#people from Facebook dating keep asking questions about my dogs that are NOT already pictured in my profile

[justkindaoverhereobsessing]

Olivia “Via” Colman the Dog, named (of course) after Olivia Colman the Human. DS Ellie Miller in Broadchurch is one of my favorite characters from anything ever!

Among other things, she also goes by and/or responds to

1) “Viapuppyviapuppyviapuppyviapuppy—”

2) “Viver Viver, Everything-Eater”

3) “EXCUSE ME????? NO, MA’AM!!!!”

4) “Olive”

5) 🎶 “Ooooooliviaaaaaaa!” 🎶 (to the tune of the theme song of the kids’ animated show ‘Olivia’)

[cali-holland]

Interview Trouble, Part Two- Tom Holland Mini Series

Pairing: Tom Holland X Reader

Prompt: With your relationship now public, you and Tom do interviews together.

Word Count: 1900

Part One

Masterlist    Tom Holland Masterlist

*Gif is not mine*

A/N: Didn’t intend on doing a part two, but I couldn’t help myself!

~~~

“Hi, everyone, I am Y/N Y/L/N.” You smiled at the camera.

“And I’m Tom Holland.” Tom said with a wave.

“And we’re here to answer some questions while playing with puppies.” You explained, as prompted. Tom immediately started to try to play with as many puppies as he could. Meanwhile, you just casually played with the one nearest you. Your relationship had been public for a year now, and, with Tom’s new movie coinciding with you releasing new music, your managers set up couple’s interviews for the two of you to do together.

“How did you two meet?” The interviewer asked, off camera.

“We met,” Tom started, looking at you with a smile, “At this pub in London about two years ago. I had been a fan of Y/N’s music for a while, so when I saw her I just had to go say hi.”

“Correction. He tripped and fell on his way over to me so I had to help him up.” You teased and he pouted.

“What can I say? I was already falling for you.” He laughed, “But it’s true. I was whipped.”

“I’m whipped too.” You leaned over to give him a peck on the lips.

“You live together now. Would you two ever adopt a dog?” The interviewer spoke up. As if on cue, a small black puppy flopped down into your lap and started to fall asleep.

“Aw, I feel chosen.” You smiled, softly petting the dog. You turned your attention back to the camera to answer the question. “We haven’t really thought about it, have we?” You looked over at Tom.

“We haven’t, no.” He laughed, “I love that you have to look at me to make sure we haven’t talked about getting a dog.”

“Maybe I just want to look at you.” You joked, playfully rolling your eyes at your boyfriend.

“We should get a dog, though. When we go home next, we’ll get a dog, just for you Buzzfeed.” Tom said, continuing to play the puppies crawling over his lap.

“What’s the most romantic thing you’ve done for each other?” The interviewer continued.

“Oh God,” You let out a small sigh as you started to think about what you’d consider to be the most romantic thing.

“Oh God? Am I really not that romantic?” Tom questioned, feigning offense.

“No, no.” You laughed.

“Did you see her reaction? Just ‘oh God, he never does anything romantic’.” He teased.

“I didn’t say that.” You playfully hit his arm. “I need to think about it.”

“I say, the most romantic thing you’ve done is- remember when we first started dating and you were over at my place?”

“Oh, this.” You smiled fondly. Tom turned to the camera to continue explaining.

“We’d only been dating for about a month, and I got really sick when Y/N was at my house. I had food poisoning so I couldn’t stomach anything, but she stayed with me and made me soup when I could eat again.”

“That’s such an odd thing for you to consider the most romantic thing I’ve ever done for you.” You teased. “You were like ‘most romantic thing? She saw me puke but she stayed’. Peak of romance right there.”

“It’s true, though. I really thought ‘she’s seen me vomit, she’s going to break up with me’, but you stayed. You’ve done a lot of romantic things, but that was the first one that I was like ‘I’m in love with this girl’.” He said, a small blush in his cheeks because, yes, he did just embarrassingly admit to the world that him being so sick was ‘the peak of romance’.

“Aw, babe.” You smiled, leaning over and kissing him. “I think the most romantic thing you’ve done for me was when we were in Atlanta, just before my tour while you were filming Avengers. You had the day off and we went to this small boutique, and I saw this cute wolf figurine.” You held up with your hands about the size of it, not bigger than your own hand. “I didn’t buy it that day, but when you surprised me on tour like a month later, you gave me that because you’d gone back and gotten it for me.”

“I like that you both went for small gestures, when we’ve all seen the Bali pictures.” The interviewer joked, referring back to when Tom surprised you with a trip to Bali. Not only was the trip a surprise holiday, but he also had candles and rose petals put throughout the hotel room.

“Oh, no, that’s up there.” You laughed. The small puppy on your lap let out a whine, calling for attention.

“We’re definitely adopting a dog.” Tom said and you nodded in agreement.

And a couple weeks later, when you both returned to England, you had adopted not one, but two puppies.

~~~

Back in England, you two still had more interviews to do. This time, though, you two were doing it through Facebook live. Instead of having an interviewer ask questions, you two read off a cue card, asking each other questions to see who knew the other better.

“Which of your movies is my favorite?” You asked Tom, once the cameras started to roll.

“Far From Home.” He said, smugly, already knowing he got the right answer. “What’s my favorite song of yours?”

“A Thousand Years.” You replied, immediately knowing his answer. It was the first song you had written about him, and he went weak anytime he heard it. “What’s my go-to drink?”

“I might not know this.” Tom laughed, nervously. “I like beer, but yours is tequila, right?”

“Two years and you still question if I like tequila.” You teased. “But that’s right.”

“Who was my childhood celebrity crush? Damn, that’s easy.” He shook his head, “Unfair.”

“Is it Jennifer Aniston?” You asked, and he nodded, “I guessed that one.”

“Oh sure.”

“Who would I love to collab with?”

“Ed Sheeran.” Tom replied quickly. 

“You know me so well.”

“What’s my all-time favorite movie?” Tom read the card, laughing, “Wait, I don’t even know this one.”

“Does Dodgeball count? We’ve watched it like a million times together.” You joked.

“Yeah, it counts.” He nodded, approvingly.

“Last question. What’s my ring size?” 

“Wait, I know this.” Tom paused, thinking about it. “I just talked to your sister about this the other day.”

“You what?” Your eyes went wide at his comment. He laughed, awkwardly remembering the interview was live.

“She was talking about how she has a ring that she wants to get rid of, she was going to give it to you.” He explained, maintaining his cool. The blush on his face told you another story; you could tell he was lying. He may be an actor, but he could never lie to you, no matter how much he wanted to.

The interview’s director cut the livestream there, and everyone left you and Tom on the couch to talk about the elephant in the room.

“So you asked my sister about my ring size.” You said, smiling hopefully at Tom.

“Yeah,” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean to spoil it. God, I’m so bad at keeping secrets.”

“I love that you suck at keeping secrets. It’s adorable and it’s so completely you.” You placed a hand on his arm, rubbing it softly. Tom fished into his pant pockets and pulled out the small red box.

“This isn’t how I wanted to do this, but I don’t really care because I just want to be with you.” Tom shifted off the couch and onto one knee.

“You don’t have to do this now. I can wait.” You reassured him, knowing that you couldn’t convince him to change anyway. Not that you wanted to wait- your answer would still be the same no matter when or how he asked.

“Y/N Y/L/N, I love you more than I can explain. Everyday that I spend with you, I fall more in love, and I want to spend everyday with you for the rest of my life. I’m already the luckiest and happiest man on earth because I have you, but will you make me even luckier and happier and marry me?” Tom asked, popping open the box to present a beautiful, small diamond ring to you.

“I love you so much- yes!” You hadn’t even finished your own sentence before Tom was already slipping the ring onto your finger. Both of you knew exactly what you’d say, and it made you love him even more. He sat back on the couch next to you, so that you could kiss your fiance properly.

~~~

“Please welcome the talented, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, Tom Holland!” Jimmy Kimmel announced as the curtain opened to reveal Tom. Tom walked out onto the stage, waving at the audience, and shaking hands with Jimmy. He saw you in the crowd and blew you a cheeky kiss before sitting down in his spot.

“So, it’s been a year since you’ve last been on the show. How has life been?” Jimmy asked.

“It’s been good, just lots of work. I spent a good portion of last year just working on different sets. I got some exciting stuff coming soon.” Tom replied happily.

“You also,” Jimmy paused as he got out a picture of Tom’s post on Instagram. It was of you two kissing while you held up your left hand; the classic proposal photo. “got engaged recently?”

“Yeah, I did.” His cheeks went red as his eyes found yours in the crowd.

“Congratulations. Can we bring Y/N up here?” The host asked and the audience cheered when you stood from your seat. Jimmy greeted you with a hug and you kissed Tom as you sat down next to him on the couch. “Let’s see the ring.”

“There we go.” Tom said proudly as you showed off your left hand to Jimmy, the audience, and the cameras.

“Did we get a good close up of it?” You joked.

“It’s so shiny, it’s hard to take a good picture.” Tom laughed. You casually rested your left hand on his leg and he covered your hand with his own.

“I heard a rumor that, Tom, you actually spoiled the surprise.” Jimmy said, “How did- how did you do that?”

“So we were doing a livestream interview, and I had been very secretive about proposing-“ Tom started.

“You were not secretive.” You teased. “You told everyone except for me.”

“That’s generally how proposals work.” Jimmy laughed.

“No, I’m talking about how fans knew he was going to propose. He would tell people in the grocery store, that kind of everyone.”

“I was excited and trying not to tell you.” Tom said, “It’s hard not being able to tell the person I tell everything to about something so exciting.”

“But anyway,” you continued the story, “He said during the livestream he’d just asked my sister for my ring size, and then he proposed when the cameras stopped rolling.”

“How sweet.” Jimmy commented.

“The cat was already out of the bag. It’s not like I could go back.” Tom joked.

“You two also just adopted a couple dogs, right?” Jimmy asked, pulling out another picture of you and Tom with your two rescue staffordshire puppies. The audience let out a series of awes at the photograph.

“So Hugo’s the fawn colored one and Marley’s the white one.” Tom stated.

“What kind of breed are they again?”

“They’re both English Staffordshire bull terriers. Tom’s got one named Tessa and she’s such a sweetheart. But we did an interview with puppies for Buzzfeed and decided we needed to get a dog.” You explained.

“And then we couldn’t choose just one so we got two.” Tom laughed.

“They’re our babies.” You joked, feeling Tom’s finger brush over the ring on your left hand which made you smile.

[purplesurveys]

1279

Are you and the last person you kissed in a relationship or just friends?  I don’t keep contact.

Has anyone ever pointed out that your laugh was unusual?  Hmmmm, I don’t think so. I feel like that would be the type of comment that would get to me so I definitely would’ve remembered it.

Would you get a lip piercing?  I don’t plan on getting any piercings.

Nose piercing?  Nopes.

What are you currently waiting for?  For this fucking day to end so I can be closer to Thursday and to the weekend.

Do you have feelings for anyone?  Nah.

Have you ever run over an animal?  Nope. I’ve had extremely close calls with animals who suddenly dart into the road, but fortunately these have all been situations wherein I got to hit the brakes with nobody behind me.

Have you chewed gum after someone else already has?  That’s disgusting, no.

When people sneeze do you say ‘bless you’?  Sure, out of habit and just to be polite.

When was the last time you were on a bouncy castle?  I don’t think I’ve ever been on a bouncy castle, but I’ve been on a lot of bouncy other things haha, like inflatable slides, soccer balls, Anpanmans, etc. The last time would probably be a nearly a decade ago; I definitely haven’t been near one in a while.

Have you ever went on a bouncy castle whilst drunk?  Well no, because the ones I’ve been on were situated in school fairs, which is the last place I would want to be drunk in.

Have you ever entered an art competition?  No, I have no justification to join one haha.

What is one thing you will never do? Try hardcore drugs. < Same. 

What is one food that you detest?  Pineapples.

Did you have a rebellious phase growing up?  Yeah I was a bit of a handful to raise, but I’m in firm in my stance that it had a lot to do with the way I was raised. I grew up mostly without a father figure because my dad worked abroad and I felt neglected by my mom who had her own shit to deal with. There was no stable support system to lean on, so I ended up lashing out a lot in my puberty years. Unfortunately everyone else just saw a rebellious child and not a plea for help.

These days when I show off my achievements on social media, I’ll see congratulatory comments from my mom’s friends and she’ll usually go on about some “late bloomers grow with time” narrative and it pisses me off because nobody knows how much I’ve had to grow and mature and learn how to be happier all by myself, all from scratch. If I had just received the proper care and attention early on, I wouldn’t have had to do any catching up to begin with.

What religion were you brought up with? Roman Catholic.

Are you still that religion?  Jesus no. I darted out of there as soon as I gained the consciousness to think about these sorts of things.

Do you often find yourself questioning your future?  Sometimes, but I do my best to not let it get to me.

How many friends do you have on Facebook?  Over 670.

What sort of music did you listen to when you were in high school?  I started with punk rock in the first half of high school, so I had my Rancids, H2Os, Against Me!s, Cro-Mags, etc on my iPod. It evolved a little bit towards more indie, folksy sounds towards the latter half - Banks, alt-J, Hozier, Twenty One Pilots - which I largely attribute to the crowd I was part of at the time.

What pet names do you use with your significant other?  I’m pretty straightforward so baby works out for me. Other, more specific pet names just grow naturally with the relationship, I think.

What’s the name of the store you usually get your groceries?  S&R.

Have you ever seen a theatre show?  Yeah. Most of them have been required.

What’s your favourite vegetable?  Broccoli or bell peppers.

Have you ever missed a flight?  Never. I’ve experienced several delayed flights, though, which is always such a hassle especially if the delays happen in provincial airports since they never have any recreational offers to keep passengers from getting bored other than TVs that run the same damn five ads.

Do your neighbours have any pets? Have you ever met them?  Yeah, a lot of have dogs. I’ve met some.

What color is your bedroom door?  Brown.

If you were ever to become famous, would you grow annoyed at fans?  Only towards obsessive ones who wouldn’t give me time to breathe or would go so far so as to stalk me or my loved ones. But I am a fan too, so I imagine I would actually be understanding of those who would ask for pictures or whatever as long as they were polite and not at all intrusive.

Have you ever met your favourite band/singer?  Nah. I am terrified of meeting celebrities HAHA so I’ve always shut down the chance. I’m pretty sure I would actually turn down the chance to meet BTS if I hypothetically suddenly got the magic keys to that door.

Are you embarrassed by any of the songs/singers/bands you like?  No. I feel like that sort of thing just happens in like high school, when your friends are still a bit judgmental. Nowadays I don’t see why I should be embarrassed of anything I like, especially if it’s not hurting anyone.

Have you ever written a story?  I’ve made attempts but was always terrible.

Think of the last poem you wrote: What inspired you to write it?  My homework that required me to write said poem hahaha.

Do you have a chance with the person you like right now? 

What’s the weirdest thing you were scared of as a child?  Watching commercials at night. It’s still a slight fear of mine but it’s mostly dissipated now.

Are there any embarrassing stories your family tells about you?  About me? No. I don’t have a lot of those since I was a really shy kid who barely moved a finger anyway.

In your opinion, what is the funniest TV show?  I have a *really* soft spot for Perfect Strangers, which I actually revisited yesterday :) The show was never super popular so it’s near impossible to find clips online, but when I checked YouTube I did see a slight increase in short snippets from the show so I had a really fun time binge-watching yesterday.

What is the maximum number of children you’d ever have?  Three, but that’s pushing it. Ideally, I’d have two so my first would have company.

Have you ever been concerned you had a serious illness?  Mental ones, yes.

Are you comfortable with who you are?  For the most part, yes.

Would you date someone even if you knew you’d get made fun of for it?  No. Why would it be any of their business?

Does popularity matter to you at all?  I mean, yeah in the sense that I honestly aspire to be well-liked by as many people as possible. But I don’t necessarily want to rub shoulders with popular kids.

Would you ever consider homeschooling your children?  Continued from sometime this week ider. No. I don’t think I’m capable of teaching, and generally I’d want them to be able to learn in a more open environment where they can have regular contact with different kinds of people.

Who told you about the band/singer you are currently listening to?  Well Angela got into them first and since we’re best friends, there was a certain point where she just decided to loop me into conversations that involved them. I was impossible to sway for a long time, but then one day a video compilation of them showed up on my feed, and for some reason I actually watched it, and I watched all the way through, and I was immediately intrigued – particularly by J-Hope haha. I then asked Angela to tell me more about them and the rest was...financially irresponsible history HAHAHAHA

Do you ever read fanfiction?  OMG yes. Funny you should mention that because my favorite author uploaded a brand new fic this morning, which I obviously couldn’t get to all day because I had to go to work. I’ll be reading it in all its 44,000-word glory tonight :D

Would you rather die in a plane crash, ship wreck or fire?  Plane crash. Instant and mostly painless.

What are your top five favourite TV shows?  Breaking Bad, BoJack Horseman, Friends, The Crown even though I was never able to continue it since...andddd that’s all I got.

What is your favorite superhero movie?  Not a fan of superhero movies.

If you died next week, what would be the cause of death?  Stress from overworking. I’ve FINALLY started to consider taking a leave for the first time this year because I’ve just realized just how fucking exhausted, burned out, and overwhelmed I actually already am from having no rest at all in the last 13 months.

Have you ever taken a break from Facebook or other social media? Why?  Yes, I do mass deactivations when I’m severely depressed. These days I can’t really afford to that anymore, though, since my work is closely tied to social media.

Who is the most talented person you know?  Probably Andi.

Are you currently platonic friends with anyone you’ve had sex with?  No.

Where did you and your current interest go on your first date? 

Have you ever experienced two people fighting over you (physically or mentally)? What happened?  Nah. I’ve had two people like me at the same time, but there was never any tension to watch out for since they mostly didn’t know each other.

Have your parents ever thought you were gay? What happened?  I think they know I dated Gabie and that we broke up because they’ve stopped asking about her. Everyone knew we were best friends, so the fact that they’ve avoided her as a topic for a whole year is able to tell me something.

Are your parents more liberal or conservative?  Dad’s on the liberal side, mom dances around on the spectrum a little bit. I know she’s fine with things like tattoos and having LGBTQ+ co-workers, but she’s also conservative especially towards matters like religion.

What year are you going into at the beginning of the next academic year?  No longer in school.

How far away does your closest family member live?  A few footsteps away.

If you’ve seen both, did you prefer the Disney version or the Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland?  It’s not my type of movie/genre to begin with.

Would you have sex before marriage? Why or why not?  Yes. I don’t see the big deal; I’ve already done it anyway.

Are you more liberal or conservative?  Liberal.

Who is your favorite Harry Potter character?  Ooh not sure. I haven’t gone back to the books in a while, so I don’t remember if there was anyone I had an attachment to.

What’s the worst that could come out of letting gays marry?  Nothing.

What’s the most sexual thing you’ve done?  Had sex...I guess? And a bunch of stuff that comes with it.

Name something that you are against.  Racial discrimination.

Why are you against it?  Because it is infuriating to see, and it shows me the very same treatment can happen to me or my family as well and that scares me, especially since some people turn particularly violent towards people of color.

Have you ever played the Tomb Raider games?  No.

Do you like it or hate it when your partner is clingy?  I imagine I wouldn’t enjoy it if I’m not as into whoever my next partner would be.

Beatles or Rolling Stones?  I don’t listen to either.

When was the last time you changed your opinion on somebody?  Not so sure about a whole change in opinion because that hasn’t happened in a while, but I grew more grateful for my manager today because I finally mustered the strength to tell her that I’m begin to struggle mentally with work and she not only encouraged (read: begged) me to file a damn leave for once, but she also got sushi delivered to my place.

What was the last thing that made you feel proud and why?  Andi was telling me about their day today and how they handled being misgendered by a prof, who then proceeded to throw a fit when he got corrected, and how they, again, maturely handled said fit. I was proud of them because there are a million ways that incident could’ve turned out, but they dealt with it in an extremely mature and calm manner considering they were the one who was wronged.

Do you feel uncomfortable when people you hardly know confide in you?  If it was about an extremely personal problem I would probably be taken aback at first, but I still would definitely make some time for them and help in however way I can, since they apparently trust me enough to confide.

What was the last thing to fascinate you?  The music video for My Universe! Super cool to watch and I love that they made a short film out of it too.

Is there a certain noise/sound which scares you?  Doors being slammed shut, because that’s what my mom does when she’s furious. She did that when I was a kid and she does it to this day, so I get extremely nervous when I hear the sound, even if it happens by accident.

Do you have a favourite microorganism? Nope.

Out of the people you know, whose birthday is next?  My cousin Bree.

If you have pet fish do you bother to name them?  I did when I had them as a kid.

Do you keep your eggs in the fridge?  Yes?

Have you ever owned chickens?  Nope.

When did you last listen to music?  Like five minutes ago. I tried to have a jazz playlist on but I realized I wasn’t in the mood for music so I changed my background noise to have a random VLive on instead. 

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #457

“blue are the words i say and what i think  /  blue are the feelings that live inside of me”

Do you buy your lingerie at Victoria’s Secret? No. That shit is so overpriced and not for my size group. Would you ever use an online dating service? I never would again. Are you good at multitasking? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Have you ever eaten Frosted Mini Wheats? Ugh, those are so gross. What does your bikini look like? You think THIS bitch wears a bikini??????????????????????? Does age really matter in a relationship? To an extent, yes. How much does the last person you kissed mean to you? I honestly don't even know if I'd be here without her. Almost like magic, Sara popped back into my life right after I returned home from the hospital following my suicide attempt. She helped make recovery possible as a solid source of support. Do you use lotion? Not NEARLY enough. My skin is so dry; I need to. Do you believe in teenage love? I experienced it deeply and thoroughly, so yes. Have you ever sat on the roof of your house? No. Do you like Sublime? I like that one popular one of theirs. "Santaria" or whatever it's called? What’s your favorite movie genre? Paranormal horror, especially the "found footage" type. It's creepy to imagine it being actually real. Is there a celebrity that you’d be willing to have a one night stand with? If he was single? I know in my gut I would lmaooooo Do you want to live in your current town the rest of your life? OH MY GOD PLEASE NO If you found out today your best friend was gay what would you do? She's demisexual, so. She can like anybody. If you could get a pet for free today-what kind/what name? A tegu, because it wouldn't need an enclosure that I don't have. I'd let it free roam. God, I can only imagine Roman's reaction. How many people have you slept with? If you mean what I think you do by "slept," one. Do you ever wish you had a family business to become a part of? Not really. What’s the most gruesome way you could come up with to kill someone? Hunny, have you seen my dark RP????? The world best be glad I'm a pacifist lmfao Do you think anyone deserves to die that way? I don't believe in torture, so no. If you had to fight for survival, what would your weapon of choice be? A gun, I guess? I'd want something with range and that's quick. I wanted to say a bow and arrow, but preparing another arrow after shooting once could really cost you your life. Where did you buy your favorite pair of jeans? I don't wear jeans anymore. Do you have a large dog? We don't have a dog, period. If not, are you afraid of them? No, I love big 'ole puppos!!!!! I just don't wanna own a dog myself. Are you good at playing darts? Holy fuck no, I have NO hand-eye coordination. I once stabbed the guy at a balloon popping booth thing with a dart in the arm, if that tells you anything, ooooooooooof. Do you like breaded chicken sandwiches? YESSSSSSSSS omg Do your parents know that/if you smoke? They know that I don’t. Have you ever been under a blacklight? Omg so in elementary school, we did this thing once where we all washed our hands as best we could and then put them under some sort of light (maybe a blacklight, idk???) to see JUST how resilient germs are. You gotta scrub the fuck out ya hands, people. How many pounds do you want to lose? I'd rather not share a number, but a lot. What’s your favorite natural phenomenon? The Northern Lights. Do you snore? Very surprisingly for someone with sleep apnea like mine, I actually don't. How many people do you know with the same first name as you? Off the very top of my head, one, but it's spelled differently. I KNOW I know of a shitload more Brittanys, though. Is it possible you could be pregnant? Well, I haven't been intimate with a man in years and just finished my period, so like- Could you go a day without texting? I go most days without texting. Do you have a step-parent? My dad is remarried, so yes. If so, do you get along with them? She's EXTREMELY Christian, so her beliefs wildly disagree with mine, but I keep my mouth shut a lot just to keep the peace. She IS a very sweet woman, nevertheless, and am glad she and my dad are so happy together. Does your current/last job require that you wear a uniform? My last job (which lasted not even two hours lol) did. When will your driver’s license expire? My permit has been expired for like... two years. Do you live in an apartment? No. If the last person you kissed proposed to you what would you say? That's too wild a concept to even imagine. I'd probably ask if she was okay lmao. Would you ever get back with one of your exes? Weeeelp, I want to get back together with Girt. Pretty badly. Write a foreign word, and what it means: "Schadenfreude" is a German term that essentially means secondhand embarrassment, but it doesn't have a perfect translation. Is there an ex you think about everyday? Inevitably. That's PTSD, my friends. Who is the last person that you said I love you to, besides family members? Sara. What's the worst thing you have ever said to anyone? Something along the lines of "no one could ever love you like I do." It boils my blood just typing that; I considered even deleting this question. That quote right there is fucking manipulation, even IF I thoroughly believed it. Who was the last person to comment one of your pictures? I don't feel like looking. Do you tend to go for older or younger when looking for someone to date? It's weird, I'm into slightly older-than-me guys, but probably girls who are barely a bit younger than me. Have you ever been used? I don't think so. Have you ever not been able to get someone out of your head? Like I've said in plenty of surveys: Jason is probably a permanent fixture. But also as of the past two days, Girt's been living up there. I went from "hmmm I just don't know how I feel" to "FUCK I want to talk to him about how stupidly into him I am right this fucking INSTANT" pretty goddamn fast. It kinda scares me just because of how extreme my feelings are. Again. That's only ever gotten me hurt. Buuuut let's not get into that. Have you ever got caught cheating on a test? No, because I've never tried to. Will your next kiss be a mistake? I hope it won't be. But it's not like I know the future. Have you ever worn an oxygen mask? Actually yes, when I was young and thought I was having an asthma attack or something. Mom had one for her own asthma. Then I obviously wore one for surgery. What song do you want to be played at your funeral? "Paradise" by Coldplay is absolutely #1. How many swear words are in the song you’re listening to? I'm not listening to music; I'm back to watching Gab play Sekiro. What color was the last swimsuit you wore? Black. Have you ever kissed anyone of the same sex, and if so, who? Yeah, just Sara. Who did you last tell to ‘shut up’? Ha, I think my WoW friend Lyndsey, but only playfully, of course. We pick fun at each other all the time. Would you ever get a tattoo of a boyfriend/girlfriend's name? NOOOOOOOOO. Are you one of those girls who already have baby names picked out? I know what I'd name my kids IF I actually wanted any, yeah, but I don't. Do you think guys with long hair are attractive? Yessss, I love long hair on guys. Are any of your siblings taller than you? I think Ashley is a liiiiil bit taller? I know my brother is, for sure. Have you ever scared someone so badly that they cried? Yikes, no. When was the last time you wore high heels? Boy oh boy, no idea. Is there someone that you want to hurt right now? Jeez, no thanks. What was the most interesting or colorful birthday cake you’ve had? I don't remember, but I'm sure something from childhood. What was the last thing someone bought you? Was it expensive? Mom bought me food from McD's, which obviously isn't expensive. Do you have any interesting moles anywhere you don’t want people to know of? No. Have you ever gotten high or drunk in a really formal place? Strong "no" there. Do you ever write poetry and post it on any certain websites? On the very rare occasion I write poetry and actually like it, I'll sometimes post it on dA. What do you miss most about your childhood? Actually, genuinely having fun and not dealing with fucking anhedonia. Would you like to know the precise date of your future death? Hell no. Do you photograph well? I'd like to hope so. Are there any animals you flat out refuse to touch? Maggots and similar bug larvae. What super power would you refuse, if it was offered to you, and why? Mind reading. It just sounds... awful and overwhelming. What’s your favorite discontinued product that you wish would come back? Oh, I KNOW I have answers to this, just none are coming to me immediately and I don't feel like sitting here for five minutes thinking about it. If adults had show and tell, what would you bring into work? My snek! :') If you had a reset button for the last 10 years, would you press it? Tempting, but... I don't think I would. I cannot go through how deep my depression was again. Who is someone you would never swear in front of? My nieces and nephew. Yes, I don't believe in profanity being a "thing" and is just a stupid human fabrication, but nevertheless I acknowledge societal standards and expectations, and they're way too young to get when you shouldn't say something like that and why. Have you ever won a contest or competition? A few. Who is your favorite TV character? I don't think I really have one? Do you coo over other people’s babies? Not really, no. Sometimes I'll think they're super cute and be like "awww," but I don't like... squeal and spaz like some people do. What is something that makes you very squeamish? VOMIT. Has there been a celebrity death that really affected you? Steve Irwin got me deeper than anyone else. Chester Bennington hit real hard, too. If you’re out of high school, have you stayed in touch with your high school friends? If you’re still in school, do you think you will? Most of my closest ones, yes, at least via Facebook. What’s a movie that you want to see? Old movie, but Jacob's Ladder. It was a massive influence on Silent Hill, so naturally, I'll probably love it. It's a classic, anyway. Do you use the same username everywhere online or do you have a lot? I use "Ozzkat" in most places, but I do have some other ones for different sites. Who was the last person you know who became pregnant? My friend Ana recently revealed she's expecting her second child, a boy. What fad were you actually into? I have zero clue. Have you ever tailgated? Would you want to? Fuck no. That's how so many wrecks happen. My sister legit got in a wreck with an 18-wheeler mostly because she was tailgating (which she does BADLY); she was trying to pass, and he moved over at the same time because he couldn't see her coming around. It's a borderline miracle she got out with only some cuts, bruises, and a seatbelt burn. Have patience, people. Get off cars' asses. Why did you fall for the last person romantically? Look, don't get me started on this. There are a shitload of reasons and I have been way too emotional over this the past few days laksdfja;lwke What’s the last thing you had to eat? A bagel w/ cream cheese for breakfast. Do you ever pick up your house phone? We don't have a landline phone. Truth be told, are you more into looks or personalities the most? Personalities, for sure. I cannot be into you if your personality isn't attractive.

[mustangshelby04]

Boston Boy - Chapter 6

A/N Ready to meet the Evans family?

Kate looked at herself in the mirror for the thousandth time.  She was wearing a deep green, boat-neck, sweater dress that stopped just above her knees, grey leggings, and brown suede, knee high boots.  She’d thrown the top half of her hair up and pinned it back in a messy, but classy style.  Chris would be at her hotel room soon.  He’d stayed at the hotel with her that night, but he’d gone home to change clothes.  Kate had wanted to stay and get ready and prepare herself as best she could for meeting his mother.

Her phone started ringing and she grabbed it off the bed.  It was her brother. “Hey Killi.”

“Hey Kat.  How’s it going?”

“It’s going great.”

“Did you enjoy the game yesterday?”

“Yeah!  We beat the Dolphins, I had great seats, I was surrounded by fellow fans, and I had a great date with my Boston boy.” “Yeah.  I saw.”

“I’m sorry.  You saw?”

“This Boston boy that you mentioned?  Yeah, you forgot to mention it was Chris Evans.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because your picture is on the internet.  You’re famous, kid.”

“What does it say?” She was already scrambling to open up her laptop.

“The one from Yahoo that I clicked on said ‘Chris Evans goes to Patriots game with mystery woman.’”

“That’s not terrible.”

“Then it says ‘the two were seen cuddling and kissing throughout the game.’”

“Oh dear.”

“Plus Facebook and Tumblr are covered with the pictures.  So, is it serious?”

“Um….”

“You’ve only known him a few days.”

“I know!”

“How can it be serious?”

“I don’t know!  He’s just…. He’s amazing.”

“Kid, you’ve been in love with Captain America since you were in college.  You sure you don’t have rose colored glasses on?”

“Ok, one: He wasn’t Captain America when I first saw him.  And two: no rose colored glasses.  I’ve given him so many outs and he doesn’t take them.”

“Ok, so did you stalk him or….”

“No!  God no!  I was reading in the park and when I stood up, I wasn’t paying attention and I ran smack into him.  I bounced off him so hard that I fell and it was straight down into dog poop.” She smiled to herself. “He gave me his jacket and walked me back to the hotel and the conversation was nice.  He asked me out for dinner to apologize for the dog poop and we just…. Hit it off.  I’m supposed to be meeting his mother today and he’s supposed to be coming to Richmond with me tomorrow.”

“That sounds serious if you’re meeting his mother.”

“He wants me to come visit him on set while he’s filming in Atlanta.”

“That definitely sounds serious.  How do you feel about him?  Really?  Beyond the idolization?”

“Killi, he really is as wonderful as I thought.  He listens to everything and he remembers.  He makes me feel warm and cared for.  I haven’t felt this way with any other guy.  And he takes things slow so I never feel uncomfortable.  It’s like he knows what pace I need to go at.”

“Good.  That’s good.”

“Why do I hear a ‘but’ in your voice?”

“Because there is one.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed. “Well, what’s the ‘but’?”

“The ‘but’ is but do you feel you could handle the kind of relationship he has to offer?  He’s going to be gone a lot.  And then there’s the news stories.  People are going to want to know about you.  You’ve seen how the paparazzi have no boundaries.  Do you think fame is something you’re ready for?”

“I don’t know.  I guess that’s something I’ll have to find out.”

“But if you get in too deep with him and you’re miserable with the celebrity part of it, what will you do?”

“I don’t know.  These are all what ifs that are in the future.”

“Not really.  You made the Yahoo homepage, kid.  It’s only a matter of time before they find out who you are.”

“Has mom seen this?”

“You know that mom is computer illiterate.  She can barely use her phone, let alone the Yahoo homepage.  I’m sure your phone would’ve been filled with texts and calls from her if she had.  But you better tell her soon.  Especially if he’s coming home with you.”

“I planned on it.”

“When?”

“When I walked through the door with him.” There was a knock on her door. “He’s here.  I’ve got to go.” She made her way to the door.

“Good luck, kid.”

Kate smiled at Chris as she said, “Thanks, Killi.  I’ll probably need it.  Do me a favor?”

“Depends.”

“Dude, you owe me.  I’ve babysat your kid for free.”

“That’s because she’s your niece and you love her.”

“I know that.  Ok, do it because you’re my brother and you love me.”

“Fine.  What’s the favor?”

“Call mom and see if you can head her off or something?  Keep her away from computers and…. You know…. People.”

“Why don’t I just give you the moon?  Would that suffice?”

“Kiss my ass.”

“Not enough time in the day.”

“Piss off.”

“Love you, too.  I’ll see what I can do from Georgia.”

“Thanks.  Bye Killi.” She hung up and rolled her eyes at the phone. “Brothers.  Can’t live with em, can’t live without em.” Kate looked at Chris. “So, apparently we’re all over the internet.”

“Yeah.” Chris said. “I’m really sorry.  My manager called this morning and had about two thousand questions.  I was sure we had a lot more time before people noticed.”

“Killi saw it on Yahoo this morning.” She led Chris back into the bedroom and turned her laptop around. “You can’t see my face very good, so there’s that.”

Chris cringed. “I’m really sorry, Kat.”

“This isn’t your fault.”

“No, but this isn’t fair to you.  People are going to pry and the press can be kind of vicious.  I really didn’t plan on the press finding out until we were both good and ready for that.  I don’t want anyone to be mean to you.”

She shrugged. “I wouldn’t have survived high school if I was worried about what other people think of me.  Or college for that matter.  Let them be mean.  Negative things people say about others usually reflects insecurities about themselves.  And besides,” She walked over to him and took his hands. “If this thing between us is something more…. Something that could last a long time, as you’ve put it…. The fame thing is just one part of you.  It’s not the whole of you.”

“It’s a pretty big part right now.”

“Well, the good thing is that for right now, they don’t know who I am.  That buys us some time, right?  I’m not exactly a huge web presence.  I barely use my Twitter account.  I have my Facebook security settings so you can only be a friend of a friend to find me.  My burlesque page is under a different name and I don’t look like myself with all that makeup on.  So, I think we’re ok for a little while.”

“You’re very confident.”

“Roll with it.” He chuckled. “We’ll be at your mother’s today where no one will bother us and tomorrow we’re flying to Richmond.  No one who might tip the press off knows that you’ll be there.  My friends won’t rat us out once they find out.  My family won’t rat us out.  So this is not something we’ll have to deal with in the immediate future.”

He shook his head. “I just…. I know you don’t care what people think about you, but I don’t know if I would like it very much if people said mean things about you.”

“Would what anyone said make a difference in how you see me?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why worry about it?”

He looked uncertain still, but smiled at her. “You’ve got an answer for everything, don’t you?”

“It’s a curse.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her chin on his chest, looking up at him.  He smiled and kissed her gently. “Besides, there’s nothing they can say that I haven’t heard before.  My ass is too big, my waist is too big, my thighs touch, my boobs are a little saggy, my arms jiggle when I wave….” Kate shrugged. “Nothing new.  I discovered all of that on my own a long time ago.”

“Your ass isn’t too big.” His hands drifted down to the body part in question. “It fits great in my hands with some extra to play with.” He slid his hands up and settled on her waist. “Your waist isn’t too big.  It’s firm and powerful and I think it goes along nicely with how you’re shaped.” One hand snuck down to her thigh and pulled it up against his hip. “As for your thighs, I read somewhere that women with thigh gaps aren’t as tight down there as women whose thighs touch.  I like the way you feel on me.” He released her thigh and his hands moved up to her chest. “Your boobs aren’t saggy, they’re just heavy because they’re larger.” He reluctantly let her breasts go and took her hands again. “And my arm jiggles too when I wave.” He demonstrated for her and she laughed at the tiny jiggle that he was forcing to happen.  She stopped his waving and kissed his large bicep.

“See?  You found positives in all those negatives.  I think if anyone says anything bad about me, you’re good.” She bumped her forehead against his chest playfully.

He wove his fingers into her hair and cupped the back of her skull with both hands. “You’re making it easy to be your boyfriend.”

“It won’t always be like that, sadly.  I’ll have my moments.”

He shrugged. “So will I.  It’s a natural thing.” His lips met hers and they both smiled. “Ok, let’s get this show on the road.  You ready to meet the family?”

She straightened her back and took a deep breath. “As I’ll ever be.”

“Don’t be nervous.  They’re going to love you.”

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Kate sat at the kitchen table while Lisa moved around the kitchen making dinner.  Chris was in the living room with Scott playing with one of their nephews.  Carly was out back with Shanna watching the other kids bounce on a trampoline.  Kate had offered to help cook, but Lisa hadn’t heard of it.

“He never brings girls home.  Usually he fights me when I ask to meet them.  Makes up all kinds of excuses.” Lisa said, pausing in her stirring to look over at Kate. “The last one was…. Minka, I think.  But that was a long time ago.  It took him a while to actually bring her home.  You’re something special.”

Kate blushed. “He certainly does his best to make me feel special.”

“Good.  I’d have to beat him if he wasn’t.” Lisa grinned wickedly and went back to stirring.

“Are you sure there’s nothing I can’t do, Mrs. Evans?  I really don’t mind.”

“The only things I want you to do are to call me Lisa and for you to sit here and talk with me.  Tell me about you.”

“Ok.  I’m an open book.  Ask me anything.”

“You said you’re from Virginia?”

“Well, I live in Virginia now.  I’m from Kentucky.”

“Oh, that’s right, he did mention that.  I’ve never been to Kentucky.  I’ve heard it’s beautiful.”

“It really is.”

Lisa finished what she was doing and joined Kate at the table. “I’ve always wanted to go to the Kentucky Derby.  That seems like a lot of fun.  Have you ever been?”

“Yes, ma’am, I have.  I’ve gone a couple of times.  The best part isn’t the horse race because that lasts all of, like, two minutes.  The best part is drinking mint juleps and checking out everyone’s hats.”

“Did you wear big crazy hats when you went?”

“I did.  The first time I went, it wasn’t long after ‘Titanic’ had been released, so I got a hat that looked just like Rose’s big purple one when she gets out of the car.  The second time I went, the hat wasn’t as crazy.  It was just a big white sun hat that I attached some fake stargazer lilies to.”

“So, what brought you from Kentucky to Virginia?”

“Well, my mom wanted a change and she took a job in Omaha, Nebraska.  We lived up there for a few years and then my parents got divorced and my mom moved my sister and I to Virginia so she could be closer to her brother that worked at Fort Lee.”

The sound of a herd of elephants could be heard running up the hallway before Scott, Chris, and the boys came running across the kitchen towards the back door. “Stop running!” Lisa called.  They all instantly did as she asked, but as soon as the door opened, they resumed running.  Chris held back and came over to stand next to Kate.

“Everything good in here?” He asked. “You’re not being too hard on her, ma, are you?”

“Of course I’m not!  She’s a really lovely woman, Chris.”

Chris looked at Kate with a smirk. “She’s ok.” He said nonchalantly with a shrug, leaning down to kiss her cheek.  Scott called for Chris from outside and Chris grinned, heading outside.

“He’s like a big kid.” Kate said, watching Chris climb on the trampoline.

“It’s something about being home with the kids that reverts him back to his childhood.” Lisa said.

“Oh, I understand that.  My niece has the ability to make me play with Barbies and I never did that as a kid.”

“You didn’t play with Barbies?  Why not?”

Kate shrugged. “I was surrounded by boys.  I spent more time climbing trees and trying to keep up with them.  I did have some Barbies.  My granny used to buy the Holiday Barbies that come out every year for me.  And I had some Disney princess Barbies.  But I didn’t play with them.”

“Are you a Disney fan?”

“Oh my god, yes!  I love all things Disney.  One day I’ll get to Disneyworld.  Maybe I should use my second plane ticket for that.”

“You’ve never been?” “Long story, but no, I’ve never been.”

“Oh, Kate, you should come with us in December.  We go every year for Christmas.”

“Oh, I couldn’t impose on your family vacation, Lisa.”

“You wouldn’t be imposing.  I’m inviting you.  We go for a few days in the first or second week of December.  I would love it if you could come this year.  I’m sure Chris would be excited too.”

“I’ll have to check my schedule at work, but I’ve still got another week of time off to take before the end of the year.”

Lisa smiled brightly. “I hope you can come.  I’d love to spend more time with you.”

Chris came in just then, limping slightly. “What did you do?” Kate asked, getting up and helping him to her vacated seat.

“Fell off the trampoline.” Chris said, wincing as she moved a chair over, sat down in it, put his leg in her lap, and lifted the leg of his jeans.

“I’ll get the first aid kit.” Lisa said.

Chris watched her go for a moment before turning to Kate. “Am I going to live, doc?”

“I don’t know.  This cut’s pretty deep.  We may have to amputate.” Kate joked as she dabbed at his leg with a paper napkin from the table.

“I’ll have to get myself a parrot to go with my new peg leg.”

“As long as you wear one of those billowy pirate shirts, I won’t mind the bird.”

He reached over and cupped her face in one of his hands. “How is it going with ma, really?”

“It’s going great, honestly.  She just invited me to Disneyworld for your annual Christmas visit.”

Chris’s eyes bugged. “Wow.  She really likes you.  She’s never invited any of my girlfriends to Disney.”

“I think she feels bad that I’ve never been.  That’s all.”

“Trust me, babe, that’s not all.” 

Lisa walked back in with the first aid kit. “Chris, you’re going to bleed all over her.”

“She’s got it under control.  So, you invited her to Disney this year, huh?”

“Of course I did.  You two won’t get to see each other much and I thought you might like it if we included her on the trip.  Especially since she’s never been.”

“That was nice of you, ma.  Really.”

Lisa looked between them and smiled. “Well, she makes my son happy.  Happier than I’ve seen him in a while.”

“You can tell all of that from the two hours we’ve been here?”

“I’m your mother.  I can tell a lot of things about my son and the woman he’s fallen for.”

Kate kept her head down, but her eyes widened in surprise.  Chris coughed and she looked over at his bright red face. “Ma, seriously?”

“What?” Lisa asked innocently. “You can’t tell me it isn’t true.”

“It’s only been a few days.” Kate said, not looking up from Chris’s leg. “No one falls in love that quickly.”

“Oh?” Lisa grinned at the two.

Chris sighed as his mother walked out of the kitchen to join her daughters and other son outside.  Kate glanced over and realized they were alone. “I’m sorry.” He said. “My mom she’s….”

“Wrong?” Kate looked up at Chris and shrugged. “It’s ok.  Like I said, no one falls in love that quickly.”

“She’s not entirely wrong.” Kate dropped the bandage box she’d been holding and Band-Aids exploded all over the floor.  He reached out and gently cupped her face with both his hands. “Hey, I’ve been telling you for days that I’ve never felt this comfortable around anyone before.  I told you I want to spend as much time as possible with you and that included flying you down to Atlanta.  You know all of this.”

“I know.  I do.  I just…. Well…. That word…. It’s such a big word.”

“That’s why neither of us should feel obligated to say it until we’re both ready.  I know you’ve got trust issues and I’ve got a ways to go before I earn it completely.”

“You’re not doing terrible.”

Chris smiled brightly and leaned forward to kiss her. 

“Ew!” Miles cried.  He’d come in without them hearing.  Chris burst out laughing and Kate giggled, blushing.

“Come here, Miles.” Chris took his leg off Kate’s lap, sliding the leg of his pants back down, and waved the four year old over. “You’re a mess.”

“Why were you biting her face?” Miles asked as Chris dusted his nephew off and tried to fix his hair before giving up and hauling him up on his lap.

Chris laughed again and Kate blushed again. “I wasn’t biting her face, kid.  I was kissing her.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s my girlfriend and that’s what good boyfriends do.”

“It looks gross.”

“Keep that opinion for a while.  It’ll make your mom happy.”

“Are you going to come back out and play?”

“In a little while, bud.  I hurt my leg and Kat is taking care of it.” 

Miles looked at Kate and shrugged. “Ok.” He hopped down off Chris’ lap and ran back outside.  Chris turned his attention back to Kate. “You ok?”

“Yeah.” She took his hand. “I’m great.”

“Hey, I never gave you the tour of the house.  Ma’s kind of hoarded you all to herself since we got here.”

“I haven’t minded.  She’s pretty great.  Are you sure you can walk?  We almost had to amputate, you know.”

He chuckled. “Yeah.  You worked a real miracle.  I’m really glad I’m not losing the leg” He stood up easily and tugged on her hand. “Come on.” He walked her around the house, showing her different rooms.  The basement was really cool.  It was a performer’s dream.  She made the comment that she could easily put together burlesque routines down there.  The tour ended in his bedroom. “It’s about the same as it used to be.  Less dorky posters, but it’s the same furniture.” He said, closing the door.

“A double bed, huh?” Kate asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Well, I’m not exactly small.  I outgrew the twin and mom bought the double my junior year of high school.  I might say that I’ve since outgrown the double.  Maybe I should buy a queen bed.  I don’t think a king bed would fit in here.”

“It’s comfy.” She bounced on it slightly. “But still not as comfy as mine.”

“I look forward to testing that theory out.” He moved to stand in front of her and she looked up the length of his body to meet his sparkling blue eyes. “Right now, everyone’s outside.  We’ve got some time to ourselves.”

“Chris….” She was silenced when his mouth met hers.  He pressed her back into his bed, scooting her upwards as he crawled on top of her.  She giggled as his beard tickled her collarbone, but it turned into a gasp when he bit down on her neck.

He rolled over and pulled her on top of him as he moved up to lean back against the headboard. “I want to watch you.” She blushed profusely and he chuckled. “Don’t be shy now.”

“Sorry.  It’s just…. Why’d you have to go and say it out loud?  I’m a self-conscious now.”

He chuckled again and rested his hands on her hips. “You have nothing to be self-conscious about.  You’re beautiful.” 

“I’ll take your word for it.” She couldn’t resist leaning down to kiss him.  His hands snaked up her dress, leaving fire trails where his fingers touched her skin.

“This would be easier if you weren’t wearing these tights.” Chris growled into her mouth.  She just chuckled, running her hands up his shirt and lightly raking her nails down his ribs.

“Are you sure they won’t come looking for us?” She asked as he slipped her dress over her head.

“Nope.”

She sat up suddenly. “Chris!”

“We better hurry.” He laughed and pulled her back down to him.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Kate and Chris sat next to each other at the dinner table.  Scott was on Kate’s other side while Carly and Shanna sat across from them.  Lisa was at the head of the table.  Dinner had been over and they were all finishing up dessert.  The kids were at their own table in the next room and Lisa and Carly took turns checking on them.  Carly’s husband couldn’t make it to dinner.

“Kate, Chris says you’re a photographer.” Carly said. 

“Oh, he exaggerates.” Kate said. “I take pictures, but I’m not a professional.”

“She’s being modest.” Chris insisted. “She takes amazing pictures.  You should see them.”

“I’d love to.” Carly said.

“She has a website.  I’ll text you the link later.  Just remind me.”

“What kind of pictures do you take?”

“Oh,” Kate shrugged. “Anything that takes my fancy.  My friends ask me to do pictures for them a lot, too.  My friend Jessica’s parents’ anniversary is coming up and I’m taking pictures of her and her sister next week.  She wants to make a photo album for them.”

“That’s a really good idea.” Shanna said. “We should do that for mom.  Maybe for Christmas.”

“I would love that.” Lisa said. “Kat was telling me about Busch Gardens in Williamsburg doing this big Christmas thing that starts next month.  That would be fun to take them there.” Chris said.

“Maybe we could check it out before we go to Disney.” Carly suggested.

“Did Chris tell you that mom invited Kat to Disney?” Scott asked.

“Oh that would be nice.” Shanna said.

“She’s never been.” Chris said. “It’ll be her first time.”

“Oh, a Disney virgin?” Carly asked. “That’ll be even more fun.  Don’t worry, Kat.  We’ll make sure you get to experience everything you want to see and then some.”

Kate smiled. “Thank you.  I hope I can go.  I’ve got to check with my boss, first.” 

“If not, I’ll come kidnap you.” Scott said.

“Thanks.” She looked around the table. “You guys are just a great family.” 

“You fit in beautifully.” Lisa said. “And anyone who makes my Christopher smile that way is welcome in my family.  I haven’t seen him smile like that in a very, very long time.”

Chris looked over at Kate with the smile his mother was talking about and she smiled back. “She’s not so bad.” Chris said. “Yeah?” Kate joked. “You’re pretty ok, yourself.”

“So what all will you guys do in Virginia?” Shanna asked.

“Well, I do have to work next week, but I get off at four every day, so we’ll have plenty of time for stuff afterwards.  I’ve been working on a list of things for Chris to do while I’m at work if he wants to check out Richmond.”

“Cool.” Chris smiled. “That’s so thoughtful, babe.”

Kate shrugged. “I didn’t want you to be bored out of your mind and regret coming down.”

“What all does Richmond have to offer?” Shanna asked.

“Lots of things.” Kate rattled off a few things that she loved in the city. “We’ll definitely have to go to Carytown.” “Oh yeah!  Carytown did sound really cool.” Chris said.

“It’s a very artsy area.  You’ll fit in great.”

“Can we go to that Renaissance house you were telling me about?”

“Agecroft?  Of course!  It’s right there by Carytown anyway.”

“Cool!” “What’s Agecroft?” Carly asked.  Kate explained that it was a house built in England way back during the reign of Henry VI and in the 1920s, it has been dismantled and brought over by a rich family intending to start a small neighborhood of houses like it.  The neighborhood hadn’t gotten very far, only Agecroft and the Virginia House had been built.  And when the family had died off, they had the house turned into a museum.

“It’s like stepping back in time in England instead of Virginia.  Even the hill where they built it looks just like where it originally sat over there.” Kate finished.

“It sounds beautiful.”

“It’s probably my favorite place in Richmond.  I love to sit in the gardens and just read.”

“She’s been known to put on her Anne Boleyn costume and work as a reenactor for the house every now and then.” Chris said.

“Oh that sounds like so much fun!” Lisa said. 

“It’s a legit costume, too.  She showed me a picture and told me that she can’t get in it by herself.”

“Where did you get it?”

“A friend of mine is a really awesome historical seamstress.  She’s done work for movie productions before.  She made it for me right down to the corset.  I paid her a ridiculous sum of money for it, but I love that costume.”

“It must be a sight to see you in it walking the halls of Agecroft.” Shanna said.

“It’s pretty surreal.  I can’t help but wonder if Anne herself ever walked the same halls once.  Or even her daughter because the owner of the house was in good standing with Elizabeth I.”

“Have you ever been to England?” Scott asked.

“Sadly, no.  I almost went in high school, but my mom couldn’t make it work.  It’s on my bucket list.”

“She’s got a great bucket list.” Chris said. “I should make you write it down, Kat.”

“I do have it written down somewhere.  I used to call it my escape list.”

“Why your escape list?” Carly asked.

Kate glanced at Chris.  She didn’t know how much he’d told his family. “Is it the reason I think it is?” He asked her.  

Kate nodded. “I didn’t have figure skating anymore, so I made a list of everything I wanted to do to escape my world.”

Chris took her hand under the table and looked at Carly. “Kat’s father was abusive.”

“I’m sorry.” Carly said. “No child should ever experience that.”

“Thank you.” Kate said. “I’ve made some kind of peace with it.”

“I don’t know how anyone could make peace with it.” Lisa said. “It’s just…. It’s horrible.”  

“Kat’s a strong and beautiful person.  She’s conquered more horrible things in her life than anyone should ever have to.  I don’t know how you found the courage to smile as brightly as you do after everything, but I’m happy you did.” Chris said.  He looked over at her. “I really admire you.”

“You’re ridiculous.” Kate said quietly.

“Way to tank the mood.” Scott said playfully.

“Sorry!”

“It was very well said, though, Chris.” Lisa said.  There was a slight lull in the conversation, but Lisa picked up a new topic. “What time is your flight tomorrow?”

“Uh, we’re leaving at ten in the morning.” Kate said. “I traded my ticket in for an earlier flight since the one I was originally on was all booked up.”

“And I upgraded it to first class.” Chris added.

“Chris!”

“What?  You didn’t say I couldn’t.”

“You’ve got to stop being so damn nice.  You’re setting the bar too high.”

“You’re ridiculous.” He squeezed her hand and she shook her head at him, smiling.

Tag List:

@joannaliceevans-fanficblog @jamielea81 @southerngracela @kelbabyblue @introvertedmouse @tfandtws @sullyosully @deidrahouseofpain @lovinevans @ajosieface

[quarantinebreakup412081121]

Day 51:  Why did we break up during quarantine?

It was mutual, sure.  We had probably both been heading toward this decision for a while, but I was perhaps on that path for a bit longer.  It still doesn’t make this any easier for me.  I talked myself out of it countless times.  Something tiny would trigger the thoughts, “Is this really what I want?  Is this going to change?   How will this feel when it keeps happening a year from now- 2 years from now- 10 years from now?  He obviously doesn’t care about how I feel or about making me happy.”  But I’d always think about the alternative, going back to life without him.  Five years ago... It seems like a lifetime ago, a totally different world, a totally different life.  Toward the end I was more in love with the idea of him and the idea of us as a couple than I was with him.  It wasn’t a vanity thing, we rarely posted about anything relationship related on social media.  The only time he ever posted a photo of us was the day we started dating when he changed his Facebook profile picture to one that I had taken of us recently.  I’m now realizing that it was a photo I had taken; he never took photos of us together during our relationship.  In five years he never took a single photo of the two of us.  He never handed his phone to a stranger while we were out or on a trip to get a photo of us together.  He never told me to come in close so we could take a selfie together.  FIVE YEARS.  I know that some people don’t care much for photos and I’m definitely the type of person who likes to capture moments through photographs and videos because I like to revisit those moments and have those tangible pieces of my life easily accessible, whether it’s at my desk, in my phone, or in a scrapbook.  But I know no other boys who have never taken pictures of themselves with their significant others.  Many of them have at least one photo in their phone, maybe in their wallet- not super common now, but I’ve still seen it recently, or on some form of social media if they utilize any of those platforms.  The few photos he took of me fell into two categories- first, there were photos I asked him to take- with my camera or phone- for me.  I rarely did this because even though he would oblige, he clearly didn’t take any pleasure in doing it for me.  I’d resort to selfies most of the time to avoid asking him to do me that favor.  A couple times he anticipated photo ops I’d want and he’d almost sigh, “do you want a picture there?” like he was doing some massive favor.  I’d say yes, pretending that he was being considerate and pretending that it was cute and that he meant it in a sweet way, and that he really cared about it because I cared about it.  Looking back, I made those excuses for him in my head quite frequently.  I wish I hadn’t.  Second, he would occasionally take a candid photo of me- or a screenshot of a photo message- in an unflattering moment-- ridiculous.  I have no words for how that made me feel, knowing that he didn’t care for photos of us.

Back to the original point, I’m not sure that many people were even aware that I was in a relationship because I rarely saw him, we were rarely together, and when we were, he hated taking photos with me.  It was always such a chore for him.  I scarcely made requests for photos together, maybe a few a year, sometimes we’d spend the weekend together and take none at all.  I was almost scared to ask.  It wasn’t that I was scared of him blowing up or anything, but I didn’t like being made to feel like I was making an immature, childish, or ridiculous request.  He most frequent expression when responding to me in many situations was a strange combination of annoyed, confused, and borderline disgusted at times.  The situations rarely warranted it as they were usually about everyday topics that were as uncontroversial as they could get.  I chalked it up to that just being part of his personality and tried not to take it personally, but I always did; how could I not?  We broke up on April 1, 2020.  Some April Fool’s joke, right?  If only it were.  I don’t think anybody even noticed.  Like I said, we rarely talked about our relationship on social media or in life in general, and there was virtually no evidence of it beyond our first year together.  The handful of times I posted photos of us together, he didn’t always approve tags for them to show up on his profile.  That was just insane to me.  They weren’t embarrassing photos, nothing was wrong with them, I guess he just didn’t want too much of us on his profile.   Hurtful.  But I took it and moved on.  When I did ask, he said it was because there were a lot of similar ones, but two that were taken at the same location were approved, and one that was taken at a temple we visited was not approved (he doesn’t believe in God, I respect that, and I do-- I’m not super religious, but it was a cool tourist spot and a very pretty photo op.)  I suspected that maybe there were some other underlying motivations behind that decision, but I didn’t question it any further because it wouldn’t have been very constructive.  From that point on, I never tagged him in another photo of us again.  I only posted about 4 or 5 over the next 3 years.  We went on a trip for a week, and in total I had 5 photos of us together.  The rest were ones I took of myself, selfies, self-timed photos, etc.  Once, I added a photo and told him that I was adding it but that I didn’t tag him and said he could tag himself if he wished, and it was totally up to him.  I’m sure you’ve already guessed that he didn’t tag it.  Because why would he want his friends and acquaintances to see more of us?  Why would he want to see more of us?   It hurt, but I chalked that up to just being part of his personality and the way he did things.

It’s been nearly 2 months since we officially broke up and I don’t feel like any of this is real.  I don’t know how to comprehend my life moving on without him being a part of it.  He wasn’t a terrible human being, but he was not a great boyfriend for 4/5 years of us being together.  Why did we stay together for so long and why does it hurt so much now?  Because we did have a lot of happy times together and he had his moments where he was very sweet, and knowing that those moments are gone and will never be mine again hurts.  But what hurts more is thinking back to those times and trying to figure out why those moments were so rare.  I know that his behavior wasn’t a result of anything but his own choices, but the questions of what I did wrong and why I wasn’t enough for him to make more of an effort are ones that are constantly running through my mind every single day.  It hurts to constantly feel like I’m not worthy of romantic love, not even from someone like him.  I know that’s totally irrational, but it’s there and I can’t seem to work past that.  Breaking up during quarantine has made it so much more unbearable.  I have my family and my dogs and they are incredible, but being at home all day every day with no distractions, no hangouts with friends, no dinner dates, no Starbucks dates, no movies...  My focus is entirely on the relationship falling apart.  I have good days... but many of them come crashing down when my mind plays games with me and decides to make me miss him.  And I do.  We decided to try to remain friends.  I’m not sure that it will be feasible long term.   He’s been able to quickly distance himself from the relationship and appears to be totally fine and unaffected by all of this... but he’s never been communicative, not even when we were together.  I had to almost beg him to talk to me at times.  No, most of the time.  But he’d say that I’m the talker and he likes to listen so that’s why we work.  Once again, I chalked it up to being part of his personality.  I never should have let that slide for so long.  That was one part of our relationship that was crushing to me for probably 4.5 out of our 5 years together.  I never would have gotten into the relationship if he’d exhibited anything remotely close to that behavior when we met and started dating.  Everyone is a little different when they first start dating, first impressions and all of that, but they’re not supposed to pull a total 180.  I thought it would work.  I thought he loved me.  Now I don’t know what to think or what to do most of the time.  I’m sure this will pass.  That’s what he said said to me pretty callously when we broke up and that’s what the few people I’ve told about the breakup have said to reassure me.  They mean well and I appreciate them so much, but I can’t quite bring myself to that realization yet.  I don’t know how much time it will take, but I know it’s definitely more than 51 days because I’m nowhere close to being okay yet.

[sol1056]

S7 data cronch pt2: get the hot dogs, the fandom’s on fire

Before I jump into the more tangled datasets, there’s something interesting I want to call out, and that’s the vlogs. 

In September of last year, DW released vlogs for Coran, Keith, and Allura. A month later, we got vlogs for Lance, Pidge, and Hunk. Shiro’s vlog finally arrived on June, this year. That final vlog now shows a July date, but when it was first discovered, its posting date was 6/28. (I have no idea why it was changed. Ask @ptw30.) 

In the first part, I mentioned audience engagement. The vlogs are a good object lesson. If we take the number of views divided by the number of days since posting, we get an idea of the daily ‘value’ of each vlog. 

Shiro clocks in at 6877 views per day, while the next closest, Keith, has 4796 per day. Hey, so maybe that’s just everyone excited after waiting almost a year. 

So, how about this graph?

Shiro has 4,293 comments. The next closest are Allura and Hunk, with 692 and 976, respectively. All told, Shiro got 1.5 times as many comments as all the rest of the characters together. Now that is audience engagement. 

Alright, now that you’ve got a bit of data on which character clearly gets the fandom engaged and talking, let’s see what else we can learn about S7. 

Hop to, behind the cut. 

so about that twitter debacle

There’s no way to fully illustrate just how incomprehensibly bonkers twitter was for awhile. I know there’s a toxic side to the fandom that weaponizes twitter, but... in general, the VLD fandom isn’t noisy, compared to other fandoms. Daily counts range from 30-100 tweets. That makes it harder to tell when things go dead quiet, but it sure makes it easy to tell when things explode. 

So let’s go back to the Sunday after S7 landed. For this season, I included sentiment analysis. At first I searched on #voltron, then I realized one of the trackers lets me go by keywords, so I did a comparative search on ‘voltron’. Hashtag use seemed to be for being seen by others, while keyword seemed to be more for conversation, reassurance, and reflection.  

That’s... pretty strong, for both. And I honestly had never seen a twitter stream get a sentiment analysis as negative as the one on the right. After working my way through 11,889 tweets (from Aug 10th to the 25th), I can tell you one thing for certain.

Everyone was angry about something. 

One group, predictably, was angry at being denied their long-awaited affirmation. A second was furious at the queerbaiting; that group overlapped with a third enraged at the Bury Your Gays trope. A fourth dismissed the BYG trope yet were angry at the lack of explicit relationship beyond a single break-up scene; that caused a few flare-ups between the 3rd and 4th groups for the latter treating Shiro as queer purely on his facebook status. A fifth group (oddly, calmer voices, for the most part) was upset at VLD’s treatment of Shiro in general, from his isolation to his tokenization. 

On the other end of the spectrum, the majority of positives loved the season but were angry that others didn’t or wouldn’t. A much smaller percentage took their own shots: insisting children don’t need LGBT+ rep, calling LGBT+ fans entitled, telling DW not to pander, or complaining DW/Netflix had mixed politics and entertainment. (There’s an answer to the last one, but that’s for another post.)

I believe the technical term for Aug 10th-25th would be clusterfuck. 

going deeper for context

Getting a clearer picture than the donut chart meant considering the context. In other words, for every seemingly-neutral tweet, I’d open the feed, and majority of the time I found threads voicing bitter disappointment, frustration, and hurt. These deeper threads almost never tagged anyone, and they tended to be more nuanced, compared to upper-level mentions loaded with easily-classed negative or positive keywords.

Here’s a snapshot of the twitter stream on August 10th, which includes metrics for those deeper contextual threads.

There’s just no way to spin that much of a backlash. By the end of the first day of release, the signs were already there that --- at least as far as the majority of the internet-based fandom was concerned --- S7 was an unmitigated disaster.  

it’s just twitter, no one’s paying attention

That sounds like something a Boomer-aged exec might say. They’d also be wrong (not to mention ignorant).  

Note: I used two different analysis apps. Both were rather blunt-force, rating “S7 wasn’t half bad” or “brutal but what I wanted” as negative, while "go to hell, I loved VLD but not anymore" was rated positive. One of the two apps let me re-evaluate, but it only allowed for negative-neutral-positive. (Lesson learned: set up a twitter scrape ahead of time, so I can run it all against a good AI.) 

For this part, I used the second tracker and manually evaluated the values for ‘voltron’ mentions. Unfortunately, I had to rely on the tracker’s value for most non-English tweets. I designated ‘positive’ for explicitly pro-S7, and ‘negative’ explicitly con-S7. For any mentions that were ambiguous, incoherent, or personally-directed, I defaulted to neutral. My goal was to measure who was or wasn’t happy with the season itself, and not attacks on or support for the staff, DW, Netflix, or other people in the fandom. 

With that madness done, here’s the entirety of August.   

On the day of release, a total of 1853 mentions created a social media reach of 1.46 million. My next question was: is this low-influencer unhappiness vs high-influencer happiness, vice versa, or something else? This next chart is the data filtered down to influencers with a score of 7 or above (based on followers, retweets, and replies). 

That’s 78 negative mentions, 16 positive, and the remainder neutral. All told, 194 mentions had a social media reach of 1.36 million. That’s a lot considering the voltron keyword usually has a social media reach of 50K, tops.

This was a groundswell reaction. The reach was driven by big voices, but the bulk were individuals unhappy for any of a variety of reasons. Any apology --- after four days of fever pitch --- was going to have an uphill fight to calm the crowd, no matter how gracefully it was written.

On the 14th -- when news outlets began reacting to JDS’ apology -- we got a second spike. 1573 mentions with a social media reach of 1.3 million; the new megaphones in the stream were news outlets promoting articles. (Also, most of their tweets are strongly click-bait in tone, compared to the actual article titles.) 

If you googled ‘voltron legendary defender’ on the 14th, you got these results: 

Voltron Showrunner Apologizes to Fans Following Outrage over Gay Character’s Storyline [Syfy Wire]

Voltron Showrunner Pens Open Apology Letter [The Mary Sue]

Voltron Showrunner Apologizes for Series' Handling of Gay Relationship {CBR}

Voltron's Complicated, Imperfect LGBQT Representation Is Tearing the Fandom Apart [In-Depth-Gizmodo]

Joaquim Dos Santos Shares Letter About Voltron Queer Representation [The Geekiary]

The ‘Voltron’ Showrunner Apologized For Making a Mess of the Show’s Gay Representation [Hornet]

Of course, Josh Keaton got sent out to calm the anger, too. 

'Voltron' Star Josh Keaton On Season 7, Shiro's Sexuality, and How a Leader Grieves [Comicbook.com]

Shiro Voice Actor Responds to 'Voltron' Season 7 Controversy [Inverse]

Exclusive: Josh Keaton talks 'Voltron' season 7, Shiro's new arc, love and loss [Hypable]

You had to scroll past all that before you could get to anything remotely like a positive news item (and nowhere near the usual post-release deluge of compliments to the creators). 

On Aug 15th, more articles: 

Voltron: Legendary Defender’s Showrunner Offers a Genuine Apology to the Fandom [Gizmodo]

Voltron's Complicated, Imperfect LGBQT Representation Is Tearing The Fandom Apart [Kotaku Australia] (reprint)

Either these were latecomers, or DW was pulling out all the stops to hit every possible venue. Didn’t matter; the furor wasn’t dying down. Josh wasn’t sent out again, either. DW may’ve realized that ship had sailed (so to speak). 

On Aug 16th, these articles appeared: 

Voltron creator addresses fans over season 7's queerbaiting controversy [Polygon]

How “Voltron: Legendary Defender” Queerbaited Its Fans [NewNowNext]

Voltron showrunner apologises to fans after backlash over treatment of gay character [DigitalSpy]

Voltron: Legendary Defender showrunner apologises to fans after killing off gay character [PinkNews]

Why 'Voltron' fans are furious after season 7 [The Daily Dot]

Voltron Showrunner Apologizes for Season 7's Treatment of Gay Couple [ScreenRant]

'Voltron' Shiro: Stop Preemptively Outing Gay Characters To Generate Buzz [Inverse]

And it kept going through Aug 17, 2018.

Voltron: Legendary Defender Showrunner Joaquim Dos Santos Apologizes For Alleged Queer-bating Of Fans Over Handling Of Shiro’s Sexual Orientation [Inside Pulse]

Who's Sorry This Week? Lindsay Lohan, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and other public apologies [Mic]

Meanwhile, as of the 18th, the predictive algorithm for #voltron (the actual hashtag) was estimating +6% for the upcoming week, and +6% for the month. Not even half what S6 had in its first week after broadcast, but remember, the majority of S7′s traffic wasn’t happening on the hashtag. It was happening in mentions. 

You might think from the above that things quieted by the 19th. You’d be wrong. It’s still going on. Keep in mind these pie charts are cumulative by month. On the left are the totals through the morning of Aug 22; on the right, the totals through the afternoon of Aug 25.

Midday on the 22nd, we had another spike, one large enough to offset that these are monthly totals, not daily. (The most likely culprit is the DW marketing gif that showed the scene where Adam dies, thus kicking the hornet’s nest all over again.)

As we entered the third week, the predictive algorithm for #voltron dropped to -1% for the month, and -5% for the week; for #vld, it’s -2% for the month and -6% for the week. 

In fact, almost every related hashtag is predicted to drop in popularity and use over the next week or beyond. That includes: 

voltronlegendarydefender, -2%

keithkogane, -8%

keith, -3%

shiro, -9%

lance, -6%

lancemcclain, -1%

takashishirogane, -20%

allura, -5%

princessallura, -10%

hunkgarrett, -6%

lotor, -4%

katieholt, -5%

Even ship names: 

klance, -2%

shadam, -8%

adashi, -3%

plance, -2%

pidgance, -5%

sheith, -2%

lotura, -10%

kallura, -1%

The exceptions? allurance (4%) and pidge (1%). 

It took a bombshell EP interview to knock S6 off its upward rise. This time around, the fall looks more like people tiring of the fight and checking out.

one more part coming

Thanks to the additional manipulations I did on twitter this season, this section took more words (and I cut it down from walking you through every agonizing step, no need to thank me for sparing you). I’ve also added a new dataset, and that pushed the total word count beyond even my long limit.

I’ve broken the last part out, where i’ll cover the long-term impact and possible fallout of S7.  

[icequeenjules26]

All I Want (For Christmas) Is You

Summary:  Dan Howell's life as a student of modern piano music is completely turned upside down when he is grouped in an assignment with Phil Lester...

Word Count: 7,2k

Tags: University AU, Fluff, Pianist!Dan, Guitarist!Phil, 

A/n: This is written for @babethepig for the Phandom fic Fests Holiday Exchange. As always the biggest ever thank you goes out to my love @succubusphan, who spent a lot of time beta’ing this. You’re the best. <3 

Read on A03

Dans schedule was a proper mess this semester. His decision to specialize in modern piano music got frowned upon not only by his parents but also by his Uni, so his curses were not nicely fit together anymore. He had a lot of free time in between, but his time gaps were too short to get back to his dorm, so he mostly stayed on campus, spending his free time in one of the multiple coffee shops around or with his friend Louise, who was assigned a dorm room much closer to campus than he was.

 That’s how he caught wind of it first.

 He had always been good at playing the piano, the time at uni had only helped with that, obviously; but that he was supposedly the best in his studies had always sounded like an exaggeration. There were a lot of piano students, so he had tried toning down the people talking about him, directing them to someone else. Aside from his musical ability there wasn’t much interesting about him, though, so he had drifted out of the other students’ eyes - at least aside from the talk about whoever was supposed to be dating this week. His open bisexuality made for a large pool of possible suitors, but there were students much more interesting to talk about.

 Now, though, he was back inside of the rumor mill, and right in the center.

 It started off innocently enough.

 “The instruments students are doing trios this year, did you hear?” The two girls in the booth right next to his were chatting animatedly with each other, obviously unaware of him just sitting half a meter away. “Yeah, I’m so excited! We haven’t seen Dan Howell performing for a while, which is a shame. Him at a Piano is enough to get me going to be honest.”

 Dan was already puffing out his chest like a peacock, debating on whether to go over there or at least make his presence known otherwise, when the other girl’s reply made him halt in his tracks. “I mean same , but have you seen Phil Lester lately? He got rid of his emo fringe and stuff. He’s scolding hot .” She layed extra emphasis on the word hot and in Dan’s head, two mindsets started battling over what to do. The first one expressed some kind of jealousy in a “I wanted to tap that girl”-kind of way, the other one wanted to spring onto facebook to check out the guy they were talking about, whose name sounded kind of familiar.

 Former emo fringe musician that got hot? Sign him the fuck up.

 Chuckling lowly about his screaming bisexuality he continued listening, his interest now peaked.

 “Well, they’re doing trios right? Just imagine both of them on stage together…”

 The other girl actually moaned at the thought and Dan couldn’t contain the smirk creeping on his face. He took a sip from his coffee, his still open laptop on the table in front of him long forgotten. He probably should be working on one of his assignments due this week, but the girls’ conversation was too interesting to ignore.

 Dan had to suppress some swearing when his laptop dinged with an incoming email. He could hear the girls whispering behind him when they looked over because of the sound, realizing who he was - “Oh my god is that Dan Howell?” and “Oh my god, do you think he heard us?” -  and he quickly leaned forward to appear busy.

 The email causing the ‘ding’ was actually about the assignment the girls had just been talking about. He packed up his stuff immediately when he had read through it. The list of assigned groups had just been hung out in front of his professor’s office and she invited all participants to a meeting in about half an hour on the other side of the campus, so he had to rush.

 ~~~

 Even the rushing didn’t help in the end, the unfortunate incident of a broken down bus costed him the time to check the list before the meeting started. When he got there he still had no idea who his partners were, so he didn’t understand the reason behind the quiet whispers that started when he set foot into the lecture hall. He managed to find his friend Louise quite fast and slid into the free spot next to her. “What’s the fuss about?” he asked her quietly but before she could answer, the door opened again and a group of professors walked in.

 Their looks varied about as much as those of the students sitting in the audience, making for a quite colourful group. For this assignment, nearly all rock-centered curses were thrown together, not only piano but also guitar, drums, bass, violin and multiple other instruments. The hall was packed full, but the arrival of the professors assured silence among the students.

 “Good morning everyone! Hopefully you all checked the list and are in the process of contacting your partners. Teamwork is the key for this assignment! Because of the number of students most groups consist of one piano student, one guitar student and one of another instrument, specifically arranged to play into your strengths and make you work on your weaknesses.” The young male professor’s voice rung soundly through the hall and Dan couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. Prof. Smith, responsible for the guitar department and  specialized on rock music, was so completely different from his own professor and so cliché rock musician that it offended Dan’s believes; he fit the stereotype perfectly, including tattoo covered arms, piercings and wild, green hair, often sporting band shirts.

 Prof. Johnson, on the other hand, was nothing like her profession. She was a middle-aged woman with slim, neon green glasses and grey eyes that always seemed to shine with mischief. Her jet black hair fell in untamable curls onto her shoulders and she seemed to never leave the house without a nerdy T-Shirt, merch for some comic, TV-Show or movie. When she stepped forward, the whispers around the hall got louder and the grin on her face was so wide Dan couldn’t help but grin back. He liked his Professor, even if she tended to overstep her boundaries and was eager to make friends among the students.

 “If you have questions you can always turn to me or Mr. Smith, Mr. Miller or Mrs. Adams, or any of the other Professors involved,” she said, then paused for a second to let the murmures and voices ring out.

 “Now, we know this is a big thing among the student body, but we hope you can keep it as low as possible. Drama and relations, as fun as they are to watch for us, will only make your work harder. If you want to outplay this though, be assured I will be watching with a glass of wine and popcorn.” There were chuckles among the group and Louise next to him went red trying to keep in her laughter. Dan grinned at her and made a mental note to tell her about the girls he had encountered before coming here.

It took some time for the students to calm down, but when she continued speaking, Dan was shocked into silence. “That also goes for other students aside from yourself. The list is out for half an hour and the only duo involving Mr. Howell and Mr. Lester has already caused an uproar throughout the whole university, so please think about what you are causing when you speak about information like this next time.”

 The rest of the meeting went by in a blur. The professors informed them of the nature of the assignment - the whole thing had pretty much the built-up of a generic talent show. They had to cover one song each week in an open, on-campus concert starting in two weeks. Each week two groups would be voted out by the professors until three groups remained for the finale.

 At the end Dan didn’t remember anything the professors had explained to them. He would beg Louise for her notes tomorrow, but that wasn’t the important thing right now.

 The important thing was that he was supposed to perform with the one and only Phil Lester - and after a quick facebook check he realized why the name had sounded so familiar. Dan had had a crush on the cute and amazingly talented guitar player performing every saturday in a close-by coffee shop for weeks until he had disappeared. What made it even harder for Dan was the fact that the girls had been right.

 The guy had gotten hot as fuck.

 Louise’ mumbled keep it in your pants seemed almost impossible to stick to.

 ~~~~

 It took Dan around half a week to stop running from Phil. He kept himself busy with papers not due for at least a few more weeks and working harder for other assignments than he ever had before - he did anything that would make him forget about the short message from Phil awaiting him on whatsapp, where he introduced himself and informed him they were partners. The little dog emoji at the end of the message made him squeal like a schoolgirl, but that was exactly the problem. He had to keep it professional. Which would be difficult considering the increasingly hot pictures Phil posted on his facebook and instagram…

 On thursday Dan finally realized he wouldn’t be able to hide from this forever, as he couldn’t afford to fail this class. So he decided to suck it up and went with a generic confirmation and the question to set a time for their first rehearsal as a reply.

 On friday Dan was about as nervous as he could be. Fidgeting the entire morning, he changed his outfit for at least five times until Louise threatened to rip his whole wardrobe to shreds if he didn't decide soon. Her teasing didn’t make his job any easier though. He was supposed to meet Phil in less than half an hour in one of the practice rooms in the music building half a campus away and he was dying a little.

 “Do you really think I look okay?” he asked Louise, who was seated directly next to him on the bus, anxiously running his fingers through his brown locks. Louise caught his wrist mid-movement and forced his hand back into his lap before she patted it sympathetically. “You look great, Dan. Just don’t behave like the little schoolgirl you’re portraying right now, okay?”

 Dan couldn’t get rid of the blush creeping onto his cheeks for the rest of the bus ride.

 When he arrived at their booked practice room, Phil wasn’t there yet. Sighing in relief, he let his backpack sink to the floor before moving over to the piano, situated on a little pedestal in front of the window. He took a seat on the stool right in front of it and let his fingers run over the keys testingly. A series of notes rang through the air and he realized delightedly that the piano was pitched precisely.

 He let his fingers push the keys purposefully and before he knew it they strung together to one of his favorite songs. He started singing along, just for the fun of it; but he got completely lost in the music. At one point a second voice joined in, harmonizing with him to an unbelievable extend, but he didn’t even realize; it just sounded like it had been there from the start.

 Like it belonged there, ringing alongside his own.

 Only at the end of the song he realized what had happened. When the last note rang loud through the now deafening silence he whipped around, eyes wide - and met the bluest eyes he had ever seen.

 He wanted to avert his eyes, wanted to check who it was, but he couldn’t; for a few moments, he was frozen, lost in time, no connection to reality except for the blue he was drowning in.

 The moment shattered like glass around him when some kind of crashing noise pierced in from outside of the room and Dan was finally able to move his eyes.

 “That was beautiful,” a deep, melodic voice said and he couldn’t help but stare at the black haired figure standing proudly and tall at the other end of the piano, smiling at him reassuringly.

 Dan had to blink a few times and pinch himself covertly, but the picture in front of him stayed the same: Phil Lester, in all his delicious glory, eyes shining so bright Dan was sure he’d need sunglasses.

 “It was,” he agreed with a raspy voice, watching wordlessly as Phil made his way over to him. “I’m Phil,” he said, sticking out his hand in front of him and Dan had to gulp down his fast rising excitement. I’ll get to touch Phil Lester!!

 When it happened, when their hands touched, he almost flinched back. A warm feeling shot up his arm at top speed and for a second, he forgot how to breathe. Holy shit.

 “Dan,” he rasped back, staring up at Phil with wide eyes, not really sure what to do with himself, only one thought ringing through his mind - if touching Phil felt like that , how amazing would kissing him be?

 Obviously, the black haired guitar player was not as shocked as Dan. “So, do you think we found our song for the first show?”

 Just like that they slipped over into work - and working with Phil, Dan learned, was just as easy as breathing.

 ~~~

 The first week with Phil was like walking on clouds. The numerous holes in Dan’s schedule made for good practice times, and the fact that Phil didn’t have many classes this semester meant that he was there for almost every one of them. Work flowed easily and smoothly and on monday they were already done segmenting the song and deciding who would get to sing which parts.

 But not only the work went great, even their voices harmonized like they were meant to be heard together. They didn’t even need transitions between Dan’s singing parts to Phil’s, the changes from line to line went just as smoothly as the ones with longer instrumental intervals between.

 Tuesday evening they were basically ready to perform. Dan had his piano playing recorded as a playback to make him more flexible on stage instead of immobile behind a giant instrument. Phil’s guitar skills maybe didn’t quite match Jimmy Hendrik’s yet, but they were definitely up there, and he had the song down to a T. Neither of them had classes the next morning, so as they were leaving the practice room, Dan felt quite courageous from all the adrenaline still rushing through him after a perfect run - and he boldly asked Phil if he wanted to get a coffee somewhere before retiring to their respective dorms.

 Ten minutes later they were sat in a coffee shop right off campus. Dan chose a cozy little booth in the corner directly next to the window front while Phil went to get their coffees. When Dan took the first sip of his drink he almost spat it right back out, but instead moved to first eye the drink and then Phil suspiciously.

 “How do you know?” he asked, his voice almost high pitched as he narrowed his eyes.

Phil just raised an eyebrow into an almost perfectly shaped curve, looking at Dan questionably as he calmly took a sip of his coffee, not saying a word.

 “How do you know my order?” Dan specified and watched incredulously as Phil’s full, kissable lips spread into a wide grin. He could almost picture it, attaching his own lips onto his as they spread into the exact grin before the kisses started to get more serious, more heated, Phil’s fringe messed up, his cheeks red as clothes were coming off…

 Oh my god, stop betraying me, goddamn heart.

 “I didn’t. I just ordered two of my usual order.”

 Phil’s voice ripped him out of his daydream and for a second he couldn’t do much else than stare in stunned silence. “You drink caramel Macchiato, too?” he asked, blinking. Huh. He really hadn’t expected that from a guy as hot as him…

 Jesus fucking christ, actually shut the fuck up!

 Dan’s attraction to Phil had risen to an unhealthy level by now. Not only was he hot as fuck, no; during their practice time Dan also had had to learn that the guy was smart, funny, lively, and talented as fuck , even more than Dan remembered him to be. Dan was lucky the assignment, and working on the music kept him busy and focused, or else he would have probably jumped the guy by now.

 “It’s my all time favorite,” Phil confirmed, his grin transforming into a cheeky smile, and Dan couldn’t keep a blush from dusting his cheeks pink.

 “Mine too,” he admitted and took another tentative sip from his drink, purposefully avoiding Phil’s eyes. He knew that if he looked into them now, he would drown in them.

 For a few moments it was silent between them, both nursing their coffee, Dan deeply lost in thought about the blueness of Phil’s eyes.

 “So, Muse, huh?”

 It was Phil breaking the silence and Dan looked up, surprised. It took him a second to realize how Phil had even known he liked Muse , until he realized they had met while singing their song Thought Contagion before choosing it for their first performance. This time he was pretty sure he kept the blush at bay.

 “Yeah. I love them.”

 Phil’s mouth stretched into a happy smile, his eyes shining brightly, full of honest excitement as he started chattering about them. Dan had to gulp and pinch his hand unsuspiciously to keep himself from losing his mind .

 They moved from Muse to Panic! to Fallout Boy to Paramore and even further. Albums became scores, which lead the way to games, movies and TV shows. It was almost scary how much they had in common, how much their interests overlapped, and it actually took Dan a while to remember a question he’d had since he’d heard of the assigned groups.

 He used a temporary lull in conversation - one that he could have easily filled with something relatable to the topic they were on, mind you - to finally ask.

 “By the way, do you know why we are the only duo?”

 Phil raised his eyebrow, a cheeky smile back on his face and Dan knew there was a blush creeping up his cheeks yet again. He couldn’t help but feel like he missed something vital here, but he had no idea what exactly.

 “Did you not pay attention at the meeting?”

 Dan felt his eyes widen in surprise and blinked, cheeks even hotter than before. “I might have been… preoccupied ,” he admitted and Phil’s smile grew into a full-blown grin.

 “Prof. Johnson and Prof. Smith spent like ten minutes explaining,” he informed Dan, “Apparently the numbers didn’t match up and they had to have one duo, so they both chose their best student and realized we would be a good match.” He put special emphasis on the word match and for a second, Dan wasn’t sure if he would be able to stay conscious. Was he just making a joke… Or was Phil Lester really flirting with him?

 “We - we are,” he stammered in response and Phil’s chuckling send his heart into overdrive. Oh god. How was he supposed to survive at least 2 more months working with the guy?

 “I think so too,” Phil whispered back with a husky voice, making Dan choke on his long cold coffee.

 Fuck, these next weeks are going to be torture.

 ~~~

 The next monday morning Dan found himself in yet another on-campus coffee shop, putting the finishing touches on an assignment that was due today. Normally it was a break he would spend with Phil, but he had stuff to arrange with one of his professors, so they decided he would join up with Dan as soon as he was able to. They had managed to get a headstart on this week’s performance by starting working on it on saturday, so they weren’t in much of a rush. They had decided on a song and discussed divisioning on sunday already; it was only practicing left.

 Of course the performance on Friday had gone great. They had gotten a lot of applause by the watching students, the little hall on campus used for performances had been packed to the rim, so there had been at least a few hundred watchers. The professors had obviously also been satisfied with their presentation, considering they had informed them they would progress into the next round even before the whole show had been over.

 So Dan and Phil had spent their Friday night celebrating. Even though neither of them were really the party going type, they had agreed to go out for a few drinks with their best friends Louise and PJ - who, coincidentally, were in the same group - and Tyler, a music production student Dan had been friends with for years. He had flirted with Phil quite obviously and had teased Dan for his sour mood afterwards, but had assured him that Phil only has eyes for you, you dumbass, pay attention!, coupled with a playful whack on his head.

 The memory let Dan grumble absently, but the arriving of a group of students in the booth right behind him ripped him away from his trip down memory lane. “I mean, they’re both bisexual, right?” one of the girls stated while taking a seat, making him peek up immediately. He liked to hear stories about his fellow unicorns and regretted only becoming aware of this conversation after it had already started.

 “They are,” a guy’s voice confirmed. Dan was pretty sure he had heard the voice before, but he didn’t have the courage to turn around and check. He was lucky enough to not have been spotted by the group, he really didn’t have to push his luck.

 “Have you seen their sexual tension? I know you want to fuck them both, Caleb, but come on.” The female voice was followed by a male groan and the sound of a head meeting the tabletop. “I knowww,” was the answer, “I’m sexually deprived, not blind .”

 Dan raked his brain, trying to figure out who they were talking about. Being friends with Louise and Tyler meant that he was mostly up to date with recent campus gossip, and he really wanted to tell them about this later.

 “Did you know there’s already a bet going on? About if they’ll be dating by the end of this semester.”

 “Which idiot would even bet against that?”

 The booth erupted into laughter and Dan furrowed his eyebrows, thinking. He leaned forward, trying to appear busy, but in reality the assignment currently open on his laptop was the furthest thing from his mind.

 “Okay, but aside from all that they were the best group, even if it was just the two of them. They’re gonna win this thing, hands down.” 

Dan’s eyes went as wide as saucers as realization seeped into him. They weren’t really talking about -

 “Absolutely. Thought Contagion was brilliant, I’m so excited to see what they’ll come up with for the next round.”

 That was the moment Phil decided to make his appearance, ripping him out of his thoughts almost violently. “Morning!” he said, cheerfully, two cups of steaming coffee in his hands. He pushed one of them over to Dan after he had taken a seat.

 A look of confusion, even concern appeared on his face when Dan didn’t react, just continued staring at his laptop screen with his eyes wide open. “Dan? Are you okay? Have you seen a ghost?”

 The chatter behind him ended immediately. When he slowly turned around a group of seven people was staring at him, wide eyed. All of them scrambled to their feets as fast as they could. “You’re a cute couple!” one of the girls squeaked out, then they were gone, leaving Dan to explain the situation to Phil.

 Needless to say Phil wasn’t fazed at all, instead he used the story to make more flirty remarks, making Dan blush yet again.

 Damn, I’m fucked.

 ~~~~

Almost three months passed by in a rush and by december Dan couldn’t even recognize his life anymore. All the time he had previously spent alone in front of his laptop, browsing tumblr or watching Netflix, converted into Phil-time, slowly but surely. They played games or watched TV-Shows nearly every day after practice. Dan’s roommate had even asked him if he was moving out with all the time he spent away, but Dan couldn’t help himself. Phil lived in a flat near campus all alone. A tiny flat, sure, but it made for the best meetup place, especially for gaming or movie nights or for research about their next song - and it gave them some privacy. Not that much had happened yet aside from the increasingly flirty comments and occasional cuddle sessions, but it still made their friendship easier.

 Especially because they were now something like campus-famous and got recognized wherever they went.

 So far, they had aced most performances and were through to the last show before christmas break. After New Year’s there was only one show left before the big finale. They were pretty sure they had a good grade secured, but they still gave it their all - they had come so far, there was no way they were giving up now.

 In the upcoming show only seven groups were left and it was the first one with two mandatory songs, one optional and one christmas themed, dropping the rock theme just for this once. Since the last week was cut short - Christmas break started on thursday - they had an additional half week to prepare. Dan and Phil had decided on Panic! ’s High Hopes for the first song and Last Christmas for the second and as always, they had been quite fast with their work. They were practiced and basically done on Monday, so they allowed themselves the night off. Phil’s brother was in town and Dan had heartlessly neglected Tyler since the assignment started (his words), basically forcing Dan to spent the night with him.

 Fortunately Tyler had a lecture early the next morning, so he wasn’t trying to get himself or Dan trashed. He did, however, made use of the time by grilling Dan about his relationship to Phil.

 Dan was a bit annoyed, but at the end of the day he was glad to be able to talk about it, even if he would never admit to that. Louise and her group were still in the run for the finals too, which made her so busy they barely were able to talk for longer than a few minutes at a time - and he desperately needed an outsider’s opinion.

 It took him almost an hour to get Tyler up to date on what had happened, all the while getting interrupted by texts from Phil. Right when he was done explaining his phone dinged again, indicating another text.

 ‘the girl two tables over has a cute lil pup on her lap i keep staring she probs thinks i'm a perv help’ it read and he couldn’t help but chuckle. Tyler inspected him warily from across the table, absently playing with the straw in his half-empty cocktail. “Okay, who are you texting?” he asked then, fixing Dan with a steely gaze.

 “Oh, it’s just Phil,” he answered distractedly, typing a quick response before turning his attention back to Tyler. “Why?”

 “Are you shitting me?” he asked back, a fitting expression on his face like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Dan just answered with a surprised “huh?”, shooting him a confused look.

 “Mate, how dense can you be? You are basically dating the guy, only without the good parts!”

 Dan blinked, completely lost now, unable to follow Tyler’s train of thought. “What?”

 “You and Phil are dating, Dan, wake up! The only thing missing is the sex!”  Dan was stunned into silence, staring at Tyler like he had grown a second head. It took the thought a while to register in his brain, but then he blushed, taking a huge gulp of his drink before calling the waiter over to order another one.

 He needed more alcohol for this.

 ~~~~

 The show on wednesday evening went exceptionally well. They had the most fun rocking to High Hopes and got really festive during Last Christmas , with Dan at the Piano and Phil sat on top of it. Their professors called them over and into the next show immediately, making them giddy and high on adrenaline in the process.

 The christmas party thrown by the rock music department started directly afterwards and PJ and Louise, immensely proud of their best friends even though their own group had been voted out, insisted on going. Still in an after show rush they agreed, but soon realized why they normally didn’t like parties. It was loud, the room stuffed with people and the food was average at best, and it took them around twenty minutes to revert back to the snacks table, where they hid from the actual party.

 When Louise, PJ and Tyler of all people found them, sporting a cheeky expression, Dan knew they were fucked. They were leaning against a wall, talking and laughing with each other as much as the music allowed them to, and only a few people were inspecting them from afar.

 “Do you know where you’re standing?” PJ asked when the group was within earshot and Dan raised an eyebrow. “Next to the snacks table where we always are?” he remarked drily, making Phil chuckle next to him.

 “Look up!” Tyler singsonged with a high pitched voice and flattered his eyelashes with faked innocence.

 Dan perked up immediately. He knew that voice.

 He didn’t even need to look up to know what was fixated on the wall over their heads.

 “A Mistletoe!” Louise grinned so widely Dan was sure it had to hurt. He turned his attention to Phil, his heart throbbing in his chest on full speed.

 There was a cheeky smile on the guitarist’s face as he took a step closer, taking a hold of Dan’s head with both hands. “They want a kiss,” he murmured, lowly, “let’s give them a kiss.”

 The second his lips met Phil’s was like a firework going off everywhere inside of his body. For a moment he forgot where he was, hell, even who he was, just continued kissing Phil with passion and lust and love. He didn’t even hesitate opening up his mouth at Phil’s silent request to let him in, too far gone to care - hell, to even realize they had an audience.

 The kiss lasted for minutes and it probably could have gone on much longer if there wouldn’t have been a sudden outburst of applause. The blood took a second to reach Dan’s brain after having rushed somewhere south only seconds ago, but when it did, it immediately spread into his cheeks. They broke apart, Dan’s face still in Phil’s hands, silently contemplating the recent event.

 He had just kissed Phil Lester. In front of basically the whole rock music department.

 Great. Just great.

 The applause and whooping didn’t stop soon and he couldn’t do much more then to exchange a long look with Phil. They had a silent discussion Dan himself didn’t know the content of, until suddenly and with no indication there was panic on Phil’s face as he hastily let go of Dan and scrambled to get his phone out of his pocket. It was vibrating violently in his hands and Dan couldn’t even blink by the time Phil rasped out a “Shit! My brother is waiting for me!” and left in a rush.

 Dan stood there, staring after Phil until most of the students had averted their gazes from him and went back to whatever they had been doing before. When the ice in his veins freezing him into place finally dissipated, he groaned. He knew Phil’s brother Martyn was picking him up for Christmas with their family, and he wouldn’t be back until january.

 Of course. That’s just my fucking luck.

 ~~~

 He spent christmas break in some sort of limbo, like his relationship to Phil was Schrödinger’s cat, platonic and romantic at the same time. He knew the kiss had meant something not only to him but also to Phil, that much had been obvious with the way he had taken the offensive in deepening the kiss and how he had held him afterwards. But that was about the amount of information Dan had, and neither of them mentioned the kiss on any level, so he decided to just ignore the issue for now.

 It did made him jumpy and fidgety and mostly unable to focus, though, and only his frequent skype calls with Phil got him focused and concentrated enough to get some much needed work done.

 There were only two shows left, but they were only one week apart and both required three songs, so they decided to learn all songs over the break. They spent hours on skype, deciding on the songs and how to play and sing them, so they would be done learning their personal parts until they could meet back up in person.

 For a short moment, their reunion was like the sun had risen again. They hugged, soft words of attachment and longing on their lips, but then it was like someone had flipped a switch and they were back in working mode. Phil didn’t mention the kiss and Dan didn’t dare to, so they went back to Status Quo, just like that.

 The first show in the new year went okay-ish. Neither of them poured everything into it, already looking forward to the songs they had chosen for the finale, but they still managed to pull through. Their only truly memorable performance was The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance , which they definitely aced, but the other ones admittedly fell a bit flat. Both their professors urged them to not take it too lightly just because they had done so amazingly until now, so they swore to give everything they had in their last performances together.

 They were the first group performing in the finale. It wasn’t hard for Dan to get in the mood of their songs, considering they were all pining lovesongs and he would have the one he was pining after up on stage with him, so he was glad they got to go first. It made the waiting and anticipation in between easier, and waiting for the results when they were done didn’t mean much to him anyway - he didn’t care too much about winning.

 He just wanted to give his best, pour all his feelings into the songs when he was up there with Phil. He wanted to make it obvious that he meant every word he was singing.

 He wanted to get Phil to understand…

 In short, he just wanted Phil.

 Their first song was a soft piano interpretation of It’s not living (If it’s not with you) by The 1975 , and Dan was so entranced by Phil he forgot to look at his hands while playing. He didn’t make a single mistake, thankfully,  but if he would have made one he probably wouldn’t even have noticed. He benefited from the fact that he had practiced the piano part so often on the tiny piano in his childhood bedroom that his parents had asked him to please, please stop.

 They spent their break with a bottle of coke huddled together on a tiny sofa backstage, making loose conversation and trying to get their mind off of things. Dan basked in the close physical proximity and simply smiled when Phil just casually took his hand while he talked, playing with his fingers. He had a feeling that things would be going well.

 Dan had particularly fun during their next song. The Last Of The Real Ones by Fallout Boy was one of his favorite songs and he connected a lot of the lyrics to Phil. The piano playing was not an issue this time since they had both laid down their playing previously and conjoined it in a track, so he had all the time in the world to focus on Phil, which he took full advantage of. They riled up the crowd so much that Tyler, who had agreed to be the presenter of the night, had trouble getting them back in check for the next group.

 During christmas break, far away from Phil and his feelings, their next song had seemed like a good idea. It was romantic, emotional and full of love and Dan couldn’t think of any other song that would make his feelings for Phil more clear than this.

 Now, though, it seemed entirely too personal to perform in front of what felt like the whole Uni. During practice he had refrained from building too much of a connection, afraid of taking it too far, but now he didn’t have much of a choice and it made him more nervous than any other performance before. His hands were sweaty, his stomach was rumbling and he was ready to cancel the whole thing when Phil noticed the state he was in.

 “Dan,” he whispered, pointedly ignoring the other people lounging around backstage, completely focusing on Dan, “It’ll be okay. You will be okay. And I will be with you, right there by your side the whole time, okay?”

 It was in this moment that something settled in Dan’s chest. He returned Phil’s fond look with courage and determination, grasping his hand in his and squeezing it tightly. “Me too. We’re on the same page.”

 He was sure Phil caught the double meaning when his look got soft. “I think I always knew,” he answered quietly, almost inaudible. “Let’s do this.”

 ~~~

 Their last performance of this assignment was a complete success. They performed The Only Exception by Paramore sitting huddled together on the little Piano stool in front of the huge piano and didn’t take their eyes off of each other the entire time. It was so emotional Tyler had tears in his eyes when he came on stage, hugging first Phil, then Dan tightly, muttering a soft “go get ‘em, tiger” into Dan’s ear and Dan could feel his heart swelling.

 This was it.

 Backstage, thankfully, they were alone. Both of the other groups were nowhere to be seen, and Phil obviously noticed faster than him.

 Before he even had the chance to turn around from closing the door he was already spun around and pressed against the next hard surface, Phil’s lips attacking his own.

 For what felt like ages they were kissing furiously, like they had deprived themselves of this for far too long and now a dam had been broken down, nothing holding them back anymore.

 Once they were out of breath Phil separated their lips, lovingly gazing into his eyes instead. “I have waited for this for far too long,” he whispered quietly, softly, his hands on the sides of Dan’s head, his thumbs gently caressing his cheeks.

 “Me too,” he mumbled back, drowning in Phil’s eyes and feeling himself falling, falling; falling even deeper in love with him. “I meant every word I sang.”

 There was a beat of quiet, then:

 “I love you.”

 The words were muttered completely simultaneously, and for the single bat of an eye both stared at the other, stunned into silence.

 Then they were both dissolving into giggles, holding onto the other to keep from toppling over.

 “That,” Phil gasped out, “was so us.”

 Dan couldn’t help but agree.

 ~~~

 “Do you really think so, Badiha?”

 “I don’t know, Henry, but they did seem smitten during that song, don’t you think?”

 “True!”

 There was a group of at least five people seated in the booth directly behind Dan’s and even though he wasn’t that much of a gossip he couldn’t help but eavesdrop. He was busily procrastinating the work he needed to do until the next day, refreshing tumblr around ten times a minute, so it wasn’t too surprising the conversation distracted him as soon as it got loud enough for him to hear.

 “But they haven’t been seen in public with each other in ages aside from their performances. I just really want them to be happy with each other, is that too much to ask?”

 That was the first voice again. Dan allowed himself a short look at the group out of the corner of his eyes and recognized all faces he was able to pick up on. They had all been to the performance Phil and him did twice a week in a near bar ever since their joint assignment last year, he was sure of it. He mostly recognized them because of the person that had spoken first, a girl with the pride flag drawn on her eyelids. He remembered how she had attracted his attention during their first show because of her truly iconic makeup.

 “I know, right?!” a male voice joined in and this time Dan didn’t need the information practically jumping into his face to realize they were talking about him and Phil.

 After their win in the finale they had decided to keep their relationship at a down low, trying to make themselves comfortable with being boyfriends before they truly made it public. They were still pretty famous throughout the students and the center of the rumor mill, but they had been in a relationship for almost a year now and had only recently realized there was nothing to be afraid of if everybody knew. Most of them would be happy for them, and the rest of them, well -

 They’d just have to suck it up.

 That was the moment his boyfriend decided to show up. He slid into the booth, taking a seat directly next to Dan, pressing their thighs together. “Morning, love,” he greeted Dan gently, planting a kiss on his cheek before grinning happily. “Busy procrastinating?”

 “Yeah,” Dan replied extra loud, grinning right back, “but I’d rather kiss my boyfriend.”

 So they shared a short, cute kiss, making the group behind them gasp loudly. “It’s them,” the girl with the pride flag on her eyelids whispered into the silence stretching between them. Dan grinned.

 “It is,” he confirmed cheekily, turning around to look at her. “Very iconic Make-up by the way, I like it.”

 “Oh my god, thank you,” she answered, a blush becoming apparent on her cheeks and Dan’s grin only got wider before he turned his attention back around to Phil.

 “What was that about?” he asked with a raised eyebrow and his head cutely tilted to the side.

 Dan pecked him on the lips. “Had to make a point.”

 Phil looked back cheekily, a grin on his face so wide Dan was able to see his tongue poking out between his teeth. “A point about what?”

 Dan puffed out his cheeks, feigning huffiness. Phil knew exactly what this was about, and they were both aware of that. “You’re an idiot,” he said, pouting.

 “Yeah, but I’m your idiot.”

 Dan looked at him, eyes full of fondness and adoration and love. “Exactly.”

[depthanonymous]

Thursday. December 26th Chicago O’Hare

This is a Story about how I met my Soulmate.

Growing up I always needed everyone's approval.... I needed that validation for my ego. I got picked on and bullied as a young kid. Too fat, too many freckles, stupid laugh, buck teeth, you name it.... I was too white for the Mexicans, too Mexican for the white kids... I never felt like I fit in, with anyone, even family at times. So I tried to fit in everywhere I went, I tried to impress and 1-Up everybody. I had to win, always. I had to become the best. So no one would have anything to talk about. I needed everyone to approve of me and I had no idea why.... I was doing things I didn't like, working jobs I didn't enjoy, to buy things I didn't even really want, to impress people I didn't even care about....

And then, December 26th 2013, at 8 something AM on a Thursday, I'm at Chicago O'Hare airport.... walking from one end of the airport to the other so I can grab a bite to eat while I wait 3 hours for my flight to Maryland.... and I cross paths with a walking goddess.... she's coming from the opposite end, and should be ending up at the gate I just got out of, Heading back to Omaha From Ohio... I kid you not this was some out of the movies stuff...

I originally met her my freshman year of highscool. She would always come up and eat lunch in the art room during my art class. I used to just drool over her as a freshman, (I was such a dork, had ZERO swagger of any sort) and she was this GORGEOUS girl, but she was a Junior and an amazing artist; coupled with this massive attitude. The only time I ever got the courage to go up and attempt to ask her out. She was drawing a sketch for her figure-drawing class... and I come up and go "hey what are you drawing?" Trying to flirt, and failing. she doesn't even look up at me, she just says "What does it look like?" And I shut down so fast and walked away.... that was 2009

So now, December 2013, I'm tall, (I used to be 5'3ish now I'm 6'3) I'm in better shape, better dressed, looking classy wearing a nice coat and stuff. I'm feeling good, carrying myself differently as a man. Just got the new iPhone, blasting the free version of Pandora..... and I see her. And I instantly get brought back to when I made a fool of myself.... and I'm like, screw that. I'm talking to her this time... only now, we locked eyes, movie style.... and time stops. Busiest and biggest airport in the US... and I come across her. Again. Only this time, she's actually looking back at me, and smiling.... I cut across the hall and she meets me half way. She's so damn beautiful I can't even get words to come out. Luckily she still had that good ole attitude and after a second or two says "Hey, I'm not drawing anything this time, so you're going to have to think of something good." And right then and there I'm thinking, “she remembered!? god damn I'm going to marry this girl.” Everything about her was perfect... so I laugh and now I'm back down to earth and to my confident self (freaking out internally) and I'm like, "oh really, you mean you won't shut down anything I say this time?".... she was looking at the departure screen as I said it.... and she looks at me with this shock that I just said that and then this beautiful smirk, and gives me that smile that just makes everything in me start to tingle. She looks back at me like she's thinking the exact same thing I am.... so I say, "where are you headed?" She says Omaha, asks if I still live there. I say yeah. So then I ask when her flight home is and she says not for another three hours... JUST LIKE ME. So I say “well I also have a pretty big layover, do you know where your gate is?” She says "Duh, its all pretty clearly marked." So I'm like cool, that hurt the pride a little but moving on. And I ask her "well, since we both have a few hours do you wanna grab some food and catch up." She said "Nah, I already ate....(waits silently for what felt like a year crammed into 5 seconds) but we can sit here and chill for a bit if you want." And I'm like STARVING, but I don't even care. I'm just over here mesmerized because this woman is GORGEOUS, and in my head I just keep saying don't mess this up don't mess this up don't mess this up.... so We catch up, she told me she was at Creighton, I said I was going to trade school. She made fun of me and said "Do you still drive that really loud tiny green truck." I got all offended because I did still drive it and loved it. But I get over it..... So all of the sudden hours of talking pass and we are both almost late to board.... so we run to our gates. And the whole vacation I'm just thinking about her, can't get her out of my head. Thinking about some elaborate plan to ask her out and over exaggerating a big romantic plan like always. And I get back from Vacation and get busy and don't know how to approach her to where I don't seem like a Creep....

Well, a couple months pass and around summer time. Her and and another person I went to school with are doing door to door surveys about the neighborhood. And guess who's door they come knocking at? MINE! On my only day off in the last two months... coincidence? I think not. so I come up and answer all shy and say hi to the girl I remember from school. and then see her around the corner and get this rush, I got so nervous I began to sweat a little. I could tell she was nervous too. We gather and sit down in the family room. when I look over to see if the nerves have settled. She couldn't look up at me. She was just staring at the clip board, fumbling on her words on and off as she asks questions and awkwardly chuckles as I respond in a dorky manner.... so I call my dog over even though she isn't allowed on the carpet, to help calm my nerves.... and my dog who loves me like no other, would never abaondon my command. Goes STRAIGHT to her and won't leave her alone. So now I'm all bragging about how well behaved my dog is and she totally disobeys me and goes right to her, calming her nerves and making her smile... they finish with the survey and leave. And I spend the whole day kicking myself for messing up and not asking for her number or to go for coffee or something, anything!

A few days later... SHE messages ME! I'm jumping off the walls, I'm ecstatic. She was telling me sorry for being awkward during he survey. I said likewise, then she laughed at how my dog likes her more and I'm the one that feeds her! we get to flirting and all the cheesy cliche stuff. all of the sudden she's overly straight up with me and just hits me with, "so do you even plan to ask for my number or....?" And I'm just like damn this woman is calling me out on everything. She's like "well, I don't do this Facebook messenger stuff and you're too slow at asking soooo.... can I get yo Numbah?" Just like that...

Now we get to texting and I try asking her out....it doesn't work. And I'm not used to getting rejected so wow! why does she keep shooting me down? So finally I'm like... how about this, let's go for coffee and talk art, it's NOT A DATE. Just two people talking art like a couple of hipsters.... and she goes "fine, on one condition. Don't ever use hipsters in reference to me or you ever again."

So we go on the date, that she always said wasn't a date.... and we both get there at like 4pm, and end up talking and talking for around 6 hours, until they said they were closing.... TOTALLY A DATE. I go to get the door for her and she rushes and won't let me, and says hey, it's not a date. So I smile because in my head I'm like oh you know it was a date you just tried to make excuses now that it's over.... and then before she gets in her car I tell her to look up this song. So she pulls up next to me at the stoplight and turns it up so I can hear that she actually looked it up. Then texts me saying she had a really good time getting coffee and reiterated that it was NOT a date. And then said she loved the song, and I said “good, I'll sing it to you sometime.”

Guess what we did on our second (technically first actual) date? Yup, got food and then drove around and listened to music. And did I sing the song to her, HELL YES I DID. At the top of my lungs, looking at her and everything. While driving, big hazard but I was trying to impress. And I'm about to take her home at a decent time, like 10pm... and as I'm a block away, Te Metiste by Ariel Camacho comes on and I look over at her like damn this is my song. And she goes "wanna just make another loop"... and I said “absolutely” as I start singing that to her too. Getting her to blush and smile..... our first "loop" was like 75 miles. So I got her home at like midnight.... and she posts a status saying "When he can sing👌🏼" and I'm just all pumped up like yeeeeeeaaaaahhhh, I'm Dr. Smooth, PHD in SmoothOlogy..... and then she texts me before bed. And says thanks for food and she really enjoyed the date.... and then finishes it off with another that says "don't let the status get to your head, I liked the singing but you were way too cheesy. 😏".... I knew it, I knew it all along. Since day one, she's the woman that was crafted for me by the big man upstairs, and I'm going to marry her. AND I DID!!! Absolute greatest accomplishment and decision of my life. I had her hooked and I wasn't ever going to let her go. She asked how the hell I could have wanted to marry her without knowing everything about her....And I simply said, "When you know, you know."

You want some proof that she was my soulmate? Short story: We began teaching at the same school, in my classroom during summer our first cleaning, up in a cabinet lodged into the corner was a piece of art..... it had a picture and I instantly knew it was my wife. I ran to her room on the other wing of the building and showed her. She said it was something she made in the 3rd grade, when she attended the school..... still think it’s coincidence? I have plenty more.

Not all stories have the fairytale endings. I lost my Soulmate and Best Friend to Suicide on December 18th 2016. Sometimes it’s the most beautiful people, with the most loving families, with all the accolades and best degrees money could buy. Depression is a constant war in your head, against yourself. Hug your loved ones and appreciate every single moment.

[rosedalemike]

The Mood: Blog #11 “WTF is next, ROSEDALE?!”

     I've had so many random ideas for what this next blog should be about. I wanna try to stay on track with the story of Rosedale's farewell/next chapter as that seems to be the most common topic with the lovely Rosedaliens that have been coming out to shows.      But the truth is that I'm just as unsure as everyone else. I don't even have a clear vision of what I picture September looking like. I guess my plan in September is to plan what 2019 is going to look like. 2019 seems so much further than it actually is, I'm sure.      The only things I'm sure of are that I would like to: 1: be a helpful contribution to music scenes (artists, venues, promoters, fans etc.) using more than just my own voice. 2: keep making new music under a different name (using my voice ...maybe some features...maybe a band? Who knows. I'd love for someone else to decide that.) 3: continue to work with other artists on their art and ideas.      I know those are all vague ideas. And regarding the name delema; I have a giant draft email to myself (the most common email address in my inbox is rosedalebooking@gmail.com) that has a bunch of artist names and band names. Some are pretty good, some are not. 

Self-Lyric Party: 

" 'cause I live entirely for the self-satisfaction that I made this- I turn Whiter than a song in C as I watch the room empty No! Just press on, believe. My numbers are truly sad Tell me again; can I beat Quicksand? Yes I Can! " - Quicksand

    As I check back to my last blog (to see how I quote/credit a lyric party...to keep continuity) I noticed that google placed a Chipotle add on the right side of the blog page! This is likely because I searched Chipotle at least 10 times in this past week. And that is because there is new company in the new Rosedale crew already and Chipotle sometimes hooks up traveling musicians with free food. 

     Her name is Siena. We all know Bryan, right? (cousin, hockey guy, #1 merch dude/email address collector...) Siena is the female Bryan. But luckily, she's not my cousin. I mean it'd be awesome to have known her all my life (like I've known Bryan all my life,) but for "heart-crush" reasons, I'm really glad she's most definitely not my cousin. 

     I met Siena at our San Diego show in November 2017. I say "our" because she's in a band called Going Postal, and they played that Soma show too. Like many bands today, they'll admit that their future is a giant question mark. But unlike many bands today, they sound awesome! 

Check them out

.https://goingpostalca.bandcamp.com/releases

     I call Siena "S Money" because one of her friends she was facetiming called her that and I, too, wanted to sound gangsta- "DJ $ Money" to be exact. Siena is finishing her final online college classes while traveling around America with me and selling my merch. When she's not selling merch she's helping me move my insane amounts of gear. When she's not selling merch and moving my insane amounts of gear she's teaching me how to promote in a more professional manner by helping me post enticing social media posts/stories/streams more regularly/organically. 

     Siena is a very kind-hearted, helpful champion that is way too chill to be so attractive. I just may be the luckiest Tall Canadian with Way Too Much Gear to have her on tour with me. After this tour she's moving to LA to become a world famous movie star so I only have about a month more of her awesomeness. She likes animals a lot, especially animal memes/vines. Mostly cats and dogs. So share/send any good ones and I'll make sure she sees them. (I'm also currently tethering off her wifi hotspot because all of Ohio's wifi is down right now.)

      Now that I've made you feel warm with paragraphs of cute kittens and puppies and rock n' roll princesses and awesome music and free Chipotle and sharing wifi; I must reveal some bad news; MY BACK IS F**KED!!! I somehow slowly injured my lower back while walking down some rusty stairs at the wrestling ring venue in Benwood, WV last Tuesday. I was getting ready to catch a little light-up-with-movement Nerf football, moving no different than any human casually walking down a set of stairs- then all of a sudden I felt my back juice trickling into the lower center of my back.     Don't be alarmed, this is not a career ending injury or anything. This actually happens to me every two years or so. And this time is not nearly as bad as the last time (when I was filling in for my Dad in his Canadian Tire men's hockey league and I casually skated behind my net to find out how 3 weeks of near paralyzing lower back pain felt.)      It's funny; when people ask if I have tall people back problems and I'm not dealing with back problems at that given moment, I usually reply "nope". But as soon as I do experience my dual-annually (I made up that word...) back pain, I remember the last time I had severe back pain.       So anyway, I had to cancel two shows and I'm not happy about it. It's getting better. I'm three days without pain relief meds. Stretching a lot. Rubbing Tiger Balm and Icey Hot every few hours. Just taking it easy in Cincinnati until Atlanta's show on Tuesday. That show is gonna be really awesome and there’s no way I’m missing it.      I played drums for a band on Warped tour in Dallas too. That was pretty fun. I learned their songs in three days. They have a lot of air horns in their music so I went kind of overboard with the Roland Pad's air horn sample. (Maybe that's why they found a replacement drummer for Pittsburgh Warped.)      It was fun seeing the Warped Tour for the last year and getting to play on stage again. We also went to the Cincinnati Warped Tour and learned what heat stroke felt like.

     Enough updates on my odd summer. I'll wrap it up with some insightful life/music stuff as I'm hanging out with the infamous Alex Baker.  https://alexanderbaker.bandcamp.com/ First though, his dad told us one of the greatest dad joke of all time: 

DAD JOKE PARTY:

"I was trying to think of a good reason to go to Switzerland and then I realized the flag was a big plus." 

But for real; we were talking about how things would be so different if we had just been understanding with our ex-bandmates in the golden years. We were all young and surrounded by the odd discovery of egos driven by art/success.  Alex was in a band called Dewey Decibel  https://alexanderbaker.bandcamp.com/album/the-dusting-dewey-decibel They had a fun indie style with a really organic, interesting production. Dewey Decibel recorded their album in their house in Nashville. From the sounds of it, once they started getting attention from NPR and local radio stations things started getting to everyone's heads. 

     It's not uncommon for a band to get along really well when things are on the up then fall apart when the going gets tough. The more I see it the more I understand the damage it did to Rosedale.      But on the other end of that unfortunate reality is the fact that I never would have met Alex Baker if the Rockstar ego-turmoil didn't happen to Dewey Decibel and Rosedale. I probably wouldn't have met Siana (AKA DJ $ Money) either. I'm not preaching that everything happens for a reason. I'm just kinda preaching that if you take the inevitable destructive events in life and turn them into fuel to move on and stay positive, better relationships grow. And those relationships are better because you've grown and learned how to be a better person.       So, like I keep driving home in all of these "Farewell Blogs", I'm looking forward to where things go. I'm happy I've experienced all the curveballs along the way to teach me how to eventually hit some home runs. I feel like I'm on the right track with these new friends that I've only met through grinding past the hard times and pressing on for what I had my heart set on.       Do you ever think of how you came to know some of your best friends? Like what events led them/you there that day and how grateful you are for those events and the transparent friendships they created? I know facebook gives us the ol "5 years of friendship" tag or whatever. But sometimes I see those and think "ohhh if you only knew, facebook...me and Casey Phillips go WAY BACK!"      Anyway that's all for now. If you've been thinking of meeting me or Siena or Alex Baker the best way/time to do it is to come out to an event we're at and experience some in person hangouts. This will be the last few weeks of touring for quite some time for me so really try to highlight these dates and make a solid effort to come catch a show. I promise you will not regret it. 

UPCOMING SHOWS:  7/24 - Atlanta,GA @ The Masquerade  7/27 - Jacksonville, FL @ Jackrabbits 7/29 - St. Augustine, FL @ Sarbez 8/3 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Black Forge Coffee 8/4 - Niagara, NY @ Evening Star 8/7 - Brampton, ON @ Spot 1 8/10 - Charleston, WV @ The Empty Glass 8/11 - Myrtle Beach, SC @ TBA Then a bunch of East Coast tour dates.

[vickisventures]

Proud to be an American!

(The river that runs through the city park/campground in St. Hilaire.)

Happy 4th!  We are sitting at 92 degrees at 12:15 pm and it’s HOT!  I know most of the country is experiencing a heat wave and even if we were still in Colorado, I doubt it’d be much better.  So we sit in the A/C (except for Steve who is out grilling our lunch) and pretend it’s nicer outside. 

We have already finished one week of our Digi-Key training.  It was a tiring week but busy. We have training from 8:30am-5pm every day.  Thankfully, we have not spent all of that time in the classroom.  I have spent a lot of time sitting in training/in-service and it never gets more fun.  There’s always the same personalities that test your patience and there’s always times when you want to beat your head against a wall.   Both Steve and I got stuck in the last 2 rows.  Neither of us prefer that location in a classroom setting.  Our instructor is not the best at teaching a room of 33.  He knows his stuff, without a doubt, but there are times when it feels like he’s only teaching the front row and times when he seems to be having a conversation with himself and we can’t hear what he’s saying. Wednesday they went to no masks IF you’ve been vaccinated and that has helped.  We can understand him better now, but that doesn’t help when he seems to forget he’s teaching to a whole room.  We have 2 other trainers in the room who we can ask questions to and sometimes it seems like there are 3 training sessions going on in 1 room and my head starts to spin.  There is sooo much to learn.  We get most of our training on the floor though.  The last 2 days, we probably only spent 1 hour in the classroom and the rest of the time on the floor.  Lance, our head trainer, keeps saying that 80% of our orders/picks are easy and 20% have some challenge or issue.  After a week, I’m thinking he got the numbers switched.  But they basically gave us some key instructions and and then sent us all to a few bays to “pick.”  We go to a printer, rip off the next order label and set off to fulfill the order.  We each have a hand-held scanner that we scan the order into and use to help us through the picking process.  It tells us what to look for and will either give us a nice tone that tells us we are doing it right, or it gives us an annoying buzz telling us we have an issue.  Sounds easy, right?  Uhh, if it were Amazon, maybe, but this is an electronic parts warehouse and some customers want 3000 tiny parts and others want 1.  Obviously, the 1 is easy to fulfill...most of the time, but the 3000 can be a little trickier.  Some customers require that the manufacturer date be before a certain time.  For example, they may require the part(s) to not be older than 24 months.  So you have to dig through the bin trying to find 3000 that have a date code within 24 months.  You may find 500 but that won’t work so you have to get on the computer and see if there are more somewhere in the system and if so, send out an order for them.  If not, then you have to indicate that the dates weren’t available and someone else will contact the customer to see if they will accept what we have.  Confused yet?  Then there are all sorts of messages you get on your scanner that a newbie has no idea what to do with.  I felt like I was constantly looking for one of our trainers to ask questions and then the other 32 trainees were doing the same thing so you’d just stand and wait your turn.  Once we have the order, we have to pack it so that it will not be damaged as it goes to the packer. There are rules to that also.  It really is a lot more complicated than one would think but I’m hoping that after another month, we’ll know how to handle most issues and things will run smoothly 80% of the time.  The time does go quickly though because there’s always another order coming out of the printer.  Week 2, we are going to be working in some other areas to get a feel for them. Then they’ll put us with mentors a week at at time for 3 weeks to work in different areas. So far we were in the “regular” area and the cut/tape area (this is where the parts are all on a tape like surface on reels).   Neither Steve nor I really liked the cut/tape area.  We’ll see what this week holds.  We are supposed to be in the moisture sensitive area and the electric static discharge area.  We already have to wear something on our shoes to discharge any static you might have on you.  You slip them around the heel of your shoe and then there’s a string that looks like a shoe string that you have to put underneath your foot in the shoe.  I’m going to try to upload a picture of this on my blog but due to serious WiFi challenges, I may not be able to.  We are supposed to check our shoe strips at least 4 times a day (after breaks and such) to make sure they “pass.”  There’s a machine that we step up on that checks to see if we are static free.  If they don’t pass, you have to find the issue before you can go on the floor no matter what area you are working in. A lot of things to remember and learn, but so far, I think we’re going to like working here. 

Our neighbors arrived on the 1st.  So far we are not impressed.  They seem nice, but they have pretty much spread out on our side of the lot where there’s more shade.  For you that aren’t RVers, the perimeters of a site is determined by your hook ups.  That makes it easy to determine what’s yours and what belongs to your neighbors since there’s no literal lines drawn.  Not sure where they missed that but they have been working as gate guards in the oil fields of South Texas and I know you don’t have to share space there.  Also they let their dog run off leash and it wanders into others’ sites.  We may put up with the site encroachment but we won’t put up with that   There are several around that don’t keep their dogs on a tether/leash and we may have to speak to the camp host about it if it becomes a problem.  That’s one of those camping rules that people think only apply to other people.  They don’t need to comply because their sweet “Lassie” is a perfect angel and would never annoy other people or dogs.  Not so!  Otherwise, our site is working out fine.  They are doing some pipeline work down the road so sometimes we get stopped by the work and have to wait before they release us.  Makes it a bit of a challenge to know exactly how long it will take us to get to work but we usually just leave 30 minutes before work and have plenty of time to get logged in and ready for class/work.  

Saturday night we decided to treat ourselves to dinner out.  I knew since it was a holiday weekend, my first choice might be closed but figured we could just go to another restaurant nearby.  Guess I forgot what small towns were like.  After trying 4 different places, all closed, we ended up at Dairy Queen.  Not sure what we’ll do if we want to eat out again tomorrow night!  Guess A&W...(those are the only 2 chains that exist in Thief River Falls that are allowing dine-in!).

We tried out a church in town last Sunday.  It was a non-denominational church since there’s no church of Christ here.  People were somewhat friendly but they only sang 2 songs (led by a music video on a screen).  I can’t do only 2 songs...I don’t think we’ll be back.  I found a church of Christ about 40 minutes from here but when I after seeing their live stream video on Facebook, realized it’s not your typical church of Christ, so that leaves Grand Forks which is 55 minutes away.  I was kind of down about the church situation but Steve and I were able to stream our Amarillo church on my phone this morning so I feel much better.  It did stop and buffer 4 times but we were at least able to catch it all.  I really wasn’t sure we would since we have such trouble with Verizon here. Guess God knew we needed it and gave it a little boost for us!  

[purplesurveys]

1104

survey by kaybee-x18

What was the highlight of your day? I mean, Flowers for Vases came out earlier on Spotify Philippines and I had no idea, and I waited all morning thinking the release would be in sync with US timezones so I was in for a nice surprise of a whole goddamn tracklist when I casually checked my Spotify at around 11 this morning haha. The album is beautiful and I’m so excited to take it with me on my journey to healing.

Also got paid today, so that’s shweeeeet. As a reward to myself (since I’m doing a bit of OT tonight) I also recently ordered banh mi and Vietnamese iced coffee for delivery and it’s currently on its way to me :) All in all, pretty solid day!

Do you know anyone who is anorexic? Not that I am aware of, but it’s possible that I do.

Are you dating the person you texted last? No. That would be the delivery rider who’s bringing my sandwich to me, and that is just creepy to think about.

Who has hurt you the most this year? I don’t let Gabie hurt me anymore, directly or indirectly. Everybody else has been gentle with me so far in 2021, which I appreciate.

What's the last insult someone said to you? Ugh it’ll stress me out to think about it again, but last week my mom was asking for some money and I advised her that I might not be able to just for the meantime; she immediately got all condescending, asking me how much I make in a month and what I spend it on. I thought it very rude and tactless, and it ruined the rest of my evening. I know she knows she has a tendency to be tactless, so I don’t know why she never does anything to change that behavior.

Trigger warning on a few questions belowwwww.

Was it a boy or a girl to text you last? It was a boy. Man is more proper actually, but whatever.

Do you wish you were somewhere else right now? Dude, it’s a Friday night and I’m on the rooftop on a chilly night, I’ve laid out a mat with some pillows and a blanket and I’m surrounded by my banh mi and iced coffee while Hayley’s new songs are playing faintly in the background. I’m right where I want to be.

Have you ever given up on someone for good? Yes, and I had no idea how incredibly liberating it would feel :)

Who was the last person you talked to before you went to bed last night? I think it was my mom, since she briefly knocked on my door to say goodnight shortly before I passed out.

How much did your car cost? I’m not sure exactly how much, but it’s definitely in the six-figure range. It’s a hatchback and secondhand so there’s no way it’d be worth a million bucks.

Will you have a boyfriend/girlfriend in 6 months? No; I’ve ended up really liking being by myself. It’ll be a while before I open myself up to love again, if I ever do.

Who was the last person whose phone number you added to your contacts? One of our brand clients recently recruited a new guy to be a part of their team, so as we got acquainted I also got access to his contact details.

When was the last time you hugged someone? It was when Andi was leaving my car as we parted ways a few weeks ago.

What is the last picture you received on your phone of? Pretty sure it was work-related since my teammates share photos through Viber all the time. I can’t be bothered to check, though.

Are you better at remembering names or faces? Can easily spot familiar faces from a mile away, but I’m quite terrible at remembering names.

Have you ever tried your hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end? See: the entirety of my relationship that ultimately failed. I cherished and took care of that relationship as much as I could, but the effort I got was never the same and I ended up being hurt, too. It’s going to take a while before I gain my trust and confidence back when it comes to these things.

Have you ever let someone go because you thought they deserved better? This was Gab’s perspective and reasoning, not mine. I’m starting to believe it’s all bullshit though; that it’s an excuse she used so that I could feel better about myself. At this pont in time, I’m pretty sure she just wanted to be free from this “burden” of a relationship that she increasingly found “exhausting.”

Who did you last share a taxi with? God I have not been in one of those in a long time. My last ride in an actual taxi was with my family; but in the last ride-hailing service I took (like Uber), I was by myself since I was headed to school that day.

Is there anybody you're really disappointed in right now? No, no reason to feel that way towards anyone at the moment.

What do you hear right now? I can hear the faint engine of a motorcycle. I can also hear a couple of dogs barking.

Do you remember the first time you met the last person you kissed? Yes.

Do you like polka-dotted things? Not always, but sure. Sometimes the look can be tacky, but there are times that it looks cute.

Do you do anything to help the environment? In my own little ways, like dividing all my notebook pages into two columns to save up on paper; reusing paper and plastic bags, turn off my car engine when I have to idle somewhere, etc.

What do you think of people who complain about Valentine's Day? I don’t care lmao, it’s not my problem.

Have you ever had to get stitches? No.

When's the last time you did something you knew was wrong? Trigger warning: Self-harm. Last week when I grabbed a key in my room and did stuff to my wrist with it. A few months’ progress down the drain.

What was the last thing you wore that was black? The shirt I am currently wearing is black.

Is your tongue pierced? Nope.

Do you think that you have a pretty smile? Yes, I like the way I smile.

What month were you born in? April.

When's the last time you cried over a guy? Wow lmao, literally no idea. The only instance coming to mind is whenever I miss either my grandpa or Nacho, but I can’t pinpoint the last time I found myself in tears over either.

Are you keeping a secret that would shock people if they found out? I think so.

What pissed you off yesterday? The internet has been going on and off for the last few days.

The person you like at the moment finds someone new, what is your reaction? I don’t know if I like anyone at the moment, at least not anymore. But I think I would still get affected if the word ever gets to me that my ex is seeing someone new, should it happen in the near future. That’s why I’m one step ahead and just stopped talking to her and have muted her on all social media.

Are you scared to lose the person you fell the hardest for? I already did. I was definitely scared and devastated at first, and I was for a while. Once I came to terms with the fact that nothing was my fault and that it isn’t my loss, it became much easier to get over it.

Has anyone seen you in your underwear this month? Nah.

Is your life falling apart or coming together? Coming together.

Is there someone you wouldn't mind kissing right now? When it comes down to it, and considering my stupidity when it comes to love, yes.

Do you know anyone in the army? Yes but just vaguely. Angela’s uncle is a high-ranking...army person. Army official?? Idk how to refer to them but yeah he’s like a general or colonel or something like that.

Do you have any friends that actually model? I wouldn’t count any of them as friends but yeah, I went to high school and/or college with people who have since become influencers and have endorsement deals and stuff. Cheenie is probably the most notable one.

If you could go back in time and change something, would you? Probably.

Do you care about the last person you kissed? Again, when it comes down to it, yes.

Do they care about you? I have no idea but I don’t dwell on it anymore.

Are you for or against gay marriage? Of course I’m for.

Ever kissed someone whose name started with A, B, C, & D? No to all of these.

Is there someone you wish you were with right now? Mmm I don’t think so. I like spending this evening by myself.

Do you still talk to the person you liked 3 months ago? Nope. I don’t have a reason to.

When do you want to get married? I’d love to get married in my late 20s, but I don’t know if that’s still a possibility.

Do you know anyone who’s committed suicide? Yes.

Have you ever imagined how it would feel kissing a certain someone? I think about this with certain people sometimes, but most of the time they are annoying, unwelcome, invasive thoughts that I try to shake off immediately.

Would you fall apart if that last person you kissed died? What’s with some of these questions lmao??? Yeah absolutely. 

Is there anyone who doesn't like you? If there is, I don’t know anything about it and I doubt that I would care,

When was the last time you wanted to punch someone in their face? Yesterday when a client was being extra annoying.

What was the last thing you cried about? I stumbled upon an emotional scene from Grey’s Anatomy on Facebook this morning, and I let myself go while watching it haha. It was a great snippet.

Do you have nice eyes? I’m not particularly known for my eyes, like they’re nothing special. I’ve got nothing to complain about them, though.

What are the bad things you've heard people say about you? I’m not sure if I’ve caught anything bad. If I did it most definitely would have stuck and continued to stick with me.

Is there anyone that is jealous of you or anything that you have? Not that I know of.

How many true friends do you have? Right now, I would say two very close friends.

Does anyone disgust you? Sure.

Do you flirt a lot? Never.

Have you ever caught a friend cheating on their bf/gf? I have not, and I’m glad none of them have.

What phrase or saying do you use the most? I’ve said this on a recent survey but I say “Awesome!” a lot, but it’s a habit I picked up from my now-ex.

What mood are you in right now? I’mmmmmmm getting a little sleepy tbh, but I’m trying to keep myself up for a few more hours because it’s a Friday evening.

Have you ever kissed someone that was high? No.

Are you waiting for anything? Not really.

Do you have a good relationship with your mother? It’s civil at best. We don’t get at each other’s throats as often as we used to anymore but I don’t feel the need to improve our relationship, and I’d rather still keep a safe distance from her.

Do you think Jersey people are annoying? I don’t know any of them because I live on the other side of the world, so...

How many exes do you have? One.

Did anyone break up with you in the last 5 days? No. Last five months, sure.

Who was the last person that broke your heart? Cheesy phrase, but Gabie.

Do you love anyone? I love a lot of people.

Do you want to be single or with someone? Not looking for anything at this point in time. I mean I’d really rather be in a relationship when it comes down to it, but I wouldn’t force myself in one for the sake of being in one. If no one fits the mold, then I’d be just as happy being single, and this happens to be where I am right now. I’m okay with that.

What song are you listening to right now? No music.

Why did you kiss the last person you kissed? Because she was leaving and I wanted to say goodbye.

Does your mom think you’re a virgin? Yes.

Is there someone that wants you to give them a second chance? I think my brother, but my mind is set on never saying a word to him again.

Do you hate the last guy you had a conversation with? I don’t hate him; he’s just a particularly difficult client to deal with.

Would you rather get high or have sex right now? Getting high would be a brand new experience, so let’s go with that haha.

Do you know anyone with a star tattoo right by their hip bone? No, I don’t.

Did anyone give you anything last Valentine's Day? Last year, yes. This year, no.

Do you keep condoms in your room? No, I don’t need to.

What do you think about people who party a lot? Like, in 2021?? I would think they are highly insensitive and irresponsible and putting so many of their loved ones at risk. 

Have you ever been caught sneaking out of your house? Nopes.

How much time do you spend on AIM a day? I don’t.

Is there a secret you've never told your parents? I hold way more secrets than actual things they know about me.

Ever kissed someone over 30? No.

What size bra do you wear? Baby bra size, whatever the measurement for that is HAHA

Does the person you last kissed still like you? Lmfao no. She hasn’t for a while now.

Are your parents still together? Yes.

Was your first time good or bad? Good.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #374

“doctor, doctor, won’t you please prescribe me something?  /  a day in the life of someone else...”

Does someone have a crush on you but you don’t feel the same way? No. Who do you feel most beautiful around? No one. What’s one makeup item you cannot live without? I could live without any makeup. What’s the most expensive thing you own? My snake, I think. Or my laptop, idr. Are you more of a book person or a TV person? Book. Relationship status? Single. What color are most of your clothes? Black. Did you french kiss before you were 16? No, I was 16. Last song you listened to? "The Heretic Anthem" by Slipknot. Would you ever go back to any of your past relationships? Yes. What’s your favorite thing about life? That's a big question. I guess seeing acts of mass love and kindness, reminders that we're all in this together through all hardships. Who pays for the first date? Whoever asked the other person out, imo. Who has always been there for you? My mom. Have you ever written on a wall? No, at least not to my memory. Do you play any computer games, if so, what ones? I think anyone who reads these by now knows, haha. I don't much play anything else. I prefer console games. What would you name a baby boy if you had one? Probably Damien or Victor. What would you name a baby girl if you had one? Alessandra, no questions asked. What lyric means the most to you? I mean there's tons, but the first one that came to mind is "for such a little thing, you sure are in your own way" from "Get Up" by Mother Mother. Like in the big picture, we humans are so so so minuscule, but with brains that are too complicated for our own good. It's my own head that creates so many obstacles for me. Who is the smartest person you know? Probably my friend Girt. Have your parents ever been to jail? No. Do you share a bed with anyone? My cat, haha. Does it flatter you when guys open doors for you? It's flattering if anyone does, not just guys. Do you enjoy taking naps? Yeah. That's like part of my daily routine. If your friend asked you to hold their drugs, would you? Nope. Is there anyone you try to be a good influence for? My nieces and nephew, but I don't feel like I am. I'm a poor example of an adult. Do you own a pair of fishnets? No, but I have a pair of fingerless fishnet gloves. Which do you prefer: french toast, bagels, pancakes, waffles, bacon or cereal? All are great, but french toast. Yes or no: eyebrow piercings? I'd actually have one if I didn't have glasses. I think I'd look weird with one as I look now. When I say "The Beatles," what is the first song that comes to mind? "Hey, Jude." In your opinion, what is the very worst type of weather? Extremely hot and humid. You can only listen to one band for the rest of your life, who do you pick? Ozzy Osbourne, of course. Can you snap with both of your hands? Yeah, but it's harder with my left. What is something that you had to learn the hard way? For some people, promises don't mean shit. If you could re-paint your bedroom, what color would you paint it? Maybe like a light peach. When was the last time you got butterflies? I think not since Sara told me I look really pretty in eyeliner. ;_; <3 When was the last time you felt like your heart was actually breaking? There was this one time I was listening to "The Ghost of You" by MCR a while after finding out about Jason's mom's death and I just like... broke. When’s the last time you were in a line? When I was getting my second COVID shot. Do you trust the media? HA! Fuck no. If you could kill off one species of animal, which would it be? At first I was appalled by this question, but like... do wasps serve a purpose? Of all fauna, they annoy me the most. I mean bees are already endangered enough, and they prey on them. They don't pollinate, so like... why are you here. I may be mistaken and they have a valuable role, in which case I take all this back. Who’d you last say I love you to? My mom. What’s the most overpaid job in your opinion? I have on idea. Most jobs are underpaid. What’s the last thing you wrote down? I was doing some paperwork at the TMS office on my first day there. When’s the last time you heard a gunshot? I don’t know. What are you looking forward to? Now that my tattoo (which looks fucking stunning, by the way) is out of the way, I can focus on other things. I'm particularly looking forward to hopefully seeing the results of TMS manifest (which should take 3-4 weeks). It sounds horrible, but I'm also keenly awaiting this dog we're stuck with to go somewhere... The person who gave her to my sister to give my mom won't take the dog back, and we can't find another option that doesn't risk her being euthanized, which we absolutely do not want. We just don't know what to do, but she's driving Mom and me INSANE. Do you listen to online radio stations? No. Have you ever done something sexual that you regret? No. Have you ever said anything to the last person you kissed that you regret? Multiple things. Have you ever ate so much you puked? Ugh, no. That sounds awful. Do you care about what others think of your physical appearance? Very much, sadly. Would you rather eat cookies or brownies? I gotta say brownies. Which YouTuber have you learned the most from? I mean, this depends on the subject. From Mark, I've learned most about life and how (I think) to be a good person, but there's a lot of pet channels I watch that have taught me loads about proper husbandry. This answer just depends on what knowledge you're talkin' about. Who would you want to be the flower girl at your wedding? Probably a niece. Do you want to be married within the next ten years? It'd be nice. Do you feel like your life is too fast-paced, or do you wish it were busier? Ugh, I wish it was busier. My days are a COMPLETE, routine drag. What are some hobbies which you want to pick up? I want to just be more artsy. I wanna draw and write more, and I'd love love love to be in healthy enough shape to handle going on walks with my camera. There are sometimes I miss editing videos, too. I'm unsure about completely new hobbies. Does anyone encourage you to go after your dreams? My family and a few friends. Oh, and definitely my psychiatrist. What group are you most active in on Facebook? None, really. I mostly just observe. Are you ashamed of anything? A number of things. Primarily not having a job at my age or even being in school. What were your favorite Disney rides as a kid? I loved Splash Mountain, I think it was called. What were your favorite rides at Cedar Point? Never been. What are some places you want to visit that you’ve never been? South Africa, Alaska, Canada, Yellowstone National Park, Bahamas, Venice, Rome... What are some places that you’ve been that you’d like to go to again? Disney World, Chicago, and this one super clear lake I swam in once a few hours away that I don't recall the name of. Have you ever owned a succulent? No. While they're pretty, I've never been much of a plant person. Do you support small businesses? I REALLY want to start doing that more when I have the option to buy my own stuff/have my own income. As someone who wants to be a freelance photographer, I get it. Starting an independent business is hard as hell. If a brand were to sponsor you, which brand(s) would you prefer? Uhhh I dunno. Have you read the entire Bible? No. Do you make bucket lists for each season? No. That does sound kinda fun, though. How old were you when you first dyed your hair? I have no idea. Do you dye your hair regularly? No. :/ I desperately want to, though. It's just not something we can afford to spare cash on. What is the most comfortable type of pants, in your opinion? Pajama pants? haha Do you think you could ever be famous? No. I'm way too boring and don't want to be anyway. What are some jobs you’ve had in the past? Sales associate, cashier, and deli worker. None lasted long whatsoever. What are some jobs you want to or would like to have? List five. FIVE? I don't know. I just know I want to be a photographer. Well, being an artist or poet would be very cool. And a reptile breeder, maybe tarantulas, too, but that makes me kinda nervous with JUST how many babies they have. What are some jobs you have considered? In rough order from youth to now: paleontologist, vet, movie director, game designer, author/poet, artist, music video editor, wildlife biologist, photographer... Maybe there's more that just aren't coming to me. Are you thankful for social media, or do you wish it didn’t exist? Depends on the day for me, but I'm generally thankful for it so I can keep up with the lives of people who are important to me. It's just that it's a breeding ground for self-doubt and rampant comparisons that can easily depress me when I see some people are "further ahead" and more "established" than me. What are some of the best medications you’ve ever had? The combined efforts of Latuda and Lamictal saved my life. What was a video you watched over and over as a kid? There were lots of movies, like The Lion King, a certain Barney one when I was very young, and I watched Finding Nemo like crazy. Do you know a lot of people who were loving, and then turned cold? Jason????????????????? Is that you??????????????????????????????????????????? Do you own anything plaid? Ha, what a coincidence, I'm wearing my red plaid pj pants. Are you good at remembering names? Definitely not. Have the cops ever gotten on to you for anything before? No. What email thingy do you use? (yahoo, gmail, rock) ... Rock? lol anyway my main is Hotmail, but I inevitably have a gmail to have a YouTube account. What game system(s) do you own? PS2, Wii, Nintendo DS Lite, and a GameBoy Advance. Are you any good at Guitar Hero? I used to be; I played most songs on Expert, then some really tough ones on Hard. I was soooooo addicted to those games. I remember when I got the first one for Christmas, I literally played it all day. Have you ever played Call of Duty? Nah, not my jam. What is your favorite/most visited website? YouTube. Is your bed comfortable? Sure. I've definitely had way worse. Do you have a garage? No. Fun fact, I've never lived in a house with one. Should you be doing anything right now? What? There's a number of things I could be doing that are definitely more productive, like finishing decorating my damn room. Do doctors or dentists make you more nervous? Not really. I only ever get nervous to hear my weight at the doctor's. Did you ever think you were about to die before? I don't quite know. When I ODed, it was more like I didn't care if I did. Have you ever really had a near death experience? Was it cool? "Was it cool." Literally fuck off. I guess you could technically consider my OD a "near death experience," especially given how many pills I took, yet I somehow experienced almost no ill symptoms. Maybe because we got to the ER for fluids quickly enough, idk. I'm just glad I didn't die. What is your favorite kind of weather? Snowy! Like a steady snowfall of large flakes with no breeze and total silence. *chef's kiss* Ever tasted beer? Ugh, no. Just the smell makes me sick. It was my dad's drink of choice when he was an alcoholic so I just have a very negative association with it. Have you ever seen a dead body? Yes, at an open-casket wake. Ever poured salt on a slug? As kids, my sisters and I would get our parents to do it because they grossed us out. So, so cruel. I still have this weird but pretty extreme phobia of them, but I wouldn't torture the things like that.

[k9kesi]

Racing greyhounds in the United States

I have so many good resources to share with you!  I want to first emphasize that when I speak of racing practices, my knowledge is solely about racing in the United States.  I have not done extensive research into other countries (other than the plight of the galgo in Spain, which is separate from racing), and I don’t have enough of a knowledge base to comment one way or the other on them.  I want to make a pretty comprehensive post here but not make it so heavy that it is hard to dig into, so I’ll try to summarize a few issues and at the bottom give multiple references.  I know there is simply no way to cover every question that may be out there, so hopefully the references can help with that.

All photos courtesy of Rachel Hogue, who has graciously allowed her photos to be shared for informative purposes.

Misconceptions of cruelty

I thought I should address this first.  A lot of people completely unfamiliar with greyhounds or sighthounds think they are too thin, malnourished, or starved even when they are in peak physical condition.  So keep in mind when you hear people claim that they are all starved, the person may be simply uninformed and uneducated about the ideal body condition of a sighthound.  It’s not uncommon for adopters to let their greys become overweight after adoption due to being alarmed at the sight of ribs, spine or hip points. 

Another misconception is that a nervous or scared hound proves abuse occurred.  There can be many reason a hound is scared.  One is that simply the stress of a complete environment and routine change for the dog has caused him/her to be particularly anxious.  Going from a racing life to a home life is an incredible transition and some handle it better than others.  Nothing I’ve read brings a better understanding of that than this wonderful excerpt from a seminar by Kathleen Gilley titled "What is your new adoptive greyhound thinking?"

Another possibility, if the hound seems to be very extreme in their anxiety and shyness, is that a small number of hounds are what is termed “spooks.”  Just like some people become very anxious, or OCD, or perhaps have agoraphobia, some dogs have these issues (and it’s not limited to greyhounds as a breed).  It CAN be hereditary.  While generally severe spooks are often simply retired quickly because they just don’t handle racing well, some actually do quite well in racing and only become more “neurotic” when they are taken out of their comfort zone.  For these types, it takes a very long period of adjustment in retirement and a patient person to deal with their sensitivity.  You can read an interesting discussion about spooks here on the Grey Talk forum.

Simple Logic

Stopping to think about some of the wilder claims made, when you really think about them, make no logical sense.  Consider, for example, that racing owners and breeders want a top performing dog.  A top performer will win more races, more purses, and ultimately perhaps become a sought after stud or a brood bitch whose pups will be highly valuable.  A breeder spends thousands of dollars to have and raise a litter.  It’s not simply taking a male and female and throwing them together.

If you look at pedigrees, and every racing hound’s pedigree is registered and recorded online here, you will see certain sires and lines in common with many, many hounds.  That is because those dogs were exceptional performers.  That means that people pay an expensive stud fee to have litters with those bloodlines.  Already it makes no sense that there would be that kind of money and care put into a litter only to abuse and treat them badly.  If a person starved and abused their dogs, all it would take was someone who didn’t do so to have dogs that outperformed the others.  Even if you don’t believe these people care for their dogs (and most do), sheer logic says that if they want to make money and have any success that the dogs must be able to perform well. 

Let’s then move on to the logic behind the claim that the dogs are being forced to race all their lives.  I have to say, as an aside, that it’s laughable that these dogs are forced to run in any way.  There can be no doubt that these dogs love what they do, they love running and racing.  When handlers take them out for schooling or race day, they leap and strain and can’t wait to get to the track.

If you haven’t seen it, this video of a retired racer watching other dogs race is quite telling as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqdRV6HNfPQ

In truth, most race for one season, maybe two.  If they are very successful, they don’t want to continue to race long-term a potential breeding hound because there is always some amount of risk of injury (as there is with any activity).  A dog that has proven exceptional skill is going to be an excellent candidate to add to the gene pool of future racers.  On the flip side, they won’t want to keep a poor racer around because they have to continue to pay for that dog’s upkeep.  The track has a limited amount of space and kennels, and owners are going to want to keep their newest prospects there, not have a dog that isn’t winning languishing there and draining resources.  It makes no sense.  The kennels are owned by the track, and the track is not owned by the industry. 

The Pro Greyhound Movement

A really great resource on Facebook is The Pro Greyhound Movement.  It is a closed group so you must be approved to join; however if you don’t look like a spambot you can generally be approved within a day or so.  There are many owners, breeders, trainers, track workers, and other adopters in this group.  It was created to be a means of communication and connection between those in the industry and adopters.  They are very willing to answer questions, and often if you give your dog’s racing name you might find out information about them.  Some trainers may specifically remember your hound, or can give you more information about where your dog came from.  If you’re lucky you might be able to connect with a trainer or breeder and get past photos of your hound from their racing life.  I must warn you, however, that if you join up and immediately start out attacking people there your reception will not be a good one.  They are understandably wary and defensive with people who seem to have an agenda other than learning.  AR groups have “joined” before and stolen pictures only to edit and post them out of context in anti-racing propaganda.  So that’s something to be aware of.

Dennis McKeon

Dennis really deserves a special mention here because he has written extensive essays and articles to share what goes on in the industry and debunking myths surrounding racing in the US.  He has been involved in the industry as a trainer most of his adult life.  A list of some of his myth debunking pieces can be found here:  Debunking Lies.  Dennis also posts often on his own Facebook page which is set to public so that it is open to all.  I have spoken to him and asked him if he’d be willing to answer questions directly from people, which he generously agreed to.  If you have questions that you just can’t seem to find good answers to, you can contact him through his Facebook page.

Resources and more Resources

I could go on forever here, but this is probably too long as it is!  So here are several wonderful resources that you can check out to see what normal racing greyhound life is like and how they are treated.  You might be pleasantly surprised!

Greyhoundfacts.org:  Greyhound Facts is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Our mission is to provide a place to learn about all aspects of present day greyhound racing in the USA from those with hands on experience. Our network of volunteers includes people who are actively involved in the breeding, raising, training, and rehoming of these wonderful hounds. 

All About Greyhounds:  Welcome to All About Greyhounds!  We hope you will explore all the pages of the website, Greyhounds have many facets and we hope to showcase them all.  We endeavor to keep this website fresh and up to date, so please enjoy your visit and come back often.

 Oh Happy Racing Greyhound:  Community on Facebook. 

Adopted Greyhound Puppies:  Article and photos about greyhound puppies who, for whatever reason, don’t become racers.

Racing Greyhounds and Their People:  There seems to be a common misconception that racing greyhounds don't get much human contact while they're at the track.  A look behind the scenes shows how much trainers and kennel staff truly love these dogs in their care, as well as how much the dogs love them back. 

Blanchard Greyhound Racing:  A racing kennel that has graciously opened up to the public with updates, photos, and videos about their hounds.

Jason Michael:  Works with Palm Beach Kennels in Florida.  He shares photos and videos of the racers daily.

Life at a Greyhound Track (Rachel Hogue):  A beautiful photo blog that takes you through the life of the typical racing greyhound.  Browse through the photos and read the captions, you will learn a lot!  She has other albums with fantastic photos from racing hounds to puppies at the farm.

American Greyhound Council:  The American Greyhound Council (AGC) was established in 1987 to fund and manage greyhound welfare, research and adoption programs for the racing community.  It is a joint effort of the National Greyhound Association, the official greyhound registry and breeding organization; and the American Greyhound Track Operators Association. The AGC works with breeders, tracks, adoption groups, regulators, elected officials and others to ensure the health and safety of greyhounds at every stage of their lives. 

National Greyhound Association:  The NGA is the official registry of the breed, a membership organization devoted to overseeing the recording of the breeding, registrations and performance of the Sport of Queens in the United States.  Greyhound racing starts here, where professional members gather information to breed, whelp, humanely raise and produce the world's fastest canine.  Most importantly, we celebrate a history of the breed and exalt the finest traits, to produce the finest athletes and amazing all around dog.  

Conclusion

If you’ve adopted a racer, perhaps try to get in touch with your dog’s breeder or trainer.  It can’t always be done but sometimes it can and they are happy to hear from adopters.  Cole’s breeder was pleased to hear about him and sent me farm and puppy photos.

(c) Boeckenstedt farms

Rudy’s breeder became friends with me on Facebook where she loves sharing videos I post of him to her own page.  I know a certain someone here on Tumblr who found people at the track through the Pro Greyhound Movement who remembered her hound, and even told a story of a specific song they used to sing to him ;).  

I’m not trying to make people pro-racing here.  I’m trying to stop the spread of misinformation that is completely false.  They aren’t starved and beaten.  They aren’t raced their entire lives, and they don’t live in a tiny cage 24/7 except when they race.  They haven’t been deprived of all love and caring their whole lives.  They aren’t forced to run.  They are not mass-killed if they don’t win races.  I only ask you listen to the other side and find out the facts before spreading information that may be inaccurate and ultimately harmful to the very dogs you are trying to help.

Cole and Rudy, 2015

[stargleeksil-blog]

Criminal Minds s05e22 “The Internet Is Forever” review - or more aptly named, one heck of a long review because this episode was perfect. I LOVE CRIMINAL MINDS!

Episode 22 – The Internet is Forever

Hey guys! Whew, what a week, and it only started yesterday. Yes, I work Sundays, because I live in Israel, where our ‘holy day’ is Friday, but I work in Nespresso customer service so I work once every two weeks on Fridays too, so I guess I got the short straw until I own my mega super empire of translation.

Whatever.

That was a little rant.

Anyway, let’s see what happens.

Okay, this is seriously one hell of a creepy intro into the show. What the fuck is this thing?

What the …

Why do they always have to murder people in their sleep? It’s creepy.

So three missing women in Boise, Idaho in one year two months apart? Yikes. That sounds nuts.

“Well, hello.”

Bed-head poodle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my god, the fascinated look on Rossi’s face!

I can’t take this show’s fascination with Reid’s hair. I love it!

“What, did you join a boy band?”

“No.”

I love it how he takes it so seriously!

Derek, you little shit.

“Okay, so what are we looking at here? Late twenties, early thirties.”

“All single, though two are in a committed relationships. All living on their own.”

Huh? That doesn’t make sense.

How are they single if they are in committed relationships?

“Looks like normal suburban houses. Gives the unsub privacy.”

“The differences are more striking than the similarities. Different hair colors, different body shapes.”

Smart poodle, I love you.

“What do you know about his MO?”

“That’s why we were invited in. The abduction sites are pristine.”

Oh dear.

“And there’s no DNA besides the victims’.”

Shit.

“and the victims aren’t reported missing until two or three days after they’re abducted.”

“Two or three days … women like this don’t just vanish without somebody noticing.”

True.

They were hot.

“Yes. Which is why I asked Garcia to dig into their lives.”

I love you, JJ, for appreciating my honey.

“And when I took a look at their online activity, I could easily see how the unsub is doing it.”

“Social networking sites.”

Fuck.

“Yeah. Facebook, Twitter. You name an online life-sharing time-suck, the victims were on it. And if you look at each of their last posts, they say the same thing … going out of town, going on a business trip, going on a vacation.”

Oh dear.

“But when you look at the time and date stamp of each of these,”

“Cue the Twilight Zone music,”

“Because they were all posted the morning after each of them went missing.”

Boom. My baby girl has them on her rope.

“The unsub posted them.”

Duh.

“Social networks are an easy way for an unsub to target his victims.”

Yeah, no kidding.

Oh, and I promise – I’m not an unsub ;)

“These women were especially open. They posted everything from what they were having for dinner to where they were going on dates.”

Yeesh.

“So this unsub friends his victims and then uses that as a cover once he takes them.”

Oh god.

“That means he can hack into their accounts.”

Yup.

“So he’s excellent with computers.”

“Definitely profiles as patient and organized.”

‘He’s obsessive enough to remove all forensic details, but also patient enough to wait two months before abductions.”

“He can afford to be. He gets three days to do whatever he wants to these women.”

Oh god.

“That means we need to assume these women are already dead.”

Fuck.

“The question is what he does while he has them.”

Oh god.

George Bernard Shaw: “The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

What the fuck? That was seriously beyond inception, and totally fucked wiht my brain. If anyone can explain to me what Shaw meant, I’ll give them a kiss, like, literally, fly all the way to your home and make out with you.

“So if this unsub is using social networks to find his victims, can’t we use that to find him?”

Aw, my optimistic puppy.

“Yeah, if these women each had a hundred friends following them, then the unsub would pop up on each of their lists, right?”

“Uh, the detective in charge, John Fordham, he looked into their groups. Everyone checked out.”

Guess not.

“Social networking sites are surprisingly insecure.”

“Facebook recently tried to update all their privacy settings, and in doing so, they made everybody’s profiles viewable.”

Whoops. Bad move there, Facebook.

Lol.

“Can somebody explain to me the appeal of these sites?”

Oh my darling Italian grandpa.

“‘Eating sushi tonight. Yum.’”

Oh my god, I love this show.

‘‘Boss is keeping me late at work. Grr.’”

Oh god, I died.

“Whose life is so important that we’d be interested in this kind of detail?”

“I don’t know. I guess that’s the running joke, right?”

Huh?

“I mean, nobody is.”

“But we’d all like to believe there’s actually an audience out there that wants to follow our every move.”

Whoa, that was extremely deep, my gorgeous puppy.

“You know, some sites actually have a GPS feature built in. You can tell exactly where someone is every time they post a new comment.”

Yup. We’re seriously living in a dangerous world.

“This is telling us how he’s finding him, but it’s not telling us how he’s getting into their houses.”

“At the very least, I believe that he has copies of their keys. Doris Archer gad a security home system installed, but the disable code was entered at 1:56 AM. So he knew that, too.”

Fudge.

“He also found a way to deal with her dog.”

“A German Shepherd she adopted from the pound last year went missing the night that she did.”

Awwwwww

“All right, so this guy’s gotta be in and out of the house well before the night of the disappearance.”

Well, yeah.

“What about the people who come into your house that you don’t consider a threat?”

Oh boy. That’s one smart Italian honey.

“Okay, Morgan and Prentiss, start with the last abduction sites. See if anything points to his MO.”

“Dave, you, Reid, and JJ go back over the women’s lives. Start with their friends on the social networking sites.”

Oh dear. I hope they find this fucker.

“Did you find anyone willing to talk to us about the victims?”

“The problem wasn’t who to bring in.”

Can I be honest? That guy reminds me of a cartoon ... can’t put my finger on it, but he does.

Whoa. That’s a lot of people.

“The man we’re looking for might have found your daughter through her social networks. Did Paula mention anyone new in her life?”

Nope.

It’s her mom. She doesn’t’ know about Facebook and stuff. No offense to any moms out there, but usually nowaday moms around that age are pretty incompetent with Facebook.

“So I’m assuming she knew who followed her, then?”

“Oh, god no. She had over 1,000 friends.”

Ha.

“Wow. Why so many?”

Oh my honey.

It’s a work strategy.

“So, wait. Even though she told all those people what she was doing, she didn’t know who was following her?”

Welcome to the 21st century – where we share everything with strangers and basically invite creepers to kill us ;)

“Actually, I don’t have email.”

LOL.

“These websites are like email on crack”.

Yup.

“Did Doris ever mention letting someone in her home?”

Nope.

“Bruno ... the dog. So he was a guard dog?”

Oh god. The poor puppy.

So he changed the photographs that told a story? Oh boy.

“Okay, JJ, I got it.”

“You see it?”

“Actually, yeah. Looks like he did try to hang something on the wall.”

Boom. My puppy is on top of things.

“There’s even a little residue left over.”

“Morgan.”

“Let me call you back.”

“Yeah, what do you got?”

“Hey, I got one up here, too.”

“What would he try to hang on that part of the wall?”

“Well, from here, I have an unobstructed view of the second floor and down the stairs.”

“It’s the same thing down here. You can see the entire entrance.”

“Cameras.”

Fuck.

“We think this is what he’s using to spy on his victims.”

Shit.

“They’re small, they’re cheap, and they’re easily hidden behind photos, books, plants.”

“The footage they record can be transmitted anywhere … website of your choice, even your cell phone.”

Fuck.

Meanwhile, my poodle investigates.

“And he can toggle between cameras to see everything that’s happening in the house.”

Oh dear lord.

“And you found five of these at different points in the house?”

“Upstairs, downstairs, bedroom, even the bath.”

Oh god, this dude is sick.

“A ruse gets him in the door, but it doesn’t buy him enough time to put up five of these.”

Nope.

“Once he learns their routine, all he has to do is pick the lock, put up the rest of the cameras, and boom, he got their whole life at his fingertips.”

Fuck.

“What does he do with the video? Maybe he keeps them?”

“If he’s voyeur, yes.”

And there they go again, making Derek say the sexiest things ever in the sickest connotation and it just infuriates me.

“Uh, voyeurs are rarely violent. Their excitement comes from spying without the object knowing they’re being watched.”

“And by abducting his victims, he’s removing the outlet of his sexual release. Reid is right.”

Duh. I mean, why is this even being put in question?

“We need to have Garcia dig the surveillance and illegal video websites.”

“I’m going to take this with us.”

“Why?”

“We originally profiled there wasn’t any facial similarity between the victims, but I’m not so sure that’s true.”

“I want to compare Doris’s picture with the other victims.”

Oh my smart poodle.

“These videos the unsub took, it looks like one of them he posted online, which may help me nab him.”

“If he puts it on the web, can’t you track that back directly to his computer?”

“Normally, yes. Normally, in like seventeen seconds I can get you the network he’s using, get a physical address,”

“And presto change-o, no more bad guy,”

“But this unsub is a creepy computer aficionado.”

Well, fuck.

“Do you guys know what a proxy server is?”

“It’s an internet relay.”

“Precisely. Kids use them to get around blocked sites.”

Fuck.

“Now, usually, one proxy is plenty, but this piece of work is using dozens of proxy servers.”

Shit.

“He’s bounced his signal off China, North Korea, Russia, South Africa …”

“Garcia, can you track him back to Boise?”

“Of course I can, and that’s what I’m doing. Time is the unfortunate ingredient I need, though.”

Fuck.

“This just in. Looks like one of the proxy servers archived what he was streaming on the night of Doris Archer’s disappearance.”

Shit.

“Can we see it?”

“Pulling it up now.”

“Well, Prentiss and Morgan were right. He knows the house.”

“Oh, please don’t hurt that doggie.”

I love you, my angel.

“The camera’s attached to him. It’s his point of view.”

Shit.

“So he can relive it over and over again.”

Double shit.

“Okay, can someone tell me when this is over?”

I love you.

“Please.”

“Not yet.”

Fuck.

“He’s tender to her.”

“She means more to him as a corpse than as a living person.”

Fuck.

“Garcia, we need to find the unsub’s network. Even if it’s a rough area, it’ll help narrow the geographic profile.”

“Yes, sir, that’s totally what I’m trying to figure out. Uh, there is something else kind of huge you need to know about.”

Oh fuck.

“Do you see this line of code there?”

“Yeah, what about them?”

“It allows the user admin, and in this case, the unsub, to set up a chat room.”

Fuck.

“People were watching this on the night of the murder.”

“We thought he was posting these after the act. He’s not.”

“He wants people to experience it with him.”

“He wants an audience.”

Shit.

I’m about to barf.

“He has fans.”

“Tip of the hat to his fans.”

Fuck.

“He knows they’re watching.”

“Classic narcissistic behavior.”

Pah. You know it.

“Hey, guys. Garcia’s got something for us.”

“Go ahead, baby girl.”

“Okay, friends, I have some good news, but first, here is the thing that sucks.”

“I located the network the unsub is using in Boise, and it is the victims’ own wireless.”

“So does he hack in before he starts with the murders.”

“Hacking is obscenely time-consuming.”

“I just make it look easy because I’m a genius.”

“But, he’s not me.”

Oh god, I love this woman.

“So my guess is that he’s got to lurk around their network for at least a couple of days to a week before he kills them.”

“Yeah, he knows when we follow his online paper trail it’ll lead us right back to the murder site.”

“What’s the good news?”

“Hackers are very loyal to their spoofing techniques, and if they think no one’s watching, they’ll use the same roads over and over.”

“Okay, so if he goes through Russia, Chine, and North Korea again …”

“I have flagged those servers, and if he uses them in the same order, I will catch him so fast.”

“That’s only going to help if he commits another murder.”

“Yes, that’s also true.”

Fuck.

“Excuse me.”

“Garcia, if he does stream this again, how much time will you need to find the network?”

“Oh, uh, that’s hard to guess with all the international pinging. I …”

“Ballpark.”

“Seven minutes?”

That’s fast.

“That’s not fast enough. He’s in and out of the house in five.”

Fuck.

“Oh, God. I’m going to have to trim my time down, then.”

I love how she just sets goals for herself, not even questioning her own abilities.

“Garcia, get it done.”

Hey! Not nice!

“JJ, we need to call a press conference.”

Oh god.

“I know what connects the victims.”

What?

“I was staring at pictures of the victims and I knew there was a pattern connecting them, but I couldn’t tell what it was until I broke it down mathematically.”

Oh my genius poodle.

“Why are we so drawn to celebrity faces?”

Says the guy who started out as a model XD

“Because there’s a symmetry to their beauty …”

Oh wow.

I never thought of it like that.

“The more balanced they are, the more appealing they are to our eye.”

“These women aren’t celebrities, though.”

Nope.

“But there are similarities between them, and it wasn’t until I scanned the pictures and got it to the guys at Quantico that I had a full breakdown.”

“All right, strip away eye color, hair color, and skin tone, and what are we left with geometrically?”

“They’re all slightly dystopian.”

Fuck.

“He might not even be aware that he sees it in them.”

“There have been studies that suggest that we pick our spouses subconsciously, based on a facial symmetry that we recognize.”

Damn.

“So consciously or unconsciously, when he recognizes it, he has to destroy it.”

Fuck.

“Maybe … they’re a reflection.”

“Remember what he did at the end of the video? He wiped the tear away.”

Fuck.

“Most of us take the internet for granted. We forget about texts that we share or updates we put on social networks. But the internet never forgets.”

Nope.

“Once it’s out there, it’s out there forever.”

“Now, we all know about the horrific deaths that get shown on the web.”

“Those murders are immortal. And this unsub craves that same immortality.”

“He recognizes his face on theirs and he kills them as a way of saying, ‘this is what I look like.’”

I wanna hurl.

“Fortunately for us, this means we have a good idea of what he looks like.”

Oh god. I hope they catch him fast.

“We overuse the term narcissistic in our culture, but we’re going back to the psychological definition. Every aspect of this man’s life has been constructed around an inflated sense of self.”

“Unsubs like this are particularly vulnerable to what’s called narcissistic injury.”

“If his self-worth is attacked or damaged, he will lash out.”

“Under no circumstances should you denigrate him.”

God, I hope they are careful.

JJ handling the press like a boss.

“Hotch.”

“Somebody leaked our profile.”

Fuck.

“Oh, you crafty little sicko.”

I love you, Garcia.

“Sir, it’s fantastic you called. I just figured out …”

“So, how are you doing on pinning down the network?”

Why are you interrupting my genius?

“Okay. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“Remember how I said he was spoofing his signal of different servers? Well, it turns out some of those are a decoy meant to waste my time.”

“So does that mean you can find him faster?”

“Totally. Totally. I can write a program that filters out the decoys …”

“Oh, crap.”

Are they allowed to say ‘crap’?

“Is that him?”

“Yeah. Okay, it looks like I’m gonna have to filter this on the fly.”

I love you.

“Can you send us the feed?”

“I can intercept it in Ukraine.”

“He’s going live.”

“Look at the way he’s moving. He’s not slow and deliberate. This guy’s pissed.”

“All right, what do we see? Determining markers.”

“A one-story cottage.”

Not helping.

“Is there a number on the house?”

“No, and he’s already at the door.”

Oh fuck.

“Garcia.”

“He’s using twice as many proxy servers.”

“Wait. This window here on the bottom … is that the chat room?”

Yup.

What happened?”

“Someone asked the wrong question at the press conference.”

“Oh, my god, turn around. Just turn around.”

“Maybe she can fend him off.”

“New kitchen appliances. Can we track them through work orders?”

“He’ll be gone by then.”

“Garcia, give us something.”

“I’m stateside now. I’m almost to Idaho. I just need more time.”

“You’re not gonna make it.”

“Yes, I will.”

Oh my determined goddess.

“Forget the unsub. can you run a trace on everybody in the chat room?”

“I can’t do both, sir. Let me do this.”

“Garcia, tag the viewers. That’s an order.”

Fuck.

Oh my horrified puppy.

“Baby girl, it’s gonna be okay.”

“No, no it’s not.”

“It’s bad enough that there’s been so much death around me, but this guy is all up in my turf. And he’s really good at what he does for really awful reasons.”

“That’s why you’re gonna find the perverts that watched it happen in that chat room.”

“And we’ll nail them to the wall and they’re gonna give up the unsub.”

“No, no, that is not good enough.”

“I want to watch him suffer.”

“I want to watch him bleed.”

WHAT?

“Oh, god. I just scared myself.”

And me.

“Good, that’s a good thing.”

Huh?

“Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned the hard way is the last person you want to tick off is Miss Penelope Garcia.”

Aww.

“That’s a compliment, right?”

“Yes, it is.”

Aw…

“We will beat this guy. Believe that.”

“Now, I’ll call you when we’ve got something.”

I love Derek Morgan beyond all measure.

“He was moving faster because he was angry.”

“So he rushed. Which means he made a mistake.”

“Well, it wasn’t the cameras. He remembered to take those with him.”

“It wasn’t the body. He took that with him, too.”

“Hey, did Garcia find anything unusual with Allison’s wireless?”

“No, records show that it was a basic DSL installation.”

“Hey, Prentiss.”

Ooh, my baby is onto something.

“What do you got?”

“You see this line right here?’

“This is what brings the internet from the street into the house.”

Oh snap.

“This isn’t DSL.”

Nope.

“It’s a fiber-optic cable. Completely different type of connection.”

“We just found his mistake.”

Boom.

“If there’s already an internet connection in the house, why does he bring his own with him? Is it the upload speed?”

“Fiber-optic allows him to stream large amounts of video. And maintain a chat room.”

Fuck.

“That’s dozens of computers connected to him at once.”

“He’d need a lot of bandwidth for something like that.”

Damn.

Let’s get the fuckers.

“FBI. We have a warrant.”

“This is a warrant for all the computers in your possession. You’re under arrest for accessory to murder.”

“Watching a murder happen online and doing nothing about it is a felony.”

So they’re at the place where the fucker got the cables.

“We think it’s an employee using your cable as a ruse to get into the house. Can you think of any …?”

“Mac Jones.”

Boom.

“We need his information.”

Yup.

“Ladies and gentlemen, meet Mac Jones.”

That’s a different dude.

“That’s because last year, Mr. Jones had his identity stolen.”

Frack.

“Now, I can’t tell you who the unsub is pretending to be now,”

“But since a picture’s worth a thousand databases, I can tell you who he was.”

“Robert Johnson, three-time loser, arrested for possession of torture videos.”

Ugh.

“Spent some time in a halfway house before he disappeared.”

“I found a blog of his online.”

“Here’s a quote … ‘Next time you won’t be able to stop me.’”

“That’s his narcissism again.”

“Garcia, is there a pattern to the identities that he steals?”

“No. he’s really disciplined about it. Once he burns through an identity, he never uses the same one again.”

“You know how I describe some suspects as being off the grid? This guy is totally the opposite.”

“He’s all over the grid. He’s manipulating the grid.”

“And he never stays in one place for very long.”

“So how do we find out who he is now?”

“I don’t think we’re going to. The man known as Robert Johnson is in the wind.”

Fuck.

“If he’s this flexible with his name, his real name, forget it.”

“But there is another way we can find him.”

Yes?

“His online name, his hacker handle. That’s the name that matters to him.”

“Wait. Wouldn’t he have hundreds of those, too?”

“Most definitely. But remember how I said hackers are loyal? They stick to certain names.”

“That’s how you identify yourself to other hackers.”

“That’s how the FBI caught me.”

And she’s so proud of it. Oh my lovely.

“So if we find the handle …”

“I’ll get you the unsub. I promise.”

“See, Scott, we think it was you.”

“And we found some pretty interesting movies in your hard drive to back up our theory.”

Ooh, my lovely tough guy.

“‘White girls can’t hump.’ That’s nice.””

Wow. The sarcasm.

“‘Schindler’s fist.’”

Oh god.

“See, this one right here, this is the one that got my attention.”

“The erotic awakenings of Sandy.’”

“How old was the girl in that video? What was she, twelve?” Fuck.

“I can explain”

Yeah right.

“Shut up!”

“This is what’s weird to me.”

Something specific is weird to you? Oh god.

“Most of your files were locked away, but not the child porn. We found it in like five minutes.”

“It wasn’t password-protected or anything.”

“How does someone who’s supposed to be so smart with computers do something so dumb?”

“Can we cut a deal?”

Ha. Yeah, right.

“Before this guy accepts you into the club … he gives you the illegal stuff. Kids. Torture.”

Oh god, I’m about to be sick.

“He has to know that you’re risking as much as he is. Mutually assured destruction.”

“You rat him out, he takes you with him.”

“What’s his name?”

“Don’t you try and play me, kid.”

“His online name.”

“Mrs. Prentiss.”

Ha.

“Agent Prentiss.”

To you, pervert.

“He sent out a message. He said tonight would be the best one yet.”

Oh fuck.

“What’s interesting, Mr. Chapman, the other two men we talked to, they had a form of collateral on their hard drive.”

“Hard-core pornography. Illegal. Rough.”

How is an old clueless grandpa getting involved in this shit?

So he knows the unsub because he came into his store? Oh dear, the poor dude.

“Do you believe him?”

“I believe he doesn’t fit the profile of the other voyeurs. They’re good with computers. They have hacking experience.”

“Garcia checked out the website. She said it’s crude. You can’t even order anything from it.”

“I got him.”

“Does he have his own network?”

“He doesn’t need one. He’s got a whole city to leech off of. He’s doing this again tonight.”

“Can you send me a list of networks he’s hacked recently?”

“I got twenty hits.”

“Filter out men and families. He only hits single women.”

“Eight left.”

“Garcia, do you have any pictures?”

“Coming your way.”

Boom.

My genius has her.

“You sure?” Oh come on.

“This is the FBI, we’re coming in.”

“She’s not here, but her car is.”

“It just went on by itself.”

Oh fuck.

“He’s recording us.”

“Garcia, the unsub is working off Lucy Masters’ network. Can you tell where the video’s being transmitted to?”

“I can’t tell. He’s not logged in as Watcher89. He’s not using any of the regular proxy servers.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I wouldn’t know that this was him.”

“Damn it! He’s encrypted his connection to the proxies. There’s nothing I can do to help you find him.”

“What do we see?”

“Metal walls.”

“Wait a minute. Garcia, can you magnify the wall behind her?”

My goddess desperate to help.

“It’s a walk-in freezer.”

Fuck. He got it from the old geezer.

“We didn’t catch you by mistake, did we, Austin?”

“You gave him a place to hide the bodies.”

“When something goes out on the internet, it’s out there forever.”

“Now, you’re going to jail. That’s a foregone conclusion.”

“But unless you cooperate with me, I will do everything I can to make sure that the next time your grandkids google you, they will find out what kind of a monster grandpa really is.”

Oh damn.

First time I’m scared of Rossi.

 “Where is the freezer?”

They got him.

“We’re on our way.”

“Garcia, it’s been three minutes since the signal went up live. Lucy might not have that much time left.”

Stop pressuring my goddess.

“I can buy you some. Now that I have his physical address, I got my business all up in his.”

I love you.

“No, no, not today.”

XD

“Now, when your internet goes down, it ruins your whole day, doesn’t it, psycho?”

I love you, lady.

“Get off her!”

Get him!

“What do you see when you look at them?”

Why try and understand that fucker?

“Get him out of there.”

God.

Eric Schmidt: “The internet is the first thing humanity has built that humanity doesn’t understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.”

Whoa.

Not gonna bore you iwth any more verbiage, I think it’s pretty obvious my stance on the peisode. LOVED IT!

I’ll see you all tomorrow for the season finale of season five. HOLY SHIT! Where has the time gone to?

[kootenaygoon]

So,

Niles was on crutches, watering his garden.

It was late Tuesday afternoon, and we’d just put the Wednesday edition of the Star to bed. Despite the fact it was mid-October, the weather was still summery, with a light wind rustling its way up the valley. The Slocan River had a magical sheen in the distance as my RAV broke out of the trees. Brutus was running laps of the yard with a dog I didn’t recognize, too busy to bark at my arrival, so I followed the driveway around to the barn unmolested and parked beside a mud-spattered, half-deconstructed Jeep. Niles had invited me over to discuss his latest manuscript submission, which was over 100,000 words long. It sat hefty and dog-eared on my passenger seat, riddled with highlighter and scribbled notes, alongside a six-pack of Blue Buck. I wasn’t looking forward to this feedback session, because I wasn’t sure if he was mature enough to hear what I had to say.

“We’ve got the house to ourselves tonight, Goon. I’ve got the second season of Fargo queued up, plus I’ve acquired some fabulous Afghani Kush that will blow your hair back,” Niles said, his crutches squelching in the mud as he clopped over to my side door.

I lifted up his manuscript, which was called The Fox and the Fawn. “Did you forget about this?”

Since my arrival in Nelson I’d been keeping a small roster of three to five students, helping them develop everything from a fictional account of the Rwandan genocide to a fantasy novel about an autistic teen adventuring through an alternate dimension. The trouble was, I was starting to feel like an imposter. My repeated attempts at finishing Whatever you’re on, I want some hadn’t resulted in the fame and glory I was imagining, and now I was wondering if I’d been kidding myself this whole time. Yeah, I had my Master’s, but so what? Could I really be a writer? And if not, was I really worthy of being a teacher? Who was I kidding?

“I figured you would’ve burned that thing the moment you realized what a gargantuan turd it is,” Niles said, his blond hair hanging limply around his dishevelled face. He wasn’t looking healthy.

I climbed out and shut the door. “I read some of it to my new roommate Mika, actually. We had a little reading in my living room.”

“You didn’t.”

“Yeah, she wanted to hear the sex scene.”

Niles roared with delight. That’s what he was always looking for, an audience to the lewd reality of his existence. As far as he was concerned, he was the best kind of criminal — the kind that never gets caught. The Fox and the Fawn was a fangirl tribute to himself, to his gangster exploits as a Slocan Valley weed king. With legalization finally here, he felt it was time to tell his story. The manuscript was Bukowski mixed with Kerouac, demented and perverse and shockingly violent. At one point he even casually admits to date rape, including a scene where his girlfriend rages at him for taking advantage of her while he was drunk.

“I didn’t know you had a new roommate,” he said. “What happened to Brendan?”

“Nothing. I just found a new place, levelled up. Teamed up with this girl Mika who works at my pot dispensary. She’s got a pet rabbit.”

“You’re still getting your shit from there? Why aren’t you coming to me?”

Niles was wearing a brown bathrobe. He opened his front door, told me not to worry about my shoes, then handed me the crutches while he hopped on one foot up the carpeted staircase. He grunted and sighed with each step, muttering swear words under his breath. I’d never seen him like this. When we reached the top I gave him his crutches and the beer, and he motioned for me to take a seat in the living room. As I passed by the familiar John Cooper paintings, I noticed that he’d hung the self-portrait I’d given him as a present a month earlier. I’d painted it with Natalya.

“You hung my painting upside down?”

He laughed, opening the fridge. “Yeah, I dunno why I did that. Just seemed to me like it looks better that way. I get a kick out of it.”

I shook my head. For the past month I’d been painting furiously, and it felt like a swirling green portal had opened up inside my brain. My writing may have stalled, but this was a way to channel my creativity into something other than journalism. I was getting sick of the Star, getting sick of taking the same pictures of the same fundraiser events, getting sick of the constraints. My relationship with Ed and Kai was strained too, as they were tired of my entitled laziness. Maybe they knew I was stoned every day, slumping into the office uninspired and half-assing my stories. I felt like the universe was wasting me, but painting had become a soothing therapy, something I did exclusively for myself. I was giving myself permission to be sloppy and flamboyant and outrageous, slathering my canvases with dribbling glitter and chaotic streaks of inspiration. This painting I’d given Niles was my first.

As he banged around in the kitchen, I walked over to the living room window and looked out at the Slocan Valley. The trees were the colour of flames, red and orange and electric yellow, and they matched the darkening sky. Lately I’d been feeling a subtle dread, like the magic was slowly draining from my surroundings. Winter is coming. I hated being single, hated being a chronic stoner, and hated how much of my life I spent stressing out about money. In university I’d become so convinced that I had life sorted out, that I was on a consistently upwards trajectory, that it was only a matter of time before I would be rewarded with creative success and lifelong fulfillment. Now I wasn’t so sure. It was easy to blame Paisley and all the drama she’d brought to my life, but she’d been gone for over a year now. At some point I would have to address my own shit without using her as a scapegoat.

“I don’t know how much longer I can do this, man.”

Niles scuffed back into the living room holding our beers. “This?”

“The Kootenays. The Star. I got into a bit of a scrap with Kai and Ed today, in the newsroom,” I said. “Over our coverage of Me Too.”

He laughed, sinking into his recliner. “You’re too radical for them?”

I shook my head, crossed to the couch. “I’ve just been seeing all these posts, right? Women sharing their trauma, men self-flagellating, but the discourse isn’t actually going anywhere. It’s not actually accomplishing anything. But I wanted to do something tangible, so I interviewed the superintendent and a bunch of principals about how they’re responding to it. Just to get it official, on the record, how they plan to change things.”

He snorted. “I’m sure they loved that.”

“So I hand in this 1200-word behemoth of a story, with all these different angles and perspectives, and they told me it didn’t have any teeth. They said it’s just a bunch of talking heads. I tried to argue, you know, that it’s important to be holding these people accountable and that their words are powerful, but they weren’t hearing it. They said if I’m going to write a story about sexual assault then I need a real sexual assault.”

He frowned, shrugged. “So what’re you going to do?”

I felt myself getting worked up. For the past few days I’d been endlessly scrolling through Twitter and Facebook, feeding on the outrage and vitriol. It was bringing everything up, Trent and Galloway and my strange obsession with crucifixion. The topic of sexual violence was like an intricate bomb I was trying to defuse with nothing but a screwdriver. As far as I was concerned, the conversation had to move beyond the rage to solutions. Men had to own their complicity, with more than just empty words, and propose tangible solutions. I was determined to prove Kai and Ed wrong, to show that my journalism had real teeth.

“Well, I’ve already started writing a column about it. About my personal feelings on the subject. And I’m going to illustrate it with a picture of my face with the words ‘Part of the Problem’ scrawled across my forehead.”

Niles laughed. “That should piss off the right people.”

“Not only that, I’ve found two girls who are willing to go on record about their assaults. One who was a student at Elephant Mountain Secondary, and the other from Selkirk College. If I do this right, this could be the most powerful story I’ve written since coming to the Star. Like, I think it could be a really big deal.” 

“Well, Goon,” he said. “I think your saviour complex is alive and kicking.”

Eventually we pivoted to discussing his manuscript, and I flipped through it on the coffee table as I took him through my notes. All of his female characters came off as interchangeable, he had a tendency to summarize scenes rather than depict them, and by the end of the narrative he came off as completely unlikeable. Being self-deprecating is one thing, but it was like he was going out of his way to shock the reader with his shitty behaviour. It felt like he was daring his audience to hate him. At times it reminded me of the memoir A Crowbar in the Buddhist Garden, by Stephen Reid, so I recommended he check it out for inspiration. I felt Reid struck a fine balance between owning his mistakes and aspiring to be a better human being.

“That’s the bank robber?”

“Yeah, they made a movie about him. Point Break.”

“That surfer movie with Keanu Reeves?”

“I think they fictionalized it a bit. The point is, there’s a guy who has actually grappled with his own soul. That takes balls.”

He nodded. “A Crowbar in the Buddhist Garden. I like that.”

Once we were finished with notes, Niles padded off into his bedroom and returned with an elaborate dragon-themed bong. As we smoked together I thought of the caterpillar from the animated version of Alice in Wonderland, asking in his condescending tone “Who are you?” That was the sort of question that was getting harder to answer all the time. Thinking about rape culture all day had me hating myself to the point where I felt physically sick, but at other times I was convinced of my own prophethood, my special destiny to save the world somehow. If I could tackle this Me Too story from exactly the right angle I knew it could have a legit impact. Everyone was encouraging women to speak while men listen, but I had been listening. And now I had something to say. I leaned back in the couch and examined the light fixture in the ceiling, composing my column in my head.

“Here,” Niles said. “You want another hit?”

The Kootenay Goon