#earlier this year an american was on my post talking about how much easier people have it nowadays

[cliveguy]

im also frustrated with people not really caring about what's happening to trans people here but i do understand why (especially now) it isn't the most pressing news story of the day. but it is also annoying that people seem to be completely unaware of how bad it is here and how difficult it is to medically transition.

[nolita-fairytale]

still into you | carmen 'carmy' berzatto x fem!reader | chapter two: friday

summary: big announcements are made at the james beard house dinner, and carmy tells you how much you mean to him.

warnings: swearing, no use of y/n, she/her pronouns, drinking & smoking

word count: 4.6k

listen to: in transit - albert hammond jr. | nightswimming - r.e.m | friday i'm in love (cover) - phoebe bridgers (playlist here)

a/n: remember when i accidentally posted this earlier today at the start of the american work day? that was weird. anyways...

read: chapter one | bonus smut scene

Friday

The way that the four of you flow together is like a symphony – each one of you so committed to your craft – to excellence – and the feeling you get sends chills down your spine. It’s a sign of how far you all have come, which is what the menu is all about this evening. It was Syd and Carmy’s idea: each dish presented this evening would embody a part of The Bear’s story. You’d even worked with Marcus on elevating his signature chocolate cake, wanting to keep the heart and soul of it, even if it had to lean a little more towards the fine dining side of things.

Never in a million years would Carmy have thought that, on his first day at The Beef, that you’d all end up here. After all the chaos, all the swimming upstream, it felt near-impossible that something so disorganized and broken could become something so beautiful. 

He’s near-shaking at the idea of what he has to do next, but he also knows that this is a story he has to tell. It’s not really something he’s spoken about – at least publicly – and not to the food world. 

But he can’t tell the story of The Bear without Michael. 

He feels like he’s sweating through his chef whites, but you remind him that he’s going to be great. It’s a huge step in his healing journey and after a long talk about it, Carmy had decided it was something he felt he wanted to do. 

“Before we wrap up the evening, we have one more dish before dessert,” Carmy says, earning the attention of the dining room full of people. 

He hopes his voice isn’t shaking too much, and he nervously fidgets with a spoon he’s holding in his hands while you and Sydney stand behind him as literal and emotional support.

His face feels hot. He feels like he wants to throw up and cry at the same time, and he looks back at you for reassurance. 

You nod your head in his direction, a comforting smile on your face, as Sydney grabs your hand. You’re both nervous for him. 

You can do it, Bear. Let it rip. 

“As some of you may know, three years ago I left New York to go back home and take over the family restaurant – the restaurant that would eventually become The Bear,” he explains.

“This dish is uh… it’s really special to me,” he says, trying his best not to let his voice break as he continues.

“It’s an ode to my late brother: a play on the braciole he used to make for me and my sister every Sunday.” 

The dining room gets quiet, each person hanging onto every single word that Carmy says, his vulnerability palpable. 

Carmy suddenly feels emotionally exposed, but he knows there’s no turning back now. He can practically hear Mikey’s voice in his head, encouraging him, pushing him to let it rip. Knowing that he’s got you and Sydney behind him gives Carmy the extra boost of confidence he needs to get through this speech. 

As he explains each component of the dish, it becomes easier to fake it: fake some confidence, fake that he’s not crumbling inside. Carmy knows how to talk about food so he leans into it, even if it feels like his voice is caught in his throat. It feels like second nature -- like falling into an old pattern he's practiced a thousand times -- as he hides behind his tough, calculating, diligent exterior. But he feels as if he’s just put his open, bleeding heart on a plate, and it's impossible for him not to feel.

Carmy clears his throat before concluding his presentation with, “So thank you again for dining with us this evening. Uh… Chef Sydney has some news she’d uh… we’d like to share with everyone.” 

He thanks the gods that he made it through.

He can’t wait to get out of the spotlight. 

Carmy moves aside, letting Sydney take center stage, and he can feel the blood rush through his head – an almost dizzy-feeling. As he stands next to you, you bump up against his shoulder, giving him some comforting touch, in an effort to ground him.

“Thank you, chef,” Sydney begins, glancing back at Carmy. “And thank you for sharing this dish with us. I know that it’s something you hold close to your heart and our story of The Bear wouldn’t be complete without it.”

The dining room full of people begins clapping once again and it gives Carmy a moment to zip himself back up emotionally. He only reminds himself that he has a few moments left of being in front of people. While he may be an expert at fooling everyone else with his stoic exterior, you can see he’s struggling to hold it together.

“And thank you again to everyone for coming out tonight. We have some really exciting news to share. After putting our heart and soul into The Bear, we are at a point in its journey where we can expand,” Sydney begins, earning a few excited whispers from the room.

“We felt tonight would be the perfect time to announce that we will be opening up a second restaurant – a separate concept that I will be leading as CDC in Chicago. I’m really excited to have this opportunity to develop my own concept with my business partner, Carmen Berzatto, and to lead my own kitchen.”

The entire room erupts with applause once again as the wait staff begin to bring out Carmy’s perfectly plated beef dish. Carmy nods as a signal to you and Syd and you both follow him back into the kitchen. 

“Stay. I’ll go help Marcus,” Sydney says to you, reassuringly.

She rubs a sympathetic hand over Carmy’s upper back before saying, “Good work, chef.”

Sydney hurries over into the prep kitchen to help Marcus plate dessert, while you hang back with Carmy in the hallway. He’s avoiding your gaze and you can tell he’s trying his best not to lose it right then and there. His body is still – frozen in a moment of time. There’s a tension that runs across his chest and into his shoulders that hadn’t been there at the start of the night. He looks like he hasn’t taken a breath since his speech began either. 

“That was really beautiful, Bear,” you say softly. He still won’t look at you, but you understand why.

“Thanks,” he nods curtly. 

There’s a silent tension between the two of you and you know what you need to do next. 

“What do you need?” you ask. 

“Think I uh-, just need a little fresh air,” he mumbles, his voice breaking a little, before clearing his throat again. 

“‘Course. Marcus, Syd and I have got this,” you encourage him. 

You wait as Carmy slips out back for a break, before making your way back into the kitchen. Loving Carmy through his grief sometimes looked different. Some days he’d need space. Other times he’d need you – crawling into your arms and allowing you to care for him. Together, you’ve had to learn how to ask, and he’s had to learn how to tell you what he needs. 

“How’s Carmy?” Sydney asks with a concerned look on her face, causing Marcus to look up from the plate he’s working on. 

“He’s okay. Just needs a break,” you answer. You’re not worried about him. You know how painful that was for Carmy, and you’re more than happy to give him the space he needs to sit with it. 

“What can I do?”

And then Marcus is handing you a few extra plates, asking you to double check his previous count to ensure that every single plate went out in a timely manner. 

Carmy returns about ten minutes later, ready to jump back in. He’d just needed a timeout – a moment to feel the enormous swell of emotions that had come up when talking about Michael to a dining room of eighty people. Soon enough, he’s helping plate the tiny chocolate layer cakes, with an olive oil ice cream, and a tahini caramel drizzled over the top. 

Dessert is the last dish to be brought out, and as Marcus presents, the four of you receive a standing ovation at the James Beard House. It’s like for the first time in a week, Carmy can breathe again. He feels like a one hundred pound weight has been lifted off of his shoulders, and his heart swells with pride over how the night’s gone. Everyone’s liked the food, you all have worked so beautifully as a team this evening, and he can’t believe he got through his fucking speech without crying in front of everyone. 

Entirely exhausted yet filled with a grand sense of accomplishment, the four of you drag yourselves out of the James Beard House and back out onto the streets of NYC. You’re not sure who suggests it, but you’re grateful the idea has been brought up as you’re carrying pizzas you picked up on the way back to the hotel. Piled onto the two full beds in Marcus and Sydney’s room, the four of you can finally celebrate a job well done. 

“Yo, I think I like the Sicilian slice better,” Marcus says, polishing off another piece of the pepperoni and mushroom. 

“Oof,” Carmy sounds, watching your face for your reaction. “You’re playing with fire, Marcus.”

Sydney snorts, “Fuck. We’re finally able to relax. No one kill each other, please.”

“What? We’ve already had the Chicago vs New York pizza debate,” Marcus says, throwing up his hands as if he’s innocent. I know what I’m getting myself into! I’m just sayin’ the Scilian slice is giving mad Chicago vibes and it’s dope.” 

You laugh, shaking your head, while Carmy playfully nudges you. 

“Okay, while pepperoni and mushroom is a classic and you know I have mad respect that, as a New Yorker… hard disagree on your style of pizza, chef,” you say back, starting on a new slice of one of the remaining NY Style pies. 

“You know what’s fucking fire? Pepperoni and jalapenos – pickled, not fresh,” Sydney chimes in and you all reply in a chorus of agreement. 

“Hundred percent,” Carmy says. 

“Never fresh. The sour tangy brine is key,” you add. “At least we can all agree on something. 

“You know what’s fucking wild?” Marcus begins, looking across the three of you. “We made this whole fancy ass meal, yet we’re eating pizza in a hotel room at the end of the night.” 

Carmy laughs dryly, “Yeah, man. It’s kinda par for the course.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“Seriously!” Sydney exclaims.

“Speaking of, how was your stage at per se?” you inquire, curious to hear about his experience in the fine dining kitchen. “We barely had time to catch up this morning about it.” 

Truthfully, you’d all been so focused on tonight going well that no one had really talked about it. 

“Man,” Marcus sighs. “It was cool. But like. Now I know what you guys are talking about when you say a chef only let you zest lemons for three months.”

You laugh in response, thinking back to the time blood orange juice caused you an existential crisis. That existential crisis – the one that led you to quitting your job, leaving fine dining behind for good. 

“And it’s like… the whole staff works as a machine. Kitchen’s more like a science lab than a kitchen. I got lucky, huh?” Marcus continues and Carmy shakes his head. 

“Yeah, per se’s a lot like where we used to work,” Carmy says with a shrug. 

“Should’ve seen Alinea. It’s very… science lab meets art school,” Sydney adds. “Inspiring… but cold.” 

“Damn,” Marcus shakes his head, feeling luckier than ever that he got to learn from the three of you instead. 

“Wait. Syd, how was your supper club?” you ask, suddenly remembering that she hadn’t had a chance to tell any of you yet. She had, after all, gotten home late last night, only to get up early to go with Carmy to Chelsea Market. 

“Oh my god,” she gloats. “So fucking cool. Like unreal. You guys have to come with me next time.” 

“I uh-,” she starts again, as if she has a secret. “They actually asked me to come back and do a pop-up dinner, especially with the new restaurant opening. I mean, they want to do a collab with me!”

“Okay, I see you,” Marcus calls out, proud of his friend. 

“Of course they do!” you cheer her on. 

“What do you think, chef?” she asks Carmy, searching for approval in the way his face changes as he hears the news. 

“I think… you’d be silly not to. We’ll work out a time for you to come back up here once we get the new restaurant up and running,” Carmy reassures, respect and pride in his eyes as he exchanges a look with Sydney. 

“And of course, I want you guys back here with me. Like… are we the fuckin’ dream team, or are we the fuckin’ dream team?” Sydney celebrates, reliving the memories of this evening. 

Tonight has been so incredible and Sydney wonders if this is what it feels like to be at the top of your career. She wants to savor the moments of this weekend, replaying them over and over again in her head. 

“Oh 100%,” Marcus confirms with confidence.

“Absolutely,” you promise.

A temporary quiet settles between the four of you as you reflect on the evening. Carmy is quiet again, caught up in his head as he’s filled with a deep sense of gratitude: for all of your hard work, for how well the evening went, for his team. 

You all are his people. 

And he’s never had people before. 

Not until now. 

“Thank you guys. For tonight,” he says, his tone serious. “You guys were rockstars, and... I couldn’t have done it – any of this – without you.” 

“Aw, Carmy,” Sydney smiles, savoring this rare tender moment with Carmy. 

“Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” Marcus reinforces.

“Of course,” you smile proudly. 

You each take a moment to feel it all: accomplishment, the gratitude, the love and genuine respect you all have for each other.

“Not to ruin the moment or anything,” you begin, half apologetically. “If anyone’s up for more fun food debates tomorrow, Carmy and I have a fun little tradition I’d love to share you guys.” 

You and Carmy exchange glances and it’s as if he can read your mind. 

“Walking dumpling tour?” he questions. 

You confirm with a nod. 

“What’s the-?” Marcus begins to ask as Sydney finishes his question with, “... the walking dumpling tour?”

“A fun little thing we used to when we still lived here,” you reply. “Hit up as many dumpling spots as we can in search of the best pork dumplings that Chinatown can offer. Hell, I’ll make up a scorecard and we can rate them.”

“Sounds fun. I’m in,” Marcus says. 

“Yeah, let’s do it,” Sydney agrees. 

Carmy checks the time on his phone. 

“Yo, it’s getting pretty late. We should probably head to bed,” Carmy says to you. 

“Oh shit. It’s almost midnight?” Sydney asks, seeing the time on the hotel room clock. 

“Yeah. Guys, this has been fun. Seriously, great work tonight. I’ve missed this so much,” you sigh, totally satiated. 

“You know there’s always room for you at The Bear,” Marcus says genuinely, before adding, in a more teasing tone, “You can send me your resume and I’ll take a look. Nah I’m just playin’!”

You laugh, playfully rolling your eyes, “Okay, it is definitely bed time.”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay, goodnight you guys,” Marcus replies.

“Goodnight.”

As you and Carmy leave Sydney and Marcus’ room, it dawns on you that you’re not quite ready to go to bed. While you’re exhausted, and should be in a carb-induced sleepy pizza-coma, you’re wired from the adrenaline of being back in the kitchen. 

“Hey, Carm?” you ask, stopping him as he fumbles with the room key. 

“What’s up?” he asks back. 

You pause for a moment, and as you speak, there’s a certain hesitance in your voice, like it’s the first time you’re asking someone out on a date.

“Do you want a drink?”

He’s caught off guard by your tone of voice, curious to know where this is going. 

“Now?” he asks back with a half-smile plastered to his face.

“Yeah,” you shrug. “I-, I don’t know if I’m ready to go to bed yet.” 

You can see the hesitation on his face as he thinks it through. While Carmy knows there are plenty of bars still open in NYC right now, he’s not sure he wants to leave the hotel. 

And neither do you. 

You offer your hand to him, “C’mon. I’ve got an idea.”

*

“I don’t know if we’re supposed to be here,” Carmy states nervously, looking around the empty room. 

He’s bouncing his knee up and down as he sits on a bar stool, alternating between watching you behind the bar, and looking around to check for anyone who may catch you. The bar itself is poorly lit, save for the pool lights outside, that come flooding in through the large floor to ceiling windows. 

“We’re not,” you reply, without a care in the world.

He lowers his voice before asking, “What if we get caught?”

You giggle, “You are such a baby, Carmen.” 

He rolls his eyes as you search for what you need, pouring the appropriate combination of liquors into an old fashioned glass.

Gin. Campari. Vermouth

After stirring them together over ice, you reach for an orange and y-peeler that the bar is stocked with, shaving off a piece of the orange peel. 

“Besides, isn’t that the fun part?” you ask, a glimmer of mischief flashing across your face. 

Carmy shakes his head, averting his eyes as he brings his hand up to his mouth, “You’re a bad influence on me.” 

You snort in response and it’s your turn to roll your eyes at him. 

“And you love it, my little rule-follower.”

“Relax, Carm. I’m gonna leave $40 behind the bar for what we took and we can go back to the room when I’m done if you’re so worried about it,” you offer as a compromise, the tone of your voice still a rebellious one. 

He has to admit that he finds your devil may care attitude incredibly sexy. Carmy’s not sure whether he’s anxious or turned on right now. 

 “Yes chef,” he finally agrees, cheekily. 

“Lighter, please,” you request.

Carmy pulls his lighter from his pocket, tossing it to you. You catch it, immediately flicking it on, using the flame to torch the orange slice. 

Just a spritz of the orange, and then the rest of the peel for garnish.

You hand Carmy the drink from across the bar, before working on your second one.

He looks down at the deep red colored liquid before saying, “Sweetheart, you know I hate gin.” 

But you’re one step ahead of him. 

Only moments later, you’re stepping around the bar with a second glass of whiskey on the rocks prepared for him. You trade glasses with him, and he can’t take his eyes off of you as you finally say:

“Cheers.” 

Clink. 

“Cheers.”

You both take your respective first sips, making sure to hold eye contact with him as you do. He looks at you, and you’re not sure if he’s more surprised that you haven’t gotten caught or that he’s willfully watched you break into the hotel pool bar. 

“Thought you said we could take these back to the room,” he challenges. 

You smirk, even though your heart is filled with pure adoration for the man standing across from you. 

“Yes, chef.”

It’s an easy choice to take your drinks back to the room, opening the french doors that lead to the terrace. You pull a spare blanket from the hotel room closet, curling up with it outside. You drape the blanket over both you and Carmy as you settle down on his lap. He’s brought his lighter and a cigarette out with you, so you close the french doors behind you so that he can light one up. 

You haven’t stayed up this late with Carmy in a while. It feels good – spontaneous and a little rebellious – like anything could happen at any given moment. New York City always seems to bring this side out in you. 

It’s home. 

But Carmy is also your home. 

Having the two of them here all at once is an indescribable feeling. You enjoy the bitter taste of your negroni, the cool spring air kissing your skin as you sit on your boyfriend’s lap. Carmy enjoys his cigarette, his whiskey sitting on the patio table in front of the two of you, as he exhales the smoke away from you. 

“Does being back here feel… I don’t know. Weird to you?” Carmy asks, breaking the quiet between the two of you. 

It’s like he can read your mind, again.

“Yeah,” you answer. “But it’s a good weird. I think maybe because we have all these memories here, you know?”

He takes another drag off the cigarette and it’s your turn to ask him a question. 

“I wonder what would’ve happened if you hadn’t spilled your drink on me that night. You think we still would’ve become friends?”

He’s quiet for a moment as he thinks about it. 

“I don’t know,” he shrugs, answering honestly. 

You let out a small laugh. 

“Hell of a way to get a girl’s attention.”

“Wasn’t trying to.”

“Bullshit.”

He’s telling the truth – sort of. He hadn’t been trying to get your attention, though he had spent most of the night racking his brain for any kind of conversation starter – get out of his own fuckin’ head. But he’d spent most of the night overthinking and coming up with reasons not to. He had sort of been your boss back then, after all.

He waits a beat before admitting, “And maybe the only way I would’ve even talked to you that night.”

You hum in response, taking another sip of your negroni. 

“Even then I thought I’d fully fuckin’ blown it.”

“You didn’t,” you say, shaking your head. 

“Uh… yeah I did,” he smiles, shooting you a ‘c’mon’ kind of look. “The first time you ever actually talked to me and… you’re fuckin’ furious. I was terrified.”

You can remember your first real conversation with Carmy fondly – even if it hadn’t been the fondest experience at the time.

“Baby, you ruined my shirt!” you exclaim with a laugh. “I had every right to be mad at you.”

“I wasn’t sure I’d see another day after that,” Carmy recalls, shaking his head. 

“Also. Who drinks a soda the night they get the biggest promotion of their career?” you add, referring to the coke he’d spilled all over you the night he’d gotten promoted to CDC. 

“Pop,” he corrects you. “... is a perfectly normal thing to drink at a bar.”

You roll your eyes playfully, “It’s not. But I love you anyway.”

The staff of the restaurant had wanted to go out and celebrate Carmy’s new position, only Carmy hadn’t seemed like he was in much of a mood for celebrating as he’d refused shots all night. He’d been so nervous to talk to you all night, the recently hired pastry chef, and you’d assumed he hated you considering his cold and stoic demeanor at work seemed to translate to you outside of it as well. He thought for sure he’d blown any chance of getting to talk to you that night, when you accidentally bumped into him and he’d spilled his soda all over you. Your shirt was soaked through, and your friends had rushed in with a spare t-shirt for you to change into. You’d come to find days later that it was Carmy’s shirt that he’d had in his bag.

That soda – and his chivalry that evening –  had set it all in motion.

“After all that, think we’d be here?” he asks, his eyes more like a sad, sweet puppy than ever before.

“No,” you answer honestly with a half smile. “But once I got to know you, I hoped maybe we could get here.”

He sighs, searching for the right words to tell you how he feels. The love you have together is more than he ever thought was possible for himself, and being back here with you has brought up so many memories of not feeling like enough. 

“It kinda feels…” he begins to say, choosing his words carefully. He wants to get it right. “...like. I don’t know. Kinda like we’re going backwards and forwards at the exact same time, you know?” 

You take another sip of your drink, processing what he’s said. He’s nailed it and you just need a moment to sit with his words.

“Yeah,” you sigh, like he’s finally named that thing you hadn’t been able to. “Like our past and our present are colliding or something.”

Carmy nods in agreement, “Yeah.”

You sit together in your comfortable quiet, listening to the sounds of the city below you: sirens, car horns, music from the bodega across the street. 

“I don’t know if I ever told you… how much your friendship meant to me back then. I wasn’t… well, I wasn’t in a great place,” Carmy admits, his eyes piercing and honest with his words. There’s a sadness to him and you wonder if this has been weighing on him over the last few days on top of everything else. 

“I know, sweetheart,” you reply empathetically. 

“I know we’ve talked about…” he trails off, searching for what he wants to say. “... how much we mean to each other now. But you meant so much to me back then too. I don’t-, I don’t know if I ever told you.” 

“Carmy,” you say, your heart swelling with love for the sad mess of a man whose arms you’re wrapped up in. “You didn’t need to. I-, I knew because… because you meant so much to me back then too.” 

He pauses, wondering if he should keep going, and coming to the conclusion that he wants to – not for your sake, but for his. 

Because he wants to tell you. 

“When we met… I wasn’t… planning on letting anyone in,” he continues. 

“Hmmm, didn’t notice,” you joke with him. 

He gives your hips a squeeze, causing you to giggle as you snuggle a little closer to him, hugging the blanket around the both of you. 

“I thought for sure I didn’t need anyone. Sure as hell didn’t want anyone. Had gone so long without someone to-. It just didn’t make sense for me anymore.”

You listen quietly, wanting him to give him the space to say what he needs to say. 

“You know, my sister used to say, she used to tell me that one day I’d wake up and I’d need someone. Someone other than Mikey and his friends – the kids I grew up with. And I didn’t believe her. And then he cut me out and-. And I got really fuckin’ good at it. At the food. At being alone….”

And then you came along.

“But you didn’t push me… you didn’t ask me to be anyone that I-. You just… let me be me… even if I didn’t give you much to work with at first. I think… Sugar was right. I needed a friend back then… and you were always a friend. Are always… It’s why I love you.” 

You’re grinning, and you’re also so, so proud of him – how far he’s come – to be able to tell you all of this. 

You lean over to set your drink down on the patio table. You only have one thing to say him, as you hold his head between both of your hands:

“I’m so in love with you, Bear.”

*

read: chapter three

a/n: the above first conversation/meeting that carmy x reader talk about WILL be written for my 'make my heart surrender' prequel everyone buckle up for the will-they-won't-they bc we all know THEY WILL

taglist: @allthefandomstogether @gaysludge @sobshoney @harrysmatcha @starbritestarlite @tpwkkmila @cool-girl-is-hot @nunya7394 @galaxyprincess51-blog @carmensberzattos

[andmaybegayer]

Last Monday of the Week 2023-10-09

Somehow bionicle is in this one

Listening: I looked at the date on my oven yesterday and it was 08-10 and I was like hey isn't that Bionicle Day. The answer is no, because it's Americans and Bionicle Day was the tenth of August. Anyway turns out that this year some fans got the original voice of Vakama to do a tribute video? And also Cryoshell dropped a new song.

Cryoshell is one of the funniest bands I know. They had little success until they got contracted in by an ad agency to do music for Bionicle, they did Creeping in My Soul for the Voya Nui arc in 2007 and ended up getting contracted in basically every year after that to whip up some music for Bionicle. They remain to this day extremely closely associated with the Bionicle fandom, like, you know, releasing their latest track on Bionicle day.

They are, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, and with all the love in my heart, the Evanescence we have at home. Bionicle had just saved Lego less than a decade earlier and the media effort around Bionicle was very well designed, which included making the perfect AMV soundtrack for 13 year olds to set their stop motion Bionicle fight scenes to. Of course I don't know anything about using a webcam and extremely dubious stop motion software to produce extensive Bionicle fanvideos. What are you talking about.

I am going to leave it here but there is so much to say about Cryoshell. Seriously just go look it up. Their music is actually very good if you like that particular symphonic metal alt rock style that was so emblematic of the 2000's.

Reading: Ended up on a research dive about small towns, because I now live in a country with a lot of small towns. Attempting to do and find a comparative anatomy of how small towns are administered around the world and what drives their success or failure. There is a lot of stuff from the Trump years when he apparently made some gestures towards the idea that people should just move out of doomed towns.

As always in the USA, housing affects everything, both in that homeownership ties people to their towns and that moving to a new city requires paying often prohibitively expensive rents. There are a lot of conservative blogs taking on this question and doing some dubious interpretations of mostly good data.

I am teasing at the thread of "limits of local government in small towns" which seems to be leading somewhere but it's still not well supported. There's a lot of factors.

Watching: the Loading Ready Run 20th Anniversary Subathon is on until this Friday. Since I was mostly watching during American night I caught primarily their watchalong of old videos, which is cute but not exactly that novel. I do like LRR.

Making: More 3D printing, trying to get the hang of modelling off a photo to make a nozzle adapter for my vacuum cleaner. Also made a little stand for my temperature and humidity sensor so I can see it when I'm sitting down or standing up more easily.

Playing: Beat Breath of the Wild finally. It was so long.

The final fight was kind of anticlimactic, between the assists you get from the divine beasts and all your power-ups I feel like I didn't have to puzzle it out as much as I did for some of the blight Ganon fights. I have kind of accepted that I just don't like the endings of most video games.

I did first go around and do the Champions' Ballad DLC quest because I stumbled into it, it's a nice set of little challenges plus some vignettes of the champions to help characterize them some more. I kind of wish you could walk around the world post-endgame and like, talk to some of the people you've met and see what they have to say. Eh.

Tools and Equipment: I have been storing my butter at room temperature the past few weeks, because it makes it much easier to spread. Modern butter is both very high fat and pasteurized so it won't go off for well over a week even if you just left it out, but the main concern is rancidity, which can happen quite quickly.

My Pro Tip is that you don't have to store the whole damn block. Euro butter is 250g blocks and I cut that into four ~60g cubes that I keep in a sealed plastic container in the cupboard one at a time. Just top it up as you go. I think American sticks are like 100g so you could cut it in half. South African butter usually comes in 500g so you'd have to cut that in like eighths.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

>Conservatives in government propose laws that would keep LGBTQ from living their lives the way they want.

That certainly is vague and non-specific.

The biggest controvesies about LGBT folks in the past few years have all involved LGBT folks allegedly "forcing" their beliefs on impressionable kids.

Kids who already receive special protection in every society. In fact, the mainstream left's stance on the issue has also been trying to protect kids. Same basic motive, different beliefs.

Conservative stances have included things like "(my) tax money should not pay to expose (my) kids to inappropriate sexual content".

And, of course, none of this actually defends your earlier post. You falsely equated "conservates want to leave LGBT folks alone if those folks leave conservatives alone" with "conservatives fully support LGBT folks, notmatter what they do".

Which would include LGBT folks who try to force themselves on others.

Your being left alone there made it easier for your actions to kill others, therefore YOU were not leaving others alone. That's the problem with folks like you. You only think of how others affect you, not how you affect others

"It's okay when WE do it!"

Is that why governments around the world enforced the rules on people who were walking around in public with nobody nearby? Like folks who went to empty beaches?

In fact, getting exercise actually reduces one's risk from COVID.

Also, I'm not an American. Or conservative. I followed all The Rules where I live.

Also BLM began in 2013. You're maybe thinking of the George Floyd protests, which were part of the movement

It's cute how you're trying score points by nitpicking. And doing it so poorly.

Yes, when I said "BLM", I included the height of the movement's visibility and power. As almost anyone would understand in context, unless they were actively trying not to.

Or, y'know, were an idiot.

Of course, you have to go hard on a few incidental words, to try and look like an actual response, because you completely ignored my actual main point about the US left's inconsistent standards, and it's support of gun control and censorship at the highest levels.

What a shock.

Well I'm sure that 9% is the driving force behind the American conservative movement

Considering how wrong you've been about everything else - and are acting like non-Christian faiths don't count as "religious" - you can't just make up assumptions and act like it's Holy Writ.

Especially since you haven't backed up anything you've said, or actually proven that you're not stereotyping Christians.

And you explicitly said "all about converting people". You're the one who has to prove every single religious conservative wants to convert others.

And even then, mainstream Christian doctrine has stressed that conversion has to be voluntary for longer than either of us has been alive. Talking people into doing something is not the same as forcing them.

It's also generally sold on benefit to the convertee, not "if you don't do it it doesn't count".

I also doubt that left-wing Christians would be much different.

[samwisethewitch]

Cults? In my life? It’s more likely than you think.

In my last post, I talked about how the Law of Attraction and Christian prosperity gospel both use the same thought control techniques as cults. I’ve received several public and private replies to that post: some expressing contempt for “sheeple” who can be lead astray by cults, and others who say my post made them scared that they might be part of a cult without knowing it.

I want to address both of those types of replies in this post. I want to talk about what a cult really looks like, and how you can know if you’re dealing with one.

If you type the word “cult” into Google Images, it will bring up lots of photos of people with long hair, wearing all white, with their hands raised in an expression of ecstasy.

Most modern cults do not look anything like this.

Modern cultists look a lot like everyone else. One of the primary goals of most cults is recruitment, and it’s hard to get people to join your cause if they think you and your group are all Kool-Aid-drinking weirdos. The cults that last are the ones that manage to convince people that they’re just like everyone else — a little weird maybe, but certainly not dangerous.

In the book The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple, author Jeff Guinn says, “In years to come, Jim Jones would frequently be compared to murderous demagogues such as Adolf Hitler and Charles Manson. These comparisons completely misinterpret, and historically misrepresent, the initial appeal of Jim Jones to members of Peoples Temple. Jones attracted followers by appealing to their better instincts.”

You might not know Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple by name, but you’ve probably heard their story. They’re the Kool-Aid drinkers I mentioned earlier. Jones and over 900 of his followers, including children, committed mass suicide by drinking Flavor Aid mixed with cyanide.

In a way, the cartoonish image of cults in popular media has helped real-life cults to stay under the radar and slip through people’s defenses.

In her book Recovering Agency: Lifting the Veil of Mormon Mind Control, Luna Lindsey says: “These groups use a legion of persuasive techniques in unison, techniques that strip away the personality to build up a new group pseudopersonality. New members know very little about the group’s purpose, and most expectations remain unrevealed. People become deeply involved, sacrificing vast amounts of time and money, and investing emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, and socially.”

Let’s address some more common myths about cults:

Myth #1: All cults are Satanic or occult in nature. This mostly comes from conservative Christians, who may believe that all non-Christian religions are inherently cultish in nature and are in league with the Devil. This is not the case — most non-Christians don’t even believe in the Devil, much less want to sign away their souls to him. Many cults use Christian theology to recruit members, and some of these groups (Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc.) have become popular enough to be recognized as legitimate religions. Most cults have nothing to do with magic or the occult.

Myth #2: All cults are religious. This is also false. While some cults do use religion to recruit members or push an agenda, many cults have no religious or spiritual element. Political cults are those founded around a specific political ideology. Author and cult researcher Janja Lalich is a former member of an American political cult founded on the principles of Marxism. There are also “cults of personality” built around political figures and celebrities, such as Adolf Hitler, Chairman Mao, and Donald Trump. In these cases, the cult is built around hero worship of the leader — it doesn’t really matter what the leader believes or does.

Myth #3: All cults are small fringe groups. Cults can be any size. Some cults have only a handful of members — it’s even possible for parents to use thought control techniques on their children, essentially creating a cult that consists of a single family.  There are some cults that have millions of members (see previous note about Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses).

Myth #4: All cults live on isolated compounds away from mainstream society. While it is true that all cults isolate their members from the outside world, very few modern cults use physical isolation. Many cults employ social isolation, which makes members feel separate from mainstream society. Some cults do this by encouraging their followers to be “In the world but not of the world,” or encouraging them to keep themselves “pure.”

Myth #5: Only stupid, gullible, and/or mentally ill people join cults. Actually, according to Luna Lindsey, the average cult member is of above-average intelligence. As cult expert Steven Hassan points out, “Cults intentionally recruit ‘valuable’ people—they go after those who are intelligent, caring, and motivated. Most cults do not want to be burdened by unintelligent people with serious emotional or physical problems.” The idea that only stupid or gullible people fall for thought control is very dangerous, because it reinforces the idea that “it could never happen to me.” This actually prevents intelligent people from thinking critically about the information they’re consuming and the groups they’re associating with, which makes them easier targets for cult recruitment.

So, now that we have a better idea of what a cult actually looks like, how do you know if you or someone you know is in one?

A good rule of thumb is to compare the group’s actions and teachings to Steven Hassan’s BITE Model. Steven Hassan is an expert on cult psychology, and most cult researchers stand by this model. From Hassan’s website, freedomofmind.com: “Based on research and theory by Robert Jay Lifton, Margaret Singer, Edgar Schein, Louis Jolyon West, and others who studied brainwashing in Maoist China as well as cognitive dissonance theory by Leon Festinger, Steven Hassan developed the BITE Model to describe the specific methods that cults use to recruit and maintain control over people. ‘BITE’ stands for Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotional control.”

Behavior Control may include…

Telling you how to behave, and enforcing behavior with rewards and punishments. (Rewards may be nonphysical concepts like “salvation” or “enlightenment,” or social rewards like group acceptance or an elevated status within the group. Punishments may also be nonphysical, like “damnation,” or may be social punishments like judgement from peers or removal from the group.)

Dictating where and with whom you live. (This includes pressure to move closer to other group members, even if you will be living separately.)

Controlling or restricting your sexuality. (Includes enforcing chastity or abstinence and/or coercion into non-consensual sex acts.)

Controlling your clothing or hairstyle. (Even if no one explicitly tells you, you may feel subtle pressure to look like the rest of the group.)

Restricting leisure time and activities. (This includes both demanding participation in frequent group activities and telling you how you should spend your free time.)

Requiring you to seek permission for major decisions. (Again, even if you don’t “need” permission, you may feel pressure to make decisions that will be accepted by the group.)

And more.

Information Control may include…

Withholding or distorting information. (This may manifest as levels of initiation, with only the “inner circle” or upper initiates being taught certain information.)

Forbidding members from speaking with ex-members or other critics.

Discouraging members from trusting any source of information that isn’t approved by the group’s leadership.

Forbidding members from sharing certain details of the group’s beliefs or practice with outsiders.

Using propaganda. (This includes “feel good” media that exists only to enforce the group’s message.)

Using information gained in confession or private conversation against you.

Gaslighting to make members doubt their own memory. (“I never said that,” “You’re remembering that wrong,” “You’re confused,” etc.)

Requiring you to report your thoughts, feelings, and activities to group leaders or superiors.

Encouraging you to spy on other group members and report their “misconduct.”

And more.

Thought Control may include…

Black and White, Us vs. Them, or Good vs. Evil thinking.

Requiring you to change part of your identity or take on a new name. (This includes only using last names, as well as titles like “Brother,” “Sister,” and “Elder.”)

Using loaded languages and cliches to stop complex thought. (This is the difference between calling someone a “former member” and calling the same person an “apostate” or “covenant breaker.”)

Inducing hypnotic or trance states including prayer, meditation, singing hymns, etc.

Using thought-stopping techniques to prevent critical thinking. (“If you ever find yourself doubting, say a prayer to distract yourself!”)

Allowing only positive thoughts or speech.

Rejecting rational analysis and criticism both from members and from those outside the group.

And more.

Emotional Control may include…

Inducing irrational fears and phobias, especially in connection with leaving the group. (This includes fear of damnation, fear of losing personal value, fear of persecution, etc.)

Labeling some emotions as evil, worldly, sinful, low-vibrational, or wrong.

Teaching techniques to keep yourself from feeling certain emotions like anger or sadness.

Promoting feelings of guilt, shame, and unworthiness. (This is often done by holding group members to impossible standards, such as being spiritually “pure” or being 100% happy all the time.)

Showering members and new recruits with positive attention — this is called “love bombing.” (This can be anything from expensive gifts to sexual favors to simply being really nice to newcomers.)

Shunning members who disobey orders or disbelieve the group’s teachings.

Teaching members that there is no happiness, peace, comfort, etc. outside of the group.

And more.

If a group ticks most or all of the boxes in any one of these categories, you need to do some serious thinking about whether or not that group is good for your mental health. If a group is doing all four of these, you’re definitely dealing with a cult and need to get out as soon as possible.

These techniques can also be used by individual people in one-on-one relationships. A relationship or friendship where someone tries to control your behavior, thoughts, or emotions is not healthy and, again, you need to get out as soon as possible.

Obviously, not all of these things are inherently bad. Meditation and prayer can be helpful on their own, and being nice to new people is common courtesy. The problem is when these acts become part of a bigger pattern, which enforces someone else’s control over your life.

A group that tries to tell you how to think or who to be is bad for your mental health, your personal relationships, and your sense of self. When in doubt, do what you think is best for you — and always be suspicious of people or groups who refuse to be criticized.

[kyidyl]

Kyidyl Does Archaeology - Part 3

(As before, parts 1 & 2 can be found via the KyidylCL tag.)

THE PITS

So, we’ve got the info about the site and we’ve got the prep work done, so what next? Digging! But archaeologists don’t just randomly dig, we dig in very precise ways. There’s, generally speaking, two ways to make a hole for an archaeologist (and this *doesn’t* apply to burials.  Burials are done differently.): a pit and a trench.  A pit is usually a specific size and meant to uncover a small area.  A trench is a long area that takes a cross section of a specific area and is meant for exposing lots of area.  When you’re doing a whole settlement often a trench is used because of the volume.  We’re doing a mixture, and we started with two 5ftx5ft pits (~1.5 meters for the non-americans in the crowd.  Good rule of thumb for ft --> meters is that 3ft = 1 yard = 1 meter, approximately.  It’s not exact but if you’re trying to imagine how big something is, it’s a good way of thinking about it.).  

Pit one only had 1 interesting thing and I don’t have any pictures of it really so I’m just gonna tell you about it real quick.  In pit 1 we found a feature, which is a spot where the dirt is a different color in an unnatural shape because humans did something.  This particular feature was a post hole from a palisade wall.  That’s interesting for two reasons: 1, the natives didn’t build palisades until they came into conflict with the colonizers. It isn’t that they didn’t need defenses previous to that, it’s that the people they were defending against didn’t have horses or guns.  Once the colonizers arrived, they started copying their method of defense.  2, palisade walls are made of large trees.  To cut them down they were first burned in the place where the cut was made to make cutting them easier.  And this means CHARCOAL.  

Archaeologists love charcoal.  We can date that shit really easily.  And this particular charcoal was sent out for dating.  Came back as 1700s, which makes sense for this area.  It took the colonizers a bit longer to push up into the mountains, so the dates for contact and treaties and that kind of thing are later than official first contact in the 1400s.  So that’s the latest date we have for the site.  

Now, pit 2.  Pit 2 was, and still is, the most interesting pit on the site so far (we’ve opened a number of others, but it’s...lots of plow scars and jumbled artefacts.).  Archaeologists, as I’ve mentioned, dig this kind of stuff in layers.  So for our site (and I know a few of you following me are also archs, so I need you to know this was the site director’s choice not mine. >.<), we have a sod layer, layer 2 - the plow layer, and layer 3 the layer below the plow layer.  General rule of thumb, at least the way I was taught is that you do it in increments or when the dirt changes color, whichever comes first.  So layer 2 for us is pretty thick.  Here’s what the pit looked like at the end of day 1 after we’d gotten the sod off and started bringing it down evenly: 

The bucket is covering the test pit that’s at the center of it.  The string is the boundaries of the pit, but also we attach what’s called a datum to it.  A datum is a known spot above sea level that you use to make measurements as to how deep something is.  It’s basically a string with a line level and you stretch it out until the line level reads, well, level...and then you use a ruler from there down to whatever depth you’re measuring.  So when we find like...arrowheads and points and stuff (and this pit had several) we record where they were by saying “_____ inches BD”, or “below datum”.  

Anyway, you can see already where there are some rocks and differences in color of the dirt.  It’s honestly not all that interesting but I figured you guys might like to see the progression.  This is that same pit about 2-3 working days later, and this is where it started to get interesting: 

Some of the difference in color there is because some soil is freshly exposed and some isn’t.  The pit in the middle is the remains of the test pit.  The lighter dirt at the bottom is sub-soil for this area, so it’s where the plow zone ends.  The rocks may or may not have been added by people, so we record them just in case.  How you deal with rocks depends entirely on where you are digging.  In Florida, where I went to school, rocks are important because 99% of what they’ve got there is sand and shell.  So if you find rocks they were probably put there by people.  Here? Sometimes it’s just part of the ground and sometimes it’s people.  It really depends on how far down you find them.  This is about midway through the pit so it could go either way.  So we do what’s called “pedestaling” where we dig around them and let them sit on a pedestal of dirt.  You’ll see that in a lot of pics going forward.  The reason that we’ve dug those upper corners differently is because we were starting to see soil color changes and we were investigating them separately.  Good thing too, because they both turned out to be part of a large fire pit feature.  Next slide! 

So here you can see that the dirt in those two areas that we’ve dug is a distinctly different color - it’s reddish.  Reddish dirt is a sign that the dirt has been heated, so we’re following the red dirt here.  The digging changes from going in layers to following these features.  And we’re really methodical about it so that we don’t remove too much or too little and lose the line of the feature.  Here we were lucky, all the dirt inside those features was full of tiny specs of charcoal.  And, in the upper left up there - which was my feature to dig - there were huge chunks of charcoal.  Also a really nice piece of pottery.  Well, I mean, comparatively.  It’s still just a large sherd that I accidentally snapped in two while removing but like it counts.  The square in the lower leftish is ust from like the foam I’d been sitting on.  Getting into a pit - rather than digging it from the sides - is something you do NOT do without permission and a lot of care.  Here, the ground is really solid so I wasn’t going to ruin anything by getting in there and the pit was getting too deep to effectively dig from the side, so I spent a lot of time in weird positions on the flat parts of this pit.  So, anyway, here’s a close up of the feature so you can see what I mean about the charcoal: 

Charcoal is very, very black so when you’re digging it stands out bc nothing else is that dark or that bright.  Everything else is covered in dirt. But you can see it there in the top half - it’s those dark flecks and blobs.  There was a ton of it, and when I say a ton, I mean we got I think almost 300g just that DAY.  And y’all know how light charcoal is.  This was the stuff we sent in for c14 testing along with the palisade charcoal and it came back, if I’m remembering right, mid-1300s.  That’s a period called the late woodland. It matches up with the pottery and points we were finding, but I’ll get to that when I start in on the finds.  

Now, I thought you might need some help with this next image so I brought it into procreate and drew on it.  I know it looks like it came before the previous stage, but it didn’t.  What happened is that we brought the whole pit down deeper to expose the edge of the large features.  We also found a post hole in the process! 

So I’ve marked the layers of dirt in the side wall for you so you can see what I mean when I’m talking about them.  I’ve also marked out the bottom of the pit bc this angle made it a little hard to see.  In the upper right you can clearly see the darker dirt of the post hole.  A post hole is exactly what the name implies - someone dug a hole, stuck a post in it, and later the post was removed and filled with moar different dirt and now it’s a different color but in a distinctly unnatural shape.  You can also see that we’ve long ago dug deeper than the test pit.  The area I’ve marked “bridge” is an area of soil that didn’t have charcoal in it between the two pits that did.  There was charcoal throughout that area - hence the blue boundary - but for the features themselves we were following the red dirt.  And if that feature on the right looks deep to you it’s because it *is*.  I dug it out and followed the charcoal and it went *under* the bridge.  

Now you guys probably don’t realize this, but this is like...stupid deep to be finding this kind of stuff.  We’re like 3ft below the surface here and still going down deeper.  Around here the rate of topsoil accumulation is like...an inch every 600 years or so.  The charcoal coming out of this pit is only 700 years old and it’s 3ft below the surface.  So we’re likely looking at a hole that was dug by the natives for their own use.  The thing that was confusing us was that we didn’t see the feature even start until we were almost at the bottom of the test pit so like...8 inches or so down.  (about 16cm.  1inch is approx 2cm.) But then I was looking through some of my earlier images of the pit and I noticed this: 

(north is the same direction in both pics)

The rocks, the ones that could be either nature or people, approximately outlined the areas we’d found the fire pits.  This is why you document shit.  Even though this is still pretty deep to be finding this kind of thing, it at least makes more sense in the context of very disturbed site.  So there might have been more evidence higher up, but it’s in the plow layer so we’ll never know.  So what was the feature? Well, the two features were actually one feature (and you’ll have to wait till tomorrow’s post to find out how I know that.), and I think that might have been one of these: 

(image credit)

Or something similar anyway, but I have to do more research about native cooking methods in this area of the country.  But it would fit with the two holes and a bridge of dirt with no charcoal that we saw while digging.  

Anyway I know this post is super long but I swear we’re almost done.  When we finally finished digging the damned thing it looked like this: 

(here I’m standing on the north side of the pit, so the top is the bottom in the other pics.) 

We think that this might actually be part of another feature so it’s a little...ah...yeah it’s just weird.  Those rocks were definitely from people, so maybe they were lining the bottom of the pit or something.  If I could draw your attention to the black crud in the wall to the right of the pedestaled rocks, I’m gonna tell you one last story about this pit.  That is a burned like...conglomerate of crud.  It isn’t charcoal (charcoal is fuel for the fire, not what they were using the fire to make).  Here’s what it looked like close up: 

(aw yis macro lense)

See those circles? Those are *seeds*.  I sent it to a former prof of mine who is an ethnobotanist for ID and she says she thinks it’s chenopodium AKA goosefoot, which was a staple food for the natives for a long time.  One variety still is: quinoa.  So basically, what we think we’re looking at is a 700 year old cooking accident.  Or, as my professor put it: 

So forgive the length, and I hope you all enjoyed this installment.  =D 

[your-brilliant-lady-m]

Part 5 - Basic Concepts of Miraculous Ladybug: Guardians

Helloooo! Did you think I was done? No!

My PhD thesis chapters were approved last week, so have some celebratory meta. I haven't seen the latest Season 4 episodes, so do forgive me for not being up to date.

Welcome to the next part of my analysis of the basic concepts of Miraculous Ladybug. Today we are talking about Master Fu, Order of the Guardians and how little everything here makes sense. I highly recommend reading previous parts to fully understand this one, but I'll try to quote most parts of earlier posts.

Order of the Guardians

Order is an international and ancient organisation (New York Special showed us the guardian from North America and he was dressed like Su Han). Presumably, Miraculous jewels were created by these people. Guardians are responsible for the preservation of jewels and knowledge about them. They also distribute Miraculouses to worthy people around the world to combat mostly magical threats, but sometimes jewels are used against normal threats too. It's implied that Master Fu used Miraculouses during WW2 when he was in Paris. Perhaps he performed some spywork with Marianne, but the magical nature of his interferences was discovered and he was forced to flee, before returning to France many decades later.

Why does the Order need so many people to take care of a 3 Miracle Boxes? If its only purpose is to preserve knowledge, keep magical secrets and distribute Miraculous jewels then wouldn't it be more logical to have Master-Apprentice system? It's much easier to keep magic knowledge a secret and train a few people in martial arts than doing the same in the self-sufficient temple full of people, keeping in mind that a good part of them are teenagers and children, who are bad at keeping secrets. Also a single person can travel around the world much easier to give out Miraculouses. Imagine that we have a few active guardians traveling the world with Boxes. What do other people at the temple do in the meantime? They teach the next generation about the powers of each Miraculous and Mirakung Fu, but besides that?

Master-Apprentice system gives us more personal conflict between Fu and his mentor and makes his relationship with Marinette and Adrien more nuanced. In this scenario Fu accidentally caused the death of his Master at 14 because he wasn't careful. It makes sense for him to take on only 1 or 2 students if this is how things were done with Miraculous Guardians. This Wang Fu is very cautious and protective, he spent the majority of his life afraid of hurting someone else and never took an apprentice as a result. But now he is ready to try again, since he is not getting any younger and he likes these 2 kids. He wants them to succeed. Maybe Master Fu, becomes the father figure for Adrien in this situation and a guide for Marinette. Just think about it. This way writers avoid the need to develop all these extra characters (Su Han) and traditions related to the Order. All inconsistencies I mentioned before and later in this post are gone now! Hell, even memory loss and the changing of the Miracle Box shape could make more sense. We also raise the stakes post-amnesia, if it happens of course (the whole Season 3 finale didn't make sense, so stay tuned for my next meta). Marinette and Adrien are on their own now, there's no one who can give them answers. It's very fun scenario, which has potential to be brilliant. Any thoughts on that?

The existence of Order of the Guardians is not quite a secret, at least it wasn't in XIX century China. Master Fu in "Feast" says that guardianship was considered "a great honor". It implies that people who lived close to the temple of the Order knew about Miraculouses and what exactly guardians did for the greater good.

The existence of other Miracle Boxes around the world makes sense from a real-life perspective. Writers have the ability to create many stories set in the same universe and use them for merchandise and an almost unlimited amount of content. Judging by the unholy amount of specials in production, this is exactly what the creators are going to do. It probably won't go down well, but who knows?

However, it doesn't work in our main story. The main conflict is Paris-centred. Gabriel's motivations revolve around Emilie's resurrection and Season 4 gives us more reasons to suspect that Adrien's mom wasn't as wonderful as everyone says. Hawkmoth still remains the main villain of the show and most likely it's going to stay that way. There's no point in moving the main story to different places for the sake of introducing more Miracle Boxes from around the world. Ladybug and Chat Noir aren't needed to fight something halfway across the world unless Hawkmoth also changes locations.

LB and CN are centrepieces of this franchise. They brought success and money to ZAG. Creators constantly need to remind the audience that this new piece of media with new characters who will never be mentioned again is connected to Miraculous Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir. Writers have to come up with reasons to include our heroic duo into the story even if makes no sense.

New York Special had to introduce American Heroes whose names rarely come up in the fandom because people stopped caring about them or their stories shortly after the release of the Special. I barely saw any content dedicated to them. In order to bring LB and CN into the story, you have to include Hawkmoth too. Gabriel suddenly needs to get his hands on the Eagle Miraculous and goes to USA. Marinette and Adrien suddenly have a class trip to New York. Unfortunately, their presence in this story is required only to expand the world of Miraculous and attract fans of the show, so that they could keep an eye on new content related to newly introduced characters.

In the end, it's not their story. Events of the special don't affect main story of the show and the development of the love square is merely an illusion, because Adrien and Marinette are no closer than before. In season 4 LB and CN are growing apart and their test of trust in NY Special doesn't matter. Perhaps, some people don't see it that way and it's their right, but I find it hard to see NYS as a valid contribution to canon. I mean, even people in large portion of the fandom state in the tags on AO3 that "specials are not canon", "specials didn't happen" or "ignores both specials". It speaks volumes about continuity and preferences of your fandom.

Shanghai Special didn't give us more information about the Order, which is located in China, history of Miraculous jewels. We still don't know much about how Gabriel and Emilie found Peacock and Butterfly. Maybe, Marinette's family had connections to Miraculous jewels. Maybe, Adrien does some snooping and discovers research his parents made while Gabriel is away. All of these are relevant to the main story. However, we got something much different in the end.

Marinette chases Adrien across the globe and they make new friends. Fey becomes Ladydragon and now has a direct contact with Marinette through her uncle. Gabriel's desire to get his hands on the Prodigious comes out of nowhere. Apparently, he had been planning this trip for years, presumably even before Adrien was born. It probably happened at the same time as Agrestes found 2 Miraculouses. He bought bracelet-key (which is also a Miraculous apparently, but its Kwami is a Guardian of the Prodigious and they existed separately for a very long time - and let us not dwell on this mess) from some shady mafia boss, who can easily find out just who Gabriel really is (fashion designer billionaire) and use this information to blackmail him. This Special didn't answer important questions, but it gave us a new superhero character.

The real question is whether Miraculous as a project will survive long enough for writers to create content for every minor character they introduced in all specials. This is only a beginning after all.

Miraculous is not a global show and it can't be globalised in a way that makes sense, at least with Ladybug and Chat Noir in the centre of action. Case closed.

Mirakung Fu

I liked the idea of Mirakung Fu introduced in "Furious Fu". It makes sense and things rarely do in this show. Miraculous grants its holder superhuman strength, stamina, endurance and ability to fight. This means that essentially transformed heroes are guided by magic in combat. There's nothing personal in the way Miraculous holders fight. You can predict their moves and learn how to fight this magic guidance, which is what Su Han does.

However, if the holder has any special training, skills or knows any martial art in their civilian life then they become more dangerous opponents during transformation because now their fighting is a mix of magical moves and their personal knowledge, tricks and style. Therefore, Adrien and Kagami as skilful fencers have more chances of winning against someone who knows Mirakung Fu than Marinette, for example.

Memory loss

At the end of season 3, we find out several things:

apparently, now Miracle Box can change appearance to suit its guardian;

when Guardian passes down the Miracle Box to someone else, they lose memories not only about everything related to Miraculous, but also about pretty much everything in their life (Fu doesn't recognise Marianne, instead he experiences the love at first sight)

Master Fu trains Marinette to be the proper holder and next Guardian off-screen. He says that her training as the holder is complete in "Feast" and wants her to become the next Guardian. Fu told her lots of things, and yet, he never mentioned the fact that he would lose his memory after relinquishing the box, nor the fact that Marinette would lose her memory afterwards. She finds out about this from Wayzz after the battle with Miracle Queen and the letter that Master Fu gave her. That's not proper training! How on Earth do you forget to mention this memory loss? How?

Master Fu's amnesia is a convenient plot device that removes him from the narrative almost completely. That's mostly all there is to it. Why? Because it doesn't make sense.

Fu was around 7 or 8 when he started his training. The disaster at the temple happened when he was 14. He stated that his training was never complete, which means that he never passed any magical ritual, never swore an oath or was bound by some kind of spell that made him subjected to the rule of memory loss.

Miracle Boxes belonged to the order, not Fu. Their design reflected their country of origin because these Miraculous were made and kept in China. They were just standing there on the shelves not magically bound to anyone in particular. When Feast attacked, monks just tossed Wang Fu the miracle box and grimoire. No one at the temple lost their memory after Fu took the box with him (Su Han is the proof). Su Han not only remembers Fu and his mistake but everything that happened that fateful day as well. In "Furious Fu" Marinette explains Su Han that Master Fu lost his memory in the very first conversation they have. However, after Ladybug and Chat Noir fight Su Han on the roof and escape with the Miracle Box, the latter searches for Fu and attempts to take his staff from him. In this scene, Su Han acts like Fu knows very well what is going on and who he is.

Su Han should be aware of the memory loss rule as the Celestial Guardian. He remarks on the different shape of the Mother Miracle Box and calls her "incorrect", which means that Su Han should have been able to easily tell that previous Guardian lost his memory and the Miracle Box is now bound to someone else. But he doesn't say anything. Moreover, since Su Han is supposed to know about amnesia, he seemed awfully chill about forcing this 14-year-old girl in front of him to give up the box and her memories. Hell, Chat Noir wasn't on board with this. But we get zero reaction from Su Han.

During the first conversation between Marinette and Su Han, he doesn't ignore what she is trying to say, instead he actively comments on every word. Even if Su Han didn't listen when Marinette told him about Fu's memory loss, than he still should be able to understand that Fu doesn't recognise him, because of common sense and the "incorrect" shape of the box. But nothing of the sort happens. Because writers apparently forgot that "memory loss" is supposed to be known to everyone in the Order. On-screen it looks like Su Han is not aware of the "amnesia rule".

"Furious Fu" makes the concept of memory loss a plothole no matter how you look at it. Just like "Timetagger" and "Chat Blanc", as well as "Kwamibuster" this episode is not consistent within itself. It does not surprise me, however.

Grimoire and Guardian Staffs

Let's talk about the Miraculous Grimoire. Good things first.

There are no illustrations of Miraculouses in camouflage. Kwami can't read its contents, only guardians can. Certain elements are written in riddles as an additional precaution. The book contains only the information people have learned so far, which means that Miraculouses have more unexplored potential ("Mr. Pigeon 72"). It describes powers of each Miraculous, provides information about weapons, has instructions for potions that don't make sense (see previous parts).

Unfortunately, everything is about to go downhill from here.

Guardians are taught how to read the writing in this book. They can read it just like people learn to read texts in a different language. This means that one can read Grimoire like any other book (you don't need to consult some guide to decode each letter or word). Master Fu proclaimed Marinette an almost fully trained Guardian. He should have taught her how to read the Grimoire then (he doesn't know the code very well, but he knew enough to understand the general meaning and content of the book according to "Collector"). He didn't. We don't know why. He shows her powers of every Miraculous but doesn't teach her the code.

Master Fu knows that Grimoire now belongs to Gabriel Agreste. He knows that it's dangerous for someone else to have it. If they knew how to read the Grimoire, they could discover all secrets of Miraculouses and harm Ladybug, Chat Noir and other heroes. It's very important to keep the information about the code top secret because Fu is not the only one with the source material.

What does he do then? Master Fu proceeds to write a French translation of Grimoire for Marinette, a translation that he doesn't even need. He carries it with him at all times on a tablet (without any precautions) just like the Miracle box after "Feast". Naturally, it means that in "Miracle Queen", Gabriel and Nathalie easily managed to get their hands on the tablet and Miracle Box. It allows the plot to happen, sure. But it doesn't make any sense.

"Furious Fu" created another curious plot hole. It will probably be ignored, of course. Su Han has a staff with a magical compass that allows him to find any Miracle box, but not the Miraculous jewels for some reason. How does the staff work? Can it locate the box without the Miraculous? If yes, then it seems useless. What's the point in the ability to locate an empty box? If it can locate the box only with the Miraculous jewels inside, it implies that the staff can track the location of every Miraculous too. So, Su Han could just locate the Butterfly and Peacock without any problem. But he talks about reassigning Ladybug and Black Cat to adults and defeating Hawkmoth like locating the Butterfly is not possible. This situation makes the Guardian Staff a simple plot device that creates plot holes and its only purpose is to explain how Su Han found Marinette.

Also, I have a few more words to say about this. Master Fu had a Guardian Staff that was never mentioned before. I wonder why? That's because the staff didn't exist before "Furious Fu" was written. Writers just went: "Do you know what would be cool? If Fu's cane was really a secret Guardian Staff with a compass all along that he decided to keep even after he lost his memory? It would make people wonder whether Master Fu is faking amnesia, and everyone will definitely call him an awful mentor after this even though we kind of tried to make him a good and responsible person."

Fu didn't give it to Marinette and didn't mention it to her. Why? When he gave up his memory, he should have written about this in his letter at least. Why did he decide to keep it? He can't use it anyway now.

Please note how in the flashbacks Fu didn't take any staff with him when he escaped the temple. Su Han seemed to know how Fu's staff looked like. It means that Master Fu didn't make this staff himself, because it belonged to the Order.

Su Han wasn't even surprised that Marinette didn't have the staff as the current Guardian. Was she not supposed to have it? He never questioned the fact that the former Guardian without memories has the staff. Su Han actually returns this staff to Fu after he is deakumatized and Fu acts like they have never met before. Why did Su Han gave the staff back when he knows what it is and to whom it should belong (to him or to Marinette as the current Guardian)? The staff is useless in the hands of the civilian. Does Marianne know about its secret? We'll probably never find out, unfortunately.

Guardian Staff of Master Fu has a compass too and therefore this also makes it a plot device, just like Su Han's staff.

[shadow-otousan]

Deciphering the years in which Shadowsan grew up in

 Alternative title: Debunking the supposed fact that Shadowsan is 40+ (I’m looking at you, cs wiki)

Since Shadowsan’s flashback in s02e03, this has been on my mind. After some intense image searching, I can finally share the fruits of my research. 

Let’s cut to the chase. 

This is Shadowsan as a child, then known as Suhara. (Also pictured are most likely his playmates.) The style of clothing they wear, which you can see mostly on the other kids, were fashionable as everyday wear for children during the 60s (and possibly earlier during the late 50s). This nostalgic blog in Japanese in which the author talks about their childhood and details the timeline of the decade, also describes the fashion worn by himself and his peers.

The caption (fortunately in English) as follows:

Children of everyday wear of 1965 is this is it !!

The boy on the far right and the two boys on the far left are wearing the style most similar to what we see in the flashback--sweaters worn over their shirts, and shorts that barely stop at the thighs or, if longer, above the knees. We can safely say that Shadowsan spent his childhood at least somewhere in the mid-60s.

Now on to the second decade and this time, we’ll be looking at Shadowsan and his brother. But first, we’ll be focusing on the most conspicuous example for what was considered the style of that decade.

This is Hideo as a young adult. Now the decade in which this took place was easier to figure. It might help that I had a 70s phase in college lol. The type of glasses he wore originated in the late 60s as a reaction to the unattractive and sometimes even downright butt-ugly spectacles of the past decades (except cat eye glasses but even that was a mixed bag). However, this style of eyewear really peaked in popularity during the 70s and it endured somewhat into the 80s.

Glasses became seen as fashionable with their large, thick, and colorful frames as seen in these ads. Tinted lenses, if we’re talking about sunglasses. Now what only stumps me is that I cannot find the exact example for Hideo’s glasses, as I see only one bridge on his frames instead of the more common two (those are the type of glasses Shadowsan buys for himself during the Fashionista Caper showing us that fashion is cyclical, but I digress). Regardless, the shapes are there.

As for his hair, you can simply find it by typing “70年代 アイドル 男性” in google image search. But for the sake of one example:

The only slight difference is that apparently, most of them parted their hair to the right instead of slightly to the left like Hideo does (and Masashi Sada as you can see above. Bonus points for being the few famous people in Japan who wears glasses so now I’m given the theory that the character designers lowkey based Hideo off of him. Highly unlikely, but it’s a nice thought. While we’re here, check out one of his songs like this one). His hairstyle also lasted until the 80s (because any start of the decade will always have holdovers from the previous one) until perms and hairspray made them even crazier. Hideo’s hairstyle can be describe as ‘feathered.’ Hideo’s clothes lack the then ubiquitous bell-bottom pants and wide lapels of the 70s though I’m chalking that up to even Hideo thinking those were silly (bell-bottoms could actually sweep up the dirt if you don’t wear platform shoes..I also tripped on them twice while walking ;w;).

Next, Shadowsan--este, Suhara as a teen.

Because he’s a rebel, it’s a given that his style does NOT reflect the popular fashion of his youth unless you’re in a gang (or trying to look like you’re a part of one). They seem to have one thing in common though: a buzzcut.

This was a photo of what seems to be gang members, taken by Katsumi Watanabe in 1972. The man on the middle right is the closest we have to Suhara’s style, befitting a misfit of Japanese society. On the contrary to medium-length feathered hair and colorful clothes, such rebels would go out of their way to stick out from the norm. Worth noting that the bosozoku fashion--in which elements of American choppers and 50s greasers are combined with Japanese elements (i.e. gakuran--high school uniform for males, hachimaki, sarashi, tokkou-fuku--”special fighting jacket”, etc.)--did not become quite popular until the 80s, so what Suhara wears is more or less a prototype of what will become the stereotypical look of Japanese delinquents (although those styles have actually coexisted too).

Now with all that out of the way. We can estimate as to how old they really are.

If Shadowsan was a 60s kid, that would place his birth years somewhere during the end of the 50s or the very beginning of the 60s, making him 50 plus or early 60s at the time of the show’s setting (2019).

Hideo, meanwhile, I’m just gonna take a wild guess and say he’s 5 to 7 years older (or even 10 considering how much older he looks compared to his brother in the current show), which would place his birth years squarely in the 50s, beggining, mid, or late. In the show’s setting, that would make him either 60 plus or pushing 70 years old. If 10, mid 70s or plus.

Until a concise number is given to us by the CS crew, I will strictly hold on to these conclusions as their more or less true ages. Of course, everyone is free to disagree because, after all, these are only theories and if they were to be debunked in the future, I won’t be surprised. Just a little heartbroken lol Because I’m not a historian of any sort nor am I Japanese, feel free to add on this or correct me on some mistakes I might have made.

And that concludes this post. Class dismissed ;P

(Last minute addendum: I would also like to point out that though it seems that most VILE operatives recruited are young as some argue that any VILE operative student had to be 20, nowhere in the show does it require only a certain group of young people can join. It might be entirely possible that as long as one is an adult (20 or older), one can join VILE. And Shadowsan, from the looks of it, seems to be in his late 30s or early 40s when he was a student going by his facial features. He just used to look really young bc Asian aging is a paradox. You can be older than you look, vice versa, and suddenly look like your age. But hey, like I said, only theories)

Ok, now I’m done~

[uncertaininnit]

who wants to read an essay about my relationship with simping/an appreciation(/simping lol) post about Will+Eret and also seperately tommyinnit that was written at 4:22 am and then added to the queue because i love the queue system also fun fact i pronounced the word ‘queue’ as ‘cc-week’ for like an entire year and idk why anyways

lets just jump into it

lol

so. if somebody was to ask me who my favorite mcyt is, i would think about it for a moment and eventually answer with either Wilbur or Eret. and i think that is purely out of simping instinct or whatever the fuck. 

to start, Wilbur; the prettiest man, period. i do not take constructive criticism. he is literally gorgeous and i get so mad at him for putting himself down all the time because he doesnt deserve the shit, especially not from himself. he is 24 years old and has the lowest self-esteem out of anybody i can think of. i want to yell in his face all the time. i want to tell him simps are the same species as him, and they have REASONS to simp. if you keep seeing appreciation posts about yourself (which im sure he does) that means people APPRECIATE YOU and WANT YOU to feel APPRECIATED. 

anyway, back to simping. let’s start from the top. his goddamn hair. it is, it is, and i just took a deep breath, so pretty. maybe it isnt the hair itself, probably, but the way it is done. wavy dark brown hair all floofy in the front. and he is constantly messing with it, which is THE cutest thing. when he is excited, he moves a lot, and his hair moves with him and gets messed up and ahhhcvkvyr moving on.

his face? lets start with his eyes. they are so pretty. i think my opinion on eyes is probably weird, and allow me to explain why. i never ever notice somebodies eye color when talking to them. i just dont even look. so when i am actively paying attention to somebody’s eyes, they are that much more important to me. but idk, i kinda feel like his eyes are one of the biggest factors of his face? like, he looks really pretty whether he is smiling or not, because his face doesn’t ride on his smile.

sidetrack paragraph about george: i think george is that way. he is adorable, but he is only really adorable when he is smiling. if i look up ‘georgenotfound cute’ it will be entirely him smiling, and never any other facial expression because he genuinely looks like the fucking weirdest thing sometimes when making a serious face. back to will.

i dont pay attention to noses because who even cares dude but i’m sure his nose does a good job of supporting his looks as well so good job nose

his SMILE. he doesn’t need to smile, but dude, when he does, it’s like i always used to say (and still would say) in regards to eijiro kirishima. it’s like... sunbeams, like rays of light are in his mouth and escaping when he smiles.i wonder how he keeps a star in there. because his smile literally lights up my heart. and when he tilts his head(basically all the time luckily)? so goddamn pretty. pretty man. pretty. 

that brings us to his neck, which is- no, kidding, but i do want to talk about his vocal chords! firstly his speaking voice, which i guess as an american it hits different for me because of the accent. but- i dont think i can put it into words. but the way he puts thoughts into words-(lol) idk, his voice is just really sweet. and his SINGING VOICE, here we go.

so he sings, duh. and i- holy fuck. he just sounds good, you know? he is a good singer. i want to put my emotions simply this time. he sings well, and he sounds good. a pretty voice for a pretty man. i cant even try to elaborate.

basically the only other thing of my concern is his fucking yellow sweater? or jumper or whatever the fuck? and his beanie? on his body? damn. i am genuinely attached to that sweater. it just looks good, ok? it does. 

oh yeah, and he’s hella fucking tall. 6′5? are you kidding? you couldn’t have at least been short so we could make fun of you?

oh yeah and his laugh-

it is now 4:53 am and a bitch is tired but i have an entire fucking train of thoughts and they must be somewhere before they slip away

the next part- Eret. i adore Eret. so incredibly much. and let me start this by saying i’m going to consistantly call him a he, because he doesn’t care and so that makes it easier for me. ok? ok.

he is the opposite of Wilbur in this one regard, confidence. and self-esteem. eret loves himself. that attitude spreads. look, not only is he like the #1 bicon in the world as far as i’m concerned, but he also actively fucks gender roles any day. strawberry dress pog? strawberry dress pog.

but seriously, he rocked the strawberry dress. and the suit, though i missed that stream. he rocks his crown, his sunglasses, just anything he puts on. and don’t get me started on the BOOTS

(im started on the boots) so firstly the heel boots, the first ones he got. when i first saw clips, my only thought was something like ‘woah.’ or maybe ‘damn.’ at that point i didn’t know much about him, just that he looked STELLAR in those boots (and the betrayal and shit yknow) and the PLATFORMS DUDE

the platforms are the same but moar tall, which is incredible. oh and now back to strawberry dress- have you seen him twirl? the twirl? hello? have you seen it? you must. 

also i havent even talked about HIM yet. hove you seen that picture of him with a bird on his shoulder? he is facing the bird, i think looking at it, with a wide smile across his face. and it is so pretty. he has the prettiest smile. 

also today i was looking for flour at the store place and a clip of him was playing in my mind- he was doing like an announcer voice, like in every superhero movie trailer- and he was just coming up with something to say, and what he ened up saying was ‘in a world... where.... cookies.... are made of pringles’ and OMFG its making me laugh even now. like of absolutely anything, that was the example he made. just thinking about it is making me smile. 

speaking of, have you heard his voice? his normal voice is really really deep anyways, but he has crazy range- he can effortlessly(i originally wrote effortly and when i noticed i laughed because i am so fucking tired bfv9wuocl) go from like an elmo impression (and a good one) to a just REALLY low voice, lower than his normal low voice. 

AND HIS SINGING VOICE! he doesn’t like actually make music like wilbur but on that one stream where he did kareoke (how the fuck is it spelled) with fundy and his voice is SO LIKE its deep and its just pretty and i never want to hear normal sweater weather ever again, just him singing it.

i think this is where i’m done with eret- it is 5:18 now, and a BITCH IS TIRED but i need to finish this while i’m still feeling this wayy or i’ll never finish it, i know this from experience.

and now it’s tommy time

the og reason i decided to make this an actual post . but i had to explain the simping thing before i got into my thoughts about tommy. 

but let me start this with just saying yes, i love him. he is a big man and i want him to be happy. which is the topic for today’s discussion, AHEM. 

so tommyinnit, right? he is 16, which is why i do NOT simp.i dont care that im also a minor, i wouldn’t do anything to make him feel uncomfortable, ever. in any world. never. because look- i dont know how to put it, but tommy is SIXTEEN. still young and impressionable and all that junk. and he is a fairly fucking famous twitch streamer. he does that almost daily.

what i’m saying is i dont want him to get hurt. him, and tubbo too. they are a part of the world, part of the public, all the time. don’t you think that is stressful? do you guys remember his haircut stream? on the day of his haircut? and chat was making fun of him for it, and wilbur was making fun of him for it. that is how i express affection, with my real friends as well. playful bullying. but at some point while Will was teasing him, he says something along the lines of ‘yeah, the big man hasn’t been having too great a day’ or something like that, and dude, my heart dropped.

a. he had mentioned earlier that he didn’t want to stream the day of his haircut because hair is always weird that first day, but since he hadn’t streamed in a good bit he felt obliged to. i dont really.. idk, i dont really like that. i dont want him to have to put himself in uncomfortable situations because he feels like he needs to for us. i don’t think that is healthy.

and b. chat and wilbur were bullying him. good-naturedly, but still, when he mentioned he had been having a bad day, the chat turned around and instantly started yelling shit like ‘AHHHH SORRY BIG MAN YOUR HAIR IS FINE’ and when Wilbur kept teasing him (you fucking beautiful bully man fuck off) yelling stuff like ‘WILBUR QUIT WE ARE H U R T I N G HIM’ and ‘WILL STFU HES HAVING A BAD DAY’ so im glad we all want him to feel ok

but still, it cannot be healthy. when i first got into MCYT, i though tommy was fucking loud and annoying. and he is! he is. but that is a big part of why i like him so much. and everyone jokes about him being a child, because he is, but i choose to not say stuff like that in chat just because i want him to be happy. those jokes are fun, but i want him to be happy. and he is happier when not being called a child.

im not attacking you, do whatever the fuck you want. i dont know why i feel the need to protect him or whatever, if he read this he would probably think i was hella creepy. i just- listen, i just want him to be happy. i just want him to smile and laugh. i sound SO GODDAMN CREEPY but- as ive said- i just want him to be happy. 

is this literally just what having a comfort streamer is? am i not crazy? does everyone experience this? and can we talk about tommy’s playlist it’s literally so sweet and bubbly compared to his personality and i love that. and the song he always plays at the start of stream and always like buzzes along to? that moment in time is my very favorite.

it is 5:44-

[radramblog]

Ultimate^2

Super Smash Brothers Ultimate has finally unveiled its final DLC character, with reactions ranging fully across the spectrum. Hot takes abound.

I mean, statistically, just about every possible opinion is going to be represented. There were at least 500,000 people watching the reveal stream, and that’s not including those viewing through restreams. That’s insane for a trailer of any kind, let alone for a console-exclusive video game DLC.

Now that it’s been like… a day and a bit, I think most of the spciest takes have probably been made, which is the perfect time for me to chip in with my own milder opinion. More of a butter chicken, really.

(no images in this one i’m lazy tonight)

I figure I’m this late already, might as well drop some notes on the other ones first.

Piranha Plant was kind of the definition of an unexpected pick. Not only was it from an already well-represented franchise, being fucking Mario, it’s also just…not a character. As such it makes an odd choice for a DLC fighter…except for the part where it was free. If you owned the game in its first month. And frankly, I don’t think people would have been happy if it wasn’t. As it is, though, it’s a perfectly fine character- surprisingly cute, actually.

I’m unsurprised about Joker’s inclusion. With how huge Persona 5 became in both Japan and the west, capitalizing on it to make a shitload of money makes perfect sense. The character plays well enough, though the meter gimmick was kind of a daunting sign of things to come. All that in mind, though, the most surprising thing about Joker being in the game is that they still haven’t put P5 on the Switch. Atlus please.

Hero and Banjo/Kazooie were announced on the same night, and I distinctly recall someone saying that this was one for the Japanese audience and one for the Americans. I mean, I’ve never played Dragon Quest, so I guess I fell into the latter? Both series have a long, well-regarded pedigree (Banjo’s lack of recent offerings notwithstanding), so both arguably deserve their respective positions. Hero is the much more notable character gameplaywise, though, with the incredibly complex mana and spellcasting mechanics. Complaints about RNG in Smash aren’t completely unfounded- though it has existed in the past in the form of, say, Luigi’s misfiring side-B- but I know a lot of people think Hero took it too far. If I’m honest, though, the weirdest thing is just having Akira Toriyama-ass 3D models in the game. Banjo’s gameplay is…awkward. The kit is kind of a mess, but at least the gimmicks weren’t going too hard, you know?

Next was Terry, perhaps the most obscure character on the entire list in 2021. I actually really like Terry in this game- while he’s still trying to emulate a similar feel to Ryu/Ken, the difference feels more natural, if that makes sense. Maybe it’s because I’ve never really devoted significant time to them, but Terry’s kit feels easier to work within than the Shotos when going between characters.

Finally for the first Pass, we had Byleth. I think it’s for the best that they announced the second Fighter’s Pass before this released, because if both 4 and Ultimate had ended their run on Fire Emblem DLCs then people would have been pissed. I mean, people were already pissed, but like…moreso. As someone who has played Three Houses, I do think the game is worth celebrating, but having yet another Fire Emblem Protagonist (read: basically a blank slate) in the game over all the substantially more interesting characters 3H has to offer is just really frustrating. Also the final smash looks like dogshit, like FE3H has overall worse animations than Smash for obvious reasons but I’m pretty sure this attack looked better the first time around.

FP2 opened with Min Min, which brings ARMS to the table. ARMS. The only first-party fighting game Nintendo has outside of Smash, so it looks a bit less weird next to everything else but…come on, man. I think this was the most confusing pick of all of them- the game came out in 2017, and having Min Min in Smash would serve as promotion for a sequel…which hasn’t been announced. There was a graphic novel in the works, but it was cancelled earlier this year. Oops? At least the stage was fun.

As much as playing them is awkward and complex, the Minecraft addition was fitting. Only the best-selling game around. I think people weren’t sure if Microsoft would go for it, but they let us have Banjo, so sure. I’m mostly just annoyed that they couldn’t get any of the songs from the actual game in there- like, you got one in from the fucking mobile game, but you couldn’t just get C418 on the phone?

Sephiroth is definitely one of the hype-ier releases from this pass. The character is iconic, as is his theme and his home game. I’ve never played any Final Fantasy game, but I can still respect the name. Once I remember how to spell it. The whole bossfight aspect to his release was also quite cool, while it lasted.

On the other hand, I have no love for Pyra nor Mythra. There’s so much wrong with these ones, frankly. They’re another swordy character, immediately following Sephiroth too, and they go back on Smash’s very deliberate decision to split characters like Zelda/Sheik and Samus/ZSS up (Yes I know Pokemon Trainer does the same thing but I have a lot more leniency for them). Add in their being from a JRPG much less well-known or remembered than the previous couple characters and the designs being…questionable, I have a big issue with the whole thing. This was also around when I kinda stopped playing the game in general, and they definitely didn’t help pull me back in.

Kazuya might have, though. With the exception of him and Sephiroth, all the characters from the Fighter’s Passes were pretty much protagonist-types, but this motherfucker pulses with the essence of bad guy. What I’m saying is that he’s fucking cool, and while he’s ludicrously complex, that makes perfect sense since…I mean just look at the combo lists from Tekken 7. His inclusion also kinda rounds out the list of biggest fighting game franchises out there being rep’d in the game, though I imagine now I’m going to have stans from Mortal Kombat or whatever on my back. They’re not going to put a fatality-capable character in Smash, guys!

Finally, this rounds us around to the original point of this article. Let’s talk about Sora. And by that I mean…I don’t really have a huge amount to say about him. Kingdom Hearts is a franchise that completely passed me by growing up, and I don’t think I have the time or energy to devote to it now. I’m sure it’s good, people seemed really excited for him to be in the game so they have to have gotten that love from somewhere, but I don’t share that feeling.

That’s not to say that I don’t think he deserves a slot. The idea of “deserving a slot” in Smash Bros is kind of an odd concept, even though it’s come up a lot so far this post. But a slot in this roster isn’t just a place in a popular fighting game, because at this point, Smash is kind of a museum of (mostly Nintendo) games- and so having representation is a forever acknowledgment that the franchise is, or has been, an icon to so many. Kingdom Hearts, to my knowledge, has 100% earned that position, and so Sora getting to be playable here makes perfect sense. He wasn’t my pick (Touhou representation never I guess), but I’m happy for those who wanted him.

As far as the actual gameplay looks, he reads like a character that kept in mind what people didn’t like about Hero when he released. It’s another sword-based character, which I think at this point speaks more about the demographic of video game characters than it does about Smash. But I appreciate that the Magic Bullshit is toned down, and that it’s also his only real gimmick (The 3-hit combo feature is A Thing, but other characters e.g. Bayonetta have already done that, so whatever). His recovery potential looks patently absurd- like he just gets Pikachu/Pichu’s Up-B as a Side-B that can also be chained with his actual Up-B? This guy better be light as hell or he’s going to be super hard to take out. I dunno, I think he looks solidly fun enough- more dynamic and aerial than the other swordfighters, at least- and that’s good enough for me.

And I guess that marks the end of Smash Ultimate. Not with a bang, but with a key…dude. It’s been a very solid run, the game managing to keep itself fresh across several years of development, even as other games have risen and fallen. Smash is kind of forever at this point, I think, though the finality of Ultimate’s ultimate character implies that this particular iteration may be coming to its end. And seeing as it is always one Smash per console, I wouldn’t be shocked if the Switch itself was nearing its endgame as well.

Okay but also it’s pretty funny how they heavily censored everything Disney out of Sora’s DLC except for that little Mickey charm on the trailer, like how much must that one shot have cost them, was it even remotely worth it, I don’t know but I kinda want to

[lastsonlost]

Crossing the divide

Do men really have it easier? These transgender guys found the truth was more complex.

In the 1990s, the late Stanford neuroscientist Ben Barres transitioned from female to male. He was in his 40s, mid-career, and afterward he marveled at the stark changes in his professional life. Now that society saw him as male, his ideas were taken more seriously. He was able to complete a whole sentence without being interrupted by a man. A colleague who didn’t know he was transgender even praised his work as “much better than his sister’s.”

Clinics have reported an increase in people seeking medical gender transitions in recent years, and research suggests the number of people identifying as transgender has risen in the past decade. Touchstones such as Caitlyn Jenner’s transition, the bathroom controversy, and the Amazon series “Transparent” have also made the topic a bigger part of the political and cultural conversation.

But it is not always evident when someone has undergone a transition — especially if they have gone from female to male.

“The transgender guys have a relatively straightforward process — we just simply add testosterone and watch their bodies shift,” said Joshua Safer, executive director at the Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery at Mount Sinai Health System and Icahn School of Medicine in New York. “Within six months to a year they start to virilize — getting facial hair, a ruddier complexion, a change in body odor and a deepening of the voice.”

Transgender women have more difficulty “passing”; they tend to be bigger-boned and more masculine-looking, and these things are hard to reverse with hormone treatments, Safer said. “But the transgender men will go get jobs and the new boss doesn’t even know they’re trans.”

We spoke with four men who transitioned as adults to the bodies in which they feel more comfortable. Their experiences reveal that the gulf between how society treats women and men is in many ways as wide now as it was when Barres transitioned. But their diverse backgrounds provide further insight into how race and ethnicity inform the gender divide in subtle and sometimes surprising ways.

(Their words have been lightly edited for space and clarity.)

‘I’ll never call the police again’

Trystan Cotten, 50, Berkeley, Calif.

Professor of gender studies at California State University Stanislaus and editor of Transgress Press, which publishes books related to the transgender experience. Transitioned in 2008.

Life doesn’t get easier as an African American male. The way that police officers deal with me, the way that racism undermines my ability to feel safe in the world, affects my mobility, affects where I go. Other African American and Latino Americans grew up as boys and were taught to deal with that at an earlier age. I had to learn from my black and brown brothers about how to stay alive in my new body and retain some dignity while being demeaned by the cops.

One night somebody crashed a car into my neighbor’s house, and I called 911. I walk out to talk to the police officer, and he pulls a gun on me and says, “Stop! Stop! Get on the ground!” I turn around to see if there’s someone behind me, and he goes, “You! You! Get on the ground!” I’m in pajamas and barefoot. I get on the ground and he checks me, and afterward I said, “What was that all about?” He said, “You were moving kind of funny.” Later, people told me, “Man, you’re crazy. You never call the police.”

I get pulled over a lot more now. I GOT PULLED OVER MORE IN THE FIRST TWO YEARS AFTER MY TRANSITION THAN I DID THE ENTIRE 20 YEARS I WAS DRIVING BEFORE THAT.

Before, when I’d been stopped, even for real violations like driving 100 miles an hour, I got off. In fact, when it happened in Atlanta the officer and I got into a great conversation about the Braves. Now the first two questions they ask are: Do I have any weapons in the car, and am I on parole or probation?

Being a black man has changed the way I move in the world.

I used to walk quickly or run to catch a bus. Now I walk at a slower pace, and if I’m late I don’t dare rush. I am hyper-aware of making sudden or abrupt movements, especially in airports, train stations and other public places. I avoid engaging with unfamiliar white folks, especially white women. If they catch my eye, white women usually clutch their purses and cross the street. While I love urban aesthetics, I stopped wearing hoodies and traded my baggy jeans, oversized jerseys and colorful skullcaps for closefitting jeans, khakis and sweaters. These changes blunt assumptions that I’m going to snatch purses or merchandise, or jump the subway turnstile. The less visible I am, the better my chances of surviving.

But it’s not foolproof. I’m an academic sitting at a desk so I exercise where I can. I walked to the post office to mail some books and I put on this 40-pound weight vest that I walk around in. It was about 3 or 4 in the afternoon and I’m walking back and all of a sudden police officers drove up, got out of their car, and stopped. I had my earphones on so I didn’t know they were talking to me. I looked up and there’s a helicopter above. And now I can kind of see why people run, because you might live if you run, even if you haven’t done anything. This was in Emeryville, one of the wealthiest enclaves in Northern California, where there’s security galore. Someone had seen me walking to the post office and called in and said they saw a Muslim with an explosives vest. One cop, a white guy, picked it up and laughed and said, “Oh, I think I know what this is. This is a weight belt.”

It’s not only humiliating, but it creates anxiety on a daily basis. Before, I used to feel safe going up to a police officer if I was lost or needed directions. But I don’t do that anymore. I hike a lot, and if I’m out hiking and I see a dead body, I’ll keep on walking. I’ll never call the police again.

‘It now feels as though I am on my own’

Zander Keig, 52, San Diego

Coast Guard veteran. Works at Naval Medical Center San Diego as a clinical social work case manager. Editor of anthologies about transgender men. Started transition in 2005.

Prior to my transition, I was an outspoken radical feminist. I spoke up often, loudly and with confidence.

I was encouraged to speak up. I was given awards for my efforts, literally — it was like, “Oh, yeah, speak up, speak out.” When I speak up now, I am often given the direct or indirect message that I am “mansplaining,” “taking up too much space” or “asserting my white male heterosexual privilege.” Never mind that I am a first-generation Mexican American, a transsexual man, and married to the same woman I was with prior to my transition.

I find the assertion that I am now unable to speak out on issues I find important offensive and I refuse to allow anyone to silence me. My ability to empathize has grown exponentially, because I now factor men into my thinking and feeling about situations.

Prior to my transition, I rarely considered how men experienced life or what they thought, wanted or liked about their lives.

I have learned so much about the lives of men through my friendships with men, reading books and articles by and for men and through the men I serve as a licensed clinical social worker.

Social work is generally considered to be “female dominated,” with women making up about 80 percent of the profession in the United States. Currently I work exclusively with clinical nurse case managers, but in my previous position, as a medical social worker working with chronically homeless military veterans — mostly male — who were grappling with substance use disorder and severe mental illness, I was one of a few men among dozens of women.

Plenty of research shows that life events, medical conditions and family circumstances impact men and women differently. But when I would suggest that patient behavioral issues like anger or violence may be a symptom of trauma or depression, it would often get dismissed or outright challenged. The overarching theme was “men are violent” and there was “no excuse” for their actions.

I do notice that some women do expect me to acquiesce or concede to them more now: Let them speak first, let them board the bus first, let them sit down first, and so on. I also notice that in public spaces men are more collegial with me, which they express through verbal and nonverbal messages: head lifting when passing me on the sidewalk and using terms like “brother” and “boss man” to acknowledge me. As a former lesbian feminist, I was put off by the way that some women want to be treated by me, now that I am a man, because it violates a foundational belief I carry, which is that women are fully capable human beings who do not need men to acquiesce or concede to them.

What continues to strike me is the significant reduction in friendliness and kindness now extended to me in public spaces. It now feels as though I am on my own: No one, outside of family and close friends, is paying any attention to my well-being.

I can recall a moment where this difference hit home. A couple of years into my medical gender transition, I was traveling on a public bus early one weekend morning. There were six people on the bus, including me. One was a woman. She was talking on a mobile phone very loudly and remarked that “men are such a–holes.” I immediately looked up at her and then around at the other men. Not one had lifted his head to look at the woman or anyone else. The woman saw me look at her and then commented to the person she was speaking with about “some a–hole on the bus right now looking at me.” I was stunned, because I recall being in similar situations, but in the reverse, many times: A man would say or do something deemed obnoxious or offensive, and I would find solidarity with the women around me as we made eye contact, rolled our eyes and maybe even commented out loud on the situation. I’m not sure I understand why the men did not respond, but it made a lasting impression on me.

‘I took control of my career’

Chris Edwards, 49, Boston

Advertising creative director, public speaker and author of the memoir “Balls: It Takes Some to Get Some.” Transitioned in his mid-20s.

When I began my transition at age 26, a lot of my socialization came from the guys at work. For example, as a woman, I’d walk down the hall and bump into some of my female co-workers, and they’d say, “Hey, what’s up?” and I’d say, “Oh, I just got out of this client meeting. They killed all my scripts and now I have to go back and rewrite everything, blah blah blah. What’s up with you?” and then they’d tell me their stories. As a guy, I bump into a guy in the hall and he says, “What’s up?” and I launch into a story about my day and he’s already down the hall. And I’m thinking, well, that’s rude. So, I think, okay, well, I guess guys don’t really share, so next time I’ll keep it brief. By the third time, I realized you just nod.

The creative department is largely male, and the guys accepted me into the club. I learned by example and modeled my professional behavior accordingly. For example, I kept noticing that if guys wanted an assignment they’d just ask for it. If they wanted a raise or a promotion they’d ask for it. This was a foreign concept to me. As a woman, I never felt that it was polite to do that or that I had the power to do that. But after seeing it happen all around me I decided that if I felt I deserved something I was going to ask for it too. By doing that, I took control of my career. It was very empowering.

Apparently, people were only holding the door for me because I was a woman rather than out of common courtesy as I had assumed. Not just men, women too. I learned this the first time I left the house presenting as male, when a woman entered a department store in front of me and just let the door swing shut behind her. I was so caught off guard I walked into it face first.

When you’re socially transitioning, you want to blend in, not stand out, so it’s uncomfortable when little reminders pop up that you’re not like everybody else. I’m expected to know everything about sports. I like sports but I’m not in deep like a lot of guys. For example, I love watching football, but I never played the sport (wasn’t an option for girls back in my day) so there is a lot I don’t know. I remember the first time I was in a wedding as a groomsman. I was maybe three years into my transition and I was lined up for photos with all the other guys. And one of them shouted, “High school football pose!” and on cue everybody dropped down and squatted like the offensive line, and I was like, what the hell is going on? It was not instinctive to me since I never played. I tried to mirror what everyone was doing, but when you see the picture I’m kind of “offsides,” so to speak.

The hormones made me more impatient. I had lots of female friends and one of the qualities they loved about me was that I was a great listener. After being on testosterone, they informed me that my listening skills weren’t what they used to be. Here’s an example: I’m driving with one of my best friends, Beth, and I ask her “Is your sister meeting us for dinner?” Ten minutes later she’s still talking and I still have no idea if her sister is coming. So finally, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I snapped and said, “IS SHE COMING OR NOT?” And Beth was like, “You know, you used to like hearing all the backstory and how I’d get around to the answer. A lot of us have noticed you’ve become very impatient lately and we think it’s that damn testosterone!” It’s definitely true that some male behavior is governed by hormones. Instead of listening to a woman’s problem and being empathetic and nodding along, I would do the stereotypical guy thing — interrupt and provide a solution to cut the conversation short and move on. I’m trying to be better about this.

People ask if being a man made me more successful in my career. My answer is yes — but not for the reason you might think. As a man, I was finally comfortable in my own skin and that made me more confident. At work I noticed I was more direct: getting to the point, not apologizing before I said anything or tiptoeing around and trying to be delicate like I used to do. In meetings, I was more outspoken. I stopped posing my thoughts as questions. I’d say what I meant and what I wanted to happen instead of dropping hints and hoping people would read between the lines and pick up on what I really wanted. I was no longer shy about stating my opinions or defending my work. When I gave presentations I was brighter, funnier, more engaging. Not because I was a man. Because I was happy.

‘People assume I know the answer’

Alex Poon, 26, Boston

Project manager for Wayfair, an online home goods company. Alex is in the process of his physical transition; he did the chest surgery after college and started taking testosterone this spring.

Traditional Chinese culture is about conforming to your elders’ wishes and staying within gender boundaries. However, I grew up in the U.S., where I could explore my individuality and my own gender identity. When I was 15 I was attending an all-girls high school where we had to wear skirts, but I felt different from my peers. Around that point we began living with my Chinese grandfather towards the end of his life. He was so traditional and deeply set in his ways. I felt like I couldn’t cut my hair or dress how I wanted because I was afraid to upset him and have our last memories of each other be ruined.

Genetics are not in my favor for growing a lumberjack-style beard. Sometimes, Chinese faces are seen as “soft” with less defined jaw lines and a lack of facial fair. I worry that some of my feminine features like my “soft face” will make it hard to present as a masculine man, which is how I see myself. Instead, when people meet me for the first time, I’m often read as an effeminate man.

My voice has started cracking and becoming lower. Recently, I’ve been noticing the difference between being perceived as a woman versus being perceived as a man. I’ve been wondering how I can strike the right balance between remembering how it feels to be silenced and talked over with the privileges that come along with being perceived as a man. Now, when I lead meetings, I purposefully create pauses and moments where I try to draw others into the conversation and make space for everyone to contribute and ask questions.

People now assume I have logic, advice and seniority. They look at me and assume I know the answer, even when I don’t. I’ve been in meetings where everyone else in the room was a woman and more senior, yet I still got asked, “Alex, what do you think? We thought you would know.” I was at an all-team meeting with 40 people, and I was recognized by name for my team’s accomplishments. Whereas next to me, there was another successful team led by a woman, but she was never mentioned by name. I went up to her afterward and said, “Wow, that was not cool; your team actually did more than my team.” The stark difference made me feel uncomfortable and brought back feelings of when I had been in the same boat and not been given credit for my work.

When people thought I was a woman, they often gave me vague or roundabout answers when I asked a question. I’ve even had someone tell me, “If you just Googled it, you would know.” But now that I’m read as a man, I’ve found people give me direct and clear answers, even if it means they have to do some research on their own before getting back to me.

A part of me regrets not sharing with my grandfather who I truly am before he passed away. I wonder how our relationship might have been different if he had known this one piece about me and had still accepted me as his grandson. Traditionally, Chinese culture sees men as more valuable than women. Before, I was the youngest granddaughter, so the least important. Now, I’m the oldest grandson. I think about how he might have had different expectations or tried to instill certain traditional Chinese principles upon me more deeply, such as caring more about my grades or taking care of my siblings and elders. Though he never viewed me as a man, I ended up doing these things anyway.

Zander Keig contributed to this article in his personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of the Department of Defense.

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Old story worth a repost SOURCE

[crosbymalkin871]

The Price of Love (1/?)

CHAPTER TITLE: All It Takes is One Huge Paycheck…

RATING: M PAIRINGS/CHARACTERS: E. Malkin/S. Crosby

CHAPTER WARNINGS/KINK: Alcohol, Foul Language, mentions of Prostitution, Mario Lemieux, vague allusions to Smut

AUTHOR’S NOTE: FINALLY! AFTER FOUR-FIVE MONTHS OF NO HOCKEY, THE LACK OF MOTIVATION, AND ME ACTUALLY NOT HAVING TO DEAL WITH A LOT OF STRESS, I’M FINALLY BACK!!!! Originally I wanted to post this the night of game 1, but shit happened and then I tried to post it before game 2, but y’all are getting it today! XD As a piece of compensation on my end, chapter 2 will be posted on Sunday evening. I promise, and if I don’t keep my word, bash me in the head with a hockey stick until I get a concussion.

Before you all begin reading, I just have to say thank you to everyone who has messaged me their excitement and their support throughout these difficult moments, it really means a lot. I also wish to extend my appreciation to 3 specific individuals: my friends @justinschultzy & @eafay70, and my dear Zhenya aka @cakemakethme​ (who will also be my Beta from chapter 2 or 3 onward). You three were the ones I continuously messaged updates on and your cheerleading was what ended up leading me to finishing this. So thank you very, very much! xxx

I have been wanting to write this fic for…gosh, maybe 2-3 years now and it’s finally being presented to all of you. I’m so excited for everyone to read it and to join me on this insane rollercoaster that is The Price of Love. With that all said and done I hope you all enjoy it, like and reblog, and I will (hopefully) post more sometime in the near future.

DISCLAIMER: I am not the owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins, or are associated with anyone in the NHL. I just have a very strong imagination.

A variety of noises ring out in Geno’s ears.

“Beer, over here!”

“Four sangrias for table three.”

“Vodka. Straight.”

“Whisky on the rocks.”

“Daiquiri. Make it a double.”

“Two champagne cocktails for table seven.”

Orders just keep coming and coming. He had been tossing and filling up a number of glasses and flutes for hours, sending them out left and right at the bar with almost no chance of having a small break in between. It was alright though, he grew used to it throughout his years of being one of the many favored bartenders at the Emperor Nightclub.

That, and he gets some real good money out of it, collecting all the large tips he gets whenever he cleans up the dirtied tables afterward.

With he and Tanger, his best friend and the other tender manning the bar, it feels like a marathon— albeit an easy one— to serve the feisty ladies and semi-agro men currently trying to take over the club.

The Emperor Nightclub is still up and running as the night starts to grow late. With a birthday bunch, a small group of ladies having a girl’s night, a married couple looking for a partner or two to join their bed (whether they were open or poly, Geno wasn’t sure), and college graduates dominating the patrons tonight along with the regulars— the nightclub roars as if it is New Year’s Eve in NYC instead of any other weekend in Pittsburgh.

No empty space could be seen on sight from where he was standing, with new patrons coming in the later part of the night, while the earlier patrons have made the decision to stay even after hours of partying and hollering.

Geno was given a small break as the crowd in front of the bar disperses, having been satisfied with the drinks they were given, taking whatever leftover bills he was given as a form of tip.

So far, it was a relatively good night for him.

Well…until a small, very familiar group came in, with the leader catching his eye like he usually does.

Being a bartender at a pretty famous nightclub in Pittsburgh, he sees a whole spectrum of people walking in and out of the nightclub’s doors: with some of them wanting to down tons and tons of alcohol that’ll make them black out until tomorrow afternoon, and others being on the prowl for someone to either take to their car, a nearby hotel, or even the nightclub’s bathroom.

One of them was about three or four, sometimes even more, prostitutes that are part of the latter category, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t take the time to chat with the bartenders, something that always brightened Geno’s night, especially when he was continuously swamped with drink orders…

…which is how Geno’s break ends: more people clamoring to the bar.

As of on cue, the moment that he continues to engage in dealing with patron’s drinks, the orders come rolling in even faster that he almost skipped a beat. From the corner of his eye, he could see the expression on Tanger’s face becoming more focused as his orders keep coming in with some extra flirting and touching from the patrons on his part.

He snorts at that. While Geno didn’t necessarily mind a customer or two coming up to flirt with him, he was never really interested in them, only responding back just to make their night a little bit better.

Out of all of his friends, it was Tanger that got the most attention from the patrons, with he following at a close second. It made sense because the French-Canadian looked like a supermodel. And himself? Well he wasn’t really sure if American people have a thing for foreigners like him, but he continuously gets complimented on his ability to wear a suit. So he considers that a plus.

His other friend, Dumo, tended to get third; primarily because he got a lot of attention from the college kids, either doing an insane number of shots or just randomly asking about his athletic abilities. Needless to say, it was very amusing to watch him wrack attention from the younger crowd. Though if anybody were to catch his eye, they should be aware of how damn good a cook he was.

The other two bartenders, Big Rig and Schultzy, also managed to garner themselves some attention from the patrons. Big Rig, for his height as he stood almost 7 feet tall (much taller than Geno), and Schultzy, for his happy-go-lucky personality. It was always something that made event the downiest of drinkers smile a little.

Even if he feels just a tad overwhelmed by the all of the drinks he has to quickly make, getting a glimpse of dark, curly black hair and a thick, white fur coat was enough to quell his nerves.

“You all need some additional help?”

A voice comes from Geno’s left side and it makes him jump a little (but not enough to make him mess up an order, which he has done before and has given the person who scared him a very stern talking to). He looks over to see who it was and finds Dumo standing there with his usual laid-back smile. Geno may or may not have breathed out a small sigh of relief at his arrival.

“Possibly, considering that G has been trying to catch a glimpse of Sid rather than seeing how much booze he’s pouring in.” Tanger smirks, placing at Geno teasingly.

Geno rolled his eyes and answered with a scoff. “Yeah. Like you not staring at Flower too, Tanger.” He feels a little vindication when seeing the French-Canadian man scowl in return. “But help always needed, Dumo. Things getting a bit out of hand and no one planning on going home soon.” Even though he knows he’ll get teased about it even more, his eyes couldn’t help wander off around the club, looking at all the excitement that is still going strong.

And again, seeing black curls and a white fur coat— Sid was his name— releases some of the tension in his shoulders.

“Alright then.” Dumo clapped his hands before he started to roll his sleeves of his button-up. “No one is really wanting drinks on my end of the bar, might as well waste time by giving you guys a hand.”

Neither Tanger or Geno responded to him as he already accepted his first round of orders from the loud frat boys and flighty sorority girls welcoming him, leaving the other two to tend the ones lining up at their respective corners.

Within the next minute or so, all three of them found themselves falling into a rhythm as they worked side-by-side, the drinks continuing to flow out and tips continuing to flow in. And with more patrons visiting the bar, come more even more orders and even more tips.

The extra pair of hands certainly help a lot in making the work feel a whole lot easier.

Dumo serves every patron that tries to start a conversation with him, listen to their problems in one ear while paying attention to orders in the other. He also subtly brushes off any flirty advances, but he does throw a smile here and a wink there to please all who are openly staring at him. He even does a little dance to the beat of the music as a little extra entertainment.

“Should’ve been a stripper, Dumo.” Tanger tells him as he stuffs some more bills into his pockets. “Missed the chance to be Magic Mike in Hollywood, but there’s still a chance here.”

Geno snorts as he slides a mint julep down the bar.

“Ha ha. Very funny, Tanger,” Dumo states unamused. “Can say the same about you too.”

Tanger just flips him off while Geno snorts again.

Eventually, the orders died down and the patrons scattered about. Dumo returned to the other bar on the opposite side of the room with Schultzy and Big Rig, while Tanger cleaned up any spilled alcohol left on the bar top.

Geno, meanwhile, began pouring more cocktails, glasses of wine, and laying more beer bottles onto a tray; but these were for any of the people hugging their half-full drinks, or for the tables that were littered with empty glasses and lime wedges.

No. This tray of drinks are for a certain group that he had noticed earlier.

Carefully, yet a little giddily, he manages to carry the tray single-handedly, and without spilling a single drop of liquor, all the way to a very specific table within the Emperor Nightclub.

As he walks closer and closer, the wild pacing of his heartbeat grows more and more. When he finally reaches the table, standing behind the object of his secret affections, he quietly gulps and places a gentle hand on his fur-covered shoulder.

The man stops whatever he was doing and turns around to look at him. And Geno swears he could feel his breath escaping his lungs and his rapidly-beating heart stopping.

Aside from their beautiful curly hair, the man also had the prettiest brown eyes and the biggest, most kissable lips imaginable (not that the bartender would ever admit that to him). He also had on an outfit that was not afraid to show off his…well, assets; outside of the white fur coat, he wore a white crop top with a red maple leaf on it, black leather shorts that magically fits his ass, and past those long, thick legs were a pair of black stripped high-heels that decorated his feet.

Sid smiles kindly at him, his teeth showing behind those glossed lips. “Hi, Geno.” he calls in his deep yet sweet-sounding voice. It didn’t sound flirtatious or seductive, which is normally how he talked to his clients, with the bartender, he always sounded genuine and pleasantly happy to see him serving drinks to him and his friends.

Geno nervously smiled back. “H-Hey, Sid,” he replies, silently curing himself for stammering in front of a prostitute who he may or may not have a big crush on. “Flower, Segway, Mitch,” he also greeted, who were all looking at him before he grabbed Sid’s attention. He began setting down the cocktails, wine, and beer. “Here are usual orders.”

The three other men accepted their drinks: a margarita, a beer, and a glass of white wine, respectively.

Still smiling, Sid happily accepted his cosmopolitan, plucking a strawberry off the skewer that was resting atop the martini glass. “Thanks, G,” he says before popping the mini strawberry into his mouth. “I know everyone has their favorite bartenders, but I still say you make the best cocktails.”

Hearing that from Sid (and watching him eat a simple piece of fruit) was enough to bring a blush and a dumbstruck smile to Geno’s face. “H-Heh…Thanks, Sid.”

Sid nods, eyes shining with a glint of something as he takes a sip of his cocktail.

It was a small moment or two of awkward (on the bartender’s part at least) silence before he coughed. “I, uhm, I’m best get back to work, so…bye.” With that, he quickly flees back to the bar.

(As he did so, he heard the soft giggles coming from Sid, but he failed to see him lightly admonish his friends as they smirked at the obvious crush the bartender had.)

After that little incident, Geno spent the rest of the night catering to any other patron that walked up and asked for— or sloppily demanded— drinks. Whenever he had a spare moment or two, he would glance up at table eight, watching the small group of friends chatting, laughing, and attempting to flirt with some of the other patrons that would stop by their table.

Part of Geno’s heart crumbled whenever he saw Sid respond to some of the men’s flirtatious mannerisms, whether it be throwing out seductive words, or a teasing touch, or even a tickle of breath or the faint press of lips.

He knows Sid isn’t tied down to someone. Why would he, the man was a prostitute after all. But that didn’t mean watching him act like that with others didn’t hurt.

From the moment he first met Sid, back when they were teenagers to young adults and Geno had just started working at the Emperor Nightclub, he always harbored secretly feelings for the young Canadian. He remembered the first time he ever plucked up the courage to speak to him and slide him a cocktail: one of his first attempts at a watermelon cooler, too easy of a drink to mess up on.

It was a bit strong on the booze and not fruity enough, but Sid didn’t tell him that. He just smiled and thanked him in a voice that oozed sensuality and charm, throwing in a wink for good measure. When he saw how awkwardly the bartender responded to it— by stammering and not completely picking up the subtle cue— he dropped the act, apologizing for making him feel awkward. To which Geno has to apologize as well, because he didn’t meant to make the moment awkward, he just wasn’t good at responding to someone who was cute like him.

That made Sid pause and blush, looking away from the bartender for a split second before gazing back up at him, a gentle smile on his face. This caused Geno to smile back, the both of them feeling a bit more relaxed than before. When the awkwardness of it all faded away, the two of them began to chat during the bartender’s break, or whenever he would get a breather from serving. In those small conversations, he realized that the flirty prostitute was actually…very dorky.

A dorky man who had a passion for history, craved mozzarella sticks and cheesecake, and had a strong affinity for sports just like he once did. And he had the goofiest laugh Geno had ever heard and thought it adorable. Seeing this, Sid’s true colors was what made him slowly start to fall in love.

But deep down, he knew that Sid would never feel the same about him. To him, it was fairly certain that he would get rejected upon confessing his feelings. So, in every encounter the two had after that, Geno would simply swallow his feelings and allowed Sid to flirt and be affectionate with other men that weren’t him.

They were just friends, nothing more.

(Although he can’t help but secretly wish for that to change one day).

Geno sighed sadly and began to untie his apron, ready to go into the staff room and change back into his regular clothes when Tanger tapped him on the shoulder. He looked over at him, ready to tie his apron back on, when he sees him pointing to the stairs near the back of the nightclub.

Coming down the stairs was owner Mario Lemieux.

He turned back to Tanger, brow raised. “So? He does that a lot.”

“Yeah he makes his rounds like he usually does, but does he ever personally come to us for anything? Usually it’s Jen that does it for him.” Tanger points out as they see Mario making his way over to the bar areas.

Geno hummed. He had a fair point, usually it was Jen, Mario’s personal assistant, that went and searched for them whenever he needed to have a conversation with them. In any other instance, the bartender would not hesitate to flee whenever he could, but she would usually find him in the end.

But Mario himself coming out to talk to one— or maybe all of them— was highly unusual.

It was even more unusual when he realizes that Mario coming towards him. He didn’t know whether he should run, or accept whatever was going to be handed to him.

Still tying his apron back on just in case, he meets Mario halfway: near the dance floor but not that far from the tables.

“Ah, Geno,” he says as the bartender comes up to him. “I was just coming to talk to you.”

“Need me to stay extra hours?” he asked, seconds away from letting out a tired sigh. He doesn’t like the idea of staying later than 1 or 2 AM on most days, but if the boss says so, he’ll make an exception.

“No, actually,” Mario shakes head making Geno confused. “I wanted to give you something.” He hands the bartender an envelope.

Taking it, Geno still looked confused as to what it was until he opened it, then his eyes widened in shock.

“Boss, are you— Are you serious?!” he exclaimed as he looked between the envelope in his hand, then back at Mario.

“It’s just little bonus, if you will, for being one of my best workers.”

“This more than bonus and you know it!”

Mario placated him by resting a hand on his shoulder. “As I said, you deserve it,” he reassured. “I know it’s more than what you normally make, and more than the other bonuses I give, but there’s nothing wrong with giving a little bit more to hard workers like you.”

Geno gazed back down at the envelope. Inside was a bonus check of over $10,000.

“But—”

“No buts.” Mario tells him seriously. “I mean it. You’ve been very dedicated to your work from the beginning, even if you were completely new to it. But you quickly improved over time and became a favorite amongst The Emperor’s patrons. It’s not hard to see why, Geno. So, go on, take the extra bonus. Do whatever you want with it, a gift from me to you.”

With that, he gave the bartender a pat on the back before heading back upstairs to his office.

The whole time, Geno’s eyes never left the check.

It was a large amount of money. In fact, it was double than what he normally makes for a bonus: $5000 at most, but if his boss said that he deserved it…well, who was he to deny himself a paycheck like this.

Finally, his eyes left the large sum of money, trailing back to the beautiful prostitute that was still sitting at table eight.

Maybe…maybe his chance had finally come. He may not be able to have a proper relationship with Sid, but he could at least spend one magical night with him, for however long he could make it.

He didn’t know what Sid charged for his services, but he hoped ten thousand dollars was enough to satisfy him (he was sure that it was, he was just being really nervous about confronting him).

Gulping, the bartender slowly— and anxiously— makes his way back to table eight. Along the way, he tries to remember all of the fancy restaurants that are in Pittsburgh, and there are quiet a number of them within the city and the surrounding area.

There was the Altius that has an amazing view of the city… the Monterey Bay Fish Grotto is one of the most famous restaurants… LeMont has been around for decades and is still highly regarded… most of the locals would know about the Grand Concourse… since he liked boats, one of the Gateway Clipper’s Dining Cruises would be nice…

Maybe the Hyeholde since it almost be like dining at a castle… the Carlton has a lot of national recognition… Bravo! Italian Kitchen has a good menu and they do have creme brûlée...

Or…he may just happen to like the Cheesecake Factory instead.

Before he could even make a final decision on what he was going to say, he was standing right in front of Sid (or behind, since his back was turned to him). Luckily for him, his other friends were either out on the dance floor or chatting up the other bartenders; maybe they were in the back lounges, but Geno doesn’t really care, he needed to focus on his main objective right now: gaining Sid’s attention, even if it was for one night.

Reaching a hand out, he hesitates for a split second before he decides to gently tap Sid on the shoulders.

The prostitute turned around to see who was standing behind him again, smiling when he realized who it was. “Hey, G. What’s up?” he asks curiously while he licks something sticky off his fingers.

Geno stared for a hot minute before quickly snapping out of it. “U-Uhm—!” He blushed and scratched the back of his head. “I-I want you to know that Mario gave me big bonus just now…”

Sid smiled wider at that. “That’s great, G! How much of a bonus was it? The usual 5k?”

He shook his head, looking away shyly. “No…gave me double that.”

Brown eyes widened as he exclaimed, “Wait. He gave you $10,000?!”

Geno nodded, showing him the envelop with the check in it. “Yeah, and uhm…was wondering if…” He blushed darker, still keeping his eyes away from Sid. 

The prostitute was looking at him with concern now. “If uhm…You want to spend a night with me…?”

Sid stayed silent for the longest time, staring blankly at the bartender as he processed what he just asked him. “Geno, are you— Are you asking me to…service you?”

“Yes. I mean, no! Argh!” The bartender shook his head, feeling more embarrassed and stupid now. “What I’m mean is…I take you to fancy restaurant, maybe do shopping, and…” The blush on his face grew darker. “I-If you wanted, we can go to hotel and… you serve me.”

A blush now came to the prostitute’s face. “O-Oh…”

Geno makes a flustered noise, still not looking Sid.

“I don’t— I-I don’t charge that much for a night's service, Geno,’ he tells the bartender with a shy voice. “Y-You can’t spend 10 grand on me in one night…”

“I-I’m know,” he nods. “But I’m try.”

Sid’s blush grew darker as he now looked away from the bartender. Neither one of them really knew what to say after that, the moment growing tenser and more awkward by the second.

Eventually, the prostitute was the one to speak first. “E-Even if you can’t spend all that money on me…it’d be nice to spend a night with you.”

Geno’s head snaps back to Sid, his own dark brown eyes widened at what he said. “R-Really?”

A small smile came to the prostitute’s face as he nodded. “Yeah,” he admits shyly, now looking back at the bartender. “I really do.”

He’s never admitted this to him, but he’s had a crush on Geno for a very long time now, ever since they met as teenagers in this very nightclub. He always thought the bartender would never want to be in a relationship with him because of what he does, but after hearing what he just said to him, he might actually have a chance to see if they would really work out.

“Uhm, great!” Geno exclaims with a grin.

Sid smiles a little more. “Did you have a particular restaurant in mind?”

The bartender pondered on the choices he thought about earlier before finally making a decision. “Altius?” he asks. “Is on Grandview Avenue and have good view of skyline.”

“Sounds great,” Sid nods in approval. “Maybe we could stop by the Cheesecake Factory afterwards. I haven’t had any in a long time and I’m overdue for a craving.”

“I figure you say that,” Geno chuckled. “Had that in back of mind in case you say no.”

An embarrassed giggle managed to escape the prostitute’s lips. “I guess I make my love of cheesecake very obvious, eh?”

“You do, but is okay,” Geno reassures. “I like that about you.”

Another giggle, this time, one that was more airy and a little bit giddy-sounding. “So, when did you want to do this? Tomorrow night?”

“We can do that,” he nods. “I take night off.”

“Are you Mario would allow that?” Sid raises a teasing brow at him. “I mean, he did just give you a big bonus. He may change his mind when he hears you taking a day off.”

Geno waved at him nonchalantly. “Eh. He not mind.” he tells him. “Besides, be nice to get away from club for one night. And I spending night with you, so is good reason.” He lightly smirked at him.

Sid’s blush couldn’t get any redder, but it manages to with the bartender’s words. Just then a waiter came by and served him another drink, this time, a vibrant sunrise cocktail.

He takes the drink with a nod and a slight smirk before the waiter walks away. He takes a sip before turning back to Geno, his smirk growing in seductiveness. “So,” he starts before licking his lips, a little cayenne salt sticking to them. “Will I be seeing you tomorrow night?”

The bartender gulped and managed to nod, trying to keep his dirty thoughts at bay. “Yeah…see you tomorrow night.”

[biscemi]

tagged by @gellavonhamster, thanks angel!! 

1. what do you prefer to be called name-wise? Bekah

2. when is your birthday? February 16

3. where do you live? the US, on the east coast

4. three things you are doing right now? filling this in, listening to music, and waiting for my menstrual cramps to go away 😑

5. four fandoms that have piqued your interest? definitely 1) amc’s turn (i’ve been in the fandom on tumblr for nearly 6 years now LMAO) i’ve made so many amazing friends through this fandom and it’s just very special to me. 2) the magnus archives, which i got into because of the posts i saw circulating about it on here. i loved the vibe i got from the fandom, and i wasn’t disappointed. the memes and art they come up with are incredible. 3) stranger/secret forest, which is a pretty small fandom but i’ve been excited to get involved after watching both seasons earlier in the fall. in terms of fandom piquing my interest (as opposed to just the content itself) then probably the fourth would be 4) the nothing much to do/lovely little losers fandom or more largely the literary web series fandom. they’re mostly pretty quiet these days but there’s a small group of blogs still running and making content for these incredible literary adaptions and i just think it’s neat. (please come talk to me about nothing much to do and/or lovely little losers if you have any interest i have a lot to say lmao)

6. how has the pandemic been treating you? hhhhh, fine mostly? i have thankfully not been infected nor has anyone close to me but I’ve had to work at my preschool in-person and fever scares are... not fun. it’s just got this feeling of an under-lying threat the whole time which is more stressful than i think i even realize. we’re dealing with a second-wave and a lot of all-american-idiots who are insisting on celebrating the holidays with their families regardless and a government who will do ANYTHING to keep from locking down again even though that’s probably best right now. that and i am so fucking lonely. like all the time now. but it’s chill :)

7. a song you can’t stop listening to right now? Loxian Gate - Enya, it fucks but it’s also chill at the same time and it gives me a lil happiness boost that i really need.

8. recommend a movie Barbie Princess and the Pauper or! if you’re in a holiday mood, Barbie in the Nutcracker

9. how old are you? 23

10. school, university, occupation, other? i’m a teacher’s assistant at a small Montessori preschool

11. do you prefer heat or cold? cold. i definitely will complain about it but i 100% prefer it to heat.

12. name one fact others may not know about you uuum i didn’t go to college? idk that’s not very interesting to anyone who isn’t a boomer haha but that’s the best i can think of.

13. are you shy? oh yeah. i was working on improving my shyness/social anxiety before covid so it will be interesting to see what that looks like coming out on the other end

14. pronouns? she/her

15. biggest pet peeves weak tea/coffee, cheating storylines in tv shows/movies, and i definitely have to agree with you on the earbud cord getting stuck on things, that is an instant rage-inducer.

16. what is your favorite “-dere” type? i was seeing that no one knew what this was so i googled it! from what i gather it’s an anime personality type thing but there were big paragraphs describing each type and i can’t read so we’re not doing that.

17. rate your life from 1 to 10, 1 being crappy and 10 being the best it could be yeah, 7 seems quite solid. I don’t have any major or pressing complaints, I’m content for the most part and provided for. but definitely room for improvement.

18. what’s your main blog? this!

19. list your side blogs and what they’re used for @calebbrewster / turn blog @lavnderfields / embroidery, grandma/cottagecore, basically all the pretty aesthetic stuff that i like but wouldn’t post here. @peterpedropetrov / a ntmd/lolilo blog i made on impulse after pulling an all-nighter watching most of lovely little losers.

20. is there something people need to know about you before becoming friends? i am a terrible texter. if our relationship is mostly based in texting it’s gonna be hard for us to keep up. if it’s on social media that’s a little easier because i’ll make an effort to interact with content if we’re friends but pure texting between phone numbers? i’m apologizing in advance because i SUCK 

tagging @geraldmcgarry @margoblack @paddyfitz @msculper @paper-daisies (bc you’re a new mutual and i’d love to get to know you!) @gentlyphotographing and whoever else thinks this looks interesting and would like to fill it out! as always, only if you like!

[gaymy-raudenfeld]

Home is Where the Heart Is

I’m posting a little late, even by American standards, but I made it in time! A merry pitchmas to @snowbritt and all of you wonderful people. I haven’t posted any fanfic in a while so this may be a bit rusty.

Summary: When the Bellas find out they’ll be getting a house and sharing bedrooms, Beca tries to use the opportunity to get close to Chloe. When she doesn’t act fast enough, she spends the following months pining after Chloe and trying to find a chance to get close to her. Beca gets her wish in an unexpected way.

Rating: T

Word Count: 3.1k

“Dear Barden Bellas,

Due to your recent streak of wins at the ICCA finals, we have decided it is only fair to award you the way we have awarded our other prestigious acapella groups in the past. We have secured the funding and approval to build a lodging house for all current and future Bellas to reside in throughout their time at Barden University. The proposed blueprints are attached…”

Beca was cut off by the screaming. The girls couldn’t believe it. They had won back-to-back ICCA championships and now they were being given their very own building. They could finally practice outside Barden’s tiny black box theatre, free from the drama kids who kicked them out so they could rehearse and the motion lights that sometimes left them singing in the dark, like some kind of cult-

“Wait a minute,” Fat Amy interrupted everybody celebrating, “this floor plan only includes six bedrooms.”

“Well then I guess we’re gonna have to double up.” Cynthia Rose said, eyeing Stacie.

“I wanna be with Jessica.” “I wanna be with Ashley.” Ashley and Jessica said at the same time.

“And we have to save one room for the new Bellas.” Beca added. The girls began to talk amongst themselves again when Fat Amy quietly approached Beca.

“How about it, shortstack?” She said, leaning in. “I promise to give you ample warning about any gentleman callers I may have.”

“Yes… I mean no… I mean what?”

“This is like the third time I’ve caught you daydreaming today; you have GOT to tell me what is on your mind before you wander into traffic or something.”

“How is telling you gonna stop me from wandering into traffic?”

“It’s not, but I won’t be able to hear your gossip if you’re in a coma.”

Beca sighed and lowered her voice even further. “Listen, if I promise to give you more details later, will you be chill about letting me room with Chloe?”

“Chloe?” Fat Amy questioned. “She takes forever to get ready before every practice and recital, which YOU were complaining about just last week. Are you sure you’ll be able to deal with Chloe’s daily makeup routine when you’re sharing a bathroom?”

“It’s not that big of a deal, I could get used to it.” Beca shrugged.

“What’s going on?”

They were interrupted by Stacie calling everyone to attention. “Okay! So the room assignments are gonna be one free room for new recruits, Ashley & Jessica, Denise & Cynthia Rose, Fat Amy & Beca, me & Chloe, and… Lilly sleeps in a room by herself. We all good with that?” The Bellas voiced their agreement.

“Fuck.” Beca muttered to herself.

The girls began to scatter, some still chattering excitedly about the Bella House, which would be ready by the Fall semester. When almost everyone had cleared, Fat Amy turned back to Beca. “You wanna tell me what that was about?”

“I may have… developed a crush on a certain Bella.” Beca said, turning beet red.

“No way!” Fat Amy whisper-yelled. “Let me guess. Is it Stacie? Her legs are about as long as you are, so you get a good view.”

“It is NOT Stacie. Although you do have a good point about the view.”

“Well who is it then?”

Beca took in a deep breath, preparing to unload her secret. She breathed again, and as she exhaled, she said “Chloe.”

“Chloe?? Of course! The first time you met you were naked and it did something to you, psychologically.”

“It was the second time, and she just, wouldn’t leave my shower until I sang with her and I did and then I joined the Bellas and everything was totally fine.”

“And you JUST developed this crush?”

“It’s possible I was too traumatized by the event to understand my feelings until recently.”

“Yeah, or you’re just a clueless girl who fell in love with an even more clueless boy for like, eight months before you broke up because you realized you have feelings for a girl in your acapella group. Which, by the way, was bound to happen, with the amount of time the nine of us spend together.”

“Damn Amy, have you actually been paying attention in your psychology class?”

“Enough to know that you’ve got the hots for your redheaded best friend, and your life is only gonna get worse if you don’t tell her about it.”

“What do I even say?”

“That one’s on you, loverboy. Now, I gotta get out of here and meet a gentleman caller.”

Beca quirked an eyebrow. She was going to need to find a way to tell Chloe her feelings before the living arrangements were settled.

-

Beca did not find a way to tell Chloe her feelings before the living arrangements were settled.

Fall came in the blink of an eye and she found herself face-to-face with a slew of problems, including arranging new Bellas routines, her music theory professor who seemed to have it out for her, and the fact that she had a growing crush on her best friend and acapella group co-leader. Things were off to a great start.

The summer spent apart had only deepened Beca’s feelings, which was irritating. It didn’t help that she and Chloe spent a ton of time together choreographing dances for the competitions later in the year. Whenever the girls had to pair up, Chloe walked straight to Beca, grabbing her wrists with intention. Like she knew exactly what she was doing. Like she belonged there.

“Bec?” Chloe had clearly been trying to get Beca’s attention.

“Huh? What?” Beca’s train of thought was broken.

“Are you ready to show them the moves we came up with?”

Beca nodded eagerly, attempting to make up for spacing out earlier. “Yep. Totally. Let’s do this.”

Chloe started leading Beca around the makeshift rehearsal area they had created in the Bella House’s living room. They had to move the couches around and it wasn’t as big as Barden’s black box but at least it didn’t smell like feet. It was easier to focus on what was in front of her, which, at the moment, was a certain redhead.

Chloe smelled like clean laundry and cherry blossoms, a product of the showers that were much easier to take now that she didn’t have to use a communal bathroom built for thirty people. Chloe may take a while to get ready, but Stacie takes even longer, and sometimes Chloe walks down the hall to Beca and Amy’s room and borrows their shower. Their bathroom smells like vanilla and cherry blossoms for hours afterward, and it drives Beca nuts in the best way possible. She watched Chloe perform the new routine with confidence, poise, and accuracy, and she felt her breath hitch in her chest.

What she didn’t feel was the edge of the coffee table as she tripped and fell backward onto its hard surface, banging her head. After everyone’s initial shock had passed, they went to check on Beca to make sure she was okay.

“I’m fine.” Beca stated assuredly. “Really, the worst thing I hurt is my ego.”

“Your head sounded like a bowling ball hitting the floor” Lilly said, almost imperceptibly.

“BECA!” Fat Amy shouted. “CAN YOU SAY YOUR A-B-C’S BACKWARDS?” She was speaking more slowly than normal.

“You know I can hear you right?”

“And isn’t that supposed to be for sobriety tests?” Cynthia Rose asked.

While they had been chatting, Chloe had sat down next to Beca and helped her sit up. She had her hand on Beca’s back, propping her up just in case she felt dizzy.

“Are you okay?” Chloe asked concernedly.

“I’m fine,” Beca repeated, much softer this time, “really.”

Chloe was looking into Beca’s eyes, just checking her pupils. Such a clinical action, but Chloe made it seem so tender. She ran her hand up Beca’s neck to the back of her head, feeling for any irregularities. Beca felt chills run up her spine as Chloe rubbed her fingers across her scalp. She hoped she wasn’t being too obvious.

Chloe pulled back. “The bad news is you might have a small concussion. The good news is that lump on your head just may make you taller.”

“Ha-ha.” Beca fake laughed.

Stacie chimed in, “I had a concussion once and my doctor told me not to sleep. Wait. It was either my doctor or my mom. I don’t remember.”

“I think the best thing for Beca to do is to go lie down.” Cynthia Rose added.

“Does that have anything to do with you not wanting to practice the new routine?” Beca quipped from the table.

“If I carry you to your room can I not answer that question?” Cynthia Rose replied.

“Fair enough.”

Cynthia Rose crossed the living room to scoop Beca into her arms, and was about to lift her off the table when Fat Amy piped up. “Uh, um, Beca can’t stay in our room.”

“Why not?” Beca squinted at her roommate.

“Because… I’m going to have... a gentleman caller….. or two….. this evening.” She began to trail off near the end.

“Right on.” Stacie nodded in Fat Amy’s direction.

“Okay so where am I taking Beca to?” Cynthia Rose asked, still positioned to lift Beca.

“How about my room?” Chloe, who had been sitting quietly next to Beca for some time now finally rejoined the conversation.

Beca tried to be cool, looking at Stacie. “Is that alright?”

Stacie nodded. “Yeah, sure, I was planning on going out after this anyway.”

“Great, then it’s settled.” Cynthia Rose said. “I’m carrying Beca to Chloe’s room.”

-

They quickly discovered that Cynthia Rose couldn’t carry Beca up the stairs wedding-style. So it turned into Chloe and Cynthia Rose flanking Beca on each side in case she became dizzy after hitting her head.

“I feel like a fucking hospice patient.” Beca half-joked as they reached Chloe’s room and they helped her lie down on the bed.

“I got it from here, C. Rose thank you.” Chloe said, ushering her out and gently closing the door behind her. She turned off most of the lights in the room except for some string lights and a single lamp that emitted a soft pink glow.

“Wow, you went hardcore doctor out there.” Beca said a bit jokingly.

“This is like, my seventh year of school. If I can’t recognize a concussion when I see one I should just quit now and go back to clown camp with Aubrey.”

“Yeah I… I’m sorry BACK to clown camp?!?”

“It was a dark summer in middle school.”

“You owe me a story Beale.”

“I don’t owe you anything Mitchell.”

The two locked eyes from across the room and Beca felt her heart jump into her throat again. Good thing she was already lying down this time; nowhere to fall.

Beca relented. “How about an ice pack?”

Chloe nodded, a contented look crossing her face. “That I can do.”

She returned moments later with an ice pack, an extra blanket, and a box of chocolate chip cookies.

“Oh my God.” Beca stated when she saw the care package Chloe had assembled for her.

“I thought you might want the rest of these before they were devoured.” Chloe said, handing Beca the cookies.

Beca quickly opened the package and grabbed a cookie to chow down on. As she was popping the dessert into her mouth, she unthinkingly said “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Chloe said, perched on the side of her bed. She seemed more sincere than Beca was expecting. She awkwardly swallowed the large bite of cookie she had in her mouth in an attempt to change the topic as quickly as possible.

“So I’m concussed?” Beca asked, reaching for the blanket to put over her legs.

“Yep.” Chloe stated. “Couldn’t keep up with my choreo, huh?” She winked, handing Beca the ice pack. Beca didn’t want to talk about the real reason she injured herself: that she was too busy watching Chloe dance to pay attention to her own feet.

“You know I’m a notoriously bad dancer.”

“Is that why you always need my help during practice?”

“Yeah, if it wasn’t for you I would have done this like ten times already. I’m taking advantage of your veterinary health training.”

“Always good to be able to practice on someone who can give me feedback.”

“As long as you don’t shove a thermometer up my ass.”

“Well, Stacie IS gone for the rest of the night…”

“Watch it, Beale.”

The pair laughed for a second before settling into a comfortable silence. Chloe sat on the edge of the bed, tracing swirling patterns in her sheets. Beca looked around at the room she missed out on at the end of the last semester. It wasn’t all that different from her own; the only important difference was the girl she was in the room with.

When it became clear that Chloe wasn’t going to leave, Beca began to ask questions. “No plans tonight, huh? You’re not having a tinder-venture like Stacie or whatever the hell Amy is doing in our bedroom?”

Chloe chuckled. “No, nothing like that. I haven’t really gone out on a date in a while. Besides, I want to make sure you’re okay!” Chloe moved closer and fussed with Beca’s blanket.

“I appreciate the gesture, Chlo, but you’ve definitely got better things to be doing on a Friday night.” “Nothing more important than you.” Chloe looked up, meeting Beca’s eyes and offering a smile. Beca sheepishly looked away. Was that as serious as it sounded? Probably not, right?

“Do you mind if I…?” Chloe trailed off, motioning to her covers.

“Do I mind if you sleep in your own bed? No, not at all, just help me get over into Stacie’s bed.” Beca began to push herself up with her arms.

“You don’t have to move, actually.” Chloe said. Another surprise.

“Are you sure? It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Please, Beca. It’ll be easier. I’ll even let you be the little spoon.”

Beca scoffed. “What makes you think I want to be the little spoon?”

“Don’t you?”

Beca hesitated. “…….Fine.” She scooted over and allowed Chloe to slide in next to her. She could feel the warmth from Chloe’s body contrasting the ice pack she had been holding to her head.

“Is this good for concussions too?”

“Yep. Vet’s orders.” Chloe said as she settled in.

After a few minutes had passed, Beca spoke again.

“You know, I wanted this room really bad before we all moved in together.”

“Really? Aw Bec, you should have said something sooner. I’m sure Stacie and I would have been fine in your room-”

“It’s not really about the room. More like, the roommate.” Beca felt her stomach drop as she began to hint at her feelings for Chloe.

“Oh.” Chloe just said back.

Oh God. Oh fuck I’ve ruined everything I can’t believe I just came onto her like that-

”That’s really sweet of you Bec.”

Beca couldn’t believe it. The world was still intact, somehow. She inched backward into Chloe, and felt the redhead silently move closer to her at the same time. They fell asleep with their legs tangled, both tired from the long day.

-

The next morning Beca woke up early to a throbbing in the back of her head.

Ah, fuck. Beca thought to herself as she reached back to rub the tender part of her scalp, still half asleep. She was surprised to grab onto a face just behind her own.

“Good morning to you too.” Chloe said, muffled by Beca’s hand.

Beca turned over. “Shit. Sorry about that. What time is it?”

“Like… 8:30 on a Saturday. Are you late for morning yoga?”

“Fuck you.” Beca laughed and poked Chloe’s shoulder. “Ah man. I really stayed in here the whole night.”

“And you only snored a little bit.” Chloe joked, still lying down on the pillow.

“She’s feisty in the morning!” Beca retorted, eliciting a smile from Chloe. They were face to face now. Inches from each other. Beca watched the soft morning light filter in over Chloe’s face. Her hair was shining. She could see each fleck of gold in Chloe’s big blue eyes. Beca couldn’t help but think how beautiful she looked.

The moments passed by silently as the girls enjoyed the most intimate moment either of them had experienced in a long time.

“Beca?”

“Yeah Chloe?”

“Would you be okay if I kissed you right now?”

Beca didn’t even give herself time to think before blurting out “Yes.” And in an instant, Chloe’s mouth was on hers. The kisses were delicate and sleepy, but full of the spark that had been building between them since the first time they sang together. When they needed to pull away for air, Beca took a moment to marvel at what was happening. “Woah.” She said, a look of incredulity on her face. “Did Chloe Beale just kiss me?”

Chloe nodded and the biggest smile spread across her face. “Sure did, Beca Mitchell.”

Chloe dove back in for more kisses and Beca eagerly responded, only interrupted by Beca’s brief cries of pain when Chloe’s hand accidentally wandered to the bump on the back of her head.

-

That afternoon Beca made her way back down the hall to her bedroom so she could get ready for the day. She ran into Fat Amy eating a popsicle on her bed.

“Amy, you’ll never believe what happened this morning.” Beca began.

“Let me guess, you finally sealed the deal with ginger?”

“How did-“

“It was my plan all along Beca! Do you think it’s a coincidence that I kicked you out of the room last night?”

“I thought you were seeing someone. ones. whatever.”

“I lied so you could get into Chloe’s room and make some music with your mouths.”

“Amy!”

“I TOLD you I would always give you ample warning when I had any gentleman callers! Because I’m a decent roommate, Beca, and I’m even better because I got you hooked up with your ladycrush.”

“Was it your plan for me to get a concussion too?”

“Sometimes you just have to seize the moment.” Fat Amy said, swinging her popsicle around emphatically.

“Wait a minute. Aren’t those the ones I bought?” Beca said, nodding at the popsicle.

“Ah yeah. See. I may have taken the last one as a reward for being a fantastic matchmaker-slash-roommate. I figured helping you get with Chloe would outweigh my poor decisions.”

Beca rolled her eyes. “You’re lucky Chloe is so great, otherwise you would owe me a new box of popsicles.”

The End.

[royallyanxious]

What makes a good lava cake

Paring: Prinxiety 

Summary: Roman wants to make a breakfast for Virgil. It does not go well. 

Thank you @quietlypondering for the inspiration :)

Word count: 1470

Triggers: fluff all the way through, a crack fic

Ao3

Let’s get one thing straight - Roman didn’t make a mess in the kitchen. He called it: an artistic chaos in the cooking space. There was nothing wrong with that. The flour all over the place was the sign of his never-dying dedication. The fact that he had to go cry in the bathroom when the cake turned out weirdly heavy and oddly tough, was clearly the final proof that he didn’t lack an artistic flare. After all art required sweat (been there), tears (checked) and blood (one drop that was spilled when he cut the chocolate was enough).

But even the greatest artist, had their mentors.

Roman dialed the number. 

“Roman.” Logan never asked. He stated.

“Logan.” replied Roman through his teeth. He would not cry to Logan on the phone.

“The sound of your voice suggests that you have water in your eyes.” 

Well, shit.

“I also have a question.” Roman rolled his eyes, “Let’s say you’re preparing a lava cake for the love of your life-”

“Patton prefers lemon tarts but go on…” Logan cut swiftly.

“Lava cake.” repeated Roman, “Are you sure that the lava part is supposed to be liquidy? Or maybe the recipes by ‘lava’ refer to… molten-rock-kind-of-lava?”

There was a beat of silence.

"... I think you know the answer to this question Roman. I'm hanging up right now."

"No! Nononono!" Roman roared desperately, "Please… Help me… " he added meekly, making sure that Logan still didn't end the call. 

A long sigh resonated through the phone. Roman was pretty sure that he could feel disappointed vibrations on his own skin. 

"Roman, I would love to help you," started Logan, his voice’s a tad softer than earlier, "But you know what mum always told you. You are not a good fit for a cook. Why won't you write a poem where you shall compare Virgil to a cupcake, instead of actually making a cupcake?"

"But where would be romance in this?" Cried Roman helplessly, trying to break his second cake with the first cake. 

"Virgil, loves you as much as you love him, brother. He would be thrilled to get anything from you, believe me." Logan said cooly, "Now stop this madness, clean up the mess and let me sleep. It's 6 in the morning." he finished.

Beep...

"Wait, what- Logan?" Roman asked, staring intensely at the phone, "Logan wait, I don't even know how to make a perfect- ugh."

The sound that slipped through Roman's parted lips, reminded more of a war cry than a frustrated growl. Luckily his neighbours knew about his love for Game Of Thrones so in a worst case scenario they'd think he decided to make a morning marathon. 

Roman brushed Virgil's purple apron off the white flour that was currently covering it. Or was that sugar? Roman wasn't sure. Perhaps that was why the cakes turned out strange after all.

It was time to face the music. 

Cake was not a good idea. 

Luckily, Roman wasn't the type of person who gave up easily. He pulled off the apron and carefully put the "cakes" into the trash can (he was afraid that if he dropped them, he would break tiles). The key was to prepare food - no one said it had to be a cake. Besides, lava cakes were overrated. Virgil didn’t even have instagram to post a picture of a perfect chocolate goo. Yes, apparently the universe wanted Roman to prepare something easier, something more mundane, something like… What did Logan say?

It was 6 am, wasn’t it?

“Breakfast it is then!” smiled Roman to himself, completely oblivious to the sparks of madness that there brightening up his eyes. 

According to the article on wikipedia, it was impossible to mess up a breakfast (Roman would call it “mispreparing”, not “messing up”). Sure, for the past 2 years it was Virgil who was in charge of cooking, ever since he caught Roman trying to fry an egg in a toaster, but it was in the past and Roman learnt a lot since then. 

For example - he knew that he certainly needed a pan.

“Now is it a saucepan or frying pan…” he hummed happily, going through the content of the cupboards. “Is there even a difference…? It’s probably some american english and-or british english bullshit again,” Roman pondered, being completely wrong.

Finally he pulled out something that looked almost flat. He was pretty sure that the love of his life was usually using this silver shield to make his scrambled eggs. 

“Fantastic.” Roman praised himself, nodding to the pan. “The recipe suggests using one egg and butter. I assume that they don’t mean one whole butter…Hmm... ‘If you want to you can add a tomato but remember to’... Well, that seems a little bit over the top even for me.”

Carefully, not to burn himself, Roman put a spoon of butter on the pan. He stared at it for a moment, wondering vaguely why it hasn’t started melting yet. Then he turned on the burner. Pleased with the result (butter started melting!), he also turned on the oven just in case. He glanced at the clock. It was almost 7am.

“Great masterpieces take time.” he said out loud, hoping that the microwave agree. It didn’t but that was probably only because microwaves don’t talk. “It’s time for gran finale!”

Roman gently put the egg on his hand.

“You better not mess it up, mistress.” he mumbled to the egg, slowly raising the knife. He didn’t want his victim to see it coming. 

“I promise to make it quick.” he promised under his breath, before swiftly hitting the eggshell with a knife. It felt empowering, he could now understand why Virgil liked cooking so much. “And now… onto the pan…” 

One could think that there was no way someone would make a mistake at this point. But people are fools after all and some of them clearly haven’t heard of Roman. 

Step 1: Crack an egg.

Step 2: Try to put it onto the pan.

Step 3: Fail and miss the pan.

Step 4: Watch an egg hit the counter and then watch it slide on the floor.

Step 5: Remain in this position, asking why the world hates you.

If a look could cook, this egg would be fried to the bones with the way Roman stared at it. And if there was one thing he was proud of, it was the fact that there were no eggshells in this particular egg that was chilling on the floor. It however did mix with the flour that was there before.

Someone snickered and Roman turned around, almost losing his balance.

Sure enough, his boyfriend, Virgil - in his full morning glory, was standing in the door of the kitchen. He was also desperately trying to stop himself from laughing. His feet were bare and covered with white dust. He must have been standing there for a while now.

“H-hi, Virgil my dearest,” Roman stuttered, trying to ignore the crackling sound behind him. “I thought you are still asleep…”

“I woke up when I heard the fire alarm. It’s pretty loud,” explained Virgil, sporting the you-are-a-dumbass smile.

“Ah, haha. Well, it is pretty loud, isn’t it?” Roman scratched the back of his head, shooting the but-I-am-your-dumbass smile.

Virgil inhaled deeply, trying hard not to wrinkle his nose, “So… are you going to turn off that burner, Ro? Because I’d prefer not to eat the burnt butter from this wok?”

“Wo-who?” repeated Roman, his eyes widening.

“A wok. Also known as a wok pan.” explained Virgil, leaning against the counter to grab some towels, “A pan suited for Asian cuisine,” he added smirking.

“...”

“Go ahead, you can ask, Roman” beamed Virgil. He looked incredibly pleased with himself.

Roman sighed. God damn Virgil and his angelic-verging-on-mischievous smile.

“You don’t make scrambled eggs on a wok pan, do you?” he asked, knowing already what the answer was.

“Nope,” Virgil grinned and quickly pecked Roman’s lips, “But I do appreciate you trying, Ro. Although… maybe next time try to write a poem about breakfast instead of making one, what do you think?”

“But where would be romance in that?” groaned Roman softly, fixing his eyes on Virgil’s feet. He had a strange feeling of deja vu. 

Lean, slim fingers gripped on Roman’s chin, forcing him to look up.

Roman always thought that Virgil had the most beautiful eyes on earth.

“What do you mean by ‘where’s the romance’?” Virgil tilted his head cutely, “‘Roman’ is right in front of me and the ‘ce’ part is simply overrated.” he smiled, making it impossible for Roman not to lean closer and close the gap between their lips.

“Happy anniversary, Virgil.” he mumbled into a kiss, feeling the curl of Virgil’s lips against his own.

“Happy anniv, Ro.”

The end.

General taglist:

@depressed-alone​​ ​ @changeling-ash​​ @dear-lover-dearest​ @ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2​​ @calmingthoughtsinyourhead​ @zo-geeky​​ @fandomfreak-19​​ @thegnatnat​​ @inha-led​​ @tree4life25​​ @panic-at-theeverywhere​​ @reallyanextrovertipromise  @shit-happens-bitchachos@pastel-patton123​​ @pinkeasteregg​​ @greymane902​​ @princeyssash​​ @ilovemyspoopydad​​ @musicphanpie-b​​ @all-these-trees-stealing-mah-o2 @birosezz​ @winged-outlaw @anxious-fander-talian-bean​ @lizaelsparrow @moonstonefox12 @pastelnerd101  somecrappyclonemysticalstrawberryface @ninjago2020​  donteatmyassghostie toriwithacamera moxiety–sanders101 confinesofpersonalknowledge xxladystarlightxx wheeitsvee a-very-optimistic-realist narniasfinestavengingsociopath  thequeensqueer allycat31415 rileys-main-blog-spotroman-is-a-dramatic-prince virgil-my-diamond justanotherproblem faacethefacts  beautifully-terribly logical-but-anxious queen-of-all-things-snuggly seabellart   @generalfandomfabulousness lostin—translation  knine-nights  @poisonedapples @talhaddelpla @punk-and-flowers @quietlypondering @milomeepit 0joodles0  grape-soda-city-kid sanders-sides-stuff lonelysoul43 imtooaromaticforthis @xxxbladeangelxxx

[niuniente]

@writers-block-help-everything​ wanted to have a master post of my current library collection, so here you go, with photos so the books will be easier to find if any of you wants to read/buy them:

1. Spellbound; Magic, Ritual and Witchcraft (Ashmolean Museum, England); Basic book of spells, witchcraft and different rituals in history. Lots of pictures!

2. A History of Medieval Christianity; Prophesy and Order ( Jeffrey Burton Russell & Doughlas W. Lumsden)

3. The Complete Book of Devils and Demons (Dr. Leonard R. N. Ashley). A good beginner book with lots of simple information from here and there if you want to study devilish monsters throughout the globe. 

4. Witchcraft in the Middle Ages (Jeffrey Burton Russell)

5. The Prince of Darkness (Jeffrey Burton Russell) This books contains all basic information of 4 earlier books from Jeffrey Burton Russell about the Devil. 

5. Satan - The Early Christian Tradition (Jeffrey Burton Russell) A book of how early Christian traditions saw the evil and the God in the world,

6. Lucifer - The Devil In The Middle Ages (Jeffrey Burton Russell) A book of how medieval church and different heretic views saw the evil, the Devil and The God. Goes actually all to way to romantic era and covers a bit also Islamic views of the evil. My fave books.

7. The Devil - Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (Jeffrey  Burton Russell) How non-Christian religions and early Christians saw the Devil and the God

1. Medieval Punishments - The Illustrated History of Torture (William Andrews). This book was published in late 19th century, and it covers ONLY medieval English punishments. It’s not so much about torture than about criminal convictions. Super easy to read and very interesting! Is definitely not as horrible as it sounds by the title.

2. The Secret History of Lucifer (Lynn Picknett). This is more of an occult book to me than history book, but it covers historical religious views of Lucifer. It’s more like one woman’s manifest I think?

3. Witchcraft - Demons, Folklore and Superstition (Lois Martin). VERY basic notebook sized book of the subject.

4. The Witch-hunt in the Early Modern Europe (Brian P. Levack)

5. History of the Devil (Gerald Messadié)

6. Male Witched in Early Modern Europe (Lara Apps & Andrew Gow)

7.  The Witch - A History of Fear from Ancient Times to the Present (Ronald Hutton) This book cover witches from all around the world, so it is very throughout book. Ronald Hutton is one of the leading experts of the history of witchcraft.

8. The Werewolf - Montague Summers. This book covers history of werewolves. Unfortunately, it is very hard to read and the author HAS NOT translated any sources to English. If the source is in Latin, it is in Latin in the book too. Like “Pope XXXNJN 3 said; Latinlatinlatinlatinlatinlatin; and he was absolutely right, as German pastor YYYUT added 5 years later; Germangermangermangerman”.

9. Life in the Medieval City (Frances Gies & Josept Gies)

Then, some obscure monster and paranormal books!

1. The Beast of Bray Road - Tailing Wisconsin’s Werewolf (Linda S. Godfrey) A book covering the famous Bray road Dogman sighting in early 90′s and how things proceed. Linda was a reporter in the area when the incident happen and it started her 25 years long career as a dogman researcher. She’s the world’s leading dogman specialist now.

2. The Michigan Dogman - Werewolves and Other Unknown Canines Across the USA (Linda S. Godfrey) This book contains from cover to cover eyewitness testimonials of Dogmen and other upright walking canines in the USA.

3. Real Wolfmen - True Encounters in Modern America (Linda S. Godfrey) Another super exciting book from Linda covering from cover to cover eyewitness testimonials of Dogmen and other upright walking canines in the USA.

4. American Monsters - A History of Monster Lore, Legend and Sightings in America (Linda S. Godfrey). This book has different short sections for different cryptids in America, together with eyewitness testimonials of said cryptids.

5. The Art of Psychic Protection (Judy Hall) This is a literal handbook how to protect yourself from different energies, people and spirit when you work with spiritual things and encounter spirits.

6. Black Eyed Children (David Weatherly) Black eyed children are a fairly new and rarely encountered cryptid/spirit type, but they are super chilling. They randomly appear and ask to get inside cars, houses, buildings, really trying to coo people to allow them to get inside. This book contains eyewitness cases of these kids with black eyes. I have yet to determine myself what these kids are. My assumption is a demonic entity based on the eyewitnesses’ stories.

7. Poltergeist Over Scotland (Geoff Holder) Recorded poltergeist cases from Scotland.

8. An Exorcist Explains the Demonic (Fr. Gabriele Amorth). This is a personal view of demonic activity and exorcism written by world’s leading Catholic exorcist Father Amorth. This is thus 100% purely Catholic view only. Not what I personally share with Father Amorth but I wanted to understand Catholic’s point of the view of the phenomena.

9. Our Occulted History - Do the Global Elite Conceal Ancient Aliens? (Jim Marrs). I’m not a fan of conspiracy theories. I like to study them occasionally as they are super great source for inspiration and story setting, right? Now, ancient aliens theory has been a favorite of mine since I stumbled upon Erich von Däniken’s books about them when I was 14  (I have 3 of his books) Many spiritual books talk about the same subject, so I do fall into the category of believers, even when I didn’t swallow every single case and evidence. Marss was one of the leading conspiracy theory spoke persons, especially about aliens, so I’m curious to read about his thoughts.

Under read more are Finnish books:

1. Malleus Maleficarum’s Finnish edition.|  2. Suomen pyövelit / Executioners in Finland  | 3. Keskiajan pyövelit / Executioners in Middle-Age  | 4. Noitaäiti / The Witch Mother; A real life case of a Finnish woman who moved to Stockholm, Sweden, as was burned on a stake as a witch during the Witch Craze | 5. Pohjoisen Noidat / The Witched of North; witch hunt and its convictions and legal issues in Sweden-Finland during the Witch Craze | 6. Karjalan räyhähenget / Karelian Poltergeists; Cases of reported poltergeists and beliefs of demons, witches and the devil in South-West Finland (Karelia) area and in East-Finland in 19th century | 7. Paha silmä / Evil Eye; the belief of malicious intentions and powers and protection against them in Finnish culture.

1. Johdatus keskiajan teologiaan / Introduction of Medieval Theology | 2. Suomalaisen kuoleman historia / History of Dying in Finland; belief systems and traditions of death, dying and afterlife in Finnish culture | 3. Musta-Maija ja Kirppu-Kaisa / Black Maija and Flea Kaisa; prostitution and life of a prostitute in 19th century Finland | 4. Kissojen maailmanhistoria / The World History of Cats | 5. Rutto / Plague; the history of plague | 6. Ihmesatujen historya / The History of Wonderful Fairytales; where do fairytales come from and their importance and meaning for societies | 7. Auringonjumalattaren tyttäret / The Daughter of The Sun Goddess; the history of women in Japanese culture.