#doubt the family is just inviting a random dying woman to the festival????

[sandy-shocks]

ok my more in depth thoughts of the Sam=Firefly theory

So we know Sam is a mech suit from the planet Glamoth, with someone piloting it. Assumed to be a man based off the general build of the suit. Sam was built to fight against the Swarm to save his planet but ultimately the planet died to the swarm. We get all this info from Welt and the description of the Glamoth planar ornament set.

Firefly comes from a planet that was destroyed by either the swarm or antimatter legion from what she told us, she also stated shes on Penacony for the watchmakers legacy and cant tell us who she actually is. Another thing that interests me is she said in the real world shes stuck in what she calls a medical cabin and unable to move and experience things with her own body due to her terminal illness. It's said in a way that makes me think she can do all those things in a body that's not her own though. Sam is the 'medical cabin' shes stuck in, it would explain why the other Stellaron Hunters seemingly don't know who's actually piloting Sam, she can't live normally outside of it.

Sam only appears after her 'death' and Black Swan states the burnt enemies were very recent and they didn't exist in those places before we find Firefly, he wasn't there before she left. I think people are misinterpreting the memories of her we see as Sam being the one to lure her in and get her killed, but I think the line where she says 'Mecha, why?' is supposed to be something along the lines of 'Why do you know about that' not about why hes betraying her and the person she was with was someone unknown right now.

Theres just so many little things like their whole colour schemes matching, the firefly shaped wings in the 2.0 music video the same green colour as her, both of them very specifically mentioning the phrase 'scorched earth'. I do wholly think the theory has a good chance of being true.

[therandomfics]

DISTANCE: 3

Sonny, 

I’m sorry that it came to this, that your last contact from me will be in the form of this letter. Truthfully, I have no idea when you’ll read this, or if you’ll read it, but I want to cover my bases and let you know a few things. We’ve been together for how long now? Two and a half years? I’ve barely seen you for the last 8 months. I respect your line of work and appreciate your commitment to serve and protect, but at what point were you going to protect our relationship?  When we first met, I couldn’t believe how wonderful you were. Do you remember? You interviewed me, and then Mr. Barba prepped me for trial. I was so thankful I was able to save that woman’s life, so thankful that I made a difference, and so thankful to have met you. My Knight in Shining Armor. The first handful of dates we went on left me reeling - I felt manic if I’m being honest. I just couldn’t believe that someone like you wanted someone like me. Even after we moved in together, or rather I moved in with you, it still felt like pure magic. I never wanted that feeling to end.  Yes, I’ve lied awake at night, wishing that I’d never met you, wishing that you’d turn in your shield and take up law, or anything other than leaving me for as long as you did. But you know, I was patient, and forgiving.  I trusted you to be the one that would never betray me. I know you know why it’s so important to me that I give my all and get the same in return. You know my parents were together nearly 30 years when my Mom left my Dad for some random man she met online and destroyed my concept of trust. You know the horrors of dating I experienced - it’s not easy being a woman, especially in a big city. You know the absolute nightmare my mother has become and how she tried to pit me against you so many times just to feed her own sick, sad little mind... and I never let it happen.  Sonny, you were number one in everything. Nothing came before you, but I will not promise that nothing comes after you, because I deserve something more. You’ve left me lonely for too long. You didn’t check in, you didn’t have anyone check in on your behalf, nothing. If I hadn’t seen you with her.. I would have thought you were dead.  You told me you were going back to find out what was going on, why someone would be trying to contact me, and then you’d be back. I understood - I was angry, but I fucking understood. Then, after I’ve been missing you for so long, I see you on the platform kissing that woman like you’ve loved her longer than you pretended to love me. What did I do to deserve this?  Amanda said you’re deep under and you’re trying to make friends with someone who know what’s really going on in hopes that you can bust a ring. A ring of what? Pedophiles? Rapists? Traffickers? Who cares? I don’t?  I’m so sorry it ends like this, darling. Please know that I will forever think of you as the man who taught me how to love and simultaneously want to kill myself at the same time. What a delight - what a SKILL SET you must have to make me feel so wildly unstable. I’d say I’m proud of you, but only if that translated to burn in Hell. 

Wishing you the best... 

Y/N

You sealed the letter in an envelope and left it lying on Sonny’s pillow for his long awaited return. A return, of course, for which you would not be present. It took no time at all to reach out to a friend in Brighton Beach and ask if you could stay with her for a bit, as things had gotten murky with your boyfriend. The neighborhood was a bit further from work, but you didn’t mind. After all, you’d no longer be in any rush to come home in the hopes that you’d find Sonny. You’d just be going home to Kristin and her childish but sometimes amusing boyfriend. Plus, it was only temporary, you reminded yourself. 

You changed your number, deleted your Facebook and Instagram, and created a new e-mail account in hopes of moving on and getting things together again. Sonny’s name had stayed on the lease and rent was drafted monthly from his account, so you weren’t too terribly concerned with that portion, either. Even more, you had started taking a new route to work just in case he tried to find you. For all you knew, though, he was still undercover, playing house with his new girlfriend. It occurred to you in a painful fashion that it was possible that his charade had been going on for quite some time - but, you weren’t worried about any communicable diseases, as you hadn’t been intimate with him in almost 9 months. It had been so long since you’d seen him, you had to admit you’d felt single but betrothed for so long, that you didn’t know how to act anymore. 

“Alex is gonna invite some friends over tonight, cool?” Kristin asked you before you headed to work. It was too early for conversation but she was doing you a huge favor by letting you stay there, leaving you no option but to be polite. 

“Yeah, no problem, you know that. I’m not gonna be home until like 8 or 9 tonight. The kids have their poetry reading tonight and I promised I’d supervise,” you explained as you slung your bag over your shoulder. “But yeah, definitely fine with me. See you tonight.” 

When you finally arrived back home that night, you were surprised to see that Kristin hadn’t been lying. Usually her some people meant at least fifteen people crowded into the apartment, but this time it really was only Kristin, Alex, and three of their friends. Two females and one male, whose names you didn’t catch as you went to your room and secluded yourself from the festivities in the living room. They were playing cards and drinking, which was a fairly common way to pass the time for them, you’d noticed. 

Even though you’d been staying with Kristin for about two months and had grown comfortable there, you wished you had your own place again. Before you met Sonny, you’d scored a loft for a steal and had stayed there for two years. But, along came Carisi and your life was flipped on its head. He changed so much of your day to day, you wondered how you’d ever move on without him. 

There was a knock at your door as you were changing into more comfortable clothes. You grumbled and opened it to find the mysterious man in the hall. It was a welcomed interruption. Human interaction normally meant not thinking about Sonny, and when he was a 6′1″ linebacker build with brown eyes and a mess of brunette curls, you were obliged to interact. 

“Hi?” you asked, brow arched. 

“Hey. Sorry to bother you. Alex said that you might have a phone charger?” he asked and held up his dying phone. 

“I do. Yeah, I’ll grab it,” you offered and walked over to your desk to unplug the cord. “When you’re done with it you can just leave it in the living room, I’ll grab it in the morning.” 

“Uh.. I was actually hoping I could hide out for a while,” he said with a nervous laugh. “Kristin and Alex are about five minutes away from being pornographic and Jennifer and Rachelle are.. not far behind. I’m the DD so I can’t exactly leave them. But, if not it’s totally fine!” 

You shrugged and handed him the charger. “You’re welcome to hang out here. I was just gonna watch TV for a while.” 

“Thanks. I’m Ryan by the way.” He plugged the charger into an outlet and plugged his phone in, setting it down on the floor. He pulled the chair out by your desk and sat down, considerate enough not to assume he could sit on your bed with you. 

“Y/N. Nice to meet you, Ryan.” You sat down and turned on the TV in your room, scanning until you found a B-Rated horror movie on Netflix and settled in. Your bed was against the wall, acting as a massive couch lined with pillows and blankets. It was comfortable, and you felt slightly selfish for making Ryan sit at the desk. “You’re welcome to sit over here, by the way. I know that’s an uncomfortable angle and a hard chair.” 

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” he confessed and stood up, finding a spot as far away from you as he could. “You haven’t been living here long have you? I feel like I’ve only seen you once.” 

You nodded absently and pulled your knees to your chest. “Just like, a couple months. I had a failed relationship and exiled myself to Brighton,” you explained with a small laugh. 

“Me too, actually. That’s why I hadn’t been hanging out with Kris and Alex as much. My girl - ex girl - wasn’t a fan of their company, said they were too wild. I dunno, they seem alright to me. It’s good to be free again.” 

You looked over at him and smiled. “You might be onto something. It is nice to know that I don’t have to expect anything. Things just are the way that they are.” 

“You’re really gorgeous though. I doubt you’ll be on the market too long - unless you want to be,” he added quickly. Compliments and common sense.

“I dunno about that one, Ryan. I thought I had a good one last time - you know, being so pretty and all - but he wasn’t really around much. Left me pretty lonely, especially the last almost year of the relationship.” You sighed, and then kicked yourself mentally. You didn’t want to appear vulnerable but there you were, admitting freely that you hadn’t been intimate in almost a year. “It’s fine though, you know, I’m tough and everything.” 

The blush that flashed across his cheeks meant that he knew what you’d accidentally confessed. “I’m sorry that you had to experience that. I hope that when you’re ready, you’ll find someone who gives you the attention that you definitely deserve.” 

Embarrassed, you averted your eyes to the television in time to see a poorly made up zombie trudging through the woods outside of an unsuspecting family’s home. You suddenly felt awkward, your face burning and your heart racing. The freedom of knowing that you could lean over at any given point and touch this new friend of yours left your head spinning. You’d forgotten what it felt to be with anyone but Sonny, and truth be told you’d almost forgotten what that was like, too. You spent the next half hour staring at the screen without understanding what was happening; anything to avoid looking at him. 

“Why do women wear heels when they’re staying at a cabin?” he asked after a while, watching a woman run through a dense forest in stilettos. 

“Because they’re sexy.” 

“You don’t need heels to be sexy, you know. A woman can look great in shorts and a hoodie,” he explained glancing over at you, pointedly, as you were wearing his described clothing combination. 

“But stereotypical sexy means cleavage, heels, and an air of damsel in distress,” you countered, trying to ignore his compliment. 

“That’s not really my thing, I guess.” 

“Yeah, mine either. I mean the stereotypical man - the whole Harvard or Hudson look.. I hate it,” you confessed with a laugh. “Give me some flaws, some rough edges, something else.” 

“You’re in luck. I am flawed, and very rough,” he replied, then laughed. “Not like that. I mean. No, no, nevermind.”

Pressing pause on the movie, you looked at the time and sighed. “Ryan, it is my bed time as of twenty minutes ago. I’m sorry to interrupt your internal conflict but I really have to tell you goodnight.” You scooted to the end of the bed and stood up, walking to the door. 

He followed suit and grabbed his phone, pausing as he stood in between you and the door. The world moved slowly around you as he leaned down and placed his hand on the back of your neck, pulling you closer to his face. When he finally kissed you, he pressed his body to yours and pushed you back against the door frame. It was aggressive and sexy, but it wasn’t right. You pulled away a few moments later and stared up at him in confusion. Yes, you had enjoyed it, but it just wasn’t right. 

“I.. uh..” you stammered, taking a step back. “I really need to sleep. I’ll see you around?” 

“Goodnight,” he said with a smile, and headed back down the hall. He turned around a few seconds later and stopped. “Hey, also? Next week Jennifer is hosting a Halloween at her place in Queens. Go with me. You’ll have a good time. I was thinking about being a Priest but I’m not sure yet. I’ll pick you up.” 

Once Ryan left, you shut and locked the door, fighting back the need to sob uncontrollably as you washed your face and brushed your teeth. You slept like absolute hell that night, dreaming of Sonny everytime you closed your eyes. Had you made the right decision? Who knew if he’d even read your letter yet. 

[donnamiscolta]

This past year I read good books and experienced good things. Here are a few of each of them matched up in a semi-random, teeny bit calculated way, introduced by a few lines from the featured book.

From “1989” in How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, a deeply perceptive and intelligent collection of essays by Alexander Chee:

Everyone is running now and everywhere batons rise. The screams lift out of the street, and in restaurants up and down the block doors are locked and the diners are informed.

In “1989,” Chee writes about the AIDS march in San Francisco and the response of the riot police to the disruption of traffic. It’s a short, powerful essay about his realization that the police were directing their brutality not just at the people who were protesting, but at what they were fighting for – all of this happening in the country he lived in.

I read this essay months before I went to Ecuador, landing during street protests in Quito where students, workers, and indigenous activists were tear-gassed by police and military units. This was not my country, but I sided with the people and their demands for social and economic justice.

  From The Friend by Sigrid Nunez, which won the 2018 National Nook Award for Fiction:

Rather than write about what you know, you told us, write about what you see. Assume that you know very little and that you’ll never know much until you learn how to see. Keep a notebook to record things that you see, for example when you’re out in the street.

I read this beautiful book on our flight to Spain in May. A woman grieving the death of her lifelong best friend recalls the above advice from him. I’ve never been good about keeping a journal or recording thoughts and observations in a notebook. But during the three weeks we were in Spain, at the end of each day I logged our activities, typing them into my phone, including this incident in Segovia: We arrived at the tiny Casa-Museo Antonio Machado to find it closed during the siesta hours. On the step outside sat two middle-aged men, one of them reciting poetry in beautiful, lilting tones, and the other listening, nodding. I missed out on seeing the museum, but I was grateful to have witnessed that.

  From “As Luck Would Have It” in Staten Island Stories by Claire Jimenez, an engaging collection I reviewed for Seattle Review of Books:

One day Chrissy had the bright idea to reach out to the ghosts. She thought that perhaps we could make peace with them if only we could all just sit down and talk.

I believe in ghosts and I fear seeing strange ones, that is, the ghosts of people I haven’t known. But I welcome the ghosts of beloveds. If not their ghosts, then their living, breathing doubles. One hot Sunday afternoon in February, while I was walking down a nearly empty street in Oaxaca, an elderly woman was walking toward me. There was something familiar about her dress, her shoes, her pace. I prepared to greet her as we neared each other. I can’t remember if I managed to extend a “buenos dias” to her. I don’t even remember if she looked my way or if she was focused on the gently upward slope of the sidewalk ahead of her. But as soon as she passed me, I stopped immediately and whirled around to watch her walk away, resisting the urge to rudely catch up to her for another look at her face, which eerily resembled my long-dead Mexican grandmother.

  From The Vexations by Caitlin Horrocks, a smart and enthralling fictional account of the life of composer Eric Satie:

“You a writer?” a man asked, glancing at Philippe’s notebook. The man was wearing a jacket, not a smock, and his collar was gray and crooked. He made a strange tinkling sound as he leaned over the bar, as if he were strung with wind chimes. His nose was a nearly bloody-looking red, and his eyes were already glazed.

Still, Philippe thought this was possibly the best single thing anyone had said to him in his life. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’m a writer. What are you?

“A drunk,” the barman said, refusing to serve the man the absinthe he’d requested.

This novel, rich in character and setting, includes among its themes art and genius versus art and talent and the ever-constant doubt that accompanies both. The passage above features Phillippe, who comes to Paris from Spain and encounters obstacles in trying to make his name as a poet. Imposter syndrome is real for writers. Even when we feel confident that the work we’ve finished is good and deserving of publication, once we send it out into the world seeking a publisher, we are beset with doubt that anyone will find it worthy. So, it was with gladness and relief that I learned in late May that Jaded Ibis Press will release my third book of fiction Living Color: Angie Rubio Stories in fall 2020.

  From Hezada! I Miss You by Erin Pringle (forthcoming March 2020), a beautiful novel about the change, loss, nostalgia, and memory that accompanies a dying circus and the dying village it visits:

The tumblers run up the street and jump high into the splits. When they land, they raise their arms to applause, then take off again, running, jumping, now twisting too many times to count before they land facing the other side of the street. More applause. They rise up on their toes, arch their backs, and reach as though to touch the sky, defiant at the rain.

Who doesn’t love performers? They are deserving of our applause. Especially improv actors. Last April the multi-faceted Jekeva Phillips invited me to participate in BIbliophilia. My part was easy: I read an excerpt from one of my Angie Rubio stories. Then, in one of the most creative acts I’d ever witnessed, a group of improv actors took over where I left off. After a brief huddle, the actors took the stage and continued my story in spontaneous and incredibly funny, smart, and seamless dialogue and action. Like an ice sculpture that melts or a sand painting that is erased, that performance was a one-time thing – unscripted, unrecorded, never to exist again. I suppose that’s the point of improv – its ephemeral nature, its beauty and power. But how I wish I could’ve wrapped that performance up and taken it home with me to watch again and again.

  From The Body Papers by Grace Talusan, an exquisitely crafted memoir about trauma, identity, and family:

Inside a few cells in my brain, I believe there’s a part of me that still knows Tagalog. I feel pain when I attempt to speak it, as though there is something I want to say desperately that can be expressed only in my first language. But I can’t access words, or that part of me that named the world first in Tagalog. When I hear strangers speaking Filipino languages, I am as drawn to them as kin.

I have a similar response to Spanish, though I have never spoken it fluently. It’s a language that I heard throughout my childhood and one that I feel connected to despite my failure to exit from intermediate purgatory in my speaking level. At least my desire for connection through the English language is met through community with other writers through readings, conferences, and retreats. Among the opportunities I had this year was participating on panels at the Orcas Island Literary Festival and teaching at the Hedgebrook Summer Salon. Both times I had the pleasure of hanging out with writers I admire who are also exceptional human beings.

  From The Importance of Being Wilde at Heart by R. Zamora Linmark (which I reviewed for Seattle Review of Books), a YA novel about first love, which centers the thoughts, desires, and concerns of gay, trans, and gender-fluid teens:

He closes his eyes. He lies there, very still, and with his shaven head, he looks like a newborn baby who wakes up to greet the world, then returns back to sleep.

These are the protagonist’s observations about the boy he falls in love with. Linmark’s reference to a newborn gives the moment innocence and intimacy because we understand the purity of that moment when a baby wakes up and the tenderness of falling back into slumber. I have a grandson now to remind me of the hope we feel when we behold this innocence. I saw him in the first hours after his birth, sleeping in all his newness. I saw him open his eyes to a world still small to him. Now every time he opens his eyes, his world increases and his awareness of himself in it increases. As he grows, he will always have the support of those who love him to be whoever he wants and needs to be in this world that is big and often beautiful, but not always welcoming.

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Some Things I Read and Did in 2019 – A Mash-up This past year I read good books and experienced good things. Here are a few of each of them matched up in a semi-random, teeny bit calculated way, introduced by a few lines from the featured book.