#i cannot stress enough that i was made for the ocean and the mountains and i was NOT made for uni

[mondayrobot]

120-Day Fanfiction List (M)

A collection of my recommended Eren/Mikasa fanfictions for the first one-hundred and twenty days of the year.

Warning: The contents contain adult themes.

Rating: Mature

A Prompt for a Romp by Timid Mew

A bunch of short stories compressed together in one big pile. All of which are EreMika and AruAni.

Across Realities by BladeOfRain

Eren stands on Paradis Island as its saviour. Yet he could not help but question if the sacrifices he had made were worth it. They were free, but his demons still haunted him. He was ready to let go, but a second chance sparked hope inside him, hope that he had not felt for a long time. In this new reality, he strives to protect those he had lost and protect the future of Paradis.

After It's All Done by somecatastrophe

In another life, there was no one waiting on the other side of the sea. Thus Eren Jaeger and Mikasa Ackerman get to live the peaceful and domestic life they always wanted.

Came Out Swinging by fevversinherhair

Nine months ago, Eren Jaeger and Mikasa Ackerman fought for the first time. Eren pursues his MMA career, Mikasa goes off to college. When his first big amateur match brings them back together, old memories and new feelings muddle the issue.

Encounters by rainycliff213

Mikasa had not expected to find a creature like him, supposedly extinct for millennia, wandering in the same woods as her. The monsters had for centuries terrorized humanity, and it seemed she was the next victim.

Yet, after her escape, it seemed that neither the princess nor the monster could shake their encounter.

fide et amor by hellsiren @zoldyckvevo

drabbles. Eren, Mikasa, and a different kind of love.

Four Years by Kaekiro @kaekiro

A collection of drabbles that center around Eren and Mikasa's life after running away together.

Hearts afire by Sharinganblossoms

Collection of eremika snippets exploring the spectrum from canonverse to AU.

In another life by Sharinganblossoms

In a world without walls and burden and dreadful fate their paths collide once again.

Matrimony by waddlestreet

A marriage of convenience between Azumabito Princess, Mikasa Ackerman and General of Eldian army, Eren Jaeger.

My Mind Turns Your Life Into Folklore by ygrittewildthing @ackermanstyle

Historia Reiss could not have approached Mikasa Ackerman with the idea of joining a band at a better time. After a falling out with Armin Arlert and Eren Jaeger, Mikasa decides to take her up on her offer joining alongside Ymir Langnar (bassist), Sasha Blouse (drummer), and Annie Leonhart (guitarist). With their new keyboard player and lyricist, they set off on a journey that takes them away from their hometown. After winning the battle of the bands, they scored a record deal. As they set out to record their first album, their past begins to catch up to them.

my most beloved by misswongs

Within the false reality he's created, in a cabin that encompasses all of the selfish desires he'll never have, Eren makes sure Mikasa is happy. She’s here, and for a quiet, fleeting eternity, she’s his.

Mysterium by dialectus @dialectus

She sees him change, he sees her grow. After discovering a piece of the world to call their own, two troubled souls find solace in each other

Never again by iliankasmoulinka91 @ili-akkaman

On the verge of death, they both regret what could have been but was never. But there is always an afterlife.

Oath by StormyInk

She didn't want to leave Eren but her past had caught up with her and she refused to let those shadowy fingers reach him, refusing to keep putting him in danger, even if it meant tearing herself out of his life. "Are you coming?" Levi asked her & she looked away from the boy who'd saved her life all those years ago. It was time to keep the oath she'd made. "Yes. I am."

On a Beautiful Mountainside, I Love You by sentimentalblue @isayamasideblog

How easy it was to run. Runaways. That’s what they are.

Sight Beyond Sight by Timid Mew

Mikasa ponders over the loss of her sight, making her feel isolated and detached. Eren, however, quickly shows her that even though she's lost the use of her eyes, she still has him.

Somewhere Impossible and Lovely by rainycliff213

Could they escape it all, if they ran away? Would a life in peace be worth it?

Stress Relief by Pepin-Bones

Soldiers lead stressful lives, which means they need ways to unwind and cope with the stress of what they see and what they do - sometimes in unconventional ways. But Eren thinks it's ridiculous, or at least he did...

Teenagers by theothardus

In a world of no Titans, they would be normal, and normal teenagers might snuggle up, and Mikasa might be the one to make the first move.

The Journey by adieemus

Running away to the edge of the world with her lover, makes a soldier wonder how to get back living in her own body, after holding another in her arms for one night.

The Life I Wished For You by Timid Mew

Eren never expected to find a woman tucked away in the dark depths of a deep cave when finding shelter from the rain. He also never expected her to be a mythical creature only depicted in books.

the way home by bacondestiny @@inbothourhandsgloria

Eren crosses the ocean on the backs of his Colossals.

They can swim; he cannot. This body is too huge, too dense. He has arms but they’re useless. He has legs but they drag after him. He scuttles along the ground on his hundreds of protruding ribs. He feels them puncture the soil, the sand. Rocks scrape against the exposed bone, and when he stands on the blisteringly hot exposed muscle of his Titans, the water steaming up around, it would be enough to char if it weren’t for his healing. He’s kept on the brink of burning, unable to let the heat kill his nerves.

It hurts.

But it only lasts a few hours.

And while the steam still burns, while the pressure on the points of his ribs is odd and painful, now, it is time for others to hurt —

—“Mikasa,” Eren says, shaking her awake. “Mikasa, wake up.”

this love we share by MintToy @minttoy

She loves him and he loves her back. On the surface, it seems easy, but she knows in some dark crevice of her mind, that even though love is selfish – escaping to these mountains was selfish – it is also good.

Her source of strength. The root of his humanity.

Time will come when it will teach her to grow, too.

Through Thick and Thin by Moonstars (Flamingo27)

Eren is a university student with a bright future ahead in the field of medicine, very much like his father. At the same time, Mikasa is a student in the same university, specifically in the nursing school. Just like the green-eyed boy, she is very much considered a genius in her department. When the two met, they fell in love and it was widely known in the university for both of the students had a promising future in their respective fields.

However, a sudden revelation had shattered both of their future plans: Mikasa’s unexpected pregnancy.

Till Death Do Us Apart by misswongs

Through the confined expansions of the wood that it's made of, through the grass, the trees, the birds soaring in the skies, they feel each other. They exist for one another, holding on to whatever is left of their fragmented bodies and withered souls—for everyone will be bone and ashes soon but they're still here, still flesh and blood, still alive.

Still alive.

And for now, just for now, it's enough.

we'll never be those kids again (but we can try) by rilakkuma5 @uhhstar

She had hoped this would happen differently. In an ideal world, it would have. They’d have been blushing and fumbling. Awkward laughter. Unsure hands. Soft kisses. All of it. In an ideal world, this would have played out like her fantasies—tender and loving.

But the world is ending. For the umpteenth time. She’s lost count.

What Ifs by qeen124

"I love you, Eren."

She gasped as soon as the words came out of her mouth. There was a sense of relief, followed by a wave of panic. She kept her eyes fixed on the ground. Suddenly, she saw his shoes step closer to hers, and felt his fingers lift her chin up, allowing her dark eyes to settle into his.

He didn't speak a word but what he did next was more than enough as a response.

Your one and only Dark Knight by kuchenackerman @kuchenackerman

In the daytime I’m Eren. Just a normal boy with a normal boring life. But there’s something about me that no one knows yet. Emphasis on yet. ‘Cause I have a secret. No, but seriously, can I at least tell her? It's so unfair...

You can also check out: 2020 Eremika Fanfiction Masterlist

[cvanheergeog2260]

Serving Kiribati

“All nations have to make sacrifices in order to address the issue of climate change” Anote Tong, Kiribati President

Kiribati will be destroyed. The Pacific Island nation made up of 33 islands is in danger due to climate change. This is not a “at risk” scenario, some areas have already been destroyed/contaminated with sea water. I cannot stress enough how urgent this problem is, because we have already seen irreversible damage to both the physical coastline and to the nation's population. 

It is simple physics that the water from melting ice caps and glaciers in the mountains eventually ends up in the ocean. Which means that the sea level rises. Since 40% of the human population lives within 100km of a coastline, one would expect there to be a sense of urgency to address the problem. 

Addressing this problem is something that the people of Kiribati have been dealing with for quite some time. These are people we are talking about, not data points or numbers in a report, people with families and homes that want a future for their children. Through a combination of sea walls and mangrove trees, the inhabitants of these islands have attempted to defend their coastline from the ever encroaching ocean. Sea walls break, mangroves have to grow, resources run out, and hope sometimes seems futile. Kiribati is not a superpower, yet it has done everything it can on its own to combat the consequences of climate change. The global community has to do the right thing and assist the Kiribati government and its people in securing a future for this island nation. If this does not happen then the myth of Atlantis will soon have an updated name and over a one hundred thousand people are going to need a new home. 

It is difficult to take an objective approach to research this issue due to the immediate impact these issues have on the people of Kiribati. This discussion is filled with personal testimony and heart wrenching stories of how people have had to deal with the inevitability of total destruction. So as researchers we have to have a certain level of reflexivity. This means that the research has to be scrutinized so as to avoid the data being contaminated by the social context of the situation. There are a plethora of solutions that can be implemented to save this nation, and some of these solutions already dot the coastline (clumps of mangroves, seawalls, emigrated families). The point of researching this is to provide Kiribati with possible solutions, therefore it is imperative that the data obtained is as accurate as possible and that the solutions do everything they can to tackle the problem.

References:

Al Jazeera (Producer). (2014, December 8). Kiribati: The Sinking Islands Being Destroyed By Climate Change | AJ+ Docs [Video file]. Retrieved January 21, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9P7jXveokDY

Hay, Iain. Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography. Fourth ed., Oxford, 2016

[crazycephalopoda]

Grief

My father died February 11th, 2021. That, in and of itself, is a weird sentence for me to write. To acknowledge. To me, the reality of this situation that I find myself in has not quite sunk in. I feel it in waves, rocking me like a boat beating against a storm. There are times when the boat has a leak and I scramble on deck to patch it together, desperately holding my hands over the holes while water rushes in. There are times where other boats come near to try and salvage my wreckage, but the captain goes down with their own ship and whatnot. I have always been one for bad metaphors. Amidst all of this, there are times of calm and quiet waters as well, where the ocean seems endless and empty. My father is dead. He is gone. He will not come back.

I check my Facebook messenger and look at his icon to see if he is there or not. He is not. He will not be ever again. I feel a lump forming in my throat. I scroll through the messages we have shared for the past several years and question every conversation. Did I contact him enough? Why didn’t I respond to that one message he sent? Was I too short with him? Did he know that I loved him? I look back and analyze every photo he was in. Why did I make that face? Why didn’t I take more photos with him? Did he know that I loved him? Why didn’t I show that I loved him more? Why didn’t I? Why didn’t I? Why didn’t I?

Attempting to live my life normally is a joke, and a bad one at that. Everything reminds me of him and the memories we made while growing up. I had malt o meal for breakfast. I cried. He loved malt o meal, with a large amount of sugar and a small amount of milk. Just enough that it was “liquid but not runny” like he said. I remember just two weeks ago when he had eaten only one bite of malt o meal and turned it away due to being nauseous. I thoughtlessly plopped the spoon in my mouth. We all laughed at the realization that he had just had chemo and we were not supposed to swap bodily fluids due to the poisonous chemicals. It was not funny. It was. God, I hate malt o meal. Why did he like this stuff?

--------------------------------------------------------

When my eyes are closed, I see the same scenes playing out in my head that have resided there for the past several weeks. They plague my sleep and leave me restless. He had always had a cheery and rounded face, but those final weeks his eyes sunk in between mountains of cheekbones and gaunt skin. His mouth hangs open like he cannot get enough oxygen for all the air in the room. Maybe he wants to speak. But he doesn’t. He is silent at the end, except when in pain. His eyes are also open, halfway and drooping. His eyes are open, and he is searching but he is not seeing me. At one point, when he could still speak, he mutters about bugs crawling on the walls and a girl on the ceiling. We joke about how scary that sounds to make it less uncomfortable. Could he see us there, beside him?  

Curly hair was his best feature, he always said. People from all over complimented him on his natural hair all the time. We had a hairdresser once who fawned over it. He acted embarrassed but I think he liked the attention. Those same locks of hair now lay disheveled and unkempt around him like a halo. My mother sprays them with water and tries to keep them clean. I was glad, at least, the one chemo treatment had not stolen that from him. We cut a lock of hair to keep. It is the only thing of his person that will not face or be burned when he is cremated. What would he think of that?

My mother and I are caregiver to him, and we drain fluid from his chest as it builds up to an unbearable amount. At first it is an alien procedure to me, with a series of steps and protocols and cleaning routines. Put on two sets of gloves, touching only the wrist. Clean the cap with an alcohol swab. Make sure the clamp is fastened before you attach the bag below. Don’t drain too much or his blood pressure will drop, and you will kill him even faster than the cancer. After a few times, it is normal and just another thing we do to help him. Towards the end, it is tinged red. So is his urine. So is everything else. He stirs at one point in his confusion and tells me “I’ve leaked, I see red everywhere”.  There was none, he was hallucinating. At least that time. Is he in pain?

Our fingers intertwine periodically when I sit beside him. When he was still conscious, he would occasionally reach out for whoever was closest. This was the smallest of comforts we could offer him. He always liked to sleep with his arms above his head, but the atrophied muscles would not allow this for him. We moved him into position like a broken marionette throughout the day. His hands are placed on his chest after he passed. They were so yellow, cold, and frail. There was no strength left in his ragged fingers. I held one of his hands in mine and I took a photo. The yellow skin glares at me like the sun and I squint, suddenly nauseous. I change the photo to black and white. As I stare at that photo now, it seems morbid to me but at the time gave me something to keep of him. What will it be like to never touch him again?

The sounds amplify the hell I experience. After his first round of chemo, he was awake and aware of us for two days. During that time, we made mostly small talk. He was quiet and introspective. At one point, I sat across from him and worked on readings assigned from my graduate school classes. He broke the silence to say he was proud of me. I told him that I was sad he would not see me graduate. He was the reason, after all, I had pursued this path. This is the only time I saw him cry in front of me. We held each other and I listened to his heartbeat in his chest while he told me that regardless of his death, he would be there for me. I realize now that I never asked him things like what his favorite color was, which tv shows he liked now, what hobbies he wished he had done when he had the time. As he is in and out of sleep, my mother and sister tell him “it’s okay, you don’t have to fight, let go”. I cannot speak these words. I do not want to. On his last day, I had exhausted myself to the point I needed to rest. My head had barely hit the pillow before I hear a sound across the vast distance of the house that raised the hairs on my arm. It’s someone in pain. I rush back to his bedside as his head turns this way and that. His mouth now opens only to say “help” in a strangled, garbled voice. He is soothed with morphine until his whimpering subsides. That was the last thing he spoke to us. I never really said “goodbye” to him. Was there more I should have said?

For weeks I sat beside his bed at night and watched over him while the hum of his breathing machine aligned with the nervous fluttering of my heart. His gasping breaths... In for a few seconds, quickly out, then held for an eternity, then in again. Every pause between his breathing caused me to hold my air in my throat. Every pause could have been the last one, but it wasn’t. Until it was. My mother calls out to us, after he expressed pain, and we gather around his bedside. My sister, my mother, my grandmother, and me. My mother holds his hands and weeps. His breathing is different, not the beat I have grown accustomed to. It is quick, jagged, and quiet. At some point, it stops. There is an eerie silence, followed by the sounds a body releases shortly after death. It startles me, and an undeniable signal of the horrible event that has just unfolded in front of us. I can’t believe it. I reach over to his throat to feel a pulse. There isn’t one. I dry heave into the trash can nearby before I break the silence with a loud scream. As I browse Facebook now, I wonder how I can hear him again. Are there videos of him speaking? Why didn’t I record any videos of him speaking? Is his voicemail still on his phone? I am scared to call it. Why am I scared to call it?

--------------------------------------------------------

Reliving these events, the weight now completely crushes my chest. It caves in my ribcage, plows through my heart, and drops me somewhere against the cold of the floor below. I am paralyzed in this position, barely breathing. I am scared. If I am too loud, if I cry, if I talk, I am acknowledging this new reality I am forced to live in. I don’t want to live it. I don’t want to be a part of it. I reject this world, body and soul. I am scared. Frantically, my mind races to those who are still present. I have not spent enough time with them. I have not said all the things I wanted, asked them what their favorite color is, or recorded enough photos and videos. When will I lose someone else? How will I lose them? I am scared. My breath begins to catch in my chest, and I feel the room shrink around me. I will never hear him again. I will never see him again. I will never touch him again. I will never play Fallout (which he loved) with him or watch Alien Covenant (which he hated) with him again. I will never be able to fall into his arms and cry about something stressing me out again. I will never hear him tell me he is proud of me again. I will never see him smile after he tells a bad joke again. My father is dead. How do I grieve this loss?

[gottagobuycheese]

Tag Thingy

Thanks @silent--sonata for indulging my terrible sleeping habits XD

(fyi this will probably be unnecessarily long and rambly, so it’s going under a cut (EDIT: whelp the song list got a little out of hand, I’d apologize if I were even remotely sorry)) 

Rules: Answer 17 questions & tag 17 people you want to get to know better  

Nickname: Cheese (or Lactose Wedge, or Dairy Product of Unspecified Origin and Purpose)

Zodiac Sign: Gemini! 

Height: 160.5 cm/5′3″ (Bubbles I refuse to believe you’re actually that much taller than me) 

Hogwarts house: Somewhere between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff allegedly, both of which I’d be honored to get sorted into, but honestly I’d just be stoked to get sorted at all 

Last thing I googled: I think it was something along the lines of “how to speed up audio playback in GarageBand,” but but my train of thought was derailed before I actually looked at any of the results so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (and on a related note, thanks again for the magical audio editing @imperiousheiress!)

Song stuck in my head: The end credits to Legacy of the Wizard (which is SUCH a jam, thank you for enlightening me @jessicafish) Following and followers: 227 (goodness just looking at that number is stress-inducing) and...104?! When the HECK did you all get here??? I think just last summer I was happily floating about in the 50′s. Anyways, to anyone I have not said hello, hello! Hope you enjoy your stay, and I am sincerely sorry if you expected Quality Original Content, or even just regularly scheduled other people’s content. Sadly, neither of these things tend to happen here. 

Amount I sleep: During the school year it’s usually anywhere between 30 minutes and 6 hours (DON’T EVEN START BUBBLES YOU HAVE NO RIGHT), usually landing in the 3/4 hour ranges if I’m smart about it, but now that I am on Unofficial Break, it’s usually at least around 6 hours (except today was 3 because Avatar is an excellent show and the weirdos in this house have regularly scheduled breakfast at 9-something every morning). Sadly my sleep schedule can only be forced to tolerate normalcy for so long before careening back in the other direction, so we’ll see if this is just a blip or if we’re back to normal mid-Atlantic Ocean hours!

Lucky number(s): I wouldn’t say these are necessarily favorite numbers, but I do like 2 and 9. But come to think of it, second attempts at Official Things do tend to go better for me than first attempts, so maybe there’s some merit there after all! Dream Job: Don’t think I’m really cut out for dreaming anymore, haha (unless you are a theoretical future employer in which case I am Extremely Full of Ambition and Passion). The bed-adjacent metaphor has been made, and not to brag, but I can sleep on pretty much any surface. Currently studying my Not Favorite aspect of STEM (was there ever a favorite or did I just like being good at things sometimes) and learning how to People™ properly (and also learning a gazillion convoluted drug names like what the heck dude, did you just fall asleep on your typewriter coming up with these), so I’ll take whatever place hires me and pays me enough not to depend on my parents for everything, I suppose. In an ideal world, that would entail a job where I could make friends, and even more importantly, a job where my shortcomings would not cause Massive and Irreparable Harm, but I don’t think this line of work really meshes with that last one, so I guess I’ll either have to get my shit together™ extremely soon or fake my death, adopt an alias, and flee to a completely new place with no ties whatsoever before trying to get another, less high stakes job. 

(Though I guess, less cynically, I like helping people well enough? And stories are fun! Maybe there could’ve been something with that. Not that there still can’t be, mind, but there’s still a long way to go between Here and There)

Wearing: Black shorts. Navy t-shirt. Brown some-specific-kind-of-jacket-I-forgot-the-name-of jacket. Is it summer? Is it fall? Am I in middle school? Who can say, but they are COMFY so sadly I have no cares to give

Favourite song(s): way way WAY too many to list here, and I do not have them all organized in a handy playlist separately, but to name a few (and these are not necessarily the MOST favorite okay, it doesn’t mean I don’t love stuff not on this list, it means you can’t force me to pick between my children and I am going to find at least one quick thing from a few things I like before I need to hit post and go back to looking like I’m being studious, and also things I think you should listen to right now, but for everything I’ve linked assuming I mean the whole OST), here’s a spam of links in no particular order: 

LoZ Wind Waker - The Great Sea (aka the epitome of optimism) 

Undertale - NGAHHH!! (I was about to link more but then I realized it’d be the whole soundtrack lol) 

LoZ Breath of the Wild - Hateno Village (Night) 

A:tLA - Peace (bad call BAD CALL NOW I HAVE EMOTIONS) 

Legend of Korra - Final Scene/Ending Theme (MISTAKES WERE MADE MISTAKES WERE MADE) 

Kung Fu Panda - Oogway Ascends (I feel like I’m taking you on a whole little album journey now XD) 

PMD: Explorers of Sky - Dialga’s Fight to the Finish (aka the Gotta Shower Fast song) 

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Pursuit ~ Cornered (aka the HURRY UP AND PACK UR SHIT YOUR FLIGHT LEAVES IN THREE HOURS song) 

Apollo Justice: A New Trial Is In Session (very underrated soundtrack imo) and also Apollo Justice: Telling the Truth (because these two are very closely associated in my head and it’s getting harder and harder to narrow things down so maybe I should stop lol) 

Your Name: Katawaredoki (in which I am forcibly thrown heart first into the bedroom of my second apartment at approximately 12-something A.M.) 

Digimon Adventure 01: Butterfly (MASSIVE 90′s childhood anime feels, and also Last Summer Before Everything Went to Shit feels (on a general scale I mean, not personal)) 

Pokémon: Lugia’s Song multitrack cover by Jordan Moore (would that I could have a talent of that musical talent) 

Pokémon the First Movie: Tears of Life (great now I’m on a Pokémon music spiral GUESS IT’S CHILDHOOD NOSTALGIA HOURS NOW) 

PMD: Blue Rescue Team - Farewell and Run Away/Fugitives (you CANNOT make me choose between these guys okay, my brain WILL explode, and whoops now I want to link the whole ost) 

Palette by A Dear Friend (wink wonk) 

Pokémon: Alpha Sapphire - Fortree City (wow talk about mood whiplash)

Detective Conan: Main Theme (I can’t find the specific version since there are so many, but it’s a Good Theme) 

Super Smash Bros.: Brawl - Opening Theme 

Pokémon Colosseum - Relic Forest 

Song for Lindsay by Andrew Boysen Jr. (oh great now it’s time for marching band feelings I guess)

Mt. Everest by Rossano Galante 

Deltarune - Field of Hopes and Dreams and A Town Called Hometown (orchestrated) (aka the Lots of Work To Do song) and You Can Always Come Home and Don’t Forget (hey guess what I wrote a bunch of fake extra verses for) (also it looks my pathetic attempts at narrowing things down are getting even more pathetic so I’ll wrap up soon XD) 

 Guild Wars 2 - Fear Not This Night (never actually played this myself but my friend got me addicted to the music) 

Lord of the Rings - May It Be (Enya) (aaaand now I miss choir, THANKS BUBBLES) 

Lion King - Can You Feel the Love Tonight (Multilingual) by Travys Kim (aka how I remembered how fun these things are) 

Original Song by Anonymous  

(The urge to add all the other songs I’m not adding is so strong but I’ve got so much work to do so just assume I mean all Nintendo music from any game I’ve played, all Ghibli movie music, every musical I’ve ever heard, and even more) 

Random fact:

Apparently as early as the 17th century, you could guess that a child would have a shortened life span if their foreheads tasted salty. Yes, there is a specific reason, and yes, you may already know what it is, and thankfully no, that life span projection no longer holds true, assuming access to Modern Medicine! 

Favourite Authors: Okay I have not read enough various books of enough various authors to be able to answer this, so I’m just gonna go with a few books instead. They are not necessarily all-time favorites, but I enjoyed reading them very much at the time and more often than not go back to them for comfort reads: The Martian, any of first three Harry Potter books, and The Rise of Kiyoshi. (That last one’s not really a comfort read but I am drowning in Loving Kiyoshi juice so here we are)

Favourite Animal Noises: Certain kinds of birds (UNLESS it’s some ungodly hour of the morning and you’re trying to sleep)? Ooh, and crickets! 

Aesthetic: A slob, but like...a comfy slob. An incredibly disorganized hermit who is happy to mill about in the uncontrolled entropy. (Are we talking about what aesthetic I give off, or what I like to look at, visually? Because I like space, and water, and mountains, and forests, and forests ON mountains, OOH and forests on mountains at night where you can see space, perhaps reflected in a body of water. Or just water, idk. Different things are pretty to look at at different times)

WELL THAT ONLY TOOK FOREVER SORRY FOR THE OBSCENE LENGTH 

@pachelbelsheadcanon @averybritishbumblebee @shingeki-no-korra @sailorlock @yeswevegotavideo @soultheta @queenerdloser @ifeelbetterer @rogueofdragons @peppervl @amadness2method @mutalune and anybody else who wants to do this! This isn’t seventeen, and I don’t know if any of you have already done it/been tagged, but I hear people moving around upstairs so that means this break is over XD. And ABSOLUTELY no pressure to actually do this, this is pretty much just me wishing you well! (and YOU of course, my dear reader! I hope everything’s going all right, or if it’s not, that it does soon)

[forehead-enthusiast]

A Buncha Tag Games (and yet not all of them)

tagged by: @eggyukhei mwah

tagging: this is a LOT of games so i’ll only tag @atinyphobe @nsheetee and @veonjun for the SECOND (2nd) game. if they or anybody wants to do any of the other games, absolutely go for it and say i tagged you <3 i’d love to see what you guys say!! (also, tk if you felt like you wanted to answer my questions from the second game i’d be interested to see!)

One:

tell me the first song that made you stan your current fave group and why did your faves attract you so much?

ok SO the song that probably got me into rv 100% (also yes ik this blog is 99% nct but rv is my forever fave no question) was probably ice cream cake!! i had been a casual listener of many groups up until that point and had never really stanned anyone, but icc was so infectious i found myself watching it over and over. i had heard happiness and be natural before but hadn’t really listened too closely, so icc was the song that captured me. after that, dumb dumb only cemented my love for them more, and the red is still one of my favorite kpop albums to date. rv attracted me primarily because of their incredible vocals and their versatility in genres and concepts. i still get so excited wondering what they’ll tackle next!! they’re just soooo unique and have one of, if not the best discographies of any group. i cannot stress enough, I. Love. RV!! also they’re funny and gay so. anyway stream monster once it drops uwu

Two:

rule: answer the ten questions and write your own!

1. what is your favorite song that’s been released during quarantine? ooooo honestly??? probably something off of Sawayama. literally every song bangs so hard i highly recommend that album to anyone!! i can’t pick a favorite off it but who’s gonna save you now is awesome and xs is just,,, chef’s kiss

2. what is your greatest mishap when you tried cooking? (or something you’ve witnessed) one time, while making soup at my late grandmother’s house on her like gas stove, i put a lid on a pot and somehow that led the pot to be engulfed in flames. IN MY DEFENSE i was like 7, and i’m great at cooking/baking now

3. what’s your go-to outfit or article of clothing? oh i love a nice dress. they can be casual or formal, and you look like you put effort into your outfit except i didn’t because i didn’t have to match anything yo!!!! also shorts have trouble fitting me cause i’m a weird body type so dresses tend to be very comfy for me

4. what is your comfort food? am i allowed to say like all food??? eating in itself is comforting,,, that sounds depressing but also i just like eating yummy food. i guess i’d say like my dad’s fried rice?? its my fave and no one makes it like him soooo

5. what singular moment in your life would you like to relive? i couldn’t tell if this meant like, a good moment you want to re-experience or go back in time and redo a moment and fix it. it’s kind of a hard question so i might cop out and go with a bit of a silly answer: i want to relive the hi touch with astro...... i wanna look at rocky’s beautiful eyes and touch moonbin’s hand ok,,,,

6. what is your favorite line and/or character from a movie, show, or book? i got a bunch but a few off the top of my head are genie lo (the epic crush of genie lo), ty lee, suki (atla), klaus, and ben (umbrella academy) 

7. if you could only choose one ice cream flavor and pizza topping/style for the rest of your life, what would it be? ice cream flavor: this very specific one from a local store that is banana ice cream with strawberries and oreo mixed in. it is heaaaavenly. as for pizza topping, i love a breakfast type pizza with an egg on top and like sausage and stuff!!!

8. what is the worst injury you’ve ever had or witnessed? funny enough, i’ve actually gotten badly injured quite a few times, and always on the face!! god hates me. the worst was probably when i hit a metal bench with my face and it took a chunk out of my cheek. i still have the scar! as for “witnessed” i accidentally broke a grown man’s rib once as a child, so i guess that would count.

9. would you rather explore the unknown of space or the bottom of the ocean? oceaaaan!! i answered this in some other game, but i like how mysterious and yet close the ocean is. like proximity wise it’s so near, yet there’s an insane amount we know nothing about. that’s so frightening but so intriguing

10. if you could be any cartoon character, who would you be? my first thought was literally “kirby. eat fast” GOD my followers are gonna think i’m just a glutton and they’re not even gonna be wrong im dying. but uhh idk mulan or smth?

my questions:

what is your go-to feel good movie?

are you the type of person who’s indecisive about buying, or the type to impulse buy once you see something you like?

do you prefer chocolate-y or fruity candy?

what idol do you think is most similar to you? (not your bias necessarily)

do you have any silly dealbreakers? if so, what are they?

what do you do to unwind?

what is a small thing you like to do for people you love? (be it sending memes, remembering their favorite shows, etc)

what’s/who’s your favorite myth/mythological being?

what is a non-typical pet you would want to have?

do you say pronounce data as day-ta or dah-ta?

THREE

rule: bold the statements that apply to you, italicize your aspirations, then tag nine people. 

AIR ༉⋆͙̈

i have small hands / i love the night sky / i watch animals and birds when i pass them by / i drink herbal tea / i wake to see the dawn / the smell of dust is comforting / i’m valued for being wise / i prefer books to music / i meditate / i find joy in learning new truths from the world around me

FIRE ༉⋆͙̈

i don’t have straight hair / i like to wear ripped jeans and overalls / i play an organized sport / i love dogs / i am not afraid of adventure / i love to talk to strangers / i always try new foods / i enjoy road trips / summer is my favorite season / my radio is always playing

WATER ༉⋆͙̈

i wear bracelets on my wrists / i love the bustle of the city / i have more than one set of piercings / i read poetry / i love the sound of a thunderstorm / i want to travel the world / i sleep past midday most days / i love simply lit dinners and fluorescent signs / i rewatch kids shows out of nostalgia / i see emotions in colors not words

EARTH ༉⋆͙̈

i wear glasses or contacts / i enjoy doing the laundry / i am a vegetarian or vegan / i have an excellent sense of time / my humor is very cheerful / i am a valued advisor to my friends / i believe in true love / i love this chill of mountain air / i’m always listening to music / i am highly trusted by the people in my life

AETHER ༉⋆͙̈

i go without makeup in my daily life / i make my own artwork / i keep on track of my tasks and time / i always know true north / i see beauty in everything / i can always smell flowers / i smile at everyone i pass by / i always fear history repeating itself / i have recovered from a mental disorder / i can love unconditionally

FOUR

the ultimate tag: answer whichever ones you want to because there are a lot and then tag a few blogs you’d like to get to know better! 

PERSONAL

name: sarah

nickname: bells

birthday: april 17th

zodiac: aries

nationality: chinese american

languages: english, some spanish, some korean

gender: female

sexuality: baby bi bi bi~

height: 5′10

BLOG STUFF

inspiration for muse: i suppose nct since i write for them the most?? but i feel like sometimes i come up with the idea before i think of a member so sometimes the muse is just my own fantasies oops

meaning behind my url: i made it at a time where loads of idols were getting bangs and honestly i believe most of them look infinitely better without them, thus i was and still am enthusiastic about foreheads.

blog established: like winter of 2018...?? i think

followers: over 2.5k but most deactivated/left during my hiatus lol

FAVORITES

favourite animals: sharks, chickens, snakes, cats, penguins

favourite books: the epic crush of genie lo and then iron will of genie lo, PERIOD

favourite colour: pink and purple!!

favourite fictional characters: lol, again, genie lo, ty lee, suki, klaus, ben, and just a few more: richard and evelyn o’connell (the mummy), dave (dave), michael (the good place)

favourite flower: sunflower

favourite scent: baking chocolate, heating butter, blackberry, wisteria

favourite season: probably spring! i like warmth but not HEAT

RANDOM

average hours of sleep: ugh idek i sleep horribly

cats or dogs: both, but unfortunately i’ve never had either

coffee, tea or hot chocolate: tea but then hot chocolate

current time: 5:29pm

dream trip: go to paris and eat loads of pastries and enjoy the fashions and beauty of the city, and also learn to bake better maybe?

dream job: actress

hobbies: making jewelry, drawing, singing, reading comics

hogwarts house: according to the quizzes, all of them. people who have just met me think slytherin or gryffindor, people who i’m friends with think ravenclaw or hufflepuff, people who know me really well know you can’t box a person into oversimplified archetypes :’) in my assessment of myself, it varies by the day, but i think perhaps gryffindor today?

last movie watched: hot fuzz (a classic)

last song listened to: summer breeze by sf9

no. of blankets you sleep with: like 2

random fact(s): i won lego building competitions as a child, one of my dream roles is anastasia from the musical named after her, i played violin for a very short time, i bake the cakes for all my family and friends’ birthdays, i have strangely strong grip strength

SIX

10 songs i can’t stop listening to:

love me 4 me- rina sawayama

cherry- rina sawayama

in & out- red velvet

crush culture- conan gray

manic- conan gray

the king- conan gray

summer- pentagon

told you now- jeremy jordan (originally sung by sam smith)

fuck this world (interlude)- rina sawayama

someone who loves me- sara bareilles

[amethystblack]

What’s your creative process like, to make Reborn’s maps so Detailed?

so i do have some steps i follow when mapping, but i think they’re much less about creative process and the factor of detail just comes from practice.but let’s go over those first

first i sketch the area out on paper. i can’t think of how to map any big place without doing this tbh. but this ‘sketch’ is usually nothing more than a series of boxes for each room or space that i draw as i get a feel for what path the player will take through the area, also using stars or other symbols to mark places that a reward (like an item or pokemon) will be, where stories are, ledges, connecting doors, and so on. it is very loose. 

here’s one example i did digitally to post on my patreon a long time ago but this is frankly a lot more detailed than i usually make it. this was for teknite range.

i usually don’t write notes beyond one or two words for myself, and i cleaned this up for visibility a lot. i can’t overstate how rough my usual sketches are compared to this, but those are in a light pencil so i can’t really show them as easily. anyway, that’s all the planning i do.

second, i make the map, a blank size approximating the size of the boxes i drew, and section of the parts of the map that need to be around the border so the player can’t draw black space. that also gives me boundaries for where the player can move. adjust size as necessary. i’ll also sketch some rough placement indicators in editor with a junk tile i’ll know to replace later.

third, i start with the cliffs, or whatever the barrier is that prevents the player from moving off the sides of the map. it’s usually cliffs. it’s always cliffs. and cliffs suck. i want them over with. elevation is tedious and limiting in this mapping style so it’s good to get that established quickly too.

other large things like buildings are blocked out with junk tiles and refined as i go, then the floor is added, then any objects from the tileset, probably largest to smallest typically. i’ll also go through and replace placeholder tiles with new ones i make, and so on. i’ll also note any awkward isolated areas like a corner the player can walk into a little too far so i can put a hidden item or something there.finally, dropping smaller details in like different floor textures, flowers, rocks, etc comes last– that’s just decorating the map at that point.

buti cannot stress enoughyou just gotta practice >:Ci’ve been mapping things in rpg maker since i was 11, and i still sometimes learn new things. as someone new to mapping, or looking to improve, i can safely tell you that what’s most important in making maps is that you feel comfortable enough to play around, try things out, and be frivolous. i often don’t know how i’ll approach certain parts, but i have confidence that i can mess around with it or try different stuff until i figure it out. you need to establish that confidence, and you need to establish that comfort, and that will only come through practice.

the same is true of most creative hobbies, i think. definitely for spriting and art.

other things to look out for as a beginning mapper: 

natural areas can’t have boxy shapes. sure, you’re working with square tiles, but you can vary those shapes a lot. curve your edges!! of everything natural! straight lines are your enemy. boxes are your enemy.

learn to edit your tilesets. it’s invaluable. even if you’re just combining halves of tiles at first, the more comfortable you get at spriting tiles, the better maps you can make. graphics gale is a free spriting program that i love.

learn to abuse and be abused by cliffs. reborn overuses cliffs and it’s incredibly tedious and awful, but it makes very full, tall looking mountains and landscapes. many people shy away from using too many cliff corners-no!! everything is a corner now. get those diagonals fam. many new mappers only use a few levels of elevation- no!!! fill in that empty space on the sides of your map as much as possible. there’s nothing there for anyone. negative space is negative for a reason– you have to suffer to make it clear.

don’t make a region that has a lot of cliffs. reborn is surrounded by mountains. it’s cool, but it was a fucking awful decision. every map is made of suffering. why don’t you try surrounding your region with ocean instead? ocean is nice. only takes one tile to draw all of. why not visit the ocean?  there are no mountains in the ocean. don’t you like the ocean? the ocean please?? 

anyway it’s a bit quick and dirty, but hopefully that gives you a good enough idea to get started. thanks for coming to my ted talk byealso thanks for eating the formatting tumblr

[gosecretscribbles]

MonthofMaybel2019 Week 3: Living with Your Average Nerdbro

A/N: After last week's angst I NEEDED FLUFF so have some mabel/stan bonding over their adorably nerdy nerdbros!

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Grunkle Stan

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Grunkle Staaaaaaan

brassknucklegrunkle: what

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Dipper's hogging Anansi and I wanted to get

him to try on a sweater but he's too busy doing 'experiments' with his

webbing

brassknucklegrunkle: the heck is anansi

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): He's this smoking-hot six-inch-tall Spider

Person with little chocolate freckles and a big fluffy spider butt

brassknucklegrunkle: we really need to talk about your taste in boys

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Dipper is hogging him and I'm so bored I

could die

brassknucklegrunkle: YOU'R bored

brassknucklegrunkle: try bein stuck on a boat in the middle of the ocean

with a guy who's mostly interested in poking things that want to kill you

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): to be fair you do that too

brassknucklegrunkle: Hey, I poke things and run away

brassknucklegrunkle: HE WANTS TO STUDY WHAT THE

MONSTER LOOKS LIKE FROM THE INSIDE

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Right?!  Last week Dipper found some kind

of raccoon with crab pinchers digging through our neighbor's salami pile

and the first thing he wanted to do was poke it with a stick

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): I man I think it was a raccoon

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Either way it could pinch harder than an old-

timey grandma

brassknucklegrunkle: That's nothing.  Last week this little trash island

bumped up against our boat and it was covered with these little blue

singing things that numbed your face.

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Why would they numb your face?

brassknucklegrunkle: They looked like mushrooms and i was sick of

fish okay?

brassknucklegrunkle: ANYWAY they were the food for this sea serpent

the size of a sky scraper, which was pretty cool until it ate a ton of the

mushrumbas rolled over and played dead

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): LIKE A LITTLE TEN-TON PUPPY?!!

brassknucklegrunkle: More like a conman with a million-dollar mark

brassknucklegrunkle: Ford was like OH LOOK DEAD CRYPTID

PERFECT FOR SCIENCE and leaped right into its mouth, started poking

at its teeth. I stayed on the boat until i saw its one eye rolling, I was

shouting at Ford to get out but he was doing his stupid genius thing and Ii

had to jump in there to save his sorry butt

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): NO WAY DID YOU DIE

brassknucklegrunkle: APPARENTLY BECAUSE IT STARTED

SWALLOWING

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Uh oh

brassknucklegrunkle: Worst part I couldn't even get a good guilt trip out

of it because halfway down the throat got claustrophobic

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Ohhhhh bad

brassknucklegrunkle: I punched our way out and Ford didn't get

flashbacks but he shut up for like an hour and not in a good way.  He

wanted to just hole up below deck with his nerd stuff but I was aafraid his

brain would panic so I gassed him out

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): ew

brassknucklegrunkle: YEAH BABY WHO ATE TOO MUCH CRAB

FOR BREAKFAST

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): I thought the point was NOT to freak him

out???

brassknucklegrunkle: Eh, I brought up all the nerd junk that wasn't

nailed down and some coffee, he was fine,

brassknucklegrunkle: kinda reminded me of Dipper

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Dipper's not claustrophobic tho?

brassknucklegrunkle: Not that part, the anxious nerd part.  For the last

half of the summer sometimes I'd be coming up from the portal, frick that

is weird to say, and he'd be walking around the Shack muttering under his

breath but still asleep.  

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): uhhhh that's probably from bill

brassknucklegrunkle: no, that was way before weirdmag

brassknucklegrunkle: wait

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): uh, yeah, Dipper kinda made a deal with

him? and Bill stole his body and tried to ruin my puppet show? that was

Bill in Dipper's body you were filming, ahaha whoops???

brassknucklegrunkle: WHAT

brassknucklegrunkle: YOU CANNOT CUSS ON THIS WEBSITE

brassknucklegrunkle: YOU CANNOT CUSS ON THIS WEBSITE

brassknucklegrunkle: HE MADE A DEAL WITH YOU CANNOT

CUSS ON THIS WEBSITE BILL CIPHER BEHIND MY BACK AND

NEITHER OF YOU TOLD ME

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): sorry sorry sorry!  

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): I can airlift you brownies!  Full of guilt!  Guilt brownies!!  

brassknucklegrunkle: TOFFEE PEANUT BROWNIES IS HE STILL

SLEEPWALKING

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): It's getting better I think??  

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): I wake up when he does that here because

our bed creaks and he's only done it like twice, I hold his hands until he

wakes up and basically pump him full of hot chocolate with mountains of

whipped cream and so many colored sprinkles it turned into a rainbow

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Although one time I woke up for a midnight

snack of sugar packets, as you do, and I heard Ford call him on Skybe and

they talked for a while

brassknucklegrunkle: I told him not to wake you two up

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): please, Dipper's awake like all the time, he's

practically an honorary vampire

brassknucklegrunkle: he's pale enough

brassknucklegrunkle: i don't get it, Ford knows he can talk to me, right?  

Why doesn't he?

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Aw, Grunkle Stan

brassknucklegrunkle: I mean we are literally the only two people around

for hundreds of miles and he still skybes with someone else, either that or

he's doing more weird nerd stuff

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Maybe that's just his way of coping

sometimes?

brassknucklegrunkle: There are better ways of coping than jumping

feet-first down a sea serpent's throat

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): okay point

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Dipper's like that too sometimes, he's all

obsessed with Anansi and I want to hang out with him but I kind of feel

like I'm getting in the way.

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Grunkle Stan, sometimes I get scared that

he'll obsess over his nerd stuff so much that I'll lose him even when he's

sitting right next to me.

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Grunkle stan what do I do

brassknucklegrunkle: first of all stop stress knitting

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): how did you

brassknucklegrunkle: knitting is fine stress knitting is knot

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Hey-o!

brassknucklegrunkle: That's my girl!  

brassknucklegrunkle: Okay second, that nerd can get so deep in his

nerdery he doesn't even realize he's ignoring you.  So what you need to do

is be as loud and obnoxious as possible to get his attention ,and once you

have it go do something you both love doing!

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): OH OH!!!  IDEA!!!

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Dipper likes science and I like cooking,

right? I can ask Anansi if we can feed him colored powdered sugar and

see if his webbing turns into a rainbow!  It shall be a perfect smoothie

blend of art and weirdness!

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Then Dipper will be like 'uuhhh that's so cool

mabel I should've included you sooner' and i can GUILT TRIP HIM

FOREVER

brassknucklegrunkle: Yes!  YESS!!  

brassknucklegrunkle: USE HIS OWN NERDERY AGAINST HIM

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): GRUNKLE STAN YOU SHOULD

TOTALLY TO THAT TOO!!!

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Open a selkie-slash-mermaid dating services

so yu get hot dates and he gets to study weirdness!!

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): And then you can talk about your dates for

HOURS and he'll have to listen to EVERY SINGLE DETAIL because it's

SELKIE SCIENCE

brassknucklegrunkle: GENIUS

brassknucklegrunkle: Mabel sweetie you make me so proud

brassknucklegrunkle: Now go commit emotional blackmail, and don't

forget to make me those brownies

KOALA_PIG_QUEEN))): Yes, Grunkle Stan!!  MABEL AWAY!!!!

[darkmindsthinktwistedthoughts]

Echo pt2

@kthomas325

Warning: This is a little dark. There is blood, death, Strong Language and yeah ... please read with caution. **Still not sure what direction this is taking so I should add a warning for Author with no plot **

Masterlist

---

Echo part 2

The castle was always active at the start of a new day but it seemed to be particularly lively right now. Servants darted from chambers and rooms fetching and carrying as orders were barked at them from the 9 siblings and their Mother.

Today was the audience with the crown. Dignitaries, as well as members of the general populace, were gathering to seek out solutions to issues from the highest authority in the land. This was part of being a ruling power here but it did seem that the Queen and her offspring took matters a little too far in the direction of dramatic flair.

Main gates were temporarily closed allowing the castle to be set up for the expected crowds that were already milling around outside the castle walls in the streets below. Fresh flowers arrangements were placed on the white stone staircase that lead up the incline to the castle proper. Rooms around the lower level were also locked and sectioned off so that no one could venture further into the building without proper clearance. Light flooded the corridors providing a kind of natural carpet effect on the floor and the Throne room was pristine in all its grandeur.  

Twelve thrones set in a crescent moon shape were at the very top of the chamber. The white stone of the building gleamed thanks in large part to the massive lead lined windows that stood majestically behind the thrones. The light from the twin suns reflected through the multiple diamond shapes casting shimmering shards of incandescent light into the room. There was no doubt it was a room designed for ultimate effect and the Queen knew how to use that to her advantage.

After the hoard of visitors had settled into place and taken position in their queue, the large doors at the side of the Throne room opened and the siblings entered in pair formation. Each was elegantly dressed and shone like a priceless gemstone. In the shadow of one of the large supporting columns of the room a thin razor-sharp smile spread over one man’s lips as he watched the “performance”. It was the only word that could be used for this. The Queen viewed this land as her stage and everyone in it, including her offspring, as mere players on it.

Drones. The thought passed through his mind easily as he watched the royal formation move. Every hair on their head, every accessory, every piece of clothing had been chosen for them by the Queen. Their movements were trained, their words were not even their own as much as they would protest against it the truth was simple.

The eldest child entered with his mother on his arm. The Queen standing straight and tall her age masked easily by the glamour she held. Her flowing blonde hair cascaded down her back and her form-fitted dress moved like ocean waves as she glided towards her seat. The empty chair to either side of her stood as markers to a tale that had slipped into the history books. Beautifully crafted Pawns. I applaud you, dear Queen, you did well. As if she could hear his thoughts her eyes settled on his. Those piercing cold blue eyes that could cut like ice would freeze a lesser man, but not him. He simply stood and maintained his gaze the smile on his face almost mocking.

---

“You took on a case without clearing it with me first?”

The door to her chief coordinator's office barely closed before they rounded on her.

“I’ve told you many times already I cannot always clear these things with you two or three weeks in advance.” She sat straight in the guest chair unflinching as the older man who was like a father to her in a lot of ways sighed and slumped his shoulders.

“That is not the point Kid and you know it. You have just moved and the case is out of your jurisdiction.” He pinched the bridge of his nose where his glasses usually sat. Probably thinking that this choice to wear his contacts today was maybe not the best plan given that headaches made the lenses uncomfortable.

“Most cases are out of my jurisdiction. It has never stopped you from letting me take them on before.” If it had been someone else, she would have been just as indignant as she protested the restriction on her work.

There was nothing except basic formalities that required her attention right now. All Ops had been grounded and placed on downtime which provided her with more than enough time to sit around twiddling her thumbs and being bored. Last time this happened she took on a case that saw her flying to Africa to check a water source for a rare bacterium that should not have been present in freshwater. That wasn’t just out of her jurisdiction it was out of the same god damn continent. She couldn’t understand why her boss was choosing now to be an obstruction on a case.

“Look pick a case any other case. Just not this one.” The sound of his begging pathetically was a far cry from the man she knew. She leaned back in her chair and levelled a defiant glare at him.

“Col you are being unbelievably stubborn and pushy on this which isn’t like you at all. I’m not going to do anything until you say what you are really wanting too and don’t go trying to candy coat it. I’m not a kid.” Her blue eyes that were normally clear had turned thunderous and dark. He knew from past experience that when things felt wrong and she wasn’t getting straight answers it could only ever end badly, for the other guy. He certainly did not wish to join the ranks of the fallen.

“Look. Your father and I go way back right?”

“Right” She nodded firmly. Colin had been one of the first other adult males in her life outside of family members to visit their house. He had helped with schooling and relocations so many times it was hard to think of a time when he wasn’t in her life.

“Wrong.”

“What?”

“Wrong. Look Kid the first time I met your dad it was about three decades ago and he looked like he had survived falling into a mincer at a slaughterhouse. I found him at the side of the road and you were wrapped up in his arms.” Col’s words were blunt and direct. There were no detectable traces of anything that could be considered a lie which made the bombshell he just dropped on her even harder to process.

“How is that even possible? All the years I’ve known you and what? You lied to me the whole time?”

“Only about how far back I’ve known your dad. He is a good man and dammit if I didn’t feel terrible for him.”

“Why?”

“That is something he would be able to tell you, not me. I told you he was injured. He looked like he had come from a renaissance or medieval fair or something, you both did. He was babbling about not letting them have you and how he didn’t have a wife anymore.” Col chose this time to get up and walk to the false shelf on his bookcase. Tapping it so it popped open revealing a bottle of scotch and some glasses. She had known he kept it there but she hardly ever saw him drinking at the office. He poured some amber coloured liquid into two glasses and handed her one as he went back to his own seat. It burned in her throat as she took a sip of it but she felt the muscles in her body begin to relax a little with the alcoholic lubrication.

“I don’t get what any of that has to do with the case.”

“Because for a couple of weeks during that time. We found things.” He looked over at her making sure she was still alright to continue. “Things like large animals, deer, bears all dead. All fresh and all drained of their blood. Some hikers too.” He downed his drink in one go as if the memory of the events was still with him. It wouldn’t be uncommon; you see it a lot in stressful or unusual cases where you have pushed your mind and body to get on with the job at hand you end up with like a remnant of the memories you suppress. Like an echo coming back to you time and time again, some echoes were worse than others.

Her mind went back to the case reports. Mountain rescue and rangers all reported finding campsites abandoned and later finding the inhabitants dead. The things Col was bringing up matched with what she had already found but they didn’t explain the connection to her and her father or why nothing had been said to her before.

“Why didn’t you say anything about this to me sooner?”

“Told ya. It wasn’t my story to tell. And that body thing was an old case that never came up again.” It was clear from his one that even with a feeling of guilt he was going to stay tight-lipped on this.

“What happened with it?” Asking this she followed Col’s lead and drained her glass. The sudden volume of the fluid travelling down her throat caused that familiar burn you got from strong alcohol to tingle in the back of her nose and she suppressed a cough.

“Shelved. Never caught the ones responsible or found out how they pulled it off. But it only went on for a few weeks and then stopped completely.” Col didn’t sound satisfied. She knew him he hated unfinished work, but back then he would have been a rookie. Nothing you can do if a higher-ups decides to shut down an investigation.

“Right.” She put the glass down on his desk with a hollow clink sound and got up to go. Her hand was on the office door when he called out from behind.

“What you gonna do?”

“You said so yourself. Not your story to tell. So, I’m going to go ask the guy whose story it is.”

One thing she learnt was butting heads with a stubborn person when you are also a stubborn person gets you nowhere and to be honest right now, she was in no mood to fight a wall. She wanted answers. The files she received from the Met were back in her office she would grab those. But most important task now was going to find the person whole tale it was to tell and getting him to talk.

---

The Queen elegantly draped herself in her private chambers near her vanity table. The room was a perfect image of what one might be tempted to call excess. Every surface was highly polished and inlaid with crushed crystals making it look rather like the centre of a geode. The audience with the crown was over and she sighed lightly before catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror and grinned.

It had all gone according to plan. The masses were happy and she had been praised for her beauty, kindness and intelligence so many times she was walking on cloud nine. If it was possible to survive on adoration she felt like she could be immortal right now. Naturally however even in this realm that was not something that could be done. Immortality was the stuff of fantasy. But prolonged life? sustained beauty? You could have all of that. It came at a cost if you were willing to pay, and she was just mad enough to do it.

A knock on the door announced the arrival of two figures. Both were dressed similarly in loose clothing bound over with strips of fabric to pull it tight to their forms. This was the typical uniform for scouts. Nothing more than required and everything designed for complete freedom of movement and cover.

“What did you find?” She didn’t bother with greetings. Observing the two visitors like a cat would a mouse.

“The rift is strong, and it holds. We can go back.” The taller one explained with a complete lack of emotion or detail. She was pleased to see this, emotions wasted time and made for weak soldiers.

“Good. Bring me what I desire.” She waved her hand and turned back to her reflection.

“One other thing My Queen.”

“What?” She moved her eyes in the mirror staring through it at the second scout who had spoken.

“The rift from what we can tell didn’t naturally tear.”

She felt her breath catch in her throat at this piece of information. Naturally forming rifts were rare and took generations to form and become stable. A non-natural rift would mean someone with the power to tear at the fabric of time had created it. Someone as powerful as she was, possibly even more powerful. Her blood ran hot as she picked up a clear crystal turning it over in her hand until it changed to citrine. The glittering yellow like a shard of trapped sunlight glowed from within and she tossed it towards the scouts who caught it nimbly.

“When you go back take this. I want to know what happens to it.”

“As you wish.”

The two scouts briskly left the Queen’s chamber. They had their orders and it never paid to keep her highness waiting. Once they were a safe distance away, a shadow in the corridor rippled a pale outline of a figure moved in the opposite direction. Long fingers pulled the edge of their cloak up higher, turning its hood over their head.

---

[words-of-a-venus]

11:40.

Hey, kiddo. I don't remember you that well to be honest, and I'm sure you have no idea who I am. I probably look really different than the person you imagined we'd grow into someday.

Although, you were never really looking ahead and thinking "future". Time ahead was not something that really consumed your thoughts all that much. Sure, if people asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up, you had ideas: astronaut, marine biologist, tree surfer (a lá Tarzan). But the thought left your head as quickly as the question had been asked. You had better and more pressing matters to focus on: tea parties with Grandma; making paper gifts for your cousins; or playing tag with dad. You always exposed your hiding spots, because - try as you might - you couldn't stifle your giggles, watching dad "high step" through the kitchen to the living room. You didn't know about anything bad yet. You lived in a world where no one died, eggshells only exist in the context of breakfast, and you didn't feel shameful about any parts of yourself.

I wanna tell you that I'm sorry. I'm sorry I can't remember a lot of our childhood, or tap into it emotionally as much as I'd like to, I guess. I remember it in big chunks, and maybe that's just a part of growing up - things seem further away as more and more time passes. Most of our childhood was full of sparkles and imagination and sunshine. It was dipped in warm summer nights; barefoot in the grass and splashing in the pool.

But to grow up is to understand now the things you couldn't as a child. You grew up walking on eggshells. you were made to dress, look and feel a certain way. You didn't know if the mommy or daddy you were talking to in every conversation was "safe" or "unsafe". You didn't know what response you would get - judgement, disdain and scorn, or adoration and praise.

as you grow up and try to discover, navigate and decipher the world around you & who you are, I have to tell you: being sensitive is a gift. your feelings don't lie to you, and the way you try to speak is not "talking back" or "being difficult". you are not selfish, you are not only thinking of yourself. you love deeply, widely and fully. your heart can hold oceans and move mountains. Please hold onto that.

At some point, they stopped wanting to know you.

Dad will stop at around 12 years old - you're a teenager now, and he doesn't even understand any of his own emotions, so trying to understand yours will be like staring down a hurricane. I promise, he gets better as an adult. He relates to you again, because you're closer to his level. Still, there is a lot of missed time that will never, ever be covered with him. A lot of things he won't know. Eventually, you'll come to terms with that. He loves you as much as he can, and as far as he's able to love himself. For you, that's enough. Still, there will be a lot of feelings to navigate alone, but I promise you that you don't have to go looking for them in the form of other boys. They will never fill the roll of "dad", as much as you really really want them to. You'll obsess over them, and not in a cute, romcom way - moreso, in the way that as soon as you have their attention, you will not be able to think about anything else. Nothing else will matter. I cannot stress how much the thought of some boy loving you will consume every other aspect of your life. Please, please don't let these boys stand where you're supposed to in your own story.

Mom will stop at around nineteen. You're getting older, further away. Both in distance, and personality. You're developing facets and parts of you that are foreign to her, that she isn't sure how to navigate. You're bisexual, you're liberal, you're a feminist. You like tattoos, piercings and alternative fashion. You're a hippie, with a capital H. All of these adjectives will become dirty, capital-letter curse words. You're not supposed to tell anyone about your sexuality, or discuss it with her. Ever. You'll be stonewalled into guilt, and eventually you'll end up groveling for forgiveness, as if you've done anything wrong. Nothing done out of love is wrong. You've known since you were a child. Still, she's made you feel that you're supposed to be the skinny, blonde, and "classy" extension of her that she couldn't rise to meet.

They're going to start telling you that they didn't raise you this way, but they obviously & completely did. You - fortunately - were able to open your mind, blink with wide-eyes like a newborn deer, and assess the world around you. It's the angry world she and dad created, and it holds the cycles that you simply refuse to repeat in your (possible) future generation: racism, sexism, blatant homophobia and transphobia. I know you don't know what all of these words mean yet, and that's okay. you're little. I want you to stay little. God, how I want you to stay little. I want you to stay sweet, pure, happy, and (honestly) a bit dumb. I want you to stay in your imagination, where you belong.

stay sensitive. stay loving. give your friends the biggest hugs, give them kisses on the cheeks. please, please hug grandma just a little bit longer for me, and so much tighter. stand firm in the things you say, no matter what anyone says to you. the things you think & say hold weight and value, even if you're told that they don't. you're not too much, ever. you don't need validation from boys, or anyone else. the only people I want you to make proud, babygirl, is us: both at five, and eighty-five. so far, you're making me proud at twenty-five. I love you unconditionally, even when mom and dad aren't sure that they like you. I like you and love you enough for all three of us.

2/2/23.

[cyberneticlagomorph]

Found

How long have you been falling?

It's hard to tell, really. Your clock stopped working suddenly awhile ago and there's no sunlight in this endless tunnel to go off of. Nothing feels right here, not the air rushing past, not the sensation of plummeting to what should surely be your doom, not the way the walls whip past you, or the way you can't see the bottom of this death-tube. Nothing works here either, not anymore. Whatever scant Wifi signal you had is long gone now, just like every ounce of magic in your body. You can't even glow, or shift, or teleport out. All of those pressing matters aside, only one thing about this bothers you, your descent hasn't gotten any faster. You've been falling for hours and nothing has changed, it deifies the laws of physics. And as soon as you come to that conclusion, you aren't falling anymore, you're rising. Even though neither your body, nor the tunnel itself seem to change position. But still can feel it, you're rising, ever slowly like an elevator just reaching its floor.

As euphemistic as it sounds, you finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. A flickering green light like the glow of your cauldron, a watery light that is coming all too quickly. You can't stop, you can't even try to stop, and soon you hit the water hard enough to knock the air clean out of you. Your momentum from the ...fall(?) carries you up towards the surface, but your own tremendous weight starts to drag you back down almost immediately. You can't swim, you've never learned how, and given how heavy you are there just isn't any point trying. At least that's what you tell yourself, on land, where you aren't in any danger of drowning.

The familiar crackle of magic returns to you as you slowly sink. Your mind works faster than you give it credit for, as you watch the surface start to shrink away. Your magic spirals out, and you feel your humanoid shape melt into something more useful. A long, powerful tail and gills guide you through the dark water and unceremoniously deposit you onto the nearest shore where you collapse and shiver. Your new appendages wither away, turning back into your old limbs. You struggle to get to your feet to no avail, slipping on the wet sand repeatedly until you give up and just lie there, wet and cold in the near-dark. Something stalks you from the shadows, eyes glowing cartoonishly as it watches you. Your skin seethes, struggling to become any number of unpleasant, toothsome, monstrous things that may scare the onlooker off. But you're too tired to do more than shift and growl as the world goes fuzzy around the edges and you pass out.

You wake up warm and dry, curled upon a massive black cushion, surrounded by sheer silk curtains. You've been rubbed liberally with rose oil, you can still feel the slickness of it on your skin beneath the dress you are now in. Thinking about how you've come to be in this place, dressed like this, makes your skin crawl. So you don't think about it, and instead venture out of your odd little nest. Outside of your little darkened room, wherever you are is glittering and loud, locked in the middle of some boisterous bacchanal. The party-goers seem dazed and gleeful as they writhe in naked piles on cushions or tables or chairs, completely oblivious to you.

You shy away from the worst of the noise and end up following your nose towards something delicious. You find yourself in a throne room, wreathed in strange a strange haze, and swarmed with dancing, drinking, dreaming party-ers in lavish costumes or simply their own bare skin. And there, on a throne, watching these hedonistic proceedings is the Red Queen. Dressed to the nines in very little as she sucks on an elaborate hookah, blowing shimmering clouds of beautiful sugary smoke. She spots you in the crowd and silences everything with a wave of her hand.

"Hello, hello, hello," she purrs as she slithers down to greet you, the crowd parting like the red sea before her. It is her that you were seeking with your ill-fated seek-and-find, perhaps not so ill-fated after all. "Took you long enough, darling, my guards thought you dead but I knew better than that."

She wraps an arm about your shoulders and starts to guide you towards her throne. You glance around and catch your reflection in the mirrors on the ceiling, you look... regal and wild, like a faerie princess at her first revel. Ready to break her parent's hearts and almost ruin her reputation. The party-goers watch you with awe, and some of the more sober among them manage to bow or kiss your hands. Others offer you drinks from cups or the best morsels from their plates. You don't accept any of it, and Queenie jokingly scolds you about being a buzzkill. Both of you squeeze into her throne, legs thrown over the arm rests, her head is half resting on your thigh. You should be worried, frightened, furious. But you aren't. You watch her take a hit from her hookah and blow the scampering Glyph for "Play" into the empty air above your heads. The party resumes, and there is little you can do but watch. Queenie watches too, idly nibbling on the mouthpiece to her hookah.

"You have questions, I can tell." She starts, fixing those black eyes on you, "You wouldn't have wasted the time casting a seek-and-find if you didn't."

You open your mouth and are helpless to stop the torrent of inquiries from leaving your lips,"Where am I? What is all this? Who are those people? What are you smoking? How did I get here? Am I dead?" she just blinks at you for a moment before cackling. You've never heard her laugh before, not like that, it sounds normal, human almost. She wipes a red tear from her eyes.

"Well, you're not dead, I can tell you that much," she snickers, "You're in Underland, think of it as Wonderland two since I have no hopes of ever getting the original back from you." she sounds annoyed, but playfully so, as if you were a younger sibling taking toys she no longer played with but still loved. "These people are my subjects, and this is a party in your honor, take it as an early birthday present if you like." you look at her and she looks at you, you can't feel her probing your mind or twisting your emotions and she doesn't seem to be lying... But...

She takes a few delicate puffs from her hookah and exhales through her nose, watching your eyes light up as the smoke changes colors, "And this, my dear phylactery, is elysia the best drug a faerie can get their grimy hands on. I used to grow it in Wonderland, a labor of love really, pity it can only grow in corpses." she sighs, blowing more smoke in your direction. "You had other things to ask me, about your heart, the crystal and why I'm so friendly all of a sudden." you nod enthusiastically, she shrugs and continues, "If you die, I die, so there's no point in being a bitch about it and trying to hurt you, no i can't turn your heart back the way it was. If I could I still wouldn't, you know that, deep down."

She's right, you do know. She sighs, rubbing her temples, "Enough questions, this is ruining my high, why don't-- why don't go mingle?" she shoos you away, nudging you until you fall out of the throne. You huff and wade into the crowd towards the snack tables. One of the few places not covered in writhing bodies. The air here is heady, not with drugs, but with steam rolling off of mountains of food. Strips of strange meat, raw and drizzled with honey, fountains of jewel-toned wines, frothing pitchers of milk and fresh blood. Piles of fruits you cannot begin to describe, split marrow bones, roasted songbirds, things still living served in cages, and the still-beating hearts of various woodland creatures served on gleaming platters in a sauce of their own thickened and spiced blood. It's only now that you realize you're starving, here in this morbid bacchanal surrounded by both the delightful and gruesome. You stuff your face without hesitation, piling plates high with the strange and the familiar before scuttling back to sit beside Queenie. She picks off your plate, but you really don't mind.

Strangers come up to you, to offer congratulations, salutations, dances and spots in their orgies. You respectfully decline the last bit, content to sit there and eat and otherwise mind your business. Queenie frowns, flicking you with her tail,

"Must you be such a prude? You're ruining the party. Your own party might I add?" you pause, a piece of fruit halfway to your mouth, soon scowling.

"Well excuse the FUCK out of me for not wanting to get dicked down by a bunch of drunk strangers," you snap, angrily shoving the bite of food in your mouth. She doesn't flinch, she only scowls back and blows smoke in your face.

"I never said you needed to have sex with anyone, just relax for Gods' sake, when was the last time you did anything for you? And don't try to bring up the new years party, that was spite, not relaxation." she reaches over and gives your shoulders a squeeze, pressing close with a wicked grin. You can feel her worm her way into your mind, unwinding the ball of stress around your inhibitions until you're putty in her hands. You frown at her, aware of what she's doing, but too at ease to make her stop. She offers you the hookah.

You hesitate, for only a moment, before wrapping your lips around the mouthpiece and inhaling like you're a scuba diver miles beneath the pitiless ocean and its your last gulp of air. It fills your lungs with fucking stars and your mouth with poetry. You exhale auroras on the tails of nonsensical lyrics that somehow capture the moment, in true Wonderlandian fashion. You feel dreamy and strange, like floating on your back in a warm bath while half asleep. You feel free and at peace in the most subtle of ways and you never want that feeling to end. You take another drag from the hookah and entertain the crowds of horny onlookers with poems about islands made of dreams floating on a sea of nightmares. You eat, you drink, you smoke. Perched high on your pedestal with the Queen, you are gorgeous and untouchable, a pearl among pebbles. You forget your troubles, forget your stress, and forget yourself among the rainbow hued clouds of elysia smoke.

You aren't sure when you passed out, time doesn't really work down there and you're way too high to remember much of anything past the honeyed taste of elysia on your tongue. You wake up cold and alone, curled in the bottom of your cauldron, feeling empty. Your skin is on fire wherever it touches the metal, almost instantly breaking out into a blistering rash that has you screaming, scrambling to get out. The cauldron tips over and unceremoniously drops you onto the floor of your lab where you press your ruined skin to the cold concrete and shiver as the frigid emptiness yawns ever wider inside you. You feel hungry, so hungry, so lonely and pointless. Every thought you think is without grandeur or profound meaning. The world, it seems so gray now after the vividness of the party. Was it always like this? Always so boring? What's wrong with you? You can't stay here, you need to go back. Back to Underland, its parties and its elysia.

[juniejunes]

now playing: snow on the beach - taylor swift ft. lana del ray

so, namjoon closed his dm.

it took a toll on me, harder than i expected. i guess i was just too used to spamming his dm, telling him the most random thing ever happened in my day. he made me feel like i was...listened, and now everything's gone and nobody's there to listen to me anymore. people asked that why wouldn't i message my friends. i mean i wish i could, but there's literally no one who's willing to listen to my rambles. that doesn't mean namjoon is willing, but at least him not replying - not locking - didn't mean he hadn't seen the messages. that gave me comfort in a way. i know it sounds selfish, and i'm sorry. i know. it just helps with my mental and emotional health, making sure i'm not bottling up my thoughts and feelings.

few days after he closed his dm, i broke down.

for many reasons, but mostly because i feel so ducking lonely and unloved. i miss namjoon, now he doesn't feel like a friend anymore but rather just a celebrity who i have a silly crush on. i feel stupid, i feel like a fool and people are laughing in my face for growing high hopes like, maybe, he had seen my messages. i am definitely a clown and i want to bury myself 6 feet under the ground right now.

life hasn't been good and namjoon isn't there anymore. i feel like i've just gone through a breakup with someone who doesn't even know who i am. that's, again, ducking pathetic. i have so many thoughts and mixed feelings but it's so damn hard to express and voice them out. i don't know why. but i surely know that i miss namjoon. i think i'm too attached. that doesn't sound good. i wish i could dig my hand inside my chest and pull my heart out and get rid of all these emotions. they make me sad and stressed and miserable and i miss namjoon again.

i'm probably crazy.

life sucks. and i hate every moment of it. stuck inside my house, i just hope that i have nothing, like nothing nothing to do and just lie on my bed all day but then i actually have chores and homework and deadlines to do so i have to deal with them and i don't want to so i procrastinate and i'm stressed, again. FUCK. i want to bury myself or run away from life and never come back. i fucking hate life. i hate it i hate it i hate it.

i miss joon.

he was my only adrenaline, happiness and hope and light.

and now, feels like i can't have him anymore and feels like he actually want to avoid me makes me want to kill myself. i know i have done wrong but i don't deserve this. i need joon. this is so unfair. i don't even have the chance to live in the same country same city as him, don't breathe the same air as him, can't attend those events for those damn lucky fans but now he has taken away the only thing i probably can reach - his dm - away from me. i feel rejected. maybe he felt annoyed and bothered. i'm sorry.

i'm sorry for being the problem. i'm sorry for having problems. i should get help.

that's why i hate love, it messes with my head and heart and turns me into this irrational person who can't think straight and feel right. i should not love. one is enough.

anyway, 'snow on the beach' turns out to be my favorite song in 'midnights'.

joon likes mountain and i like the sea, ocean, beach, whatever. that's the first reason why we cannot be together. second is, i don't understand those sophisticated art thing that he loves, maybe i'm too stupid for that. thirdly, i hate books, okay? i prefer movies over those pages full of letters, and everyone knows joon is a bookworm. i'm not smart enough for him, i guess so. the fourth reason is, i like mint chocolate and he despises it. fifth, he's too good for me. sixth is, i'm not as pretty or smart or successful or knowledgable as those people/women around him, i feel small. seventh, i'm too irrational in love, i might annoy or hurt him. eighth reason is that he doesn't even like me. ninth, he likes dogs and i prefer cats because my energy & stamina don't allow me to have a dog - too tiring. and tenth is that, i love him too much and if he ever loves me back but not as much as i love him, it might break me and i know i can't handle the consequences.

so yes, we can't be together, though i do wanna risk everything and be with him.

[roycekimmons]

Archdevil Grimthistle Lectures on the Internet

Author’s Note: I wrote this a few years ago as a thought experiment. Intrigued by the style and mythos of C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, I wondered what it would be like if Lewis’s anti-hero Screwtape (or a demon like him) were to give an update to his colleagues on the state of the world with the rise of the internet and social media. What advice would Screwtape give to other devils today whose sole purpose in existence is to make human life more miserable? To give myself more freedom, I created my own character—an Archdevil named Grimthistle—operating within Lewis’s mythos. Though similar to Screwtape in some ways, Grimthistle is first and foremost an academic who finds himself lecturing an auditorium full of other devilish academics on the possibilities afforded by emergent technologies to nurture human misery.

My lovely young devils, demons, succubi, and wraiths, it is with special delight that I speak to you today. As you are all well-aware, human history has taken some interesting turns in recent decades as our forces and those of the Enemy have guided humans in developing ever new mechanisms of warfare, both of the crude physical variety, such as naval and air vessels, machine weaponry, drones, and the most holy atomics, but also of the more refined intellectual and social variety, such as mass media, radio and television broadcasting, movies, and now, the internet and social media.

It is of the latter that I will speak today. I do so without intending any disrespect to the awesome mechanisms of destruction that many of you have had a claw or tentacle involved in developing. For who could ever argue against the amazing destructive power of the gatling gun, napalm, or chlorine gas? Indeed, I have never addressed a group of you, my fellow sufferers, in which the mere mention of phosgene did not elicit riotous applause. Yet, I fear that our wild successes in the 19th and 20th centuries on this front have somewhat distracted us from our eternal quest.

It is true. Seeing humans writhe in agony on a battlefield, dismembered, mutilated, frightened, and despondent has led me to shudder in ecstasy more times than I can remember. With delight I have pictured in my mind the ocean of tears that we have undoubtedly wrung from our Eternal Enemy’s eyes as He has been forced to watch his self-destructive children brutally hack each other to bits in ever bloodier and bloodier conflicts. Yet, in the eternal scheme, the joys of mortal bloodshed are merely a passing amusement that can lull our demonic efforts into a sense of security.

As I have always argued, war itself garners us no net benefit to souls corrupted. Lest we forget, the soldier can just as surely be saved by the Enemy as can the pacifist, and I can tell by your grumbling stomachs that many of you have developed quite a taste for the souls of these pacifists that now seem to find their ways to our kingdom in droves. Indeed, all humans will die, and though it may give us pleasure to help them toward that end sooner rather than later, we must always remember that our true goal is not to speed them toward death but to ensure that they belong to us thereafter.

Though a bare bodkin is all it takes to kill a saint, you need words to kill the memory of that saint and to prevent others from becoming saints themselves.

Toward this end, I have always contended that the aforementioned mechanisms of intellectual warfare have ever been of more use to us than their more blunt and explosive counterparts, because though a bomb may efficiently destroy the body, only words, ideas, and beliefs can corrupt the soul.

You might remember some of my earlier work with the Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese, English, French, and Russians on this front. Through the mere writing and reading of words, we have empowered a single devil to serve as any given author’s muse, and through that author, that devil’s words can be propagated to untold thousands, even millions of humans. Indeed, how many of the countless children of light squirming in your insatiable bellies now were first corrupted by actions and ideas that originated from a written word?

For that reason, we should embrace human technological advancements that allow us to share our demonic messages at an ever greater scale and rate. But, if we do not act quickly, I fear that the Enemy will use these mechanisms toward achieving His ends, as He attempted to do, and I fear met some success with, when He began using the printing press to propagate His words and a knowledge of the universe to the masses. That is, we must always be at the forefront of every new advancement in communication the humans make both to thwart the Enemy’s purposes and to expand our own.

For the most part, I feel that we have done this and have beaten the Enemy handily across every emergent medium, ranging from early written texts to Hollywood movies. But I cannot stress enough to you how the internet, and social media in particular, is different from anything we have seen before, and for that reason, we should divert all of our attention away from any other interests we might have and focus squarely here. I will not belabor this point further, but suffice it to say that these new media have more potential for evil (or good) than any previous communication medium in history, and if we do not act quickly and in a devilishly smart way, then we may quickly find ourselves losing hard-fought headway in this great and eternal war.

So, the reason that I am here is not to tell you that we need to win the internet. In fact, I think it’s pretty clear that we are winning, and one need look no further than Ratcruncher’s pioneering work with pornography or Spinemold’s ever-impressive sex trafficking networks to know that the Enemy has no idea how to counter the efforts of our vilest and most devious. Rather, I want to extend an invitation to you all to participate in this great and important work and to show you how easy it can be to use these tools to destroy families, destabilize communities, and ultimately corrupt souls. In short, I just want to show you how easy it is so that every sufferer within the sound of my voice can corrupt enough souls to evermore stave off the insatiable hunger that the Enemy in his cruelty has inflicted upon us.

First, use the newness of these media to divorce humans from the wisdom of their forebears. This is an old tactic that we have used in every bloody revolution in history, because it works! Young humans see Instagram, Snapchat, or whatever the newest app or tool is and think to themselves “this is my generation’s medium” and “older people just don’t get it.” And they’re right! Comically, they never stop to ask themselves why the older generations “don’t get it” or can’t be bothered to learn it, and this generational exceptionalism can be used to feed their hubris to a level that they will even divorce themselves completely from the aged, mock them, and disenfranchise them.

Once the young stop looking to the experiences of the old for wisdom, you know we have them! In the past, for instance, if you introduced relationship troubles to one of these youngsters, your greatest fear would be that they would go to a seasoned, responsible elder to learn from their experiences. The beauty of this generational isolation via the internet is that the young only talk to and trust the opinions of other inexperienced young exactly like them. Once they have started doing this, you should then encourage them to think that this is the meaning of community — surrounding themselves with others exactly like them — and you will quickly find them fumbling over one another incessantly, thinking themselves wise while they make the same mistakes made by their ancestors millennia ago. By playing upon this youthful exceptionalism, you can essentially create entire communities where no one has any experience, and by playing to their youthful hubris, you can prevent them from ever catching onto the simple fact that the best way to safeguard themselves against difficulties in life would be to learn from their elders as well as the other simple fact that homogeneity of experience is the antithesis of community.

If you do this correctly, they will quickly come to disregard the wisdom of millennia as quaint or old-fashioned, but you can take this one step further by simply introducing a few doubts in their minds about their forebears’ intelligence or morality — a few drops of poison in the deep well of history. Teach them some general labels or categories — without clear definitions, mind you — to apply to entire swathes of history, and you will never have to worry about them reading a book or entertaining a serious thought again. Don’t want them to read the Magna Carta? Remind them that England was an imperialist nation. Don’t want them to read Jane Austen? Convince them that she wasn’t a true feminist … or Victorian … or whatever. Don’t want them to read Milton? Convince them that he was not a true Christian … or for others that he was too much of a Christian.  Ad aeternum. It’s that simple.

Though we all loved the spectacle when Needlegrinder and his devious minions guided the Nazis in burning mountains of books, we don’t need the young to physically burn anything to have the same effect. Merely teach them that if a reductionistic label can loosely be hung on any person or document, then it should be relegated to the rubbish heaps in their minds, and you will never have to worry about them seriously contemplating the wisdom of previous generations.

Besides, not having them physically burn books serves another purpose. Even the most brainwashed sychophant casting a book atop a pyre might experience an idle curiosity to crack open a tome to see what the fuss is all about, but the young enlightened mind doesn’t suffer from curiosity, because it has already neatly collated and categorized the ideas of previous generations without honestly having considered them. The beauty is that they think they know what they reject before even considering it and then pat themselves on the back for their brave prejudice.

It’s also quite comical to do this, because then you can watch them claim intellectual and moral superiority over absolutely anyone in history without realizing that they themselves are the most ignorant, prejudiced, and backward of all. I, after all, was there with Socrates and can tell you that the youngest ancient Greek completing his first lessons in logic could wipe the floor with any modern thinker’s supposed intellectual prowess.

Second, on the topic of logic, you should ever strive to convince them that logic is merely selective cynicism or comedic skepticism. Allow me to explain. We have done a fine job of convincing everyone that they know what “logic” is, and we have had similar successes with “science,” “reason,” “rationality,” and various other terms such that the vast majority of humans who now use them have little to no understanding of their actual meaning. This allows them to weaponize the terms in favor of their own “noble” prejudices and beliefs — using them to aggressively criticize those of others — as they sit comfortably in their own irrational belief systems.

Indeed, we have succeeded in convincing the most “rational” minds of the day to now believe that their thoughts are rational merely because they have them, and that anyone else’s are irrational simply because they do not. And rather than question the rationality of their own “noble” prejudices, they think that “logic” involves nothing more than the use of sophistry to interrogate and humiliate others.

A beautiful, succinct example of this can be seen in how thought leaders quickly focus on spelling and grammar errors on social media to try to delegitimize the arguments of any who disagree with them. Had they actually studied logic or knew how it worked, they would understand that there is absolutely no connection between the truth of a notion and how it is presented. Yet, when they only have 280 characters to convey a meaningful thought — as if that were even possible — they will regularly devote half of that space to questioning their opponent’s thumb typing, believing themselves to be rational only because their autocorrect was working properly that day. You can participate in this beautiful dance by convincing them to respond while driving or otherwise distracted, because then they will feel flustered and committed to the argument only to have the veracity of their thoughts reduced to whether their car hit a bump.

If that doesn’t work, then the boilerplate tu quoque has never gone out of style. When the hated Lamb shouted “thou hypocrite” to those we had seduced, He obviously did so to convince them to repent — signaling to them that their beliefs were correct, but their actions were not, thereby jeopardizing their souls. From time immemorial, we have devilishly twisted this powerful technique away from a tool for salvation toward destruction. Rather than concern for the welfare of their opponents’ souls, convince your humans to shout “hypocrite” in an attempt to attack their opponents’ underlying ideas. It will never occur to them that distance between belief and action actually represents cause to repent  — the changing of one’s actions to better align with one’s beliefs  — and they will rather use it to argue the inverse: that a person’s thoughts, ideals, and beliefs should retroactively be manipulated to reflect their actions. Or, in other words, that if there is a disconnect between belief and action, then belief must be the culprit.

This wicked tactic is devilishly sinister, because it implicitly confuses the relationship between belief and action to the point that they will no longer look to beliefs as ideals to aspire to (therefore inspiring them to change their actions) but will rather treat them as little more than excuses or justifications for their actions. Indeed, though the Lamb wanted his targeted “hypocrites” to act on their beliefs so that they might be saved, we can easily convince modern thinkers that their beliefs should be malleable constructs that serve no purpose beyond justifying their damnable actions. Hence, though the Enemy appealed to hypocrisy to convince humans to change their actions, we can devilishly appeal to hypocrisy to convince them to change their beliefs.

Taken together, these muddled approaches to logic are invaluable tactics for ensuring that our followers will always “strain at gnats” while “swallowing camels,” as the Enemy Himself suggested of our adherents. By absorbing themselves in the critique of others’ “gnats,” they can console themselves in their own “camels,” yielding beautiful generations of cynical, aggressive humans who have no rational basis for their own beliefs but who nonetheless demand pure, stone cold reason from any who disagree with them.

And third, because the simplest antidote to any of our efforts is civility — or hell forbid, love — you should work tirelessly to paint any instances of moderation, kindness, respect, or deference as weakness or, preferably, treason to one’s cause. What has at times been considered simple human decency and concern for the other should be treated as wishy-washy indecision or barriers to the crushing wheels of progress. Having a civil conversation should be treated as fraternization with the enemy. Speech itself should be treated as a form of oppression, rather than just the communication of ideas, so that the very act of speaking may be regulated and controlled and the speaker can be dehumanized as nothing more than a soulless perpetrator of evil to be stopped at all cost.

Here, again, labeling can be enormously useful. Just as history can be ignored if it is merely labeled, so too can the living human other. In the U.S., for instance, we have polarized politics enough that merely appending a D or an R to the end of a leader’s name is enough to convince almost half the population to distrust anything that they will say. And this works for lay people as well. Every time your adherents notice their neighbor saying something online, you should whisper softly to them “Mrs. So-and-So is a democrublican, so I should distrust her.” That way they don’t have to busy themselves with understanding the actual content of Mrs. So-and-So’s words, the reasons why she might say them, or the experiences that might have led her to do so. If they have a useful label for her, then Mrs. So-and-So becomes nothing more than a label, something to be collated and ignored at whim — certainly not a human to be valued.

Playing upon historical pendula of oppression and evil-doing helps in this regard, because if humans can feel that their voices have been silenced in the past because of a label that has been placed upon them, they then can use this feeling of injustice as moral grounding to place labels on others for the purpose of silencing them in return. Some angry souls will embrace this as justifiable vengeance, but most must be convinced that it is merely a practical consideration to correct historical imbalances of power. At any rate, the effect is the same. Some are allowed to speak, while others are silenced not because of anything they themselves have done but because a label has been placed upon them that likely originated hundreds or even thousands of years in the past. The deliciousness of this irony is that oppressors and victims can engage in an eternal hateful dance, wherein they merely alternate who is leading at the moment. Feeling justified, oppressors can ridicule and demonize victims for as long as they are in  power only to have the situation reversed in never ending cycles of hateful vindication.

The deliciousness of this dance is that they will never realize that the simple solution peddled by the Lamb is forgiveness, mercy, and love. By viewing human history as a never-ending cycle of oppressor vs. oppressed, they can easily be blinded to the only solution to the cycle, believing that someone must inevitably always be the oppressor and that the other must always inevitably be oppressed. Thus, they will direct all of their vengeance and moral outrage not toward destroying oppression but in becoming the oppressors themselves. This allows them to self-justify their hatred, wrong-doing, and all manner of injustices while at the same time patting themselves on the backs, claiming that their hatred is justified or is even an act of love.

As with other tactics I have previously mentioned, this tactic relies upon the use of labels and that they have a superficial awareness of one another. Be cautious in this regard, however, because though you want to provide enough identifying information to allow your adherents to effectively marginalize the other, you must walk a fine line between that devious enterprise and unknowingly guiding them to develop noble emotions like empathy. For that reason, keep labels limited to divisive issues of the day, and never encourage humans to label themselves in any way that acknowledges their common humanity or their common relationship to one another as children of the Enemy.

Some of you will contend that this is nothing new; after all, labeling the other has always been a useful tactic. But, I contend that the internet has made such labeling immensely more powerful for sowing discord and corrupting souls for two obvious reasons. First, the sheer amount of information that humans must now deal with via the internet and their social media feeds means that they must organize information — and by extension the people producing it — in ever more efficient ways, and labels are nothing if not devilishly efficient. And second, the actual design of these tools allows them to do this with ease! Many platforms actually solicit labels from their participants and allow them to block, ignore, or even silence other humans for no reason other than being different from themselves. Thus, with only a little prodding on your part, you can effectively guide your subjects in creating the most vitriolic, isolated, and homogenous echo chambers imaginable, where they incessantly rage against the idiocies of the unrepresented other while having their moral egos continuously stroked by those most like them.

It is amazing to think that rather than learning to love the quintessential other in the form of one’s neighbor, as the Enemy implored them to do millennia ago, human technologies have instead veered toward empowering ever more selectivity in determining who one’s neighbors are, thereby not requiring humans to make any kind of soul-stretching growth! Rather than following the Lamb’s uncomfortable commandment to “love thy enemies,” humans have rather decided to separate themselves more fully from their perceived enemies. After all, all religious and humanist arguments for loving others is predicated on the belief that the other is human, but if we can convince them to think of the other as something less than human (via a smorgasbord of available labels), then all such mandates become null and void, and those labels only develop teeth if they have a safe place where they can demonize labeled others without intellectual interference or empathetic overtures.

I am mindful of my time and that the hour draws late. As you might guess, I have much more to say on these topics and encourage you to visit my work published in Tormentors’ Quarterly and the Journal of Soul Corruption Techniques for more detailed guidance on how to use the internet to full effect. But allow me to just close by providing a few words of encouragement.

This is an exciting time for us as the demonic host, because humans have found themselves with more unbridled power and less soul-searching discipline than at any other time in history. The Enemy seeks to use these tools for promoting love, goodness, and salvation, but there is no doubt that we are winning. Humans today live on the privileges afforded to them from the sacrifices of previous generations and squander their time and resources on selfishness, self-delusion, and self-destruction. This old devil, for one, has never seen anything like it. What a time to be dead!

[ginasneesby]

September- Viv and Andy part 2

On my previous trip to New Zealand in 2008, I and my friends spent a crazy month driving around the whole country with multiple stops and lots of road time, this time round I wanted to spend less time in the car and more time doing things. Top of Viv and Andy’s list was Whale watching in Kaikoura which is on the South Island near Christchurch. With our base in Auckland we decided to fly down meaning maximum time doing stuff and no long days hauling ass down the country. Domestic travel is super easy in NZ so I booked us some last minute fights to Christchurch  for the Monday and with no plans till the next day we were able to take our time and minimise travel stress.

We got in mid-afternoon and with google maps in hand tried to work out where our hostel was in relation to the airport, fairly typically I remember it being the opposite side of town, but decent buses and small bags meant it wasn’t too much of a hardship. We stayed at a youth hostel near the botanical gardens in a 3 person room, I guess meant for a family with one child, Viv and I hadn’t shared a room for a good few years so that was a bit weird; but it was comfy enough and we were going to be out most of the time anyway. After a quick freshen up, and a mini google, we headed back out to find somewhere to eat, Monday night in a big city, shouldn’t be too hard eh?

The town centre was absolutely dead. The shopping streets were clean and well-kept with big high street brands, wide streets with multiple pedestrian crossings and yet no people around except us. There didn’t appear to be any little bars dotted around, no bustling restaurants, the only place we found that had a few restaurants/bars in one location was dark and shut up. Perhaps this is different at the weekend, but it gave a slightly abandoned vibe, since the 2011 earthquake it seems lot of people left town for safety/work/the ability to drive on roads that hadn’t collapsed; and really you can’t blame them. We eventually found a small place that was one of those airstream caravans with a heated outdoor seating area that did burgers and pints of beer, by this point we were pretty hungry so it would have been good but honestly, I remember it being particularly good. On the way back to the hostel we passed a giant old school joystick controller mounted in the pavement which was linked with a large screen on the side of a building, with this you could play a giant game of space invaders. Again, we were the only people around in the streets so we played undisturbed for some time; although Andy was the only one good at it so after a while we gave up.

We were picked up Tuesday morning by a local man with a van who drove us all the way up to Kaikoura for the day, it’s about a 3 hour journey so a lot of driving for a day trip, but if you wanna see whales, Kaikoura is where you need to be. It was also really great to have a local drive us as we didn’t know much about the earthquake, save what had been on the news, so getting his insight and experience was sobering but important. On the way out the city, he pointed out some of the local sights that were no longer there, including the CTV building that completely collapsed leading to 115 of the 185 deaths in the disaster. The roads up the coast were also all twisted and broken having been fixed up slowly over the previous 7 years, at one point completely undriveable due to landslides and collapse. They took a long time to be fixed to the point of everyday use partly due to the extensive damage but also lack of money in region (Canterbury is quite a large area to share a budget).

Looking into the earthquake, the reason it was so devastating was three fold:

1)      It measured 6.3 on the Richter scale, the epicentre was only 6 and half km from the city centre and it was shallow. This meant there was simultaneous vertical and horizontal ground movement, with eye witness accounts describing people being ‘tossed in the air’ as well as increased liquefaction causing more ground movement, undermining many building foundations.

2)      There had been 2 large quakes in 2010, one measuring 7.1, which had already weakened some buildings and infrastructure in and around the city.

3)      It was midday so the city centre were full

 We made our way fairly slowly up the coast with a bit of chat and narration, over the last 7 years despite the money problems, a lot of work had been done to make these roads passable. Highways in New Zealand are pretty much all single lane and in most places it’s the only road, so with highway 1 out of commission there is no way north from Christchurch without going across to the west coast and back again (a 400km dogleg.) We were booked on a whale tour in the early afternoon and arrived with just enough time to have a loo stop and a quick drink before heading out; we had to watch a health and safety video first which was basically, boat go fast/sit down. The company then took us the last bit of the way to the harbour and onto the boats which were catamaran style and set up inside with swish bucket seats. The boat was pretty full with what seemed to be one large group of Chinese tourists so if we had any hope of getting 3 seats together and by the window we needed to be quick; I knew from experience that I get a bit sick so having somewhere to sit inside where you can still see the sea is useful. After another small health and safety talk (boat fast/sit) we were on our way; most of these tours have the ‘if we don’t see anything we’ll book you on another tour’ policy which isn’t always great coz people don’t tend to hang around Kaikoura for more than the day they’re booked, but it does mean the company would lose money so they really want to see something as much as we do.

Sick as a dog, I spent the whole time sitting outside on the back staring at the horizon coz I was told staring at a stationary line can help (it didn’t) but I made it through without spewing so I call that a win. We didn’t see much to begin with but these boats are set up with all sorts of underwater gadgets so they can try to identify where whales can be located. Kaikoura sits at the southern end of the Hikurangi trench which has depths of 3km very close to shore which has led to a large number of deep sea species ending up here; this food source is pretty irresistible to whales and so unlike a lot of places they can regularly be seen within a short distance of the coast. The boat sent out a pulse thing and the responding squeaks gave us a heading and eventually we came upon some sperm whales; the sickness subsided for a few minutes so I could watch and take some pics. To be honest, the whales were great, but even just being on the sea and looking back across the southern alps was amazing enough to justify the days travel, I’ve never heard my sister exclaim as much as our drive up once we got near the mountains. We returned to the harbour and were met by our driver who took us into Kaikoura for our included fish supper, having felt sick for the last few hours a giant pile of chips with decent ketchup was literally the best.

On our journey back we went at our own pace stopping for photos across Kaikoura, the southern alps and the pacific ocean; every one suitable for display like most of the south island. We also came across roughly a billion seals lying on spits of rock right next to the coastal road who were totally unfazed by our proximity and were, I swear, posing. The main bulk of the journey back we spent listening to our own things, I’m pretty sure I had the newest episode of ‘My dad wrote a porno’ which I was trying to get through without disturbing the driver or laugh so hard he asked what I was listening to. Having consulted my guests, we cannot remember what we did that night so it was clearly super important but having had a long day I’m sure we just flopped into bed.

Our flight back wasn’t until the evening so we had the whole day to play with in Christchurch; I wanted to go to the earthquake memorial which was a short walk through town. I had been the CHCH briefly in 2008 but only stayed for a half day due to time constraints so I don’t really remember what it looked like; I only really have a picture in my head of an old cathedral with a spire on a square. This, as it turns out, was the famous Christchurch cathedral who’s spire fell in 2011 and still wasn’t safe for visitors so they had built a ‘transitional cathedral’ while they fixed up the original. This was right next to the earthquake memorial so we were able to see both; the memorial ‘185 empty white chairs’ is a sombre little patch of grass on a junction with a bunch of chairs all painted white to represent the 185 people that lost their lives. The chairs are all different and range from wicker to kitchen to office to wheelchair, there’s even a baby carrier as sadly there were some children who died. There is discussion of how to make this memorial permanent as the chairs are just made of normal chair material and have required some upkeep and painting since 2012; I think it’s totally worthwhile as it’s a poignant reminder of the 5th worst disaster in NZ history.

After lunch we still had some time so we headed to the Canterbury museum in the botanical gardens, here there was a large exhibition on Antarctic exploration as a number of famous expeditions have taken off from CHCH. Now people tend to travel from Chile or Argentina as it’s a shorter journey by sea and they come to the Antarctic Peninsula which has a lot of wildlife, however, what’s-his-name Scott and thingy Shackleton didn’t know this in advance so left from NZ on a few trips. I don’t remember what else was in the museum but we did head to the café for a cuppa and large piece of cake before retracing our steps from a few days earlier and heading to the airport. I was really hoping for us to get back in time for my regular Wednesday night pub quiz at Zac’s bar; we just about made it only missing the first round. As we were 3 extra we had to form our own team so Canterbury UNT were not the same size as all the other teams put together; I don’t remember how we did but I’m sure we won. Right?

[noringz]

Tour de Norway

Visit Norway’s CV-19 slogan has been; Dream now, visit later. 

To my international friends, when we can travel freely again, you're in for a treat. To my fellow Norwegians, why, oh why did I wait so long to travel in Norway? And if your´re visiting North of Norway this summer, please go to some of these places. 

Norway went on lockdown March 12th. I returned from the US March 14th. After three weeks of quarantine and several weeks thereafter of wfh, I needed some air under my traveling wings. I talked to my sister about it, and told her about my plans to travel to Stokmarknes in the county of Nordland during the summer, to visit our cousin. She said; If we go before the kids school year ends, I´ll go with you. I quickly decided I might as well move my work day to a rolling office, so on June 10th, we left Grimstad en route to the North. 

First stop was set for Trondheim in Trøndelag county, a 10h drive. We arrived right before dinner time, checked into our hotel (very standard Comfort chain hotel) and had dinner at the Sunny Side (Solsiden). It was a very warm evening and I pretended that my spritz and pizza was enjoyed at an Italian piazza (where I was supposed to spend my summer). We happened to run into a colleague of mine, so that extra glass of wine with him, made the next day 8h drive and rolling office a tad more tiring than was supposed to.

The next day, after a quick stroll around Trondheim to look at the cathedral and the old town, we set out for our next target: Korgfjellet. We had some moose cakes for dinner, very traditional style and went for a walk. As we are by this point getting closer to the land of the midnight sun, the views continued to be breathtaking throughout the whole evening. It turned out we were the only guests, and even the staff left at night, so we were completely alone. If it hadn't been for the fact that the sun is up all night, it would have been slightly creepy. The Blood Road traverse the mountain and is a tragic and horrible story I knew little about. If you are traveling in these parts on Norway, you can visit Nordlandsmuseet and learn more about the history. 

We were not aware of this museum when traveling, so the next day we continued our drive towards Stokmarknes. We drove across Saltfjellet and crossed the Polar Circle  with the sun shining all the way. We were in awe from the moment we left Korgfjellet until we arrived at our first ferry ride from Bognes to Lødingen. If we weren´t already in awe, the scenery opening up as we traversed the Ofotfjord left us speechless. The water was completely still and we were rewarded with our first glimpse of Lofoten. The drive towards Vesterålen kept the oohs and aahs rolling and I think this picture speaks for itself.

Arving in Stokmarknes we quickly showered and dressed an went to my cousin and her friends house to celebrate her 28th birthday. It was extremely hot, and not really what we had expected on our first trip to the North. The next day, we went hiking to Husbykollen, where you get 360 degrees of views of the entire Vesterålen. Coming down, the only sensible thing to do was to go for a swim. I cannot stress enough how lucky we were with the weather. Even though I'm a all year ocean swimmer, I had not expected to be able to swim and sunbathe on the wonderful beaches. At times we were not sure if we were on a secluded beach in Thailand....

In the evening, we visited the wonderful Kvitnes Gård, that you can read about here.  Sunday, Lofoten was our next stop. We left early afternoon and had a stopover in Svolvær to enjoy some excellent mussels at Bacalao. 

Oh, I forgot to mention that before we left Stokmarkes we went for a morning walk and the clear waters was so tempting that we just had to have a little dip in the ocean. The poor sheep grassing around the area was in for a treat, and I think a painter would have captured the moment in “The three Nudes”.

Sunday evening, we arrived at Sakrisøy Rorbuer, and again had the crazy experience of being all alone. It is with mixed feelings we got to experience this part of Norway with no other tourists. It was mid-June, and it should've been almost impossible to get reservations and a spot on the ferries etc., but we also enjoyed the experience. We had a quiet evening alone, went for a walk among the dry fish and I had to have a dip in the ocean again. Just a few steps outside the door to our cabin. 

The next morning, we left very early with the ferry from Moskenes to Bodø. In Bodø, we only made a quick stop at Berbusmel bakery to stock up on bread and other baked goods, and then we had timed our drive down Helgeland so not to miss any ferries. We spent one night at Havblikk and enjoyed a late dinner of fantastic local halibut. Unfortunately, our drive down the coast was very foggy, so to our surprise, the next day the fog had lifted so our drive towards Vega was yet another breathtaking experience. We even managed to have a quick stop to eat breakfast infront of the The Seven Sisters before we had to make it to the one and only ferry leaving for Vega that day. Again, we had a completely calm journey across the sea, and when we arrived at Vega, we were not disappointed. If we had known in advance that we should've booked two nights, we would have done so. So that is my recommendation. Stay at least two nights.

We had booked one night at Vega Havhotell, where a five course dinner by owner Aga was waiting for us in the evening. But first, we had to see a bit more of Vega, and drove to Vega World Heritage site to rent bikes. After an amazing fish soup (with freshly caught sea trout!!!!!) at the restaurant, we biked 20km to Eidem beach and had a swim in the ocean unlike any we have ever experienced. You should just go and see for yourselves. The 20km bike ride back left us sore and tired, but we managed to shower and change and sit down promptly for the nights five course dinner of locally sourced deliciousness. Halibut, more fresh sea trout, lamb and strawberries was on the menu. Content and happy we went to bed that night watching the midnight sun as it dipped gently into the ocean and played with the surface of the water. 

Again, you would want to stay one extra night at least at Vega, but we had to start our drive back down towards the South. Røros was to be our one overnight stop on the way. My sister had visited Røros when she was a little girl, this was my first time. We had booked a room at Vertshuset Røros, an utterly charming place! This was also the best breakfast of the trip, AND the best bed of the trip. The next day, and almost 3500km later, we were back to where we started in Grimstad.

It was truly an amazing trip even though I think my sister was a bit tired of my rolling office and endless calls. But in the end the only thing we remember was the food, the scenery, the refreshing dips in the ocean, the friendship and the endless midnight sun. 

If you dream of traveling Norway, I highly recommend it. We also had a quick stop in Mosjøen of 10 minutes that was really pretty, and a few other stop along the way we didn't have time to explore - so we will be back for more. 

[brandababyy710]

The world deserves a love so grand.

The world deserves to be loved. And to be loved how I am loving it when they can’t collectively feel it or see it. I have enough to give and it should not be withheld. I have enough for it all. I have enough tears and enough light. I have enough passion and heartbreak. I have enough sorrow and joy. I have enough anger of injustice for all the souls here living. I have enough time to hear every story like it was my favorite. I have enough in me to hug em all. And I sit alone at night, I cry thinking of all the love and comfort that’s lost and not given to at the moment I cannot reach who needs it. I am capable and I am willing and I know that it shouldn’t go without being important and I am not allowed to show and tell the whole world. It makes me cry. It makes me hurt. It makes me upset to think how much love could be given from one soul & it’s just not given the chance to spread it as far and wide as it could go. I am only one human but I am one human for all humans. I am one human who would die for the message of unconditional love reaching every broken and unbearably sad and neglected and left out and unsure soul.. I would die to tell them all that they are so wonderful and so important to me. That they have been searched for. That they are a topic that has been tried to be researched. That they have always been in my heart and they have never been alone. They have never had a moment in life that I didn’t care about. That they cried and so did I. That their sorrow was worth crying for in someone else’s heart. That they didn’t suffer in the dark. That someone will always want to know every little detail they couldn’t share yet. That they are so cool. I sit here and my heart can’t take it sometimes. I can’t take it. I can’t think of all of them, you, the world, I can’t sit back and know that something, someone or some situation is withholding what I am dying to give. And something chose to withhold love and I am forced to. That there’s someone right here who would love to fill in the spot of loss and absence but instead it’s left vacant. That a heart is breaking alone or hurt or neglected or unsure that they matter and to know they don’t have to. They don’t have to feel that way! Only that they will always of course have upsets and down moments..but in a different moment..like the absence of love, that’ll never be a feeling. That their negative times will only be normal things like a broken car or bills. That they will never doubt themselves and their worth. I am here and I am broken by what I can not give when I have it to give. An endless supply. A silent night is the saddest of all and no one should live a lifetime of them. No one should barely get through. No one should die inside for thinking the only love they will ever have received is from their own self. They deserve a warm welcome and a party for their existence. It makes me sad beyond these words. I am one human. I cannot do the impossible so they say. I cannot be God. I cannot visit each home or each dark moment at all times. Or move my love globally without the power. I really wish I could and it makes me sad and angry, and confused at my anger because I can’t be angry at something made impossible for a human. Especially one. I cannot expect to be able to. But I do. Somewhere inside it feels just as possible as breathing and I can’t comprehend why I feel let down that I’m made to believe or accept it’s not. Inside my heart I have enough compassion and love and sorrow to cover a planet or few. I know this. I know my love is beyond this world. Beyond the normal passion. Beyond the typical sympathy. Beyond the normal amount of tears. My love breaks borders and atmosphere and times and laws and existence. This love I have is the most genuine feeling in everything I know to be real. Everything I have learned and discovered and became on a journey alone, my love has trumped all the research and mind blowing discoveries that I so often enjoy and appreciate out of this life. Everything I’ve come to receive and learn and enjoy, everything I’ve invested in, everything I’ve reached to, everything that made me believe what I believe now more solid than any other beliefs given to me by another person, my love is better than it all. Better than my own journey. And I love my journey.. but my love is more interesting than all things I find interesting and that’s what I most often live for in my normal day. I searched far and wide and nothing will have me more mesmerized than what I feel inside for everyone, for all life. The love I have is something that should shine on everyone, all in need of exactly what we all need so desperately. And also all who already have good love and support cause they deserve it too! I struggle being a human and being so driven by something not so human. My limitations here on earth hurt me. I struggle to remember it all without hurting my heart, when I remember what is capable, what is so willing, what is so healing and it’s not given the moment or opportunity or platform to be what it is made of, to those who desperately call out for it all alone. It is hard to remember what I can be doing for someone and to remember that obstacles far and wide make it not a reality, it makes me so sad..it makes me feel something I cannot explain. It makes me not want to be around to remember it everyday and witness it all over this planet and news and stories and to see the pain I can be fixing and watching it all hurt in agony in front of my life without being able to touch it or stop it. Torturous. That I know I am not doing/allowed to be doing what needs to be done and they may not ever receive what I could give them and in an entire lifetime. That they had someone out there in the world and it was withheld from them. I cannot fix it all but my heart needs to. My heart needs to fix the loss of unconditional love. I can’t fix pain or loss of loved ones or stress of many realities that just come our way..but I can fix the lack of unconditional love. I can fix it. If I had a voice loud enough for the nations, what a message they’d get! What hope would be found! What movements the earth would make and springs that would end their droughts and what oceans would gleam and what mountains would rumble in joy and what air would be freshened and cleaned and breathable like a beautiful morning with nature. What songs would be sung and what tears would be released, sorrow finally meeting its beginning and end. What love blossoms. What appreciation for life would begin. When life would believe it’s something grand. When life became. When life would become something special and sought after. What minds would open up to the heavens. What journeys we would take. What joy the heart would beat. What balance would be kept. What respect would there be. To discover that life was once lost and nearly put to death and we got a chance, a place in time to discover what comes from stagnant waters just enough to find life growing inside of it 💙 My heart is here breathing air for you and holding space for you to discover the love I hope you’ll feel when I’m told it’s impossible. I hope you feel the warmth I am dying to give you. I hope you feel a feeling that just stops you from ever doubting that something beyond yourself loves you. That something out there is so happy you are exactly who you are. That something out there is dying to hear your story. That someone is waiting to see how beautiful you are when you know you’re someone to love. I hope you feel my tears when your tears fall too. I hope you hear me when I cannot speak to you. I hope somehow I reach your ears. I hope you feel how heartbroken I am to have to be away. How hurt I am for not being able to say what you needed at your darkest hour. How much I wanted to. How hard it is to go on without knowing if this reaches you but I will go on until it does. My heart is a heart beyond me. My heart is something I am in awe of; for it stays on track no matter what my vessel may feel in a moment of ups or downs. My heart is for you. My heart does not give up on it’s purpose and I just keep putting hope and faith that it’ll reach it’s signal. I hope somehow this lost letter becomes found. I hope you start to feel it all over the world. Whoever you feel it from, whatever source it comes out of, I just hope you feel the love I’m dying to give you. The love you’ve been waiting to feel. It’s always been there, I promise you it always will. I wish I could do more than send a internet ship in a internet bottle in hopes it reaches the shores soon but I am just one human after all. Just not so human after all. My love is forever. I love you and I’ll always yearn to tell you this. In this existence and the other. I should no longer say hope, I should end this by no longer writing “hope” in it reaching you, I will say I can’t wait for this to be discovered. Thank you for letting me love you. Without words or questions or meeting or reason. You let me love you. You didn’t do anything but shine in your own darkness and your darkness came from something so beautiful. Your heart knew unconditional love had to be out there and I heard your cries searching for it in the place of “impossible”. I had to come, to search, to find a way to shed some light on it, in that dark covered up beauty I fell for. Thank you. You gave me purpose and I want to return the blessing. I want to give you what you created in me. I got to discover something too. And it’s better than I ever thought anything could be. Nothing was this beautiful. It’s so beautiful. I have found it’s worth living for.

[ridingthatbike]

Turn the bike around: Peregrination in Scotland

Photo album here.

We tallied it up, and realized we’ve seen each other in person no more than five times in the last 16 years. But we are important to each other, and in the last few years, we’ve lost some important people, so when Adam asked if I would come over and ride bikes with him, it seemed like the most obvious thing in the world. Of course I will come. Let’s do it. A peregrination is a long and meandering journey, often a pilgrimage of sorts. We named our trip before I’d even bought plane tickets, knowing that we -- two fairly anxious people -- were going to do our best to be open to possibility and not be stubborn about the plan. Our initial plan was to ride a loop in the Cairngorms. Our collective anxiety was high as we took the train up to Inverness and rode to our starting point in Aviemore. A big storm cell had moved in over the Highlands, and it was going to rain there for a week straight. Anxiety crept higher and higher. We looked at the weather forecast, and finally said out loud:

What if we don't do this route? What if we don't ride our bikes in a week of nonstop rain? What if we do something lower stakes? Where can we go to outrun the rain?  ... and all of the pressure and anxiety we’d been feeling about making sure the other person had a good time just disintegrated. We took the train back home to regroup.

We cobbled together a new plan based on the Capital Trail, a 150 mile loop that starts and ends at Adam’s front door. We felt a little sad about giving up on the initial plan, and also maybe like our Plan B wasn’t very exciting or maybe wasn’t hard enough to feel like it "counted." But on the very first day, it got pretty hard, and we realized, oh, this is for real, this counts! And it’s so close to home that we can take all the risks! We can explore every dead end! We don’t have to hurry! We don’t have to say no to anything! We end up having incredible weather the entire time. Plan B is the best plan. Back in January, I set a theme for the year, which is to be unhurried. This is not Hurry-Up Life. Peregrination turned out to be the lowest-mileage, least-hurried, most exploratory bike tour I’ve ever done. I am living my goals even when I’m not trying to. There’s a lesson here.

I’m just a teenage dirtbag, baby, like you.

I am tired and feel heavy and slow as we roll through the Pentland Hills, but interestingly, I'm not stressed at all. Sometimes you push your bike. It's all just part of it. We open and push our bikes through and close about 20 gates, we sing Teenage Dirtbag out loud, and I marvel at the wool that has accumulated on every surface -- on every fence line, on every low branch, eventually on my derailleur and pedals too -- and I begin to suspect that Scotland has more sheep than people. I look it up later and confirm that it's true.

We come out into the village of Carlops, which has a bright red telephone booth and a bright red mailbox, and I can’t believe how bright and vivid they seem in the gray day. Our route takes us on the Cross Borders Drove Road, an old footpath for drovers bringing their cattle to market. It's waymarked with a cow emblem, and we love it. Follow the cow road! We find magical singletrack, a magical abandoned stone building, a magical dirt road, and a couple of sheep who have gotten out of their fields and are nervous and try to run away from us but in the same direction we're going. We don't want to stress them out, so we decide to backtrack a little and cook our dinner, sitting in the grass on the side of the road.

We roll into a perfect magical patch of woods and decide it's too lovely to pass up. We set up the tent together for the first time and I think about how cool it is to have adventured with lots of people, to have set this tent up with lots of people, and also how effortless and wordless it is to set it up with Q, my number one adventure partner. I think a lot about how possible adventuring is for me because of the stability in my life, and I feel so grateful for my partner and for my old friends and for the opportunity to see more of this big ol' world.

I have nightmares during the night, after seeing a flashlight pointed at us in the late evening but not seeing the person connected to the light. In my sleep, the person becomes a middle aged man named Kevin and he comes into our campsite and doesn't say anything, just looks around at things, and try as I might, I cannot make my voice loud enough to call out HEY! Adam gently elbows me, and I briefly wake up and fall right back asleep. Kevin is still there in my dream, creeping around. Get out of here, Kevin! You're not invited!

Spooky Wood

While packing up, we discovered that we’d been left a gift overnight: a long-legged dead bird, draped over Adam’s front wheel. Whoa. Was it a fallen hatchling? Or a failed hunt? We’d heard a lot of owl activity overnight. Or was it Kevin?

We pack up and roll into the town of Peebles for breakfast, and then hike-a-bike for several miles up a big hill, high-fiving at the top. Woof. We skip the mountain bike trails that are on the route, but deeply enjoy the waypoint labeled "top of Spooky Wood!" and refer to every patch of woods after it as Spooky Wood. We are delighted to find some huge carefully stacked cairns on a hilltop, and to ride along some beautiful old stone walls through sheep field after sheep field after sheep field.

The cloudy skies turn dark, and the search for a campsite becomes urgent. We find a patch of woods that is too dense to even enter, let alone put a tent up in. We ride along through scrubby heather-covered hills, scouting and scouting, and find a spot where two trails meet, where there is a perfect tent-sized patch of flat ground. I would not ordinarily put a tent so close to trails, but the sky is starting to spit. We lean our bikes, set up the tent in a flash, throw all the things under the rainfly that we think we might want for the evening, and climb inside. It starts raining immediately. 

Adam cooks in the vestibule of the tent, and we eat dinner inside our sleeping bags. The rain eventually stops and a glow settles on the landscape around us that seems too beautiful to be real. We look at the trails around us -- a lovely doubletrack to the left, and an alluring singletrack to the right. We don't even check which way our planned route goes. The singletrack looks too good. We gotta take it.

Singletrack for Breakfast, Hail for Dinner

We are thrilled to be riding some grand and super fun singletrack first thing, get a little too stoked, and totally miss our turn. We get deep into some steep and technical singletrack that we have to walk our bikes down … and push our bikes back up. We sing “Turn the Bike Around” to the tune of “Turn the Beat Around" by Gloria Estefan. We make our way to the end of the singletrack, down some totally bananas little steep sections with gates that are clearly not designed for bikes (this is a footpath through some sheep fields, it’s ok, we make it work), have a picnic at the junction of two beautiful dirt roads, and then cut off-route to the village of Tweedbank via the Border Abbey’s Way, another old footpath that takes us past a massive field of dandelion puffs, ready to explode at the slightest breeze, and are delighted by our choice to go offroute.

We get some coffee at the only spot in town that’s open: the takeout place at the train station. It’s chilly and a rain is coming, so we hunker down in a covered bike parking area to drink our coffee and warm up. Temperature regulation on this trip is challenging. It’s warm enough to get hot riding, but cold enough that we need to pull out our puffy jackets every time we stop for more than a few minutes or we start to shiver. It requires a vigilance that is new for me.

We roll over to the next town via an urban pathway, and back on out of town via the chain bridge, past some nosy cows, and Adam narrowly avoids calamity when he rolls over a scrap of fence wire that wraps around his cassette. It is incredible: this whole tour, we got no injuries, no flats, no mechanicals of any kind. So lucky.

We revel in the double track that dreams are made of, lined with stone walls and huge blooming gorse blobs, under a vivid blue sky with cartoon clouds. It’s impossibly wonderful. We stop in Lauder, where we find a Very Fancy Cafe and Art Gallery, where we eat several slices of cake and charge up our phones and take baby wipe baths in the bathroom to remove some sheep shit and mud and pretend we are presentable enough to sit inside this lovely establishment. Here, we decide to hop offroute altogether, because we are enjoying this footpath and want to see it to the end. It’s the Southern Upland Way, which is waymarked with a charming thistle emblem. It goes coast-to-coast. Let’s ride to the ocean! A few miles out of town in a big open field, we find a stone wall that forms a perfect circle. We stand in the center of it and look at the menacing clouds gathering substance overhead, and decide we better find somewhere to pitch the tent pretty quickly. The thunder starts to rumble as we look for anywhere that’s less exposed than the hilltop we’re currently on. We roll down the other side of the hill, pick our way across a stream, and find a flat spot nestled at the bottom of another steep hill. We throw the tent up as fast as we can, and climb inside just as a hailstorm arrives. We laugh and laugh and laugh at our good fortune. The storm passes quickly, but leaves a chill in the air.

The moors, the wind, the sea

We linger at camp in the morning, having coffee and cookies in the tent for breakfast, drying off the tent, repacking everything after the mad dash of the previous evening. We find ourselves on a heavenly dirt road in the vast expanse of the moorlands of the Lammermuir hills, lined with heather and cotton grass and positively alive with grouse. The track leads us to the top of Twin Law, where we find a matching set of cairns that serve as a memorial to twin brothers who died fighting on opposite sides of an ancient battle. The plaque on the site reads:

And they biggit twa cairns on the heather And they biggit them round and high And they stand on the Twinlaw Hill Where they twa brithers lie.

We cannot believe how beautiful it is, how incredible these structures are, how tender humans are, and we goof around and take a million pictures before descending on a joyful lumpy track with big enough lumps that I get both wheels in the air several times on the way down. It’s good to get rowdy. I am grinning the whole way.

We take some double track through woods that feel like Pennsylvania, and look for a stopping spot for a snack break, just knowing something good will turn up. We pop out of the woods and find Abbey Saint Bathans, which has a bench and a map of the Southern Upland Way. We put peanut butter on our cookies, and ask a passerby if there’s somewhere we can fill up on water … and someone comes out of the house behind us and fills up our water bottles for us. What is this magic? What wonderland are we living in?

The wind gets stronger and stronger all day. On top of an exposed hilltop, we see that we’re level with the blades of the wind turbines in the distance. They don’t put wind turbines in places that aren’t windy. This is just how it’s going to be. Find peace. We lumpity lump along some sheep fields, and I am tired from the wind and the lumps. We joke that we skipped riding the Highlands and are instead riding the Lumplands. I see that the road we’re about to cross will take us right to the sea at Cockburnspath in 5 miles of pavement rather than 7 miles of Lumplands. Adam doesn’t want to ride any more pavement than he has to, but I am cooked, and so he acquiesces. And soon, we’ve ridden our bikes to the North Sea, where we hope to find a cafe and get out of the wind, and maybe get a hotel and take a rest night, but there’s really nothing in town at all. 

We make camp stove coffee on the hill overlooking the sea and make a plan: we’ll ride the ten miles up the coast via pavement to the next town and stay there, I suppose. It isn’t very appealing. We’ve barely set out when Adam spies a dirt path that looks more fun. We take it, and it dead-ends on the beach. Rats. TURN THE BIKE AROUND! On the way back, we find a little spur trail and check it out. HOLY SHIT! It’s the most perfect secluded beautiful campsite you’ve ever seen. It’s a meadow full of blooming flowers! There’s a picnic table and a fire ring and a tree swing! There is no way in hell we’re going anywhere else.

Headwinds and pavement and castle ruins

The campsite is breezy, which means we get to pack up a perfectly dry tent in the morning. We are pretty tired, and the paved cycling route to Dunbar is brutal. Ugly. Industrial. Next to the highway. The headwind is mentally excruciating. It’s hot but cold. It’s sunny and windy. We get to town and have coffee and express our certainty that we would have cried if we’d tried to do this ride yesterday. Every choice we’ve made is the best possible choice. We eat some food, and then push hard back inland on pavement. We’ve got to get out of this wind. We’ve got to get off the pavement. This feels like a penalty day for our follies yesterday. Morale is low, even though we’ve turned onto some narrow beautiful flower-lined roads. And suddenly, when we can’t take it anymore, we are at the Hailes Castle ruin, and we have mountain bikes, so we ride down the stairs and into the castle. This is the fucking best.

The last few miles to the town of Gifford are less windy, and the hills are bigger rollers. We realize we've forgotten to eat enough, thinking only of the relatively short distance and not of the effort required to ride into a headwind all day. We eat a thousand snacks once we get to town, and get a room at the Goblin Ha’ Hotel, because if there’s a hotel called Goblin Ha’ … who would not stay here? It’s the whole reason we decided to stop at this particular town! We take glorious hot showers and lay around. I wonder what the story is behind the hotel name.

Summon the goblin army

Oh, the story of the Goblin Ha' is better than I could have hoped. Yester Castle was built by Sir Hugo de Gifford, who was something of a necromancer or alchemist or practitioner of the dark arts, and the story goes that he summoned an army of goblins to build a hall of his castle, and there’s maybe also a portal to hell. I mean, the goblins have to come from somewhere, so the portal makes sense to me. We must go there. Obviously.

We ask the woman who runs the village store for directions. She walks with me out to the street and points at the farthest building in our line of sight. “Go past that building, and cut through the opening in the fence. It’ll bring you through some houses, and then you duck off to a deer path on the right. You’ll know you’re going the right way when you pass some Highland cattle. You’ll go over a bridge with a sign that says ‘unsafe structure’ but it’s fine, we all use the bridge. You go down a steep hill and back up the other side, and you’ll see it. I don’t know if it’s the best way, but it’s better than the road, anyway.” These are the best directions I’ve ever been given in my life. We find the ruins, and immediately Adam finds a skeleton key in a cubby on the wall. Maybe it opens the portal to hell, I don’t know, I’m too scared to even look for a lock. We climb all over, enjoying the serendipity of happening upon something so terrific. What luck, what serendipity. The woods are full of blooming forget-me-nots.

We cut through a farm to get back to our original route, and get a proper scolding from a farmer who has had too many frustrating experiences with hikers to want to deal with us. It is probably pretty irritating to live next to a famous ruin, and have a bunch of people bothering your livestock and not closing your gates. I tell her I am sorry to have added to her frustration, and she softens. She directs us back to the road, past this little fenced in building. What is it? It’s a dovecot. What’s that? It’s a building full of little cubbies, for raising pigeons. It’s pronounced ducat. “You’ll get beat up if you say dove cot,” she says, and then tells us that we’ll get beat up if we try to pay for things in euros. It cracks me up, because nobody has even been a little bit salty with us on this trip. I apologize again for the trespass, and mention that it’s hard for me to tell, because where I am from, there would be private property and no trespassing signs all over. “Nobody wants to put up signs!” she protests. Well.

We head out onto the road past the dovecot and realize after a mile or two that we’ve gone the wrong direction. TURN THE BIKE AROUND. We find some pavement that turns into a great dirt road that turns into great singletrack that turns into an overgrown patch of stinging nettle and hurts our legs very much, and then suddenly a perfect little stone tower appears in the middle of the nettle. We get closer and see that it has a door. We nerve ourselves up and try it. It opens! God damn if it isn’t another dovecot, and now we know what it is and what it’s called and I laugh out loud. I would never have known if we hadn’t accidentally trespassed on Lucy’s farm. Thanks Lucy, and sorry, again.

We zigzag across some beautiful luminous golden fields of rapeseed and onto some fast pavement, and then duck through a hole in a stone wall onto an estate where Mary, Queen of Scots surrendered in 1567, and where there is a network of purpose-built mountain bike trails. How much magic is in Scotland if we’ve found so much in such a small area?

We are getting pretty close to the end of the route and it will either be some semi-urban camping, or an earlier finish than we want, so we stop in a small town and fill up our water, eat some ice cream, and re-route again: let’s go back to the Pentlands. It’s so beautiful there, and I want to go back! We cut west on a cycling route, and it’s a little hard to follow and not that fun and we are tired. It’s our biggest mileage day yet. But we make it just fine, and have a picnic dinner in the sun. Adam knows just where we should camp, and leads us to the little patch of woods I’d noticed on our first day of riding -- I’d commented “that looks like a great campsite for a quick overnighter from town!” Confirmed! It’s a great campsite! We find a flat spot among the trees, set up camp, watch sheep tv from the tent, and chatter into the night.

Sleep in among the sheep 

I sleep hard, and wake up as usual at 4:15 when it first starts to get light out. The other days, I’ve just rolled back over and gone back to sleep, but this morning I get up out of the tent and am stunned by a vivid red sunrise. I pause to enjoy it a while before climbing back into the tent and sacking out for a few more hours. There’s no rush. We make breakfast and noodle around the hills. The wind picks up and my body is exhausted. It starts to rain lightly, and we call it a day and head home. Back in college, Adam and I formed the Piss Poor Bike Gang. I put gold foil star stickers on our helmets. I think the only “rule” of the gang was that you had to wear a helmet. I was trying to learn to be more confident riding in the city. Adam was working on learning to ride clipped in. Our cooler, more bike-savvy friends guided us on easy local rides. We fell over slowly. We ate a lot of snacks. I could not have known then that we were setting the stage for a grand adventure all these years later, but looking back, it’s plain as day.