#that part was probably the funniest to translate and the worst at the same time

[iris-nonsense]

Now i really want to rewatch glass onion to see how they adapted all the wrong words in italian

[pantoneyoongi]

neon signs | jealousy is a disease

title ; jealousy is a disease pairing ; campus crush!yoongi x campus crush!you 

notes ; 

this is part of the neon signs drabble series, where drabbles are released in random order (but listed chronologically in the masterlist!) 

series description ;

namjoon doesn’t think it can get any clearer outside of yoongi building a giant neon sign saying i have the absolute biggest crush on you but apparently, book smarts don’t exactly translate when it comes to you and your massive crush on min yoongi. 

(alternatively: namjoon and hoseok try for three years straight to get you and yoongi together.) 

word count ; 2.2k

tags ; yoongi is a simp, that’s all i have to say, pls go to masterlist for more / general tags 

look, yoongi will never admit it. but whenever seokjin’s name comes out of your mouth, he has the oddest urge to abruptly switch subjects until seokjin is the farthest thing from your mind. you always brighten up when you talk about him, saying seokjin this and seokjin that and fine, the way your eyes light up is incredibly endearing and that’s great but how come it’s always jinnie said the funniest thing today and never yoongi you’re the funniest person i know, huh?

probably because yoongi is not the funniest person you know, and he’s pretty sure he never will be because yoongi is not exactly the class clown type. but he digresses. 

you’re doing it again now, and yoongi thinks taking the differential equations midterm exam might actually have been better than this. yes, he’ll listen to anything you have to say at any given point in time but he’s never met this seokjin guy and it’s hard not to be miffed when he’s pretty sure you’ve never once looked at yoongi the way you look when you’re talking about jinniejin.

jinniejin. are we kidding? 

(okay, yes, it’s kind of your thing. when you really want something out of namjoon you will also whip out the jooniejoon, though yoongi is maybe 98.3% certain that’s mostly because namjoon cringes really hard at it and will do just about anything to make you stop calling him that.) 

(but also, quick question - when does yoongi get a cute nickname?) 

“can he come tonight?” you ask, and yoongi immediately tunes back into the conversation. this sounds important, and not like a dissertation on how cute jin is when he’s eating like an alpaca. 

“sure,” hoseok agrees easily, the fucking traitor. his best friend glances at him and grins. “it’ll be nice to meet this guy you never stop talking about, y/n.” 

you wiggle in your seat, excited. “you’ll like him, i swear. he’s been really nice to me all semester.” your eyes fall to yoongi and he doesn’t have the heart not to smile back at you, not when you seem so eager for the boys and seokjin to meet. after all, seokjin is one of very few genuine friends you have outside of namjoon, hoseok, and yoongi, so that has to count for something. you met him at the beginning of the semester and have been enraptured since, much to yoongi’s dismay. 

having gotten your dinner plans sorted out, you say your goodbyes, running off for class. yoongi watches forlornly as you go, dreading tonight. 

.

.

.

the worst part about spring semester isn’t that you met seokjin. it’s that yoongi doesn’t share any classes with you. 

it means he has no excuses to message you one-on-one, or see you at least once or twice a week. granted, hoseok usually solves that problem by dragging you all together for dinner or piling into his dorm room on the weekends, but still. it’s not the same. chinese class was his thing with you. only you. 

now studying together is a group activity when yoongi would much prefer to be alone in a library room with you, sitting shoulder to shoulder, feeling his heart race whenever you giggle and lean in a little too close to point out his godawful penmanship. 

he’s thinking about this because you’re leaning a little too close to seokjin right now, the prettiest smile on your face as you beam up at your friend. the five of you are crowded into a table at the local diner, you next to seokjin on one side while yoongi somehow got squished between namjoon and hoseok on the other. now he gets the prime view for watching you loop your arm around seokjin’s whenever you get excited, squeezing him tight. 

do you do that with namjoon, too? hoseok? yoongi can’t remember. 

you definitely don’t do that with yoongi, though. he would absolutely remember that. 

the thing about being in the engineering department is that it makes yoongi incredibly analytical. or maybe that’s just an excuse for how yoongi is as a person. the moment you stepped through the diner door with jin on your arm, yoongi had assessed him from head to toe: tall. handsome. broad. seokjin had let you drag him forward as soon as you’d spotted your friends at the table, chuckling fondly when you’d tugged him along, legs long enough to easily keep pace with you even when you were practically skipping to the table. 

the introductions were short, and since hoseok’s here, quick to descend into chaos. seokjin matches hoseok’s energy as if they’re lifelong friends yet pulls back to be gentle with you, and yoongi thinks he might develop a headache if he sees seokjin pat your head one more time. 

by accident, he catches your eyes halfway through dinner. something in the way you look at yoongi feels hopeful, like you’re asking for his approval. between the three boys, yoongi has the hardest time making friends. hoseok and namjoon are both social butterflies in their own right; yoongi has nearly intentionally clipped his own wings in that regard. but you’re asking. when you look at him like that, you’re asking yoongi if he’ll be friends with seokjin. jinniejin. 

how can he possibly say no? 

.

.

.

see, seokjin is a nice guy, and yoongi hates that. 

he can’t explain it. well he could, but he’d prefer not to. 

at the least, seokjin only becomes a sort of floater in your group of four. he comes and goes - mostly whenever you ask him to - so for the most part seokjin is more your friend than a friend. (note that this is not yoongi’s fault. yoongi is playing nice.) 

but it’s really hard not to resent how nice seokjin is because it means that yoongi has no valid reason to not point out that your apparent favorite person is heading your way, sending you flying out from your spot next to yoongi, across the grass to take a running leap right into seokjin’s arms. 

yoongi feels like he might die. he can’t believe the trade-off to seeing you scream and giggle happily is the fact that seokjin is the one swinging you in circles, made even worse because yoongi can tell that doing that makes seokjin dizzy but seokjin seems willing to do anything to appease you with the things you want. 

seokjin sets you back down on your feet and yoongi glares at hoseok. hoseok’s the one who said you and seokjin are ‘just friends’ and that you ‘don’t have a crush’ on your new friend. hoseok is a liar. look at you! look at how happy you are just to see him! 

“don’t look at me like that,” hoseok whispers. “i know they’re close but it’s not like that.” he elbows namjoon. “tell yoongi it’s not like that.” 

“it’s not,” namjoon shrugs. “they’re really just good friends. she says he takes care of her.” 

boyfriends take care of their partners, yoongi wants to wail, but he keeps his mouth firmly shut, sucking his teeth. he keeps his head ducked but his eyes can’t stop glancing up to watch you talk animatedly to seokjin as you cross the courtyard together, seokjin patiently listening to you. he nods and hums along to everything you say, leans down a little to respond so you’re closer in height. 

something he says makes you flush, and you shove at him lightly, your face doing that thing where it gets all scrunched up because you’re embarrassed. it happens a lot when namjoon puts his foot in his mouth when he’s talking about something that was supposed to be best-friend-restricted-information. 

seokjin laughs loudly but seems to relent, rubbing your arm soothingly until you’re done pouting, and yoongi has to resist the urge to plant his face straight into the ground. 

namjoon gives him a sympathetic smile. 

lovely. 

.

.

.

ever since yoongi met seokjin, it’s like he sees him everywhere. well - not everywhere. everywhere with you. 

it’s not entirely abnormal for yoongi to bump into you on campus - between your shared minor and the university’s core curriculum requirements, there’s bound to be some overlap. but he swears he’s never seen you as often as he does now - side by side with none other than kim seokjin. 

it has his heart dropping in his chest much harder than he’d care to admit. much worse is the fact that yoongi doesn’t seem to know how to act, so every time he catches sight of you and seokjin together, he dives behind literally any object large enough to hide him. 

today, it’s some random statue decorating the campus grounds. he peeks past it, watching as you and seokjin head down the sidewalk, crossing towards one of the newer built academic buildings. he yelps when a hand clasps him on the shoulder, hoseok’s megaphone voice in his ear, “yoongi! what are you doi-”

yoongi shoves his hands against hoseok’s mouth and yanks him to the ground, head popping up to see if you noticed the commotion, but you’re at a much farther distance now, almost to the doors of the building. hoseok sputters and yanks yoongi’s hand off his mouth. “dude??” 

yoongi winces. “sorry,” he mutters. hoseok shifts over to see what yoongi is hiding from, and sucks in a breath, shaking his head. 

“jealousy is a disease, yoongi,” hoseok wags his finger at his friend. yoongi slaps his hand away. 

“please stop talking so loud.” 

“she can’t hear us! if i wanted her to hear us, i would crank it up, like, HEY-” 

“i will knock you out swear to god hoseok-” 

hoseok cackles, but it’s too late, because hoseok has an inhumane ability to project his voice across probably the entirety of campus. when yoongi glances back to see if you’ve gone into the building with seokjin, he finds instead to see your face lighting up, grin spreading across your lips as you ditch seokjin without so much as a warning to come running across the grass towards yoongi and hoseok. 

except, you severely misgauge how fast you’re going, and tumble straight into yoongi (hoseok conveniently sidestepped) and yoongi stumbles back a few steps and instinctively grabs you around the waist to steady you, startled. 

“oops,” you say breathlessly, eyes shining. for someone who wasn’t running, yoongi is also slightly out of breath. he manages a weak smile back that definitely makes it seem like he’s in pain, but you don’t notice as you gently pull away from him, yoongi’s hands slipping from your waist. “hi guys.” 

“hello,” hoseok sings, slinging an arm around your shoulders. he swings you back around to face the direction you came from. “where’d seokjin go?” 

“class, probably,” you answer. “i was looking for yoongi but i bumped into jin instead so i was walking him to class.” 

yoongi blinks. “me?” he clears his throat so he can form a full sentence. “you were looking for me?” 

you smile. “your class ended not long ago, right? near here?” 

yoongi’s heart, which had been on the ground when he saw you with seokjin, jumps right back into his chest, bursting into a sprint. he nods, and points in the direction he came from. 

your smile widens. “knew it. i thought i always saw you around here. i checked your schedule and everything earlier. we both end class at the same time but i’m over at james hall.” you point across at the building directly opposite from the one yoongi’s class is held in, but yoongi is still too focused on, i was looking for yoongi - you were looking for him. him. not seokjin. 

“next time, let’s meet after class,” you’re saying, as you loop one arm against yoongi’s elbow, your other arm already around hoseok’s. “hobi, are you free?” 

“nope,” hoseok slips out from your side, adjusting his backpack over his shoulder. “i’ve got class in ten.” 

you shrug. “just me and yoongi then,” your hand remains wrapped around his elbow, and yoongi’s fingers curl inside his pocket, fighting the desire to slide his hand out and into yours. “unless you have plans, yoongs?” 

yoongs. yoongi blinks. jinniejin, jooniejoon, hobi. yoongs. 

you ditched seokjin for yoongi (you were looking for yoongi in the first place!), you have your hand on his arm, and yoongs. he finally gets a nickname. 

when he takes too long to answer, hoseok fills in the gap for him before you can get too confused. “he never has plans,” hoseok grins. “i’ll catch y’all later.” he gives yoongi a look that says get your brain back in working order before he heads off, and you look up at yoongi, eyes sparkling, enrapturing. 

“have you eaten, yoongi?” 

technically he has. right before class. but it was small and light and that seems reasonable enough an excuse for him to shake his head, just so he can watch you beam at him and tug him along, rattling off about the new restaurant near the student center that you wanted to try, and when you say something along the lines of, “i’m glad i get to try it with you,” yoongi forgets seokjin was even in the picture to begin with, content simply to be trying new things and spending time with you. 

series masterlist ; neon signs

taglist ; @thelilbutifulthings​ @bbsantc​ @chickentenderx​ 

[oldfangirl81]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

@sugdenlovesdingle this seemed to fun to pass up.

And I'm procrastinating writing.

How many works do you have on AO3? 50

What's your total AO3 word count? 115,555 (lots of wips)

What Fandom do you write for? Marvel, 9-1-1, 9-1-1 LS, Teen Wolf, Top Gun, DC comics, RWRB, Prodigal Son, Doctor Who, BtVS, Eureka, Due South and some SPN.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? High Flying Adventures in LA (Top Gun/911), 5 Times Tony Stark Did Not Want The Evil Person To Flirt With Him and 1 Time He Did Not Mind (Marvel/SPN/Doctor Who/True Blue), Walk Me Home (911/Eureka), Buster The Gay Dog (911), In The City (Top Gun/911/SWAT)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I try but sometimes it does feel silly to just keep saying Thank you if there isn't anything else I can respond too.

What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? If I Fall (BtVS/Doctor Who). Look I was reading a lot of a certain kind of BtVS fic so this one has Xander deciding to join The Master.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Maybe Buster the Gay Dog (911) or A Thousand Good Stories (Top Gun/911 Lone Star). The first Eddie & Buck get together at the end. And the second Bradley & Jake are engaged by the end.

Do you get hate on fics? Rarely. But the funniest one to me was on the 5 Times Tony Stark fic. I was called both a misogynist and homophobic.

Do you write smut? If so what kind? I very rarely write true smut. I do fade to black often. I did write a fic once where Starfire gave Jason a blowjob in an alley. And I swear it isn't exactly what it sounds like but it is at the same time. She was trying to make him stop risking his life by giving him something to live for. Look there is a reason I don't write much smut in over a decade.

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? Yes, I write crossovers. It's kinda my thing really. As for the craziest one? I honestly don't know because a bunch are probably considered odd. Maybe the Marvel crossover with Red White & Royal Blue. Or maybe 9-1-1 and Eureka. Or maybe 9-1-1 Lone Star & Marvel. Or 9-1-1 Lone Star & DC comics. Or maybe my recent Danny Phantom and 9-1-1.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Yup. It was copied word for word. But it was so long ago I couldn't actually tell which of my fics it was. It might even be one of the ones I orphaned in the years to follow because I don't touch that fandom anymore, nor do I want it associated with me.

Have you ever had a fic translated? I don't think so. I'm not against it.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Nope. The closest I've come was Tumblr RP over a decade ago now.

What's your all time favorite ship? I can't really pick. I rarely abandon ships for good. I still love Benton Fraser/Ray K, Blair Sandburg/Jim Ellison, Xander Harris/Spike, John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Stiles/Derek Hale, Steve McGarret/Danny Williams, Danny Messer/Mac Taylor, Danny Messer/Don Flack, Kaylee Fyre/Simon Tam and most of those have been off the air for years and years now.

What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Something About That Boy (Marvel/BtVS) or Where Me Demons Hide? (Marvel/BtVS)

What are your writing strengths? I'd like to say my dialogue. And ridiculous chaotic plots in a fun way.

What are your writing weaknesses? Finishing a story before starting ten more. The non dialogue parts.

Thoughts on writing dialouge in another language in a fic? Be careful there be dragons there. I know I've done it in some fics. And a sentence here or there isn't the worst if you aren't fluent. But be open if someone ever corrects you. And more than that maybe find a beta that is fluent in whatever language you are hoping to add to the fic. I know google translate can be rough.

First fandom you wrote in? Ugh, I don't want to answer but if googling my penname is accurate it would have been May '05 so it appears to have been a Harry Potter and BtVs crossover.

Favorite fic you've written? Toss up between Won't You Come See About Me (Top Gun/Marvel) or Wild Angels (9-1-1 Lone Star/DC Comics). Both are WIPs that are NOT abandoned in the slightest.

If you read all this thanks for supporting my procrastination. And feel free to answer these questions yourself.

[journalxxx]

By Hook or by Crook (2)

May 1st, 2270

“Hello, Izuku.” “Hi, dad.” Izuku hadn’t exactly been dreading this conversation, but he hadn’t been looking forward to it either. He’d hoped his mom would do all the talking, having to break the news to his friends had been hard enough. For him. Most of them seemed to have gotten quite the kick out of it. “How are you? Your mother told me you’ve been having a rough couple of weeks.” “Mh.” “Still upset over that visit?” “Mh.” “Speak, son. Sulking doesn’t translate well over the phone.” His father chided gently.

Izuku sighed. “The doctor said I’m never going to get a quirk. I’m sorry.” “Whatever for? It’s not like you have any choice in the matter. Quirks are innate, surely you know that.” “Yes, I do.” Izuku said, staring at the paused frame of All Might’s debut video on the computer screen. The reflection of his own miserable face was superimposed with the triumphant silhouette of the hero. “But I’m sorry anyway. You have such a cool quirk… and mom’s useful too. I could become a great hero with one of them, but I’m never going to get any.” “Again, that’s none of your fault. And I wouldn’t be so sure of that anyway.” “Uh?” Izuku gulped, gripping the phone tightly. “Y-you don’t think I’d make a good hero?” “No, that’s not what I mean.” His father chuckled. “I mean that I wouldn’t lose hope just yet. You’re very young, there’s still plenty of time for your quirk to manifest.” “But the doctor said that all quirks appear before one is four years old. And I’m four. And I have the extra toe joint-” “Tsk! Some doctor they assigned you. As if one could unerringly guess the nature and development of something as unpredictable as a quirk with a single test. An x-ray, of all things. Ancient technology.” “The doctor said there was a study...” “I have an extra toe joint too, you know.” Izuku’s father laughed hearing his son’s surprised gasp. “Studies like the one your doctor mentioned draw conclusions based on the analysis of hundreds, thousands of cases. Those conclusions may hold true for the majority of them, but there are always outliers. Having that oh-so-precious joint and a quirk is indeed rare, but not unheard of.” “B-But…” Izuku’s eyes burned with the feeling of impending tears. He hadn’t expected his father’s reaction to be like this. No one had even remotely doubted the validity of the doctor’s opinion. No one. It almost hurt to hope. “I’m also too old…” “My own quirk didn’t show until I was… fifteen? Maybe sixteen. Way older than you are, anyway. Another important point to consider, don’t you think?” Izuku sniffled. Then cried, quietly. His father remained silent as the boy let the tears flow freely, wiping them on his arm now and then. There was a tangled ball of emotions deep in his chest, that he couldn’t quite unravel. After a couple of minutes though, the sobs abated and he felt better. Better than he had been feeling before his mom handed him the phone. “...Do you really think the doctor was wrong?” “You shouldn’t believe everything doctors tell you. My personal physician keeps calling me ‘the peak of biological and anthropological evolution’, but that’s because he’s been fishing for a raise for years. Clearly you’d expect a Darwinian champion to be able to walk under the sun without protection for more than five minutes without turning into a peeling tomato.” “Uh? Does that really happen to you?” “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that I’m albino? My skin is very sensitive to sunlight, and it burns easily. I have atrocious eyesight too.” “I didn’t know that.” Izuku winced in sympathy. “I’m sorry. That sounds terrible.” “Not nearly as much as you think. I have plenty of skills and tools at my disposal to compensate. It isn’t an inconvenience at all these days, although it did cause me some grief when I was a child.” His father’s tone got softer. “Sometimes it does feel like our bodies are our own worst enemies, doesn’t it?” Izuku hummed in assent, very much agreeing with the sentiment. “I’m happy it doesn’t hurt you any more.” “And I’m glad you didn’t inherit this nuisance from me.” A sudden thought made its unwelcome way in Izuku’s head. “If… If I didn’t inherit your skin and eyes… maybe I won’t inherit your quirk either…” “Izuku.” His father’s tone was kind but firm. There were times when his presence, even just through his voice, felt way more real and solid than that of many people Izuku habitually shared a room with. “Your ability will emerge one day, I’m positive of that. Just give it time and don’t agonize over it.” Izuku nodded, even though he realized that wouldn’t translate well over the phone either. “...Okay.” “Now, what else have you been up to in this past month, other than brooding over a criminally incompetent diagnosis?” Not much, honestly, but Izuku told him anyway. As he kept chatting, his heart grew lighter than it had been in weeks. Mom did always say that his father was a good listener.

July 1st, 2272 “They were talking about it on TV yesterday. It’s an old incident from some years ago, before All Might met Nighteye!” “I see...” “Not many people know about it, because there’s no villain involved, and villains make all the stories more interesting! But it’s a great story nonetheless!” Izuku rattled on enthusiastically, taking advantage of his father’s unresponsive compliance. “Uh-huh...” “So this boy was having some big troubles, I think, and he jumped into a river because he didn’t know what to do about them. But luckily All Might was around! Do you know what he did?” “He offered to cover all the expenses for the years of therapy the boy would need afterwards?” “Uh… They didn’t say that on TV. I don’t know. I think he just rescued him from the river.” “That doesn’t seem to address the underlying problem.” His father commented icily. “Daaad, you’re ruining the story.” Izuku chided him. “Anyway, the funny part is that this boy had a quirk that could turn water into vinegar, and he activated it in a panic while he was drowning.” “Mh. A peculiar quirk...” “So All Might got all drenched in vinegar when he dove in to save him. He made this very silly face in front of the cameras, it was great! And when the boy apologized for causing trouble, guess what All Might told him?” “I’m sorry I’m the living embodiment of this unfair, hypocritical society that has driven you to the brink of despair?” “No. He said,” Izuku continued, breezing past his father’s petty remarks with practiced ease, “It is I who should thank you. My skin’s looking ten years younger now.” “Oh my God…” The man groaned, and a loud thunk-crash noise accompanied his words. “Oh, come on!” Izuku giggled, covering his mouth with his free hand. “It’s so funny!” “Just because they’re called ‘dad jokes’ doesn’t mean I’m legally obligated to laugh at them.” “But it is funny! All Might’s the funniest! Did you know that he just wrote a joke book? It’s called All Might’s Gags and Jokes: A Compendium. It already has amazing reviews! They say it’s warm and relatable and cy.. cyclical…” “He wrote a joke book. A veritable Renaissance man, this one...” His father muttered. Izuku heard something clink in the background. Probably the pieces of whatever his father dropped. “Mom says she’ll buy it for my birthday!” Izuku added, swinging his whole body on his chair in sheer excitement. “That is such a poor use of your remittance. I’ll need to have a couple of words with her…” “It’s for my education!” Izuku enunciated with solemnity, straightening his posture. “There’s a whole chapter of American puns and word plays! It will help me learn English!” “If you want to learn English on your own so soon, please choose a decent source. Start with basic grammar and alphabet books, watch some subtitled shows and movies to get the hang of the correct pronunciation-” “I’m learning a lot from All Might already! The catchphrase he used when he was in college in California was I am here! When he’s surprised, he says Oh my goodness! When he doesn’t believe something, he says Nonsense!” Izuku parroted, taking great care of imitating All Might’s confident, surprised and disbelieving expressions respectively. They would be lost on his father, but he needed to practice them anyway. “If that’s a good American accent, I’m the next Symbol of Peace.” “Dad.” Izuku said, suddenly very serious. He had a very important question to ask, and it had been a long time coming. “Why do you always make fun of him? It’s like… It’s almost like you don’t like him at all.” The words sounded so wrong he almost wasn’t brave enough to say them. Izuku would have been mortified if anyone had moved such an accusation on him. “I suppose he has a sort of… charisma about him.” His father admitted ruefully. “I can’t say it strikes any chords with me though.” “Are you just jealous of him?” Izuku asked shrewdly. “Kacchan also talks a lot of trash about All Might, but it’s obvious he’s just jealous. It’s all right if you are, though, I mean, he’s so-” “I’m this close to hanging up, Izuku.” “But- but how can you not like All Might?! Everyone likes All Might! Boys and girls, children and grown-ups! From age 0 to 100!” “...I guess I just don’t fit the target demographic then.” Izuku huffed. “You’re so boring, dad.” “Says the one who’s been talking my ear off about the same topic for the last forty minutes.” The boy frowned, nibbling at his lip. “...Sorry. Am I annoying you?” “I’ll admit I may have hit my monthly tolerance limit of All Might trivia. Don’t worry about it though.” Izuku did in fact stop worrying, his father’s amusement clearly detectable in his voice. “I think I’ll be able to bear with your unabashed enthusiasm until you hit your mandatory disillusioned teenage phase. Then we’ll see if that obnoxiously cheery act of his will still resonate with you.”

June 2nd, 2274 “His normal body temperature is about two degrees higher than the average. Around 38-39 °C.” “And what can you deduce from that?” Izuku’s father goaded. The boy stared at the scribbles in his notebook in deep thought. “Uhm… that it’s difficult to tell if he has a fever or not?” His father laughed, but not unkindly. “I wouldn’t think so. You just said yourself that that is his normal temperature. Therefore, I wouldn’t call Endeavor’s doctor unless his thermometer read more than 39.5 °C, probably.” “Right.” Izuku nodded. That was obvious, wasn’t it? Why hadn’t he understood that on his own? His father didn’t seem to mind his blunder though. “Try again.” “I think…” Izuku’s eyes were just about to bore a hole into his rough sketch of the hero’s costume. He gave up after the silence started to make him uncomfortable though. “...I don’t know. What can I deduce from that?” “Hm… You did bring up an interesting point. Do you know how fever works, Izuku?” “Yeah. Your body temperature rises when you’re sick. If it rises too much, you can get in serious trouble, you could even die. It never really gets that bad though.” “But why does it rise? What does your body accomplish by doing that?” “Uh…” Izuku frowned. He was sure he’d read or heard something about that, but the details escaped him at the moment. “To help you fight off the sickness, right? You feel worse at first, but it actually helps you get better.” “Exactly. Most bacteria and viruses that infect men thrive and multiply optimally at around 37 °C, which is the average person’s normal body temperature. But the growth of these microorganisms is hindered when the environment gets too hot. That is the principle that makes fever useful for humans. As your body gets hotter, it debilitates the invasors, so that your immune system can remove them more easily.” “..Oh.” It was a pity that his father called him only once a month, Izuku could have easily listened to him for hours every day. He always had so many interesting things to say about so many different subjects, and he always exposed them so neatly. “So. Can you deduce anything new now?” “Uh, uhm… He… I guess he...” Izuku snapped out of his reverie. Right, this was a conversation, not a lesson. He went over the new information in his head as quickly as he could. Higher temperature than normal... Fever... Microorganisms... Immune syst- Oh! “He heals quicker than- no, wait! He doesn’t get sick at all! Because he’s always too hot for the microorganisms! They can’t grow in his body!” “Excellent reasoning!” His father’s warm praise made Izuku’s chest swell with pride. “Obviously he isn’t completely immune to any and all infections, there are lots of exceptions to the mechanism I just explained to you. But yes, I do believe it’s safe to assume that our esteemed Flame Hero suffers from the occasional seasonal maladies far less often than the general population, if at all.” “That’s so cool…” Izuku immediately added the new data to his notes, almost breaking the tip of the pencil in his enthusiasm. “Is that what you wanted me to deduce? Or did you explain that just because I brought up the fever thing?” “I was actually thinking of something else. But, on second thought, it may be too technical a topic for an eight-year-old.” “...Can you tell me about it anyway?” “Of course.” Izuku would never not be grateful for the patience his father had, never denying him any clarification on anything. He was just about the only adult who never got tired of his questions. Even his mom sometimes hid her fatigue behind a mildly insincere I don’t know. “High heat isn’t exactly conductive to the activity of human cells either. That’s one of the reasons why you feel exhausted and achy when you have a fever, your body struggles to keep doing what it’s supposed to do above its normal temperature range. But Endeavor not only is at peak condition at 39 °C, he can also withstand open flames with a much higher temperature. This suggests that his cells must be fundamentally different from the average person’s on a biochemical level, that his quirk must provide some particularly efficient cellular mechanism to prevent heat damage. One example might be some dedicated enzymes to protect proteins from denaturation, but now I’m entering mere speculation.” A pause. “Did you follow me?” “...Kind of.” Izuku said, kind of lying but not entirely. He had followed most of that. He scrawled and circled a couple of terms he hadn’t grasped - Biochemical - Enzymes - Denaturation - on the page. He didn’t want to waste his father’s time by asking him to explain the meaning of words he could easily look up later on his own. “The gist of it is that Endeavor’s Hellflame has at least two facets. Not only ‘creating fire’, but also ‘not incinerating himself’. The first trait would be a fatal liability without the second.” “Got it!” Izuku cheered. Now that he had understood completely. “You sure know a lot about quirks, dad! Like, a lot! About anything, really!” “For the sake of intellectual honesty, it must be said that it isn’t difficult to impress a primary schooler.” His father laughed. “I’m just older than you.” “How much older?” Izuku asked, realizing for the first time that no one had ever told him his father’s age. “Oh, by a lot. Centuries.” Izuku cackled. “You can’t be that old. You still go to work. Our neighbors are 80 and they’re already retired.” “I do try to keep a youthful outlook on life. But yes, quirks fascinate me quite a bit. And they make for the perfect topic to distract you from your incessant yapping about All Might.” “Speaking of All Might-” “No, I-” His father sighed theatrically. “I just walked into this one, didn’t I?” “Yep.” Izuku grinned. “What about his quirk? Do you know anything about it? He never gives straight answers when people ask him about it…” “That may be the single sign of intelligence he’s ever displayed. The more your enemies know about your quirk, the easier it is for them to find your weaknesses. I’m surprised the other pro heroes aren’t as reserved.” “I wonder why All Might does that, though. His quirk is… pretty obvious.” Izuku pondered. “It just makes him strong. Very strong. Like, the strongest ever. But that’s it.” “Allegedly, yes. But as you noticed yourself, if raw power was all there was to it, there would be no reason to skirt around the issue in interviews, no?” “So there must be something else… What do you think it might be?” “I think it would be no less than cruel to deprive you of the thrill of carrying out your own research.” Izuku let out a dissatisfied moan, and his father chuckled. “You are already so very proficient at it. Your mother told me you’ve already filled a whole notebook with hero and quirk analyses.” “Oh, ehr… It’s just stuff I read here and there…” “Mh, I’ve heard enough of your ‘stuff’ to know that there’s more than random factoids in that head of yours. In fact…” Izuku felt his cheeks warm for the compliment. “I think you’ve gotten old and judicious enough to be trusted with my emergency number.” “Uh? What emergency number?” “It’s a phone number I’ll always answer to, on any day and at any hour, in case you may find yourself in a bad situation. Hopefully you’ll never need it, but better safe than sorry. Now…” His father’s voice raised slightly, drowning out Izuku’s impending interruption. “Can I rely on the fact that you are aware that desperately wanting to tell me that All Might saved a kitten from a meteor does not qualify as an emergency?” Izuku pouted. “I know what an emergency is, dad.” “Good. Ask your mother to give you the number then. Don’t save it on your phone or write it anywhere. Memorize it, and be responsible with it.”

December 3rd, 2275 Sorry for the long silence. I had an accident on the job and I won’t be able to speak clearly for a while. We can talk with the included devices. Use your ring finger to activate them. Usual days, usual hours. Hisashi That short note held the first words Izuku had received from his father in the last five months. The first month he hadn’t phoned, Izuku had felt slightly disappointed, but understanding. His father was a busy man, surely something very important must have been requiring his full-time attention. It was fine, Izuku was confident he could manage to sweet-talk him into a double-length call the following month to make up for that. The second month, he had started to worry. His mother hadn’t heard from his father either. It was unprecedented not to hear from him for such a long time. Since Izuku could remember, his father had never skipped one of their monthly calls. They often talked on the first day of every month, and he kept trying to contact them exactly once each following day if his calls were missed. He never failed to reach them past the third day. He always called from a hidden number, so trying to get hold of him was not an option. The third month, Izuku’s mother had decided to use the emergency number. She hadn’t been able to get through to her husband, but the polite colleague of his who had picked up had reassured her that he was indisposed but overall fine, and would get in touch with them as soon as possible… which could still take a while. Curiously, the coworker had also instructed them to collect a sample of their fingerprints and send them to a specific address. Izuku had been mystified by the request, but his mother had readily agreed, commenting that it was “not the strangest thing Hisashi’s ever asked for”. The silent wait that followed had been a little uneasy, but not harrowing. Izuku and his mother reread the message a couple of times before opening the box they’d just been delivered. Inside were only the two mentioned devices with their respective chargers, snuggled among waterproof packaging and stuffing. They looked very much like ordinary mobile phones, except they had no buttons or ports on any side. Some quick experimentation proved that they could be turned on simply by pressing the indicated finger on the touchscreen. The display showed a very minimalistic chat interface, with a fixed red dot on the top left corner. No amount of tapping on the screen could bring up the virtual keyboard though, which was puzzling. There was no way to access the rest of the phone’s functions, if it even had any. It was the third day of the month, so technically still within the familiar communication window. Izuku kept poking and prodding at the buttonless phone for the whole afternoon until eventually, shortly after dinner, the red dot at the top of the chat became green. A minute later, a message popped up. Hello, Izuku. Izuku almost dropped his cup of hot chocolate in excitement, which was quickly replaced by frustration because he still couldn’t type anything in any way. How was he supposed to- Speak. I can hear you. “...Oh! Nice!” Izuku exclaimed. “Hi, dad! How are you? What happened?” I’ve been better. I got decked by a hysterical ape. Izuku frowned. “That’s not funny. Mom and I were very worried.” That wasn’t really a joke. What? What even- “...How? Did you break into a zoo or something…?” Sorry, you’re right. Let me rephrase. I had a violent disagreement with a brute. “Oh…” Izuku was about to ask for further explanations but he waited. The three bouncing dots at the bottom of the screen signalled that his father was still writing. We will have to communicate like this for a while. I hope it isn’t too much of an inconvenience for you. Judging by how long it took him to type even the shortest messages, Izuku thought it was going to be much more of an inconvenience for his father. He felt sorry for him. “No, not all. Is it… is it really bad? Shouldn’t you come home so we can help you get better? It sounds like you won’t be able to work anyway…” I’ll receive better medical treatment here, and I can still get some work done while I recuperate. Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll recover fully sooner or later. Izuku picked at the lint of his blanket, choosing his words carefully. “You could… come home anyway. Even if you could work. When you’re feeling a little better. So we could spend some time together.” The three bouncing dots reappeared, but Izuku kept talking. He already knew what his father’s answer was going to be, but he wanted to take advantage of the delay to get a few more words in. “Some of my friends have parents that work far from home too. They’re away a lot, but… they do come back to visit sometimes. Usually for the holidays. At least… At least once.” At least his friends had actually met their fathers once in their whole lives, Izuku completed only in his head. You know how things stand. My job doesn’t afford me this kind of free time. “...What do you even do that won’t let you ever do anything?” Izuku muttered, out of sheer petulance. That was another familiar point of contention, to which his father replied with the same, word-for-word justification he always used. Every detail concerning my activities is classified by the government. We’ve been over this. Don’t be childish. And that was usually the end of it. Any further questioning after the ‘classified’ thing invariably turned Izuku’s father into a slippery wall of smooth deflections. But, considering the current situation, Izuku felt like he could get away with a little more nagging, if he played his cards right. “I know you can’t say anything. But how about…” He physically leaned forwards, trying not to let his tension seep through his voice. “How about I try to deduce something? About your job. Just… for fun.” No new message showed up, not even the typing dots. Izuku decided that it was as much of an approval as he was going to get, so he started to voice his thoughts as they formed. “...Your job is classified by the government. So it’s important, very important, so important that other people can’t know about it.” When he was very young, Izuku had obviously interpreted it as irrefutable proof that his father must be some sort of secret agent. He had exposed his conclusion to Kacchan and his gang once. They had… not-so-respectfully disagreed. Izuku had never brought up the matter with them afterwards. “Your note said that you got hurt on the job. So someone you know from work punched you so hard that, even after five months, you still can’t talk well.” Izuku paused. That was… a scary idea. It dawned on him, for the first time since the beginning of this whole ordeal, that his father may have really dodged a bullet there. What kind of a brute could possibly want to injure someone that much…? Surely a criminal… A villain, maybe…? “Your job is dangerous, and it leaves you almost no free time. It also pays well.” That last item was admittedly a shot in the dark, Izuku didn’t really know much about money handling. But he had noticed that his mother never denied him a gift or a treat on the grounds of its cost (his vast collection of All Might memorabilia was a testament to that), like so many of his friends’ relatives were wont to do. She didn’t need a job herself, and Izuku remembered overhearing a conversation she had with Kacchan’s mom where she had said that they were ‘well provided for’. “You know a lot about a lot of stuff, especially about quirks and heroes. You know a lot of things about quirks and heroes that I couldn’t find anywhere on the internet.” Izuku paused, racking his brain for anything else that stuck out. Before he could come up with more points to make, his father finally wrote back. You sure put some thought into this. I’m impressed. The lack of reprimands was an encouragement in its own right. Now came the hard part. These were all facts that he already knew, now he had to put them together… and no matter how much he tried to come up with different possibilities, there was only one explanation that rang true in Izuku’s mind. “Dad… are you some sort of… undercover hero?” Izuku waited with baited breath for the dancing dots to turn into a complete message. Definitely not. ...Aw, shoot. Although I guess I do happen to deal with heroes quite often in my line of work. Izuku gasped. That was the first real piece of information his father had ever shared with him about his job! And wow, he worked with heroes! And whatever support he lent them had to be pretty vital if he was always so busy and tight-lipped. “So you’re like… a policeman? An informant that tracks down villains for the heroes to catch? Or an engineer bound by trade secret? Or-” Enough, Izuku. I’m supposed to be resting. I don’t think being given the third degree by my own son counts as such. Izuku deflated. So close to the truth, and yet so far… Maybe he could manage to get some other clue out of his father later. But… there was one more thing he simply had to ask. “...Have you ever met All Might?” I’m just going to ignore you after this. Well, it had been worth a try. Izuku finally relented, reasonably satisfied with the result of his investigation. “Okay, okay. Sorry. No more questions. And no All Might stuff. Not that I have much to tell you about him. He hasn’t really been around lately.” Hasn’t he, now? Uh, odd. It wasn’t like his father to miss an opportunity to dodge All Might gossip. Izuku supposed there’d be no harm in taking advantage of this atypical spark of curiosity. “Yeah. It’s been like this for a few months. Rumors say he’s abroad, working on some large scale mission. Something very secret, that’s why there are no articles on him in newspapers from other countries either.” I wasn’t aware of this. That’s very interesting. Although I couldn’t imagine anyone less suited to hushed-up operations. Izuku couldn’t help but snort. In light of the recent revelation, he wondered if his father was so unapologetically critical of All Might because he had worked with him and they hadn’t gotten along… which seemed kind of impossible. How could All Might be the unpleasant type of coworker? Or maybe his father really was just jealous because he couldn’t work with All Might often enough. A sudden thought occurred to the boy. “...Sorry, I guess you don’t want to hear about hero stuff now that you’re, uh… on forced vacation.” Actually, I’d love to. I’ve been a little out of the loop lately, I need to catch up with the news anyway. Fire away all the information you have. Izuku smiled. “Even about All Might?” Especially about All Might.

[sleeplessandstubborn]

Emily in Paris, season 2, episode 4. A tale of two scenes.

It was the best of episodes, it was the worst of episodes, the one with the probably funniest scene in the whole series so far, the one with the cringiest stereotype, and so forth and so on, and we stop paraphrasing Dickens here because in this blog we always preferred Galdós.

Emily and Mindy are sitting at a café, the former trying to rehearse why she's going to tell Camille when she has the moment to talk to her. To which Mindy objects that with every single word she keeps on digging and that Camille won't forgive her easily... because she's French. So much for Mindy's past comments about how everyone in France has lovers and infidelity is widely accepted! The problem would be the same in other countries too, in my opinion, but anyway, not the time to discuss about me or how many times I would yell at Emily for doing what she did if I was in Camille's place. Mindy invites her to drink at the drag club, she answers she hasn't time because she must go to French class.

But, before, she drops by Gabriel's restaurant to give him back the frying pan which, she argues, only brought her bad luck. I've discovered I don't really care about Gabriel's restaurant and, I'm about to say, Gabriel himself (sorry Lucas Bravo, I still like you, it's just your character sucks). He didn't talk to Camille yet and Emily accuses him of hiding. Probably, but maybe it's not the time for him to bother his ex girlfriend with his presence? In any case Emily has little options. Camille is coming to Savoir that same morning for the Champére campaign.

Camille arrives, suggesting the meeting should be held in French. Emily is still incapable of holding a whole conversation in said language so Luc takes over the presentation. At the end Camille tells Emily that she won't believe her anymore, no matter the language. Well, actually Emily needs Sylvie's translation in order to understand that last phrase, that Camille dramatically pronounces just before taking the elevator. What should I do, she asks to Sylvie, looking defenceless. Well, start by learning French, the divinely dressed Mme. Grateau answers.

And thus, Emily goes back to that class we hadn't seen since Season 1. To her (but not the watcher's) shock, she's the only student in her class that won't upgrade to French 2. Since they have to pick a partner with whom she's supposed to talk only in French, we meet two new characters. The first one is Alfie, from London, who looks gorgeous and will become a new love interest for Emily. And the second one, and that Emily chooses to be her partner for the moment, is Petra, from Kyiv. And... yes, that's when things become cringeworthy.

How can I define that stereotype on two legs that the writers introduced with Petra? It seems this series plans to insult more and more countries and this time was Ukraine's turn. Our Eastern European character who wears a ton of make up, wears tacky clothes (but so does Emily) and has an entire stationery set on her desk and who is... a shoplifter. Yes, even if that thing we'll discover it later. No suprise everyone found this character insulting.

At the drag club, Mindy is confronted with a pair of guys who claim to be part of a band that plays at very cool places and are interested in her. After all, being the soloist of this group whose existence she just learnt - and that won't ask for her papers - is way better that eating candies next to the toilets door and waiting for the few minutes during which she's allowed to perform, isn't it? You can see some things coming from hundred of kilometres as far as where and when this band performs, but anyway, good for Mindy that she's (supposedly) going to earn more than candies and tips.

At Savoir, Emily is confronted with something way healthier than candies, but a downgrade from her previous clients: leeks. She's out not only from Rimowa's account, but also from Champére's one, and Camille won't allow her to take part in the phone calls the team exchange with her. With a reason: they're in French. So leek, Sylvie say, are her opportunity for redemption. And apparently their lobby is very powerful in France. Wait until the series tackles the hunter one (yikes, I'm kidding, series, never talk about these guys, ok?). Her new clients are a quite agreeable pair, except the man is strongly prejudiced against potatoes.

Our heroine is out of inspiration as far as leeks go, so she turns to Gabriel for help (who else?). A cooking scene ensues, full of subtext and innuendos until Emily argues she's not a leek, which is a quaint thing to say. Meanwhile she receives a message from Petra, who invites her to the cafe, even if, actually, she needs to receive a second one with emojis to really get that. I don't blame her, but who came with the idea of writing Gabriel's reply "I think it's cyrillic script?". We saw that, thank you Monsieur le Chef.

So Emily and Petra go for their coffees and seem to go along at first, with an incursion in the recenty restored La Samaritaine, which will appear later in the season again. All goes well until the shoplifting incident happens. Both ladies end fighting next to the Seine. Of course Emily recovers the items Petra had taken because of her love of free things. Not commenting more on this scene because I am getting more and more furious. Argh.

Camille and Gabriel have a conversation I really didn't care about at the art gallery. She looks jaded at his attempts to charm her back into a... threesome, maybe? She's not the Camille from five years ago and she won't agree with his "please don't blame Emily, blame only me". After all, she replies, it's not like she tripped and fell on his dick. Drag him, Camille. Drag everyone in this show, especially the writers that did you so dirty this season.

Luc, who seems to be very invested in bringing Emily to the bright side of culture, takes her to see Truffaut's Jules et Jim (hence the title of the episode, Jules et Em). She ends liking the movie, even if she claims to be puzzled at it. Anyway, it brings her inspiration; she'll write a letter in French to Camille in order to ask forgiveness for having, to use her expression, tripped and fell on her boyfriend's dick. Everyone tells her: Emily, no! From Mindy, who puts her in front of the evidence (she's been using dog shampoo the whole time because she can't read, and even if labels in several languages are a thing in Europe). She asks Julien and Sylvie about her grammatical woes. "Well, it's in your voice", it's her boss opinion about her letter. Without further thought or reread, she sends her letter to Camille.

Leek couple is back and they're a bit skeptical about the ideas that are suggested for their campaign, until Sylvie argues it would sell well in the US if it was part of a "magic diet" soup. Emily doesn't like it that much, and I don't think she likes the generalization about "Americans wanting quick and easy fixes" or "liking shortcuts", but you don't get any compassion points after what you did to Petra, series.

Speaking about stereotypes, what's about mimes and France in American series & movies? They do think there are mimes everywhere in France? Why? Well, one of these appear during Mindy's performance at the street, because, as everyone could figure, that's where her bandmates play. They pull a good show.

But this episode contains, as I said, the best scene so far in the two seasons. Previously we have seen Emily reading her letter written in a completely impossible French, all this against the black-and white background of a spinning Tour Eiffel. Camille's reply comes in the same style, except it has to be kindly translated by Sylvie, including the final line, Leave me alone, you illiterate sociopath. At that moment I almost gave her a standing ovation. Please give us more of this if you want to be redeemed at some point, series.

The last scene in the episode includes Emily going back to the language school and Petra giving her a death stare. It's evident she can't be her partner anymore, so she ends sitting next to Alfie from London. Self-conscious, maybe, of his own hotness, he comments he knew she would come back. And thus the episode ends.

[happypeachwhispers]

Fries Meet Guys: ALEX HØGH ANDERSEN - I DIDN'T THINK I WAS A PERSON WHO SHOULD TALK ABOUT ANXIETY - Part One: Childhood, Parenting, Socializing

Just a couple words about this work of labor, thank you to everyone who encouraged me, helped me and believed in this translation project. Some parts were more hard than others to make sense of, I appreciate some input if you feel so inclined. It will be posted in five parts, weekly. I really did my very best. Enjoy!

Taglist: @ivarsrideordie

We invited you to the studio today, because we would like to be a little wiser about what it means to be a man and what it means to be a man to you. But for a start, we just have some classic questions. What's your name? How old are you?

Hi, my name is Alex. I'll be 25 this summer, I was born in '94. I come from a small town called Skælskør in West Jutland.

What is your profession?

I am an autodidact actor.

And what is your favorite song?

All the songs by Frank Ocean.

What's your favorite movie?

I simply can't answer that. But I talked to a friend today, we watched In Bruges, a movie with Colin Farrell and it was fucking fun.

What's your favorite dish?

It was chicken thighs for a long time, when I was a kid I liked them cooked in the oven for 25/30 minutes at 200 Celsius degrees. You put a little bit of salt on, and then they are ready, mouthwatering and delicious. But not my favorite anymore, today I'd probably say sushi.

We have given homework to Alex, we asked him to think about the word man and now we are very curious to hear what his thoughts are and what he came up with.

I was thinking of a hell of a lot of things, and at the same time, I was thinking zero things. I think it's so hard to talk about this and to feel that you are somehow obligated to talk about it, but I manged to write something down. So I should be able to talk about this. But it is so hard to feel that one has to generalize in any way. But you shouldn't, really. You can only answer for yourself.

When I come to think of a meaning of the word man, I come to think that I couldn't help but imagine some American culture that we all seem to follow blindly that's based on having the coolest clothes and going to clubs to hook up. Or you just see them wanting to be basketball players and driving sports cars. It's either rappers, basketball players or actors. I wasn't a great guy at all and I was heavily influenced by it, but then I came to realize it's not for me. It's not supposed to be like that at all.

So what's the kind of man that gives priority to those things?

The very first thing that comes to my mind is that they are drawn to that lifestyle cause it means having a lot of money, high status and living without a care in the world. You're a breadwinner. Instead I often worry in terms of where I am here in Copenhagen in 2019 and the group of friends I have here and with whom I spend my time with.

So there have been some people in your life, who have been carefree motherfuckers.

Both things. But I like to go to my dad right away and he is not a carefree person at all. But he is also not a man who has struggled with some of the things that I struggled with. Fighting with anxiety for example. And as I know many of my friends struggle with men but as women. And that's it. My dad says he doesn't know about it because he's from a different generation or maybe I've just been unlucky. He never experienced any of that. Before he could worry, he was a grown man who had to support his family. He has had the same job for 25 years now and then goes home, works in the garden, cuddles with my mother and travels around the world and then comes back home. But I would also say that he has not been very manly, he is actually quite soft many times. I can remember my little sister's confirmation where he was supposed to give a speech but didn't get through it, he was feeling emotional. Mom always keeps a watchful eye on him, especially when he talks about breast cancer and what she has been through.

You described your father as the example of a man you saw growing up, but that was your experience as a boy. What did it mean to you growing up? How did that shape the man you are today?

I think my dad has given me a lot of really cool stuff. His presence in my life gave me a lot. His sense of humor first of all, because he's one of the funniest people I know, and he can definitely be funny on a bad day, too. I love him. I hope my sense of humor is as funny as his. Also he has always been really good at taking things easy. So even when it gets tough, he helps heal all the wounds. He was a very important presence in my life, he has being a really good father and I always think of my dad as the primary example of a man. Even the soft side of my dad. When I talked to him and had heart to heart conversations, he showed me his vulnerable side. And I learned that being vulnerable is ok. That's a really good thing, I think. There has always been room for me, to express myself. He hasn't been one of those patriarchal fathers in a carnally old society, so out of touch and never talking to the children.

But what has it meant to you to have such a father? Where was there room for you or your feelings?

It meant everything in the whole world. He has always been an example. He was supportive of my dreams and  has always been there for me. When I started to do theater, he drove me from Skælskør to Copenhagen from the age of 11 to 17. So six years, where my dad comes and picks me up after work, he picks me up in the afternoon after I finish school or high school. And then he drives me to Copenhagen so that I can do theater, sits and waits for three hours while I do theater, and then he drives me home again. And when he's home, he goes straight to bed because he's going to work the day after. He did it for 6 years in a row, it is very touching and beautiful. He has been a great father, so I also hope that I can become an equally good father at some point, because I have had an absolutely wonderful role model. Him.

This is what you remember and treasure from your childhood. Is there a community at the time that you've been a part of?

Well, the schoolyard. It was football with the boys and I've always played both football and basketball. Football was big for us boys, it was everything. We were always thinking: “who is the best and who is the worst?”. We played all the time and that challenged the competition “gene” I have in me, which is pretty extreme, it was all about me trying to do better than the two or three other guys in my class who were about as good. We were all at the same level. We have always been competitive since primary school.

Probably was a way of socializing.

Yes, I think so. We were such innocent boys and then we became a team. But it's that sense of being wild and free and learning how to win and lose. And then tomorrow is a brand new day to play a new game. Carelessness is such a big thing when you're little. Something you could well miss when you're in your mid-twenties having a lot of problems.

When you say that you mean today you're a completely different man or better, a wiser but soft man with challenges and worries?

I think where I came from was from a really, really nice family. There was room for everything.

That feels like winning.

Yes, that's how you win. We didn't understand many feelings being boys that young. But I remember this talent show I was a part of, when I was 11 years old, it was a tv program where I sang and danced. It was different from what country kids experience, you have just sports there. My classmates came to see me and they were extremely supportive, I was so happy, it was fantastic. There was the whole class in there with banners and everything and the amazing experience so wonderful. But strange. Then a couple months later I had an argument with one of my teammates on the football field, he told me that just because I was on a tv show didn't mean I was better than him. I still remember those words, I was shocked, I remember those words like I heard them a week ago.

Kids, it was just kids, but I felt such a sense of shame, did I really act like I thought I was better than him? No matter who the hell you talk to, people who did something that made them a little different from the others, feel this way. People who might be famous or what the hell. They probably always feel completely calm, especially if I imagine me at 11, I just wanted to go back to school to play football. I did not attach any further value to it. I did not feel that me being on a tv show could have caused problems. But apparently it did. I spent the next six years of my life after that “incident” in Copenhagen, at the Eventyrteatret, feeling more at home than ever.

Why did you feel more at home?

Because they were just like me, crazy just like me, energetic just like me and loved dancing and singing just like me.

END PART ONE

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[lyssismagical]

it’s hard to dance with the devil on your back

Febuwhump Day 21-24  – Lethal & Drown & Unwanted & Abandoned

Read on AO3

*

Tony woke to the same damp old cave he’d woken up in last time. Except one thing is different.

There’s a boy, no older than sixteen years old, chained up in an identical wooden chair across from him. The boy is unconscious, curly hair falling in front of his eyes, head resting against his own chest.

A boy.

Not a man. Not an adult. Just a child.

In a cave, somewhere in Afghanistan with crazy terrorists who’ve already done open-heart surgery on Tony without anesthetics. Who knows what they would do, or have already done, to the boy across from him.

“Hey!” Tony says, too scared to lift his voice too high in case they come back for him, but the fear that this boy is hurt runs just a little deeper than the fear of the terrorists. “C’mon, kid, wake up.”

The boy groans, hands clenching into white-knuckled fists, standing out against the rusted metal of his thick handcuffs.

“Five more minutes?”

“Open your fucking eyes, kid, and let me know if you really want another five minutes here,” Tony snaps. He doesn’t know why, but his wrists aren’t cuffed. He’s not attached to his chair in any way, other than the fear pinning him in place, and the pain flaring in his chest.

The boy blinks his eyes open, squinting at Tony. His left eye is bruised almost shut, the purple-blue crossing over his nose and splaying out across his opposite cheek. But he doesn’t pay it any attention as he looks at the bandages on Tony’s chest.

“Sorry bout your heart,” the boy offers, shrugging. His bambi-brown eyes trace up to Tony’s face, taking in the obvious fear and worry. “They’re not coming back for you. Not to hurt you, at least. They’re going to ask you to build one of your missiles.”

“How do you know that?” Tony refrains from trying to find a way to get the boy out of his chains.

“Been here for a little longer than a few months, now. I know a lot about their plans and desires. You being hurt wasn’t part of the plan. They wanted you in peak condition, actually.”

Tony’s jaw drops, eyes widening at the thought. Months. In this cave. By himself from what Tony’s aware of.

“You’re just a kid,” Tony says, fingers twitching against the arms of his chair.

“Trust me, I’m well aware of what kids my age should be out doing, but I was never a child, Mister Stark. Never was, never have been, never will be, at this rate,” the boy says, too casually for Tony’s liking. “Anyways, I’m Peter, just so you know. Peter Parker.”

Something about the boy’s face and last name strike Tony, and he blatantly stares for a few moments until it clicks. “Richard Parker.”

Peter winces, fists tightening. “Unfortunately, yeah, that’s my dad. Not quite dad of the year, though, huh?”

Tony thinks back to the last time he saw that name. In the news, probably. Richard Parker died years back, but Tony doesn’t remember ever knowing about a child.

“Yeah,” Peter says. “He had this whole experiment thing going. He wanted to see if he could invent a serum to regenerate limbs and heal even the worst illnesses, or some bullshit. He got it to work for spiders and then he needed a human trial. Guess having a baby with a few too many medical concerns was enough for him.”

Tony’s heart clenches. He knows he’s only known Peter for a few minutes, maybe a half-hour, but fuck he knows Peter doesn’t deserve the cards he was dealt.

“How’d you end up here?” Tony asks.

“He couldn’t handle a messed up kid, I guess. He sent me to a facility where I could get ‘trained’ or some bullshit. This was a job.”

“To get chained up in a cave?”

The boy laughs. Honest to god laughs. “No, my job is to be like their slave or whatever. I can be a translator. I can help you do what they need you to do. People pay a lot of money for enhanced kids if you could believe it.”

Tony doesn’t want to believe it. He doesn’t want to think about this child being turned into a slave because of somebody else’s mistake.

“Can you get us out of here?” Tony asks because he supposes he has to know.

But Peter just laughs again like it’s the funniest thing in the world. “Don’t you think we’d already be long gone if I could get out? Vibranium cuffs, strongest metal there is.”

The chains clink as Peter lifts his hands, just a few inches away from the chair. There’s the same sort of metal wrapped around his waist, and more around his ankles.

With his hands lifted, Tony sees the dark red stain covering Peter’s grey long sleeve.

“Fuck, what happened?”

Peter looks down like he hadn’t noticed it before and then he shrugs. “Disobeying, probably. I tried to tell them to give you something for the pain. I tried to convince them to take you to a better doctor. They don’t really like it when I try to contradict them.”

Tony wants to ask if he’s okay, wants to demand that Peter never do something like that again, wants to tell the kid that everything will be okay.

But nothing comes out.

And judging by the easy shrug the kid gives him again, and the sad look in his eye when they flicker over Tony’s bandaged chest, Tony won’t be able to keep the kid from being selfless.

Instead, he settles for a quiet, “God, kid.”

And the kid, hands shaking and eyes haunted, nods in agreement.

*

Tony cries out when the men who had entered the room head straight for Peter.

The men block Tony’s view of the kid, crowding around the boy’s chair.

“I’m cooperating!” he hears Peter cry out, before he hears the telltale noise of a hit, echoing in their little cave. “I said I was cooperating!”

Words are spit out in another language, one Tony couldn’t even try to understand, but then Peter’s being tossed onto the ground by Tony’s feet.

Tony reaches for him, never happier to not be chained up, but the men get there quicker, shoving Tony’s hands away and one of them lands a solid kick to Peter’s stomach with their thick boots.

“They want you to build a Jericho missile,” Peter coughs out, rolling up onto his knees even as he gets kicked again, making his movements weaker and uncoordinated.

“A missile?” Tony repeats stupidly, not knowing how to help as Peter goes sprawling back on the ground, a relentless storm of kicks following.

Peter cries out, curling up by Tony’s feet, arms around his head.

“I’ll do it!” Tony shouts, lifting his hands only to let them hover uselessly in the air. “I’ll build it! Please, just stop.”

The men take a few steps back, muttering in the same foreign language.

Finally, one of the men steps forward and grabs Peter by the hair, dragging the boy to his knees and telling him something.

There’s blood staining Peter’s mouth and dirt caking every inch of his body, but he still meets the man’s eye and nods.

A disgusting smile creeps onto the man’s face and he lets Peter fall back to the dirt without warning, turning to his men gleefully.

One man steps forward and clasps a thick band of metal around the kid’s neck, undoing the rest of the chains.

The kid doesn’t make any noises, staying still and quiet like he’s finally decided to stay out of harm’s way.

The first man grabs Peter by the hair again, lifting him to his knees and Peter doesn’t fight it, keeping his eyes downcast, jaw clenched.

As the man speaks, Peter translates to Tony.

“They want a list of the things you need to build the missile. They want you to start making it now, the only chance you’ll have of being set free is if you do what they ask.”

Tony knows what that means, he’ll never be set free. But he can’t stop the question that tumbles from his mouth. “What about you?”

Peter offers a watery smile at that but doesn’t actually acknowledge the answer, continuing to translate to Tony about what they want. And then he translates everything Tony needs to the men, a plan already formulating.

Tony doesn’t know for sure what his grand plan will be, all he knows is that he’s going to get Peter out of here if it’s the last thing he does.

The men finally leave with Tony’s list of equipment, leaving Tony to fall out of his chair to the ground where Peter curls up.

“Hey, hey, buddy, it’s going to be okay, you hear me? It’s going to be okay.”

Peter lifts his head, eyes welling with tears and blood dripping down the side of his head where one of the boots must’ve nailed him, arms wrapped around his stomach, and shakes his head.

“It’s not!” he cries, pressing his face against Tony’s knees. “It’s not going to be okay. You can’t promise me that.”

Smoothing back Peter’s unruly curls, Tony sighs. “I know I can’t promise you much, kiddo, but I promise you that I’m going to find a way out of here.”

And Peter cries, hiding his face away against Tony’s knees on the dirty cave floor, and he cries.

When his head turns, Tony sees the words branded into the metal sitting around Peter’s neck.

Stark Industries.

* “They said they’d hurt you if I disobeyed,” Peter says, offering the can of green beans to Tony. “They said that because I’d gotten too good at taking my own punishments, they’d punish you if I put a toe out of line, and vice versa.”

Tony doesn’t care too much about his own wellbeing. But there’s a spike of fear at the idea that if Tony does something wrong, it’ll be Peter getting punished for it.

“Stop it,” Peter says, rubbing his hands together to try to retain some warmth. “I know what you’re thinking, but I don’t give a shit if I get hurt for you. I’ve been dealing with this for as long as I can remember. I need you to keep doing things out of line because you made me a promise.”

“I’m not letting you get hurt, kid.” Tony shakes his head, passing the green beans back to Peter. “I’m not going to let that happen.”

Peter rolls his eyes, not accepting the can. “Sorry but you promised me you’re going to get us out of here. So if you’re following through with that deal, I need you to do some things out of line. Ends justify the means and all that bullshit.”

It’s a solid point. How is Tony supposed to get them out of here if he follows all the rules to the exact? As much as he doesn’t want the kid to get hurt, when he gets Peter home, he’ll be able to fix him up.

The cave gets dark as they finish up their beans, wordlessly curling up on the small cot together. Tony wraps his arms around the boy, hoping that he can protect Peter better if anybody comes back, but also for the little bit of comfort it provides the two of them in the cold cave.

There’s a part of him that’s revolted by the closeness, the vulnerability of being here with a stranger, but that stranger is a child, one that Tony would already protect with everything he has. Everything that’s led up to this moment, every war profit and weapon, every drunken night spent with nameless faces, none of it matters.

All that matters is getting Peter out of here.

“You know,” Peter murmurs, jolting Tony out of his thoughts. He can’t even make out the kid’s face in the darkness. “I won’t have anywhere to go when you get me out, if you get me out. I don’t have a family waiting for me on the other side of all this. The only people who were supposed to be my family are the people who got me into this in the first place. I’m not like you, Mister Stark.”

“Trust me, kid, I don’t have anybody waiting for me either.”

Peter shakes his head, the movement visible in the darkness. “No, I’ve seen the news, Mister Stark. You’ve got Miss Potts, you’ve got Mister Hogan and Mister Rhodes. You’ve got the entire world caring about what’s happened to you. I’ve got… I’ve got nobody.”

Tony wants to argue, wants to say that Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey are probably glad Tony’s gone. That after all the shit he put them through, they’ll be thriving without him. But that’s not the part that matters.

Instead, he presses a kiss to Peter’s forehead, the way he remembers his mom did for him after nightmares, and murmurs, “You’ve got me now, kid.”

* The men deliver the things that Tony asked for, and the work begins.

Peter, it turns out, is a genius.

He says it’s because he didn’t do much in the facilities he was kept at other than learn. He used to build shitty electronics out of things he found in dumpsters, and he was allowed to go to the library to check out books whenever he pleased so long as he stayed out of the public eye and used a fake name.

So, the ideas start pouring from them, creating blueprints and diagrams for a suit. A superhero suit out of the metal they were given for the missile.

They had to keep it a secret, they had to be extra careful about what the camera saw, and the days were passing, turning into weeks that they’d been there from what Tony could tell.

Tony got hurt a few times. A few awful times where they shoved his head underwater until he thought he would die. But it was only a few times. Peter was always extra careful that if either of them got blamed, it would be Tony, so Peter would get hurt for it.

And Peter got hurt a lot. Too much.

He would be dragged out of the room by the thick metal cuff around his neck, a shock collar Tony learned the hard way, and he’d be tossed back into the cave, sopping wet and shaking, most of the time unconscious.

There was nothing Tony could do.

Nothing.

All he could do was hold Peter close when he fell into the room and hope like hope was enough.

* The men don’t drag Peter out one of the days, they instead handcuff Tony to the cot and carelessly toss Peter to the dirty floor.

Tony doesn’t understand any of the words they spit in Peter’s direction, but the way the kid flinches and cries at the words, Tony gets the gist of it. Even if he didn’t, it’s easy to understand what they’re implying by the way they hit Peter.

“Please,” Peter begs, curling up on the floor, crying out as a boot hits him in the stomach. “Please, I can’t- I can’t-”

Peter’s words get garbled by the noises of the men shouting, and it takes a moment for Tony to understand.

Peter isn’t begging them to stop. He’s begging them to take him out so Tony doesn’t have to see.

And Tony can’t say anything or else it could count as disobeying, and Peter gets hurt for Tony’s mistakes. He doesn’t even know what his mistake was this time.

“No, please!” Peter begs, curling up tighter on the ground. One of the men grabs his arm and drags him up just enough to produce a syringe and plunge it into his arm.

The syringe has Stark Industries branded on the side.

“That’s lethal,” one of the men say, dropping Peter to the floor who writhes and sobs.

They hit him a few more times and then turn to Tony, saying something in another language. When Peter doesn’t say anything, they kick him in the back.

“They- They think you’re not follow- following the rules,” Peter says, voice shaking almost as bad as his hands as he tries to get them underneath him.

“Fuck them,” Tony says. “Fuck this.”

Peter shakes his head, tears dripping onto the dirt. “Mister Stark-”

“Tell them I’m making the missile like they asked, it just takes time. We just need time.”

Peter chokes out the translation to the men, coughing blood up onto the ground.

“It’s not- They said we have to hurry, Mister Stark. They said- They said we’re running out of time. Please, you’ve gotta- please, I can’t- It hurts, Mister Stark, please- I can’t-”

Tony doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the scream that tears through the air, Peter’s body convulsing before he falls to the ground, eyes closed, breathing heavy and erratic.

They shocked him.

They drugged him and they hit him and shocked him.

“I’m going to fucking kill you!” Tony shouts, voice breaking. “I’m going to kill every single one of you for this!”

Peter gets kicked a few more times for the threats. And guilt rushes over Tony like a tidal wave. He tugs at the handcuffs, desperate to just hold the poor kid.

“Please, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. Is that what you want to hear? I’m sorry. Just let me hold him. Please, god, just let me hold him.”

But they don’t. They don’t let Tony out of his cuffs, they don’t move Peter from where he’s curled up on the floor, they don’t say anything.

They walk out.

And all Tony can do is sit and watch Peter’s chest to make sure it keeps rising and falling.

He tells Peter about his mom. He talks about her piano skills and the food she used to cook, about how much she loved his father unconditionally even if his father wasn’t the best. He talks about his father and their rocky relationship, how their death forced him so young to take over Stark Industries.

He talks about Pepper and her no-nonsense mindset. About Happy and despite being the head of security, can’t work technology for the life of him. About Rhodey and how he’s stood by Tony’s side as his best friend for decades, without fail, Rhodey’s always there. (He doesn’t bother saying that Rhodey’s not here now when Tony needs him most.)

He talks until his voice is raw and hoarse, until the fire dies across the room, until his eyelids are drooping.

And then Peter moans in pain.

“Mister Stark?” he calls out before he even opens his eyes.

“Yeah, buddy, I’m right here, I promise.”

It doesn’t soothe the boy like he was hoping, instead his bottom lip begins to tremble, and he lifts his shaking hands out in Tony’s direction.

A simple request.

Peter wants to be held.

“I can’t, kiddo. I’m all chained up over here. I can’t get to you,” Tony says, rattling his chains for effect. “You’re not chained up, though. You can come get to me.”

And the kid, he cries.

“Mister Stark.”

“I’m here, kid. I’m here, you’ve got me. Don’t cry, I hate it when you cry,” Tony says, surprising himself at how much he genuinely has grown to care for the kid over the past few weeks.

“Mister Stark.”

Tears spring to Tony’s eyes as well hearing the kid sound so broken. “I’m right here, kiddo. I’m right here. It’s going to be okay. I promised you, remember?”

Peter’s face crumbles. “Mister Stark, they’re coming back. They’re- They’re coming back. I’m- I can’t do it again. Please, I can’t- It hurts so bad, Mister Stark, please, I can’t-”

Lethal, echoes in his head. All he wants is to hold Peter.

The door slams open again, the same men filing into the room, this time, a bucket of water held between a few of them.

They’ve both been through this song and dance before.

“No!” Tony cries out, pulling at his restraints. “No! Don’t fucking touch him!”

Peter sobs, trying in vain to escape the hands reaching out for him, but he’s weak, drugs coursing through his body and beaten within an inch of his life.

There’s nothing he can do.

There’s nothing Tony can do.

Later, long after Peter wakes up after passing out from the waterboarding, Peter crawls over to Tony, rips the cuffs away from his wrists, and they hold each other close and cry.

And Peter lives. Like he always does. And he doesn’t stop taking all of the hits for both of them.

The next day, Peter’s too hurt to leave the cot.

He curls up in a little ball, low whines escaping his throat when he can’t help it, body trembling miserably.

It didn’t help that they waterboarded him in cold water. It made the shivering relentless.

And after the first time, Tony learned that Peter couldn’t thermoregulate.

“You okay, bud?” Tony asks quietly, kneeling beside the cot to push back Peter’s curls, nearly flinching at the heat radiating from the kid’s forehead. Fever, of course.

Peter’s hazy eyes slowly meet Tony’s, empty and haunted. “M’okay.”

It’s a blatant lie, but Tony doesn’t bother pointing it okay. “Okay, buddy. I’m going to get some work done, alright? But you stay right here and rest, and you let me know if you need anything, alright?”

Tony tugs the thin blanket around Peter’s shoulders, gently tucking him in.

“Okay,” Peter whispers, voice hoarse and broken. “Be careful.”

Tony isn’t sure whether he means that Tony should be careful and not get caught doing bad things so Peter doesn’t get hurt again, or if he means to be careful because he’s scared he won’t be able to protect Tony himself.

Either way, Tony nods and offers a weak smile. “Soon, kiddo, soon, I promise.”

It’s not enough. Soon would never be enough. Peter shouldn’t have been in this situation in the first place.

Peter just nods once, curling up a little tighter as his small shoulders tremble.

He’s going to get Peter out of here. Get the kid back to the tower to get some needed medical attention, give him a real bed, a real room, a real home. He had to.

So, he forces himself to cross the room, leaving Peter alone in the cot, looking small and young, and makes himself focus on the task at hand.

He was going to get Peter home.

No matter what.

  * Three fucking months.

Three godawful, scarring, life-changing months that they spend in the cave, working relentlessly on their project.

But it’s finally complete and their plan is in action to get them out of here.

“You ready, bud?” Tony asks softly, cupping the boy’s face. He never thought he’d be the parental type, never thought he’d be a good person for anybody to idolize, but he’s all that Peter has and he has to be enough.

Peter’s eyes are wide and glassy, but there’s a strong determination shining within him as he offers a grim smile.

“Always, of course. Let’s get this show on the road.”

And their plan commences.

Everything works according to plan. The suit, the bomb explosion, it goes well.

But then the panic is showing in Peter’s eyes, fear blazing through the determination. “We don’t have enough time.”

Tony frowns down at the suit encasing his body, holding him to the wall, and the loading bar filling too slowly, and the sound of feet and guns approaching quickly.

Peter’s face falls and his eyes are teary as he leans his head against Tony’s chest, taking a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, taking a step back and schooling his face into bravery. “I’m going to buy you some time. Follow the plan.”

“No!” Tony shouts, trying in vain to get his arms off the wall, to stop Peter from making this mistake, but there’s nothing he can do but watch as Peter races off down the hallway, grabbing a gun off one of the men who got taken down by the explosion.

There’s nothing Tony can do but follow the plan and just hope he’ll find Peter on the other side of it all.

So he rips himself off the wall, guns blazing and starts off through the twisting cave.

There are no problems as Tony makes his way through the memorized plan, carelessly killing anybody that crosses his path.

These were the people who hurt Peter, he doesn’t give a shit about them.

The light is blinding when he reaches the entrance to the cave, freezing in his steps when he sees the kid.

“Peter,” Tony breathes, pushing the mask off his face and falling to his knees next to the boy sprawled on the ground.

Peter has the audacity to grin up at Tony, fumbling fingers grabbing his arm. “Did I do a good job?”

Tony chokes out a sob, gently cupping Peter’s face. “You did wonderful, buddy. Now we’ve gotta get you out of here, okay? We’ve gotta get you home.”

“Don’t have a home, Mis’er S’ark.”

“No, kiddo, you have a home now. Told you, you couldn’t get rid of me that easily, huh?” Tony says, shaking his head. “I’ll be back for you, okay? I promise.”

Peter nods like he doesn’t believe it and Tony can’t help but to think of Peter when he was a baby, imagining chubby cheeks and a gummy smile and the biggest bambi-brown eyes, being left behind by his father, never to see him again.

Tony can’t help but to think about Peter growing up asking where his parents were, what happened to them, why they never came back for him.

And now he’s being told to wait, by himself, again. Tony can’t help but to think about all the broken promises, to the point where Peter won’t even dare to believe this one.

“I’ll be right back, buddy. Got to make sure it’s safe before I take you anywhere, okay? I’ll be back before you know it, just keep your eyes open, alright?”

Peter nods again, and lets his hand fall from Tony’s arms, offering a watery smile.

Tony presses a kiss to Peter’s head before he turns towards the opening of the cave to get them to safety.

* Tony scoops Peter into his arms without preamble, tucking Peter close to his chest and hoping the metal isn’t too hot against the kid’s skin, it doesn’t help that Tony’s already torched the place and they’ll need to fly through it.

“Got you, kiddo, I’ve got you, just like I promised,” Tony murmurs, taking off towards the sky.

They did it, they’re out of that godawful cave, and Peter is tucked in his arms.

The sky is close enough to touch, heat falling beneath them, and they shoot out of the little village towards the sandy ravines.

Tony keeps Peter close, even as the boots run out of fuel and they finish their arc towards the sand too fast.

Flipping in the air, Tony keeps Peter cradled on his chest and hits the sand on his back. He loses grip of Peter as soon as they hit the ground, the momentum throwing them through the sand.

For a moment, his vision whites out.

And then he’s fumbling to rip the metal off him and stumble through the sand towards Peter’s body.

He can hear a helicopter somewhere overhead and he’s reminded that it’s been three months since he got taken (sixteen fucking years since Peter was) but people were still searching for him. Despite the helicopter, Tony doesn’t bother trying to wave it down. Instead, he heads straight for Peter.

“C’mon, buddy, not the time to sleep just yet. Wake on up, kid, I still need you,” Tony says, carefully drawing Peter into his chest.

There’s blood. A lot of it. Staining the front of the kid’s shirt, but it’s almost always stained with blood, so Tony doesn’t find himself as worried about it. He’s more worried about the rattling breaths Peter’s taking in and the way his ice-blue lips are smeared with blood, despite the heat pounding down on them.

“C’mon, kiddo, I promised you I was going to get you out of there and home. I’ve grown attached to someone for the first time in like a decade, so it would be cruel of you to just ditch me now.”

Peter’s eyes blink open at him, squinting under the sunlight. A lazy smile touches his face and his muscles relax.

“Missed the sun,” he says, voice slurring and hoarse. “Thank you, Mister Stark.”

“Don’t thank me yet, kid. I’m getting you to the best doctors in the world and then I’m showing you to your new home, just like I promised.”

Peter’s trembling fingers curl into Tony’s shirt, clinging to him like a lifeline. “I don’t wanna die, Mister Stark. Please, I can’t- I can’t die, please-”

“It’s okay, kid. It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

There’s pounding footsteps heading towards them and all Tony can think is he needs to protect Peter, so he wraps his arms tight around Peter who trembles in his grip.

“Don’t fucking touch him!” Tony snarls protectively, cupping the back of the kid’s neck and holding his head against the crook of his neck.

“Tony, it’s just me, man. It’s okay.”

Gripping Peter tighter, Tony looks up to find-

“Rhodey?” Tony sobs, hanging onto Peter. He can’t even imagine how wrecked they both look, crying in the sand. “Rhodey, fuck, the kid- he needs help. He needs- Fuck, you’ve gotta-”

“Let’s you guys home, alright? It’s going to be okay. You have to trust me though.”

Rhodey looks like he’s going to take Peter from him, arms outstretched, and the kid cowers, crying out in fear.

“Don’t touch him, please, fuck, don’t- I’ve got him, okay? I’ve got him,” Tony says, clutching the kid closer.

Lifting his hands in surrender, Rhodey takes a couple of steps back from them, watching as Tony scoops Peter into his arms, cradling him against his chest as he had before.

Peter hides his head against the crook of Tony’s neck, burning forehead pressing against Tony’s skin, shaking in his arms, tears spilling over his shirt.

“I’ve got you, kiddo, I’ve got you,” Tony murmurs, stumbling forwards. Rhodey gets a good grip on his upper arm and helps haul them towards the helicopter.

“Mister Stark,” Peter whines quietly. “I- I-”

Tony presses a kiss to Peter’s forehead, ignoring the strange look Rhodey sends him. “I’ve got you. You’re going to be okay. Remember, I promised you.”

There’s nothing much Tony can do but spew reassurances like they can fix this.

There’s nothing he can do but hold his kid close and hope like hope means anything.

* As soon as Tony’s cleared in medical, aside from things like starvation and dehydration and sleep-deprivation, among the whole heart surgery thing, plus some pretty nasty burns from the suit, Tony begs everyone he sees to take him to Peter.

He doesn’t care if he looks like a pathetic version of The Tony Stark. He doesn’t care if he looks like a wreck.

All he wants is to hold his kid.

Is that too much to ask?

Thankfully, Pepper arrives to medical pretty quickly, despite everything.

“I need to see Peter,” Tony says before everything else. He doesn’t give a shit about himself or about the company or about the media. “I need- Pepper, I need to see him.”

Pepper sits at the edge of his bed, gently resting her hand on his ankle. “What you need to do is calm down, Tony. Peter’s still in surgery. He’s going to be okay, but you can’t see him just yet.”

“Tears for your long lost boss?” Tony says because he just wants to pretend like he doesn’t feel like somebody scooped his chest clean.

Pepper lets out a watery laugh. “Yeah, I hate job hunting.”

“I can’t make weapons anymore,” Tony says. “You can’t talk me out of it. The people there, they- I can’t do it.”

“Okay,” Pepper says like she gets it, like she understands. “We’ll figure it all out later, okay? For now, I want you to rest.”

Tony shakes his head, awkwardly shoving the blankets off his legs with his left arm in a sling. “No, you don’t understand, I need all production of weapons to be frozen. I need all the exports to be stopped. I need every piece of weaponry with my name on it to be taken back and destroyed. I need you to- to fix this. I’ve made too many mistakes and I need to fix it, Pep.”

Pepper’s hand is soft and cold against his cheek, carefully cradling his face. “Of course, Tony, right away. Do you want to talk about it?”

“They hurt the kid with my weapons, Pep. They- They used my weapons to kill innocent people. My weapons hurt my kid. I can’t- I can’t have them falling into the wrong hands anymore.”

The smile that touches Pepper’s face is proud, proud of Tony, which isn’t something Tony thought he’d ever see. “Your kid?”

Tony’s eyes flicker down to the bed, looking everywhere but at Pepper. “I’m not going to let him down. Not now.”

“It’s a good look on you, Tony. This whole caring thing you’ve got going for you, it’s nice to see. Despite everything, I’m glad Peter has you.”

They lapse into silence, Pepper’s eyes on him but he doesn’t look up.

Eventually, Pepper pats his leg once more and stands from the bed. “Get some rest, Tony. You deserve it. I’ll figure the company out.”

“Send me any updates through JARVIS, alright? I want every weapon recalled immediately.”

“I’ll make it my top priority, Tony.” She stops at the door, eyes glancing down at his bare chest, arc reactor glowing brightly. “He’ll be okay, you know that, right?”

Tony forces himself to nod. “If possible, could you get Happy to make up the guest bedroom next to mine? Properly set up for a teenage boy?”

Pepper nods, hesitates like she wants to ask him something, but decides better of it and ducks out of the room.

After the past three months in the cave, barely hours apart from the kid, Tony can’t sleep by himself. He’s used to curling up in the small cot with Peter, holding him tight to try to stop the relentless shivering.

Now, he’s expected to rest when he hasn’t even seen Peter in who knows how long. He’s expected to be okay with leaving Peter alone with strangers while he does nothing.

He’s spent too long hoping, and now they’ve got it, but it isn’t enough. It won’t feel like he’s safe until he gets Peter in his arms. It won’t feel like he’s made it out of the cave until he’s allowed to speak freely and rest easy, holding his kid in their home.

He hates feeling useless and like there’s nothing he can do. He’s felt like that for three months and he’s sick of it.

But there’s still lingering fear that if he steps out of line, Peter will be hurt for it.

So he keeps his mouth shut and lays still in the hospital bed.

* “Knock, knock.”

Pepper pushes the door open and steps into his room.

It’s been at least six hours since she left, but Tony’s refused to sleep or move from his bed.

“Is Peter okay?”

She offers a soft smile and sits at the end of his bed again. She looks pretty, dressed professionally and well-rested. “He’s still asleep, but you’re allowed over. But first, I figured you’d like to know I have all of our employees working on recalling all of the weapons and all production has been frozen for the time being.”

All the worry rushes out of his body at once. “I can go see him?”

Pepper holds out her hand to him. “Yeah, come on.”

She leads him out of his hospital room and down the hall to another door. She pushes it open to reveal Peter lying in his own identical hospital bed. He has an oxygen mask and a heart monitor and plenty of needles and IV’s.

“He doesn’t like needles,” Tony says. He remembers Peter getting drugged back in that cave and his stomach clenches. “Is he- He looks so pale, Pepper, is he-”

“He’s okay, Tony,” Pepper murmurs, wrapping her free arm around his shoulders and leading him to the chair beside the bed. “He lost quite a bit of blood but he’s on the mend.”

Tony lets go of Pepper’s hand to hold Peter’s, gently squeezing his cold hand. “He can’t thermoregulate. Would you- Would you turn up the heat?”

Pepper does as asked, barely taking her eyes of Tony as she does. “He’s going to be okay, Tony, you don’t need to worry.”

Shaking his head, Tony murmurs a quiet, I know, before tuning her out, focusing solely on the beeping heart monitor.

Pepper leaves him not long later, murmuring something about checking on the progress of his requests, but he doesn’t care. He only cares about Peter’s cold hand in his.

As soon as the door shuts behind her, Peter peeks one of his eyes open. “Mister Stark?”

“You’re a little shit, you know that? I hate you,” Tony says, making sure to throw as much sarcasm and relief into his voice. “They took you to surgery, you realize, for injuries you never bothered to tell me about.”

Peter shrugs, sitting up in bed despite Tony’s protests, and pulling his oxygen mask down so it hands around his neck. “My bad? I heal quick, don’t worry.”

“Don’t worry?” Tony repeats incredulously, grip tightening on Peter’s hand. “Do you have any idea how long your list of injuries is?”

“I was in Afghanistan for seven months, Tony. There was a lot that happened before you were there anyways.” Peter shakes his head, blinking the haunted look out of his eyes, and grinning. “Either way, I feel wonderful but absolutely famished if you’ve got some food around here.”

“If I have food?” The teasing joke dies in his throat though. Even if Tony’s always had food, will always have food stocking his kitchen a few floors up, Tony can’t even imagine how unstable even basic necessities are for Peter.

Peter shrugs again, looking at Tony expectantly.

“Let’s get you cleared by a doctor first, I’m not about to let you wander about without permission.”

Tony hits the button for the doctor to come and looks at Peter with a squinted expression. “I’m guessing you have questions?”

“Where are we? Please don’t say New York. And what the fuck? And also, who was just in here?”

Tony can’t help but to laugh and with the way Peter looks up at him with a wide-eyed expression, Tony wonders if he’s ever done that around the kid. “You’re in California, right now. My Malibu Mansion. And Pepper was in here, my assistant.”

“Like Barbie?”

Before Tony can say anything, Cho walks into the room, sporting a professional smile.

“Hello, Mister Stark, nice to see you looking a little better, as you, Mister Parker,” she says. “How are you feeling?”

The nonchalant, confident Peter from seconds ago seems to have disappeared leaving an anxious shell. His fingers shift restlessly and his mouth is set in a firm line, eyes focused on the floor.

“I’m fine.”

Tony nudges Peter’s arm. “You have to be honest with the doctor, kiddo, she’s just here to help.”

The kid’s eyes flicker to Tony before falling back to the ground. Quietly, almost too quietly for Tony to pick up on, he asks, “You promise?”

“I promise, buddy. Miss Cho just wants to get you back on your feet, just like I do, I trust her.”

Peter sniffles, chewing on his bottom lip. “My chest hurts and my stomach.”

Had Tony been the first person Peter allowed himself to trust? That kind of pressure is almost too much for Tony to handle, squeezing Peter’s hand in his. He doesn’t know how to be that person for the kid. All he knows for sure is that he cares and that he needs the kid to be okay, to feel safe, to have a home in Tony, and he knows that’ll be enough to guide him through the motions.

“That’s to be expected,” Cho says, voice gentler than before and she purposefully moves her hands to her hips so they’re both visible and weaponless. “You had quite a few ribs that were broken and healed improperly. You had a punctured lung when you got here, though it was pretty new. And we used medicines for enhanced people which comes with some side-effects like stomach pain.”

“Yikes,” Peter manages, letting out a choked laugh. “That sucks.”

And Cho smiles, nodding. “Yeah, it does. But we expect a full recovery within a few days with your healing.”

“Could I show him around? Get him some food upstairs?” Tony asks, squeezing Peter’s hand again, smiling when he gets a squeeze back.

“Yeah. I think I’d like to see him again tonight, especially if the chest pain persists, but as long as he takes it easy and rests, I think he’ll be alright to go.”

So Tony takes Peter’s hand, helps him out of the bed and leads him all the way up to the top floor of the mansion, without letting him go.

“You want something to eat?” Tony offers, leading him to the kitchen that Pepper kept well stocked. He wouldn’t be surprised if she stayed on his floor while he was gone. “A sandwich?”

Peter’s face pinches like the idea of a sandwich makes him uncomfortable. “I, uh, I could just go for a can of green beans, honestly.”

“I’m not-” Tony cuts himself off and wonders if this is too big of a jump for the poor kid. Seven months living off gross food in a can, probably long passed the expiry date, in a damp cold cave, all the way to living in a luxurious mansion.

“I, uh, I don’t mind. Whatever works. I just- I don’t know, this is a lot,” Peter says apprehensively. “A little overwhelming.”

Tony can’t physically give him a can of green beans. He can’t do it, but he can do regular fresh green beans and hope it’ll be okay.

“I don’t know if I ever told you, but I, uh, my mom was Mary Parker, well Fitzpatrick. And believe it or not, she was amazing. She loved me so much. I remember she used to make sandwiches for my dad to take to work with him. She used to hang out with me all day while he was working. She would always tease him for wanting the crusts cut off his sandwiches,” Peter explains quietly over his green beans.

Tony can’t help but notice that Peter doesn’t even try to pick up the fork left for him.

It was the same kind of thing for Tony, though. His mom was amazing, loved Tony unconditionally, but she also loved Howard unconditionally despite his devotion to work that took away from them.

“Yeah?”

Peter’s eyes flicker up to Tony. “Yeah. But in the end, she didn’t put up a fight when my dad took me away. She just kissed my forehead and said goodbye like she couldn’t stop it from happening.”

“Nobody’s taking you from me,” Tony says. He doesn’t know if that’s what Peter’s hinting at, but he needs the kid to understand it anyways. “I will fight tooth and nail if anybody tries to take you from me. I’m not letting you go, ever.”

And Peter’s shoulders droop, blinking a few times. “Yeah, of course, yeah. I know. I just- I don’t know. This is really new to me.”

Tony offers a reassuring smile. “It’s new to me too, don’t worry, but I know for sure that you can’t rid of me anymore. You’ve got me on your side. No matter what.”

Nodding, Peter finishes off his green beans and offers a tentative smile. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me for this one, kid… I’ve also decided to stop all weapon production. Pepper’s recalling everything, making sure none get made from us anymore. I should’ve realized how much harm they were doing earlier-”

“Yeah, of course, that’s good,” Peter says, cutting him off. He looks paler than he had seconds earlier and Tony realizes Peter probably doesn’t want to hear about weaponry this soon after their rescue. “Could I actually lay down for a bit? You heard Miss Cho, gotta get my beauty sleep.”

Tony shows Peter to his bedroom, making a mental note to thank Happy for the very quick work he did in fixing up the bedroom right beside Tony’s.

“Get some rest, kid. Let me know if you need anything, alright? I’m just next door,” Tony murmurs. He pauses at the doorway, hand hovering over the lightswitch.

“Could you, uh, could you just leave it on?” Peter asks, letting out a nervous laugh. “I’d rather not be in the dark anymore, you know?”

“Course, kid, yeah.”

Peter nods a few times, sitting on the edge of his new bed. “Night, Mister Stark.”

Later, Tony will realize that as soon as he closes the door beside him, Peter races into the connecting bathroom to throw up and talk himself out of a panic attack before bed.

Later, he’ll realize Peter moves the pillow and a few blankets onto the floor because he doesn’t feel comfortable on the soft mattress after seven months on the godawful cot.

Later, he’ll learn that Peter curls up in a tight ball and cries himself to sleep.

But for the moment, Tony just turns and closes the door, unable to offer any help if Peter doesn’t want it. He just hopes Peter will come to him if he needs it.

* Tony jerks awake at the sound of his door opening. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but he supposes even he has to sleep at some point.

He’s reaching for his nightstand, for some weapon, when the light spills in to reveal Peter standing there.

The kid is crying quietly, shuffling on his feet like he can’t make up his mind, and then he’s scurrying into the room on almost silent feet.

“Kid?” Tony murmurs, slowly lifting up in bed to squint at the kid who jumps at his voice.

“Mister Stark,” Peter cries, hands lifting out towards him. A child asking to be held. “Can’t- I can’t sleep alone, I can’t-”

Tony shushes him gently, silently lifting his blankets.

The kid crawls into the bed without a second thought, curling up against Tony’s side like they’re still sleeping on the tiny cot. He hides his face in Tony’s shirt, nearly cutting his cheek on the edge of the arc reactor, crying into the fabric.

“I- I dreamt I was drowning and I- I couldn’t get to you and I tried- I tried so hard, Mister Stark, but I couldn’t- I couldn’t-”

Tony gently smooths back Peter’s curls, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “We’re okay, kiddo. I’ve got you. We’re safe now, we’re out of there. We’re safe, I promise.”

“I just wanted my nigh’light,” Peter admits through his hiccuping sobs, shaking fingers tapping on the glowing arc reactor. “I- I- I woke up and I thought you were gone.”

“I’m here, bambi, I’ve got you.” Tony wraps an arm tightly around Peter’s waist, holding him close.

Tony keeps up a litany of reassurances and soothing words until Peter’s trembling ceases and his tears slow, knowing that they’re safe now so the words are what matters, not just another way to get them through the pain.

“Get some rest, kiddo, I’ve got you, I’m here,” Tony murmurs, kissing his forehead again.

“They’re not- They’re not coming back?”

Rage flashes through Tony’s chest and he silently swears he’ll kill every single person who hurt Peter with his bare hands. For now, he soothes Peter’s fears softly. “No, you’re safe now. I’m going to protect you, kid, I’ve got you.”

“You won’t- You won’t send me away?”

“You’re my kid now, Peter, nothing’s going to take us away from each other, okay? I promise and I don’t break my promises, do I?”

Peter giggles through the leftover tears, his laughter like the sun finally peeking through the clouds after a storm. “No, you don’t.”

“See? I promise you, it’s going to be me and you now, and I’m going to keep you safe.”

Peter finally relaxes, eventually slipping back to sleep in Tony’s arms.

And it’s not okay, they’re still pretty far from it, but for now, it’s enough. It’s enough to hold each other close and rest.

Later, there will be a lot to deal with, a lot to work through, the longest list of trauma to face, but as long as they have each other, there’s nothing they can’t do.

[lordxgrinnyxboy]

rewatching tgm, wifi being useless edition 2/?

every time i hear puppet!Dea say “when a story is raw and real” i see Mr. Gordon Ramsey memes, they just scroll across my vision and there’s nothing i can do to stop it u-u

ngl im kinda in love with Mojo Puppeteer

the foot shimmy during this scene, like right as Ursus gets up off the floor Gwyn/Mr. Maskell does this little ankle squirm. u-u

foreaaaaaaaaaarmmmmssssss

love how mr maskell doesn't emote w/his face while puppeteering but ms. brisson's just facially so into this performance and honestly so's ms. onitiri

also love all the different bits of ribbon and such puppet!Dea’s hair is made of. several different textures in there

kay but the way he makes the prince puppet kinda bounce in place as he sings “only those three words could ever free me from the curse” it just makes it look like the prince is kindof adorably excited about this

im just now realizing that one part of the puppet is supposed to be the prince’s mouth and not his chin or something.

Dea’s soft “oh” when their hands touch

foreaaaaaarmsssss

Gwynlit always looks so shook as they step back from each other after the aging up sequence like he’s full dear-in-headlights (i know it’s ‘deer’ in headlights but he is Dear to Me so)

and really so is Dea for a second there

oh god her look of alarm  changes to a smile the second Gwyn starts singing. i need a minute.

i love these two so much

the harmony will never not end my life why is it so powerful

idk what they put in this song but every single time my aroace self is like “shfjshfsj play this at my wedding” and then i have to be like “wait.”

Dea’s adorable and i hope she knows how adorable she is

im cry they’re so cute they’re so cute i love these two

Quake is on it about letting ppl know entertainment’s cancelled due to the king dying Quake is ready Quake loves her job so much

oh so  the barrels are just there for Dirry-Moir and Osric to have somewhere to sit while Ursus tells the story okay

wait how quick did dude just throw on his Clarence costume and climb in the coffin that was. super duper fast

he’s literally offscreen for 24 seconds and managed to

holy cats how does he do it

wait also mojo tho. mojo had to put on his priest costume

wait also Osric and Dirry-Moir had to put on their Lord attire

and they say movies are supposed to be magic

just continuing to absolutely love every character played by ms. obianyo

love how they just. have trombones. 10/10

i mean i guess the costume changes aren’t super complicated like throw on a robe and a wig but STILL within 24 seconds? i think it’s impressive

oh hey jojo-as-a-random-lord is also here

ohhhhh is that why Jojo’s costume is Like That then? to make it easier to switch characters real fast? but no actually???

the hats on the lords tho. we’ve got Fish Lord, Bunny Lord,,, maybe some kind of Bird or Chicken Lord...

so it’s a Pig’s Foot that killed Clarence and the name of the holy relic translates to like, “pig’s flower” ...thematic....dots.......

oop there’s Only a Clown

ngl i kinda love Archbishop Kupsak. a weird dude.

would love to know why Angelica thought she needed to ‘make a law’ regarding traitors being brought to justice. just curious about her thought-process. heck she could probably have her own musical.

WAIT MS OBIANYO PLAYS THE TROMBONE. SICK.

wait hey, hey. hey. petition for ms. obianyo to play a FATE.

oh god it’s my least favorite scene

skip? no...but? no u-u

jojo apologize to the trash clown

scene too stressful

genuinely have no thoughts, head completely empty

CART SCENE CART SCENE CART SCENE

is that a bowl and spoon on th-

separate post separate post gentlefolks of the jury i

jaw twitch

okay but Dea gets this Look when Gwyn asks Ursus “who did this to me” she looks a little Surprised

does not react however to “who carved me into this freak”

the hand flex as Gwyn walks away from Ursus after Ursus Won’t Let Him Talk

oh Osric you absolute delight

beauty and the beast ii destroys me every time gwyn’s just steadily wilting but trying to hold on but he can’t and Dea’s so supportive

would love to know what Ursus’ take on all this would’ve been if he hadn’t been involved. like would he still be hell-bent on not letting Gwyn remember or would he have been more chill about letting Gwyn make that decision for himself

like on the one hand i can see why Ursus would think that maybe Gwyn would be better off not remembering, but also making him forget clearly didn’t actually help him suffer any less, it just gave him a different kind of suffering. He’s wrung-out tormented and Ursus can’t/won’t help him because of the potential repercussions of Gwyn learning the truth. which do include some Worst Timeline options for how that could go but. also include a few Gwyn’s Able To Move On And Live Well, With Or Without Ursus options so.

idk i just feel like after a certain point of seeing how Gwyn’s basically falling apart over all this Ursus really should’ve considered having that difficult Discussion bc that boy was Not getting better on Ursus’ Plan A

also the whole dismissively invalidating ur kid’s struggle is not a good look Ursus

i love him and absolutely believe he is definitely Trying His Best but he’s #Problematic_Dad for sure

that bit where Ursus notices Josiana as if for the first time and does that little bow to her oh my goodness XD

also him just trying so hard to keep it together in the lead-up to Born Broken. debating whether Ursus sticking his head through the curtain is the funniest part of this show. probably not but it’s real close

Dea’s so pretty and i love her outfit u-u

and her blue makeup

and her lovely lovely eyes like wow she’s Perfect

this girl is in her element and im fully convinced that in the version of events where Gwyn and Dea stay on as Lord and Lady Dea does some addressing of parliament or whatever, has speaking engagements, she’s all kinds of involved.

there’s tears in Ursus’ eyes during this bit and i don’t agree w/him but i do feel bad for him. he does want to do right by these kids but he’s just...it’s not working out for him because he can’t have it both ways.

i mean genuinely tho Ursus is so desperate to forget/bury/escape/move on from the past but in adopting Gwyn and trying to be a family and a fresh start for him...that shut down any chance of that actually happening.

no but fr Ursus’ face when Dea says “it doesn’t keep us safe, Father, it turns us against you” which is like. probably the exact thing he’s afraid of happening if they ever learn the truth.

*strums lyre* it’s a sad tale, it’s a tragedy!

Musical Ursus is fully a good dude who did one Stupid Thing and spent the rest of his life trying to control the damage only to make it Worse and then he died and i’m so! 😭

at the end of the second 30minutes but im keep going

Dea and Gwyn are holding hands so intently im feeling feelings about

harmonyyyyyyyy

ngl though i wonder if given Ursus’ “dear god, you pick your moments” and “who did what to you” if maybe this is something that’s just been festering and hasn’t been verbally brought up until the show’s events

“What do you want?! BLOOD?!” i mean u did script him as saying he wants to kill a man

“I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know” i mean technically that’s true bc technically Gwyn does know, he just doesn’t remember, which is pretty much the same as not knowing but ayyyyyyyyyy

would love to know what Ursus thought was coming when Gwyn said “I can only tell them what I know I am” like

wait no but “I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know” being followed by “I can only tell them what I know I am” idk how to say but oh heck oh heck oh heck heck oh no.

but yeah Ursus’ little glances at Gwyn and then the Turn as Gwyn starts to sing. i just wonder what Ursus is thinking just then

ohhhhhhhhh wait a minute now. stars stripped from the sky. the play on the lyrics from within Ursus’ show. the conversation they just had. is Freak Show (partially?) a vaguepost at Ursus 👀

no but the Wiggle before that next to last “watch me smile” tho

needs the backbend 🍹

hello Puppet Helmet Thing. i’ve developed a fondness for you, you unexplained and kind of weird yet near-infinitely interpretable element of the show.

and cutting here for length uwu

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #317

i’m tired as a motherfucker and don’t feel like thinking up some lyrics, so here, jus have the survey.

Have you volunteered in the past 6 months? No. French fries or onion rings? French fries. I don't like onion rings. Do you suffer from anxiety? Very badly. Favorite healthy snack? "Apples and peanut butter are one of them." <<<< Same, actually. Good shit. Favorite Disney movie? Forever and always The Lion King. If you see a bee in your house.. are you going to kill it? I hate to say it, but I'm killing it. Do you normally take a shower in the morning or at night? Morning. Do you have a cat? Yeah. What is your favorite animal? It will always be meerkats. Always. Do you know what time you were born? 10:30 AM, I believe. Do you like McDonalds? I'm gonna be real: I've never understood the McDonald's hate. I enjoy it perfectly fine. I mean it's certainly not gourmet, but I'll choose it over other fast food places sometimes. It's cheap and decent food, imo. What's your favorite flower? Orchids. Have you thought about joining the military? FUCK no. Who is the person that has impacted your life the most? Given my PTSD, I think it's pretty obviously Jason. Have you ever had a pet fish? Yeah, but not a lot. I never enjoyed them much. Have you ever wanted to be on a game show? Not seriously, no. I wouldn't want to be on television. Have you ever vaped? Nah. Who was the last person to give you a hug? Either my niece or nephew. Have you ever been on TV? I don't think so, no. What's your favorite store in the mall? Hot Topic, ugggghhhhh take me there. Has anyone ever told you that you have an accent? Yeah, especially when I was younger when I definitely did have a clear Southern accent. Do you have any piercings? Yeah, six. I have been DYING for a new one lately... How did your parents meet? Work. What was your first word? "Dada." Do you eat more healthy food or junk food? Somewhere in the middle, I'd say. What do you spend too much money on? When it's my own money, tattoos. I think I'll be perfectly capable of doing it, but when I'm employed, I'm going to have to watch how much I invest into those. What is a disturbing episode of an otherwise non-disturbing show? What is a disturbing show (or one you would describe as one) is enjoyable to you? Meeeh I don't watch enough for this. What is the most memorable song in a movie? How about a show? Oh wow, I dunno. "Circle of Life" from TLK is a beauty, as is "Strangers Like Me" from Tarzan. There really are a lot. As for shows, "Carry On My Wayward Son" from Supernatural will immediately get fans screaming the lyrics, haha. However, I don't know if that song properly counts since it wasn't written just for the show, but whatever. What is something you’re grateful for that humans have made/have continued to make exist? What about something that you wish that humans didn’t destroy? The Internet, whew. I wish humans would stop destroying the fucking environment. It's heartbreaking how many woods are wiped away here for construction, only to never be built on... While evil men are commonly talked about, what woman would you consider the most evil? I don't know, but it would probably be a rapist or pedophile. Those are probably the people I abhor most. Do you believe children can be evil? If so, what child from history do you believe to have been the most evil? I don't really think children are born evil, no. I've never heard of a diabolical baby or anything. I think the environment they are raised in molds them as they age. I don't know about the last question. Name one way that music can be bad for humans. It can be depressing sometimes, actually dragging your mood down, especially if you already feel low. What has been one of the most blatant advertising in a movie, show, or music video? Some of these questions are hard man, idfk lol. What book have you read/listened to that “messed you up” (or made you have a lot of negative feelings afterward)? Johnny Got His Gun left me feeling so spiteful towards and disappointed in the world. It definitely made me feel down for a while. If you have a pet, what is the best thing that you have for them (either a toy, a highly rated food, etc)? If you don’t have one but would like one, have you thought about what you would get your pet? We definitely don't have the money for "high quality" stuff. What works, works. Did you ever know anyone who was (previously) a part of a cult? What cult? Were you ever a part of one? No. What is something that is legal right now that really shouldn’t be? I'm stealing the previous person's answer by saying fireworks. They have a horrible effect on animals and PTSD victims and is just litter and a fire hazard. What is a movie you consider successful/good that did not have high reviews? I'm not educated enough on movie rankings. When you met the person you now like, what happened? We hugged and cried a bit lmao. Did you realize anything today? No. What do you want to do today? It'd be nice to get off my ass and get Emerson's birthday pictures into Lightroom so Ashley can finally have them... Can you honestly say you’d risk your life for someone else? I know with certainty I would for some people. Could you forgive a boyfriend or friend who physically hurt you? Ha, nope, byyyyeee~ What’s the cutest thing someone’s ever done for you? Ugh... So one night when I was lying down to go to bed but also texting Jason, I was being playful and joked for him to sing me to sleep. He sent me a video for "The Mortician's Daughter" by Black Veil Brides (one of his favorite bands) and just pasted the lyrics, and I thought it was the cutest fucking thing ever. I went to bed listening to it and just smiling. It's why I just don't listen to it anymore. I shouldn't have even talked about it, soooo next question. What are the top five places you wish you could go before you die? Ummm South Africa, Yellowstone National Park, Germany, Alaska, and the Bahamas, maybe. How many tattoos would you like to have? I'm gonna be a fuckin mural. I want tats pretty much everywhere. What question do you hate to answer? "What do you like to do for fun?" What's your favourite animated or cartoon program? Fullmetal Alchemist. What do you think the greatest invention has been? Electricity. What's your favourite movie quote? I dunno, I don't really have one. Do you prefer digital or analogue clocks? Analogue clocks are way more elegant and can be beautifully decorated. Who is your favorite foreign singer/musician? Do you translate his or her lyrics? If you exclude English-speaking foreign bands, like from the UK, Rammstein for sure. I can translate some of them. Say something in a foreign language? "Liebe" means "love" in German. What is a weather-type that you like that not many others do? Snow, for sure. I've never understood the "ew, snow" type of people. It's so pretty. Granted, it's rare here, so it's more of a treat down here, but still. Who do you know personally that has a nice singing voice? Sara has a beautiful voice. What was the last word you learned? I have no clue, given how bad my memory is becoming... It's hard for me to learn anything nowadays, because it doesn't stick. What is your favorite culture? (that you find most interesting): I'll be honest, I'm not very well-informed on foreign cultures. Due to taking so many classes though, I do find German culture to be quite appealing. They are very serious about honesty (for example, telling someone you're okay when you're not is frowned upon in small talk, even), as well as manners. I would love to experience their lifestyle. Have you ever watched anime porn? I've never watched porn to begin with. If you got paid $3 million to smoke meth one time would you do it? Nope. I'm not risking addiction or death. Are ladybugs cute? Yesssss. Will you leave the house without fragrance on? Yeah, I usually do. Do you make good money doing what you do? I'm unemployed. I've only ever worked minimum wage jobs. What is your favorite fruit? Strawberries, yum. And kiwi. What do you think of horses? I love them! Are you doing something with your life that matters? Ugh, I don't feel like it. Do you like gravy on your mashed potatoes? I hate gravy. What is the dirtiest rap song you have ever heard? Nicole played "WAP" once when I was in the car and I wanted to die. What about a dirty song in any other genre? "Bitches" by Hollywood Undead MIGHT be rap, but idk? What even is their genre???? But anyway, as much as I love the song, it's dirty as shit. What is a genre of music you simply can't stand? Rap, generally. What is, in your opinion, the best way of dealing with a break up? Lots and lots of self-care and focusing on loving yourself and realizing your worth lies in yourself and not another person. What flavor of Doritos do you like best? Cool Ranch, of course. Would you ever go to a comedy club? Yeah, sure. Why is it that photography is becoming a trend? Because it's art, and people enjoy art???????? What is the funniest movie you have ever seen? White Chicks gets me way harder than it should lmao. Would you ever consider dating someone who lived across the country? I guess, so long it was the plan that we'd eventually move in together, and effort was being made to achieve that once we got pretty serious. Do you have a tattoo? If you do, describe the pain you went through when getting it done. Well, I have six, so I'll just talk about my first one, which was on my wrist. It really isn't bad, especially once you've adjusted to the pain. I think the best metaphor would be that it's like lightly pinching a cat scratch. Outlining is the worst part, imo. What is your favorite bookstore? I don't have one. Who was the last person to tell you that you were cute? I have no idea. When was the last time you had a fever? How high did it go? Oh, I couldn't tell you. Those are very rare for me. How many times do you think that you’ve truly been in love before? With who? Twice, with Jason and Sara. Do you prefer French kissing, or regular kissing more, and why? I mean, this depends on the mood as well as how serious we are. Have you ever been married before? How many times? No. Who do you know that gives the best hugs? Summer has always been a big, strong hugger like I am. Have you ever dated someone of the same gender before? Yeah. Who do you consider to be your hero? My mom. Who is your best friend? Tell us about them. Sara. She's a very caring, strong, creative, just overall amazing person who stands firmly for what she feels is right, and we can't forget about her incredible loyalty, nor her absolute adoration for animals, reptiles especially. How much did your car cost? I don't have my own car. What is the last picture you received on your phone of? Sara sent me a photo of Martha, her ball python. Do you have any friends that actually model? No. Do you keep condoms in your room? No, considering I have no reason to. Do you follow any special diet? (dairy free, vegetarian, gluten free etc.) No, but I desperately want to return to being vegetarian. Vegan would be even better, but I know I'm absolutely not capable of that. What is an appliance you don’t have, but would love to have? uhhhhh Which keys on your keyboard are worn out the most? My "a," "s," and "d" from gaming. If you could be any supervillain, which would you be? Ha, I could probably pull off Harley Quinn pretty easily. Though "super"villain sounds a bit strong for her. What’s the most historic thing that has happened in your lifetime? Either Covid or 9/11, probably. What’s the scariest non-horror movie? I personally think the idea behind Johnny Got His Gun is fucking terrifying. What’s the most amazing true story you’ve heard? More beautiful than "amazing," but whatever. I can't think of anything else. Jason's mother actually left his father to go back home to New York when he cheated on her, but he followed her all the way there, and they wound up reconciling and were very happily married since. They were a spectacular couple, and I miss them a lot. What brand are you most loyal to? I have no idea. It's hard to be loyal to any when you're not the one buying products. Where are you not welcome anymore? Well, speaking of him, probably Jason's house, haha... I feel that if I just showed up there, his parents would honestly be super happy to see me and want to catch up, but Jason, not so much. I doubt Colleen would welcome me into her house, either. What’s the most recent show you’ve binge-watched? Avatar: The Last Airbender w/ Sara. What’s a common experience for many people that you’ve never experienced? Just... adult stuff. Paying bills. Having a stable job. Passing their driver's test. What are some misconceptions about your hobby? We'll use forum roleplay here, in which case I know a very common misconception is that it's sexual in nature and is a kink. It's never been that for me. It's about building unique, complex characters in a vast universe of your creativity, meshing with other's. It's a beautiful thing to me. What’s the dumbest thing someone has argued with you about? Oh, I'm sure something with Mom... because she is absolutely never wrong. What’s the longest rabbit hole you’ve been down? Conspiracy theories on YouTube, aha... What odd smell do you really enjoy? I really enjoy the smell of lilacs, though I know people who think they smell too strong and/or just stink. If you had a HUD that showed three stats about any person you looked at, what three stats would you want it to show? Hm, interesting question. Maybe approachability, moral alignment, and mood. What is your favorite flavor of pop tart? I really like the chocolate sundae ones. Gum? I really like fruit-flavored gums, especially watermelon or strawberry. Last song you sang along to? I sang a bit to "Second Chance" by Shinedown. Are you fascinated by rivers? Yeah, sure. Streams, more specifically, because you can see the bottom and walk more safely in them. I love exploring those. Do you live near a volcano? No, and I plan on keeping it that way, haha. How big is the screen on your digital camera? I dunno, the normal size for a Canon? Do you find train whistles comforting? No. What bird is the cutest? Oh, that's so hard. I love the pastel-colored ones, and hummingbirds are like, universally cute. Are you scared to look at your own organs on x-ray or ultrasound? No, that's actually really cool. Do big eyes freak you out? On people? Generally, no. I tend to find them cute, actually, especially on girls, but I've definitely seen people with big eyes that instead look kinda creepy. Have you ever walked on a frozen lake/river? Hm, I'm actually not sure. I don't believe so, though. Have you ever held a real sword? No. Have you ever seen a tree over 100 years old? Uh, realistically, probably? That's not that old in the grand scheme of trees, is it? Do you feel uncomfortable at fancy restaurants? I can sometimes, yes. I feel very out-of-place.

[hamliet]

Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System

Or, one of the funniest, most self-aware satires I’ve ever read that manages to be genuinely emotional and powerful even through its satire. 

(it is getting a donghua adaptation later this year(?) so the images are taken from designs and the trailer for that)

This novel is by the same author as Mao Dao Zu Shi, and again even though it’s technically boy’s love, its characters shine as the heart of the story. The characters might be hyperbolized in some ways, but they never lose the core of which makes a character seem human. 

I also enjoy reading works by authors I enjoy because you can generally pick up which themes are important to them, and how they refine and explore these themes and ideas in different ways in different stories (like for example, Dostoyevsky’s The Adolescent is very clearly a prototype for what he would later masterfully explore in The Brothers Karamazov). Luo BingHe is absolutely a prototype Jin GuangYao from MDZS, right down to the skeptical birth situation, terrible father, desperation to be noticed, etc. 

The story is also well aware of its role as a boy’s love novel and pokes fun at the readers for their expectations, but also pokes fun at itself for subverting and then fulfilling said expectations in thematically interesting ways. The roles of the characters (Shen Yuan becoming Shen QingQiu, who is technically Luo BingHe’s mentor at first) made me slightly uncomfortable, but it’s also kind of supposed to, because it’s a satire (and he isn’t technically the same person, and he isn’t technically a different age, etc.--see, it’s poking fun at both stereotypical BL conventions, while also poking fun at fan shipping culture in a way that really does cause you to critically think and evaluate it). 

Because the novel that the MC is transmitigated into is a “stallion” novel (aka a harem). The story then goes on to explore the stereotypes of all the female characters who would have been a part of his harem, and allows them their own stories and arcs that are not centered around the protagonist. Ning YingYing was of course a standout among the female cast, and the story criticizes stories that sideline females as stereotypes. 

Probably my favorite part was how aware the novel is of fan culture. Oh, gods, is it aware of fan culture in all its glory and beauty and ugliness. It pokes fun at fans for their investment, but at the same time shows the beauty and power of said investment and doesn’t “lol freaks” fans. It shows how the well-meaning fans can sometimes fail to get their intentions across and can discourage a writer, and how ill-meaning fans can really do harm. It allows everyone humanity, in other words. The writer is affected by fans and at the same time it points out the writer’s failings when he’s transmitigated into the novel as cannon-fodder (a red shirt), and how his failings can be genuinely hurtful too 

(for example, Luo BingHe's harem of barely-fleshed out women reduces his character by denying him the kind of love he wants, and the female characters don’t deserve it because they have a ton of potential to write their own stories, and is actually the writer compensating for his own issues). That being said the author feels like cannon-fodder, and the story that he wrote for his self-esteem backfires, and *spoilers* he gets a great ending I’ve had that spoiled for me and he deserves it. 

So basically, it doesn’t vindicate anyone in the quagmire that is fandom, but it doesn’t condemn anyone either. 

Thematically, the story explores ideas of fate/God and free will. Weighty stuff, but it does it with empathy and nuance. It asks what is necessary to create a good story in real life and in fiction, and asks how real life and fiction both impact each other (nuaaaance). It questions what kind of suffering is necessary for character development. 

It explores the typical “pride and prejudice” dilemma and shows how preconceived notions--even if understandable--can damage a relationship before it even starts. It asks you to reevaluate empathy for even the “scummiest” characters as well, which MDZS will later do too. 

It’s also vastly aware of what good writing is in general convention, and is so funny and relatable for better and for worse I still can’t stop laughing. Like, this was totally me with TG:

And the system. The system (which transmitigates Shen Yuan the weeb into Shen QingQiu the villain) was so self-aware. “Being docked 50 OOC points,” rewarded “coolness points,” the system’s idea of saving him being tearing his shirt off (aka aware of the hot villains appeal throughout history)--it’s like the internet, and Shen Yuan thereby finds himself being picked apart like he picked apart this novel--but it isn’t saying it’s bad to do so, either, because the system does help, but neither is it avoiding how that can be really painful and not always worth it.  

And. And. The ship. It had a Mutsurie moment: the moment where one of the characters is at their worst, and another character decides to embrace them anyways. I cried. 

It’s excellent as a premise and as a novel, though (still like 15 chapters from the end, thank you translators) I don’t think it’s as polished or as deep a story as MDZS. But that’s okay. It’s a solid 9 out of 10 for me.

so anyways when am I waking up as Furuta.

[zaggitz]

VIDEO GAMES 2017: ONE MILLION GAMES ENTER, TEN GAMES LEAVE.

Well that sure was the best year in video games since probably 1998, wasn’t it? Nintendo put out a new console and 3 major franchise entries, basically every anticipated game of the early 10′s finally frickin’ came out, we got 4 new English Falcom games, 3 of which with good locs, and they made a new Nier? What??? 

What a time to be alive.

Let’s not waste any time getting to the list, lord knows VIDEO GAMES 2017 has already sucked out enough time from me for a lifetime.

Before we begin, here’s my lists for 2015 and 2016.

Honorable Mentions:

Persona 5:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaIo82uT0qs

It’s insane that this game isn’t in my top ten, hell, it’s insane that it isn’t in my top five. It’s less a commentary on Persona 5′s quality and more that the games that did make the list resonated with me a whole lot more. VG2017 truly was too powerful.

P5 is mired with stiff localization problems, but even without the loc in consideration, the thematic through-line of the game gets muddled and becomes a toothless version of the promising rebellious first ten hours the game provides by the time you reach the finish line, which also just happens to come 20 hours too late, in my opinion.

What a great looking and feeling game though.

Tales of Berseria:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYXwD2CfxOs

On the flipside we have this game, the first Tales game I’ve enjoyed since Tales of Vesperia back in 2008. This game has an amazing story and great characters with a thematic backbone that sticks to your ribs after you finish it.

Now if I didn’t hate the act of actually playing it and having to scour its way too big boring empty dungeons and crappily designed world, it’d be a list maker for sure.

OKAY NOW IT’S TIME FOR THE CERTIFIED BANGERS:

10. Metroid: Samus Returns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhQWJG-_Oco

Somehow my least favorite Metroid game got two remakes that both made my list two years in a row?? This game is pretty great in it’s own right though it has a few control scheme imperfections and I could see a switch port easily being the definitive version to get.

The reason this game really makes the list though is because of how it lives up to its title. Finally an official Nintendo Metroid game that comes out and undoes Sakamoto’s vile character assassination of Samus back in Other M. . 

The queen is back, and she has been missed.

9. Horizon: Zero Dawn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD0DByDxJBA

An engrossing open world, great stealth/hunting/gathering systems AND robot dinosaurs are just a part of what makes this first outing for what seems like an extremely promising series great.

No, what really sets this game apart from its contemporaries is how it fleshes out its backstory, culminating in the creation of what might actually be the most despicable piece of shit villain ever put to writing for a video game. And he’s been dead for a thousand years so you can’t do shit to him.

Fuck you, Ted Faro.

8. Night in the Woods

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2UUFFMGcgY

This game hit extremely close to home for me. Forced to come back home to a small, dying town full of people clinging to the good old days instead of doing anything for the generation after them, having this game to play and have it be said out loud that yeah, other people are living this nightmare too, was insanely refreshing.

For as much as we all need a bit of direction sometimes, sometimes what we also need to know being a directionless 20-something asshole trying their best is okay too.

Also Gregg rulz ok.

7. Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNgph1g422Q

Great gameplay, great music, fun characters, one of the most fun to explore worlds in an action adventure game. This game truly nails the sense of pure adventure Ys is known for.

It’s a shame then that it’s plagued with one of the most laughable translation efforts in the industry, much of the games personality comes from the fact that even a bad localization job can’t overwrite some character quirks, but this still leaves the rest of the script feeling extremely stiff at best and incomprehensible at worst.

I hope the re-translation patch is good. Until then, Fuck NISA and have a good day.

6. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiU65nQdZE8

I would describe this game as a great first step in evolving the Zelda formula. That’s not even really that accurate, the real first step was in Link Between World’s item rental/no dungeon order systems. 

Nevertheless, BOTW amazes with a sense of scope and exploration no game has ever really come close to, and achieves it almost effortlessly by simply giving you the ability to climb anything.

More music, more proper dungeons, a deeper story and a few durability tweaks are basically all you need to make the next Zelda game the easy best in series.

5. Yakuza 0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYB-D9qEwzI

This isn’t the best game this year, but it is easily, no question, the MOST video game this year. 110 hours in and only 60% complete, Yakuza 0 is the game that keeps on giving, with an enthralling true crime story that reshapes what we know about its protagonists. It’s pretty much a non stop emotional thrill ride to the finish line.

It effortlessly incorporates the best side story aspects from the many games in the series to come out before it, and utilizes them with a fantastical glee that keeps you with a smile on your face for the whole run. This is easily the funniest game I’ve played this year. Thank you SEGA.

4. Hollow Knight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1unm0LS10ao

God I can’t wait for this game to get ported to consoles. I bought a new laptop basically just to play this game and the absolutely enthralling metroidvania world design, hand drawn and animated aesthetic, and fantastic npc characters blew me away.

The encounter designs are tough but fair(except maybe the Colisseum) and the DLC so far has been great. I can’t wait for all the post release content to come out so I can play through it all again on Switch and probably PS4. 

It’s insane only 3 people made this game.

3. Super Mario Odyssey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhciLj5VzOk

Nothing to say here that hasn’t been said by hundreds of others. SMO is pure joy distilled into video game form.

I can’t wait for Odyssey 2 to come out and somehow blow this one out of the water like Galaxy 2 did for Galaxy.

2. Nier: Automata

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKOM3lNFajE

An amazing contemplation on what it means to be alive, and a thoroughly satisfying conclusion to a story that, for me at least, has been told since Drakengard in 2003. Game after game of sad tragic stories with bad endings and characters fighting an imperfect world imperfectly and only making things worse while temporarily making things better for themselves.

And really even in those cases there’s caveats.

Caviats???? Anyway.

Ending E of this game finally brings some semblance of peace for this fucked up world where a deranged killer and his dragon fell through the sky and made things the worst for everyone for literally tens of thousands of years. Finally Devola and Popola can sleep. All is well.

1. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wld2q4mLhYM

Another year, another Trails game at number 1. I’ll be real with you, I’m about to drop a bunch of personal rambly stuff about what this entire trilogy means to me so if you don’t wanna read that, that’s fine. 

This game is basically a perfect epilogue to a game that means a whole lot to me and serves as an amazing capper to an amazing jrpg trilogy.

When I first played Trails in the Sky First Chapter, it was the PC version in 2014. Now in 2014 I was coming off being in college for about 6 years, switching majors a few times and not really being into what I was doing but, yknow, you gotta major in something and then you gotta get a job, that’s kind of what getting started as an adult is. 

So I played this weird little jrpg that was, fundamentally, about a country and the people in it trying to move on from a tragic war years prior, hiding their still fresh wounds in plain sight and just trying to go on with their lives. 

It was an extremely interesting game, for how plot-light it was in the early goings, you got to really feel the struggle of these people and the unseemly past they were trying to run away from or avoid repeating. This underlying conflict builds and builds until we can’t ignore it anymore.

When I played Second Chapter a year later, I had been laid off from a job I got right out of College and had no employment prospects. I hated the fact that I’d spent basically my entire adult life up to that point doing something I wasn’t passionate about and then got let down by the system. 

At the same time, the shame of my situation lead me to close up and not tell anyone about the problems I had, I was broke, I owed two months rent, on the verge of getting evicted, I felt extremely alone.

All this to get to the point that Second Chapter was ultimately a game about pulling out the dark shit we don’t like talking about and saying “it’s okay to talk about this stuff, there’s always someone who will listen.” It got me to get over myself somewhat and actually reach out for help, and I’m really thankful for it not letting me hit rock bottom.

Two years later still, I’m in a much better place, I finally feel happy about where my life is and what I’m doing and oh boy here comes Trails in the Sky the 3rd.

Completing the journey I started back in 2014, I found myself playing a game all about how it’s okay to acknowledge the bad things that happened to us, so long as we learn and move on from them accordingly.

This trilogy has so much heart, and so many memorable characters, and so much to say. It’s so, so special to me, and I was openly weeping when all the characters I’ve come to know and love over 4 years finally parted ways.

Thank you Falcom for making these games, and thank you Xseed for bringing these games to us.

TL;DR

[thxwanderer]

All the Muses

So, basically, the way my brain is set up, I have 3 sections of muses. I just never talk about it bc college saps away creativity and time? but I have : in use, periodical, and on reserve. In use are all of the ones I actively use, even if one is used more so than another. Periodical muses are muses that I switch out with current ones; I have almost the same amount of periodical muses as i do current ones, so I will probably always stick with 6-7 muses at one time. My on reserve muses are muses that are only used in specific ships or with specific people. I may make them periodical but I haven’t thought that far ahead. Note that some muses will always be in use. I don’t own any of the FCs; only characters I own are Lu, Seyong, Myungsoo, Han, and Killian.

Muses in total ; approx. 16, may end at 18.

In Use

Steve Rogers [ The Brave ] { Cappy Cap. Captain ‘Murica. My sweet tall asf boy scout. Gentle giant asf. Really nurturing and caring with basically a dad mentality at the tower. Always busy with the workings of the avengers and shield and paperwork and missions and Tony. And Bucky. but that’s another thing altogether. draws in the park in his spare time to unwind. eats too much. really likes knowing where everyone is and that they’re alright. not the best person in the world but tries to be. feels out of his depth often. super genuine and likable. awkward when hes nervous. loves Lu. like seriously, Lu is like his child. literally the reason I continued to rp when I was about two seconds away from quitting altogether. He’s a keeper. Will always be in use.

Lu Omorose [ The Sweet ] { Egyptian Mau hybrid, from cairo, egypt, got his soul split in two and hes the good half, tiny asf, will break your heart by accident be warned. used to work at a candy store bc he brought in revenue. glorified house cat. avengers tower new mascot. is honestly a child who needs love 25/7. is into archaeology tho bc he really likes old things. loves all of the avengers equally but still loves Steve more than that. is terrified of losing his family. basically my very, very first character and i’ve been rping for a very long time at this point and even after all the bs, i couldn’t give him up. even now, it makes me anxious about using him, but im so happy to still have him around. will always be in use .}

Calypso [ The Beauty ] { is based off of Calypso from The Odyssey. My red headed baddie that i love so much. Literally a goddess nymph and is the daughter of a titan. loves all the fishies. heiress so super rich. runs a floral arrangement shop to pass time when shes not modeling or attending shitty galas. part time avenger but really hates team work. loves her cat Sushi more than the other roommates except lu. Domme, wants a pet some times but knows time commitments would be unfair .}

Myungsoo [ The Tortured ] {vampire. quite emo or at least everyone thinks he is. they aren’t half wrong. wanders like Seyong but he actually prefers New York over all. is into languages so he does translations. is hella old. doesn’t like social interaction but is forced into it by his environment. likes sunrises. hates making lu cry. feels calm when he can pet jae in his bunny form because then jae won’t be able to talk. really hates people who chew with their mouth open and take their lives for granted. doesn’t like weaklings, besides lu and jae.  suddenly has friends and doesn’t know what to do about it???? might always be in use. not sure yet .}

Tony Stark [ The Gamble ] { iron man. dont get me started. super conceited. do not rain on his parade. really a huge dweeb but also can be Petty Labelle. actually loves his new little family to bits. will never say it out loud. Ask him about godric. He’ll gush like a 12 yr old. def thinks hes better than harris. will tell it to her face. has told it to her face. ha..}

Tidus Abrasax [ The Royal ] { newest character added, haven’t used him much bc im not sure where i want his character to go. is more conceited/airheaded/full of himself than Tony and that’s saying something. is fixing his damaged ship which is why he’s stuck on earth rn. lives in his invisible ship/mansion above the tower. really can’t stand humans but is trapped so might as well make the best of it. is an intergalactic hoe. avid fan of making love, as they say. is growing fond of Earth food, especially ice cream. im hoping he’ll be able to open up somewhat .}

Koriand’r of Tamaran [ The Star ] { Starfire from original teen titans. really naive. worse than lu by far. is def in love with Robin.she is so kind and sweet but also really sensitive. she lives at the titans tower. she speaks with the weirdest mannerisms and hugs strangers. really likes cotton candy. May switch out with a periodical character instead or move to reserve list .}

Periodicals

~FC for Seyong is in the process of changing~

Seyong [ The Wanderer ] { Wandering poet. Snow fox hybrid born and abandoned in Russia. much snark. rooms with Myungsoo when he’s not traveling but he’s always traveling soo??? also Myung’s self proclaimed best friend. Myung don’t claim him tho. they used to travel together before they joined the team. is afraid of being abandoned like when he was a child .}

Makoto “Lita” Kino [ The Muse ] { is Sailor Jupiter. Moved from Japan to New York. super super sweet and loyal asf. goes to culinary school. part time avenger and works best with Thor. avengers tower chef so she can practice her skill. usually bsuy with working for a restaurant. often visits Tokyo to take on enemies there with the other sailor scouts .}

Han Omorose [ The Sour ] { Lu’s twin. horrible personality tbh. will square up. i repeat: will squre tf up. leopard hybrid. taller twin, black hair instead of golden. negl he’s a lot smarter and better at basic things than lu so he used to look after him. no longer lives at the tower. rly funny tho. has a thing for leather jackets. Has a bae .}

> Clint Barton [ The Fighter ] { CLINT! YAS! Hawkeye. One of my faves. Extra sassy sauce. Follows original comics so hes deaf and uses hearing aids + can read lips. funny asf. loves to play around with lu. is sad that lu prefers Steve. usually on missions or chilling with Tasha. honestly just down to earth and seriously good people. always brings the guac and queso. dont touch his bow. ever .}

Castiel [ The Righteous ] { i don’t think anyone really knows how much i really love cas and dean and sam and crowley and bobby and charlie and KEVIN TRAN- but yeah, its angel!cas and he was never a human so he’s still horrible at understanding anything. basically season 4 cas. not sure when i want to switch him to in use ;; .}

Peter Quill [ The Adventure ] { when i initially created him, i didn’t get to use him much but he. is. so. fuckn. hilarious. based off of the movies but i have read comics. He is not so much of a hoe though. is a non-romance character. is starlord to a T. go on an adventure with him, get lost on the wrong planet, escape enemy territory, lose your mind. he’s seriously one of my funniest characters. i really like humor so i can’t help myself. he’s really witty and whenever he’s on earth, he’s super close with Wade. You can... see why... similar humor. Asks Calypso on dates, even when he’s not on Terra. She always says no. He’s not giving up .}

On Reserve

Mariano Di Vaio [ The Creator ] { College student, writer, heir to an empire. part of a poly ship with Dyl and Dani. no other interactions as of this moment. he’s from Italy and his family pretty much runs the biggest drug empire Italy has ever known. his dad wants him to take over a branch one day but all he wants to do is be a writer. Went to school in america so he could escape his overbearing family .}

Wade Wilson [ The Destructive ] { Deadpool at his finest- or worst? he’s thoughtless, clueless, dazed and confused, and deadly. dating Peter Parker. Might shift him to periodical, just not sure if anyone will want to deal with his shenanigans outside of Peter. He can really be too much at times. but you’ll never be bored .}

Killian Bass [ The Dominant ] { Half brother to Chuck Bass. Gossip Girl verse bc i’m GG trash. He is extremely businss savvy and has a condo in the upper east side when he visits his brother but he runs the branch of Bass Industries based in South Korea. Into fashion, very particular about everything. Has a pet/boyfriend, a red panda named Theo. Turns into a buttery mess for Theo. is a dom, sometimes he can be a bit uptight .}

If you made it to the end, you are a trooper. I love you. 

[imaginegriffins]

Come and listen to my rantings on #Deadpool2! . <MINOR SPOILERS> . The pop-culture references are back with a vengeance. So much so, that it's going to date this movie pretty badly, but then again, it's #Deadpool. I doubt he cares. Come to think of it, because of the mask, you could probably just have Ryan Reynolds do a voice-over every few years with updated references...? Nah. Anyway, Deadpool 2 has it all. From the most badass fight scenes, to the most poignant moments, to the funniest jokes. Youll love every moment of this film while simultaneously cringing at some of the (sorry Pool) worst CGI I've seen in any modern superhero flick. #Colossus and a prominently featured "mystery character" look worse than your average video game cutscene. Even Wade growing back... um, certain body parts... doesn't look nearly as convincing as the first film. That being said, there's still a TON to love about this movie. I love the introduction of #Cable. I think the 'serious meets silly' dynamic that they share in the comics is translated well to the screen, thanks in no small part to the acting of #JoshBrolin and #RyanReynolds. Though I wish they had more time to expand on that but I guess they gotta leave something for Deadpool 3. The same goes for #Domino, who I ended up liking more than expected. Her condescending sarcasm toward Wade was how I always imagined; and her powers actually translate better on screen than they do in the comics, oddly enough. The rest of X-Force... I can live without. Except for Vanisher and Peter, of course. I wish Vanisher had gotten more screen time, and Peter deserves his own stand-alone movie. And let's not forget Negasonic Teenage Warhead. She's back with a new haircut, a boss bitch attitude and an adorable girlfriend. #HiYukio And don't forget to stick around for the best post-credits scene yet (at least for Deadpool fans). TLDR: Other than some shoddy CGI, a few under-developed (but lovable) characters and some re-used (albeit still hilarious) jokes from the first film, Deadpool 2 is still a badass emotional roller coaster that's well worth the ticket price. In fact, I think I might go see it again tonight. Who's in? 😊

[bloominglotusyoga]

Podcast Transcription: Best Friends Forever with Olivia Rothschild

Learn more: http://goldenpinesrvresort.com

Episode 37 – Best Friends Forever with Olivia Rothschild

Listen to this episode here!

In this episode Rachel's best friend takes over as host of the show to interview Rachel! They start off talking about Rachel's fears about leaving her baby for the first time and Olivia asks some very serious questions Rachel normally does not answer (like, “when was the first time you ever farted in front of Dennis?”) and they then venture toward more serious subjects (…like pooping during childbirth). After getting the many questions about bodily functions out of the way they dive into the stories from their high school days, what it's like having husbands that are BFF's and the very important subject of #MeToo – what's next? They talk about how we can raise vulnerable boys and empowered girls while continuing to smash the patriarchy and strive for equality in the most loving way possible. They also talk about how to find your true passion in life and stay on course even when life throws you challenges.

[001:37] Olivia: Hi, and welcome to the podcast From The Heart, with Olivia Rothschild. Today I have a very special guest here in the studio, the one and only Rachel Brathen, also known as Yoga Girl. You all know her as the Instagram yoga and life guru who went from bikini pictures on the beach in Aruba to rant mania about things like feminism, baby sleep training, body image, and much more. As old high school friends, travel and work partners, baby mamas, and each others' maids of honors, I know Rachel as a party animal, crazy dog lady, the bestest of friends, and a real diva.

Rachel: (laugh)

Olivia: She has the smartest intellect, biggest heart, and most explosive energy I know. Every day I wonder if she has a secret way of putting more hours into a day. She's a manifester and sometimes a pester. She's incredibly naïve, yet the most aware person out there. She is the definition of contradictions, with an open mind, but only to the things she likes and agrees with. Rachel, very welcome to the takeover of your own podcast.

Rachel: Oh my god! (laugh) I'm going to die already! I'm sweating! Thank you so much for having me on the show, I'm so excited to be here.

Olivia: I'm glad you're excited. So, we received a lot of good questions, and in honor of the most asked questions, I've renamed today's episode to From the Fart.

Rachel: (laugh)

Olivia: (laugh)

Rachel: From the Fart. From The Heart to From the Fart.

Olivia: It is, without question, the most asked question.

Rachel: No! No. Why? (laugh)

Olivia: Yes, so far. I don't know. But I want to start our conversation on that end, literally.

Rachel: (laugh)

Olivia: (laugh) And ask you the first time you farted in front of Dennis?

Rachel: Oh my god. Why are people asking about farts?! That makes no sense whatsoever.

Olivia: I don't know. Probably because everybody farts, but nobody talks about it.

Rachel: Probably because you're the host and you do talk about farts.

Olivia: Mmmmmaybe.

Rachel: Maybe. (laugh) The first time I farted in front of Dennis, actually, okay, I'm not lying, I'm not a farter. Like, I'm not a public farter. I'm not a casual farter for just farts, whatever. Um, a couple of years in, I would say. I kind of remember the first time I farted and it was loud enough that he turned, and then he looked away and he didn't say anything, and that made it much worse! (laugh)

Olivia: (laugh) He knew, and you knew.

Rachel: He knew and I knew! But no one said anything. Then, yeah, now he's seen me give birth to a child, so he's seen everything and worse.

Olivia: Yes.

Rachel: So there are no barriers anymore.

Olivia: No. But, not to leave the fart subject just yet, a lot of questions were about the funniest story of farts in yoga class.

Rachel: Farts in … oh my god, yeah, no I have so many.

Olivia: There are some tricky poses.

[005:00] Rachel: (laugh) There's some tricky poses. And I know the feeling, so I had a really loud queef in a class once, like, queef is the … you know, the fart of the vaginas. They should be more celebrated, but somehow, I don't know, people are more embarrassed about queefing than anything else. I don't know, I think queefing is awesome. It just means that your vagina has superpowers. It can contain air. Birth a child, it can do all of these things. But I had a really loud queefing situation in class where, like, the class turned around and saw that I had … it sounds like a fart, of course. I mean … The worse thing is-

Olivia: Mmhm. Did you acknowledge it?

Rachel: How can I? It was in the middle of class that I wasn't teaching, you know!? But all of those people knew who I was, because they're in my yoga studio, and I was just mortified, mortified. When it happens in class, I had it not so long ago that there was a really loud fart, and it was really clear, like, it was in one of those quiet moments in between speaking in class, and everyone heard it. But you have to just breeze through it, you know? You can't address it, because they might be mortified. So I just ignore it, and I just dive into something else. But yeah, totally normal. We should fart more, or at least talk about farts more.

Olivia: Maybe I should rename the podcast.

Rachel: Maybe …

Olivia: Or not. I don't know. Keep it From The Heart.

Rachel: Maybe you should start a parallel podcast. From The Fart with Olivia. (laugh)

Olivia: (laugh) I'm actually not a farter either.

Rachel: No, but your husband is.

Olivia: My husband is, and my baby is even worse. Which is pretty normal. So, we were touching upon that a little bit as well, and I happened to imagine it during my post, so a lot of questions came in about that, and pooping during childbirth. So, I wanted to actually raise that, because I think more people should know it happens and not be afraid of it happening, because the attitude of our husbands when we were talking about it was pretty relaxed. What do you have to say on that subject?

Rachel: Pretty, pretty awesome. Oh my god, I was just wondering, like, what are we going to talk about with Olivia leading the show?! (laugh) Farts and poop!

Olivia: We're going to get to serious subjects, I promise.

Rachel: No, this is awesome. We need a break from all the serious stuff that we've had lately.

Olivia: Yes. Yes.

Rachel: No, this is very good. I think it's actually a much more important subject than you would think, because a lot of things I hear from other pregnant women, people that are pregnant are really nervous about pooping during labor, and I've actually heard from a few midwives that I spoke to that it's a big reason why people hold back during the push contractions, because they're so terrified of pooping, and then it's, you know, much harder to birth a child if you're at the same time holding back, because, of course, when you're pushing for your life, you can't distinguish if you're pushing a little bit of poop out or if it's the baby. You can't feel that. And it's just a natural part of the release of the body. It happens, no big deal. But you brought it up, why did we talk about that over breakfast today? It was something about-

Olivia: Oh. It was about Dennis' and your mom's barriers.

[008:00] Rachel: (laugh) My mom had a thing with Dennis where she had to say, “We have no barriers anymore.” (laugh) Anyway, I'm not going to go into that. But then we spoke about that, and then Patrick said that it happened to you during labor.

Olivia: Yeah.

Rachel: And he was like, “Whoa, like, no big deal, but like, yeah, it was like a real one!” I was like, “What?! I didn't even know that. What was it like?” You were like, “Well, I don't know.” You were like so chill about it. And then I said, “Well it didn't really happen to me. I think maybe a little bit, but Dennis was behind me when I was pushing, like, holding my back, so he didn't see.” And then he came in and he was like, “Oh my god, there was poop when you had the baby.” (laugh) But it was so interesting because the midwife, she had her glove, and she just wiped it away and then carried on.” (laugh) And he did this motion with his hand, like he was wiping the poop, and I was just … oh my god, this is where we are. The four of us, we have no fucking …

Olivia: Boundaries.

Rachel: No fucking boundaries, no. No, but I think everyone should just embrace the idea of maybe pooping a little bit when you push your baby out.

Olivia: Yes. I think it makes the pushing much easier. Just go for it.

Rachel: I mean, if you think about that, then you can't … I don't know how-

Olivia: No. Mm-mm.

Rachel: Mm-mm.

Olivia: No.

Rachel: No.

Olivia: Okay, good. Then we talked about that. So, before we get into some more serious questions, what do you think are your three worst habits, according to Dennis?

Rachel: Oh-

Olivia: I know one.

Rachel: Which one?

Olivia: Okay, say first so we see if I'm right. Three … two … Smacking!

Rachel: Chewing with my mouth open! (laugh) Smacking! (laugh) That's the Swedish translation. Swedish means to chew with your mouth open.

Olivia: Yes.

[010:00] Rachel: Oh hell yes, that's number one. No. And the thing is, I am a mouth breather, I'm always a little stuffy because of allergies and stuff. Less now now that I'm vegan again. But I chew with my mouth open and I'm a loud chewer, and it annoys him to the degree of, like … I don't know. I don't know what to compare it to. He hates it so much. But I was always a loud chewer, and whenever he gets upset, I'm like, “You knew this about me when you asked me to marry you, and you committed to a life of loud chewing, that's just what it is.” And I've heard your food tastes better if your mouth is open. But no, that's for sure the number one.

Number two probably is my controlling side. Like, my micromanaging. Yeah, I'm always the backseat driver of everything. Which, he's kind of relaxed about it now. If I ask him something, I'm like, “Hey …” Like, with the baby, I'm like, “Could you feed the baby smaller bites, because the food is all over her face, and then it goes all over her hair and her clothes and I have to change her. You think you could feed the baby smaller bites?” It's just like, why am I saying that even? I should just let him be. And then he's like, “Hey honey, you know what? I think I'm going to feed the baby smaller bites.” He does that with everything I say, as if it's like a genius idea he just had.

Olivia: His idea, yes, yes, yes.

Rachel: I'm like, “Can you take the trash out?” And then he's quiet. And then five seconds later, “You know what? The trash is full. I think I'm going to go take the trash out right now.”

Olivia: That's a good way of handling it.

Rachel: Thank you! Yes, it's really good, yes. So we never fight about anything. No.

Number three? I don't know. I don't know. What annoys him, like, what do we fight about? You have to ask him what would the top three be.

Olivia: Yeah, I will.

Rachel: I have only two annoying things, nothing else. Not at all, not at all. Nothing else. No, it's probably related to work or something like that. Oh, no, I know what it is. He doesn't like it when I burn bridges.

Olivia: Ah yeah. Mmhm.

Rachel: For instance, we spoke about this yesterday, the ice cream place at the Marriott.

Olivia: Yes.

[012:00] Rachel: So there is a new ice cream place that opened up here in Aruba, and we don't have a lot of stuff, so when something great opens up, everyone gets really excited about it. Then this ice cream place is like a gelato place, and they have vegan ice cream, and everyone was talking about this vegan ice cream and how amazing it is. So I went there with the baby and my mom and Dennis, and they had these kind of popsicles with chocolate and stuff, ice creams on a stick. So good. Then I asked the lady and she says, “Oh, we only have one of them vegan, and It's this one. It's the orange sherbet one with an orange chocolate,” or whatever. I think I asked her five times, “Is this vegan, like, you're sure?” She said, “Yes, yes, yes.” And I heard other people say it's vegan, so I really trusted it. And then the next day or two days later I came back and I said, “Oh, I'll have the vegan orange one.” And there was another lady, and she was like, “Oh, but the chocolate's not vegan, it's made with milk.” I was like, “What?! How are you selling this as vegan if it's not?” And I got really upset, of course, because the baby tasted the ice cream, and it had milk. She never had cow's milk in her life. I was really upset about that.

And then for a few days I was saying, “I have to go back and talk to these people. What if someone is allergic? They don't know what they're selling.” I get really fired up, and then Dennis gets so embarrassed, because he doesn't want me to go there and burn the bridge with the good ice cream place. He's like, “Don't say anything! Don't go there, don't go there, don't go there!” And then finally I went anyway and I just said, “Hey,” like, kindly. “Just so you know, one of your employees is pushing this ice cream as vegan, but it's not. In case someone has an allergy, you want to know.” And the next time we came, there was a big sign, and it said, “We take no responsibility or accountability for dietary requests or allergies! And then I felt like it was a success. But yeah, that's Dennis', like, he hates.

Olivia: He's more of a diplomat.

Rachel: He's a non-confrontational person. Yeah. No, anything, no. He always backs away if I get fired up about something. He's like, “I'm not a part of this conversation!” (laugh) Those are the top three things, for sure.

Olivia: Okay, okay, yeah. I can agree with him on some things.

Rachel: What are your top three things that annoy you about me?

Olivia: About you?

Rachel: Yeah.

Olivia: Well, chewing with your mouth open, I agree with that.

Rachel: (laugh) Are you guys ganging up on me? Is there an intervention coming?

Olivia: Yes.

Rachel: (laugh)

Olivia: Uh, oh my god. Two other things …

[014:00] Rachel: See, I'm such a perfect person. It's just the chewing.

Olivia: Mmm. Only the chewing. The chewing on drama, maybe, sometimes.

Rachel: Chewing on drama? I'm trying to work on that, so-

Olivia: I know.

Rachel: I have gotten better, have I not?

Olivia: Oh, definitely.

Rachel: Yeah? When was it the worst? Chewing on the drama, you mean, like, fueling drama? Or like-

Olivia: Yeah, or holding onto it maybe. Yeah. No, let's not get into the drama.

Rachel: No more drama. I like that song.

Olivia: No. No. But let's get into some serious questions, because you're on your way to L.A. for a cover shoot?

Rachel: Yes.

Olivia: And I know, and I can tell that you are very nervous, and you're nervous both to leave Lea Luna for the first time, obviously, which is very natural. But also, I think, for the shoot, for this big magazine, right? So, I wanted to talk a little bit about body image, and especially post-pregnancy.

Rachel: Yes, big one.

Olivia: Yes. And a lot of questions came in about that. Also, personally, since I also had a baby before, and the comments I get when I see people is like, “Oh, did you actually just get a baby? Wow, you look so good!” Blah blah blah. And when I post pictures I feel like, I don't want to convey an image of, like, you should look normal after 0 time after.

Rachel: No, because you're one of those, I mean, I guess people would say it's like you're a lucky person, because you just bounced back. I fucking hate that fucking term.

Olivia: Yes!

Rachel: Yeah. But I love that you're not, like, one of those people who is like posting, “Look at my awesome perfect flat belly like five seconds after I had the baby.” You're not doing that, but I think you're really conscious about it. And it shouldn't matter what you look like after. No.

[016:00] Olivia: No, that's the thing. So how do you deal with that? I can also talk about how I deal with that, but how do you think we should have this conversation, and how do you feel as an influencer, that your responsibility is to show up?

Rachel: I think it's a really hard conversation, because we put so much pressure on ourselves as new moms already. Already it's like the most intense, overwhelming, challenging, fucking difficult and most beautiful experience all at once. So much is going on. And then I feel there is so much of this pressure put on how you look post-pregnancy, and if all of this energy goes there, then we start feeling like we have to direct energy toward that, right away, like after just having had the baby. Those were like, when I had Lea Luna, those were one of the first questions that I would get from so many people. How are you going to get your pre-baby body back? How are you going to bounce back? Or snap back. Like that was the first thing that should be on my mind.

Then I started thinking, because I got those questions, and even people I would meet in the studio were like, “What are you doing to get back, to lose the weight and stuff?” And then I started thinking, like, “Oh wait, I have to think about that, okay. Everybody expects me to think about that, so then I should actually think about that. But actually I'm not interested, at all.”

Olivia: No.

Rachel: But I feel this societal type pressure to get into that. So I don't know. If I'm having a bad day or I'm stressed or pressured about something, automatically that voice in the back of my head that tells me, like, “Oh wait, it's been eight months. You should be back to the way you were before, or maybe look even more awesome, kind of.” Like one of those moms who just get super skinny after they have their baby. But if I have a good day and I'm anchored and grounded, then it doesn't even occur to me. Then I look in the mirror and I'm like, “Oh my god, I look so good.”

Olivia: Yeah. Yes.

[018:00] Rachel: You know? It's just … So it's really more about, for me, grounding myself and feeling at peace within. It sounds really cliché, but it totally affects the thoughts that come up when I look myself in a mirror. Completely, completely. I even had … So now, part of the reason you're hosting this podcast today is because I was in the kitchen half-crying that I'm going to L.A. and freaking out about leaving the baby, and the pressure of this big shoot. And this shoot, I mean, it's for a wellness magazine, it's for Women's Health, in the U.S. Huge magazine, one of the biggest female women magazines out there. I didn't want to turn it down, it's a big thing, I'm really honored that they would think of me, and it's connected to these four other influencers. So, kind of talking about the future of wellness, or the future of fitness. All the other women, I mean, I'm going to meet them tomorrow or the next day, I'm sure they're super awesome and really beautiful, but they're really fucking fit. They are those people that post workouts on Instagram every day, and they're really into fitness, fitness, fitness. Of being toned, and being skinny and being thin, and all of that stuff. Which can be great for inspiration in a lot of people. We should focus on health and of course fitness and wellness, there's nothing wrong with that. I am just, like, a little more on the softer side, both physically in my body right now, and also in my approach to what wellness means. For me, wellness is more about self-love. For me, personally, how can I come back to that grounded place where I automatically look at myself in a mirror and I think I look beautiful? Versus the stressed, insecure, judgmental voice. So, not so much how can I work harder at my body so I'm more toned and more fit and then feel good about who I am, but more, how can I work on inviting more space for self-love so that that judgmental voice doesn't even have to be there?

Olivia: Right. Do you have any practical advice of how to work on self-love. There were some questions about that as well. And I know it's really difficult to cut out, you know, the thinking, “Oh, what are they thinking?” Or, being afraid of being judged at all times. Do you have any really hands on advice for self-love?

[020:00] Rachel: Yeah, and this is so, so interesting. We talk about this in our retreats and teacher trainings and stuff a lot. So, the single best way to get out of a negative thought pattern, or if you're beating yourself up about something, or you start feeling really worthless. Maybe you're having one of those shitty body image days where you look yourself in the mirror and all you can think about is how you should be thinner or more fit or different. It's a really nice contrast to all of this, but the best way to get out of your head in that moment is to get into the body. And what's the best way to get into the body is to move your body.

But there's a really different, you know … you have to approach that with the right intentions. How can I get into my body through movement, to feel. Not to change or to shape or to fix or alter something. Those are such different things. It's not about, okay, I'm going to step on the treadmill and I'm going to burn 800 calories right now. Or I'm going to do this every day for X, you know, this very structured idea that we have about exercise or movement and the way to lose weight, to change what we look like. Not that. I'm talking about getting into your body in a way that allows that judgmental voice to just be quiet. That usually means you have to kind of drop into this vibe of a child, almost. Like, I like to turn music on in my living room super loud, and just for one epic, awesome song, I'll dance around like a maniac. Like a crazy person. Like, if someone saw me they would think I was having a seizure. That's type of dancing. Or yoga, you know, if yoga doesn't have this mind or ego attachment for you, if you can drop into a practice that's really heart-centered. Or, you know, go swimming or go running or just do something, but get into the body not for the purpose of changing it.

[022:00] And then we need to practice self-love every day. We need to practice how to counter that voice when that voice pops up of, like, “Ugh. You look so fat.” Now, my voice is like … because in the beginning I was like, “Well I just had a baby. I just had a baby. I just had a baby.” And that was my response to that voice. “You should lose some weight.” And I'm like, “Shut the fuck up! I just had a baby. Don't talk to me like that. Like I tell myself. But now it's like, “How long can you say you just had a baby? Like, 'I just had a baby … eight and a half months ago.'” Can I say that in two years? “I just had a baby.” I don't need to have a reason or a justification to look the way I look, at all.

Olivia: No, no.

Rachel: And I had to go through this now with this shoot where I'm looking at all of these other women, I'm going to be on the cover of a magazine in a sports bra. I have stretch marks, I have belly flub, it hangs over my yoga pants. Not at all, like, flat stomach, fit. Nothing like that. I'm just, I am who I am, I'm the way I am, and actually I'm kind of content and happy about that. But then with this thought of I'm going to stand next to these four super fit, awesomely-toned CrossFit type, like, Fitness Women, you know, I start getting really insecure. So, I called the magazine and I was like, “Hey, I just want to make sure that, you know, when I arrive … Just so you know, I am not this traditional fitness person. That's not what I promote. I'm really excited to be included in this big feature and to be on the cover, of course, but I just want to make sure that you're going to have clothes that fit me.” You know? Because probably they're going to be all size 0 or size 1 or 2 or whatever when I get there. And this woman was like, she was very kind, she was like, “But what do you mean? I don't understand.” I said, “Well, I had a baby eight months ago, and I haven't, you know, I haven't done any type of shoot where I'm in a bikini or in a sports bra or anything like that. I just want to make sure that the clothes you have fit me. Like, I'm a size Large now, I'm not a size Small/Medium.” And her response was, “Oh! Oh … Okay. I mean, it does take some women longer to bounce back.”

Then I was like, and I know she was trying to be kind, like, “Oh, you'll get there.”

Olivia: Understanding …

Rachel: Understanding, and you'll get there. “Is this your first? Oh, okay.” Then I hung up and I was like, why are we so engrained in this idea that we're supposed to bounce back?

Olivia: Is there anything like bouncing back? I mean, can you get back to a body pre-birth? Is that possible?

Rachel: I don't think so.

Olivia: No!

Rachel: Like, things … aren't the same. (laugh)

Olivia: Mm-mm.

[024:00] Rachel: They're probably never going to be exactly what they were, it's going to be my body now. And if we keep looking back at, like, “Oh, that body was the better body,” we're never going to be content now. And if I keep going like this, I'm going to have two years from now and look back, like, “When I just had the baby, I was so beautiful then.” You know? But I want to feel beautiful now. I don't want to wait.

Olivia: You are beautiful now.

Rachel: I know!

Olivia: Mm-hm.

Rachel: We are beautiful now. And it's so hard to get those. And I think also, like, you know, because you have that skinny, flat belly already, and then you get those comments of like, “Oh my god! You look so amazing!” And people read that and they automatically feel like, “Well I guess I'm not. How can I work harder so that I can …” You know?

Olivia: Yeah, yeah. I really don't want to convey that message. And people ask, also, “So what have you been doing to look like that?” Honestly … nothing!

Rachel: Nothing! (laugh)

Olivia: Except, I can say, breastfeeding. If anything … and I really don't say that you should breastfeed for these reasons, but if it can convince anyone to breastfeed, then it's just good. But man, he eats everything I have! So …

Rachel: Right. But that's also a nice response. It's a nice thing to say. I think you do that when people ask, “How did you get there?” Like, “Actually, I didn't do anything. This is my natural anatomy.”

Olivia: Yeah.

Rachel: So, like … This is just who you are. Everyone is different. And I would love, I mean, for anyone listening who feels insecure or feels like things should be different, just think about all of the energy that your mind takes to that place of “I should be different, I should be thinner, How can I work harder …” All the energy can go to something better. If you spent that much energy building yourself up, talking about how great you are, how beautiful you are, good qualities you have, you're an awesome mom … I mean, I think the world would look pretty differently if we spoke to ourselves with that kind voice instead.

Olivia: Yes.

Rachel: And I'm not saying we should sit on the couch forever and eat Ben & Jerry's until we feel like shit, no.

Olivia: That's not well-being either.

Rachel: No! Of course not. I do yoga every day. Come on, I'm at the studio practicing yoga 60 to 90 minutes a day. I sweat, I move, I have a healthy diet. I eat a lot of chocolate, I drink a lot of wine, but I'm a healthy person. I'm just not trying to change. I'm just not trying to get absolutely back, or whatever. I'm just moving in a way that makes me feel good. And I want that to just be enough.

Olivia: That is enough.

Rachel: Yeah. Good! Well we'll see where this shoot goes. I was thinking, like, if I get there, because it's such a good magazine and it's in Los Angeles, and I know the vibe of these types of shoots. It's like, ugh. And I was thinking, what if I get there and there are no clothes that fit me? What if that's real thing?

Olivia: Will you go naked then?

Rachel: (laugh) I'll be naked. Everyone else will be in their super cute little, like, shorts. And I'll just be naked. (laugh) Can you imagine those four girls are glossy and looking perfect, and then I'm standing on the side, like, looking fat … naked!

Olivia: No, I cannot picture that at all, you standing sad.

Rachel: Naked and sad.

Olivia: Naked and proud!

Rachel: No, it'll be good. But I think, if that would be the case, I think I would publicly talk about that in my social media.

Olivia: Yeah, for sure, yes.

Rachel: Like, I don't want to turn any fight against any big publication. You don't want to create drama for no reason, but maybe if it would open eyes to something different. Maybe I get there and it's the most body positive thing ever.

Olivia: Right.

Rachel: It's just hard to think, because I look back at the covers that they've had, and it's a size 0 woman every fucking month.

Olivia: Right.

Rachel: But, they did invite me! So … I mean, that says a lot!

Olivia: They think you're a size 0!

Rachel: Or they just, you know, there is change happening.

Olivia: There is change, definitely. And you, you are contributing to that also. And also making I what you want it to be.

Rachel: Can you just come with me?

Olivia: No. (laugh)

Rachel: (laugh)

Olivia: I'm here taking care of the podcast, running the studio, so …

Rachel: Taking over anything. Can you take care of Dennis too? Please?

Olivia: Sure

[Commercial Break]

[029:05] Olivia: Things that actually bother us women a lot, I mean, body images bother men as well, but women a lot. You've recently become a very big role model, female role model, and you've been speaking out about the issue of sexual abuse in the world, but also specifically in the yoga industry. So, first question is what spurred you into this? When did your consciousness shift, and you became more aware of this problem?

Rachel: I mean … I think a year ago, if someone would have asked me, “Are you a feminist?” I would have been, like, “Yeah, but …” And I would have had a thing there.

Olivia: Yeah.

[030:00] Rachel: You know, because I wasn't feeling really confident in labeling myself in that way, I wasn't really … I don't know, just sharing the word “feminist” and all of the sudden there is controversy connected, which I now understand is, like, ridiculous. Like, think, it just means if you're pro equality, you're a feminist. That's all it is. But this specific year, I don't know if it is from having the baby, like, I'm raising a baby girl … Also, I've been very overwhelmed this year, as a woman, juggling a lot of stuff, and had some confrontations in ways where, I don't know, where I felt judged because I'm a woman doing what I do. But then, I think, the peak of this, maybe the inception of me really speaking out really loudly was our 109 mission trip about sexual violence that we had in Sweden, in August this year. I mean, we booked that trip long ago. Back then, it was okay …

So, if you didn't know, 109 is our global mission foundation that Olivia runs, of course you guys know that, and then we had this trip in Sweden where the funds and the awareness that we raised went to a hospital in Congo led by a doctor who is really famous, Dr. Mukwege, who supports and heals and then the surgery and helps women who have suffered from really overwhelming sexual violence and rape. So, it was a really heavy subject. We had a link there, and I wasn't really thinking too much about it. I said, of course, this is a really important subject, we have to raise this awareness for these women in Congo. I think both of us were going into this trip thinking about Congo and the Congolese women. Then we had 31 or 32 women participate, and everybody sent intakes about their past and their yoga practice and if they've ever had any traumas. We always ask these things before, so we know who we need to give extra care to and things like that in the group. In the intakes, I think 50 or 60% of the women wrote that they had, they were a survivor of sexual violence, themselves, which is really high for a group. I was like, oh my god, of course we're attracting women that have suffered from this themselves, and they want to now help other women, these women in Africa we're going to support.

[032:00] Then the group started, and it turns out the real percentage was like 90-95%. I mean, pretty much every woman in that group had a major trauma, like a major trauma from sexual violence. And we started raising these questions in a really real way. Of course, we were supporting this hospital far away, but what happened in the group, as we started talking about these subjects, sharing and speaking up, this massive healing began to happen within the group. Then we realized we're not just here to help to Congolese women. This is something that happens in our own backyard, in our own day-to-day lives.

Then you and I, for the first time, we've never talked about this stuff in this way. We started looking at our own, like, what's our own history here? In relationships, between relationships, in with guys we've met, with strangers, being out at a bar, and little things started just trickling in.

Olivia: Yes. Big things also. I mean, I can honestly say that it wasn't until then that I really understood what sexual abuse is. Like, I didn't know!

Rachel: No! It's so normal!

Olivia: Mm-hm.

Rachel: So many of these things, we're like, “Yeah, but that happens all the time.”

Olivia: Right.

Rachel: And then we had some amazing speakers that were there at the trip, including Thordis Elva, who I did a podcast episode after this trip that we had. If you're listening and you want to tune into that episode, Thordis Elva, it's about overcoming and … it's about forgiveness, it's about being a survivor of rape. Just her take on this, how she spoke, it clicked something. I mean, in both you and me. And I started thinking about these things that I always brush off as normal. Like, having my ass grabbed … I don't know, 5,000 times in my life? Like it's just a normal thing, you don't even really say anything? Like, I wouldn't even … If we would be somewhere out dancing and a guy would grab my ass and then I would go meet you, I don't think I would even tell you. It's not like I think, “Oh my god! That guy grabbed my ass!” Like, that's so common, you wouldn't even say anything. And that was just a minor thing compared to all of the other things.

[034:00] But as I've been unveiling, I've been kind of, like, I've been peeling off the layers, and the surface, or the more superficial, less heavy things came first. Like, “Oh, that wasn't so okay. Oh, that didn't feel good…” And then I've been kind of uncovering some deeper stuff, and I'm wondering if there's deeper shit that I have pushed away that I don't even remember right now. Because little by little, and I shared the podcast of last week was my own #MeToo stories, and there's a scenario in there that I had with an ex-boss, two things that happened with a person that was really close in my life, that I trusted, and I didn't tell Dennis! Because I felt so ashamed, and I felt like I must have had some part in this. I must have invited it. There must have been some mixed messages from my part. Like, what did I do to deserve that from him?

Olivia: Self blame.

Rachel: Self blame, completely. When I shared this with Dennis, he was just appalled, like, “Why didn't you tell me!? Are you kidding?!” You know? And it just didn't even occur to me, because I thought it was my fault. Now that so many women are speaking up, we're looking at this in a different way, and it's like, “Actually … it's not okay!” And the fact that we think it's so common that we don't even think it's worthy of mentioning shows just how messed up this society is.

Olivia: Yes.

Rachel: Now I just feel like it's my responsibility to speak up and to talk about these things, and to use my platform for a greater good, and to give other women voices. I know when I speak up about mine, other people feel like they're safe to speak up about theirs. And like, okay, well … I mean, and every time you share something of yours, I also feel like, okay …

Olivia: I can share.

Rachel: Yes.

Olivia: But also about the … it doesn't have to be a huge trauma, or like an actual rape. These small things that also-

[036:00] Rachel: They aren't small, but we label them small, because I wasn't brutally raped in an alley and taken to the hospital.

Olivia: Right. So we need to talk about those things that happen in our every day life a little more. Not the things that are in media with the title, you know …

Rachel: “Woman raped in dark alley.”

Olivia: And what Thordis said, and this stuck with me too, she's like, “In the media that's what you see. Woman Raped At Festival. Woman Raped At Night Club. Woman Attacked. Why is it woman was attacked? Why isn't it Man Raped Woman in a Dark Alley? Or Man Raped Someone. Or Man Perpetrated? Never! It's always like the woman is in the headline as a victim, but you never speak about these predators.” Or boyfriend rapes girlfriend.

Rachel: Yes, which is even more common.

Olivia: This is so common, and people think that it's not a rape just because you're in a relationship. Oh my god. That's so wrong.

Rachel: And that was one of the things that, for as long … so she calls it the Monster Myth. As long as the media keeps kind of giving this image of the predators out there, they're not in your family, they're not your friends, they're not boyfriend, you know? It's some random stranger lurking in an alley like a monster, and if you're really unlucky they will attack you and then, you know, something will happen. Well, it's not true. A really high percentage … okay, I need to verify this, but I think it was above 70% of-

Olivia: Above, yeah.

Rachel: … perpetrated by a boyfriend, a husband, someone that's really close to us in our family. And for as long as that's not spoken about, it makes it even more impossible for these things to come up into the light, for people to actually feel like, “This happened.” Like, can a boyfriend rape me? Yeah. Well if it's a no, if you're saying no … yeah, of course. But that was just such a foreign concept, you know? Like, my body is my body. If it's not a yes, it's a no. If it's not consensual, it's not okay.

Olivia: Yes. Okay, I'm going to ask a pretty difficult question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. What, according to you, is the single most important thing in the fight against sexual abuse towards women?

[038:00] Rachel: Okay, we've only been having these conversations now, I mean in this depth, for a couple of months. And it was after the trip that we had with 109 that the #MeToo movement came out. I feel after there is so much momentum through it happening, now I just today published “#MeToo: The Yoga Stories” about women who have had horrible things happen from their yoga teachers or someone they thought was a guru within the yoga community. I used to think, okay, we need to speak about this more, we need to not blame ourselves, we need to not name a woman a victim but a survivor. We need to shed light, light, light. We need to be empowered to speak up and to out the people that do this.

But the more I go into this subject, like, we need to talk about the boys. We need to talk about the men. What kind of men are we raising? And it also goes into our husbands. Both you and I were super blessed to have really gentle, sweet, humble, amazingly loving husbands. But they are both Aruban guys, they grew up on an island that's really, really machista. Which means, like, I tell this story a lot … the first time Dennis ever took the baby out downtown on his own, like, I was teaching yoga or something and he took the baby out, a woman approached and asked if he was a widower, because you never see a man alone with a baby. The men here just, they don't take care of the baby. The fact that he's a stay at home dad is insanely controversial on this island, because the women have the babies, the women have the babies alone. Often the guys are not even present at the birth. The men are not even allowed to stay at the hospital, because they're not considered a part of the family unit. So this culture of this island is, you know, the woman stays at home in the kitchen and takes care of the babies, and cooks and cleans and this and this and that. It's really common for a man to have several kids with several women and not really be present with them. That's the culture where we are now. And we have two husbands, you and I, who are, you know, for having grown up here, I mean, it's totally at level with having grown up in Sweden. Really equal, supports us like crazy. Both of them are kind of stay at home dads, like, it's really beautiful.

[040:00] But I see the way they talk to their friends, their chat groups, like photos, jokes about sexual jokes, sending photos of pornography, little stuff like that that's just part of their guys being a guy, they're just joking … I see that a lot in the big groups of guys. Not when they're alone, ever. But … especially in these chat groups that I fucking … I hate these chat groups.

Olivia: But I feel like we have to, just exactly the same way as we're educating small girls, like, don't wear provoking clothes or don't walk in dark alleys, we need to tell our boys, “Always look for consent.” Educate them about what consent is, about what sex is, about what intimacy is-

Rachel: Not even that! Like, starting at … It needs to be okay for a man to be vulnerable.

Olivia: Yeah.

Rachel: That's the thing, like, what we deem a feminine quality, if we raise these boys: “Boys should be boys and boys should play with monster trucks and if a boy falls down, it's like, come on, be a big boy! Stand up!” And I saw that already, like, you know, when Hunter and Luna were really little and they were both crying, I can't remember who it was, but they were both crying and they were like, “Oh Luny, it's okay little angel!” And Hunter was crying, “Oh come on Hunter, that wasn't so bad. Be a big boy now.” You know? And just that response, it's not okay or as okay for a man to cry. And we teach the boys that from a young age. They should man up and soldier on. But a girl is a fragile little flower, here's your princess book to play with, and, you know, waiting to be rescued by some prince. You can start there.

Olivia: There's so many things we do in our approach to people that we don't even recognize.

[042:00] Rachel: Yes, that we don't even know. It's just inherited. I think, you know, raising vulnerable boys in a way that it's okay to cry, to feel, there's a reason that men are these predators, that they are in most cases these perpetrators of violence. Like, there's a reason. If you spend your whole life pushing emotion under the surface, never ever feeling like it's okay to cry, like it's okay to be sad, you're going to turn into a pretty tense and aggressive person. I think starting in that space.

And anytime, I mean, with adults to, like we're doing now with Dennis and Patrick, if there's a joke and it comes up, like, that joke just is not okay, at all. You need to re-shape … You need to be the one that speaks up in that chat group and says, “Hey guys, maybe we shouldn't joke so much about women's asses right now.” You know? “Maybe we should kind of scale back on that a little bit.” (laugh) And change the conversation.

Olivia: But that's when you realize how prevalent it is.

Rachel: Everywhere.

Olivia: Yes.

Rachel: Everywhere. And we are not even involved in these dude talks.

Olivia: Mmhm.

Rachel: We don't know. We just see what surfaces and seeps through to us. But I think the men have to also be the ones to speak up and not perpetrate rape culture. You know, the music that we listen to, the conversations that we're having, the jokes that we're making, it needs to be … It's not a women's issue! It can't be a women's issue. This is a humanitarian, this is a global/world issue.

Olivia: So another question, because these are important things to talk about, and you can talk about them in your social media and create awareness about it, but how do you, personally, make feminism a part of your everyday life?

Rachel: I have a few specific things that I do now, especially through business, and I never thought about this before this year. Right now, I am so conscious about who we hire, what companies we chose to work with, where our money goes within our companies, within our businesses. If I have a chance to hire a super competent woman, I will, I will. Me and Dennis, we don't fight about this, but we discuss it sometimes. He's like, “Well, if you have two equal people and they're both equally good, you should just roll the dice and go with whatever the dice says.” And what I'm trying to explain is we don't have a level playing field yet, so you can't just roll the dice and just randomly choose. I would rather continue choosing the woman, the woman businesses, businesses run by single moms, by mothers working really hard to make things work out at the end of the month. I'd rather support women right now than the men. When we arrive at the place when the playing field is 100% equal, then yeah, roll the dice and pick the man or woman, it shouldn't matter. But it's still the truth. Women make 71 cents to the dollar of a man, and it's even less if you talk about other ethnicities and other cultures other than white woman. It's not level.

[044:00] Even in Sweden, which is one of the most equal countries in the world, compared to other countries Sweden is way way ahead, most CEOs, owners of companies/businesses that make the real decisions, there's still a middle aged white man up there choosing. So it doesn't matter if you have these quotations where you have to hire X amount of women to balance out the men, if those women are not advancing in the work field, if they're not ever reaching that CEO level, of actually running the economy the way the men do right now, we're not going to see that major change.

So, I had that, like a real thing that happened, it was this year, we had to … we're having some restructuring happening in our businesses. I live in Sweden, but we're also in Aruba, we have a business in the states, it's a lot to manage, so we had to hire a big international tax firm to help us with our international taxes to make sure that we're covered. And it's a huge thing, so much money, it's like a big big big thing. And of course we went to one of the biggest companies out there, and we had meetings, and we showed up for the first one and it's like we're spending insane amounts of money on this, and it's like three middle-aged guys, wearing suits, kind of awkward. Then we show up with the baby, stroller, the diaper bag, Ringo, me and Dennis. I'm like, “Hey, how are you? Nice to meet you. I'm Rachel.” And I see these guys, they look me up and down, and then they see the baby, and it was not okay. The face was like, “Oh, you brought a baby to a business meeting.” It was just … He had a little pause before he… “Oh, you brought … the child.” Like that.

[046:00] And then we had the most awkward meeting where they were like, “You have to do this and this and this and this and that,” with our taxes and with money and investments. It was a serious meeting. And then she pooped mid-meeting, and I'm like, “Um guys, I'm going to have to change a diaper right now.” Like, I'm not going to leave the meeting that I'm running to go change a diaper in some weird bathroom. And I just put her on the desk and I, you know … These guys, they were just like I was crazy! It was just … and then I had to breast feed, and all of that. It was just a really weird meeting. And as we left, we're like, “Well we're going to hire this firm.” And then I sat there and I was like, “Isn't there a woman that we could hire to do this work? Does it have to be the middle-aged white man? The middle-aged wealthy white men. Isn't there a competent woman in this same field that we could just hire? Like, not just for the sake of me being comfortable bringing my baby to these meetings, but is there a woman we could elevate?” And then everyone at the table was like, “Uh, yeah! Why aren't we looking for them?” Because that's not what was recommended automatically, it's not what we got. And now we have a woman running that side of our business, and it's awesome. And it's a totally different vibe, and it aligns.

So, I mean, raising the women's voices whenever I can. Like, I'm always going to do that. It doesn't mean that we have to hate on the men or anything like that. It's just women have spent centuries being pushed and shoved and not having a seat at the table.

Olivia: Yeah.

[Commercial Break]

[049:00] Olivia: So, three things that you would say to your teenage self. Because we've kind of developed now and become much more aware of everything and the things we went through when we were younger. What would you like to tell yourself when you were a teenager, as a woman?

Rachel: I mean, I would say … You're worthy of so much more, so much more. Jesus. And even then, like, I kind of had this skewed idea that, you know, that the successful people in life, it was always a man, you know? It was always a man. If there was someone around that had a lot of money or that had companies, that was successful, it was always a guy, and then there was a woman on the sideline. I think I had this kind of skewed idea of what it meant to be successful. You had to have these very masculine qualities. So, I wish I had it instilled in me at a younger age, like, one, women do have a seat at the table, and it's major. And also, leadership qualities are not only masculine qualities. There is something really beautiful about leading with vulnerability. About leading a team through love rather than through fear and through, you know, drilling this super strict, this kind of harsh masculine side of leadership that we see a lot in the work field. I wish I was told when I was younger that it's okay to honor and hone these softer qualities and still be able to lead and to guide and to have a voice. Because I think I went … you know, I didn't think I was very worthy, and I think to get ahead I thought I had to be super harsh and like, you know, kind of a “fuck you” attitude, a little bit.

Olivia: You have that a little bit.

Rachel: A little bit still! (laugh) But no, to be worthy and to … And sexually, I kind of … I wish someone would have sat me down and just had a major conversation about consent.

Olivia: Yes!

Rachel: Because I didn't know. And I was never raped. I never had … But there was definitely questionable moments in my life where I went along because I thought that's what it had to be, where now I would have walked away, 100%. Or screamed, or said something, or filed a report, or at least spoken up, where I just probably didn't tell anyone because that's what it was like.

Olivia: Yeah. And it was probably your fault because this this that.

Rachel: Yeah.

Olivia: Good. Yes. Thank you so much. And thank you for taking the fight for all of us.

Rachel: Thank you! I mean, you help me so much with that. Yes! Your platforms now are, like, I can tell when you're having a fiery week, because all you post is, like- (laugh)

Olivia: (laugh) It goes up and down.

Rachel: It goes up and down. I know I know. I mean how do you feel? Because you are raising boy …

Olivia: Yes! And I'm so excited about that, because I feel like I'm contributing to feminism just by having a boy.

Rachel: Yes!

[052:00] Olivia: Yeah. No, and I'm also very … I try so hard to think, like, how am I integrating feminism into my everyday life? The first big, big step, for me, is recognizing what it is. Like, there are so many moments out there, when you're walking out on town or talking with a friend, or hear somebody else talking. There are patterns that are just not okay anymore. But they're so rooted, so you don't even notice-

Rachel: Like what?

Olivia: Just having a, for example, a picture of a girl when you're doing marketing for whatever, what. I mean, that's old, but it's still so out there.

Rachel: Did you see that big Billabong scandal?

Olivia: No.

Rachel: The surf brand, Billabong?

Olivia: Oh yes, yes.

Rachel: Yeah. It was on their homepage, it was on the left, Men and Women, it said, to purchase apparel. On the men's side was this super cool surfer in like a big air, like a big jump, and on the women's side it was a girl in a thong bikini lying on the beach. That's for the surfer girls. That's where you go. You know? It's just …

Olivia: Mmhm. Yeah but those things, and they go unnoticed because we are so used to them. Those are things we need to start questioning, and that means we have to be a pain in the ass. That was what I've realized lately, because, like you said, a year ago I would probably not say … I would also say, “I'm a feminist, but…” But today, I understand that feminists have to be a pain in the ass sometimes, and be questioning everything.

Rachel: But it's so engrained, and we're taught to … That's also the thing, we're taught to not believe a woman when she says, “This happened to me.” That's kind of what's engrained in us as well. And then the hardest thing with me now with this #MeToo thing, because I'm becoming this voice and I'm helping other women raise their voices. And of course not everybody likes this. I'm also putting myself in a really liable situation where these men that are recurring in the stories that I am sharing right now, they could come and attack me. A part of me is like, “Bring it dude. Come over here and let me do some damage to you.” Because I am lucky enough that I have a platform that has a lot of power. I can speak up and people listen. Not everybody has that.

[054:00] The hardest thing right now is the women who are not being supported. So women who either don't get it, or what I'm sensing is women that may have a man or may have someone in their life where they feel like, you know, I'm unsure about this person, but I love them. What do you do if there's a person that you love but they also-

Olivia: Of course you're going to be protective about it.

Rachel: Yes, or maybe you have a situation in your past that you don't want to deal with. But I'm getting a lot of messages of like, “Okay, enough with the #MeToo already. Women abuse men too.” I was like are you pulling an All Lives Matter now? Like people don't … I had so many of these arguments. There's a reason that the Black Lives Matter movement was elevated, because it's urgent and it's needed, and it's real. It's a real issue. Why do you have to minimize that issue by saying that, “Well other ethnicities … All Lives Matter.”

Olivia: That goes without saying!

Rachel: Of course! All Lives Matter. But, like, we don't have to …. A white person doesn't have to fucking worry about getting pulled over by a cop. That's not what the issue is. Don't minimize it by shifting awareness and direction somewhere else. And same here. Women abuse men too? Yeah? Not really. I mean, it happens, sure, of course. And we shouldn't say that those things aren't horrible and that that's okay. Of course that's not okay. But nine in ten, or more, of cases of sexual violence is perpetrated by a man, and that's the issue at hand. So yeah, All Lives Matter, clearly, but that's not the point right now. And yeah, women abuse men too, sure, but that's not what we're talking. So stop distracting yourself. It's just a fucking distraction.

[056:00] And I don't want … I don't know, when a guy writes me something, I don't even think about it, I'm like, “Okay, you're just … you don't get it, just move on.” But when a woman writes me, like, “Can you stop now, can you get over the #MeToo thing?” I'm like, “Why the fuck are you not standing up for your gender? For your mother, for your daughters, for your sisters, for the tribe?” You know? We all have that responsibility. We need to say something now. We can't have this. We can't have Lea Luna and Hunter grow up and it's like this.

Olivia: No!

Rachel: Fuck no!

Olivia: Mmhm.

Rachel: But I hope it's not going to be.

Olivia: So many things are changing. I'm positive. But also I see that we're, you know, everything we do and say and how we act plays a huge role. So, we need to be aware.

Rachel: We need to be mindful. And also as … Both you and I, we both have platforms and we're both vocal, we're both empowered. We have a lot of prerequisites, I guess, in our life to stand from and shout like this. I think a lot of people don't feel empowered, or “What can I do?” But we all have these conversations, you know? We all have these moments in our day-to-day life where we can change something or speak up or make a difference in our own way. And I think we should all get on board so we can really make this change for the future generations, because it's now. It's not later. It has to happen now.

Olivia: Now. Oh my god, we could, I think, we could continue talking for a very, very long time, but I know that you have to leave because you're catching flight …

Rachel: Don't remind me! I don't want to talk about that …

Olivia: No … But I want to end with one big question everybody asks, and also me. This is a personal question for me. How do you know that you're on the right track?

Rachel: If you're having an existential crisis maybe? (laugh)

Olivia: No, but I mean, self-doubt, everybody has it. And even super successful people that are doing what they're passionate about-

Rachel: Like me!

Olivia: Or whatever … go through self doubt and struggle. So how do you know, and how do you remind yourself to stay on track?

[058:00] Rachel: This has taken me a long time to figure out, and I still need to have these epiphanies of like, “Oh yeah, I get it, again. Again. I need more lessons about this.” But, I think when you are on the right track, things are fairly easy. I'm not saying that you're not going to have challenges to overcome and things like that. But when you are living in line with your core values, when you are creating something that's stemming from a genuine intention, when you anchor it in your own truth, life flows. It's like you're with a current. Yeah, you're going to have ups and downs and a little bump here and there, but you're going to feel, like, “Okay, things are flowing here.” There's going to be an energetic connection.

Then sometimes we get really stuck with this idea in our mind of “this is where I'm supposed to be heading.” Or, “Success has to look like this.” We want to stay in this box of, “I'm going over there. I invested a lot of time here … I was raised this way, I went to school for this so my career is over there.” But then life is like, “Well, you know what? There's something over here.” And then we're not ready to embrace that change and we start banging our heads against the wall with the same fucking thing again and again and again and again and again. And I think that's when the universe is trying to tell us, you know, there is a change needed here, a shift of perception, a shift of … something needs to change. But the mind likes to hold onto the structure of the idea of the end game the way we saw it.

So, for me, I mean, I see it all the time. Right now we have one of our brands, we've invested so much time, so much money, a lot in it, and it's just not thriving and it's not really clicking, and I'm not feeling as passionate about it anymore. But we have so much invested in it, so it's like, “Well we can't just stop.” Of course not, we can't just stop, like, we did all of this work. But it's still not really working. And I think every month that goes by I'm feeling a little more drained or new issues pop up within this brand, you know? And I kind of know, deep down, yeah, we're supposed to take it a totally different direction. But it requires a huge leap of faith. It might mean that I lose a bunch of money, it might mean that I lose credibility. You know, there's fear of loss there. But I have to probably jump, you know?

[060:00] So I think, how do you know you're on the right track? Yeah, if you feel in tune. And also, if you are on the right track, that's when magical shit starts to happen. Synchronicity of different kinds. You think about someone and then randomly you meet them the next day, or you look up and you're just blown away by the beauty of the sky. You have little moments of being in tune and in sync. That's when you know you're on the right track. So if you don't have that and you're struggling, struggling, struggling, I think a good thing could be to re-evaluate why am I doing this? And if you lost the why, if you're doing this, the why, “Because I want to change the wor

[defunctzombie]

Greetings, sorry for the sudden ask, ummm.... Can you summarize tamago no hi volume 3 please~~? I've read the translation for vol 3 chap 1&2 but I can't seem to find anything beyond that and I'm dying to know what happens after Weiss proposing to platin for them to disappear from the rests for a week.

Okay. I don’t know if you have access to any pictures or not, so I’ll just repost the summary of the whole book I wrote a few years ago. I was at one point working on the spinoff of this title Gravitation (and summarizing bits of this to at least get the story out there; this isn’t my title), but I got hit with the worst luck in the world and developed a lot of medical issues and had to put translating on hold. But I can at least give you an idea of what’s going on with this story. :D

(I apologize in advance if I’m not romanizing the names the same way as you are used to, or if this summary is a little different that what you’ve read.)

Tamago 3 starts right at the end of Tamago 2. In vol 2, after the mermaids, there’s a chapter about Jade. That little baby he picked up (back in the first volume I think) is still following him around and calling him mama. After a big monster fight, Weiss asks Jade to make a contract with her. But something happens, and his egg like, explodes. Or says he’s dead.

Volume 3 opens with them scrambling to get Jade back to the egg source. They teleport using Platin’s power and get there, but Platin collapses from the strain (this is important for later). Jade’s egg is either healed or replaced, thanks to the little baby, and there’s a little ‘good-bye’ moment. :( He comes back out of the egg tank looking like an older man. He makes his promise with Weiss, and is turned out to be a silver wolf (that looks EXACTLY like Koma from Yami ni Toge, tee hee). Platin is worn out, and keeps out of the next monster fight, but wakes up and says “Where is Jade? Who’s this old guy?” and there are some laughs. This is where the 4koma I put on tumblr is from. (When I find the post, I’ll link it here.)

The last 2/3 of the book are a storyline called Privacy. Remember how when Or met Weiss, he thought she was his dead mentor? Well we get to see a little more of that story. The group is having a battle, when Platin seems more worn out than usual. Or is helping him when a monster attacks, but Weiss steps in the way triggering a flashback of Hori, Or’s mentor. We see that Or was basically a suicidal hellion, but Hori made friends with him and ended up giving his life to save Or. Meanwhile, Platin storms off.

Weiss finds Platin in a hot spring, and because she’s a nut ball, rips off her clothes and joins him. She gets freaked out when she sees blood in the water, and runs over to Platin thinking he’s injured. In one of the funniest panels in the book, Weiss feels Platin all over and discovers that he “doesn’t have one”. (You know, down there. XD ) Just as Jade shows up thinking he’s going to catch a peek at Weiss bathing, Platin transports himself and Weiss away to his secret place, the lake where he was born.

Platin tries to swim away and hide, but Weiss demands an explanation (you know, about the lack of certain parts and bloody water). He says no and buzz off, she says she’ll just go tell everyone that Platin is really a woman. Platin explains that’s not the case, but he admits he gets a period and had to get away from where the others were because they would be able to smell the blood. (Remember kiddies, Japan is not afraid of making period jokes on TV or in comics.)

After Jade can’t find Weiss, he goes back and tells the others. He shows them a bloody piece of Platin’s clothing, and of course Or freaks out thinking they were attacked. Or guesses that Platin used his power to teleport them away to safety in Platin’s homeland, and the crew decide to go after them. Or has to ride on Atrum’s back, though, because he never made a promise with Weiss and couldn’t transform (there’s something about promising Hori here, and how they all question why Or lives if Hori died).

There’s a flashback to how Or and Platin met at Platin’s home lake. Platin is drawn without a mask, and looks like a prettier Rakamu (from Doku no Aji). Or notices his purple eyes, and passes out from an injury, noting that his first words to Platin were “beautiful”. Platin explains to Weiss that he is NOT female, but instead an XXY male. There are no women in the dragon species, only XY and XXY. XXY can get pregnant, but there aren’t very many of them (something like one every 20 years). Platin knows that he’s going to be attacked by the XY dragons, and right on cue one does.

The XYs name is Mercury, and he and Platin seem to know each other, like maybe they fought before. Mercury insists that he will take Platin’s first child, but Platin adamantly refuses and they fight. At first, Mercury thinks Platin is refusing because he likes Weiss, but then Or and the others show up. Or wants to know what’s going on, with that creepy Naono smile that says “tell me or you’ll get it”. Mercury starts taunting, realizing that Platin likes Or. Or tells Platin that Platin belongs to him, while at the same time Mercury says “you are my woman”.

Or gets wide-eyed, and says “woman?” right before Mercury knocks Or’s skull open. It sets Platin off into a rage, and Platin agrees to battle Mercury in a few days (for some reason Mercury is perfectly fine with waiting). Meanwhile, Weiss and the others retreat to take care of Or. Once he’s back awake, Weiss explains the whole deal. Or seems depressed, and goes to talk to Platin in Platin’s lake. Platin initially refuses to come out, until Or orders him. Or wants to know why he kept all this a secret, and Platin says it has noting to do with him because they can’t be mates. Or agrees that it’s probably not possible, but the whole time his mind is lamenting how he can’t be with Platin anymore. He notes that their last words were that they can’t be together.

Or then goes into a slump, staring out the window like he’s lost. Jade wonders why they’re just sitting around when Platin could be getting killed, to which Or answers that it’s not any of their business because they’re not dragons and this is what Platin wanted. Weiss flips out, questioning Or if it’s fine for Mercury to rape Platin, and that Or is seriously thick headed if he could go all these years without realizing how Platin felt. Or snaps and says he can’t give Platin a child so he has no right to be by his side. Weiss and Jade squabble over Gaito having babies, and Weiss starts flipping on Jade for forgetting about Rouge, her son (see volume 1). Atrum steps in and reminds her that it’s Gaito -men- who can’t have babies. Or remarks that it doesn’t matter anyway, because Platin is a dragon. Jade makes a comment about how Platin can’t do it anyway because he has no parts (I love the new Jade).

Weiss reminds Or that having babies shouldn’t matter because the two love each other, and Or remembers how he made Platin cover his eyes so that he’d be safe while they travel (I guess purple eyes are rare and can cause trouble). Or admits that Platin is his everything, and the group transport off to save him.

When they get there, they find Platin half dead and about to lose, because Platin absolutely refuses to mate with Mercury. Mercury starts taunting Or (before realizing he is there) and how Platin is weak for holding onto someone who just left him. Mercury says that Or has no right to interfere in the dragons’ affairs, when Or speaks up and tells him he’s right. But he does have a right to interfere in Platin’s affairs, and changes into a golden bird. Turns out he was able to make a promise with Weiss because she got Hori’s egg (I think, it’s a little vague). After a battle, Mercury admits defeat and leaves. Platin is shocked, but grateful. Weiss then reminds him that he is loved.

Two weeks later, Weiss is looking for Platin and finds him being spoon fed by Or. Or is very lovey-dovey now, and Platin is a little embarrassed. Weiss wants to talk to Platin in private, but Or says no, telling her that there are no more secrets between the two. So Weiss blurts out that Platin is pregnant. She goes into a long winded talk about how Platin was still female when Or saved him, and that Gaito sperm are some kind of super sperm that can conceive with other Gaito and dragon people (and there’s an actual drawing of sperm and eggs, more crazy Naono humor). Needless to say the boys are all stunned, except Or who just goes over to Platin and takes off his blindfold. Platin admits it’s true because he didn’t revert back to male right away, and Or just hugs him in what has got to be the cutest panel ever. He then says that above all else, he’s thankful for Platin being alive.

The book ends with some humor, with Weiss calling the two “mamatomo”, kind of translates into mama buddies, and Platin revealing that the baby will take 3 years to be born. They leave to return to Weiss’ hometown, this time making Jade carry all Platin’s luggage. When Jade complains, one of them says “What? Elderly abuse?”. Atrum comments that Weiss smells good, and she blushes and yells that it’s only the soap.

So the two oneshots “Tamago No…” and “Tamago no Hanashi” probably make a lot more sense now. I kind of like how nowhere in the book is it mentioned that the two slept together, just BAM! pregnant. Reminds me of a Disney movie, except with men. XD