachel doesn’t think her gift is lame. Maxine stands awkwardly next to Chloe as Rachel reaches into the bag, ripping out fistfuls of pink tissue paper and plucks out a small lavender envelope. Maxine quietly hopes that Rachel doesn’t open her birthday card right then and there, or worse, read it out loud in front of her. 

Last weekend, Vanessa Caulfield came home from the store with a blank birthday card and told her daughter that it would be nice if she wrote her own message for Rachel. Following her mother’s instructions, Maxine ended up spending nearly an hour of her Sunday morning coming up with a message on a sheet of scratch paper, copying it in pencil into the card, and then tracing over it in pen in neat, careful cursive. 

The message ended up being longer than Maxine expected. Now that Rachel’s actually reading it, every second that ticks by makes it seem even longer. Maxine stands there, rubbing her elbow anxiously and watching hazel eyes move left and right across the card. 

Rachel’s lips curl into a smile as she gets to the latter half of her friend’s handwritten message. By the time she reaches the end and looks over at Maxine again, she’s positively beaming. “Thanks, Maxine. That was really sweet.”

“I wanna see!” Chloe’s hand shoots out and makes a grab for the card. 

Maxine’s heart nearly stops. 

But Rachel swiftly moves it out of Chloe’s reach and uses her other arm to nudge her away. “Never mind. Let’s see what’s in this baby!” Rachel picks up the gift bag, waves it in front of Chloe’s face, then drops it in her lap.  

Chloe looks down and grins, instantly forgetting about Maxine’s card. “Yeah! Maxine always gives the best presents. This one’s gonna be good.”

While Chloe’s distracted, Rachel sweeps the card under the pile of other birthday cards on the coffee table and out of sight. She meets eyes with Maxine one more time, flashing her another bright smile and a wink before turning her attention back to her last present of the day.

Maxine lets out a relieved sigh, heart swelling with appreciation for how Rachel always just seems to know how she’s feeling without her even saying anything. There have been times when Maxine has been almost convinced that Rachel can read her mind. That, or she’s just really, really good at guessing things about people. 

Over the next few seconds, Maxine’s birthday gift for Rachel is unveiled at last. Rachel reaches into the gift bag and pulls out a pale yellow, star-shaped pillow. Across the front is the word dreamer in curvy, white script with glittery, golden threads woven into each letter. 

“Oh my god, it’s so cute!” squeals Rachel. She hugs it to her chest and nuzzles her face into the soft, plushy fabric. “And it’s perfect for my room!” 

Finished with most of the party cleanup, Rose comes over and takes a seat in a nearby chair. She eyes the small mountain of gift wrap, tissue paper and ribbons accumulating near the fireplace. “How’s everything going over here, girls?”

“Rose! Look what Maxine got me!”

While Rachel excitedly shows off her new pillow, Maxine takes a starts to relax. Rachel likes her present after all. The pile of gifts nearby catches her eye and she takes a curious peek. There are books, board games and card games, a fuzzy purple diary with a matching pen, lots of bracelets, a few lip gloss sets and even a faux fur handbag that she’s pretty sure is from Juliet, who was carrying a similar one when she arrived. Maxine recognizes Chloe’s gift right away. They picked it out together last week during a Price family shopping trip – according to William, Maxine is an honorary family member – to the local mall. After much meandering in and out of several stores looking for something for Rachel, they finally found the gift during a short detour to Chloe’s favorite shop.

Sitting right on the top shelf in the middle of the science and discovery section was a set of bath confetti shaped like stars, hearts and diamonds. Six different colors, six different scents. Maxine and Chloe both know that for the past couple of weeks, their friend has been all about fizzy bath bombs and sweet-smelling lotions, so this would be right up her alley. But the best part, the very reason why Chloe was drawn to it in the first place, was the awesome packaging. The soap flakes are stored in little scientific test tubes, all lined up in their very own test tube rack. 

An ideal gift for Rachel with a Chloe-esque flair.  

“Hey.” 

There’s a tap on her shoulder, and Maxine turns to come face to face with Chloe, who has two ribbons stuck to her forehead and a smaller one on the tip of her nose. She looks ridiculous. Maxine dissolves into a fit of laughter and gives Chloe a gentle, playful shove. “You’re such a dork.”

Chloe gives a cheeky grin and bows deeply, causing one of the ribbons to fall into her lap. “Thank you very much.”

Rose guides Rachel back over to her friends with a hand on her back. “Girls, I’m going to go freshen up a bit, but let’s be ready to leave in about ten minutes or so, okay?”

“Okay!”

Next up on Rachel’s birthday schedule is dinner and an evening of games at the big arcade downtown, and neither Maxine nor Chloe have ever been there before. Maxine’s parents are not big fans of “loud, unsophisticated establishments” such as arcades, and when Joyce and William take them out, they tend to stick to local places around the neighborhood. The Bay is the most popular center of entertainment in all of Arcadia Bay for older kids, teens and adults. No colorful ball pits, no carousels playing nursery rhymes, and not a single singing anthropomorphic animal in sight. Just a vast array of bleeping, blooping machines as far as the eye can see.

All of this, along with the promise of all-you-can-eat pizza and a huge cup of game tokens courtesy of James Amber, has the girls absolutely stoked for their fun night ahead.  

James and Rose lead the girls to a spacious booth in the corner of the restaurant section. It has a clear view of the arcade, perfect for when they will need to keep an eye on Rachel and her friends later on. As expected, the girls quickly shovel down their pizza and are begging to be excused from the table before Rose even finishes her first slice. James gives them their tokens and tells them that he will be coming around every so often to check up on them. With one last warning from Rose to have fun but be careful, the girls disappear into the sea of beeps, whirs and hypnotizing lights.  

Most visitors to The Bay see its wide selection of arcade games as a place to let loose, play around and have fun. 

Rachel Amber sees a battlefield.

This is her chance to challenge her friends to some friendly competition.

For the first hour, Rachel marches around the arcade leading Chloe and Maxine around to different games. The birthday girl effortlessly places first during every race, dances the highest combos, and shoots down the most monsters. Victory after victory sends Rachel into a winner’s high and, before long, there’s a smug bounce in her step as she looks around for more games to win.

Just when Rachel thinks that she’s won every possible multiplayer game in the room, she spots one that she and her friends haven’t been to yet. Grinning excitedly, Rachel points to the lone table nearly hidden behind some of the bigger, more visually appealing machines. “Let’s play that next!”

Chloe and Maxine follow her finger and find an air hockey table. They look at each other and share a smile.

Rachel’s already standing on one side of the table, picking up one of the strikers. “So, who wants to go against me? Chloe?”

Chloe tries her hardest to act casual and keep a straight face. “Actually, Rach, why don’t you play with Maxine?”  

“Oh, okay,” says Rachel, shrugging. She waves her younger friend over. “Come play with me, Maxine!”

Rachel shoves two of her tokens into the coin slot on the side of the machine and the table comes to life. The overhead scoreboard starts glowing and cool air starts to blow from the tiny holes on the table’s surface. There’s a rattle and a clang! as the machine ejects a neon green puck into the pocket on Rachel’s side. 

Rachel waits for Maxine to pick up the other striker before she places the puck on the table. “Ready?”

“Ready,” replies Maxine, her free hand moving to hold the edge of the table.

Lightly tapping the puck, Rachel sends it over to Maxine. She watches her opponent carefully, gauging her ability. With a smooth swipe forward, Maxine returns the puck with quite a bit of force. It shoots back across the table so quickly that Rachel just barely manages to stop it from entering her goal. 

“Whoa,” exclaims Rachel, quickly straightening up as she realizes that this is going to be a serious match. Maxine has lagged behind her and Chloe in pretty much every game they’ve played so far, so she wasn’t expecting her to be this… this good. Although Rachel was able to react quickly enough to block Maxine’s shot, it took her by so much surprise that blocking it was all she did. The puck merely bounces off her striker and lazily floats back across the table.

Clack! 

The game has barely begun, but Maxine sends the puck soaring past Rachel’s hand and into the goal.

Maxine, one. Rachel, zero. 

Chloe jumps up and down and cheers. 

Rachel is speechless. 

That first goal happened so quickly and so unexpectedly that Rachel is still trying to process what happened. With her mouth hanging open slightly, she looks across the table at Maxine, who’s smiling sheepishly at her. Rachel’s going to have to keep on her toes for this match. She takes a moment to stretch her arms and roll her shoulders before she reaches below her to retrieve the puck. 

The match continues, and Rachel tries every approach to try and throw Maxine off: surprise quick shots, bouncing the puck against the walls, even attempting to distract her with conversation. But no matter what she does, Maxine’s reflexes are as sharp as ever. 

The score is now six to one, with Maxine in the lead. When Rachel managed to score her first point, she was only two points behind. This gave her some hope and, for a brief moment, she felt as though she still had a chance to catch up and turn the game around. Her optimism changed into a sense of impending doom, however, when Maxine proceeded to score three more back-to-back points.  

And now Maxine only needs to score one more time to win. 

Beads of sweat shine on Rachel’s forehead, and on her face is a fierce look of sheer concentration. No matter what, she can’t let Maxine get another point, or else… or else she loses. She has to watch Maxine’s movements like a hawk. Pausing first to wipe her sweaty palm on her shorts, Rachel takes a deep breath, grips her striker tightly, and tries to decide on her next move. Should she attack from the left or from the right? Rachel wonders if Maxine has a weak side. She spends several seconds wracking her brain to try and remember which half of the goal she hit the puck into when she scored. Maybe if she can do exactly the same thing…

“Hurry up, Rachel!” shouts Chloe, impatiently. “We’re not getting any younger over here!”

Rachel glares at her and slams the puck onto the table. “Okay, okay!”

If Rachel doesn’t keep Maxine from scoring again, that’s it. Game over. She moves the puck over a few inches to the left, but decides to aim to the right. Rachel hits the puck as hard as she can and it bounces off the side of the table. Unsurprisingly, Maxine swings at just the right timing and hits it back to Rachel, who moves her hand accordingly and sends it back to Maxine. 

Chloe watches the rally between her friends intently, eyes moving back and forth with the hockey puck. It’s not that Rachel’s bad at air hockey. Not at all. Chloe’s played against Rachel before at the mini arcade at their neighborhood pizza parlor, and Rachel’s beaten her loads of times. But Maxine is crazy good. In all the years that they have been best friends, Chloe has never been able to win against Maxine at air hockey, not even once. Even her dad, William, has played against her before, but not even he could prove to be any match for Maxine Caulfield. 

All of a sudden, Maxine gives a hard swing and the puck flies straight toward Rachel. 

Out of pure reflex and desperation, Rachel’s free hand shoots forward and slams the oncoming puck flat against the table, stopping it right before it enters her goal.

Chloe’s eyes widen and she leaps up, pointing. “Hey! That’s cheating!”

“I-I know!” Rachel’s flustered. She didn’t mean to do that… it just happened. “Sorry Maxine. Can we redo that one?” Rachel swipes the puck back across the table with her hand. 

Maxine nods, bringing her striker down to catch it. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

“No hands, Rachel,” Chloe teases. Her friend makes a face and sticks out her tongue in response.

Rachel tucks her hair behind her ears and readjusts her grip on her striker. “Okay, go.”

Maxine lightly taps the puck over to Rachel, but Rachel is so worked up that she swipes at it with such force that she misses, barely grazing its edge. It spins and veers off horizontally to the right, bumping the side of the table and slowly floating back. Rachel grits her teeth and swings again, knocking the puck across the table as hard as she can. It bounces wildly back and forth between the walls of the table, but Maxine watches closely and is able to block it. She strikes it against the wall just like Rachel did, but at an angle that makes it rebound and sail right towards the goal. 

“Don’t-!” Rachel sweeps her hand in front of her and swings blindly. By some miracle, she stops the puck just in time and manages to hit it back to Maxine.

The puck glides back across the table, and Rachel watches it go. She almost can’t believe she blocked that shot. For a second there, she thought she was a goner-

Crack! 

With a sharp flick, Maxine smacks the puck straight across the table. It flies right past Rachel’s hand and into the goal. Sirens go off, signaling the end of the game, and the scoreboard flashes the final score: seven to one. 

“Yes!” Chloe pumps her fist in the air and goes over to congratulate Maxine with a high five. “Maxine, undefeated air hockey champion!”

Rachel stands at the other end of the table, seemingly in shock. She’s still holding the striker. As it slowly sinks in that she lost the game, Rachel’s brows furrow and her lips turn down in a pout. 

Rachel Amber is not a graceful loser.

As she looks at Maxine, though, Rachel realizes that she doesn’t have it in her to get mad. Maxine isn’t laughing at her or rubbing it in her face like Chloe probably would have. 

But Rachel is definitely over air hockey. 

Abandoning her striker, Rachel turns her back to the game and walks away, motioning for Chloe and Maxine to follow her. “Let’s do something else.”

The girls spend the evening hard at play, only occasionally coming back to the table where Rose and James are sitting to chug soda or take a few more bites of pizza. Eventually, Rachel and Chloe break out into a battle to see who can win the most tickets. Maxine tags along for a while but, as the night goes on, starts to find it hard to keep up with her overzealously competitive friends. In the end, Maxine announces that she’s going to take a break and relinquishes all of her tickets to Rachel as a birthday gift, which earns her an elated smile from the birthday girl… and some grumbling from Chloe. 

It’s about half past seven when Maxine returns to the table alone, looking absolutely exhausted.  

“Having fun?” asks Rose, welcoming Maxine back with a warm smile. The girl nods and gives a tiny smile in return, but Rose can tell that she certainly needs a breather. She pats the space beside her. “Have a seat, dear. It’s almost time to head home anyway.”

Knowing Maxine isn’t much of a talker, Rose reaches into her purse and pulls out her digital camera to show her some party pictures from that afternoon. Maxine looks at them with interest and warms up to Rose quickly. There are tons of photos of Rachel and her classmates, some taken inside and some outside by the pool, and Maxine giggles when Rose flips to one photo in particular. It’s one of her, Chloe and Rachel standing together by the edge of the pool, dripping wet, having paused to pose for the camera just before jumping back in. Maxine and Rachel are both smiling, and Rachel’s even throwing in double peace signs, but Chloe has her hands covering her chest and crotch, mouth shaped like an O and pretending to be shocked as though Rose just walked in on her taking a shower.  

Rose comes to a few blurry shots of Rachel’s birthday cake and she shakes her head. She flips past those quickly, apologizing and sounding slightly embarrassed as she explains that the camera just wouldn’t cooperate when she tried to take some closeups.

Maxine identifies the problem immediately. “You should change the settings.” 

“I’m sorry?” Rose sounds a little lost.

“On the camera,” Maxine explains. “For closeups. If you change it to macro mode, you should get a clear shot.”

The woman chuckles, now remembering that Maxine is an aspiring photographer. “I don’t know much about cameras. Could you show me?”

Maxine’s eyes seem to sparkle as Rose hands her the camera. “Sure.” 

Rose watches in fascination as Maxine’s little fingers press several buttons and navigate through various menus that pop up on the screen. Her face lights up when she finds what she was looking for. Holding the camera out so that Rose can see, Maxine points to one of the buttons near the top of the camera. “If you press this, you can change the focus settings. For really close closeups, you’ll want the one with the flower symbol.” 

“I see,” says Rose. “And then I can just take a photo normally?”

“Yeah,” Maxine replies. She moves the camera to the side and snaps a quick photo of the bottom of Rose’s glass of ice water. “See?”

When Rose leans in to look at the photo Maxine took, she’s completely blown away. The tiny drops of condensation on the outside of the glass are in perfect focus, so clear that they almost look like crystals. “Wow, honey, that’s amazing.”

Maxine returns the camera to Rose. “To go back to normal mode, just press the same button until the flower goes away.” 

Rose presses the button once and the flower icon turns into something triangular. “What does this one mean?”

“Those are mountains. That’s if you want to take a picture of something really far away.”

Rose hums and nods, thoroughly impressed with Maxine’s camera knowledge. She presses the same button again and, just like Maxine promised, the icons disappear. “Thank you, Maxine. This is very helpful.”

“Rachel, slow down!”

Both Rose and Maxine turn their heads toward the familiar voice. Rachel and Chloe are back, but something’s very wrong. Rachel comes storming over, clearly furious, and wordlessly plops herself in the seat across from them. She forcefully slams her plastic cup of tickets onto the table, making Maxine jump. Rose takes one look at Rachel and knows it’s probably time to head home. 

Chloe catches up and slides into the booth next to Rachel. “I told you not to play it anymore.”

Rose isn’t sure whether she should press further, or if she should take a different approach and try to take Rachel’s mind off of… whatever this is about. She ends up not needing to make that decision, however, because Maxine brings it up first. 

“What happened?”

Rachel is too upset to answer, so Chloe does. “She wasted all of her tokens on a dumb prize game.”

“It’s not fair!” Rachel sounds close to tears. “The stupid machine’s rigged!”

“Oh dear…” sighs Rose. Distract and divert. “Honey, it’s okay. You know what? It’s about time for us to leave anyway. You, Chloe and Maxine still get to trade in your tickets for prizes, right?” 

“Maxine gave me her tickets,” Rachel tells her, pulling the collar of her shirt up to wipe her eyes. 

“She did? Oh, that was very sweet of her, wasn’t it?”   

Rachel nods. “And Chloe let me have some of her tokens.”

“You're lucky to have such caring friends.” Rose starts to pack up her things, and the girls follow suit. “Let's exchange those tickets and head home. Don't forget, you girls still have ice cream and a movie waiting for you.”

“Where's Dad?” asks Rachel, suddenly noticing that her father is missing.

Shaking her head, Rose laughs softly. “Would you believe that he's been at that silly horse racing game for the past hour? I’ll tell him it's time to go. We'll meet you girls by the prizes.”

While Rachel, Chloe and Maxine scurry off to redeem their tickets, Rose goes to search for her husband. The last time she had seen him, he and a few others were crouched over the large metal race track in the corner of the arcade, placing bets on which mechanical horse would come in first place. Rose arrives at the horse racing game but, to her confusion, the stool where James was sitting earlier is now empty. She stands there for a moment, scanning the premises, but Rachel’s father is nowhere to be found.

Rose tuts under her breath, then fumbles through her handbag for her cell phone. No missed calls. Flipping her phone open with her thumb, Rose holds down the ‘3’ key and speed dials James’ cell number. It rings… and rings… and rings. Sighing, Rose shuts her phone and decides to head back to the table to see if James is there. Perhaps he had gone to the restroom, or on another round to check up on the girls…

“Rose!”

The woman turns, and there’s James, coming back inside through the front doors, cell phone in hand and waving wildly to get her attention. Rose waits with a hand on her hip, ready to ask him where he had run off to all of a sudden, but the words die on her tongue as James comes closer and she sees the troubled expression on his face. Her mild annoyance is replaced with worry. “What is it?”

James shakes his head slightly and rests his free hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Rose, I just got off the phone with Sera.”

Rose raises an eyebrow. “Did something happen?”

“She’s at the airport. She’s coming over tonight after all.”

[momo-de-avis]

tell me more about millais and the whole "steal ur wife and have a happy marriage with her lmaoo" and the whole pedo thing??? im intrigued

At the top of my head and very quickly without bothering myself with checking things online cause I’m a bit lazy sorry (though I’ve been over this story for quite a while, I trust my instinct)

When the Pre-Raphaelites appeared, they were the bad boys of London. Reasons:

1) Fucked around, mostly Rossetti

2) Broke academic rules by painting in excruciating and vivid details that weren’t possible with the naked eye (like Holman Hunt painted every single blade of the grass—your eye can’t see it unless you stare closely at it, so academically, that was ugly)

3) Used redheaded women as models. Now, Victorians were absolute fucking lunatics, but the ideal beauty to them was some corpse-looking Morticia Adams. Black hair and pale skin, was top notch. Blonde, blue-eyed beauty came second, probably. What mattered was the pale skin. It was a trend among Victorian women to paint purple and blue veins to look as dead as possible because the frailty of women in a society that told they literally were good for nothing except breeding was the Latest Trend. Redheads, however, were considered cursed. Case in point: the greatest pre-raphaelite muse, Lizzie Siddal: she was not only a red-head, but her skin was also darker than most prefered. Not that she was anything but a white woman, just not white enough to look like you were already flirting with tuberculosis and ready to die fashionably at 40 (though Lizzie was famous for being constantly sick and bedridden. And addicted to Laudanum, like a good Victorian).

4) Basically what gave them the name: PRE-raphaelite. To explain quickly: academic painting privileged the art that resembled Raphael's paintings: harmonious, made of volumes through precise shadowing, mannerist in its style. Line and drawing prevailed above colour. This is linked to formalism so I’m just gonna wrap it up quickly: drawing was considered the intellectual form of art (because in the 16th century people were like ‘oh, astronomy is a science!’ and 'oh, mathematics is a science!’ and people were like, 'well shit, we gotta find a reason to call arts a science too’ and the Renaissance worked that out by explaining that drawing was basically a form of science. Take Da Vinci). The Pre-raphaelites said: fuck that noise, and privileged colour. They used techniques to brighten their paintings (like a layer of white paint applied to the canvas before they applied the preliminary drawing, which made the colours stand out, and then finished it off with wax varnish, which makes it glow. If you ever see a PR painting live, note just how vivid it is. It looks like it’s never gonna wear off, it’s incredible). So with this, they basically said the Royal Academy was a bunch of piss babies who knew jack shit about painting (the accusation of being dumbasses included).

5) …but to be that guy, you had to LIVE the life. So, if you privilege medieval thinking, lifestyle and theology, what you gotta do? BE that medieval knight Victorians thought were oh so Chivalric. Again, famously, Lizzie Siddal is known to be the bad girl of this revival: she refused to wear crinoline and whatever shit the Victorian ladies wore. She wore loose dresses, no corsets and overall dressed like the engravings on Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. She was actually lauded for her commitment like, even Ruskin at one point saw Rossetti as a piss baby rock star wannabe who never finished his shit, but this girl? She committed.

So you see, when these guys popped up, Victorians scowled. BADLY.

But they knew that, to conquer the hearts of promiscuous dandies and hypocritical high-society, laudanum-ridden, arsenic-eating uptight douches and douchesses, they had to get to the loins of one man: most important art critic of his time, single-handedly responsible for elevating William Turner to the True Genius of English Painting: John Ruskin.

Now, just WHO was John Ruskin?

First of all, this little shit was overtly religious. Protestant kind, so you know what you’re in for. This guy studied Turner back and forth, knew everything about him, wrote extensively of his genius and was responsible, as I said, to consecrate him to the memory of British sea painting. Except he purposefully left a bit out, one particular episode of Turner’s life that, to Ruskin’s mind, would ruin his reputation.

Turner was a freak. My man has ENDLESS erotic drawings that go from curious artist look into the Vagina from full-blown pre-victorian porn. And Ruskin kept it all locked away inside his drawer.

The thing was, Ruskin was brought up surrounded by art. This guy looked at Roman statues of women, with their perfectly waxed peepees and toned arms supporting perky breasts and DEAD ASS though this was what women looked like.

So he married Effie Gray, a woman in everything respectable, a prosperous marriage for the good ol’ Victorian lady and dude.

And for the next five years of their marriage proceeded to REFUSE to even touch her.

When the pre-raphaelites pop up, Ruskin attends their very first exhibition and writes them a glowing review. Immediately they go from nut-heads to pop stars. But among them all, it was clear that it was John Everett Millais who was the most talented. So Ruskin took him under his wing.

His first assignment was: paint my portrait. But the pre-raphaelites did something the British academics didn’t: to paint nature, they went outside and painting the motif by looking directly at it. And Ruskin, who praised this mode of making art, had in mind the precise spot he wanted to be painted on: a waterfal or some shit in Scotland, where he owned a cottage.

This cottage was not big. It was actually rather small—you know, in pretending-to-be-a-peasant-is-so-much-fun! victorian fashion. And what does this absolute buffoon does? He invites Millais and his wife Effie in to paint his portrait.

Now I want you to imagine this woman, who has been pushing down 5 years of Horny, putting up with this dude’s shit, enclosed in a tight space with this man—who was older than herself—and incidentally, a handsome looking young fella who paints nicely.

I insist on this thing that Ruskin didn’t touch his wife because he thought women looked like statues because he actually told her. He told her he found her repulsive because—what do you know!!! The peepee’s got some pubic hair! And women menstruate! And like, we’re real fucking things, not Pygmalion's wet dream forged over and over again! She actually wrote a letter to her father detailing this (if you watch the show Desperate Romantics, the scene were Effie confesses this to Millais, the actress is actually reciting this letter word for word).

So when they return to London after the painting is done, they just… Fall in love. I mean, shit, what was she supposed to do?

The face of a man who doesn’t know he’s about to be shit-whipped by his pupil, painted by none other than his protegée, this same pupil.

But remember: no matter what Victorian fangirls say, and whatever that Victorian TV show tries to show you, this society was absolute utter shit for women. Effie Grey presented an annulment proposal to her marriage, and society collapsed on her. She was actually blamed for the fact that Ruskin wouldn’t consummate the marriage. And because she had grown quite close to Millais, she had to prove before the entirety of Victorian society that she was a virgin. Oh, yes. It’s what you’re thinking.

Those open-your-legs-wide-and-let-me-insert-this-not-at-all-friendly-looking-metal-utensil-up--your-private-canal-to-prove-you-are-a-virgin. This, mind you, was back then as utterly humiliating as it sounds now, and to make matters worse, Mr. I-only-fuck-clean-shaven-pussy claimed she was mentally unstable.

Either way: annulment conceded, and she married John Everett Millais. The two went on to a lifelong of fucking and 8 children. Check Millais’ painting Peace Concluded and tell me those two idiots did not die happy together.

I kid you not: until Millais’ death, Effie was socially ostracized. She was even barred from being present in social events where Queen Victoria was, proclaimed by the Queen herself (because remember kids! Victorian society absolutely sucked because it was none other than our favourite imperialist who made it so!) even after she ordered Millais the first Laureate painter. It was only when Millais was dying that in his death bed he BEGGED to lift that stupid shit and she conceded. I just honestly believe Effie didn’t give a shit at this point, because my girl was happy.

So, you ask, what happened to Ruskin?

Don’t think he got off easy lmao. He had his own demise. He wasn’t seen with good eyes after the whole annulment debacle. But of course, being the pissy adult he was, he had to make things worse.

Enter Rose de La Touche.

You see, Rose de la Touche was Ruskin’s pupil. She is, as far as we can tell from his writings, the only woman he ever called attractive and revealed to be attracted to her. When, you ask?

When she was fucking 9 years old, the first time he met her.

He became tutoring her when she was 14. At this point, this ugly ass vulture was way past his 40s. Rose’s parents actually made it worse if my mind doesn’t fail me, but I’m not certain so I won’t address them. Either way, he pretty much groomed her and she grew infatuated with him. He actually made plans to marry her once she turned like, 18 or something, like a good pedo.

The only reason Rose didn’t marry Ruskin? Effie Gray stepped in. Not that she was that interested in what was to happen. The thing was, the reason for the annulment was that Ruskin was impotent, and if he fucked a healthy girl and she got pregnant, she’d be in the shits. But either way, I think it was easy given that he was like 40 years older or some shit. Rose actually declined to marry because she wanted the marriage to be unconsummated, but this time around, ya big Pedo declined! I wonder why was it so easy the first time, and so hard now that he found himself a neat little child to corrupt, right?

At some point, even fucking Rossetti intervened. Now, Rossetti was the rock star of his time: he fucked everything that moved, he got into affairs with the wives of his pupils while Lizzie lingered between life and death at his home, and it took him some 9 years to finally keep his promise to Lizzie and marry her ass. He was the last person you’d expect to say a thing. But you know you’ve fucked up and that you’re a perverted piece of shit when THIS IS THE GUY who steps in to say 'hey, Ruskin, big fan, but you really gotta tone it down cause even I’m not a pedo, pal’.

Now listen: yeah, there’s a lot of speculation about Ruskin’s 'love affair’ with Rose de La Touche. Did he really fall in love with her when she was 9? We don’t know. We don’t care either, because it doesn’t make him any less a fucking pedo. Like, yeah, good art critic, nice theory on the whole Modern Painting book, but this dude had some serious issues.

And there you go

[bbtwords]

My seven-year-old grandson sleeps just down the hall from me, and he wakes up a lot of mornings and he says, "You know, this could be the best day ever." And other times, in the middle of the night, he calls out in a tremulous voice, "Nana, will you ever get sick and die?" I think this pretty much says it for me and most of the people I know, that we're a mixed grill of happy anticipation and dread. So I sat down a few days before my 61st birthday, and I decided to compile a list of everything I know for sure. There's so little truth in the popular culture, and it's good to be sure of a few things. For instance, I am no longer 47, although this is the age I feel, and the age I like to think of myself as being. My friend Paul used to say in his late 70s that he felt like a young man with something really wrong with him. Our true person is outside of time and space, but looking at the paperwork, I can, in fact, see that I was born in 1954. My inside self is outside of time and space. It doesn't have an age. I'm every age I've ever been, and so are you, although I can't help mentioning as an aside that it might have been helpful if I hadn't followed the skin care rules of the '60s, which involved getting as much sun as possible while slathered in baby oil and basking in the glow of a tinfoil reflector shield. It was so liberating, though, to face the truth that I was no longer in the last throes of middle age, that I decided to write down every single true thing I know. People feel really doomed and overwhelmed these days, and they keep asking me what's true. So I hope that my list of things I'm almost positive about might offer some basic operating instructions to anyone who is feeling really overwhelmed or beleaguered. Number one: the first and truest thing is that all truth is a paradox. Life is both a precious, unfathomably beautiful gift, and it's impossible here, on the incarnational side of things. It's been a very bad match for those of us who were born extremely sensitive. It's so hard and weird that we sometimes wonder if we're being punked. It's filled simultaneously with heartbreaking sweetness and beauty, desperate poverty, floods and babies and acne and Mozart, all swirled together. I don't think it's an ideal system. Number two: almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes – including you. Three: there is almost nothing outside of you that will help in any kind of lasting way, unless you're waiting for an organ. You can't buy, achieve or date serenity and peace of mind. This is the most horrible truth, and I so resent it. But it's an inside job, and we can't arrange peace or lasting improvement for the people we love most in the world. They have to find their own ways, their own answers. You can't run alongside your grown children with sunscreen and ChapStick on their hero's journey. You have to release them. It's disrespectful not to. And if it's someone else's problem, you probably don't have the answer, anyway. Our help is usually not very helpful. Our help is often toxic. And help is the sunny side of control. Stop helping so much. Don't get your help and goodness all over everybody. This brings us to number four: everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy and scared, even the people who seem to have it most together. They are much more like you than you would believe, so try not to compare your insides to other people's outsides. It will only make you worse than you already are. Also, you can't save, fix or rescue any of them or get anyone sober. What helped me get clean and sober 30 years ago was the catastrophe of my behavior and thinking. So I asked some sober friends for help, and I turned to a higher power. One acronym for God is the "gift of desperation," G-O-D, or as a sober friend put it, by the end I was deteriorating faster than I could lower my standards. So God might mean, in this case, "me running out of any more good ideas." While fixing and saving and trying to rescue is futile, radical self-care is quantum, and it radiates out from you into the atmosphere like a little fresh air. It's a huge gift to the world. When people respond by saying, "Well, isn't she full of herself," just smile obliquely like Mona Lisa and make both of you a nice cup of tea. Being full of affection for one's goofy, self-centered, cranky, annoying self is home. It's where world peace begins. Number five: chocolate with 75 percent cacao is not actually a food. Its best use is as a bait in snake traps or to balance the legs of wobbly chairs. It was never meant to be considered an edible. Number six – writing. Every writer you know writes really terrible first drafts, but they keep their butt in the chair. That's the secret of life. That's probably the main difference between you and them. They just do it. They do it by prearrangement with themselves. They do it as a debt of honor. They tell stories that come through them one day at a time, little by little. When my older brother was in fourth grade, he had a term paper on birds due the next day, and he hadn't started. So my dad sat down with him with an Audubon book, paper, pencils and brads – for those of you who have gotten a little less young and remember brads – and he said to my brother, "Just take it bird by bird, buddy. Just read about pelicans and then write about pelicans in your own voice. And then find out about chickadees, and tell us about them in your own voice. And then geese." So the two most important things about writing are: bird by bird and really god-awful first drafts. If you don't know where to start, remember that every single thing that happened to you is yours, and you get to tell it. If people wanted you to write more warmly about them, they should've behaved better. You're going to feel like hell if you wake up someday and you never wrote the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart: your stories, memories, visions and songs – your truth, your version of things – in your own voice. That's really all you have to offer us, and that's also why you were born. Seven: publication and temporary creative successes are something you have to recover from. They kill as many people as not. They will hurt, damage and change you in ways you cannot imagine. The most degraded and evil people I've ever known are male writers who've had huge best sellers. And yet, returning to number one, that all truth is paradox, it's also a miracle to get your work published, to get your stories read and heard. Just try to bust yourself gently of the fantasy that publication will heal you, that it will fill the Swiss-cheesy holes inside of you. It can't. It won't. But writing can. So can singing in a choir or a bluegrass band. So can painting community murals or birding or fostering old dogs that no one else will. Number eight: families. Families are hard, hard, hard, no matter how cherished and astonishing they may also be. Again, see number one. At family gatherings where you suddenly feel homicidal or suicidal – remember that in all cases, it's a miracle that any of us, specifically, were conceived and born. Earth is forgiveness school. It begins with forgiving yourself, and then you might as well start at the dinner table. That way, you can do this work in comfortable pants. When William Blake said that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love, he knew that your family would be an intimate part of this, even as you want to run screaming for your cute little life. But I promise you are up to it. You can do it, Cinderella, you can do it, and you will be amazed. Nine: food. Try to do a little better. I think you know what I mean. Number 10 – grace. Grace is spiritual WD-40, or water wings. The mystery of grace is that God loves Henry Kissinger and Vladimir Putin and me exactly as much as He or She loves your new grandchild. Go figure. The movement of grace is what changes us, heals us and heals our world. To summon grace, say, "Help," and then buckle up. Grace finds you exactly where you are, but it doesn't leave you where it found you. And grace won't look like Casper the Friendly Ghost, regrettably. But the phone will ring or the mail will come and then against all odds, you'll get your sense of humor about yourself back. Laughter really is carbonated holiness. It helps us breathe again and again and gives us back to ourselves, and this gives us faith in life and each other. And remember – grace always bats last. Eleven: God just means goodness. It's really not all that scary. It means the divine or a loving, animating intelligence, or, as we learned from the great "Deteriorata," "the cosmic muffin." A good name for God is: "Not me." Emerson said that the happiest person on Earth is the one who learns from nature the lessons of worship. So go outside a lot and look up. My pastor said you can trap bees on the bottom of mason jars without lids because they don't look up, so they just walk around bitterly bumping into the glass walls. Go outside. Look up. Secret of life. And finally: death. Number 12. Wow and yikes. It's so hard to bear when the few people you cannot live without die. You'll never get over these losses, and no matter what the culture says, you're not supposed to. We Christians like to think of death as a major change of address, but in any case, the person will live again fully in your heart if you don't seal it off. Like Leonard Cohen said, "There are cracks in everything, and that's how the light gets in." And that's how we feel our people again fully alive. Also, the people will make you laugh out loud at the most inconvenient times, and that's the great good news. But their absence will also be a lifelong nightmare of homesickness for you. Grief and friends, time and tears will heal you to some extent. Tears will bathe and baptize and hydrate and moisturize you and the ground on which you walk. Do you know the first thing that God says to Moses? He says, "Take off your shoes." Because this is holy ground, all evidence to the contrary. It's hard to believe, but it's the truest thing I know. When you're a little bit older, like my tiny personal self, you realize that death is as sacred as birth. And don't worry – get on with your life. Almost every single death is easy and gentle with the very best people surrounding you for as long as you need. You won't be alone. They'll help you cross over to whatever awaits us. As Ram Dass said, "When all is said and done, we're really just all walking each other home." I think that's it, but if I think of anything else, I'll let you know. Thank you.

12 Truths I Learned from Life and Writing TED2017 Anne Lamott https://www.ted.com/talks/anne_lamott_12_truths_i_learned_from_life_and_writing

[billion-heartbeats]

Nuances of life.

Mothers always make it to the top and Why not?

Fathers are a close second and is the one all have Overlooked!

 Mother and child                                 Father and child

  The image of Mother and child comes out powerful and that of Father and child is subdued!

 Mothers are Perceived as more equal than Fathers and I agree! Many Dads don’t seem to mind! Fathers aren't holding grudges.

 Being a good dad starts with being a good husband. Great husbands become great dads!

 Many fathers today are trapped in a vicious loop. They work hard and work endlessly, earn more money for the family, provide a better life for the household, and satisfy the child’s material desires. The dark side of this is that fathers may get distant.

 Kids need their dad - Who will walk with them through the painful, difficult years of growing up to adolescence and puberty, helping them deal with physiological changes!  Fathers are the one they can turn to for advice. 

I think women underestimate themselves and are in a fight for equality with men. They are far superior and always have been. Whatever you give a woman, she will make it bigger and greater. If you give her sperm, she will give you a baby. If you give her a house, she will give you a home. If you give her groceries, she will give you a meal. If you give her a smile she will give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her- “William Golding.

 Mothers do everything.”

Motherhood is starkly different from fatherhood.

Motherhood! This is where it gets real - the nausea, heartburn, swollen limbs, insomnia, and a hamper of biological googlies. Pain- just enjoy it! No pain killers for you. In fact, don’t fall sick at all because medicines are out of bounds entirely. What does the father and equal partner-in-crime go through? Empathy!

The most painful experience a human being goes through is childbirth. you push out a live human from your body. Then you have to get around to raising that human- immediately. Your baby needs to be fed Constantly. The ban on Medicine still on!

The mommy hormones seem to be firing in all directions, while the daddy hormones keep him as tranquil as a Buddhist monk. The father’s role in child birth - Optionally, a lot. There’s burping, changing, soothing, and bathing. But mandatorily? Nothing!

 As a mother, you are now forever changed. Ask any anxious mom frantically researching to see if greenish poop with a hint of seaweed yellow is OK, or if mustard yellow is the only way to go. Or if the fact that her baby crawling at eight months two days, rather than the reported average of eight months. Enter dad again, sweeping into the role of cool parent. This unique power comes from not having had to literally construct the said child inside his body.

 This biological distinction or discrimination – is what pinches the most. Sure, motherhood is rewarding- so is fatherhood. Why does only motherhood have to be difficult? Why does motherhood involve a passage laced with blood, sweat, and tears while fatherhood can be attained by simply donating sperm!

 Mother’s hug is the first and the best Medicine. Mother is First love, first friend, first teacher, first thing to come into mind, and etc. We often got asked whom we love more, mother of father? Pat comes the answer – Both, only not to hurt Fathers.

 Dads and moms from Hindu mythology we're glad we don't have!

 In Hindu mythology, why are there no girl children born to gods- the children of the gods have always been sons. Why, I have no clue at all! Is there any symbolism hidden in this?

 We can claim without any regret that current dads are the best. If you're a modern kid, you've probably had a father who actually invested his love and care in you. Arjun and Babruvahana, Bhima and Ghatothkacha, Hiranyakashipu and Prahlada and so on! Sons were left high and dry!

We get to hear only Kunti the mother who sacrificed Karna immediately after his birth. you just can't deny that they didn't match up to the ideals of fatherhood and motherhood!

 The Science of Dad and the ‘Father Effect’

I liked this letter written by a father to his children

Dear children,

Remember the following as you go through life. This perhaps could save you a lot of aches and pains.

Life, fortune and mishaps are unpredictable. Do not bear grudge towards those who are not good to you. No one has the responsibility of treating you well, except your mother and I. To those who are good to you, treasure them and be thankful. Many have motives for every move. Understand that no one is indispensable.

Life is short. Make the best of it! Don’t wait till you start losing life!  When your loved ones leave you, be patient, time will wash away your aches, pains and grief! Understand the beauty of love and be true to it. Know the value of things and not the price! Be knowledgeable. Be educated! Honour your words, but don't expect others to be so. You can be good to people, but don't expect people to be good to you.

Lottery tickets don’t make you rich. Your hard work does! There is no free lunch! Live Life on Your Terms. Keep the Child Within You alive. Do not suffer in silence, communicate, ask for help, and treat others well. Work Hard, Work Wisely. Be Consistent.

 Here is a son’s impression of his father at different time lines!

At 4 Years:

My dad is great.

At 6 Years:

My dad knows everything.

At 10 Years:

My dad is good but is short tempered. He knows less than my friend’s daddy.

At 12 Years:

My dad was very nice to me when I was young.

At 16 Years:

My dad is not in line with the current times. Frankly he does not know anything.

At 18 Years:

My dad is becoming increasingly cranky and unreasonable.

At 20 Years:

Oh! It’s becoming increasingly difficult to tolerate dad. Wonder how my mom puts up with him.

At 25 Years:

Dad is objecting to everything. Don’t know when he will understand the world!

At 30 Years:

It’s becoming difficult to manage my son. I was so scared of my father when I was his age.

At 40 Years:

Dad brought me up with so much discipline. I wonder how he managed to handle the younger generation.

At 45 Years:

I am baffled as to how my dad brought us up.

At 50 Years:

My dad faced so many hardships to bring us up. We were four- brothers and sisters. I am unable to manage a single child.

At 55 Years:

My dad was so far sighted and planned so many things for us. Even at this old age, he is able to control things. He is one of his kind and unique.

At 60 Years:

My dad was great.

Don’t take so many years. Realize it in time.

 Fathers hide their wounds and cry without a tear in their eyes! No one sings in praise of their deeds. You are unnoticed because you are always on the move. In our daily life, a mother is always remembered in thousand ways, but a father’s contribution in moulding their children, shaping their character and bringing a bright future, is hardly mentioned! But trust me, Fathers don’t grudge!

 Fathers are brief, direct and to the point, and often his sheer glance is enough to comfort and control the children. He has the ability of keeping calm even in the toughest situations, while maintaining a wise and practical approach towards them.

 Anyone can father a child, but to be a father takes a lifetime. Fathers play a role in every child’s life that cannot be filled by others, even by the mothers. Fathers provide a feeling of security, both physical and emotional. 

 Involved fathers – especially biological fathers – bring positive benefits to their children that no other person can bring. They provide protection and economic support and male role models. They have a parenting style that is significantly different from that of a mother and that difference is important in healthy child development.

From an unknown source!

 Mother - Introduces you to the world.

Father - Introduces the world to you.

 Mother Gives you, life

Father makes you live that life

 Mother Makes sure you are not starving.

Father may go hungry but makes sure that you don’t starve

 Mother Personifies Care

Father Personifies Responsibility

Mother Protects you from a fall

Father Teaches you to get up from the fall and get going.

Mother Teaches you walking the first steps

Father Teaches you the walk of life

Mother Reflects Ideology

Father Reflects Reality

 Mother's love is known to you since birth.

Father's love is known when you become a Father.

 An 80-year-old father was sitting on the sofa in his house along with his 45years old highly educated son. Suddenly a parrot comes and sits on their window. He asked his son, what is this? Son said it’s a parrot! Father asks the same question three more times! The son got irritated and shouted at his father that it’s a parrot, it’s a parrot! Can’t you hear me? Have you gone short of hearing?

 Father takes the snub with a smile and goes to his room to bring an old diary. He asks his son to read the page – “Today my little son aged three was sitting with me on the sofa, when a parrot was sitting on the window. My Son asked me 10 times what it was, and I replied to him all 10 times that it was a parrot. I hugged him lovingly each time he asked me the same question again and again for 10 times. I rather felt affection for my innocent child. The son maintained a stoic face.

Yes, Moms are nicer. 

Dads are still somewhat of a mystery for many kids. Child Prefers Mom over Dad but not always! Dads may be physically present but emotionally distant! Fatherhood does not change the past but enlarges the future.

  Dr N Prabhudev

Former Director Sri Jayadeva institute of Cardiology

Former VC of Bangalore university

Former Chairman Karnataka state Health Commission

nprabhudev@gmail.com

[fortheloveofpearlet]

Wilting Flowers - Chp.11

It’s back! For those of you that wanted to read the rest I will be queuing the remaining chapters to post once a day from today so it’ll be coming up you quickly! Enjoy loves! 

Chapter 11

/// Christopher Williams - Nashville, 2014

I knelt in the dirt and ran my fingers over the two concrete blocks in front of me. Snow was in the air, I could feel it. I always could tell when it was coming. Any minute now I was sure it would start. I could feel the tears behind my eyes dangerously close to spilling over. The fresh flowers I’d brought juxtaposed with the dying ones that had already been here. I wondered when the last time someone had visited was. I felt a set of hands on my shoulders and I looked up to see Kenya smiling sadly at me. 

‘Estas bien mi amor?’ She whispered. I sniffed, trying to keep my tears back.

'Yeah I’m ok.’ I lied. She probably knew I was lying too. She gripped my shoulders and I looked back at my parents gravestones. Side by side they laid for eternity, just the way they’ve always planned. I’m sure they didn’t plan on it being this soon though. I wonder what they would have went through had they been alive when I disappeared. But then again, if they hadn’t of died I would never have left Nashville in the first place. 

'I hope you didn’t suffer.’ I sniffed still stroking their headstones. 'And I swear I will do everything I can to find who did this to you.’

Kenya squeezed my shoulders again. The first tear escaped my eye and I brushed it away. 'I will never forget you and I hope you both know how I much I love you. I’m sorry I never got to give you a proper goodbye but I’m sure Kenya took good care of you.’ I took a few deep breaths and pushed myself up from the ground. Kenya’s arms were around me in an instant. The girl was so tiny she always got lost when she embraced me. 

'I’m going to be here every step of the way baby.’ She told me, actually speaking in English for a change. 

'Thank you.’ A few more tears fell and I wiped them away before Kenya could see them. She smiled at me and reached up to stroke my cheek when the hug ended.

'Come on mi amor, let’s go get some cafè.' 

I nodded and I let her take my hand and lead me out of the cemetery.

 ————————————–

/// Present Day - Wednesday, 2.10 am

Bri pulled his legs close to his body and rested his chin on his knees. He thought a few days apart from Brian would do him good but god he missed him so much. He wanted to call him, he wanted to hear his voice but he knew that wasn’t allowed. He hadn’t been looking for love when he’d met Brian, of course he hadn’t been. It was still a little confusing how he’d gone from sleeping in Brian’s spare room to being his boyfriend. He didn’t act like it sometimes, but he was so glad he had Brian. He didn’t know how he would have gotten through the last two years without him. Brian had been his rock, his shoulder to cry on; his whole world. Maybe Bri should tell him that when this was all over. He couldn’t sleep because he was so used to being held protectively by Brian, it was too weird without him here. God he loved that man, he should tell him that more often. 

  ————————————–

/// Brian Firkus - New York, 2015

I took a few deep breaths as I sat on the couch opposite Brian. He was looking at me in that way that I knew meant he wanted to kiss me. Did I want him to kiss me? I wasn’t sure. I’d been living with him a few months now, since I’d gotten out of hospital because I literally had nowhere else to go. He’d given me his spare room and told me I could stay for as long as I liked. We’d spent Christmas together and New Year, in fact I spent all my time with him. I had no one else. He’d been amazing to me, whenever he heard me crying he would comfort me, when I couldn’t sleep he would stay up all night with me even if he had to work the next day. I felt like a burden, but he kept telling me he didn’t mind. He kept saying he loved having me here. And as we sat here now I was realising why. 

I can’t deny I was attracted to him. He was pretty much my ideal man. But after everything that’s happened I’m not sure I’m ready for something. Because I know if I let him kiss me that’ll be it, we’ll be together and I’ll probably never leave him. A part of me wanted that, it felt like the last few months had been building to this moment. His lingering glances. The way he held me so tightly. But another part of me wasn’t sure I could give myself to him and I didn’t want to hurt him. I also didn’t want to burn my only bridge. 

The way he was looking at me made goosebumps flare on my skin in a way I don’t think they ever have before. I wanted to know what his lips would feel like on mine. I wanted to know what it would feel like to let him make love to me. I wanted to know how it would feel to fall in love with him and have him fall in love with me. I wanted to give myself over to him entirely. I wanted to trust him with my glass heart, because I was sure he would take such good care of it. He bit his lip and took hold of my hand.

'Bri, please tell me if I’m way out of line here but I really, really want to kiss-’

'Yes.’ I found myself cutting him off. 'Yes, please god do it.’ I didn’t think anymore, I didn’t want to think. I wanted him to just kiss me and feel all my problems melt away. He smiled softly at me and cupped my face so delicately. 

'Ok.’ He smiled a little and then the space between us was getting smaller and we both closed our eyes. His lips pressed against mine and I swear to god there were fireworks exploding all around us. It wasn’t long before I felt his tongue on my bottom lip and I knew what that meant. I opened my mouth a little to allow him access and soon his tongue was massaging mine and I couldn’t help but moan a little. It had been a long time since I had been kissed like this. He kept his hands on my face and I wrapped my arms around his neck. When the kiss broke he was smiling at me and we were both panting a little.

'I’ve wanted to do that since the first moment I laid eyes on you.’ He whispered and I felt myself blushing. 

'Me too.’ I confessed. 

'How about you stay in my room tonight.' 

My eyes went a little wide, I wasn’t sure I was ready for that just yet.

'I uhm…well I…’

'Not like that.’ Brian chuckled a little. 'Just sleeping, maybe some hugs. No funny business. I can wait until you’re ready.' 

His words made me melt a little. He really was something else.

'Ok.’ I smiled a little. 'Sleeping and hugs.' 

'Yeah.’ Brian smiled and then he stood up and held his hands out to help me up. I took them and I let him lead me upstairs to the bedroom. We got undressed to our underwear and slid in the bed. Brian pulled me close and wrapped his arm around me and I laid my head on his chest. We seemed to breathe in perfect rhythm with one another. I couldn’t help but smile to myself. For the first time in a long time, before I even left Milwaukee, life didn’t feel quite so hopeless. Laying in Brian’s arms I was able to believe for the first time that things were going to be ok. Things were going to be more than ok.

————————————–

/// Present Day - Wednesday, 2.17 am

'You. Up.’ The guard grunted at Matt. Matt frowned and looked around the cell. Several other men had been brought in over the last few hours and if the homeless man was struggling to sleep before, he had no chance now. He looked back at the guard and pointed at himself dumbly.

'Me?’ He mouthed.

'Yes you.’ The guard grunted again. Matt breathed a sigh of relief, finally Jake had come to his senses and was letting him go. The guard let him out of the cell and led Matt over to a phone in the corner of the room.

'You get to make one call.’

'What?’ Matt frowned. 'You aren’t letting me go?’

'Uh no.’ the guard laughed a little. 'One call. Get on with it.' 

Matt looked at the phone. Who the fuck was he supposed to call? He picked up the receiver and without even thinking he dialled the first number that came to mind.

  ————————————–

'And then he was like, excuse me sir this is the ladies room! And I was all like, yeah so? And the guy says, correct me if I’m wrong, but you are a man. So I put my hand on my hip like this, and looked the guy up and down and then I said, baby, I can be anything you want me to be.' 

The rest of the group burst into fits of laugher as Jason finished his story. Jason smiled to himself and took a sip of his drink.

'Oh god so he kicked you out right?’ Keith cackled. 

'He did yes.’ Jason mused. 'But he also followed me round to the alley and sucked me off.’ He smirked. The other men gasped and started patting him on the back. It was so nice to feel normal for a change, Jason was actually having a really good night. Just then his phone started ringing in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the display. Unknown Number. He swallowed.

'Not gonna answer it?’ Jamin asked looking over his shoulder. 

'I don’t answer unknown numbers.’ Jason shook his head, cancelled the call and slipped his phone back in his pocket.

  ————————————–

Matt sighed as he hung up the phone. He hadn’t expected Jason to answer, he never answered unknown numbers. He looked at the guard and shrugged.

'No answer.' 

'You still get one call. Is there someone else you want to try?’

Matt thought about this for a second. There was Brian or Jake but they were both mad at him right now. He bit his lip.

'No, there’s no one.’

The guard led him back to the cell and Matt felt tears brimming in his eyes. A thought had hit him with startling clarity. He’d spent twenty six years on this earth and he had no one. He was alone. He had no family, barely any friends and no partner. He’d well and truly burnt all his bridges. He was let back in the cell and he took a seat staring straight ahead at the wall, willing himself not to cry. He was all alone in this world. He didn’t even have one person to call in his lowest moment. What had he done? How he had managed to isolate himself from everyone? Matt had ever felt more alone in his entire life. And he had absolutely no one to blame but himself. 

————————————–

Jerick giggled a little as he and Karl ran back inside the hotel. Out of nowhere it had started to rain really heavily and they were both a little wet.

'Was that a sign?’ Jerick chuckled looking at Karl. Karl laughed too.

'I hope not.’ He reached out and stroked a damp strand of hair back off Jerick’s face. 

'So uhm…do you maybe want to come up to my room?’ Jerick felt himself blushing as he asked this. Karl smiled softly at him. He was about to respond but they were spotted.

'Karl! Jerick! Get your cute little butts over here and drink with us!’ Jason was suddenly heading their way, stumbling a little as he went. When he reached them he slung an arm around each of their shoulders. 'Why are you wet?' 

'It just randomly started pouring outside.’ Karl told the drunk man hanging off his shoulder.

'Bummer.’ Jason slurred a little. 'So, drinks?’

'Yeah sure, I could go for a drink.’ Karl smiled at him, removing Jason’s arm from his shoulders.

Jerick felt downtrodden. Karl had probably been glad for the excuse not to answer Jerick’s question. It was dumb, he shouldn’t have said that. 

'I’m going to give it a miss. I am blazed and I need to eat like everything on the room service menu.’ Jerick tried to laugh, tried to pretend he was ok with this. He too removed Jason’s arm from his shoulders. 'Have fun, I guess I’ll see you all tomorrow.’ Jerick suppressed a sigh and headed towards the elevator.

'Get me a vodka soda yeah? I’ll be right over.’ Karl told Jason before jogging after Jerick. He caught him at the elevator.

'Hey, you don’t mind me staying do you?’

'Why would I mind?’ Jerick tried to play it cool. 

'Because,’ Karl stepped a little closer to him. 'You just kissed me and then you invited me back to your room.’

'Yeah, just forget about that.’ Jerick insisted.

'I don’t want to forget about it.’ Karl smiled. He briefly looked over his shoulder to make sure the others weren’t looking before coming closer to Jerick and kissing him fast and hard. Jerick looked at him wide eyed.

'Karl…what uhm-’

'I’m going to stay for one drink, but if your still up in a while, I’ll come and see you yeah?’ Karl stroked his cheek and a large smile spread across Jerick’s face.

'Oh I’ll be up.’ He smirked. 'I’ll be waiting.’ He spoke as seductively as he could manage and it worked because Karl felt his groin stir. 

'Can’t wait.’ Karl kissed him again quickly and pinched Jerick’s ass cheek. Jerick blushed and Karl thought it was just about the most adorable thing he’d ever seen. 'See you real soon.’ He winked at Jerick and then sauntered off to the bar. 

  ————————————–

Jerick smiled to himself as he got in the elevator. He hadn’t smiled in a really long time. There was something about Karl, there always had been. Even in the basement Jerick had thought he was gorgeous and after the night they’d spent together when Karl had vanished it had left Jerick a little upset. Maybe a repeat of that night was just what they needed. Karl had made Jerick feel so good that night. Better than he ever thought possible. And for the first time in his life, Jerick wanted to just give over all control. He wanted to give the control over to Karl. Because he knew Karl wouldn’t abuse it. He knew Karl would make him feel all kinds of wonderful. And that’s exactly what he needed, what they probably both needed.

  ————————————–

/// Jerick Hoffer - New York, 2014

'Hi.’ I whispered as I sat down on the new guy’s mattress. 'I’m Jinkx.' 

'Jas-’ He stopped himself before he could give away his real name. 'Violet.' 

'Pretty.’ I half smiled at him. 'It’s nice not to be he newbie for a change.’

'How long have you been here?’

I shrugged running my fingers through my hair. At a guess I would say around six months but honestly I had no clue. Days all blurred into one in here. You just had to try and get through it alive. 

'I don’t know. Not that long I don’t think, I haven’t kept count but it feels like a lifetime.’ I decided to tell him. I pulled a blunt from my pocket. That was how I stayed alive. I lit it and took a couple of drags before passing it to Violet but he shook his head.

'No thanks.' 

'Give it time.’ I smiled sadly at him. 

'Did they get you at the bus station too?’

'Yeah.’ I dragged on the blunt not looking at Violet anymore.

'Where are you from?’

'I can’t tell you that.’ I whispered. Reveal nothing. 

'Oh yeah, of course, sorry.' 

'Anyway, I just wanted to say hi. I know what it’s like being the new guy.’ I briefly looked at him again before getting back up and heading to my bed. It was nice not being the newbie anymore. It was a shame about Gia, I mean he’d been totally annoying but still, he didn’t deserve to meet the end he inevitably had. He hadn’t even been here long supposedly, only a few months longer than I had been. But he was argumentative and angry so I’m not really surprised. 

That night when the guys on call were getting ready to go out Adore was explaining to Violet how this all worked. He explained that we all fit into our own little niche in this world. I’m not going to lie, I was offended when he told Violet that I would cry after. I mean it was true, but I don’t think people needed to know that. I didn’t get called out that night so I got to really think over those words. It was only when Adore said that that I really realised how much this place had broken me. I’d had my fill of casual sex over the years, fucking men and kicking them to the kerb. It was a coping mechanism for what my babysitter did to me. But I was in control, that’s why I liked it so much. With each guy I was able to feel a little better, to feel a little more whole. But now the control had been taken away again and every time one of these disgusting men fucked me I felt as though I was nine years old all over again. If they’d been through what I went through maybe they’d be criers too. 

Manila was the first back tonight. Manila didn’t scare me like he seemed to scare the others. He put on this hard cold front but I could see the vulnerability in his eyes. He tried to keep it hidden and I don’t think anyone else had noticed it but I did. Jaidynn and Sharon were both asleep when he came back. I was sat on my bed smoking another blunt when Manila surprised me by coming and sitting next to me.

'Fancy sharing that?’ He asked me, his tone was sad and a little broken. I knew he’d been in here a long time, longer than anyone else. I didn’t know how he did it.

'Sure.’ I whispered and handed the blunt over. In the time I’d been here Manila had barely spoken to me so I found this a little weird. We sat in silence passing the blunt between us for a while. When it was finished I stubbed it out on the floor. Manila looked at me and surprised me by putting his hand on my leg.

'Don’t listen to Adore.’ He whispered. 'He just likes to run his mouth. No one would blame you for crying afterwards. I used to, but I don’t think I can cry anymore.’ He surprised me even further when he leant in and placed a gentle kiss on my cheek. 'Stay strong Jinkx, it’ll be ok.’ He said and then he got up and went over to the mirror to start getting out of his drag. I swallowed, completely taken aback by what had just happened. I’d never ask though. I’d pretend it never happened. But it helped. It helped more than I could ever explain. I hoped one day I would get to thank him. 

  ————————————–

/// Present Day - Wednesday, 3.06 am

Karl hung back a little from the other four seeing as he was considerably less drunk than them all. He sipped his vodka wondering why the hell he hadn’t just gone straight up with Jerick. He wanted the younger boy so badly, he hadn’t realised quite how much until Jerick had kissed him. No one would notice if he slipped away, so he quickly finished his drink, feeling a little nervous and put his glass down. Just as he was about to turn to leave Jamin was coming over to him. Karl swallowed and braced himself for what was to come. He hated that he was still scared of this man. 

'Hey.’ Jamin stood next to him. Karl noticed his voice was a little croaky and he didn’t sound nearly as drunk as Jason. 'I wanted to apologise for earlier. I shouldn’t have hit you and I shouldn’t have said those things.' 

Karl was stunned by his words. He never in a million years expected Jamin to apologise to him. 

'Uhm…it’s ok.’ Karl stuttered a little. 'We kind of provoked you.’

'That doesn’t make it ok though.' 

'It’s water under the bridge honestly.’ Karl half-smiled at him. 'You know Shane heard all that stuff?’

'Yeah I know.’ Jamin sighed. 

'Did you talk to him about it?’

'Kind of. But then I ended up kissing him and then we were naked and one thing led to another and-’

'Ok, you can spare me the gory details.’ Karl laughed cutting him.

'We were together before we were taken, for years. But after all that, I didn’t think there was going to be a way for us to work things out.' 

'What about now?’

'I don’t know. I don’t think there’s any way we can go back to what we had. Too much has happened.’

'I’m going to give you some advice.’ Karl told him. 'I know full well how hard it is to be with someone after everything that we went through. But I’m starting to think that everyone has that one person that can just make all that bad stuff slip away. I mean Jason’s is Matt, whether he realises that or not. Bri has the cop. Tell me, when you were with him tonight, how did you feel?' 

Jamin exhaled deeply and bit his lip.

'I felt like everything was ok. I felt normal.’ He whispered.

'Then I think Shane might be yours.’ Karl smiled softly at him.

'Maybe you’re right.’ Jamin admitted. 'What about you? Who’s yours?' 

Karl smiled a little as he thought back to the kiss with Jerick. He thought about Jerick waiting upstairs for him. 

'I think I’m about to find out.’ He smiled. 'I’ll see you tomorrow yeah?' 

'Yeah sure.’ Jamin smiled and he patted Karl on the back. Karl headed towards the elevator, feeling a little nervous. This could be it. Waiting up in that room for him could be the person he’d spent his whole life searching for. The one person in this shitty world that made him feel happy. And Karl was determined that this time, he was going to never let Jerick go. This could be the start of the rest of his life. And he was ready. 

  ————————————–

Jerick answered the door within seconds of Karl knocking. He was wearing nothing but a robe. Karl smiled softly at him.

'What took you so long?’ Jerick smirked and he grabbed Karl by the collar of his shirt and their lips collided in a passionate kiss. Karl kicked the door shut with his foot and led Jerick to the bed. 

  ————————————–

Chris was the next to call it a night. He quietly slipped back into his room, undressed and slid gently under the covers of the bed so as not to disturb Kenya. He laid there for a few seconds, feeling better than he had in a long time. Just as his eyes were closing, Kenya curled herself into his side, startling him a little. She wrapped her small arm around him, placed a kiss on her best friend’s chest and whispered, 'espero que hayas tenido una buena noche mi amor.' 

Chris smiled to himself and kissed her head. I hope you had a good night my love.

  ————————————–

Keith said goodbye to Jason and Jamin and sprinted out to the cab. It was raining really heavily out and the wind had picked up. He knew what he had to do. First thing tomorrow he was coming back here and he was telling Dustin exactly how much he loved him and that he was never letting him go.

  ————————————–

Jason and Jamin rode the elevator up to their floor together. Jason was leant against the wall of the elevator for balance; this was the drunkest he’d been in a really long time. Jamin helped him out the elevator when he realised Jason was struggling to walk and helped him along the corridor to his room. 

'I’m fiiiiiiiiine.’ Jason slurred, falling into the closed door.

'Where’s your key?’ Jamin chuckled a little. Jason frowned and patted his pockets for a few seconds before he found it. He stumbled a little as he pulled the key out. Jamin took it from his hand and opened the door for him. He wrapped his arm around Jason’s shoulders and helped him to the bed where Jason practically collapsed. 

'You’re gonna feel rough tomorrow.’ Jamin laughed.

'Can you pass me my bear?’ Jason asked Jamin as he got comfortable. 

'Uhm sure…’ Jamin looked around the room a little in the dark before he spotted the small purple bear. He brought it over to Jason who practically snatched it out of his hand. He held it tightly.

'Thank yoooooo.’ He slurred. 

'You’re welcome. See you tomorrow.’ Jamin shook his head and exited Jason’s room. He walked two doors up and just stood outside the door. He found himself running his fingers over the door. He sniffed back any tears that might fall.

'I’m so sorry.’ He whispered to Shane’s hotel door. He took a few deep breaths, turned around and headed to his own room. 

  ————————————–

Jason held Violet Jnr tight in his arms. His head was spinning, he was so drunk. Where was Matt? Was he out hooking up with someone while Jason got obliterated and missed him like crazy? He sat up and after a few failed attempts he managed to get his phone from his pocket. He jabbed at the screen, his vision blurry and then put the phone to his ear. It rang several times before clicking over to voicemail.

’Hey this is Matt. You clearly aren’t important enough for me to answer the phone so leave a message or don’t, whatever….' a long silence and then, ’Jay, now what do I do? Is that it do I just hang up or….beep.' Jason felt tears in his eyes listening to Matt’s stupid message. 

'Hey babbbbby. I miss yoooooo. Where are yoooo? Come back to meeeee. Pleasssssse? I neeeeeed yoooo.’ He started to sob and he hung up the phone tossing it to the floor. He curled back up into a ball with his bear and continued to sob. God he wished Matt was here. He wanted to tell him how much he loved him and how he couldn’t bear to lose him. He needed that man. Maybe he’d realised that a little too late.  

[ghost-of-bambi]

Questions

Thank you @myladyely for tagging me! 

Rules: answer these 85 statements and tag 20 people.

I’m going to be real, some of these questions make no sense but I had fun with it anyway. I’m tagging @aryasmeatpies @scullylikesscience @sansapotter @obiwan-katnobi @jilyevotter @sradepotter @witless-wonder @gabrielledelacour and that’s done

1. drink: tea, Coke, the tears of fuckboys

2. phone call: unsure if this is meant to be ‘last phone call’ or ‘person I prefer to call’ but the answer to both is Katie ( @obiwan-katnobi ) because nobody else likes me that much (this is a lie I am V. Popular)

3. text message: as above, the last person I sent a text to was my brother, the person I prefer to text is Katie, usually with Game of Thrones theory spam

4. song you listened to: okay again I assume this is the last song I listened to – Shape by the Sugababes

5. time you cried: I genuinely can’t remember, it must be a few weeks since I last cried, but when I do cry it’s for really dark and meaningful reasons, like a really touching IKEA advert, or I’ve remembered a sad scene from a TV show from years ago - actually no, I remember, I cried during Wonder Woman

6. dated someone twice: nope, unless this refers to going on a date with someone and then going on a second date, which I’m pretty sure I have done, otherwise how the hell have I made it four-and-a-half years with my boyfriend?

7. kissed someone and regretted it: forget kissing, I’ve banged someone and regretted it DURING

8. been cheated on: not to my knowledge but who the fuck knows?

9. lost someone special: Catelyn Stark S03E09. Also beloved family members.

10. been depressed: yer

11. gotten drunk and thrown up: yes, but sometimes a spicy dinner makes me throw up so we can never really know what to attribute that to

favourite colors

12. blue

13. pink

14. yellow

in the last year have you…

15. made new friends: I met Isaac Hempstead Wright at a gallery opening and he took a selfie with me so we’re basically best friends now

16. fallen out of love: I became pretty disillusioned after Cursed Child if you think that counts

17. laughed until you cried: basically every time I think about Twilight

18. found out someone was talking about you: I like to assume that I’m always being talked about by adoring fans, but also no (I assume this pertains to bitching?)

19. met someone who changed you: I am a big girl and can dress myself

20. found out who your friends are: yeah I went on a friend-finding treasure hunt and found all their names in a basket once I’d cracked all the clues

21. kissed someone on your facebook list: yeah, my partner

general

22. how many of your facebook friends do you know in real life: all of them, as no part of me is fictional

23. do you have any pets: not since my cats passed away, they were irreplaceable 24. do you want to change your name: no, my name is fine, and even if I wanted to, the cost and trouble involved is ludicrous

25. what did you do for your last birthday: I did an escape room with friends and saw Jack Whitehall live, I also aged up

26. what time did you wake up: 5 am, because I’d had a dream that my stepson grew to a height of 20 feet and his father blamed me

27. what were you doing at midnight last night: having the aforementioned dream, probably

28. name something you can’t wait for: Game of Thrones season 7, Trump’s impeachment, post-Brexit apocalypse, Chapter 16 of Playing the Hero by @fetchalgernon

29. when was the last time you saw your mom: January, because we don’t live in the same country and she can’t Facetime without inevitably blocking the camera with her thumb

31. what are you listening to right now: Howlin’ For You – The Black Keys, as well as the neighbourhood kids screaming outside

32. have you ever talked to a person named tom: Tom is my father’s name. So yeah. Occasionally. If I have to.

33. something that is getting on your nerves: Aidan Gillen’s repertoire of accents

34. most visited website: Currently, A03, FFnet, Twitter, Pornhub - one of these is a lie

35. hair colour: red

36. long or short hair: long

37. do you have a crush on someone: Andy Samberg, but he’s playing so damn hard to get

38. what do you like about yourself: hair, brain, hair again

39. piercings: one on each ear, but I also have a piercing stare

40. blood type: red

41. nickname: I don’t really have one that people know me by, but my mother calls me Nelly and my partner calls me sweetie. Dad occasionally calls me Damian/Regan/Carrie because love.

42. relationship status: I’m in one

43. zodiac: Pisces

44. pronouns: she/her

45. favourite tv show: Game of Thrones

46. tattoos: no, what would I even get?

47. right or left handed: right said fred

48. surgery: never

49. piercing: I just answered this question

50. sport: idk if going to the gym counts, but if it does, gym-going, I’m also an expert at my stepkid’s Lego assault course, which he likes to spring on you at unexpected times

51. vacation: what does this mean?? My favourite vacation has been Minnesota, my ideal vacation is Greece.

52. pair of trainers: what? Yes, I own a pair of trainers

more general

53. eating: cherries, wishing it was cake

54. drinking: water, wishing it was a virgin piña colada

55. i’m about to: write

56. waiting for: A STAR TO FALL/AND CARRY YOUR HEART INTO MY ARMS/THAT’S WHERE YOU BELONG/IN MY ARMS BABY YEAH

57. want: more sleep

58. get married: that’s the plan

59. career: currently I’m an IT technician/writer for Fansided

60. hugs or kisses: hugs can be had from anyone, so I guess hugs

61. lips or eyes: I actually have both

62. shorter or taller: shorter or taller than what?

63. older or younger: I’m older than some people and younger than other people

64. nice arms or nice stomach: ????

65. hook up or relationship: who with? Andy Samberg? Has he called? Did he, like, mention me?

66. troublemaker or hesitant: these are ideal job interview questions

67. kissed a stranger: I mean, they weren’t strangers to me, but they probably would be to you

68. drank hard liquor: how hard are we talking? could I take it in a fight?

69. lost glasses/contact lenses: I don’t have either

70. turned someone down: I’m a woman, so yes, I’ve had to turn someone down

71. sex on the first date: yes, with my current partner, he has kind eyes

72. broken someone’s heart: yeah

73. had your heart broken: I’ve had my heart severely pummelled, but broken’s going a bit far

74. been arrested: too much of a goody-two-shoes

75. cried when someone died: yes

76. fallen for a friend: obviously I am madly in love with Katie and am going to rescue her from Target on a white horse and in full Brienne of Tarth armour

do you believe in …

77. yourself: hell yes I do

78. miracles: no

79. love at first sight: I assume that’s what happens when you give birth, otherwise no

80. santa claus: I have a stepson so I AM Santa Claus now

81. kiss on the first date: why not?

82. angels: no, not even the Robbie Williams song

other

83. current best friend’s name: Katie

84. eye colour: I think my eyes are green, but everyone I ask has a different fucking opinion

85. favourite movie: Pride and Prejudice (2005), also The Erotic Misadventures of the Invisible Man (this one isn’t true)

[the-end-of-art]

A mixed grill of happy anticipation and dread

Anne Lamott: 12 Truths I Learned from Life and Writing TED talk (https://www.ted.com/talks/anne_lamott_12_truths_i_learned_from_life_and_writing/transcript)

My seven-year-old grandson sleeps just down the hall from me, and he wakes up a lot of mornings and he says,"You know, this could be the best day ever." And other times, in the middle of the night, he calls out in a tremulous voice, "Nana, will you ever get sick and die?"

00:31

I think this pretty much says it for me and most of the people I know, that we're a mixed grill of happy anticipation and dread. So I sat down a few days before my 61st birthday, and I decided to compile a list of everything I know for sure. There's so little truth in the popular culture, and it's good to be sure of a few things.

00:57

For instance, I am no longer 47, although this is the age I feel, and the age I like to think of myself as being. My friend Paul used to say in his late 70s that he felt like a young man with something really wrong with him.

01:13

(Laughter)

01:17

Our true person is outside of time and space, but looking at the paperwork, I can, in fact, see that I was born in 1954.My inside self is outside of time and space. It doesn't have an age. I'm every age I've ever been, and so are you,although I can't help mentioning as an aside that it might have been helpful if I hadn't followed the skin care rules of the '60s, which involved getting as much sun as possible while slathered in baby oil and basking in the glow of a tinfoil reflector shield.

01:51

(Laughter)

01:53

It was so liberating, though, to face the truth that I was no longer in the last throes of middle age, that I decided to write down every single true thing I know. People feel really doomed and overwhelmed these days, and they keep asking me what's true. So I hope that my list of things I'm almost positive about might offer some basic operating instructions to anyone who is feeling really overwhelmed or beleaguered.

02:24

Number one: the first and truest thing is that all truth is a paradox. Life is both a precious, unfathomably beautiful gift,and it's impossible here, on the incarnational side of things. It's been a very bad match for those of us who were born extremely sensitive. It's so hard and weird that we sometimes wonder if we're being punked. It's filled simultaneously with heartbreaking sweetness and beauty, desperate poverty, floods and babies and acne and Mozart, all swirled together. I don't think it's an ideal system.

03:04

(Laughter)

03:07

Number two: almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes --

03:13

(Laughter)

03:15

(Applause)

03:19

including you.

03:22

Three: there is almost nothing outside of you that will help in any kind of lasting way, unless you're waiting for an organ. You can't buy, achieve or date serenity and peace of mind. This is the most horrible truth, and I so resent it.But it's an inside job, and we can't arrange peace or lasting improvement for the people we love most in the world.They have to find their own ways, their own answers. You can't run alongside your grown children with sunscreen and ChapStick on their hero's journey. You have to release them. It's disrespectful not to. And if it's someone else's problem, you probably don't have the answer, anyway.

04:11

(Laughter)

04:12

Our help is usually not very helpful. Our help is often toxic. And help is the sunny side of control. Stop helping so much. Don't get your help and goodness all over everybody.

04:28

(Laughter)

04:31

(Applause)

04:33

This brings us to number four: everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy and scared, even the people who seem to have it most together. They are much more like you than you would believe, so try not to compare your insides to other people's outsides. It will only make you worse than you already are.

04:51

(Laughter)

04:56

Also, you can't save, fix or rescue any of them or get anyone sober. What helped me get clean and sober 30 years ago was the catastrophe of my behavior and thinking. So I asked some sober friends for help, and I turned to a higher power. One acronym for God is the "gift of desperation," G-O-D, or as a sober friend put it, by the end I was deteriorating faster than I could lower my standards.

05:24

(Laughter)

05:31

So God might mean, in this case, "me running out of any more good ideas."

05:37

While fixing and saving and trying to rescue is futile, radical self-care is quantum, and it radiates out from you into the atmosphere like a little fresh air. It's a huge gift to the world. When people respond by saying, "Well, isn't she full of herself," just smile obliquely like Mona Lisa and make both of you a nice cup of tea. Being full of affection for one's goofy, self-centered, cranky, annoying self is home. It's where world peace begins.

06:17

Number five: chocolate with 75 percent cacao is not actually a food.

06:23

(Laughter)

06:27

Its best use is as a bait in snake traps or to balance the legs of wobbly chairs. It was never meant to be considered an edible.

06:41

Number six --

06:43

(Laughter)

06:46

writing. Every writer you know writes really terrible first drafts, but they keep their butt in the chair. That's the secret of life. That's probably the main difference between you and them. They just do it. They do it by prearrangement with themselves. They do it as a debt of honor. They tell stories that come through them one day at a time, little by little.When my older brother was in fourth grade, he had a term paper on birds due the next day, and he hadn't started. So my dad sat down with him with an Audubon book, paper, pencils and brads -- for those of you who have gotten a little less young and remember brads -- and he said to my brother, "Just take it bird by bird, buddy. Just read about pelicans and then write about pelicans in your own voice. And then find out about chickadees, and tell us about them in your own voice. And then geese."

07:52

So the two most important things about writing are: bird by bird and really god-awful first drafts. If you don't know where to start, remember that every single thing that happened to you is yours, and you get to tell it. If people wanted you to write more warmly about them, they should've behaved better.

08:11

(Laughter)

08:14

(Applause)

08:19

You're going to feel like hell if you wake up someday and you never wrote the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart: your stories, memories, visions and songs -- your truth, your version of things -- in your own voice. That's really all you have to offer us, and that's also why you were born.

08:42

Seven: publication and temporary creative successes are something you have to recover from. They kill as many people as not. They will hurt, damage and change you in ways you cannot imagine. The most degraded and evil people I've ever known are male writers who've had huge best sellers. And yet, returning to number one, that all truth is paradox, it's also a miracle to get your work published, to get your stories read and heard. Just try to bust yourself gently of the fantasy that publication will heal you, that it will fill the Swiss-cheesy holes inside of you. It can't. It won't. But writing can. So can singing in a choir or a bluegrass band. So can painting community murals or birding or fostering old dogs that no one else will.

09:40

Number eight: families. Families are hard, hard, hard, no matter how cherished and astonishing they may also be.Again, see number one.

09:53

(Laughter)

09:54

At family gatherings where you suddenly feel homicidal or suicidal --

09:58

(Laughter)

10:00

remember that in all cases, it's a miracle that any of us, specifically, were conceived and born. Earth is forgiveness school. It begins with forgiving yourself, and then you might as well start at the dinner table. That way, you can do this work in comfortable pants.

10:20

(Laughter)

10:23

When William Blake said that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love, he knew that your family would be an intimate part of this, even as you want to run screaming for your cute little life. But I promise you are up to it. You can do it, Cinderella, you can do it, and you will be amazed.

10:45

Nine: food. Try to do a little better. I think you know what I mean.

10:53

(Laughter)

11:03

Number 10 --

11:04

(Laughter)

11:06

grace. Grace is spiritual WD-40, or water wings. The mystery of grace is that God loves Henry Kissinger and Vladimir Putin and me exactly as much as He or She loves your new grandchild. Go figure.

11:26

(Laughter)

11:28

The movement of grace is what changes us, heals us and heals our world. To summon grace, say, "Help," and then buckle up. Grace finds you exactly where you are, but it doesn't leave you where it found you. And grace won't look like Casper the Friendly Ghost, regrettably. But the phone will ring or the mail will come and then against all odds,you'll get your sense of humor about yourself back. Laughter really is carbonated holiness. It helps us breathe again and again and gives us back to ourselves, and this gives us faith in life and each other. And remember -- grace always bats last.

12:13

Eleven: God just means goodness. It's really not all that scary. It means the divine or a loving, animating intelligence,or, as we learned from the great "Deteriorata," "the cosmic muffin." A good name for God is: "Not me." Emerson said that the happiest person on Earth is the one who learns from nature the lessons of worship. So go outside a lot and look up. My pastor said you can trap bees on the bottom of mason jars without lids because they don't look up, so they just walk around bitterly bumping into the glass walls. Go outside. Look up. Secret of life.

12:59

And finally: death. Number 12. Wow and yikes. It's so hard to bear when the few people you cannot live without die.You'll never get over these losses, and no matter what the culture says, you're not supposed to. We Christians like to think of death as a major change of address, but in any case, the person will live again fully in your heart if you don't seal it off. Like Leonard Cohen said, "There are cracks in everything, and that's how the light gets in." And that's how we feel our people again fully alive.

13:39

Also, the people will make you laugh out loud at the most inconvenient times, and that's the great good news. But their absence will also be a lifelong nightmare of homesickness for you. Grief and friends, time and tears will heal you to some extent. Tears will bathe and baptize and hydrate and moisturize you and the ground on which you walk.

14:04

Do you know the first thing that God says to Moses? He says, "Take off your shoes." Because this is holy ground, all evidence to the contrary. It's hard to believe, but it's the truest thing I know. When you're a little bit older, like my tiny personal self, you realize that death is as sacred as birth. And don't worry -- get on with your life. Almost every single death is easy and gentle with the very best people surrounding you for as long as you need. You won't be alone.They'll help you cross over to whatever awaits us. As Ram Dass said, "When all is said and done, we're really just all walking each other home."

14:55

I think that's it, but if I think of anything else, I'll let you know.

15:00

Thank you.

15:01

(Applause)

15:03

Thank you.

15:04

(Applause)

15:06

I was very surprised to be asked to come, because it is not my realm, technology or design or entertainment. I mean, my realm is sort of faith and writing and kind of lurching along together. And I was surprised, but they said I could give a talk, and I said I'd love to.

15:25

(Video) If you don't know where to start, remember that every single thing that happened to you is yours and you get to tell it.

15:32

Anne Lamott: People are very frightened and feel really doomed in America these days, and I just wanted to help people get their sense of humor about it and to realize how much isn't a problem. If you take an action, take a really healthy or loving or friendly action, you'll have loving and friendly feelings.

[stars-forever-dwell-blog1]

Blinded by the Light: Part Eight

“It was the beach, you understand? The beach? It was too beautiful, too much input, too much sensation. I tried to keep it under control, but it just keeps spilling out and spilling out and spilling out. You see, she’s on an island, and that island is – is perfect. I mean real perfection, you know? I’m not just talking about, ‘Oh, that’s nice.’ It’s the real fucking deal, okay? Perfect. It’s just like a – a lagoon, you know. A tidal lagoon that’s sealed in by cliffs, totally fucking secret, totally fucking. . .forbidden. And nobody can ever, ever, ever, ever go there. Ever. But a few people went, once upon a time – men and women with ideals, you understand? I’m not just talking about the usual traveling fucking wanks. Do you believe in that place?”

“No. But I guess you’re going to tell me that I should, right?”

“It doesn’t even fucking matter what I think anymore. It’s up to you. Ideals, eh? We were just fucking parasites! See, I was the one that was trying to find the cure. Procurer of the cure. And I said to them, ‘You’ve got to leave. You’ve got to leave this place.’ But they wouldn’t listen.”

-The Beach

                                                      *     *     *                                                      

So there I was, suddenly, in the upper-middle class suburbs of Calgary, living with my friend Caitlin, her brothers Joe and Rory, and her mom, Janice. It was September. There was running water for showers and teeth brushing and hand washing, lights that turned on for reading, electricity for listening to music and emailing people, a fridge full of food, and no hippies. People were normal. They went to work. They listened. They could carry on conversations. Their clothes actually fit them and they weren’t tie-dyed. They were honest. They weren’t on drugs or lost or trying to manipulate one thing or another out of you.

Looking back, I can honestly say that I don’t know where I’d be today if it weren’t for the endless generosity, warmth, caring, compassion and understanding of Caitlin and her family.

I stayed there for a month, and in that time, Caitlin and I talked for hours on end ‘til the wee hours of the morn almost every night (Gemini and Virgo), at first mostly about Arael and what an idiot he was, but then as time went on we talked about him less, and more about everything else under the sun. She would leave me little notes telling me how beautiful I was; once she made a list of “Ten Things I Love About You,” and left it for me when she went to work. Another time she compiled a list of nice things people we mutually knew said about me and wrote them all down. She was endlessly supportive of me, and constantly telling me how beautiful, smart, worthy and generally awesome I was. And in her love, I bloomed like I hadn’t in longer than I could remember. She was a true friend. There’s this song by Dar Williams I started listening to around this time called The Ocean, and parts of it still make me think of Caitlin and smile. It spoke to me of chasing after Arael to his town on the shores of the ocean, how I tried and tried to make him smile, how I thought he and I were soul mates who would get married someday, but the anger and hurt he carried went deeper than I could ever touch, and were, really, provoked by me, because for a short time I filled the role of the woman in his life – and nothing I did could change that. It was his issue that I never learned the origins of.

I remember when I was living in Marcia’s house of madness, she had this certain book on one of her shelves that for some reason called out to me to pick it up. I did, and read the intro and a bit of it until I knew the premise of it. It was called Away, and it was about a woman named Mary who is walking along the shore one day, and sees a beautiful man lying unconscious in the waves. She rushes out to save him, but once she returns to shore, she is. . .away. She, Mary, is gone, which is a more common occurrence than you might think if you know anything about the Faerie folk. In her place is someone else. I don’t know why, but this story haunted me. I even dreamed about it, and looking back, I wonder if Mary and I were so different.

But over time, the song’s meaning changed for me. It became about Caitlin, moving away from the ocean, the ocean being a metaphor for the watery, unstable, wishy-washy beliefs and reality I had been living with and in for the past year and a half. how I was always bringing my brain to the ocean, trying to find some grounding/earth (Virgo again) but never achieving any, never being able to admit that maybe what I was seeking wasn’t to be found amid the waves or in the sand. I had yet to learn I am an earth-bound mountain spirit, not an ocean dweller. Eventually, gradually, as my heart healed, this song became a cry out to Caitlin, from my heart to hers, wanting her to see the deep beauty, kindness and generosity I saw in her, but she could never see in herself. She was never enough for herself, no matter what she did. I don’t know if she ever knew how much she changed my life.

When I went to your town on the wide open shore

I must confess I was drawn, I was drawn to the ocean

I thought it spoke to me

It said, “Look at us, we’re not churches, not schools, not skating ponds, swimming pools,

But we have lost people, haven’t we, though?”

Oh, that’s what the ocean can know of a body

And that’s when I came back to town

This town is a song about you

You don’t know how lucky you are

You don’t know how much I adore you

You are a welcoming back from the ocean

I went back to the ocean today

With my books and my papers, I went to the rocks by the ocean

But the weather changed quickly

The ocean said, “What are you trying to find?

I don’t care, I’m not kind, I have bludgeoned your sailors

I’ve spat out their keepsakes.”

Oh, it’s ashes to ashes, but always the ocean

But the ocean can’t come to this town

This town is a song about you

You don’t know how lucky you are

You don’t know how much I adore you

You are a welcoming back from the ocean

And the ones that can know you so well

Are the ones that can swallow you whole

I have a good, and I have an evil

I thought the ocean, the ocean thought nothing

You are a welcoming back from the ocean

I didn’t go back today

I wanted to show you that I was more land than water

I went to pick flowers

I brought them to you, “Look at me! Look at them!

With their salt up the stem”

But you frowned when I smiled

And I tried to arrange them

You said, “Let me tell you the song of this town”

You said, “Everything closes at five

After that, well you’ve just got the bars”

You don’t know how precious you are

Walking around with your little shoes dangling

I am the one who lives with the ocean

It’s where we came from, you know

And sometimes I just want to go back

After a day, we drink til we’re drowning

Walk to the ocean, wade in our work boots

Wade in our work boots, try to finish the job

You don’t know how precious you are

I am the one who lives with the ocean

You don’t know how I am the one.

And at the end, the song became a question. Would I go back? Back to the ocean, or stay in the mountains? Would I cling to what I knew now had been the wrong thing for me, or would I step out into the new, the next chapter?

I spent a lot of my time emailing people and talking about the past year and a half, and the future. This one girl I had met who called herself Nej (her name, Jen, spelled backwards) or Neige, and I sent volumes of emails back and forth. She called me Gem, because my legal name is Megan, or Meg, and also in reference to the Lauryn Hill lyrics, “Don’t be a hard rock when you really are a gem, baby girl.” We had met and connected because we both wrote poetry and relished words on our tongues like the finest wine. She was this funky, petite, fiery and watery Chinese girl with a major wanderlust and this writer’s passionate flame burning that drew in me in like a moth. The last time we emailed, she said she was catching a ride to the southern U.S. for the winter. I have no idea what happened to her after that. I still think about her sometimes, but I never learned her last name, so finding her would be next to impossible, I think.

I remember the immense feelings of peace and relief I felt staying there. I would sit for hours in a chair by the bay window in our bedroom and look outside, a mug of chamomile tea in hand. First watching the leaves falling, then the first snowfall. My heart began to stir inside my chest for the first time in over a year. I began to feel again, and it was beautiful. I spent tons of time thinking – just thinking, writing in my journal and just relishing the feelings of safety and warmth that I hadn’t had in forever. Asking important questions of myself: Is it possible to live a life free of the negative influences of greed, indifference and ignorance that are so prevalent in our society – while still living in society? Can I walk that fine line between the grid what lies beyond it, for all my life? Can I not be consumed? Can I retain my individuality, my purity of soul, my ethics and beliefs? Is true freedom possible while choosing consciously to live in a culture that is so mentally enslaved? Can I do it if I get a job, rent an apartment, pay my phone bill? Can I be, as Buddha (or was it Jesus?) said, in the world but not of the world? What is real freedom, anyway?

I met Caitlin’s friends, who wore bright scarves and had a clarity in their eyes that I had sorely missed, went to funky cafes and galleries, and explored the city. With rest comes clarity of thought. Calgary is beautiful in the fall, and it was such a magical, cozy, happy, deeply beautiful month. Even now, it’s the only city I would ever consider living in, and I always have a blast whenever I go there.

Still, despite all this goodness, it hurt that I left B.C., the place where I thought I would find utopia. I still wanted things to work out there, though I somehow knew that going back to Salt Spring wasn’t going to happen. That time was over.

So as the month was drawing to a close, Caitlin and I started discussing what I was going to do. She had offered for me to live at her family’s place, get a job, that whole thing, and a part of me really wanted to. She was going back to B.C. for a month to travel around a bit, then stay with some family in Vancouver. Her family was still struggling through her parents being separated and trying to work things out, and she just wanted to be away, I think.

I was torn; being a shy, awkward person, I really didn’t feel very comfortable with the idea of living in her house if she wasn’t there, despite how awesome her family was, and how comfortable they had made me feel, despite said shyness and awkwardness. But going back to BC obviously made me really wary. Looking back, I think I really wanted to stay in Calgary, but I caved and went back to BC with Caitlin, mostly because of my shyness. And it was a mistake. Big surprise.

We went back to Duncan, which was the town Arael was from, on Vancouver Island. I think that was mostly Caitlin’s idea, though I wasn’t really sure why she wanted to go back. Maybe for closure, maybe she still liked him, I don’t know. She and I had made other friends there as well, so that was the surface-reason why we went, I guess.

I ended up dating a guy there named Mika, who was totally bad for me, and the pseudo-relationship died pretty fast. He was still a virgin and I told him I’d recently had sex for the first time. He really wanted to have sex, and at that time I honestly had zero interest in it. I think I was still processing the experience of my first time, and I made it clear to him that I didn’t want to, at least not yet. But he wouldn’t leave the subject alone, and it got really annoying really fast. Seriously, some guys. If a girl says Stop and you give her some lame excuse like, “But I can’t control myself around you!” you’re just being sleazy and disrespectful. Just so’s you know.

Anyway, Mika had anger issues. His father had anger issues, and his father’s father had had anger issues too. His grandfather had abused his father, and his father had never hit Mika or his siblings, but he was always on the verge of it, as Mika described it. And I could see that in Mika too, and it scared me. His father was a long-distance trucker, so he was gone for the whole time I lived at Mika’s place. One day, Mika told me that if his dad came home unexpectedly and found me there, he would throw me and all my stuff out the front door. Kinda glad I never met him, i must say. So when things ended, after my weird co-dependent all-consuming sadness stopped being an issue, I was actually relieved and over it pretty fast.

Caitlin only stayed in Duncan for a week or so, then she headed off to Vancouver to stay with her aunt and uncle. She became her cousins’ nanny for awhile, and stayed there for a few months. Her parents ended up getting back together, which I know made her and Joe and Rory really happy.

In the meantime, I had ended up crashing at my friend Jai’s place with his brother Kailo and their dad, a really nice guy. Jai had a crush on me, but I didn’t feel that for him, so it was a bit awkward. He took it really well though, and we stayed friends. Again, I was feeling lost and confused. I talked a lot with Jai and Kailo’s dad, and he suggested that I try to go on welfare if I didn’t want to work, and get my own place. That was my tentative plan, but something in me was not cool with going on welfare for no good reason. I was young, healthy, and capable – not a sponge, thank you very much. I really wanted to stay in Duncan because there was this farm there called Sungoma; I’m not sure if it still exists, but it was so cool. Whoever owned it had built a bunch of random small outbuildings scattered around the property. Some of them were on stilts, some were treehouses, and you could rent them out by the month and live in them. There was a communal kitchen and showers. I wanted to live in a treehouse – again. But there were no vacancies, and they didn’t often come up, not surprisingly. My dream was to live in a treehouse and work at Coffee on the Moon, the local funky coffee shop, but they weren’t hiring. So my options were limited.

I don’t remember the exact moment I decided to leave BC and the dream, but I remember calling my dad from a payphone on a cold, rainy late November day and telling him I wanted to come back to Winnipeg, and asking if he would buy me a plane ticket home, one way. I think I was just tired. The dream lay scattered in bloody shards around my feet, and I was too far gone to even be heartbroken or sad about it.

So I took the ferry to Vancouver and stayed with Caitlin for the night before my flight left, feeling completely in a daze, not believing that I was willingly returning to the city I had sworn a year and a half earlier that I would never move back to again. But I think something deeper in me, wiser, more self-preserving said, “You need to rest.” And I heeded it – so I guess I wasn’t as completely stupid as I thought.

That night with Caitlin was awkward, and at the time I was too distracted to analyze why, but later I figured out that she was changing too – she wasn’t satisfied with the flaky hippie life either – and at that point, she saw me as still fully immersed in it. But I was changing too, though it would take me awhile to sort out the dichotomy in my mind and my heart.

So I was at the Vancouver International Airport the following morning, and I remember looking down at my feet and thinking, This is the last time my feet will be on BC soil; the soil of what I thought of as my homeland. It was a heartbreaking, eyes-look-your-last moment, full of confusion, bewilderment and exhausted pain. I spent some time looking at the mountains of Whistler in the distance, drinking in the sight, quenching my soul for the long, mountainless, prairie-filled months ahead. My sketchy plan was to go back to Winnipeg, get a job, stay with my mother, make some money, then go overseas and live happily ever after – or something.

*     *     *

So what remains to be said? I think I’ve shed it all; I haven’t talked about absolutely everything that happened. Some of it is just too personal or special for me to share. And a couple things that are downright embarrassing. . .But I feel good about what I’ve shared. So how to end it?

There’s a book and a movie based on the life of Christopher McCandless called Into the Wild. It’s an incredibly sad story. To sum it up, Chris was an intelligent guy who, after he graduated college, secretly sold his car and donated all his money and savings for law school to Oxfam International, and disappeared. His family had no idea where he went. He changed his name to Alexander Supertramp and worked odd jobs around the States, saving up to live his dream: to disappear into the Alaskan wilderness and live off the land. Away from the things of man. He made it to Alaska, and did walk into the wilderness, alone. He had barely any supplies with him. He found an abandoned school bus and, using a few books he had on wilderness survival and edible plants, lived there in total isolation for three months, then decided he was ready to go back to civilization. But upon walking out, he discovered that the route he had taken to come into the woods was now impassable; the river had swollen and was running too fast for him to swim out. So he returned to the bus for another month or so, and in the end he died of starvation. He was found two weeks later by a hunter, curled up inside his sleeping bag, weighing only 67 pounds.

The school bus is still there, and Chris’ parents have turned it into a monument to him. They keep it stocked with supplies and food for other travelers who might want to walk into the wild, like their son did.

This story really haunted me when I first read it, and later when I watched the movie. Maybe because I’ve been closer than the average person to doing what Chris did. Because I have tasted that feeling, but I lived through it to move on with my life, to tell that part of my story.

I think people maybe find it romantic what he did, but I personally wasn’t overly impressed. I found him to be hypocritical in his beliefs; he was so adamant about leaving behind everything to do with society, yet he had no qualms about living in an abandoned school bus. And yet on the other hand, he refused many people along the way who wanted to give him money and supplies, even leaving behind winter boots and hunting gear in some cases, because he wanted to be entirely self sufficient. I personally find that incredibly stupid. You’re going into the Alaskan wilderness, man. Why not accept the help you’re offered, and work your way up to living completely off the land? Why not be smart about it? I guess I just have no patience for flaky people who don’t really know what they want or what they’re doing. I dealt with them every day for a year and a half in BC when I was a neo-hippie, and I’m not impressed by any of it. Someone who goes into the woods to live, and is truly clear-headed, capable, conscious, conscientious and mature about it? That would impress me.

Now for some random last-minute stuff.

Hitchhiking

I would never do it now, today. Not for any reason. And I don’t recommend it. On Salt Spring during the protest, one of my friends was hitching one night, and she got picked up by two loggers. They figured out she was one of the protestors, and they drove out into the middle of nowhere and raped her. She never went to the police because she didn’t want it to interfere with the protesting. Seriously. I would have let those guys burn. But back then, I believed that everything my sister did was perfection, foolproof. She told me to send out positive vibes into the universe, and you would always get good rides. And nothing bad ever happened, I have to admit – but I don’t think it was necessarily for the reasons I believed it was then.

She did give me some practical advice as well. Talk, she said. Talk a lot. Make yourself a human being, a person, in the driver’s eyes. They will have a harder time thinking about hurting you if they see you as a person, not just a body, an object. Ask them questions about themselves. And, when all else fails, and you’re in the car alone with a guy who seems creepy – ask him about his mother. I always carried a knife up my sleeve as well, even though it’s been proven statistically that if a “normal” person like me (who has no idea how to fight with a knife) carries one, that person is more likely to get hurt than the person they might be trying to fight off. And seriously, if I stabbed the driver, what would happen? We would end up in the ditch, which would also obviously suck. But my knife served more of a psychological purpose for me: it made me feel badass and tough, and that shows on a person.

There was one time when I truly believe that the driver who picked me up wanted to do something horrible to me.

I was on Vancouver Island; I don’t remember where I was going, but it was a long journey, which 99% of the time means getting several different rides, because most people are only going a short distance. So there I was, in the middle of nowhere, and a guy pulls over to pick me up.

I always would do an intuitive scan of every person who stopped for me; a few times I turned down rides. I would always make very direct eye contact as well, which serves two purposes. One: it tells them that you see them, and you’re not a timid person. Two: you get a feel for a person by looking in their eyes.

So this guy seemed okay, maybe a little stiff and awkward, so I got in the passenger seat, and off we went.

I started my usual banter, asking him where he lives, where he’s going, how his day is, all that small-talk crap. He answered everything I said in short, curt monosyllabic replies. He wasn’t being rude or antisocial; I got the distinct impression he was nervous as hell. He would look over at me every so often with a jerky motion, eyes wide behind his glasses. He didn’t blink much, and he was starting to creep me out. I got the sense that he was having an internal debate with himself about whether he wanted to do something to me or not. Of course I could have been totally reading it wrong; for all I know he was high on acid or just really, really socially awkward.

So after about fifteen exhausting minutes of me babbling on and on in my one sided conversation, I pulled out the big guns. I asked him if his mother lived on the island.

Again, a one syllable reply and a wide-eyed, jerky look.

At this point I was trying to figure out a way to ask him to let me out, since there was nothing around; we were in the middle of nowhere, so there was no tactful way of asking him to let me out. I couldn’t very well say, “Oh look, here’s my stop!” when there’s nothing but grass on either side endlessly in every direction. And I instinctively knew that to throw tact to the wind could be dangerous.

All of a sudden, he pulled the car onto the shoulder of the highway and said abruptly, “I’m going to let you out here.” That was it. There was no driveway, nothing. No reason for him to stop. But he wanted me out of his car for whatever reason, and I was more than happy to oblige him.

As he drove away, I thought to myself that he had chosen not to do whatever it was he had been wanting to do, and had removed the temptation by getting me out of his car. Before I stuck my thumb out again, I sent a silent thank you to the universe.

Mushrooms

I’ve done mushrooms three times. The first time was when I was in high school, with my sister in Whistler, and it was perfect. Magical.

The last time I did them was on Hallowe’en night in Victoria in 1999, when I was a sort-of street kid. I was on the beach in Beacon Hill Park, Mile O, with a group of people, only a few of whom I knew, and none of them very well. It was pitch black, minus our driftwood fire, and there are some parts of Victoria that are really creepy. Hallowe’en. Samhain. All Souls Night. When the veil between the living and the dead is thin. Communication is open. The energy is crackling and otherworldly.

So all of these components added up to create a really bad trip for me. I got so deep, so lost inside myself, I couldn’t even talk. Paranoid. It was horrible. I never did them again. But I learned a few important things from that experience.

Don’t do hallucinogenics unless you’re with someone you trust – someone you can talk to about anything, in case you start getting stuck in your head.

Don’t do hallucinogenics unless you’re somewhere where you feel safe – and somewhere where you are safe.

Be aware of when you do them. Mushroom trips vary depending on whether it’s daytime or nighttime.

Don’t try and do “normal daily activities” while on hallucinogenics. It will just stress you out and probably make you paranoid.

Would I ever do them again? Maybe. If the right circumstances presented themselves.

The Home Underground and My Drum

I love Peter Pan. I love the idea of never growing up. Of, yes, becoming an adult, in that one is responsible and not denying what is – but not losing the childlike part of oneself. To be childlike, not childish. My sister and I both have “Second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning” tattooed on our upper left arms. So I must say that I am drawn to people with a certain twinkle in their eye, the smell of wild woods on their skin and skeleton leaves in their hair. To big trees with vines, pirates and cutlasses, mermaid song and the Neverbird.

During my second summer in BC, I landed in Tofino for a couple weeks, and I loved it. It’s strange that I would love it, because it really is very hippyish in a way. But there’s something about it that drew me in. I felt very at home, very comfortable. Something about it felt right, and I still feel that way now, which is really weird.

I had driven there with a couple cool girls, and we became a little traveling family. That’s the thing with traveling; the people you go with become your people. You bond quickly. And we met some boys there on our first day; they told us they were building a home underground, a house in the woods. I thought to myself, Yeah, they’re just going to string a tarp between some trees and lay down their sleeping bags. Whatever. And I more or less forgot about it. A few days later, when they saw us in town and exuberantly told us that the Home Underground was finished and they wanted us to come stay with them, I wasn’t excited at first. So we all drove out there and hiked to the beach, then into the woods. And I must say I was blown away.

They had found an ancient dead tree with a massive trunk – ten people holding hands could barely reach around it kind of thing – and hollowed it out. They built a huge wooden bed frame and a table inside with driftwood from the beach. They made a mattress and piled sleeping bags on it. They gathered mushrooms and berries from the woods and made epic meals for us all. It was seriously amazing. I stayed there for about two weeks, living in a tree in an ancient rainforest with the ocean and the beach just steps from our “front door.” I am one of the luckiest people alive.

Since there were a bunch of us girls and guys, there was, of course, sexual tension and some minor drama. One guy got a crush on me, but I wasn’t interested. He had a small drum, not a djembe, and it was beautiful in its own way. He had decorated the skin with tribal patterns, and when I was leaving town, he gave it to me. I was overwhelmed with gratitude. He gave me his drum. I still have it, and I plan to reskin it. For a long time it sat at my mom’s place with one of her plants sitting on it, but I have it again now. I needed time away from it. I needed to break from the person I was back then. I needed to change.

My Journals

I have always written in journals, and I keep all my old ones in a Rubbermaid. And it’s full. It was sitting in my sister’s loft for a couple years, but recently I brought it home. Looking through them is always emotional. The thing I’ve noticed most about the ones I kept during my time in BC is that they’re not honest. It’s like I’m trying to convince myself of something. I would always show up at the page wanting to vent, to spill, to overflow, but as soon as my pen hit the page, that glazed we-are-one crap would take over, and it’s just all a bunch of fakeness. There is some beauty and honesty in there, but I think it snuck in in the moments when I wasn’t paying enough attention to smother it, like a tiny shard of crystal or a beam of sun.

Epilogue

In the movie The Beach, near the end when all the hippies run from their island home, shattered and heartbroken amid gunfire, the narrator / main character Richard has this to say of Sal, the founder of the hippie commune in Thailand:

“Game over. But she was never gonna leave. She believed in it all way too much to ever change. So that’s exactly where we left her.”

I have learned a thing or two about “happily ever after”; that in the movies, in that scene where someone rides off into the sunset and the credits roll, their struggles and questioning and pain aren’t over – it’s just that the audience’s time of watching it all unfold has ended. That character’s life goes on. You know that expression “Wherever you go, there you are”? Though I still have some serious beefs with Buddhism, that saying often pops into my head when I look back on my time in BC. Wherever you go, there you are. My problems, my anxiety, my depression, my low self-esteem and self-doubt followed me across the country and across the ocean, and I knew it would all follow me back to the prairies too. And I was finally done trying to outrun it.

It was winter. The stage was set. Running and being fake had failed me. There was nowhere else to turn but within. For the descent.

Inanna was ready to face Ereshkigal.

[offoxesandotherstrangeanimals]

OC questionnaire, part 7

11. Is there any OC of yours you could describe as a “sunshine”? 

Rae. Definitely Rae. Maybe she’s a bit of a stereotype, but she’s so pure and a little naive and despite all the shit that happened to her (losing her whole family to the Virus, almost dying herself because people suspected her to carry the Virus as well, falling in love with a (gay) guy who doesn’t love her in other ways as brotherly, getting pregnant from him when she and said guy got so incredibly drunk that they ended up in bed together and having to give away the baby girl she gives birth to because gay guy’s psycho boyfriend Devon is a jealous and cruel fuck and the only way to save the baby is to give it to Devon’s arch enemy who adopts the little girl) she’s still sweet and generous and innocent. (In her ancient, original version, Devon forces her to be the surrogate mom for his first cloning projects and she loses her mind during the experiments and ends up utterly crazy, but that was an idea that was dropped because my RP partner at that time wasn’t comfortable with it so he got a husband and three kids and a bakery instead, which made Rae a lot happier. She’s that kind of girl...)

But yeah, she is a hopeless romantic and optimist, smiles a lot and is so caring and a little naive and chaotic. She loves people and kids and wanted to become an elementary school teacher (after her ballerina phase) before the Virus erased her family, and she’s warm-hearted and always optimistic. She always sees the best in people. (Although she finds Devon very creepy.) She’s sometimes sad, mostly because of her unrequited love to Devon’s General and future husband, and because she feels alone and misses her family, but most of the time you will find her singing, dancing, baking and smiling. I think she’s actually the only sunshine OC I have <.< And not even to her I could be nice <.<

And if you still don’t have enough of my lengthy character descriptions, here are some descriptions of her I did years back:

What are some of your character’s hobbies? What do they do with their time? Rae loves to bake and decorate cakes and cupcakes and sweet things. She likes to decorate and re-decorate her rooms, to look at the sky and dream and spend time with her friends over a cup of tea and a chat. She also likes to read and dance and she writes regularly in a diary.

Favorite color? Pink. Pink and white and pastels. But mostly pink.

Favorite music artists? Movies or TV shows? Books or authors? Actors? Rae likes Swing music, the old classics as well as modern artists. She’s not very versed in music, but she likes positive and happy music; not too loud, danceable and not too depressing. She also listens to mainstream pop music or classical music if it’s nice and melodic.

Her favourite movies are romantic comedies and movies about love and friendship in general. She doesn’t like intellectual dramas or action movies or movies that don’t have a happy ending.

Rae loves Jane Austen and fairytales, but her favourite book is “Alice in Wonderland”.

Political stance? Are they active in politics or do they not care? Rae isn’t particularly politically interested or informed. So in general, she doesn’t care much about politics at all.

What are some of their pet peeves? Rudeness. People who mistreat animals badly. Choleric, hostile aggressive and unfriendly people in general (which is why she doesn’t like Devon very much and finds him creepy).

What sort of gifts do they like? Sweet and romantic gifts on the receiving end; such as perfume, flowers or jewelry and sparkling pretty things she can keep on display. They don’t have to be practical or useful. On the giving end, she likes to put lots of effort and time into crafting and baking impressive cupcakes or cakes and desserts to give them to people she loves. It’s terribly hard for her to choose other gifts to buy for people, though; she’s never sure they would really like them. So usually, she sticks with baked goods. The most important thing for her is to make people smile with her gifts.

What is their favorite time of day? Favorite weather? Season? Rae loves warm and sunny days; she loves the spring and the summer. She dislikes cold and rainy weather. Her favourite time of the day is the afternoon; it’s the best time for a cup of tea and a cupcake.

Where do they like to spend their time? If she had a garden, that’s where she’d like to spend most of her time, probably. She loves flowers, especially roses, peonies and hydrangeas. Since gardens are rare in the Quarantine due to the limited space, she likes to spend the time in the kitchen, or lying on her bed and dreaming. She does like company, though. So she’d even prefer a place she doesn’t like over her favourite spot if it means she can spend time with a friend.

Favorite food? Favorite drink? Hot drinks, soft drinks, or alcohol? Although she loves to bake and decorate pretty cakes and cupcakes, they are not her favourite food. She loves sweet things (pancakes, chocolate croissants, pies), but prefers muffins and cookies over cupcakes and heavy butter cream cakes (although she does like them, too).

Rae isn’t very picky about her meals, but she doesn’t like it too spicy and intense. She likes mild dishes, especially Italian food, pasta, pizza and bruschetta. She’ll enjoy a good hamburger as well as a nice and mild curry or pad thai.

Rae doesn’t like coffee; it’s way too bitter for her. She always loves a good, black tea with some milk and sugar. She doesn’t drink alcohol often; but when she does, she prefers wine or some sweet cocktails over stronger drinks.

Favorite animal? Cats and hummingbirds.

Do they have any pets? Do they want any? Although pets are generally not allowed in the Quarantine due to the risk of contamination and infection, William picks up a stray in 35 and can convince Devon to let him keep her. He names the kitten Mindy and lets Rae take care of her, knowing she always loved cats. Technically, she’s William’s pet, but she lives with Rae and is taken care of by her as well. Rae loves Mindy terribly and is very grateful and happy that William made it possible for her to have a cat (a very, very rare privilege among the Quarantine’s inhabitants).

What relaxes them? A good cup of tea, baking and decorating cakes or her rooms, talking to her friends and playing Mindy. Cuddling and being held close.

Do they have any bad habits? Rae seems to be a little chaotic and distracted at times. Although she’s taking care of William’s and Devon’s household with great care, it can happen occasionally that her own rooms aren’t as tidy. They’re clean, but sometimes it happens that she leaves her wardrobe doors or the toothpaste tube open or leaves some things laying around. She’s not dirty or terribly messy, but sometimes a little distracted by daydreaming. Sometimes, she talks a bit too much.

Why do they have their resources? How long have they had them, and how have they served the character over time? (Ex. Contacts, money, political power, fame, etc.) Rae doesn’t have many resources. She did earn some money when she was working for her parents, and she saved what she got to be able to get her UEQ and to become an elementary school teacher afterwards, but the money was almost completely spent when her parents died from a new mutation of the virus

But all the money in the world wouldn’t have been useful, anyway. General practice and standard procedure in the Quarantine is to isolate infected persons immediately – and usually the people in their direct environment as well. Adding to the grief she felt about her parents death she was fearing to be locked away with other Carriers to die a painful and lonely death. And since the inhabitants live in the constant and daily fear of contamination, nobody wanted to have anything to do with her. She was an outcast, a leper.

Her most precious “resource” is the friendship to William. It’s more than a “resource” or just a “contact”, but it saved her life. Rae and William knew each other since their school days. They met when William was 12 and Rae was 11 and became friends. Although they had lost sight of each other and hadn’t seen each other since William had become an officer, he was there when she needed him the most. In her misery, afraid of isolation and inevitable death, she called William who took care of her. Devon had just become Director of the Quarantine and had William made his General and Commander in Chief of the UDF, so his influence and power had increased massively. So it was possible for William to ensure that Rae was thoroughly tested (a procedure that was too expensive and took too long to provide it for every simple and unimportant inhabitant with possible contact to Carriers) and to take her in after it was clear that she wasn’t infected. None of her old friends and contacts wanted to have anything to do with her anymore, and there was no way she would be able to finish her studies, so William gave her a place to live and a work. And although this turned the crush she had on him since their school days into a fatal secret love for him, this friendship proves to be the most important resource of her life. After all, she met her future husband at the Lab, as well.

What are some of your character’s more notable merits and flaws (including physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, etc.)? How did they develop? How has this helped or hindered them in the past? Rae isn’t stupid or dumb, but she’s a dreamer and can be quite naïve in many regards. She is clever – clever enough to get her UEQ and begin her studies to become na elementary school teacher – but has a very romantic and sometimes a little distorted view of the world.

She’s an optimist with a tendency of idealizing and romanticizing situations and people and the world itself. This, of course, helps her to survive the hardest times in her life: the death of her parents and her first pregnancy followed by the adoption of Cathy, her biological daughter. She always tries to make the best out of her situation, tries to stay positive and optimistic and to keep her strong faith, no matter how hard it is.

Rae is a textbook example of sweetness, kindness and amiability. She is generous, sociable, talkative and willing to help the people around her. She makes friends easily and most people like her back immediately. This makes it very hard for her to live so isolated in the Lab, though. She misses a large circle of friends and feels often lonely during her years there.

Her naivety is probably her biggest problem and hindrance in her life. Although she knows that William is gay and in deeply love with Devon, she hopes and believes that someday, he might return her love for him for a very long time. It’s a fairytale illusion she builds up in her dreams. Usually, she isn’t ignorant, but her hopes and dreams are too strong to accept the reality.

Her delusion is strong enough to spend a night with him when he was drunk and she at least a little tipsy, but the overwhelming secret love and the hope that all her secret dreams may come true made it impossible to resist. As a result of this night, Rae gets pregnant from William. Her love is even strong enough to let William convince her to give the little girl away after her birth since Devon’s jealousy and unpredictability made it more than dangerous for the baby to be around. But instead of leaving the Lab together with the girl, she gives her away only to be able to stay close to William – her biggest regret in life. Only slowly, after this event, her view on William becomes more realistic, and she suffers during this process of realization. Dmitri, her close friend by that time, helps her through it and becomes the real and true love of her life.

She never really gets rid of this romanticism and naivety, but she finds in Dmitri a partner and later a husband who beds her on roses and never uses these traits against her.

If you read this far you’ll get a cookie, too.