#like ive said before i do think there is at least some merit to each of these. the color grading of the movies is bananas

[writingmoth]

writing with "vibes" in mind is completely underrated tbh

ive thinking a lot about this bc ive playing a lot of games that use vibes to tell the story/to make gameplay moments stand out. and listen, i know games =\= books, but!!! i think it has merit.

under read more bc it got rambly. its just me wondering aloud about ways to write.

example 1: ffxiv, a fantasy mmorpg that relies HEAVILY on story. it's been out for more than 10 years, so the story is huuuuuuge (i spent like a month and a half just catching up when i started playing two years ago). there are callbacks to the base game in a expansion that came out 9 years after said base game. it makes the whole thing feel like a expertly drawn web of plotlines and characters... except that isn't that case at all. the writers have mentioned multiple times that things that happened in the third expansion (6 years in) weren't planned from the beginning. that is, they just threw paint at the wall back in the base game bc the colors (vibes) looked cool. they just had enough skill to make a painting out of it later.

i guess having a good grasp of your story's themes helps a lot with that, too, now that i think about it. it assures that the colors are at least complimentary when you are slinging them about at the start of the story.

example 2: destiny, which is a completely different game. destiny doesnt use story the same way ffxiv does, though it is important (somewhat)... but lore is where the vibes come in to play for destiny imo. they do so much with so little. still using the painting analogy, it's almost like negative space art - they fill in just enough to give you an idea of the figure but not nearly as much as you would need to discern the details. and still the world feels vast. most of the time you are shooting aliens while wielding space magic, but every weapon, gear, etc has its own lore piece, and whole plotlines/characters that never show up in game or in the main story can be told through them. it's basically just vibes - aesthetic, some character moments, letters/logs, etc. and it works! the world feels lived in, most of the characters are well defined and even though sometimes the main story kinda drags, there is enough to keep you interested.

(it kinda reminds me of how i write description, which i've talked about before, but for the lucky ones who don't follow my rambling nonsense on this blog: i have a lot of trouble visualizing places or people when writing (or reading tbh) so i usually use a lot of atmosphere and emotion to mask the fact that i have no fucking clue what this very important place/person looks like. )

there are cons and pros to this approach. by being so vague and focusing on small bits that seem an ocean apart, the game gives just enough for the player to fill in the blanks themselves. that is good, because then the player is more likely to fill said blanks with stuff they like. it ends up being more of collaborative effort - and i'm sure the writers behind the game use the players' "headcanons" as some sort of thermometer for what/how to write next. so its writers and players feeding off each other's ideas in a way.

buuuuut.... it can also be pretty bad. you risk never committing to a vision or plotline by writing like this. nothing is ever set in stone. retconning, which isn't bad by itself, can happen way too much to be acceptable. if something can end up being anything, what is the point of it existing anyway? why should you care if the spine behind isn't well formed enough to carry the story later?

another danger is that the actual canon and the player's canon can end up being way too different in the end. maybe you meant to write the story this way... but the player filled the blanks just differently enough that "this way" ends up being unsatisfying and wrong.

but the biggest problem, for me, is risking never getting a proper resolution. since so many story moments and worldbuilding elements end up coming from "vibes", you risk relying way too much on the rule of cool.... which sets up a lot of stuff, usually, but never concludes them. that's also my biggest problem with asoiaf, for example - so much of that series is about building up tension, foreshadowing certain battles or encounters or whatever... that the payoff is almost never there (which is only made worse by the loooong time between book releases). it gets to a point that nothing the author comes up with will satisfy what the reader is expecting of the story.

"vibes" (or themes & aesthetics if you will) do a wonderful job of touching a reader's (or player's) strings with imagery, emotion and promise. but whatever comes from it needs to be tied up into an actual storyline (most of the time, at least). ffxiv managed to pull it off with its last two expansions but destiny stumbled a bit with its last one. players were expecting SO much of lightfall after the expansion before it, witch queen, since it managed to nail both vibes and plot. witch queen and the seasons (kind of episodes) after it setup SO much stuff. it promised a lightfall that would be an explosion - a much waited confrontation between the players and the villain, answers given, mysteries solved... and it did nothing of the sort. confusion and anger soon followed.

which is to say... vibes can be very helpful when you pause to interrogate why they interest you so much. why do you like this particular aesthetic, this imagery, this turn of phrase? some elements just pull you in and its fine to go and write a chapter or scene that is basically just you going "wow this is SO cool" even though you have no clear idea why. it's just the vibes it gives. it just presses your right buttons.

... but you will need to wrap them up into something coherent eventually. and for writers i think it's easier - usually "later" just means "once the first draft is done" aka "no one but your trusted betas will ever have to glance at this mess". for live service games like ffxiv or destiny - or even regular rpgs like dragon age or mass effect - it can be very dangerous. writers come and go. turns out that vibes-fuelled story point someone cleared for release 4 years ago doesn't make sense after all! and yeah, hyping up certain characters and plot elements seemed like a great idea for player retention 6 months ago, but what the hell do we do now?

it's too late - the players have already played the thing, they have VERY strong emotions about the thing and they are waiting impatiently for you make the resolution of said thing awesome. and you've got no clue of how to meet said expectations.

(having said all that, i do believe authors can all fall prey to this in non-standalone works too. but we usually have the ability/autonomy to make hard decisions, which video game writers of huge ips like destiny/ffxiv/dragon age/etc usually don't have.)

and of course, using vibes can go very wrong in other ways. you know the negative art destiny does with its worldbuilding/characters? i think books can go way too hard in the opposite direction. i felt this way when reading stuff like acotar, for example. the story wanted to give me certain vibes BADLY, because vibes work!, but i could see right through it (and this is my opinion!) and there was no meat below the all the fanfarre.

sometimes your characters just havent earned the cool/interesting moments.

anyway!! tldr: ive been thinking a lot about just going with the vibes for my wip and i think that's a pretty neat idea actually!! sometimes tending to your darlings can lead to interesting realizations about your story's themes that you otherwise would not notice by being too stuck to rigid plotting and too much rationalization (does it advance the plot? is this scene truly necessary? how is this developing the main character? etc) - but only when you interrogate them enough to find that out and use this newfound knowledge to enhance the story in a revision/another draft.

[justmypartner]

Still Breathing: Chapter 1

Summary: AU | When a case goes sideways, Hailey wakes up in the hospital with a revelation that leaves her evaluating her life. While she recovers at Med, she meets Jay, an aloof, yet intriguing patient that catches her by surprise. The two get to know one another as they take on the task of rediscovering what it’s like to truly live, and eventually learn their lives intersect in more ways than one. 

Writer’s Note: Hi!!! I’ve had this idea for a while and it’s taken me quite a bit to finally get started, but I’m super excited about it. This probably won’t be a weekly fic, but I’ll try and post as frequently as possible. I don’t want to give too much away… but it explores something in the Halstead background that has been referenced, but never fully developed so I really tried to dive deep into what it is and how it would affect Jay. It’s been fun (and somewhat emotional) to work through & I really hope you enjoy!! 

Read on AO3 or below

“Order, Arms,” a voice called out, sending Hailey’s hand back down to her side.

She remained in place, frozen as she resumed attention, fighting hard to conceal the joy spilling out of her. It was her graduation day. She was just sworn in, and for the first time ever, deemed an Officer of the Chicago Police Department. She took in the room from under the low brim of her hat, her lips curling up at the corners as the Department Pipes and Drums began to play. She closed her eyes briefly, relishing in the moment, and when she opened, she was suddenly somewhere else entirely. She was no longer standing in the middle of the Grand Ballroom at Navy Pier. She still wore those same blues from before, slightly older and more worn than they once were, but her bright, green attitude she previously bore was gone. She was exhausted and nervous, sitting before her District Commander in a small and unfamiliar room in Ivory Tower.

“Hailey, I hope I don’t have to remind you that you are not to discuss the case with anyone, nothing you did, nothing you saw, not a single detail that pertains to the operation is to be exchanged until you are told otherwise by the AUSA’s office,” the Commander instructed her, carrying an even tone that made the reason for the meeting hard to discern.

“Yes ma’am,” Hailey affirmed with a simple nod.

“With that being said, I have news for you. There will be a more formal presentation of this news, but for now I get to be the first to tell you,” the Commander spoke, inhaling deeply before continuing. “Officer Hailey Upton, for your outstanding acts of heroism and performance during the aforementioned case, on behalf of the Superintendent of Police, the Bureau of Detectives, and the entirety of the Chicago Police Department, we commend your service with a merit promotion to the ranking of Detective.”

Her brows raised in surprise. After the long stretch undercover, she was just happy to finally be Hailey again, to be in her home, to be able to work with the safety and familiarity of her coworkers. She had spent those weeks hoping the case would lend her a promotion, but she never fully imagined that it would. She was equal parts ecstatic and stunned by the news, but she blinked, and she was transported once again. She was no longer sitting across from her District Commander but from Sergeant Voight in the low light of his office.

“Our only Detective just recently and unexpectedly took furlough. Burgess, Ruzek, Atwater, we’ve been trying to make do with just us, but we’re stretched thin. There’s a spot on our team and we could really use the help. It’s yours if you want it,” his gravelly voice posited.

Before she knew it, those moments that stood out so vividly in her mind became fuzzy images in what seemed like a poorly put together movie, and everything began to fade to black.

When she finally woke, it was to the sound of machines and the low babel of indistinct conversation. As her eyes blinked open, she took in the glimpse of four familiar faces and numerous wires and IVs hooked up to her body.

She hadn’t been in Intelligence long, only about two weeks before she wound up in that hospital room, but she knew from her first day that she had stumbled upon her forever people. She didn’t take the job with this expectation. In fact, she was expecting it to be as rocky as her first time working with the team. Yet, she came to learn that despite the reputation that preceded them, they were some of the most loyal and genuine people she had met in all of her time with the CPD. In only the short amount of time she had been with them, they had clung to her in a way nobody else ever had, developing what she knew to be a lifelong bond. The fact that their faces were the first she saw when she finally came to only affirmed that.

“There she is!” Kevin’s voice rang as they all rose, making their way closer to her bedside.

“Did we get them?” Her voice croaked, and they all nodded in confirmation, looking over to their sergeant to deliver the news.

Her memory of right before everything went dark was fuzzy. She wasn’t exactly sure what caused the injuries that left her aching all over, but everything else, the case, the targets, it was all still fresh in her mind. She didn’t want to talk about the case. She didn’t even want to think about it, but she needed to know if they got them. That everything that happened was worth it. She breathed out, allowing a sliver of tension that had been bottled up inside of her release with it. She watched them nod, and she waited for her boss to tell her what she needed to hear.

“We got ‘em, kid. They’re going down for everything, but most importantly for what they did to you,” he assured. She nodded, flinching at the surge of pain that came with the small movement.

“Okay, everybody. I need some time with the patient if you don’t mind,” the doctor announced as she entered the room. They all nodded, grabbing their things to leave.

“I’m happy you’re okay,” Kim told her, reaching out and briefly resting a hand over hers. Voight and Adam nodded in agreement before they all turned to walk out.

“Tough as they come, girl. Glad you’re still with us,” Kevin said, reaching out his arm and fist for her to bump. She smiled, bumping him back with her uninjured arm and thanking them all for being there.

Once they had left the room, the doctor quickly read over her chart before rolling a chair over to her.

“So, give me the rundown. How bad is it?” Hailey questioned anxiously.

“You were shot three times. Twice in the abdomen, once in the shoulder. That vest of yours caught the first two. However, they did leave some pretty significant bruising so we are going to need to monitor you closely, make sure you don’t develop any internal bleeding or rupture. The one in your shoulder was a through and through. We were able to go in and repair what it tore, but you lost a lot of blood. So, you should get comfortable. We’re going to need to keep you here for observation a few days. Looks like you’ll be out of work for the next week at the least, then out of the field for a few weeks after that,” She explained. Hailey just nodded simply in response, a look of defeat on her face.

“Detective, it could have been a lot worse had you not been wearing that vest. It also could have been a lot worse if that bullet in your shoulder struck just a half a centimeter lower. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but I’d say you’re pretty lucky,” she admitted, rising from her chair before dropping her chart at the end of the bed and making her way out of the room.

Lucky. It wasn’t the word she’d use to describe how she was feeling. On top of the pain, she was reeling from that vision she had just before her breathing stalled and everything shut off. She’d always heard people say their life flashed before their eyes in those kind of moments, but she never expected it to be such a deflating experience. Her life flashed before her eyes, but the only outstanding moments were her graduation from the academy, her promotion to detective, and her offer into Intelligence. She loved her job, and she was proud of those moments, but it felt disillusioning that in what felt like her final moments, the only good memories her brain could come up with tied back to her job. A job that too often reminded her of all of the bad in the world. A job that had landed her there in the first place.

She didn’t want to fully think about what happened. She wasn’t emotionally prepared for it. Still, she couldn’t stop thinking about the moment before she lost consciousness, when those memories flashed through her mind. It made her realize just how empty her life had been. Her injuries may not have necessarily been life threatening, but she felt as though she was getting a second chance. A second chance to get more out of life than a few job related accomplishments in her end-of-life film reel. A second chance to be intentional about making more memories.

- - - -

A few days had gone by, and she was still in the hospital. She was already feeling better, more than ready to go home, but her doctor extended her stay, wanting to monitor her and her labs. She spent a lot of time in her room, keeping her mind busy with a few books Kim had brought her, but getting distracted by whatever rerun was playing on the small tv screen in the corner of the room. She didn’t have any visitors, something that only added to the epiphany about her life that had her rattled from the moment she woke. Her Intelligence family was practically all she had. They stopped by when they could, but for the most part they were all busy at work, leaving her alone to herself and the occasional check in from various medical staff. Boredom was growing with each passing minute, and she thought about how hard it would be to survive a few weeks out of the field if she couldn’t even make it through a few days in the hospital.

Having enough of sitting in the hospital bed, she was able to convince a nurse to let her sneak out for a walk around the hospital. She felt like a mess. She was dressed head to toe in sweats, her right arm was in a sling, and the look was pulled together with a pair of socks and sandals. Not exactly the most flattering outfit, but she had reached the level of restlessness that left her unaffected by her appearance. She just needed to be out of that room.

She got another book in the gift shop and stopped by the cafeteria where she found some chocolate ice cream. She tucked the book into her sling as she walked about the halls, shoveling the snack into her mouth with each step. She finally climbed into the elevator, and pressed the button for her floor before settling into the back corner. Every bit seemed better than the last. She wasn’t sold on the hospital food. It reminded her of grade school cafeteria food, something she was never fond of, so she knew that ice cream would be the only good thing she had to eat all day. The elevator stopped at the next floor and a man stepped in, pressing a button before settling into the corner across from her. She briefly looked up at him with a friendly nod before looking back down into the cup in her hand for another bite. Suddenly, a movement across the car brought her attention back to him. He had pulled a needled syringe from his pocket and began pressing it into his forearm. Her posture straightened and she froze as she watched him repeatedly stab his arm with the needle.

“Trypanophobia… don’t worry, it’s a prop needle,” he broke through the silence, and she relaxed slightly as he continued to speak.

“You know? The ones they use in movies that don’t actually pierce the skin. My idiot brother said the best way to overcome my fear of needles is exposure therapy, starting with these fake ones. Yet, I’ve been in and out of this hospital for several weeks now, plenty exposed to these things, and I still can’t seem to get used to the poking and prodding,” the man said, flashing her a shy smile as he continued pushing the needle into his arm.

“Seems like pretty sound advice to me. Maybe your idiot brother isn’t such an idiot after all,” she responded back with amusement.

“Yeah, well he may be a doctor, but he’s also my older brother which, in my eyes, makes him an idiot by default,” he said matter-of-factly, immediately looking up at her with a curl in his lips.

“Ah, well I have 2 brothers myself, so I suppose I can somewhat appreciate that sentiment,” she smirked, looking over at him from the other side of the elevator.

She discretely eyed him as he busied his focus back on the syringe in his hand. He was tall, with broad shoulders, and a shirt that fit a little too tight, revealing toned muscles underneath with every movement. The beanie he wore fully covered his head but based on the freckles all across his face and the darkness of his eyebrows, she had to guess he was a redhead, maybe even a brunette. His face was clean shaven, which made it hard to tell just how old he was, but his eyes were what had her. They were an entrancing blend of green and blue, and they gave off a sort of friendly warmth that mellowed out his somewhat intimidating deportment.

“What landed you in here?” He asked, continuing to mindlessly press the object into his arm.

“I- injured on the job,” she put simply.

“Been there,” he said directly, his obscurity matching hers. Her brow furrowed briefly before silence filled the small space and she centered her focus back on the ice cream in her hand.

“Are you doing anything right now, you know, besides stuffing your face with diabetes?” He queried, cutting through the silence and nodding to the cup of ice cream in her hand. She scoffed sarcastically.

“Why do you ask?” She questioned dubiously, trying to keep a lightness in her voice. “Also, I’ll have you know this is the only decent thing to eat this hospital has to offer. I survived a few bullets, I’m sure a little sugar won’t kill me,” she replied. He chuckled as she scooped up a large bite and shoveled it into her mouth with pride.

“Fair enough. And I ask because I have some time to kill, so I just wanted to see if you cared to join me for a little golf on the roof,” he said.

“There isn’t golf on the roof,” she shook her head, amused by the way he proposed it so factually.

“Oh, but there is,” he returned. She squinted her eyes at him in disbelief, and he quickly pressed the elevator button for the roof. She didn’t believe him, but she was bored. Out of her mind. So, she reluctantly decided to follow him. When the elevator stopped at the rooftop, he led her out to an opening with a small patch of turf, two clubs, and a basket of golf balls.

“What the hell? You were serious?” she laughed.

“Yeah, I was serious. I never joke about golf,” He said frankly, grabbing a golf club and placing the ball on the tee.

“Is this even allowed?” She asked, placing her empty cup down as she watched him swing the club into the ball. Her eyes travelled it as it flew from the roof, and she brought her eyes back to him, a staggered look on her face.

“Probably not, but like I said, my idiot brother is a doctor, so if we get caught I’ll just blame it on him,” he smiled, flashing her a wink before hitting another ball off the tee. “Do you want to try?” He asked, offering her a club.

“Don’t think that’s even possible,” she returned, raising her slinged arm slightly to make her point.

“That’s no excuse,” he said, “Come here,” he instructed. She gave in, making her way over toward him.

Close up, his eyes were more green than blue, and they were so beautiful that she found herself getting lost in them for a second. She snapped back into focus when he offered her the club. She took it, and he helped her adjust her feet so that she was standing properly. He placed a ball on the tee, took a step back, and motioned for her to have at it.

She wound the shot up with her uninjured arm and struck the ball. She was still sore from her injuries, and the movement of the swing sent a surge of pain through her torso. She flinched, chipping the top of the ball in the follow through. They both erupted in laughter when the ball barely went but a few feet in front of them, and she dropped the club to the ground to clutch at her abdomen.

“Okay, so maybe you were right,” he laughed, his mood dropping the second he noticed she was in pain. “Hey, are you okay?” He inspected, reaching a supportive hand through the small distance between them.

“Yeah, just still a little sore,” she admitted, stepping back as she forced a smile to hide her pain. He just nodded and she stepped back to lean against the wall. He was silent, but she could sense he was thinking hard about something.

“So injured on the job, huh?” He finally asked. “You mentioned something about surviving a bullet, so what exactly is your job? Bank Robber? Spy? Assassin?” He bantered. She pursed her lips into a wry smile, shaking her head with a weak laugh.

“Mm. You pay attention. I’m a Cop. Detective more specifically. It was uh…” she hadn’t fully addressed how everything had went down yet. The case wasn’t one she wanted to particularly think about, and as the memories from moments before the shooting slowly came back, she immediately pushed them down. She still wasn’t prepared to talk about it. Especially not to some stranger she met in an elevator only 15 minutes before.

“Things took a turn quickly. I took two to the vest, one in the shoulder,” she finally got out, remaining vague through her wording.

His movements stilled, and he looked over at her, a concerned yet knowing look on his face.

“Through and through?” He asked her. She nodded bleakly.

“I’ve had a similar injury,” she noticed his jaw clench with his words. “I was a cop too,” he eventually admitted, a sullen look falling upon his face.

“Was?” She questioned.

“I mean, I guess I technically still am, but it doesn’t feel like it,” he adumbrated. She noticed he was being cryptic, but despite her own curiosity she could tell it wasn’t something he was prepared to talk about. It got quiet as she weighed whether or not to question him further. She settled against it, and in desperate need to change the subject, her attention fell back upon the golf setup. She nodded her head towards it to redirect the conversation.

“So why do you have this here?” She asked him. She watched as he sucked his teeth, pulling his tongue back with a pop before answering.

“I was diagnosed with Stage 2 Pancreatic Cancer several weeks ago. Started chemotherapy not long after that, and as I mentioned before, needles are not my favorite thing, so I come up here before each treatment… calm my nerves a bit,” he admitted. Her face fell. She put two and two together, figuring that was his reason behind not feeling like a cop anymore. She quickly realized her problems, her boredom, everything she’d complained about in the past few days really didn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things. It also in a way reminded her of that second chance she seemed to have gotten. She was suddenly both inspired and confused about where she stood in the way she viewed her life.

“I’m sorry,” she said, almost in a whisper.

“Oh, none of that. No room for sorry or sadness up here. Only golf,” he quipped, forcing a smile and turning his attention back to the golf ball on the ground before whacking it from the roof.

Before she could respond, her phone buzzed in her pocket, bringing her attention away from him.

Where are you? Kev and I brought you some food, but your room is empty.

It was a text from Kim. After reading it, she looked up at the man. She had a strange desire to stay up there with him, to watch him hit golf balls from the roof and get to know more about him, but she knew her friends would send the entire hospital after her if she didn’t show a sign of life.

“I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go,” she said, slipping her phone back in her pocket and pushing herself from the wall.

“Hey, what’d I say about sorry?” He smirked, resting the club on the ground and leaning against it as he stepped towards her.

“How much longer are you stuck here?” he asked, tilting his head with his words.

“Honestly, I’m not really sure. Doctors haven’t been able to give me a clear answer.”

“Well, maybe I’ll see you around. It was nice to meet you um…” he let out an awkward chuckle. “I don’t know your name,” he said sheepishly.

“Hailey. I’m Hailey,” she smirked, extending her uninjured hand for him to shake. He grabbed it, shaking it back lightly and slowly. As he peered into her eyes, an abnormal feeling overcame her. It was almost a sense of familiarity, like he wasn’t a stranger she had just met, but someone she’d known her whole life. It was the look in his eyes and the comfort of his touch, and it was a feeling that took her by surprise. Nonetheless, the feeling was gone as quickly as it came, and they pulled apart as he parted his lips to speak.

“Nice to meet you, Hailey,” he said, his free hand finding way to his pocket. Her phone buzzed again, another text from Kim, and she knew she had to get back to her room before they sent the entirety of Chicago searching for her. She gave him one last smile before turning towards the elevators. As she settled in and pressed the button for her floor, she looked up to see him watching her every movement. She quickly looked down at her feet with this realization, remembering how she was dressed and suddenly regretting leaving her room like that. She was grateful when he finally turned, directing his attention back to the golf balls on the ground.

“Wait,” she said, throwing her free hand up to the elevator doors as they began to close. He twisted around, his eyes carrying a gentle, curious look.

“You didn’t tell me your name,” she called out.

He opened his mouth to speak, but he stopped himself, his eyes looking up and dropping quickly as if he’d forgotten his name and was waiting for it to fall from the sky.

“Just remember me as the stranger from the elevator,” he finally said slyly.

She frowned, but he just returned her look with taut smirk. When it was clear that was all he was going to offer, she backed up into the elevator, an annoyed and skeptical smile on her face as she allowed the doors to fall shut.

She acted on autopilot for the rest of the afternoon, distracted by the encounter with the stranger. She wasn’t an at first sight kind of person. Love, admiration, attraction, feelings, they weren’t things she typically felt from the jump. It took time and trust for her to develop those things that some could develop in a first encounter. Yet, with this guy, something was different. From the ride down to the elevator, to dinner in her room with her friends, to the moment her head touched the uncomfortable hospital pillow that night, the stranger and some unexplainable feeling about him lingered in her mind like a bad hangover. He was aloof and smug, but something about that combination left her wanting more. More about his story, about his quirks, about everything that made him seem so interesting.

It took her a while to find sleep, as it had every night prior that she had spent in that hospital, but that night it was for another reason. It wasn’t just the discomfort of the bed or the unfamiliarity of the room that left her restless. It was the image of the stranger’s well-pleased grin in her mind, his blue-green eyes sparkling at her, and her own curiosity keeping her up late into the night. Every part of her hoped that she would see him again. She couldn’t quite explain it, but the timing of it all made her think she was meant to meet him for some undiscovered reason. That gave her just enough hope that their encounter wasn’t just a one time thing. She had a strong feeling she was going to see him again.

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

i want to ask for help. but i cant tell when would be a good time. because u've said before that therapy doesnt work unless YOU want it to, and i dont know WHEN i will want to. i just know that ive been feeling like this for as long as i can remember and that if i dont do SOMETHING about it, i might not even live.

i feel like im scared to ask for help because what if? what if i actually do better? i cant imagine living without thinking about dying every second. there is a scary sense of comfort in it, but its familiar and its me but its ME and i dont want it like that.

i,,, i dont know why this is going to you, but i do know i admire your opinions and i guess i just want to know. when. when does it get better.

When... hmm, as Yoongi has said before, these kinds of feelings are like seasons. I don't personally think they ever "go away" - you have good times and bad times, sometimes with reason, sometimes for no reason at all. At least, that's how it is with me. Going to put the rest under a break.

"Get better" is a vague term. You can argue you're already "getting better" because you recognize something needs to change, but that doesn't really feel statisfying because you're still in the same mental state, right? Then, is "getting better" a generalized state of more happiness? Could be. But, if you've always been in the darkness, well, shit, how are you supposed to know the light is the light? You've never seen it before. Then, does "getting better" mean... being like everyone else around me that seems like they're "good"?

That's the greatest lie of all.

I've said therapy doesn't work unless you want it to, not because you need to feel a certain measure of desire to change, but because you can't walk in there thinking the therapist is going to change you. If you have the means to try, you should to to therapy and just try it, because knowing you need to do something indicates that you already want to change. Reaching out to someone, stranger or not, already indicates you don't want to be like this forever. It might work, it might not. Therapy really depends on the therapist and finding a good fit is very difficult.

I'm going to tell you a bit about my journey. I have no idea if it will help you, but maybe you're interested.

I grew up not knowing love. My parents had an arranged marriage and, in their case, they did not love each other. Probably still don't. They're still married. I guess they tolerate each other, I don't know. In any case, it was very dysfunctional. I didn't know anything about maintaining healthy relationships, showing affection, or the value of people. I was seen as a means to an end, not really as their child. It was mostly my mom, but my dad was neglectful and wasn't really part of my life even though he was there the entire time. Because of this, I didn't value myself. I became very depressed and, if you've read my work, there's hints of what I've done to myself. I thought about dying. A lot. All the time. Planned it, dreamed it, wished for it.

Then, I moved out and entered the next phase of my life. Made a shit ton of mistakes. Destroyed friendships, had a ton of questionable relationships, chased love that was never there, fell apart. I was an "adult" but I was still the same - still wanted off this fucking Earth. But there was a difference. This time, I finally realized something.

These had be been my desicions.

My choices put me in that position. Nobody made me do anything. I was being self-destructive because I wanted to. And just like how I put myself there, I could take myself out.

So I did.

Not easily, mind you, but I did. I switched my surroundings again, put myself among people who had my best interests in mind, found my close friends, had a great time. Did shit everyone else did, went on cute dates, hung out with friends, traveled a lot, took pictures of delicious food, had an Instagram life.

Hated it.

I wasn't myself. I had pushed down my past and pretended like that shit wasn't real. I had a good life, so I'm good, right? I'm cured! I have what everyone else wants - I do what I want, have a good job and loving people around me. Yeah, no. I was "better", but I wasn't better. Far from it. I used to draw, write, create. In this phase I did none of that. I felt empty. But I was happy! Shit, what else can I do?

And then I discovered BTS.

Music does a lot of things. In my life, they defined the phases of my life. Rock and metal saved me from ending it when I was stuck in the darkness. In the time of empty happiness, I listened to music, but nothing stuck. I did, however, broaden my horizons and listen to everything, finally learning that all music has its merits and that I could find something I liked in nearly every genre.

However, I wasn't committing to anything, and that was because I couldn't commit to myself.

At first when I listened to BTS, I thought they were really cool. I went from era to era, mostly listening to title songs. Then I was bored and listened to their other stuff. I was curious about the lyrics I liked. They were usually rapped by this one guy, and I learned to recognize his voice and wait for his parts, because they always ended up being my favorite.

Yeah, just guess who it is. :)

I thought, well shit, I have no idea what he's saying. I should look it up. Went to look up the lyric translations of their songs, finding SUGA's parts and yet another epiphany.

Why am I pretending?

I'm reading these lyrics and I'm like, shit. This is it. This is me. These are all thoughts I've thought and they're here. They're real. Someone else thought them in the same way I have. And I am, indeed, still feeling these things, but pretending I'm not. Pretending it's impossible to acknowledge the person I am, that teenager wondering why I have to live when I could just fucking not, and who I've become, an adult with no sense of self but happy, and how they somehow can't coexist even though they already do. They're all me.

It wasn't very fun facing those feelings again, but I did it because I needed it. I needed to work through them and stop pretending so I could be myself. And now I am, because I can see it. You can see it. I create, not for anyone, but because this is me.

Maybe a little hypersexual. Kind of insane. Borderline cocky (but I am hot though, I'm just saying). I write, I draw, I create, I have fun, I cry, fuck, I do it all (swallow dick real fucking well too!). I do everything I want to and live how I want to.

This is just one way, one life among billions. You might not go though this (technically, you're already on the BTS phase, you know) and most likely your journey will be different. Because "getting better" is a personal thing. It is what you want in life, who you want to be, and I didn't know who I wanted to be until I lived though all kinds of shit, learning about other people's lives, and found someone who let me know, hey, you can brush past or you can soak into a heart. Change will always happen. You can live however you like. In some ways, you grow up and become an adult. In some ways, you stay the same, always young, always learning, always growing up. Sometimes people give up their young self because they think they have to. And maybe they do. You don't really have to though. You only have to be open to the idea there is also comfort in other things, that the you that you've known all your life is not the only you that will be.

To live a full life is to have many things, not physically, but mentally - memories, thoughts, past, present, whatever you want to hold on to, hold on to. No one can take them away from you. You will become more than just that. Every day, you will wake up to a new self that encompasses all your other selves before that. If you're impatient and want it now, run. Read up on things, surround yourself with all kinds of people, try activities you've always wanted to try, experience shit and find out what you like, what you hate, what you can modify to suit you better.

Find out what it means for you to get better and you'll discover, hey.

You're already there.

[ad1thi]

and then there’s you | Au-gust Day 8: Superheroes/Superpowers AU

AU-gust masterlist

i took a brief hiatus but now im back!! this is possibly one of my favourite things ive written, ever

//

Steve was never expecting to get along with James. He didn't have the best start with Tony - even though he likes to believe that they've moved past that and have become good friends - and James' protective streak was well known. After all, the man broke records trying to fly back to New York fast enough and managed to show up just as the Hulk picked up Tony from the sky.

 He still remembers the way James landed around them with a thud, his faceplate snapping up and shoving all of them to the side so that he could get to Tony. He remembers the way Tony's face softened; the way James reached out with one metal encased hand to awkwardly rub his hair before settling on his shoulder.

 He remembers fiercely missing the time in his life when someone looked at him like that, like he was the reason the world continued turning.

 In retrospect, Steve honestly should've seen this whole thing coming, but he's still blindsided by the whole thing.

After the last of the Chitauri are felled down, Thor and James raging in the sky until they drop like flies, they regroup back at Stark Tower. It's almost too easy, over in a matter of hours, even though Steve feels like it's taken ages. They lock the Spectre away and clasp chains around Loki's body - and he can release a breath that he didn't know he was holding it.

 "Colonel Rhodes," he says, later, when they're all lounging in a beatdown shawarma joint, shamelessly taking advantage of an extremely grateful store-owner, “I just wanted to say thank you for all your help. Having two heavy hitters in the sky really helped us take down the stragglers. We couldn't have done it without you."

 James and Tony (from where he's resting on James' shoulder) both turn to him and give him identical looks, the kind that makes Steve want to duck his head and rub the back of his neck.

 "No need to thank me Cap," James says finally, "Just doing my civic duty." But he keeps looking at Steve, in a way that stirs feelings inside Steve that he thought had died when he went into the ice.

 Guess not.

 He nods once and is saved from answering by Tony grabbing the Colonel into another discussion. He takes another bite into his wrap, the food feeling wooden inside his mouth. Tony has one hand in the air, gesticulating wildly, but the other is wound around James, inter-twined with his own. It twists something inside Steve, and he tries to tell himself that it's just him missing his life before the ice. Before he was dropped into the twenty first century.

 He looks up to see Thor giving him an all too knowing look for a man who only met him a couple of hours ago. It makes him so uncomfortable that he stands abruptly, pulling both Tony and Rhodey out of their conversation.

 "I have to go," he says stiffly, "I have some work to attend to. I'll see you guys at the Helicarrier tomorrow at 0900 for a debrief," he nods at his team, "Colonel, it would good to meet you."

"Call me James," he says, nonplussed, "that’s what everyone who isn't this fella calls me," he thumbs at Tony; who's face twists in mock outrage.

 Steve doesn't say anything, spinning on his heel and all but running out of the shawarma joint, lest he dwell too strongly on the fact that James called Tony fella.

 Despite their horrendous first meeting, Steve and James actually get on fairly well. He's in New York a lot, despite still being on active duty. Ostensibly, it's because the War Machine - now rebranded as Iron Patriot armour needs regular check-ups and after what Tony and James mysteriously refer to as the Hammer incident - Tony is the only one who fiddles with it.

 It makes sense, since Tony designed the damn thing, but Steve knows that James is a genius of his own right. Privately, he thinks that James is equipped to deal with any and all faults in the armour, but he makes it a point to come for Tony. Watching your bestfriend strap a nuke to his back and fly into space with no concrete desire to return tends to do that to someone. Hell, if Bucky had pulled something like that he wouldn't have left him out of his sight.

 Besides, now that Steve has been living with him and gotten to know the man behind the mask so to speak, he can see why Tony inspires that kind of loyalty. The way he badly misjudged Tony still digs at him, even though Tony has waved off his apologies multiple times and promises that he harbours no bad feelings.

 Steve isn't complaining though. He likes that James visits, even though he frowns everytime James complains about how hard it was to finagle time with his superiors. Clint calls it his Captain America face, says that he makes it every time he thinks there's a fight. Steve doesn't know if he has a specific face, but he does know that it doesn't sit right with him that James has to fight that much to come stateside.

 That was the whole point of the War, that they would fight so that future generations don't have to. There's a lot to be said for the twenty first century. His country's proclivity with inserting themselves into every war that side of the Atlantic isn't one of them.

 Still, James' regular check-ups mean that Steve has gotten a chance to get to know Tony's bestfriend - since he winds up spending a lot of time in the workshop these days; sketching while Tony putters around. It's like white noise - the sound of a wrench or a blowtorch, interspersed with Tony and JARVIS sniping with each other, and it reminds Steve of the barracks, of the Howlies huddled around a single fire and sniping around each other.

 (It reminds him that he's no longer alone)

 When James comes however, the entire workshop lights up, and Steve along with it. Despite his best efforts, the smidgen of interest he'd felt in the shawarma joint has buried itself inside him, planted seeds and grown around his heart. It doesn't help that James is one of the most easy-going people he's ever met, the kind of person one gravitates to.

 He reminds Steve deeply of Bucky, but then again - Steve was never overcome with the urge to bear Bucky down and kiss him until they both couldn't breathe.

 "Steve!" James cries out, as the workshop doors open with the faintest snick, "It's good to see you."

Steve looks up from his sketchbook - where he's been drawing James funnily enough - and gives him a warm smile, "James. Good to see you. How's the Iron Patriot?"

"Don't call it that," Tony wags his wrench at Steve, looking like he's contemplating the merits of lobbing it at him, "You do not call it that in my workshop. This is a sacred space."

 "She's handling like a dream," James says over Tony, but he still walks over and pulls Tony in for a small hug before making his way over to Steve. The first time this had happened, Steve was almost jealous, but he's since realised that it's just a part of James' schedule. The need to physically remind himself that Tony is okay.

 "There's been a couple of tough missions," he continues with a grimace, after he's done surreptitiously looking Tony over and found his way to the couch where Steve is currently propped up. "I've definitely got some fresh bullet dents. But nothing Tony can't fix, isn't that right Tony?" he calls out to where Tony has turned back to his holo-screens and gets a half-hearted gesture in response that Steve takes to mean that Tony has heard James.

 "Enough about me though, not in the least because I could be arrested for going into detail," James reaches out and places his hand over Steve's; and it takes everything in Steve to not react to the touch, "You getting through the list okay?"

 A month into his stay at the Tower, Steve was listlessly chewing a banana in the Common Room when James came out for some water and saw him. "They taste weird," he'd said, when James asked if the banana had done something to offend him, "I guess I was just hoping it was something that hadn't changed."

James had regarded him for a second, and then pulled out a napkin from thin air, "You should make a list. It's what I tell most of my rookies, when they're going back after a long tour. Make a list of everything you want to catch up and work through it on your own pace. At the very least, it gives you something to do."

 Ever since then, Steve keeps a small black book on his person, filling it with a never-ending list of things. The entire team pitches in, depending on what it is that Steve is about to discover about the twenty-first century. Steve likes it best when James carves out time for him though.

 "I'm adding more things than I'm crossing out," Steve admits, and James clucks sympathetically, "but it's good. I've not Star Wars on my list next? And Tony made me promise to wait for you to come back so that both of you could introduce it to me together."

 James whistles lowly, but his eyes light up, "Oh I am so happy that you waited for me for this. Never listen to Tony, he thinks the prequels deserve rights," he bends down to whisper at Steve loudly, "we don't recognise the prequels."

"Is that prequels slander I hear in my safe haven?" Tony pipes up, spinning around to face them. He's still got the wrench in his hand, "Don't make me revoke your access honeybear because I will, don't test me."

 James holds up his hands in mock surrender. "I'm going to go freshen up," he says with a clap, "but after I'm back, we can discuss Star Wars strategy."

 Steve watches him go, until he disappears around the corner. When he looks back at the workshop, he sees Tony looking at him with a look that's half speculative, half sympathetic.

 "You know that nothing can happen right?" he says apropos of nothing, but Steve knows exactly what he's talking about, "It's against the law. DADT. If his superiors find out, his career is over. 's why me and him ended in the first place."

  Steve found out about Tony and James' history only a month ago, and the sting has faded. Mostly because he knows it was a long time ago, and neither of them harbour those feelings anymore.

 "I know," Steve says carefully, because Tony is still James' bestfriend, "and I wouldn't ask him to risk that. Doesn't change how I feel though. And if I have to wait, or hide it, or even ignore it until he's ready to deal with it - I'm ready for all of it."

 Tony nods, like it's the answer he's expected, "You'll be good for him Steve. He deserves someone who'll wait." Unlike me, who didn't goes unsaid.

 "I don't expect anything from him Tony," Steve says, looking Tony right in the eye, "but I can't just pretend I don't feel the way I do. Especially not if there's the barest possibility that he feels the same."

 Steve isn't generally good with these sorts of things, recognising interest. Still, he doesn't think he's imagined the looks he's gotten from James the past couple of times he's been over, over misread the touching, the talking, the borderline flirting.

 "He does," Tony confirms, "but like I said - nothing can happen." He says in a careful tone, and it takes Steve a couple seconds to cotton onto what Tony is implying. It leaves a rush through him, reminding him of back-alley trysts, protected by the shadows.

 "Nothing can happen," Steve repeats, and Tony pointedly turns his back as Steve leaps up from the couch and follows James out. He thinks about calling ahead, or maybe messaging - but there's a decent chance that James already knows about this conversation, since Tony wouldn't have brought it up unless James had expressly allowed him too.

 Steve might not know much about the twenty first century, but bro-code well enough.

 He knocks on James' door, thrumming with energy, and his heart stutters when James opens it in a towel; one around his waist, catching the droplets of water falling down his chest, and another around his neck.

 "Steve?" he asks, and there's no mistaking the hopeful tone in his voice. It confirms Steve's suspicions, that Tony was talking to him on behalf of James.

 Steve doesn't reply, just pulls him for a kiss.

 Fin

[maraudererasmut]

Black and White (Part IX)

(This is a long one! I'm sorry!)

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X | Part XI | Part XII | Part XIII | Part XIV | Part XV | Part XVI

Remus spent ten minutes in the washroom.

He didn’t want to spend ten minutes there, standing around by the sink, eying himself awkwardly in the mirror, nodding uncomfortably at the man who stood in the corner giving out mints. At first, Remus considered returning to the table, but then he pictured Sirius’ face, dark and cold, his glare as sharp as his cheekbones. 

A few minutes in, Remus noticed the bathroom attendant— Is that what he was called? — eyeing him suspiciously. He gave the man a guilty smile and tried to save face. 

“I’m uh… just waiting on some friends… they’re… uh… having a conversation at the table? A… A private one… I just…” 

Remus cut himself off after he realized how little the other man cared about his predicament and how awkward his explanation sounded. 

After ten minutes in the restroom, Remus eventually returned to the table, praying to whoever would listen that his friends' discussion was over; the last thing Remus needed was to walk in on them talking about him. When he arrived, Lily and James both offered genuine smiles. Sirius was staring intently at the menu, making a point of not glancing up as Remus sat down beside him.

“Remus! Hey… Sorry about that,” Lily began, before Remus shook his head in response.

“It’s no problem, really. Gave me a chance to… get some fresh air…” Remus didn’t know why he lied; perhaps he didn’t want his companions to know that he had spent the entire time staring at the mirror above the sinks. 

Just as Remus lifted up the menu to begin looking at it— Lily was right, there were no prices! — a server came by to take their orders. 

“Sir? What can I get you?”

“Oh…” Remus glanced down at the menu again, then back up at the server. “Can you… come back to me? At the end?”

“Of course, sir.”

Remus searched through the menu for the least expensive-sounding option as the rest of the party gave their orders. By the time the waiter circled back to Remus, he had settled on something.

“I’ll have the salad, please.”

“Very good, Sir. And for your main course?”

“Oh, uh… that… that was for my main course.”

The waiter cocked an eyebrow and Remus could feel the back of his neck burning. 

“Sir, this is a prix fix menu. It’s all included. The appetizer, the main course, the dessert, all one price.”

Oh.

That explained why the menu didn't have any prices on it. It also posed a problem for Remus, who wanted to spend as little as possible at this exceedingly expensive establishment. 

He glanced down at the menu again, feeling the eyes of his companions all settling on him, waiting for his response. Remus swallowed, trying to steady his nerves. He needed to keep his voice from shaking. 

"Wh— what do you recommend?"

"The steak is our most popular dish.  A very fine cut. Exceptional."

"O-okay… I'll have that."

"Very good, sir. How would you like your steak?"

Remus glanced over to Lily, hoping that she could help save him from embarrassment. He had never ordered steak at a restaurant; what was he supposed to tell the server? Lily smiled kindly at him, in that way she always seemed to smile. It was as if nothing about her could ever be unkind. 

"It's usually best medium-rare," she said softly.

"Okay, uh… medium-rare then…"

The server nodded before leaving the table. 

"Thanks," Remus mumbled under his breath, earning himself a gentle squeeze on the arm from Lily. 

Conversation at the table picked up, and Remus noticed his nerves settle slightly as James and Lily chatted away. Lily began talking about art, a conversation that Remus could participate in, resulting in a vibrant debate about the merits of the hand-made and the decline of technique in the contemporary art world. 

"I think that's the biggest flaw with performance art," Remus was saying as the sommelier filled his second glass of wine. "There's no skill involved. Sure, your idea can be strong, but there's a definite lack of artistic prowess, and it's a sincere pity. It really is detrimental to overall artistic growth in terms of sheer ability."

"You're wrong," Sirius said suddenly, speaking up for the first time since Remus arrived back at the table. Remus looked over to Sirius, expecting him to look upset. Instead, the gallerist had a smug grin on his face, his eyes sparkling with passion. "And if every artist thought like you, we would be stuck looking at the same thing in every gallery."

"Sirius," Lily said threateningly, before Remus cut her off.

"No, no, I want to hear this. Go on, Si— Mr. Black. I'd love to hear your explanation."

"Well," Sirius began, pausing to nod at the server who brought him a plate of food. "Performance art, readymade, the types of works that, as you say, don't require talent… those artists push the boundaries of what is defined as art. They move the contemporary world in a new direction, challenging the ideals of the time, bringing forth new concepts and making statements "

Remus smiled at Sirius, shaking his head.

"There's a time and a place, Mr. Black." He took a bite of his food and paused for a moment to savour the variety of flavours. Despite being a salad, it was so different than anything he had ever tried before; sweetness paired with bitter, the tang of citrus crossed with the bite from spiced pecans. He closed his eyes, relishing in the sheer sensation of eating. 

"You were saying, Mister Lupin?"

"Oh, yes, sorry. This is delicious. Yes, a time and a place. At the time that Duchamp first introduced the concept of readymade, there was a genuine need for it in the art world. Nowadays, if somebody presented a urinal in an art gallery, they would be laughed at! What the contemporary art world needs these days is a return to craftsmanship. We need to go back to our roots, to explore techniques, to learn how to paint and draw and sculpt the way we used to."

"And what of Abromovic, who challenges what it means to be an artist?" Sirius asked, his grin growing wider, a hint of colour spreading across his cheeks.

"What about her?" Remus retorted, taking another bite and picking out the individual flavours of the dish. 

"Well, Mr. Lupin, she changes the way we view art. Art is no longer something that is inaccessible to the lower class, the uneducated. Art is something that anyone can do, or be, or have, or create. Art is no longer reserved for the elite. People can no longer purchase art the same way they used to. I cannot own an Abromovic masterpiece. I can enjoy it and witness it, I can be a part of it, but it's not something that I can have and keep to myself behind closed doors. Art is no longer a commodity."

Remus nodded to the server who cleared his plate before giving Sirius a slightly skeptical look.

"You don't need to tell me about commodification of art and the inability to access it," Remus said with a grin. "If anything, I should be the one arguing for art accessibility for the lower class, not you."

Sirius' eyes flashed with something that Remus couldn't decipher, and for the briefest moment, the gallerist looked taken aback. Sirius' composure quickly resumed, however, covering up any sense of doubt, his lips twisted smugly.

"Well then, Mr. Lupin, my point shouldn't be lost on you."

"It's not," Remus said with a casual shrug, glancing over to James and Lily who were merely observers of the conversation rather than participants. "I understand what you mean. I just don't think people should become so wealthy on such minimal talent…"

Sirius didn't respond.

Remus noticed the silence that settled over the table and his smile faded. He sat up straight, fiddling with the corner of his napkin, realizing his error. 

"I… I mean… like Abromovic. She's so wealthy and she… well… she hasn't produced anything… and galleries keep bringing her in and, well, she… uh…"

Two servers arrived at their table, placing a plate in front of each person, and Remus had never been more grateful for a distraction. 

"Ah! Wonderful!" James exclaimed, drawing the table's attention to himself. He smiled across at Remus, as if to say that all was well, but Remus could tell that something was off with Sirius. The artist glanced over to his right, where the gallerist was digging into his dinner. 

With a shrug, Remus focused his attention on his steak, and the moment he took a bite, all of his worries faded away. 

Remus had never tasted meat like this before. It was soft and tender, dripping with juices and a punch of flavour. His knife slid through the meat so easily, so effortlessly, revealing a perfectly pink interior. This was the most delicious meal Remus had ever eaten in his entire life. 

No wonder rich people are always so happy. I'd be happy too, if I could eat this whenever I wanted.

Remus knew he'd never be able to properly enjoy a steak again, it would always be compared to the perfect dish before him.

"So Remus," Lily began, once their plates were beginning to empty. "If you don't like Abromovic or Koons, which artists do you like?"

Remus grinned at his friend as he set his fork and knife down.

"And I'm assuming I can't just say myself?"

Lily and James both laughed at his joke, but Sirius' face twisted into a scowl. 

"A little proud of yourself, are we?"

Remus' gaze returned to Sirius, trying to read the man; he couldn't tell if his joke was lost on Sirius or if the man simply lacked a sense of humour.

"I mean, I didn't name a gallery after myself…"

Another pause. The table seemed to hold its collective breath as Remus' taunt landed. 

Sirius' lips parted in a grin, and he let out a sharp laugh. Remus felt his body release the tension he didn't realize the was holding, his shoulders relaxing and a breath escaping his lungs.

Thank god.

Sirius laughing meant that Remus didn't put the rest of his life at risk. He was, however, beginning to despise the minefield that was this dinner, waiting for his next slip up, waiting for his world to explode. 

"That's funny, Mr. Lupin." Sirius said, after a good chuckle. "Very funny. Especially considering the fact that up until very recently, it was your desire to show in that gallery."

Shit.

"Oh shush," James butted in, before anyone else could say anything. "Learn to take a joke, Sirius. Don't be so—"

"Don't say it, James!" Lily warned, barely containing her grin.

"I was merely playing along!" Sirius teased, his cheeks rosy from the alcohol and laughter, his eyes sparkling with mirth. His gaze flickered toward Remus, and the artist felt his heart skip a beat. Sirius was a very handsome man, and laughter looked particularly good on him. He was attractive no matter what he did, any way that he held himself. When he smiled, though…

Remus quickly looked away, directing his attention to the remnants on his plate. When Sirius smiled, his eyes lit up, as blinding as the sun kissing the sky on a perfect winter day. They were the very shade of snow beneath a tree, the lightest of blues, perfectly undisturbed. Sirius' cheeks bore the morning blush of a sunrise, the colour of the sky just as it threatened to turn blue. Next to the creamy glow of his face, it took on an almost ethereal quality. 

Remus loved the colours of Sirius.

And he hated how much he loved it.

"Any coffee with your dessert, sir?" 

Remus thought his heart might have exploded with the shock of being wrenched from his thoughts. He looked up at the server with a look of panic, having completely forgotten where he was.

"Um… no, no thank you. I'm fine," he mumbled, tearing his eyes from the server and keeping them focused on the chocolate torte that had been placed in front of him.

Thank god.

Nothing could redirect Remus' imagination quite like chocolate, and he was thoroughly grateful for the distraction. 

Dessert passed with minimal conversation as everyone savoured their delicacies. As discussion resumed, it veered away from art, and Remus found himself listening more than talking. Eventually, the server came by the table, and Remus realized that his perfect meal and fantasy evening was about to come to an abrupt and painful close. 

"Will there be anything else you need?"

"No, just the bill, please," James said politely.

"Together or separate?"

"Together."

Together?

Remus opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of it; he waited for the server to leave before he rounded on James.

"You really don't have to do that, James. Honestly, I can't let you—"

"Nonsense!" James said with an enthusiastic flap of his hand. "Of course I'm paying! This dinner is my treat!"

"But it really—"

"Remus, I invited you to join us! It's my pleasure!"

Remus knew he should be happy, he should feel relieved; his whole night had been laced with anxiety as he thought about the ludicrous cheque that was waiting for him. Instead, Remus felt guilty. He felt like he was in debt to James, like he owed the man. There was no way he could accept a gift this generous without repaying the favour.

"You don't have to," Remus mumbled, feeling the weight of his words press down on his shoulders. He was damned either way, but at least if he paid for his meal, he wouldn't be indebted to anyone. 

"I know," James said, his smile never faltering. "I don't have to do anything. I want to. Now, back to the real matter at hand…" James turned to Sirius. He was clearly finished with the discussion about the bill, and Remus knew better than to push.

"Yes, James?" Sirius said, quirking a brow playfully.

"Now that you've had a proper opportunity to get to know Remus, have you come to any important decisions?"

Remus' heart was suddenly in his throat, beating more rapidly than he thought possible. How could he have forgotten about Sirius' decision to have him in the gallery?

"As a matter of fact," Sirius purred, his smile crooked and sly. He turned to Remus, his chin tilted slightly upwards, a flash of pearly white teeth enclosed between tender lips that Remus wanted to forget about. "I have."

Remus' grip tightened on his napkin and he sank into his chair as the silence and anticipation steadily grew worse.

"Well?!" James was on the edge of his seat, clearly not a patient man. Lily had her hand on his shoulder, trying to keep him at bay.

"Remus, I require no less than five pieces in order to begin displaying your work. I would like to have them by our next show, which will be towards the beginning of November. Do you think you can accomplish that for me?"

Remus was at a loss for words. He nodded fervently, unable to get his voice out. 

"Good. I'll have my lawyers work up a contract. You can come by the gallery on Monday to sign it and discuss details."

Remus couldn't believe what was happening. He pinched himself on his forearm, trying to ensure that this was not some kind of vivid dream. As a jolt of pain shot through his arm, a smile spread across his face. 

As far as he could tell, it was all real...

[angelicspaceprince]

Dewey x Crafter Reader Headcanons

Ive fallen down a rabbit hole of crafting and I can't get up. Help me. I write hcs to help save my soul

I'll also edit when I have computer access so then there is a read more button or whatever they're called, I can't find it on mobile

Wrote directly onto the tumblr app so if there are any mistakes that's why. No betas, we die by our spelling and grammar mistakes here

You were a crafter before you met Dewey, having taken up most crafts by the time you were 17

Sewing, needlepoint, embroidery, cross stitch, knitting, crocheting

You'd experimented with them all and even though each one had its merits, you definitely had your favourites

Then life happened. You had to start working, unable to attend college, and soon you had no time to craft. If you were awake, you were working

Mostly low paying jobs to cover rent, bills etc, taking on as many shifts as possible

It was actually during one of your shifts you met Dewey

You started working at a local music shop, mostly serving and organising CDs when a very excited Dewey rocked up, wanting to find the newest release for one of his favourite bands

You got to talking and realised that you had similar music tastes and, even though you really wanted to get to know him more, you had to remain professional. You were still on the clock

Luckily for you, however, you were invited to go see a group of local bands performing to celebrate your friend's birthday

You recognized Dewey the moment he stepped on stage and was in awe at his musical skill

You figured it'd be weird to go up to him and start talking because a) if he didn't recognize you then having a stranger come up to you and say that you remembered him from work would be odd and b) if he DID recognize you from work that'd be even odder

You didn't want to give off stalker vibes, so you stayed at the bar, content just to leave it

Dewey, however, saw you in the crowd and had a different plan in mind

Still riding the adrenaline high from being on stage, he walked straight up to you

"I don't know if you remember me, bu-"

"I remember you."

"Oh."

You both blushed heavily as you shift in your seat. "Drink?" You offered. "I....I liked talking to you earlier, I'd like to talk some more."

Dewey positively beamed at that, sitting down next to you as you effectively start ignoring your friend's birthday party celebrations in favour of talking to the man in front of you

The rest, as they say, was history

You ended up dating pretty quickly after you first met, moving in with each other after only dating for 6 months

It was an accident, you had your power cut off (again) and it was the middle of winter. Dewey offered you a warm place to stay temporarily and after 4 weeks of looking for a new apartment, he just said "you're already living here, just move in with me."

It made things easier, now there were two people contributing to bills

Rent was never paid in full, but something was always sent in

Patty wasn't impressed by that but Ned wasn't as fussed, just happy to have something coming in

It helped that he really liked you and felt that you were a good fit for Dewey

Even though things still remained tough, you were happy just to have a roof over your head and someone who loved you

When Dewey started working for Horace Green, things became easier

Bills were paid with his paycheck, yours became groceries and fuel money

Even then, for the first time in a long time, you had spare cash

Most went into savings but being able to afford your own Netflix account? Felt amazing

Despite having a bit of extra money, some habits were hard to break.

You rarely bought clothing from anywhere but thrift stores and Walmart, Dewey prefering Walmart but essentially doing the same thing

Unfortunately, that meant the clothing you had bought wasn't always the best of quaility, especially when Dewey was the one wearing it

Just the nature of his jumpy, clutzy, accident prone and slightly messy self meant you were constantly buying him new shirts and mending his sweater vests

To be honest, it was getting old

You'd also been missing crafting for a while so. Two birds, one stone

The next time you were in Walmart alone, you grabbed yarn and knitting needles and on the few days a week you were home alone, slowly you started to knit him some new sweater vests, using an old one that was beyond repair as the template to make sure each one fit

The first one was just a plain, fadded red to get yourself back into practice before slowly beginning to add simple designs similar to the few he owned now

Then a couple of weird themed ones, a couple of his favourite bands, one with music notes in the design, one that was birthday themed, one with mini guitars, whatever amused you and you thought would amuse him, you knitted onto the sweater

Each vest took three weeks to make. By the time his birthday came around, you had made him ten new vests, having kept it a secret the entire time

You were super nervous when he opened up his present, but the giant smile on his face was worth it, excited with the concert tickets you managed to get for the two of you (in the pit, of course) and with each new sweater, he got more and more excited

"These are amazing babe! Where did you get them?" He asked as he got up to try his favourite (the one with a replica of his Gibson knitted around the bottom) on

You go quiet. "I....uh.....I made them."

He looked over at you like you just admitted you had found a cure for cancer

You'd neglected to tell him of your crafting past, it never came up so you never said

Now, however, he was keen to see you craft

He never even dared to try it out for himself, but enjoyed watching you knit or crochet without looking at your work, watching TV or chatting to Dewey as you just continued to work

Every year, he got at least two sweaters from you, and you made sure to knit a sensible one and a silly one

What amazed you was the fact that Dewey seemed to have fewer accidents

He took extra special care of all of the stuff you make him, never spilling so much as a drop of coffee on them and tried his best not to get them snagged on the one sharp part of the doorway into his office

One day he came home, nearly in tears

You were folding up laundry but you dropped everything and came rushing over, thinking the absolute worst but instead he simply pushed something into your hands and said "I'm so sorry"

Turns out, he took off his vest when he came in to play a song with the kindergartners, something he now does daily as part of his role as music teacher

He didn't notice one of the kids grabbing it and wandering off with it

It was covered in paint, one of the Gibsons were cut out and the yarn was beginning to unravel, despite clear attempts to keep it from doing so

It was ruined

You hush Dewey as you pull him close and reassure him it's ok, you can make him another one

It took a while to settle him, he treasured everything you made him and he allowed one to get ruined

But once you assured him it was fine and you knew it was an accident, you ended up spooning in the couch as you mentally start planning the new sweater

A month passed when he found a wrapped up parcel on his desk

He was running late, didn't have time to grab a coffee and accidentally grabbed his vest with a massive hole in the back rather than one of your handcrafted ones

Still, he made it to the classroom before any students arrived, so he quickly opened it up and a huge smile plastered its way onto his face

A new sweater vest that was near identicle to his ruined one, a bit cleaner and better designed than the old one

You'd also made him a pair of socks, something you'd been experimenting with, with the AC/DC logos on the side

He found the note at the bottom 'Hope you have a good day. I love you. Y/N. P.S. These are not allowed near the kindergartners ❤'

He quickly changed into the sweater, feeling so much better than he did 5 minutes ago

The socks became his lucky socks and he'd wear them to his gigs, stating that it was like you were up there with him

He shushed you when you pointed out that it meant he was technically stepping on you, telling you "you know what I mean" before giving you a kiss

He'd give you requests for scarves, beanies, the lot. Socks were for bed or performances only, apparently, but everything else was worn whenever

You even made beanies and scarves for members of the band who wanted them, each having the School of Rock logo on it plus the kid's name

Dewey loves wearing and telling everyone about the stuff you make because he thinks it's absolutely incredible you're able to create something like this

And he treasures everything you make him

Most importantly, he's there to listen when you rant that the yarn isn't working like it should, or just about crafting problems in general, and be an ear as you problem solve an issue and is there to celebrate the victories when it finally works

Gets really good at yarn shopping too, picks up the brands you prefer and learns to read the packaging labels

Just

He loves the fact you can create something just like he can

[gisapot]

In defense of Dionysus (written 12-03-2017, posted 12-03-2019.)

It is officially the anniversary of the last creative nonfiction piece I wrote. 

I did not realize it has been two years since I wrote this piece, the piece that I consider my magnum opus; two years since my grandfather had passed.

Posting this today of all days was not intentional. I did not intend to post this here because I had bigger plans for this piece; a greater exposure than this tiny blog only my friends and students know and avidly read (not that I am ungrateful for your support). I wanted to see this in print.

I wanted to submit this to Katitikan for its ‘places and spaces’ issue, but to submit this means to remove a thousand words from this five-thousand-word monster, and removing a thousand words is an insult to the integrity of the story I want to tell. To remove a thousand words is to break the legacy of my grandfather.

Another reason why I wanted to post this is to address a comment my mother had received on a photo she posted on her Facebook of her and my grandfather. I do not know if that was their last photo together. She shared the post to share to her world that it is the second anniversary of her father’s death, and someone said, “maayo gyod an badlungon kay ma mis gyod sa tanan!” 

Instead of posting a position paper in defense of my grandfather and his merits, looking only one-sided and biased towards the man who raised me, I want to show you this piece, in its entirety, in my grandfather’s entirety. 

Who really was Antonio Gulane? 

Dear Grandpa: A Story of The Kulafu Warrior.

Dear Grandpa, today is the third of December, twenty-seventeen. I am in the new house, the one you begged my mother to buy for you before you passed: the one-story house made of cement and stone. It has barely been a month since we got the house when you decided to christen it with your quiet passing, bringing in faces old that I’ve never seen in years, and new ones my mother insists I’ve met longer than my brain can recall.

Dear Grandpa, this asphalt house is the first permanent one we have had in a long time. How many houses have we lived in? I don’t know the number, but I know each and every one of them, complete with tiny slivers of memories that are distinctly of you, Grandma, your white chino shirts with her tie dye skirts and half-slips. I remember your loud insistent shouts and your ribs protruding through your thin brown skin as you sit at midnight half-naked, inhaling the smell of Mighty Red, Marlboro, or some lumboy leaves you roll on your own. The smell of it mixed with Kulafu has permeated every household we occupy, radiating out of your rotting yellow teeth as soon as the clock strikes one in the afternoon. Textbooks always told me these were signs of a broken home life, a dysfunctional family. To me, it became a sign that told me that I was home, no matter where I was.

I.                   Basement

I remember very little about the basement, but I do have pictures of it developed like pictures used to in those times Kodak and Konika were the epitome of photography technology, Richard Gomez’ face on the packs of the finished images. There were blue green walls, and it was constantly dark down there because there no natural light came in. The wooden jalousies were sealed shut and dusty, not really helping our cause. Our TV was a small black box always tuned in to ABS-CBN, and one picture showed it frozen on an old Colgate commercial along with my memory of my first Christmas. You were there with Grandma, candid shots of you making me laugh so that I would smile for the camera. I was a chubby child with skin as pink as the girls endorsing Pond’s for a healthy pink glow, a vast contrast to your dark lumad skin, even more elaborated by the harsh automatic flash of the film camera. Grandma always shied away from the light of it with a bashful grin that took on not only her face but in the lift of her shoulders, carrying me up to cover her face. You, however, were not afraid to show your grimace to a device that immortalized your state: displeased that your photo was taken, but not mad enough to be violent.

           I am thankful these photos exist to give me a sight of my childhood that I remembered better through scents. I remember nothing, no experiences and no objects, but I do remember the smell of a very big pink bottle of Johnson’s baby powder, your alcohol, Tatay’s aircon-scented laundry, pungent socks, and your cigarettes.

II.                Village

There is always this notion that when the word ‘village’ is present in the address you write on forms, you were someone with money and stability enough to live in a place that had security guards stationed at every entrance. We were renting this house, and I do not remember what it looks like nor do I have the pictures to actually believe that we lived here. There must be a gap in my memory, but I forgave myself long ago for not remembering anything. But I do hear stories from you and Grandma about my childhood: I liked Uncle Dennis’ Lucky Me mami noodles – the one in the blue packet (is it still in production anymore?) – because it smelled like gas. I didn’t eat it, I just smelled the smoke coming out of it. Every afternoon at five, Uncle Dennis and Grandma would take me for a walk to ‘get some Fita’, which was a codeword for fetching Nanay from the corner. You recalled that I never went with them if there was no Fita involved, so my mother resolved to buy Fita before she got to the corner leading to our house so I would greet her by sunset.

It was a quaint village but we had to move away for reasons I still cannot understand to this day, but know well enough that what happened made my mother lose the face to show to her in-laws. Just because she was a tiger does not mean she held the power; her in-laws were kings of the jungle. Grandma maintains we were nothing at the time. We had no one to our defence. We were ants next to them in the grand scheme of things, we could not talk back when the perpetrators had money and we did not, ruling the gated compound as they did. I never believed you to be one to run away from a fight. It did not seem like you or Nanay to be quiet or behaved when mouths start running the way they did towards us, but you just let it happen like it did. We moved houses before I could remember anything constructive of it, or take any pictures to remember it by.

III.             Pardo

There is something in Pardo that always drew me in. It seemed like a place that was alive, crowds of people coming in with the setting and rising of the sun every day, judging by the plethora of jeepneys that headed that way. I know that because of my constant commute to school, a small Montessori school, girls in bright red uniforms and at least one boy per batch in grey t-shirts. Other than that, I remember nothing that had to do with what was outside the house except the potted plants lined up by the patio that you sat next to, where you were supposed to be smoking your afternoon away. But you were not there, not at the house, not in any of the pictures. I never saw you in that year. I think you hated the place, or the stampede that came with it, or something else. All I know is that you were never there. Your sister stayed with us instead, a skinny woman with short hair who took orders for empanada from Nanay’s friends. I don’t remember you, but that does not mean I have no recollection of whether or not you were there. It means that I know for sure that you were not there, so I had nothing substantial to remember you of, unless it was Christmas.

I remember you distinctly during our only Christmas in that house, hiding in the darkness of the alley behind the back door where a big blue tank stood. You crouched there, smoking while Nanay and Tatay took pictures of me posing in front of the Noche Buena. I have a picture of that moment, smiling cutely while Grandma stood with her back turned away from the camera facing the door that led to the blackness. I remember she was scolding you in harsh whispers to turn the flame of your cigarette off and come inside to join the festivities, to not be a Grinch on Christmas. Once the photo was taken I got down from the chair I used as a stool, towering adults walking past me – both uncles, Nanay’s younger brothers – who tried talking you out of sitting outside. If you did not feel like socializing, there was always a TV. Your indifference towards Christmas was evident.

           The concept of time is longer the younger you are. I look up at the clock as they plead you to come inside and eat some bread or ham, or an apple, whatever; it was eleven in the evening. You finally got up at three minutes later, but it felt like three hours. I wonder how that is so. When you walked past me, I wanted to ask – something, nothing, I don’t remember what I wanted to ask from you. But you just moved me aside and did not give me attention, and you sat on the sofa and I just stared, and I brushed it off. You were offered alcohol, and you asked for a bottle of Kulafu. I did not move. The moment I write this is when I remember that was the first out of two times where you did not make time for me. You always did.

 IV.             Sugar Apple

Since I was a child I always amused myself with the thought that Tisa backwards was ‘atis’. Of course, now that I am older I have come to realize that this is not true. But it also entertained me that this presupposition of mine was proved true with the sugar apples growing by the barbed wire fence right outside our house that closed the compound in. We were renting a bigger house this time, in a compound of three houses owned by a nice drummer amputee named Tony. I remember the whole town calling him Tony Kimpay like it was his full name. The house had light blue walls and a smooth ground floor that required a whole box and three-quarters of red Starwax and two coconut husks to shine. There was a second floor (a second floor! Only rich people had second floors, thought three-year-old me) where the floors were made of wood, and it was in this house where I learned that you never slept at night.

You sat outside from ten at night until six in the morning with a box of cigarettes, a mug of Nescafe coffee and three bottles of Kulafu, guarding the house in lieu of a dog or a security guard. You would entertain yourself with the ducks Tony owned, chasing them away once they started quacking at four in the morning along with the crowing of the chickens. It was from you where I learned to not fear ducks. And when Nanay’s cousin Dinah came to live with us while she went to college and told me to stay away from ducks because they bite, I did not believe her. They always run away from me because you taught me that I was bigger and more terrifying than any bird.

Sometimes you plucked the sugar apples and cut them in half to share with the family, but I never ate them. Instead, I was interested in the eba that grew next to it, eating it raw and with no salt to neutralize the taste. I loved how sour it was. I have pictures of me giving eba to my cousins who visited the house. Behind the camera, you turn your nose up away from the eba, because you did not like that I like them and preferred that I ate sugar apples instead because at least that is a fruit that made sense.

My first brother was born by then, and I did not remember an instance where you touched him. By then, people from the neighbourhood or Nanay’s friends from work came by to visit and coo at him. I would get jealous and insecure, because there is a baby stealing my mother’s attention, like all three-year-olds would feel when they have a new sibling. Because of the afternoon crowd on the second floor of the house, you woke up from your afternoon nap and went outside for a smoke to calm down to avoid snapping at someone. I followed you outside because I hated how Nanay did not give me any attention, all given to that stupid baby. An adult grabbed me, I don’t remember who it was but I know I insisted on going with you. You took a seat on a plastic stool Grandma uses for the laundry, and told me to go back inside once you lit the cigarette stick. I obey. I walked towards the door when I accidentally kick over last night’s Kulafu bottles. I turned around to pick them up, but you told me to leave it and go inside in that annoyed tone you spoke in when everything is not in order. Despite that, you crouched down and picked the bottles up without further complaint. Irritation was a trademark on you, a trademark I have come to not just learn, but to inherit.

 V.                Parrots

From the house with the ducks and the star apples and eba, we moved to a white house with a gate. It was not that far from the previous house, it was on a hill right behind it. The house was white, the inside also white except for the master bedroom which was decorated with faded yellow wallpaper. A few months after we moved there, Tatay bought me a pair of birds – a boy and a girl – for no reason at all. He just thought it would be nice to have a pet. They were yellow-green birds and I thought they were parrots and insisted that they speak after me. Under the cage of the birds was a wooden stand for your own rooster. It was then I learned that you liked cock fights, you bet on it and joined it even with the constant reports on the radio that these betting games were illegal because it went against animal rights or some random reason I thought of as a child that would rationalize the world.

I still do not know if the birds Tatay got me were parrots or not, but it is an appropriate analogy for you and K: at the age of three with a head as big as a basketball, he admired you for everything you did to the point that he copied your every move, especially your skill in many types of martial arts. Now as I am older and I look back, I think of the credibility of your claim, if you were really an expert as you said you were. But at the impressionable ages of seven and three, we believed you to be the Filipino Bruce Lee as you introduced yourself to be. You taught K how to use nunchucks and a bit of arnis with a stick you conjured out of nowhere, and I wish I had pictures to prove that you really did teach him and he learned well from  you, but all I have are pictures of K alone carrying his nunchucks obsessively everywhere he went. He threw a fit every time he was told that he could not bring them to social events or inside malls because it was ‘unfair’ and he really wanted to show off what he knew.

He was so much like you. He copied almost everything you were. You two were so alike in the shortness of fuse and how you both wanted everything to go your way or you would have to resort to violence. K would wrestle anyone who said no.

Despite the contrast – K a pale milky white while you were a reddish brown like Kulafu – you taught him to be like you and he had grown so attached to his childhood hero that it no longer looked adorable to me as the older sister, but scary. This turned terrified the moment you took an afternoon nap and started kicking in the air like you were fighting someone, asking if your enemy in your dream was going to fight back. K thought you were so cool.

Nanay always tells me that she understands because she is always at work that K was imprinted by you and grandma instead of her and Tatay as the actual parents, but I could not understand what she meant. It just did not reflect the families on textbooks, where the children were close to their parents and their grandparents lived in a separate house. How close he became with you and Grandma was beyond me. He insisted to sleep on your bed, eat out of Grandma’s hands, and sang the lyrics you whispered in his ear before he ever learned how to read. There was no doubt in his mind that you were invincible, and you were the best example.

 VI.             Dog

We lived a year in that white house. Half of that year I dazedly spent in hospitals because of a severe case of dengue. That year was a bad year for us, it was some sort of bad omen. Nanay decided to move us to Mandaue, a whole city over, because it was safer there from mosquitoes and it was closer to her workplace. Other than that, Tatay was an architect for a new private elementary school that was just erected there, and he decided to send Yelcin and I there. It was in a big compound owned by a chubby old man with droopy skin that made him look like a wrinkly dog. He looked even worse with his constant frown. You did not like him. You liked his sons instead because they drank with you Kulafu with you at two in the afternoon to stay awake instead of being so uppity like their father.

We got a dog too, a female golden retriever we aptly named Goldie. You did not like her at first because she was a non-human creature that came into the house and chased after me because she liked me. You got very angry with her because she wormed her way to the bedroom I shared with Nanay and Tatay, but then insisted she sleep at the foot of my bed to watch over me, and suddenly I see you sneak out chicken leftovers from my breakfast to her dog bowl in the morning. That is when I knew you started to like her.

You sat outside with her in the afternoons. With that you brought some noise, you talked to her and told her to behave and you would give her a dog biscuit shaped like a bone whenever you got bored. You were not quiet anymore. You would bathe her religiously on Saturday mornings before I woke up, and fed her strange things for her meals like fish and some malunggay leaves. She ate them gratefully, like it was not dangerous for her poor dog stomach to eat such things.

You did everything for Goldie. You treated her like your own child, spoiled her with all the dog treats in the world and reprimanded my mother if she did not bring home any more treats for the dog when you ran out. You built her a cage made of metal grills and spare raw coco lumber that you demanded  Tatay to bring from his site visits in Catmon, the plastic flooring for the only thing authentically pet-shop about that cage. You made Dennis buy some metal roofing  from the construction supply shop around right outside the corner of the street, and you built her a home with your bare hands. When it was done, you put Goldie inside, locked it, and hid in your bedroom with Grandma without a word and took a happy nap.

 VII.          Protection

We had a house. It was in Opon, it was bound to PAG-IBIG housing loans, but we had a house. It was in a middle-class subdivision whose houses all looked the same, so our minimalist white and brown and green house with a terrace and an outdoor garden with Bermuda grass stood out. We had our own rooms, mine was pink and V’s was blue with a bunk bed since Nanay was pregnant with her third child and we were preparing for him. Nanay and Tatay’s room was a bright yellow with brown furniture. And yet you refused to see us sleep in our own rooms, us kids having to sleep in our parents’ room, on the floor with some mattresses, so that we do not get too hot in our own rooms. It was apparently better in the air-conditioned room, and it was so you could keep an eye on us all together.

We had a car too. It was a secondhand blue Nissan Terrano with a spare wheel on the back that we bought from your cousin who married into a rich family. We did not use the car much, but you took it out for spins around the subdivision so that it would not ‘gather dust’. I still do not know if that really is a valid concern for cars.

Your habits did not change: you still sat outside the house at midnight with your coffee and Kulafu and cigarettes, except now people stop in front of the house to take pictures, and you ‘shoo’ them away to keep them from plagiarizing my father’s work. (I will find in later years that they still succeeded in copying my father, what with subdivisions being erected that now use the same color scheme and the same layout and plan. It irritates the both of us. Whatever happened to intellectual property rights?)

           You hated the location, however. You hated that it was an entire city away from where we went to school and we did not get enough sleep. We passed out in the car the moment we get inside, to catch up on some sleep, wake up dazed and lost in school, then come home tired and lethargic to do any of our homework anymore because of how tired we were. We were practically in hell.

           Location was always the problem, wasn’t it? We just moved to the new home that was finally ours when it struck: Nanay was laid off of her job and had nowhere to go. With piling debts and deteriorating health and a baby who had more needs than her grown children, Nanay decided to work overseas.

           You were so violently against it. You were so mad. You did not want the family to be separated. Everyone should stay in one home, together, no matter the circumstance. It was all or nothing for you. But Nanay had already made up her mind, bought a ticket out, found a job that was waiting for her, all that was left was to leave for it. You did not look her in the eye that day she left, staying outside right in front of the car, like you were a boulder that could stop it from moving.

VIII.        Following

I remember very distinctly the moment K cried at the airport as we left Singapore after our first Christmas there. He was crying terribly hard, hating the fact that the family he grew up in, his own universe of discourse, was pulled apart into two different fabrics of time and space. It was difficult to be together now. He rolled on the floor of the then-existing budget terminal of Changi Airport, causing a scene, asking why we could not stay with her and be a happy family like those families in textbooks. He wanted to be with Nanay, with Tatay, but also with you and with Grandma and Uncle Dennis and Uncle Julius and their wives Elsa and Janice respectively, both parents and parental figures. K used to be the type that got so attached.  I cannot say the same for now, however.

When Nanay said she was working on our immigration to follow her to Singapore, K was excited. You, however, did not say anything. I think you have learned from when Nanay left the country, but you made us promise to call you by Skype every day while we waited to start schooling there. You could not bear to part from us, you and Grandma, but when was the best time to leave the nest, to be honest? And we belonged with our actual parents.

And every day like clockwork since we left, we called you through video call, your brown skin a bright white like the shirts on Tide commercials, asking how we are and what we are doing, same as yesterday. The call sits for two hours as we watch you nap on the wooden floor of the rest house, and when the computer overheats, you tell Dennis to shut it off and you slither away on the floor to your room, not showing that you are crying because of how you miss us. But it is okay, I know you console yourself, because Janice is pregnant, and you are sure this kid is not a kid you will let go.

When we left the country, you had no reason to stay in Cebu anymore, so you loudly declared to the entire family that you were all going back to Medellin where they grew up and where you raised them. There was a rest house there that Tatay constructed for us; somewhere we can sleep in whenever we visited Medellin for the weekend. It was a hut, brown with nipa leaves weaved together for the roof. Everything was made of wood except for the foundations and the bathroom, the cement wall painted green on the outside. Inside was tiled and decorated with seashells Tatay paid your nephew to collect from the beach behind the house. You spent your days there lying on the ground like a dog, never breaking your afternoon-nap-and-Kulafu-at-Midnight ritual like always. Sometimes you got bored and killed flies, made your own barbecue, and even built an extended hut for Grandma that you used as a convenience store. You would participate in secret games of masiao that another one of your nephews is a runner for, you and Grandma arguing about the how she calculated her own numbers and why yours is different, until the tumor in your stomach you kept joking about started hurting too much for you to laugh about it anymore.

 Dear Grandpa, throughout these homes we have come into, you repeatedly made me promise throughout my childhood to build you a concrete house that you can call your own. You called our constant moving a hassle and the hut that my father made for you not sturdy to withstand storms. You told me you were tired of the city, and asked me to build you a house in your hometown of Medellin, as big as I want, as long as it was strong and brave and could shelter you from the heavy storms.

Dear Grandpa, we have a home now. It is a bright yellow house in a subdivision a little ways away from the park that displayed an old train from Central that used to carry the sugar cane. The time is one-forty in the afternoon; I am sitting in front of your white coffin with a towel in my hair, and if I move to tilt my head rightwards I can see the bottle of Kulafu I bought for you as an offering. I am alone, save for the people passing by to get food, more ice cream, beer, or arguing about the wi-fi connection. Your Photoshopped portrait sits on top of your viewing glass, staring at the flurry of movement with your intense judging glare and thick eyebrows. You look angry in the photo, but Uncle Dennis says you were about to laugh as the photo was taken, and if I stared hard enough, I can almost see the moment that you do.

Dear Grandpa, you were powerful and strong-willed and loud for all the right reasons. You were never weak, and you never allowed people to spread nonsense about our family. I pretend not to know that the reason for your loss is not deterioration, but a dangerous formation. I pretend not to know that your every day habits are the cause of your passing. I pretend that you’ve never participated in vices in your life; it is in the Filipino culture, Nanay says, that once someone passes, he is an angel.

Dear Grandpa, I miss you very dearly. As I write this I keep erasing words and adding some more, getting distracted by the noise from the children and doors opening and San Miguel bottles tinkling against each other. This is the sound of our family, even as the shape of our living arrangement changes like the sky when it nears a storm. Dear Grandpa, in the years I have grown under your care we did not have a house whose deed was truly ours, but you have shown me the meaning of home and helped me remember it as my own now, as part of who we are: we are fighters, the heat of your Kulafu blood flowing through our veins – we are warriors.

Dear Grandpa, we might be so far away from each other, even further now that you have passed, but as I grow older and help Nanay and Tatay finish this house in your name, I will remember the way we have come, and how much further I have to go. In front of your coffin, I bow my head to mourn, but my blood boils hot under my skin – I will stand like you on this ground and do what I can, defending your name.

And if I can help it, Dear Grandpa, we will not move again any time soon.

[caraidean]

Slow Turn [Rigelian Raised AU]

Participant(s): Clair, Albein Rudolf II ( @jasperlion​)

Words: 4,908

Type: Base conversation / C Support

Summary: Confronted with the reality of her situation and her nation’s politics, the still-captive Clair starts to sell out Zofia in an attempt to save lives. However, she still comes to verbal blows with her captor, and her situation continues to be precarious. 

At least they’d gotten her a change of clothes. Admittedly it wasn’t the dresses she was used to, but…it wasn’t awful, she would concede that. She didn’t feel like a piece of meat being put on sale anymore at least.

But ye gods, would it kill them to trim down on the furs a little? She’d abandoned the shawl part halfway through the first day and just put up with the glares she’d received from those who thought she was being dismissive. She wasn’t trying to be insulting, she was damn well overheating.

“…”

But handing over some new clothes, taking care of the servants sent with her, and giving them actual sleeping quarters - she’d been afraid it would be some cramped room for all of them, but no, to her surprise, individual rooms - wouldn’t quite get Clair to cooperate with the Rigelians so far. More than absolutely necessary, anyway. For the time being she was satisfied just living out the house arrest that she was essentially in while waiting for the Prince to return, occasionally having to fight down the urge to try and escape.

She might make it. Truly, she might. But not if she wanted to take everyone else with her as well. So she ended up staying, and hoping that her brother or the rest of Zofia wouldn’t do anything reckless to try and save her.

When she went down for breakfast that morning she should have been more surprised to see Albein waiting for her at the table than she was. But a week’s worth of waiting was enough to make her jaded enough to expect that each day aws just some new kind of torture until he’d had his fun and decided to put her out of her misery.

Then again, there was another seat left at the table. She gathered teal skirts in her hand, still not used to the sheer bulkiness of it all (or the corset - seriously, and they called Zofian fashion depraved? At least she could breathe when showing off that much skin) as she sat down across from him as elegantly as she could muster.

“So.” She said as casually as she could while she reached for fruit, cold eyes staring into his defiantly. “Is this my last meal before an execution, then? Or has the Emperor oh so graciously decided to allow me to live?”

She made a slight face as she considered the even worse third option. “Just tell me we aren’t actually expected to be wed after all. I really would rather be…what was that turn of phrase you used when we met? Ah, yes. Strung up by my innards. Delightful.”

-w-w-w-

He curses his cousin under his breath as he prepares himself for the day, mutters about how unfair it is that his Father declared it so once he’s dressed and ready, and grumbles to himself on his way to a very specific dining hall. Getting up early enough in the morn for this was no hard task, he was usually up even earlier to practice his drills, but to have to wake up and preen himself for a Zofian noblewoman?

… A noblewoman proven innocent, mind, so he had to pay respects and be the one to deliver the news; at least, it was what his Father had ruled in private with them. On the upside, he would not have to deal with the diplomatic spectrum outside these halls. On the downside…

Ugh, he’d much rather have his meal in the barracks mess hall and just get back to his training.

If anything, at least he let himself oversleep (training before coming would just mean he’d need more time to clean up), having heard of the woman’s regular habits by now and when she’d likely arrive to eat. So, of course, he arrives early and prepares himself, like any good combatant would, and waited.

And waited.

… When exactly did she normally come by, again?

The sound of footsteps, for the nth time, has him straightening his back from his slouch and clasping his hands together politely at his lap, and now it’s finally not a false alarm as the door opens to find that girl, Claire, on the other side. She… doesn’t look too pleased. Good, neither was he. (The clothes they had sent looked a little odd on that girl…)

It’s funny, most nobility he had dealt with from either side of the Sluice Gate was fond of preamble, and yet Clair never quite bothered with it, heading right to the punch and likely right into getting her neck under an axe. So of course he barks a laugh at her words of defiance, and her implications that she’d rather die than marry him. A good and hearty laugh, reaching for a fruit himself now that he can actually eat instead of waiting for the woman. “Straight to the point and pulling no punches, I like that.” He says, wondering what his reaction would have been had she said that to him the day she arrived.

“Word’s been sent to your house as per the misunderstanding and… plot, but while you and yours are cleared from any willful wrongdoing… you shan’t leave just yet.” Deciding to honor her frontal nature, Albein too gets right to the heart of the matter. “Not until the matter is settled with the Zofian crown— if they had planned to have you die here, would you not say it is quite likely to have you eliminated before you return?”

A pause, and he then continues. “It would put us in quite the position, yes?” It wasn’t about her safety as a person that they were concerned for, after all, and he hoped he had been quite clear. Taking a bite from the fruit in hand, he waits until he swallows before he continues. “Though this whole situation might just be what ignites a war, even if no one died in this… particular incident.”

-w-w-w-

“Yes, clearly. Pulling punches isn’t in your style.” Clair said as evenly as she could, feeling her jaw twinge a little in memory. Still, at least she managed to avoid showing any signs of her physical discomfort at the reminder. Her bravado and bluster was all well and good, but she still wouldn’t want to be beaten again. Skilled as she may be, the Prince was stronger. And without her pegasus here to level the playing field, she wasn’t under any illusions as to how a fight between them would play out.

She allowed her shoulders to sink in relief slightly when she heard that at least her and her companions weren’t found to have done anything wrong, even if they weren’t allowed to leave. That sent a small chill down her spine as she hesitantly bit into her own fruit, glaring daggers at him with a low growl building in her throat. No, no, she shouldn’t rise to his barbs. Besides, he was right, they likely would have died shortly after crossing the border once more if that was their intention.

“If this does ignite the war, at least try to keep in mind that not all of Zofia backed the actions that led to your treatment.” The idea of suggesting that her family and their sympathizers might be convinced to stay out of any conflict or indeed ally with the Rigelian forces made the food taste like ashes in her mouth, but it was better than the alternatives. “Your conceptions of us are based on the abhorrent behavior of our ruling class, not even the entire span of the Nobility.”

She could tell that this line of conversation would be pointless for today, although she could also predict that she’d be having this argument with him time and time again until she was released or finally executed. Speaking of… “So, then, what of me and mine? Are we to be kept in some gilded cage for your amusement after all?”

She paused in horror as one other alternative crossed her mind. Speaking of allying those portions of Zofia…

“Goddess protect me, I was joking about the marriage. If your father thinks anything like that shall happen I assure you I will castrate you in our wedding bed.”

-w-w-w-

Heh, pulling punches not being his style? At least she caught on quick, and it draws an amused huff from the prince. Yet even as he looks forward for even more entertainment, what comes next is quite the opposite.

Clair relief is transparent, but it does not procure amusement from him, simply a twinge of… is it pity? Strong as the woman was, she had truly been worried for the fate of her own, which was something he could at the very least call admirable. He thoughtfully eats the orange after peeling it (quite the popular fruit despite its Zofian origin, apparently), listening to her with calculating eyes.

Conceptions, conceptions… is it not the ruling class that set the example? Even so, he quiets his hackles, instead… delegating himself to observing. … And he can’t help but once more laugh at loud as her expression turns to horror, and she explicitly states her intent to maim him right on the table during mealtime. Hah, when they said Zofians were bold…

“If my hand were that easy to offer, perhaps your fears would have merit. But, as you say… it seems you judge my father by the actions of your ruling class. If I recall… that Lima dog asked for the hand of a lesser noble on our eastern border in return for some emergency supplies some years before my own birth.” And there is no effort to hide the sheer disdain and disrespect he feels for that man in particular, expression turning haughty for a brief moment. Well, at least he had finished the fruit already, lest that bile building in his throat make him lose his apetite.

When were the kitchen hands going to bring the actual food? Gods. He signaled for the one at the door, who scampered away soon after.

“If my marriage were made for political gain, it would stand to be more sensible to marry me off to one of Lima IV’s numerous spawn before your family would even be considered, well known as your brother may be. Your fears are, frankly, misplaced.” With that, he waves the topic off, sighing in relief as they’re finally served a proper course; eggs, dried cod, sausages, some loaves and even more fruit along with some drinks. Eh, worked for him.

“Yourself and yours will be given more permissions among the castle walls, and provided you remain here, all will be well.” Pausing for effect, he continues with a lowered tone of voice, threat clear as day. “However, if you were to leave before matters are settled, well… it would be quite incriminating. Not to mention what awaits you on the other side of the border.”

He waits until his words settle before speaking again. “Is it to your liking?”

-w-w-w-

“I think the last few weeks would have made it clear I am no longer fond of my own ruling class. But considering yours imprisoned me before threatening to murder us for situations beyond our control, I believe it’s fair to say that neither side is exactly ideal in my eyes at the moment.” She said stiffly, although she let her shoulders sag a little in relief when it turned out they weren’t to be wed. Attractive or not, it would likely end with one of them dead in their wedding bed given how their last few conversations had gone.

“What I hear of King Lima’s children is positive, to my surprise.” She narrowed her eyes a little at his brazen insult. She had never met any of them, but the rumors and words of her brother and future sister-in-law made them out to be good kids by comparison to their father. “Perhaps people learn from the mistakes of their parents in Zofia instead of taking inspiration from it.”

She let the thinly veiled insult sit as she reached over, spearing a sausage on one fork and twirling it between her fingers as she glared. What were the odds of him trying to strike her again? To sate her own paranoia she kept her right hand hovering near the knives, pausing to take a bite from the cylinder of meat and blinking in surprise.

“It’s not bad.” She admitted, grudgingly. She rolled her eyes as she finished the sausage, dabbing at her mouth with a cloth as she sighed. “Oh, very well. Myself and mine will stay here in this gilded cage you’ve left for us.”

She smiled, thinly. “Am I to expect that you will be remaining here as well, then? It certainly is an ideal location to plan out what is almost certainly your inevitable offensive against my nation. Or shall I have the joy of meeting our new gaoler sooner than expected?”

-w-w-w-

While Albein’s eyes narrow a little at her clear distaste in himself and his ilk, he instead proceeds to eat as she speaks, making sure to keep his eyes on her at all times. However, it is her jab at his father that stops him midchew and, swallowing whatever he had managed to already mince that was in his mouth, he very carefully and deliberately set his utensils down.

Of course he listens to the rest, of course he mulls over his words before he speaks, but he is no longer relaxed nor laughing or smiling, his expression has turned rather cold.

“If my father’s mistake was not executing you and yours on very fair grounds of numerous insults upon our traditions and treaties, then perhaps I should learn from it.” He all but hisses, threat looming heavily over the atmosphere now. It was only out of Emperor Rudolf’s grace that she wasn’t dead, and she deigns it fine to insult the man?

He wants to just stand and leave— yet to let food go to waste was something he simply could not stand for, and would not, so he forces himself to remain where he sat, despite wishing to demonstrate. He takes a breath, then exhales— if this is what it takes to get to him, then his patience indeed does have an awfully short wick.

“I was asking if the accommodations and arrangements were to your liking, but I suppose the food comes with that.” He finally speaks after a pause drawn out, not to further intimidate the damnable woman, but to simply quell his temper. “As for me…” There is another pause, and he briefly considers what he’s about to say. “… I am a general before I am a prince, and so if my unit marches, I march. That is to say… I do not know if arrangements will change, nor when.” It was, after all, a precarious time and negotiations were ongoing. If the woman was blind to just how big a scandal this whole thing had brought and how they had all been placed on high alert, perhaps this would give her more awareness on the matter.

“It is heavily dependent upon the response of your king. The Earth Mother’s fortune may not be on your side for long.” With that, he continues to eat his meal in silence, mood already foul and dropping by the minute. Yes, it was quite the good thing arrangements were not being done for them to marry — he’d sooner throw the woman to the mountains to survive on her own.

-w-w-w-

“We both know that King Lima is likely to respond poorly.” Clair muttered acidly, stabbing viciously at another sausage to try and calm herself. While Albein certainly found ways to raise her temper, she was finding herself growing angrier and angrier at her…former?…ruler with each passing day. She dabbed at her cheeks with a napkin, scowling down at her own reflection in her plate before letting out a deep and unsatisfied sigh.

Fuck. She was going to have to apologize, wasn’t she.

“You’ve treated us better than I would have ever expected you. Once you stopped threatening to hit us, at least.” Clair said reluctantly, eventually forcing herself to look Albein in the eyes even though her own arrogance and anger made it so difficult. Maybe that would let him see how honest she was being about this.

“…my brother was talking about increased attention on supply deprivation and night assaults during their training exercises recently.” She muttered, shaking her head. Even this much information felt almost wrong to be sharing, even if she both wished to see the top of Zofian society collapse for how she was treated and try to return at least some of the kindness shown to her here. “I would prepare for night raids and keep your supplies more secure. As my very presence here is sure to demonstrate to you, I doubt that Zofian High Command is going to be particularly chivalrous to your forces should war start.”

She stopped, and groaned as the next words came out choked and bitter. “And…I’m sorry.”

-w-w-w-

Albein merely gives a terse nod of assent to her scathing words towards the Zofian ruler, scowl forming on his face at the thought of having to go to war over petty insults, of all things. Yet it is her next words that actually give him pause, turning his expression from barely contained ire to… befuddlement, really.

And certainly, he still feels anger lurking within, the scowling tug at his lips remain and his emotions still flare with a defensive air—

        but to see this Zofian earnestly cede ground with an honest gaze despite how difficult she finds it to do, it is not something he would have expected to witness in his lifetime.

… Nor the intel, which he would ensure to bring to the attention of the Rigelian army as a whole. The last thing they needed was supply raids, not when they had oh so little and Zofia thrived on riches bestowed upon them by their God.

So he closes his eyes, taking a breath to try to cool the flames that still raged in his heart, let them simmer into embers that still stung even now. “… I too have not been the most stellarly behaved man.” He says, voice softening, even if he still sounded tense and angered. One breath, then another, and he puts thought into… what he actually just said.

It leaves him feeling a little more confused than anything, like he needed to think everything through more carefully— when he was alone. Clearing his throat, he proceeds and pushes the thoughts to the side for now. “I apologize as well.”

Still… there is value in what he had learned. “The information you have provided will be helpful in keeping my men alive and fed. I… understand it is difficult to share.” He wasn’t sure he ever would have, and perhaps it is what made the apology the most genuine in his eyes… if true. “… Thank you.”

… It was a struggle when he still felt like he should be angry, really, but perhaps it’s time he acknowledge that he’s not the only person with feelings in the room. Surely, now, he would be closer to understanding what kindness truly was. “… I will keep your words of the children of Lima in mind.” Discreetly, he finds himself rubbing the back of his left hand with his right, forcing himself to stop and instead… finish his food. Preferably in silence.

-w-w-w-

“If this war is inevitable then it would be for the best for it to end as swiftly as possible one way or another. And with how you have treated us recently…I fear that the preferred ending may be through your kingdom’s victory. I cannot say that my own royalty would treat their own captives with the same kindness.” She paused, glancing up from the floor and letting her eyes meet his for a brief moment.

In that instant, there was understanding. She was starting to see the kind of person that Albein really was, see past the initial barriers of callousness and, yes, even past the fact she found the man attractive. This was the kind of man who genuinely cared, even if his way of showing it was poor. Her jaw twinged a little.

“Well. To correct myself, I suppose it is better to say they would be more like the first few hours I spent here. Except stretched out over months, and with increasing levels of depravity.” She said in a forced light tone as she glared for an instant before looking away guiltily.

“I would suggest familiarizing yourself with combat in the air as well. In my last year of training I noticed that the entrance qualifications for the pegasus knights had drastically dropped since I began…I fear that this may well have been for a reason.” She paused again and asked in a more timid voice. “My mount…has  Bucephalus been treated properly? I know the animals were fed and watered, but I haven’t been allowed to see him since.”

-w-w-w-

His eyes flicker to her whenever she speaks, paying rapt attention even as he quietly finishes his own meal. His expression does, however, contort to a scowl at the thought of Zofian imprisonment; it sounded rather barbaric. Sure, as Clair and her people had been under review for actions that were unclear, the accomodations were what was considered decency — and had they been condemned of wrongdoing, they’d have been moved to proper cells…

But prolonging suffering with depravity felt unnecessary, almost akin to whatever those Faithful loyalists had been getting onto ever since the Faith changed leadership from Halcyon. It was… Gods, it certainly made him wish to have a word or two of his own.

His expression calms, however, when she tries to advice further, advice that gives him thought: their own pegasus division was lacking, if anything due to how finicky the mounts were, and how far less hardy they were in the cold. While bolstering their mounted archers would definitely help with skyward threats, he would most definitely consider proposing to his father that they look into better ways to care for and maintain pegasi healthy and active throughout the year in the northernmost part of the country. And, well, of course she’s worried about…. her beast. The thought makes him let out a noise of amusement after all the silence, and he swallows down the last of the food before he finally speaks to her.

“Your mount is as willful as you are. He is in the stables, fit as can be, though we do not know how he has been trained. As such… he has a harness now that doubles as a coat for warmth, but it is mostly so the beast does not… fly off. It would be a shame to confuse your pegasus for an enemy or even a fleeing one and see him shot down— but I assume being grounded has made him temperamental. I can’t say I blame him.” Might as well get… that out of the way first, since the woman did seem worried over the beast.

Ah, he couldn’t say much on the matter or even make fun of her— he too would be distraught if his favorite destrier had been kept from him in foreign lands. “As you and yours status has shifted to protected… guests… I am to assume you should be capable of visiting the stables from henceforth. Provided you both… remain within the premises.”

It is… not a threat, surprisingly, but rather a cautionary tone that he carries in his words, which he seems to delay to think through how to say things. He can’t just… throw words around, anymore.

“… You can be certain all you have told me will make its way to the Emperor’s ears. It is invaluable.” Dipping his head respectfully, he eyes her with mild curiosity, even if she had already told him her reasons. She would rather the conflict end swiftly… in their favor… and with minimal losses. Well… he could empathize with it. “Let us hope whatever comes of this mess ends quickly. I’ve no taste for needless slaughter. …Nor do I fancy your description of Zofian customs towards prisoners. I am… surprised, really.”

Honestly, he had thought them to not even be able to stomach the concept of keeping prisoners or something. He… had some research to do.

The prince remains seated, however, despite his thoughts that he truly should be elsewhere — it was rude to leave without waiting for her to be done, correct? … Maybe? He wasn’t sure if it was the same in Zofia, actually…

-w-w-w-

“Bucephalus is more than a mount. Not that I would expect you to understand the kind of bond that forms between a pegasus and their rider.” Clair said in a heated voice, eyebrows narrowing for a brief second. She wondered if it was worth the risk of the careful, knife-edge peace they’d established between them collapsing to tear into him a little more before she bit her tongue and let it pass.

Not that she didn’t want to, and she expected that he’d see that. Hopefully he’d let the temporary spike of acidity pass as she swirled water in her mouth and swallowed with a light grimace.

Perhaps she should have only metaphorically bitten her tongue.

“I would rather no war happen. But given my newfound feelings towards King Lima and his advisors…I suppose I can hardly be blamed for wishing to turn my coat. At least partially.” She hesitated. “I cannot say if you could use my cooperation to convince my parents to work with you, but my brother and his fiancee would be more amenable to listening should they see I am unharmed.”

A smirk flickered across her face for a moment, shaking her head. “Once he is finished with attempting to fillet you under the assumption you must have ravished me or such, that is. I dare say I would hate to see you perish, but perhaps a light beating in exchange for the one you gave me when we first met would be acceptable.”

-w-w-w-

Albein’s expression goes from mildly amiable to closed off and cautious the moment her voice heats and she makes a big deal and assumption over… words that are facts. The pegasus is a mount, as much as any war horse is, no matter how beloved and bonded. And the people of Rigel were known horsemen—! “For one who hates assumptions, you are quick to make your own.” He hisses in turn, standing from his seat. He’d tolerate this no longer than he absolutely had to. He had tried, Gods as witnesses, to be ‘reasonably understanding’, yet she would continue this testy little game…!

“We shall see how negotiations go with your kin. However, should your brother run off on his assumptions, I will not be holding back to defend my honor. I’ll not be compared to lecherous pigs.” No Rigelian worth their salt would let themselves just be beat upon false accusations, and he wasn’t about to be the first.

There’s a pause as he glowers down towards Clair, tension in the air thick and heavy, before he finally exhales once more and turns. “… We do not make habit to toss food here. Make sure to finish it.”

… That’s all he has to say to this damnable Zofian. It well may be that he has plenty to think of, but he’ll not lower himself to standing her company any longer when all she did was prod at his sides! He refused to lower himself to such. With a huff, he stalks off towards the doors.

-w-w-w-

“I understand.” Clair said quietly, aware that she must have crossed a line - but unwilling to admit her defeat. The lecherous pigs comment made her flinch back, eyes blazing in anger for a brief moment before she instead bit her tongue and looked to the side, unable to meet his gaze. No, that one was her fault, almost entirely.

She watched him leave in silence, for a brief moment considering that she should possibly stand up and apologize - but, no. She wasn’t there yet. She already felt sick for how she was selling out her nation, even if it was the only truly moral option she had available to herself - she couldn’t bring herself to debase herself in such a manner.

“Try not to choke on your own tongue muttering to yourself.” She grumbled once he was gone, shaking her head. She frowned, seeing that her hand was shaking nervously as she lowered her fork down to the table.

“…blast it…” She muttered to herself. She just hoped that when the death tolls from the war she’d just helped start came in, they wouldn’t keep her awake for too long each night.

The guilt was already eating at her.

[zdbztumble]

“Kingdom Hearts II” revisited, Part IV

Having said last time that I don’t understand how any of the first four Disney worlds could be considered filler, I can absolutely understand how the last four could be. I suspect that it’s these worlds, at least on the first pass, that give this game its reputation for Disney filler. The reasons why aren’t hard to spot: it’s a case of formula and stagnation combining to bring the larger story down into a fun but overlong lull.

As I said in Part III, the first of the Disney worlds follow logically from Yen Sid’s briefing, and illustrate the competing villain factions. Disney Castle represents a turning point, with Maleficent getting personally involved and striking at a world that should have been off-limits. I don’t object to the placement of Disney Castle in the line-up; the story needed a step up in stakes at that moment. But there is a total lack of follow-up from there. Agrabah, Port Royal, and Pride Rock all play out in the same way so far as the larger story is concerned; Pete shows up with some Heartless, has almost nothing to do with whatever it is the local villain is up to, and Sora and the local Disney heroes clean up the mess. The one deviation from that formula is Halloween Town, where Maleficent again takes a personal hand and her past history with Oogie Boogie is capitalized on, but it amounts to the same basic formula. 

Where this issue is most apparent is in Pride Rock. Some of the worlds before this see Pete discussing how this or that character would make a good Heartless; in Pride Rock, the local Disney villain actually becomes one. That is, on paper, a major escalation, and a significant achievement for Maleficent’s forces. But the presentation of that moment utterly fails to convey that, because Pete and Scar have virtually no interaction. There’s no seduction or temptation for Scar to embrace the powers of darkness and become a Heartless, no equivalent to Maleficent’s conversations with Jafar, Hades, and Riku in KH I. Everything in Pride Rock plays out as if nothing were unique here, as if no advancement had happened; Pete’s just there, and he’s almost casual in the way he declares Scar to be a Heartless.

Really, Pete’s continued presence speaks to the problem. Maleficent’s threat that Timeless River represented his last chance should have been a real threat; after his failure there, he should have been banished to sentry duty at their hideout or something like that, while Maleficent saw to all the rest of the Disney worlds personally, gradually increasing the threat and the stakes. Meanwhile, Organization XIII could provide at least one major disruption or counter to her plans, keeping them involved. Instead, the Organization puts in no appearances in these worlds, and the only mention of them that I remember is Sora asking Nala if she’s seen anyone in dark cloaks. Whatever the merits and demerits of each individual world (and we’ll get to that in a second), the end result is that the central plot of KH II is absent for four whole worlds, except for the cutscenes tied to Kairi.

And speaking of Kairi - as good as her reintroduction to the story is in the prelude, the game takes too long to bring her back into the proceedings after Sora awakens. The reference to her at the end of Port Royal is adorable, as is the mention of her in the Pride Lands but at least one cutscene, placed somewhere within the first few Disney worlds, was needed. The long absence of DiZ and “Ansem” from the plot is felt too - not as strongly for me, though that’s a personal thing.

When Kairi does finally reappear, we get a good expansion of her character. In one short scene with Pluto and Axel, she’s shown to be brave, intuitive, and determined to set out on her own and be a part of the action. More of that side to her character would have been good to see, in this and other games, but at least this one has it in some capacity. (This scene also serves to disabuse any notions of Axel’s character; a man prepared to kidnap Sora’s lady love to use as bait in an ill-thought plan to get Roxas back is not any sort of hero.)

(For those of you who play through the worlds based on villain level, and who try and play in-character as Sora, Kairi’s cutscene being placed where it is made my path forward after Agrabah an agonizing decision. On the one hand, Twilight Town opening up would be a clear sign that there’s something there worth investigating; on the other hand, Sora couldn’t possibly know at that point that Kairi is there, and the remaining Disney worlds are all populated by old friends of his. In the end, I stuck to following villain level, but it was tough to settle on a plan.)

Now, as for the Disney worlds on their own merits...

Atlantica is bad. I don’t have any inherent objection to a combat-free musical world, and I don’t even hate “Swim This Way;” get rid of the lyrics and it’s a fairly innocuous instrumental track. But the original story for Atlantica written for KH I borrowed liberally from the actual movie plot; to go through an abridged version of that plot here is repetitive, and devoid of any of the elements that tied the world to the larger KH story in the first game. Even more than the 100 Acre Wood, I think this would have been a great candidate for a world not to repeat. KH III’s later decision to keep Ariel involved as a Summon instead is one of the few things I can unequivocally say that game did better than KH II.

I can also say that KH III did a far better job with the Pirates of the Caribbean material. On an aesthetic level, there’s no contest. The size of the world, its design and color scheme, animation of characters (though there’s still some uncanny valley issues), movement and gameplay options, Jack’s VA and original dialogue - even the music, despite the absence of Zimmer’s main theme, all made an incredible leap forward in KH III compared to what the starting point was. I’d go so far as to say that KH II’s Port Royal is, aesthetically, the weakest in the game, and possibly the entire series (though Wonderland could give it a run for its money, at least on looks.)

The bigger problem with Port Royal, at least on the first pass, is the way it handles the movie it’s based on. It’s in Port Royal where I see clearly, for the first time, the approach to adapting Disney movies that would become the detrimental standard. What we have here is an uninspired abridgement of Curse of the Black Pearl, easily the most straightforward adaptation of a Disney movie in this game, with possibly the least amount of effort made to accommodate the greater KH story (we’ll get to the competition for that title next). The abridgement itself is careless in its cuts, leaving certain elements of the world’s story confusing, awkward, or arbitrary. Dialogue is lifted wholesale from the film and delivered with less than compelling conviction by the stand-in VAs.

Pete’s limited role in Barbossa’s schemes has already been mentioned, but this world was the first where I felt that little effort was made to give Sora a role in the proceedings. As happened with infuriating frequency in KH III, Sora and his friends are basically along for the ride here, the plot of the movie playing out around them without their having any real bearing on it. The two things you can give Port Royal over later games’ worlds is that at least Sora is involved with the final battle against Barbossa, and that this world introduces his pirate fantasies (and we’ll touch more on those in a moment). To go back to KH III’s take on Pirates - most of the same problems (and those two saving graces) exist there too, but in the context of that game, The Caribbean in KH III was one of the less frustrating worlds when it came to Sora’s role (or lack thereof), so it was a bit of a bright spot. In the context of KH II, Port Royal having all these problems on the first pass means it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Honestly, if they wanted to adhere to the film so badly, I would’ve preferred that Pete and the Heartless not show up at all. The first pass could have had the skeletal pirates as the only villains, and Sora could leave that world wondering why the Keyblade would have brought him there if there were no Heartless to be had. Cut back to Port Royal, and you’d see a figure in a black cloak and hood wandering around, giving Organization XIII a badly-needed tease in this section of the game.

And, if I can nitpick - Sora and his friends explicitly state that Port Royal looks “so different” from any other world they’ve been to. Why would this game not have them adopt disguises? Give KH III another point for that one, though I think it would have been more appropriate - and funnier - if Donald and Goofy had turned into a real duck and dog.

The other Disney world that really has issues with movie adaptation and providing Sora material is Pride Rock. While it’s somewhat less rigid an a recap of The Lion King than Port Royal was for Black Pearl, the absence of any scene that builds to Scar’s succumbing is emblematic of these worlds’ inability to loosen up and be original in their material when it’s called for. Sora’s first encounter with Nala offers some fresh plot, but by the time Simba appears, we’re locked into an uninspired highlight reel of Lion King’s third act. Some lapses of logic plague this world too (the biggest one: why would Sora and his friends run away from the hyenas when they first come to Pride Rock? They have weapons and magic. Pete being there shouldn’t mean anything unless he summons an insurmountable swarm of Heartless). And this is the world that handles Sora the worst in the first pass - or at least, it’s the most frustrating of them in how it handles Sora. There’s the nonsensical and out-of-character plot of his to become king, but more than that, this world has so many opportunities to let Sora matter that aren’t taken. He’s the one who tells Nala that Simba’s alive, but we get a weak version of Rafiki’s “it is time!” moment instead of letting Sora find his old friend. Sora does at least encounter Simba first, and tries to stop him from finding Nala - but he might as well not say anything, because the “pinned ya” moment from the movie plays out as if he weren’t there. The game prompts Sora to cheer Simba up, but he doesn’t do anything of the sort - Simba just walks away, and we get the discount version of the big Hamlet moment. If it weren’t for Sora staying by Simba’s side for the Scar fight, this would be as bad a use of him in a Disney world as anything in KH III.

As with Port Royal, it’s tempting to imagine alternate scenarios. Picture a Pride Lands level where Sora, upon arriving, encounters Simba in the jungle, wtih Timon and Pumba. More is made of their reunion and Simba’s shock at seeing his friend in lion form (one moment from the world as-is that I truly love, because it’s adorable), and the level starts out with a series of short, light-hearted minigames designed to give the player a crash course in controlling the lion mode and offer a springboard for cutscenes letting these two trios bounce off one another in a fun way. You could also use these scenes to let Sora, for the first time, get a hint of the sadness in Simba. Cut to Pride Rock, where Maleficent is actively tempting Scar and providing him with Heartless. It’s the sight of this unnatural force that moves Nala to go looking for help, and this would lead to a “boss” battle where Sora, Donald, and Goofy end up fighting Nala to protect Timon and Pumba. Simba, recognizing Nala, breaks up the fight, and their reunion brings up Simba’s past, prompting Sora to ask the questions that would bring that past to light. When Simba runs off, Nala ends up asking Sora for help, and he follows her to Pride Rock. Cue two cutscenes - one of the Hamlet moment, and one where Maleficent informs Scar that trouble is coming, and gives him his next shot of darkness. When gameplay starts back up, it’s Sora confronting hyenas and Heartless, leading up to a first try at fighting Scar that it’s impossible to win. That would trigger another cutscene where Simba arrives and has his verbal confrontation with Scar, Maleficent would appear and give Scar his final “help,” and then we’d go right into the final battle with Heartless Scar.

Having been frustrated enough with this world to want a complete rewrite of it, I will say that it’s a much more attractive world than Port Royal, and it’s not without its charms. Besides little character moments that I already mentioned, getting to play as a lion is a lot of fun. I do wish that there was more variation on speed depending on the pressure you put on the analogue stick, as Sora can go a bit too fast for me in lion form, but it’s a great change-up from other worlds. And despite the changes I would have made to her introduction, Nala’s presence and interaction with Sora is nice. It’s a shame she and Simba both couldn’t have been party members.

So, I clearly had problems with those three worlds. But what about the other two? Well, while my issues with the larger KH story in this section stand, Agrabah and Halloween Town both hold up much better taken on their own terms. As someone whose disdain for Disney’s DTV sequel craze is only slightly less than my current disdain for their live-action remake trend, I was loathe to think that any of those videos would find their way into Kingdom Hearts back when I first played this game. Return of Jafar being, to my mind, one of the worst of that bunch only reinforced that feeling. But I liked Agrabah in KH II back in the day, and I’d say it holds up nicely. In some ways, I think it’s an improvement on the (surprisingly slight) material it takes from Return of Jafar, if only because it cuts away all the nonsense. Sora serving as an intermediary between Iago and the world’s heroes isn’t his most dramatic role in a Disney story, but it’s just enough to make his presence seem necessary. Riku and King Mickey getting mentioned again keeps the rest of the plot in mind to some degree. And I’ll give them credit for some variety - saving the Disney villain for the second pass in at least one world was a good call. Though, since Maleficent has a personal history with Jafar, it’s a shame she’s not personally involved in the hunt for his lamp.

That’s not an issue with Halloween Town, of course, and it’s in Halloween Town where what they were trying to do with Maleficent’s storyline is most clearly illustrated. The idea of the Mistress of All Evil, greatest of the Disney villains, having to claw her way back to the top of the totem pole after being knocked down in KH I and finding frustration and setback every step of the way, is a wonderful idea. And the pairing of the elegant Maleficent with a slob like Oogie Boogie (and Pete, for that matter) is a gold mine for material. The fact that she just gives up her plan to turn Santa Claus into a Heartless because Oogie is being somewhat rude and amnesiac makes no sense (does she need Oogie for that process? Why would she give up her side of the plan just because he was annoying?), and it undermines her scheming almost as much as the lack of movement in the larger plot does. But just being able to recognize an attempt at a coherent internal narrative for her, when later games turn her into a pointless tease for UX bullshit, counts for something.

And I love Halloween and Christmas Town in this game. I must confess that I’ve never liked the look of Halloween Town in KH I, with its heavy use of browns and purples, but the world in KH II is as perfect a match to the movie as CGI can get. It is gorgeous, and Christmas Town is even more so. I love the little details they put into that world, like the toy train running through the mountains in the background. Playing the vanilla version as I am, I don’t get to see Sora and friends in their unique Christmas Town looks, but it’s still nice to see them running around in that environment.

As with Agrabah, there’s some interesting variety on display in Halloween Town. Adapting material from the movie to make a sequel to the movie is a fun idea. With the events of Nightmare before Christmas in the past, Jack and Santa’s relationship has a nice flavor to it here, with Jack as the exhausting but lovable neighbor for old St. Nick. It’s almost like Jack is Kramer from Seinfeld, and Santa is Jerry. The story here doesn’t give Sora a whole lot more to do than tag along with Jack, which one could argue is barely a step above worlds like Pride Rock and Port Royal. But the details here matter. Jack specifically enlisting Sora and his friends as “bodyguards,” their actions directly helping Jack, and Sora’s love of Santa Claus, may be little things, but they go such a long way to generating a feeling that Sora really does belong in this story, that his role as wielder of the Keyblade has a direct impact on these Disney characters’ lives. I’m so hard on Pride Rock for lacking in those moments, because every other world in this game has them on the first pass - even Atlantica has them.

Santa Claus, and pirates, are two things in this game that awaken a childlike glee in Sora that momentarily overcomes his focus on the mission. There wasn’t necessarily anything like that in KH I, with a younger Sora. He gets into a petty fight with Donald, yes; there was a look of admiration towards Cloud in the Coliseum; he describes the Gummi ship as an “awesome rocket;” and he’s struck with wonder at being able to fly in Neverland. But there isn’t anything as pronounced as his boyish fantasies of being a pirate here, or his delight at meeting Santa. You could argue that it’s a bit of a retcon to do this; Sora didn’t exhibit any love of pirates while on Captain Hook’s ship. But it’s a slight retcon, and that instance could easily be explained away by his being preoccupied by finding Kairi at last and witnessing Riku’s continuing slide to darkness. It’s one change to Sora’s character in KH II that I don’t mind at all. It gives him a new dimension, it opens up opportunities for levity with Sora without turning him into the butt of jokes, and most importantly, it isn’t overplayed. KH III would see Sora grasping at an unfeasible lure of a pirate ship (not unlike the throne of Pride Rock in this game) and try to claim some great parallels or similarities between Sora and Jack Sparrow that are untenable, but here, it’s just a young boy’s daydream, popping up here and there, which is just enough to flesh Sora out and give scenes some charm. And the moments with Santa give some funny and unexpected insight into Sora’s past; Riku being the asshole who went around telling younger kids there was no such thing as Santa Claus fits in perfectly with what we see of him in KH I.

And to close on a positive note: Halloween Town has some of my all-time favorite gameplay material in this series. There is no reason why Jack’s Command should delight me as much as it does, but watching him sweep Sora into a crazy dance to kill Heartless always makes me laugh. And the boss battle with Oogie Boogie is fantastic. Good lead-up in the cutscenes, colorful, unorthodox layout, challenging without being impossible; would that all the boss battles in the series showed this degree of variety and creativity.

[aegor-bamfsteel]

Since the Blackfyres were mentioned to have a court in exile do you think Aegor was Rohane's hand of the Queen, since she probably served as regent for her son? Why didn't any Targaryen kings try and arrange a marriage between a Blackfyre and a Targ to try and end the fighting? Any headcanons on Bittersteel and Rohanne's dynamic? How they thought of each other? Who do you think Bittersteel picked as his successor to lead the Golden Company?

These are all great questions that merit more time than I’ve spent on them, but I’ve kept you waiting long enough.

Do I think Aegor was Rohanne’s Hand of the Queen? Contrary to fandom wisdom, I don’t believe so. We don’t know a great deal about either character, but we do know that Aegor served with the Second Sons as a sellsword for a time prior to founding the Golden Company, which meant he wasn’t around during part of the crucial regency period. In addition, although Yandel is a biased Blackfyre-hater and him castigating Aegor for “being focused only on the arts of war” is seriously underestimating Aegor’s strategic acumen, it certainly implies that Aegor wasn’t interested or knew he was incapable of the duties that being Hand required. So while Aegor was developing the fighting style that would make the Golden Company famous, another man (perhaps older, from a wealthy family, and capable of forging alliances/not offending the local elite) served as Hand. Depending on the state of the exile court, the Hand could’ve been one of Rohanne’s kin, or from one of the more important exile families minus the Peakes (I say no Peakes because of Gormon’s plan lacked the broader support of the Blackfyre exiles). One of my no-evidence headcanons is that the Hand was Robb Reyne, a famed knight from a wealthy family who very possibly went into exile in Tyrosh (since by the Peake Rebellion, the Reynes were on the side of Maekar).

Now for some wank under the cut:

Why didn’t any Targaryen kings try and arrange a marriage between a Blackfyre and a Targ to try and end the fighting? The Targaryens treated the Blackfyres as undeserving of basic respect (see: the way they handled every member from Daemon I to Aenys); they weren’t going to wed any of their precious family members to this disgusting line of bastards, “born of lust and lies” who rebelled despite how graciously Da3ron II rewarded Daemon with a keep and a wife (even though he only did that to avoid angering the Archon of Tyrosh, but he’s called Da3ron the Good, so he must be kind and generous!) The Targaryens would rather marry two of their princes to Kiera of Tyrosh rather than propose a marriage pact with the Blackfyres, because for them the Blackfyres were never kinsmen to be placated but rebels to be squashed as brutally as possible. Absolutely none of the Targaryens of the era received comeuppance for the atrocities they committed against House Blackfyre and Westeros in general. Which is one reason among many why I am anti-Targ, pro Blackfyre.

What are my headcanons on Aegor and Rohanne’s relationship? This question brings me back to over a year ago, when xenowlsome and I had some conversations about Rohanne x Aegor; I don’t think much has changed about my headcanons, other than I’m more open to shipping them now that I’ve found out Maelys not Aegor sacked Tyrosh. I really liked them as friends who were outsiders amongst many of Daemon’s “King’s Landing-and-Reach supporters” in different ways; Aegor is the sullen, quick-to-fight kid from the rural Riverlands and Rohanne is the money-savvy, rather proud, motherly Tyroshi woman who is some years older than Daemon. While they don’t have a lot in common, I think they both would have a great deal to learn from each other pre-Rebellion, and shortly post-Rebellion they had a deep bond forged from Ro saving Aegor’s life and giving him a temporary home. However, the years of failed Rebellions and Blackfyres dying/mentally scarred eroded Rohanne’s trust in him, and they were estranged for the last years of their lives (this was incredibly sad for both of them, but Rohanne was too stubborn and Aegor too self-pitying to ever reconcile). That’s my headcanon version, anyway. For me, young!Aegor/Ro is brOTP gold.

Who did Bittersteel pick to succeed him as head of the Golden Company?: Aegor believed in meritocracy, or at least kraterocracy (rule by the strongest) and he wasn’t going to appoint anyone to succeed him; the captain-generalship of the GC isn’t like a mansion that’s inherited, but a position in a mercenary company that the senior captains of said company elect. But who did Aegor perhaps endorse during his last years? I touched upon this in a Maelys meta, but I believe Aegor wanted Captain Daemon (IV) Blackfyre, cousin of Maelys, to take up the mantle of Company leadership and Blackfyre Kingship. While Maelys was unofficially disinherited due to his birth defects, Captain Daemon was presumably able-bodied and enough of a warrior to lead the Golden Company, so Aegor could’ve endorsed him right off the bat. On the other hand, neither Haegon nor Daemon III were ever members of the Golden Company as far as we know, let alone the captain-general, so perhaps Aegor Rivers was supporting another candidate who wasn’t Daemon IV as king (or queen, considering that Daemon I’s line of succession has daughters inherit before uncles. That…actually makes some sense). I admit I haven’t been thinking too much about GC politics in the latter days of known Blackfyre history these days, though.

[patriotsnet]

How Many Registered Republicans In The Us

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-registered-republicans-in-the-us/

How Many Registered Republicans In The Us

How Many Republican Senators Are There In California

In Battleground States, Newly Registered Democrats Are Outnumbering Newly Registered Republicans

4.1/5

Total 100

Beside above, how many Republicans are in California? In February 2019, California had 19,978,449 registered voters, comprising 79.09% of its total eligible voters. Of those registered voters, 8,612,368 were registered Democrats, and 4,709,851 were Republicans.

In this regard, who are the Republican senators in California?

California elects United States senators to Class 1 and Class 3. The state has been represented by 44 people in the Senate since it was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850. Its current U.S. senators are Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris.

Who are my senators in California?

Kamala Harris Since;2017 Dianne Feinstein

Closed Primaries Are When Only Registered Democrats From January 2007 To January 2011 There Were More Democrats

This quiz will ask you questions about your political beliefs. Ive seen a lot where it says theyre a registered democrat . 39.66 percent of voters are registered with that party. The most recent poll at the time of writing gives a d+11 advantage. It is not a straightforward question. Prove it by acing our democrat or republican quiz. What republican and democrats believe. Lets start with this example. Altogether, there are 10 states with more registered independents than either democrats or republicans. For example, in kentucky1 as of 8/15/2018, 49.8% of registered voters are democrats while only 41.6% are republicans. The analysis in this report draws on more than 10,000 interviews with registered voters in 2017 and tens of thousands of interviews conducted in previous years (see. Being a registered democrat or republican, or for that matter socialist, green or independent, simply means that when you filled out your voter registration form you checked that box on the form. There are many pressing issues in.

Our Ruling: Partly False

The claim in the post is rated PARTLY FALSE. The tweet that appears in viral Facebook posts cites correct vote totals for Trump and Biden . But it falsely reports the number of registered voters. More than 159Â;million registered voters cast ballots in the general election, out of 239 million eligible voters. So it is completely possible that Trump and Biden would post that many total votes.Â;

Also Check: Are More Democrats Or Republicans On Welfare

Republicans Are Watching Their States Back Weed And Theyre Not Sold

Montana, South Dakota and Mississippi are among the states that have recently passed legalization referendums.

06/27/2021 07:01 AM EDT

Link Copied

A growing number of Republican senators represent states that have legalized recreational or medical cannabis six approved or expanded marijuana in some form just since November. But without their support in Congress to make up for likely Democratic defectors, weed falls critically short of the 60 votes needed to advance legislation.

Montanas Steve Daines and South Dakotas Mike Rounds, both Republicans, said they dont support comprehensive federal cannabis reform, no matter what voters back home voted for.

I oppose it, said Daines, who is otherwise a lead sponsor of the SAFE Banking Act, which would make it easier for the cannabis industry to access financial services, such as bank accounts and small business loans. The people in Montana decided they want to have it legal in our state, and thats why I support the SAFE Banking Act as well its the right thing to do but I dont support federal legalization.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is vowing to push a far-reaching federal legalization bill, even if President Joe Biden isnt on board. But before he can corner the White House on the issue, Schumer must convince at least 10 Republicans possibly more, since Democrats like Sens. Jon Tester and Jeanne Shaheen are unlikely to back the measure to join his cause.

Why Most Gop Senators Are Likely To Oppose Conviction

Despite strong bipartisan elite fury and dismay over Trumps conduct leading up to and during the January 6 crisis, the base hasnt abandoned him in any significant way. Yes, hes losing some support across the board, but not enough to embolden Republican rebels. A new Axios-Ipsos survey dramatically shows the current public opinion dynamics: a majority of Americans now favor removing Trump from office, but a majority of Republicans still think Trump was right to challenge his election loss, support him, dont blame him for the Capitol mob and want him to be the Republican nominee in 2024. Among the more than one-third of Republicans who appear to identify with Trump more than with their party, support for Trump 2024 which of course conviction in the Senate would make impossible is at an astronomical 92 percent.

Republican senators will be reluctant to fight that sentiment, particularly since there are so many ways they could vote against convicting Trump without condoning his conduct. As his presidency quickly recedes into the background, Senate sentiment for formally burying him may recede as well.

2020 United States Senate elections

;

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Voter Registration And Turnout Totals

The post is correct in its accounting of Trump’s vote totals. He received more than 74 million votes. The vote total for Biden, 81 million, also is correct, putting the overall total at more than 155 million votes cast.

What the tweets get wrong is the number of voters. There are more than 234 million people eligible to vote;in the U.S. Not all of those people are registered voters, however.

In its thread of tweets, the account MSM Fact Checking;provided conflicting calculations without citing sources. The;initial;post;claimed there were;133 million registered voters.;In another tweet, it;claimed there were 213 million registered voters with a voter turnout rate of 62.5%.;All of these numbers are false.

We know, after weeks of counting, that there were roughly 159 million ballots cast in the presidential election. According to the Election Project, this accounts for 66.7% of the eligible voting population of;239 million Americans..

The U.S. Census Bureau publishes voter registration totals for the nation; its 2020 numbers are not yet available.;

But for example,;in the 2016 presidential election, there were 157 million registered voters. Of those, 137.5 million voted. And there were 224 million American citizens age 18 or older.;All;figures are higher than the number in the claim regarding the 2020 election, when voter registration and turnout broke records.

Fact check:No, Joe Biden’s brother-in-law does not own Dominion Voting Systems

Registered Voters In America

How many registered voters are there in America?

Have you ever wondered about how many people are registered? And to which party? I did some digging and found this information on voters in America.

The University of California, Santa Barbaras American Presidency Project found that 235,248,000 people were of voting age in America as of the 2012 election.; The turnout of voters in 2012 was 129,151,152 making it 54.9%.This is reported by Google for more information.Estimates show more than 58 percent of eligible voters went to the polls during the 2016 election. Nearly breaking the turnout rate set during the last presidential election in 2012.

Democrats

There are about 43,140,758 registered Democrats in America.;Gallup.com says 31% of voters are Democrats

Republicans

There are about 30,700,138 registered Republican voters in America.;Gallup.com says 24% of voters are Republicans

Independents;

According to Gallup.com about 42% of voters claim to be Independents.;According to Huffington Post 40% of American voters identify as Independents. Both reports are fairly close. Close enough for a rough calculation. So independent voters number about 58,448,769 voters.

Summarizing:;

It will be interesting to watch how woman and minorities vote this November. They have the most to lose by not voting.Rick Mercier; updated 2/2020

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Number Of Registered Voters By State 2021

Voter registration is the requirement that a person eligible to vote registers on an electoral roll before that person is entitled or permitted to vote. Voter registration may be automatic or may require each eligible person to submit an application. Registration varies between jurisdictions.

Almost 92 million eligible Americans did not vote in the 2016 presidential election. Voter registration and participation are crucial for the nations democracy to function properly and for the US government to provide fair representation.

Low voter registration numbers and low voter turnout can be the result of several factors. To increase voter registration and participation, barriers to registering to vote, and barriers to voting must be eliminated, such as additional restrictions on identification forms and reforms to ensure all eligible ballots will be securely counted. Additionally, those alienated from the democratic process or discouraged from voting must feel that their voice is heard by their leaders and encouraged to participate in elections.

Some pro-voter policies that have shown to increase voter registration and participation are:

Automatic voter registration.

Senators Committees And Other Legislative Groups

Nearly 4,600 Colorado Republicans changed party affiliation after insurrection at US Capitol

The Senates 63 members represent districts from across New York State. Senators belong to a single conference and one or more political parties.

Weve made it easy to filter senators by party, committee, and the other legislative groups in which they gather to consider the merits of proposed legislation and to better understand complex legislative issues.

Senator has new policy idea

Idea is drafted into a Bill

Bill undergoes committee process

Senate and Assembly pass bill

Bill is signed by Governor

Read Also: Why Are Republicans Scared Of Trump

Voting In Primary And Caucus Elections

States choose a candidate to run for president through primary elections, caucuses, or both. Depending on your states voting rules, your states primary or caucus elections can be open, closed, or a combination of both. The type of primary or caucus your state holds can affect your voting eligibility:

During an open primary or caucus, people can vote for a candidate of any political party.

During a closed primary or caucus, only voters registered with that party can take part and vote.

Semi-open and semi-closed primaries and caucuses are variations of the two main types.

Lots Of Consistency Elsewhere

In the rest of the country, there was much more consistency between party registration totals and the 2016 election outcome, with only three non-Southern states voting against the grain. On election eve in Pennsylvania, there were 915,081 more registered Democrats than Republicans; Trump carried the state by 44,292 votes. In West Virginia, there were 175,867 more registered Democrats; Trump won by 300,577 votes. And in New Hampshire, there were 24,232 more registered Republicans than Democrats in the fall of 2016, but Hillary Clinton took the state by 2,736 votes. Thats it. The other 22 party registration states outside the South were carried in the presidential balloting by the party with more registered voters than the other.

And in many of these in sync states, the registration advantage in recent years has grown more Republican or Democratic as the case may be, augmented by a healthy increase in independents.

The registration trend line in California is a microcosm of sorts of party registration in the nation as whole. Democrats are running ahead and the ranks of the independents are growing. Yet registered voters in both parties appear to be widely engaged. That was the case in 2016, and likely will be again in 2018, with Trump flogging issues to rouse his base. In short, this is a highly partisan era when party registration totals, and the trends that go with them, are well worth watching.

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Gallup: Democrats Now Outnumber Republicans By 9 Percentage Points Thanks To Independents

I think what we have to do as a party is battle the damage to the Democratic brand, Democratic National Committee Chairman Jamie Harrison said on The Daily Beasts . Gallup reported Wednesday that, at least relatively speaking, the Democratic brand is doing pretty good.

In the first quarter of 2021, 49 percent of U.S. adults identified as Democrats or independents with Democratic leanings, versus 40 percent for Republicans and GOP leaders, Gallup said. The 9-percentage-point Democratic advantage is the largest Gallup has measured since the fourth quarter of 2012. In recent years, Democratic advantages have typically been between 4 and 6 percentage points.

New Gallup polling finds that in the first quarter of 2021, an average of 49% of Americans identify with/lean toward the Democratic Party, versus 40 percent for Republicans.

Thats the largest gap since 2012:

Greg Sargent

Party identification, polled on every Gallup survey, is something that we think is important to track to give a sense to the relevant strength of the two parties at any one point in time and how party preferences are responding to events,Gallup senior editor Jeff Jones told USA Today.

More stories from theweek.com

At Least 60 Afghans And 13 Us Service Members Killed By Suicide Bombers And Gunmen Outside Kabul Airport: Us Officials

Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabulâs airport Thursday, transforming a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover. At least 60 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops were killed, Afghan and U.S. officials said.

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Cook Partisan Voting Index

Another metric measuring party preference is the Cook Partisan Voting Index . Cook PVIs are calculated by comparing a state’s average Democratic Party or Republican Party share of the two-party presidential vote in the past two presidential elections to the nation’s average share of the same. PVIs for the states over time can be used to show the trends of U.S. states towards, or away from, one party or the other.

The Fossil Fuel Industrys Funding Of Denial

CAPs analysis of data from the Center for Responsive Politics shows that these 139 climate science deniers have accepted more than $61 million in lifetime direct contributions from the oil, gas, and coal industries, which comes out to an average of $442,293 per elected official of Congress that denies climate change. This figure includes all contributions above the Federal Election Commissions mandated reporting threshold of $200 from management, employees, and political action committees in the fossil fuel industries. Not included in this data are the many other avenues available to fossil fuel interests to influence campaigns and elected officials. For example, oil, gas, and coal companies spent heavily during the 2020 election cycle to keep the Senate under the control of former Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a known climate denierwith major oil companies like Valero, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips contributing more than $1 million each to the conservative Senate Leadership Fund.

This analysis only shows direct, publicly disclosed contributions to federal candidates. The fossil fuel industry regularly spends millions of dollars of dark money advertising to the public; shaping corporate decisions; lobbying members of Congress; and otherwise funding the infrastructure that makes climate denial politically feasible and even profitable.

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Democratic Edge In Party Identification Narrows Slightly

The balance of party identification among registered voters has remained fairly stable over the past quarter century. Still, there have been modest fluctuations: The new analysis, based on combined telephone surveys from 2018 and 2019, finds that the Democratic Partys advantage in party identification has narrowed since 2017.

Overall, 34% of registered voters identify as independent, compared with 33% who identify as Democrats and 29% who identify as Republicans. The share of registered voters who identify with the Republican Party is up 3 percentage points, from 26% in 2017, while there has been no change in the share who identify as Democrats. The share of voters who identify as independents is 3 points lower than it was in 2017.

When independents and those who dont align with either major party are included, 49% of all registered voters say they either identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party; slightly fewer say they identify with or lean toward the GOP. In 2017, the Democratic Party enjoyed a wider 8-point advantage in leaned party identification .

Democrats have held the edge in party identification among registered voters since 2004. The current balance of leaned party identification is similar to where it stood in 2016 when 48% of voters identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic and 44% identified with or leaned toward the GOP and in 2012 . See detailed tables.

Generational Divides In Partisanship

Why American voters in Israel can impact U.S. election

Generation continues to be a dividing line in American politics, with Millennials more likely than older generations to associate with the Democratic Party. However, over the past few years the Democratic Party has lost some ground among Millennials, even as it has improved its standing among the oldest cohort of adults, the Silent Generation. Gen Xers and Baby Boomers have seen less change in their partisan preferences and remain closely divided between the two major parties.

Overall, 54% of Millennial registered voters say they identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared with 38% who identify with or lean toward the GOP. In 2017, the Democratic Party held a wider 59% t0 32% advantage among this group. However, the Democratic Partys standing with Millennials is about the same as it was at earlier points, including 2014.

Voters in the Silent Generation are now about equally likely to identify with or lean toward the GOP as the Democratic Party . This marks a change from 2017, when the GOP held a 52% to 43% advantage in leaned party identification among the oldest voters. Still, the partisan leanings of Silent voters have fluctuated over the past few decades, and there have been other moments where the two parties ran about even or the Democratic Party held a narrow advantage since 1994.

Across all generations, women remain more likely than men to associate with the Democratic Party.

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[mmakehappy]

2017

1. What did you do in 2017 that you’d never done before? i’ll try to do this chronologically again: so at the beginning of january one of my best friends left to study abroad in rome which was sad and i missed her a lot. i saw rory scovel do stand up. i took an animation class which was fun for the first few weeks until i failed it lmao. actually my classes from jan to march did not go so well tbh but whatever i made it through. my sister came to visit me the weekend before st paddys day which was super fun and then we saw panic which was soooooooo fuckin rad i love them still wow! i went home for spring break and visited a local winery w my dad which was a lot of fun and then a week later uhhh me and @carrot-gallery became gfs!!! and my whole frickin life changed bc i love her so much wow!! but then a week after that i turned 22 and spent my birthday alone! which i tried to pretend didnt make me sad but by the end of the day i was very sad about it and thats when my sweet gf called me to sing happy birthday and i sobbed on my couch and ill never forget that!!! so okay then spring quarter classes started and i was a part of depaul’s visiting artist series which was super cool... i met a lot of new awesome people (both at depaul and the industry ppl that were our guests!) and made some great friends in that class! i was a house manager and camera op which was super fun. i went to a screening of my fave professor’s short film which was also rad. i saw a ghost story at the chicago critics film festival, which was amazing. i saw idiocracy in 35mm and then mike judge did a q&a! the very next day i was house manager for depaul’s student film festival at the music box! i saw chris gethard do a live recording of beautiful/anonymous and then also do some standup, that was awesome. i saw day wave live!!! amazing! i spent an entire dystopian day dealing with megabus. that was hell! i sat at an outdoor amphitheater and even tho i couldnt really see him i got to listen to seu jorge sing david bowie covers and life was magical for a few hours. my sisters came up to visit me and we saw aladdin the musical and had our minds blown, it was soooo fun! i went to the chicago pride parade for the very first time but i went by myself and at one point i was sitting on the curb just crying! not a high point but still memorable. i won a ticket to an advanced screening of the big sick where kumail & emily were there to do a q&a after the movie.... had a fuckin blast OBVIOUSLY and then saw the movie 9 other times in various theatres. i also made it into a commercial FOR the movie i just loved it that much lmao! i moved into a new (and my current) apartment! lorde released melodrama and fucking murdered me in my own home. otherwise i had a pretty uneventful but anxiety filled summer bc of financial aid stuff so that really sucked. i saw good time w taylor and the safdie brothers were there to do a q&a and they were such interesting guys i could listen to them talk for hours honestly. my mom and sisters came up to visit me and we took our mom to her very first cubs game which was sooo so much fun and they won that day too!! it was awesome and we had a great time :) watched the eclipse (or tried to anyway!!) fall quarter classes started and i honestly kicked ass at them, i got on the deans list (i almost typed honor roll lmao i mean its basically the same) i hung out with ari again which was cool!! we went to the aquarium! me and taylor saw beach fossils which was honestly the most buckwild concert ive ever been to i think, it was good shit. i got jobs at AMC (which i have since quit lmao) and starbucks and left my job at the paint place which was bittersweet! me and taylor saw mbmbam live!!! so fun!! and we watched trolls that night and goofed on it so hard!! i went home for thanksgiving and found out my big sister is gonna have a baby this year!! :D i saw mike birbiglia do stand up! which was soooo incredible of course (except i felt bad bc my mom was supposed to come w me but she couldnt go! so i brought taylor lol) UMMMMM MY DAM GIRLFRIEND CAME TO CHICAGO TO VISIT ME AND STAYED FOR A WHOLE DANG WEEK AND IT WAS THE BEST THING EVER SHE MAKES ME SO HAPPY WE HAD SO MUCH FUN AND I MISS HAVING HER RIGHT NEXT TO ME EVERY SINGLE GOSH DANG DAY <3 ;_____; and that was my year!!

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? last year i said id like to read at least one book each month and watch at least 100 movies - i did neither! im keeping the movie resolution though bc cmon 100 movies should be EASY for a film major wtf am i doing!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? no but it will happen in 2018! 

4. Did anyone close to you die? not a person but we had to put down my sweet doggo, flash :(

5. What countries did you visit? still none :/

6. What would you like to have in 2018 that you lacked in 2017? More confidence that I actually deserve to be in college and that I can do this shit and I’m awesome <– that was my answer from last year and the year before but yeah. same. also money.

7. What dates from 2017 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? ummm march 25 when me and gf became gfs and also dec 17 when she came to visit :)

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? putting myself out there by doing VAS/Premiere, getting on the deans list for the first time since freshman year and then also getting a new job

9. What was your biggest failure? this summer i didnt do shit besides wallow and cry and it sucked!

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? nope

11. What was the best thing you bought? every movie ticket and the bras i bought for natalie ;-)

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? natalie’s because she’s amazing and works so hard!!!! and she can always cheer me up and im so in love w her

13. Whose behavior made you appalled? mine bc i could never just get my shit together and do my homework when i was supposed to :) < thats from last year but lmfao same!

14. Where did most of your money go? RENT, movie/event tix, food, in that order

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? THE BIG SICK, the new season of sv, p much all of the events that i listed in the first question lol

16. What song will always remind you of 2017? umm honestly probably any song from melodrama

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer? I’m a. happier, b. probably thinner? or maybe the same idk, and c. definitely DEFINITELY poorer

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? read and write and watch movies and write and read about movies

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Spending money and also being bitter about everything for no reason <– last year and the year before that AGAIN and also same!

20. How did you spend Christmas? working at AMC which i hated every second of :)

21. Did you fall in love in 2016? yes with my amazing girlfriend @carrot-gallery

22. What was your favorite TV program? silicon valley, AMERICAN VANDAL, the good place, great british bake off

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? nah just politicians who like. actively want me to die lol

24. What was the best book you read? bitch,

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? mitski like why the fuck did i sleep on her..... tbh thats about it bc i still listen to the same music i did 10 years ago

26. What did you want and get? I wanted a steadier/better paying job and i have it!

27. What did you want and not get? idk i wanted to be financially stable on my own and i still dont have that

28. What was your favorite film of this year? ugh i hate this question! ok in no order: THE BIG SICK, GOOD TIME, A GHOST STORY, GET OUT, THE FLORIDA PROJECT

29. What one thing made your year immeasurably more satisfying? uhhh having my sweet girlfriend by my side each and every day 

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2017? sometimes chic, always sweaty

31. What kept you sane? Sydney, my best friend in the entire world. (This was my answer from last year and the year before that and the year before that AND THE YEAR BEFORE THAT but it still holds true) also everyone in the sv discord chat still AND natalie of course of course

32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? kumail nanjiani duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, taika waititi, and martin starr always and probably more but i legit cant think of anyone rn lol

33. What political issue stirred you the most? yikes all of it. all of the issues (this was from last year but same lmao)

34. Who did you miss? i miss my dogs and my family and my girlfriend 35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2017. You can set goals for yourself and talk about it all you want but it’s nothing until you actually start working towards it and doing something about it. <– answer from last year and the year before that and the year before that, still true!! imma keep that. also idk just like, there are good days and super bad days and ive survived all of them so its just a reminder to myself that ill be okay.

36. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. These days will all seem better in time Waiting on that hindsight

[southsidestory]

Homecoming

Rating: Teen

Pairing: SasuSaku

Summary: Their first kiss was on Homecoming night. The briefest touch, his lips to hers, before Sakura pulled away, blushing. Then again, a kiss not so fleeting, followed by one after another until the sun rose above them.

Notes: I’ve been in a mood for SS lately (blame @xxlovendreamsxx), and it seemed like the perfect time to write this little high school fic. @jjibbless sent me a request for “high school popular kid / nerd AU” awhile back, which ties into the Day 9 prompt pretty well in my opinion! Thank you jjibbless for the request and @sasusakumonths for hosting this awesome event. 

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prelude

It isn’t that Sasuke Uchiha is a misfit, exactly. He’s too good-looking—and high schoolers are too shallow—for him to be an utter outcast. But he’s the kind of boy who spends more time alone than with their classmates, and if he has any friends besides Naruto, who’s friends with everyone, then he’s keeping them well hidden. Sasuke’s GPA is tied with Sakura’s for the highest in the Class of 2018, but she’s sure that if he’d socialize, people would stop dismissing him as a nerd. Instead, he blows off every dance, football game, and party he’s invited to.

Until homecoming. It’s the kind of warm October evening that you can only find in southern California, late enough in the year that autumn’s edge has calmed the weather from suffocating to balmy. Sakura is crowned homecoming queen, the San Junipero Sharks kick the Gardena Wolfhounds’ asses, and Sasuke Uchiha shows up to a school event. All in all, it’s a beautiful night.

watch the queen

Only a loser would lurk around the corner, pretending not to spy on a pretty girl, and Sasuke is not a loser. He isn’t lurking either. Just standing around, keeping himself busy with people-watching—well, person-watching.

Sakura is sitting with the other girls from the homecoming court, all of them trussed up in ridiculous fluffy gowns and torturous-looking shoes. Ino seems pissed that Sakura took the crown, but in that strangely fond way that characterizes their relationship. Maybe Sasuke is too distant from Sakura’s circle to understand how that odd friendship functions, but he thinks it might be every bit as confusing to witness up close.

Seven months. He has seven months until graduation. He needs to either ask Sakura out or get his head on straight and forget about her.

Moving on would be better. He heard that Sakura is applying to Ivy League schools all over the country, and God knows she’s accomplished enough to be accepted into most of them. Sasuke keeps pace with her academically, but foster kids don’t have the financial backing for Yale. He’s about to age out of the system, and it’s going to take all of his time and energy just to get by. Even if Sakura wants him back—and sometimes, when he catches her looking at him across the library, he thinks she might—Sasuke knows that it’s not enough. She’s beautiful, brilliant, privileged, and loved. Her future is too bright to risk dimming, and she deserves better than anything he could provide.

But then he thinks, What’s one date? It’s not like watching a movie together and grabbing dinner (maybe kissing on her doorstep, if he’s lucky) would turn into something committed. Sasuke can’t hope for any of that, much less more, so why not at least try?

laid bare

Ino steals Sakura’s crown and puts it on her own head. “You should just give this to me,” she says.

“Oh really?” Sakura asks. “Why’s that?”

Ino sticks out her tongue, adjusts the tiara, and says, “Because all anyone will look at when you wear it is the big billboard brow it’s sitting on.”

Sakura pinches Ino’s shoulder. “I guess the majority of the student body disagrees, Pig.”

She pulls a handful of pins out of her hair, kicks off her shoes, and props her feet up on the bleacher seats. Ino gossips about the torrid affair that she’s certain Mr. Sarutobi and Ms. Yuhi are having.

“That’s ridiculous. They barely talk.”

“Well, duh, that’s because they’re trying not to be obvious,” Ino says, rolling her eyes. “Because when they are in the same room, the way they look at each other is practically pornographic. Mark my words, Forehead: they’re doing the nasty.”

Ten-Ten says, “Please shut up. I don’t want to think about Ms. Yuhi getting busy while I’m trying to learn calculus.”

“Seconded,” Hinata says gently.

Ino shrugs. “Why not? She’s hot as hell, and sex is way more interesting than differential equations...”

Sakura thinks Ino might still be talking, but she can’t focus on the conversation because Sasuke Uchiha is walking up the bleacher steps, and it looks like he might be walking toward her. They’re friendly enough that her silly coronation merits some kind of congratulations, right?

“Sakura,” he says.

The other girls fall quiet around her, and Sakura could kick them all for staring.

“Hi,” she says. “It’s, uh, really nice to see you here.”

“And surprising,” Ino adds.

Sasuke doesn’t seem offended, although he’d have every right to be.

Sakura jumps up, straightens her dress, and asks, “Wanna take a walk? I’d invite you to sit down, but this bunch probably wouldn’t let you get a word in edgewise.”

There’s the briefest flash of unbridled emotion on Sasuke’s face, a slight expression of surprise, maybe even excitement. But he reins it in before Sakura can be certain, and he only says, “Yeah, sure.”

Sakura is so elated to have a moment alone with Sasuke that she runs off without her heels. By the time she notices, it would be embarrassing to go back to fetch them, so she just walks on the dewy ground barefoot, too happy to even care that she’s getting grass stains on her snow white dress.

until sunrise

Their school is dark, empty, and locked at this time of night, but there are still places to linger. They take seats at a picnic table outside the cafeteria doors, splitting a funnel cake. Sasuke bought it when they passed the concession stand, but he didn’t think about the intimacy of sharing food. They have to sit close, and their hands keeping brushing as they eat. It tugs at something in his chest when Sakura steals the choicest pieces of cake, her smile teasing and bright.

“I wouldn’t have guessed you’d be so greedy,” Sasuke says.

Sakura ducks her head, then looks up at him through her lashes. “Well, maybe we should get to know each other better.”

“So I won’t be surprised when you steal my food?”

“Our food,” Sakura corrects. “You bought it for both of us. It’s not my fault if you can’t defend your territory.”

She swipes the last chunk of cake and eats it. Sasuke doesn’t think she means to be seductive, but he still has to look away as she licks the snowy sugar off her fingers.

Silence falls between them once the funnel cake is gone, and just to break it, Sasuke asks, “How’s your English paper going?”

“Oh, no,” Sakura says, laughing. “I’m not giving you an update on your competition.”

“Hn. You’re not my competition,” Sasuke says. He pokes her side, purely for the sake of making her jump. “Valedictorian is mine. We’ll just have to wait a few more months to confirm it.”

“Is that so?” Sakura asks, suddenly serious, except for the brightness of her gaze. “What makes you so certain?”

“I need it more,” Sasuke says, without thinking.

Sakura’s teasing expression slips away, replaced by something softer. She doesn’t say anything—which is good, because if she pitied him right now, it would ruin everything.

Then she reaches for his hand and grasps it in her own. They stay this way, linked by a singular touch, for a long while.

the valedictorian

Sakura can’t be upset when Sasuke takes the number one spot. His GPA barely edges hers out because of an A- she made in English IV, and if anyone else had ranked above her, she would have been furious. But Sasuke hadn’t lied four months ago at Homecoming, when he said he needed this more than she did. She hopes that maybe, with a little luck, he’ll get a financial package from Stanford that will allow him to accept the place they offered him. With her.

She takes Sasuke to a little Italian restaurant by the shore to celebrate their accomplishments. While they eat their appetizers, Sakura lifts her glass of water and says, “To my amazing boyfriend, the Class of 2018’s valedictorian.”

Sasuke rolls his eyes, but his smile is happy, if small. Sakura counts that as more of a victory than class rank could ever be.

coda

Their first kiss was on Homecoming night. The briefest touch, his lips to hers, before Sakura pulled away, blushing. Then again, a kiss not so fleeting, followed by one after another until the sun rose above them.

On graduation day, in the wake of his speech, Sasuke thinks of that night. It was a beginning, the start of something he could never have anticipated. Maybe today is an ending, the closing chapter of their simple school days, but what he and Sakura have together, it’s the kind of love that can be counted on.

.

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[snickerl]

Elixir Vitae

AU fanfic set around the time of IWTB.

A/N: This chapter got a bit out of hand. I cut the previous chapter in two because I didn’t want it to exceed 4000 words. Now this chapter alone exceeds more than 5000 words because I just couldn’t stop writing. 

Find previous chapters here: Chapter I / Chapter II / Chapter III / Chapter IV / Chapter V / Chapter VI

Chapter VII

“Tell me about our son, Fox!”

No! Please, no!

It’s Sunday morning and we’re sitting at the breakfast table. I’m buried in the paper and she’s been leafing through a magazine until now. I noticed her mind was elsewhere, but I had no idea where it was. She’s brutally yanked out of my current state of Sunday morning bliss with her question.

She must feel my reluctance to answer her because she insists, “you once promised me you’d tell me the whole story.” As if she senses my agony, or maybe the fact that my face has turned to stone betrays me.

“I know I promised, but I wished you wouldn’t ask me to keep my promise.”

Look outside, Scully! It’s Sunday morning, the sun is shining, a wonderful day is ahead of us.

I thought I could take her to the little flea market downtown. She loves strolling past the various sales counters searching for a little something to decorate our house with. We could have one of those wonderful homemade ice cream cones from that infamous Italian parlor on Main Street; strawberry cheesecake for her, double chocolate chip for me. We could walk hand in hand through the park. We don’t have to talk, just enjoy each other’s presence.

Please, have mercy on me, Scully! Don’t make me tell you the saddest story of your life. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow. Next week? … Ever?

“You said he lived. Why doesn’t he live with us?”

Oh, how I wished he was sitting with us right now, stuffing pancakes into his mouth, babbling about his latest Lego construction or pleading with us for the umpteenth time to get a dog. I wished there was a bike carelessly thrown somewhere in the front yard, neglected by a seven-year-old. I wished the upstairs spare bedroom was furnished for a boy to live in, stuffed with books and toys, all messy, with a bunk bed for his best buddy to sleep over. I wished we had appointments to make with teachers to discuss his scholar merits and with pediatricians to give him flu shots.

To be consciously missing all this hurts so damn badly, she’s got no idea how lucky she is to have no remembrance of what it’s like to have lost a son. I know I’m being unfair. She must feel the hole in her heart, the void William left behind. She just can’t quite explain it, and her scientist’s mind longs for answers. I understand she can’t go on forever without knowing, but does it really have to be today?

“It’s a long story,” I hear myself say.

“I don’t need the whole story, I just want to know more about my son than his name. How old is he?”

I knew my hope that I’d be allowed to leave it at that had been futile. I take a deep breath before I finally answer, each word feeling like a stab in my heart.

“He turned seven not long ago.”

“Why isn’t he living with us? Is it because of me? Because of the amnesia? Do the authorities think I can’t take care of a child because of it?”

“No. Your amnesia has nothing to do with it.”

“Did they take him from us because we were FBI agents, because our jobs were too dangerous for us to be caring for a child?”

“No. He wasn’t taken from us.”

“He wasn’t taken from us? You mean…you mean we gave him up?”

The total disbelief in her voice almost kills me.

Don’t do this to me, Scully, please! Don’t make me tell you what happened to William!

I look into her big, questioning eyes and I see how she longs for answers, but sometimes it’s better not to know the answer to every question.

“Fox! Talk to me! I have a right to know!”

My tongue feels thick and heavy and my mouth is so dry it sticks to my palate. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get a single word out, although she’s absolutely right. She has every right to know, and I’d have to tell her sooner or later anyway, so why not get it over and done with?

My stomach churns because the story has the potential to devastate her. I’m trying desperately to think of a way to break it gently to her, but my brain is not cooperating. I’m coming to the conclusion that the best I can do is to be straightforward and clear, to save her from any misunderstanding. Therefore I supply before my courage deserts me, “you gave him up for adoption before he turned one.”

As was expected, the information knocks her off balance. I can literally see the color disappearing from her face and the air leaving her lungs. Her mouth falls open and her eyes widen in shock.

“What…did I do?” she whispers, although I’m quite sure she understood me very well.

“You had no other choice, Scully,” I’m trying to explain but the words don’t reach her.

“I gave my son up for adoption? I? You didn’t say ‘we’, you said 'you’! What kind of a mother was I to give my child away?”

I have to intervene before she talks herself into something that has nothing to do with the truth. This woman knows nothing about what led her to that terrible moment in her life, of course, she’s jumping to conclusions.

“Scully, listen! Things were very complicated back then. There’s so much I have to explain to you about the circumstances.”

“What’s there to explain? Mothers give their children up for adoption when they can’t…or when they don’t want to care for them. Or when they hadn’t wanted to have them in the first place, when they want to get rid of them.”

“Stop it! Now! None of this applied in William’s case, now shut up and let me explain, will ya?”

But she’s not listening. My harsh words don’t even make her flinch. She buries her face in her hands and starts crying violently. Her shoulders are shaking with every sob that escapes her chest.

This went so awfully wrong! I can’t believe I haven’t thought about how to do this properly, how to spare her those wrong conclusions.

I get up from my chair, kneel beside her and peel her hands off her face before I appeal, “Scully, please listen to me! Listen carefully! I’m going to need some time to explain everything to you, but there’s one thing I want you to understand right away: you weren’t a bad mother. The complete opposite is true. You were the best mother William could have, and you’re not to blame whatsoever for what happened to him. Would you please take that fact for granted? Can you do that for me?”

“I don’t understand,” she whispers.

“Then let me explain. Let me explain how much you loved that child, what he meant to you, and that giving him up was a selfless sacrifice on your behalf and not a sign of you lacking motherly love.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” she sobs, her voice shockingly thin.

“No, I don’t. William was a miracle. God, where am I to begin?”

She looks down at me, and I’m dumbfounded for a moment because I have to look up to meet her eyes. Usually, it’s the other way around. It’s not easy for me to keep my own emotions under control and I curse myself once again for not having made a plan about how to explain this to her. At least, I managed to pull her out of her self-loathing mode. She seems willing to listen to me. She wipes the tears off her face with her hands, straightens her back, tucks some loose strands of hair behind her ear, and looks at me expectantly.

I have to stand up because my knees are aching; I’m not in my twenties anymore. I motion for her to join me on the couch. I don’t want to sit opposite her as if in an interrogation. I want to put my arm around her shoulder and hold her when I tell her. I’m glad she follows me willingly. But when we’re seated, she pulls her knees to her chest and embraces them, like to shield herself from what she’s going to hear. I let her, although I’d prefer more physical closeness. She’s not ready for it, apparently.

She picks up my last line, saying somewhat defiantly, “every new life is a miracle of nature.”

“In our case, it was so much more than that.” I brace myself for her reaction before telling her, “you had been diagnosed with POF.”

The doctor in her instantly understands. “Premature Ovarian Failure? At the age of…uh, how old am I?”

“You’re 43 now.”

“So I was 36 when he was born. When was I diagnosed with POF?”

“A few years earlier.”

“Well, that was definitely premature. I take it we resorted to reproductive medicine.”

She’s fully in doctor’s mode now, and somehow I’m glad because it leaves her detached and less emotional. But we’ll get back to the emotional part, I’m quite sure of it.

I nod. “In vitro. But it didn’t take it.”

I’m not going to tell her that we weren’t together at the time, that she’d asked me as a friend to be her sperm donor and not as her spouse to father her child.

“What did we try then? Gestational surrogacy? Which would mean I didn’t give birth to him, but I found some faint stretch marks on my body. I must have been pregnant at least once in my life.”

“We did not try any kind of surrogacy. And two times yes, you carried him and you gave birth to him. He’s our child. We eventually made him the old-fashioned way.”

“The old-fashioned way? How?”

“You’re a doctor, you know how babies are made.”

Stupid, Mulder! You’re so stupid!

This is not the time for a light banter, and sure enough, she narrows her eyes and shoots warning looks at me.

“You aren’t taking this to a joking level, are you?”

“No! No, I’m sorry.”

“I do know how babies are made, and I can imagine we had intercourse as a married couple, but how come I conceived? If I had POF, I was barren. Without a donated and artificially inseminated egg, there was no chance for a pregnancy.”

'No lies,’ I hear Dr. Pratt whisper into my ear. 'Never bend the truth to cover up something, never let her draw conclusions that are at odds with the truth. You have to be absolutely honest when you talk to her about her past. What seems to be a comfortable loophole at a certain moment will come back to you as a wrecking ball to your relationship when she finds out you were untrue. She’ll find it hard to trust you again. She might never be able to. So, no matter how difficult it is for you, no matter how painful it is for her, tell her the truth. Always.’

“We weren’t married.”

I inhale deeply and hold my breath.

“O-kay. That surprises me a bit, but hey, a lot of couples nowadays choose not to marry.”

“We weren’t even a couple. Not in the proper sense of the term.”

“Not in the proper sense of the term? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Goddamnit, Scully, it was so complicated! We…were so complicated. Nothing was ever easy for us. I don’t know how to explain this to you.”

“For heaven’s sake, Fox, try!”

Okay, I guess now is the time to stop beating around the bush. I need to be very clear on this. “I loved you. And you loved me. But we weren’t involved. Physically involved, I mean. We were like…like…platonic lovers.”

“Well, not so platonic after all if I got pregnant the old-fashioned way.” She draws invisible quotation marks in the air and sounds a little annoyed. She grimaces at her own lame joke, her expression freezes the very next second, though. “Are you not the father? Have I-”

“No,” I interrupt her, “you haven’t! Absolutely not! Jesus, why do you get it all wrong?”

“Because you’re only giving me bits and pieces here! Incoherent, contradicting information that doesn’t make a reasonable whole!”

She jolts up from the couch, taking one of the cushions with her and holding it in front of her chest now, subconsciously shielding her heart. Only that a cushion can’t save the heart from emotional pain.

“I’ve had enough of this!” She’s almost yelling at me. “This is so confusing! I don’t know what to make of all of this. I need some time to sort this out.”

“No!” I grab her sleeve to keep her from leaving. “Please, Scully! You’d be making up countless theories in your head and none of it would be even close to the truth because our lives back then were so out of the ordinary. Give me ten minutes to explain. Please. Just ten minutes.”

She’s standing still for a moment, her back turned toward me. I can tell she’s struggling with herself about what to do.

“Ten minutes. That’s all I’m asking for, and I promise you’ll be wiser afterward.”

She turns around slowly and meets my eyes, hers watery. I’m not sure whether because she’s anxious or sad, or maybe just because she’s angry with me for having been so cryptical so far.

“Promise to tell me the truth,” she demands.

“I promise!” I let go of her sleeve and motion for her to sit next to me again.

She inhales deeply, then places herself on the couch, further away from me this time. Her knees are up again, offering her chin a place to rest on. I don’t know why she needs that distance between us, why she can’t look at me as I speak.

I take a deep, calming inhale of breath myself and start telling her about what led her to the point of giving William up for adoption. Of course, it had to be a short version, otherwise, I wouldn’t be talking for ten minutes but ten hours straight, or maybe ten days even.

She shows no reaction, simply takes all the information in, as if she was listening to a lecture at college. She lets me talk, she’s not interrupting me with questions or demanding I clarify things. I’m not even sure she’s really listening. I pause for a moment to incite some kind of reaction; a movement, a sigh, a word. Nothing. So I conclude my narration.

“We’d unmasked a government conspiracy leading directly to the Bureau with some of our direct superiors being involved. We’d exposed ourselves, Scully. We were abducted, misled, threatened, harmed in many ways, but we never gave up. We couldn’t let those sons of bitches get through with their vile intentions. What used to be my quest had become yours too, and you chose not to leave my side although you had the chance. But when William was born, the stakes were too high. You’d become a mother, Scully, and you had to protect your son. The decision you’d once made for yourself, to put your life on the line for me, couldn’t apply to him. For you, there was no way out anymore, but there was one for William. That’s why you gave him up. The adoption was his one-way ticket away from the omnipresent danger our lives would’ve held for him. That’s it.”

That’s it.

I swallow.

She’s still not moving, isn’t saying anything. She just closes her eyes and a tear rolls down her cheek. I’d like to brush it away but I fear to wake her from her trance-like state and startle her. I have no idea what’s going on in her mind. Does it make any sense to her? Does she think this is all too crazy to be true? Does she remember any of it?

She’s still staring straight ahead, avoiding my eyes, when she speaks eventually. “I couldn’t protect my son.”

Although she heard a lot of reasons why she had to do what she did, that her motives had been beyond all blame, she narrows it down to a point where she’s accusing herself. I know that regardless of what I tell her, she’ll feel guilty. I try anyway.

“Nobody could. Not without denying him a normal life, and that’s what you wanted him to have.”

“You never blamed me for what I’d done?”

“Never.”

“Not even a tiny bit? Secretly?”

“No.”

“You promised to tell me the truth,” she reminds me.

“I am telling you the truth.”

She looks at me with her clear blue eyes, her face unreadable. To my complete surprise, she folds her knees away, leans in and places a gentle peck on my cheek, breathing a soft 'thank you’ in my ear.

“You don’t have to thank me. I owed you the truth.”

“I meant for not casting a stone at me.”

“I was in no position to do that. I would’ve wanted to do the same for him, I only doubt I would’ve had the courage and the strength.”

“That’s why I felt my heart was heavy when you first mentioned his name. I sensed there was a sad story behind it although I couldn’t remember it.”

“It was a shattering, life-altering experience for you, Scully. It’s been branded into your soul, even if you don’t have any access to it at the moment.”

“Probably.”

“How are you?”

“I’m good. I need some time to let it all sink in, though.”

“Take as much time as you need. I’ll be right here whenever you have more questions.”

“Do we some pictures of him? Anything that reminds us of him?”

“Yes. Would you like to see them?”

She nods.

I rise from the couch and cast her a smile.

“Why don’t you make us a pot of tea and I go and fetch what we have.”

There’s a box in the attic. It’s shoved into the rearmost corner, so that we don’t stumble over it every time we pick up something from up there, like the deck chairs in the spring or the Christmas decoration in the winter.

It doesn’t take long for me to find it, although it’s just a usual cardboard box like many others up here, unlabeled and hidden behind a pile of spare tires. I know exactly where it is because unlike Scully I’ve had a look at it from time to time. When she was in the hospital on a double shift, for example, or away for the weekend with her mother. At moments like those, when I felt lonely and my mind wasn’t distracted enough, hence it kept wandering around until it made its way up to where that box was located.

When I return to the living room, the teapot sits on a warmer. Instead of mugs, she put two teacups on the table, along with honey and some milk.

I place the box in the middle of the coffee table.

“It’s small,” she notices.

“Yeah, well, I guess keeping more things wouldn’t have made it any easier.”

We sit for a moment side by side staring at the box like deer caught in the headlights, then she pulls it on her lap and opens it.

I don’t have to look in there to know what’s inside. The only things that remain from our son are the blanket he was wrapped in after he was born, a onesie with a baby giraffe on it, a pacifier, a baby rattle, a piece of paper with imprints of his tiny hands and feet in blue ink, a few pictures, eight, to be precise, and a copy of his birth certificate.

It took me a long time to figure out why she made a copy of it. I guess she wasn’t supposed to because of the adoption being a closed one, but she did anyway. She needed proof that all of it had really happened. The span of this baby’s presence in our lives was so short. In mine, it was just for as long as the blink of an eye. One moment, he made a miraculous entrance into my existence, the very next he was gone. Scully, being prone to relying on hard data as a scientist, kept the written document as a piece of evidence. Not so much for the outside world, but for herself. Although I’m not sure she’s ever looked at it after she handed off the original to the social worker at the adoption agency.

I know I’m not mentioned as the father. The space on the certificate where the father’s name is usually put is blank. Scully and I agreed that it was better this way. Safer. Little did we know that this particular safety measure along with all the others wouldn’t protect him enough. Now I wished my name was on that birth certificate, for the same reasons Scully kept the copy.

The first thing she pulls out of William’s commemorative cardboard box is his onesie. It’s the one I sent her through tortuous paths when he was half a year old and I was separated from my family, having to hide to keep them safe. She puts the garment to her cheek.

“It doesn’t smell like him anymore,” I say. I can almost feel the sensation on my own skin for all the times I’d done that, too, hoping to connect with him somehow. But other than the softness of the fabric there is nothing there.

“Has it been washed?” she asks.

“Probably not. I guess the smell has just faded. It’s been more than six years, Scully.”

“Sure,” she sighs.

One after the other, she takes the other items out of the box. She smiles at the hand and footprints, unfolds the baby blanket, and furrows her brows at the birth certificate. She looks at the pacifier and the rattle, maybe trying to picture herself calming a baby boy with them. She sets all the things on the coffee table next to the teapot without a word. She then retrieves the envelope containing the pictures we have of our son, all eight of them.

I don’t know why there are only so few. Maybe she didn’t take so many, maybe she threw them away in agony after he was gone, but most likely she deliberately chose the few she kept, each one marking a special moment.

There’s the one of us three, the only one of us three, a few days after he was born. Frohike took it in Scully’s apartment. William had just been nursed and fallen asleep in his mother’s arms. I’m sitting next to Scully in that picture, my arm around her shoulder. She’s beaming into the camera and I’m flashing a somewhat goofy grin. There’s an inscription on the back in Scully’s hand. It says, 'We’re parents!’

Without looking at the back, she holds the picture out to me. “We look happy.”

“We were happy, Scully. Very happy,” I answer and my voice almost deserts me.

There’s a photograph of William in his crib, the crib Scully and her siblings had spent their first months in, showing a toothless smile. On the back she’d written, 'our baby in the family crib’.

There’s one she took of me while I was sleeping on the couch with William resting on my chest, looking at Scully as if he wanted to say, 'look, mommy, daddy passed out’. When I’d first read what’s on the back, 'my two men’, my heart bled even more than when I was looking at the picture itself. The words still have that effect on me.

There’s a picture with just the word 'grandma’ on the back. It shows a smiling Margaret with William on her lap, feeding him a bottle.

“How did my mother take it?”

“She needed some time to get over it,” I tell her. Scully had never told me about the many discussions she had with her mother, arguments even, but Maggie had. “You should talk to her about it one day. When you’re ready. She can tell you much more about him than I can. She babysat him quite a lot.”

The remaining four pictures are only of him.

William sitting on a blanket on the floor with the rattle in his mouth. The back reads, 'bothered by his first tooth’. William in his high chair, carrot mash smeared all over his face. The back reads, 'having fun with the first solid food’. William on all fours, crawling towards the photographer, his face beaming. The back reads, 'getting ready to conquer the world’.

And then there’s the last one. It shows William in a jacket and a funny hat, buckled up in his car seat. It’s slightly out of focus as if taken in a rush. It’s the only one without anything written on the back. Even without any explanation, I have an idea of what I see in this picture.

Scully’s eyes are glued to it now. Then she looks at the others again, one by one. It must strike her how different that one is. Eventually, she speaks out loud what I never dared to ask her about.

“This is the last picture we have of him.”

I only nod.

“We don’t know what he looks like today, where he lives, who his parents are.”

These are no questions, just findings from her assessing everything she’s heard about William’s adoption from me today.

“Is there any chance for us to get in touch with him?”

I shake my head no.

“To find out his whereabouts or how he’s doing?”

Again, I have to shake my head.

“Can he get in touch with us? If he wants to, maybe when he’s a teenager? In puberty, adoptive children often develop a longing to learn everything about their biological roots.”

“No,” I answer, “it’s been a closed adoption. All information is sealed. It had to be done this way to keep him safe.”

I’m not telling her that there is a person who knows. Skinner. He knows the name of the couple who adopted William and he knows where they live. Our former boss keeps an eye on our son, just to make sure the forces Scully tried to protect him from haven’t tracked him down after all. It’s calming for me to know Skinner’s looking out for him, but it’s also a constant temptation to pry the secret information out of him. I wonder if I will ever hold him at gunpoint, yelling at him to tell me where William is.

“So we will never see our son again.” Scully sighs heavily. “We know nothing about him and never will.”

There’s nothing further for me to say.

We sit in silence for a long time and sip our tea. She looks okay, a bit exhausted maybe, but not devastated or broken.

“Thank you for telling me everything.”

“I promised.”

“Yes, you promised, but still, it must have been difficult for you. He’s your son, too, and you lost him. I understand now why you wanted to keep it from me when I first asked you about him. I hadn’t been stable enough at the time to deal with it. Thank you for taking such good care of me, Fox.”

Despite her frequent use of my first name in the past months, I’m simply not getting used to it. It has, and it will continue doing so, a weird ring.

Scully, it’s me, Mulder!

“You’ve always been my favorite patient, Scully,” I say and make her laugh.

She places the box on her lap and puts the William memorabilia back in, piece by piece, very carefully and gently. She sets the box on the coffee table and puts the lid back on.

“What do you say we keep it down here from now on instead of hiding it in the attic? Maybe not here in the living room, but how about our bedroom closet?”

“I like the idea.”

I really like the idea. I love it actually. Maybe we’ve just taken a huge step toward dealing together with the loss of William. Maybe it’s going to be one good thing this damn amnesia brings along in its wake. If we stop trying to cope with it separately, if we start sharing our grief and our guilt feeling, maybe then we’ll be able to halt the downward spiral we’d definitely been on before Scully was taken. We’d been drifting away from each other, slowly but gradually, each of us alone in trying to come to terms with the emptiness our son left behind. I felt it but I couldn’t do anything against it. If this is meant to be the onset of a new way for us, then I swear to God I’ll never curse that fucking amnesia again.

“You know what?” she says and rises from the sofa, “I’d like us to go for a walk. Do you know that Italian ice cream parlor on Main Street? Francesco’s Gelato? Their ice cream is heavenly. Have your ever tried Bacio? It means 'kiss’ in Italian. It’s a delicious mixture of hazelnut and chocolate. I’m in the mood for one of their cones. What about you?”

I’m definitely in the mood for a kiss!

“My treat,” I say.

to be continued

[foulchopshopkingdom-blog]

Twenty tips for writing a research proposal



ConservationBytes.com

Conservation research … with bite

Twenty tips for writing a research proposal

This post’s title might promise a lot, but it would be disingenuous of me to imply that I could cover all of the essential components of this massive topic in one blog post. Many people (my wife included) have made careers out of teaching people how to write successful grant proposals, so I won’t pretend to be comprehensive and insult their expertise. That said, I’ve been reasonably successful on the grants’ side of the science game, and I’ve assessed a fair few grant proposals in my day, so I think I can offer at least a few pointers. As usual, each person probably has her or his own way of doing things, so there’s unlikely to be a single, winning method. Approaches will also vary by funding agency and country of origin. I am therefore targeting the earlier-career people who have yet to get fully indoctrinated into the funding cycle, with generalities that should apply to most grant proposals.

1. A proposal is not an article, so don’t try to write it as one.

In the huge list of things ‘they never taught you as a student, but need to know to be a successful scientist’, this has got to be one of the biggies. Now I’m mainly talking about science here, but grant proposals cannot and should not follow the standard format of peer-reviewed articles. Articles tend to put an elaborate background up front, a complex description of hypotheses followed by an even more complex description of methods and results. Do not do this for a proposal. A proposal should be viewed more as a ‘pitch’ that hooks the assessor’s attention from the get-go. More on this aspect below.

2. Understand what the funder actually funds.

Many neophytes to the funding cycle have the mistaken perception that funding agencies exist to fund the sort of research that the researcher want to do. Sorry – nah! A funding agency exists to fund the type of research that the funding agency wants to see happen. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Australian Research Council, the Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, the National Science Foundation, or the Slovenian Science Foundation – they all have (often government-set) funding priorities. Know these and follow them. If you must alter your research desires to fit within these frameworks, so be it. Don’t be offended that no one wants to fund what you want to do.

3. Read the guidelines, and follow them to the letter.

It might seem self-evident, but few people actually read these before launching into the draft proposal. Avoid this mistake. Spend days, if not weeks, pouring over ever single element of the guidelines that will tell you more than just the margin or font size they expect. There are many, subtle hints in the guidelines that tell the applicant what and how to write. More importantly, they are usually fairly explicit about what you shouldn’t include.

4. Assume the assessor has no knowledge whatsoever of your field, because most of them will not.

If you write a proposal to your immediate supervisor, closest colleague or a specialist reviewer, they will have an implied background against which they can judge the merits of your work. Most assessors will not have this (or they will for a limited field only), so you have to be (almost) patronising about explaining yourself in the proposal. Do not assume any existing knowledge, explain all your terminology (see more below), and tell them repeatedly why the subject is important and compelling.

5. You’re selling yourself (and your team) as much, if not more, than the research project you are proposing. Track record, track record, track record.

A pessimist might justifiably conclude that as long as the proposed research isn’t flawed and fits the funding model in question, many agencies don’t give a rat’s hairy bollocks about the subject matter per se. Instead, they focus mainly on the reputation and track record of the person(s) proposing the research. An early-career researcher could then (again, justifiably) conclude that the system is stacked against them because if they don’t yet have a great track record, what chance would they ever have of getting funded in the first place? It’s a truism in science as pretty much everywhere else in society that the rich get richer, but you can avert this to some extent by careful alignment with more established colleagues (see below) and an emphasis on what makes you different.

https://www.the-essays.com/academic-essay-writers -home message of this point is that you matter so very much in a proposal that you must sell yourself. After all, a research grant is an award, so think of the proposal as an application for a prize. Make your assessor think that you are the greatest thing since E=mc 2 , and focus on your career highlights and contributions to date. The funder needs to know that they will be funding a person whose proven reputation, skills and output will guarantee the return on their investment (i.e., the success of your proposed research).

6. Never underestimate the value of a good team of collaborators.

This now might seem obvious from the previous point, but it’s not merely a recommendation to latch onto the best person in your field to maximise your success vicariously. A careful selection of the key people to fill any weaknesses in your expertise, reputation and knowledge will make a huge difference to how your team’s capability and the project’s feasibility are assessed. On that note, it’s equally important to exclude weak collaborators who, at least from the perspective of the assessor, bring little to the team’s expertise or reputation.

7. Never underestimate the value of a good title.

Remember that point about ‘selling’ above? Just like in product marketing, a catchy title and a clever opening will potentially get you the attention you need to stand out among the hundreds or thousands of other researchers vying for the same pot of gold. The title should (i) avoid questions (it’s not going to make people inherently more curious – after all, you won’t have the results yet to answer the question), (ii) immediately understood by all and sundry, (iii) be short and to the point and (iv) include something to tell us all why it’s so bloody important.

8. You’ve already won or lost the game in the first page.

Including the title, an assessor will at the very least get bored, or abandon any further assessment at worst, if you have not explained on the very first page (i) what you are going to do (see below), (ii) why it’s so exciting and (iii) what major societal problem it will solve (more on applied versus theoretical subjects below). You have to keep the assessor’s attention, so provide some tantalising information up front that will spurn them on to more reading.

9. Please tell us immediately what you are intending to research.

I’ve singled out this element of the above point because it is the most important. If you prattle on for pages setting up the background and theoretical construct of the problem you propose to address before the assessor has any idea what you are actually proposing to do, you’ve lost all hope of convincing anyone that it’s important and do-able. An assessor wants to see immediately that you’ll be proposing to do x, y and z such that you can answer big questions a, b and c efficiently, effectively and convincingly.

10. Tell us why the research is exciting.

You might think it is, so might your partner and your grandmother, but does anyone else? Do not take it as given that your chosen topic (Point 2 notwithstanding) is of any interest whatsoever to anyone else. You have to explain, in gory detail, what makes it so bloody fascinating and essential that you do the research now. As an assessor, I want to end up being as excited by it as you, so sell yourself. If you’re not inherently a good salesperson, you’ll have to become one.

11. Explain the applied outcomes of the research, if there are any.

I’m not going to enter into the debate about the relative merits of so-called blue-skies versus applied research (I think they’re both necessary – it’s the ratio that’s up for debate), but chances are that if you have followed Point 2 there will have to be some application to your work. In other words, why does society need to invest in your research if nothing practical will result? Spend a good deal of time explaining how your results will affect the real world, either through policy, technology or remediation, and never, ever state that it will simply provide humanity with more ‘knowledge’. Please.

12. Funding agencies are generally risk-averse, so make sure that you (and/or your team) have some history in the area of the proposed research.

Coming back to Point 5, you must understand that most granting agencies aren’t willing to take a punt on your potential as a researcher, no matter how wonderful you truly are; instead, they want a guarantee that you’ll be able to do what you say you will do. Remember, you are competing with many others for a paltry sum. Proposing a difficult, elaborate and risky research project will only lead to disappointment. It might sounds a little jaded on my part, but it’s true to some extent that funding agencies only fund what’s already been proven to work. Sadly, if your project is too innovative (i.e., ‘risky’ seen through the eyes of the assessor), it’s unlikely you’ll receive funding. A working rule of thumb is that if you have some established track record in the area of proposed research (e.g., a previously published paper in the subject), then you have a much better chance of success than proposing something you’ve never done before.

13. Hypotheses! State them.

It’s worth repeating that hypotheses are testable assertions and not merely aims. It’s one thing to aim to solve the energy crisis, it’s quite another to say how you will do it. Be careful to list your main hypotheses and their predictions, and how you will test them with data/models, etc. If you do not propose testable hypotheses, your risk of failure (as deemed by the assessor) increases, and so too does your probability of not being funded.

14. At risk of sounding like a broken record, avoid jargon as much as possible.

Jargon is for specialists and in my opinion, should be avoided at all costs. It is even more important to avoid jargon of all types (and I include abbreviations, initialisms and acronyms in this list) in a research proposal. If the assessor does not know immediately what you mean, even after defining a term, you will lose her/his attention. Be clear, and even if it requires more words, explain everything simply.

15. Avoid motherhood statements and subjective qualifiers. Quantify where possible.

A motherhood statement is defined as a vague, ‘feel-good’ platitude with which few would inherently disagree. In science, it’s usually associated with some outcome (e.g., ‘we must preserve species’). Why ‘must’ we do something? Do not assume that your assessor has the same values as you, or that the funding agency upholds the same morality. Likewise, avoid subjective qualifiers like ‘a lot’, ‘a multitude’, ‘very’ and ‘significant’ if they have no quantifiable meaning. Make sure you demonstrate that the research will quantify a phenomenon or process and that you do not inadvertently demonstrate your biases or lack of understanding by using such subjective terminology.

16. Be methodologically specific.

Some people try to hide the dust under the rug in a proposal by including throw-away lines regarding how they will achieve their objectives. One in particular that I see far too often is “… and then we will model the system’. How will you model system? What model will you use? How will you parameterise it? Do you have the necessary expertise in your team to construct such a model? Likewise, ‘… we will measure …’ and ‘… we will construct …’ statements without the corresponding methodological detail (exactly how) are a clear demonstration to the assessor that you don’t know what you’re doing. If you don’t, make damn sure that you do by including someone who does and then describing it in detail.

17. Be realistic.

Proposals can often verge on the fantastical because the proponents purport to solve the mysteries of life, the universe and everything in 10 or fewer pages. Without lessening the impact of why the research is important, don’t venture too far into Faerieland and claim that you will be able to solve all elements of the problem under investigation. Stick to the hypotheses and do what you can within the budget and timeline proposed.

18. Give some serious attention to your communication strategy.

Many funding agencies (all?) want to know how you’ll make the results of your research known to the public and not just to them or the few specialists who might actually read the resulting scientific articles. Communication is becoming more and more important these days as society in general becomes more and more adverse to scientific endeavour. While social media might not be everyone’s cup of tea, spend a little more time explaining how you’ll reach a much broader range of people than most researchers achieve. Think of clever and innovative ways of reaching out, and dedicate more than a passing thought to this section of the proposal.

19. Have an experienced colleague read it. Better yet, have two or three of them read it.

After it’s all said and done, give it to someone with more experience than you to read and critique it fully. In many ways, this is the most important part of the process before you even submit. More opinions are better than one.

20. Ask whether your father/mother/auntie/best mate, as a taxpayer, would fund your research.

Most research these days is publicly funded, so asking a few lay taxpayers that you can arm-wrestle to read it will tell you if it strikes a chord, or bores them shitless. If you can’t convince the punter in the street, it’s less likely that the funding agency will deem your research worthwhile.