#i think it falls into this category of weird idea but not like. technically impossible. like someone COULD do that

[foxmulderautism]

writing inspo when the point of inspo is so intricately specific is weird because its like you want to write something like that but also Not like that because then that would just be writing That story. like los angeles by ling ma is so inspirational to me but "i live with my 100 ex boyfriends" is such a not universal experience so i just have this abstract inspo that's like i want to write something with the same energy as living with 100 ex boyfriends but also not the same energy because the energy of living with 100 ex boyfriends would just be a story about living with 100 ex boyfriends. take a shot every time i said

[shirlleycoyle]

How 9/11 Became Fan Fiction Canon

Every fictional character you can think of has experienced 9/11 in fanfiction.

A Clone Wars veteran with two lightsabers is on United Airlines Flight 93 and prevents it from crashing. Ron and Hermione get caught up in the chaos as the towers fall. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her friends watch the attacks unfold on TV from Sunnydale. We have spent 20 years trying to process what happened on 9/11 and its fallout, and that messy process can be tracked through the countless, sad, disturbing, and sometimes very funny fanfiction left across the internet.

Many of the fanfics written in the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks seemed to directly respond to the news as it happened, processing the tragedy in real-time through the eyes of characters they loved. In the absence of a canon episode where Daria Morgendorffer paid respects to those lost, writing fanfic about these characters also experiencing trauma helped fans cope.

One YuGiOh fanfic published on fanfiction.net in May 2002 could have been ripped exactly from what this writer experienced that Tuesday morning. “It started as a normal day,” user Gijinka Renamon wrote. Yugi and his friends were in school, where their teacher informed them of the attacks and sent everyone home from school.

“After reading people’s 9/11 fics, I decided to write my own, and put a certain character in it. And Yugi and his pals were my first choice,” the author's note reads, explaining the connection they felt to United flight 93 and the World Trade Center attacks. Given that they lived in Pennsylvania, and “it’s close to New York, I felt really sad about it.”

Stitch, a fandom journalist for Teen Vogue, told Motherboard that this reaction to 9/11 is not at all uncommon in fandom.

"Fandom has always been a place that positions nothing as 'off limits,'" she said. "Historical tragedies like the Titanic sinking and atrocities like… all of World War 2 show up regularly across the past 30 years of people creating stories and art about the characters they love. So, on some level, it makes sense that 9/11 and the following 20-year military installation in the Middle East has joined the ranks of things people in different fandoms turn into settings for their fan fiction."

Reactions depicted in a handful of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfics published in the weeks after the attacks ring a little truer to the characters. “Tuesday, 11th September 2001,” written by Anna K, almost echoes the lyrics from “I’ve Got a Theory,” one of the songs in the musical episode that aired in November 2001. “We have seen the apocalypse. We have prevented it. Actually, we’ve prevented quite a few. So we know what they look like,” they write, before taking a darker turn. “They look a lot like…New York today.”

Killing demons and vampires doesn’t phase the Scooby Gang, but when preventable human death is brought into the picture, it’s gut wrenching.

“What am I supposed to do…When I can’t do anything to save the world?” Buffy cries  into Spike’s chest, watching the attacks unfold on TV in a fanfic the author described as being “about feeling numb and helpless.”

In “Blood Drive,” Kirayoshi writes about Buffy and her friends saving a van full of donated blood meant for victims of the attacks from a group of thirsty vampires. One Buffy the Vampire Slayer fic even takes a blindly patriotic turn, where noted lesbian witch Tara McClay helps Xander hang an American flag from the window of the magic shop to make Anya feel better.

Experiencing 9/11 as a young teenager was overwhelming not just because of the loss of life. Almost immediately after the event itself, it was as if the entirety of American culture re-oriented itself towards an overtly jingoistic stance. As we get distance from the attacks, seeing the tone of television and movies from the early 2000s is jarring, and some have gone viral on Twitter. In the world of pop music, mainstream musicians like the Chicks, formerly known as the Dixie Chicks, were blacklisted from the radio while Toby Keith sang about putting a boot up the ass of terrorists. On the Disney Channel, a young Shia Labeouf reading a poem he supposedly wrote about the events. The poem concludes with the line, "it's awesome to be an American citizen."

In a world so completely saturated with this messaging, it is not surprising that fanfic authors started including 9/11 in their work so soon after the event. Even The West Wing had a strange, out of continuity, fanfic-esque episode where the characters reacted to 9/11. In some cases, it made sense that the characters in the stories would be close to or a part of the events themselves.

"For characters like John Watson or Captain America, the idea works to an extent," Stitch told Motherboard. "In the original Sherlock Holmes works and the 2011 BBC series, Watson had just returned from Afghanistan. For Captain America and other Marvel heroes, 9/11 was something that was addressed in-universe in The Amazing Spider-Man volume 2 #36. Technically, 9/11 is 'canon' to the Marvel universe."

In “Early Warning: Terrorism,” a fanfiction for the TV show Early Edition in which a man who mysteriously receives tomorrow's newspaper, predicting the future, avoids jingoism, but tries to precent 9/11 from happening. This fanfic remains unfinished; it’s unclear if the characters successfully prevent 9/11 in this retelling.

Largely in fanfic from the era just after 9/11, when many young authors were trying to emotionally grapple with it, the characters don't re-write or undo the events themselves. It's this emphasis on the reaction to tragedy that colors the fanfiction that features 9/11 going forward.

Although fanfiction authors have been writing about 9/11 consistently since soon after the event, whenever that fanfiction reaches outside of its intended audience, it looks bizarre.

A screenshot of a Naruto 9/11 fanfic on the Tumblr subreddit comes without any context, or even more than two lines and an author's note. It’s impossible to suss out if this falls into the category of sincere fanfic without the rest of the piece or a publication date, but modern-day commenters on the Reddit thread see it as classic Tumblr trash.

Screenshot from r/Tumblr

“Bin Laden/Dick Cheney, enemies to lovers, 10k words, slow burn,” one user joked in the replies, underscoring the weirdness of Naruto being in the Twin Towers by comparing it to a What If story about Cheney and Bin Laden slowly falling deeply in love.

It’s hard to tell how much of the 9/11 fanfic and fanart starting a few years after the attacks is sincere, and how much of it is ironic, and trying to make fun of the very concept of writing fanfiction about 9/11.

A 2007 anime music video (in which various clips, usually from anime, are cut together to music) that combines scenes from The Lion King with Linkin Park’s “Crawling” and clips from George Bush’s speeches immediately after the attacks feels like the perfect example of this. Even the commenters can’t seem to suss out if this person is a troll or not.

There’s no way that My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic 9/11 fanart could be serious, right? Especially if the description pays tribute to “some of the nation's most memorable buildings,” and features five of the main characters as child versions of themselves. The comments again are split between users thanking the artist for a thoughtful remembrance post, and people making their own headcanon for why Twilight Sparkle is surreptitiously absent from the scene.

Screengrab via DeviantArt

There’s Phineas and Ferb fanfic that combines a 9/11 tribute concert with flashbacks to Ferb being rescued from the towers as a baby, written on the 10th anniversary of the attacks. It jumps from introspection to lines like, “‘Quiet Perry the Platypus. I’m trying to listen to these kids singing a 9/11 tribute.’”

The author's notes make it more likely that they meant for this to be a tribute piece, but it doesn’t quite make sense until watching a YouTube dramatic reading of it from 2020, fully embracing the absurdity of it all.

“For me, 9/11 is synonymous with war. It completely changed the course of my life," Dreadnought, the author of a Captain America fanfic Baghdad Waltz that sees Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes fall in love over the course of the war on terror, told Motherboard. "It’s the reason I joined the military, and I developed deep connections with people who would go on to deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq. These very much felt like my generation’s wars, perhaps because people I graduated high school with were the youngest folks eligible to serve at the time.”

Dreadnought told Motherboard that although they didn't deploy, their career has kept 9/11 and the trauma from it in their mind. After seeing that people who fantasize about Steve and Bucky getting together seemed particularly interested in reading fanfiction that related to 9/11, they decided to try their hand at it.

"I had to do something with all of that emotionally, and I’m admittedly a bit emotionally avoidant. So I learned through fic that it’s easier for me to process those feelings and the knowledge of all the awful stuff that can happen in war if I can turn it into something creative," Dreadnought said. "Give the feelings to fake people and then have those fake people give the feelings to readers!"

To Dreadnought, who is a queer man, the experience of researching and writing this was more cathartic than they first expected, especially as a way to navigate feelings about masculinity, military culture, and queer identity. But they said the research they did, which included watching footage of first responders at ground zero, was what helped them finally process the event itself.

"It was like a delayed horror, and it was more powerful than I expected it would be." Dreadnought said. "When I was eighteen, I was pretty emotionally divorced from 9/11; I just knew I wanted to do something about it. So coming back to it in my 30s while writing this fic, it was a very different experience. Even the research for this story ended up being an extraordinarily valuable exercise in cognitively and emotionally processing 9/11 and all of its second and third order effects."

Fanfiction that features 9/11 provides an outlet for people who still grapple with the trauma from that day. But Stitch warns that the dynamics of fandom and how it relates to politics can also create fiction that's less respectful and more grotesque.

"With years of distance between the stories written and the original events of 9/11, there seems to be some sort of cushion for fans who choose to use those events as a catalyst for relationships—and Iraq and Afghanistan for settings," Stitch said. "The cushion allows them room to fictionalize real world events that changed the shape of the world as we know it, but it also insulates them from having to think about what they may be putting into the world."

The tendency of turning these events into settings or backgrounds for mostly white, male characters to fall in love has the unintended effect of displacing the effects that the war on terror has had on the world over. Steve and Bucky might fall in love during the war on terror, but they would also be acting as a part of the American military in a war that has been criticized since it started. Fanfic writers in other fandoms have come under fire for using real world tragedy as settings for fic before. In the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake Supernatural fanfiction about the actors Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki going to the island to do aid became controversial within the fandom. There have also been fics where characters grapple with the death of George Floyd that is written in a way that displaces the event from the broader cultural context of race in America.

"A Captain America story where Steve Rogers is a 'regular' man who joins the US Army and 'fights for our freedom' post-9/11 is unlikely to deal with the war’s effect on locals who are subject to US military intervention," Stitch said. "It’s unlikely to sit with what Captain America has always meant and what a writer is doing by dropping Steve Rogers into a then-ongoing conflict in any capacity."

After enough time, “never forget” can even morph into “but what if it never happened?” A 19k+ word Star Wars alternate universe fanfic asks this question, wondering what would have unfolded if someone with two lightsabers was on United Flight 93. This fic, part of a larger fanfic series with its own Wikia, considers what would have happened if Earth was a military front in the Clone Wars.

In this version of events, a decorated general who served in the Clone Wars is able to take back control of Flight 93 before it crashes, landing safely and preventing even more tragedy from happening that day. In the end, all of the passengers who made harrowing last calls to their loved ones before perishing in a Pennsylvania field survive thanks to the power of the Force, and are awarded medals of honor by President Bush.

Twenty years after the attacks, it’s painful to think about what would have happened if people got to work 15 minutes later, or missed their trains that morning. There weren’t Jedi masters deployed to save people in real life, but for some of the fanfic writers working today, the world of Star Wars might feel just as removed as the world before September 11, 2001.

Fiction serves as a powerful playground for processing cultural events, especially generational trauma. The act isn't neutral though; a decade's worth of fanfiction that takes place on or around 9/11 shows how our own understanding of a traumatic event can shift with time.

How 9/11 Became Fan Fiction Canon syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[welllpthisishappening]

One Foot In (3/7)

The facts were these.

Killian Jones was dead. This much Emma knew, standing in the middle of the funeral parlor staring at him. What she didn’t know was why. Or how. Or what she would do when she touched him.

Because Emma Swan had a gift. Touch a dead thing once, bring it back to life. Touch it again, dead forever.

And the last thing Emma could do was bring Killian back to life, talk to him for the first time in years, only to watch him die all over again. Not when she’d spent the better part of those same years being in love with him.

—–

Rating: Teen, but eventually they’re going to kiss Word Count: 9.3K this chapter. Again.  AN: I continue to have a lot of thoughts and feelings about all the thoughts and feelings you guys have about this mess of words. Thanks for being lovely. We get to that eventually this chapter. Also, happy hockey day internet. Yesterday obviously didn’t count because the Rangers don’t play until tonight. 

@shireness-says​ @optomisticgirl​ @nikkiemms, @teamhook, @dayo488​, @greymeetsblue​, @jennjenn615​, @heavenlyjoycastle​, @klynn-stormz​, @superchocovian​, @onepunintendid​, @jonesfandomfanatic​, @lfh1226-linda​

|| Also on Ao3 if that’s how you roll ||

—–

Emma Swan is twenty-nine years, six months, twenty-three days and, approximately, eight and half hours old when she wakes up to an empty apartment. 

This, normally, would not be cause for distress, but Emma is less than twenty-four hours removed from making sure Killian Jones wasn’t buried in the same cemetery she once kissed him in and they probably should have discussed the rules more. 

Like the never leave her apartment rules. 

Because everyone thought he was dead rules. 

Emma exhales, a breath of air she didn’t realize she was holding onto until she suddenly realizes how much she desperately needs it and it cannot be healthy for her vision to keep fading in and out like that. She assumes it’s a symptom of something. Possibly insanity. 

She feels a little insane. 

And questionably well rested. 

Because for someone who broke most of the most fundamental rules of the universe the day before, Emma didn’t wake up once all night. 

She refuses to acknowledge that that is probably a sign too. 

“Ok, get a grip, Swan,” she mumbles, mostly to herself because she is, in fact, the only person in that apartment. “He can’t have gone that far.”

Pushing out of the pile of blankets tangled between her legs, she glances around her admittedly small living room and the smile on her face feels equal parts unnatural, incredulous and a little overwhelmed. And kind of charmed. 

The blankets on the other side of the room are all folded – sharp corners and folds that are, very likely, Naval grade and the clothes he’d slept in are next to them, looking as if they’ve just been dropped off by the world’s most effective dry cleaners. 

This, however, does not give Emma any sense of where the hell Killian has actually gone and she can’t keep talking to herself. That’s a line she refuses to cross and a rabbit hole she refuses to go down and she jogs into the kitchen before she realizes that’s where she’s decided to go next. 

The plates are still in the sink, not much looking out of place, but Emma has been spending most of her free time with Ruby for years now and she’s got an eye for these things or something that would definitely make Ruby laugh and there’s a peace of paper folded on top of the coffee maker. 

His handwriting is different than it was when he was a kid, not quite as lopsided as it was when he got points taken off a spelling test for illegibility that required Liam to meet with the teacher. It’s blunter now, like he’s trying to work out all his emotions about the entire state of the world in a few letters on a piece of paper that Emma can’t even begin to imagine he found easily. 

You didn’t have any coffee left. You’re an awful hostess. 

Her hand doesn’t shake when she reads it, a moral victory she’ll probably hold onto for the rest of the day, and her smile still feels incredibly out of place. 

Because Killian is not in her apartment. 

Or dead. 

That’s probably the most important part of the whole thing. 

Emma genuinely has no idea what sound she makes in response to that. It’s not a laugh, she’s teetering far too close to those metaphorical precipices to actually find much humor in the situation, but it’s not actually a scoff or a groan either. It’s a weird mixture of all three, a sound that actually manages to hurt her throat on the way out before lingering in the air and pressing down on every side of her skull and he’s right; she doesn’t have any coffee. 

She was going to go to the store last night. 

She got a little sidetracked. 

God, now she wants a cheeseburger too. 

And Emma is disappointed she didn’t realize exactly where a very-much alive Killian Jones went as soon as she woke up. Because, once, when she was seven and he was eight – only a few days after his birthday and he’d been bragging about being older and wiser and several other things that made Emma kick at his ankles – he’d decided he wanted to know what was underneath that one man hole on Main Street. 

And the only way to figure out what was underneath that one man hole on Main Street was to lift it up, climb. down and start exploring. Immediately. He’d ignored most of Emma’s protests, smiling and nodding like she was making any progress in the argument, and eventually she’d run out of fight and gotten a flashlight out of the hallway closet. 

They didn’t find much of anything, just managed to ruin both of their shoes and Ingrid resolutely refused to give them pie for three straight days because they had to throw away their clothes when she couldn’t get the smell out and—

“He went back downstairs,” Emma sighs, shaking her head in something close to disbelief. 

She doesn’t time herself, but she assumes that she gets ready in record time – only a few minutes and a few droplets of water thrown at her face, not even bothering to brush her hair before tugging it up while jogging down the stairs to her own restaurant. Emma put the note in the back pocket of her jeans. 

Killian doesn’t immediately look up when Emma walks in, skidding across the linoleum tile of the kitchen floor, but she can see his lips quirk slightly and, if put under oath, she would swear his eyes get brighter. 

That is a scientific impossibility, Emma is sure. She’s also not entirely convinced they’re dealing with normal science. 

She doesn’t know what category magic fingers fall under. 

He’s half leaning on the counter, arms crossed lightly over the button-up he was wearing the day before and feet crossed at the ankles, a mug of what is, presumably, coffee in his right hand. There’s no tie, which is probably for the best because Emma isn’t sure she’d be able to handle that. 

And he’s not alone. 

“Hey, Em,” Graham says brightly, and Emma is glad she’s not holding anything. She would drop it. Killian’s tongue moves into the corner of his mouth. 

Emma needs to study science more because it feels as if the blood actually falls out of her face, vision doing that thing again and she’d just like some kind of confirmation if that’s even possible. 

Killian doesn’t move, although his eyes do narrow, a hint of a concern shifting into the space between him and Emma. There is not much space between him and Emma. 

“So, uh...I met your friend,” Graham continues, eyes doing an admirable job of looking like they’re bouncing around a pinball machine. “Didn’t really know you had friends.”

Killian snorts into his coffee, and Emma is torn between scandalized and...mostly scandalized. 

“I have friends,” Emma sputters. Graham does not look convinced. “Are you not my friend?” “I am your employee.” “Ok, well...yes, that’s technically true, but—” “—Do you want to share friendship bracelets, Em? Is that what you’re telling me?” “There’s no need to be a jerk about this.” “What about those little heart pendants? Where we each have half? Or is that too retro for us? We’re some kind of proper millennial relationship, right?” Emma scowls – an expression that is starting to become her default setting, and Killian is suspiciously silent. Until he isn’t. 

“We had matching temporary tattoos one summer,” he says softly, and Graham nearly falls over. He doesn’t actually, which makes it eight-hundred thousand times worse, and Emma briefly considers drinking the coffee straight out of the pot. 

She assumes burning her tongue beyond recognition will, somehow, ground her. 

“That so?” Graham asks, voice going gruff and disbelieving. “What summer was this? Recently?” “Do you honestly think I am the kind of person who has had a temporary tattoo in recent history?” Emma mutters. Graham shrugs. 

“I have a sudden and very strong suspicion I don’t know much about you at all, boss. It’s not for lack of trying, but…” He trails off in a way that makes Emma’s stomach twist uncomfortably, an allusion to almosts and possibilities that were never really either because Emma doesn’t like those words and she’s much better on her own. 

It’s safer that way. Less connection, means less possibility for getting hurt. Or something. 

She can’t really remember the reason for anything anymore, particularly when she can feel Killian’s eyes boring a hole in the side of her head and her pulse has only recently recovered from finding her apartment as empty as it normally is. 

“If memory serves, Swan was eight,” Killian says, still speaking mostly into his coffee cup. “She’d gotten a rather disappointing mark in third-grade science.” Graham’s shoulders shake when he chuckles. “What kind of science is third grade science?” “The most basic science possible.” “That’s a complete and total lie,” Emma argues. “That was...there was that frog thing involved and I—” “—Resolutely refused to do the assignment,” Killian finishes. “Did you also get detention?” Emma nods, not as stunned as she probably should be that he remembers this so well. Although, he’d also gotten detention with her because if Swan isn’t going to dissect the frog, then I’m not either. “Ingrid was furious,” Emma says. “She said we were challenging authority and couldn’t I have just done what I was supposed to do for once in my life.” “I always thought that was a little heavy-handed. What did the frog ever do to you that it deserved to get cut up like that?” “Died, apparently.” Killian hums, the conversation drifting dangerously close to topics they absolutely cannot discuss in front of Graham. “That was awfully rude of him to do that.”

“Maybe. I’m not sure the frog would agree with that, though.” They stare at each other for a moment – metaphors and metaphorical dances of the conversational variety and Graham coughs pointedly when they don’t do anything else. “Anyway,” Killian says, a forced brightness to the word that makes Emma’s jaw clench. “Swan refused to cut apart the frog, Ingrid was very upset about it, as was the teacher, God, what was her name?” “Ms. Feinberg,” Emma answers. Honestly, Graham does not appear to be breathing at this point. 

“That’s right. That’s right. She wore that ridiculous fur coat in the winter and—” “—We thought she could control the animals with her voice. Some kind of ridiculous magical thing that made a lot of sense when I was eight.” “Does it not make sense now?” Emma shrugs, not sure how she manages to stay upright when it feels as if the floor shakes under her feet. “How’d you get coffee?” “I’m absolutely incredible in unfamiliar situations,” Killian grins. He leans forward as he says it, another test of fate that Emma can’t voice and he knows she can’t voice and she’s going to have to give Graham an entire week off for subjecting him to whatever this might be. It feels like flirting. Again. “Also your coffee maker does not require me to be a rocket scientist, love.” Graham sounds like he’s choking. 

“You ok?” Emma asks as he continues to sputter on oxygen. 

“Yup, yup, yup,” Graham nods brusquely. “I’m fine. Totally fine. So, uh...you two knew each other when you were younger then? What was Emma like when she was a kid? Aside from the weird science thing.”

“It’s not weird to refuse to dissect a frog,” Emma hisses. “I was a kid. I liked animals.” She wishes she could come up with another phrase then kill him because that feels a little insensitive and Emma clearly doesn’t want to kill Killian, but he keeps laughing and pouring more coffee. He twists around, opening a cabinet he shouldn’t know is there and offers Emma a mug. 

“I don’t know how you take your coffee, Swan,” he says quietly.

Emma reaches out slowly, careful not to touch his fingers and it’s as weird as possible – gripping the mug from the top while Graham’s actual head snaps back and forth. “Cream and three and a half sugars,” she says. “If it’s not espresso.” “You don’t have an espresso machine?” “It’s not that kind of restaurant. Espresso is way too new wave.” “New wave,” Killian echoes, but there’s nothing even resembling teasing in any of the letters. He says them as if he’s chasing them and they’re both still holding the goddamn mug. 

“Yeah. I’m not...great at change, really. Like. At all, you know.” He lets go of the mug. 

She doesn’t drop it. So, points to her or whatever. 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Graham says. He waves both his hand through the air, as if that will clear it or make any of this make sense and maybe Emma should just give him two weeks off. “I am...very confused. I thought you knew each other. You…” He glances at Killian, blinking quickly. “I don’t know your name.” “That’s because I never told you,” Killian says. 

“And?” “And...what?” “Ok, you’re really not going to tell me your name? Are you...Em, what the hell is going on right now?”

Emma shakes her head, not sure where to begin or how to explain and Killian is pouring her coffee. As if that’s a normal thing that is allowed to happen and the urge to run is almost overpowering. That’s always been her thing – even when she was eight years old and refused to follow the rules of a science class that was almost too dependent on rules and a classroom that smelled like formaldehyde no matter what they happened to be studying that week. 

Emma does not do conflict. She does disappearing acts, her own personal brand of magic that’s served her and her slightly patched-together heart very well for the last twenty years, but that same heart is really only patched together because it was forced to run away from the man in front of her who, once upon a time, wouldn’t let her get in trouble by herself. 

So she doesn’t run.  

She swallows instead, biting back words and explanations and the very real desire to just scream as loud as she’s capable of. 

“You want to double check on the napkin dispensers?” Emma asks, not actually looking at Graham and that does admittedly feel like kind of a dick move. 

“I’m sorry, what? Was that the answer to the question? Seriously who the fu—” “The napkin dispensers,” she cuts in sharply. Emma turns her whole body when she speaks, hopeful that her face betrays the regret she feels festering in the tips of her fingers. “Just...you know make sure that they’re full.” “Are we expecting some kind of mad pie rush today?” “God, I hope not. Also, why are you here early?” Graham’s expression shifts – tremulous and clearly concerned about Emma’s immediate reaction to whatever he’s about to say. He glances Killian’s direction, but is only met with slightly interested eyebrows and a recently refilled coffee mug. 

“You heard her,” Killian mutters. It’s not quite a threat, although Emma can’t stop the shiver that drifts down her spine and lingers in between her hips, a flash of cold that makes her wonder if they’ve suddenly time traveled to the middle of December. 

He hops onto the edge of the counter when Graham’s mouth drops slightly, eyebrows still as high as ever and hackles almost visibly raised. 

Emma has no idea what hackles even are. 

“Hey,” she says, waving a dismissive hand as close as she can get to Killian without ensuring disaster. “What…” Emma trails off when she realizes she can’t formulate that question either, another head shake that makes her neck ache. “Alright,” she continues. “I want a straight answer Humbert. What are you doing here so early?”

Graham shuffles on his feet again. “Ruby called me. Late last night. Which, honestly I thought you were dead, but she promised you weren’t, just that you might be and—” “—I’m sorry, I might be?” “Emma, if you keep interrupting me, I’m never going to finish the story and I’ve got a jam-packed schedule of refilling napkin containers.” “Are they that empty?” “Emma!” "Fine, fine,” she grumbles, shooting a glare Killian’s direction when he dares to laugh at what may be her very real mental breakdown. 

“I didn’t say a word, Swan,” he grins. 

Graham coughs again, but it also sounds a bit like a groan and three weeks of vacation seems almost exorbitant. “Ruby called me,” he repeats. “Was certain there was something going on with you and that you were acting shady after you guys left here yesterday morning. She said she’d been doing some research and some names had come up and—” “—Wait, what kind of names?” Emma interrupts. Graham throws a strawberry out of the closest bowl at it, the fruit bouncing off her left hand and landing at her feet – rotten, again. 

Killian slides off the counter. 

“Do you mind giving us a couple of minutes?” he asks, stepping in front of Emma like he’ll be able to block her from the threat of the one waiter she employees. She has to dig her nails into her palms to resist touching him again, those ridiculous and inconvenient magnets proving particularly problematic once more. 

She doesn’t hear whatever Graham says in response, is far too busy trying to figure out what the buzzing in the back of her head is. It sounds a bit like flies, or maybe a little more like bees, a hum and a sound that isn’t quite distracting, but feels a little powerful. 

The noise grows the longer she stays in one place, as if it’s getting stronger or more intense, knocking at the edges of Emma’s consciousness. It feels a bit like a memory she forgot, but is desperate to remember and that doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s déjà vu, a familiarity and a reminder and it almost feels warm, like it’s wrapping its way around her shoulders and holding her tight and Emma doesn’t think it’s a threat. 

She’s got no idea what the hell it is, but she doesn’t think it’s trying to hurt her. 

It might be trying to help her. 

Or remind her. 

And she nearly jumps out of her skin when Killian tugs on the side of her shirt. 

“Holy shit,” Emma growls, stumbling backwards. “What the hell were you thinking?” “You’re going to have to be more specific, Swan.” “What time did you get down here?” He shrugs, an air of nonchalance that’s far more frustrating with the noise that’s starting to ebb in between her ears. “Not long before you got here.” “Was Graham down here?” “No, he showed up in the middle of my quest for coffee. He’s fairly desperately in love with you, you know.” Emma blinks. “Ah, shut up,” she says before she can come up with a better retort and, that time, Killian’s answering laugh is almost warranted. 

“Did you just tell me to shut up?” “Yes. You can’t...you can’t do, like, any of the things you have done in the last hour.” “I wasn’t aware of the rules.” “Well there are rules,” Emma snaps, and she knows it’s not his fault. He was dead yesterday. And now he’s not and that’s got to be messing with his head, no matter what he tells her. Even if he keeps staring at her that very particular way, as if she’s some kind of magical being descended from on high to...do something. Emma isn’t sure what yet. 

Killian moves back towards the counter, grabbing the strawberries along the way. The whole thing is ridiculous. “And they are?” “You can’t come down here. Not...not without telling me or when Graham is down here and—” “—And just who exactly is Graham, Swan? He seemed quite interested in figuring out who I am.” “Because you aren’t supposed to be in the kitchen!”

“No, I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s because he’s hopelessly, inextricably head over heels in love with you and he made several different assumptions as soon as he saw me. Do you not often have men in your kitchen, love?” “That’s not even clever.” “And that’s a very pointed attempt at not answering the question.” 

Emma huffs, crossing her arms, but that only serves to twist up her shirt and Killian’s eyes dart towards the suddenly obvious patch of skin above her right hip bone. “No,” she mutters. “That’s not...this has never happened before.” Killian eats another strawberry. 

“And Graham, he doesn’t...he’s not a partner in your side endeavors?” Emma shakes her head. “He knows that sometimes I take elongated breaks that usually require Ruby to arrive, but other than that, no. He’s got no idea. No one does.” “Why not?” “Why not?” Emma balks, voice rising of its own accord. Killian’s face doesn’t shift, but she can see his tongue press on the inside of his cheek and that might be one of his tells. “No one can know that,” she presses. “It’s...that’s way more power than anyone should have. Life and death and—death.” “You said that twice,” Killian points out. His own voice drops, like it’s trying to balance out Emma’s near-shriek and she probably shouldn’t be taking comfort from it, but she can still dimly make out the buzzing in the back of her brain. 

“I left Storybrooke and I got shipped around the country. I bounced around from group home to foster homes and houses and no one was ever even remotely interested in actually adopting me. One family tried to use me as a tax break, but that was as close as I got and it was never...it was never Ingrid. It was never you.”

She has to take a deep breath to stop herself from crying and Emma isn’t sure how the words keep coming, but Killian Jones is in her kitchen and everything seems to fall out of her without much concern about her set of rules. 

“There was never anyone,” Emma continues. “So I learned to keep to myself and figure things out on my own and it’s better that way, don’t you think? No chance of making a mistake or doing something wrong and I’ve managed to rationalize the whole thing with Ruby.” “Justice being served, huh?” Killian asks knowingly. 

“Yeah, exactly that.” “I can’t just stay in your apartment forever, love.” The endearment switch catches her off guard, a trend that Emma should really start expecting at this point. Nothing seems like it’s on even ground anymore. 

“People know you’re dead,” Emma argues. “There were news reports and, well, you heard it. Your name was there and there were graphics and—”

“—All of that seems a little tacky, don’t you think?” “I’m not here to debate the merits of journalism with you.” “Then what are you going to do, Swan? Because I’m not going to stay cooped up forever. I can’t. I did that for a very long time and I won’t—”

“I told you,” Graham announces, turning towards the wide-open door of the restaurant where a fuming Ruby appears to be doing her best impression of carved marble. “Doesn’t he look just like that dead guy on the news?”

Emma drops the coffee mug in her hand. 

“He looks exactly like that dead guy on the news,” Ruby seethes. She stands in the doorway for a few more moments, likely considering where to dump Emma’s body when she inevitably kills her, but then the clack of her heels moving towards the kitchen sounds impossibly loud and Emma regrets not getting dental insurance. 

She’s got a feeling she’ll need it sooner rather than later. 

“That’s super weird,” Graham continues, stuffing a handful of napkins into the container at table six. “Didn’t he die under suspicious circumstances?” “They don’t know,” Emma bites out. She chances a glance at Killian who, it seems, has also frozen, fingers wrapped around another strawberry. 

Ruby’s laugh is distinctly lacking any humor. “Or so the reports go.” “I heard some rumors there was some shady stuff involved,” Graham says. Emma’s head is going to fly off her neck. That would be for the best – then she could ignore the whole situation entirely. 

“What kind of shady stuff?” Graham shrugs, dropping the container back onto the table and every noise sounds magnified. Emma has to glance down to make sure there aren’t sparks shooting out of her fingers. There are not. That’s almost disappointing. 

“Well they didn’t find anyone else there, did they?” Graham asks. “At the scene, I mean? Usually there’d at least be a suspect or something.” “Maybe you should be the PI,” Ruby drawls. 

“Yeah, yeah, you’re hysterical, Lucas. I’m just saying. There should be DNA or something right? And they said he lost his hand. But...no hand at the crime scene.” “What?” Killian snaps, looking only slightly affronted when Ruby glares at him. “Where did it go?”

“Do you think I’m aware of dead peoples missing limbs?” Graham asks. 

Emma’s never had an actual heart attack, so she can’t be entirely certain of what the symptoms are or what it actually feels like, but she assumes it sort of feels like this. Her arms feel too heavy for her body, hands like weights dragging her into the kitchen floor. Bobbing on her feet, she tries to dispel the extra energy she’s suddenly flush with and that can’t possibly be medicinal.

No one notices at first – Ruby far too busy asking Graham where he’s getting his sources and Graham snarking back and it’s not a surprise when Emma feels Killian’s gaze move back towards her and her tiny vertical jump. 

“Swan,” he starts, leaning forward. “What…” “Oh, no, no, no,” Ruby shouts. Her hair hits the side of her face when she shakes her head, eyes bordering on dangerous and possibly tinted as red as the highlights in her hair. “No, no, you did not call her that. Is that...Humbert, you need to get out of here.” Graham drops another napkin container. “What? I work here, Lucas.” “I don’t care.” “You are not my boss.” “Get out of here, Humbert!” He lifts his hands in frustration, clearly waiting for Emma to object, but her jaw is stuck mid-clench and there is something wrong here and a heart attack probably shouldn’t last this long. “Fine” Graham growls. “Fine. You guys want to play secret and not act like this is the first time Emma has acknowledged there are other human beings on this planet, that’s fine with me.”

He’s gone in a huff of napkins and knocked over chairs, the bell on the door ringing loudly as soon as he slams it behind him. 

And for half a moment Emma is almost hopeful they won’t say anything else. They’ll just stand there until the end of time when the meteors come and dinosaurs return or however the world is going to end and she’ll be able to avoid this particular brand of conflict. 

“Emma.” No such luck. Killian is still staring at her. 

“So, guess we’ve got some things to talk about, huh?” Ruby asks, more forced calm that’s almost worse than screaming and shouting and throwing fruit. 

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” “The truth would just...blow my mind.” Emma sighs, closing her eyes and trying to come up with something that’s even remotely possible and everything sounds worse than the last lie. “I couldn’t,” she whispers, staring at her shoes. Her shoes are less judgmental than the other two people in the kitchen. 

“He is kind of dreamy. I think it’s the hair. Or the earring.” Emma lifts her head – Ruby grinning knowingly at her because Ruby knows that other rule and they’ll have to deal with that eventually. Preferably when Killian isn’t within hearing distance. 

“I think my uncles thought it was a joke,” Killian murmurs, tugging lightly on the jewelry and the wisps of hair that curl just behind his ear. “I looked this morning. Just to make sure I wasn’t taking on any zombie-like characteristics.” “You’re not a zombie,” Emma groans. He grins at her. 

“No harm in double checking. But I noticed the earring and that’s definitely Nemo’s, so...in the grand scheme I suppose it’s nice.” “Who’s Nemo?” Ruby asks, grabbing a pie off the counter and two forks. She hands one to Killian. And they’re all taking this surprisingly well. 

Emma may be the only one who isn’t. 

“The aforementioned uncle,” Killian says. “This one is good too, Swan.” “All Emma’s pies are good.” “Are you two bonding right now?” Emma demands. “Because that’s...Ruby are you not furious?” Ruby nods, tugging the fork out of her mouth slowly. “Oh I’m super pissed at you, but you’re currently exercising three of the five tells, so I figure you’re doing a really great job of beating yourself up already. Also I’ve got some news and, like, eighty-thousand questions.” “Only eighty-thousand?” Killian asks. 

“At least. Don’t try and play cute with me though, Jones. I’ve got some very strong suspicions about you.” “Such as?” “You weren’t as naive about the situation as you told your girlfriend.”

Killian’s grip on the fork noticeably tightens and Emma should really clean up the puddle of coffee at her foot. It’s starting to seep into her sneaker. Maybe she should buy new sneakers. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, and Emma’s breath catches because she’s incredibly familiar with that particular tone. It’s the same exact tone it was when he was seven and trying to convince Liam he’d only had one slice of pie at Ingrid’s. 

And the tips of his ears go red. 

Ruby shakes her head. “Incorrect. And as much as I hate to admit Humbert is ever right about anything, he does bring up a good point about your hand. What do you remember about that?” “Not much,” Killian lies. 

“Nope, try again.” His eyes dart towards Emma’s, tongue flashing between his lips and it’s as if they’re standing on a tightrope above several dozen crocodiles or alligators, whichever are more dangerous, and there’s probably rain involved too. Just to make everything as slippery as possible. 

“You said you’d already done the cooped up forever thing,” Emma whispers. “And you wouldn’t do it again. What did that mean?” “You ran and I stayed put, Swan.” “English, Jones.” The twist of his answering smile is enough to make Emma’s heart stutter against her rib cage. He tugs the pie plate out of Ruby’s hands, taking another exaggerated bite – eyes never leaving Emma. “Seriously, you should be winning awards for this,” he mutters. “And I didn’t actually lie to you before. I have no idea who actually killed me.” “But?” “But,” he repeats. “I’m not exactly the kid you remember.” “Who are you then?” Killian inhales, only to exhale even sharper and—”It’d really be much easier if I could hold your hand.” Ruby gags. “That’s not a line,” he promises. “That’s...it was always easier that way.” “Start at the beginning,” Ruby commands. He salutes again. 

“My brother died when I was ten years old and it changed my entire life,” Killian explains. “For awhile I thought it ruined my entire life because it meant Emma was gone and, you know no one ever moved into your house, Swan?” She shakes her head, not sure what the right response to that is, but some twisted part of her is almost glad. “They didn’t,” Killian continues. “It was just there, forever, taunting me of what was gone and what wasn’t ever actually coming back. And, well, Shakespeare and Nemo were used to being on the road, but the acting troupe they’d be in for the decade before they got saddled with me...it was on its last legs. There’s no money in it and they sort of stumbled into guardianship without much prep or guidance and they didn’t...they sat in that house and they’d both seen so much already. 

“You know Nemo’s ship was attacked once, that was part of the reason he wanted to avoid the bars on that port leave when he met Shakespeare and they’ve both dealt with so much shit from the world. They weren’t really���.they weren’t really interested in the world anymore.” “But I bet you were, weren’t you?” Ruby asks, tugging on the plate again. 

“Not at first. Well, no that’s a lie. I was a shit kid as soon as Swan was gone, always getting in trouble and blowing off class and I think I tried to run away no less than sixteen times before I actually turned sixteen.” “How would you get out of town?” Emma asks, hating how soft her question sounded. 

Killian smirks “I never made it very far. You know Storybrooke, love, eyes everywhere and people gossiping even more. I think Cora Mills caught me trying to sneak out of my house even more than my uncles did.” “Oh she always gave me the creeps.” “You’re going to want to remember that in a second.” “Can you please put a pause on the flirting for, like, point two seconds so we can get on with the story?” Ruby groans. “Time, as they say, is a-slipping.” “You’re not very patient are you?” “It’s a family trait,” Emma mumbles. “You should meet her grandmother.” “Hey,” Ruby cries. “My grandmother taught me every PI trick I know. She’s the reason we’re going to find Jones’ killer and collect both rewards.”

Emma tenses. “Both rewards?” “Yeah, now you’re interested, aren’t you? Keep going Jones. This is almost interesting backstory.” “Almost interesting,” Killian chuckles, and they really should have each gotten their own pie. “Alright, alright. So Cora Mills—the mayor of Storybrooke,” he adds at Ruby’s questioning expression. “She’s been mayor since the dawn of time really, and she’s known I’ve been trying to get out Storybrooke for years, but I never did.” “Why not?” Emma asks, Killian’s hum of confusion feeling as if it lands between each one of her ribs. “I mean...couldn’t you?” “Eh, I’m sure I could have if I put my mind to it. But at some point around high school graduation, which was never entirely a guarantee for me, I realized that Nemo and Shakespeare were done with the world. They were tired of fighting it and tired of trying to find their place in it and—” “—You couldn't leave,” Ruby finishes, a note of sympathy in her voice that stuns Emma more than just about anything else that’s happened. 

Killian hums again. The disappointment and regret in the sound is bitter on Emma’s tongue, and maybe she should be taking some adult-ed science classes because she’s clearly got no idea how any of this works, but she’s never seen that look on his face before. 

As if the whole world has passed him by and left him in the metaphorical dust. 

“They’d given up their whole lives for me,” he mumbles. “And we were good. For a very long time. I...well, I figured out how to make money and I had books.” “Books?” Emma repeats. “You had books?” “I like to read.” “Are you a nerd now?” “I wouldn't go that far. It’s a...hobby, possibly some kind of obsession depending on who you ask. Don't ask my uncles.”

“I promise.”

He smiles at her again – slow and genuine until that replaces the whatever in between Emma’s ribs and she feels as if she breathes normally for the first time since she woke up. Ruby sticks her entire tongue out. 

There are berry stains on it. 

“Is this going to be a thing now?” she shouts. “The flirting? Are we going to flirt our way through several different crime scenes?” Emma tilts her head. “Are there more than one crime scene?” “There might be if Jones doesn’t get better at telling us his goddamn life story. Also, the less sarcastic answer is maybe because I’ve got news, but seriously the life story. If you were good with the shut-ins, why did you leave?” Killian doesn’t answer immediately, and the tension in between his shoulder blades is almost too obvious. Emma isn’t sure she hears him at first. And then she’s not sure she wants to. 

“Nemo got sick,” he says. “Suddenly and...badly? Is that the right word? It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t great and so I was trying to figure out a way to get some money and an opportunity presented itself.” “How?” “Remember creepy Cora Mills?” Emma hates that her jaw drops, but she can’t stop it and she knows this is not a good story. She didn’t expect it to be a good story and it is, somehow, even worse. “What could she possibly offer you?” “Money,” Killian shrugs. “And the chance to get out of Storybrooke, which given the situation paints me in a particularly asshole-light, but that’s always been kind of my MO too and—” “That’s not true.” “You haven’t known me for a very long time, Swan.” “I don’t believe that.” Melting certainly isn’t the right word for whatever happens to Killian’s expression. Emma doesn’t care. It’s the first word her mind comes up with and latches onto, in some misplaced effort to maintain control of a decidedly out of control situation, and she wishes she could hold his hand. 

Too. Or still. 

Or always. 

Honestly, whatever. 

“Thanks,” Killian mutters. “I promise it’s warranted in this situation. I was getting desperate. I never went to college and I couldn't figure out what to do or who to ask.” “No girlfriend to help, then?” Ruby asks archly, ignoring whatever noise Emma makes at that particular question. “What? First of all, that’s a genuine question. Because if there is a girlfriend, then we should probably prepare ourselves for her arrival in defense of Jones’ previously discussed very dreamy face and, second of all, if there is a girlfriend, she probably should have helped him rob a bank or something.” “Are we advocating bank robbing now?” Emma fumes, her anger having nothing to do with the sanctity of the American banking system. 

“No girlfriend,” Killian says. Emma wrings her hands together. So, naturally, Ruby notices. “Anyway, Cora found me one day and told me she had an opportunity if I was interested.” “And were you?”

“I didn’t see any other option, really. It made sense when she explained it. I had to get on the ship and—” “—Wait, wait, there was a ship involved?” Ruby asks. 

“Yeah, a cruise. To uh...shit, where was it to?” “We weren’t on the ship.” “That wasn’t the important part that’s why,” Killian mutters. “It was Tahiti or something. But I was told that I wasn’t supposed to do any of the onshore stuff they do. You know, zip lining and...swimming with sharks or whatever.” “The thought of that always freaked me out,” Ruby muses. 

“Yeah, me too actually. They say it’s safe, but—” “Can we focus, please?” Emma exclaims, met with two wide-eyed expressions for that especially emotional outburst. “Sorry, sorry, just...what were you supposed to be doing on this boat? Oh my God, are you some kind of drug mule?” Killian makes a face, ridiculous enough that Emma has to dig her heels into the ground to make sure she doesn’t try to do something absurd like kiss it off. The rules of the universe can suck it, honestly. 

“Are you kidding me?” “You’re the one who said I didn’t know you anymore!” “I was not a drug mule,” Killian sighs, dropping his fork so he can run his fingers through his hair. “I was...a water mule.” “What does that mean?” “Cora said that once we got to the island, there’d be some people getting on the ship who had something for me. I was supposed to bring it back.” “Did you meet these people?” Ruby asks, business-like and Emma knows she wishes she had a notepad of some kind. She pulls her phone out of her jacket pocket. 

“Yeah, that was kind of the problem.” “How so?”

Killian doesn’t shudder, but it’s awfully close, a nervousness to him that doesn’t match up with anything Emma knows about him. “There was a whole group of them. Each one of them shadier than the next and they all spoke in grunts, I swear.” “Sounds like lackeys.” “Yeah, probably. They didn’t know anything about Cora though, so the orders were coming from higher up and that’s kind of when I realized I’d gotten into something I wasn’t particularly interested in.” “What do you think that was?” “I don’t know exactly,” Killian admits. “But one of the goons handed me a vial of something that was, maybe, filled with water, demanded my immediate and complete silence and told me his boss was expecting me when I got back to New York.” “New York?” Emma asks. “That’s where the ship left from. I asked this guy what exactly it was I was supposed to be moving and how I was supposed to get it through security.” “I’m sure he didn’t appreciate that,” Ruby chuckles. 

“He did not, actually. He told me to shut my mouth and do my job and that, this is where it gets weird, his master wouldn’t be pleased if I deviated from the schedule.” Ruby’s eyebrows pull low. “He switched from boss to master?” “Weird, right?” “Super weird. And incredibly creepy. So what did you do after that?” “I told him that I thought there was a mistake,” Killian says with a laugh that sounds full of a slightly different brand of regret. “And that I wasn’t interested in shipping whatever product they were trying to move. I don’t remember much after that, but I do remember the vial falling and breaking. Goons one through six were not very happy about that. There was a lot of moanful grunting about it.” “There were six of them?” Emma breathes, not nearly as confident as she’d like to be. She rocks backwards on her heels when Killian slides off the counter, ignoring whatever Ruby is doing with all of her limbs as she steps into her space. 

There haven’t been very many moments in Emma’s life that stick. She’s made sure of it, run from the thoughts and the feelings and the relationships for years. This moment, however, seems determined to linger and fester and that second word is absolutely wrong. 

It doesn’t fester. It grows – the buzzing returning until it sounds like someone’s turned the metaphorical volume up as high as it will go on Emma’s life and soul and, possibly, the magic she’s done her best not to acknowledge for the last twenty years. 

None of that, however, holds a candle to whatever look settles on Killian’s face. It’s not quite understanding – there’s still that pesky rule hanging over their heads and she’ll tell him the truth at some point, eventually, she will – but for right now, this moment, she wants to memorize every shift of his face, the twitch of his lips and the turn of his eyebrows, hair falling almost artfully across his forehead when he tilts his head slightly. 

He doesn’t look scared of her. And, really, that’s what makes all the difference because Emma’s been a little scared of what she can do and terrified of what everyone else will do if they find out about her, but Killian just takes another step towards her and smiles as if everything is normal or could be normal and—

“I’m fine, love,” he promises. “I’m very good at surviving.” Ruby scoffs. The moment ends – with Killian’s hand hovering just a breath away from Emma’s side. “Right, right,” Ruby mumbles. “Sure you are. That’s all very well and good and everything, but you’ve thrown a very large wrench into a case that already makes a negative amount of sense. Plus, you know...you’re supposed to be dead.” “I think we’ve covered that several times, Rubes” Emma mutters. 

“And I don’t think Jones died in Storybrooke.” Emma is very glad they’re not open until ten. Ruby’s proclamation rings out in the empty restaurant, bouncing off walls and tables and half-filled napkin containers. It hangs there, taunting and teasing and it can’t possibly be true. 

It can’t possibly be...not true. 

“I think you died on that boat, Jones,” Ruby adds, rolling her eyes when Killian mutters the technical term is ship under his breath. “And I really don’t care about that. But I think the goons killed you then and there and moved you to Storybrooke because you were some kind of very dreamy recluse who, if we’re keeping up appearances, should be dead in your hometown.” “But then why is Cora the one with the reward money?” Emma counters. “She’s the one who set this whole thing up.” “Unless she doesn’t really know who she was working for. Or she didn’t expect Jones to show up dead. Or she’s a little nervous about her own safety because Jones did show up dead. There’s plenty of reasons. All of which I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to answer when we go pay her a visit.” Emma does her best to form actual words. She does. It does not end well. And Ruby snickers at her. “Five figures, Em,” she says, pausing between each word to really drive her point home. “And whatever the uncles have offered now.” Killian jerks his arm back to his side. “They did what?” “Oh yeah, it’s not as much as Madam Mayor, but it’s a good amount and I think they’ve got some suspicions about you and your little jaunt to the...what water is Tahiti in? That doesn't matter. What does matter is that there’s more money being floated around and that means that more eyes are going to be on this and it’s in our best interest to figure it out.” “Don't you think that’s dangerous?” Emma asks, fighting the itch to start mixing something. 

“Oh, I think it’s incredibly dangerous. Except we’ve got a living, breathing dead person in this kitchen who’s involved in some kind of shady something and those same shady somethings will probably be very interested in him being alive. So solving Killian Jones’ murder seems to be our only option at this point.” Killian smiles at Emma – as if he’s won a competition they absolutely were not staging. She groans. “This is not a victory for you,” she hisses. “This is...how do you expect to just go outside? Graham knew who you were.” “He suspected,” Killian corrects. “And I’ll wear a hat. And sunglasses.” “Your ears look ridiculous in a hat.” “I hate to be that person, but I don’t think we should be all that worried about the fashion choices of the dead here,” Ruby says. 

“And you’re very worried about your own fashion choices.” “Ok, that’s rude. I am worried about you. Incredibly so, in fact. Because we’ve got a good thing going here and I...well, I am worried about you. That’s the headline.” It’s not a particularly impassioned speech, but it may be the most emotional Ruby’s gotten since Emma ran into her perp in an alley. Her heart strings are, effectively, tugged. And the guilt in the pit of her stomach churns. 

That’s less pleasant. “Fine,” Emma snaps, like she had any chance of convincing either one of them otherwise. “Fine. Let’s all solve a goddamn murder then. It’s not like I had pie to bake.” “Should be award-winning pie,” Killian adds. They’re definitely flirting. “And I’m serious about 30-30-40. Except from my uncles. That’s...there’s got to be a line, you know?” Ruby stops pouring the coffee Emma hadn’t realized she’d started pouring. “What exactly does that mean? Exactly?” “You said that twice.” “I’m going to get Emma to touch you.” “God, Rubes, that’s dark,” Emma grumbles. She’s run out of coffee. 

“I think I should get the forty percent of the reward because I died,” Killian says, easy as well, pie. “And we’re not taking money from my uncles. Nemo’s still sick. There’s gotta be some kind of morality clause in your familial PI code, right?” Ruby considers that for a moment before bursting out into a laugh that is so loud Emma glances at the walls to make sure the paint hasn’t been chipped. She’s still doubled over nearly thirty seconds later, body shaking and tears in her eyes and it’s a little concerning, but also kind of nice because it sounds real and Killian is still standing far too close to Emma. 

Like he can’t bring himself to move. 

“Yeah, yeah, that does seem fair actually,” Ruby nods, laughter still clinging to her words. “It wasn’t in the original instruction manual, but I doubt Granny was really prepared for people coming back from the dead.” “Magic’s got a way of sneaking up on you like that.” “I guess it does. And I guess we’re going back to Storybrooke, huh?” Killian hums, a barely visible shift of his weight that’s really a dismissal without the words. Ruby almost looks impressed. “I’ll, uh...I’ll give you guys a second.”

Emma needs to take the bell off her door. 

It’s far too loud, particularly when she can’t hear Killian breathing next to her. He turns on the spot, quick enough that Emma feels like she has to blink to make sure it’s really happening. It is. He’s still there. 

Looking at her. 

“Are you alright?” she asks, desperate to say something before he can. She’s a great, big, giant coward really. 

Killian’s mouth quirks up again. “Still as fine as advertised. And you stole my question, actually.” “There’s not anything to be worried about.” “With you or the situation in general?” “Me. Always.” “That’s a decidedly depressing mindset, Swan. I’d very much like to worry about you, at least for the time being. And I know there’s something you aren’t telling me.” Emma startles at the certainty there, the distinct lack of blinking or confusion. He’s positive. And he’s right. She makes another absurd noise. “I don’t know anything about you,” she points out. “It’s...we’re in the middle of something here and I just, well—”

“Why is it a minute?” 

“Why is what a minute?” “This whole magical side of you,” Killian says. “A minute seems incredibly arbitrary. It’s not a lot of time to do anything productive.” “You’d be surprised.”

He chuckles, tongue doing something incredibly unfair again. “You know I haven’t often been jealous of other people, but it seems to be a trend for me this morning.” “That’s ridiculous. Graham is not...we’re not like that.” “You may not be, Swan, but he certainly is. And I can’t say I blame him.” “That felt like flirting,” Emma accuses. 

“It was absolutely flirting. Was that not obvious? That’s frustrating. I am, admittedly, out of practice though, so...” “That’s surprising actually.”

“Is that a compliment?”

Emma nods, taking a step back to try and maintain her sanity. It seems to be slipping through her fingers the longer they stay in that kitchen. “I’m kind of out of practice with the flirting thing too,” she admits. “But, yes, it was meant to be. And, again, there’s no reason to be jealous. I’m talking to dead people.” “And then dead’ing them again.” “Usually.” “Alright, so we’ll work on the flirting then,” Killian promises, and Emma resents whatever her pulse does at that. He certainly hears it. “But why the minute? Did you decide that?” “A minute is a very long time. Plus, the longer someone is alive who isn’t really supposed to be alive, the more likely something is going to go wrong and people get very preachy when they realize life and death is in the balance.”

“I’m still here though. You’ve avoided kissing me on multiple occasions.” “That’s what you're worried about?” “Not in the way you’re thinking. Well, partially in the way you’re thinking, but mostly in the way that you said you’ve never done this before, right?” Emma nods. “And you don’t have some boyfriend aside from the love-struck waiter.” A less enthusiastic nod. Killian’s smile widens. “So,” he continues, leaning around her to grab something she can’t possibly be bothered looking at. “My main question before we dive into the seedy underbelly of the world is...why me?” “I told you that already,” Emma whispers, and she is not emotionally prepared to deal with this many emotions this early in the morning. Or ever. She can’t believe she still has so many emotions about Killian Jones. She desperately wants to brush his hair away from his eyebrows. 

“No, you did a rather horrible job of avoiding the question. So, I’ll ask you one more time, love, why didn’t you let me go?” Emma opens her mouth – certain I couldn’t will come spilling out of her, again and on loop, but she meets his gaze and it’s all too much and not enough. He’d know if she was lying anyway. 

“I just thought it made more sense,” she says. “To have you there. I...I thought my life might be...better if you were in it. You know, again.” He’s infuriatingly quiet or a moment, gaze penetrating. That’s not altogether uncomfortable either. Emma doesn’t blink. 

And, that, that, eventually seems like the turning point because it’s in that moment she realizes what exactly Killian is holding. 

Saran wrap.

He moves quickly, leading with his head so as not to touch her with anything else. The saran wrap isn’t perfectly tight between his fingers, a strange balancing act with only five fingers, but Emma’s too stunned to worry about that for too long and then she’s too amazed to be stunned and she’s wanted to kiss him since she saw him. 

Again. 

She moves forward, the taste of plastic on her tongue when she presses her lips against his. Her arms twist behind her, determined not to give into the metaphorical magnets that feel as if they’re yanking on Emma and begging her to card her fingers through Killian’s hair. 

She fists her hands, but she doesn’t pull away. Part of her is stunned, toying with fate and fire and the rules of the world, but the rest of Emma is screaming out in triumph, desperate to press her mouth closer to Killian’s, to breathe him in until he’s found his way back into the middle of everything. 

It feels impossibly easy. 

It always felt like that. 

Emma makes a noise, almost a groan and possibly a sigh and she can feel Killian’s smile through the twisted up saran wrap. Their noses bump.

“I can’t believe you did that,” she mumbles, not moving her head away. His laugh times up with the buzzing in her ears. 

“Consider it a well-executed science experiment.” “What would you have done if it didn’t work?” Killian shrugs. “I was pretty confident it would work.” “That’s not an answer.” “I really, really, really wanted to kiss you.” 

He bunches up the saran wrap before Emma can object, another quick press to her cheek that isn’t really to her cheek and she feels like she’s floating. She’s not sure she’s ever felt like that.

Ruby groans when she walks back into the restaurant. 

“Oh my God,” she sneers. “Is this our new normal? Because if it is, I’m taking my own car. Or that bus. It wasn’t really that bad.” “You made her take the bus, Swan?” Killian asks, tossing the saran wrap in the trash. Emma probably shouldn’t regret that. 

“I was trying to figure out how to get you away from your own coffin.” He beams at her. Ruby throws several napkins across the restaurant. 

“Can we go solve a murder, please? I’m sure Madam Mayor is very busy.” Emma takes a deep breath, glancing at a still-smiling Killian and the slight flush to his cheeks. She’s a little proud she put that there. “Yeah,” she nods. “Let’s go solve a murder.”

[adamwatchesmovies]

Adam Watches the 92nd Academy Awards

The 92nd Academy Awards have come and gone. As always, there’s plenty to be happy about and plenty that’ll make you wonder what the heck the voters were thinking. I watched the ceremony and while I may say that I don’t care… I do. Those awards are a big deal. Legions of people who would’ve otherwise dismissed Parasite as some movie that requires them to read subtitles saw it because it was nominated. One of those golden statues can make a career and let’s face it, you like to hear your love for something validated by people who have even the semblance of authority on the subject.

But here’s what you may not know: most of the voters really don’t know what they’re doing. While cinematographers NOMINATE what films are up for that Best Cinematography Award, EVERYONE in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gets to vote for the winner and there’s no guarantee they’ve actually seen every nominee, know what the technical terms mean or are voting because what they saw is what they actually believe was “the best”. Once you take into account the dollars required to produce a nomination campaign, the stigma many genre films face, the prejudices against certain types of roles and/or actors, and how popularity influences votes, a win hardly means more than a bunch of people you don’t know saying they liked a movie.

If you want a better idea of which of 2019’s films were “the best”, you’re better off asking someone you know and trust, someone who can prove they’ve done their homework and aren’t just voting for their friends, the one they’ve heard is good from their kid, or got a special gift basket from. I may not be a paid professional, but I have put in the time and effort to see EVERYTHING nominated (with a few exceptions I’ll detail below). Reviews for some of these (The Irishman, Judy) are coming to the blog in a couple of days. If it were up to me the list of nominees would be different but we’ll get to that later. Without further ado, here’s who SHOULD’VE won. 

Best Visual Effects

1917 – Guillaume Rocheron, Greg Butler, and Dominic Tuohy The best special effects are the kind you don’t even notice. I couldn’t tell you where the explosions, sets, and actors in 1917 begin, and where the computer-generated imagery takes over. It’s seamless.

Best Film Editing

Parasite – Yang Jin-mo Got to hand it to Parasite for its amazing use of montage and the way it stitched its footage together. Some shots I initially thought initially were one take I realized under carefully scrutiny - and by that I mean frame-by-frame examination - were actually two melded together. The scenes showing how the Kim family infiltrate the Park’s household should be shown in film class to demonstrate how the art of montage is at its best should be done to maximum effect.

Best Costume Design

Little Women – Jacqueline Durran Funny how every single film nominated at the 92nd Academy Awards was a period piece. My vote goes to Little Women not because it was necessarily the most accurate (I couldn’t tell you what people wore in 1868) but because of the way the costumes were used. You can tell a lot about the characters from the multiple outfits they wear throughout the film - check out that purple bonnet adorned by Aunt Marsh (Meryl Streep).

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

Bombshell – Kazu Hiro, Anne Morgan, and Vivian Baker I called it when I reviewed the film. The makeup used to transform John Lithgow was nothing short of incredible. It was an easy pick.

Best Cinematography

1917 – Roger Deakins I’m glad to see The Lighthouse on this list but I have to hand it to 1917. The one-shot motif adds so much to the story. Then, there are the individual shots I remember so vividly. The quiet meadow just outside of No Man’s Land, the raging inferno Schofield sees when he wakes up, the trench he must run in front of to reach the Colonel are all shots that permanently imprint themselves into your memory.

Best Production Design

1917 – Production Design: Dennis Gassner; Set Decoration: Lee Sandales Tempted to hand it to Parasite for the house they constructed for the movie but I’m give it to 1917. The trenches, the blasted landscape of No Man’s Land still haunt me. When you see the craters, it’s jarring. Then, as your eyes become adjusted, you notice the rats. Then, the chunks of bone and charred meat that have now become part of the landscape. It’s horrific.

Best Sound Mixing

Ford v Ferrari – Paul Massey, David Giammarco, and Steven A. Morrow What you remember most from Ford v Ferrari is that big race at the end. The climax wouldn’t have been the same without the sounds we heard. The roar of the engines, the clacking and grinding as the pedals are pushed and gears are switched… the air rushing by. Out of the nominees, it’s the one whose sounds I most remember.

Best Sound Editing

Ford v Ferrari – Donald Sylvester This year, the Best Sound Editing award goes hand-in-hand with the sound mixing. Obviously, the actors were never moving at the kind of speeds depicted in Ford v Ferrari but you wouldn’t be able to tell because of the foley and sound design.

Best Original Song

Stand Up from Harriet – Music and Lyrics by Joshuah Brian Campbell and Cynthia Erivo Stand Up plays during the end credits of Harriet and it perfectly caps the film. Whenever I hear its lyrics, I’m transported back to that moment. It’s the most memorable and emotional song on this list.

Best Original Score

Joker – Hildur Guðnadóttir I chose the best song for its ability to stand out. In this category, Joker wins because its music doesn’t stand out… at least not at first. While you’re watching, those notes don’t draw attention to themselves. They subconsciously build the mood, augmenting the performance by Joaquin Phoenix, the visuals, and the story. You don’t notice how much of an effect it has on you until you see isolated clips. When you do, it’s shocking.

Best Animated Short Film

Abstaining (I’ve only seen Hair Love)

Best Live Action Short Film

Abstaining

Best Documentary Short Subject

Abstaining

Best Documentary Feature

Abstaining

Best International Feature Film

Abstaining, as I’ve only seen 2 films (Pain and Glory and Parasite)

Best Animated Feature Film

I Lost My Body – Jérémy Clapin and Marc du Pontavice I Lost My Body is the most audacious and inspired of the animated films nominated. The only movie among these to be aimed at adults, it often tells its story through visuals alone but when you get to the end, you realize it’s about more than just what was on-screen.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Little Women – Greta Gerwig based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott Greta Gerwig does more than merely adapt the classic novel, she breathes new life into it, makes it her own, makes it feel wholly new and modern. This version of the film surpasses all others we’ve seen before because of the changes she’s made to the story’s structure. 

Best Original Screenplay

Knives Out – Rian Johnson What a ride Knives Out was. It’s got so many twists and turns, so many delightful characters you want to re-watch it the second it’s over so that you are no longer distracted by its central mystery and can simply step back and admire the handiwork by Rian Johnson. A sequel’s been announced and I can’t wait to see it.

Best Supporting Actress

Laura Dern – Marriage Story as Nora Fanshaw Laura Dern was also in Little Women and her two roles couldn’t be more different. Here, she’s loathsome and captivating. As soon as I saw Nora take off her shoes before she kneeled down on the couch to console Nicole, I knew there was a whole lot more to her character than what we were told. The more you see her, the more you want.

Best Supporting Actor

Al Pacino – The Irishman as Jimmy Hoffa Al Pacino has the advantage of getting A LOT of screen time as Jimmy Hoffa. The Irishman clocks in at over 3,5 hours and he isn’t in the whole movie but when he is, the seasoned performer gives us so much. At different periods of the story, you’ll feel differently about him. There’s no point comparing him to the real-life person. He takes the meaty role and makes it his own. His voice, his mannerisms, I can’t think of anyone who could’ve done it better.

Best Actress

Renée Zellweger – Judy as Judy Garland Judy was the very last movie on my list to watch, having missed it when it came to theatres. When I think back to Zellweger’s performance, I don’t see her. All I see is her character, a rich, complex person you sometimes hate, sometimes love and feel sorry for. The movie is not going to be on my “Best of” list but she is.

Best Actor

Joaquin Phoenix – Joker as Arthur Fleck / Joker To me, there was no question Joaquin Phoenix would take this one. I saw Joker three times and each time, I found something new in his performance.

Best Director

Sam Mendes – 1917 With this award, I’m awarding Sam Mendes for the craft he displayed in 1917. It’s such a visceral experience that when people asked me how it compared to Dunkirk, it felt weird to lump both together. This is coming from someone who gave both pictures a 5-star review, who put both on their respective “best of the year” lists. It’s a movie I’m going to go back to and wondering “how did they do that?!

Best Picture

Little Women – Amy Pascal It’s a tough call for me this year, partially because I loved Parasite, 1917, Joker, and others so much. I’m planning on adding those three films to my collection so I can pop them into my Blu-ray player any times I feel like it. That said, I would’ve given the Best Picture Award to Little Women. You’re so emotionally invested in this little story that telling you why with merely words is impossible. You fall in love over and over. It made me cry and every time I think back to that scene at Christmas, I tear up again. I’m choosing it because of all the things it does differently from the other films. At the end of the day, it isn’t a big story. It isn’t about people with guns, corruption, war, a turning point in history or even necessarily the biggest event in the lives of the characters but it feels like it is. That’s exactly why it’s so good. 

Disagree with my choices? I don’t blame you. What kind of idiot finds a way to leave out Marriage Story from their list? You let me know where it should’ve gone. Hopefully, commenting keep you warm until MY Best of 2019 list gets posted in the next few days.

[mestizo-efp]

Behind each other skin

TianShan Fic, body swap

Chapter 1/2 

Ao3

Suggested by @eve416

*bip bip bip bip* How can such a simple noise be so fucking annoying? That was the thought that woke GuanShan up. He felt so tired...how could it be morning already? He stretched out his arm, searching for his cellphone.

Why was the bedside table so freaking far? He finally grabbed the phone, squinting his eyes at the screen’s light.

“What the fuck?” he groaned. It was just 6am! Who the fuck changed his alarm? He put the phone back, ready to fall back to sleep. He fell on his pillow, tucking himself under the sheets. It was kind of cold and there was too much light.

He turned his head the other way, sighing and taking in the skyscrapers view- … Wait, what? He jumped up, looking around.

Yup, that was definitely He Tian's apartment. What the hell was he doing there? And where the hell was that asshole? He lifted the sheets: he was wearing just a pair of boxers! And they weren't his! GuanShan gritted his teeth, raging. What kind of sick joke was this? He got up.

“Woah!” said GuanShan, stumbling. He looked around, resting his hips on the boxes near the bed. Everything felt...far away, like he has become taller all of a sudden. He closed his eyes, shaking his head and caressing his forehead, all the way back to the back of his head. What the...his hair felt so long. He grabbed his bangs, taking it in front of his eyes. It was black, pitch black. 

A kind of black that he knew too well to mistake.

For a moment he felt so sick he thought he was going to faint. He looked at himself: broad chest, long legs, defined muscles that clearly weren't his.

“Mirror” he thought “I need a mirror”. He ran to the bathroom, stumbling and hitting  every furnishings. He entered the bathroom, swallowing hard before taking one more step and looking at himself at the mirror...or more correctly, to look at He Tian's face. His eyes widened and with trembling hands, he touched his-...He Tian's cheeks.

“WHAT THE FUCK??!!!” he shouted, jumping back and falling inside the bathtub, bumping his head into the wall.

“Ahh!! Fuck! That hurts!!” said GuanShan, grabbing the back of his head. Impossible, that just couldn't be real! A dream? Alcohol? Drugs? What the hell was going on? Felt like some cliché low category manwhua! He closed his eyes, covering them with his hands. He breathed, slowly. In and out.

“Again” In and out. He got up, hands still on his eyes. In and out. His hands slipped down, and slowly he opened his left eye first, the right one next. There he is, He Tian, in the mirror... looking at him. He walked outside of the bathroom, then again inside, looking at the mirror. Again, outside, inside. For at least ten minutes, but He Tian was always there. He set up on the toilet, cover his mouth.

“This is madness” he whispered “This can't be real” feeling cold as ice all of a sudden he looked at himself. How can that maniac sleep in boxers during winter? Wait...where was He Tian? Considering the situation, it seemed right to assume that something must have happened to him too ... and so it meant that- “Phone!!” shouted GuanShan, running back to the living room/bedroom. He grabbed it, looking for He Tian's number.

“Where the hell is it?” he said, looking at the list of unknowns number for the third time. Then,he stopped, and sighed.

“I’m an idiot” Of course there was no He Tian's number! He needed to calm down. He sat on the mattress, looking back at the contact list.

“There it is” he said “Tch, that asshole, calling me don't close mountain even here. I’ll kill him” He raised the phone, trying to remember if he had left it on when he went to sleep. So it seemed, luckily, when he heard it ringing. He waited for what seemed an eternity, and finally someone answered.

“Hello?” Man, it was so freaking weird to hear his voice on the other side of the phone. It was happening for real, wasn't it?

“He Tian?”

“Who's this?”

“It's...uhh.. it's me! GuanShan!” He heard himself yawning. That bastard was still sleeping, knowing nothing. At least he was relieved to know that his body was in a safe place.

“Mo? What’s up with your voice?” a moment of silence

“What's up with my voice?” GuanShan pinched the bridge of his nose, this was going to be really hard.

“Are you at my place?” He heard the sound of sheets ruffling.

“I think so...why am I here?”

“Listen to me! My mum is probably still asleep, you need to come to your place, now!” “Uh? But-...” Then it was silence. For at least a minute.

“He Tia-”

“Woah woah. What the fuck? What the hell is this?”

“He Tian! Keep your voice down you dumbass!!”

“What…? Wait, wait! Is this me?? How...WHAT?”

“HE TIAN!!” The phone must have fallen from He Tian's hand, cause he heard a loud thud, other noises, then He picked up his phone. “Ok, I don't know what this is. GuanShan? It's really you?”

“Of course it's me!”

“ 'Cause I’m looking at you right now, and I don't know what the fuck is going on! Why am I like this? Where is my body?”

“It's here! I mean...I’m you!”

“Say what?? How?” GuanShan sat up walking nervously through the room “You think I know?! This is bullshit!!”

“Ouch!” screamed He Tian “What? What happened?”

“I pinched myself. Looks like it's not a dream” “Of course it's not! I wish!” Another moment “Your skin is so soft~”

“DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME DICKHEAD!” “Technically I’m touching myself. Oh! That's a good idea” GuanShan lowered his voice, trying to sound as much menacing as possible, and it felt so strange to ear that particular sound, that he knew so well, coming out of his mouth.

“He Tian, I swear I’m going to smash your face in the wall and cut your dick off if you don't come here this moment! I swear!!”

He heard him sighing “I was kidding. I get it. I’ll be there in a moment. After a warm shower~”

“I’M TAKING THE KNIFE!” He heard him chuckling, and it sounded like something completely new.

“Alright. Meanwhile, you have my permission to enjoy my body as much as you like”

“AS IF, ASSHOLE!” And GuanShan closed the call. Of course He Tian would react like that, what else could he expects? He sat down on the couch, he knows that he shouldn't panic, but that was a fucking mess!  How was that happening? How can he turn everything back to normal? What if… what if!

“Damn it!” he said grabbing his hair “Calm down, you need to fix this, you have to fix this!” He nodded, clutching his hands. He observed them, opening them slowly...such long fingers. He looked at them closely, brushing each tip of the fingers with the thumb. It didn't felt particularly different, just...skin on skin. Suddenly he felt goosebumps raising all over him. No shit, he was practically naked. He choose whatever clothes from He Tian's wardrobe, going back to the kitchen. He felt so hungry, like never before. He Tian's body needed so much more energy than his. With nothing much to do during his waiting for He Tian's arrival, he decided to eat something. He recalled that he had stored some leftover for He Tian the day before, so he looked inside the fridge, finding them. Nothing particular, some fried eggs and vegetables. He placed them on the counter, reaching easily for a plate.

“Tall bastard” he thought. He sat down and took a bite, and his mouth went ajar: it tasted so freaking good!!

“What the hell?” he said, taking three other full spoons of eggs. In his brain he knew that those flavors were nothing special, but it felt like his tongue had never tasted something like this! Was this...was this how He Tian tasted his food? No wonder he always makes him cook for him! While keeping eating like his life depended on it, he started to wonder what else He Tian could feel different from him. Like...pain? Fatigue? It was He Tian's body after all, does that mean that he had become as strong as him? Wait a minute...what about his weak point? Maybe he was super ticklish somewhere or something like that! He sat up, gulping down the last bite. He started to tickling himself; first under his armpits. Nothing. Maybe his feets? Nope.

“Where else?” he thought “Oh, the neck” He grazed his neck, lightly, with the tips of his fingers. First under the ear, then under the jaw. He felt something...but it wasn't exactly ticklish. He traced a line from his chin, all way down through the Adam apple to the middle of his clavicles. A jolt hitted him, raising from his spine. That wasn't ticklish at all! He felt himself burning and he pushed away his hands, clicking his tongue.

“What the fuck! Damn you He Tian!” As he tried to recompose himself, someone knocked at the door. He immediately run towards it, risking to smash himself against it.

“Freaking long legs!” he hissed. He opened the door...and saw himself. Honestly, it felt terrifying, and judging by He Tian's expression on his face, the feeling must have been mutual. At least, for the first five seconds. “Well... don't I look good~?” Said He Tian, grinning. Ear himself talking with that kind of grin made his stomach churn. He almost couldn't recognize his own voice, or face. “Stop being a dick!”

“Don't make that grumpy expression with my face” said He Tian entering his own apartment

“You're making me look ugly. It only suits your face” GuanShan slammed the door, confirming that he wasn't able to control his strength  

“Can't you take this more seriously?!”

“I’m hungry”

“Listen to me damnit!”

“I’m listening” he said, opening the fridge, eating and making a disappointed face right after the first bite of GuanShan's fried eggs

“It tasted different yesterday”

“He Tian! Can't you fucking see that we are in each other's body? Doesn't makes you freak out!?”

“A little” he said “But then I thought that I should just enjoy the moment” GuanShan went close to him, grabbing his yellow t shirt and looking down at his red hair

“I swear if you dared to do something to me…” He Tian smiled, tilting his head a little “Nothing, I swear” GuanShan pursed his lips, letting him go

“I’ll choose to believe you. And stop smiling like an idiot! It disgust me!” He Tian laughed “Why? You look so good. I looked in the mirror for so long~”

“Shut up!”

“My cheeks kind of hurts. You're too grumpy, you're going to look like a monkey” GuanShan grabbed his hair, desperate “This must be some fucking nightmare!” At that point GuanShan sighed, sitting on the stool and crossing his legs, as his usual.

“Calm the fuck down” he said, crossing his harms, tilting his head upwards.

“Easy for you!” He Tian shaked his head

“We just need to analyze this situation thoroughly” touching his pockets, he looked around, like he was looking for something. “Don't even think about smoking in my body, asshole”

“Whatever” he shrugged, slipping his hands into his pockets “So, what could have caused this? Any idea?”

GuanShan thought, biting his lower lip “None, damnit”

“Something different happened yesterday?” He retraced the events of the day before: he got up, had breakfast, went to school, then He Tian's apartment, cooked for him, insulted him and went home. “Nothing” He Tian nodded, resting his elbows on the kitchen island behind him

“Same”

“That's it?? You're not fucking helping!! You useless bastard!”

“Stop yelling. We need to focus, and think about what to do next. Like going to school or not”

“Are you stupid? We have entry exams today. I don't want to lose a year!”

“Uh, forgot about those”

“Of course you did! Ughh...what a fucking mess!”

He Tian stood up “Let’s go then”

GuanShan snapped at him “WHAT?” He Tian scratched the back of his neck, letting his hand linger through his short hair

“Look, it's just one day. We go to school, we do the tests, and we go home. Luckily today is Friday, we’ll have an entire weekend to figure things out”

GuanShan thought, pondering “It's too risky!” He Tian laughed “Yeah, cause everyone is going to believe this situation. The worse that could happen is a sudden rise of your reputation”

“Hey! How dare yo-”

“But, whatever. I’m not the one with low grades so, you know” he turned back, taking a bottle of water and taking a long sip. GuanShan looked at him, and if that's wasn't his body, he would probably try to punch it into a pulp. Unfortunately...he was right. Entry exams were his last chance to recover his already low grades. He stood up, clutching his fist “Ok”

He Tian grinned “Good Mo~”

“BUT! I’m warning you, don't try anything funny at school! Avoid any contact and just focus on the test! And don't make that stupid smile with my face!” He Tian laughed, tilting his head “You think I'm the one who's going to have problems?” GuanShan went pale. Yeah...He Tian's wasn't exactly unpopular. He felt sick thinking of all his fangirls. He sighed, covering his eyes with his hands: that was such a bad idea.

“Just tell me where your fucking uniform is” He knew he was smiling, he just didn't want to look at him “Second drawer” GuanShan left the room, followed by He Tian.

“Don't follow me!”

“Why? I just want to make sure that you don't do anything weird with my body” GuanShan gritted his teeth

“Who cares about your ugly body? Stay here you sick evil demon!”

“Keep telling you that~” said He Tian, resting his back on the wall beside the room. GuanShan entered the room, looking for He Tian's uniform. He found it, looking at himself. He was too shocked earlier when he dressed up, but now undressing He Tian's body felt... weird. He looked at the door, making sure that He Tian wasn't peeking. He started with his shirt, trying not to look at himself and wearing the shirt. He then looked at his pants...he needed a distraction.

“The tests are the same for all classes, right?” “Uh uh”

“I was thinking...I mean, if you're going to do my test...you always have high rates in all the exams, right?”

“What can I say”

“Tch. That's... good and all for me...but what about you? I mean, my grades are-”

“You don't need to worry about that” GuanShan went silent, putting up his pants. 'Fucking He Tian’ he thought, walking towards the door. “Who said I’m worr-” he gasped “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING??” He Tian was groping his ass cheeks like it was the most natural thing in the world. He grinned, slowly raising them up

“Oops”

“You...mother...FUCKER!!” After some chase, they finally accorded to a no-touch rule, and for a good half an hour they planned they're entire day, according to meet at lunch time and to text each other if they need some information. Then they went out, walking towards the elevator, pressing the button.

“You forgot to close the door” said He Tian, looking back at the door.

“Oh, right” answered GuanShan “Where are the-” “Inside pocket of my bag” GuanShan narrowed his eyes, clicking his tongue. “Fucking lazy” he hissed. He went back to lock the door, at the same time the elevator reached their floor;  just when GuanShan was about to put the key inside the lock, He Tian went inside the elevator and peered out of the doors. “By the way, I could never guessed that your nipples were so pink. Cute~”. GuanShan eyes went wide, he felt his face melting, and before he could run towards He Tian to punch himself in the face, the elevator's door started to close, leaving him outside and furious; he watched He Tian, waving happily, gesturing that he was going to wait for him downstairs.

[so-chaos-killed-the-dinosaurs]

this is a dumb question, but what exactly is the "point" of the characters (particularly the Heathers, i'm assuming) that the new TV show is fucking up with their redesigns. i just wanna make sure i understand the issues here.

Ok the Heather’s are suppose to be the “popular girls”. They are the people who have the characteristics of what society considers to be beauty and they mock anyone who doesn’t met those standards.

Being skinny and making fun of people who aren’t. Caring more about their status standing than their grades, making fun of people for being geeks or nerd. Mocking people for not meeting what is considered the norm in society, aka being along the LGBT spectrum. (I mean damn JD and Veronica staged Ram and Kurt’s deaths as them dying because they where gay. And expecting them to be the mockery of the school. So making fun of people for being gay and the like.) Wearing clothes that are considered in at the time and that highlight their gender. Aka anything the Heathers wear which was all considered in at the time and stylish.

Heck the colors where a power symbol recognized by them. The queen of the school wore red. Both Chandler and Duke established this in the movie.

And then the first promo pics lacks the signature colors and shows them in weird clothes that would have gotten them weird looks and mocked at my school. The first promo pic is suppose to be thought over carefully. This is the first real image people are getting of your product. This is the hook that should help spark a person’s interest in your product. Get them thinking and hopefully interested in what you are making. And if the first image alone is already putting off a good portion of the fandom. Then you know you have an issue.

They only care (especially Chandler) about holding their social status. Veronica herself has said that she’s using her High IQ to pick out lip gloss and trying to figure out how many kegers she can hit before curfew.

Chandler gets pissed at Veronica for not holding up to the standard she expected for her at the party. (Sleeping with a guy she just met). Chandler certainty would never let herself be fat because it would go against her standards.

They are suppose to be a symbol of what society considers beautiful. And yes they are doing a modern version. But what sparks JD’s hatred for them. Is that he observes them (the Heathers, Kurt and Ram) mocking people for being different. He has seen this all before. Every school he goes to he sees it again and again. A never ending chain of bullying. He watched the Heathers make a mockery of Martha in the cafeteria. Making fun of the fat kid. (Now the show has a SKINNY Martha.) He watches Ram and Kurt chase down those nerdy boys and says stuff like “you piece of shit fag” and trying to get the kid to say “I like to suck big dicks”. Being gay wasn’t a good or popular thing. It lead to you getting bullied.

And yeah times now are a bit more accepting. But I went to a big school. I knew a lot of the LGBT kids because I was friends with a lot of them. I ran in circles that had a lot of them. (Anime Club, Art and Theater related things, Even Band.) I knew the spots where you could go after school and find a group of kids and a majority of them would fall into the LGBT spectrum. None of them where along the popular side at my school. Knowing my school they never would be.

By having the Heathers fall into the very groups they are suppose to mock. It goes against their characters. You can’t have an openly gender-fluid person or Lesbian mock other LGBT people. Yes not all LGBT people are nice. I’ve met plenty of assholes who are LGBT. But being LGBT and being the top dog at school and mocking other LGBT people at school. That doesn’t fit. A LGBT person couldn’t come up to me and make fun of me for being a girl who gets crushes on others girls. Because I’d just be like “so what you’re a guy that’s into guys. Or so what so are you. Etc.” It doesn’t have the same sting it does when coming from a non LGBT person.

A well known girl at my school was obese. But if she came up to me and made fun of my weight it wouldn’t work because she was heavier than me. Her insults could be fired right back at her. Now if a person in extremely good shape where to mock my size then that would hurt.

On top of that having all three of the Heathers fall into a minority but none of the other main characters. That also just seems wrong and like they are baiting people for brownie points.

Here are some changes to make the characters more diverse that would have worked.

•Making JD or Martha a race other than Caucasian. My favorite version of JD is Dan’s. Dan isn’t Caucasian. Yes I love Slater and Ryan. But image wise and art wise I love it when people base their JD around Dan. Also making them another race wouldn’t hurt their characters at all.

•Making Martha Bi or Pan. Martha’s crush is apart of the story and how she gets mocked so she still has to be into guys. But that doesn’t mean she couldn’t be Bi or Pan.

•Making JD along the Ace/Aro spectrum. I personally headcanon JD as Demisexual Hetroromantic. JD doesn’t seem like the type of character to honestly be that all into sex. Yes he had sex with Veronica. But I wouldn’t see it as interfering with the point of his character if he only had an interest in people after having a connection. I don’t think JD would just sleep with any girl. That he would have to have a general interest and connection with them. And yes typically Demisexual people (in my experience) need a longer time frame. But part of Heathers… well insane story is that it happens so fast.

•Making Veronica Bi. it wouldn’t mess with her character purpose and could give them that diverse cast they are looking for.

•Not making Martha skinny.

Now I wouldn’t want them to make all three of them minorities. As I feel likeIt might give the baiting feel it has with the Heathers. But if they did like 1 Heather & 2 of the others. Or 2 Heathers and 1 of the others. And making it seem like only minorities are mocked and non-minorities can’t be mocked doesn’t sit right with me. And I feel that’s how it would come off is all the bully’s werent minorities while the bullied kids were. As I know it isn’t true and I’ve watched people who fall into minorities categories make fun of people who don’t.

Idk three just feels like a good number.

And by 1 or two of the Heathers I mean their race. As I don’t think them not being Caucasian in a modern heathers would be much of a problem. In all productions of the musical I have seen at least one of the Heathers. (Usually Duke) isn’t caucasian. So having one of the Heathers a different race wouldn’t be an issue.

Oh and here is an idea. They go to a freaking school. You have cast characters you could use to get that diverse character cast you are looking for without messing with a character’s role. You want an LGBT character, I’ve said this before, but try having a girl have a thing for one of the Heathers. Like they did in the musical. Show her confessing to one of the Heathers. Then show how they treat her. Show them making fun of her or treating her poorly. Show me these asshole Heathers that are suppose to be an example of what is wrong with society. Show me Bi Veronica and them learning she is and Chandler pushing her to hide that side of her. That would be in character.

Show them making fun of a trans kid and that being part of that fuels JD to kill them. Because that would fit.

Show the negative consequences of what the Heathers do. Show how it effects people. When the show ends show Veronica trying to make things better. Show her approaching some of those kids and working with them.

Also for a racially diverse cast try having kids who aren’t just Chinese, Japanese or black. Try having Cuban characters or Native American or Polynesian or Puerto Rican, Indian, etc. Branch out to other races. Because while black and Asian may be two of the other top races after white in America, they aren’t the only ones.

I’m doing this on mobile. So sorry if it is long or runs together weird. I’m not always the best at wording this. @power-of-innocence tends to do a better job than me.

Edit: I would like to add that the reason the LGBT kids of my HS would never be popular wasn’t like due to my high school being really homophobic. (One of the most beloved seniors when I was a sophomore was an open lesbian.) But mostly due to the sheer size of my school. We had between 3,000 and 4,000 students each year. And 6 different lunch periods. (Technical 3 but for the 9th and 10th graders it was 6) It was impossible to fit the whole school in the cafeteria or gym. We didn’t really have popular kids. The closest you would get to it is kids whose names were well known. Like people really active with school related stuff. Like being apart of the student council or on the Cheerleading squad. (I actually knew many of those girls and they were all really nice.) Also having known those kids they weren’t the type of kids to ever be popular due to their personalities. They a lot where into unpopular subjects and/or also feel into the emo/goth categories. So a lot of them wouldn’t have been popular due to that. But even then the popular kids at my school weren’t mean. Most of them where popular because they where really nice and a lot of people just naturally liked them. Sorry just wanted to add that.Edit: At the time I made this every time I heard Martha mentioned people were saying that they were making her skinny, this maybe incorrect but I’m still not 100% sure. It’s still a horrible show regardless though. Just wanted to correct that.

[agirlinjapan]

Red Data Girl: World Heritage Girl (Week 24)

Red Data Girl: World Heritage Girl By Noriko Ogiwara A Translation

Miss the last piece? Read it here!

Check out the RDG Translation twitter!

It’s funny how I can get so much translation done one week and then nothing done the next. As spring draws closer, all of my final work as a grad student and a student teacher is beginning to start. It feels like I was just talking about school applications a month or two ago but in reality that was a year ago! Now I’m starting to think about job applications (something I’m terrified about btw).

Earlier this week, I saw that a reader had some questions about when I use last names versus first names for the characters in RDG. As you probably know, I try to make this translation as accessible to an English speaking audience as possible. For the most part, this just means I have characters address each other by their first names even though they use last names in the original text. (Japanese and English cultures differ on how to respectfully/politely address people.) With this said though, you may notice that there are some exceptions to my rule, specifically Hayakawa, Ryougoku, Wamiya, and Takayanagi.

Why do I use Yoshiki Hayakawa’s last name?

He was originally introduced with just his last name. We learned his first name about a page later but for some reason, his last name kind of just stuck with me. Seeing as Izumiko and co don’t know him very well, I think it’s okay for them to call him by his last name. Still, if I were to revise this translation in the future, I might use his first name instead. For now though, he will remain Hayakawa.

*Side note, I’d say Hoshino and Okouchi also fall into this category but their first names are never actually mentioned in the text so I don’t even have the option of using them.--That’s why they’re not getting their own question/answer here.

Why do I use Mizuhiko Ryougoku’s last name?

I don’t really have an explanation for Ryougoku. Earlier in the translation I think I was a bit more wishy-washy with first and last name use when it came to secondary characters so I’ll admit Ryougoku’s a bit of an inconsistency. Like with Hayakawa, I might change the name I use for him to Mizuhiko if I were to revise the translation in the future.

Why do I use Satoru Wamiya’s last name?

Wamiya’s always been a little... unusual, don’t you think? Using his last name seemed appropriate to me, especially with how he appeared out of no where in Izumiko’s middle school class and then disappeared just as quickly. Calling him by his last name adds to that air of mysteriousness.

Why do I use Ichijo Takayanagi’s last name?

There’s just something about calling an antagonist by their last name. It gives you that delicious tingle down your spine when used dramatically. Think Malfoy in Harry Potter. It almost gives off an iconic sort of feel like you don’t even have to use his name to know who you’re talking about.

In general, please remember that I’m just an amateur translator who’s doing her best. Translation is hard and there’s always more than one “right” way to translate something, especially when culture gets thrown into the mix. Feel free to ask questions about my translation choices. I’m happy to explain my thinking.

Red Data Girl: World Heritage Girl By Noriko Ogiwara Chapter 4: Boundary Part 1 (2 of 3)

Izumiko didn’t have a chance to talk to Mayura in Class 1-A until long after school had ended. But when Mayura came to find Izumiko at sunset, the expression on her face was especially serious.

“Can I pull you aside for a minute? Before you go off to student government?”

Izumiko, who had been working on Class C’s festival preparations, nodded. She quickly wiped her hands off and followed Mayura. The girl led them up the central stairs all the way to the third floor where she brought them into the social studies material room.

The Japanese history club was gathered there.

Izumiko had been invited to the club’s gatherings before summer break but she had never attended. Although she had joined the club of her own free will, she didn’t have a regular place in the group.  

As the only female member (besides Mayura), there was clearly a large wall between her and the others. She really didn’t know if it was truly okay for her to be working in the Japanese history club, which secretly ran as the MSF, the Mayura Souda Fan Club. Besides Mayura and Miyuki who were partial members like herself, the only person in the group she had really talked to was Mizuhiko Ryougoku, the president of the group.  

“Why are we here?”

“I bet you’ve heard the stories about the ghost pictures too,” Mayura answered tightly at Izumiko’s question. “Photography is Ryougoku’s specialty so I asked him to give me a detailed analysis of a few ghost shots he’s taken. He’s also going to give us a look at the pictures he took the other day.”

Izumiko was instantly impressed. If she could think on the same level as Mayura, she was sure she would never make a mistake. She had been thinking about the ghost photos all day. Her anticipation rose.

“Oh, right. That’s a good idea. I wanted to see them, too.”

“It’s understandable to be skeptical of ghost pictures taken with low resolution cellphone cameras,” Mayura said as she moved away from the door. “But on the other hand, the more ghost pictures that are taken on high quality cameras, the more you have to wonder about the digital processing…”

The material room looked like a dim storehouse. Not only were there steel shelves piled high with all sorts of things up against the walls but there were more in the middle of the room, obstructing the lights on the ceiling. It wasn’t a particularly inviting place. Still, there was a long, narrow space in the room where a number of male students were standing with their backs to Mayura and Izumiko. They were enthusiastically gazing at a large, flat screen TV which had been mounted to the wall. It looked like it was connected to a laptop which was being used to display pictures on the larger screen. While it was hard to make out with all the people in the picture, it appeared that the photo had been shot near the high school building.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. Izumiko came with me too.”

Hearing Mayura’s announcement, Ryougoku and the other boys who had been looking at the screen turned to look at them all at once. Regardless the fact that Izumiko was part of their club, the business like greeting that the boys gave them made her bow her head in an apology for interrupting them. Her response was also a result of not coming to their meetings.

Miyuki was standing in the group.

As one of the club members, it was technically unsurprising that he would be there. It seemed like he was examining the picture as well. Izumiko quickly steadied herself so that no one saw her instant reaction. She hadn’t been prepared to see him. Miyuki looked content to be at the edge of the group, not bothering to move any closer to the two girls.

Mayura did not react much to seeing Miyuki there. It was almost as if the conversation between them had never taken place. Miyuki was not high up in the MSF’s hierarchy and as a result, she could not show more familiarism to him than to the rest of the club with the other boys here. Even Izumiko understood that rule. The fact made her feel better about not wanting to talk to him in the clubroom.

Miyuki didn’t do anything to draw attention to himself either. It was clear to see that he held a less important role here than he did in the student government but he didn’t look particularly upset about that. He compartmentalized the behaviors he used in the two different clubs.

Ryougoku licked his lips and said, “I’ve been looking into your request. I ran into a bunch of unexplainable things. They’re enough to worry me a little.”

“What worried you?” Mayura asked.

“Too many things to count. I have to wonder why I’ve taken so many pictures with ghost-like aspects in them all of a sudden.”

“I had the same thought. Where are the ghost pictures?” Mayura questioned, gazing at the flat screen. It showed a picture of Hayakawa in his tall, golden samurai helmet, surrounded by students. Mayura nor Izumiko was anywhere to be seen in the shot. Izumiko was secretly relieved.

“Once a person has seen one picture of a ghost, they tend to start finding more and more everywhere they look, I guess…”

Shrugging, Ryougoku brought a finger up to the screen. Seeing as the image was not being projected, the shadow of his finger did not obstruct what was being shown beneath it. Izumiko was glad of this.

“…This student standing in the back. Look. Isn’t he weird? The colors in the photo probably got messed up when I took it thanks to that gaudy golden helmet but the student has both his hands in his pockets, right? There’s no way he could be holding onto the shoulder of the student next to him…”

The hand on the shoulder in question looked like the real thing. However, the angle in which it was positioned made it impossible that it could have belonged to any of the students behind the one with the hand on his shoulder.

“Could it be an optical illusion?”

“I considered that as well.”

Ryougoku showed them the other photos he had looked at. One at a time, they appeared on the screen. Many of them contained unearthly white lights and humanoid shadows. There were also a number of instances where human faces appeared in unexpected places around the assembly hall such as on the walls and the floor.

There were also some pictures that contained Izumiko and Mayura but they were only in the background and they didn’t show up that often. The strange thing was that the anomalies seemed to appear much more frequently around the students that had gathered around the models than near the models themselves.

Until now, Izumiko had never once seen a photo of a ghost in her life.

She acknowledged that the photos in front of her now were indeed those of ghosts but she still hadn’t heard an explanation for why they were even there for her to see. The lights and shadows in the pictures were strange and she got a bad feeling when she looked at the warped faces and other ghostly forms. It still wasn’t enough to make her heart freeze up in fear though.

It’s much scarier when something that should be in a picture doesn't show up than when something that shouldn’t be there does, Izumiko thought. She considered the case of the cellphone picture Miyuki had taken of the exchange student, Ricardo.

Compared to the memory of that terrifying time, the uproar around these ghost pictures felt like a game or even a stretch of the imagination.

The rest of the boys in the room were also calm. They were testing students’ claims of having taken ghost pictures and considering whether or not they were the real thing. However, just like Karin, they were not one hundred percent convinced of the whole situation.

“Out of all the supposed ghost pictures, I can’t say at this moment what percentage are real,” Ryougoku said seriously, sounding like an analyst. “It’s clear that some of them are authentic though. But with that said, there’s a good chance that more photos will show up for a while. Plenty of photos were taken that day at the lecture.”

Mayura asked an important question.

“Are there any ghosts in the pictures you took, Ryougoku?”

“I don’t think so,” he replied, his expression sour. “However, lots of people have shown them to me. Some people will find ghosts in anything. You could say they have ‘ghost vision.’ Once they see a ghost just one time, anything even slightly out of the ordinary becomes connected to ghosts.”

The vast majority of Ryougoku’s photos were candid, close-up shots of Mayura and Izumiko. Despite the way they had been taken, they were all, as expected from Ryougoku, beautifully shot. He had used the elegant screen that had been brought into the hall for the occasion as a backdrop. Because of the screen, the other high school girls that had been surrounding them were not visible. The results were probably also to do with the quality of the camera and Ryougoku’s handy work.

While the photos were being projected onto the TV screen, the other members of the club pointed out possible ghostly images, saying things like, “there’s a face here.” However, everything they said was in quiet jest. Ryougoku alone glared at them in indignation.

Izumiko didn’t find her close up particularly embarrassing. Strangely enough, she felt comfortable looking at it. The person in the photo looked so other to her that it didn’t even feel like it was cosplay. The girl in the princess outfit didn’t look like her mother, Yukariko either. She looked like someone she had never seen until now.

Izumiko might not have liked pictures of herself being shown to people, but Mayura was fine with it. That was the way she had always been. Even when the candid shots of her had been sold throughout the school like pictures of an idol, she hadn’t really cared.

Mayura was not modest. That much was true. But at the same time, unlike most girls, her attractiveness never seemed to be the most important thing on her mind even though anyone could take her picture and she would never have to worry about it how it came out.          

After looking at her close up picture for a moment, Mayura said plainly, “I second your opinion, Ryougogku. I don’t think there are any ghosts in your pictures. Everyone, don’t joke about this. Ryougoku’s photos are the best shots from the lecture.”

“Do you think so?”

Ryougoku’s expression dissolved into a smile. His round face looked happy.  

“If that’s the case, you’ll be okay with me printing this picture out, right?”

“If you tell me how you’re planning to use it, that’s fine.”

As Mayura answered Ryougoku’s question, someone mumbled, “I bet he’s going to use it as a good luck charm.”

Everyone laughed. As Izumiko laughed though, she felt impressed. Being able to draw reassurance from Mayura’s photo was a good way of expressing how much strength the other girl had.  

Mayura ignored the chatter and continued on briskly.

“Are these all the photos we should look at? What does everyone think about ghost pictures being so popular right now?”

A few opinions were voiced. In the end, everyone seemed to agree that someone had probably started a rumor and then everyone else had gone along with it. Ryougoku had the most thought out opinion in the group.

“I feel it’s more likely that most of the students here at our school think they’re seeing ghosts in the pictures they take, not that there’s actual ghosts in those pictures. If you think about it that way, isn’t this more of a question of human psychology? The atmosphere of our school has completely changed because of all this. Everyone’s more than ready to accept any suggestion of a ghost they find. I think that’s the real problem here.”

Mayura nodded quickly.

“You’re right. Thanks so much. You’ve helped a lot.”   

Keep reading!

[dentalinfotoday]

Disclosure:

Ask the Dentist is supported by readers. If you use one of the links below and buy something, Ask the Dentist makes a little bit of money at no additional cost to you. I rigorously research, test, and use thousands of products every year, but recommend only a small fraction of these. I only promote products that I truly feel will be valuable to you in improving your oral health.

Whether it’s the work commute, driving back and forth to see a loved one in the hospital, or just a vacation drive, finding healthy snacks on the go can be a challenge. A few weeks of cavity-causing snacks could result in a lot of havoc for your teeth—including newly sensitive teeth.

Fortunately, there are more tooth-friendly options for on-the-go snacking than you might think. And if a new snacking habit has resulted in some tooth sensitivity, this article can help you locate the possible culprit.

Let’s look at the best way to keep your teeth strong and cavity-free, even on the road. But first, I’d like to share with you the moment I realized how important this was in my own life.

Krista’s Story

During many dental visits in the past, my dentist kindly warned me I was eating too much sugar and foods that weren’t good for my dental and overall health. (Basically, I was wrecking my oral microbiome…more on why that matters here.)

It wasn’t until 2009 when the doctor explained to me what was going on that I began to take my health seriously.

“Krista, you have maybe three months to live—the cancer is growing rapidly and if you don’t do something, you may be out of time.”

In that moment, I knew I needed to put up a fight and make some serious changes. I began seeing a nutritionist to expand my knowledge on plant-based nutrition and how to change my diet and support my fight against cancer.

But with a life full of hospital trips, I struggled to find healthy snacks on the go readily available. Many times, I found myself circling gas stations and convenience stores and walking out empty handed. Besides a bottle of water or an over-salted pack of almonds, I would go hungry instead of opting for something unhealthy.

The lack of access to healthy foods began to eat at me. As someone fighting a life-threatening disease at the time, it seemed impossible to stay healthy while on the go. I was forced to pack food with me, and many months I found my pantry bare because of the overwhelming hospital bills eating at my savings account.

Suffice it to say that this was an impossible situation to be in while fighting for my life.

I couldn’t help but think of all of the other people in the U.S. struggling with the same problem.

After winning my battle with cancer, I decided to do something about it. I launched a company called ESSTAR and “Krista’s Healthy On The Go” kiosks that sell healthy snack foods. I now focus on making food available in gas stations, convenience stores, hospitals, colleges and cafeterias across the U.S—some of the places where good nutrition is most needed and most ignored. (Read more about this “food desert” dilemma here and my cancer recovery story here.)

Fighting cancer or not, most of us are on-the-go all the time. But you don’t have to sacrifice healthy teeth for being busy! From cancer recovery to entrepreneurship, I’ve been busy the last several years. These experiences have led me to these four tips for preventing cavities—and staying healthy in general.

4 Tips for Healthy Snacks on the Go

Snacking on the road is problematic when it comes to dental health because teeth need a chance to remineralize. If you’re munching on sweets, sipping soda, and foregoing good brushing habits (because who hasn’t done that on vacation?), cavities can quickly form.

Find yourself struggling to find healthy snacks on the go? Here are some tips:

1. Plan Ahead

Take a few minutes to prepare before you leave the house. When you’ve got baggies full of healthy snacks, you can cut down on the temptation to satiate your hunger with processed, sugar-rich foods.

When thinking of snacks on the road, consider things that won’t get mushy or that need to stay fresh or refrigerated.

Some of my favorite healthy snacks to pack that are great for your teeth include:

Fresh fruit: Try blueberries, strawberries, bananas, and raspberries. The water in fresh fruit makes them a tooth-friendly choice. But watch out for dried fruit—sugars in dry fruit are really concentrated and can stick to teeth just like candy.

Veggie slices: Some of the best are carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, or cherry tomatoes. Many grocery stores offer pre-sliced veggies or packs of cherry tomatoes or sugar snap peas that are simple and portable.

Nuts: My favorites are almonds, cashews, or pecans. Nuts make a great buffer for sugar sticking to your teeth, so if you’re going to splurge a little with a candy bar, for instance, make sure to eat nuts, too.

Healthy trail mix: Avoid the dried fruit; it’s full of sugar!

Homemade kale chips: These are one of my favorite healthy snacks on the go. They’ve got everything you need for great nutrition—a super food, healthy fat, and portability!

Pro tip: To make a really great trail mix that your teeth will love, use the following ingredients:

Almonds

Cashews

Chocolate chips (I love this brand because they don’t use processed sugar to sweeten)

Pumpkin seeds

Dried coconut

If you’ve never tried this trail mix, you should. It’ll make you forget you’re eating healthy!

2. Check Yelp

The Yelp app has saved the day for me many times while looking for healthy snacks on the go. While traveling, I use it to locate a local juice or smoothie bar, health food store, or similar establishment. It’s fascinating to discover the creations of local artisans, and I’m often pleasantly surprised with the healthy options available in even smaller towns.

Here’s an easy way to find great, tooth-friendly food nearby. Just open the Yelp app and search for “healthy food” and then click the “Open Now” option. Voila! You’ll be able to see open restaurants advertised as healthy fare.

3. Hack Convenience Store Eating

Look for the cooler! This is where you’ll find things like:

Yogurt (watch for the sugar count here, but many yogurts are good probiotic foods)

Salads

Hard-boiled eggs (bonus points for vitamin K2-rich, grass-fed eggs)

String cheese

Fruit cups

Vegetable trays

Seaweed packs (yes, this sounds weird, but they’re actually delicious!)

Not everything in the coolers will be healthy, but many of the healthy options are found there.

If you’re fortunate enough to be in a gas station with a “healthy” section, that can be a great place to check out, too. Some of the better gas station snacks outside the cooler are:

Beef jerky (without soy and added sugar)

Protein bars low in sugar content

Sugar-free gum (the xylitol here is actually great for remineralizing teeth)

4. Choose Better Drinks

Instead of soda or sugar-packed juices or sweet teas, try to find something less acidic and sugar-filled. I generally advise avoiding diet drinks, although these are technically sugar-free.

Some of my favorite healthy drinks from gas stations include:

Bottled water

Unsweetened tea

Sparkling/mineral water (like La Croix, Deer Park Sparkling Water, and Topo Chico)

Kombucha (I like GT’s, which has the lowest sugar content per serving)

Sugar-free or low sugar drinks sweetened with honey, monk fruit, or stevia

Ingredients to Avoid in Snack Food

Many snack foods available today are high in refined carbohydrates and sugar, which are not only bad for teeth but can make you feel sluggish, unsatisfied, and hungrier faster. Between extending the time you’re exposing your teeth to these cavity-causing ingredients and increasing your craving for more of those foods, bad snacking can create a fast spiral.

Flavor enhancers, preservatives, sweeteners, synthetic colors, and man-made fats and chemicals often hide out in the processed foods we eat. Many of these ingredients are inflammatory and interfere with your body’s pH balance (more on how that works here).

Don’t forget—tooth decay and gum disease are both diseases. It’s easy to think of them as different than an illness elsewhere in the body, but they fall into the same category.

By eating inflammatory, acidic ingredients in food, you’re setting the stage for a body that’s less able to fight disease (in your mouth or anywhere else).

But which ingredients are actually harmful? What should you look for on a snack label on your next road trip?

The Food Babe has a great list of additives in processed foods that I (mostly) agree are great to avoid. Check out her full list here.

Best High-Protein Foods On-the-Go

The key is to make sure your healthy snacks on the go are nutritious and contain protein. Protein promotes fullness because it signals the release of appetite-suppressing hormones, slows digestion, and stabilizes blood sugar levels.

Plus, many high-protein snacks are low in ingredients that bad oral bacteria love to feed on.

Here are some high-protein snacks that are healthy and portable:

Beef jerky

Trail mix

Nut mixes

Greek yogurt

Nut butters

Hard-boiled eggs

Tuna

Protein bars

Protein shakes

When You Have a “Flex” Day on the Road

It’s unrealistic for most of us to eat “perfectly” 100% of the time—not just because there are so many different versions of “perfect” when it comes to food.

To protect your teeth from decay, here are a few ways you can offset the impact of sugary or processed sweets on your next trip:

Drink a lot of water. Water creates a buffer between your teeth and bacteria-friendly foods, so make the extra bathroom stops and opt for more water.

Try dry brushing. Toothpaste isn’t actually as big a deal as you might think. You can disorganize your biofilm just as efficiently by dry brushing—just using a toothbrush without paste. It’s a great idea to keep a travel brush in your glove box or purse for times when you need an extra brush away from your sink.

Eat “flex” foods in small spurts. The amount of time sugar and other acidic ingredients are exposed to your teeth is an important element in cavity formation. If you’re going to treat yourself with a less healthy snack option, don’t snack for hours; eat or drink your treat quickly and then buffer with water.

Plan when to “flex” and stick to your plan. Just because the occasional sugary snack probably won’t kill you isn’t a reason to toss your healthy diet altogether. Plan ahead when you’ll have a “flex” snack or meal, and stick to what you decide.

Key Takeaways: Tooth-Friendly, Healthy Snacks On the Go

It’s easy to go for the convenient, less-healthy option when you’re looking for snacks on the go. However, there are options for eating healthy snacks on the go that won’t contribute to cavities.

My top tips for eating healthy while traveling are:

Plan ahead

Check Yelp for healthy options in the area

Hack convenience store eating

Choose better drinks

After my experience with the inaccessibility of healthy food on the go, I set out to make a change. That’s why I created ESSTAR, which supplies convenience stores with kiosks called “Krista’s Healthy On-the-Go.” I carefully choose products for those shelves that have recognizable, limited ingredient lists and that promote better health for your teeth and body.

Want to know if a gas station on your route has a Krista’s Healthy-on-the-Go station? Go to esstar.us, where you can find our locations with organic, gluten-free, vegan, paleo and allergen-free snacks.

If you would like to see healthy snack options in a store near you, please feel free to go to ESSTAR’s website and suggest a location.

read next: Vitamin K2 Foods: Top Choices for Healthy Teeth

The post Tooth-Friendly, Healthy Snacks on the Go (4 Tips) appeared first on Ask the Dentist.

from Ask the Dentist https://askthedentist.com/healthy-snacks-on-the-go/

[kristinsimmons]

Tooth-Friendly, Healthy Snacks on the Go (4 Tips)

Disclosure:

Ask the Dentist is supported by readers. If you use one of the links below and buy something, Ask the Dentist makes a little bit of money at no additional cost to you. I rigorously research, test, and use thousands of products every year, but recommend only a small fraction of these. I only promote products that I truly feel will be valuable to you in improving your oral health.

Whether it’s the work commute, driving back and forth to see a loved one in the hospital, or just a vacation drive, finding healthy snacks on the go can be a challenge. A few weeks of cavity-causing snacks could result in a lot of havoc for your teeth—including newly sensitive teeth.

Fortunately, there are more tooth-friendly options for on-the-go snacking than you might think. And if a new snacking habit has resulted in some tooth sensitivity, this article can help you locate the possible culprit.

Let’s look at the best way to keep your teeth strong and cavity-free, even on the road. But first, I’d like to share with you the moment I realized how important this was in my own life.

Krista’s Story

During many dental visits in the past, my dentist kindly warned me I was eating too much sugar and foods that weren’t good for my dental and overall health. (Basically, I was wrecking my oral microbiome…more on why that matters here.)

It wasn’t until 2009 when the doctor explained to me what was going on that I began to take my health seriously.

“Krista, you have maybe three months to live—the cancer is growing rapidly and if you don’t do something, you may be out of time.”

In that moment, I knew I needed to put up a fight and make some serious changes. I began seeing a nutritionist to expand my knowledge on plant-based nutrition and how to change my diet and support my fight against cancer.

But with a life full of hospital trips, I struggled to find healthy snacks on the go readily available. Many times, I found myself circling gas stations and convenience stores and walking out empty handed. Besides a bottle of water or an over-salted pack of almonds, I would go hungry instead of opting for something unhealthy.

The lack of access to healthy foods began to eat at me. As someone fighting a life-threatening disease at the time, it seemed impossible to stay healthy while on the go. I was forced to pack food with me, and many months I found my pantry bare because of the overwhelming hospital bills eating at my savings account.

Suffice it to say that this was an impossible situation to be in while fighting for my life.

I couldn’t help but think of all of the other people in the U.S. struggling with the same problem.

After winning my battle with cancer, I decided to do something about it. I launched a company called ESSTAR and “Krista’s Healthy On The Go” kiosks that sell healthy snack foods. I now focus on making food available in gas stations, convenience stores, hospitals, colleges and cafeterias across the U.S—some of the places where good nutrition is most needed and most ignored. (Read more about this “food desert” dilemma here and my cancer recovery story here.)

Fighting cancer or not, most of us are on-the-go all the time. But you don’t have to sacrifice healthy teeth for being busy! From cancer recovery to entrepreneurship, I’ve been busy the last several years. These experiences have led me to these four tips for preventing cavities—and staying healthy in general.

4 Tips for Healthy Snacks on the Go

Snacking on the road is problematic when it comes to dental health because teeth need a chance to remineralize. If you’re munching on sweets, sipping soda, and foregoing good brushing habits (because who hasn’t done that on vacation?), cavities can quickly form.

Find yourself struggling to find healthy snacks on the go? Here are some tips:

1. Plan Ahead

Take a few minutes to prepare before you leave the house. When you’ve got baggies full of healthy snacks, you can cut down on the temptation to satiate your hunger with processed, sugar-rich foods.

When thinking of snacks on the road, consider things that won’t get mushy or that need to stay fresh or refrigerated.

Some of my favorite healthy snacks to pack that are great for your teeth include:

Fresh fruit: Try blueberries, strawberries, bananas, and raspberries. The water in fresh fruit makes them a tooth-friendly choice. But watch out for dried fruit—sugars in dry fruit are really concentrated and can stick to teeth just like candy.

Veggie slices: Some of the best are carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, or cherry tomatoes. Many grocery stores offer pre-sliced veggies or packs of cherry tomatoes or sugar snap peas that are simple and portable.

Nuts: My favorites are almonds, cashews, or pecans. Nuts make a great buffer for sugar sticking to your teeth, so if you’re going to splurge a little with a candy bar, for instance, make sure to eat nuts, too.

Healthy trail mix: Avoid the dried fruit; it’s full of sugar!

Homemade kale chips: These are one of my favorite healthy snacks on the go. They’ve got everything you need for great nutrition—a super food, healthy fat, and portability!

Pro tip: To make a really great trail mix that your teeth will love, use the following ingredients:

Almonds

Cashews

Chocolate chips (I love this brand because they don’t use processed sugar to sweeten)

Pumpkin seeds

Dried coconut

If you’ve never tried this trail mix, you should. It’ll make you forget you’re eating healthy!

2. Check Yelp

The Yelp app has saved the day for me many times while looking for healthy snacks on the go. While traveling, I use it to locate a local juice or smoothie bar, health food store, or similar establishment. It’s fascinating to discover the creations of local artisans, and I’m often pleasantly surprised with the healthy options available in even smaller towns.

Here’s an easy way to find great, tooth-friendly food nearby. Just open the Yelp app and search for “healthy food” and then click the “Open Now” option. Voila! You’ll be able to see open restaurants advertised as healthy fare.

3. Hack Convenience Store Eating

Look for the cooler! This is where you’ll find things like:

Yogurt (watch for the sugar count here, but many yogurts are good probiotic foods)

Salads

Hard-boiled eggs (bonus points for vitamin K2-rich, grass-fed eggs)

String cheese

Fruit cups

Vegetable trays

Seaweed packs (yes, this sounds weird, but they’re actually delicious!)

Not everything in the coolers will be healthy, but many of the healthy options are found there.

If you’re fortunate enough to be in a gas station with a “healthy” section, that can be a great place to check out, too. Some of the better gas station snacks outside the cooler are:

Beef jerky (without soy and added sugar)

Protein bars low in sugar content

Sugar-free gum (the xylitol here is actually great for remineralizing teeth)

4. Choose Better Drinks

Instead of soda or sugar-packed juices or sweet teas, try to find something less acidic and sugar-filled. I generally advise avoiding diet drinks, although these are technically sugar-free.

Some of my favorite healthy drinks from gas stations include:

Bottled water

Unsweetened tea

Sparkling/mineral water (like La Croix, Deer Park Sparkling Water, and Topo Chico)

Kombucha (I like GT’s, which has the lowest sugar content per serving)

Sugar-free or low sugar drinks sweetened with honey, monk fruit, or stevia

Ingredients to Avoid in Snack Food

Many snack foods available today are high in refined carbohydrates and sugar, which are not only bad for teeth but can make you feel sluggish, unsatisfied, and hungrier faster. Between extending the time you’re exposing your teeth to these cavity-causing ingredients and increasing your craving for more of those foods, bad snacking can create a fast spiral.

Flavor enhancers, preservatives, sweeteners, synthetic colors, and man-made fats and chemicals often hide out in the processed foods we eat. Many of these ingredients are inflammatory and interfere with your body’s pH balance (more on how that works here).

Don’t forget—tooth decay and gum disease are both diseases. It’s easy to think of them as different than an illness elsewhere in the body, but they fall into the same category.

By eating inflammatory, acidic ingredients in food, you’re setting the stage for a body that’s less able to fight disease (in your mouth or anywhere else).

But which ingredients are actually harmful? What should you look for on a snack label on your next road trip?

The Food Babe has a great list of additives in processed foods that I (mostly) agree are great to avoid. Check out her full list here.

Best High-Protein Foods On-the-Go

The key is to make sure your healthy snacks on the go are nutritious and contain protein. Protein promotes fullness because it signals the release of appetite-suppressing hormones, slows digestion, and stabilizes blood sugar levels.

Plus, many high-protein snacks are low in ingredients that bad oral bacteria love to feed on.

Here are some high-protein snacks that are healthy and portable:

Beef jerky

Trail mix

Nut mixes

Greek yogurt

Nut butters

Hard-boiled eggs

Tuna

Protein bars

Protein shakes

When You Have a “Flex” Day on the Road

It’s unrealistic for most of us to eat “perfectly” 100% of the time—not just because there are so many different versions of “perfect” when it comes to food.

To protect your teeth from decay, here are a few ways you can offset the impact of sugary or processed sweets on your next trip:

Drink a lot of water. Water creates a buffer between your teeth and bacteria-friendly foods, so make the extra bathroom stops and opt for more water.

Try dry brushing. Toothpaste isn’t actually as big a deal as you might think. You can disorganize your biofilm just as efficiently by dry brushing—just using a toothbrush without paste. It’s a great idea to keep a travel brush in your glove box or purse for times when you need an extra brush away from your sink.

Eat “flex” foods in small spurts. The amount of time sugar and other acidic ingredients are exposed to your teeth is an important element in cavity formation. If you’re going to treat yourself with a less healthy snack option, don’t snack for hours; eat or drink your treat quickly and then buffer with water.

Plan when to “flex” and stick to your plan. Just because the occasional sugary snack probably won’t kill you isn’t a reason to toss your healthy diet altogether. Plan ahead when you’ll have a “flex” snack or meal, and stick to what you decide.

Key Takeaways: Tooth-Friendly, Healthy Snacks On the Go

It’s easy to go for the convenient, less-healthy option when you’re looking for snacks on the go. However, there are options for eating healthy snacks on the go that won’t contribute to cavities.

My top tips for eating healthy while traveling are:

Plan ahead

Check Yelp for healthy options in the area

Hack convenience store eating

Choose better drinks

After my experience with the inaccessibility of healthy food on the go, I set out to make a change. That’s why I created ESSTAR, which supplies convenience stores with kiosks called “Krista’s Healthy On-the-Go.” I carefully choose products for those shelves that have recognizable, limited ingredient lists and that promote better health for your teeth and body.

Want to know if a gas station on your route has a Krista’s Healthy-on-the-Go station? Go to esstar.us, where you can find our locations with organic, gluten-free, vegan, paleo and allergen-free snacks.

If you would like to see healthy snack options in a store near you, please feel free to go to ESSTAR’s website and suggest a location.

read next: Vitamin K2 Foods: Top Choices for Healthy Teeth

The post Tooth-Friendly, Healthy Snacks on the Go (4 Tips) appeared first on Ask the Dentist.

Tooth-Friendly, Healthy Snacks on the Go (4 Tips) published first on https://wittooth.tumblr.com/

[heironymous-smash]

Polyphasic Sleep

(This info used to be on the front page; moving it over here to clean up a bit and make room for more stuff!  :))

I've been polyphasic for many years now, and back in 2001, I was one of the first people (ok, to the best of my knowledge, actually THE first, which is weird) to write online about sleeping on a polyphasic schedule long-term.  

I've been experimenting with it since, talking with everyone I can about it, helping people through adapting / switching sleep schedules, and have collected a ton of information over the years on my experiences (see the huge list of articles below), as well as organizing it all into a handy and inexpensive book that's still, in its second edition, the first real manual for switching to and living on polyphasic schedules.  Pretty neat, if I do say so myself!

I've helped a lot of people with choosing and adapting to a polyphasic sleep-schedule (it's not easy, especially with the very strict ones — those are rather like switching to a strict diet, only with sleep).  I continue to offer my help as much as I can, through the Slack channel, and by offering private consultations to those who want extra help.  (EDIT: I take breaks from this when my other work is busy, including right now.  If you really need help, reach out and I'll probably help, but I've taken down these links for now because *swizamped*) 

But I'm not interested in building a cult of personality on it.  I also find that I disagree with a lot of what other people — most of whom have not actually slept polyphasically for any length of time — want to conclude about it, especially when they're specifically aiming to sell it or put their name on it.  

(NOTE THO:  When it comes to taking credit for polyphasic sleep…*Most* humans were polyphasic for ages, and much of the world still is — sleeping less at night and napping regularly is "news" to, like, the industrialized modern world and nobody else, lol.  And if anybody gets credit for experimenting with being polyphasic as a modern lifestyle choice, it's the scientist Buckminster Fuller, who died in the 80's and was on Uberman/Dymaxion for at least two consecutive years, documented and seen by doctors, so everybody can just sit / calm down now.  You're not the prophet of this, and neither am I.  :))

THE MAJOR LINKS

The Puredoxyk.com blog archives (or just the polyphasic category) – tons of short articles; use the search function to narrow in on a specific question

How to research polyphasic sleep!  Tips for finding good information

The Book I wrote (Ubersleep: Nap-Based Sleep Schedules and the Polyphasic Lifestyle – use this link to go straight to it (and its five stars, woo!) on Amazon).  It has a ton of info on polyphasic sleep — just like the blog, but organized :) — as well as a complete how-to for planning and adapting to a different sleep schedule.  

The Slack Channel (click the link to sign up) where you can chat with, get advice from, make friends with, and help other adapters and long-term polphasic sleepers.  Come on in!

A way to pay me for personalized help if you need it (but do look at the book first, it's cheaper and has most of the information you probably want :))

WHY IS IT SO GREAT?  WILL IT WORK FOR ME?  (A brief explanation)

Polyphasic (multi-times-per-day) sleep is the one of the top-three best things I've ever stumbled on to improve my life.  (Hacking self-esteem is a close second.)  I've been polyphasic for most of the last decade, and I'll never willingly go back to sleeping in one chunk at night.  (I might be forced to, since being polyphasic requires being able to nap during the day, and there are certainly jobs and circumstances that make that impossible.  I hate those and avoid them at all costs now, though — being well-rested is so important.)  

I'm *much* more rested on my nap-based schedules, and I need half as much sleep as I did before.   Half or less, actually.

Which may sound wild or impossible, but keep in mind two things:

A) Everybody is different, and different things work for different people (at different times in their lives, even).  Some of us love being vegan; others can't abide it.  It's important to recognize that you and everybody else need a sleep schedule and sleep habits that work for you, individually.

B) Polyphasic sleep is common among animals, including almost all primates!  Monophasic sleep became normal for humans in recent centuries.  So it's not even a LITTLE true that monophasic sleep is the "only" healthy way to go for everybody, especially as people's lives change drastically yet again, in post-Internet times.

It's possible to learn new ways to sleep.  We teach babies to be monophasic, remember, and it doesn't kill them.  Switching schedules can make you cranky and tired while you adjust, but at long as you're consistent about it, and the schedule works for you, you *will* adjust to it.  (That part is backed up by some science.)

What isn't possible, I think, is for one schedule to work for everyone.  We each have different sleep needs, but I think we can all agree that whatever they are, it's SO important for each of us to get enough rest!  I DO NOT ADVOCATE NOT GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP — which includes being "technically on" an 8-hour-per-night schedule and then not sleeping enough — I'm looking at you, modern person.  The key, the key to *so much* life-improvement, is to be and feel rested.  I am more rested now, on a total of 4 hours' sleep per day, than I ever was trying (and usually failing) to sleep 8 hours per night.  It takes some work, but it's absolutely possible — and if you're intersted in learning more, I can probably help you out.

This website contains a huge amount of info on polyphasic sleep, collected over my years (wow, decades actually) of experimentation with different schedules, and of helping people find and adapt to schedules that work for them.  I've tried to organize it, and been, I think, moderately successful.  :P 

I AM NOT TRYING TO SELL YOU (anyone) ON A SLEEP SCHEDULE.  The only thing I believe in strongly enough to sell it is that everyone has the right to find and sleep on a schedule that works and makes them rested, just like everyone has the right to decide to be vegetarian if they want to and that works for them.  That's important to me.  

ARTICLES TO START WITH

There's a lot on this site, so here's a list I've been keeping of main/major/useful-for-beginners things I've written about polyphasic sleep.  Some of them are pretty old!  But do feel free to leave a comment or shoot me a message anytime, if you have questions.

Here's my Overview on polyphasic sleep, what it is and my history with it. 

Charts of Types of Polyphasic Schedules will teach you the difference between the different known-to-work schedules, as well as some theoretical schedules that seem like they ought to work.

If you're under 18 (or the legal age of majority in your jurisdiction), then please read Polyphasic Sleep & The Age of Majority before deciding whether to try it yet.

The most updated description of my current schedule, and my goals for the ongoing experiment, is here (though I'm not great about updating this often, and you should read the latest posts for the most current information).

Polyphasic Sleep and Sex – because you know you were wondering.  ;)

If you're thinking about becoming polyphasic, definitely read the 10 reasons you should NOT be polyphasic, and Am I Too [X] to Try Polyphasic Sleep too.

Here's an answer to the popular question "Does adapting to polyphasic sleep hurt your performance?"

Read the Six Month & One Year on Everyman posts here — the Six Month one has a really good breakdown of what's different between polyphasic & monophasic lifestyles, as well as the differences from when I did Uberman for the same length of time.

Hibernation: The Agony & The Ecstasy is a post about what it's like to sleep "all night" from a polyphasic perspective; there's also My Week of Monophasic Hell, which is the report of my attempt to "switch back" to regular sleeping.  I went monophasic one more time recently (September 2011) and decided that YOU ALL MUST NEVER LET ME DO THAT AGAIN — see the post titled POLYPHASIC UBER ALLES for that.

If you're adjusting to a polyphasic schedule, you definitely want to read Things you can do to Avoid Oversleeping and Tricks to Avoid Oversleeping.  Also my PSA: These Are NOT Good Ideas While Sleep-Deprived!; and if you're having trouble, read Fantastic Advice for Troubled Polyphasers.

There was, early on, a pretty serious attempt to attack the viability of polyphasic sleep — read about it, and my response to it, in "an attack on polyphasic sleep".  There have been many follow-ups, but this discussion is one of the best, IMO.  (There has been speculation that "a reader" who started this discussion may have actually been Dr. Wozniak, but as there's no proof either way you'll have to judge for yourself.)

The unbearable lightness of falling asleep is a post about napping, which involves a learning curve for most people — if you're in that curve, this post may help you as well:  Can’t Fall Asleep for a nap? Try This.

Some more miscellaneous posts of interest: Some new Polyphasic Questions, answered;  The How and the When (good stuff for polyphasers);  Schedule Hacks – The Five-Hour Swap; Sleep Drugs?; Is “Crazyphasic” the same as “Free-Running Sleep”?

[maepolzine]

The A-Z Book Tag

I haven't done a tag in a few months and I saw this tag on Sammy Etc., and I really wanted to do this one for myself as I'm a huge book worm. Like a lot of book lovers that I have seen, I have more books than I've read and every one of them I plan on reading. But before I finish reading one book, I end up purchasing like five more in preparation. So let's jump into my answers for the A-Z Book Tag.

A – Author you’ve read the most books from

Considering The Series of Unfortunate Events has 13 books in the series, I would have to say Lemony Snicket. Though The Vampire Diaries by L. J. Smith ranks very close behind, and soon will surplus when I actually finish the series.

B – Best sequel ever

Though it's not technically a sequel, I have to go with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as this book actually got me into the Harry Potter series.

C – Currently reading

Girl Online by Zoe Sugg.

D – Drink of choice while reading

I love having hot chocolate with a bit of cinnamon and whip cream when I'm reading books.

E – E-Reader or Physical books

I don't prefer one over the other. I love and use both equally. Though I'm probably going to switch to just being an e-reader soon as I just don't have room for all the physical books especially after I move.

F – Fictional character you would have dated in High School

Considering I was obsessed with vampire books in high school, I have to go with Stefan Salvatore from the Vampire Diaries. Though in the television show I prefer Damon, we are talking about books so I have to go with Stefan.

G – Glad you gave this book a chance

Weirdly enough, I have to go with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I tried to get into the series five times and could not make it past the first two chapters. Then in high school working in an arcade I forced myself to try reading it one more time and now the series is seriously one of my favorites.

H – Hidden gem book

I don't know what book would fall in this category so I'm just going to leave it blank.

I – Important moment in your reading life

Reading the Chronicles of Narnia has to be the most important moment in my reading life. As I went from royally hating to read to absolutely loving it. Teachers and my parents had to force me to read, and I couldn’t stand it. And I didn't get into the Chronicles of Narnia right away until I re-picked it up two years after it was assigned in school and fell in love. After that I read ahead in classes and got very invested in reading. This also changed my grammar/spelling from needing extra help and have to be in a separate class to excelling in regular class. Though spelling is still not my absolute strong suit.

J – Just finished reading…

The Van Alen Legacy by Melissa De La Cruz.

K – Kinds of books you won’t read

Horror books. I love horror movies but I will not read the books. I get way more invested in books then movies and my mind makes them 50 times scarier than in movies. So I avoid reading that genre. I learned that the hard way from Scary Stories to Read in the Dark. Never again!

L – Longest book you’ve read

Either Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling (759) or Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer (756). They basically have the same length. Though I much preferred the Deathly Hallows.

M – Major book hangover because of…

The House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. This book may have a lot of pages but not all of them are completely filled. They all leave you with information overload and just a weird feeling crawling up your back. It just is a really weird book and almost impossible to describe without giving away the entire plot. I couldn't put the book down but yeah I had a major book hangover after reading that.

N – Number of book cases you own

I have five bookcases but don't have my books filling all of them. When I move I'm going to combine them all down to three then get rid of or use the other two for something else. Some books will be donated as well so they might actually go down to two by the time I move. Some books I just can't part ways with.

O – One book you’ve read multiple times

Though I hate to admit it, the only book I've seriously re-read multiple times is Twilight by Stephanie Meyer when I was in high school. Others I've re-read segments of them when I wanted to revisit something but Twilight I read over and over again. And was obsessed with everything Twilight in Junior high to high school then left it in the past.

P – Preferred place to read

Curled up in an oversized chair covered in a fuzzy blanket.

Q – Quote that inspires you / gives you the “feels”

"Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all those who live without love" - J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

R – Reading regret

Reading 50 Shades of Grey, granted when I read the book it was still a fan-fiction. Still WORST BOOK EVER!

S – Series you started, but need to finish

There are a lot of series that I need to finish, but the ones that have completed that I have all the books for but for some reason never completed are the following: House of Night Series, Vampire Academy, and The Vampire Diaries. Each of these I only have the last two to four books to read and yes they are all vampire related.

T – Three of your all-time favorite books

I'm going to change this one to series as I think that more fits my reading style (These are not in any order as I love them equally):

The Hunger Games

Harry Potter

Series of Unfortunate Events

U – Unapologetic fangirl for…

The Hunger Games and Harry Potter. Don't make me choose between them.

V – Very excited for this release more than any others

There’s honestly nothing I’m really excited about reading! I don’t really follow authors and just enjoy reading whatever I find when I see it at the book store or pop up on my Amazon feed.

W – Worst habit

Skim reading. I then have no idea what’s going on and have to go back a few pages and re-read. 'Cause sometimes I read way too fast that I miss half the information as it turns out I was skim reading by mistake.

X - X Marks the Spot: the 27th book on your shelf.

Metamorphoses by Ovid.

Y – Your latest book purchase

A Million Junes by Emily Henry.

Z – Zzzz snatcher – book that kept you up way too late

Considering this book drove me insane and I couldn't put it down or force myself to go to sleep after reading it. I would have to go with House of Leaves.

[kristinsimmons]

Tooth-Friendly, Healthy Snacks on the Go (4 Tips)

Disclosure:

Ask the Dentist is supported by readers. If you use one of the links below and buy something, Ask the Dentist makes a little bit of money at no additional cost to you. I rigorously research, test, and use thousands of products every year, but recommend only a small fraction of these. I only promote products that I truly feel will be valuable to you in improving your oral health.

Whether it’s the work commute, driving back and forth to see a loved one in the hospital, or just a vacation drive, finding healthy snacks on the go can be a challenge. A few weeks of cavity-causing snacks could result in a lot of havoc for your teeth—including newly sensitive teeth.

Fortunately, there are more tooth-friendly options for on-the-go snacking than you might think. And if a new snacking habit has resulted in some tooth sensitivity, this article can help you locate the possible culprit.

Let’s look at the best way to keep your teeth strong and cavity-free, even on the road. But first, I’d like to share with you the moment I realized how important this was in my own life.

Krista’s Story

During many dental visits in the past, my dentist kindly warned me I was eating too much sugar and foods that weren’t good for my dental and overall health. (Basically, I was wrecking my oral microbiome…more on why that matters here.)

It wasn’t until 2009 when the doctor explained to me what was going on that I began to take my health seriously.

“Krista, you have maybe three months to live—the cancer is growing rapidly and if you don’t do something, you may be out of time.”

In that moment, I knew I needed to put up a fight and make some serious changes. I began seeing a nutritionist to expand my knowledge on plant-based nutrition and how to change my diet and support my fight against cancer.

But with a life full of hospital trips, I struggled to find healthy snacks on the go readily available. Many times, I found myself circling gas stations and convenience stores and walking out empty handed. Besides a bottle of water or an over-salted pack of almonds, I would go hungry instead of opting for something unhealthy.

The lack of access to healthy foods began to eat at me. As someone fighting a life-threatening disease at the time, it seemed impossible to stay healthy while on the go. I was forced to pack food with me, and many months I found my pantry bare because of the overwhelming hospital bills eating at my savings account.

Suffice it to say that this was an impossible situation to be in while fighting for my life.

I couldn’t help but think of all of the other people in the U.S. struggling with the same problem.

After winning my battle with cancer, I decided to do something about it. I launched a company called ESSTAR and “Krista’s Healthy On The Go” kiosks that sell healthy snack foods. I now focus on making food available in gas stations, convenience stores, hospitals, colleges and cafeterias across the U.S—some of the places where good nutrition is most needed and most ignored. (Read more about this “food desert” dilemma here and my cancer recovery story here.)

Fighting cancer or not, most of us are on-the-go all the time. But you don’t have to sacrifice healthy teeth for being busy! From cancer recovery to entrepreneurship, I’ve been busy the last several years. These experiences have led me to these four tips for preventing cavities—and staying healthy in general.

4 Tips for Healthy Snacks on the Go

Snacking on the road is problematic when it comes to dental health because teeth need a chance to remineralize. If you’re munching on sweets, sipping soda, and foregoing good brushing habits (because who hasn’t done that on vacation?), cavities can quickly form.

Find yourself struggling to find healthy snacks on the go? Here are some tips:

1. Plan Ahead

Take a few minutes to prepare before you leave the house. When you’ve got baggies full of healthy snacks, you can cut down on the temptation to satiate your hunger with processed, sugar-rich foods.

When thinking of snacks on the road, consider things that won’t get mushy or that need to stay fresh or refrigerated.

Some of my favorite healthy snacks to pack that are great for your teeth include:

Fresh fruit: Try blueberries, strawberries, bananas, and raspberries. The water in fresh fruit makes them a tooth-friendly choice. But watch out for dried fruit—sugars in dry fruit are really concentrated and can stick to teeth just like candy.

Veggie slices: Some of the best are carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, or cherry tomatoes. Many grocery stores offer pre-sliced veggies or packs of cherry tomatoes or sugar snap peas that are simple and portable.

Nuts: My favorites are almonds, cashews, or pecans. Nuts make a great buffer for sugar sticking to your teeth, so if you’re going to splurge a little with a candy bar, for instance, make sure to eat nuts, too.

Healthy trail mix: Avoid the dried fruit; it’s full of sugar!

Homemade kale chips: These are one of my favorite healthy snacks on the go. They’ve got everything you need for great nutrition—a super food, healthy fat, and portability!

Pro tip: To make a really great trail mix that your teeth will love, use the following ingredients:

Almonds

Cashews

Chocolate chips (I love this brand because they don’t use processed sugar to sweeten)

Pumpkin seeds

Dried coconut

If you’ve never tried this trail mix, you should. It’ll make you forget you’re eating healthy!

2. Check Yelp

The Yelp app has saved the day for me many times while looking for healthy snacks on the go. While traveling, I use it to locate a local juice or smoothie bar, health food store, or similar establishment. It’s fascinating to discover the creations of local artisans, and I’m often pleasantly surprised with the healthy options available in even smaller towns.

Here’s an easy way to find great, tooth-friendly food nearby. Just open the Yelp app and search for “healthy food” and then click the “Open Now” option. Voila! You’ll be able to see open restaurants advertised as healthy fare.

3. Hack Convenience Store Eating

Look for the cooler! This is where you’ll find things like:

Yogurt (watch for the sugar count here, but many yogurts are good probiotic foods)

Salads

Hard-boiled eggs (bonus points for vitamin K2-rich, grass-fed eggs)

String cheese

Fruit cups

Vegetable trays

Seaweed packs (yes, this sounds weird, but they’re actually delicious!)

Not everything in the coolers will be healthy, but many of the healthy options are found there.

If you’re fortunate enough to be in a gas station with a “healthy” section, that can be a great place to check out, too. Some of the better gas station snacks outside the cooler are:

Beef jerky (without soy and added sugar)

Protein bars low in sugar content

Sugar-free gum (the xylitol here is actually great for remineralizing teeth)

4. Choose Better Drinks

Instead of soda or sugar-packed juices or sweet teas, try to find something less acidic and sugar-filled. I generally advise avoiding diet drinks, although these are technically sugar-free.

Some of my favorite healthy drinks from gas stations include:

Bottled water

Unsweetened tea

Sparkling/mineral water (like La Croix, Deer Park Sparkling Water, and Topo Chico)

Kombucha (I like GT’s, which has the lowest sugar content per serving)

Sugar-free or low sugar drinks sweetened with honey, monk fruit, or stevia

Ingredients to Avoid in Snack Food

Many snack foods available today are high in refined carbohydrates and sugar, which are not only bad for teeth but can make you feel sluggish, unsatisfied, and hungrier faster. Between extending the time you’re exposing your teeth to these cavity-causing ingredients and increasing your craving for more of those foods, bad snacking can create a fast spiral.

Flavor enhancers, preservatives, sweeteners, synthetic colors, and man-made fats and chemicals often hide out in the processed foods we eat. Many of these ingredients are inflammatory and interfere with your body’s pH balance (more on how that works here).

Don’t forget—tooth decay and gum disease are both diseases. It’s easy to think of them as different than an illness elsewhere in the body, but they fall into the same category.

By eating inflammatory, acidic ingredients in food, you’re setting the stage for a body that’s less able to fight disease (in your mouth or anywhere else).

But which ingredients are actually harmful? What should you look for on a snack label on your next road trip?

The Food Babe has a great list of additives in processed foods that I (mostly) agree are great to avoid. Check out her full list here.

Best High-Protein Foods On-the-Go

The key is to make sure your healthy snacks on the go are nutritious and contain protein. Protein promotes fullness because it signals the release of appetite-suppressing hormones, slows digestion, and stabilizes blood sugar levels.

Plus, many high-protein snacks are low in ingredients that bad oral bacteria love to feed on.

Here are some high-protein snacks that are healthy and portable:

Beef jerky

Trail mix

Nut mixes

Greek yogurt

Nut butters

Hard-boiled eggs

Tuna

Protein bars

Protein shakes

When You Have a “Flex” Day on the Road

It’s unrealistic for most of us to eat “perfectly” 100% of the time—not just because there are so many different versions of “perfect” when it comes to food.

To protect your teeth from decay, here are a few ways you can offset the impact of sugary or processed sweets on your next trip:

Drink a lot of water. Water creates a buffer between your teeth and bacteria-friendly foods, so make the extra bathroom stops and opt for more water.

Try dry brushing. Toothpaste isn’t actually as big a deal as you might think. You can disorganize your biofilm just as efficiently by dry brushing—just using a toothbrush without paste. It’s a great idea to keep a travel brush in your glove box or purse for times when you need an extra brush away from your sink.

Eat “flex” foods in small spurts. The amount of time sugar and other acidic ingredients are exposed to your teeth is an important element in cavity formation. If you’re going to treat yourself with a less healthy snack option, don’t snack for hours; eat or drink your treat quickly and then buffer with water.

Plan when to “flex” and stick to your plan. Just because the occasional sugary snack probably won’t kill you isn’t a reason to toss your healthy diet altogether. Plan ahead when you’ll have a “flex” snack or meal, and stick to what you decide.

Key Takeaways: Tooth-Friendly, Healthy Snacks On the Go

It’s easy to go for the convenient, less-healthy option when you’re looking for snacks on the go. However, there are options for eating healthy snacks on the go that won’t contribute to cavities.

My top tips for eating healthy while traveling are:

Plan ahead

Check Yelp for healthy options in the area

Hack convenience store eating

Choose better drinks

After my experience with the inaccessibility of healthy food on the go, I set out to make a change. That’s why I created ESSTAR, which supplies convenience stores with kiosks called “Krista’s Healthy On-the-Go.” I carefully choose products for those shelves that have recognizable, limited ingredient lists and that promote better health for your teeth and body.

Want to know if a gas station on your route has a Krista’s Healthy-on-the-Go station? Go to esstar.us, where you can find our locations with organic, gluten-free, vegan, paleo and allergen-free snacks.

If you would like to see healthy snack options in a store near you, please feel free to go to ESSTAR’s website and suggest a location.

read next: Vitamin K2 Foods: Top Choices for Healthy Teeth

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