#there's a period in my life when i went completely mute for 2 years give or take

[keracchi]

back when im a smol gremlin i used to learn sign language obsessively ..i only know the alphabets and very few simple words tho.

[ceo-of-daichi]

Characters - Sawamura Daichi x Fem!Reader

Summary - Lockdown had really affected your social life and daily routine, luckily a certain someone was willing to help you get your life back to somewhat normal. What will happen when you start catching feelings?

Genre - Fluff

Warnings - Slight mentions of anxiety 

Word Count - 2.3k

A/N - Back again with another Daichi fic! Are you surprised, probably not i got a one man mind lmao. This one isn’t as long as the last but still as fluffy, hopefully you enjoy reading it :) p.s. this was almost called Toothpaste I blame Jas👀

Covid-19 had really flipped your year in a completely different direction to what you were expecting. You started the year hoping to finish your last year of high-school on a high, helping the volleyball team get to nationals and getting into university. However, the world clearly had a different plan for you, when the virus first started you didn’t think much of it. Why would you? It was only when the announcement came that the country was going into lockdown that your brain finally registered what was actually happening. Being the slightly more extroverted individual you thrived off seeing your friends, plus both your parents worked as nurses. You were going to be alone.

The first few weeks went by pretty fast, managing to keep up a routine by going out for runs and making yourself eat at certain times. Even keeping in touch with your friends from the boys volleyball team as well as Kiyoko, one of your closest friends. However, after this fairly stable period you had a really bad day. Nothing went your way, blender… broken, guess you weren't having a smoothie this morning. After that frustrating incident Tanaka and Noya decided to start poking fun at you in the group chat, which you were NOT in the mood for. Group chat… Muted. It was also raining extremely heavy so you decided maybe a well deserved rest day was in order, throwing on the TV you flopped down on the couch to start your film marathon.

5am. That was the time it was when you finally passed out on the couch. How did you end up staying up that late, Harry Potter. Why you thought it was a good idea to start watching the films you don’t know, but you managed to watch them all, all 19 hours of them. That was all it took to mess your routine up for the next month, not waking up till 2-3pm everyday just to lounge around. Barely keeping in touch with anyone, you hadn’t talked in the groupchat for close to 3 weeks, hardly even thinking about eating anything but snacks. 

Luckily you had a saving grace, Daichi. After going MIA , the third year’s started to get worried about you, especially Kiyoko. She had dmed you multiple times and got nothing in return, mainly because you saw the messages but forgot to reply. You were a whole ass mess to put it plainly. 

~ 3rd Years Group Chat ~

Kiyoko - I’m worried about [y/n]...

Suga - Tell me about it, she hasn’t been in the chat for weeks

Daichi - Have you tried dming her?

Kiyoko - She is ignoring me, she hasn’t replied to one of my messages

Asahi - Maybe she’s just busy?

Daichi - In the middle of lockdown…

Suga - Yeah thats unlikely

Kiyoko - Can one of you dm her as well? I just want to make sure she’s ok?

Daichi - I can... i’ll let you know if she replies and if she doesn’t Asahi or Suga can try

Having received a concerned message from Daichi, you realised how much you had lost track of everything and anything. Replying to both him and Kiyoko apologising and explaining you had just forgotten to press send. Although Daichi wanted to believe that was the case he couldn’t, instead of being upfront about it though he started messaging you throughout the day. Just small things asking if you had eaten and if you were staying hydrated, little did he know that this helped you get back into a better rhythm of lockdown life.

You slowly fixed your sleep schedule and got back to eating 3 meals a day. Although you hadn’t managed to get back into running, your talks with Daichi slowly got more frequent and for longer periods of time. The more you talked to him the more motivated you started to feel, eventually you got back into your running routine. It no longer became the odd message to make sure you were eating, but full day conversations about anything you could think of. Eventually you started relying on talking to him to cure your lockdown loneliness, a day without talking to him was not a good day for you. Daichi being the fairly observant person that he is, started to realise and eventually bought it up.

Daichi :) - Hey [y/n], I've been meaning to bring something up with you, you mind if we call?

[y/n] - Yeah sure Dai, just call me whenever i don’t exactly have anything going on

Receiving this was like a bullet to the chest, worrying what it could be about you pulled your knees up to your chest steadying your breathing. As you were lost in your head, your phone started ringing. Answering it you heard his voice for the first time in close to 3 months, it was music to your ears. Slowly over these 2 months you had grown fond of the boy, but you had quickly dismissed the idea of anything forming between each other. Both having different priorities in life, being scared of rejection also didn’t help.

After an hour and a half of deep conversation, a couple tears shed but more laughter at the end. You collapsed backwards onto your bed, he had found out everything. How your parents were barely home, always doing long shifts at the hospital, how you felt like you had no one during those 3 weeks you were MIA. Most importantly though you had confessed that talking to him was like receiving a warm hug. It's exactly what you needed at this time, obviously you would love an actual hug as well but that's pretty hard from a 2m distance.

~ 1 week later ~

Your eyes went wide as they announced on the news that lockdown was starting to be lifted, you were now allowed to meet up with people outside at a safe distance. Smiling you quickly messaged Daichi telling him how excited you were that restrictions were finally being lifted.  

Daichi :) - That's Great [y/n]!! So.. you fancy going on a socially distanced pic-nic tomorrow? Don’t worry about bringing anything but yourself. I got the rest covered, obviously if you're ok with that?😃

Reading the text over multiple times, pinching yourself to make sure it was real. You hadn’t seen Daichi in close to 3 months, and within that time you had developed feelings. What would it be like seeing him in person now, generally being awkward with past crushes, you started to worry about scaring him away. You couldn’t do that, you needed him. Taking a couple paces around the room thinking about what to reply, before realising you were most definitely overthinking it. He didn’t see you that way…

[y/n] - Yeah sure! Just let me know a time and place, i will be there

Daichi - 1pm at the park round the corner from your house?

[y/n] - See you there!! 

The next morning you woke up with a huge smile plastered on your face, excited for the day ahead. Jumping out of bed and rummaging through your wardrobe you pulled out a cute summer dress, not too dressy but showed you put effort in none the less. The summer dress was red and was covered in little white flowers, you had only worn it a couple times and decided it needed another outing.

Walking down your road and around the corner to the park, the wind hitting your face made you feel like maybe the world was getting back to normal. As you walked through the gates, you noticed Daichi stood over by a slightly more wooded area, smiling as you made your way over to him. Greeting each other you forgot how much his laugh and smile made it seem like nothing else mattered, making your heart beat faster in your chest. He ended up leading you through the woods and into a small opening which had 2 picnic blankets laid down at the appropriate distance. As you got closer you noticed that there were sandwiches, fruit and small cakes on both.

‘You didn’t have to do this Daichi you know? A simple sandwich would have been fine?’ You started smiling at him, no one had ever gone to this much effort for you and honestly you felt bad. ‘It must have taken you a bit to set this up…’

‘Oh no, honestly don’t worry about it… i wanted to, neither have been out in a while so i figured why not?’ The laugh that came out sounded almost nervous, which confused you slightly… Was he really as nervous as you?

The afternoon went by quicker than both of you wanted. Chatting, cracking jokes and eating, which the food Daichi had made was really good. You had asked why he had never told you about his clear culinary skills, apparently this was the first time he had attempted something like this. Trying not to get too far ahead of yourself when he had mentioned this, even though you were freaking out. Mainly chatting about quarantine life and how you missed being out of lockdown, being able to socialise freely and do whatever you wanted. 

You only realised how long you had been with Daichi when it started to get dark, letting him know you should probably be getting back. Even though in reality you could have stayed there for the rest of the night and into the early morning. Helping him pack everything up  occasionally sneaking glances at him, wishing you could pull him into a hug or give him a peck on the cheek. Just to let him know how much he had helped you over the past month. Sadly you couldn’t, once everything had been packed away Daichi (being the gentleman that he is) offered to walk you back.

‘I had a really good afternoon, thank you for this Daichi…’ Smiling at him as you walk up to your front door.

‘Would you want to do something like this again maybe?’ The way he looked at you, his eyes almost pleading, with a slight smile gracing his lips. This made your heart instantly melt.

‘If you want to? I would love that!’

‘[y/n]... why would i ask if i didn’t want to?’ Raising a brow at you playfully.

‘Shut up you dork, i’ll see you soon then!’ Laughing as you walk through your door giving him a wave before closing it and sliding down it on the other side, trying to calm your heart that was about to burst through your chest.

Another couple weeks past, you had only met up with Daichi once more, but both were still texting all day with the occasional call. You also had met up with Kiyoko within these weeks, explaining your situation. She thought it was really funny how much you were worrying about it because to her it seemed obvious that he returned your feelings. You were still completely denying this fact though, it was something your brain really couldn’t fathom. However, the next day lockdown was reduced once again, you were now allowed to have people in your house from other families. 

Being as excitable as you were and the fact your parents were out almost all of the time, you rattled off a text to Daichi asking him if he fancied a chill movie marathon night? Both of you deciding to watch The Hobbit trilogy later on in the evening. Hopping up from the couch you started cleaning the house, preparing snacks and setting up pillows as well as blankets on the couch. Seen as though it was a chill night you had decided on a pair of grey sweats and a plain v-neck t-shirt, that was tied so it wasn’t too long.

You had just finished setting everything up when there was a knock at the door, practically running to get it. Opening the door to his smiling face made something snap and you don’t know what came over yourself as you jumped into his arms, wrapping your own around him. Luckily he was quick to catch you. 

‘What did i do to deserve this hug?’ He chuckles to himself as you nuzzle into his neck.

‘Everything. Daichi I owe you so much, you don’t even understand’ Letting out a sigh, he closes the door and carries you over to the couch. Placing you down next to him as you pout at him, sad that the hug was over so soon. You had waited for so long to be wrapped up in his arms and when you finally get the chance it barely lasts 2 minutes. 

‘Listen Daichi… you have helped me so much over the past few months, and honestly…’ Taking a breath to figure out how to phrase your next words, however before you could say anything else he had pulled you back into his chest.

‘I like you too dork…’ Frozen in his arms, how long had he known… How long had he liked you back? All you could do in that moment was snake your arms round him and enjoy each other's company as he started the first film.

~ BONUS ~

‘How long have you liked me Daichi?’ You question him half way through the first film.

‘About 6 months give or take why?’ He turns his attention towards you and gives you a quick head kiss, before looking back to the film.

‘6 months… that's before we went into lockdown..?’

He hums, smirking at your clearly oblivious nature, as your brain was spiralling thinking about how many signals you missed.

Tags: @super-noya @stcrryskies @iwaxme @bb-noya @vventure @ardorwrites-hq-mha @scorpiosanssexy

[missanthropicprinciple]

I read that passive aggressive behavior is a “form of manipulation” just now and by God did that slap me in the face. Recently, a friend (now former friend? not sure as she’s still following me but muted my stories) went after me instead of talking to me like an adult by making a sarcastic comment, made assumptions about my past activism (before I knew her), misquoted me, kept dragging me into an argument, and then when I tried to give her a thoughtful answer she was annoyed that I had been typing for “10 minutes” (it had only been 5-7 minutes as the confrontation came out of nowhere and caused me a major panic attack) and finally told me to “let it go.” Nearly a week went by and then she said “I shouldn’t have taken it out on you” but then added that our “entire connection has played out on social media” and that “the foundation is a little tenuous.” I’ve known many people for many years over social media and many of those relationships have been healthy. This same friend became annoyed with me several weeks back when I was figuring out how to handle a racist friend of mine on insta. (I met the latter person on tumblr many years ago and I was surprised how his stories on insta had become increasingly right-wing extremist.) As expected he came back at me with anti-Black Lives Matter rhetoric straight from Fox News. The friendship ended. Before my confrontation with him, my aforementioned friend messaged me and assumed, somewhat irately, that I was going to just let him get by with his behavior. I have c-ptsd and so was reluctant to put myself in a situation where I knew the confrontation would do no good and/or I would meet with verbal abuse. I knew I was going to lose the horrible person as a friend as soon as I messaged him. So I did. I shared the information with the friend and she said she didn’t want to hear it. A week or so later the other thing happened. 

These three recent exchanges forced me to look at our supposed friendship. I had once again ignored several red flags. 1) Every time I met her in person (only three times in the last four years that I’ve known her) she was outwardly annoyed with me and anything I did that she found inconvenient. 2) When she stayed at my apartment one night earlier this year she was unhappy about how small my couch was even though I told her beforehand I have a small love-seat-sized couch and that I have little-to-no resources. 3) She filmed me ranting about conservatism and capitalism when we were in a restaurant without asking me if it was ok first and was laughing at me at the same time. 4) When we met up online over Google Hangouts in March and I couldn’t get it to work for a while she got very frustrated with me. 5) After the first exchange we had about my other former friend I discovered she wasn’t following me and I asked her about it. Turns out she hadn’t been following me for the last two years? She said she unfollowed me when she was in a depressive period and I said ok I just wanted to make sure I hadn’t hurt her. 6) For our second exchange online she began, as I said, with a sarcastic remark. 7) She essentially asked where my voice was when she created an online magazine after t***p was elected, and distorted the truth with her accusations as she said at the time in 2016 that she already had a couple people for political and human rights issues and so I said I would write movie reviews (I ran out of time as I was in grad school and working three jobs). 8) She has repeatedly pulled the “fine, whatever” or “never mind” route. 9) Repeatedly chuckled at me in a condescending way. Even when I brought this up that it’s a problem I have with people she continued to laugh at me, typing “Looooooooool. Sarah... Dying” complete with several laughing emojis. 

What makes this whole thing so awful is me; I let yet another manipulative person walk all over me. It should have been more clear to me and I shouldn’t have tried to make it work, or agree to go to London with her this year. Needless to say, covid-19 prevented us from going. After several weeks of trying she gave me my money back for the airbnb, the same day as her last message. Moral of the story: dump racist people in your life and also friends who walk all over you. 

[arcanacenturia]

Sometimes you gotta flee on a platform you had forgotten existed bc toxic people don’t want to be not toxic

Like. We just RTed a tweet that works for anyone who don’t even begin to try and SEE Eichi is not actually a bad person.To tell thm that maybe they want to see more and understand. And that person posts “No fun allowed”. The day before they had posted “worst event. Worst ship.” bc they hate E and love W.

The three people “implied” in this sort of cold war are 28-30.(I’m the 30 person).

And I can’t believe we’re having this sort of cold war over FICTIONNAL CHARACTERS just because 29 can’t accept that 1) not hating character for invalid reasons is a thing, 2) listening to the entirety of your friends who have been trying to help you for two years and not spending their money when you shouldn’t even need it is a thing either.

I have a hypothesis why they would hate that character for no reason though. I have no idea if it’s actually coherent or the truth or anything, but they are not coherent in the first place and they’re being really really toxic.

So, Hated Character is 28′s favorite character (hence the cold war) and a character I love too.

28 and I are best friends, have been for long and are very close (I mean. We’ve seen many, many things together, lived in the same area and all so we saw each other like everyday before I left my country)

29 and I are close friends too and have lived lots of things together too, just not the same ones. Lived farther, couldn’t see each other as much. But 29 is also very depressed and financially irresponsible, which makes the situation worse.

29 tried to enter 28 and my relationship. Which is. 28 and my relationship. I don’t mind introducing my friends with each other, I’ve done that many times in the past and it sometimes worked well, sometimes didn’t. So, creating a relationship with the three of us : sure. Having 29 enter an already established relationship (I FORGOT TO MENTION BUT THAT’S A FRIENDSHIP OK) with its own past, its own stories, its own rules : Nope. Never. Ever.

In the meantime, 29 started insulting Hated Character very, very violently (he’s a fucking FICTIONNAL CHARACTER and yes, he did bad things, but he also showed remorse and his Bad Character period was 1) over in like a month, 2) shown as something he felt like he had to do to improve things in his story and actually set bases to the main story, 3) something he really isn’t proud of and is reflecting on in the new stories. 

28 didn’t like seeing their fav character being insulted for no reason.

I didn’t like it either bc the way he was insulted showed that 29 hadn’t even tried to read the story.

We had had this discussion in private like 10 times.

29 didn’t like that they couldn’t insult Hated Character for no reason in public.

28 & I had the audacity of vagueing ON OUR PRIVS about how one should maybe NOT do that bc wow that’s not nice to people who actually like characters others hate??

29 didn’t like that, blocked us from their priv so they could keep insulting Hated Character on their private account without us telling them about it.

28 got angry, also blocked 29 from their privated account.

I just thought “whatever, if you can’t trust us that’s your problem” and did not block them. Now I’m thinking that maybe I should have, bc here I am, ranting on them on the lone plateform they can’t see.

29 re-followed me and re-alowed me to follow them which I am glad for bc it helped me helped them.

So. What I believe happened:

29 attributed Hated Character to 28 bc that’s 28′s fav.

29 attributed Pink Character (that I do not like bc he reminds me of a toxic person I had freshly escaped; and 28 does not like for reasons they do not understand themselves, probs their looks) to themself.

Who they attributed to me is a mystery and tbh I don’t care. Maybe they didn’t attribute any character to me.

And then started hating on Hated Character bc of jealousy bc they could see my relationship with 28 and were unable to get the same. Which. Is. Obvious. Like. I can’t have two identical relationships with two different people.

28&29 never got along very well and it’s getting worse and worse bc both tend to hold grudges for way too long and though 28 tries to make efforts, 29 really doesn’t and just acts like a leech towards anyone that has approached them. 

In the meantime :

29 tried to attribute a character to another without knowing the slightest thing about them, ignored me completely when I told them to BE CAREFUL ABOUT WHAT THEY RT bc the character itself is a massive spoiler, got angry when I didn’t approve their ways. Went to complain on their priv, about : 1) How they WeRe AlWaYs WrOnG wHaTeVeR tHeY dId (well maybe stop assuming things about a character you don’t know and stop ignoring people who tell you to fucking BE CAREFUL ABOUT WHAT YOU RT), 2) how they could never enter my friendship with 28 (which. is. totally normal???).

Right at the same time, I was informed that people have started to understand what 29 was doing with the money they got and didn’t appreciate it. I didn’t either.

Annoyed by the toxicity, I muted their priv. Then, I heard things about 29 that I wish were lies about the way they deal with their money and the money others give them. (Basically : earns more money than I am, has a bigger flat for way cheaper, has cats but still manages to not be able to pay doc bills for themselves and the poor cats)

29 probs noticed I had muted their priv or at least that I had stop responding to the provocation (they had started posting more and more toxic tweets as time passed and I couldn’t bear w/ it, especially at that time bc my life was about to change a LOT and I was so stressed my health deteriorated). So they started provocating on their main.

I have like 4 account on twitter that they follow (only one doesn’t follow her back bc I don’t even know why she followed it in the first place). I muted their main on my main. Then on my priv. Then very recently on my second main, bc they were talking a lot about things I wasn’t interested in and sometimes managed to provoke between two of these.

28 recently muted their main too, but recently discovered tweets about Hated Character x Other Character Very Cannonically Shipped with Them that 29 Loves.

28 RTed a tweet saying that maybe people who hate on a character without knowing them SHOULD learn more about the hated character before talking, which was quoted with a picture of Hated Character.

29 took it Very Personally (which they should in this case but also works with all the people that hate characters for bad reason as well) and posted “no fun allowed”.

“n o f u n a l l o w e d”

Please fucking tell me what’s so FUN about hating a character you don’t know and insulting him on social media especially when you have AT LEAST THREE MUTUALS that love him (yes we also have a friend who has Hated Character as their fav but for some reason they do not get the hate 28 and I are getting? 

HOW WEIRD HUH

29 insisted a lot on how they love me and admire me and put me on a pedestal which I honestly think is toxic as fuck and clearly very untrue considering their reactions to SIMPLE RTs AND REMARKS.

Also, they claim to be “alone” whenever something just doesn’t go their way. Which is very clearly untrue bc they always manage to get out of their own shit (by begging money from others and then they keep buying things they don’t have the money for and then claim it’s WeLl BuDgEtTeD (spoilers : if you buy it and can’t pay all your bills then it’s not)).

Urgh. It just makes me so angry, even though I said I do not have the time or energy for that bc I started working full time recently. I’m not even fully adapted to my new life yet. Fuck it. Someday I’ll just start unfollow 29 for good if they keep acting like an asshole.

[lureofthesea]

The Wishing Star

Sometimes Tidus and Yuna felt the need to kick over the traces. For those occasions, they would load up their camping supplies in backpacks, let Lulu and Wakka know where they would be and hiked to the “wild” side of Besaid.  It gave them the freedom they truly needed; to shed all their official and public facades and recall a harder but simplier period in their lives. It also helped them to reconnect with the land, breathe deeply of the tangy ocean air while reconnecting to each other.

It took most of the day to hike to their camping spot. They had to wander through heavy brush and jungly overgrowth, plow through several gullies and climb over several hills to reach their goal: a rocky outcropping high above the jungle-like canopy where a freshwater stream was nearby.  Tidus had discovered the location a few years ago when he accompanied Wakka and some other Aurochs during a fiend hunting expedition.  A pack of fiends had been venturing too close to the village for over a week so a group was formed to take care of the nuisance. Tidus had come within a hairsbreath of being attacked and/or killed by the fiends due to his awestruck reaction of that view.  His teammates had arrived in the nick of time.  Despite that awkward beginning, it became his favorite spot to “get away from it all.”  No tech, no people—just a spectacular view that made you feel like a king overlooking your kingdom.

He and Yuna quickly set up camp.  Tidus went around the site gathering firewood, brush and other such debris for their campfire that evening.  Inside the small shelter, Yuna unrolled the sleeping mats and set up a small tray on which she placed 2 stacking cups.  She then pulled out 2 leaf-wrapped meals (prepared by Lulu) and some fruit.  Then she waited for Tidus’ return.  She heard him striding into camp, absentmindedly humming the Hymn of the Fayth.

Just like that, she was struck once more by how happy she was at that very moment, listening to Tidus humming softly while setting up the firewood for their fire later that evening.  Yuna reveled in that feeling; it was so often muted by the burdens and demands from their relative status of High Summoner and her Champion Guardian and Tidus’ fame as a blitzball star, Sir Jecht’s son and Yuna being heir to her father’s legacy.  The burden she truly never envisioned inheriting because she would’ve died if not for Tidus.  Just thinking about the never-ending demands on their time made her close her eyes and sigh. When she opened those eyes, she saw a pair of dark blue boots and heard, “Yuna, are you tired?  I can finish getting dinner together.”  Tidus put the tray down by Yuna, sat down and poured water into the 2 cups from the water jug.  Tidus’ eyes lit up seeing Lulu’s specially wrapped meals.  Speaking while chewing, he asked, “ aaaaahtheeerrmor?”   Yuna couldn’t help laughing while shaking her head at his bad table manners.  “Yes, Lulu fixed enough for over a week’s time.  Help yourself if you want seconds.”   Tidus grinned, nodding ‘yes’ while resembling a chipmunk with both cheeks ballooned out.  They settled down to finish their meal and eat fruit for dessert.  Yuna held onto the orange peelings for later.  

They went outside to watch the sunset from the outcropping vantage point.  Yuna leaned against Tidus’ side, resting one on his knee while he embraced her shoulder. She savored the intimacy of their viewing positions and their ease with each other.  As the sun lowered below the horizon and the first faint dusting of stars appeared alongside the moon in the purple-indigo night sky, on particular star seemed brighter than the rest.  Tidus gestured to it-“See that, Yuna?  That was my wishing star when I was a kid.”  His face clouded, saddened by memories of his childhood.  “I used to wish for all sorts of things but what I truly wanted—more than anything—was to really matter to someone …to not be alone.”  Yuna could feel that pain in his voice.  She asked, “Does it bother you much to think of Zanarkand?”  He stiffened imperceptibly; if Yuna wasn’t so attuned to him, she wouldn’t noticed it. “No, not really.  Of course I miss it—it was home.  I grew up in a never-never land of Spira’s making, that never truly existed.  If the price to return to Zanarkand means giving you up—well, nice knowin’ ya Zanarkand!”

Yuna’s eyes widened in sheer amazement.  “I mean that much to you, Tidus?”  He gave a ‘duh, Yes’ look, then said, “Yuna, that doesn’t even begin to describe what you mean to me.  You’re my everything –the missing part that completes my being.  Without you—well, I’d be nothing but a faded dream…”  Yuna’s eyes had teared up during this avowal of love by her Tidus and she shushed him, burrowing her face into his neck, crying “Don’t say that---don’t even think that! You mean my very life to me and I want to spend the rest of my life with you!  Together! I’ve already had a taste of life without you.  I became a ghost…going through the motions of living.   I want. ..*hiccups from crying* us to grow old together; surrounded by our friends and family—children and grandchildren.” Tidus hugged Yuna so hard she could barely breathe.  He kissed the side of her face where some tears had trailed down, saying “That’s my wish too, Yuna!  A long life shared together with our friends and our family!”  The pair shared a loving kiss, turning to view the moonrise spreading its glow of peace and contentment in their hearts.  Both could have sworn that the wishing star had sparkled brighter when they voiced their wishes.

[fuck-customers]

customer service

I work at a call center company with a green square that happens to have millions of stores in the US. The training for the job only lasted one week and then were sent out to take calls. They said this job is super easy because all we really have to do is read the computer script. So as long as we read word for word we'd be ok. We were mostly just able to schedule appointments in offices and answer generic tax questions and on ocassion schedule callback appointments if that specific person they wanted was available. First day I'm supposed to take calls I'm nervous as hell I feel like I'm not ready luckily they hadn't set up the phones or computers yet. The day went by slow and finally the last couple hrs of the day they connect all the phones and they show us how to use our retro phones. These things are ancient and I put on my headset and well from their we were just really waiting for calls. The shit that annoyed me was that the programs we were taught to use are so goddamm slow and they block any other website that we aren't supposed to use basically how schools do to students. At the beginning we had so many people calling who didn't even file with this company asking to look up their returns they filed with taxturbo, cuttax, hwittjckson. Because of this we had to ask each and every person if they filed with our specific company that i work for. Some where understanding when u explained that other tax companies wouldn't have a return you filed with someone else because 1. They don't give ur info to anyone else and 2. We are not the IRS. But no then I'd have those people who would get mad I couldn't look up their stuff and ask for a manager. First of all the managers tell us to de-escalate the situation I tried nope he says I'm incompetent and to learn how to do my job. So this dude is already aggravated and I have to tell him that I have to put him on hold while I go get my supervisor. But really I just actually put them on mute where they can't hear me and I can hear him swearing so much. We have these people who monitor us at all times to make sure we're doing our jobs they're not really supervisors but they have the same knowledge we do except they don't take calls they kinda just like remind us what to do. They assume the role of pretend supervisor while the actual supervisors are listening to all the calls that are recorded to grade us for the week. Anywho the guy gets irritated after waiting for idk 5 minutes tells me to put him on the phone so I tell him my "supervisor" is opening up the programs we use and logging into his phone. As soon as he gives me the signal I transfer the call to his phone and well he tells him the exact same thing. This dude loses it then he kinda went off on him and the 'supervisor' told him that if he didn't stop using profanity he'd have to call back when he was in a better mood and that he'd hangup. He didn't stop so he hanged the call and signed out of his phone and went on doing his job. Oh and another thing that's kinda neat is that as part of policy we aren't allowed to give our last names to clients it's against policy and we could loose our jobs. At the beginning whenever I would get calls of people that got screwed over by their tax pro I'd feel sympathetic but after so many calls from assholes it doesn't really phase me anymore. Do you know how many people cried because they were overly aggressive to us? I've come close to telling someone off over the phone but I learned how to do it in a way it doesn't screw me over. I mute the phone and swear and flip off my computer pretending it's the person I'm talking to. We get also get surveys we have to push on clients just to help our location win a giant check at the end of the season. I can read the surveys and the names of the people who give me surveys. I'll never forget the asshole who put that he wanted to speak to someone in America and not some poc. Last I checked Texas is part of the US. Everytime a person calls an office and they don't answer they're calls are forwarded to us. So we can get calls from any of the 50 states in the US. When they ask why they got transferred here I have to explain that since they didn't answer your phone call the system is set up where we get your call to assist you. Some people never listen and they're like just transfer me back then? Great I'd love to do that if only I could our phones can only transfer to different departments in our call center. Oh don't get me started with the rapid refund so many people filed with the company just to get it when they found out that their application got rejected you'd imagine they would act more civilized and not like a toddler having a tantrum.Second thing I hated was the extension that was only available for April for a specific period of time that had to be completed before the last day and yes people procrastinate and wait to the last minute to file taxes. So all those offices that are seasonal offices close down and only year round offices stay open so alot of seasonal associates just disappear and continue on with life. Oh and the corporate number listed for the company is just the customer service line they just have a mailing address just some advice for those people that all promised me they would complain to corporate and sue the company.

[queensofrap]

The Year of Cardi B - She went from stripping to becoming the breakout star of 2017. So what's she worried about?

Cardi B is butt-naked in the doorway of her hotel bathroom, yelling about her vagina. On a mid-October evening, she's readying herself for a college show in Baltimore, and the toiletries provided by the hotel aren't to her liking. "That soap gave me the yeast infection of 2017!" she hollers in her thick Bronx accent. "My pussy was burnin' like a Mexican taco!"

It takes all of 10 seconds in Cardi B's presence to be reminded of the sheer force and hilarity of her personality. Simply being Cardi B, at maximum volume, made her a star – first on Instagram, then on the VH1 reality show Love & Hip-Hop: New York – before she'd recorded any music at all, let alone knocked Taylor Swift from the top of the pop charts with the sly swagger of her single "Bodak Yellow." She is the people's diva – or "the strip-club Mariah Carey," as she once rapped – unfiltered in a way the world often doesn't allow female stars to be. In a culture reshaped by streaming and social media, where the kids, without much corporate nudging, get to decide who the stars are, Cardi B is what you get.

Yesterday, Cardi turned 25.
 She took a rare day off, hanging
 with her entire family – sister, parents, cousins – at her mother's house. But she missed her boyfriend (now fiancé), Offset of Migos, who was touring in Australia. "I was sad, because it's like, 'Oh, my gosh, I'm not getting no dick on my birthday,'" says Cardi, whose bedazzled acrylic nails are decorated with tiny reproductions of Offset paparazzi shots. "But I wasn't going to get dick on my birthday anyway, because I got my period."

She finds a cleanser she can deal with and hops into the shower, before slipping into a bright-red spacesuit-inspired Milano di Rouge jumpsuit, complete with a yellow patch that reads "Safe sex saves lives," part of the designer's anti-HIV initiative. She glances at it and arches her eyebrows. "Girl," she says, "I don't even use a condom."

It may not seem like it, but this is actually a newer, more cautious Cardi B. After a few social-media controversies – including when she was justly called out for a since-deleted tweet that referred to Kim Jong Un as "Won Tung Soup" – she is trying to learn to hold back a bit. "I used to tell myself that I will always be myself," she says. But she worries that she's going back on that vow. "Little by little, I'm feeling like I'm getting trapped and muted."

Her life is changing fast. She put out her first mixtape, Gangsta Bitch Music, Vol. 1, in March last year, back when she was still Love & Hip-Hop's breakout star. It was a gloriously raw and raunchy introduction that cashed in on her TV catchphrases with songs like "Washpoppin'" and "Foreva." She released Vol. 2 in January this year, five months before announcing a major-label contract with Atlantic Records.

In June came "Bodak Yellow," named in homage to Florida rapper Kodak Black, whose song "No Flockin'" inspired its flow. "Bodak Yellow" is an unlikely Number One: a tough trap song with zero concessions to the mainstream, or even anything like a conventional pop hook. In a year when the youth power of streaming services, which now count toward chart positions, is changing the very meaning of pop, she's become the first female rapper to score a solo Number One since Lauryn Hill in 1998. Not bad for someone who initially pursued rapping as a way to monetize her reality fame. ("I said, 'TV don't make you rich,'" recalls her manager, Shaft, who once produced Lil' Kim. "'You gotta sell something! Waist trainers, hair, something.'")

The pressure is building. Her once-carefree social-media presence has drifted toward moody reflections about the downsides of fame. She's stressed about creating a debut album – the very word "album" makes her wince – that can live up to "Bodak Yellow" and the best of her mixtape tracks, not to mention the challenge of creating singles that can keep her on the charts and avoid one-hit-wonderdom. There is a chorus of doubters in her head, she acknowledges, and it sounds something like this: "Can she make another hit, can she make another hit?"

She fears failure, and paints a vivid picture of what it might look like: "If you go broke and lose your career, it's bad – and everybody is talkin' shit about it! At least if you lose your 9-to-5 you don't got millions of people judging you and talking shit while you lost your job."

Seven years ago, Cardi B was convinced she'd already failed at life. To please her mom, she was studying at a Manhattan community college with plans to become a history teacher. Born Belcalis Almanzar, she'd grown up in the Bronx's Highbridge neighborhood, and she was struggling to survive financially on her own. "It was just very sad," she says, uncharacteristically subdued. She's in the back seat of a black SUV on her way to a performance at Baltimore's Morgan State University, and the college setting is bringing back memories. "It was very frustrating – you have to pay for everything. When I finally got a job at Amish Market, I had to debate, 'Do I wanna go to class or do I wanna finish my shift?'"

She dropped out after two semesters, and soon took up stripping – a career move helpfully suggested by her Amish Market boss. "A lot of people wonder, 'Why would anybody want to be a dancer?'" she says. "Because there's money!" She used some of her stripping cash to briefly return to school. "I kept missing classes," she says, "and quit because I felt like I was already failing. It was such a disappointment."

Her strict Trinidadian mother worked seven days a week at a local college; her Dominican father, who separated from her mom when Cardi was 13, was "the cool parent," she says. For Cardi, his experience doing "different things in the streets" was a cautionary tale. "That's why I be so careful with my money and always try to invest. I see people who have it all and then lose it."

As a kid, Cardi had a sense that she was destined to do something creative, which led her to a performing-arts school on the Bronx's east side. She tried acting and singing (though she was convinced all of her classmates were better), wrote some poetry. But she'd also crack up friends and boyfriends by rewriting songs by, say, Beyoncé to make them "waaay sluttier." That hobby caught Shaft's attention years later, leading him to encourage her to pursue rapping seriously.

Until then, Cardi B relied on her abilities to charm and to hustle to pay the bills. And it worked: She quickly broke 100,000 Instagram followers in her strip-club days, expanding outward from her loyal customers, mostly on the strength of playful videos – "sucking dick" and scamming men were favored topics.

After Shaft suggested rapping, he began making beats for her at home, and helped her find a lyrical voice that matched the charm of her delivery.

But Cardi – who calls herself "a negative person" – had to overcome her own skepticism. She thought hard about her subject matter (her first single: "Stripper Hoe"), determined to defy haters "expecting me to drop something trash. It just made me, like, 'Aha, I gotta study these other rappers,'" she says. "Study how to do something different from them. You know all these female rappers, they talking about they money, they talking about they cars, so it's like, what's something that I enjoy? I enjoy fights!"

A few hours after the show, Cardi B is back in her hotel room, still wearing her red jumpsuit. She's curled up in the bed, blankets piled on top of her, talking about the future in a tone that's almost resigned. "I cannot turn my life back around," she muses. "I'm already a public figure, I'm famous. … It's like, I might as well keep it going, might as well make the money. People are always going to talk shit – I cannot make myself unfamous."

She's faced an impressively varied set of criticisms and unsolicited opinions. She's been accused of not being a real lyricist ("I'm not trying to be"); of somehow "not being black" because of her Latina heritage and light skin ("It gets to the point that you ask yourself, 'Damn, what the fuck am I?'"); of sleeping her way to the top ("I always had sex appeal – and niggas still give me a hard time"). The rapper Azealia Banks has quarreled with her, but Cardi B has tried hard not to play into the narrative that female rappers can't get along. "It's not even the female rappers that are catty, it's the fans," she says. "They just want that beef."

Her in-progress album is never far from her thoughts. "I got six, seven solid songs that I like, but I wonder if a month from now, I'm going to change my mind." All the looming expectations, she admits, are making it harder to come up with songs. "It's not as fun to do music," she says. "My mind doesn't flow as free 'cause I have so much on my mind."

She's aiming to mix the Spanish and reggae music of her youth with the trap sound that's inescapable at the moment, putting in late nights with her "Bodak Yellow" producer, J. White, and dancehall specialist Rvssian. She freely acknowledges she's chasing hits. "It's so sad to say, and I don't want to be the one to say it, but you gotta follow the trend," she says. "This generation loves to get high. They love to be on drugs. This is why they on that shit: They don't want to think about what you're saying."

She cites Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole as rappers who still write brilliant, conscious lyrics – some part of her might want to try to follow suit, but she feels like she couldn't get away with it. "A bitch like me, it might not work out for me," she says, "so I'm going to stick to trapping."

It's barely past midnight in Cardi's hotel room, and she is already exhausted. "I'm an old-ass girl now," she says with a sigh, head on a pillow. For all her outrageousness – she finished her show tonight by hopping offstage and twerking in the audience – she's not much of a partier. She stopped smoking weed at 21 because it interfered with her increasing fame and accompanying schedule. She had taken Molly as a confidence booster before stripping but doesn't need it anymore. She rarely drinks. "If I drink," she says, "it's like, my man is gonna be around, and I'm gonna have sex."

She's been with Offset since a chance meeting with him in New York in February – just after Migos scored their own Number One with "Bad and Boujee." "We polish each other," she says, noting they confer on music-biz questions. "I could always ask him, 'Do you think this is OK to do? Do you think I'm getting tricked?'"

She hasn’t been shy about the ups and downs in her relationship with Offset, like the night in October when she seemed to break up and make up with him on Instagram in the course of several hours. She also hasn’t been shy about her intentions to marry him — and, a few days before Halloween, Offset made her dreams come true, popping the question at a Philly concert with a raindrop-shaped ring. She knows she wants to have a family. "I need to make money for my family and my future family," she says. "I'm not a YOLO person. I think 25 years from now. I think about my future kids, future husband, future house."

And where exactly will she be in 25 years? She smiles dreamily, and says, "I see myself cursin' at my kids."

[thecinephale]

Nicole Kidman 59 - #5-1

5. The Paperboy (dir. Lee Daniels)

Hell yeah the movie where Nicole Kidman pees on Zac Efron made the top five. I saw this in theatres and I too went in knowing only about that notorious moment. Most of the movie was sweaty and campy and fun and ridiculous as I hoped it would be. But as it kept going I found myself thinking, “Wait. Is this movie actually good??” Layers revealed themselves moment to moment and by the time the film ended I was convinced that, yes, it was good. Quite good. And as time has passed and I’ve revisited it I’ve only become more and more certain that it’s a brilliant and complex masterpiece. It’s still ridiculous and entertaining, but it’s also incredibly deep in its examinations of gender dynamics, racism, homophobia, and the ways they intersect.

4. To Die For (dir. Gus van Sant)

This is the film that won the Twitter poll and I have a hard time arguing. Between Gus van Sant’s direction, Buck Henry’s last great screenplay, and Nicole Kidman’s greatest performance, this is truly a remarkable film. Kidman isn’t just good in this movie. She gives the kind of performance that declares: No other actor could do this role. I have talents that are completely mine. And I am amazing. Like all 20th century media satires the subject matter only feels more and more relevant as the years go on. This is a nasty movie that’s equal parts hilarious and disturbing.

3. Dogville (dir. Lars von Trier)

Lars von Trier is a brilliant filmmaker and a terrible director. If a director’s job is to create a safe, supportive environment for cast and crew to create their best work, then he’s an utter failure. While the Björk sexual harassment accusations and the many more accusations against his producer Aalbæk Jensen are new, we always knew that von Trier was a terror. But our culture celebrates these attitudes in white men as a necessary downside to genius. Well, I’m in full agreement with Steven Soderbergh who in addressing all artists who harass, abuse, assault, or are just in his words “extreme assholes” said: “You’re 50 percent of what you could have been, because of the way you behave.” So, hey, I’m not going to lie. I still think Dogville is one of the best films of all time. But it was intended as a trilogy and because of the way he treated Nicole Kidman she did not come back for the much less accomplished sequel (Manderlay) and the third film never happened. I also do sincerely believe with his creativity and with the brilliance of the concept and cast, even this movie could have been better if made in a more collaborative space. Obviously that’s just speculation but it’s something I fundamentally believe about art and filmmaking. As is, it still is great though. I thought about this film every time the New York Times or some other publication wrote about the plight of the Trump voter. This film angrily and aggressively dismisses the romanticization of the white working class. As James Caan’s gangster dad wonderfully mansplains, refusing to hold people accountable for their actions, to ignore people when they make it clear who they are is extremely arrogant. Von Trier’s misanthropy can be tiresome, but this film has a lot of important things to say about America even if its filmmaker has never been here.

2. Eyes Wide Shut (dir. Stanley Kubrick)

Speaking of brilliant filmmakers who are terrible directors… this is my favorite film by this famous auteur. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman (especially Kidman) add a humanity to this film that is missing from some of his others. And yet it still takes place in Kubrick’s usual cold, detached, semi-surreal film world. It creates an odd balance that works in some really interesting ways. I’ve been told that my reading of this film is too generous by people who think it’s a misogynistic mess, but it really feels like an indictment of a kind of pathetic upper-middle class man that is unfortunately quite common in our society. Cruise’s Dr. Bill Harford is so shaken by his wife’s stoned revelation that she once had a fantasy about another guy that he goes on a desperate journey to prove his masculinity and status. He’s constantly flashing his doctor card around and making idiotic gestures of power like tearing hundred dollar bills in half. He wants to be rich and powerful to prove he’s a man, but he’ll never be accepted by the top elite. He will however continue to hurt an array of women including his wife, sex workers, and abused children with few consequences in his quest to be like the ultra rich men who get to hurt an array of women with absolutely zero consequences. This movie is really complicated and there are moments that bother me or where I simply don’t know what to make of them. But as a whole I think it’s exploring some really interesting topics in a way that reveals new layers each time I see it. And the cinematography is so great that I’ve actually watched the movie on mute and still enjoyed it.

1. The Portrait of a Lady (dir. Jane Campion)

“They’re just people in different clothes.” Jane Campion’s period pieces always feel alive. So it didn’t surprise me when she gave that simple explanation at a recent Q&A. No film is that made clearer than in her Henry James adaptation. The movie opens with various contemporary female voices discussing their feelings about sex and love and then transitions into the credits played over images of contemporary women dancing, staring pensively, listening to a portable CD player (okay, contemporary to the 90s). And then she cuts to Nicole Kidman as Isabel Archer, as if to say, this famous literary character, this 19th century person, she’s just a woman. This is just a portrait of a lady. She manages to make the film feel both epic in importance and like an intimate reflection of common female experiences. Campion always places so much trust in her protagonists. Often when choosing among potential male lovers there are no good options, but Campion makes it clear that the bad option her character chooses is better because he is her choice. Even in this film where Isabel chooses the worst of them all, her choice is treated with respect. It’s her right to make a mistake and change her mind and live a life as a full person. Nicole Kidman is perfect in this role. Her Isabel is self-aware. We see in her expressions that she doesn’t always approve of her own actions, that she feels torn between what and who she’s drawn to and the expectations places upon her and that she places upon herself. The character changes over the years but in only the subtlest, truest ways. If you’ve read through this list and are disappointed the number one movie I’m recommending is a 2.5-hour period piece based on a Henry James novel, just trust me. Actually, don’t just trust me. Trust Jane Campion. Trust Nicole Kidman.

We made it! Thanks for going on this journey with me. I hope you learned something about Nicole Kidman and the film industry she’s worked within. The great news is she has all sorts of exciting projects coming up including John Cameron Mitchell’s already finished How to Talk to Girls at Parties and new films by Rebecca Miller and Karyn Kusama. But she also has the Weinstein-produced remake The Upside starring Bryan Cranston in a wheelchair. I guess that’s how it goes when you make more movies than years you’re alive.

[canaryatlaw]

today was fine, I’m just kind of in a mood at the moment. Just feeling discontented with life and questioning the choices I’ve made, like not pursuing acting and going to law school, maybe it wasn’t because I needed to be a lawyer, maybe I just never believed in myself enough to believe I could ever actually make anything of myself acting....or maybe I actually just suck and that would be a terrible decision because I do not have what it takes and I should take the empirical evidence in that I’ve been passed over for so many roles so many times to know that I’M JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH. It just wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was supposed to start law school and be completely content, and never looked back. but I’m not. I miss acting. I want to act. But I don’t want the “other life” option I had when I was deciding whether I wanted to go to law school or not- staying on with my theatre company who was full of really great people that I loved working with, but we could only perform a few months out of the year, and then I was stuck behind a desk for the rest of the year....so I traded it for an existence where I’ll always be sitting behind a desk?? Yes I’ll be helping people (that is, if I can get a damn job) but I could’ve been helping people with theatre. But that’s not the existence I’m yearning for. I want this reality that is never going to happen because I’M NOT FUCKING TALENTED ENOUGH TO GET FAMOUS THROUGH ACTING. I’M JUST NOT. I tell myself this is me being realistic, but maybe it’s just a lack of self-confidence. I don’t know. I just find myself constantly daydreaming about an existence I’ll never have, one that exists on tv sets and shooting with awesome casts, and going to comic cons on panels and getting to talk to fans and inspire them, and meet these amazing people....but I’m not skinny, I’m not pretty (enough), and I’m not talented enough. Of course all of these thoughts have been facilitated by the fact that I convinced myself to send in this audition tape that I’m still not gonna talk about details on because it’s not like anything is gonna happen anyway, and I spent all day learning the lines to shoot the tape tomorrow, and I keep daydreaming about getting the part, the contingencies I’d put in place to try and finish the semester and then pause my law school education to return and finish my last semester at some point in the future, and giving interviews about how I absolutely plan on returning to law school, because I could never be complete with law and acting in my life, and I could always do law and act on the side, but I couldn’t prioritize acting and do law on the side. not really. I’ve run through the scenarios and it’s just not realistic. But still....I want it. And I know I’m setting myself up to get disappointed every time I think about it like this and delude myself into thinking I have a shot when they’re going to end up casting a drop dead gorgeous skinny blonde 16 year old for the part and I am none of those things, but still I let myself hope, I listen to myself doing the lines, and goddammit I feel like I’m on to something here. for the first time in a long, long time I feel like I actually sound good in my acting. like I’ve somehow leveled up. it’s been a mental thing I’ve been contemplating for a while now, and this has just been my first opportunity to implement it as a strategy, and really I think it’s going well. But even so, the chances my video, one out of thousands being sent in, will even make it past an initial viewing is very unlikely. Even if my acting is leveled up, I probably still won’t be good enough. I know this. But why am I allowing myself to hope then? Because I’m dissatisfied with the law school life I’ve built here? Because this life isn’t everything I dreamed it would be? Because that’s just life? Or because I’m still fucking depressed and have been in denial about it since August? I just.....I don’t know. I don’t know the answers to any of this. and even in the infinitesimally small chance this turns into something, my family would absolutely flip a shit on me for the content (it’s not like, sex scenes or anything gross like that, it’s just very specific content that they have a major hang up with) and I honestly don’t know how they would react, if they’d even help support me in doing this.....which, I mean, if they don’t, I have $14,000 to my name, how far could I realistically get on that? And how fucking stupid would it be for me to move to Hollywood and start waiting tables trying to get cast in something when I have a fucking law degree? When I spent all that time, all that blood sweat and tears, not to mention all that MONEY, and then to just decide I don’t want to do law anymore? But that’s not even true, because I DO want to do law still. I’m just conflicted about how to do it and frustrated with job prospects and my family REALLY wants me to come home and I feel so guilty about it which makes me want to do it, but I also don’t know how I would react to that and I have a very hard time seeing myself be truly happy in that situation. I’ve never wanted to move back there. I’ve been wanting to get out for as long as I can remember, and I did, I flew out ��the door at 18 and never looked back...until now, 7 whole years later, and I miss my parents, and my sister, and it pains me so much to know she’s going through exactly the same thing I was when I was her age and I can’t physically be there to make sure nothing happens to her. If something did and I wasn’t there, never forgiving myself would be a mild reaction, to be completely honest if she killed herself I’d probably kill myself too, because I don’t think I can live in a world without her in it. That’s what I tell myself, at least, but then I think about my parents, and how that would completely destroy them. One daughter would be horrific enough, but two? I don’t think I could do that to them, no matter how much pain I would be in. So I would stay in this world and be in unbearable pain, and probably blaming myself for everything because I just KNOW that if I was there I could’ve stopped it. She’s my baby girl. I love her more than anything else in this world. I can’t lose her. So I want to be there for her. It’s just that...moving back there sounds so suffocating. I’ve been very clear with my parents that under no circumstances am I moving back into the house, even if I move back there, but at the same time like, I don’t have any money?? Long Island is expensive as hell, even if I had a job probably half my income would go to paying rent, and how am I supposed to survive on a government or nonprofit salary when that’s the case? And I don’t want to rely on my parents forever, I already feel guilty that I’m 25 fucking years old and still reliant on them, because I can’t make any fucking money while in law school so my parents pay for everything! And I just want to be independent, finally. And then I start worrying if something happens to my dad and suddenly there’s no more income, then what the fuck am I supposed to do? sigh. I'm working myself into an anxiety spiral and I need to stop now. But if anyone just read all that and has any insight your input would be appreciated. 

So. Anyway. I had trouble falling asleep last night, but woke up at like 8 am anyone and couldn’t fall back asleep, and not for lack of trying. So I got up, and made a blueberry dutch baby, (I had turned my alarm off at some point past 2 am because there was no way I was making it to the church thing) and watched last night’s episode of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I don’t have much feedback other than I love this damn show and I hope they actually pursue the plot line of them suing Josh because I am so fucking here for that. Then I started and finished my poverty law reading, which wasn’t terribly long, just rather dry. Since I have an abbreviated school week (as I’m going to NY on Wednesday) I’m just gonna read for the actual classes I have to attend and I’ll figure the rest out later. After that I decided it was hair dyeing time, since I wanted it to look nice and bright for the audition tape tomorrow, and for my sister’s sweet 16 last week. So I did that, and while it was processing I ran through lines, then rinsed it out and listened to this program for this fellowship thing I’m doing that I’ll tell you about at some other time that took about an hour and forty minutes. Continued to memorize lines, my memorization skills have definitely improved over the last few years, I blame having to memorize huge chunks of text in small amounts of time for any and all things mock trial and trial advocacy. So I got pretty much all of it down, then I turned on Batman TAS for a few episodes, then went to Netflix and started Mindhunter, because everyone on the true crime podcast Facebook groups I follow haven’t shut up about it and at least one of them are reviewing it next week, so I figured I’d give it a shot. I also had the yankees game on live stream but muted in one of the tabs in my browser, so monitoring that as well. I got through the first 4 episodes of Mindhunter and it’s really good so far! Super interesting period piece, and Jonathan Groff is fucking amazing of course. Very intriguing plot, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it all comes together. I paused it for the last inning of the yankees game just to see them lose, and I’m just like really, universe? I couldn’t have the Cubs or the Yankees in the world series? they both had to lose?? not cool man, not cool. and yeah, after that I finished the Mindhunter episode I was watching and then got ready for bed, and got into a mood which caused me to write all of the above because I’m feeling anxious about this whole thing I guess. I just don’t feel particularly happy with life right now. It’s nowhere near as bad as the horrible depression I was experiencing over the summer when I was off one of my meds, but it’s just a general lack of happiness. I know there’s a technical term for it, but I don’t remember it at the moment. But anyway. I have to have to have to get up and go to church tomorrow since it’s our first Sunday in the new building and with only two services, so I really need to be there. I’m excited for that, though. It should be really good. As for now, I need to get some sleep, so I’m signing off. Sorry about the crazy rant above, I guess I just needed to get a lot of emotions out and hey, if tumblr’s good for anything, it’s good for that. Anyway. Goodnight sweeties. Have an awesome Sunday.

[allyinthekeyofx]

Small Considerations Between Partners - 2 ‘You never gave up on me’

Allyinthekeyofx

Season two between 'One Breath' and 'Firewalker'

For the first time in weeks I actually feel kind of relaxed; in fact, given the way the shadows in the apartment seem to have lengthened almost in to darkness around me, I think I may have even slept for a while.

I’ve never been a good sleeper – even as a kid I would spend restless hours turning first one way and then the other as I became more frustrated by my apparent inability to turn my brain off for long enough to allow me to finally fall in to a state of delicious nothingness and the more frustrated I got, the more difficult it became. After Samantha was taken it became a hundred times worse and my nightly bouts of insomnia became so pronounced that I lost count of the amount of times I just lay there staring at the ceiling; waiting for the patterns cast by the moonlight to disappear as the first streaks of dawn came to free me from my solitude.

Eventually, inevitably, my schoolwork began to suffer as did my general attitude towards everyone around me; the dutiful son no longer so dutiful anymore, filled I was with emotions that were just too big for me to understand let alone even attempt to process and slowly but surely I began to spiral out of control. It became all too easy then for my Father to divert his anger toward me; to deliver almost daily punishment in the form of a flat-handed slap here, a punch there because it was just easier for him to apportion blame rather than to face up to the reasons for the decline in my behaviour.

Sam was gone; my life irrevocably changed forever and I yearned for someone to just sit me down and ask me why I was acting the way I was. But no one ever did – in fact day to day trivialities aside, no one really talked to me at all because if they had, they would have quickly discovered that I was living in a state of perpetual terror that I would be taken away too. Gone. Just like that. Just like she had been.

Eventually I learned how to function again; accepting that it was just easier to buckle down; to seek approval in whatever way I could, discovering a certain solace in pushing myself to be the best I could be; to prove myself worthy of being the one who was left behind. The days turned to months and the months to years and I counted down each and every one until I was finally able to escape that house of my childhood that had remained in perpetual mourning for eight long years of my life.

The insomnia though had never completely gone away and although more sporadic than it had been, I began to notice that it was particularly bad in times of stress or upheaval and it would return once again to blight my night time hours and if during those periods I actually managed to fall asleep, I would be abruptly thrown awake by the terrifying dreams that followed right behind me. It was a pattern that continued to repeat over and over and one which I had resigned myself to being unable to resolve.

Until Scully walked in to my life and took up residence in my soul; five feet of piss and vinegar who refused to compromise her integrity even when faced with the reality that the right choices weren’t always the best ones, putting her career on the line over and over even in the early months of our partnership and even though I tried to deny it to myself for a very long time, I trusted her from almost the very beginning; with that trust came a feeling of renewed hope, of peace within myself, of knowing that this remarkable young woman had my back.

And the insomnia just disappeared.

Until they took her too and I retreated back to being that same frightened twelve year old boy who has remained locked in the darkest recess of my mind for over twenty years now. I didn’t sleep, didn’t eat, drawing on reserves I didn’t even know I had in order to just make it through another day without simply giving up and falling apart. Lying with eyes wide open as night after long night I silently made bargains with a God I didn’t really believe existed in the hope that she would be returned.

I don’t know; maybe those long, desperate nights where I made endless promises reached somebody because suddenly she was just back; barely clinging on and not expected to live – like a precious gift given but then snatched cruelly away once more.

But Scully is tough.

And she survived; seemingly with no ill effects.

It’s been just over three weeks since I finally got to stare in to those incredible blue eyes once more as she smiled tremulously at me; as she tried to make sense of exactly what had happened to her; to attempt to reconcile that a whole season had changed since she had been taken and could never be regained; at least not in any tangible way .

But with typical resilience she was able to find a way to put the uncertainty aside and fight her way back to full health. Today she is at Quantico undergoing re-certification and if all goes well, she will be returning to work tomorrow.

I wish she would take a little more time but she has made it very clear that she is ready to come back and when I look at her now I see a hardness to her that didn’t exist before, a loss of innocence; of belief that justice will always prevail; that her belief system regarding good and evil has been smashed to pieces around her.

And it makes me sadder for her than I ever thought I could be.

Because now when I look at her I see myself and God knows it’s not something I ever wanted for her and certainly not something she has ever deserved.

The apartment is almost fully dark now and although the muted glow from the fish tank is oddly soothing, I rise from my position on the couch, stretching the kinks out of my shoulders before I get to my feet with the intention of turning on a light. A sudden knock at the door though stops me in my tracks and sends me reaching quickly for my gun. The events of the last few weeks are still fresh in my mind and those, coupled with the broken and splintered picture frames I haven’t yet bothered to replace serve as a stark reminder of how unfathomable the stakes have now become.

I am taking no chances.

“Mulder it’s me.”

I release the breath I hadn’t even realised I was holding and after stowing my gun in the waistband of my jeans I move to let her in.

I’m still not quite accustomed to seeing her standing in front of me, especially looking the way she does when I open the door, alive and vibrant and directing a smile in my direction that lights up her whole face and I think it might be at that exact moment when I realise I love her; that she represents so much more to me that just friendship and it’s like a sucker punch to my gut; wholly unexpected and a stark reminder once again that I almost lost her.

She is holding a piece of paper in her hand and she waves it in my direction as I step aside to let her enter the apartment.

“I’m guessing the re-certification went well huh?”

“Dropped a few marks in the psychometric but still came in with ninety-eight percent overall and passed fully fit for duty. Skinner wants me to drop by his office in the morning for a briefing but then I’m all yours.”

And even though there’s a part of me that wishes she would tell me that she has reconsidered her career choices and has decided to return to the safety of Quantico; away from me and this quest of mine that has already cost her dearly, mostly I am just happy that she is happy.

“That’s great Scully...”

I tail off then as I notice she is worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, a sure sign she is wrestling with something; trying to find an opening.

“That’s not really the reason I came here though; I....well, I haven’t really had a chance to thank you properly.”

“Thank me? What for?”

I am genuinely mystified because I can think of a whole host of things she might consider blaming me for but as far as gratitude goes I’m coming up fairly empty; and then I notice that she is holding something in her other hand, her fingers curled in to a loose fist around a thin slither of gold that catches the light.

“For believing in yourself Mulder and because you never gave up on me even when everyone else did.”

“Scully..”

“My Mom told me how you refused to accept that I wouldn’t be returned and then in the hospital, despite how..” she swallows then, a thin film of tears sheening her eyes, tears which she keeps rigidly in check “...how sick I was you refused to let go of your faith in me. And she told me how you wore this, carried it with you, kept it safe until you could return it to me.”

Her gaze is unwavering, as she slowly opens her hand to reveal the necklace that is nestled within.

Scully’s cross.

Her talisman that over time also became mine – the one connection to her that I kept with me; those thin links of gold that represented a hope that continued to burn within me even amidst all the darkness of being without her; and I am unable to speak; to breathe; to move, as my throat tightens suddenly as she catches my hand, turning it so she is holding it palm up between us, placing the necklace in to its centre and gently curling my fingers back so she can cover my closed hand with hers.

“I want you to have this Mulder.”

I can feel the warmth of the gold within my closed fist and the softness of her skin against mine and I know that this is a moment in my life that I will remember until my dying day. The day my partner came back to me in ways I can’t fully explain; that what she has given me already I can never repay.

“I can’t. I can’t take this Scully; it belongs with you.....it’s always belonged with you.”

And I pull my hand from where it rests beneath her own, lifting the chain slowly so as not to tangle it and reach behind her, placing the chain around her neck and fitting the clasps together before releasing it and carefully settling the cross so it sits right at the centre of her throat. Right where it should be and before she can try to change my mind, before she can speak again I take a single step towards her and wrap my arms around her, breathing her in as she sighs shakily before relaxing in to my embrace, turning her head so she can rest it on my chest as I feel her small hands slide around my waist, holding on to me just as tightly as I hold her. A connection regained that was so very nearly lost forever and I smile even as I feel the first tear escape from my eye to track slowly down my face.

Because she is back.

And tonight I will sleep.

End

[talietikasero]

I went in aware of the (possible) retcons and shit but I watched the whole thing anyway. It’s some ungodly hour way past when I should’ve slept and here’s what I thought. I’m trying to be fair here when I give GG Strive’s story a 6.8/10

Visuals: This game is beautiful. 12/10

Voice cast: I enjoyed the dub. Not as much of a corny anime dub like Sign was, but the returning cast improved from that game -- or at least I thought so. 8.75/10

Soundtrack: One word: Incredible. The duo of Naoki and Aisha on vocals for all character themes -- ok they're only a duet on Ramlethal's [Necessary Discrepancy] but you know what I meant -- was a perfect choice. My favorite themes from when I played the second open beta back in mid-May were Giovanna's [Trigger] and Potemkin's [Armor-Clad Faith], but Leo's [Hellfire] really grew on me the most. 15/10

Game itself: Arcade mode was a fun challenge because I’m an idiot who did all 15 but I got really tired of fighting Nago over and over again. I’m not that great so I’m not worrying about getting the “Messiah Will Not Come” trophy where you fight him but he’s got an infinite blood gauge. Survival gives a good chunk of the lifebar back without making it too easy -- and the “mysterious challenger” at stage 10 being a shadowy Sol with neon red was an okay way to signal a checkpoint. 9/10 I’m not doing online any time soon because I don’t have a wired connection but I hear it’s ass and the tower placement is a complete lie.

Anywho, now on to the real post:

For a finale, the story was... slightly below average. But I’ll be honest here, I kinda had high expectations because of the hype from the past two (?) years, five if you count the total time between Rev2 and Strive's release dates.

The last time I was this critical of a sequel’s story was the gap between Borderlands 2 and 3, which was seven years. I'm going off on a tangent here but I'll sum it up so if you're not familiar with Borderlands you'll have an idea of what I'm taking about. In Borderlands: the Pre-Sequel, the Watcher (Eridian? that saved Athena from execution after telling Lilith and company of her adventures on Elpis with Nisha, Wilhelm, Timothy, Aurelia, and Claptrap) warned "Now's not the time for bickering, Vault Hunters. War is coming, and you will need all the Vault Hunters you can get". BL3 rolls around and there was no big war. Instead, we got a poorly delivered dumpster fire of a main campaign that spanned five planets and the main villains were some bratty livestreamer Sirens that run a planet wide cult. Seriously? The cast was poorly handled there too but I'll stop here.

In the case of comparison to another fighting game’s story, the game that comes to mind is Tekken 7 because if they aren’t a Mishima or Kazama or someone else in that fucked up family that’s plot relevant, they were given a shitty one-fight episode. Sure Nina and Claudio were in the main story mode but that's the thing: they were just there. The returning (dlc) series veterans, such as Anna, Lei, Marduk, and all the way to Zafina plus the newcomers Leroy, Lidia, Fahkumram, and Kunimitsu II weren't given much aside from a brief story snippet. Dare I say it but SFV did their new seasons newcomers and returning fighters justice as they all got episodes of their own. You read that right. Street Fighter V was better to its cast than Tekken 7 and Guilty Gear -Strive-.

Unlike the Xrd games, watching the story does not get you any money. The only difference I saw right after was that the Strive correlation chart updated. For what it’s worth, they could’ve done something like DBFZ’s story clearance unlocking a new character, or do an alternate costume where the outfit Frederick wears in the ending (and upon further inspection is the very same one he wore in the flashback) is useable in fights (it’d be hilarious but a good detail added in if you were to select that option but the name plate doesn’t display “Sol” lmao). If Ky has a palette that puts him in an open button white shirt, jeans, and what look like work boots, then let me play in the ending's lab coat, tanktop, and jeans dammit.

I kept track of how many of the playable cast showed up and played some part. Everyone except Ramlethal, May, and Faust appeared in the story -- these three were reduced to credit image cameos >:( Ram’s seen with Elphelt and Sin, while Ky and Dizzy are in the background. May’s with her crew, and Faust is in the desert somewhere or some shit with Chronus.

But even if they did show up, nobody else except like five people did jack shit. Giovanna, bless her heart, was absent for a long period then showed up to fight Nagoriyuki (who eventually sided with the good guys) but got her ass beat after he faked surrender. Potemkin helped but spent most of his time cruising at high speed trying to get to the White House. Ky and Jack-O didn’t arrive until the end either. Axl -- or should I say Will -- finally got to see Megumi again at the cost of I-No’s defeat. The dude got his girlfriend back at the loss of someone he considered a friend but the delivery felt forced as it was confirmed as she was dying -- wasn't part of her character that she has no recollection of a past? Her suddenly remembering a past boyfriend and being able to describe his appearance didn't really make much sense.

Chipp and Anji were in that comical highway chase scene, but then Anji's just wherever while Chipp's in the Pentagon control room. I get that someone had to stay behind and watch from the other side -- this role landing with Leo as he, Millia, and Zato were overseeing commentating on events from the castle’s war room like Brock and Misty during Ash's battles in the OG season of the Pokemon anime, while Daryl was at the G4 conference and Ky was on his way to the fight -- but the pacing and usage of the cast in this story was a mess. Yeah sure it has most of the GG cast in this installment's playable roster present but it didn't feel like a GG story -- really it felt like the live action Resident Evil movies where the source material's characters are sprinkled in, acting more as a "here ya go they're here don't expect much!" type thing.

Honestly, a step down from Rev because at least everyone in that arc were somewhat present with maybe one or two exceptions? Hell, even though they were added as dlc or in Rev2, Dizzy, Haehyun, Baiken, and Answer were in the main story. Being hopeful here when I say that I hope we see more of Goldlewis or get to play as him because his design is badass and so is his coffin flail weapon. On the side of fairness though, I have a feeling this isn’t exactly what Ishiwatari intended (this is unlikely but it's probably Katano's directing? Whatever in any case)? The general reaction I saw from others who’ve watched the story was that the subplots were half baked and the plot as a whole was pretty rushed. Happy Chaos / the Original as the main villain was Calypso Twins from Borderlands 3 level cringe and every time HC appeared on screen I wanted to mute it. There is the bonus story coming later this year, along with the dlc slots, so ehh? The interactions between Colin and Frederick were one of my personal favorite points even if this did turn into “Neon Genesis White House Down”.

“Brown bears don’t give birth to pandas.“

I’m sure like the others who actually paid attention to the story from the end of Xrd to Strive, my main question was this:

After the Justice / Jack-O fusion -- recall the “newly revived” Aria had purely red hair and Jack-O’s halo disappeared. During the mid-credits of Revelator, former friends turned sworn enemies turned frenemies Asuka and Frederick pretty much have one last declaration of war against each other, with Sin, I-No, and Raven as their witnesses -- Asuka even said “take good care of Aria”. Naturally from all of that, she’s not Jack-O anymore, right? Wrong. According to the game, what's inside of Jack-O is only a fragment / shard of Aria mixed in with Jack-O's projected personality (I think). How did they go from "let's do the fusion and guaranteed she'll return" to "yeah nah she ain't comin' back bro"

Xrd Revelator: "Pull this off successfully and Aria will fully revive as a human."

Strive: "Nah bruh. We lied. It just turned Jack-O human and what's inside her is only an unstable shard of Aria -- not the whole thing."

Back to the “final battle”, they don’t fight, rather Asuka removed the Flame of Corruption from Frederick's body (and somehow he got a haircut too). So really what was the fight in Rev2′s [After Story - A] for? Did he get nearly the life beaten out of him from Ky fighting dirty and left that crater in the park for nothing? Seems that way. Asuka lives on the moon and he's got a radio show now because (*bong rip*) that makes sense.

I’ll admit it’s a little cute that the feelings are mutual between Jack-O and Frederick -- he sees her as herself and not just a genetic copy but they expect us to think in the three weeks they've known each other that "oh shit I'm in love with this person" is believable -- and they live in the woods near a presumably 200+ year old space shuttle complete with the launchpad but come on now. That's some Russo Brothers level writing right there -- y'all remember Avengers: Endgame and how when he went across space and time to return the Infinity Stones, Steve Rogers threw everything away just so he could go back to his original era? The now depowered-so-he's-human-again Frederick Bulsara (the ex-gear and world's savior x times over formerly known as Sol Badguy) living in isolation away from his newfound family and friends gives off the same vibe. Especially after that one and only flashback where it's Aria's birthday and he was going to propose but the ring wasn't ready in time so he had that "error" to show instead.

[ecotone99]

[MS] A Packet of Sugar

He stepped up to the counter, but before he could speak the barista held up a cup in front of him “large cold brew coffee, extra ice with half and half?” said the barista as she smiled and handed him his drink. She held it in such a way that it was impossible to grab without touching her hand. Her skin was soft, cold, and wet from the condensation. Her fingernails were glistening with a deep red polish. His attention lingered during the transfer. It took him a moment to recognize how long he had been holding the cup, and inadvertently her hand. His face began to radiate heat as blood rushed to his cheeks.

“Oh wow, good memory,” said Trevon. “Thank you much, but I must admit, it’s not all that hard remembering your order. You’re here every other day,” she said with a smirk and a slight southern accent. Before he left he fumbled with the change in his pocket, stuffed a one dollar bill into the tip jar and left three on the counter for the coffee.

He turned back towards his usual table that stood in the far corner of the dimly lit cafe. His footsteps occasionally clicked against the brown concrete floor that was precariously yet evenly littered with old victorian rugs. He sat down in his favorite floral patterned chair, the colors were dull and muted with age.

He pulled himself up to the small table in front of him and thought about the feeling of her hand and how small it seemed in comparison to his own. He looked at her, doing his best to appear as if he wasn’t staring. She bounced back and forth behind the counter crafting various drinks. Her long brown hair that swung freely as she worked. Trevon rested his head into his hand, his eyes held captive by her movement, her every step was light but confident, like she was dancing to the rhythm of the cafe. Amidst his moment of admiration she began helping another customer, a clean cut businessman in a slim, gray and blue suite. She smiled at him “Nice jacket. Is that new?”. “Just picked it up from the tailor this week.” said the business man as he squared his shoulders and straightened his back. “Well, you picked a nice color”. She handed him his black coffee. He placed a twenty dollar bill on the counter, winked at her and left to a nearby table. Trevon’s attention then shifted to the tip jar nearly overflowing with cash, and the whirlwind of infatuation quickly became a flush of embarrassment. “She’s good at her job, and I bet she remembers everyone’s order as long as they have a wallet and change to spare.” he thought as he shook his head and opened his laptop.

He loudly clanked his password into the keyboard “trevon12345”. Immediately he was met with a pop up notification “Welcome back to Night Owl Coffee! Would you like to continue to the Internet?”

He scrambled to find the cursor and clicked “accept” without hesitation. He opened his word document, retrieved his textbook from his backpack and started typing. He sipped periodically at his coffee, and when he reached the halfway mark of the cup, he noticed that the barista had replaced the “o” in his name with a heart. His cheeks ran warm again, but he was more cautious with his wandering emotions this time around. “Maybe she does like me? Does she put hearts on everyone’s cup?... Probably. I bet every guy who walks through these doors is convinced she’s in love with them.”

He trudged through his essay which was due that evening. He fought the desire to gaze in her direction, not wanting to give into an unwarranted obsession. His thoughts were interrupted when his computer beeped with a notification for a new email. The subject line said “Make $10,000 today!”; he sighed as he archived it along with the rest of his spam mail and continued with his work. A few moments later a box popped up in the middle of his screen, except this time it wasn’t an email, it was a system notification “Make $10,000 today!”. There was a button underneath labeled “instructions”. Trevon’s eyes widened. He anxiously whispered “Crap crap crap crap” as he punched the close button repeatedly, but as each box closed an identical one was born in its place. Trevon dropped his face into his hands and groaned as he recognized that his years of using public access wifi had finally caught up with him.

The barista cleaning the table to his left noticed him mumbling substitute profanities under his breath. “Is everything okay?” she asked. “I think I just ruined my new laptop”, he stared blankly at the screen, the spam notification still resting in the center. “Awe, what's wrong with it?” she asked as she walked over to his chair. Trevon was confused, he thought her kindness was just a ploy for loose change, but this seemed like genuine concern. “I think it’s a virus of sorts. I’m locked out everything and this spam message keeps popping up.” She leaned over him to get a closer look at the screen. Trevon moved back in his seat to make way. Her soft hair swung back and forth, inches in front of his face. A scent of coconut and coffee beans gently fell in front of him. Her neck was long, smooth and nestled comfortably in her flowing auburn hair, locks of which were now resting on his arms. It was soft, and appeared to him to be as healthy as hair could get. He lost himself in thought as she fiddled with his laptop, “Does she get this close to everyone?... “Nothing seems wrong to me.” said the barista, interrupting Trevon’s inner dialogue. It took him a moment to usher his psyche back to reality. A few seconds of silence passed as he stared at her, trying to process what she said. “hmm... what? It’s working?” he asked with a puzzled expression. “Yup, just fine.” she said. “Well I guess you’re my lucky charm.” he smiled at her with a bit more confidence. “Glad to help” she grinned and started walking away. Trevon opened his mouth to say something but stuttered as he tried to form his words “wait… uhh, could I get your name? I see you a few times a week and for some reason I’ve never asked and you guys don’t wear name tags.“ “Of course! My name is Kristen.” “Well it’s nice to meet you Kristen.” He nodded. “And it’s nice to meet you Trevon” She winked and then glanced back at the counter to see if she had a customer waiting. Seeing no one there she extended her hand out to Trevon “Let me see your phone.” His cheeks began to radiate heat again as he riffled through his pocket for his phone. He dropped it in her palm and watched nervously as she swiped and typed. She set it on the table and turned back towards the register. Trevon picked it up and noticed that she had added her number to his contacts.

Hiding his excitement, he settled into his chair and started typing “Hey, this is Trevo…” Before he could finish typing, the screen went black and an alert sprawled across the display “10,000 dollars is nothing to scoff at Trevon. Receive your payment today.” He dropped the phone to the table, and soon his head followed. “my contacts, my credit cards, my social, my photos…” he said with his face pressed against the table. His throat ran dry, his palms became sweaty and his foot tapped incessantly. He envisioned an overweight middle aged man stuffed into an office chair in a dark basement, drinking soda out of a jug, chuckling at his computer screen as he sold all of his information on the dark web. Trevon’s phone buzzed in his hand against the table. He lifted his head high enough to read it. “Sit up, you wouldn’t want Kristin to see you sulking.”. Trevon’s face went blank as he rose. His eyes darted across the room in every direction searching for the stalker. He felt sweat accumulating on his forehead. “Don’t bother looking for us, we aren’t there. We aren’t anywhere. Are you ready to communicate now?” typed the stalker. He left it sitting there until it buzzed again. He wondered whether or not he had a choice and figured whatever damage they could do was already out of his hands, so he responded “yes…” “$10,000. Check your bank account.” Responded the stalker. Trevon opened his banking app “balance $10,374.23”. His phone jolted to life once more, the new message read “That belongs to you, provided you do exactly as we instruct over the next 20 minutes” “okay” Trevon typed with hesitant fingers.

“There is a paper packet of sugar taped underneath the tray of sweeteners in the north west corner of the cafe. Retrieve it and pour it’s contents into the coffee belonging to the man in the gray and blue suit behind you. Ensure that he consumes it”. Trevon surveyed the coffee shop, behind him sat the businessman, and in the corner directly across from him stood a table, with cream, sweeteners and coffee stirs. On it sat a tray with small brown paper packets of sugar. “What’s actually in the sugar packet?” asked Trevon. A moment later a response appeared “As far as you are concerned, it is only sugar. And we want to assure you that no one will have any record of your actions, this particular cafe has failed to repair their security system for 2 months now.” Trevon was still shaking from the fact that his information was compromised, he took a breath and a moment to think “Who is he and why do these people want to poison him?” He looked at his bank account with an open mouth. It felt good to see so many digits, like the sight of a full tank of gas. He shook his head as he ran through the steps laid out by the stalker. “No one’s life is worth ten grand, let alone my sanity” he said to himself as he typed “I can’t”. He tapped his fingers on the table as he waited for a response. A message bubble appeared from the stalker. He sank heavily into his seat as he anticipated blackmail, he expected to see a hacked photo from his phone, his bank account in the red, a threat of complete social destruction… but the message read “So sorry to hear that. We will immediately remove all traces of this conversation and return both your computer and phone to proper working order, but before that, perhaps you could check your account once more? Trevon’s breath left his lungs as he read the number “$100,374.23”. He looked up, away from his phone and out the window. He sat perfectly still as he contemplated the impact of such an amount of money. “That could pay off all of my debt, I could buy a new car, I could rent my own apartment.” As he gazed at the rain soaked streets outside of the coffee shop, he transported himself to the center of his dreams. He thought “If I had that money, I wouldn’t have to worry about anything…”. He looked back at Kristin, who was leaning against the back counter scrolling through her phone waiting for a new customer. “I’d give her a two-hundred dollar tip if I had that money,” he said to himself. At that moment he heard the businessman behind him “Dammit Karen! you tell the distributor that we had an agreement, and if they fail to keep up their end of the deal we’ll make sure they never sell in this country again!”. Trevon snapped out of his daydreams and applied as much logic as he could muster to fight off the allure of these fantasies. He wondered if he’d ever be able to rest again after he poured the contents of that packet into the businessman's cup. He stood up and paced back forth in front of the table. He grabbed his phone and typed “I’m sorry but I can’t do this.”.

He held his phone with a loose grip and a blank stare. A text bubble appeared on the screen... “$1,000,000 Trevon.” Another bubble appeared... “You have 5 minutes.”. His eyes widened and stopped breathing as his mind began to overflow with possibilities, the once whispering fantasies now screamed in his ears. “Kristin, she’d never have to work again.. If she came with me. I could buy a house in the mountains. We could live off the interest. And as far as I’m concerned it’s only sugar.. Anyone at this point could accidentally pour it into their coffee.. Kristin could find it and mix it in with the rest of the packages. For all I know I could be saving someone's life. An innocent person's life.” Trevon sat and watched the businessman scroll through his phone and send messages. “I already know he’s a jerk. Who talks to his assistant that way?” His phone buzzed again, the stalker had sent a new message “He will be receiving a phone call in approximately 30 seconds, he will step outside. That will be your only window of opportunity, do it and the money is yours. No strings attached.”. He frantically stood up out of his chair, accidentally knocking it over and drawing the attention of the entire shop. He motioned “sorry” to Kristin, who smiled at him and asked if he was alright. “Yeah yeah.. I’m.. I’m fine.” He chuckled from across the room, “just a bit too much caffeine.”. He stepped over to the table with the sweeteners, looked to his left and right, and then lifted up one end of the tray, slipping his other hand underneath to grab the taped packet. After feeling around for a few seconds he felt the small paper package and slowly peeled off the tape. As soon as he felt it pull free, he clenched it in his fist and turned around. As he turned, he collided with Kristin who had come to wipe down the table. His fist pushed firmly into her chest and he dropped the packet. “Oh! I am so sorry! Oh my gosh… I swear I didn’t see you there!” His hands were shaking vigorously as he quickly picked it up off of the floor. Kristin stood with a shocked look on her face “Don’t worry about it Trevon. Honestly it’s fine... are you okay though?” she asked with concern. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Just a little stressed about my essay that’s due today.” he said. “Well you seem like a smart guy, I’m sure you’ll do fine” she said as she touched his arm and slipped beside him. Trevon closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He heard a ringing. The businessman stood up and answered his phone “hey honey... no I’ve got a second” said the businessman as he stepped out the door.

Trevon approached the table as he spoke to himself “Even bad men can love their families… It doesn't mean they're any less bad. Even Hitler loved his dogs, but I’d kill him a heartbeat and I’d be doing the world a favor.”. Each step he took shook his whole body, sweat began to build up on his brow and his jaw tensed so tight that it began to cramp. With unstable hands he popped off the lid, carefully ripped open the packet and poured it into the coffee. As the clear sugar-like crystals hit the hot coffee, they immediately dissolved. He now knew that it certainly wasn’t sugar. He once again surveyed the shop, and to his comfort, no one had noticed a thing. Everyone's faces were buried in their phones and laptops with headphones blasting in their ears. He clicked the lid back into place, sat down and waited for a message to appear on his phone. The businessman opened the door “I’ll see you tonight... Yes yes, I’ve already picked up the playset she was asking for... Babe don’t worry, I’ll be there… yeah, I told Karen she could go home early since I won’t be there... Love you too sweetheart, bye.”. The man sat down, straightened his tie and grabbed the cup. Trevons eyes were locked onto his every move. “What did I just do….” he whispered to himself behind clasped fists. The man brought the cup to his face. He visibly sniffed the drink, and furrowed his brow. He popped the lid off and pursed his lips as he peered into the cup. “Shit…” he whispered and raised his hand in the air “Hey darling” he called Kristin “I’m sorry, but I forgot to ask for a dark roast, this definitely looks and smells like a light roast to me. Could I ask you to change that out? If it makes a difference, I haven’t touched this one”. Kristin hopped around the corner “Of course, don’t even worry about it!”. She grabbed the cup from his hand “I actually haven’t had any coffee yet, so I’ll just keep this one for myself.” said Kristin as she hurried back to the register. “Well that works out great.” said the man with a smile. Trevon felt his blood freeze in his veins, having lost all sensation. Kristin slowly lifted the coffee to her lips. She sipped it once, and once more. She looked at the lid and then stared at Trevon as a palpable expression of concern swept across her face. Her eyes rolled up in her head as she fell backwards behind the bar. Her skull audibally slammed against the tile floor. Trevon looked down, tears began to blur his vision. His bank account app still open on his phone, it read “$374.24”. The shop erupted with the sound of screaming customers.

submitted by /u/Lowercase_Keenan [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/3jaIeXN

[europeanromanticism]

Byron, Shelley 6/19

Prometheus Unbound BY  PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Background:  Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on August 4t  h 1792 in Horsham, Sussex, England and died at the age of 29 on July 8t  h 1822. Percy was a very influential, and inspiring amongst lyric and philosophical poets in the English language. Percy did not see fame during his lifetime However, all his recognition came after his death. He was well known for being a rebellion against authority, his power of the visionary imagination and of poetry, and his spirit in search of freedom. This was not only displayed in his works but this is also how Percy chose to live his life. Most publishers and journals declined to publish his work for fear of being arrested for either  a religious crime o  r  troublemaking . One can say Shelley’s poetry was harsher than what the people were ready for. This can all be seen in Shelley’s poem  “ Prometheus Unbound” by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Prometheus Unbound is a four act lyrical drama that was published in 1820. It is a story of Prometheus, who betrays the Gods and gives fire to humanity. He is punished for this action and is left to suffer. Prometheus struggles to become free from captivity because Jupiter refuses to let him go. However, Jupiter is later left behind with his authority and ends up falling from power.

Quote 1: Whilst me, who am thy foe, eyeless in hate, Hast thou made reign and triumph, to thy scorn, O'er mine own misery and thy vain revenge. Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours, And moments aye divided by keen pangs

Till they seemed years, torture and solitude, Scorn and despair,—these are mine empire:—

Question 1 : What does Prometheus mean when he says “these are mine empire”?

Quote 2 : Nailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain, Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured; without herb, Insect, or beast, or shape or sound of life. Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever!

Question2 : How do you think religion is tied into the poem? What is Prometheus describing?

Quote 3:

The curse

Once breathed on thee I would recall. Ye Mountains, Whose many-voicèd Echoes, through the mist

Of cataracts, flung the thunder of that spell! Ye icy Springs, stagnant with wrinkling frost,

Which vibrated to hear me, and then crept Shuddering through India! Thou serenest Air, Through which the Sun walks burning without beams! And ye swift Whirlwinds, who on poisèd wings Hung mute and moveless o'er yon hushed abyss, As thunder, louder than your own, made rock The orbèd world! If then my words had power, Though I am changed so that aught evil wish Is dead within; although no memory be Of what is hate, let them not lose it now! What was that curse? for ye all heard me speak.

Question 3:

How would you describe the poems ending verses it’s beginning? Do you think Prometheus truly learned a lesson?

Question 4:

How would you connect this poem to the time period of romanticism? Does this poem relate to any of the past stories or poems we have read?

Question 5:

What do you think is this poem’s overall message? How do you think the writer wanted his audience to receive this poem?

Argument:

One can argue that in the poem  Prometheus Unbound  Shelley wrote with an intent of raising some questions in the reader’s head. Does religion play as a dictator in our lives? Or is it a guide that one can use to seek freedom and peace? In the poem it states

Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise, Where it states those that pray and worship are enslaved mentally,physically and spiritually.  Shelley was known to despise marriage and institutions like the

Christian Church and the Monarchy. Which is why he identifies Jupiter as a Monarch.   Shelley uses symbolism to show that resistance against authority can lead to extreme punishment and isolation from society.   Shelley was a radical thinker that believed  in freedom.By going against Jupiter and giving humanity  fire , Prometheus is essentially a hero for challenging the authoritative figure. He feels that everyone should live this way so that they can experience true freedom. Prometheus was willing to sacrifice his own comfort and life in order to stand up to power of Jupiter and live within his freedom.

DON JUAN, CANTO III

Background

George Gordon Noel Byron, 6th Baron Byron, was born 22 January 1788 in London and died 19 April 1824 in Missolonghi, Greece. He was among the most famous of the English ‘Romantic’ poets; his contemporaries included Percy Shelley and John Keats. He was also a satirist whose poetry and personality captured the imagination of Europe. His major works include Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812-18) and Don Juan (1819-24). He died of fever and exposure while engaged in the Greek struggle for independence.

Born with a clubfoot, he was taken by his mother, Catherine Gordon, to Aberdeen, Scotland, where they lived in lodgings on a meager income.He was extremely sensitive of his lameness; its effect upon his character was obvious enough . It was rumored that his nurse, May Gray, made physical advances to him when he was only nine. This experience and his idealized love for his distant cousins Mary Duff and Margaret Parker shaped his paradoxical attitudes toward women.

In 1803 he fell in love with his distant cousin, Mary Chaworth, who was older and already engaged, and when she rejected him she became the symbol for Byron of idealized and unattainable love. In 1805 Byron entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he piled up debts at an alarming rate and indulged in the conventional vices of undergraduates there. The signs of his incipient  sexual  ambivalence  became more pronounced in what he later described as “a violent, though pure, love and passion” for a young chorister, John Edleston. Alongside Byron’s strong attachment to boys, often idealized as in the case of Edleston, his attachment to women throughout his life is an indication of the strength of his heterosexual drive.

During the summer of 1813, Byron apparently entered into  intimate  relations with his half sister Augusta, now married to Colonel George Leigh. He then carried on a flirtation with Lady Frances Webster as a diversion from this dangerous liaison. The agitations of these two love affairs and the sense of mingled guilt and exultation they aroused in Byron are reflected in the series of gloomy and remorseful Oriental verse tales he wrote at this time:  The Giaour (1813);  The Bride of Abydos  (1813);  The Corsair  (1814), which sold 10,000 copies on the day of publication; and  Lara  (1814).

Seeking to escape his love affairs in marriage, Byron proposed in September 1814 to Anne Isabella (Annabella) Milbanke. The marriage took place in January 1815, and Lady Byron gave birth to a daughter,  Augusta Ada , in December 1815. From the start the marriage was doomed by the gulf between Byron and his unimaginative and humorless wife; and in January 1816 Annabella left Byron to live with her parents, amid swirling rumours centring on his relations with Augusta Leigh and his bisexuality. The couple obtained a  legal separation . Wounded by the general moral indignation directed at him, Byron went abroad in April 1816, never to return to England.

Byron sailed up the  Rhine River  into Switzerland and settled at Geneva, near  Percy Bysshe Shelley  and Mary Godwin (soon to be  Mary Shelley ), who had eloped and were living with Claire Clairmont, Godwin’s half sister. (Byron had begun an affair with Clairmont in England.)

At the end of the summer the Shelley party left for England, where Clairmont gave birth to Byron’s daughter Allegra in January 1817. In October Byron and Hobhouse departed for  Italy . They stopped in  Venice , where Byron enjoyed the relaxed customs and  morals  of the Italians and carried on a love affair with Marianna Segati, his landlord’s wife.

In the light, mock-heroic style of  Beppo  Byron found the form in which he would write his greatest poem,   Don Juan , a satire in the form of a picaresque verse tale. The first two cantos of  Don Juan  were begun in 1818 and published in July 1819. Byron transformed the legendary libertine  Don Juan  into an unsophisticated, innocent young man who, though he delightedly succumbs  to the beautiful women who pursue him, remains a rational norm against which to view the absurdities and irrationalities of the world.

Summary of Don Juan

The story, told in seventeen cantos, begins with the birth of Don Juan. As a young man he is precocious sexually, and has an affair with a friend of his mother. The husband finds out, and Don Juan is sent away to Cádiz. On the way, he is shipwrecked, survives and meets the daughter of a pirate, whose men sell Don Juan as a slave. A young woman, who is a member of a sultan’s harem, sees that this slave is purchased. She disguises him as a girl and sneaks him into her chambers. Don Juan escapes, joins the Russian army and rescues a Muslim girl named Leila. Don Juan meets Catherine the Great, who asks him to join her court. Don Juan becomes sick, is sent to England, where he finds someone to watch over Leila. Next, a few adventures involving the aristocracy of Britain ensued.

Canto III A long digression from the main story in which Byron, in the style of an epic catalogue, describes Haidée and Don Juan’s celebrations. The islanders believe Haidée’s father, Lambro, has died, but he returns and witnesses these revels.  Towards the end of the canto, Byron insults his contemporaries  William Wordsworth ,  Robert Southey  and  Samuel Taylor Coleridge . In this latter section is “The Isles of  Greece ”, a section numbered differently from the rest of the canto with a different verse, which explores Byron’s views on G reece’s status as a “slave” to th e Ottoman Empire .

Don Juan  remains unfinished; Byron completed 16 cantos and had begun the 17th before his own illness and death. Over forty operas have been based on his works, in addition to three operas about Byron himself (including Virgil Thomson’s Lord Byron). His poetry was set to music by many Romantic composers, including Beethoven , Schubert , Rossini , Mendelssohn , Schumann , and Carl Loewe. There are 900 different poems of George Gordon, Lord Byron and almost all of them are about love to a woman.

Question 1: Byron removes himself from his writing and critiques his own characters; writing about love and women in an ironic and satirical fashion. Is it means to provoke just humor, or is this in response to others who do not approve of his previous works?

Quote 1:

“Haidee and Juan were not married, but The fault was theirs, not mine; it is not fair, Chaste reader, then, in any way to put The blame on me, unless you wish they were; Then if you ’d have them wedded, please to shut The book which treats of this erroneous pair,

Before the consequences grow too awful; ’T is dangerous to read of loves unlawful.”

Question 2: Byron goes off on a stagnant where a poet entertains DJ and Haidee with a lyrical ballad “The Isles of Greece”, a lament for Greece’s present state of subjection to Turkey. After the poem, he then deviates on the subject and talks about how a poet’s words has a lasting effect on the temporary nature of human fame, calling out (mocking) Wordsworth, Coleridge and other authors. What purpose does this serve in this canto and how does it tie into the original story being told?

Quote 2:

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think; ’T is strange, the shortest letter which man uses Instead of speech, may form a lasting link Of ages; to what straits old Time reduces Frail man, when paper—even a rag like this, Survives himself, his tomb, and all that ’s his.”

“Which pye being opened they began to sing’ (This old song and new simile holds good), ‘A dainty dish to set before the King’ Or Regent, who admires such kind of food. And Coleridge too has lately taken wing,

But like a hawk encumbered with his hood, Explaining metaphysics to the nation. I wish he would explain his explanation.”

“And Wordsworth in a rather long Excursion (I think the quarto holds five hundred pages) Has given a sample from the vasty version Of his new system to perplex the sages.

'Tis poetry, at least by his assertion, And may appear so when the Dog Star rages, And he who understands it would be able To add a story to the tower of Babel.”

Question 3: Byron fails to mention what happens to DJ and Haidee’s relationship and whether or not Haidée realizes that her father has come home. Why not go on with his satirical pros on the development of romance or tragedy? And do you think this Canto was purely written to mock or to express his political views of society?

Argument:

“Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart, Of those who sail the seas, on the first day, When they from their sweet friends are torn apart; Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way, As the far bell of vesper makes him start, Seeming to weep the dying day’s decay; Is this a fancy which our reason scorns? Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns!”

Byron embraces his speaker Don Juan and uses him to express his own criticisms of English people and their culture. He takes on various views about gender,societal roles, the plea for conquered Greece, and the amusing attacks on poets while keeping to his satirical nature. In the midst of all of his own criticisms, I believe the point of this work is to express how life is short lived and even when something is gone, words written and read can send a message to be remembered throughout the ages.

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 4.28.19

Those of you who’ve been reading for a while might remember that 2017 was the year of bread baking around here.

It all started when my friend Ali published her (wonderful) cookbook, Bread Toast Crumbs. I’d wanted to get serious about homemade bread baking for a long time, but everything I’d read until that point made my eyes glaze over: it was all so technical and intimidating. Ali’s peasant bread technique—which involves no kneading and almost no dirtying of hands at all, in addition to the heartwarming fact that the loaves get baked in buttered Pyrex bowls—gave me the courage I needed.

Months later, Emilie gifted me with sourdough starter and a copy of her cookbook. Baking my first loaf of homemade sourdough was a small victory: I couldn’t believe it had actually worked, which I guess is the magic of natural leavening.

Bread baking found me at the right moment. I was having a hard time in March and April of that year: a longterm relationship had just ended, in a way that I wasn’t ready for and didn’t yet understand. For the first time in my life, I felt completely ill-suited to being on my own. I moved through my space and my days in a haze of confusion and grief, feeling scared and alone and more than a little sorry for myself.

If that period of time taught me anything, it was the gift of small things. None of the big stuff—love, graduate school, sense of direction or purpose—seemed to be working out. Even work, which is typically a major source of meaning for me, felt rote and joyless. My post-bacc years and the ones that followed hadn’t been easy, but they’d been animated with an incredible sense of yearning and direction. Suddenly, I had neither.

What I did have were my daily routines, which I fought to maintain even when things like cooking and chores felt insurmountable. I knew from past experiences with depression that keeping up with small habits, even if they felt suddenly like a lot of work, was the least I could do. And I did, day after day, until they started not to feel so tough anymore.

For a while it was all pretty muted, but as the months went by, I was reminded of my own capacity to be gratified by simple pleasures: good food, a clean home, a walk to the park, an hour of reading. I didn’t have a plan, but I did have the next meal and the next task, and at that moment, those things were enough.

And there was bread. It’s always been my comfort food, and I’d have eaten plenty of it that spring even if I weren’t baking it from scratch (for a while there, toast and cake were the only two things I wanted to eat). But I was baking from scratch, week after week, and it was wonderful. Unlike some other DIY food projects I’ve tried—kombucha, yogurt, seitan—this felt like the right ratio of effort and reward. The bread was so much better than anything I could buy, and I actually liked the process: mixing, shaping, scoring. The smell of a loaf in the oven on Saturday morning became something I looked forward to all week long. I wouldn’t quite say that bread baking got me through the year, but I can’t imagine that spring and summer without it.

I kept up with homemade bread for a while. But sometime last spring, in the race to the grad school finish line, the habit fell away. Once my internship started, it felt silly and imprudent to bake when I needed grains, beans, and fully cooked meals as weekly mainstays. During my acute care rotation, when getting the laundry done was a challenge, feeding my starter was the last thing on my mind.

My GI rotation gives me two weekdays off, which has been a gift in so many ways: it allows me to ease up on my batch cooking, to get work done during the week, and to have a true weekend. Most of all, having a little extra time on my hands gave me a kick in the pants to bake bread again. Now that I’m in the swing of it—one or two loaves weekly for the last four weeks—I’m rolling my eyes at the fact that I didn’t make time for it sooner. It’s a time commitment, sure, like anything/everything else. And it’s time perfectly spent.

I cook because it’s fun, healthful and economical. But cooking and feeding myself will always be a symbolic act as well as a practical one: it’s my way of asserting the desire to be alive, nourished, and whole. Bread making speaks to this desire more than almost any other type of cooking that I do. The fact that the process demands patience and time is only more evidence that, no matter what’s going on, I want to eat well and be well. I’m so glad to have been reminded of this in the past month.

Wishing you a week of good food and good self-care. Here are some recipes and reads.

Recipes

Speaking of Ali, I’m loving her latest, Indian-inspired fried rice recipe.

Yet more motivation to branch out with my air fryer. This time, a vegan sheet pan supper with lemony tempeh from Susan at FFVK.

I love the looks of this sun-dried tomato pesto (and the yummy pappardelle that accompanies it).

A pretty phenomenal looking vegan kidney bean burger.

I’ve never made cookie dough in a blender, but consider me inspired by these chocolate cookies.

Reads

1. I believed that too much water at mealtimes could “dilute” stomach acid for years! Evidence says otherwise, and this article—in which my current preceptor, Tamara Duker Freuman, is interviewed—explains. (For the record, when I was working in a GI practice in DC, I did learn that chugging water at mealtimes can encourage the swallowing of air, which can be bloating, so steady sips are still a wise idea if you’ve got a sensitive digestive tract.)

2. More support for the value of eating breakfast.

3. Popular Science busts some sleep myths (sobering stuff for those of us who often do without enough of it, and tell ourselves it’s NBD).

4. Yikes! Bad news for allergy sufferers like me (yes, it’s getting worse, and climate change is in part to blame).

5. Finally, I wanted to link to this post from my friend Maria. It’s a lovely meditation on meeting oneself and one’s feelings—including the despondent ones—with acceptance and faith in the promise of release and transformation.

On that note, enjoy the remainder of this Sunday. And happy Orthodox Easter to those of you who celebrate today—maybe a bowl of vegan avgolemono is in order.

xo

 The post Weekend Reading, 4.28.19 appeared first on The Full Helping.

Weekend Reading, 4.28.19 published first on

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 4.28.19

Those of you who’ve been reading for a while might remember that 2017 was the year of bread baking around here.

It all started when my friend Ali published her (wonderful) cookbook, Bread Toast Crumbs. I’d wanted to get serious about homemade bread baking for a long time, but everything I’d read until that point made my eyes glaze over: it was all so technical and intimidating. Ali’s peasant bread technique—which involves no kneading and almost no dirtying of hands at all, in addition to the heartwarming fact that the loaves get baked in buttered Pyrex bowls—gave me the courage I needed.

Months later, Emilie gifted me with sourdough starter and a copy of her cookbook. Baking my first loaf of homemade sourdough was a small victory: I couldn’t believe it had actually worked, which I guess is the magic of natural leavening.

Bread baking found me at the right moment. I was having a hard time in March and April of that year: a longterm relationship had just ended, in a way that I wasn’t ready for and didn’t yet understand. For the first time in my life, I felt completely ill-suited to being on my own. I moved through my space and my days in a haze of confusion and grief, feeling scared and alone and more than a little sorry for myself.

If that period of time taught me anything, it was the gift of small things. None of the big stuff—love, graduate school, sense of direction or purpose—seemed to be working out. Even work, which is typically a major source of meaning for me, felt rote and joyless. My post-bacc years and the ones that followed hadn’t been easy, but they’d been animated with an incredible sense of yearning and direction. Suddenly, I had neither.

What I did have were my daily routines, which I fought to maintain even when things like cooking and chores felt insurmountable. I knew from past experiences with depression that keeping up with small habits, even if they felt suddenly like a lot of work, was the least I could do. And I did, day after day, until they started not to feel so tough anymore.

For a while it was all pretty muted, but as the months went by, I was reminded of my own capacity to be gratified by simple pleasures: good food, a clean home, a walk to the park, an hour of reading. I didn’t have a plan, but I did have the next meal and the next task, and at that moment, those things were enough.

And there was bread. It’s always been my comfort food, and I’d have eaten plenty of it that spring even if I weren’t baking it from scratch (for a while there, toast and cake were the only two things I wanted to eat). But I was baking from scratch, week after week, and it was wonderful. Unlike some other DIY food projects I’ve tried—kombucha, yogurt, seitan—this felt like the right ratio of effort and reward. The bread was so much better than anything I could buy, and I actually liked the process: mixing, shaping, scoring. The smell of a loaf in the oven on Saturday morning became something I looked forward to all week long. I wouldn’t quite say that bread baking got me through the year, but I can’t imagine that spring and summer without it.

I kept up with homemade bread for a while. But sometime last spring, in the race to the grad school finish line, the habit fell away. Once my internship started, it felt silly and imprudent to bake when I needed grains, beans, and fully cooked meals as weekly mainstays. During my acute care rotation, when getting the laundry done was a challenge, feeding my starter was the last thing on my mind.

My GI rotation gives me two weekdays off, which has been a gift in so many ways: it allows me to ease up on my batch cooking, to get work done during the week, and to have a true weekend. Most of all, having a little extra time on my hands gave me a kick in the pants to bake bread again. Now that I’m in the swing of it—one or two loaves weekly for the last four weeks—I’m rolling my eyes at the fact that I didn’t make time for it sooner. It’s a time commitment, sure, like anything/everything else. And it’s time perfectly spent.

I cook because it’s fun, healthful and economical. But cooking and feeding myself will always be a symbolic act as well as a practical one: it’s my way of asserting the desire to be alive, nourished, and whole. Bread making speaks to this desire more than almost any other type of cooking that I do. The fact that the process demands patience and time is only more evidence that, no matter what’s going on, I want to eat well and be well. I’m so glad to have been reminded of this in the past month.

Wishing you a week of good food and good self-care. Here are some recipes and reads.

Recipes

Speaking of Ali, I’m loving her latest, Indian-inspired fried rice recipe.

Yet more motivation to branch out with my air fryer. This time, a vegan sheet pan supper with lemony tempeh from Susan at FFVK.

I love the looks of this sun-dried tomato pesto (and the yummy pappardelle that accompanies it).

A pretty phenomenal looking vegan kidney bean burger.

I’ve never made cookie dough in a blender, but consider me inspired by these chocolate cookies.

Reads

1. I believed that too much water at mealtimes could “dilute” stomach acid for years! Evidence says otherwise, and this article—in which my current preceptor, Tamara Duker Freuman, is interviewed—explains. (For the record, when I was working in a GI practice in DC, I did learn that chugging water at mealtimes can encourage the swallowing of air, which can be bloating, so steady sips are still a wise idea if you’ve got a sensitive digestive tract.)

2. More support for the value of eating breakfast.

3. Popular Science busts some sleep myths (sobering stuff for those of us who often do without enough of it, and tell ourselves it’s NBD).

4. Yikes! Bad news for allergy sufferers like me (yes, it’s getting worse, and climate change is in part to blame).

5. Finally, I wanted to link to this post from my friend Maria. It’s a lovely meditation on meeting oneself and one’s feelings—including the despondent ones—with acceptance and faith in the promise of release and transformation.

On that note, enjoy the remainder of this Sunday. And happy Orthodox Easter to those of you who celebrate today—maybe a bowl of vegan avgolemono is in order.

xo

 The post Weekend Reading, 4.28.19 appeared first on The Full Helping.

Weekend Reading, 4.28.19 published first on https://storeseapharmacy.tumblr.com

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 4.28.19

Those of you who’ve been reading for a while might remember that 2017 was the year of bread baking around here.

It all started when my friend Ali published her (wonderful) cookbook, Bread Toast Crumbs. I’d wanted to get serious about homemade bread baking for a long time, but everything I’d read until that point made my eyes glaze over: it was all so technical and intimidating. Ali’s peasant bread technique—which involves no kneading and almost no dirtying of hands at all, in addition to the heartwarming fact that the loaves get baked in buttered Pyrex bowls—gave me the courage I needed.

Months later, Emilie gifted me with sourdough starter and a copy of her cookbook. Baking my first loaf of homemade sourdough was a small victory: I couldn’t believe it had actually worked, which I guess is the magic of natural leavening.

Bread baking found me at the right moment. I was having a hard time in March and April of that year: a longterm relationship had just ended, in a way that I wasn’t ready for and didn’t yet understand. For the first time in my life, I felt completely ill-suited to being on my own. I moved through my space and my days in a haze of confusion and grief, feeling scared and alone and more than a little sorry for myself.

If that period of time taught me anything, it was the gift of small things. None of the big stuff—love, graduate school, sense of direction or purpose—seemed to be working out. Even work, which is typically a major source of meaning for me, felt rote and joyless. My post-bacc years and the ones that followed hadn’t been easy, but they’d been animated with an incredible sense of yearning and direction. Suddenly, I had neither.

What I did have were my daily routines, which I fought to maintain even when things like cooking and chores felt insurmountable. I knew from past experiences with depression that keeping up with small habits, even if they felt suddenly like a lot of work, was the least I could do. And I did, day after day, until they started not to feel so tough anymore.

For a while it was all pretty muted, but as the months went by, I started to be reminded of my own capacity to be gratified by simple pleasures: good food, a clean home, a walk to the park, an hour of reading. I didn’t have a plan, but I did have the next meal and the next task, and at that moment, those things were enough.

And there was bread. It’s always been my comfort food, and I’d have eaten plenty of it that spring even if I weren’t baking it from scratch (for a while there, toast and cake were the only two things I wanted to eat). But I was baking from scratch, week after week, and it was wonderful. Unlike some other DIY food projects I’ve tried—kombucha, yogurt, seitan—this felt like the right ratio of effort and reward. The bread was so much better than anything I could buy, and I actually liked the process: mixing, shaping, scoring. The small of a loaf in the oven on Saturday morning became something I looked forward to all week long. I wouldn’t quite say that bread baking got me through the year, but I can’t imagine that spring and summer without it.

I kept up with homemade bread for a while. But sometime last spring, in the race to the grad school finish line, the habit fell away. Once my internship started, it felt silly and imprudent to bake when I needed grains, beans, and fully cooked meals as weekly mainstays. During my acute care rotation, when getting the laundry done was a challenge, feeding my starter was the last thing on my mind.

My GI rotation gives me two weekdays off, which has been a gift in so many ways: it allows me to ease up on my batch cooking, to get work done during the week, and to have a true weekend. Most of all, having a little extra time on my hands gave me a kick in the pants to bake bread again. Now that I’m in the swing of it—one or two loaves weekly for the last four weeks—I’m rolling my eyes at the fact that I didn’t make time for it sooner. It’s a time commitment, sure, like anything/everything else. And it’s time perfectly spent.

I cook because it’s fun, healthful and economical. But cooking and feeding myself will always be a symbolic act as well as a practical one: it’s my way of asserting the desire to be alive, nourished, and whole. Bread making speaks to this desire more than almost any other type of cooking that I do. The fact that the process demands patience and time is only more evidence that, no matter what’s going on, I want to eat well and be well. I’m so glad to have been reminded of this in the past month.

Wishing you a week of good food and good self-care. Here are some recipes and reads.

Recipes

Speaking of Ali, I’m loving her latest, Indian-inspired fried rice recipe.

Yet more motivation to branch out with my air fryer. This time, a vegan sheet pan supper with lemony tempeh from Susan at FFVK.

I love the looks of this sun-dried tomato pesto (and the yummy pappardelle that accompanies it).

A pretty phenomenal looking vegan kidney bean burger.

I’ve never made cookie dough in a blender, but consider me inspired by these chocolate cookies.

Reads

1. I believed that too much water at mealtimes could “dilute” stomach acid for years! Evidence says otherwise, and this article—in which my current preceptor, Tamara Duker Freuman, is interviewed—explains. (For the record, when I was working in a GI practice in DC, I did learn that chugging water at mealtimes can encourage the swallowing of air, which can be bloating, so steady sips are still a wise idea if you’ve got a sensitive digestive tract.)

2. More support for the value of eating breakfast.

3. Popular Science busts some sleep myths (sobering stuff for those of us who often do without enough of it, and tell ourselves it’s NBD).

4. Yikes! Bad news for allergy sufferers like me (yes, it’s getting worse, and climate change is in part to blame).

5. Finally, I wanted to link to this post from my friend Maria. It’s a lovely meditation on meeting oneself and one’s feelings—including the despondent ones—with acceptance and faith in the promise of release and transformation.

On that note, enjoy the remainder of this Sunday. And happy Orthodox Easter to those of you who celebrate today—maybe a bowl of vegan avgolemono is in order.

xo

 The post Weekend Reading, 4.28.19 appeared first on The Full Helping.

Weekend Reading, 4.28.19 published first on https://storeseapharmacy.tumblr.com