#linguistics would say yes but people who are hung up on But At Home would not

[bending-sickle]

Is English your first language?

basically. it’s not my “mother tongue” since my parents are spanish speakers and that’s what we use at home but i have been bilingual since i was a toddler, basically since i knew how to speak, which makes both languages my “first language”.

also my education (kindergarten onwards) was in english, even though for the most part i haven’t lived in english-speaking countries. so it’s also the language i am most comfortable working in, have a wider vocabulary, can better use to express myself in, and think, dream, write notes in, etc.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Portrait of a Dangerous Man🎨3

Warnings: (series) non-consent sex and rape; slow creep; cucking; (this chapter) sleep paralysis, stress.

This is dark!mob!Clark Kent x reader and explicit. 18+ only.  Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Synopsis: Your dream of having your work hung in an art show comes true but your first buyer is not all he seems to be.

Note: I’m so happy people are liking this story. Thanks so much to everyone reading and sorry if I’m a bit inactive lately, I’ve been exhausted and yesterday didn’t end, I swear.

Thanks to everyone for reading and thanks in advance for all your feedback. :)

I really hope you enjoy. 💋

<3 As usual, I’d appreciate if you let me know what you think with a like or reblog or reply or an ask! Love ya!

On Monday, you yawned over your keyboard as your fingers moved on instinct alone. Your eyes ran along the text but the words were just letters to you. You had a lot to think about, a lot to do. 

You decided you would skip lunch and get through your work day an hour early so you could head to Clark’s right away. He was hard to deny when he asked if you could make it back so soon. You told him you worked everyday from home and you had hours beside that at the gallery three times a week at least. He accepted it with a nod but his silence was telling so you caved and said you could make it but not until the evening.

You texted Marcus as you waited for your Uber. He had a few hours to go still and you left him everything he needed to make supper with instructions; the veggies were cut, the meat thawed, and the pans already arranged on the stove. You had faith he could manage on his own.

The mansion was just as intimidating as the first time you visited. You walked up the drive and to the front steps. It was human nature to be envious of the sprawling yards and lavish estate and yet, it didn’t feel as if someone could truly live here. It would be like staying in a hotel as you were always overly aware of your every move, afraid to break something or make a mess.

You hammered the large knocker when your soft tapping brought no answer. You heard someone on the other side and wiggled your foot nervously. The door opened and square-faced woman greeted you in another language. You couldn’t tell if it was Swedish, German, or some other dialect. You were never a skilled linguist.

“Um, hi, I’m…”

“Ah, you are the lady painter,” she said, “I remember. I am Nina, Mr. Kent’s housekeeper.”

She turned and beckoned you to follow her. You closed the tall door and trailed her across the spacious foyer and behind the stairs into the kitchen. She turned through another room and led you out through the glass doors that opened onto the pool.

“Miss, would you like a drink? Tea? Coffee?” she asked.

“No, thank you,” you said as the water moved and your eyes were drawn to the figure moving beneath the surface.

“Miss,” Nina nodded and left you.

You stood, awkward and listless, and glanced around at the loungers and the umbrella over the round table. You weren’t entirely sure what to do. Had he forgotten about you?

“Hey,” your gaze was drawn back to the pool. Clark waded to the edge, his broad shoulders and chiseled chest visible as he made his way to the shallow end, “sorry. Lost track of time.”

He grabbed the metal railing and climbed up the stairs. The water slaked off his tight trunks and down his thick thighs. He appeared even larger with less clothes. You looked away before your thoughts lingered too long.

“It’s fine, I should have texted I was on my way,” you said, “I can go wait for you--”

“No worries,” he took his towel and rubbed dry his dark hair. The scruff along his chin was thicker than before, almost a full blown beard, “you’re not in a hurry, are you?”

“No, not really, can’t really rush… painting,” you shrugged, “I just… I didn’t mean to catch you off-guard.”

“Pfft, I’m ready for anything,” he grinned, “but I should also listen to the artist. I’ll go get changed and you can get settled in the studio.” He directed you ahead of him as he approached the sliding doors, “you just finished work? You should take a few minutes to unwind.”

“Uh, yeah, but it’s just, um, typing, not exactly hard labour,” you said as he followed you inside.

“Work is work,” he said, “I will never fault anyone who works hard, regardless of what they do.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” you stifled a yawn behind your hand.

He let out a breath as you came out into the foyer, “I’m sorry, you could’ve… you’re tired. We could have rescheduled. I’m sorry if I came across… pushy yesterday. I don’t mean to take advantage of you.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” you assured him, “I’m fine.”

“Alright,” he said doubtfully, “but you let me know if you need a break.”

“Will do,” you murmured as you neared the stairs.

🎨

You weren’t even close to done just the background of the portrait. Clark really didn’t even need to be there as you shadowed the folds of the curtains around his figure and the marble bust. Your arm hurt from reaching across and up the gigantic canvas and your eyes burned from squinting at your work.

You backed off the ladder carefully with your paintbrush and palette balanced in one hand. The paint was drying and you needed to mix more. You set down your armful and wiped your hands on the rag. He was watching you, he was always watching you. Well, no, he was just looking in your direction; it was all for the portrait.

You hit the button on the side of your phone and gasped. It was midnight. You had several messages from Marcus and you blanched as you unlocked the cell and quickly texted back. You rubbed your eye as you hit send and turned to Clark.

“I didn’t realise it was so late,” you said, “I gotta go.”

“What time is it?” he asked and looked at his watch, “oh.”

He pushed himself to his feet with a grunt and stretched out his arms as he neared. You took your brush and rinsed it in the tinted water in the jar.

“I’ll just clean up as I wait for an Uber,” you said as you let the brush rest in the jar and lifted your phone again.

“I’ll drive you,” he said as he grabbed a rag, “it’s a long way. I’ll hire a driver for you from here on out. It’ll be easier and cheaper.”

“You don’t have to--”

You flinched as he wiped your cheek with the rag. He smiled and showed you the paint on the white cloth.

“I wouldn’t offer it if it was too much trouble,” he tossed the rag down, “and I did have something to talk to you about. The drive will be more than enough to get it sorted.”

“Oh, okay,” you eked nervously. Had you done something wrong? Were you not painting fast enough?

“I’ll meet you downstairs,” he touched your arm gently.

He left you and you finished scraping off the palette and cleaning your brushes. You dumped the jar in the sink just inside the nearest bathroom and rinsed the porcelain back to white. You left everything arranged neatly on the table and descended to the first floor.

Clark stood by the door in a different jacket, his tie gone and the top button undone. He held the door for you and showed you to the garage. There were at least a half-dozen cars inside and he took you to the same silver one he drove the night of the show. You settled in and groaned as the tension left your shoulders.

He started the car as the doors rose behind him and he backed out smoothly. He turned down the long drive and onto the desolate roads of the wealthy countryside. He kept one hand on the wheel and dropped his other to his thigh casually.

“So, your job, you like it?”

“It’s work,” you said, “I get paid to sit at home and type. Half the time, I’m just waiting for an assignment.”

“I asked if you liked it,” he said more pointedly.

“Oh, well, not… really?” you answered, unsure. 

He could be so pleasant and then so blunt. He made you nervous and the more you thought of it, the more you realised you knew almost nothing about this man besides his name. You didn’t know how he made his money or what exactly he did outside of his extravagant mansion.

“If I doubled your fee, would you quit?” he asked without hesitation.

“Quit? This… the painting won’t take forever,” you said, “I can’t really just drop everything--”

“This is an opportunity,” he said, “you could spend your days doing what you love. And who’s to say it’s just one painting? I already have something in mind for the dining room and I have friends asking about you.”

“Friends? Who--”

“One thing at a time,” he said curtly, “I’ll introduce you to them in time. Is it a deal?”

“I… it’s all very sudden, can I think about it?”

He looked at you in the rearview and you caught his eye. For a moment, you were afraid. There was something in his expression that left you breathless. He lifted his hand and stretched his arm between the seats, his fingers gripped the leather just above your shoulder.

“Sure, I’ll give you a couple days,” he said at last.

“I--I’m sorry…” you didn’t know why you were apologizing but it felt appropriate, “I just, I’m tired.”

“It’s fine, sweetheart,” he assured and the epithet hung in the air.

“I have to go to the gallery tomorrow, I’ll get back to you on Wednesday,” you said as you rubbed your chin nervously. Your lips was quivering. He was smiling but you felt his impatience in the small space of the car, “if I… if I say yes, I have to talk to my boss and that might get messy.”

“No problem,” his voice softened, “you take some time and figure it out.” His thumb rubbed the leather seat and he pulled his arm away to grasp the steering wheel, “why don’t you close your eyes. We got some time left.”

You peeked over at him and nodded. 

“Okay,” you murmured and hugged your bag against you as you tried to relax against the leather. You turned your head and looked out the window up at the starry sky. You closed your eyes as the fatigue settled over you but you could only fake dozing as your nerves stormed inside of you.

He was right, it was a great opportunity, but you just couldn’t believe it would last. Was it your own doubt getting to you? Or should you be weary of this fairytale buyer? It was late and you couldn’t think. All those worries could wait until tomorrow.

🎨

You crept into the dark apartment. It was after one and you foresaw a long day ahead of you. You’d get maybe four hours in before it all started again. You put your purse down and went into the bedroom, undressing in the shadows and crawling into bed next to Marcus as the colours of the tv moved around him. The playlist he was casting kept on even as he slept.

He grunted as you laid on your back and he turned to graze your arm with his fingertips. 

“You’re home,” he grumbled and kissed your cheek, “I was worried.”

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, “I… it’s so far out there and it’s a lot of work. The canvas is like nine feet-- I’m sorry, I’ll let you sleep.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” his voice was gristly as he propped himself up on his elbow, “you’re gonna finish the job right?”

“I don’t know,” you said, “I don’t know if I can.”

“Of course you can,” Marcus insisted, “I mean, at that price, you can do anything.”

“It’s not about the money, Marcus,” you huffed, “I don’t know if it’s worth all this. Going back and forth…” you ran your hands over your face, “he wants me to quit my job and just paint for him.”

“You should,” Marcus said blithely, “why not? He’s paying you well enough.”

“And what about when I’m done,” you whined.

“You’ll find more work. Vanessa even offered to take on more of your work in her shows, so what’s the problem? Isn’t this what you want?”

“Y-yeah, it is but… I don’t know, it just seems too good to be true.”

“You do this and we might even have enough for a down payment,” he said, “something had to give after all these years. Why can’t it be this?”

You looked at him and tried to smile, “you’re only saying that because he has a pool.”

“Maybe,” he kidded, “but I also want it for you. You spend all your free time painting anyhow so why not get paid for it?”

“Mhmm,” you mumbled, “yeah, I just don’t know why I feel so… I don’t know. It just all seems off.”

“Sleep on it, you’ll feel better,” he leaned over and kissed your lips that time, “love you.”

“Love you,” you echoed as he grabbed the remote and shut off the tv.

You closed your eyes as the darkness shrouded you and despite your anxiety, you fell into a deep sleep. You didn’t even roll onto your side before you sank into your REM but found yourself caught in limbo. The abstract and intense sensation of paralysis overtook your body and your eyelids flicked open.

It was an awful feeling you knew too well. You knew you were dreaming, you knew it was all in your mind, but your body was filled with sand and your subconscious conjured visions of doom. The tall man stood by the door as he always did and just stared. He got closer, just a little at a time, and you fought to move just a finger and free yourself from the trance.

You felt like you were drowning as your body remained heavy and unmoving. He was getting closer and closer. As he did, his figure changed and his shoulders got wider as his features came clear in the slat of the streetlight that leaked between the curtains. It was Clark staring down at you, his blue eyes sinister and sparkling. 

He reached for you and you woke with a start as your name rose from his lips. You inhaled sharply and looked over at Marcus as he snored. It was only the two of you. You reached for your phone, it was just after three. You turned onto your side but your heart still raced. It always happened when you were stressed, the dreams felt so real that you never really came back down after.

You stared at the wall and curled up under the blanket. You didn’t expect to get much sleep anyway, not with the question on your mind. Should you quit and live your dream or should you kill all hope before life did it for you?

[ephemerlskies]

constant craving | jjk

⇢ pairing: jungkook x reader

⇢ genre: drabble series, angst, unrequited love, idiot!jungkook, idiot!oc, basically everyone's an idiot

⇢ word count: 1.7k

⇢ warnings: unreciprocated pining, explicit language, themes of hopeless romanticism (!!), (slightly) unedited

⇢ summary: your best friend decided to confide in his best friend on how to win his girlfriend back after a fight. you tell him exactly what to say to her, however he is unaware that what you were saying was a sincere delivery of your once undeclared love.

♪ playlist: constant craving - k.d. lang, bad religion - frank ocean, misunderstood - lucky daye, neu roses - daniel caesar ♪

╰ series index: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 (final)

a/n: hello my little loves!! this was definitely ;) not ;) an impulse write and release ;) ;) sorry for being so inactive lately. i've been focusing on myself (i know how cliche that sounds but it's true). anyway, enjoy this incredibly angsts fic i wrote at 2 am for absolutely no reason at all other than i'm an emotional sadist and a masochist. love u!!!! <3

part one: control

He was coming over for the third time this week. Third time. Three times is two more times than he'd gone over his girlfriend's house, but you did everything in your power to convince your inconvincible heart that it meant nothing. Friends see each other more than their girlfriends, right?

It was making a racket in your chest, that muscle that strained much harder for a man who had his pumping for the girl of his dreams.

But, he was coming over for the third time this week.

The first time he said this visit ranked, in his words, 'out of the question' on the degree of necessary that he come over and show you Star Wars. You played a good game of reluctance when asking if it was the entire series or just one movie, and in your head, you hoped to God it was the entire series. For him, you'd watch the series four times over if it meant you sat through this outrageously nerdy movie next to the even more outrageously nerdy love of your life.

The second time was particularly funny to you. He called while you were cooking dinner, almost as if he was in stride with you in a way that was an ounce too synchronized to be platonic, and asked if you were whipping up a delicious meal that he could mooch off of. Knowing he was a terrible cook, plus the fact that when he begged so politely you felt your posture unbind into to a puddle, you more than happily obliged.

This time, the circumstances made it harder to say yes, but not yet impossible. And it was a second or two before you heard that knock on the front door that had your once pounding heart come to a complete halt. It was still, waiting for you to make a decision.

Since it was Jungkook, of course, you'd say yes. And your heart would continue beating. Beating, as in sending sharp jabs that stained the inside of your chest with bruises. Beating, as in when the time came, the final blow of your constantly craving heart would devastate your entire being.

"Thank you so much, ___. God, I'm such an idiot." He walked in with all the confidence of someone who was a bit too familiar with your company. Jungkook's feet reintroducing themselves to your floors in the same manner as he would the night before, and the night before that, and the countless nights you kept secured in your collection of memories. As if he belonged there; as if he was coming home.

"An idiot with a great friend." That last word nearly withdrew the bile you had been ever so gracefully holding in.

"Yeah yeah." And he was comfortable with that same word, 'friend', that deepened your bruises into scars. He had absolutely no clue. Idiot. "I can't believe I broke up with her. I was so angry and acted on that instead of logic. Fuck, why would I do that to myself? I love her."

"Well, you never know. Maybe..." You hated yourself for not resisting the selfish temptation that was about to fall from your lips. The words you've been internally screaming to him to leave her and fall in love with you instead were diluted to something much more tame when your tongue formed them into sound.

"Maybe it was for the best. Maybe you guys are better off apart? To, um, grow or whatever."

"No." He said that with too much certainty and too little hesitance and just enough conviction to sink another wound in the organ exhausting itself in your chest. "She's the one. I know it"

"Jungkook."

He looked at you with all the earnestness of a man who carved his utmost and unchanging dedication to her. A look that any love-induced sap would kill for. A look he would never direct towards you.

Your eyes weren't under your control as of now. The glue that held them to his eyes, his lips, his hair, and every other part of him you dreamed of was more than a marathoned yearning. It was an adhesive twelve years in the making, not showing the slightest sign of wearing away.

"The way you love is something to die for..." And then he smiled at you, but still not for you.

You were utterly crushed.

"She'll take you back in a heartbeat. I mean, she has a brain, so of course, she will. Anyone would."

I would.

"I hope you're right." The couch was four feet wide at most, but there was an impressively vast space between you and the man who was sitting next to you. "Can you tell me what to say? You know I suck with words."

"Uh... Yeah. Of course. Anything."

If breaking hearts were a crime, then Jungkook would have much to atone for. You'd be convicted as a willing accomplice for holding on this long. Up until this point, you've let every small glance, every shy smile he sent your way, every eyebrow twitch conveying a meaning only you knew well enough to retrieve him from whatever awkward situation he needed rescuing from, every accidentally brush of his hand against yours, every purposeful embrace that lasted so long your tears stained his right shoulder string you into a knot of miserable, unrequited love.

And up until this point, you had hope he would choose you.

Each ring of his phone worked in tandem to reduce your undying devotion to Jungkook into a compressed seed of denial.

I don't love him. He's just my best friend.

Your pulse pronounced itself loudly in your ears, as a not-so-gentle reminder of how much you hated him for loving him. Somehow, your heart beat faster. Then again, anything was possible when it came to him. Anything except the miraculous event of him hanging up, declaring his love for you, and living in the land of happily ever after that only existed in your deluded imagination.

"Hey Irene! I'm so fucking glad you picked up."

He gave you that look. With the arched eyebrow, his widened doe eyes, and the slightly hung jaw, you read each feature better than words and nodded to signal you knew exactly what he needed.

"I'm sorry about what happened." You said, in a whisper, though the deflated volume of your words carried no implication of the unbridled sincerity sealed in them.

"I'm sorry about what happened." He repeated, laying down that same Irene-contrived smile on you that fostered a smile of your own, knowing fully it surfaced as a reflex from hearing her voice.

"It might be crazy to try this, because I don't know how you feel."

If the thing people say about your life flashing before your eyes during encounters with death, then you were sure your heart was about to consume its last pulse of blood. The scenes of you and Jungkook spending your Friday nights when you were a ripe city dweller in your shoebox apartment doing everything and nothing at all had convinced you that you were certainly about to go into cardiac arrest.

"It might be crazy to say this, because I don't know how you feel." Jungkook was so many things, however emotionally perceptive was not one of them.

"But I love you. I have loved you since the moment I met you." Those words tasted sweet despite fermenting in a chamber of your heart you kept preserved since, as you said, the very moment you met him.

"But I love you. I have loved you since the moment I met you."

"No matter what, I'd choose you. It doesn't matter how mad I am or how annoyed I am, I will choose you because if I know anything in this damn, cruel, punishing world, then I know that I'd rather be angry, annoyed, or anything else with you than without you."

He repeated your words, but dehydrated all of your sentiment from them. You were left with the remnants of the feelings, and none of the words from him you were so desperately starved of. He took them right from your throat, along with the very breath that seemed to keep returning because of Jungkook, molded them into his own, into a sequence of sounds that were meant for Irene. You were left hungry, breathless, and forever wanting.

"No matter what, I'd choose you. It doesn't matter how mad I am or how annoyed I am, I will choose you because if I know anything in this damn, cruel, punishing world, then I know that I'd rather be angry, annoyed, or anything else with you than without you."

Irene must have been smiling right about now. Who wouldn't smile hearing those things from someone like Jungkook?

"Because with you, I'm complete. My story can't end if I'm incomplete. Please, choose me back. Complete me. That's all I ask."

Then, you began to ask yourself another question.

If you make me complete, Jungkook, will my story ever end?

You knew the answer to that. You swore your heart beat in a morse code that told you everything you needed to know.

"Because with you, I'm complete. My story can't end if I'm incomplete. Please, choose me back. Complete me. That's all I ask."

Jungkook looked to you, before Irene could form the proper response, and smiled. It was the third time he smiled at you today because of course, you were keeping track. You knew it was his own physically linguistic version of a 'thank you' or a 'you're a life saver' but somehow, to you, it translated to something similar to a 'goodbye'.

Your legs miraculously rose and carried you to the back porch. The sun was just beginning to dip in the horizon, proliferating a warm orange that was about to subside to an indistinguishable and unpredictable dusk. Whatever color came after the sunset, you were ready to accept it, to memorize how it reflected against a world without the possibility of him. And even though the night will always embody undertones of orange, it was time to focus on the colors around it.

It was time to let go.

a/n: i might make this into a drabble series!!! if anyone would be interested in that please let me know :)) thank you for readinggggg <3

[nekojitachan]

Ummm more about Mr. Neil Minyard on campus please

Ah, thank you so much for the ask! 😘

Let’s see, especially since tumblr atewhat I’d already written for this. ☹

As they’d planned out when they got engaged,Neil and Andrew didn’t tell anyone but the Monsters (+ Robin and Katelyn), theoriginal Foxes, Wymack, Abby, Bee and Stuart, that they were married.

Oh, and Ichirou, of course, who agreedthat they shouldn’t tell anyone else until Neil’s final Exy season started(Andrew’s pro team also thought this was wisest). However, he was pleased thatNeil had basically signed already with a more than adequate pro team and sowould soon have a ‘decent’ salary from which to send him that owed percentage,and even gifted Neil with a rather extravagant wedding gift.

Neil, Nicky andAaron had to talk Andrew out of smashing said gift to pieces after its arrival.

Neil and Andrew spent the summer in Boston,eventually settling on the perfect apartment (meaning they both agreed uponit - with only some minor freakout from Neil), which they decorated as their future home together; Neil even brought someof his belongings from PSU and Columbia since he hoped to spend as much freetime there as possible before he graduated.

Once training season started, Neilreturned to PSU, where he roomed with Robin and threw himself into preparingthe new Foxes. He both wanted to ensure that the Foxes did well that year aswell as fill the time until he was able to talk to or visit Andrew.

Neil had gotten better (not much, but a little)at telling when someone was interested in him, but he was distracted, okay? Forthe first time in several years, he was alone without Andrew or even Nicky orAaron at his side, it was a huge adjustment for him. Robin helped a lot, butshe wasn’t Andrew.

And oh was Robin by his side! She’d beentemporarily assigned by Andrew as the guardian of Neil’s… erm… uhm… ‘virtue’,and she took said job very seriously.

Especially since theathletes (and eventually the rest of the students) had returned to campus, some ofthem excited about the fact that for the first time in over four years, oneNeil Josten was alone without one very scary Andrew Minyard in sight. An AndrewMinyard who’d graduated and moved up north, so that meant Neil was single, right?

(NO, NOT AT ALL.)

Robin would be amused by the patheticattempts to pick up Neil if they weren’t attempts to pick up Neil.Though she almost, almost, felt sorry for the morons (again, theywere attempting to pick up NEIL JOSTEN.)

Like the guy who thought it was abrilliant idea to walk up to Neil, smile and tell him how ‘hot’ his tattooswere, and then ask if the ‘A’ on his cheek stood for ‘angel’ because surelyNeil had just fallen from heaven. Robin was hard-pressed not to laugh when Neilsomehow managed to spill his bottle of sports drink over the guy’s head.

Or the girl who told Neil that she had a‘thing’ for linguists because they ‘knew’ how to use their tongues, only forhim to give her a blank look and say in Russian that he only spoke Englishbefore he gathered his books and stalked out of the library (with Robingiggling in tow, their Russian study session clearly put on hold for the timebeing).

The Foxes knew that Neil was stillinvolved with Andrew (just not how involved), and found the whole situationhilarious, of course (well, not Jack and Sheena). Of course they started abetting pool on how many times Neil would be hit on each week and how; Cammie madea killing when the one transfer soccer player had the ‘brilliant’ idea ofserenading Neil one night from the Fox Tower’s courtyard with an alteredversion of ‘Foxy Boy’.

Robin had to prevent Neil from going outto gut the moron, and then Andrew from flying (flying!) back to PSU onthe next plane to track down said moron to do much the same.

(Nicky nearly passed out from laughingso much when she told him about the whole thing.)

It was decided that Andrew would makethe announcement after his first professional game, something they both eagerlylooked forward to happening (and Wymack, since he was tired of the drama,betting pool and lovesick idiots interrupting his practice).

The Sunday after the Foxes’ first gameof the season (which they won), the Colonials played the Nighthawks and won(Neil, Robin and several Foxes held a viewing party at Abby’s for the game). Andrewnearly shut down the goal when he was out on court, and had the commentatorsraving about such an exciting start to his career and predicting that it wouldn’tbe long before there was an offer to join Court.

Of course he was dragged out for apost-game interview, where he clearly suffered through a few questions which hereplied to with coached answers (‘happy’ to be with the Colonials, Boston wasn’t‘too bad’, he liked the food, etc.). However, after five minutes, he clickedhis tongue and loudly announced that he was done with the questions as he hadto go call his husband.

That declaration was met with silencefor several seconds, until an intrepid reporter raised his hand and asked ifAndrew had said the word ‘husband’. Andrew verified that yes, he had, and that saidhusband was one Neil Josten now Neil Minyard so he needed to make sure thetrouble-prone idiot hadn’t gotten into some sort of new mess he had to takecare of, so he was done for the night.

Neil sat on the couch with a huge grinon his face while Robin nudged him in the ribs; it took a minute or two beforeCammie, Jordan and the others regained their senses and could (cautiously) pileon him in congratulations.

Word spread quickly about Neil’s new statusas a married man; he gave an interview the next day, started wearing his ringson his finger instead of on a chain hung around his neck, and let the schoolknow about his name change.

Most people respected Neil’s marriedstatus, but there were a few who seemed to think that him being in a long-termrelationship meant he was open to ‘fooling around’ (of course it didn’t). Bythat point, Robin had perfected her own version of the creepy smile/stare andmanaged to circumvent almost all of them before they got close to Neil.

And the ones she didn’t? Well, theydeserved what they got, she figured.

[demivampirew]

So we meet again.

Henry x Reader

Summary: A recent graduate recounters someone from her past with who things did not exactly ended up in great terms. She holds a grudge on him for that and still has unanswered questions about what happened.

This will have another part soon.

Masterlist

Triggers: talking about losing a parent; drinking; ghosting.

It's been an exhausting journey, but you finally made it. You graduated from University College of London and got your PhD in Linguistics. Now you were ready for the new chapter of your life. You wanted to teach Linguistics but also write books. One of your firsts topics in mind was to write a book about the topic of language acquisition, discussing the different views of famous linguistics such a Noam Chomsky, Edward Sapir, Eve Clark, Steven Pinker, among others. You also wanted to write books about the best methods of learning more languages. It excited you to know how limitless was the things that you could do with all your knowledge and how anxious you were to investigate even further. But that would have to wait because today your focus was on celebrating all your hard work. After the commencement ceremony, you went home to change and went to a pub to celebrate your achievement with your girls. The bar was pretty exclusive and usually wealthy people hung out there, mostly because when celebrities were in London, went to the pub looking for a place to drink without being bothered. You weren't rich, exactly, but money wasn't a problem for you. But definitely, you wouldn't qualify to get in the said club, the only reason you were allowed to be there was that the place was owned by your uncle/godfather. You were dancing to some song playing in the pub with your friends Kate and Emma. It felt so good to be out, truly partying without worrying about upcoming exams or books to read for class. You were finally free to rest and just have fun for once. You went to the bar to get the next round of drinks for you and your friends when you got a text. You grabbed your phone from your jean pocket and read the lovely message that your aunt Judy sent you. She couldn't be in the commencement because she lived in The USA, but she wanted to let you know how proud of you she was. You were walking towards the bar with your eyes set on your phone screen when accidentally collided with someone. You immediately apologized for being distracted and not looking where you were walking. The other person did the same as you, for him was distracted as well. You look at his face and froze. "What is he doing here?" You thought, then remembered that he always used to hang out there. That was after all the place where you met a few years back, one summer that you worked as a bartender to gain some money for the upcoming spring break; he helped you make the drink that he wanted since you didn't know how to do it for you were new in the job and he used to have the same job when he was twenty. It's been almost two years since the last time you two spoke to each other, before he ghosted you out of the blue, without any explanation. You used to be really close, he was your best friend in the entire world. You trusted him more than anyone else in the entire world. He was always there for you, even when he was away filming some movie. He would do everything he could to make you feel better on your shitty days. But, again, one day he stopped responding your messages, changed his number, moved out and didn't try to reach for you to let you know that he was moving or why he did not want to be your friend anymore. He just vanished. You knew that he was ok because he continued doing movies and you recently saw a trailer from a movie starring him and Armie Hammer that was about to be released soon. You could see in his eyes that he was as shocked to see you as you were to see him and how immediately he put together that the pub was owned by your uncle, so it wasn't uncommon for you to be there. You broke the silence, saying "I'm sorry, sir. I'll be more careful next time.", offering a sympathetic smile and walking away, pretending not to know him. You asked your friend Mark, the bartender, to prepare you three margaritas, and then went back to your friends. You chatted with your friends, although your mind was somewhere else. You discretely check the entire room, looking for him. You saw him with hanging out with two guys that you didn't know. They were laughing and taking pictures while drinking beer. "Stop looking at him and enjoy your night," you told yourself. You try hard to focus on the conversation with your friends. - I can't believe that you're leaving me alone in my night. It's only eleven p.m. - you told your friends after some time. - I'm truly sorry, but I have to work tomorrow.- Emma apologized - Tomorrow is Sunday! - you prompted - I know, but I still have to work in the hospital. - she explained - Yeah, and I'm a mother, I don't have free days - Kate added.- So technically, I also have to work tomorrow and I should go. You sighed and said goodbye to your friends. Then you went to sit by the bar. - Your friends left? - asked Mark surprised - Yep. One has a kid and the other has a shift in the hospital where she works tomorrow, so they both left early. -Bomer. Well, I guess you'll continue your celebration with me.- he said smiling. - I guess so. Hey, do you need some help? - you asked him - No, don't worry, Charlotte and I have everything cover. Just enjoy your night. - How is George? - He's great. He got promoted, now he's the bank's manager. - he informed excited. - Great! Congratulate him on my behalf. - I will. And I'm sure he will ask me to tell you the same. - Thanks. Are you going to New York for vacations as you planned? - We're still not sure. We were also thinking about going to Las Vegas. - That sounds fun as well. - Yes. I promise you to bring you something from our trip. - he said winking - Please, don't waste your money on me. Buy things for you two. - Nonsense, I want to bring you a present. We met thanks to you. - A simple thank you is enough for cupid, a.k.a me. - you replied winking and with a smirk on your face. - There she is! My little genius! - said a man approaching you from behind. You recognized immediately the voice and stood up to hug your godfather. - Hi, uncle John! - you greeted him while hugging him. - Hi princess! Congratulations! You're a star! - he saluted you while praising you. - Thanks! And thank you for letting me celebrate here! - you thanked him - No need to thank me, and besides, your dad help me built this place, so technically is part yours too. - he said winking. - He'd be so proud of you, honey. -he assured you. It's been a year since your father passed due to a heart attack. Since then, your mother, who was a college professor, and your big sister, a surgeon, have been taking care of you, so you wouldn't have to quit studying. You could always count with your uncle too; you didn't like to ask for money, even though you knew that he would be happy to help if you needed it, so if you require some money for things like clothes, hang out with your friend, etc, you would always ask him to work in the pub. You would cover shifts and during college breaks, you would work regularly there. - Everyone, can I have your attention for a moment - said your uncle aloud, while everyone in the pub turned to him - For those who don't know me, I'm the owner of this place and this is my gorgeous niece. - he said while grabbing your shoulder - She graduated from the University College of London today! - he announced proudly - So, in her honour, everyone gets a drink on the house.- he said and people cheered. Your uncle kissed your temple and went into the back of the place. You continued drinking, while people came to claim their free drink, congratulating you while doing so. Apparently, Henry asked his friend to bring him the drink, because he never reached the bar. You gave a hand to Mark and Charlotte, who now were more than busy handing out drinks. When the clock announced that it was 1:30 a.m, you decided to head home. You could keep partying, but you were bored. Mark tried to keep you entertained, but he was busy now that the pub was getting more and more clouded with rich kids looking to get wasted. You said goodbye to him and Charlotte and went to salute your godfather before leaving. He offered to take you home, but you assured him that a taxi would be more than fine and that you would let him know as soon as you were in your house. The night was so beautiful that you decided to walk. Your place was not that far away and the streets were packed with youngsters looking for places to hang out, so you felt safe. You were halfway to your home when you notice a shadow walking not so far from yours. Someone was walking behind you, although judging from the shape of the shadow, it was a few meters away. You weren't a scaredy-cat and you're even tougher when you have some drinks on you, so you turned around to face the person. It was him. - What the hell are you doing following me? - you said angrily - I saw you leave alone and I wanted to make sure you made it safe - Henry explained - Oh, so now you remember that I exist? - you questioned, furious. - I wonder where was that concern for me like two years ago when you erase me from your life without notice. A little heads up would've been nice, you know. - you reproached him and he looked away. - So, like when you ghosted me, it seems like I still don't get an explanation from you. - you told him while rolling your eyes - I needed you a year ago, not now. - What happened a year ago? - he asked surprised - I lost my dad. You've known if you were there for me like you always did, but apparently, I stopped being important for you, sir. So now you can fuck off. Don't worry about me, I'll take care of myself, as always. Goodbye. -you said and turned around and starting to walk away. - I was in love with you.- he said loudly enough for you to hear him. You stopped immediately and stood there, without turning around. - I loved you and I couldn't stand the fact that once again you forgave that asshole Steven for cheating on you once more. I couldn't be around you any more, it hurt, so I left. - That asshole reached for me to see how I was doing after my father passed. You didn't. And yes, I've made the same mistake plenty of times, but in the end, I learned my lesson. I might have done things differently if I'd have known that you had feelings for me. - you said, turning around to face him - I had a crush on you when we met and grew stronger and stronger, and then my heart broke when you started dating Gina. You were so happy together, that's when I realized that I'd never had a chance with you. So I started dating Steven. I've always known that he'd cheat on me sooner or later, he was a womanizer, a party boy, but at least he was nice to me. I needed that to make feel better and to concentrate on other things that weren't my feelings for you. - I didn't know. - he commented. - I stopped talking to you because I had hopes that if I wasn't around you my feelings would go away and I would fall again for Gina, but that didn't happen. She realized that my heart now belonged to someone else and left me. I saw online that you broke up with him and I wanted to reach you, but I was ashamed for cutting you out of my life without speaking to you, that I simply could not do it. I really wish I would have had the guts to ask you to forgive me, then I'd have been by your side when your dad passed. I'm so sorry. I know you two were close and that must hurt. You don't know how sorry I am. - You can apologize for all your want, it doesn't change a single thing, Henry. - you were about to continue your way, but stopped for one moment - Thank you for ruining my graduation day by reminding me how not only you neglected our friendship, leaving me alone without a single word, but also for letting me know that we might have something nice if instead of disappearing you would have told me how you felt. - you finished and walked away.

[skammovistarplus]

Culture and Translation - S01 E07 and SKAM+ Clip 3

I hope I get these done before season 2 starts dropping, that’s all I’ll say. 😂

CLIP 1: Foreshadowing

Es un poco rancio, ¿no? (“It’s not hip, no?”): Fucking Jorge and his untranslatable slang. Okay, so “rancio” literally means “rancid” — and a bunch of other things besides, but this is the meaning closest to the way Jorge uses it. Jorge means that the power of invisibility is overused, boring, the kind of thing someone totally out of touch would pick. Simply put, it’s not cool, and may not have ever been cool.

Es como el superpoder de los cotillas (“It’s like the gossips’ superpower”): “Cotilla” is both a busybody and someone who gossips a lot. Either way, they like being all up on your business.

I think it’s notable that this is all that remains from the og storyline where Jonas wants to meet Eva’s mom, but ultimately bails because he’s smoking weed at Ingrid’s. Eva simply puts Jorge’s request off and it’s never spoken of again.

Personally, I have to say that Eva sharing basically none of her life with her mom rang true to me. I spoke with one of the people who attended the research groups, who told me they were asked about how much or how little they share with their parents. She said most people agreed that teens spend time with their families, but they don’t talk to their parents about their lives all that much. As a teen, my parents were on a need-to-know basis when it came to who my friends were or who I was dating, much less at what point sex, booze and other drugs came into my life.

CLIP 2:  Diseased Pomeranian

Ay, que me mato (“Ah, I’m gonna die”): There’s a bit of a nuance to what Eva says. To die, in Spanish, is “morir”. “Matar” means to kill. Eva means she’s going to hurt herself getting off Jorge’s back and then die, so not quite the same as passing peacefully, lol.

Que me pica un huevo la nariz (“My nose is itching something terrible”): Indeed, Viri says that her nose is itching, but she uses “un huevo” as an intensifier. “Un huevo” would usually mean an egg, but in this register it means a testicle, heh. So her nose is itching in a testicley way.

Viri says in episode 8 that the girl that runs into Eva is a second year. At any rate, Alicia and Inés hung out over the summer with her.

We get a medium close-up of Alicia as the nameless second year passes by her. Alicia has noticed that the second year has herpes, as well. It’s a brief moment, but we can tell that Alicia puts two and two together, as well.

CLIP 3: In which ALEJANDRO tries to get a passing grade in Maths

This is an underrated moment, but I find it hilarious that Eva invokes the “not all men” defense. Especially since Inés preys  on Eva’s insecurity at the end of the clip.

No me jodas (“don´t fuck me over”): This is just one of those Spanish things that we’ll say over and over. I tried different translations through the course of the season, but I still haven’t settled on one that I think really hits the spot. “Don’t fuck me over” works, but it might come across as Eva’s feelings being hurt, rather than something we say… over and over, heh.

Please don’t miss Alejandro adjusting his junk. Lol he’s so douchey.

There’s a school desk in the bathroom. This is not an uncommon sight in Spanish high schools, but I don’t really have a good explanation for it. Like, it’s just a thing. I guess people will drag a desk over at recess, so they can more comfortably hang out in the bathrooms, and then nobody ever bothers dragging them back?

And, of course, this has been noted, but the graffiti on the wall is a pun. If you read it without the R in parenthesis, it says, “Woman, love yourself.” If you read it adding the R, it says, “Woman, arm yourself.”

Pues a la de mates le está saliendo uno (“the Maths hardass is developing a cold sore too”): What Cris actually says is, “So, the Maths [female pronoun] is developing one,” but for the sake of clarity, I rephrased it to remind the people watching that the girls see the Maths teacher as a toughie, and also, so what Cris is implying about Alejandro and the Maths teacher is more obvious.

I really love that Inés actually smells Jorge’s sweatshirt/hoodie (it’s not clear from dialogue which is it). That’s a power move in any culture.

CLIP 4: Corviches are so hot right now

Encaja todo, claro (“It makes sense, of course”): The closer translation is, “It all fits, of course.” I just wasn’t sure the meaning would be clear, especially when they’re all talking so fast.

Tío, ¿y si nos acoplamos a tus hermanos? (“Dude, and if we crash your brothers’ plans?”): First off, Amira is addressing Cris, but she uses “tío” and not “tía.” This is common and there’s nothing noteworthy about it, but I wanted to mention it in case people had noticed characters of any gender addressing female characters as “tío.” Second, Amira is using slang that would be literally translated to, “what if we dock up with your brothers?” The visual is adorable (to me anyway), but I went with a less literal phrasing that makes more sense in English. I also love that this is apparently something Cris and Amira have done enough that it’s what comes to Amira’s mind first as an alternate weekend idea.

Lol easy there with the age foreshadowing, show. Looking at Cris, Jorge and Lucas specifically.

Jorge says he wants to spin tecno (or techno, in English ). In Spain, tecno has become something of a catch-all term for all EDM genres, rather than the specific mid-80s genre. In hindsight, I’d use EDM instead of electronica.

In case you hadn’t looked corviches up yet, here is a recipe + pic in English.  They’re similar to hot pockets, but the dough is made with peanuts and plantains. Also, apparently, very successful with girls! I have not had them (yet!)

Cris notes that daylight savings time ends that weekend. She and the script writers are correct! She remembers because that gives them an extra hour of partying, but the social media updates stopped before 2 am. Who knows when Cris got back home, though!

At some point in this clip, Jorge and Lucas talk to each other among the general chatter. For once, Lucas’ voice doesn’t carry over the others like a powerful siren, so I was never able to make out what they said. Missed opportunities.

CLIP 5: As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in joy and were suddenly silenced

Debuti (“G shit”): This is one of the translations that I’m happiest about. Debuti sounds very Madrid-specific to me, and so I wanted something really specific and that would stick out. “Debuti” comes up a few times over the season, but it is always said by Eva. It’s Eva’s catchphrase.

I hope it came through in the subs, but while Eva is reading Jorge’s texts, the gang is having a ridiculously hard time trying to pronounce corviches, in the background. To be fair I’m biased because I’ve studied linguistics, but it doesn’t seem like a word a native Spanish speaker would have trouble with.

We first hear Alejandro’s voice as he comes in Nora’s house! Unless you watched the Aitana extra clip, of course. On that note, there’s no animosity whatsoever between the boy squad and Alejandro’s crew. They give each other friendly high fives, it’s all chill.

This party only came to be the day before. Imagine what Cris would’ve done with a few days heads up.

I wonder if Cris was looking to hook up with Lucas at this party, and, since he didn’t feel like being social, she hooked up with Hugo, instead. Seeing how hard a time she’s had shaking Hugo off, I think it would’ve gone better for her if Lucas had agreed to a dance.

And speaking of Lucas, you can kind of see the order in which some scenes were shot, by tracking Lucas’ actor’s cold sore. And yes, it is an actual cold sore and not make up for the show, lol. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that. What amazing timing on the cold sore’s part to be at the scab stage during ALEJANDRO FERNANDO ROBERTO’s herpes week.

Pues muy bien (“Good for her”):  It’s not exactly what Alejandro says. What he says would be closer to, “Okay, very good.” But I think “Good for her” really gets across how little Alejandro cares about what Nora is saying, at this point of the confrontation.

¿Es que no te salían pelos en los huevos? (“You didn’t grow hair in your balls?”): Omg. It’s ON. ON. I am cringing so hard at this mistake in the subs.

CLIP 6: 🙃🙃🙃

I saw someone asking on twitter, so yes, those giant plastic cups are a thing here. They have different names depending on what part of Spain you’re from. In Madrid, they’re called “mini,” and they have a volume of 750 ml (or a little over three cups). They’re most often used for street drinking.

Eva drinks KNEBEP Vodka, which is sold at (you guessed it) Mercadona, for 4 euro per bottle. My liver is crying just thinking about it.

The first song that plays over this clip is Aitana’s Teléfono (Telephone). We remember Aitana from Cristian’s party!

CLIP 7: 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃

Te he oído que estabas con Inés (“I could hear you were with Inés”): Literally, “I have heard you, that you were with Inés.”

Por eso he coincidido con Inés (“That’s why Inés was around”): Collins dictionary says that “coincidir” in the sense Jorge is using it would be translated as, “to happen to meet.” I.e. “That’s why I’ve happened to meet Inés.” But I didn’t like it, because Jorge was at Inés’ house. Of course Inés was around. He didn’t just happen to run into her somewhere random. Hope the translation worked!

Tranquila (“It’s okay”): We had something of a debate over the way to translate this. Jorge says “tranquila,” which is the female form of the adjective “calm.” TAJTA wanted to translate it as “calm down.” I didn’t agree, because in Spanish, that would be “tranquilízate.” Jorge is simply repeating “tranquila” to Eva as a means to soothe her, like you do with a crying person. So, rather than “calm down,” I suggested that Jorge repeat “It’s okay.”

Jorge does say “tranquilízate” over the credits, and in that instance we did translate it as “calm down.”

EXTRA CLIP 3: Hugo psyches himself out

This clip takes place between clip 4 and 5! It happens on Friday evening.

At the 00:21 mark, the camera focuses on a graffiti of a blue-skinned woman, with yellow text next to her. It says, “We are the witches you couldn’t kill.”

Pero si estoy más sudado que el rabo de Nadal (“I’m sweatier than Nadal’s wang though”): This is the exact translation, word for word. I just wanted to make clear I did not make anything up in that sentence. By the way, it took a bit to settle on wang among all the many words for a penis.

Nos alegramos porque un colega nuestro está a punto de mojar (“We’re happy because a buddy is gonna get his dick wet”): Dilan is not quite so explicit, he just says Hugo is going to “mojar,” literally, “to wet.” But, it just made me realize that “get his dick wet” is pretty much what “mojar” has meant all this time, and I just hadn’t really thought about it until I had to translate it for a teen show.

Concha de tu madre (“hurry up”): This is Latin American slang. I actually had to read up on usage, because it is most often used as an insult having to do with someone’s mother’s vagina. But I’m pretty sure that, in this context, Dilan only intends to hurry Hugo up. 😂

Social media:

I just want to have a minor breakdown about Eva actually referring to Lucas as her and Jorge’s son, lol.

Jorge has the Théophile Steinlen’s Le Chat Noir poster up in his room. As I mentioned in a previous post, Tomás Aguilera seems to be both a fan of cats and of French. The three videos of Jorge messing with his DJ system are among my very favorite Skam España social media content, because for once, they’re not a selfie.

It looks as though the shipname for Hugo/Cris is Crugo, to answer a question I posed when I posted the social media updates.

“Olé” finally makes an appearance on Skam España. I’ve decided to keep it as is, because some things would be a crime to translate. In case you’re not aware, “olé” is used to express approval and it’s commonly associated with flamenco music and bullfighting. However, it’s not just used in those two contexts. It can be used in any context. I often use it sarcastically, when someone has fucked up. 😋

[alittlepieceofwarcraft]

A Meeting of Minds: Part II

Of course, the Prophet had been beside himself with worry. They’d missed the evening meal and it was reaching close to midnight. He’d been moments away from sending a search party out into the darkness when all five stumbled in, each out of breath from rushing to his quarters in the Exodar. They rambled at first, until sat down with a cool glass of water, each being encouraged to calm down and collect themselves. They spoke of a new friendly race with strange face markings and big, pointed ears to which Velen seemed apprehensive about –  until they mentioned the orcs. They knew the orcs? The orcs were here, in this land? How could this be?

 Another expedition was formed and sent out, just two days after the first encounter. Kali was instructed to extend a formal invitation to the kaldorei to come to the Exodar wherein O’ros would be able to decipher their words with more ease that the previous party had. In an act of good faith, they brought with them baskets of gifts: gorgeous gems of warm amber, glistening emerald and a vibrant violet were set in a shining silver to create necklaces and rings to adorn their new friends. Silken robes dyed in hues of blood red, bright turquoise and glorious jade had been specially tailored just for them. Roasted meat was wrapped in cotton, heaped on top of a grand serving of root vegetables the draenei had discovered. Recalling the child she’d interacted with, Kali ensured that a large box was filled with soft plush elekks for their younglings to appreciate. The extravagant display was welcomed on behalf on the kaldorei by a group of unaware scouts, one of which was the pink skinned one from before. Recognising Kali, she’d flagged down the boat with an exaggerated wave, a pearly beaming smile spread across her face. Kali returned the grin as she docked and unloaded the piles of presents, pointing at them and then to the kaldorei, trying to say, “these are for you”. After the pleasantries had been clumsily given and received through a lengthy translation process of waving hands and pointing, she managed to indicate that she wanted the pink one to come back with them by beckoning.

“You may bring your friends, and more if you wish,” Kali had tried to suggest, flapping her arms around to attempt to make the invitation clear. Nodding at the vegetables, miming eating, waving her hands a little more before saluting, she wanted to say, “please come and dine with us and speak to our leader.” She dropped her sword to the ground, making a cross with her arms over her chest, “No weapons, you will be safe.” The pink one had paused after each charade, nodding in understanding most sentiments, but not others. After a short while, the kaldorei grasped the concept. She bowed, nodded at the boat, pointed towards her companions, then lifted a hand to present a single finger upwards before gesturing at the sun.

“Thank you for the gifts,” Kali gathered from her motions, “we will come with others, but in one day.”

 And so, it was. True to their word, they arrived at midday sharp. A group of kaldorei strung up their boat upon the shores of the draenei-claimed isle and gifted their own tributes to in return. Blocks of wood had been elegantly carved; chipped into intricate depictions of woodland creatures or twirling patterns. Wind mobiles fashioned from twigs were bound in twine, marble-like shells from the beach clinked against smoothed crystal when hung up. They too brought food and drink: sweet, rich wine that the draenei had greatly craved was shipped in by the barrel. But by far the greatest present were a small pack of giant saddled cats, beasts of which none of the draenei had never seen before. White coats were almost cut through with slashes of black markings, eyes glowing a ghostly grey. At least a dozen had been brought over the narrow sea to be handed to the draenei. They’d been unsure if they had mounts and the forest could be thick with enemies, the kaldorei later explained, these cats would be a much safer getaway should a hunting group encounter the wrong enemy. Although they bore no weapons, the two dozen kaldorei were armoured an indigo plating, almost blending in with those who were of a purple shade, feathered paldrons shielding their broad shoulders. Velen himself was there as they docked, giving a deep bow to the small army of kaldorei that had accepted his invite to their now-home.

“Greetings to the kaldorei,” he announced from the front of the draenei gathering as he tried to wrap his tongue around the softer kaldorei dialect, using as many words from their language as he could remember from the recitation of phrases the original scouting party had relayed to him. He opted to replace words he did not know with draenei and using hand gestures to convey the meaning, “I am Velen and I lead these draenei. I am most glad that you accepted the invite, and that you were pleased enough with our humble gifts that you brought your own. It was most kind.” One stepped forward, smiling warmly. Her hair was a blue shade, azure even, contrasting brightly against Velen’s own alabaster hue.

“I am Shandris Feathermoon,” she replied, giving a slight nod of the head to Velen, “I lead the kaldorei Sentinels. We were happy to return the favour and see the place you call home.” Velen pressed his lips together puzzled, unsure of what exactly she represented. “Sentinel” was not a word he knew of, but O’ros would grant clarity once they had reached his chamber. He stretched an arm out toward the direction of the Exodar.

“The vessel that is now our city lays just beyond. Please, we will lead you there.”

 All formed an orderly line when it was time to enter the Exodar that rested to the other side of the isle, all gave small gasps of amazement to the alien architecture none of their kind had ever beheld before. The walls almost hummed with a foreign energy, nearly sang with a sense of fractured peace from centuries of travel. They were fascinated by the tall ceilings that paralleled their own stooped roofs, the smell of sweet and spicy draenic seasonings wafting out of nearby bubbling pots, so different to the warm vegetable brews and slow roasted meats of kaldorei meals. Perhaps the most intriguing sensation was being able to witness a bright being of glimmering navy: a collection of geometric shapes floating up from the ground, echoing a gentle buzz around the small hall in which it dwelled. O’ros’ blessing reached around every member of both parties, almost whispering within their minds to unite their thoughts and bridge the linguistic divide between them. Through his power, the draenei and kaldorei managed to speak freely without restrictions, shedding light by further explaining past conversations that had previously spoken in a string of broken words and simple scribbles in the dirt, and learning much more about both sides.

The draenei discovered many things. The kaldorei were a race of elves, specifically night elves, and at least one other race – known as high elves – lived across on another continent. Ah yes, another continent, two more even, existed on the world of Azeroth: this one was Kalimdor, across the sea lay the Eastern Kingdoms, concluding with an icy domain known as Northrend.

Noon turned to evening, too quickly for either party to realise and would have happy chatted on for hours more if the draenei cooks hadn’t notified them that the banquet was ready. A lavish feast was prepared for the guests: smoked deer meat and slow roasted tender boar dripped with peppery gravy; steamed root vegetables of fluffy potatoes, juicy leeks and sweet turnips, all accompanied by the aged vintage of the night elves poured into silver goblets. The grand meal was laid out on a long dining table almost reaching one end of the city’s main auditorium to the other to host the honoured guests as well as those chosen to entertain them. Velen ensured that Shandris would be seated at the head and decided to seat himself to her left, concluding that conversation between representatives would be easier there rather than having to raise voices from one end to another. Velen had wanted to sit down properly to discuss other races of the land. A topic he both was mightily interested in, but also heavily concerned about. Past traumas kept him off the subject until his plate was nearly emptying. Unable to put it off for much longer, he asked her.

 “Clearly, you night elves are a successful and thriving people,” he said, reaching out to a goblet and taking a sip of wine, “and you mentioned your Quel’dorei cousins.” He prayed that he’d pronounced it efficiently through his thick draeneic accent. “Do you know of other races that live in these lands?” Kalimdor’s natives would be a much more efficient starting point before brancing out into the Eastern Kingdoms. Shandris chewed on the last slice of meat upon her plate, slowly to savour the flavour. After swallowing, she gave a small smile.

 She gave a briefing Velen on those who shared their continent. The Tauren, from how she described them, sounded to be quite the gentle giants: some standing at ten feet tall, horns curving out from their skulls and fine fur coating their bodies. Shandris spoke of a long war thousands of years ago in which the Tauren aided the elves in against terrifying foes, as well as one of the beasts later going on to be tutored in the ways of the druid by a prominent leader of their people. She noted a civil passiveness between the two races, until an orc had overthrown the tyranny of his captors and rallied the bovine-like beings into a horde of sorts. Velen winced at the mention of an orc but let her continue verbally depicting the other races across the world. Gnomes, funny little creatures, were a stark contrast to the towering Tauren; most growing to a mere three foot. However, they appeared to have a large interest in tinkering and inventions. Goblins appeared to be an unsavoury counterpart, standing a little taller but baring smaller pointed ears, their skin an olive hue. The Prophet listened politely, occasionally pressing a detail he thought he’d missed, asking a question about the culture of the people in question. From this, he noted that innovative dwarves possessed a mountain city housing a vast forge to satisfy their smelting and blacksmithing interests. Rumours of wolf-man monsters had travelled across from the east, but yet not confirmed.

“What is a man?” Velen enquired, reeling from the extensive life Azeroth offered in wonder.

“Human,” Shandris extended, and pondered for a moment. “I suppose they are much like us night elves. A little shorter, and they have strange tiny ears and eyes. They rallied many races together into what they call “The Alliance”: the humans, the dwarves, the gnomes and more recently my people. To fight the new Horde.”

“New Horde?” Shandris nodded. The general went on to explain the events of three wars Azeroth endured: the invasion of the orcs, destruction of the human capital, the end to the Dark Portal. Names Velen knew of were spoken: Blackhand, Durotan, Orgrim, Gul’dan. All had met their ends in this new world, their blinded followers only managing to find clarity within the internment camps of the humans. Her accounts were hazy, the information second-hand to her, however her recall became much clearer towards recanting the Third.

“My own people assisted the orcs and humans during a conflict that did not involve the Horde and Alliance. The dead rose, and our world tree was sacrificed for the sake of the mortal races.” Velen’s face froze in puzzlement.

“The dead rose? How can this be?”

“They call themselves the Burning Legion: an unending army of demons. Meddling in foul forces, draining life and giving life back to the dead to create mindless puppets. The right hand of their vile leader tried to use the magics of my people to gain great power. The Defiler Archimonde was ended by our shan’do… oddly enough, he and some other demons appear to be a far more crimson version of your own people, with bigger horns and fiery eyes now that I come to think of it.” Velen’s face did not move upon hearing the name, nor did it upon her epiphany of the eredar and draenei’s similar appearances. Wearily, he merely lay back in his chair, giving a sad smile, his eyes’ twinkle fading a little.

“You have told me much of your past, Sentinel,” he inclined his head at her, “perhaps it is time that you hear of ours. Our tales are more intertwined that one may expect.”

Concludes with A Meeting of Minds: Part III.

[significant-what]

meet solangelo: college friends edition

imagine: nico and will, living together in an apartment in *insert a city with a college with a great medical programme*

nico doesn’t really do school, but he does internet courses on linguistics while will attends med school

and one day will is supposed to work on some group project or another, and they go to the library only to discover it closed for maintenance or something, idk it’s not important really

the point here is that after talking about their options will sighs a little and goes, “well, i guess we can go to our place, nico is probably home but i don’t think he’ll mind”

(secretly he thinks nico is probably asleep anyway, but doesn’t say anything)

so they go to the apartment, and see nico playing video games

and ofc the other people in the group are curious about the mysterious nico that will barely ever stops talking about

like seriously, nico is mentioned in every other sentence

“- and i went home and nico had made this awesome chicken pasta sauce that -“

“- just like that, even nico said it’s crazy -”

“- just last week nico showed me this documentary -”

and they think this nico person must be one hell of a roommate if a guy like will is so over the moon with him

but nico barely looks up from his game when will calls for him, too focused on his game

“have you even moved from that spot since this morning?”

“once or twice”

“have you eaten?”

“yes, mom”

will and his course friends set up around the kitchen island and get to work, and like a good host will brews them coffee

he asks nico if he wants any, and what nico answers is just a bunch of words in a language the other guys don’t understand but sound like curse words

will only rolls his eyes, but the others are pretty taken aback, because this is the infamous nico that’s so great???

during the maybe half an hour that nico sits on the couch and the others work on their project, nico doesn’t manage to improve the first impression

basically he seems rude and grumpy, and he talks to will like he barely stands him, and will just??? sits there??? and occasionally rolls his eyes, like this is a daily occurrence? like what??

eventually nico stops his game and wanders to the kitchen, not sparing the rest of the people there a look as he goes straight to the fridge

“i thought we still had juice?”

“we would have if you had gone to the store today like i asked you”

“you asked me to go to the store?”

“multiple times, nico”

and all this while will doesn’t even look up from his text book, perfectly capable of scanning the pages for information while having a row with his apparently real ass of a roommate

(”dude, he really needs to find a new roommate”, one of the guys whispers to the other two, and they both nod, kind of worried about will)

nico huffs and looks kinda dangerous when he stomps out of the kitchen and to the hall, and they hear the jingle of keys that signal nico is going somewhere

they hope it’s the store and that he stays there until they’ve left

“did you forget something, di angelo???”

and wow, they’ve never heard will sound like that, like half-annoyed and half-exasperated, with a tinge of something that’s almost amusement but not really? what?

and then

then

they hear a very audible sigh from the hall, and nico walks back to the kitchen, straight to will, and kisses him

and not like, a peck on the cheek or even a sarcastic one on the lips

a real, slow, open mouthed kiss, with tongue, and he has both his hands on will’s cheeks and it looks so tender 

and it seems like the kiss goes on and on and on, even though it barely lasts five seconds

but nico leans back slowly, and then there’s a small peck on the lips, and stop the press, is that a smile???

“you’re a fucking asshole”, nico says, but it’s not spat out like everything else they’ve heard him say

no, this is soft and sweet, almost as if asshole is a pet name, and it occurs to them that maybe they weren’t supposed to be listening in on that?

and will, the cool guy that (in their eyes) ten seconds ago was in desperate need of a new, more respectful roommate, smiles at nico like he hung the sun and the stars, and says, just as softly, “i love you too. buy some ice cream?”

“you ate the ice cream???”

“we can order italian for dinner”

and meanwhile will’s course friends sit there with their mouths wide open like, what the hell is going on, who is this guy???

because nico seems completely different from the person that they saw just like, barely a minute ago

and then nico is gone, just like that, and will turns back to his work like nothing happened, and as the apartment door slams shut the others just look at will with round eyes like explain this 

“so like... you’re together?” is what they manage to ask first

will looks up from his notes, a little startled, and answers a little “yes?” like he thinks it was obvious

and okay, maybe it was obvious, but like

“for how long???”

and will actually stops to think for a few seconds, before his eyes get this strange glint and he says “seven years this november”

the guys look at each other, puzzled

like, maybe it would have made more sense to them if they had been together for less than a year, still adjusting to their places in each other’s lives, still learning their way around

but seven years???

“that’s longer than my dad was together with my mom” one of them blurts out in shock

“i was so sure you were going to ask ruby out by thanksgiving” says another

“and here i was going to suggest you find a more respectful roommate”

let’s just say that they have to reschedule dong the project, because these guys are goddamn noisy and want to know everything they’ve missed about will and nico’s relationship

“did you guys meet in high school or something?”

“wait, so when veronica asked you out and you turned her down, it wasn’t just because she’s a girl?”

“how come he talks to you like that?”

the guys are out before nico returns, insisting that they can meet up another time, clearly already gossiping about the new info they have on their friend

and will is not stupid, he knows that nico seemed super rude to them, but he also knows that it doesn’t matter as long as the two of them know what’s up

and maybe, just maybe, will starts planning a get together where his college friends can meet nico, properly this time

[outlyingthoughts]

My mom was right, or a story on my privileges and microaggressions: Jul 20

Sometimes, your thoughts appear to meet at a cosmic intersection, everything coinciding and suddenly unlocking another level of understanding about your reality.

The start of Summer 2020 was a cosmic intersection for my reality. From populations around the world finally leading global protests against racism and police brutality, the escalation of Police-state-like situations in France and reading more books like « So you want to talk about race » by Ijeoma Oluo; everything confirmed an uncanny feeling I grew up to have an increased acuity for: my Mom was right, the world around me, despite how privileged I had seemed to be so far, was viciously racist and being blind to the racism I suffered from didn’t make it unreal.

Growing up in France with the myth of colorblindness, « because we are all one, indivisible and equal » in the eyes of the Republic and the Laïcité, makes it easy to deny the existence of institutionalized racism. French secularism, as the central pillar of our civic culture, provides a logic for our republic to conceal its racism under the soft blanket of a republican model of integration.

The French government officially rejects both censuses and data collection based on ethnic, religious or linguistic nature of groups. As such our national social cohesion is solely relying on the idealistic dream that from the moment that we have a French nationality, it grants us all an absolute equality in treatment, legally ensured by our all-mighty constitution.

Don’t get me wrong: I loved this principle that the state should be outlawed from seeing race and obliged by the law to treat us all equally. I loved attending my civic education classes and having a program that preached that we were all included because what mattered was that we were all French before anything else. I loved feeling like it was true thanks to my already existing privileges. I’ve had the luxury to believe in this illusion, all of it, until I had to navigate the « adult world » on my own, face racism with my own eyes and discovered how facts were radically different from our nicely designed civic education program.

My privileges allowed me to swim in sweet denial of the social reality of our country. But what happens if you're not French? What happens if you’re not perceived as French by the rising extreme right wing and populist political parties, by the people in the street, by a large portion of the voters in local and national elections ? What happens when the social reality doesn’t match those beautiful principles of equality and both the public discourse and authorities turn blind to systemic injustice ?

The problem is that not every French kid of color has the luxury to feel included and valued within the French society. When adults outside of your house are biased towards people that look like you, whether it be in the street, in fancy shops or even teachers at school; when politicians and people in the news are framing people from your ethnic or religious group or even from the neighborhood you come from as dangers, criminals or frauds of the system; how can you feel French before all, equal and included ?

Unfortunately, when sociologists and researchers are interested in studying this phenomenon, it is virtually impossible for them to do so since such data and measures are deemed inherently illegal in the government’s eyes. Even minorities asking for acknowledgment of systemic discrimination and inequalities through ethnic and/or religious demographic statistics are thus called out for being separatist and/or communitarist, all of this based on the adoption of the Law on « Informatique et liberté » in January 1978 which prevented public authorities from collecting data based on racial, ethnic or religious criteria.

Since then, even laws aiming at allowing the study of diversity, social integration and discrimination have been deemed anti-constitutional. As such, there is no way in France to account for socio-economic inequalities of ethnic and religious minorities, which -of course- makes it easier to deny their existence since they legally cannot be accounted for and studied.

This lack of acknowledgment does translate into French society and the way many French people think -regardless of their skin color and religion, even though more regularly among people of caucasian appearance-. Since I started growing more and more aware of the insidious racism around me and calling it out, I received backlash on many topics like cultural appropriation or reversed racism and a lot of denying of racial issues in our country.

In France, like in many Western countries with large non-white populations, many people refer to the existence of a so-called « reversed racism » when minorities start to call out systemic racism in our societies. So much that even some of my own relatives have thrown this term in my face when I started arguing against them on institutional racism in our country.

Sadly, in France the inability to account for discrimination, inequalities and even violence against minorities makes it virtually impossible to prove with numbers how rare what they refer to as « reversed racism » is compared to the urgency to address the too common racism against people of colors.

In the context of social justice, the goal is to highlight the institutional character of racism in our societies. Reversed racism in this context does not exist because white people in Western societies do not suffer from systemic inequalities and discrimination. Because last time I checked, Caucasians looking people in France do not risk institutionalized racial profiling and violence by the police or discrimination in employment because of « reversed racism ».

To have family members, who can witness how racism plays out in my everyday life and still believe in reversed racism comes to me as a denial of the experience of people of color when facing racism. It is like turning the cheek to the other side and say « yes you may suffer because of racism but please let’s not focus on your pain because I found a concept that fits me and all my unchecked privileges and allows me to deny the experience of a whole part of the population justifying it with a form of racism that does not impact my everyday life and doesn’t exist on a systemic scale »: News flash this is extremely insulting.

These forms of insidious white privileges in people’s discourse; to be able to be blind to racism and deny its existence because it does not affect your everyday life are microaggressions to people of color, denials of our pain and prevent a fruitful debate on how to solve the issue of institutionalized racism in our societies.

On my own privileges

My mom was right, in the tender years of my childhood I was privileged enough to virtually not see a difference between me and the other white kids (apart from the hairstyles I couldn’t do or that I was tanner than them regardless of the seasons).

My paternal grandfather was white and mayor of his town, I loved going to his workplace as much as I could, always showered in compliments and candies. Sometimes I would look up at the portrait of the current president hung in a big ceremonial room in the townhall and despite knowing that my parents didn’t approve of him, still I felt so at home within the bounds of our republic.

And while such privileges didn’t lead me to be « colorblind », it did make me blind to a large part of the discrimination I suffered from when I finally old enough to face it myself. I was convinced to be living in a post-racist society, convinced that only a minority of uneducated countryside freaks who had never seen a black person could be racist. I was convinced of all of this because I lived in a country with such beautiful laws and principles on equality and republican inclusion that it seemed unimaginable that the contrary could be real.

When my black mother was trying to make me notice micro-aggressions and subtly racist situations from our everyday life, I was denying everything (“it’s not racism mom, it’s -enter whatever excuse I could make up for them-). Sometimes I’d even make fun of her for being so imaginative and overly sensitive. Worse, I would go crazy with my democratic propaganda when she’d tell me she couldn’t be bothered to go vote because she did not feel included or represented in the elections. While I still condemn not voting because (forgetting the debate on whether it is rational or not) it is both a right and a privilege that isn’t respected by the autocratic leader in my maternal country, now I also understand my mom’s stand, feeling ignored and not included in political debates. 

Today, I’m calling myself out for blindly believing in this integrative republican lie despite my own mother’s truth. When first generation but also second, third or even fourth generation immigrants are massively deemed as frauds of the system, it is logical that they have a reluctance to waste their time and resources on getting informed and involved in a system that pisses on them while still exploiting with joy their labor for the benefits of the national economy.

On Microaggressions

After reading a couple books and many essays on race like « So you want to talk about race », I felt discouraged as the wanna-be essayist I am. I didn't want to become yet another mixed essayist since we all apparently had the same stories on the way our bodies had been shamed, fetishized and sexualized whether it is our big butts, big hair, the same stories on exceptionalism and belittling compliments we receive, either making us exceptions of the group we identify as (« you’re pretty for a black girl ») or even categorizing our successes solely as a result of affirmative action (when I was applying to one of the top universities in Political Science in France, a friend of mine who was also a person of color told me that I was sure to get in because I was a great and lucky token black person).

Such discourses are so normalized and internalized that as I entered adulthood, I found myself sharing with my Caucasian father my deep fears of making it in life only because I was very often the only black or person of color in the circles and institutions I evolved within. Luckily, after a year of attending university abroad, I recovered confidence in my intelligence and abilities; but still had this fear when writing about my experience to not want to be seen as yet another angry black woman. But now the cosmic intersection struck me like a truck in my face: we all have the same story, not because we are whiny individuals and all the same but because everywhere people of color are suffering from the same discrimination and/or micro-aggressions.

What I had interpreted as my non-originality which would make me unable to succeed as a writer is just yet another proof of the systemic nature of racism and the discriminating ways of thinking and standards in our societies which we all suffer from.

Somehow, I found myself wishing at times that I had been an outcast like Ijeoma, but sadly I was socialized to match and please people’s expectations. When puberty and reality hit, I found a way to fold away myself and straighten the black out of me to fit the mold: whether it be in school, in my mostly white friend circles, in my behavior or appearance.

For the longest time from the start of my teenage years, I began internalizing all the ways societies and people told me that my “blackness” was ugly. How my hair was too big or deemed disgusting, how my fellow classmates saw me as a milking cow for starting puberty earlier than most girls. It came to a point where I genuinely believed that I could never be seen as beautiful if I let my natural bouncy curls and curvy shapes out. I was in denial of how much daily microaggressions had destroyed my self-esteem and standards of beauty.

Micro-aggressions are actions or remarks that are received as subtle or non-intentional forms of discrimination against minorities and/or marginalized group. An example of micro-aggression is someone telling you that you’ve never been arrested by the police because “you’re not that black for a black person” or that your hair is “impractical” and annoying because African hair requires more time and care to be maintained.

The problem with such remarks isn’t necessarily the intent or the way the person who made it thinks about the micro-aggression but rather the way it is received and hurts the receiver. Often times, when we do dare to stand up for ourselves against a micro-aggression, we are being told the same things I use to tell my own mother: that we are too sensitive or easily offended (especially if you’re from my generation I’m convinced you know the pleasure to hear older generations complain that we’re “a generation of offended sheep”) and only now I can understand how disrespectful and unsensitive my privileges made me towards my mom. Because I was so blinded by legal formalities and public discourse on the way society was supposed to be based on our laws, I was completely disregarding my own mother’s experience and struggle and some of you still do. That’s what unchecked privileges do.

But the violence of micro-aggressions generally isn’t rooted in the action or statement or its intent per say. Rather, most of the time, it’s in the way they are enshrined in wider systemic discrimination as repetitive and accumulated attacks on an individual across different moments and perpetrators. It turns an action which might appear inoffensive to the perpetrator (like touching someone’s hair) but will be taken as something extremely disrespectful to the receiver.

Growing up in France, hair on TV ads and the hair products on supermarket shelves were different than mine, the same way my friends at school could all have those flowy ponytails which I felt very sad my hair type didn’t allow I couldn’t have (until I begged my mom to relax my hair and she agreed when I was 7 because being a kid of a divorced couple she couldn’t take care of my hair for the whole month of summer at my father’s). But in any case, my relationship to my hair was the first instance where I felt part of a “minority” let’s say.

Getting into middle school and puberty, of course everybody gets criticized, shamed or made fun of for their difference: it’s part of teenage years. But when minor teenage bullying cross-cuts a subject which society marginalizes you for (as futile as hair and physical appearance can) and which throughout your life you’re going to get comments and/or random people’s opinions on all the time. All of this tends to weigh on one’s mind and if all the while, it is being deemed unattractive by the male gaze, then this innocent teenage bullying suddenly makes you, from a young age, internalize racism and hatred towards your own self, with the courtesy of mainstream western beauty standards.

(And yes, still today some men that I’ve frequented have dared to tell me they “didn’t mind my hair curly but they preferred my hair straight because they think I’m much prettier with” DID I ASK YOU FOR YOUR OPINION ON MY HAIR?)

I hope now it is pretty straightforward, why when my relatives tell me that my hair is impractical, I go bonkers. I’m simply sick of society, of men, of my teenage years, everything that made me internalize white beauty standards and told me that my natural appearance was not enough, not practical or not fit for them. And don’t even get me started on the ones that feel entitled enough to touch a part of my body without asking for my consent (here, only, my hair but still): Don’t touch my hair nor feel entitled to give me a judgement on my appearance.

Lastly, to put it all perspective, would you go around touching people’s ass and telling them: “well I don’t really like your butt, I'd rather you wear shapewear to change it” ?

Sources:

https://theconversation.com/how-french-law-makes-minorities-invisible-66723

https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do?idArticle=LEGIARTI000026268247&cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006070719

https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2019/03/19/la-difficile-utilisation-des-statistiques-ethniques-en-france_5438453_4355770.html

Oluo, I. (2018). So you want to talk about race. New York, NY : Seal Press

[shakingshore]

Gallifrey: The Lost Empire

Summary: Dr. James Noble is in search of a forgotten, powerful empire, and a team of unlikely individuals is recruited to work with him.

Atlantis!AU (with eventual ten x rose)

this has been sitting in my drafts for a while, and muse has only just come back to me to this chapter ~

“And so, following the textual evidence from various legends, the lost empire would be found right here,” he explained, pointing the chalk on the map, “Right under Cardiff. Why hasn’t anyone found it, then? Er, well, it’s to be determined. Theories speculate-” a sharp ringing interrupted his speech, and he ran to the telephone hanging on the wall.

“James Noble speaking, how may I help you?” he said with flourish.

“James, I know it’s you. You’re the only one down there. Mr. Chesterton needs you to fix the vent in his office, and when you’re up there he’s got letters for you to deliver.” Barbara, the secretary, more or less, was one of the only people in the building who ever contacted him. She used to teach, back in the day, so her voice was always placating yet commanding. In truth, he admired her more than anyone in this building.

He sighed into the phone. He was a doctor, and he was stuck as the secretary’s assistant and improvised handy man. “Barbara, I’m in the middle of something,” he sighed into the receiver. He was actually doing his work this time.

“You can talk to the mops another time, Mr. Chesterton needs you now.” James looked to his audience, which were indeed a variation of the janitor’s mops lined up by chairs they seemingly occupied. He was almost ready, but confidence usually got the better of him. Better to be prepared than not practice at all.

“The meeting is in fifteen minutes!”

“You mean the meeting that was scheduled an hour ago?”

“What? No, for three-thirty.”

“I have here for two-thirty, and you didn’t show up. I assumed the nerves got the best of you.”

“Oh, those sneaky little-”

“Hey, now, don’t want the bosses listening in.”

“I’ll have words with them.”

“Sure you will, just go to his office. Ask the man upstairs. And hurry before he gets on my tail!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She huffed and hung up.

James let out a frustrated groan. Of course they’d do this, they thought he was insane! But he wasn’t, he knew where to find the empire. All he needed was funding. Funding that corporate would not give him.

He gathered up his notes and diagrams, which were scattered across the floor in his haste to pick up the phone. Determination filled him as he packed his case and strutted out the door.

The door to his basement swung shut behind him, plimsolls slapping against the marble floor as he marched angrily across the lobby. The music in the lift contradicted his mood, the light classical piano not calming him down one bit.

James reached Ian’s door and didn’t bother knocking before shoving it open.

“You liar!” James exclaimed, nearly causing Mr. Chesterton to drop the case he was packing. “You said you would let me have a meeting with the board!”

“And I did, Mr. Noble, but you missed it,” he told James, undeterred by his foul mood, “Just take these to the post for me, would you?” Ian handed him a small bunch of letters tied with a loose string of twine, and he fled his office swiftly.

James followed at a brisk pace, refusing to be dismissed. “I’m not your secretary, sir. I was put in the schedule at three-thirty in the afternoon, and Barbara told me you put it for the hour before. How is that fair?”

He stopped Ian in the middle of the lobby. “I’m on the brink of discovery, I will not leave this alone.”

Ian let out a sigh. “James, I’m you friend. But I’m saving you the trouble of being humiliated in front of the board with your theories that no one will fund. These men, they think they know what does and does not exist. My word is nothing compared to theirs.” He continued walking and quickened his steps once he was out of the building, James right next to him.

“I’ve already been humiliated. I work in the basement, for God’s sake!” They ended up right in front of Ian’s car and James knew his time was almost up.

“It was the best I could do!” Ian yelled, his patience run thin. James had run out of his a long time ago. “Corporate does not see your potential, they won’t give you the job you want because they don’t think you’re a doctor.”

“I am a doctor!” James insisted, leaning over Ian’s car window.

“Yes, in astrophysics and linguistics. An odd combination and not one they deem extremely important at the moment. Your lost empire is just that to them: lost. I’m sorry.” Ian glanced at the package in James’s hands. “Check if there’s anything in there for you.” With that, he drove off.

Ian’s last statement was puzzling, to say the least. Why is he getting mail from the office? Anger dissipated but not forgotten, James checked the small parcel of letters. He pulled on one end of the string holding them together and searched for his name.

There it was, addressed to Dr. James T. Noble. Curious, they included his middle initial. It was either from a close friend, or he was in trouble.

He stuffed the letter in his coat, and headed for the post office.

“Linguistics is important,” James mumbled to no one in particular.

Hadn’t even gone for an expedition, and he was already a failed scientist. All this time researching and planning, and they wouldn’t even give him a chance because they thought he reached too far. But that’s what discoverers did, he thought, they reached so far where no one could see and grabbed onto stories to tell. And he couldn’t even get as far as touching a tide pool.

He needed a drink.

He was soaking to the bone by the time he got home. The rain was coming down hard and much to his luck his umbrella flipped up, rendering it broken and useless. Thunder crashed behind him angrily, lightning casting spooky shadows across his flat. He struggled to close the door, fighting against the wind.

His flat was small, dingy, and old. Papers and boxes nearly covered the floor and books were stuffed into the shelves of his bookcase. A perfect place for one, the ad for the space said.

An orange tabby popped its head out from one of the boxes in the corner after hearing the door open and close. It walked up to James and weaved through his legs in greeting.

“Ah, hello, K-9″. Ironic name, he knew. It was quite a laugh at the time, and it still amused him. He bent to give the cat a little pet on the head, and the letter he got earlier slipped out of his coat and onto the floor. It was wet from the rain that seeped through his coat, but not completely ruined.

Well, the sooner to open it the better.

He tore the envelope open and pulled out the paper inside. There were few words written with a neat hand.

Please report to this address as soon as possible.

W.M.

So, definitely in trouble. Definitely strange, too, he thought. The address was scrawled in big letters right under the note. He knew this area enough to know that the address was nowhere near the city. A stranger summoning him to a place in the middle of nowhere. In the middle of the night, no less! Well, technically in the middle of the day but he didn’t open the letter until now. Really, though, why would they even expect him to follow those ominous orders?

Except, there was something on the corner of the paper he recognized. Imprinted onto the paper was a large “T” with a little pattern inside. James swore he’s seen it before.

He jumped at a loud banging on his door. K-9 panicked and ran back and forth across the floor and into his bedroom, nearly tripping him over on his way to the door.

“Dr. Noble, please open the door.” A woman’s voice. What would a woman be doing here?

“Who are you?” he said bravely, one eye on the peephole. Her face was blocked by a big hat, and she wore a long dark coat. Her hands were in her pockets and he could hear her heel tapping impatiently on the floor.

“Open the door and I’ll tell you.”

He grabbed his broken umbrella just in case.

“Hello, James. My name is Dr. River Song. I’m here under orders of the Torchwood Institute.”

Oh, bloody fantastic.

[dragon-village]

Volcano Ship: A Headcanon

[ecotone99]

[MF] Kuyo Kuyo

Listening to classical music, especially Mozart’s Turkish March, was the best way to focus. The playful drills transitioning to festive chords always filled me with energy and cheered me up during stressful days. But my energizer had begun to wane as I reached the tenth day of exam prep. The drills now seemed to mock me and the chords beat in synch with my headache.

No worries, I had prepared a backup to wash away my fatigue. Just picturing the sweet milk tea and the chewy tapioca pearls eased a bit of the pounding in my head. I didn’t even feel annoyed when my roommate Mark ignored my greeting as I passed the shared living room, heading towards the kitchen.

There were three of us sharing the big apartment. Gideon, our third roommate wasn’t that bad. A bit oblivious and invading one's private space but with good intentions most of the time. We had our oddities and quirks but Mark leaned more on the extreme side of the scale.

People often indulge in their hobbies after finishing their main priorities, like studying or working. But for Mark, gaming was his main priority. He could throw himself into his games and ignore everything else.

The cans of energy drinks surrounding him and his bloodshot eyes meant that he probably pushed his limit for something ridiculous again.

If only he’d given the same passion to the more important things in life.

Each person handled stress in their own way, I guess. Some simply gave up and played games. Others, like me, prepared beforehand and had a pick-me-up in the refri—

I blinked and shook my head, trying to clear the imaginary numbers and formulas crammed inside my mind, and looked closer inside the refrigerator. My boba drink was nowhere to be found.

A fizz seeped into the kitchen as Mark cracked open another can, followed by audible gulps and lip-smacking.

Would Mark drink someone else’s stuff without permission? Of course, he would. He still hasn’t apologized to Gideon for that bottle of Jager.

I slammed the refrigerator door and stormed off to the living room. Mark didn’t even rise from his seat from all my stomping and huffing, merely pausing the game and connecting with my eyes.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” I asked, seething.

“No,” Mark blurted out. His brows then furrowed as he processed what I said. “What is it this time?”

He scanned me, before putting down the controller and edging away from the TV and Playstation.

“My boba drink in the refrigerator. You took it, didn’t you?”

“Whaaat?” Mark’s voice turned high and squeaky, he sounded offended by my accusation. “Why would I do that? I don’t even like boba.”

“You said the same thing with the salt and vinegar chips, but I saw a half-eaten bag of it in your room last week.”

“That’s different. I prefer other chips, and I would choose other options before salty-vin. But I won’t say no to eating a bag or two.”

“That’s not the words you used when you tried them, you said — “ I stopped myself, realizing Mark had switched topic.

My headache flared up. I just wanted something to be right. That a plan I made would work out. But reality wasn’t so kind.

Now Mark began to spin a theory how it was more probable that our third roommate Gideon had taken it on the way to the library this morning. He was trying to blame on someone else.

I went behind the TV and grabbed hold of the main cable, staring Mark in the eyes.

“Don’t you dare,” he whispered with a threatening tone, but his body was frozen in place.

It felt great pulling the plug on the Playstation.

​

*****

​

Why was Will grinning like that, as if he’d just defeated a big bad? If anything, he was Sephirot and my poor PS4 was Aerith.

Thirty hours. I had invested over thirty hours for my next achievement: To clear Arcade Mode without losing a single hit point. And he pulls the plug when I’m on the last boss battle?

Some might say that my goal was impossible. Others had firmly expressed how it was a waste of time. But they wouldn’t know glory even if it flashed itself in front of them. The satisfaction behind completing such a grand achievement wasn’t just about defeating the machine. It was defeating it perfectly, thrashing it, showing who’s the boss. That it lacks the power of the human spirit.

Yes, it was humanity challenging the machines.

Of course I was mad when all my efforts got thrown out the window. Everyone knows that you can’t save in Arcade Mode, you must do it in one take. Of course I threw stuff at Will. It was expected. And what the hell was that about a boba-drink? I had already said that I didn’t like it. Why would I drink something I didn’t like?

“Check through my empty cans, your stupid boba isn’t here!”

Oh boy, Will was turning into a baby, screaming and shouting about boba this and boba that.

“It wasn’t me you, iron-ranker! It’s because you don’t listen to people that you can’t climb in League! Do you even know that only a small percentile who plays the game even manages to get that low of a rank? Reflect on your actions for heaven’s sake. Meditate on some Dark Soul and learn some patience!”

Great, he’s gone silent now, biting his lower lip. I was the victim here, damnit. And now he ran back to his room.

What the hell. I can’t handle this. Gideon can clean up this mess.

​

*****

​

The library was particularly wonderful this afternoon as the sound of paper turned and hushed whispers filled my ears. Goal-oriented students occupied the tables, everyone with a clear vision in mind of what they had to do. I knew that I just had to sit amongst them for an hour or so and I too would get a visit by Athena, Saraswati or maybe Tir. They were knocking on my mind’s door, ready to bless me with knowledge to—

The phone in my pocket vibrated.

Not today. Today was study day, my last chance to cram before the test.

But I’ll just check who’s calling. It won’t take a second.

Mark. How interesting. He doesn’t often initiate conversations with me.

The vibrations from the phone grabbed the attention of nearby students, who sent me angry glares. I rose from my seat and answered the call as I headed outside, curious to hear what Mark wanted. It won’t take a minute. It might be something important.

“Hey man, I need help.” Mark’s voice sounded frustrated. “Will’s having a fit again.”

“Oh no, what happened?”

“Someone drank his boba and blamed me. Went all crazy.”

“The one with those chewy things? How strange that he thought you would take it. Didn’t you say you hated it?”

“That’s what I said! And you know what he did after? He pulled the plug on my Playstation!”

“No, he did not!”

“While I was playing!”

“I’m sorry to hear that. How many hours?”

“Thirty plus. He’s shut himself in his room now and I don’t know how to handle this. Could you talk to him? Check what’s wrong? Because something isn’t right. He’s been stomping around in his room and blasting that irritating piano music for a while now. I don’t think he’s really mad about the drink. Well, maybe a bit, but it’s never just because of a drink or a snack when it comes to Will.”

“Why don’t you talk to him?” I asked. “Some bonding between you two would be great.”

“Right, like when I apologized for spilling a few drops on his book?”

“The book was soaked, and ‘Here you go’ isn’t really an apology. I must give you credit for the towel and the napkins though.”

“I ain’t touching that ticking time-bomb. It’s best to let a specialist handle it.”

“Why that’s sweet of you to say. See, give Will some compliments like this now and then. I think he’ll appreciate it.”

“He’ll just think I insulted him again. Look, can you defuse the bomb?”

“I’ll do that when I get back home. I’m studying right now.”

A chuckle leaked out from the other side. “Yeah right, have you even opened a book yet?”

“No, but I’m feeling focused and energized.”

“Glad to hear that. I’ll hang at my girlfriend’s tonight.”

“Alright, hope you have fun there.”

“Oh, you know I will,” Mark said and hung up.

A bit crude in character, but Mark means well, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. I headed back to my seat and flipped open my book in linguistics, but the deities weren’t knocking on my door anymore. A new seed had grown inside my mind, distracting me from my studies.

Ah well, let’s go and check on Will. It won’t take an hour. I can study after.

​

*****

​

Rachmaninoff always had a flair for drama. His Opus 3 in C-sharp drenched my room with heavy bass tones and feelings of dread. It made me think of a monster swimming at the bottom of the ocean, biding its time to strike.

The music was supposed to warn other residents that I was in a bad mood and not to disturb me. But oblivious Gideon had ignored it and knocked anyway. Since my lock was broken there was only one thing to do. I cranked up the volume on my stereo even further.

Gideon entered. His expression mixed concern with curiosity. That man had no fear. He would start chatting with a group of hostile strangers without hesitation if he found them interesting. Glares and snide remarks bounced off his thick skin. Sometimes I wished my skin was the same.

“Will, how are you?” he shouted over the music. “I heard that you had a fight with Mark.”

“It’s nothing,” I said, not making eye contact and staring at my book.

“I’m sorry, but can you speak louder? I can’t hear you over the music.”

I sighed and turned off my stereo.

“It’s nothing,” I repeated, and returned to my desk again, swiveling my chair and showing my back to Gideon.

“Oh, alright then,” he said, and sat down on my bed without asking for permission.

He stayed silent for a full minute while I tried to read my book. Through my peripherals, I saw him lean closer to the stereo.

“Was that Rachmaninoff?” Gideon asked, breaking the silence.

I nodded as I flipped a page.

“What happened to Mozart and Handel?” he continued.

“I was in the mood for Rachmaninoff,” I said. “Do you mind? I’m trying to read here.”

“Oh, I don’t mind at all,” Gideon said. “Are you perhaps reading something dramatic or tragic?”

I finally looked at him with an eyebrow raised in confusion.

“It sounded very dramatic,” he said and shrugged, “so I was wondering if you played the music to enhance your readings.”

He leaned closer towards me, his eyes squinting to read the words in my book. “What are you reading?”

“Multivariable calculus.”

“Ah, a tragedy then.”

“What do you want, Gideon?”

“Oh, I’m just checking on you. Since you had a fight with Mark.”

“And I said it’s nothing.”

“That’s not a proper answer to my question. You don’t respond with ‘It’s nothing’ to ‘How are you’. That’s just wrong in both syntax and context.”

“No it’s not. I’m referring to the fight. It’s correct.”

“But I’m referring to you. That should’ve been obvious.”

The numbers in the book couldn’t stave off Gideon’s relentless attacks. I turned around, staring him down.

“I am fine. Thank you,” I said, enunciating each word.

“It’s not proper to lie either,” Gideon said. “What’s wrong?”

He then patted on my bed, like he was playing bongo drums, urging me to sit next to him.

There was no way to get him out of the room. Trying to shove him out would only result in him locking my arms in some MMA-crap while he continued with the conversation like it was all normal. I could only oblige.

“It’s more than the boba-drink, isn’t it?” Gideon asked, as I sat down.

“I’m just worried,” I said.

“About what?”

“About...everything?” There, I said it. Now I wouldn’t be able to stop. “About life, about choice, about… everything. Will I graduate? Will I get a job? Will I even be happy with what I work with? I don’t hate math, but I don’t really like it either. Can I really live like that? I’m just worried that it won’t work out. My parents wants me to move to Shanghai with them after I graduate, but I’m not sure if I want to. On one hand, it’s a great career opportunity, but on the other hand I’ve had my whole life here in this town, I don’t want to up and leave everything. Will it even work out there? And if it doesn’t, can I even return back to this town after wasting my time there?”

The words vomited out of my mouth. Each worry I expressed felt like an acid reflux.

Gideon listened as I prattled on. He nodded and tilted his head every now and then, maybe to respond but stopped himself. Whenever I choked on my worries, he would rub my back with upward strokes as if gently guiding the words out of my mouth.

“You’re taking things too seriously,” he concluded when I was done.

“Of course,” I said. “It’s my life. Why shouldn’t I take it seriously?”

But he wagged his finger in response. “Sometimes it’s easier to let things happen without worrying about the consequences,”

“Besides,” Gideon continued, drumming his fingers on his knees and gazing at the ceiling, “I’ve always hated the word ‘worry’ in the English language. It sounds too close to ‘world’, and ‘weary’, and those are too big and serious sometimes.”

He muttered ‘worry’ to himself a few times, grimacing as he tasted the word. “It reminds me of ‘warrior’ too, and they also take themselves too seriously. I wish we had borrowed more words from other languages.”

“And throw English into more chaos?” I said and shook my head.

“Do you know how they say ‘worry’ in Japanese?” Gideon asked.

I didn’t.

“It’s kuyo kuyo.”

I could only chuckle. “It sounds like baby-talk.”

“Yes, that’s exactly it,” Gideon said and snapped his fingers. “Baby-talk. You can’t take it seriously if it’s baby-talk. When you think about ‘worry’ in English, it becomes all serious and overwhelming. But start exchanging ‘worry’ with kuyo kuyo and suddenly it becomes much easier to handle.”

He put a hand on my shoulder. “Do that.”

“Do what?”

“Those things you said just now. I worry about this. I worry about that, but instead of saying worry, say kuyo kuyo.”

“That’s just silly.” Besides, I didn’t want to experience that vomiting sensation again.

“Give it a try. I can start,” Gideon said and cleared his throat. “I kuyo kuyo that I’ll wake up late for tomorrow’s lecture.”

He looked at me with eagerness in his eyes.

Still feeling the nausea from my word vomit, I closed my eyes and whispered. “I kuyo kuyo that I’ll choose poorly.”

“There you go,” Gideon said and patted my back. “I kuyo kuyo that my date with Angie won’t go well.”

“I kuyo kuyo that Mark won’t forgive me.”

“He’ll be fine,” Gideon said. “He’ll just think of it as another challenge. Besides his girlfriend will probably cheer him up. My turn.”

And we continued on for a while. Replacing each worry with a kuyo kuyo. It sounded silly. It sounded childish. But most importantly, it sounded less daunting. As if I spoke about someone else’s problem.

“Getting late now,” Gideon said as he checked his phone for the time. “Let’s order some pizza for dinner.”

“Thanks, Gideon,” I said. “I feel much better now.”

He flashed a satisfied grin. “Any more worries you want to transform into kuyo kuyo’s?”

“I think I’m out of worries,” I responded and felt it to be true. Exhaustion clinged to me and my mind wobbled around in a groggy blankness, but the splitting headache had gone.

Gideon patted me on the shoulder.

“I have one left,” he said. “You want to hear it?”

“Sure.”

“I kuyo kuyo that you’ll throw something at me because I drank your boba-drink. Sorry.”

A chuckle rolled out from my throat as I reached for a pillow.

​

​

Thank you for reading. Thoughts and feedback are always welcome!

submitted by /u/Errorwrites [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2MRmO4V

[maryalexandra25-blog]

The Greatest Showman: Freedom, Radical Authenticity, And YOUR Power To Change The World

Inspired by The Greatest Showman starring Hugh Jackman

Leaving the gym at around 7:30 am, after spending a little time getting my stretch on in the steam room, and upping my early morning social media game, I listen…

“You stumble through your days got your head hung low your skies’ a shade of grey like a zombie in a maze…”

As I listen to The Greatest Showman soundtrack, Hugh Jackman’s words pierce my psyche and my heart. His song, Come Alive, at once, spirals me through a sea of memories of the 15 years that I spent the majority of my life counting down the minutes and hours until I could finally leave work, go home to a lonely existence, and rinse and repeat the next day.

Then comes the promise of a light somewhere peeking through the cracks in the tunnel

“Come alive, come alive Go and ride your light Let it burn so bright Reaching up To the sky And it’s open wide You’re electrified…”

A distinct memory envelopes my mind- I’m standing behind the counter in the weather office at Marine Corps Air Station Camp Pendleton.

My Sergeant Major, at the time, had just come into the office to tell me that, although the command knew my intent to exit the Marines, I’d just been slated to fill what is called a “B-billet.” This basically means that I’d been put on a list to be forced into one of the most demanding, shit show jobs, you could possibly do while still stateside (recruiting, drill instructing, combat instructing or if you’re lucky, embassy duty), and that only people who are looking to get promoted and plan to stay in until retirement, actually subject themselves to.

Now, some people spend their entire military career aspiring to fill the image of one of these perceived superheros, but I’d recently been promoted to Staff Sergeant (E-6) and would be exiting the Marine Corps in about a year-and-a-half. There was no reason for me to complete a b-billet. But, out of esprit de corps, I offered to extend my enlistment to fulfill the obligation requirement of whatever billet Uncle Sam decided to throw me into.

And then it happened…the ultimate betrayal…

We had this saying in the Marine Corps, that we used metaphorically, whenever we felt like we were being screwed by the good old USMC. We called it, getting the “green weenie.” Well, Uncle Sam gave it to me that day when I was informed that extending my enlistment to fulfill the 36 month obligation required to fill a b-billet, was not good enough. If I were selected, I’d be forced to reenlist for 4 more years and if I refused to reenlist, I’d be “awarded” with a special derogatory code that would follow me for eternity, indicating that I “refused orders.”

The lyrics continue, “Cause you’re just a dead man walking Thinking that’s your only option But you can flip the switch and brighten up your darkest day Take the world and redefine it Leave behind your narrow mind You’ll never be the same…”

And in that moment, a switch DID flip, and I have NEVER been the same!

Up until that moment, sitting in the Career Planner’s office, there had been a little part of me still questioning whether I wanted to take the plunge away from the security of a federally funded career, and into the vast unknown and discomfort of reintegration into civilian society. But at once, that last flicker of honor, uncertainty about my decision to exit the Corps, vanished. After such an unjust attempt to back me into a corner, the Corps represented more of a prison than a voluntary fighting force.

But who was I kidding-it was a prison all along!

Within a few months, I had submitted for, and carried out an “early out” package, releasing me from service six months early. I’d dodged the b-billet bullet and was not going to waste time removing myself from the stranglehold of the ultimatum I was given (even after expressing my willingness to compromise to fit the “needs of the Marine Corps,”). This is not, by the way, how to maintain low attrition rates in your organization!

Not surprisingly, upon exiting the military, I dove head first into a situation that would land me repeating an only slightly-improved-version of the same thing I’d just left behind. After two years in college, my dream college actually, I realized that I was repeating the old pattern, positioning myself to end up working my ass off for four or eight years and then go work another nine-to-five.

I couldn’t decide on one thing to devote my life to studying and I was freaking out on the inside.

Then it happened- the ultimate resistance, right at the end of a semester. A situation arose that resulted in flying my two young nieces out to New York City. I figured it’d be no big deal, in such a big city, to find childcare for them. Boy was I wrong! Taking care of the girls really shook me. Not only did I end up having to withdraw at the end of the semester, but it made me realize that I wanted to have more children and I also wanted to finally carry out my lifelong dream to travel and experience other cultures. What I did NOT want to do was have more children before getting to do those things. I wanted to feel free. Since I married at 18, had my daughter right before my 20th birthday, and seperated from her father five months later, I never got to experience that freedom from responsibility that characterizes many American’s 20-somethings.

After the girls left, I completed one more semester- a course on Indian Art and Architecture and a course on East Asian Buddhism- and I was ready to go travel. I had fallen behind on the payments of my investment property in California, was facing possible foreclosure, and used my student loans to pay for the cost of the kids, so I was stuck between a rock and a hard spot. Fortunately, I’d bought the place, three years earlier, with a lot of foresight. I decided to sell the house, and came out $60,000 on top, even after the back payments, and realtor fees.

By now, you’re probably wondering how all of this ties together…

Well, my first trip was to one of the most transformational events I’ve experienced in my life, Unleash the Power Within with Anthony Robbins. This event forced me to dig VERY VERY deep, and completely changed the trajectory of my life. For the first time, I was beginning to understand myself; for the first time in a long time, I felt truly inspired to be alive. I decided that the three most important things I could possibly do were to understand myself better, trust my instincts and pursue my passions. Tony also planted the seed that peaked my interest in “multiple income streams” and business. So, I proceeded to buy every program he offered, and then scheduled lessons in Neuro-linguistic Programming, hypnosis, tantra yoga, and Japanese Taiko drumming. Yes, I was all over the map. But I was happy.

While I missed learning from some of the world’s best, and I missed the idea of possessing that Ivy League degree (the status symbol that I now understood was serving as a source of significance, certainty and certain misery for me), I was much happier being the free spirit that was authentically me. The person I’d almost forgotten completely over the many years I’d clutched to certainty and significance as my primary needs (an unconscious mistake that prevents true fulfillment for so many of us).

I caught a glimpse of freedom. I feel it…

“When the world becomes a fantasy And you’re more than you could ever be ’Cause you’re dreamin’ with your eyes wide open And you know you can’t go back again To the world that you were living in ’Cause you’re dreamin’ with your eyes wide open So, come alive…”

And after almost 3 years of extreme personal growth, building multiple streams of income and learning the ins and outs of passion-based business,

when I listen to The Greatest Showman soundtrack, my soul comes alive.

Not only because I resonate so deeply with the message of the movie: the struggles and beauty of entrepreneurship; our power to create; our ability to alter the trajectory of the world we live in, if we only take the risk of following our heart; the importance of seeing the potential in others; the liberating effect of radical authenticity; accepting the good with the bad, I could go on and on!

“I am not a stranger to the dark Hide away, they say ’Cause we don’t want your broken parts I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars Run away, they say No one’ll love you as you are…”

This movie also served as a little reminder of my childhood dream of performance, my love of singing, of theater, the parts of myself I’ve learned to hide over the years. It allowed me to understand that it’s ok, and even healthy, to do life for you, on your terms.

I am not responsible for fixing the world or anyone else in it; just myself.

As Rupaul mentioned in a recent Oprah interview, the purpose of life is to experience life, to enjoy it, that’s first and foremost.

“When the sharpest words wanna cut me down I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out I am brave, I am bruised I am who I’m meant to be, this is me Look out ’cause here I come And I’m marching on to the beat I drum I’m not scared to be seen I make no apologies, this is me…”

Gandhi said, “be the change you wish to see in the world.” The depth of this quote is unending, I’m learning, as the lesson continues to flow constantly. Hind Swaraj (home-rule) is a never ending process of personal growth!

Yes, it’s true, that stepping into your authenticity is as uncomfortable as it is empowering.

You will be criticized, ostracized and outcasted. But it is fully worth it! When you embrace the discomfort, it is then that your inner superheroine will shine forth from the S on your chest (in your heart that is).

“Another round of bullets hits my skin Well, fire away ’cause today, I won’t let the shame sink in We are bursting through the barricades and Reaching for the sun (we are warriors) Yeah, that’s what we’ve become (yeah, that’s what we’ve become)…”

All I ask of you now, is that you become a warrior with me!

“’Cause darling without you All the shine of a thousand spotlights All the stars we steal from the nightsky Will never be enough Never be enough Towers of gold are still too little These hands could hold the world but it’ll Never be enough…”

Let’s steal the night, feel the warmth of a thousand spotlights, enjoy the gold, and hold the world…together! Empowered by our unique strengths, dreams, visions and perspectives; by each of our unique and fully authentic truths. Let’s take the world by storm. Let’s be the change we wish we could see. Let’s see the incredible potential in one another, once and for all. Let’s set high expectations for life and take full responsibility in creating it.

Join the me and the FeminineStrong movement Connect with me, personally, on Snapchat Check out The Greatest Showman Trailer 

[performamagazine]

(Brian O’Doherty, Speaking in Lines, 2016, Installation View, Simone Subal Gallery, Courtesy of the Artist, P! and Simone Subal Gallery. Photo: Phoebe d'Heurle.)

Brian O'Doherty in conversation with Mira Dayal

A recent show at Simone Subal Gallery, Speaking in Lines, presented a group of works by the artist Brian O'Doherty that had not been on view since the 1960s and ‘70s. Their formal elements included sparse variations of arrangements of lines across mirror, canvas, and paper. Together, they represented the artist's ongoing interrogations of language—its legibility and ability to be layered into visual forms—specifically through the Ogham alphabet, a Medieval Irish script that was traditionally used in epigraphs and inscriptions, composed entirely of straight and slanted dashes aligned horizontally. For O'Doherty, using this alphabet is a way of allowing work to "speak" through a visual register. A series of drawings "written" in the language hung across from four vertical mirrored sculptures engraved with words. Two spare paintings spoke to each other across the room on the subject of hair. With their orderly marks across white surfaces, the drawings (and paintings, actually drawn with watercolor marker on unprimed canvas) seemed to represent networks and textures, a vocabulary with contemporary resonance. I found the show provocative, particularly in a time when language seems to misfire repeatedly or fail to deliver its promises. To discuss these works and the larger ideas they evoked, I visited O'Doherty this spring in the home he shares with his wife, the art historian Barbara Novak. We first discussed his career and perspective on the importance of "diversifying" as an artist and writer, eventually finding our way into conversations on his uses of language in performances, writings, sculptures, and installations.

Mira Dayal: I recently organized a writers' panel on those who work in both art criticism and poetry. Several of the writers we invited discussed the use of opacity in poetry and art, by which they meant resisting the spectator's desire to make meaning of the work in order to reveal the spectator's desire to make meaning at all. You wrote in your book Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space about the Eye being servant of the mind in conceptual art. I was wondering if you think this kind of opacity is desirable.

Brian O'Doherty: That's an unanswerable question. I'm in favor of clarity...I don't think you can put poetry and art writing or prose together. Poetry is a whole different category of difficulty, in that you are refreshing, reusing, and reinventing language in ways that pursue elusive meanings. But in prose, obscurity is no virtue, none whatever. The effort after meaning—which is a natural imminence—is another matter, useful in many ways, including looking at art.

MD: What about in art itself? In your work, there are many layers of meaning—

BOD: There are mute quasi-spoken conventions of art-making, which are entirely another category of utterance, and there you are free to do what you want to do... But you know, these are different categories, different efforts after meaning. Prose is a language designed to communicate, isn't it?

MD: I was interested in your take on that because you have, of course, written widely about art, but I was also reading that you've been relatively resistant to publishing a lot of your writing on your own art. You would send it to curators, friends, or other artists rather than to magazines. So I saw that as a way of—

BOD: Hold on. I've been doing that this very morning. [He gets up and goes to find something, returning with a stack of papers. They are letters he has written to artists, galleries, friends and others over the years. Some are illustrated with drawings, handwritten notes, and other marks. All are beautifully written.] Here are letters collected by a wonderful writer in Dublin, Brenda Moore-McCann, who's written splendidly about my work. She's trying to get them published.

So, effort after meaning—do you want more on that?

MD: Definitely. Or you could talk about your practice as an artist intersecting with your practice as a writer. Do those feed into each other?

BOD: They do and they don't. I've lived my life in terms of defined categories, because when I was doing medicine, I was making art, and I was writing about art, and I was playing football and being young, drinking, chasing girls. I never let these categories get in each other's way. It's good to have this attack on several fronts. If you're making art and you're blocked there, you can write about it. If you're blocked about writing about art, maybe you can go write a novel, right? And then the blockage on the art side clears up, and you go back to that...time will pass and things will open up again, in a natural way.

That's one of the good things about diversity. Diversity is very important in finance and I think the same thing is true about the individual. I would also add that my theme song, which should be set to music, is that people are capable of infinitely more than society allows them, because in every way, one's future, one's originality, one's diversity, one's fulfillment, is blocked, circumscribed, and—through some weakness in human nature—compressed by "outside forces," the gatekeepers and administrators.

And this whole business of identity with respect to what one is allowed to do…I know that very well because I started in medicine, and that's a huge field, are you going to be an obstetrician, an internist, a geriatrician, a psychiatrist, or a public health official? You have to make choices there, but once you're in that group—and Americans are very much in groups—you're not allowed to get out of your groups.

I've noticed also, speaking about medicine—I mentioned earlier the categories of obstetrician, psychiatrist, internist—that when an internal medicine guy is 50, and he says, "I want to do something different. I'm tired of being an internist. I want to become a writer, a poet," that's not allowed. What a reception he would get from the poetry community: "Shut up and go away." That is one of the biggest things I've noticed in life as I've gone on. So the way I've dealt with that is through diversity. Keep it at the same level of quality in everything you do.

MD: I want to return to your discussion of identity in relation to your work as a doctor, because one of your "alter egos" in your writing was a woman.  Now, in a lot of medical practices, people are talking more about the fluidity of gender, and that's also discussed more in contemporary art. Your book of historical fiction, The Crossdresser's Secret, is written from the perspective of "the Chevalier d'Éon, who lived as both man and woman, French spy and European celebrity."  I was wondering how you think about these contemporary discussions of gender fluidity, because it seems like you were a predecessor to them, in some ways.

BOD: When I worked in Washington [for the National Endowment for the Arts], I was initially in charge of the visual arts, and then films, television, radio. I was trying to get various programs funded, mostly successfully...but I learned about the profound hostility in America towards gays and lesbians. And I—I'm not a hero here, I'm just doing my job—made many, many efforts to get gay organizations funded. They pay taxes; they've got two legs and a tail like the rest of us. The prejudice that met that was astounding to me.

Fortunately things are better now. That war is still going on. But there's been a swing in the past five years, positively.

MD: And then negatively in the past few months, at least in the discourse from Washington D.C....

BOD: Yes, Trumpism is trying to defund Planned Parenthood, which does so much for women's health.

MD: In relation to that, the genesis of your most well-known alter ego, Patrick Ireland—under whose name you created work for 36 years—was distaste for the political situation in Northern Ireland at the time. I was wondering if you've had any impulse over the past year to create a similar shift in your identities or in the ways in which you're practicing.

BOD: No, that was my battle. Northern Ireland, occupied by the British army, engaged in various repressions, culminating in the killing of 15 peace marchers in Derry in 1972 by a British parachute regiment. The marchers were unarmed...small in terms of Syria and the rest of the world's atrocities, but that was my impetus for changing my name to something that the British have, for hundreds of years, hated, because you hate whom you oppress, I guess. The impetus was that massacre, for which David Cameron, the former British prime minister, after almost 40 years, apologized.

MD: Do you think language has changed much, especially now in regard to the media? So much of your work has to do with the failure of communication, this gap between the communication of images and the communication of language.

BOD: It's always the same. There are always varieties of oppression, varieties of freedom that prevail socially and for individuals. In terms of language and the uses of language, the corruption of language in authoritarian societies is brilliantly analyzed by George Orwell in Politics and the English Language. Now we have such linguistic perversions as "alternative facts."

In 1967, I boiled down my language to three words, the only ones I use in my work: One, Here, and Now. There's a long conversation here about language.

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