#my grandma was almost sent to live with her distant relatives on the other end of the country as a child in the 50s

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

Honestly I don't think most people in the galaxy would see having your child taken into the Jedi Order as much of a tragedy as the fandom makes it out to be, considering the state of Coruscant compared to most other planets it would be more like a medieval rural family being offered to have their child taken to a monastic order in the big city where they'll learn to read and write and never have to toil in a field

[rainbow-femme]

My grandma on my dads side and an aunt on my moms side both did a ton of family genealogy that I have access to and love going through. I mentioned it to a friend once and he immediately did the “yeah I don’t care about that stuff, I’m not defined by my ancestors I’m defined by me”

And I was just like?? I’m not saying I’m basing my personality on dead distant relatives, I’m saying I like history and there’s something very meaningful to me in learning about the lives of regular people that eventually lead to me existing

Like the guy who was a royal physician but ended up moving to Massachusetts for reasons we don’t know

Or the Union soldier whose letters to his wife we have and they’re very sweet as they clearly miss each other

Or the teenage girl who was sent from Ireland to live with family in the US because she got pregnant, and the assumption was she’d go back home after she had the baby, only she fell in love with an American and married him and he raised the baby as his

Or the woman who lived in Scotland for a time and Ireland for a time but openly and vehemently refused to say which she was born in, and no one knows why that was such an important secret for her because she also wouldn’t talk about anything that happened in either place

Or the man who worked as a chauffeur whose dying wish was to be buried in a suit, because he wore one every day for work but had never been able to own one himself. He also hated his brother in law, but when he died the family couldn’t afford to buy a suit just to bury him in and the brother in law was the only one who owned a suit so he gave it to the dead man who hated him to appease his last wish

Or my great great grandfather who worked on houses and was married to my great great grandmother who always wanted a nice wall papered kitchen, but they couldn’t afford it, so he would save scraps of wallpaper left over from jobs and use that, giving them a kitchen with a hundred different kinds of wallpaper

Or the fact that those two only got married because he was hitchhiking and her sister thought he was cute and let him stay the night in the couch, but he saw my great great grandma come down the stairs the next morning and fell for her and asked their father if he could work on their farm so he could court her

Or how that great great grandmother had 10 pregnancies and 10 healthy deliveries, the last at 48, and the family joke was you could drop her off the Empire State Building and she’d still carry a baby to term

Like those don’t matter because they have an impact on me personally, they matter because they were interesting real people who existed over centuries and they feel so much like normal people today, and there’s something really meaningful to me about seeing that human connection through time and still valuing the things that made them who they were

I mean, can you imagine writing to your wife from a war camp in the 1800s about how your chronic headaches are bothering you again so you’re going to play [I think something similar to soccer? He just called it ball idk] to forget about it and have that be something a descendant almost 200 years later reads who also gets chronic headaches and relates to you specifically through time? Or to have your quirks and idiosyncrasies be things your family still mentions and laughs about because you’re not just a name to them but still you?

I dunno, I just think there’s a difference between people defining themselves by ancestry and having a historical appreciation for people you were related to hundreds of years before, and enjoying all the parts of yourself you see in them. Even if it is chronic headaches because apparently it’s his fault we all get them

[alatismeni-theitsa]

I have no idea when you posted asking about the experiences of Greek diaspora / Greek heritage but I just saw it so I thought I’d send in my stuff.

I am so disconnected from it because my grandma didn’t want to pass the language into her children so she could have adult conversations they wouldn’t understand. And she didn’t pass on the culture because her husband was Jehovah’s Witness. And so I just feel an intense feeling of grief over a culture that I’m apart of but know very little about. I have some recipes my Yiayia made, a cookbook by women from the Greek Orthodox Church in NYC, and two lullaby’s. (We lived in the US with my great grandma so we had more interaction with Greek culture than our cousins who’s lived with my grandma in Ireland)

And there’s not much out that I’ve found where I’ve been able to learn about my culture and not felt like I’m intruding. Especially because I don’t “look Greek” like some of the other greek kids at my school. I look Irish. I don’t have a Greek name and I don’t speak any of the language. The only way I’ve found to connect is through food but I’m limited to the cookbook because if you look online it’s hard to find recipes that aren’t just trendy mediterranen inspired health food. My mum is starting to reluctantly tell me a little about my family from Greece. And my grandmas cousin and her family is very very greek. So if I fly down to see her she’ll teach me stuff (though she’s the matriarch of the family so she’s pretty intimidating). Anyway. That’s my experience with my my greek heritage.

I just sent the long-ass ask about Greek heritage but I forgot the bit where I was Greek enough to get bullied over Greek food. Yay. Dolmades are good though I don’t care if they “look little poop”

___________________[END OF ASK] __________________________

Hey and sorry for the delay 💙 I asked some time ago but that doesn't mean newer answers aren't welcome anytime!

Dear, I am grieving with you for the loss 😔 I can't say the reasons the language wasn't passed on seem very logical to me. There are things that didn't get passed on to me because my grandparents thought I would automatically know, or they didn't bother teaching, so I can relate to that feeling 😔

You are definitely NOT intruding! I can understand why it feels this way after what you told me, but it seems to me you have every right to know! Greek culture welcomes anyone from Cameroon to Japan, so, realistically, nothing should stop you from having access to it. Plus, it's your own family!

Oh damn, the "I don't look Greek" plague 😩 As everyone knows there's no specific qualifier of appearance for being part of Hellenismos. On this particular occasion, I'll go one step further and say that, unless you have raid hair, you probably look like a lot of Greeks.

There are Greeks whose appearance is rare for this ethnicity, but "looking Irish" is a thing that 1/4 (at least?) of Greek people relate to. One thing Greeks of diaspora often hear is that "they don't look Greek enough", aka they look "too white". Your surrounding Greeks might not look like you but if you go through my tag #Greek people, which has hundreds of videos, portraits, and photos of Greeks from all eras, you might realize you look like many Greeks.

There are Greeks whose appearance is rare for this ethnicity, but "looking Irish" is a thing that 1/4 (at least?) of Greek people relate to. One thing Greeks of diaspora often hear is that "they don't look Greek enough", aka they look "too white". Your surrounding Greeks might not look like you but if you go through my tag #Greek people, which has hundreds of videos, portraits, and photos of Greeks from all eras, you might realize you look like many Greeks.

Again, appearance doesn't matter in the slightest when it comes to culture, but I sensed your appearance issue was the flavor of "too white looking" and it's the most infuriating thing to me because many, many Greeks look "too white looking" for the standards foreigners have made for them!

Anyways, on to the food! I am so happy you are trying some of the recipes :D (And that you are doing everything to connect to your heritage if it brings you joy!) How dare they speak badly about dolmades??? 😭 Many countries close to Greece also have that dish and we must find them so we can have a dolmades alliaaaaanceee!

I'd also like to add, don't feel pressured to get too much into the culture if you don't want to. Many Greeks in Greece keep different types of distance from their tradition and that should also be your right. Again, do and learn whatever pleases you! Just keep in mind that you are valid in your current state without going the extra mile to learn every Greek thing possible.

People across the globe can have various degrees of Greek heritage and if that "amount" of heritage is "less" then it's okay and natural because it's what happens when people immigrate. The more generations pass, the more this old part is left behind. For example, many Greeks in Greece can also come from other backgrounds (Austrian, Egyptian, Slavic (various countries), etc) and they, too have many parts of their older heritages lost. They practice Greek customs almost exclusively now.

There's a cultural plane that shifts all the time in countries around the world and families assimilate to a new culture as they adapt to a new place. At this moment you are also part of a US regional culture and there is no shame in *also* identifying as part of it. That won't erase any Greek part of you.

The above doesn't aim to discourage you in any way on searching more about Greek culture! It's only a general disclaimer. People from inside a culture (usually in diaspora) tend to judge those who participate less, as if any person with X heritage is in a place to keep the same amount of touch with it 🙄

Sure, tradition is very important but nobody should be forced to practice it if they don't want to - or if they just can't. Tradition is people, and some traditions change or die naturally because many individuals from the inside wanted it to.

It's hard being caught in between - not "American enough" and not "Greek enough". The paradox is that you must first feel secure in this position. Granted, it's easier said than done but mentally it will save you the mindset of needing to be "more American" or "more Greek". As you understand, you don't need to feel apologetic to Americans for who you are, and you don't need to feel apologetic to Greeks in America or anywhere else for the exact same reason.

Some Greeks of diaspora feel distressed about their accents in Greek (or they don't want to admit they have an accent) or for not being perceived as Greeks automatically by other Greeks when they visit the country. But that's unavoidable because these differences exist and people raised in Greece can spot them. Therefore, people in the US whom you are afraid might feel superior to you for knowing more things about Greece, may come to Greece and feel like foreigners.

So they shouldn't make this a race beacuse it's not one they would normally "win" by their own standards. Chances are, after you learn anything you can, you will also have distance from what is considered the "default" Greek culture. It's part of the organic process of time + distance from the country, and Greeks with half a brain won't look down on you for that.

What I mean to say is that there is no certain bar an ordinary person can ever pass to be given any prize of the "ultimate Έλλην��ς". Not even Greeks in Greece know where that bar is when it comes to their own touch with tradition. There is no golden standard, no finishing line!

I encourage you to continue your journey on learning Greek things and while you are at it, know that objectively you have nothing to prove to anyone, even though you might feel otherwise. I say, fly to your grandma's cousin and let her teach you stuff!

You know that the intimidating demeanor Greek aunties and grandmas have doesn't necessarily reflect their love for you. You might also know that older Greeks are more reserved in showing appreciation. And in the hypothetical scenario where they don't really like you that much, they are still bound to you because you are family, so feel free to use their expertise 👀 If they don't give their knowledge to their family, whom are they going to give it to?? The neighbor??

If they throw any shade at you for now knowing enough take a deeeeeep breath, remember this isn't a race, and continue learning from them. (And you will feel the Greek experience of not deemed worthy enough by your relatives 😂 It's a win win!) If you haven't, check the poem Ithaca by K.P. Kavafy! I think it applies to this situation in a way!

You can always come here and browse thousands of posts about Greece! (In the Desktop version the most important show up on the left of the main page). I have #modern Greece #Greek custom #Greek tradition #Greek dance #Greek cuisine #Greek literature and whatever else your heart desires!

If you want to slowly learn Greek, Greekpod 101 and Easy Greek channels on YouTube have great content! I also have my tag #learn Greek on this blog with sources and explanations. (#Greek language and #Greek word can also be useful!) They are all accessible to English speakers!

You now have a distant Greek auntie who is at your disposal for any type of question (even the "stupid" questions)! Literally, ask me anything and I will try to answer it or find more info for you! You can DM me if you don't want to leave an ask. You are not intruding and it's my pleasure to help!

[x0401x]

Violet Evergarden Movie Summary

The initial plan was to make this a short bullet-point thing, but I felt like there was too much to clarify and I had no choice but use novel references to explain certain parts, so I decided to just write a normal summary. Many thanks before-hand to my friend Yuuki, who gave me all this info.

Apologies for taking relatively long with this thing. Not even I expected that I would end up writing this much. Buckle up for the ride, ‘cause it won’t be fun.

Nope, not kidding. It really won’t.

First thing I need to make clear is: this movie is one and a half hour long and divided into three parts and two different timelines: the times when Violet existed and the times after she dies. Already in the beginning of the movie, Violet is dead.

Yes, you read this right. She’s dead.

Now, I don’t mean that she’s dead in the literal sense. This is 60 years in the future. She might be alive or not, but it’s never said. However, the timeline of 60 years later is considered an era without Violet, apparently because she has retired and her “legend” is over, so to say. It’s also a time where Auto-Memories Dolls don’t exist. That’s one good punch in the face. Let’s keep counting.

The movie is sort of like a tale being read by someone else, which at some point goes into Violet’s first-person POV. The whole thing is kind of a look back on Violet’s life tragectory and how it took a new turn when she decided to continue looking for Gil despite all the mess of the TV series.

The era where Violet exists is an era where telephones are being introduced to the people, so Auto-Memories Dolls are starting to become unnecessary. I would argue that the creation of the telephone isn’t enough for an entire occupation to start disappearing so quickly, since new inventions are normally extremely expensive and not everyone has access to them (or even knows about their existence) so immediately after their conception. Realistically speaking, ghostwriters would still be important as long as there were still so many people unable to buy phones. Not to mention that this is a steampunk world where compulsory education doesn’t seem to be a thing yet, so even in the off chance that everybody can buy a phone, there would still be a lot of people who can’t read or write on their own. But all of this clearly went over the animators’ heads, so not only ghostwriters but also the mail business in general are nearing their doom in the movie.

The one looking back on Violet’s life was Ann, who was telling it all to her granddaughter, Daisy (who, by the way, is voiced by Morohoshi Sumire, the same girl who voiced the seven-year-old Ann). Ann had kept all the letters that Violet ghostwrote for her mother, as well as the newspapers about the CH Postal Company. Looks like the article was printed after Violet left CH, since she isn’t in the picture with everyone else.

In this era, CH’s main office has been turned into a museum. Nerine is shown working in it. Of course, she’s a grandma by then. Speaking of the CH personnel, Erica also quit being an Auto-Memories Doll and became a playwright like Oscar. She appears in the newspaper, though, so she probably a while left after Violet did. Taylor also appears there.

Back to Daisy, she was writing a letter to her parents, in order to learn how to properly convey feelings with written word. The message of this scene seems to be that, no matter the tools, what’s important is that we convey our feelings to the people we love.

As we see in the trailer, Gil’s mom has passed and Violet runs into Dietfried when visiting her grave on the anniversary of her death. To anyone who is wondering: yeah, Gil never went to see his mother and she died thinking that he was dead.

Nobody knew that Gil was alive. Not his mother, not Dietfried, not the Evergardens and not even Hodgins. No one.

Here’s what happened to Gil in the anime: he survived the incident at Intense, of course, but got separated from Violet in that explosion. His tag miraculously stayed on the same spot, though, as we saw in the TV series. Now, since this isn’t explained in the anime at all, I have to make it clear: the tag is that necklace the soldiers wear. It contains their names and ranks, so that their bodies can be identified even when they’re irrecognizable. Without the tag, the people who rescued Gil had no idea who he was, so he was sent to a different place to get treated. He ended up at a monastery hospital instead of the one in Enchaîné. I would debate that his uniform alone is enough to identify him as someone from the Leidenschaftlich Army, or maybe they could’ve just asked him which troop he belonged to after he woke up and relocated him to where his fellow men were, but who even cares about all these plot holes anymore? Definitely not me.

Anyway. After Gil was discharged, he ran the fuck away. Like, literally.

If anyone out there was hoping that Gil would finally have his moment to shine as the self-sacrificing, thoughtful and ridiculously kindhearted character that he is in the novel, I have bad news for you. What we had here was even worse than it being Gil’s excuse movie. It’s like the whole thing was made to drag his character so deep through the mud that he’ll never be able to get up again. There’s pretty much nothing in this one and a half hour that actually justifies what he did to Violet. I’ll elaborate on this as we go on.

Anime!Gil became a nomad and went traveling. He offed his ass to the island where that lighthouse displayed in the most recent official art is located (that’s why Gil and Violet were at the beach on the movie poster). He doesn’t have a prosthetic in the anime because, apparently, he was more worried about disappearing as fast as possible to somewhere he would never be found, and never attempted to contact anybody. So nobody knew that he was alive, hence the grave, which, as we feared, was not a fake one. His family really did think he had died.

This is a point that I have already addressed before, but that also means Gil really did abandon Violet to luck. If anything dangerous ever happened to her (as it did, and it was always very obviously likely to happen, since she was the southern army’s most outstanding soldier and quite literally fled from the military), he wouldn’t even know. If word ever got to him, it would probably be too late. And even if it weren’t, he wouldn’t be able to do anything to help her. More than allowing her to live freely, it felt like he was running away from his responsibilities regarding Violet.

Punch on the face count is currently at six.

By sheer coincidence, Violet learns that Gil is living in that island. She goes to see him and Hodgins goes with her after trying to stop her at first. When Gil finds out that they came to see him, he outright refuses to meet them. It pretty much takes the near entirety of the goddamn movie for them to see each other face-to-face. I say face-to-face because all of the following shit happens:

Hodgins goes to talk to Gil. It lasts about 20 minutes.

Gil talks to Violet from behind a door. This one is about 10 minutes.

Dietfried also comes to the island to talk to him. Also about 10 minutes.

At long fucking last, Gil goes to see Violet. But that, too, is only for about 10 minutes.

Hodgins gives him a speech very similar to what happens in chapter 8. Now get ready to fall back from your seats: Dietfried basically goes there to tell Gil that he won’t run away from taking over the family anymore, so Gil can live freely. Yes, Dietfried is officially a better Gilbert than Gilbert himself. I crave death.

So, after much ado, they come to a conclusion: Gil will stay in the island. In order to completely free himself of the shackles of his bloodline, he stays behind, living the way he wants to. ‘Cause all anime!Gil wants is to rot away alone by the sea, apparently. Now prepare yourselves, for it gets worse. Ready?

Violet stays with him in the motherfucking island.

That’s right, ladies and gents. Another fear became true. She quits her job at the CH Postal Company and goes to live with him. Well, at least, not as a housewife. She starts working with mail services in the island, and Gil helps her with it. Her life goes on like this and she dies in the island as well.

This is where the timeline after Violet passes away comes into light, parallel to the era when Violet was alive. Daisy talks about what happened after Violet left CH, as if it were a tale from the distant past.

That’s it.

The movie paints this as a happy ending. I can hardly see it as one. I know it almost looks like everything was solved, but it just got swept under the rug.

The main point that makes me sad in this ending is that Violet’s character development did a 360 degree flip. In the end, she threw everything to the air and went to live in someone who she always put before everyone else, even herself, but who didn’t do the same for her (in the anime). She’s gone to a crammed little island, where she led an uneventful life away from everyone and everything that’s ever had a positive impact on her. All she has is Gil.

Of course, he’s all she needs, but he isn’t all she should have, and that was the entire point of pushing her to go live on her own. Which is exactly what she earns in the novel: two loving parents, a father figure, a brother figure, a best friend and several other friends and acquaintances whom she formed a bond with. She has all she needs, so she doesn’t have to cling to Gil for any reason. There’s no emotional dependance on him anymore. She doesn’t need him to be whole. She just wants him because he happens to be the best person she’s ever met.

Anime!Violet is most definitely not whole. She almost got there, but then she backtracked completely. And anime!Gil... in my friend’s words, is a weakling. There’s nothing in him actually worth all this undying blind love. Sure, he’s full of regret and shit, but it’s too easy to only act upon it now, by vanishing into thin air like a coward.

The deal with novel!Gil is that he looks around at everything he has, everything that had been burdening him and killing him on the inside all his life, and decides to make use of it for Violet’s sake. He continues being family head and working in the army, amassing money and connections in order to have every means possible to protect Violet should anything happen to her. And as it turns out, he does end up having to use those means, more than once, but he will keep this up for as long as he needs to, because he lives for her now. That’s what makes him worth all the blood, sweat, tears, mental sanity and even body parts that she gave away for his sake: he pays it back. Every cent.

Punch in the face count ends at twelve. Thirteen if I include the fact that the movie ends with a last shot of Violet after she and Gilbert do a pinky swear. Looks like they were really trying to buy everyone with tears.

Oh, well.

I hope this has been a good enough summary. Sorry if I rained on anyone’s parade. I’m pretty sure we won’t get a remake ever, so I really wish we all can get over this soon.

[hermannsthumb]

Could you please write #43 grandparents/neighbors one?

43. we’re having our family meal at my grandparents’ house this year so fingers crossed your parents still live next door and you grew up to be even hotter

from winter writing prompts here

oh god this one got so long. sorry everyone! thank you to @k-sci-janitor for the alien bit because it was so fucking funny

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Holidays have gotten a little weird to manage since Newt transformed into a fully-fledged adult with an apartment and a job and stuff, so while he hasn’t made it to the big Geiszler celebration in Germany every December since starting college out of elementary school, he still tries to make a point of dropping by his dad’s for dinner and a movie or something to fill his holiday quota. It’s fine by him; he loves his family, but they’re definitely overwhelming, and trying to submit final grades and work on syllabuses for the next semester all while distant relatives ruffle his hair and ask him when he’s going to hit his growth spurt is not his idea of a relaxing time. It’s a constant point of contention between him and his dad. This year more than most, apparently.

“Your grandmother misses you!” he tells Newt sadly over their Chinese takeout. “She calls me every week to ask how you are, and why you never visit with them. Every week.” He waves a fork at Newt. “You’re breaking her heart.”

“I’m in the lab, like, twenty-four-seven, dad,” Newt sighs. It’s a well-rehearsed conversation at this point, but it doesn’t get any less tiresome. Especially because he knows his dad is lying about the phone call thing—Newt is a great grandson and texts his grandmother plenty, thank you very much, he would know if he was breaking her heart. “I’m working straight through winter break this year. Seriously.”

“That’s what you did last year,” Newt’s dad says. “And the year before that…” Newt turns the volume up on the TV to cut his dad off before he can segue into the next part of his argument, which is (usually) that Newt needs to work on his personal life, maybe settle down, produce some grandkids of his own. Or at least adopt a cat. Also well-rehearsed.

He’s not sure why he says what he does next—maybe in a desperate attempt to distract his dad further. Maybe because of the sudden onslaught of childhood memories the mention of his grandparents’ house brought on. “Hey, do you remember that boy who used to live next door to grandma?” he says. “He had the weird haircut and always dressed kind of funny?” Old-fashioned, and a little too formal for the sort of things that little kids tend to do, climbing trees or playing in the mud—sweatervests and polished loafers and starched-white knee-highs.

Newt’s dad blinks at him. Newt half expects him to declare that Newt is nuts, and that he has no idea what he’s talking about, like this is one of those horror stories where the childhood friend turns out to be some ghost who died fifty years prior. The clothing would match up, he guesses. But he smiles in recognition a moment later. “You mean the Gottlieb boy?” he says.

“Gottlieb,” Newt echoes. It sounds familiar enough. “Hermann, I think. When I’d stay with grandma for the summer we would play together every day. I wonder what he’s doing now.” Hermann was a smart guy, a real geek like Newt; he used to carry a graphing calculator around in his pocket and build the most goddamn pristine model spacecrafts Newt had ever seen. Hermann’s dad shipped him off to a prestigious boarding school the last summer Newt spent there, when they were around twelve or so. Newt started at MIT not long after. “Dude’s probably designing rocket ships by now or something.”

“You could ask him yourself if you came with me,” Newt’s dad laughs. “The Gottliebs never moved away, and their children actually visit. I’m sure your Hermann visits, too.”

“Ha,” Newt says. “Yeah.”

It’s snowing by the time Newt and his dad finish their movie, and Newt (fearing his dad’s driving even in ideal conditions) declines the offer of a lift home to trudge his way through it to his T stop instead. It’s nice to have the chance to be alone with his thoughts, anyway, because he can’t seem to get funny little Hermann Gottlieb out of his head. What is he doing now?

A quick Facebook search on the train produces a few Hermann Gottliebs, but none of them promising—none of them have the brown eyes or strangely angular face (devoid of any baby fat even that young) Newt remembers, none of them are from the right German countryside, none of them went to a preppy English boarding school. Google (utilizing the information Newt does have) is a little more rewarding, and by the time Newt presses the button to request his stop, he’s scrounged up a decent amount of info: Hermann Gottlieb has a doctorate in astrophysics, Hermann Gottlieb publishes papers at a slightly terrifying rate, and Hermann Gottlieb turned out kinda hot.

As Newt stares down at a slightly grainy current photograph of his old friend—haircut and clothing unchanged, a cane in hand, some round librarian glasses perched on the end of his nose, wide mouth twisted into a scowl—he suddenly recalls another thing about Hermann Gottlieb: the summer Hermann was sent away to boarding school was the summer that Hermann kissed Newt goodbye, shyly and tearfully, under the shade of the tall maple tree in his yard. It was the last time Newt ever saw Hermann. It was Newt’s first kiss.

“Oh, boy,” Newt says.

He texts his dad when he gets back to his apartment. When do we leave?

Newt feels like the belle of the fucking ball when he steps into his grandparents’ house a week later, snow dusting his shoulders, small suitcase clenched in his hand. His cheeks are kissed; his scarf and hat and leather jacket are brushed off and tossed onto a coat rack; his hair is in parts smoothed down (too messy!) and ruffled (too flat!); he’s hugged more times than he has been in the entire last year, probably. “Still playing around with bugs in the dirt, eh, Newt?” his grandfather booms, tucking Newt into the crook of his arm with enough force to knock Newt’s glasses off.

“Actually,” Newt squeaks, scrambling for both what he remembers of his very rusty German, and his glasses before they can hit the ground, “entomology isn’t really my main focus at—”

“Newt’s studying jellyfish now,” Newt’s dad declares proudly. “He went on a diving expedition this July.”

“Diving? How exciting,” Newt’s grandmother says.

“Yeah,” Newt says. He pushes his glasses back on. “Yeah, it was fascinating, I was lucky to get the funding for it. You wouldn’t believe the sorts of—”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Newt’s cousin says.

“My little Newt’s a daredevil!” Newt’s dad says.

“It’s not that dangerous,” Newt says. “As long as you’re—”

“What happened to that nice man your father said you were dating?” Newt’s grandfather says. “With the, the what was it, the poetry? The poet? We thought you’d bring him!”

Newt flushes. Trust his dad to talk up some random guy Newt dated in March like it was a long-term affair and not an elongated one-night stand that fizzled out after three weeks. Though maybe that one’s on Newt—it’s not like he mentioned the one-night stand part to his dad, after all. He definitely didn’t mention that the guy ended it with a poem, too. “We broke up,” he says, weakly. He wriggles out from the throng of the crowd. “Look, it’s so great seeing you all, but I’m actually, like, really tired, soooooo…?”

“Oh, of course you are,” Newt’s grandmother says. She pats his head. “What a long flight you must have had! We’ll send someone up for you for dinner—you can have your old guest room.”

“Cool,” Newt says.

He scurries up the stairs.

The guest room he slept in during those summers is almost exactly the way he remembers it, but a little dustier—the floral quilt on the bed, his grandma’s sewing table crammed into the corner, the bookcase stocked with a weird combination of kid’s books and illustrated encyclopedias that Newt used to pore over for hours as a kid, often with Hermann. Newt draws back the embroidered curtains and peers out the window at the Gottliebs’ snow-capped house next door. Hermann’s window was directly across from his. It still is, technically, though the curtains (these navy blue and embroidered with little constellations) are pulled tight, and Newt has a feeling that Hermann hasn’t set foot in his old room in well over a decade. Two decades, probably.

He remembers the one summer he showed Hermann how to make a soup can telephone, and they managed to string it all the way across between their windows before discovering it kinda didn’t work as well as Newt said it would. He remembers when Hermann’s dad banned him from the Gottlieb house for tracking water all over their front hallway after he and Hermann went wading in the creek, but it was really Hermann who did it, because he forgot to take his shoes off and they got soaked, and Newt just took the fall for it so Hermann wouldn’t get in trouble. And when Hermann asked Newt to play astronaut with him, and Newt insisted on being an alien and mimed the chestburster scene from Alien, and Hermann freaked out so bad he fell in a mud puddle and got grounded for ruining his clothing, and Newt got grounded for that and for watching Alien when he wasn’t supposed to, and they spent the following few days staring sadly out across at each other before Newt’s grandma finally got tired of his moping and sent him to work weeding the garden. He remembers knotting a little friendship bracelet for Hermann out of embroidery thread he found in his grandmother’s sewing basket and Hermann vowing to keep it until he died.

Newt’s half of the soup can phone is still on the windowsill, though the string snapped and crumbled apart years ago. He picks at the peeling Chicken Noodle label, so distracted that he almost doesn’t notice the light suddenly seeping through at the edges of Hermann’s curtains, or the way they’re pushed open—almost.

Hermann—real, live, adult Hermann, botched haircut and round glasses and all—stares out at Newt with a shocked expression on his face. Newt drops the can with a clatter.

Then he waves.

“Hey, Grandma?” Newt says, poking his head into the kitchen. Tonight’s dinner is a massive pot of soup boiling away on the stovetop, dessert a mountain of cookies and tiny pastries on serving platters on the counters. Newt hasn’t had food that looked this good since he moved out, to be honest. The intersection of Newt’s sad lack of cooking skills and his attempts at vegetarianism means he eats a lot of boxed mac-and-cheese and frozen Vegetable Lovers’ pizzas. “Are you—?"

“Oh, Newt!” Newt’s grandmother says. She sets down her wooden spoon. “Are you feeling rested, then?”

“Yeah,” Newt says. “Grandma, I was wondering, could I—uh—maybe run some food over to the Gottliebs? To be…neighborly? We just have so much, and—”

“That’s a wonderful idea,” Newt’s grandmother says. “They keep to themselves, mostly, but I can’t imagine they’d turn it down. You might even see your little friend again! What was his name? You were so fond of him.”

“Hermann,” Newt says, quickly shoving cookies into a red-lid plastic container. “Thanks, Grandma.”

He tucks the tupperware under his arm and nearly wipes out on the icy front path he runs to the Gottliebs’ so fast. Before he can so much as catch his breath and knock, their door swings open; Hermann, dressed in a tacky Hannukah sweater, arches an eyebrow at him. “I saw you sprint over here like a bloody madman,” he says, in blessed English. He must’ve remembered how shitty Newt’s German was when they were kids. “Hello, Newton. What’s so terribly important?”

His voice got deeper—expected—and he swapped out his German accent for an English one somewhere along the way. Probably at his stuffy boarding school. He also got taller—he’s got a few inches on Newt now, but Newt admits that’s not exactly hard. God, he’s even hotter in person. “Uh,” Newt says. Why is he here? Oh, right. He thrusts out the tupperware. “I brought some cookies over for you?”

Hermann peers down at the offering over his glasses. His forehead wrinkles. “How considerate,” he says. He pulls an olive-green parka on and steps out onto the porch, tugging the door shut behind him. He taps at a peeling porch swing with the end of his cane. “Just leave them there. Would you like to take a walk?”

It’s freezing, and snowing, but for some reason, a walk sounds like the best idea in the world right now. “Yes, please,” Newt says, and chucks the cookies onto the swing.

“I must say,” Hermann says, after their meandering walk around the Gottliebs’ yard takes them to the old maple tree. The branches are bare, but thick, and shield them from most of the falling snow. Hermann’s breath puffs out white in front of his angular face. The last time I stood here, Newt thinks, he kissed me. “I really did not expect to see you.”

“I didn’t expect to see you, either,” Newt admits. “From what I remember, you and your family weren’t—uh—well, very close. I didn’t think you’d be coming back to share in the holiday cheer with them, is what I mean.”

The corner of Hermann’s mouth twitches up. “That’s certainly one way of describing it. Yes, I suppose you’re right—my father is a bit of a bastard, isn’t he?” Newt laughs awkwardly, unsure whether to agree or attempt to weakly the defend a guy who openly hated him for being a bad influence on Hermann most of his childhood; he’s grateful when Hermann continues and saves him the choice. “This is the first year I’ve come home in a long while. My brother’s just had a daughter, you see, and I thought I should start getting used to playing uncle.”

“Oh, congrats,” Newt says. Hermann shrugs, and Newt has the distinct feeling that this is Hermann’s older brother, who used to dissemble Hermann’s telescope and hide the pieces around the house when Hermann annoyed him, and tattled on Newt and Hermann to Hermann’s parents the one time Newt snuck in to see Hermann after he got banned. He always made Newt thankful that he was an only child. “Same here, actually. Not the uncle thing—I mean I haven’t visited since I was in college. Too busy.”

“I know,” Hermann says, and then adds teasingly (in a way that makes color flood Newt’s cheeks and his heart beat just a little faster), “I’ve looked you up online. Er—quite a bit recently, in fact. I was curious. You’ve made quite the name for yourself, haven’t you, Dr. Geiszler?”

“I,” Newt squeaks, and then coughs. “I mean, I guess? I like…science.”

“I oughtn’t be surprised,” Hermann says. “You were always giving me bugs, and salamanders, and funny little frogs—”

Newt liked bugs, and salamanders, and frogs, but he liked Hermann more, and the gifts had a lot more to do with the latter than the former, because what kid wouldn’t want bugs or salamanders or frogs, right? Not that Hermann ever appreciated them—especially not the worms Newt would pluck from the sidewalks after rainstorms. He thinks he got grounded for that one, too, because his grandma wouldn’t believe that he really wasn’t trying to terrorize the poor Gottlieb boy. “And what about you?” Newt says. He pokes his elbow into Hermann’s side. “Dr. Gottlieb? Guess those model rockets paid off.”

(“No, Newton,” Hermann would snap at him on the rare occasions he would allow Newt to watch him piece one together, “the glue hasn’t dried yet. You have to be patient, or else it’ll fall apart.”)

“Not yet,” Hermann says, “but I hope soon.”

Hermann smiles at him. A snowflake catches in his eyelashes—his long, pretty, dark eyelashes. “Do you remember when you kissed me here?” Newt blurts out.

“It’s hardly the sort of thing I’d forget,” Hermann says. He reaches out and tucks a piece of Newt’s hair up into his hat. “I like your tattoos—I saw the photographs on your social media accounts. They suit you.” Newt wonders if this means Hermann saw the shirtless selfie he posted on Instagram. “I’m also pleased to see you’ve gotten your braces removed. It wasn’t a very pleasant experience last time.”

Then he leans in and kisses Newt. Again, technically. It’s so light and brief Newt hardly believes it even happened. Their glasses clack together, and when Hermann pulls away, he straightens out Newt’s.

“I confess,” Hermann says, “that I’m wholly pleased to see how you’ve turned out. I hope that wasn’t too forward of me. I’ve been thinking about doing it all night.”

“Jeez, dude,” Newt says, blinking at him, his head swimming just a little. Hermann looks smug. “Not, uh, not too forward. So. Uh. You wanna get dinner or something this week and catch up?”

Hermann snorts, and nods.