#meanwhile i have read the book cover to cover six or seven times

[captain-noir]

now that i have rereread iwtv i realize that rolins is godsent wallahi this show would be doa if we got a one to one straight adaptation and not because of any content issues or the moral constitution of a modern audience but because that shit would have been boring as hell. like change the channel, scroll thru twitter diy lobotomy sesh boring. love the book, truly a formative masterpiece but if i had to sit through it in visual format id kill myself 

[matrose]

what is ddf?

hi anon so happy u asked this because it allows me to type a wall of text about a topic i love to talk about!!!!! ❣️ ddf is short for "die drei fragezeichen" which is the german version of the american kids book series "the three investigators", written by robert arthur! it follows three young detectives that are 13 at the beginning of the series and later get aged up to 17/18 so they can drive cars. the publishing history is hilarious so im gonna recount the whole thing to you

- only ten books were written by robert arthur himself, before he passed away in 1969

-the series was then continued by additional four authors who wrote an additional 37 books, at this point the characters were still 13, but a rivaling book series that also featured a group of kids aged their characters up, so of course the same had to happen to the investigators.

- the characters, now around 17 years old get lots of cool updates, like knowledge of hand to hand combat, drivers licenses, and a ton of new authors. this new series was called crimebusters and only ran from 1989 to 1990, but managed to produce 13 books, written by seven different people, six of them being new additions to roster. with this, the american career of the three investigators ends.

-germany meanwhile, picked up the books around 1979 and they get very popular (after a rough start and a cover redesign)! so germany does what germany loves to do and makes audiodramas out of them, writing scripts, hiring voice-actors, and recording them onto cassettes of course. the voice-actors are of course actual 13 year olds! (for now.) and wow does everybody go crazy for these casettes!!! people cant get enough of them!

-when the american production of ddf books ceases, the german population is very sad: soon they will run out of ddf scripts! but not to worry. after some legal disagreements, more books finally get written! in german now of course! and by FOURTEEN different authors! the first german ddf book gets released to the public in 1993.

-the three voice-actors at this point have become a household staple. almost everyone knows their voices. the kids that grew up listening to them are now having kids on their own who are of course also listening to them. (this mostly applys to western germany for obvious reasons). so in the early 2000s the voice-actors start doing livetours of their readings

-these livetours are a huge hit: sometime between then and now, they broke the world-record for biggest audience at a live audiodrama, somewhere in berlin. for some reason two of the voice-actors (one of them married. with kids) put in a segment that involves them singing romantic karaoke and then kissing on the stage, always met with thunderous applause. this little joke of theirs keeps going and their two characters become incredibly gay, which everyone refuses to acknowledge because "its a joke" (????).

-theyve had an enormous impact on german popculture to the point where theres been ddf toasters, ddf tents, ddf shoelaces, ddf anythings. ddf pizza. i myself own a ddf mug a ddf towel and a ddf pin, because i of course also grew up listening to the audiodramas, on cassettes that i got from my parents who listened to those same cassettes when they were kids. the books are still going (currently at volume um, around 230 i believe?) and the audiodramas are also steadily coming out. theyve got these german men that are all balding and over 50 voice some peppy 17 year old californians! lifes so funny

-i realize that by telling you this timeline ive told you very very little about the actual plot, but the plot isnt that important anyways... its three guys theyre detectives thats mostly it. the adventures are basically insane (one time one of them got shot into space? another time some crime boss who was genuinely kin with moriarty and was convinced their leader their 17 year old leader was his sherlock kidnapped them to have some sherlock v moriarty showdown with him. theyre in a permanent stand-off with the CIA because theyve got some info on them that they could easily leak to the press and thats the only reason they arent in federal prison: the CIA is scared to act lest they leak their info. anyways lots of normal things!)

-also i just want to reiterate that there have been 25 seperate people writing these books and that theres now 230 books out there and theyre still releasing more and that these voice-actors have been their characters for 40 years...thats just crazy to me

[pencilofawesomeness]

htryds microshot: book nerds

October 7, X778

 It was starting to get colder, but secretly, Levy couldn’t wait for it to be colder. Then, nobody would complain if she curled up inside of her dorm-apartment and read all day long.

Not that there wasn’t stuff to do in the guild, of course, or with Jet and Droy. In fact, there had been a ton of new members this year, and some of them were even her age, which was nice, so Levy really should get to know them better.

The Strauss siblings were nice, even though the oldest one had quickly gotten…intense. Lisanna and Elfman were very kind though (and she was sure Mirajane was too, but she wasn’t the most approachable, so Levy wouldn’t know), and then there was the other group of… siblings? They seemed like siblings, with the way they stuck together, though Levy also knew that that wasn’t always indicative, but she, Jet, and Droy only knew other from the orphanage, but they were like brothers to her, and they stuck together like they were family, too.

Although the youngest boy and the older one did look similar. They both had black hair and red eyes, and red eyes weren’t something that was common. Not that the girl, Wendy, looked anything like them though. Wendy and Rogue she had the most contact with. They were delightful children—and quite young; it was amazing they could perform magic at their age—and very polite. She had been helping them with reading material ever since she found out they were still learning. And of course they were—they were only six or seven. The older one, Gajeel, was closer to her age, but he was more…stand-offish. And intimidating. She wasn’t sure if it was all of the piercings or the way he always glared and sulked in corners. What was it about the oldest of a group of three being the scariest? (Well, there was nothing scary about Jet, so that observation was limited to the two new groups of Fairy Tail.)

Enough about that, though. Levy had properly introduced herself, and that was what mattered. Not that that was recently, or anything. Meeting new people was still the difficult part of being in the guild, not that she regretted joining for one moment.

Levy knew the way to the bookstore by heart. She was positive she could navigate the building itself blind by now, though that wasn’t a large feat; it was pretty small. Although, she had still yet to read the store’s entire selection, so it was still plenty large enough—for the time being.

What was she in the mood to read this time? Hm, maybe fiction. Levy enacted her normal strategy of browsing until she had a suitable stack, wandering between the aisles and sections and stopping whenever she saw something interesting.

Or she stopped when she ran into somebody. Literally. Which wasn’t supposed to happen because there was never anybody in this section, but it happened this time and—

Levy blinked, wondering if she was imagining things. “Gajeel?”

The boy would have jumped out of his skin if he could. “What? Nothing, I wasn’t doing nothin’—!” It was his turn to blink. “Oh. You’re from the guild.”

“Yeah.”

They stared in a moment of silence. Levy wasn’t sure what else to say in a situation like this, especially since he was blocking the bookshelf she was wanting to look at.

Wait a second—there was a book in his hand. He was trying to hide it behind him, but she could recognize that cover anywhere. “Do you like the Detective Danger series too?” Levy blurted.

It was so hard to find other people to talk about it with, because it wasn’t exactly a popular series. It was simple, corny, and a little predicable—but it was charming and heartfelt, and it was enjoyable to read nonetheless, especially for relaxation. Not that Levy had a lot of people to talk about books period with, but the Detective Danger series was not something people followed beyond a stray book or two, so Levy never had anyone to discuss it with.

Gajeel’s face started to turn red. “Wh-what? No,” he denied quickly. Then he seemed to realize that he was holding the fourth book in the series. “I-I mean, it’s okay. Easy read in between training. And stuff.”

Levy resisted the urge to giggle to herself, but it was a hard thing to suppress. Ah, to see the denial up close. There was a time when Levy too would deny her enjoyment of the series (because honestly, it was designed for kids, and even though she was a kid, technically, she had long since moved past that reading level) but the series started to really get interesting around book nine, so she might as well see it through to the end.

“Okaaaay. How’d you like the ending of the ski-lodge case, then?” she asked, feeling devious. If there was anything to have a strong opinion about, it was—

“Are you kidding? It was awesome! The way he choked a guy with a hat, stopped a bullet, and caught that chick, all while skiing down the Deadly Hill? I— I mean… i-it was okay I guess.”

Her face split into a grin. “Busted,” she giggled, and Gajeel deflated like he had been caught doing something embarrassing.

Levy was just thrilled that she would have someone to discuss that twist in book nine with. “Have you read the Underwater Case yet?” she asked.

He looked down at the book in his hand awkwardly. “Ah, no… I haven’t read any since I was in Denish, and even then, there wasn’t really time.”

“I’m sure you’ll get there soon. I remember I read that one—” She pointed to the Volcano Case in his hands “—really fast. Oh, and when you get to the fifth book, I even got the special edition with the extra scene.”

“They make those?”

“Only a few! I got really lucky with that one. Would you…want to borrow it?”

For a second, Gajeel looked overwhelmed. Oh no, she had gone too fast again, hadn’t she? It had just been so long since she could talk about books with people, and even then, the librarian might not count…

“Yeah, that’d be cool. Er, thanks.”

But maybe she can add one more person to her list.

----

You can’t convince me that Mr. Long-coat-tie-and-fedora didn’t internalize cheesy detective fiction at least once in his life. (I headcanon that he did read some stuff post coming to the future to, ya know, learn that modern language stuff, so kid’s fiction is simple enough for that.) He might have been too stubborn to continue it in Phantom Lord, but Gajeel has time (and a fellow reader) now. Meanwhile Levy went through the classic introvert “I don’t know how to talk to people unless it’s about <special interest> and then I can talk a lot.”

Ah, the simple friendship of twelve and thirteen year-olds. 

[ofhouseadama]

could I dm you this? yes. but also asks are fun even though this question is mean so. how do Ed and Lorraine react to the Vietnam war?

Okay so my Ed and Lorraine are absolutely Kennedy Democrats, are both very excited and enthusiastic about the first Catholic president, but both are against the Vietnam War and US military intervention from the start. Ed's already fought in one imperialist proxy war, he's got the PTSD to prove it, and Lorraine just is truly repulsed by violence of any kind.

And also like, to go completely left field for a minute -- I've been thinking a lot about how teenage Lored were effectively trapped at 17-19 years old. Mostly financially, and in different ways. in 1951, Lorraine wouldn't have been able to have her own bank account. Women wouldn't have the right to open their own bank account until the 60s or have a credit card until the 70s -- her money would have been her father's, effectively. and while probably not maliciously, since she was a young woman she likely wouldn't have had much access to her pay checks unless she was cashing them directly. Ed, meanwhile, while trying to survive a negligent/abusive household, absolutely would have been spending money on things most teens wouldn't have to in order to survive... and that's before getting the draft notice from the Selective Service, which took away even more control of his own life.

So I see Ed and Lorraine getting married young (even for the 50s, they're a few years younger than the median, though the war was actively driving that age down) mostly out of making the most out of what they could together. Ed putting Lorraine on his bank accounts and asking her actively to manage them while he's away, and her depositing her paychecks into his account would give her more financial control in her life than most women of the era. Lorraine's engagement ring (the size of that goddamn rock) is even an insurance policy most women her age and demographic didn't have -- often when women fled marriages, it was only with their jewelry to sell. It's half about Ed's possessive streak, half him showing he's not afraid to give her the money to run, if she needed to.

Anyway -- the trauma of their late teens and early twenties is entirely rooted in the rising Cold War anxieties and the locus of harm done to women in the 50s and I fully see their pursuit of demonology and the supernatural as something Lorraine initially started while working as a secretary for the Diocese, something she did to stay late at work and help people she could physically reach while Ed was away at war. She initially started staying late on the days she knew Father Gordon would be bringing in a scared family or terrified couple or frightened soul in through the back door hours after everyone had left, staying to pray and keep herself nearby, to be an observer to a fight she could be party to. Father Gordon figures her out quickly, of course, asking what interest she has in demons and exorcisms, and figures out she's clever with records and archives, almost to an uncanny degree.

And then figures out to exactly what uncanny degree.

After Ed came home and became the husband instead of the boyfriend, it turned into something Ed could throw all his metaphorical demons onto and a healthy way to exercise his control issues and fear and anxiety that doesn't (generally) affect Lorraine because she's fighting with him side by side in this, when before they were separated by thousands of miles -- the beginning everyone's favorite Catholic battle couple very much rooted in Ed and Lorraine parsing out who brought home metaphorical demons from the war, and who brought home literal ones, and bringing them to Father Gordon when necessary. Rooted in Ed needing to be useful, to dusting off his Catholic school Latin and reading everything he could get his hands on so that he could continue to help, continue to fight.

Lorraine would have been pregnant with Judy during the heightening tensions with Cuba and as Kennedy is sending more and more military "advisors" to Vietnam and Cold War tensions flared the hottest they'd get in the 1960s and I can just see both of their control issues revving up, especially with a few-months-old baby in the mix. Just the two of them laying bed, looking down at their three month old baby girl, wondering if they'd all get nuked tomorrow. If war would be declared tomorrow. If they'd all be dead, if they brought her into the world just to die violently. It's like taking guns off the street. They can't control the White House, or the Soviets, or Cuba or China or or or -- but they know about demons, they know about spirits, they know about taking these bombs off the battlefield, in the war of good against evil, and this is a war they can be foot soldiers in together.

Lorraine would get a bit of relief in the March of '63 when Kennedy dropped married men with children to the bottom of the draft pool, and then dropped the age of the draft pool to 26, aging Ed out of the Selective Service entirely. And then in November, JFK would be assassinated, and the photo of Jackie Kennedy covered in blood, leaving the hospital hand-in-hand with RFK, would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country. It would be a jolt for both of them -- but it wouldn't fully hit Lorraine until seven years later, when she'd have her first vision of Ed's death and fully understand Jackie Kennedy's weary, "I want them to see what they have done to Jack."

After the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in August of 1964, they fully throw themselves into taking cases almost full time. As the war heats up, Ed pulls back from teaching art classes at the VA. If he spends too much time there, he has to face how pointless the violence has been. If he spends too much time there, now, he has to face that he still doesn't know why he survived. Why he lived, and everyone else on board the ship with him died. Because he still doesn't know, he still is fighting to make his life matter in a way that makes sense to him. All he has is his sense of duty, a couple of college credits, and his hands. On good days, he knows that he's loved -- that Lorraine loves him so much it makes it hurt to breathe, that he's a good father to his daughter, who will never be afraid of him.

Ed has a complete PTSD relapse in 1966, with the beginning of the ground war and the full-throated resurgence of the American propaganda machine and military recruitment. He's back in the guilt spiral, the "I never had it that bad, I was only in the Navy for two years, I never had it that bad," just feeding into "why did I live when everyone else I fought with died," back and forth until he can't sleep, can only sleep when Judy sleeps, accidentally ends up adapting himself to her nap schedule and has to sleep with his hand on her chest, feeling her breathe.

Lorraine calls in Chief, after Ed can't get out of bed for 72 hours and misses mass for the first time in his life. Chief, who comes up from Brooklyn to remind Ed of the time their entire ship exploded and Ed treaded water for eight hours and everyone else died. How they spent the next six months getting drunk whenever they weren't on duty and picking fights they couldn't get out of, and that one time they got thrown in the brig because Chief struck a superior asshole and Ed just followed him into the fight. (No, Lorraine does not know about that time Ed and Chief ended up in the brig. She will never know about that time. Judy will at some point in her early 20s learn about that time, when she needs to learn about how her parents are people, who have absolutely made mistakes in their lives.) "You and I spent six months drunk," Chief says, bouncing Judy on his knee in the kitchen over a cup of coffee, Ed refusing to look at him as he deep cleans the stove. "And then your dad died, and your sainted wife handled everything for you, and we realized we couldn't send you home to her like that."

"I still don't know why I lived."

Chief shrugs. "It doesn't matter why, son. The same reason any of us live, and any of us die. It doesn't matter. You have a little girl now who depends on you. She matters more than any goddamn reason -- you live for her, and your saint of a wife, and for all the people that you help. So that you can look them in the face, say you've been down in the hole that they're in now, and you know the way out."

Lorraine calls in Chief, because she absolutely picked a fight after mass that day without Ed, with Judy on her hip. Overheard Dorothy O'Malley running her mouth in the pew in front of her sounding like a national security ghoul and didn't even think before she opened her mouth and unloading the full force of her anxiety and anger on her. Only stops because she feels a gentle hand on her shoulder and Father Gordon murmuring in her ear, "Okay Mrs. Warren, you've made your point," while leading her away. It's the "Mrs. Warren" instead of the familiar "Lorraine" that jolts her back to herself, kissing Judy's head as she tries to shake herself out of it.

"Thank you," she tells Father Gordon, defeated.

He shrugs. "You don't come to confession until before Friday night prayer service. I didn't want you stewing on this all week." Pausing, he takes a moment to fondly tug on one of Judy's pig tails, making her laugh. "If Ed's not... feeling well, I know about that."

Lorraine bites her lip, knowing full and well that Father Gordon served as a chaplain in World War II. That seeing the violence of the Nazis firsthand is what convinced him that the Devil was more than a metaphor, that evil truly walked the Earth. Sent him on his own path, chasing darkness.

Lorraine nods.

"I could talk to him," Father Gordon says. "But it would likely come better from someone he served with."

When she gets home, she finds Chief's number in their phone book, and calls Brooklyn for the first and last time. He comes up the next day, and shoos her out of the house to do something for herself for the first time in months, telling her that he's more than equipped to look after a single three year old.

Ed goes back to teaching at the VA a few months after that, teaching art to the new round of mentally scarred children returning from war. He concedes to group therapy, and a few sessions with the VA psychiatrist to get something to take the edge off. He teaches at the VA until the troop withdrawals in 1970, reducing his class load as he and Lorraine take on more and more cases -- verging towards a hundred a year -- for the Catholic Church, and the media attention that comes along with that, the publicity engagements that help keep their bills paid, the articles and academic talks.

Even still, Ed occasionally brings home someone for dinner, just to make sure that they've only brought metaphorical demons home from war with them, not literal ones.

Sometimes it's literal ones.

[effiecalvin]

Purchase from Amazon Purchase from Somewhere Else (tons of options, including Audible, Kobo, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, and Apple Books) There’s no spoilers on these slides; all the information in them is basically same stuff you’d read on the back cover/product blurb. 

I’m trying to earn a bit of extra money because I had some huge vet bills hit me last month, and it’s looking like my old lady cat is gonna have to be on a specialized diet for the rest of her life (she was already on one, but this new one is gonna be even more expensive). Reblogs are appreciated!

Full image descriptions can be found behind the read more cut.

Thank you to @bisexualbaker for help with the slide descriptions. Slide one: I think you should buy these books (but I am the author so take that with a grain of salt) [Images: Covers of the first four books of Tales of Inthya: The Queen of Ieflaria, Daughter of the Sun, The Queen of Rhodia, The Empress of Xytae.] Slide two: Ok so wait what is going on here? * This is a series of books that you can read with your eyeballs! * There’s also audiobooks of the first two so I guess you can also read it with your earballs! * I don’t know how anatomy works * I majored in English * We’re getting off topic * Every book in this series is a high fantasy romance centered around a f/f couple. Slide three: Book 1: The Queen of Ieflaria * Princess Esofi is engaged to marry Prince Dead Guy. * I dunno why his parents named him that? * Anyway he dies. * But it turns out this is a queernormative setting, so Esofi can just marry Prince Dead Guy’s sister! * Except Adale is all, “I can’t marry you, I’m a mess!” * And Esofi is like, “Yeah I agree, you are a mess.” * But then they both realize Adale is actually cool and smart and cares a lot about people. * Also there are dragons. [Image: Book cover of The Queen of Ieflaria] Slide four: Book 2: Daughter of the Sun * Orsina is a Lawful Good paladin on a Quest. What is her Quest? She doesn’t know. * This lack of information is slowing her down substantially. * Aelia is a minor chaos goddess who has zero worshippers and almost no magic. * Orsina vanquishes Aelia for being Evil. * Or at least for being A Huge Jerk. * But Aelia is not really vanquished and they run into each other again. But Orsina doesn’t recognize her. * They’re gonna fall in love!!! [Image: Cover of Daughter of the Sun] Slide five: Book 3: The Queen of Rhodia * Esofi’s terrible mother gets a copy of book 1 and reads it and is like, “I don’t think so!” and sails to Ieflaria to make a nuisance of herself. * She’s not homophobic or anything. We don’t do that here. * She’s just jealous because Esofi is being favored by their patron goddess. * Orsina and Aelia show up too! * It’s like a crossover. Except they were always in the same setting. But now they’re in the same room. * Also there are even more dragons. [Image: Cover of The Queen of Rhodia] Slide six: Book 4: The Empress of Xytae * Crown Princess Ioanna of Xytae is having a bad time because the national sport in her country is Being A Huge Jerk. * Meanwhile, Princess Vitaliya of Vesolda is having a bad time because her dad is getting remarried. * The princess:everyone else ratio on this planet is a little skewed. * Ioanna’s dad dies and her sister is like, “You can’t be empress if you don’t like * Being A Huge Jerk!” * And everyone clapped. * So now Ioanna has to win the support of her people and get coronated and kiss Vitaliya. [Image: Cover of The Empress of Xytae] Slide seven: Book 5: Daughter of the Moon * This book isn’t getting published until late 2020. But I can tell you a little bit about it. * Princess Netheia, Ioanna’s younger sister, has been found guilty of Being A Huge Jerk. * And exiled to Ieflaria. * She meets Klavida, whose hobbies are studying obscure magic and not wanting anything to do with Netheia. * Klavida’s disdain for Netheia’s behavior sort of makes Netheia want to become a better person. * Unfortunately she has an evil goddess screaming in her brain. [Image: A blue rectangle; text on it reads, "Sorry I do not have the cover art yet; please enjoy this delightful rectangle instead!"] Slide eight: Other miscellaneous facts * Each book is dedicated to a different cat in my life. * My naming choices are bizarre and my audiobook reader deserves an award of some sort for tolerating my nonsense. * The books are all standalones with no cliffhangers or anything but they also weave together like a beautiful tapestry or maybe a plate of spaghetti that eventually leads to a meatball or marriage. * “TWO PRINCESSES CAN’T GET MARRIED BC THEY NEED HEIRS!” The whole thing is explained in the first few pages of book 1. You don’t even need to buy it to see. It’s in the free preview. * CONCLUSION: It would be neat if you bought these books because I am poor and depressed and I’d like to be rich and depressed, ideally.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #233: The Annihilation Gambit!

July, 1983

“Up against... the BARRIER!”

Pretty cool cover!

So here’s the thing. This is a crossover with Fantastic Four. John Byrne even gets a credit for breakdowns and co-plotting.

I’m not going to completely cover the related FF issues but I’ll dip into the relevant parts of them.

For example, let’s discuss Fantastic Four #254 which coincided with the ending of Avengers #232. The thing with the fleeing crowd that didn’t know what they were fleeing and the invisible wall She-Hulk bonked off of? What’s the deal with that?

Allow me to summarize.

The Fantastic Four went off to explore the Negative Zone and had a series of weird and silly adventures. They left Alicia behind to babysit Franklin but Annihilus popped out of the portal and took them captive. This happened back in #251 so he’s had the run of the place for a while!

He’s been making modifications to the Negative Zone Access Portal and adapting the generators. For whatever reason, switching the machine on sends out potent fear waves which causes everyone to flee the area of the Baxter Building. There scene where She-Hulk and Wasp see the fleeing crowd and bonks off an invisible wall repeats.

And that’s all you need to know! Annihilus is messing around, potent fear waves, invisible wall, Avengers!

Now let’s get to the Avengers part of this crossover.

The Avengers issue of Avengers starts with Captain Marvel booking it over New York musing about what an eventful day she’s had as a full-fledged Avenger.

What with having to rescue President Reagan after he was taken hostage by soggy swamp men. Then Eros (Starfox) showed up and insisted on joining. Then Monica, Starfox, and Thor went off to catch Plantman who engineered the presidential hostage thing. All of that in only six hours!

Monica Marvel Rambeau is on her way to the mansion to give her report when she too bonks into something.

Captain Marvel: “It was as if I bounced off some sort of invisible wall! But that doesn’t make sense!”

Yeah, it really doesn’t!

As Monica herself points out, the wall is invisible ie light is going through it. So her light form should be able to go through it too!

Its a very selective invisible wall, apparently. And it gives her a weird ominous feel to touch.

But she’s not going to let sleeping walls lie and decides to try different energy forms to see if anything can get through.

Annnnnnd. Radios, cosmic rays, electricity, infrared, x-rays, and even gamma rays can’t get through. Although, Monica has the feeling that the wall gave a bit under the gamma, but not enough to matter.

Monica detours around the wall and heads back towards her original destination. AVENGERS MANSION!

When Monica arrives, cool team leader Janet the Wasp van Dyne is talking with the police. Obviously the police aren’t equipped to deal with an invisible dome.

At the least, though, Jan uses the NYPD data-link to figure out where the giant dome is centered.

Also, Wasp has another new outfit. This is the same day.

But its pretty snazzy black and purple so I won’t complain.

Monica tells Jan that Big Trouble is brewing and Jan is basically like ‘oh god now what’ but thankfully Monica and Jan are on the same case.

MEANWHILE, Steve Rogers’ modest Brooklyn Heights apartment. Where Steve Rogers is not having a conversation about his feelings with his girlfriend Bernie Rosenthal because his feelings are classified!

Steve Rogers: “In a way. It’s Avengers business!”

I’d mock this but what has Steve bummed and pacing like a caged bear is that Tony Stark, his good pal who he’ll never Civil War with, has quit the Avengers, gave Iron Man up to someone else, and is trying to drink himself to unconsciousness.

Which is very concerning! But also something you can’t really share the full details of without revealing a lot of secrets that aren’t yours to reveal! I feel like you could at least say ‘I think my friend is an alcoholic but won’t accept my help’ without spilling secrets but shrug.

At least Steve is open with Bernie. Yeah, she knows he’s Captain America!

Truly, the man is a role model. Not just as a superhero but also on dating.

Steve gets a BZZZT on his snazzy cool radio wristwatch, possibly the coolest thing to wear on one’s wrist ha ha don’t think about Avengers wearing Apple Watches.

Anyway, Jan updates Steve on the invisible - and expanding - dome. And that weirdly, there doesn’t seem to be anyone trapped inside because everyone ran away from it because its inexplicably spooky.

So Steve rushes off to Save The Day, stripping mid-run because that’s the kind of casualness and comfort you can have in a relationship where you’re open and honest.

See how Steve didn’t have to make up a half-assed excuse? Maybe think about that, Spider-Man. You’re not in this scene but maybe think about it.

Meanwhile again, the Baxter Building.

Where thankfully for people not reading Fantastic Four, we get an echoed scene where Annihilus motive rants at captive audience Alicia Masters.

Basically, Annihilus is feeling very bummed that Blastaar stole his Cosmic Control Rod in Marvel Two-in-One #75. For one thing, it really tied his whole outfit together. For another, without it, Annihilus isn’t immortal and he’s freaking out about dying. And not dying eventually, he’s apparently got Doom-level messed up face now from how he’s degrading.

So really the only real way to come to terms with mortality is to destroy two whole universes so you don’t die alone.

Annihilus broke Reed’s Negative Zone Access Portal and used its power core to power his own impenetrable NULL-FIELD. Which I guess is the invisible dome.

Annihilus: “How wonderfully ironic -- that a device which once produced a gateway between two universes should provide the power to utterly destroy them!”

I’m missing some middle steps here but basically invisible dome -> ??? -> destruction of the Negative Zone and the, uh, Positive Zone.

A MEEP MEEP from a computer which may be a roadrunner gets Annihilus’ attention and he sees to his shock that She-Hulk has planted her feet and is trying to bodily hold the dome back.

It’s not working but its slowing it almost imperceptibly and even that’s supposed to be impossible.

Annihilus: “What manner of creature is this?!”

I’d guess gamma-powered She-Hulk is having a tiny bit of luck against the dome for the same reason that Captain Marvel did when she tried gamma radiation.

Wasp, Captain America, and Captain Marvel show up to help She-Hulk.

She-Hulk tells the other Avengers that the invisible dome keeps “oozing over everything inanimate” but that she(-Hulk) can’t stop it.

Cap suggests using his shield despite the risk of losing it inside the dome.

Because, when Captain America uses his mighty shield, all who oppose his shield must yield. So maybe he’s onto something.

She-Hulk plants the shield in the ground in the path of the dome.

So good news/bad news.

The dome doesn’t swallow up the shield. But the dome just pushes the shield, carving a little furrow in the ground.

That cracks me up a little, I will not lie.

I don’t know why Cap’s super cool shield is exempt from getting schlorped up by the null-field but now they have a good idea where it is without having to bonk!

Speaking of bonk, Thor and Starfox come to join the party and Starfox runs right into the invisible wall.

Hee hee hee.

He also drops right into She-Hulk’s arms and they have a mutual banter moment.

She-Hulk: “Hmm! I’ve never had anyone fall for me like this before!”

Starfox: “I assure you it was totally unplanned... but rarely have I fallen into such open and inviting arms!”

If I recall correctly, they do hook up at one point and then years later She-Hulk beats seven kinds of shit out of him when the question arises of whether his powers influenced her into it.

At least Starfox is receptive and she’s not stalking Ben Grimm.

Anyway, Thor tries his hand at busting the null-field by shooting a bunch of lightning at it. Even though Captain Marvel tells him she already tried electricity.

Thor gotta Thor though.

And when the field stands firm against all the lightning, he gets pissed and hurls his hammer into it.

Mjolnir flies into the field, loses steam, and just pitches gently to Earth.

Bit confusing. I wonder why Cap’s shield can’t go through the dome but Mjolnir can.

BY THE WAY, THEY LEFT CAP’S SHIELD JAMMED AGAINST THE DOME.

They don’t comment on it but you can see it still gouging up the pavement. I guess they’re using it to mark where the dome is?

Amazing.

Anyway, Thor marvels at how Mjolnir left no mark on the invisible barrier and how its not returning to his hand like it should. Clearly there’s some weird property of the barrier interfering with Mjolnir.

Cap points out yeah thats interesting but isn’t there something that happens if you have Mjolnir out of hand for too long?

So Thor runs away and turns into Normal Doctor Donald Blake in an alleyway where nobody can see it happen.

Again: amazing.

Thor is basically out of the story because Normal Doctor Donald Blake can’t do anything to affect the barrier and he can’t get Mjolnir back while its up. So he’s just going to be twiddling his thumbs.

MEANWHILE, at Cross Technological Enterprises.

Hawkeye tries to cajole inventor Jorge to build some contraption for him but the man protests that he designed it in his spare time but if he builds a working model on staff, CTE will own the invention.

Unless someone approves a sub-contractor waiver that will let him keep the rights but who would do such a thing for him??

Hawkeye decides that as head of security he’ll do such a thing. I don’t know if head of security has any kind of sway like that but I imagine that won’t stop Hawkeye from insisting that he does.

Then Hawkeye hears about the Avengers dealing with the dome thing and gets sad that he can’t be out there with them.

Hawkeye: “Blast it, I oughta be out there with the rest of the Avengers! But, as long as my leg’s in a cast, I’m a liability to ‘em... until I prove otherwise!”

Maybe focus on letting your leg heal!

I don’t know what nonsense you’re brewing up and I know that months is forever in comic book time but maybe just take the time and let your leg heal up!

Back over at the Avengers, Cap and Wasp now justify to the others why Thor took off. Claiming that they sent him on a scouting mission. Captain Marvel objects that scouting is her specialty, what with the lightspeed dash, so Cap claims that brute force isn’t helping so its more important to have Captain Marvel’s versatility here.

Leading She-Hulk to snark that brute force not working doesn’t give her a lot to do.

Starfox has become instantly bored with the plot because he’s here for adventure dangit, so he wanders off to go flirt with an EMT.

Because Starfox.

A Quinjet arrives, because Wasp has put her true superpower to work.

The power of NETWORKING!

Aka, she placed a call to Vision and Scarlet Witch and they just showed up to help.

Wasp explains the situation and Vision decides he’s going to intangible through the field.

Vision: “Interesting. It does have an oddly unsettling ‘feel’ to it!”

Then he walks through and instantly collapses face first into the asphalt.

The Avengers’ bumbling attempts to deal with the null field are almost farcical really.

Scarlet Witch is alarmed by her robot husband faceplanting so tries to use her plot-resolving probability powers on the invisible barrier but to no avail.

OH NO HER DOES ANYTHING POWER DID NOTHING!

She bangs on the invisible wall yelling Vision’s name but Cap tells her “that won’t do any good!”

True but c’mon. Her robot husband just collapsed. Have some understanding.

Although I wonder what’s going on here.

The field goes over inanimate objects but doesn’t let Cap’s shield through. Mjolnir and Vision can go through it (although Vision does the intangible) but lose power shortly after entering.

Then again it is called a “null-field.” It probably does whatever it wants.

I’m just wondering whether Vision counts as an inanimate object or not. He’s very animate but he’s not strictly speaking biologically speaking alive.

Meanwhile, in the Baxter Building, Annihilus is laughing up a storm at the Avengers’ silly hijinxes. But mostly in the ‘they thought they could stop me’ sense.

Annihilus: “Lesser beings such as these are helpless before the genius of Annihilus! They do not deserve to live -- just as I do not deserve to die! I curse the fates which have robbed me of my rightful immortality! But even though life slowly ebbs from the dissipated body within my exo-skeletal armor, still shall I be Annihilus... still shall I be He-Who-Annihilates!”

And he pulls the Big Dramatic Lever.

Outside, Starfox is still flirting with the paramedic while she asks whether he should be helping the other Avengers?

Starfox: -squishes her face- “Alas, I am not a full Avenger. I am but a trainee, at the others’ beck and call! If they want me, they will call.”

And then he tries to make out but she’s distracted by the Baxter Building suddenly glowing with an awesome power.

And Starfox freaks out. He freaks out so much that he realizes that now is not the time for making out. That’s how alarming things suddenly are!

Paramedic: “Brighter than the moon... glowing like there’s no tomorrow...”

Starfox: “I fear your choice of words is most apt!”

And then he wanders back on over to the Avengers to tell them how messed up everything is.

Something occurs to me.

The Avengers don’t really have a Smart Guy TM currently. Tony left them in the lurch in that regard. And they tried to recruit Hulk again (apparently in Incredible Hulk #285).

Cap(tain America), Captain Marvel, Wasp, She-Hulk, and Thor are great. But they’re not people who can look at a thing and instantly jump to a correct conclusion about which technobabble will keep things from bad.

I think... Starfox may have become the Smart Guy TM of the team by default because he does have advanced space learning even though I’m pretty sure he napped through advanced space learning science class.

My god, the state of things.

Anyway, Starfox directs the Avengers’ attention over to the Baxter Building. Within the invisible field, there’s a second glowing field. And based on Starfox’s brains, the invisible field is a null-field (yes, that’s true) which cancels out all energy within, except at its focal point. Uh, sure. I think if all energy was cancelled out, we’d see way wilder effects but sure.

The glowing field is positive energy. And when the glow meets the invisible, it will cause the universe to merge with the Negative Zone AND THEN DESTROY THEM BOTH.

See, this is something that’s known on Titan. They just study ways to destroy everything apparently, nbd.

Starfox even mentions that his brother Thanos knows about this but “not even my brother Thanos was mad enough to test it!”

I dunno. I feel like Thanos is exactly mad enough to do that. I also feel like Starfox doesn’t know his brother was well as he thinks. So, yeah.

Hence, they’re all doomed. I mean, unless there was some way to penetrate the null-field BUT WAIT, Starfox says, didn’t Captain Marvel feel the field give slightly under gamma radiation? THEN THERE STILL MAY BE HOPE!

Yeah... Yeah. Starfox is the Avengers’ Smart Guy now. God.

Its like a reverse-Beast. He came to be a smart guy but the Avengers’ had plenty of those so decided to be the fun guy.

Starfox came out just to have a good time and he has to use his space brains to save reality.

(Also, its because of Same Face but Starfox even looks like Reed while he’s transitioning from doomsaying to figuring out the whole thing just by panicking and explaining things)

So after the Avengers do some calculations and preparations, Captain Marvel blasts off into space!

Cap(tain America) estimates that they only have twenty minutes and that a lot can go wrong.

Then a giant shouty bug man appears in the sky to shout.

Annihilus: “PEOPLE OF EARTH -- HEAR NOW THE WORDS OF ANNIHILUS! YOU ARE HELPLESS BEFORE ME! I AM YOUR DEATH!”

“The destruction of all that lives has ever been my goal -- but never have I had the means to kill so many! The time of universal death is at hand! I see among you those who are known as the Avengers... those who you would call heroes! Hah! They cannot save you! They are as helpless as the accursed Fantastic Four!”

“There is no hope for anyone this day! This is the day that Annihilus dies! And as I die, I shall reach out and I shall shake the very foundations of two universes! AND ALL SHALL PERISH WITH ME!”

Not gonna lie.

That’s a damn good villain speech.

You’ve got the villain head in front of an apocalyptic pink sky. You’ve got evil gloating. You’ve even got some dunks thrown at the superheroes because you just know that average civilians will be like ‘the Avengers will save us!’

Pretty good rant, Annihilus.

“Meanwhile, in the vacuum of space, the lightform of Captain Marvel has already flashed beyond the orbit of the moon”

Amazing.

Simply amazing.

Captain Marvel nyooms past the moon and traverses 93-million miles to go to the sun.

Which, even at lightspeed, takes over eight minutes.

A helpful reminder that even the ability to go as fast as light doesn’t necessarily mean you can get everywhere instantly. Cosmic distances are vast.

Captain Marvel nyooms around the sun, so close that even in the form of a light, she can feel the Sun’s gravity.

This is all some great stuff.

Then, Captain Marvel melds with a coherent light beam fired from solar satellite Starcore-One and transforms it and herself into a gamma ray laser beam NYOOMING right at Earth.

Blasting through the null-field just in time to interrupt more of Annihilus’ villain ranting.

Annihilus: “Prepare to make your final accounting, mortals! These are your last wretched moments of... eh?”

And then with a SKRAKATA SKRAKATA BOOM, the null field and positive energy fields are neutralized.

She-Hulk who was casually leaning on an invisible wall FLUMPS to the ground.

Wasp assembles the Avengers still milling about and tells them to move on the Baxter Building since Annihilus might still have tricks up his sleeve.

With the null field gone, the terrified crowds of onlookers are now just confused onlookers and want to get back to what they were doing before they started panicking.

Normal Doctor Donald Blake has to reach through the crowd of legs to grab Mjolnir so he can become Thor and rejoin the Avengers.

Y’know, before someone starts pondering why they haven’t seen him in a while.

Scarlet Witch notices sudden Thor and since everyone else ran off without paying any mind to Vision (geez, what the hell, the Avengers? He’s your good pal chum!) she begs Thor to help.

Scarlet Witch: “Thank heavens, you’ve returned! The Vision was injured somehow by that null-field! I... I can’t find any vital signs! His synthetic body is too different for the paramedics to do anything! Help us! Please -- !”

Thor slings Vision over shoulder exactly like you’d expect a buff Norse god to do and reassures Wanda that they’ll find someone to revive Vision.

At the Baxter Building, the Avengers very courteously go in through the front door because there’s just a lot of defensive systems that may or may not be active. And anyway, Wasp has a key to the special elevator.

Apparently, Wasp is such good friends with Sue Storm that she was given one of those special lasers incorporated into her new costume that opens the elevator doors.

I’ll have to check with my friend who liveblogs Fantastic Four to see if Jan shows up much. Because Sue has shown up a couple times in Avengers to build the idea that she and Wasp are good friends after their cool brunch but I haven’t heard of the reverse.

When the Avengers get to the 34th floor to confront Annihilus, they find that it’s been taken care of off in Fantastic Four.

The caption tells me for the full story to see that issue #256 and for once, I will.

(Interestingly, while Byrne got a co-plotter credit on this Avengers issue, Stern doesn’t get the same in the corresponding FF issue which really suggests who the driving force of the story was.)

Over in FF #256, the FF are stranded in the Negative Zone for reasons but have also noticed the null-field and positive field thing going on. Reed works to limit the effects of the fields merging to only the Baxter Building instead of the whole universe, which will also help the FF return home. He also hopes that someone on the Earth side of things “an Avenger perhaps” is also taking action.

Which, yeah. Captain Marvel’s whole thing where she launched herself at the Baxter Building from the Sun.

While she’s doing that, the thing that Reed is doing starts shorting out the circuity that Annihilus is using.

Then, Captain Marvel’s appearance causes the console Annihilus is working at to explode in his face, destroying his life-support armor.

Annihilus tries to activate the ‘destroy the universe’ thing manually but because of Reed’s machinations, the Fantastic Four get pulled back into the universe and Annihilus gets booted into the Negative Zone.

Its implied that Annihilus dies here but ha ha ha no he’s going to show up again without explaining how he survived. What a dick.

The Fantastic Four pop back into the Baxter building with the colors in their outfits changed because of technobabble. Reed instantly accosts Captain Marvel for being someone he doesn’t recognize but Thing tells him who she is and defuses things.

Thing runs off to take Alicia to the hospital, Sue runs off to look for Franklin, and Reed and Human Torch put out all the fires.

And that’s where the books sync up so back over to Avengers.

The Avengers meet up with the FF and compare notes and Reed starts trying to technobabble explain the change in uniforms when Wanda interrupts and asks someone to help Vision.

Reed examines Vision and comes up with some good news.

Vision is, more or less, okay. When he entered the null-field it drained his energy and disrupted his synapses but there shouldn’t be any permanent damage. The robot coma is Vision basically fixing himself up but Reed could speed up the process and help him recover faster.

And then Sue comes in with an unconscious Franklin.

Everyone drops everything to immediately rush off to the hospital, leaving Wanda and coma-Vision alone.

I mean. Kinda rude. Its entirely fair for Reed and Sue to run off. Its their son. And Johnny flies ahead to alert the emergency ward. But does the situation really need Starfox, Captain America and She-Hulk?

(The FF issue actually shows that Captain Marvel stuck around. She barely knows Wanda and Vision and she’s actually being courteous to them. Geez.)

I’ll give Thor a pass because he can turn into a Perfectly Normal Doctor. But really? Everyone is just leaving Wanda alone? Just like they left Vision just passed out in the street?

The Avengers are being dicks to Vision and Wanda today!

Follow @essential-avengers​ and like and reblog perhaps. Because I wouldn’t leave Vision lying passed out in the street and I haven’t even been his friend for years. Just saying.

[cheesy-che]

Gift exchange - TMNT fanfic

Yet another slice of life fanfic with @sassatello 's original character and mine, set in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles universe (2k3). You can read the first part here. 

Click here for info about : Adrian (Sassatello’s OC) and Mizuiro (my OC) Words : About 2260 /// Type : Fluff, as always! ~

Gift Exchange Unfolding the small piece of paper in his hand, Donatello smiled awkwardly at the name appearing on it. He noticed how wiggly the initial was, followed by five succinct and well-rounded letters. As he felt a small rush of blood in his cheeks, he was more apprehensive than he should have been. 

This gift exchange was a great idea for everyone in their group to receive something special. However, as soon as he had noticed the “A” on the white stationary, his mind was filled with doubt. For some reason, he had thought of a possible gift for everyone in their group: A comic-book shelf for Mikey; a portable radio for Mizuiro; relaxing bath salts for Raph; a French-press tea infuser for Leo... well, for everyone except Adrian. The common agreement in their group -considering the lack of funds from most- was that the gifts would either have to be handmade or recycled. Donatello could create a lot of things easily. He knew more than anyone that making things was his specialty. Nonetheless, he was now completely in the dark as to what he could offer to their terrapin friend from outer space. How could he find an original gift for someone who has access to an inter dimensional portal? Adrian probably could find whatever he wants, whenever he felt like it, right? 

The ever so resourceful mutant turtle was already running out of ideas. It took him days to admit it, but he was at an impasse. Eventually, he decided to ask Adrian’s closest friend. She was the only one aware of their relationship so far. After all, only three weeks had passed since they had their first kiss. 

~ 

Today, the turtles’ lair was being prepared for their annual Christmas party. While Adrian was helping Raphael hanging decorations around, Mizuiro was untangling fairy lights in the living room. Michelangelo was writing down the ingredients they would need for cooking and Leonardo was decorating the tree with their father. Meanwhile, Donatello was making sure that the electrical panel could handle their future power usage. Noticing how his task involved being physically close to Mizuiro, he thought it might be an occasion to ask for advice. Fortunately for him, loud festive music was playing at their place, thanks to Michelangelo. Nobody else would hear what he was about to ask. 

“So...” Donatello started innocently, grabbing Mizuiro’s attention. Have you already thought about your gift?” 

“I did.” His friend sighed after letting go of a knot she has been working on untangling. “But it’s not done yet.” 

“Right.” He paused. “There isn’t much time left before Christmas.” 

She hummed in agreement, keeping her concentration on the many wires laying around. 

“To be completely honest,” Donatello continued, “I don’t have a clue of what I could give.” 

He shyly scratched the back of his head, hoping for a reaction from her friend. Eventually, Mizuiro looked up, witnessing his doubtful expression. The brow bones behind his purple mask framed his eyes in a downward curve. He was implicitly asking for help.

“Whose name did you end up with?” She asked curiously. 

“Adrian...” he mentioned in a lower voice. 

Mizuiro looked around to check if anyone heard him. Seeing they didn’t, she got up and approached him slowly. Still hearing loud melodies playing around the lair, she relied on them to cover their conversation.

“What’s wrong, Donnie?”

“I really don’t know what I can give him”, he repeated, “and I don’t want it to be something that’s too obvious either. I don’t know if my family is okay with us being more than friends.”

“But,” his human friend interrupted him, “what makes you think they wouldn’t approve?”

“I don’t know.” he sighed, fiddling with his own hands as usual. “It’s not really a subject we talk about in our home. I’m sure you understand, since you must’ve thought about it, too.”

His friend’s shoulders subtly became stiff.

“Adrian told me.” Donatello shrugged, empathizing about these awkward feelings that weren’t easy to put into words. “Your secret is safe with me though, I promise.”

Without saying anything, she stared at him with a worried glance. After another quick look around, she finally let out a few words, in a much lower voice.

“I understand,” Mizuiro sighed, asking herself how long she would be able to keep her feelings secret at this point.  “Why don’t you focus less on your intimate knowledge of him… and more on what other people know?”

He moved his right hand to his chin, not sure what she meant.

“For example,” his friend continued, “he introduced himself as a traveller, right? This alone must surely give you ideas.”

His eyes expanded after hearing this, realizing the answer has been right under his nose all this time. Well, his beak, in his case. Only a few seconds after, they were surprised by Raphael’s voice coming from the other side of the lair. He had his hand on the sound system volume, where he had adjusted the tuning knob to be heard.

“When you two geeks are done discussing electrical power and whatnot, could you give us a hand with this?”

As he pointed the top of the Christmas tree, they both noticed how their traditional star-shaped topper had yet to be functional. Immediately, Donatello smiled and walked in direction of the tree. 

“What is it? You didn’t connect it on the garlands?” he inquired.

“We didn’t want to make anything explode.” Raphael retorted, half-joking.

Mizuiro admired the way Donatello could change subject so easily, not showing any sign of his previously stressed state of mind. She went back to untangling the lights on the floor, a well-known black hand with red spots appearing in front of her. Adrian offered his help while sitting next to her. 

“You told him.” Mizuiro whispered after a minute of silence. 

“What?” her friend breathed back.

“About… our secret.”

“Oh!” Adrian exclaimed, way too loud for his friend’s taste.

She put her finger in front of her mouth.

“I’m sorry!” Adrian justified himself, back to an undertone. “The guy is a genius. It was only a matter of time until he figured I was hiding something from him. It slipped out.”

His friend sighed again, trying to concentrate on the task at hand. 

“I don’t want to ruin Christmas with all of this… drama.” She said softly.

Her terrapin friend placed a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sure it wouldn’t ruin anything, but I’ll be more careful in the future.”

“Thank you, Adrian.”

He gently hugged her before untangling the last two wires. He felt the need to stand in a victorious swing, both his hands showing off the now precisely arranged lights on the floor.

“We did it!” He said out loud, trying to cheer his friend.

“We?” Leonardo stepped in. “Mizuiro did most of the work, didn’t she?”

She shrugged while getting up, Adrian winking at her with the most obvious smile. This guy just didn’t know subtlety like she did, apparently. 

~

On December 25th, Adrian appeared in the middle of the lair. Their gift exchange has been planned for 3 PM, but the portal user came by an hour earlier. He could never determine New York’s exact time after the Daylight-Saving date. On other planets he visited, most of them agreed on a global time management solution. At least for once, he was in advance instead of being late.

“Hey, Adrian!” Michelangelo greeted him with a smile. “You’re early!” 

“Apparently?” he smiled back after noticing the time on the kitchen clock. “Hey, where should I put my gift?”

“Right here, my dude!” Michelangelo pointed their Christmas tree.

He noticed that six gifts were placed there, all indicating their names.

“Wait, is Mizuiro here already?”

“Uh yeah, she’s with Donnie, in his lab. I think she’s working on something with him.”

Adrian noticed the television was on, the weather forecast announcing snow in their area.

“Oh, can we go outside after our gift exchange!?” his friend asked with an enthusiastic voice. “Is it okay for us to go out in the day like that?”

“We could, yeah! There aren’t many humans outside during Christmas anyway.”

Michelangelo drew the attention at them.

“Hey guys! We can start early. Adrian is here!”

Raphael and Leonardo stepped out of the dojo while two heads peeked outside of the laboratory. Splinter had risen up from the couch and sat next to their Christmas tree. The seven of them formed a circle, Adrian making sure to sit next to Donatello.

“So, who’s first?” Splinter asked. “Should I just pick one since I am not biased?”

They all agreed to follow his suggestion, and he carefully gave the gifts to everyone. One by one, they opened their gifts and thanked each other. Adrian had found a cool-looking extraterrestrial dagger for Raphael during one of his travel, who then gave a knitted scarf to Leonardo. The latter gave a bracelet to Mizuiro, mentioning he had looked for trinkets all around the city to make it. Michelangelo received a pair of harem pants made by Mizuiro, which he tried on immediately. He proceeded by giving his gift to Donatello, which was a homemade “Do not disturb” sign to put on the door of his lab with cupcakes he had cooked. Last but not least, Adrian received a water bottle from Donatello. A confused look appeared on his face.

“Please, open the bottle” Donatello insisted. “There is a filter inside that should allow you to drink water wherever you find it!”

“Oh, that is so cool!” Adrian beamed. “Thank you, honey!”

Completely oblivious to his words, he kept examining the bottle and the craftmanship of it. Eventually, his attention got back to Donatello, whose face was now as red as a mutant turtle could be.

“Honey?” Michelangelo broke the silence.

“Did that just slip out of your mouth?” Raphael asked, an awkward smile appearing on his face.

“Oh.” Adrian softly winced, realizing the situation he had just created.

He looked around and saw everyone alternating their attention between Donatello and him. The conclusion was evident, seeing how shy and silent both of them suddenly were. Mizuiro put her hand in front of her mouth to hide her subtle smile. Unfortunately, someone did notice it.

“Wait,” Leonardo addressed her. “You knew?”

She was about to justify herself when Adrian disrupted the general uneasiness. He casually went sitting next to Donatello and put an arm over his now official “boyfriend”.

“I guess there’s no way of denying it now, is there?” he joked, avoiding their stares by looking at his partner. 

Even if he didn’t want to admit he was embarrassed, redness had also appeared on his cheeks.

“I am happy for you, my son.” Declared the turtle’s father, whose reaction was unexpectedly calm and collected. “You didn’t have to hide it from us.”

“Since when!?” interrupted Michelangelo.

Donatello, however, couldn’t say anything. It was not how he had planned to announce this to his family. Actually, he didn’t even have the chance to think of a better alternative. At least, Adrian had made it easier to swallow the pill by saying it nonchalantly.

“Erm well… Adrian, didn’t you want to go outside?” Donatello suggested, wanting to escape this uncomfortable situation as much as possible.

“Yes!” he remembered. “Let’s go now, how about that?”

Adrian got up and took Donatello by the hand, walking in direction of the lair’s entrance. Michelangelo wouldn’t accept the change of subject so easily.

“Don’t take it badly, I’m really hyped for them! I simply wonder why he didn’t tell us!”

“Love is complicated, Mikey.” Insisted Raphael. “Let them be. I’m sure Donnie will answer our questions later. Let’s just go outside for now, yeah?”

“Make sure to come back before 5,” mentiond Splinter. “That’s when I asked our guests to visit. Be careful, and don’t taunt him with your questions so much.”

A synchronized “Yes sensei” formally escaped the mouth of the three remaining mutant turtles. They all went in their respective rooms to find winter clothing. Donatello came back with other garments destined for Adrian. Snow has always been a source of joy for the traveller. Even if he had witnessed many different climates and meteorological phenomena, nothing could make him feel as giddy as Earth’s own frozen vapor. The fact that he had associated the sight of snow with Donatello’s presence might have been a good indicator of why he liked it so much. 

~

Outside, while their little group were making a snow sculpture, Donatello had asked Adrian to take a walk far from the others. Holding his special someone’s hand along the road, Adrian felt proud to be with him. Despite the shy nature of his partner, he showed much more confidence. His smile was growing by the second, not having to hide himself from anyone. Well, he still had to avoid humans, -and the cold- hence the snowsuit he was wearing. 

“I had something else to give you, Adrian.” Calmly said Donatello.

“Oh? You didn’t have to!”

“I insist. The water bottle was easy to make. I wanted you to have this.”

He handed him a booklet out of his pocket.

“This is a portable photo album with pictures of our group. I asked Mizuiro to help me print it.”

Adrian briefly looked at the pages in the book, but he decided to hug his partner for the moment being. He placed a delicate kiss on his forehead, hugging him even tighter. 

“You’re absolutely precious, do you know that, Donnie?”

“Ah… come on.” He shyly scoffed back. ~

(( Original art here ))

[ozma914]

The Newsletter Travels to the Past, and Hoosiers Are Still Hysterical

 It was ten years ago this summer when my first novel, Storm Chaser, was published. Almost exactly a year before that I received the publishing offer, an event I envisioned as going very differently than it did. I told that story in our latest newsletter:

https://mailchi.mp/200abd2041ac/ten-years-published

Don't forget to subscribe, and in return I'll try to be entertaining. And no, I don't sell my e-mail list to anyone, although I suppose the NSA already has it.

Meanwhile, since then we've (Emily is invaluable) had ten more works published. One of them is Hoosier Hysterical: How the West Became the Midwest Without Moving At All. I'm highlighting it because today it appears on the Fussy Librarian website, which you'll find at https://www.thefussylibrarian.com/

 You can get it at the same price on the website or Amazon (it's illustrated and everything!) at just $2.99 as an e-book and $10.00 in paperback. You could even hand me the cash and I'll hand you a book--I won't tell.

It's a little silly, but I like to see how many I can sell in a short period of time. I have a theory that if you sell two books on Amazon within an hour, you'll end up in the top ten, and selling ten in that time gives you the ability to brag about being a best seller. Nobody really understands their algorithm, so why not?

If you choose to accept that experiment, the link is here:

https://www.amazon.com/Hoosier-Hysterical-became-midwist-without-ebook/dp/B01H7YJNFE

Or, as usual, you can buy it direct from us here:

http://www.markrhunter.com/

 It's well know, of course, that Hoosier Hysterical is among the top ten humorous Indiana history and trivia books ever written, so far this decade. And to prove it, below the obligatory cover posting is a new excerpt from the book, one which I assume is quite funny. Although as I write this I haven't picked it out, yet, so I could be wrong.

INDIANA FACTS:

“He’s Our President! No, He’s Ours!”

Three states can lay claim to Abraham Lincoln. You could say he was born in Kentucky, grew up in Indiana, and did all his adult stuff as an Illinois resident.

Well, you can say it if you want—who am I to stop you? It’s a free country, partially thanks to Abe.

A lot of the stuff you hear about Abe Lincoln is, surprisingly, true. His family got to America in 1637, and Thomas Lincoln’s father, the original Abraham, moved his family to Kentucky in 1782. So it took them almost 150 years to reach the Bluegrass State and produce little Abe, but hey—travel took longer back then.

Unfortunately, four years after they arrived Grandpa Abe Lincoln was killed by American Indians, because, after all, he stepped on their proverbial lawn. But Thomas grew up, married Nancy Hanks, and bought a farm near Hodgenville. Hodgenville is south of Louisville along the Lincoln Parkway, although it’s safe to assume the highway didn’t exist at the time.

Just like in the stories, Abraham Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin, and later attended school in a log schoolhouse. They laid a lot of logs back then.

In 1816—the same year Indiana became a state—the Lincoln family crossed the Ohio River and settled in Indiana. Abe was six, so we Hoosiers can claim some of his formative years.

And formative they were. At age seven he shot a wild turkey, which upset him so much he never hunted again. It was February, after all, and with no way to keep the turkey until next Thanksgiving, it was wasted.

The next year he got kicked in the head by a horse, and for a time everyone thought he was dead. Personally, that would have put me back on to shooting animals. That same year his mother did die, permanently, from a medical condition called milk sickness.

Like Lincoln, milk sickness was uniquely American—this is the only continent it happened on. It came when cows ate a plant called white snakeroot, and wouldn’t you think the name alone would keep the cows away from it? That’s why learning to read is so important. Today milk sickness is almost unheard of, so we use fast cars to control the population.

Lincoln didn’t attend school much, but he developed a love for reading and would borrow books whenever he could. This was because they had no electricity for his PlayStation. You can’t power a videogame console with candles, but you can sure as heck read by them.

He also got to travel a bit, something many people never did. In 1828 he helped crew a flatboat down the Mississippi, and got his first taste of slavery when he saw a slave auction in progress. During the same trip seven black men tried to rob the flatboat, which could be called ironic. After he fought them off Lincoln didn’t hold a grudge.

Then, in 1830, the Lincoln family moved 200 miles, into Illinois. Abraham Lincoln was never heard from again.

Okay, not really. In fact, that same year Lincoln made his first speech, which urged navigation improvements on the Sangamon River, near Decatur. Over the next several years he read, enlisted in the military, read, ran a business into the ground, read, became a postmaster, got elected to the state legislature, and realized he’d read so much he could start studying law.

So it all worked out pretty well for him.

Okay, there were bumps along the way. He had bouts of depression, lost an election, was unlucky in love, and almost got into a sword duel. All because he left Indiana, so let that be a lesson to you.

In 1900 Lincoln’s son, Todd, gave $1,000 to take care of his grandmother’s Indiana grave. Spencer County officials gave another $800, and bought 16 acres around the gravesite. That place is now the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial. I understand there’s also a monument for Abe in Washington.

[100gayicons]

“If you read his diary, all will be explained...”

Joe Orton was an English playwright known for his scandalous black comedies. They shocked, outraged, and amused audiences. His style was so distinctive that “Ortonesque” was coined to describe similar dark and farcical works.

He was born in Leicester, England (about 100 miles northwest of London). In 1949 he grew interested in acting and joined several local theater companies, then applied to and was accepted for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

While attending RADA in 1951, he met fellow student Kenneth Halliwell and they quickly became friends, then roommates and lovers. After graduating, they both did stints in regional theater but eventually settled into a small flat where they wrote (both solo and together). They lived off money Halliwell inherited, and only worked when they had to, living frugally in between.

With that much time on their hands, they eventually got up to no good. Orton and Halliwell would take books from the library and doctor the covers with other photos (often rude) then secretly place then back in the library. For instance, a book of poetry was doctored with a photo of a nearly naked, tattooed man on the cover. In 1962 they were caught and prosecuted for damaging 70 books, sentenced to six months in prison and a fine of £262.

They felt the sentence was too harsh for the crime “because we were queers”. But the time in prison, away from Halliwell, gave Orton the ability to become creative independently. It also refined his view of society.

“It affected my attitude towards society. Before, I had been vaguely conscious of something rotten somewhere; prison crystallised this. The old whore society really lifted up her skirts and the stench was pretty foul… Being in the nick brought detachment to my writing. I wasn’t involved anymore. And suddenly it worked.”

Soon after, Orton was hired to write a radio play for the BBC, which got him noticed. The first of his best-known works, “Entertaining Mr. Sloane” was a play about a middle-aged brother and sister who vie for the attentions of Sloane, a hustler and male prostitute.

With "Sloane" a hit in the West End, Orton began work on “Loot” - a story about two young thieves who hide bank loot in a coffin belonging to the mother of one of them. Things get complicated and bizarre when an over-zealous Water Inspector arrives to investigate. A black farce, the play lampoons death, the police, religion, and justice. “Loot” struggled initially but it too became a hit.

Meanwhile, Kenneth Halliwell felt neglected. He'd helped Orton edit and shape the plays, even adding line and plot suggestions, but he never got public acknowledgement from Orton.

Complicating the situation, Orton frequently had sex outside the relationship, often cruising parks and public bathrooms for pickups, and even hiring rent boys when they went on vacation. All of which Orton wrote about in his diary. In one entry he wrote about a blond conquest: “He had a softness about his body that wasn’t the softness of a woman. I hoped he would let me fuck him.“

This did nothing to help Halliwell’s ego because he was overweight, wore a toupee, and was seven years older than the 34-year-old Orton. Halliwell became increasingly depressed and argumentative.

But Orton was on a high and may not have noticed. He was approached by the Beatles to write a movie to follow up “Help”. He completed his next major work “What the Butler Saw” in July 1967.

Orton would never see the play produced. A month later, he was killed by Halliwell with nine blows to the head with a hammer. Halliwell then committed suicide by drug overdose. Halliwell left a suicide note:

“If you read his diary, all will be explained. PS: Especially the latter part.” KH

“What the Butler Saw” eventually became a big hit as well. Author John Lahr used Orton’s diary as the basis of a biography: “Prick up Your Ears” was published in 1978. A 1987 film based on the book starred Gary Oldman as Orton and Alfred Molina as Halliwell.

[sooghostwriter]

The Bee and the Fly

Pairings: Do Kyung Soo x OC

Genre: Mature,  Romance, AU, childhood friends, fluff, a tiny bit of angst because being a teenager is hard. 

Summary: Kyung Soo and Eunji have been friends since always. Growing up together, finding themselves, following their dreams. 

Part 1: Growing up. 

Everybody called him Bee since he was five. Everybody called her Fly since she was four.

Kyung Soo got that nickname because he was cute and tiny like a bee and if he wasn’t eating he was always doing something. Helping his mom, playing with his dad or watching TV with his brother. But most of the time he was playing with her.

Eunji got that nickname because she had big eyes and she was everywhere. Not gossiping or being noisy but watching. Since then she was always interested in watching and hearing. Learn from the way adults behave. What they did, why they did it. She wasn’t nosy, but she always asked when she didn’t understand something.

She didn’t have a single childhood memory without Kyung Soo.

In the memory where she broke her right arm, Kyung Soo was calling his mom for help and grabbing her other hand, cleaning her tears and telling her it was going to be ok.

On her birthday she wouldn’t blow the candles if he wasn’t sitting next to her. And if Kyung Soo liked one of her gifts, she would give it to him.  

Movies at her place. Games at his. Summer afternoons at the park. Winter afternoons at the food market close to their house. New year’s together looking at the fireworks. Kyung Soo would cover her ears and she would never let go of his hand because he had a special talent to get lost in the crowd. Christmas where she would fight every kid who insisted on telling him that Santa didn’t exist.

Her entire childhood she had this constant presence next to her that was able to tone down any fear. His cuteness always gave her a sense of trust. If he said that everything was going to be alright, it was because it was going to be alright.

On her first day at school, Kyung Soo was grabbing her hand and taking her to her classroom, acting as a mediator so she could talk with her new classmates and checking on her every hour through the door. She didn’t acknowledge his presence because she wanted to look brave and secure in his eyes. Not as if she was looking at the door all the time to see him and get that short burst of relief. By the end of the day, he congratulated her on how brave she was, and she felt like twirling around in joy.

On school days she would have breakfast at his house since his dad would drive them to school. Kyung Soo would have dinner at hers, since his mom and dad would arrive late from work.

They were friends, their families were friends. A big family of seven.

They went to the same school. And although he was one grade higher, it was as if they were classmates.

Their parents always commented on how weird it was that such different kids could get along so well. Because they were.

She preferred solitude and he always had friends around. They loved him. She had a handful of friends, and it included her mom and Kyung Soo.

She had good grades and Kyung Soo always did just enough. He just didn’t like school. At home, she had the habit of studying, but he preferred to occupy himself with his acrylics.

That was one of her memories too. Kyung Soo painting, Kyung Soo drawing, Kyung Soo making cute animals with his Play-Doh. Everybody was always in awe of his talent.

She was the ‘smart one’. Her parents always bragged about how she learned to read and write in pre-school. How eloquent she was. How imaginative she was when playing with her dolls.

By the time he was seven, Kyung Soo’s path was very clear. He was going to be an artist.

By the time she was six, Eunji’s path was very clear. She was going to be a writer. She only told Kyung Soo though, scared that people would make fun of her. She has always been afraid that no one would understand, so she always kept everything for herself. She wanted to write books like the ones she read at that short age. Stories about animals making friends with kids, or travels through dreamlike places.

When she had issues socializing, Kyung Soo was there. First day at school or games at the park. Despite being in a different class, he was there with her at least during one recess of the day, and at lunchtime, he always sat with her. When the mean girl from school asked them if they were dating, they both answered no. When she asked if they liked each other they both answered yes. She looked at him giggling and he giggled back. They were in first and second grade, young and innocent enough to think that liking was a friendship thing. Of course she liked him. He was one of the few people she enjoyed spending time with. He was calm when needed or an endless resource of fun. They knew each other since always, of course she liked him. As she liked her mom and dad. Philia love was the name. She read it once in a book.

It was a common childhood story. That typical story where they were each other’s first kiss. Of course they completely forgot about it, but his mom had an adorable picture of Kyung Soo sitting in the swing as she grabbed his round face and kissed him. There was a second picture with her still holding his face and they were both laughing. She saw the pictures again a lot later when she was seventeen. As soon as she saw it, she felt so much jealousy. She was so jealous of the Eunji from the picture. She was fearless.

That’s how their first decade of life went by. 

 She remembered quite clearly when in middle school they began to part from each other. There wasn’t a specific moment, at least she didn’t remember one, but it was around that age that they began to change. She began taking English classes every other afternoon after class, so they didn’t walk home together anymore. She also made a new group of friends there, and they would often meet on Saturdays for food and games. Especially with Junmyeon.

She never introduced them to Kyung Soo. These were her friends. And they were all obsessed with Harry Potter, and they read Stephen King behind their parents backs and they listened to cringy emo music. Things that were of her interest, not his.

Kyung Soo went through some changes too. His brother went to do his service, so he grew more attached to his friends and his parents. The art club of the school got quite popular too, so they were always away during the weekends at local art fairs showing their work with other schools from around the country.

He stopped coming to her house for movies or dinner. She asked him once why he did “My mom works closer to home now, so she can come home early enough to cook for us…and I guess we are ok like this, watching movies with our friends and not ourselves” She nodded in understanding. She thought the same. Kyung Soo always liked to watch dramatic movies, meanwhile, she enjoyed stupid comedies. She liked her drama in books, not in movies. After that she walked home and didn’t think about it for a while until her head hit the pillow, and a horrible melancholy took over her. Now, much older, she knew what that feeling meant, that night she was unable to understand the pain in her chest.

Everything changed. It was as if now they were only classmates, not friends anymore.

They were a set when kids and now they grew apart. It was normal, and she wouldn’t have to change it, she was having fun. Her group of friends was small, but she felt included and she achieved that all by herself. But there were days when she missed him desperately. Or maybe she just missed the simpler days.

When he got into high school things changed again. That summer she began dating Junmyeon, her friend from English class, her right hand, and accomplice in every fun quest they had with their group of friends.

Kyung Soo began dating one of his classmates. He was always very popular between the female students, so she wasn’t surprised. She wasn’t a huge fan of hers, but if Kyung Soo liked her, IT was good enough. They were still in that plateau face of their friendship. 

Highschool brought them a bit closer. Now they had the same teachers so that always gave them fresh gossip to talk about, but that was pretty much all. Junmyeon became the Kyung Soo of her present. He would visit her on Sunday before lunch and would sit on her bed watching some anime as she was finishing one of her stories for the writing club. Then he would read it and tell her if it was easy to understand.

Sometimes Kyung Soo would come over to bring something to her mother or father. He would stay around for a little while. They would talk about their respective partners. His relationship wasn’t going very well. Hers was good and she was having a lot of fun with Junmyeon. He always told her that he was happy for her. He was relieved that she found someone like him. 

“And if he does something to you, I have a sock and a can ready for him” He wasn’t joking, she knew it. Kyung Soo never shied away from violence when it came to protecting his friends, if she still was that. 

“Thanks, just don’t aim for the face, it would be a terrible loss” 

Then they would laugh about something and then he would leave. At school they didn’t speak at all during the breaks because Kyung Soo split those moments between his friends and his girlfriend. During lunch, they didn’t sit together anymore, but whenever he didn’t eat his dessert, he would give it to her.

When Kyung Soo was in 12th grade he went through other changes. He broke up with his girlfriend and began focusing on his studies since he made the decision of entering a good university to study art. The art club at school wasn’t enough for him so he began attending different workshops. She knew all these through her gossiping mom.  

 That same year, she went through some big changes too. Not her, but her surroundings. One afternoon her parents gave her the news that they were getting a divorce and her dad was moving out of the house. The relationship between the two of them hasn't been the same in the last two years. They weren’t a couple that fought a lot, but the silence sometimes was unbearable. She wished she could break the tension by breaking a plate or smashing the door close. Shouting at each other and ignoring each other had the same amount of violence and it anguished her to the bones.  So, the news of her parents gave her some relief.  They were doing what was better for them. But the uncertainty terrified her. Not knowing how her relationship with her father would be from now on. Would they date other people and get married again? Was she going to have brothers or sisters in the near future? Where would her dad live? Who would cook for him?

He left immediately that night. He hugged his soon to be ex-wife and then hugged her. She jolted when he cradled in his arms. It felt as if he was cutting some ties with her too. Not all of them, but she knew that starting from there, her dad wasn’t going to be part of her everyday life.

He closed the door behind him, and she and her mom stayed seated for a long time in complete silence. She could hear her mom’s brain trying to find the right words, something that they hadn’t told her before to console her, but she couldn’t. How could she? She was the one that had run out of love for that man, but Eunji didn’t. She still loved her dad, but he left anyway.

She wasn’t mad towards either of them. She wasn’t disappointed or scared. She was sad. Just sad. For the three of them. She told this to her mom, but she didn’t seem to quite get it, so she just went to her room, running away from that charged room. All of her life she dealt with her emotions alone. Mostly because she never felt strongly about anything. She was never too angry, too sad, too happy. She never built up any emotion, because as the emotion was developing inside of her, she exorcised it through her writing.  Now she didn’t have the time to write, the sadness had already grown in her chest and it expanded to her neck, choking her with tears.

Eunji stood in the middle of her room and walked slowly to her bed. She felt like hiding there, under the covers and wait until her chest felt normal again. She still felt the strong grip of her father’s arms and it made her feel worse “Eunji, open” She heard a voice at her door. A voice that with the years had changed and it wasn’t as familiar as before. But the emotive notes of that voice were still the same. Worry. Worry because his friend was in pain.

It was Kyung Soo.

She didn’t know why he was there, but she didn’t care either. She needed him now. He could take care of the sadness in her chest. He always did. He always took the pain away. She opened the door with desperate hands and met his worried face. 

“Let me in, my mom told me what happened” It was a mixture of an order and a plea. He went in, standing in the same place where she was before. 

“How bad are you?” He asked, rubbing his hands nervously. 

“Very bad, I feel terrible Kyung Soo”

“Eunji, I’m so sorry Eunji” He walked to her and pulled her to him wrapping his arms around her. His embrace was warm and protective as always, but bigger than she remembered. His arms felt solid, but still gave her the space to breathe. He kept repeating how sorry he was as if any of this was his fault. Her world had stopped in its axis and nothing moved around her, or inside of her, only her rattling heart. His long hug took away some boiling hurtful feelings for a long while although there was no concept of time there. She pressed into his body searching for more warmth and his arms helped her doing so. He caressed the back of her head and moved her to the bed so they could sit. She just followed him, not even considering the idea of releasing him.

She didn’t say anything. If he knew what was going on, he didn’t need explanations. He also remained silent, but his hug never lost strength. After some long minutes he spoke, his voice soft and sweet “Everything is going to get better, and it will be alright”

“Really? I mean I know it will, but now I can’t find the positivity to think  like that, so say that again” He laughed dryly against her shoulder and repeated himself. 

She let him go when he said it for the third time as if it was a spell. Her hands went to her sides, but he held her from the shoulders as she could collapse. 

“Thank you for coming,  I don’t know what would I have done without you” He rubbed her shoulders making her look up at him. 

“Eunji, it doesn’t matter what happens with us or between us,  but I  will always be there for you, especially when crappy things happen to you” There was a soft glimmer in his eyes, a sweet severity that tried to convey what he was promising. 

And she wished strongly in her heart that this was a real promise. That this was more meaningful than cutting your finger and rubbing it with your friend’s cut finger. A spoken  pact instead of a blood pact. She thanked him again and hugged him because it was their only language for now. He answered the hug but it didn’t feel like the supportive hug from before. It was the signature of the pact. 

“What we have…can’t compare, it’s forever” He whispered against her ear, and at that time she didn’t question it. She didn’t obsess over the meaning of that phrase, because the meaning was clear to her.

Philia.

She didn’t know if she said it out loud or not, but she didn’t get an answer from him.

The days after her parents’ divorce were tough. Her mom was clearly affected but acted like she didn’t care, putting way too much attention on what she did or didn’t do. She wasn’t really used to that and by the fifth time, Eunji stopped her. She didn’t shout at her mom, she spoke to her very calmly, which to her surprise, angered her mom even more.

Kyung Soo didn’t come to visit her again. The feeling of his hug visited her quite often during the day, especially when things got complicated at home. At school, he would sit next to her at the library during lunch break and ask her how things were going. She always answered with a hopeful better.  

“Really?” He always  followed up. 

“Yeah, I’m trying to get used to it, I miss my dad a lot, and I still don’t know what is going to happen”

“With what?”

“My family, my mom, and dad…In less than two years I could move to Seoul to study. What's going to happen with my mom? She can’t stay alone, and now who is taking care of my dad? He can’t cook, he can’t wash his clothes, my mom and I spoiled him like a child” Kyung Soo grabbed her hand under the table and squeezed it tenderly. 

“You can worry, but there is nothing you can do, you can’t stop living your life, you can’t not study because of your mom, and your dad…he is an adult, he can learn how to cook, he has a mother who can take care of his meals, you will take care of them when they are old, but now they are perfectly capable adults who can take care of themselves” Kyung Soo always had that power. He wasn’t a man of a lot of words, ever. Because he didn’t fill the silence with shallow words and didn’t give opinions when nobody asked him. When he spoke it was because he had something to say. And he was always accurate. 

“I don’t think I can do that”

“I know, you always worry too much about the people you love…and I’m not saying you should change that, that’s a beautiful thing, but you should always be the priority”

“So I should go on with my life?” He nodded. 

“I talk with my dad every day and he is managing”

“See, things aren’t that bad, it’s going to take a while to get used to it I guess, but this is not your problem, the most you can do is support them” She wanted to thank him for his words but the ring of the bell ate her words. He released her hand, cursing loudly. He explained to her in a hurry about forgetting to ask for the book he needed for the next class and went to talk with the librarian. She left in a hurry too, but before her class started, she made sure to text him a simple thank you. He answered with a smiley face.

When she expressed these same worries to her boyfriend, his answer wasn’t the same. He just didn’t know what to say. Junmyeon did his best to support her and understand her. But his young self wasn’t ready to deal with a slightly depressed girlfriend. She didn’t blame him. Their relationship was pretty much two friends who made out and had some fun when their parents weren’t at home. They never had deep talks and she never really shared her deep thoughts with him. He wasn’t the type. 

“Are you going to be better without me?” He asked playfully when she told him that she wanted to break up. 

“Don’t say it like that, I just feel like I need to be alone”

“I understand” His cute peach cheeks told her that he really did. 

“I’m sorry” She apologized,  several times.

“Don’t be, this was great, I had a great first girlfriend, I couldn’t ask for more”

“You were an amazing boyfriend too Junmyeon, an amazing friend” He hugged her pulling her to his chest, he knew it was her favorite. 

“Are we still that? Friends?” She promised him that they were. One part of her heart, if it had the ability to do more than pumping blood, was always going to love him.

She didn’t want to be part of a statistic, but her parents’ divorce detonated a change in her. It was time to become an adult. In the sense of being responsible about herself. She needed to grow up, make decisions and ensure her own happiness.  Kyung Soo’s words were a big influence on this decision.

Often at school, he would check on her. A ‘How are you doing?’  as they passed each other, a short talk during lunch. Despite how short they were, he was the only one asking. He was the only one who heard her honest words. One afternoon she found him alone in the art room cleaning his brushes and tools. She was actually looking for him, but for some reason kept repeating to herself that it was an accident. She needed to talk to someone.  As soon as she entered the room Kyung Soo noticed her bothered face. 

“You don’t look your best, something happened?” She sat in a stool next to the window. 

“I don’t think I have look my best in a while Kyung Soo “

“I dare to disagree, but what happened?” After school she did something she had been pulling off for a while. The one on one interview with her teacher about her future. 

“She asked me if I was still considering medicine because one time she asked me what I wanted do become,  I panicked and I said doctor “

“You want to be a doctor?!” There was a mixture of surprise and disgust in his question. 

“No of course not, I told you I panicked, so today when she asked me again I told her what I really want to do”

“And that is?” She was sure he knew it. 

“A writer” He nodded smiling softly. 

“Then why that face?”

“She is going to tell my mom for sure and my mom doesn’t know, she thinks I’m going to become something profitable like an engineer or a lawyer, I’m scared of her reaction, I don’t want her to attack  my passion “

“Are you clear about where you are going to study?” She nodded. 

“Are you clear how you are going to pay for said education?”

“I think I can get a scholarship” He finished drying his hands with a lot of calm and brought a stool in front of her. 

“I know how secretive you are about your writing for that same reason, and I know how your mom is, she is a great woman, but she doesn’t have a way with words”

“What would you do?” He straightened his back, crossing his arms and adopting a thinking face that she hasn’t seen in so long, so, so long. It was the same, the same face she saw so many times before. 

“If you are confident, and if there are possibilities of studying for free I say you should do it, and also I know your parents, they are going to be mad or whatever for a couple of days and then they are going to let you do whatever you want”

“You are saying I’m worrying for nothing”

“I would never say that, I’m telling you to go for it, you can” A knock on the door took away his focus on her and their conversation was cut short, he had to go somewhere. She felt like staying in that room for a little longer just staring at the paintings of the members of the art club. She stopped him as he was leaving the room, needing to ask a question which could fuel her resolution. 

“Kyung Soo, are we still friends?” There was shock for a second in his face, his eyes betrayed him. 

“Yes, we never stopped being friends Eunji, things needed to change a little bit, but we are still friends” Her throat tightened up, but her chest felt full. As if the emotion was grabbing her by the neck and relief was pumping her chest.  

That night she barely slept. As soon as she arrived at her house she talked with her mom about her plans. Of course she didn’t react well. 

“You still write?” She couldn’t blame her mom for asking that. There was no way she could know. She never shared that side of her with her parents. 

Her dad was supportive, maybe out of guilt, but she didn’t get full support from either of them. She needed to give them some time to process it, as Kyung Soo said. But that wasn’t what was keeping her up. What kept her up was her newfound friendship with Kyung Soo. Their relationship went from a hundred to zero and now back to a hundred. Or maybe fifty. They still didn’t meet as often as they used to. But being able to talk again with him. Opening up to him and finding a trustful ear was marvelous. That evening, as she was talking with the night, she noticed that their friendship was one of those connections where they could start from where they left. No need to catch up or regain confidence. It felt as if they had press pause, went to do whatever they needed to do, and now they were pressing play.

Of course now they were different. More mature, with different issues to discuss. She felt a bit guilty that she was the only one opening up, needing help. She didn’t ask him how he was doing. Maybe he had issues too, and he was only focusing on her. That was a very common thing in Kyung Soo, but now she was older and less demanding than the 8 years old Eunji. The next time they met she was going to ask him how he was doing. This year was a big one for him, and maybe he was going through some issues just like her.

 The next Monday she was washing her teeth when she heard someone knocking at the door. Her mom went to open it and she could hear her from upstairs greeting the early guest with a lot of enthusiasm. It was Kyung Soo.

From then on, he picked her up every day so they could walk to school together. She did what she promised to herself and asked him. Anything. He answered all her questions and they held 15 to 20 minutes conversations every morning. They weren’t telling each other all the things that happened during those years where they lost contact. They were learning the new sides of this old friend.

 It was her birthday when something she feared happened. It was a fear that her mom injected on her several years ago when she and Kyung Soo were just kids. 

One day after she answered on her school homework that the person she loved the most was her friend Kyung Soo her mom said, jokingly. 

“Eunji, careful with falling in love with that little Bee, you could lose him” She loved her mom, but she was a master of saying the wrong things all the time. That day, when she was 7 years old, her mom came up with that brutal sentence. If falling in love with him would result in losing him, she was going to make sure to never see him as more than a friend. But that day, when she turned 16, the thing she feared happened. She noticed that the feeling she had for him wasn’t Philia anymore.

She didn’t want to have that conversation with herself. 

“When did you start loving him, Eunji?”.  No. 

Because the answer, whichever it was, could mess with the image she had of herself. If she had been in love with Kyung Soo since she was a child, what was Junmyeon? Before her head could answer, she stopped herself. She didn’t need that answer. It didn’t matter. The thing was that she was now in love with her best friend. 

After celebrating in the morning with her friends at her house Kyung Soo came to pick her up. 

“Let’s go Fly, we have one hour to arrive there, past 3pm we have to pay” She was just bidding goodbye to Junmyeon when he got in through the back door. He pushed the brakes when he saw her ex standing there. She wasn’t sure if he knew that they weren’t dating anymore. 

“Oh sorry. You guys have plans?” Junmyeon answered, all smiles and glowing cheeks. 

“No, we already celebrate, I was just leaving, good to see you Kyung Soo”

“Same” It didn’t sound like he felt the same though. Eunji took him to the door and wished him a safe trip back home, glad that she could celebrate a birthday with a friend.

Kyung Soo was in the kitchen nibbling on some leftovers from the celebratory breakfast. 

“Your English friends?”

“Yeah, we always do this” He grabbed a piece of fruit cake and put it in his mouth, it surprised her how he managed not to choke. 

“Did I miss something about Junmyeon and you? You two didn’t look like a couple” Years of experience allowed her to understand what he was saying. 

“We broke up some months ago, we are still friends tho”

“I feel crappy for not knowing” She played it down and went to grab her jacket.

 During the one-hour bus ride to the next town and before the birthday outing began, Kyung Soo made it very clear that he was penniless. So, they were going to do only free things. 

“I can buy you lunch, but I can only pay for a happy meal”

“I haven’t had one in a while, I like it, can I keep your toy?”

“Sure, birthday gift” In all these years of them being friends, then not so much, and now back to being friends again, this was the first time they shared a day like this, doing something both loved. First stop was the museum. Kyung Soo wanted to visit a biennial of media art at the contemporary museum. 

“Why media art? You are a fine arts kind of guy”

“I like using old techniques, but I hate fine arts themes, I’m seeking for inspiration regarding current matters, also I can’t deal with computers, so for me, all this media pieces look so hard and complicated, I like it” He kept being talkative like that for the two hours they spend in the museum. 

He commented on all the pieces with her, either monologuing or debating with her. She loved it. There were about 11 videos, and as engaging and beautiful they were, she was still a bit tired when they got inside the last room. The video had just started and the room was empty. In the middle of the room there were a couple of mats and pillows so people could sit down and watch. She went straight to the mat and laid down on it. Kyung Soo copied her action and laid down next to her. The beautiful images of Lofoten Islands and relaxing sounds of the sea that the video showcased got her in a peaceful trance. She wasn’t sleepy, but her body was fully relaxed now, and her brain had slowed down. Still, the words of the biologist on the screen brought tears to her eyes. Kyung Soo sighed heavily next to her when the video was over, and then turned around, resting on his right arm. Half of his body was hovering above her, his chest and face too close to her body. She couldn’t see his face since it was dark inside, the room slightly illuminated by the blue light of the video. She knew he was looking at her, but he was silent. The sound of the waves kept playing in the background as she felt his hand brushing hers, playing with her fingers. 

“You look really pretty,” He said, still hidden by the darkness “Did you cry?”. 

Answering yes or no suddenly became an impossible task after being caught off ward by his comment. It drove her crazy not being able to tell if he was smiling, frowning or just staring at her with a blank face. That could change the meaning of his words drastically. 

“I did” She answered, but her shock was louder, she was sure. 

“Me too, that was so scientific but also packed with poetry, amazing, you mind if we watch it again?” She agreed and he went back to his previous position, this time resting his head on her shoulder.  The second time she couldn’t watch the video. She completely forgot about its existence. She could only look at the top of his head. His hair tickled her cheek. She could only sense his smell and his warmth. But above all that, she could feel and hear her heartbeat, shocking her and deafening her. Loud as drums and scary like a storm. This wasn’t the first time she felt like this, so she knew what it was, what it meant. 

“Let’s go, we have one more exposition to see '' He stood up and pulled her up with him. They walked out of the room, needing a couple of minutes to adjust to the bright light.

 He locked arms with her and walked her to the next room. That exposition, in particular, was way past her level of comprehension. It was just a bunch of silly videos for her, but Kyung Soo was analyzing every bit. She listened carefully, and whenever she stood in front of a video and he walked away, he would come back, grab her hand and pull her with him to the next piece. He didn’t let go of her hand. He wasn’t holding it tightly, just locking his pinky with hers. When he did it for the first time, she had to look at their hands just to check if it was happening or not.

On one hand she was so grateful that he was seeking for her, on the other she was sure that by the end of the day she was going to have some kind of heart failure.

But at the same time, it was so exciting. It wasn’t the first time he would act like this with her. When they were kids Kyung Soo told her she was pretty several times, and he held her hand whenever they were outside.

But they weren’t kids anymore.

After the museum, he took her to a book shop so they could do something she enjoyed. They walked several streets so they could visit her favorite bookshop “We spend about three hours at the museum, I’m willing to spend three hours here for you”

“Gee, thank you, you know I can spend three hours here right?”

“I know, that’s why I’m telling you” As she followed him around the museum, he followed her around the bookshop. 

She would grab books she had already read, and comment on them. Kyung Soo would grab books too, based on how cool the cover was and ask her if she had read them. They whispered to each other all the time, under an accomplice aura. She loved it. 

She was going through the sci-fi section when she lost track of Kyung Soo. The library was a little bit packed at that time. She shouldn’t have let go of his hand, he still had a talent to get lost. She searched around with a soft smile on her lips, the memory of a 5-year-old Kyung Soo pouting and wide-eyed, waiting for her to find him, kept humoring her from the past. She found him in the poetry section on the second floor. 

“Old habits don’t die uh?” She told him, sitting next to him on the floor. 

“I wondered and ended up here, on my defense, I don’t cry when I get lost anymore” She patted his back and asked him what he was looking at. He had a small stack of books next to him.

“These books are not very expensive, I can get you one”

“You don’t have to, the happy meal and the museum date was enough” He shrugged it off and insisted. When it came to getting a new book, she wasn’t hard to convince. His selection wasn’t bad, although she had half of them. She ended up picking up a selection of poems from Sapho, a simple yet feminine edition. Kyung Soo grabbed it happily and took it to the register and paid for it. It was already a bit late and if they wanted to grab a seat on the bus, they needed to be quick.

Kyung Soo read her new book on their way home, taking pictures of the poems he liked. 

“You have something similar to this at home?”

“Yeah, I have another book of Sappho and other female authors”

“Borrow them to me” She never had issues borrowing her books, even if it meant losing some of them. She invited him to her place, her mom gave them dinner and then they went to her room so Kyung Soo could check her books and take some of them. He got a call from his mom asking where he was and only then they noticed it was past midnight. 

“I’m going to stay here with Eunji for a little longer” He told his mom and hung up. He didn’t even ask her, she didn’t dislike that. Her mom came to check on them a couple of times until sleep was stronger than her and she went to bed. Eunji wasn’t sure if she was just checking if they needed something or if she was checking if what they were doing was Christian enough. As if anything like that could happen. 

Kyung Soo convinced her to watch a movie he had recently watched. She was sure that they would both fall asleep during the movie, but he insisted and she has never been able to say no to him. The movie was so good and engaging that by four in the morning it was over, and they were wide awake. Awake but hungry. They went downstairs and got themselves some snacks and the entire bottle of coke. They chatted for a little while until Kyung Soo got serious. He fumbled with his fingers a little bit, locked eyes with her and then looked down again. She gave him time, not even daring to wonder what he had to say. If he was nervous, she had to stay calm. 

“I decided that I’m not going to L university, I gave it a lot of thought and the way they select their students and also the way they plan their classes does not fit me” He was right. L university was everybody’s choice because it was close to their town, so it was cheaper. It was known also for how easy it was to get in, but how hard it was to stay. Also, if he wanted to study arts, L university wasn’t the best. 

“Where are you going then?”

“I did some research and the Seoul Institute of the Arts is my best option” Seoul. That was almost 10 hours away by bus. He was going to spend money on rent for sure. 

“You are moving to Seoul?”

“Yeah, next week I need to go for my personal interview and after that, I will know if they accept me, but I’m sure they will accept me, I was scouted in one of our art fairs and I send some of my work and they liked it, so…I’m confident” Another difference between L University and the Seoul Institute of the Arts was how hard was to get in it. They didn’t care about your grades, nor did they have an entrance exam. If they liked your work, you were in. And if they really liked your art you were in and with a scholarship. Kyung Soo was scouted and had one foot inside the institute.

“I don’t want to congratulate you and jinx it, but I can tell you that I am really proud” He giggled shyly and thanked her. 

“So you are not going to be here next year”

“No, I’m going to leave during the summer” The word leave weighed heavily on her chest. It was a terrible one. There was nothing more she could say. And Kyung Soo didn’t ask her more. He climbed on her bed and rested his head on her pillow, snuggling. 

“I don’t want to leave my life here, but I can’t keep living it if I don’t go”  

“You are right” She crawled to his side and sat on the floor facing him. 

“I just feel like we are all so young for so many changes, our brains can’t be ready for all this…but also, our parents went through this, our parents’ parents too, so it can’t be that horrible”

“Of course not, and we are luckier than them, my dad couldn’t go to medical school because of money, your mom wanted to be a teacher, but her dad didn’t let her…not like us who got to decide what to do, and we couldn’t choose more uncertain paths in life, an artist and a writer” Eunji covered her mouth to tone down her laugh. Kyung Soo was right, and they should celebrate their freedom. 

“Have you decided where you want to study? With your grades you can go anywhere you want”

“I have some options, but I’m planning on deciding next year”

“Since I’m not going to be here you are going to have a lot of free time…what? Why did you get sad all of a sudden?”

“How can you ask why? I just got you back and now you are leaving” There were less dramatic ways to express what she was feeling, for sure, but she was being honest. 

“Eunji, I never left so how could you get me back, we just…I don’t know, what happened to us Eunji?” He grabbed on to her pillow with much strength hiding his face and sighing with something close to frustration. 

“There were days where I missed you so much, I needed to do and say things I couldn’t do with my friends…and you were across the street, but I just couldn’t do it, things weren’t as before, and I knew that you would treat me like before, that everything would go back to what it used to be, like now, but I just couldn’t, I was afraid and embarrassed” She reached for his hand and grabbed it. 

“I missed you too, so much, but also our time apart allowed us to do so many things and met so many people…and when I needed you the most, you came, and we are back to how it used to be” He raised his face slowly and looked at their hands. 

“That night, after your mom called mine telling her what happened, I didn’t think about it twice and came here, and now here we are” He rested his head on the pillow again and looked at her with a sweet, sleepy smile. 

“You have a point when you say that you never left…we remained friends” He nodded, closing his eyes.

“Now you get it,” He whispered playfully. 

The hand she was holding felt softer, more relaxed and when she looked at his face it was clear he was asleep. Why bother waking him up? He was tired, it was too late, and this wasn’t the first time they shared a bed. Of course, in the past, her bed had a Barbie bedspread and her ceiling was covered in glow in the dark stars. Now her bedspread was gray and her ceiling naked. But the feeling in her room was the same from 10 years ago. Homey, safe and happy.

She took off her sweater, brought a blanket and laid next to him, covering both with it.

She faced his back and made sure to stick to the wall, so she wouldn’t bother him. His back and nape looked so manly from behind. His silky black hair falling onto her pillow, his breathing, a bit loud, filling her silent room.

He was so big now. An almost grown-up.

The Bee was gone long ago. Now he was more of a bumblebee. She giggled quietly to her own thoughts. .

She drifted off to sleep feeling that bursting sensation inside of her. The feeling of loving someone. Of loving him.

She woke up early with the sound of her mom’s voice. She opened her eyes and found her with her phone taking pictures. 

“This was a throwback” She whispered to a still half-sleep Eunji. She tried to explain herself, but her mom wasn’t interested. 

“I’m glad you guys are still friends…make sure to serve him some breakfast ok? I’m leaving for work” Before she could answer, her mom left looking at the pictures she had just taken. 

Eunji turned around on her bed a couple of times and then got up. It was early and she had probably slept 3 to 4 hours, but she was fully awake now. Kyung Soo on the other side was still asleep. She went to the bathroom, took her time, and when she came back Kyung Soo was moving around her bed, turning from one side to the other, grasping to the last seconds of sleep. She sat on her desk and did her best to comb her hair into a bun. Some hairs were sticking out, but it was under control. 

“Eunji, stay there, let me take a picture” She jolted on her seat and froze on her spot, reacting to the urgency in Kyung Soo’s voice. She asked him several times what it was, but he only insisted on her staying still. He stood up and grabbed his phone from her desk where it was charging. In the reflection of her mirror, she could see him standing behind her and pointing his camera to her nape. 

“You are taking a picture of my neck?”

“Your nape, yes, Can I paint it?” He stood next to her and showed her his phone with her picture.

“Why do you want to paint it?”

“It looks very cute, and the nape is one of the most attractive things in the human body” She chuckled and looked at her picture, it looked quite cute if she could say so. 

“That’s your subject, the human body?”

“I think so”

“Ok, you can paint it, but unnamed” Kyung Soo frowned in doubt. 

“I was planning on naming it Eunji, or Fly…but if that’s your only request, unnamed it is” Kyung Soo called her pretty yesterday and now was saying that her nape was cute. She wasn’t used to compliments, and she knew that his were obviously an exaggeration. But she could take them and believe them for a couple of days or weeks.

Kyung Soo stayed for breakfast and then left the  house without a word, only giving her a hand signal.

Before lunch, she got a text for him thanking her for the food, the company and the beautiful day they shared.

She answered hoping that they could do that again before he moves to Seoul. Kyung Soo answered – I will not leave your side for the rest of the year -

Two weeks before his graduation he got a call from the institute telling him that he had been accepted. It was settled that his departure was going to be in the middle of the summer, a month after his graduation.  

He wasn’t lying when he told her that he wasn’t going to leave her alone. She still met her friends regularly, but whenever she was at home, Kyung Soo was there. If she was studying, he was on his cellphone or sketching. Whenever he went downtown to buy art supplies, she would come with him. They were coming back to an old routine that for sure she was going to miss in the future.  

And with every day they spent together, the love for him kept growing. Kyung Soo had become a second home, a safer and more supportive one. He was polite with everybody around him. Watching him interact with his friends, so lovingly yet stern was a new side that she didn’t see very often. With her, he was just sweet. He always had the right word, the right touch, he even appeared just when she needed him. One time she asked him if he could read her mind and he only grinned and said maybe.

There were different kinds of love and different degrees of love. She never stopped to think about how much she loved him or how. She wasn’t interested. There was no point in facing anything if he was about to leave. But the main reason why she refused to fully acknowledge her feelings was fear. Fear of being rejected and breaking their bond.

She was never too brave. Especially now as an almost adult. If the five-year-old Eunji could possess her current body she would cross the street, go to Kyung Soo’s room, grab his cute face and kiss him on the lips. But the old Eunji disappeared years ago, and the new one was shy and a coward.

But she was cautious and strong. So, whatever happened she was sure she would be able to deal with it. Deal with anything but heartbreak. Missing him, she could handle that much. Losing him for a sudden love confession, that would break her.

And also, there was no rush.

She didn’t mark on her planner his moving day. She didn’t need to remember it. The day before his friends organized a party in a restaurant and they invited her. She really didn’t want to go, she had come out with an excuse when Kyung Soo called her asking if she was coming. 

“I thought it was a surprise party”

“It was for like ten minutes, I found out what they were planning in a heartbeat, go please” She complained by groaning his name in annoyance. 

“Please, I know you find them funny, and they like how chill you are, you just have to go, eat and speak once in a while, nothing more”

“Ok”

“I promise that I’m going to make you sit next to me so you don’t have to do small talk” She ended up agreeing, and of course she didn’t regret it. 

The party was more of a gathering. They ate and laughed loudly. Telling different stories about them with Kyung Soo, commenting on where he beat them and with what. Some of them cried thinking about him leaving, some of them made him promise that he would visit them often to which he refused. 

“I don’t think I’m going to be able to visit very often, it’s a 10-hour drive from there, plane tickets are expensive, also, I’m going to be an art student, I’m going to have money for art supplies and maybe food, that’s it” He was answering to his friends, but that was for her too.

She wasn’t going to be able to see him too often.

The next morning she woke up after one hour of sleep. She arrived late from the party, but once she laid on her bed sleep refused to take over. At one point she gave up and began reading.

Kyung Soo’s dad was going to drive him to the bus station at 8 o’clock. It was 6 am. She went to take a shower, washed her hair and then sat on her bed for almost an hour covered in her towel, just staring at her wall. Her mind went from completely blank to being filled with the image of Kyung Soo and the sound of his voice. She was already feeling homesick.

Her hair had already dried when her mom knocked at her door. 

“Let’s go and say goodbye to Kyung Soo” Her mom was holding an envelope against her chest, Eunji looked at it raising an eyebrow. 

“This is a bit of money to help him settle, it’s the only thing I can do…and also, next year you are going to go through the same I suspect, so…”

“That’s very nice of you mom” She looked happy with her compliment and hurried outside the house. Her neighbor’s door was open, the car parked outside, and she could see them chatting in the living room. Eunji’s mom went inside and she just followed her. Kyung Soo’s mom was teary-eyed and ran to hug her friend, Kyung Soo and his dad laughed lovingly at her. Eunji felt a bit awkward and was kind of grateful that she didn’t hug her, she was sure she would cry with her.

“Our kids are leaving us, it’s happening  too soon” She said between sobs. 

“Now we only have Eunji”

“Yeah, but don’t get too attached, she would be leaving next year” Her mom joked, hugging her friend. 

“But you guys have each other at least” Kyung Soo commented standing next to her. 

“I’m leaving Eunji here, and going there alone” His mom released Eunji’s mom and went to hug her son sobbing about how her baby was going to be all by himself. 

“Mom, I was joking, I’m going to be alright” Despite Kyung Soo’s mom crying, which was expected, there was a very light atmosphere at his place. He had already packed everything and was enjoying a snack before heading to the station. He looked relaxed, excited to leave and answered his parents’ questions over and over again, with patience. 

They asked him at least 10 times if he took the credit card with him and he answered the 10 times with his signature calm. Eunji did her best to copy, to absorb some calm from him, but on a scale, she was closer to his mom’s mood than his. She did her best to act natural. Laugh when needed, hold a conversation. But she could hear her voice softer, trying to go past her tight throat.

“Eunji, before I go, come to my room with me” She followed him upstairs and walked inside his room. The shelves were half empty and the open doors of his wardrobe showed empty shelves and hangers. 

“I was going to take my blankets but my mom forbade me to do so, she said that the bed had to be ready for when I come to visit” She sat on his bed and smiled at him, finding his mom’s way of thinking so adorable. Kyung Soo moved around his room, probably checking if he was forgetting something, her eyes following him as he moved. She felt so jealous of him. So jealous of his peace. He stood in front of her with his hands on his waist looking down at her with a soft smile “Are you ok?” She shook her head. 

“Are you sad because I’m leaving?” She nodded looking away. Kyung Soo was going to say something, but his dad interrupted them by calling him from downstairs. It was time to leave. 

She felt so desperate, as the time with him was running short. Kyung Soo grabbed her hands and made her stand up. 

“Have you thought about studying at the Seoul Institute?” His voice was rushed. 

“I have”

“I don’t want to push you, it’s your decision, but it would be great if we went there together”

“It would depend…I need to get a scholarship otherwise it’s going to be impossible” He insisted that she wasn’t pushing her decision and she wasn’t going to recognize that a part of her would kill to go there and not have to miss him. 

Kyung Soo didn’t let go of her hands and kept rubbing them with his thumb. She wanted to put her hand on his chest. Maybe his face wasn’t giving too much away, but his heart, his heart must be showing it. He had to feel something right now, he was leaving. He must feel at least half, even a third as sad as her. Her hands were itching to touch him, to bring him to her. Kyung Soo was a step ahead. He hugged her, bringing her to his body slowly, taking his time to envelope her with his arms and rest his chin comfortably on her shoulder.

And she felt it.

In his breathing, in his hold. His heartbeat matched hers. His hold was tight and desperate and his voice sounded low and so close to her ear as if he didn’t want to share this with anyone, not even the walls of his room. 

“See you soon Eunji”

“See you”

“Take care” His arms held her tighter and she did the same. 

“You too, if you need anything, call” His laugh rumbled against her chest. 

“What could I need from you, money?” She hit his back playfully. 

“I’m broke, but you know…”

“I know, I will call…I’m gonna try not to bother you too much” Eunji pulled apart and held to his upper arm, putting together all her effort to look serious and try to send along a message that she knew she was not going to be able to say, but maybe, just maybe her eyes would be able to express. 

“Kyung Soo, bother me all you want” His eyes went wide for a quick second and then a smile took over. He didn’t laugh, so it wasn’t funny to him, his smile was more of a thankful one. 

“That was very cool Eunji, ok, I will call” He hugged her again, quickly, so she didn’t have the chance to hug him back.

The farewell was short, they were a little bit behind schedule. He hugged her again and this time she was quicker, hugging him back and not letting him go for five seconds. 

 +++++

She wished for their love story to be a Shakespeare comedy, ups and downs, a little misunderstanding, lovely characters but with love as the champion of the story. But early after Kyung Soo’s departure, she realized that this was a Bronte novel. All of the Bronte sisters. Because, there was a possibility that love could win in the1 end, but in the middle, there was going to be a lot of drama.

With the divorce of her parents, she noticed something about herself, and now with the recent events, she confirmed it. She was terrified about the uncertainty of change. If her life kept moving on as it was, she could easily predict the future. And that was perfect. She wasn’t a fighter, she didn’t function well under pressure. A predictable tomorrow gave her confidence. When her dad left, the global image she had of her future changed and it became uncertain. And now with Kyung Soo leaving, again her future became uncertain. There were so many options, but just one of them meant full happiness for her.

Her mood, her private mood, the one that showed in the loneliness of her room, during bus and car rides or when her day became dull, changed too soon for her own taste. She thought she would make it for a month or two and just then she would begin missing him. But sadly, it wasn’t the case. The next day she sat at her couch and stared at the door of his house hoping that yesterday was a dream.

If they hadn’t gotten closer again, she wouldn’t be like this. So at least she had that. She missed him because they were friends again, and during those days they spent together she developed a love for him that was something to be cherished. These kinds of feelings were a double-edged weapon. Loving someone was always a blessing, but love brought a kind of pain that she wasn’t ready to feel. With her love, came the nostalgia, the silent ache, the need to cry out loud or to be sitting completely quiet. This was terrifyingly new. Her first love didn’t teach her about this. Her relationship with Junmyeon was pain free. It didn’t toughen her up.

 On the days that came, she began wondering about his changes. When they cross paths again, what new colors would Kyung Soo have? She begged for him to not forget her. To not forget his affection for her. She was sure her affection wasn’t going to change. If anything, a year away from him could only feed her love for him and make it grow and grow. Holding onto her feelings, she went back to the scenes she shared with him. All of them. Just to feed her hope or fire her melancholy.

Her mood towards the others didn’t change too much. She still did great at school. Her relationship with her mom was the same, just avoid confrontation. Her relationship with her dad was the same, just give him enough information about herself.

She hung out with her friends, which was one of the two things that kept her spirits up. Her friends kept her busy. With them she laughed, she joked, she sang and danced, went out for food or to just kill time. And she enjoyed it, she really did. But Kyung Soo, as a ghost, appeared always in her thoughts and almost materialized in front of her. When she laughed, she imagined him laughing. When she joked, she imagined him hiding his laughing face behind the closest shoulder. When she sang and danced, she imagined him watching her, cheering, mouthing the lyrics with her.

She wanted to read, but she knew that every book that could pass through her eyes would be tarnished by her current reality. She could remember where she read every single book, so of course, she remembered what was happening in her life at the time she read any specific book.

 The month before he began his classes, the messages and video calls were customs. Those video calls made her weaker inside. She couldn’t reach for his arm or bump her shoulder with his. The small screen didn’t make justice to his cute face either. And reading his messages with his voice didn’t help. Not being able to meet him and have a normal conversation frustrated her immensely.  

Autumn lasted a couple of weeks, as always, and then a winter that lasted half a year arrived.

The rain gave her peace. She always preferred winter over summer. Winters were long in her town, so she had to learn to love them. Kyung Soo reminded her of winter. He looked like summer but felt like winter. He was comforting but wild and thunderous sometimes.

As her friends made her forget for a little while, writing made her turn her sadness into something.

She began writing obsessively.

One time at a workshop they told them to “Use your sadness, the best things would come from your extreme happiness and extreme sadness”. That sounded stupid to her. She hated the idea of romanticizing sadness or depression. 

But she had to recognize now that her best things came from her sorrow, melancholy and yearning. Not one of her stories was sad, quite the opposite. She went to happy, brilliant, magical places just to keep her feelings away. In every short story she wrote, she created a character that was Kyung Soo. Could be a time-traveling neighbor, a coffee shop owner or a voice coming from a tree in the forest. They were all little pieces of him that she kept to herself.

His first calls were only enthusiasm about everything. After some weeks stress made its debut, and then she began to notice how he lost weight and how his eyes now had a darker companion under them. He spoke about due dates, some teachers being a bit square and expensive art supplies. Of course, he spoke about good things too. His classmates, his roommates, the Friday nights and the great art scene in Seoul. He always said how he wished she was there.

As the year went by his calls were shorter until there were none. His text went from one every day to one every week. She expected that much, so it didn’t hurt too much. She could understand why he stopped writing and calling. But when two weeks passed and he didn’t write to her, she broke down during dinner when her mom asked her about Kyung Soo. She dropped her spoon and dashed to her daughter’s side, terrified of seeing her cry. Eunji never cried in front of other people. She only did it when it was too much for her to handle. She kept calling her name, caressing her head. Containing her between her familiar and eternal arms. After she calmed down, her mom made her wash her face and took her to bed with a cup of tea on her nightstand. She laid next to her in bed and heard her in silence as she was finally relaxed enough to speak. Eunji was scared of sharing so much. Scared of being judged for her feelings, or being made fun of or even worse, she was scared of hearing her mom looking down on her feelings.

But she didn’t.

When Eunji finished talking her mom held her tighter, kissed her head and told her something she wanted to remember forever so she could pass it on to whoever needed it. 

“Eunji, you did something really amazing with Kyung Soo, you turned him into an immortal being because no one dies when they have been loved, love turns us into holly creatures, love is longer  than life” She began crying again, but not for Kyung Soo.

  From all of the stories she wrote during that year, she chose one to send to the Institute. If they liked it, she was in. If they really liked it, she was in and with a scholarship. Those were Kyung Soo’s words. 

“Look, and if you don’t get accepted, you go to L University, and you are going to be an hour closer to Kyung Soo” Her mom tried to cheer her up. 

“Mom”

“Eunji, take a joke, there’s no way you are not getting accepted, that story, thank you for letting me read it by the way” She commented ironically, because of course she didn’t let her mom read it  “I’m sure is an amazing story, I trust that you are a great writer as you are smart, and I know you are not doing this only for him, but if this stops you from crying like the other day, then do it” L university indeed was her second option, in fact, they already got in touch with her asking what options she was considering but her mind was settled on the Seoul Institute of Arts.

They did take their sweet time to answer though. She was waking up the morning after her graduation party when she got a call. Her mom picked up since she was going through an understandable case of dysphonia. She didn’t know her mom was such a teaser. Her face didn’t say good or bad news. She only answered with an assortment of A-ha’s and I see and when the call was over she put down the phone and crossed her arms. 

“Well Miss Eunji, you just saved your parents a big amount of money…you are in, with a full scholarship” She shouted, although it came out as a loud whisper, and jumped into her mom’s arms.

Now her life was back to being predictable. Uncertainty out of the window. At least for the next summer.

TBC

Notes:

Thank you so much to @xiuminscheeks​ for the beautiful mood board. 

The biennale is real, I visited it this summer, chef kiss, it was amazing. And here is the video I refer.  

The Seoul Institute of the Arts is real, but everything I wrote and write in the future about it is fake, just my imagination. Abut the entrance system, that’s how art school’s work in my country, no idea how it does in Korea. 

And last, check my cute playlist for this story. 

[letterboxd]

Survival Mode.

In ten recent coming-of-age films, Ella Kemp finds the genre thriving—and looking very different than the 1980s might have predicted. Film directors and Letterboxd members weigh in on the specific satisfactions of the genre, especially in a pandemic.

There have been jokes, some more serious than others, about the art that will come out of this time. How many novels about a fast-spreading disease are you betting on? Will Covid-19 be better suited to documentary or fiction? But the art I’m most looking forward to, and revisiting now, is the art made about teenagers going through it.

Physical school attendance, so central to the John Hughes movies of the 1980s, is up in the air for so many. Sports practice, theater clubs, mall hang-outs; the familiar neighborhood beats of a teenager’s life are more confined than ever. All of us have had to tweak our reality to make the best of invasive changes forced upon us during the pandemic. In a sense, it feels like we are all coming of age.

Teenagehood, though, is a particularly tricky time of transition, and we don’t yet know the half of how the pandemic is going to impact today’s young adults—and, by association, tomorrow’s coming-of-age films. But in the last two years alone there have been enough brave new entries in the genre, about young people so enlivening, that there’s both plenty for young film lovers to lose themselves in, and plenty for us slightly older folks to watch and learn from.

So I sought out ten recent coming-of-age films (and several of the directors responsible) to see what these stories teach us about teenagers, and how we might empathize with them. The list—Jezebel, Beats, Zombi Child, Blinded by the Light, Selah and the Spades, The Half of It, Dating Amber, Babyteeth, House of Hummingbird and We Are Little Zombies—is by no means exhaustive. But it allows us to look at several things.

Firstly, that the genre is thriving, considering these titles barely scratch the surface. Secondly, these ten films look a whole lot different than their 1980s counterparts. Six are directed by women. Four tell queer stories or, at least, feature queer characters in a prominent subplot. Seven tell stories about Black people, Asian people, Pakistani people. Only three are from the US.

And: they’re really good. They understand teenagers as angry, energetic, passionate, confused, desperate and deeply intelligent beings, echoing the nuances that we know to be true in real life, but that can often get watered down on the screen.

Blinded by the Light (co-written and directed by Gurinder Chadha) We Are Little Zombies (written and directed by Makoto Nagahisa) Beats (co-written and directed by Brian Welsh)

The protagonists in these first three films use music to feel their way through panic, brought on by both internal and external circumstances. Screaming another’s lyrics, furiously composing their own anthems, dancing along and sweating out their fear to the beat, the ongoing beat, and nothing more. It’s salvation, it’s release—when you’re left with your own thoughts, the only way to fight through them is to drown them out.

Music acts as a source of enlightenment in Blinded by the Light, directed by Gurinder Chadha (who made 2002’s coming-of-age sports banger Bend it Like Beckham). In Thatcher’s Britain, Pakistani-English Muslim high schooler Javed discovers the music of Bruce Springsteen, and his world bursts wide open. The wisdom and fire of the Boss helps Javed to make sense of his own frustrations; that the film is based on a real journalist’s autobiography makes it all the more potent.

Meanwhile, in Beats, a real-life law enacted in Scotland in the 1990s temporarily banned raves: specifically, the gathering of people around music “wholly or predominantly characterized by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats”. As the UK struggles to contain a youthful, exuberant new counter-culture, the central characters face what it means to enter adulthood. The answer to both: a forbidden rave.

“I have to say, there’s probably no such thing as teenagers without complicated emotions,” We Are Little Zombies writer-director Makoto Nagahisa tells me. The Japanese filmmaker—who loves the genre, known as ‘Seishun eiga’ in Japan—wrestles with the frustration and hopelessness of the world by giving his film’s four orphaned teens the tools, and the permission, to find solace in something other than their everyday life. Following the deaths of their parents, the quartet create their own catchy, cathartic, truth-bomb music; it’s an instant hit with kids across Japan, but the adults miss the point, of course—that the cacophony of superstardom is filling the silence of their mourning.

Nagahisa-san’s film is named after a fictional 8-bit Nintendo Game Boy game that the main character is addicted to. “I used to get through my day relatively painlessly by pretending I was a video game character whenever bad shit happened to me,” he explains. Teenagers “are constantly feeling crushed by reality right now… I want them to know that this is a valid way to escape reality. That reality is just a ‘game’. I want them to know they don’t need to face tragedies, they can just survive. That’s the most important thing!” Who else needed to hear that right now?

Jezebel (written and directed by Numa Perrier) Zombi Child (written and directed by Bertrand Bonello) Selah and the Spades (written and directed by Tayarisha Poe) House of Hummingbird (written and directed by Kim Bo-ra)

Our next four films turn to technology, mythology, hierarchy and education to animate their protagonists’ lives with a greater purpose. In Jezebel, nineteen-year-old Tiffany finds her way through mourning with a new job, earning money as a cam girl and subsequently developing a bond with one of her clients. There’s a magnetic aura, one that harnesses grief and turns it into something more corrosive as this teen puts all her energy into it. Similarly there’s mysticism in the air in Zombi Child, in which Haitian voodoo gives a bored, heartbroken teenage girl a new purpose as she searches for a way to connect with the one she lost—and with herself.

Selah and the Spades and House of Hummingbird understand the third-party saviour as more of a structure, that of a school or an inspiring teacher. Selah finds herself by doing business selling recreational drugs to her classmates in a faction-led boarding school. Nothing mends a sense of aimlessness like power. This same framework lets Hummingbird’s Eun-hee, a schoolgirl in mid-90s South Korea whose abusive family invest their academic focus in her useless brother, search for love and find connection in her school books—and from the person who’s asking her to read them.

The films on this list are not perfect; some might be criticized for specifically following a formula, the tropes of the coming-of-age film, a little too well. Jezebel lets its protagonist rise and fall with familiarity, while Selah suffers the consequences of her extreme actions, and even Eun-hee reckons with a few recognizable pitfalls. But still, the fact that these films exist is “innately radical”, says Irish writer-director David Freyne, whose queer Irish comedy Dating Amber is covered below. The filmmaker describes the coming-of-age genre as mainstream, but in the best possible sense: “It’s a broadly appealing film,” he says.

This is why, to see these stories reframed with minority voices, with queer voices, is so quietly revolutionary. “The more you see them, the more broadly we see them being enjoyed—the more producers and financiers will realize these stories don’t have to be niche just because they happen to frame a minority voice. Everyone can enjoy it.”

Film journalist and Letterboxd member Iana Murray, a coming-of-age genre fan, echoes Freyne’s thoughts. “Representation is absolutely not the be-all end-all, but I’d love to see more coming-of-age films that reflect my experiences growing up as a woman of color,” she says, before introducing what I’d like to call the Rashomon Effect. “I see it as like one of those films that tell the same events from different perspectives, something like Rashomon or Right Now, Wrong Then,” she explains. “A story becomes even more vibrant when told through a different set of eyes, and that’s what happens when you allow women, people of color, and LGBT people to create coming-of-age narratives.”

Dating Amber (written and directed by David Freyne) The Half of It (written and directed by Alice Wu) Babyteeth (directed by Shannon Murphy, written by Rita Kalnejais)

Which brings us on nicely to our last three: wildly different titles, each with young protagonists at war with themselves, trying to make sense of their bodies and minds as best they can. In this context, companionship is everything. Finding a platonic soulmate in Dating Amber, a sexual awakening in The Half of It, a first love to make a short life worth living in Babyteeth. Each film is directed with a verve and passion that you know must be personal.

The story of a frustrated boy in the closet in Dating Amber aches with care from Freyne behind the camera, while Alice Wu directs Ellie Chu, the main character in The Half Of It, with patience and the kind of encouragement that quiet girls who live a life between two cultures are rarely given. And with Babyteeth, Shannon Murphy returns Australian cinema firmly to the center of the movie map, with a quintessentially Australian optimism and sense of humor, which Ben Mendelsohn called “delightfully bent”.

These perspectives are specific to each teen, but the intensity transcends genres and borders. It manifests musically, verbally, visually, aesthetically. These teens connect with their favorite music and means of entertainment, but also simply to their favorite clothes and accessories—blue bikinis and green wigs, red neck-scarves and floaty white dresses. These details give the characters ways to reinvent themselves while standing still, which certainly feels apt for a life lived, for now, at home.

‘Pretty in Pink’ (1986), written by John Hughes and directed by Howard Deutch.

Many argue that the coming-of-age genre peaked with John Hughes, who defined the framework in iconic 1980s films that have his stamp all over them, whether he wrote (Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful) or also directed them (The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles). Hughes’ world view was of a specifically suburban, white, American corner of the world, which he filled with misfits and ultra-hip soundtracks. “John Hughes was to the genre what The Beatles are to rock and roll,” confirms Letterboxd member Brad, maintainer of the essential coming-of-age movie list Teenage Wasteland.

After Hughes, the genre tumbled, Dazed and Confused, into the 1990s—notable voices include John Singleton with his seminal Boyz n the Hood, and Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho and Good Will Hunting. This was also the decade of Clueless, which informed the bright, female-forward fare of the 2000s, like Mean Girls, The Princess Diaries and the aforementioned Bend it Like Beckham. The last decade has seen new American storytellers step into Hughes’ shoes, including Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird and Little Women), Olivia Wilde and the writers of Booksmart, and the autobiographical voices of Jonah Hill (mid90s) and Shia LaBeouf (Honey Boy, directed by Alma Har’el).

It’s interesting to note—whether it’s the 1860s or the 1980s—that many coming-of-agers from the past decade take place in an earlier period setting. Social media has demanded the upheaval of entire lives, but it seems some filmmakers aren’t yet ready to grapple with its place on screen.

The audience, on the other hand, is far more adaptable. The way we’re watching coming-of-age films has shifted, and it’s more appropriate for the genre than we could have imagined. On the last day of shooting Dating Amber, Freyne recalls one of the young actors asking, “So, is this going to be on Netflix or something?” This is when cinemas were still open.

“That’s often how younger people are devouring content now,” Freyne reasons. His film, in the end, was snapped up by Amazon (a US release date is yet to be announced). “It’s creating a communal experience with the intersection of social media: live streams, fan art, daily messages… It’s made us feel incredibly connected, moreso than I think we would have got with a cinematic release.”

Streaming platforms also cater to one key habit of a younger film lover: the rewatch. The iconic teen films of the 80s embedded their reputations thanks to the eternal allure of the Friday night video store ritual, and constant television replays. These days, it’s only with a film finding a home on Netflix, on Amazon or on Hulu, that a younger person (or, in times of global crisis, any person) can both financially and logistically afford to devote themselves to watching, again and again, these people onscreen that they’ve immediately and irrevocably found a connection with.

It’s always felt hard to be satisfied with just one viewing of a perfect coming-of-age film—observe how many times Iana Murray has logged Call Me By Your Name. What is it about the slippery, universal allure of the genre? It’s possibly as simple as the feeling of being seen in the fog of intergenerational confusion. Says Nagahisa-san: “Grown-ups think of teenagers like zombies. Teenagers think of grown-ups like zombies. We’re never able to understand what others are feeling inside.”

“The reaction is always emotive rather than intellectual,” adds Freyne. “There’s something quite visceral and instinctive about coming-of-age films; it’s an emotional experience rather than an analytical one.” That emotional experience is tied up in the fact that we often experience coming-of-age movies just as we ourselves are coming of age, establishing an unbreakable connection between a film and a specific period in our lives. MovieMaestro Brad explains it best: “There is a bit of nostalgia in a lot of these films that take me back to my younger days, when life was simple.”

But that’s not to say only those coming of age can appreciate a coming-of-age film. On her favorite coming-of-age film, Mike Mills’ 20th Century Women, Murray explains, “It doesn’t see coming-of-age as exclusive to teenagers, because that process of growth is really about transition and change.” (In a similar vein, Kris Rey’s new comedy I Used to Go Here, in select theaters and on demand August 7, meets Kate Conklin, played by Gillian Jacobs, in a sort of quarter-life-crisis, needing to grow down a bit in order to grow up.)

Natalia Dyer in ‘Yes, God, Yes’ (2019), directed by Karen Maine.

There is endless praise, conflict and wonder to be found in the ten films mentioned above—and all the ones we haven’t even gone near (Karen Maine’s orgasmic religious comedy Yes, God, Yes, now available on demand in the US, deserves an honorary mention, as does Get Duked!, Ninian Doff’s upcoming stoner romp in the Scottish Highlands). The thing about this genre is it’s raw, it’s alive, and it’s always in transition. Just when you might think it’s gone out of fashion, it emerges in a new and fascinating form. And yet, there are still so many filmmakers who haven’t tackled the genre. I asked my interviewees who they’d like to see take on a story of teens in transition.

“I’d love to see Tarantino’s take on a coming-of-age tale,” says master of the genre himself, MovieMaestro/Brad. Murray gives her vote to Lulu Wang, saying, “I love the specificity she brought to The Farewell, I think it would transfer well to a genre that needs to escape clichés.” Freyne, meanwhile, wants to see if Ari Aster might have another story about young people in him. Maybe something a bit less lethal next time.

Ultimately, “you write from empathy, not from experience,” says Freyne. I think the same goes for watching, too. It won’t be tomorrow, and it might not be this year, but eventually, the world will emerge from Covid-19. What will we have learned from the films that we watched while we were waiting? From the sadness, the angst, the determination, the rage and the passion?

Nagahisa-san already knows, and his advice is everything we need right now: “You don’t need others’ approval of who you are, as long as you understand and approve of yourself. Do whatever pops up in your mind. Live your life without fear or despair. Just survive.”

Related content

See where most of the recent releases mentioned here are virtually screening, in our Art House Online list.

Shannon Murphy talks to us about Babyteeth, and shares a list of her favorite Australian films.

Makoto Nagahisa’s 25 favorite teen movies

David Freyne’s 25 favorite LGBTQIA+ films

Growing Pains: The Ultimate Coming of Age Movie Challenge

(Happy) Queer Coming of Age Movies

Coming of age—but make it diverse

[the-writerly-night-owl]

A Sweet Sweet Surprise

The Elementalists/ Beckett x MC

Summary: Ellie has the best surprise ever and she just wants to tell Beckett in the sweetest way possible.

Authors Note: Small timeline of their life so far together. 19 – freshman/20- sophomore/21 junior/22 senior/23 dating/24 married/25 married/26 baby would be born. For day 15 of the 41 Days of Cheer Sweet.  Enjoy!

Beckett Harrington absentmindedly stared at the picture of his wife sitting on his desk from their wedding day. It was hard to believe that they were married for a year already. Then it would be two coming up when the new year came.

The now 26-year-old bite his bottom lip before sending his notes. This degree was coming in quite handy as he worked with his dad so far. He was hoping to be working in his desired field by next year though and that was good enough for him. Whistling as he walked, he made his way to the wards to find Ellie.

++++++++++++++++

Meanwhile Ellie was trying to find the perfect book.

Honestly that was the best thing she could do. After all they were going to be reading it a lot. So humming to herself she went over to a certain book section. Looking around she made sure that nobody was watching her before gazing at the covers. They were different from the tuneless books she was used to seeing. Finally picking one up and looking at a recent date on the copywrite pages. Okay so Beckett was the type to be insanely prepared so at least 5 books would be good.

Comfortable she headed up to the register and then continued out the doors.

“Ellie!” called the voice of her friend Shreya Mistry as Ellie covered the books with her sweater from earlier. “Are you shopping without me?”

She was teasing of course and looked down at the bag curiously.

“I got some books for Beckett,” she said nonchalantly. Shreya couldn’t know before Beckett that wouldn’t be good. He had to be the first to know. “What are you shopping for?”

“I’m getting a present for Nehal since she’s graduating Penderghast this year. I’m thinking a new dress but maybe a top,” she said. “What do you think?”

“Top definitely,” agreed Ellie and then wistfully looked down at her feet. It will probably be awhile before she would see them again. “Hey, I have a surprise for Beckett and I’m wondering if you could help me. I want it to be something super sweet but I’m not sure what to get.”

Shreya had to stop and think about that as she looked down at the bag knowing that she already stopped at the book store. Hmm, that was hard since she didn’t know much about Becket despite knowing him for about six or seven years by now.

“Well if you mean in the literal sense maybe chocolate. Ohh there’s a wonderful bakery down the street that gives out samples. We can order him a cake! Then go shopping while we wait.”

“Sounds perfect I could use some new stuff.”

“I bet you do, you look like you’re glowing, what’s your secret?”

“That my dear Shreya you will know when I figure out what it is.”

The two friends giggled and headed out to the bakery first. She was right a lot of this stuff was amazing was amazing and they put in a cake order. Ellie even stealthy got away with getting the cake mix dyed with blue and pink. What else could she do to make things even sweeter?

Finally, after shopping and sneaking in some looser clothing was Ellie back on track to be at home. Just in time for when Beckett arrived. Sighing she had already changed into a loose fitting dress and braided her hair back. Perfect as she heard Beckett come home.

Giddy with excitement she didn’t think twice about her plan. This was going to be the best day ever she thought rubbing her tummy. Oh yes, Beckett was sure to be surprised all right and only on in the best way possible. This was possibly the best news ever.

+++++++++++++

Beckettt had turned into the living room to not find his wife. Frowning he searched the first floor as thoroughly as possible. He could smell dinner cooking by the housekeeper that they had hired but not Ellie. He only laughed at the thought of sniffing Ellie out before heading up the steps. T

His surprise he foud Ellie laying on the soft shag rug in the spare bedroom. She had a smile on her face and humming to herself jotting a few things down on a notebook. Well, the spell was doing the writing but still the concept was sort of the same.

“Ellie,” he said after hearing her mutter something to herself.

“Beckett,” she said turning around and threw her arms around him in a hug. Smiling widely himself he held her close to his body soaking in her warmth. Now this was a way to greet him that he could get used to. Normally he would find her grading papers at the kitchen table. She had pressed her lips against his lips tasting like something sweet.

Holding her there she parted and rested her forehead against his. Her hand cupped his cheek stroking here and there.

“Beckett, I have a surprise for you,” she said pulling him close to her. He paid little attention other than pulling her closer to him.

“What kind of surprise?” he asked teasingly holding her hand now. She hesitated for a moment before nodding more to herself. “Well…”

Knitting his eyebrow cs together he studied her wondering what it was. She had produced a bag as his eyes light up seeing the bookstore logo on the outside.

Eager he reached to the bags as she held it back from him for the moment.

“Hold on, eager aren’t we?” she asked teasing. “We need to be sitting down for this.”

Sitting down, he thought, wondering why that is. Then she passed him the bag before opining it eager to read the contents. Then stared long at the cover of the first book, it had a cute baby on it and the title A Bun in the Oven. Wait a second as he pulled out a second book and then the third fourth and finally fifth. All of the titles similar in nature.

Then his eyes went straight to Ellie grey eyes widened and sucked in his breath. Ellie had grinned at him before putting a hand on her stomach lovingly.

“Congratulations dad,” she said.

No wonder he had to be sitting down for this. Letting out the breath he took, Beckett pushed the books as they fell to the floor and tackled her lovingly. Kissing her softly on the lips and her cheeks Ellie squirmed against him giggling softly. His hands went to the curve of her hip before settling on her stomach. A baby? She was having a baby?! They were going to be parents as he let the news sink in.

“This great a baby,” he said softly into her ear. “I’m going to be a dad.”

Ellie kissed his cheek and just kept him pulled tightly to her body. “Yea you are and I’m going a mom. You know I thought that you might faint so I’m pleasantly surprised.”

He scoffed at the thought but just cheekily grinned. “Well you did get something right, I would be getting tons of books to prepare,” he said his body growing warm at the thought of learning something new. Particularly about his child. “And you might not have gotten enough.”

Ellie swatted him and ran a hand through his hair smirking. “Of course, you know I also had a cake to sweeten the deal. If you want to be rebel, we can eat dessert before dinner...”

Beckett just kissed her softly. “Let’s not get too hasty after all you’re feeding two now,” he whispered. “And I can’t wait for our child to get here.”

This was just the perfect day, he thought, before heading to get dinner. He couldn’t wait to start reading to learn as much as he can.

Tag list: @flyawayboo @am-i-invisible777 @adrianadmirer  @fluffy-cat-whisper @melodyofgraves  @paisleylovergirl @elainew13 @itsbrindleybinch @brightpinkpeppercorn  @darley1101 @mfackenthal @jlpplays1 @writerapprentice  @wildsayeed @princess-geek @perriewinklenerdie  @lilyofchoices @symonde @indescribablechoices @feartheendlesssummer

[internaljiujitsu]

5 Realizations That (Finally) Got Me Off The ADHD Treadmill

I used to hate reading books. I did it anyway but couldn’t last more than five or ten minutes before dozing off or having my mind dart away to distant lands. Like the skinny kid with no appetite that had to force feed himself to pack on muscle, I shoved books into my brain because I hated the idea of not being well read more than I hated reading.

As a kid, I often left things undone. — or worn out to the nub. After beginning enthusiastically, I’d soon lose steam and beat myself from pillar to post for quitting. I’d always hang around through the torture just to avoid the sting of giving up again. Once the interest was gone, whatever I was doing became pure misery. This would inevitably lead to mental and physical breakdown, as every cell in my body rejected the reality my mind was accepting.

I got good grades and excelled athletically but always thought I could do better. There seemed to be a gear missing — the one that I just knew could take me to a place that felt right. If I were just better, more disciplined and able to focus more — but I didn’t think I had it in me.

Back then, I didn’t know I was working with a slight disadvantage. While medication has played a crucial role in managing my ADHD, and no doubt would have made a massive difference in my childhood, it’s been just as important to build coping and productivity skills. While ADHD makes it difficult to work for other people, it also challenges your ability to self-regulate. Your perception of time is thrown off, so keeping track of your own schedule can be tough without a system.

Before I ever tried medication, in my forties, I spent my life learning skills to make up for what I saw as inadequacies. I’m thankful that I built a technical foundation before supplementing with chemicals, but eternally grateful for what meds have done for me. Once I was properly diagnosed, I realized that the progress I was able to make on my own was astonishing. Giving myself credit for putting in the work motivated me further. The medication made it all click. It was the missing piece I’d been searching for after years of hard inner and outer training.

Here are my five keys for finally jumping off the ADHD treadmill. Once I inserted these into my belief system, I no longer felt hopeless. The limiting, negative self-talk stopped. It took a long time to finally put everything together, but the results have been life changing.

Meds Are Not Evil

Like a lot of other people, I didn’t believe ADHD was real. My perception was that it was a made up disorder designed by drug companies to pump kids full of personality stifling drugs — an excuse for parents to medicate energetic kids and abdicate responsibility.

Meanwhile, I lived every day in lonely terror, until my symptoms became so overwhelming that I became suicidal. At that point, medicine was my last hope. I read books, meditated, prayed, had countless therapy sessions, including EMDR, and took massive action to change my life — but I hit a healing wall. I needed a boost.

The wiring in my brain makes it so ADHD medication that would make the average person speedy simply makes me feel normal. I am no longer listless and suicidal, disappointed in myself because my aspirations outweigh my self-belief. Before meds, it felt as if I was receiving random radio signals from everywhere. The one that always caught my ear never had anything good to say. Still, my disciplined nature dragged me through my days.

The stigma against medication and the dangerous abuse of these drugs by the general public has left many people unnecessarily living in misery. Prisons and homeless shelters are purgatories for the mislabeled, ignored and discarded members of society unlucky enough to suffer from mental illness. How many of those fortunes could have been altered with the right diagnosis, treatment and protocol?

2. Medication + Discipline = Badass

As a person that uses discipline as therapy, I once thought I could muscle my way through pain. Becoming older in the martial arts world means you have to fight smarter. That’s the trade off — you are wiser and have a much better understanding of your art, but your body does not react the same. Nature seeks balance.

But fuck that. If you take care of yourself, you can whip on the youngins long after your head is covered in gray. Combining experience with conditioning makes you unstoppable. That’s how I see my mental health approach.

If you have no clarity, you won’t make the best choices. You simply can’t see what’s in front of you without a trained eye. The frantic nature of the ADHD mind is like a white belt thrown into what we call the “shark tank.” It’s a relentless onslaught of tough competitors coming in fresh at intervals to continuously beat your ass. No place for white belts. That’s what life feels like off my meds.

The passions that occupy my time have kept my brain buzzing enough to distract me from my buzzing brain. Now that the unwanted chatter is gone, I can feel the good kind of buzz — the warm, fuzzy feeling of loving what I do without feeling like I have to do it.

Would I have preferred avoiding all the pain I felt over the years and just been medicated all along? No. If life didn’t necessitate that I acquire the skills that I have, I wouldn’t have been driven to pursue them. I may have relied too much on the drug. I would not have changed. But I have a feeling the relief of the meds wouldn’t have been enough — It’s just not who I am. I know that now. Eventually, I would have gone searching. At times I almost feel like I have an unfair advantage now. Technical ability and practical experience. Strength and skill. Balance. I’m glad it happened the way it did.

3. You Feel How You Eat

While nutrition has always been important to me for physical fitness, I was more concerned with appearance. As I got older, my focus became increasing my energy levels and feeling better. It wasn’t until after being diagnosed and forming habits around optimizing my abilities that I realized the importance of nutrition for good mental health. Inflammation caused by certain foods is detrimental to brain function and a frequent culprit in ADHD.

Once you’ve gone down a suicidal rabbit whole, giving up gluten is a tiny price to pay for sanity. Not that you know what sanity is — you just know you don’t have it.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t give a second thought to the type of food they put in their mouths. Lifestyle is a gigantic factor in mental fitness. Eating foods that promote brain health (fatty fish, blueberries, avocados) and avoiding processed products and sugar will ensure you have the energy and mental clarity to face the day.

4. Your Phone Is A Tool

People love to complain about how their phones have taken over their lives, but we’ve got the most amazing tools ever invented in our pockets. You can read books, listen to podcasts, watch Ted Talks — non stop learning at your fingertips — all the time.

But, with great power comes great responsibility (Stan Lee will never steer you wrong). Just like television can range from “The Sopranos” to “Jersey Shore,” your cell phone can educate or anesthetize you. If you’re not disciplined, your time will be eaten up swiping left to right and “liking” shit you couldn’t care less about.

Take advantage of your calendar and alarm features to schedule everything. Don’t assume you’re gonna remember, because let’s be honest, you’re gonna forget. Use voice memos and notes to keep track of ideas and journal your feelings and thoughts. You know you have to keep yourself occupied, so download the Kindle app and have a book at the ready for down time. Listen to a guided meditation. Take an online course on the go. Learn a new language. It really is endless. Use it wisely, and your phone is the ultimate weapon. No utility belt required.

5. Less Sleep Isn’t Helping

Feeling lazy had me convinced I needed to force myself to do more. That meant getting up earlier so I could get shit done. With a schedule that had me winding down at ten o’clock at night after teaching martial arts classes, it was tough to go right to bed. If I wasn’t careful, I’d lose a half hour of sleep here and there because I wanted to stay up watching television (which miraculously has a way of leading to chips or ice cream). Arnold Schwarzzenegger famously said that you should learn to sleep faster if you can’t get by on six hours of sleep. After years of insisting on shutting down for a minimum of 7–8 hours to promote physical recovery from training, I tried getting by on just 5–6 hours. No dice.

My brain and body just don’t work the same. The sleep I was getting wasn’t all that restful either. I’d frequently wake up during the night feeling restless. It wasn’t until I developed sleep rituals that I began falling asleep quickly and getting a deeper rest. With repetition, my body and mind got used to the same sequence of events every night leading up to bed time. Once I trained my brain, my body knew what to do as soon as my head hit the pillow.

By now, I’ve learned that seven hours is my sweet spot. Eight clean hours can make me feel like superman (mental note: start sleeping eight hours a night).

Recent research suggests ADHD symptoms are often a result of insufficient restful sleep. Sleep deprivation also exacerbates symptoms in kids and adults with ADHD. Your physical and emotional state is undoubtedly better when you get sufficient rest. Staying up late into the night with unproductive bullshit is a mistake, but so is getting by on five hours because you want to prove you’re a tough grinder. You simply won’t be functioning as well. It’s self-sabotage.

There is no magic pill to fix you. If you think of meds that way, you’ll be putting scotch tape on a gunshot wound. You’ve gotta stop the bleeding. Dig the bullet out. Repair the internal damage — then stitch it up. You’ve gotta let it heal and start actively rehabilitating if you want to get stronger. It’s not going to happen by accident or by divine intervention — even though it may feel like that in the end.

Although I’ve developed a good arsenal of skills to maximize my mental wellbeing, I still want to continue growing. My next step will be scanning my brain to understand what areas are being over or under stimulated and adjusting my lifestyle accordingly. As Dr. Daniel Amen, one of the nation’s foremost psychiatrists and a leading expert on brain health says, “Did you know that psychiatrists are the only medical specialists that virtually never look at the organ they treat? Think about it. Cardiologists look, neurologists look, orthopedic doctors look, virtually every other medical specialist looks — psychiatrists guess.”

It seems so obvious now that I want to run out and get my brain scanned as I write this. I’m excited to discover what changes I can make to improve my performance and sense of well being. Brain imaging will provide a road map.

No matter the cards you’ve been dealt, planning and hard work can help you become who you want to be. No circumstance is a limitation to an open mind. There are always ways to improve if you’re willing to search long enough. Luckily for me, I tend to get a little obsessed.

[bennyboyjones]

THE GETAWAY (Ben Hardy FanFic) Chapter One

A/N: Hi! So, here is chapter one to my Ben Hardy  AU Fanfic! There are currently several chapters written, which you can find on Wattpad, but I’ve decided to also upload it here as well. It might be a bit behind, but you’ll still get all the chaps eventually.

What it is: basically, a girl from a small town who is bored of her life decides to take a trip to Nice where she runs into ben, who is also running away from some shit and some romance ensues.

Word count: 3.0k

in this chapter: she takes off bby

WATTPAD LINK IF YOU WANT TO READ AHEAD

Spotify playlist

In case you missed it: prologue

here we go:

chapter one

Tonight was my last night at work; I had been working doubles all week, trying to make as much money as I could to build up my almost non-existent cushion. Between what I had in my savings and my bonds, I had almost $10,000, but then I went shopping and was now sitting at about $8,000, which after the cost of everything, wasn’t much. 

I was in the middle of putting in order an for an older couple when Katie, one of my coworkers, came barreling into the service station. 

“I still cannot believe you’re going to France! Again! Meanwhile, I’m stuck here, seven months pregnant, having never been anywhere!” She threw her hands up and her blond hair flew around her small face. She was older, and shorter, married to her first boyfriend and in the middle of her nursing degree. Whenever I talked about where I’ve been, she always looked at me with amazement, telling me how lucky I was, how she could only dream of traveling anywhere. I always had to remind her that she could and that she should, but she always shook her head as if it would never be an option. “Are you all packed?”

I cringed, “No; I’m not prepared at all, actually. Three weeks goes by a lot quicker than I thought it would.”

“Well, you’re out of here in less than an hour. You better go straight home and get your shit together.” She patted me on the back before nudging me over to gain access to the small touch screen where we put in the orders. 

I looked at the floor from our little alcove; for a Sunday, we were pretty packed. There was only one table left open when half of the restaurant was usually empty at this time. I surveyed my section: an old couple, a group of twenty-somethings, a family of six, a couple of teenagers, and one sole older woman. They were all almost ready for their checks, and I silently prayed that they were all feeling generous—and that they all carried cash. I decided it was time to turn on the charm; I flipped my head over, fixed my long brown hair into a high pony-tail, making sure my curtain bangs weren’t swept up, retouched my light pink lipstick and shoved a smile on my face. I was about to walk back out into the dimly lit dining room when Katie grabbed my arm. 

“I just want to let you know that I told all of them you’re leaving for a big trip tomorrow and wouldn’t be working for a while. You know, trying to let them know you’re poor and could use the money,” she laughed. 

I shook my head and smiled, “I hope it worked.”

****

Katie did a great job. I walked into the house, counting my tips for the third time to make sure the number was right. I made way more than I expected to and added it to the envelope of cash I needed to deposit into my bank account before heading to the airport tomorrow. I ordered euros and also notified my bank I was traveling abroad, making sure I was covered on both fronts. I called a quick “hello” to my mom and my two brothers who were sat on the couch watching Food Network and ran up the stairs, very aware that it was already 10pm and I needed to leave for the airport at 10am, so I would have time to run the errands I needed to beforehand. 

After taking a quick shower, I sat myself down on my bedroom floor, piles of clothes around me and two empty suitcases on my bed. I had already collected my toiletries, shoved them into two ziplock bags and then inside a fabric toiletry bag to ensure zero leakage, right after getting out of the shower because I was terrified of forgetting something. I made an extremely thorough list of every outfit, every bathing suit, every pair of underwear, every book (yes, book), every piece of makeup, and the two notebooks and five specific pens I would be taking with me. Again, making sure I didn’t forget anything. I packed it all one by one, drawing a line through it on my list in red ink until everything was away and ready to go. I was sweating—my cheeks were flush, my heart racing, and slightly out of breath from running around my room lugging items back and forth. 

I was laid out, spread-eagle, on my bedroom floor, watching my ceiling fan spin around and around when my mom came in and leaned against the doorway. “I see you’re all packed up and ready to go.” 

“I think so. I hope so. I don’t know, I feel like I’m forgetting something.” I sat up and leaned back on my hands, my head turned around to face her. 

She tossed me a bag of five disposable cameras, “These. Don’t take your big camera. It’s too heavy and you already almost lost it once in London. That thing is an antique, best to leave it here.” She nodded towards my grandpa’s old Nikon film camera from the ‘80s. He gave it to me right before I left for London and had almost every picture I took there with it hung up on his walls. 

I tossed them into my second suitcase that was still half empty before getting up. I wrung my hands together in front of me and pulled at the strings of my hoodie, “I’m kind of nervous.” 

My mom came further into my room before putting her hands on my shoulders. “Look at me,” her brown eyes looked directly into mine, our faces almost identical, “You’ve done this before. You’re going to be fine. You can always call, or come home.” She laughed lightly before dropping her hands, “Do you need me to keep going? Because you’ve heard this speech before.”

“No, I’m good.” I pulled on my pony tail to tighten it and rubbed at my eyes with the heels of my palms. “Ugh, I don’t know why I’m so stressed out! It’s ridiculous!” 

“You know what you’re dad would say—“

“It doesn’t matter what he would say.” I cut her off and dropped my hands to my sides. “He’s not here.”

“Josie, we need—“

“You’re right, mom. I’ve done this before—successfully. I was fine the first time around, and that was for six months. Three weeks is nothing. Thank you for the pep talk, I needed it.” 

She grabbed at my hair, twirling the thick ponytail around her fingers, “You’re going to have an amazing time.”

“I know,” I sighed and pulled her into a hug, trying to fight off tears without sniffling. 

“I love you.” 

“Love you more.”

This morning was not going well—at all. First, I woke up to a phone call from Liam, my on and off again boyfriend of two long years. He was angry that I didn’t tell him about my trip and felt he was entitled to know of my whereabouts despite the fact that we were currently “off” and have been for the past two months. 

“Don’t go, Josie.” He pleaded. 

“I’m going. I’m literally leaving for the airport in an hour. How did you even know I was going?”

“The last time you did something like this you broke up with me.”

“Tried to,” I corrected him, “but you wouldn’t let me.”

“And now you’re going to go back to Europe and try to do it again! You’re going to hurt me again, just when I was ready to get back together!” 

I let out an irritated sigh, “Liam, I’m not doing this again. I’m not doing this anymore. I’ve been completely fine the last few weeks without you and I don’t need you. I’m going and I need you to leave me alone.” I ended the call as he began to reply. I couldn’t deal with him right now and I wasn’t going to let him ruin another trip for me. 

We met in my gen. ed. philosophy class sophomore year and have had a stressful relationship ever since. We pretty much broke up every summer and every break, making it more of a relationship of convenience and comfort. I figured that when I was leaving for my exchange program last year that we would break up, but when I tried to talk to him about it he broke down crying about how I was the love of his life and he didn’t want to be apart while I was away and I caved. I tried again halfway through my time there, but he guilted me into staying; he said it wasn’t fair to break up with someone who you haven’t seen in months, and how could I know I didn’t love him anymore when we had been apart for so long. 

When I came home, I was so adamant about ending it, but then dad was gone and I needed the familiarity, the easiness, the comfort again and now we were stuck in our old cycle that I needed to desperately get away from. 

Second, I got another rejection e-mail from another publishing company—granted this rejection came a month late since internships had already started and I knew I was obviously not getting a spot, but it didn’t mean I didn’t feel the blow to my ego. 

I didn’t regret my choice of becoming a writing major—at all—it’s what made me happy and it also came with so many career choices; I chose to be an editor, or was trying to anyway, but publishing is competitive and I had zero connections, so every spring, summer, fall, and winter, all I got were rejections and I was growing tired of the disappointment. 

But I was leaving today and couldn’t let anything get me down—I just couldn’t. After I showered and threw on a white t-shirt and a pair of blue straight leg jeans, I started getting last minute items in order: my carryon, with emergency clothes (my luggage has gone missing before), my notebook, my camera, headphones, locket, passport, phone charger, etc. Once everything was completely packed, I sat on my bedroom floor, knees pulled up to my chest and simply stared at the pile of luggage before me. 

I was overwhelmed; I could feel the knot in my stomach twisting, the dryness in my throat, and the tears that were locked behind my eyes. For the past three weeks, this trip seemed so abstract, so far away it couldn’t be real—but now I had no choice but to acknowledge how very real it was. 

As I put on my tan blazer, my white sneakers, packed my stuff into the car with my mom, went to the bank,  and drove to the airport, my brother’s asking me loads of questions from the backseat, all I could think was that I would be fine. I had to keep reminding myself that I’ve done this before, that I could handle myself and that I knew what I was doing. By time we made it to JFK, I felt so stupid; I was making such a big deal over nothing. It was just a trip—but my anxiety would not let up. 

“I know that look on your face,” my mom said as we stood in front of security. “You need to stop with the stress. You’re going to ruin this for yourself.”

“Yeah,” I let out a breath it felt like I’d been holding since I woke up this morning, “I know.” I looked at the time. “I think I need to go.”

My mom pulled me into a hug and kissed me on the cheek before giving me one last secret pep talk and telling me she loved me. I hugged Noah and ignored his comments about the contagious promiscuity of the French. My youngest brother, Oliver hugged me the tightest, “Be careful, okay? You’re the only sister I have so don’t do anything stupid while you’re over there.” 

“It’s just three weeks, it’ll be like I never even left.”

“That’s three weeks of torture from Noah without you there to back me up! I might not even be alive by time you get back!” 

I laughed lightly and pulled him in for another hug. Despite the six year age difference, we were extremely close and I knew I would miss him the most during my trip. After saying goodbye for a second time, I got on line for security. 

It didn’t take too long to get through; for once, my carryon didn’t need to be rifled through because I actually packed correctly this time around and my gate was only a few minutes walk away. I took a seat close to the podium so I could hear every announcement clearly and pulled out my phone and started replying to texts from my friends telling me to have a great time. 

Despite spending a lot of time in the city, I spent a lot of time alone. Between classes, homework, and working I didn’t have a lot of time for a social life, but I did have one—a small one, but it still counted. I only had a few friends and I was fine with that, I didn’t need a big group—the only problem was two of my friends lived in the city permanently, two lived out of state and my best friend from home went to school way upstate, like twenty minutes away from Canada upstate, so we didn’t see each other often. 

After replying, I pulled up both of my boarding passes on my phone. I had layover in London and kept reading over the time in between flights, worried if my first one got delayed, worried if they were on opposite sides of the airport. There was always so much that could go wrong. What if I somehow went to the wrong gate? What if my gate was changed and I missed it? Inside, I knew I was too much of a control freak and worry-wart to allow any of these things to happen, but I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t obsessively think about them and give myself a headache. 

Finally, my flight started boarding and thankfully, I was in the first group. I found my aisle seat and plopped down after placing my duffel bag in the overhead bin and tossing my purse under the seat in front of me. After another thirty minutes of everyone getting on, having to get up twice to let the other people in my row in (thankfully no children, just a middle-aged couple), we were finally ready to take off. I popped some gum into my mouth, pulled my seat belt tighter and leaned back hoping I wouldn’t get the rollercoaster feeling in my stomach that often happened during take-offs. 

The seven hours to London was easy, it was the layover that was tough. Three hours of sitting around waiting for my second flight, exhausted and just wanting to be there already. It’s crazy how easily a long layover can break a person. I called my mom, letting her know my first flight was a success and then tried to text my friends but they were all out partying despite it being a Monday. I ended up settling for finishing my book, which wasn’t necessarily travel material—it was slightly dark and deep, as a Morrison usually is. 

By time my final flight was called, I was over the entire ordeal and in an awful mood. I was waiting for my group to be called when some guy tapped me on the shoulder, “Please tell me this is the flight to Nice.” He was American, looked around my age, early twenties, with brown hair and green eyes. He was tall and slim and so out of breath. I nodded. “Thank god,” he said, “my first flight was delayed. I was worried I missed it.”

“Well, you didn’t.” 

“You’re American!” he smiled and pointed a finger at me. 

“Yes, you’re very observant.” The last group was called and I went to get on line, the guy trailing behind me. 

“I’m Eric,” he said while holding his hand out for a shake, “I’m going to visit family.”

I stared at his outstretched hand before deciding it wouldn’t kill me to be polite, “That’s nice. I’m Josie.”

I turned away and handed both my passport and my phone to the attendant before making my way through the jetway. My seat was all the way at the back of the plane and so there was a lot of stopping and waiting for people to situate themselves before I could take my, yet again, aisle seat. I leaned forward with my head in my hands and started rubbing my temples. It was 8:30 am London time, meaning my body should be asleep. All I needed was these next two hours for a power nap, that’s all, because I refused to spend my first day in Nice unconscious. 

“Wow, what are the odds!” 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I mumbled under my breath without looking up. 

“You’re an aisle-seater too, huh? I can’t sit in any other seat. It gets too cramped and I have long legs so I need the aisle space.”

They announced we would be getting ready to take-off and I noticed that no one had sat next to me and took the opportunity to slide over, putting as much distance between me and enthusiastic Eric as I possibly could. 

I tried to sleep, I really did, but every few minutes, just as I was about to finally doze off, Eric would ask another question: “Where are you staying?” “What brings you to Nice?” “Are you alone?” “Where are you from?” My only response was that I didn’t feel comfortable sharing that kind of information with a stranger but he wouldn’t take the hint. Instead, he took my non-interest as an opportunity to ask for my contact information so we could possibly “grab a coffee or a bite or whatever”. I told him that I didn’t give my information out to strangers again and so he carefully wrote his number and instagram handle out on a paper napkin and held it out to me. 

I took it, unenthusiastically and politely smiled. I shoved it into my purse just as the flight attendant announced we were getting ready to land. A few short moments later, her voice rang out over the loud speaker, “Welcome to Nice!”

[recentanimenews]

Bookshelf Briefs 5/19/20

After-School Bitchcraft, Vol. 1 | By Yu Shimizu and Kazuma Ichihara | Yen Press – Afterschool Boobcraft would be a better title for this supernatural romance about Ririki, a ditzy high school student who accidentally discovers that her chemistry teacher is a sorcerer. Though Ririki quickly realizes that she, too, has hidden powers, nothing about her giggly, helpless behavior suggests that she’s competent enough to tie her own shoes, let alone cast a spell. Renji, her teacher, is even less of a character, defined primarily by his brusque demeanor and perma-scowl. Anyone reading for plot will find the the crude, obvious fanservice irritating, while anyone reading for fanservice will find the series’ pedestrian efforts at world-building an unwelcome distraction from the parade of costume failures and panty shots, all of which are drawn in salacious detail. Not recommended. – Katherine Dacey

Animeta!, Vol. 3 | By Yaso Hanamura | J-Novel Club – Miyuki Sanada is making gradual improvement as an inbetweener, though she’s been told that if she doesn’t pass the key animation exam within a year, she’s fired. Meanwhile, her fellow new hire, Maria Date, seems to be leaving her in the dust, is actively campaigning to take her place with the prestigious Studio 7, and gets invited to enter a character design contest by the big boss. I appreciate the sports manga feel this rivalry evokes, but the most compelling part of Animeta! for me is the plight of Yuiko Fuji, the inbetween checker who once tried to become a key animator but had no flair. She’s amazing at her current job, but seeing new talent getting promoted over her is tough. This series has really grown on me, now that its been fleshing out its characters more, and I reckon I’ll stick with it for the long haul! – Michelle Smith

A Certain Scientific Accelerator, Vol. 10 | By Kazuma Kamachi and Arata Yamaji | Seven Seas – Last time I said the cliffhanger was chilling, this time that extends to much of the book. The Index series has usually been too concerned with action and harems to get into pure horror, but its spinoffs have no issues with it, particularly this one. Cannibalism of a scientific sort continues to be the norm here, with our tragic villain continuing to be sympathetic. As is Yomikawa, possibly the nicest character in the whole Indexverse. For those who aren’t reading this for nice, the good news is that Accelerator is back in action by the end of this and ready to beat villains up while continuing to state what a villain he is. Index fans will enjoy this, though may also be creeped out. – Sean Gaffney

Cocoon Entwined, Vol. 2 | By Yuriko Hara | Yen Press – Yes, it is still tempting to review these volumes by just saying “hair” and being done with it. I mean, the start of the second volume seems to be narrated from the POV of a former schoolgirl’s hair, which is now made up of the uniform of our heroine. But there is a bit more to it than that, as we cycle back a bit and get more insight into the mysterious Hoshimiya, whose hair drifting down in single hairlets (hairlets?) continues to be an emotional gut punch for most of the school. There’s also discussion of traditions, why they’re kept and when they might have to be broken for the sake of moving on and fixing things. It’s quite an emotional drama. And rest assured, it’s filled with hair. So much hair. – Sean Gaffney

The Golden Sheep, Vol. 3 | By Kaori Ozaki | Vertical Comics – The third volume of The Golden Sheep is its last, and while it was nice that the four friends at the center of the story ultimately resolved their differences, it all felt rather too easy and anticlimactic. I did like that Yuushin finds purpose in striving to achieve enough independence to live with the stray kitty he rescued, though. (It is an extremely cute kitty.) The volume is rounded out by a twisted short story called “Love Letter” in which an unborn soul chooses to be born to a teen runaway and ends up dying from neglect, but loves its mother so much that it opts to return to earth in any guise that allows it to see her, including another cute kitty who soon meets a tragic end. It left a weird taste in my brain. – Michelle Smith

How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?, Vol. 3 | By Yabako Sandrovich and MAAM | Seven Seas – The first volume it was the fanservice that got my attention. The second volume it was the advice on keeping fit. And in this one it’s the comedy that’s really reaching out to grab you, taking the series in places I was not expecting it to go, like turning the main girls (including their teacher!) into a muscle-bound idol group, something that is impressively different but goes over like a lead balloon. Zina has fit in well with the others, and moreover she knows Satomi cosplays, so can cheerfully use that for blackmail. There are also hints that romance may come into this series—Hibiki has always been attracted to Machio when he’s not bulking out, but there’s a suggestion that her feelings may run a bit deeper than that. That said, I expect comedy to prevail. This is fun. – Sean Gaffney

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Vol. 14 | By Aka Akasaka | Viz Media – The first half of this book is almost all dedicated to Kaguya and Shirogane finally, finally, confessing—not through words, but through actions. It’s the payoff everyone has been waiting for, and it’s handled perfectly. The second half of this book then drags it all back to hilarious comedy, with the chapter about Kaguya french-kissing Shirogane being the highlight of the volume and possibly the series. Of course, there’s the question of where do we go from here—Kaguya ends up breaking her brain so much over this that she reverts to her old icy persona, and there may be a new love triangle developing around Ishigami. So don’t stop reading just because Kaguya got confessed to—there’s still plenty more fun. – Sean Gaffney

My Hero Academia: Smash!!, Vol. 4 | By Hirofumi Neda and Kohei Horikoshi | Viz Media – The gag series has caught up to the main storyline, or at least wants to avoid the Overhaul Arc, so for the most part this volume is original material. Sometimes that’s good—the author shows a surprising taste for very dark character-based jokes when they want to, including one with Todoroki talking about his mother that made me gasp. There’s also a parents’ day again (it goes a bit better than the one in School Briefs), which allows us to see parents we forgot existed, like Uraraka’s mother. That said, there’s also a sense that the series is starting to get a bit tired. The next volume is signposted to be the last, and that’s a good thing. Go out while you’re still flying high. – Sean Gaffney

Nori | By Rumi Hara | Drawn & Quarterly – Born in Kyoto and currently based in New York, Hara has been creating comics for about a decade, but Nori is Hara’s graphic novel debut. The volume has its origins in a series of self-published mini-comics which earned Hara multiple award nominations. Nori collects six short tales of varying lengths which feature the adventures of the titular Noriko, an imaginative three-year-old, and Hana, her grandmother and caregiver. Except for a surprise trip that takes Nori and Hana to Hawaii, the stories are largely set in Osaka in the 1980s. All of them are incredibly charming. Hara effortlessly blends mythology and legends with the characters’ day-to-day lives and Nori’s fantastical imaginings. Some of my favorite moments are Nori’s interactions with older kids—some of whom really aren’t sure what to do at first with a precocious toddler hanging about as they explore the natural world together. Nori is an undeniable delight. – Ash Brown

That Blue Summer, Vol. 4 | By Atsuko Namba | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – Rio Funami is a Tokyo girl who’s been sent, along with her bookish little brother, to stay with her grandmother in the countryside for the duration of her 40-day summer vacation. She’s fallen in love with a local boy named Ginzo Izumi, who initially rejected her, believing they belonged in different worlds and valued different things. However, as time has gone on, Ginzo has come to see that’s not true. In fact, Rio seems enraptured by the village he calls home and understands the calling he feels towards graphic design while simultaneously feeling obligated to stay and take over the family liquor store. This is more than just a generic romance—it’s about passions versus practicality and finding reasons for joy in any situation. I’m enjoying it a lot and isn’t that cover a beauty? – Michelle Smith

Yowamushi Pedal, Vol. 14 | By Wataru Watanabe | Yen Press – The race that would never end has ended! And yes, our hero manages to capture first place, The first half of the book is really fantastic, showing off how good the author is at wringing drama and emotion from every last meter. The second half pales in comparison mostly as it’s setting up the next chunk of book, though seeing Onoda suddenly fail so hard simply as his mentor has left (transferred to another country) is poignant, and I suspect he needs another race or two before he can get back into form, so I expect more failure. Oh, and Kanzaki shows up briefly to remind us she exists and also help the core team get new bikes that work to their strengths. Still excellent shonen sports. – Sean Gaffney

By: Ash Brown

[chiseler]

The Greatest Bad Writer in America? Weird, Forgotten Harry Stephen Keeler

Harry Stephen Keeler (1890-1967) enjoys a peculiar kind of fame as a writer. Or "paper-blackener," to quote him. The prose of his mystery novels and pulp stories, written from the 1920s into the 1960s, can be simultaneously balled up, discombobulated, lyrical, cryptic -- even going "utterly blooey" at times. This is from The Riddle of the Traveling Skull, published in 1934:

For it must be remembered that at the time I knew quite nothing, naturally, concerning Milo Payne, the mysterious Cockney-talking Englishman with the checkered long-beaked Sherlockholmsian cap; nor of the latter's "Barr-Bag" which was as like my own bag as one Milwaukee wienerwurst is like another; nor of Legga, the Human Spider, with her four legs and her six arms; nor of Ichabod Chang, ex-convict, and son of Dong Chang; nor of the elusive poetess, Abigail Sprigge; nor of the Great Simon, with his 2163 pearl buttons; nor of--in short, I then knew quite nothing about anything or anybody involved in the affair of which I had now become a part, unless perchance it were my Nemesis, Sophie Kratzenschneiderwümpel--or Suing Sophie!

Viewed through the appropriate lens, Keeler's manifest flaws become avant-garde virtues, as he seems to stretch the novel towards some new form, possibly the radio play or podcast. Neil Gaiman is a fan: "My guiltiest pleasure is Harry Stephen Keeler. He may have been the greatest bad writer America has ever produced. Or perhaps the worst great writer. I do not know. There are few faults you can accuse him of that he is not guilty of. But I love him."

Among the various devotees keeping this "forgotten author" alive, no one has proven more steadfast than Richard Polt, who chairs the philosophy department at Xavier University in Cincinnati and founded the Harry Stephen Keeler Society. http://site.xavier.edu/polt/keeler/

Richard, give us an introduction to Keeler and his work -- and tell us what led you to dedicate so much time and energy to keeping his name alive.

I ran across Keeler by pure accident in 1996, and from the start I was thrilled by the feeling that I was onto something truly weird and forgotten. I’ve always enjoyed digging into some corner of culture, going deep enough that I discover things that just aren’t in sight of today’s conventional wisdom, and finding connections that I would never have found otherwise. That’s exactly what the world of Harry Stephen Keeler has done for me.

Keeler (1890-1967) was a lifelong Chicagoan. His father died when Harry was an infant, and his mother married a series of other ne’er-do-wells who also kept dying on her. Meanwhile, she ran a boarding house for vaudevillians—so Harry was exposed to a wide variety of theatrical types in a city that was teeming with immigrants. He studied to be an electrical engineer and worked for a while at a steel plant, but his real passion was writing. His mom feared that he was going insane, and had him committed to the asylum at Kankakee, Illinois in 1911-1912. But he was released, and managed to make a living publishing quirky little stories with twists. In 1919 he became the editor of the pulp magazine 10 Story Book, which published short fiction and pictures of half-clothed girls. He also edited magazines such as the Chicago Ledger and America’s Humor.

Keeler’s stories began to get more convoluted, and by the late ’20s he was publishing mystery novels with Dutton in the US and Ward Lock in England, including The Spectacles of Mr. Cagliostro, which drew on his experience in the asylum. Things were looking up, but the Depression cut into book sales at the same time as HSK’s novels took a turn for the bizarre. He typically built his novels on the skeleton of an old short story from his youth, or several of them woven together. Sometimes his wife, Hazel Goodwin Keeler, would also contribute a chapter. This all became the occasion for gloriously implausible tales, chock-full of long-winded speeches in dialect; caricatures of every ethnic group from “Swodocks” to “Celestials”; near-future technology such as intercontinental 3D television; and, inevitably, a surprise ending that sends your synapses on a rollercoaster ride. This stuff appealed to an ever narrower audience. Finally, Dutton dropped Keeler in 1942. He was published by the bargain basement Phoenix Press from 1943 to 1948. Ward Lock cut him in 1953. Then he wrote for Spanish and Portuguese publication at $50 a title—or just for himself.

There were definitely some bitterness and frustration in Keeler’s old age, and when Hazel died in 1960, he went into a tailspin. But then he married Thelma Rinaldo, his one-time secretary from America’s Humor, and as he put it, he caught hold of “the greased pig known as the will to live.” Harry collaborated with Thelma on some late novels that have been published only in recent years.

There are two perennial questions about Keeler: Was he mentally ill? And was he a bad writer? Most people’s initial reaction is that he was a terrible writer who had mental problems. But you can also make the case that he knew what he was doing and was very good at it; it’s just that he had an eccentric sense of humor that requires a special sensibility to appreciate. I’m inclined to this latter view, although he does keep me guessing. I suspect that he had some traits that we would classify as belonging to the autistic spectrum, such as a prodigious memory for facts combined with a superficial grasp of human emotion. A Keeler story is not about interiority; it’s about a complex plot that plays games with the reader’s mind.

Describe Keeler's trademark concoction, the "webwork plot." “Web-work” or “webwork” was Keeler’s term for a highly complex plot, which weaves together a number of strands. He introduced the term in 1917 in a series of articles for The Student-Writer, which he then expanded into a fairly long treatise, "The Mechanics (And Kinematics) of Web-Work Plot Construction" (The Author and Journalist, April-November, 1928). Keeler never claimed to have invented the term or the concept; he gave credit to now-forgotten pulp writers such as Bertram Lebhar. But he did consider himself to be a skilled practitioner, and his fans would surely agree.

What’s most delightful in HSK’s theoretical writings on webwork is the diagrams, which show graphically how various characters and objects intersect at key moments in the story. "Mechanics" distinguishes 15 types of “elemental plot combinations” and presents a mind-blowing diagram of Keeler’s 1924 The Voice of the Seven Sparrows. It’s a very tortured plate of spaghetti.

Some of Keeler’s novels (including Sing Sing Nights, Thieves’ Nights, and the series Hangman’s Nights) get their complexity from a 1001 Nights structure: a framework story embraces several stories told by characters. Other Keeler novels get their complexity from endless digressions and red herrings, or tons of factoids that may or may not turn out to be relevant to the main story. Often, the action is told or retold by an unreliable character, instead of being shown to us directly. Inevitably, there’s a big surprise at the end that makes you see the whole plot differently in retrospect.

If you take away the surprise ending, webwork looks a lot like the contemporary literary genre sometimes called “hysterical realism”—the massive, weird, convoluted stories of writers like Pynchon. Keeler pioneered the formal analysis of this kind of tale. If you have a mathematical mind, you’ll appreciate his advice for getting a webwork started:

In conceiving a story or inaugurating a plot which involves threads weaving with threads, if the thread A, or viewpoint character, should figure with the thread B in an opening incident of numerical order "n" (with respect to the incidents in the conditions precedent) there must be invented a following incident "n + 1" involving threads A and C; an incident "n + 2" involving threads A and D; an incident "n + 3" involving threads A and E; and so on up to perhaps at least "n + 4” or "n + 5"; and furthermore "n" must cause "n +1"; "n + 1" must cause "n + 2"; "n + 2” must cause "n + 3" etc.

I’ve tried it—it works!

What's it like living in and among Keelerian natterings over the long haul?

Like one of Pynchon’s paranoid plots, or like Borges’ fantasy encyclopedia that ends up colonizing reality, the Keelerian world has many unsuspected strands that create a webwork in which I am now enmeshed. I’ve read more obscure authors because they imitated Keeler (John Russell Fearn) or were friends of his (T. S. Stribling). I found out that my own great-grandfather, Wells Hastings, wrote a mystery novel that can fairly be described as webwork. And I taught myself some Dutch in order to read the 2010 novel De Sciencefictionschrijver, by Harold S. Karstens—a story about a man who becomes unhealthily obsessed with Harry Stephen Keeler and starts a correspondence with Richard Polt. Yes, Keeler’s world is absorbing—to the point where I have now been absorbed within the covers of a fictional exploration of that world, to be discovered, like Harry himself, by future eccentrics.

by Daniel Riccuito