#to going really long and with a full beard as of christmas 2017

[bearsinpotatosacks]

I am another victim of the Bear timeline. I was under the assumption that Mikey was born in November 1978, but he's actually born November 1979. This isn't the issue. My issue is that Richie says in season 2 episode 1 that he's 45. I assumed that season 2 takes place in 2023, given that season 1 seems to take place over a reasonable timescale going from June 2022 (4 months after Mikey dies) and going past his birthday (November), and because season 3 only takes place over like 2 months, and Richie's getting Taylor Swift tickets, she played Chicago in June 2023. This all tells me that season 2 takes place in late Winter through to Spring and early summer, meaning that Richie must be 45 by late Winter/early spring. This places his birthday in 1978, which is fine but means he and Mikey were 2 years apart in terms of schooling, which affects my headcanons for how they met. But, if we're meant to assume that he's 45 in season 1 that means he was born in 1977, so there's even more of an age gap, but that's the year Ebon was born.

My main dilemma, is which month Richie was born. He could've just turned 45 as of season 2 episode 1, making him a spring baby, or could be turning 46 later on. Or I just make Mikey born in 1978. Or forget what the Bear says because it contradicts itself. I'll go with that

[aparticularbandit]

Letters to Santa (Glass Onion Fam Edition)

Summary: Peg has boat trauma, so when her family goes on a cruise for the holidays, she stays behind to babysit Birdie and finds that her boss still believes in Santa - for very good reason.

word count: 1427

“Birdie, don’t tell me.”

Peg normally takes the holidays off.  And by take the holidays off, she means steal Birdie’s phone and take it with her on vacation because if she actually left her boss alone with her phone over the holidays, there would be so many inappropriate tweets that it would be catastrophic.  Like the situation that almost occurred back on Christmas 2017, except that Peg intercepted the phone before any tweet could be made.

This year, however, her sister’s extended family had decided to invite everyone on a cruise, and her parents and the rest of her family had gone.  Peg, however, was still nursing some slight trauma from this year’s Glass Onion Fam Summer Extravaganza – every year, Birdie and her closest friends took a week off (sometimes more with less people; Claire and Andi, for instance, often had a hard time taking off more than a week, while Duke was always free, and Helen could take a full month off but usually didn’t); they each took turns hosting, coming up with ideas that they would all enjoy.  Some extravaganzas go better than others, and last year, when Duke decided to take them all backwater fishing, had been.  horrible.  Peg had made it back mostly unscathed with a minor case of food poisoning, but poor Claire had been covered in mosquito bites, despite the vast amounts of bug spray she’d used. Duke said they should be grateful it wasn’t a hunting trip.  Peg is just grateful that he doesn’t get to throw the extravaganza next year (and Birdie isn’t either).

So, still nursing a deep distrust for all things involving living on the water in a boat, Peg voted no and skipped out on the family vacation.  Which, unfortunately, meant she really had nothing to do for the holidays except babysit.  Just like every other day.

But Birdie has been relatively calm, and today, Christmas Eve, she’s pulled out a blank piece of paper and her box of colored pencils – sounds childish, but when Peg is hiding her electronic devices, it’s the only way Birdie can get any of her fashion designs out on paper – and started writing…a letter.

Peg kneels in front of her, hands on her knees.  “Please don’t tell me you still believe in Santa.”

Birdie’s head snaps up.  “Why wouldn’t I?  I see Santa everywhere this time of year. He changes shape and sometimes he’s got a long white beard and sometimes he’s clean – once, I saw a bunch of Santas doing a strip tease at a bar, and I even slept with one of—”

Peg tunes this next part out.  She has to, if she wants to keep her sanity.

“Anyway.”  Birdie waves her hand dismissively.  “Santa’s definitely real.  Not great at—”

Tuning her out.  Again.

Peg presses her lips together.  Considers.  She can’t just tell Birdie that Santa doesn’t exist.  That would be unnecessarily cruel, even if Birdie really should know that already.  She pushes a hand through her short hair.  “But, Birdie, honestly, you’re writing that letter to him on Christmas Eve, there’s no way the postal service will get it there in time.”

Birdie looks up.  Blinks up at Peg.  The toes on her stretched out legs wiggle.  “He’s coming to me, Peg.”

Peg groans and covers her face with one hand.  “Please tell me you’re not going to have sex with Santa again—”

“No, no!”  Birdie waves her hands, panicky, in front of Peg’s face.  “Santa’s got a huge job to do.  He can’t have sex with me now. He’s busy!”  She sighs.  “But every year, he and Mrs. Claus come see me.”  She pats her mattress twice and gets back to writing her letter without even looking up.  “You’ll see.”

~

There’s no knock on the door to signal any arrivals, but there is the subtle click of a key turning in the doorknob that alerts Peg to someone else’s presence.  Birdie is passed out on the couch, her letter folded up on the coffee table in front of her, right next to a plate full of different brands of store-bought cookies and a glass of what was hot cocoa but is now lukewarm cocoa.  Peg crouches down and creeps to the door just in time to hear a hearty, “Ho ho ho!” in a nearly booming voice that she recognizes.

“Lionel!” Peg hisses.

Then the lights flip on, blinding her, as Lionel – dressed in a nicely tailored Santa suit, with a fluffy white beard and a huge bag full of…honestly, Peg doesn’t want to know what the bag is full of (and honestly is kind of afraid that when Birdie gifted all of them with those really cheap vibrators one New Years Eve, they’d come from this Lionel Santa, which is a whole other layer of awkward) – parades into Birdie’s home, followed by….

Peg’s eyes widen.  “Claire, you have kids!  How are you even here?”

Lionel meets Peg’s eyes and gives her a sly little wink before passing her to a still groggy and not quite awake Birdie.  Claire, on the other hand, dressed in a much less tailored and very white Mrs. Claus dress (because even now, she doesn’t wear anything so loudly colorful as red) and with fake gold-rimmed glasses perched on the edge of her nose, takes her to one side.  “What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” Peg hisses, arms crossed.  “This is fucked up.”

Claire’s gaze drifts over to Birdie and then returns to Peg.  “You ruin this for her, and I will fuck you up—”

“My dear Mrs. Claus!” Lionel Santa booms, arms spread wide.  “Why don’t you come give our favorite naughty child a hug?”

Peg’s eyes widen, and she mouths, “N a u g h t y ?”

Claire just gives a shrug.  “You really think Birdie wants on the nice list?” she says before waltzing over to Birdie’s waiting arms.

~

Birdie dozes off, resting against Claire Claus’s ruffle covered chest, shortly after Lionel Santa leaves.  A few minutes pass before Claire waves a hand over Birdie’s face.  When Birdie doesn’t move, she slowly and carefully extricates herself from beneath her now quite slumbering friend.

Peg just stares at her.  “What, and I cannot say this kindly enough, the fuck, Claire?”

Claire levels a dark glare at her.  “That’s Mrs. Claus to you, Peg.” Then she tilts her head to the door. She slips carefully away.

Of course, Peg follows, arms still crossed.  Once they are outside, away from where Birdie could possibly hear them, she leans forward, tries to perch up on her tiptoes to make herself taller. “What the hell?”

“Look,” Claire says, taking the glasses from off her nose and the white Santa hat off of her head.  “Birdie loves Santa.  A lot. And she couldn’t figure out why he quit visiting her when she grew up.  She was really out of sorts about it.” She meets Peg’s eyes.  “One year, she wrote him a letter a day from Thanksgiving on, and she asked each of us to write letters, too, and then she mailed all of them out together.  That’s when Lionel and I started doing this, alright?”

Peg grits her teeth.  “He’s not real.”

Claire sighs.  “No, Peg, he’s not.  But Birdie doesn’t know that.”  She reaches over and pats Peg’s shoulder.  “And if you try to tell her, I will personally make sure that—”

“I’m not going to tell her,” Peg hisses.  She glances back to the now closed door, imagining her boss curled up on the couch on the other side.  “I’m not that cruel.”

“Good.”

As Peg turns back, she catches Claire giving her a onceover.  She flinches.  “What?”

“What are you doing here, Peg?”

Peg shifts her weight.  She should have been gone hours ago, but….  “Birdie said Santa and Mrs. Claus came to visit her every year.  I had to make sure she would be okay.”

Claire looks her over again.  Gives a little nod.  “She’ll miss you, if you’re gone when she wakes up.”  Her lips rub together.  “You’re a good kid, Peg.  If you ever need a reference, call me.  I’ll take care of you.”

Peg can’t think of anything to say, so she lets Claire walk away without pestering her further.  Then she turns back, tries to open the door, and finds that she’s locked herself out. Fucking fuck.  She doesn’t want to wake Birdie up, but unfortunately she has no choice.  She pounds on the door.

“C’mon, Birdie!  For once in your life, wake up!”

[mist-over-water]

Decade in Review.

2010.

One of the newest members in my group of friends began spreading lies about me, saying that I had been bitching about everyone behind their back. I hadn’t obviously, but they believed her, and in the space of a day, I had lost all of the friends I had made in my five years during high school. My first lesson of the decade: if I have something to say to someone, just say it! 

I left high school, with one friend, whom I had had since primary school. I passed all of my GCSEs, and I began sixth form. I was part of the first year to attend this sixth form, and it was exciting to help work out the kinks, and I got to study two different types of English (language and literature), photography and sociology. 

After my brothers’ girlfriend had suffered a miscarriage the previous year, she got pregnant again, and my twin nieces (Ellie and Layla) were born; they were premature, but oh so perfect, and changed my life, honestly. 

I went to North Carolina, and spent my sixteenth birthday there, where I met my best online friend. I had an amazing time, and again, it was an experience that changed my life forever. 

I stopped speaking to my dad, for many reasons; that’s such a long story, that now’s not the time. 

My mum’s boyfriend moved in, and began a seven year story of abuse.

2011.

I met four of my best friends; they changed me so much for the better. WE shared some good memories, some of which I still cry reminiscing on to this day. 

After getting scolded at sixth form, I actually began putting some effort into my A Levels, shocking my teachers at what I was capable of!

The friend I visited in America came to visit me in England for three weeks, though as none of us could drive, it was not half as exciting and action packed as my time in North Carolina! Sorry about that!

One of my best friends that turned my back on me in the previous year? I began speaking to her again, she is still my best friend to this day, and we began opening up about our struggles with mental health a lot more.

I began bulking my CV out a lot more, between work experience at my old high school, and volunteering at a charity shop and an art gallery, I barely had any time for myself!

I also began running a creative writing club at sixth form, which formed the basis of them beginning the creative writing A Level! One of my proudest achievements.

My mums dachshund got pregnant, and we kept one of them - my little dachshund/Jack Russell cross, Molly!

2012

My hard work paid off - I was the only one in my group of friends to get offers from all five universities I applied for! My first choice was University of Lincoln, and I moved 150 miles away from everyone I knew to study English.

I became a really shitty person. With the psychological abuse my mums boyfriend put me through, that friend who came to visit me, and I went to visit? I treated her awfully. I pushed her away on purpose, I hurt her so bad. I think about it every day, and every day I regret it.

I joined the Anime Society, and met a lot of great, fucked up people. I met people on my course. I met a lot of people, most I don't speak to anymore, but given half the chance, I'd welcome them back in my life with open arms.

I began drinking too much, like I don't remember much of my first year, I tried passing this toxic behaviour off as a personality trait. How wrong was I.

2013

A long story, but I got in my first 'relationship that wasn't a relationship', and he broke up with me at the beginning of the summer as he was finishing university, and I was only just beginning, and we lived on other sides of the country.

Upon reflection on things I ultimately regret, I made the decision to begin speaking to my dad again. He ultimately got married, in a wedding I was the only family member to not be invited.

I moved in with four gay people, and experienced the best parties I've ever been too, honestly. Though as housemates, they were insanely flawed.

I got into my first real relationship! He was psychologically abusive, took all of my money, nearly got me kicked out of university, made me lose all my friends, and... What a fella.

He raped me, five days before Christmas. I still suffer with trauma from this, but I'm not ashamed of it anymore.

2014

I attempted suicide. I broke my families heart and I promised my Nanny Gate that I would never hurt myself again.

I broke up with my boyfriend! To which my housemates took me out for drinks and a celebratory meal. They had no idea what had happened to me, but they knew he was bad news.

My dad forced my mum to sell my childhood home, forcing me, my mum and our abuser to move into a tiny two bedroom house, with seven dogs.

Another niece, Imogen, was born!

As well as drinking too much, I began trying drugs, trying to pass it off as a quirky part of my personality.

That friend that I visited in America, and she visited me in England? I began speaking to her again. Although we don't speak much, I could talk to her every day if I could. I'm so thankful that even if she didn't forgive me for everything I did to her, she put it behind her to rekindle our friendship.

I moved in with two of my best friends! Though by the end of the year, we would hate one of them. This happened all the places I lived during university.

I began dating a man I thought I would marry.

(Also, fun fact, I went on holiday to Walton-on-the-Naze that year, where I stayed at the same part of the caravan park @onetruejonsey lived with his girlfriend at the time, I got drunk, and got lost, and tried to get into his caravan! If that's not fate...)

2015

I got my degree without much effort, and I realised I've never really tried at anything. My dad and my boyfriend didn't attend my graduation, but mum and I had a blast.

For so many reasons, I fell out of love with my boyfriend, though he manipulated me into staying with him for almost a full extra year.

I got my first job as a Healthcare Assistant! But I quit as I saw too many residents being treated badly, and no manager or supervisor was interested in hearing my concerns. I done work experience at my old sixth form, trying to find an age group I'd like to teach, turns out older kids weren't that. But I did get a Christmas Temp job at EE.

2016

My boyfriend broke up with me, so angry that I had tried to break up with him and he had not let me, I got back with him just to break up with him. I am a pretty little bitch, honestly.

I went to Kenya with my mum, so we could complete our bucket list item of seeing giraffes and elephants in the wild. It was incredible, and made me reevaluate how lucky I am.

I got a job at B&Q, though my supervisors were awful, I made some good friends with other members of staff.

I planned to take my life at the end of April.

My Granddad Gate got there first, losing his battle to COPD just three days before I had planned to die. Seeing my Nanny Gate and mum, I decided to not go through with it.

While window shopping on Plenty of Fish, I met @onetruejonsey.

One of my friends from sixth form got me into trying harder drugs. I decided to stop speaking to her, I sometimes still get an angry text to this day.

Me, mum and our abuser got evicted from our house.

2017

@onetruejonsey's mum, knowing the situation with my abuse at home, offered for me to move in with them. We went to London for four days, and decided I should move in by the end of January, six months into dating.

I got a job with him and his mum at McDonalds, we were everyone's parents, and it was amazing.

I was discriminated against because of my mental health, and I gave a days notice that I was quitting. Someone else put in a formal complaint about how they had treated me, which made me feel a lot better about everything.

My Nanny Gate was hospitalised over Christmas, where she stopped speaking, eating, and drinking. Her three favourite things.

2018

@onetruejonsey and I experienced the worst argument I've ever had in a relationship; one of which I still think back to, to try and figure out what happened, and learn from.

My poor mum went off work sick for a broken foot and got evicted from her bungalow in the same month, meaning she had to go back to our abuser.

My Nanny Gate died, but my mum, brother and I were all with her when she passed.

This meant my mum had to pack my Nanny Gate's belongings as well as her own bungalow, the deadline for each was only a couple of days from each other. I moved back in with her for a month to help with this.

I was unemployed for five months, and after working so hard to get out of my overdraft during my time at McDonalds, I ended up with £5 in my bank.

With my Nanny Gate not around to say anything anymore, I began self-harming again. Though @onetruejonsey then made me promise to stop it, and I hate breaking my promises.

I got a job as a Housekeeper at Premier Inn, after my second interview. It was only a Summer job, and they tried so hard to fire me, but never found the grounds. After a teaching job fell through, I got my act together and became one of the best housekeepers at the site.

My fourth, and final niece, little Millie was born. With her ginger curly hair, my heart could have burst with love.

@onetruejonsey and I have a tradition to go to the zoo for my birthday, with my mum and nieces. Surrounded by them and giraffes, he got down on one knee and proposed to me! I cried so much, and so many people congratulated us. Even the guy who yelled "HAS SHE SAID YES YET" which makes me laugh everytime!

2019.

@onetruejonsey and I learnt to drive, and we brought our little car, Moss. We have plans to update him to a better car ASAP, but at the moment, I'm so in love with him that I can't bare the thought of getting rid of him!

After nearly getting our own flat, I can't imagine life without a dog. We decided to stay put with his parents, and save as much money as we can to buy a house. A house we will raise our children in one day, dog and bearded dragon included!

2018 was such a shit year, it took up until Summer this year to recover fully from it. When we decided to start planning our wedding. Of which we have booked 90% of everything.

I went on my twenty-first teaching interview, and after that rejection, I decided the universe was sending me a sign. I had not enjoyed any of my previous work experience, and I didn't enjoy working with the kids during interviews. I made a conscious decision that I would not pursue that anymore.

I was discriminated against at Premier Inn when I went into crisis with my menal health, the same day our hotel manager was visiting with an apprenticeship tutor. I spoke to her, and she offered me a job at a different site, where I would do housekeeping and reception, and an apprenticeship, and get a pay rise, AND one day becoming assistant hotel manager, but maybe at a different site.

My decade did not go as planned. I hoped to be teaching by now, but the universe has had different plans for me. A lot of bad stuff has happened to me, but that's karma I suppose. While at university, I spoke to a good friend, and we talked about how bullshit dream jobs were, and I made a promise to myself that I wanted to grow up to be unapologetically happy. So in this decade, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to work whatever job will pay me that I enjoy, I will come home to a fiance who loves me and I love him, we will have our wedding, we will buy our house together and drive in whatever car we can get, I don't care what it cost or how new it is, we will have our Bassett Hound and whatever little pets we want, and we will one day have children together. And that child will be so loved, I will move mountains for them to never experience pain and hurt of the likes we have experienced.

[emisonme]

Could it be more obvious.....

Come on guys, it’s not that serious.It’s going to be OK. If there was ever an obvious PR stunt, it would be this one. I’ve seen lots of folks saying how disappointed they are in Camila for doing this. I was hoping like hell THEY wouldn’t go there with her, but I also completely expected it.

The main thing I’m pissed off about, is the “who” they paired her up with. Really! A 30 year old, self pretentious milksop, who charges 8000 Pounds, that’s over 11,000 dollars, AN HOUR to tell women how to nab a guy, then tell them how to keep the bastard. A self proclaimed “love guru” who has more gay rumors than Camila. He even said in one of his bio’s, that he switched up his vocation from telling men how to get women, because that wasn’t his forte. A guy who can’t tell other guys how to pick up women? No wonder there are gay rumors swirling around him.

Hell, people who know him, aren’t even buying this shit. Those beach photos were so staged it was laughable. The fact that E News got the scoop makes it even more laughable. You can even tell exactly how it was all planned.

One thing we need to understand though, is those of us who have been following Camila and the girls, for a while, can see how obvious all this is. The General Public have no idea who Camila is. They are just now getting to know her. THEY are projecting an image of her, to the GP, that THEY want her to have. That’s the main reason we are getting this stunt.

The stunt, and the timeline to set it was, was really simple. They started following each other on SM in October of last year. She was supposedly a “fan” of his work. So, they have had this plan in their pocket, since October of 2017.

January, 11, just before  the release of her album, it was time to put the plan into motion. During her interview with Elvis Duran, she brought his name up for the first time. It was love all around for someone named Matthew Hussey. The very next day, release day, she was performing on GMA. Guess who happen to be scheduled for a segment on the exact same show. Yep, Matt Hussey himself. How convenient!

Then we come to the Zane Lowe interview, on January 15. Remember, back in May, she did her first Zane interview, and she said then that she needed to find a boy and experience the loving portion of her album. During her second appearance, low and behold, he asks her if she has someone special in her life.

That whole segment was set up, just for all this crap. He asked her about the last note she made on her phone. We get the, “I can’t say your name without smiling”. Then he asked if there was someone special, and we get the “maybe” heard around the world.

We knew then, we were getting ready to get hit with some more bullshit and Industry fuckery. Most were hoping it would be Shawn Mendes, but no, we get this schmuck who preys on women’s insecurities. Yay!

Anyway, then we come to the Zack Sang interview. Here, she said a few interesting things. She laughed off the fact people thought her songs could possibly be about Austin Mahone, because she was young and it was a long time ago. FYI, all the Michael shit happened LESS than 6 months after the Austin shit. Just let that sink in for a minute.

Then she said, she likes to keep her relationships a secret. The Mahone fiasco taught her that she didn’t want to do any more public relationships. Oops! Less than a month later, she is plastered all over the headlines with her “new boyfriend”. See, how in all her interviews, she is constantly contradicting herself. Remember what I said before? “The truth never changes, and a false narrative rarely sounds the same twice.”

That’s how this whole thing was set up and presented to us. For those of you thinking the photos weren’t staged or that they were leaked. NO!!! That’s not how this shit works. They went to that beach, they performed for the camera, and E News was given the exclusive for the story. That’s what happened, whether you want to believe it or not.

Now, why is she being told to do this. For a couple reasons. One has to do with the existing fandom, and the other has to do with the GP.

First, let me explain the main reason they do these stupid PR relationships and stunts in the first place. IMAGE! They use them to control the way the fans and GP see and connect with an artist. If there is no connection, it is less likely the GP will become fans. They will just hear your singles, and if they like them, they might put it on their playlist and give it streams, but they most likely won’t purchase it. If THEY give you a reason to feel a connection to an artist, then you will purchase their music. That’s what THEY want, because there is more money to be made from purchases than streams. A connection will also get you out of your houses and into the venues for the live shows.

That being said, the GP is just now getting to know Camila. The only thing they know about her, is that she came from a manufactured girl group, and she went solo. They have to introduce Camila to the GP, and they basically have a blank slate with which to do so.

The GP have no idea who Ausmila or Camichael are. They don’t even know who Austin and Michael are. They have no idea who Camren is. THEY would  like to keep it that way. Thanks to the E News exclusive, and every damn entertainment magazine picking up the story and running with it, he is the only person, she has been connected to romantically, and that’s exactly what they want.

As for those of us who have been fans for a while. Well, Camila hasn’t exactly been stellar at keeping up with her hetero image. Her, and her gender neutral pronouns. Telling people the songs are about people she has secretly dated. The fact she has told everyone, the longest relationship she’s had is a couple of months. (Seeing someone for a couple months, does not add up to the lyrics for “All These Years”, and “Consequences”.) The ever changing stories as to who the songs are about. Her idea of a good time is staying at home having a twerk party with her girlfriends. Saying she loves girls, on national television. It goes on and on.

Then there is the fact it seems Lauren was at Camila’s house for Christmas, and possibly been with her a few more times. All the stuff Lauren has been saying on SM lately, and the fact Tyren seems to be finally coming to an end. Yeah, one can see why THEY paraded her around at the beach with a guy.

Double bearding is a normal occurrence in the Industry. They are trying to make her the next big superstar. They need the GP to fall in love with her. For that to happen, she can not have gay rumors swirling around her. Hooking her up with Hussey, dispels those rumors.

What’s in it for him? Like I said at the top, he has more gay rumors than she does. How many women do you think will spend over 11,000 dollars an hour, to get love advice, and know how to nab and keep a guy, if the person giving that advice hasn’t the foggiest idea what men really want from women. Especially when he is telling them, he is an expert on the subject.

Those of you who are all pissed off about it, need to get over your selfish asses. She isn’t going to be able to do what you want. She isn’t out there queerbaiting her fans. She does nothing but show love and respect to each and every one of her fans. To bad some of you can’t show the same for her.

This isn’t the playground or High School. This isn’t your collage fraternity. This is her career. She is under contract with people who have control over her public image. She does have more creative control as a solo artist, but she does not have full control, yet, over her image and career. If THEY think it is best for her career, and their pockets, for her to have a PR relationship with a damn man, she is going to have a PR relationship with a damn man.

To prove my point that she has to do and say things she is told to say; She said in a recent interview that CITC was her choice to release as her first single. She was told to say that, so everyone would think she has complete control over her career. Her A&R must not have gotten the memo, because he admitted in a recent interview, that CITC was not her first choice as a single.

The sooner some of you realize she isn’t the one in control right now, the better your lives will be. Once you accept the fact, the Music Industry is a shady business, that will do whatever it takes to generate more money, the sooner you can accept all the bullshit for what it is, and laugh it off, instead of getting all depressed and butthurt because she did something you didn’t particularly want her to do.

Instead of burning her CD’s, why don’t you enjoy the music she did give us, and laugh at the fact, Matthew is no where near the Latin boy, she has been telling us she’s going to move to Spain and fall in love with. That’s why they worded the story the way they did. The one about this “relationship” taking her by surprise. I’m sure it did. I’m almost certain she could find someone better than a guy who charges the hell out of women, to tell them how to lie down and roll over for a man.

P.S. Just because I know some will ask, this is the perfect example of the different ways they do PR. They allowed Lauren to come out as Bisexual, and then promptly hooked her up with a guy. They do it ALL THE TIME. The difference with Lauren/Ty and Camila/Matt, is the targeted audience.

They wanted to target a select fan base with the Tyren PR stunt. That’s why they let it play out mostly on Social Media. They controlled the news outlets that ran stories about them, and controlled the message that was generated through it.

With Camila/Matt, they are targeting the GP. They can’t keep it concentrated to SM. They need the media outlets to pick up the story and run with it. They will control the narrative the media projects through their reporting. Don’t be surprised if you see him on her arm during the award show red carpets, and other public events that garner media attention. If they want to push it hard, they will publicize the hell out of it. It’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out.

[wickedsingularity]

Merry Christmas to Me [one shot]

wickedsingularity’s Christmas Stories 2017 Masterlist

Fandom: MCU Pairing: Steve Rogers x Female Words: 2587 Warnings: Loneliness, sickness, misery, depression, freezing, angst and fluff

Summary: No one's home for Christmas, my plans went to shit, and then the mission didn't even have the decency to drag on. Falling asleep with wet hair all alone in a freezing apartment, great idea. But then...

The compound was the quietest I had ever seen it. It was almost eerie. I knew no one would be here except maybe the odd guard poking around trying not to be seen, but I didn't expect it to look and feel so utterly abandoned. I stopped by the intersection leading to the training area and the apartment building and took in everything. The lanes between the buildings had been cleared, but it had snowed a bit since then. The tree outside the office building looked festive and cosy, a few of the lights covered in snow and adding to the glow. With the few streetlights littered around and lighting up the paths, it looked pretty. But I wasn't feeling it.

I gritted my teeth and made my way through the cold mass and to the dark apartment building. A panel by the door scanned my hand and with a hiss, the door slid open. It was only the emergency lights littering the hallway, but I knew my way around and could navigate the place in the pitch dark.

When I paused by my own door to scan my hand again, I noticed how cold it was. A shiver ran through me just in time with the door sliding open, and as I stepped inside it was just as cold there. Had they turned the heat down because everyone was gone?

As I walked into my apartment, lights flickered on, but I didn't hear the sound of the heaters starting up. So, I dumped my bag, jacket and boots by the door and walked over to the panel next to the TV. It was one of several panels that controlled the temperature, the apartment wide audio system, timers and motion sensors on the lights, along with a lot of other nifty things that Tony deemed vital to living. But the heat didn't work. And it appeared that F.R.I.D.A.Y. was having a holiday too.

At least the warm water was working, so I decided to take a shower and wash the grime of the mission off. How my wet hair would feel in the cold after, I decided not to worry about. It would dry up eventually. After I had frozen to death.

I turned on the water to let it steam up the bathroom nicely while peeling off my clothes. It had been a very physical mission, and my uniform stunk of stale sweat. When the mirrors were too fogged up to see my reflection, I stepped in under the torrent of warm water and let out an obscene moan. As quick as my tired limbs could, I scrubbed and washed, and then I just stood there. Letting the water cascade down my body, thoughts racing.

Everyone had plans for Christmas. Some were on missions like me, some had gone home to friends and family, and some had even gone away for the holidays. I was supposed to go back to my hometown right after the mission, but those plans had shattered quickly when I got a short text from my parents saying that the whole family would be going across the country to visit some new friends.

I hadn't told anyone. I was heartbroken, of course, but I had hoped the mission would drag on and it wouldn't be a big deal. But it had all gone to plan. And so, I found myself all alone in the compound on the night before Christmas Eve. No heat, nothing but stale bread, cheese and water, and the only Christmas decoration was a string of battery powered multi-coloured fairy lights above one of the windows.

I felt miserable. Clean, but miserable. Merry Christmas to me.

Deciding enough was enough, I turned off the water and stepped out of the shower to dry up. The entire bathroom was fogged up, and I was glad. I didn't want to look at my bruised body or my defeated expression. An idea came over me and I went to close the bedroom door and let the bathroom door wide open, so the steam would warm up the bedroom a bit while I dried up. I was exhausted and even though it was fairly early, I might as well go to sleep before I became even more miserable or cold or hungry.

I rummaged through my closet for a pair of pyjamas and was under the cover and asleep before I could think of how bad it would be for my pillow to have all that wet hair on it.

It was almost light out when I woke up. The second thing I noticed was how cold my nose was. And then how congested it was. Then I swallowed and felt how scratchy my throat felt. I groaned out loud, which in turn made me almost cough out my insides. And that made me notice how achy my entire body was and how much my head was pounding.

"Good idea falling asleep with wet hair in a cold apartment," I whispered hoarsely to myself as I tumbled out of bed do my morning routine before trying to make some breakfast.

Not having looked in a mirror the previous night, and the only time I'd seen myself during the mission was in a poor reflection in a window four days ago, I didn't know what to expect when I finally did gaze at myself as I washed my hands. That I had grown a beard? A beard would have been preferable. My hair was all over the place, having dried while squashed against the pillow. My eyes were glassy with fever, my nose was as red as Rudolf's, huge bags under my eyes. I looked as miserable as I felt.

I searched my medicine cabinet for something to fight this cold, but there was nothing but cough syrup that had expired six months ago. Feeling that nothing else could go wrong, I found my warmest clothes and went to make breakfast. I should have probably gone out grocery shopping, but in my current condition – coughing, sneezing and shivering – that felt like a bad idea, for everyone else.

Before I turned on the TV to waste my day away, I tried the AI again. "F.R.I.D.A.Y.? Are you there, F.R.I.D.A.Y.?" She didn't answer. Feeling completely abandoned and miserable and as lonely as I could be, I curled up on the couch, flicked through the channels and found some reruns of an old sitcom.

I don't know how long I lay there freezing and surrounded by used tissues when there was suddenly a knock on the door. I started and groaned, wondering who the hell was here at this time of day. Then I checked the time on the TV, realising it was only 1400 hours and that made me groan and cough again. The day was going way too slow.

I had no intentions of answering the door, not that my aching body could manage to untie itself from the knot I had become, or that my voice could carry through the door to whoever it was. But the door opened and I heard someone coming in. There were only two people who I had given full access to, and I knew both of them were supposed to be somewhere else.

"Doll?" The sound of Steve's voice carried in from the small hallway.

I cleared my throat. "What are you doing here?" I didn't bother to mask the annoyance in my voice but was glad my voice sounded better than I expected.

He didn't answer right away and I couldn't see him from my fetus position on the couch, glaring at the TV. But I heard him set down several things on the kitchen counter and started to pull things out of whatever it was.

"You didn't really think I'd let you spend Christmas alone, did you?" There was an awful lot of rummaging in the kitchen, and I had to admit I was curious, but I was too lethargic to look.

"I'm fine alone."

"Sure. I can hear that you're shivering it's so fucking cold in here, and from the look of this kitchen, you haven't eaten since you came home."

"I had breakfast. I'm fine."

There was silence for a few long moments and I tried to shift my focus back on the TV, but my mind could hardly comprehend anything in its fuzzy state other than how freaking cold it was. Then Steve came around the couch and stopped by my feet, looking down at me. A frown blossomed on his face before it turned into a smile. I narrowed my eyes at him.

"As cute as you look with your hands inside your sleeves and your poor attempt at tucking up your collar, your entire body is shivering, you look awful, and you're drowning in tissues. Doll, why haven't you turned the heat on? Or at least found some blankets? Or called me?" He dropped to his knees and pressed his lips to my forehead.

"I'm not gonna get hypothermia from being inside. It's fine."

"It's not fine. You're sick. You're burning up, and while you did a good job at hiding how sick you are in your voice, it's slipping now." Without even waiting for me to reply, he promptly stood up and walked over to the panel that controlled the electronics, muttering to himself about New York and freezing and gonna die. Within seconds, I heard the faint buzzing of the heaters coming back on.

"What is that show, anyway?" he asked as he went into the bedroom.

"Cheers," I said as loudly as I could without getting another coughing fit.

He came back and was carrying four blankets, including my pillow. "Fitting. Lift your head." I did as he instructed and the pillow was tucked in under my head.

"Why are you here?"

He folded out the blankets and wrapped me up. "I tried calling you this morning to ask about the mission, but I couldn't get through. Then I called your brother, and... Well, I figured you must be here. You know I could never let you be alone for your favourite holiday."

I felt my throat closing up and it had nothing to do with the cold. But I swallowed it down and just nodded, eyes trained on the TV.

He knelt in front of me again and laid a blissfully warm hand against my cheek. "I bought food. Thought we could make Christmas dinner together and have a quiet celebration just the two of us. But I've changed the plans. I think I have something I can make a soup from. I'll do that, while the apartment warms up, and you try to warm up under these blankets. Then, I'm gonna go out and get you some medicine. Okay?"

I nodded again, not trusting my voice at all.

He kissed me again, on the lips this time. Lingering long enough for me to draw some heat from them. And then he was gone. I suppressed a whimper at the loss of warmth.

The sound of Steve setting up and working in the kitchen was so comforting after hours of just the TV and my stubborn self as company. The blankets were slowly warming me up, the shivering settled and I was beginning to feel drowsy. When Steve sat a bowl of steaming soup on the sofa table, I had almost fallen asleep.

"Come on, doll, I'll help you sit up."

I kicked off the blankets, and set my elbow down on the seat below me and tried to sit up on my own, but fell right down again when a dizzy spell crashed through me.

"Careful," Steve said with a chuckle, completely ignoring the death glare I sent him. He replaced the pillow with a strong arm, held my hand in his other, and slowly tilted me up right. My feet slid to the carpeted floor and I leaned back, amazed at how exhausted I felt.

"Thanks," I mumbled.

"It's just a simple broth, and I left a few pieces of turkey and vegetables in it," Steve explained and sat down next to me. "Didn't want to use up too much of the meat. We're still having Christmas dinner."

I reached for the bowl, using the sleeves of my sweater as protection from the heat. Experimentally, I reached for the spoon, blew on it and tasted. "It's good, thank you."

"Will you be alright while I head out and get you some medicine?"

I nodded with another spoonful in my mouth.

"I'll be back soon. I love you."

Immediately, I missed Steve's presence. Without him, the apartment felt just as cold as before he had covered me in blankets and turned the heat on. To compensate I lifted spoon after spoon of the scorching hot broth to my mouth, feeling the burn down my throat.

Before I knew it, the bowl was empty and I was left with a light burn on my tongue. But my stomach felt full and happy, my nose less congested. The only drawback was that I could now feel the fever and a huge wave of fatigue washed over me.

Setting the bowl back on the table, I fluffed up the pillow, reached for the blankets and laid down to continue watching Cheers. But I soon found myself drifting off, Woody scaring Rebecca with the blender the last thing I remembered.

Ten minutes, an hour, or 5 days later, I wasn't sure, I woke up to someone lifting my upper body.

"Wha's goin'n?" I mumbled in a thick voice.

"Just me, doll," Steve replied as from far away. As I came to, I realised he had sat down behind me and was arranging me to lay between his legs.

"You're back..."

"Of course I am." He gently moved my hair out of my face. "I've got cough syrup, cough drops, nasal spray, more tissues, Tylenol, some tea the pharmacist said would be good, ointment..." He gestured to the table. It was all there, including a glass of water.

"Thank you, Steve."

I propped myself up on his stomach and reached for the Tylenol, popped a couple in my mouth and drained the glass of water. Then I settled against his warm body, snuggling up to him as if he was a giant pillow. The sound of his heart beating, the gentle rise and fall of his chest and his hands rubbing comforting circles on my back was quickly sending me back to sleep.

"What's going on with your phone?" Steve asked suddenly. "I tried to call to ask if you need cough syrup for dry or wet cough, but I couldn't get through again."

"Oh shit!" My eyes snapped open. "I forgot. It broke a couple of days ago. Haven't had the chance to pick up a new one from the office yet."

"I'll go get you a new one tomorrow."

"And it's wet cough."

"Good thing I bought both types."

We fell silent again. The dark cloud that had lingered over my head since I realised the mission wouldn't drag on until after Christmas, was gone. Steve had come for me and chased it away. It was warm, we were going to have dinner tonight, and then we would sleep in, and open presents whenever we felt like it the next day. It would be a good Christmas after all. I swallowed down the lump in my throat again.

"Thank you for coming back, Steve."

"Anything for my best girl."

Permanent tags: @imamotherfuckingstar-lord @geeksareunique @iguess-theyre-mymess @neeadinghugs

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[scaryastheyseem]

Animorphs Secret Santa

It’s time for @animorphsecretsanta! This is for Poppy @hostilepopcorn, who loves AxMarco and the true meaning of Christmas. I hope you like it! I could not come up with a title.

Untitled Secret Santa 2017 Fic

 The space alien sitting across from me has a pointed chin and my best friend’s brown eyes. He is struggling to untie the red satin ribbon on a Whitman’s sampler box of chocolates, because human hands, he keeps reminding me, are large and clumsy and don’t have enough fingers, and he is still getting used to them. “Behold,” I boom, in my best radio announcer voice. “A mighty Andalite warrior, brought low by human gift-wrapping technology.” My voice cracks halfway through the sentence, which sort of ruins the joke.

 Ax glances up from his work long enough to roll his eyes at me. He didn’t roll his eyes before we started dating. I’m clearly a bad influence, which is awesome. “I am not a warrior yet. I am still an aristh. And I have not been defeated. Merely—set back. These human hands are—”

 “Vastly inferior to Andalite hands, because everything humans have is vastly inferior to Andalites, up to and including our Porta-Johns, yeah, yeah, I think I get it by now.”

 He blinks, startled, then gives me a tiny smile, like he’s testing out his face. “I was going to say unexpectedly strong. It is difficult to properly calibrate the amount of pressure I am applying to the ribbon.”

 “Give it to me.” I hold out a hand. “I have a lot more experience calibrating my fingers or whatever.”

 Ax hands over the chocolate box. “You are making an innuendo.” He sounds delighted with himself for figuring it out.

 “Yeah. I have no idea what it was supposed to be implying, though.” Ax’s efforts to untie the ribbon have fucked up the bow to the degree that it actually does take me several minutes and one broken fingernail to untie it. I pass it back to him, and when he opens the box, his face actually lights up. I mean, with a big, goofy grin and round cheeks and sparkling eyes, like a box of chocolates is the best thing to ever happen to him and like nothing bad has ever happened to him, and he’s so bright and blinding that I have to look away for a second and count the pine needles under my bare feet.

 Ax either doesn’t notice or is polite enough not to say anything, and when I look up again, he’s already eaten three chocolates and is cramming a fourth into his mouth, scrutinizing the little chart that tells you which flavors are where intently. The wrappers are neatly folded in a stack next to him. “The hazelnut is better than the caramel,” he tells me. “But both are vastly inferior to the dark-and-white-chocolate swirl. Suh-wirl. Hazelnut. Zel. Zel. Caramel, zel, mel.”

 “And the store clerk thought I was insane for buying my boyfriend a sampler box of chocolates for Christmas.” Actually, Jake thought I was insane, too. Not that he could talk. He got Cassie a flashlight for Christmas. Mind you, this is a guy who breaks into the Yeerk Pool on a regular basis. A guy who’s been running circles around Visser Three since the eighth grade. He’s not an idiot, except for when he totally is. Who buys the girl they made out with on an alien planet—the girl who would totally be their girlfriend, if only they had the guts to ask—a flashlight for Christmas?

 Jake, that’s who. I can’t tell you his last name. Partially because of the whole guerilla warfare thing, and partially because I don’t want everyone to know how totally clueless he is when it comes to girls.

 I’m Marco, by the way. The handsomest, most intelligent guerilla warrior of the bunch. This is Ax, my boyfriend, an alien who can turn into a human, and into a lot of other animals. We can all turn into other animals. Can’t tell you who we are, the Yeerks are everywhere, etc. You know this already, try and keep up.

 “This is an excellent gift,” Ax says reassuringly. There’s chocolate smeared across the lower half of his face. Not a cute little smudge on the corner of his mouth, either. We’re talking a full-on Hershey beard. I want to kiss him anyway, because being in love is stupid. “The variety of flavors and textures serve to enhance the already highly favorable experience of consuming chocolate, and not knowing the nature of the filling before biting into it adds a welcome rush of adrenaline to an otherwise danger-less dessert experience.”

 “Wow, you should write ads for Nestle.” Ax’s brow furrows, and I move on, hurriedly, before he can force me to explain the concept of advertising again. Don’t get me wrong, Ax isn’t an idiot either, and he’s been on Earth long enough to have seen ads. It’s just that Andalites don’t really do ‘money’ or ‘companies’ or ‘capitalism’ the way humans do, so he kind of doesn’t get what they’re for. “I’m glad you like it. Merry Christmas.”

 “This day bears no significant meaning to me,” Ax says, like he has every day this month. “I am from another world. Andalites do not have the same calendar as humans.”

 “Ax-man, some humans don’t have the same calendar as other humans.”

 “I am aware,” Ax says haughtily. The effect is somewhat spoiled because—again, chocolate face. “Rachel has made this point clear. Several times.”

 Rachel hates Christmas carols, so obviously, I’ve spent every boring reconnaissance mission since Thanksgiving doing my best Mariah Carey impression. I told her it was my duty as Ax’s boyfriend to educate him about Earth culture, which as it turned out was a terrible excuse, because Ax told us last week that all human music sounds the same to him. Which is to say, terrible. Even Nine Inch Nails. Even Offspring. Which, aside from being a total affront to the glory that is The Downward Spiral, meant that I had to throw away the mix CD I’d been making him and beg Nora to drive me to the mall so that I could spend two hours searching for the perfect gift. Jake showed up to help me, which mostly consisted of him following me around and saying things like “I dunno, he likes food, right? Maybe get him a crockpot? My dad got my mom a crockpot.”

 “Your dad has been married to your mom for twenty years,” I said. “I’ve been dating Ax for three months. Also, even if we had been dating for twenty years, a crockpot would still be a shitty gift, I like to think that I have a little more game than getting my boyfriend a cooking implement for Christmas. Also, he’s an alien who eats by absorbing nutrients from grass, and he lives in the woods and doesn’t have a kitchen and he probably couldn’t cook without starting a forest fire, and then where would the Ramones live, huh?”

 Jake had been nodding along, but now he stopped and furrowed his brow. “The Ramones?”

 “The baby skunks. The ones that Cassie saved. We named them after the Ramones.”

 “I think you might be freaking out a little, dude,” Jake said, in the same carefully neutral voice that he used to talk about things like Visser One and murder. It should have felt out of place in the mall, but there was a Yeerk pool entrance in the Gap changing rooms. Jake had almost bled to death on the linoleum outside GameStop once. Jake-the-general fit right in with the fluorescent lights and the tinny Christmas carols, the same way that he did in school, or my bedroom, or every other part of my fucking life.

 And he was right. I was freaking out. Which was stupid—I’d been in way more stressful situations than this. “I’m not freaking out. I’m just not getting Ax a crockpot,” I said, in my best semblance of a normal teenage boy with a normal amount of stress over my boyfriend’s Christmas present. My secret boyfriend, who was an alien, fighting a guerilla war with me and my best friend and my boyfriend’s best friend and my best friend’s girlfriend and my best friend’s cousin, who one of these days was going to snap and murder me for telepathically singing Mariah Carey songs in the body of an osprey.

 You know. The normal amount of stress to have over that.

 And in the end I’d panicked, and gotten Ax a freaking Whitman’s sampler, and it turns out that a Whitman’s sampler was the perfect present for your alien boyfriend of three months, who was now singing the praises of rum coconut with his bony shoulders under my arm as we sat together under the biggest tree in the forest where he lives. Even human morph is taller than I am, so he has to slouch pretty dramatically to make it possible for me to even put my arm around his shoulders. Which he does, every time we sit anywhere together, even when it means half-lying down on a bunch of tangled tree roots like he is right now. It can’t be comfortable. I’ve never asked him why he does it. The answer would probably freak me out way more than any Christmas present.

 “I did not get you anything,” Ax says. He frowns. “This is not like a birth-day. Birthhh day. When you are given a gift on this day, it is customary to reciprocate, is it not?”

 “It’s cool,” I say, jumping on the distraction. “I mean, like you said, you’re not even from this planet. You didn’t know what Christmas was until like a year ago, and you don’t have any Earth money anyway.”

 He rifles through the chocolate box, squinting at the little flavor chart. “I have means of acquiring Earth money.”

 I hold up a hand. “Please do not tell me about any more of the felonies that you and Tobias commit together. I’d like to maintain plausible deniability when you two are inevitably sent to Andalite Juvie for your crimes.”

 “Tobias and I have never committed a felony,” Ax says huffily. “Property damage not involving a motor vehicle and not in excess of two hundred fifty of your human dollars—“

 “Not my dollars, and are you saying you and Tobias have never fucked up a car?”

 “—is not a felony.” He pops another chocolate into his mouth. “Ah. Peppermint. You are the one who has stolen and summarily destroyed a motor vehicle. Neither Tobias nor I can drive.”

 “Like I have my license yet?”

 Ax rolls his eyes and looks up at me through brown frizz of curls falling into his eyes. “Would you like me to steal you a car for Christmas, Marco,” he deadpans, and I laugh and give into temptation and kiss him. He tastes like chocolate and pine needles.

 When I pull away, several minutes later, he says, “Why are you not with your father?”

 “Please don’t talk about my dad while we’re making out.” I sit up and shake tree bark out of my hair.

 Ax doesn’t follow me. He stays lying on the forest floor, hair a halo around his head, staring up at me with wide, unblinking eyes. “Christmas is traditionally spent with one’s family. These Messages and the Very Special Episodes were clear on that subject. I care for you, very much.” The way he says things like that, like they’re observable facts of the universe. The sky is blue. You have thirty-two seconds left in morph. I care for you, very much. “But we have only been ‘dating’ for three months. I do not think I can count myself part of your family yet.”

 “Half of my family is probably on the Blade Ship, being used as a meat puppet to torture some poor Hork-Bajir and plot the destruction of our entire planet.” My voice comes out sharper than I want it to, but Ax doesn’t blink. Ax doesn’t blink enough, even as a human. We need to talk about that at some point. “The other half is sitting at home with his new wife, watching Charlie Brown Christmas and eating tamales, totally oblivious. Excuse me if I thought that spending the day with my boyfriend sounded more fun than watching my dad make mushy faces at my math teacher.”

 “You could have gone to Prince Jake’s house. Your families have known each other since you were children. Surely they would be a viable substitute for your own family unit.”

 “Oh, sure. Chinese food and movies with a known Controller, and the slim-but-terrifying possibility that Rachel will try and remove Tom’s Yeerk with a chopstick.” And Jake’s parents giving me pitying looks out of the corner of their eyes when they thought I wasn’t looking, in between scolding Jake about his failing grades. And Jake’s silent thousand-yard stare through Tom’s forehead, like all the failures of the world were on his shoulders. And Rachel’s skinny fingers with their blue glitter nail polish twitching on the edge of the table, just waiting for one of us to give the signal. “You have to admit, that family isn’t exactly relaxing.”

 “So I am your last resort.” Ax looks—it’s hard to read his facial expressions, but I think he looks disappointed, and like he’s trying not to be, or at least, not to let me know. He squares his jaw and looks off to the side. Yup, that’s definitely a my boyfriend just said that he’s only hanging out with me because his dad and his best friend are both totally fucked up face.

 I lean forward and take Ax’s face in my hands, so that I know that he’s listening to me. “You’re my boyfriend. Usually, people want to spend time with their boyfriends. I bought you a box of shitty chocolate specifically so that I could spend time with you, without worrying about alien space battles or alien office politics or being stuck as a flea for the rest of our lives because of alien morphing technology, or—alien things in general?”

 “You realize,” Ax says calmly, like it’s totally normal for me to be leaning over him and squishing his cheeks between my hands while I talk, “That you are an alien.”

 “Bzzt. Wrong. We’re on my planet, therefore, you’re the alien. Take me to the Andalite home world, then we’ll talk about me being an alien.”

 “I would take you to Andal, you know.”

 The thing is that I do know, I really really do. Ax wants to take me to his planet and introduce me to his parents and tell me about their trees and their grass and all the other things that Andalites think are important. And it’s too much, the way that his face over a box of chocolates is too much, the way that I care for you, very much is too fucking much. I steamroll over it, I have to, because if we start talking about family and homes I will actually have a full on panic attack, right here, in front of my alien boyfriend and this big old tree. “You are, as weird as it sounds, the most normal thing in my life. And I care about you. And I want to be here, with you, right now.”

 Ax opens his mouth to say something, and I kiss him again. He tastes like chocolate, and pine needles, and absolutely nothing else.

[bigwheelblading]

Caleb Smith is an aggressive, urban and distance skater from Des Moines, Iowa. This past winter he had some time off work and decided to make a trip and get his century title before turning 28. Between December 18th, 2017 and January 30th 2018 he visited Denver, Peoria, Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego and Austin. He made it a point to urban skate, visit a roller rink, check out a museum, eat at nice restaurant and drink at coffee shops in each city that he visited.

What made you want to do this trip?

I had some cities I wanted to travel to and I also had some life stuff that I had to get over. I really wanted to get my century (100-mile) title skating from Los Angeles to San Diego. In the end the trip was a complete success.

Skating through a cemetery in Des Moines, Iowa.

How did you plan for a multi-city trip?

The planning of this trip was a bit crazy. I just picked cities I wanted to visit and started looking at bus fares, plane and train tickets and ended up getting all of my tickets for 350 dollars.

How did you budget yourself to make sure you didn’t spend all your money too quickly?

So I wouldn’t over spend I had a friend put money into a spending account every week for me.

Did you bring your aggressive skates with you on this trip?

No, I didn’t bring my aggressive skates with me. It was kind of weird. At first I didn’t think about it, but later on in the trip I wanted to aggressive skate more. Not bringing them was a good thing, because I didn’t hurt myself before the BIG century skate.

Caleb ready for his blading adventure.

Caleb in Des Moines before heading on his journey.

Caleb’s helmet.

So your first stop was Denver, what was it like skating there?

I took the train there from Des Moines and spent a week in Denver skating. I was really lucky that the weather was good. I did a lot of solo trail skating. There is a trail that went all the way from where I was staying into downtown and then goes through the city center. Downtown Denver is a crazy place to urban skate, the traffic is wild and there are a lot of people.

What was your favorite thing you did in Denver?

The last night I was there I went to this event called Denver Roll. Once a month Denver Roll rents out a warehouse and turns it into a roller club. It is a huge space with stages, dance floors and an open bar. Everyone just gets trashed and starts falling over on their skates. I met a figure skater there that was incredible on his blades. He had been figure skating for 30 years and had only been rollerblading for a year. I also randomly met Will Enzenauer there, which was super sick. I was there until 2 am and then at 6 am drove 14 hours to Peoria, Illinois.

The serenity of a clear blue mountain lake, And the Colorado Rocky Mountain high

What did you go to Peoria for?

The friend I was staying with in Denver also grew up in Peoria. I rode with her to visit my family for two nights before Christmas.

Did you skate in Peoria?

When I was in Denver I bought a brand new pair of skates before going to the Denver Roll event. The next day, I was back home in Peoria and wanted to skate because it was going to snow the next day. I went out blading and my frame bolt receptor inside the boot broke. The thread snapped off of the plate and my frame broke out two miles away from my house.

Caleb’s gear.

So what did you do?

I ended up finding an old pair of Razor Cults that were in the garage that had a cuff bolt receptor in them. I had to cut the bottom-lining of my new skates and dig out the broken receptor and replace it with the receptor from the Razors to get it working again.

Did this affect the feel or performance of the skate?

Not really, but I’ve been kind of paranoid ever since that my skate are going to break again. I feel like I’m a little jinxed having brand-new $400 skates break that fast. I had only skated them for a total of four hours before they broke. It was a bit disappointing.

Where did you go after Peoria?

On Christmas night I headed to Chicago for eight days. It was a bone chillingly cold  –10 degrees Fahrenheit (-23 celcius) outside. I did not let the cold weather get to me though and immediately went skating to put on miles.

It was so cold in Chicago Caleb’s beard iced over.

What was it like skating Chicago?

I had one of the best blades of my trip there with Ben Price. We did a full moon skate on New Years Day covering about 10 miles. We went to a completely empty Millennium Park and skated “The Bean”. I had never been under Millennium Park before so Ben took me to these underground parking garages that continued on for miles. You can skate around a garage until you get kicked out of it and then just skate to a different garage. We ended up skating underneath the city for hours.

Did you know Ben Price before your Chicago trip?

Yes. He rode his motorcycle to Des Moines once. He bought a motorcycle, rode it from Chicago all the way to Des Moines, stayed with us and rode it all the way back.

Did you go back to your favorite roller rink in Chicago?

Yes, I went back to Southside Rink in Chicago with all the derby girls. It is my favorite roller rink. They have the nicest wooden floor and always have a live DJ. Everyone there is super chill and respectful.

In front of the Wisconsin Capitol building in Madison.

What was you’re your next stop after Chicago?

I was really fortunate and found a $1 Megabus ticket from Chicago to Madison, Wisconsin. The weather was super nice when I arrived so I immediately did a 20 mile skate around a lake to an isthmus. There was second lake on the other side of the isthmus that I wanted to skate around too, but it started snowing pretty heavily.

Did you check out the roller rink in Madison?

I was staying with a girl in Madison who quad skated. We went to a roller rink whose floor was all busted up. There were big cracks and chunks missing out of the concrete. They had put masking tape over the cracks but that didn’t help much.

I was skating backwards really fast, looking over my shoulder trying to avoid a crack and crashed into a mom. I hit her really hard back to back, I fell and swiped her legs out and she fell on her back onto the concrete floor. It was seriously one of the scariest moments of my life; I thought I had killed this lady. Everybody huddled around her and she was holding her back. I didn’t know what to do; I was like “Oh my god! Are we going to have to exchange insurance or something? But I don’t have insurance. I don’t know how that works.”

Lol, it’s not a car wreck! You can’t insure your skates in case you run into somebody!

I was really worried that I hurt this lady, but in the end she was fine. So the next day I was in a museum and decided to cut through the state capitol building to go to a coffee shop on the opposite side. As I was walking out of the building, the lady I hit was walking in. It turns out she worked for the governor at the capitol and ended up giving me a private tour of the whole capitol building.

Caleb getting a tour of the Wisconsin State Capitol.

After Madison you headed to Minneapolis and St. Paul, was it cold and snowing there?

That is correct. It was a little snowy but it was sunny enough that the snow had melted during the day. In St. Paul I had a really nice skate around the by myself and skated to the capitol building. In Minneapolis I went skating with Mike Lufholm.

He is a great photographer; I saw you went out to get some shots with him?

That ledge roll gap I did that he took a photo of was huge and scary. I had that new city hype, wanting to represent while I was there. He shot a lot of photos of me.

Ledge roll to gap in Minneapolis photo by Mike Lufholm

What were the skating rinks like in Minneapolis?

The rink that I went to in Minneapolis was pretty rad. They actually have two different adult skates and I went to both of them. They do a Tuesday night skate and a Sunday morning skate. Many of the rinks I went to on the trip had morning adult skates on the weekends and would serve coffee. I thought that was really cool.

Were there mainly roller skaters or were there also inline skaters?

At the rink in Minneapolis most people were on roller skates but there was one other guy on big wheel blades. There were some other rollerbladers there too, but were more like figure skaters. They were super good at dance moves and tricks.

Caleb toe bonking the lamp post in Minneapolis. Photo by Mike Lufholm.

Where did you head to next?

I caught a flight out of Minneapolis to Los Angeles to visit my friend Josh from Iowa that moved there. It turned out he was hosting somebody else and didn’t have room for me. I posted on Instagram that I was looking for a place to stay in LA and got a reply from Caitlin Krause. She is a rollerskater and the girlfriend of Cletus Kuhn. They offered me their couch to sleep on and I ended up staying with them for eight days. They were super friendly and it was really fun staying at their place.

Did you get to skate with Cletus Kuhn?

We went on an aggressive session with about ten other bladers. Since I didn’t have aggressive blades with me Cletus let me use his Seba skates with Oysi frames. He took me to the Seba warehouse, which was really cool. We also went on a few big wheel blade sessions and did a photo shoot under the Santa Monica Pier.

Caleb in Santa Monica. Photos by Cletus Kuhn.

Wallride under the Santa Monica pier. Photo by Cletus Kuhn.

In Santa Monica. Photo by Cletus Kuhn.

Had you skated Oysi frames before that session?

No I had never skated them before. They were tall but not too tall and I could lock really well on the h-block. The length was also really good. He had his rockered so I could swivel but not loose speed or control. I really enjoyed skating the Oysi frames.

Did you do any other freeskating around LA?

I had briefly met Cletus’s friend Al Romero who told me to meet him the next day downtown to go blading. I met up with him and he became my official tour guide for Los Angeles. We ended up blading all around LA and skated through several of it’s parks. We then took a train up to North Pasadena and did a 10-mile downhill skate through neighborhood streets, trails and city parks. We ended up skating down to the LA River and stopped and had lunch at a Mexican restaurant. It was such sick skate and Al was a really cool guy to spend my day with.

LA Courthouse session with Jasen Richard, Cletus Kuhn, John Grillot and Caleb Smith. Edit by Mike Klaric.

What was the most random thing that happened to you in LA?

I did go on a really cool date in Los Angeles! I met this girl on the connecting flight from San Francisco to LA. She was from Saudi Arabia and came up to me and asked me about my coat and we started talking. We exchanged information and I found out she was also going to LA so I asked her out on a date. We walked all around Venice Beach, went to the Venice canals and had a really nice pizza dinner. We hung out at the beach for an hour or so. She is a photographer and we ended up doing a photo shoot together, which was pretty cool. She was probably one of the raddest chicks I’ve met in my whole life. She was like a little pistol.

And where is she now?

She is back in Saudi Arabia, she was just in LA visiting her sister. She did invite me out there though, so…

From the photo shoot Caleb and his date did in Venice Beach. Photos by Mashael ALObaiden

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Was Los Angeles what you expected?

Yes and no. I did not expect it to be a crazy mind-blowing place. I figured it would just be like a regular city but I did not expect it to be so gross and dirty. It smelled like piss everywhere. The homeless population there was crazy. I saw homeless people in Denver and I saw homeless people in Chicago, but the homeless people in LA were insane.

Did you go on the LA Night Skate?

Kind of, there is a group that meets up on Tuesday nights. I didn’t have cell service, so I messaged them on Facebook and said I would meet them at 8:30 pm at the sculpture where they start the skate. When I got off the train I skated towards the meet up spot but couldn’t find it. I asked several cops on the street for directions but none of them knew where I was talking about. When I finally found the spot they had I already left.

I had to find a WIFI spot and contact them on Facebook again. One of these guys left a tracker for me to be able to locate them. I loaded the tracker app on my phone and started to skate to where they were but lost my WIFI connection. I kept skating around looking for WIFI spots so I could track them. For 12 miles I was just barely behind them but could never catch up to them. I skated through skid row and some really sketchy parts of downtown.

Finally I caught up to them at a bar. None of them were aggressive bladers that also rode big wheels. They were just random people who had also been rollerblading for a long time. The whole night was a surreal experience

I told them about my century skate that I was trying for and they were giving me advice. They were friendly people but I just wanted to be like, “Yo I have been skating for 24 years, I don’t need your guys’ advice.” It was cool though, they bought me a beer and we just chilled and talked for a while.

Skating in Los Angeles with Al Romero

Caleb and Al Romero skating in LA

On the trail along the LA river.

Where did you start the century skate from?

I went on one last skate around downtown LA and then caught a train to Long Beach. One of the guys I bladed with on the aggressive session with Cletus lived in the Long Beach area. He picked me up from the train station at 12:30 that night. We went to his house, hung out a bit and I went to bed at 1:30 am. My alarm went off two hours later at 3:30 am and I started my Endomondo tracker app when I left his house at 4:09 am.

I started my skate going through a massive shipping yard full of containers and towering cranes. It was still very dark outside and it was pretty scary skating through this place. Without realizing it, my map had re-routed me and I had skated 30 miles on an inland road that was parallel to the coast highway that I was supposed to be on. When I finally realized I was off course, I readjusted my map and bee-lined it back to the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH).

How far did you skate before taking a break?

After skating 50 miles I stopped at a coffee shop to rest. All I had left was $10, so I bought a coffee and a bagel. Afterwards I changed my socks and started skating again. My plan was to skate another 25 miles before taking another break. I got to 25 miles and decided that I was going to continue and do 50 miles. I wanted to see how long I could go and ended up skating non-stop until I reached San Diego.

The route Caleb skated from Long Beach to San diego.

Did you skate with all your stuff?

Yes. I had my backpack that weighed around 25 pounds. In my backpack I had my cloths, all my gear, a whole bunch of PB&J’s that I made, some tangerines, some trail mix, some water and coffee. It was so heavy! I was super worried about the pack and was afraid it was going to stop me. Near the end of the skate my back was hurting. I was holding my pack strap over my head and pulling it up to take the weight off my back.

What was the coastal route like?

I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I began my skate. The PCH ended up being beautiful and the weather was perfect. Most of the time I skated on a very smooth bike lane on the side of the highway.

Once you entered San Diego County you had to go through Camp Pendleton Marine Base, how was that?

To go through the base on a bike or on skates you have to register with them. You need to do it seven days in advance and I only did it two days ahead of time so I was rejected at the gate. Since they turned me away I had to change my route and skate on the shoulder of Interstate 5.

Skating along a six lane Interstate for 8 miles was really terrifying. The cars and semis were flying past me. This is the only part of the Interstate were it is legal to ride a bicycle on the shoulder. Luckily the shoulder was really smooth and easy to skate on. After 8 miles I was able to go back on the trail again. The rest of the way I skated through a state park that looked like a post-apocalyptic vast open space of nothingness.

Skating along the Pacific Coast Highway during his century skate.

How was skating on hills between Oceanside and San Diego?

Skating on the PCH between Oceanside and San Diego was a bit more difficult because of the hills. It was late afternoon and there was a nice breeze coming off the ocean. I was really enjoying skating through all the beautiful beach towns and people watching. However, I was starting to get physically worn down.

The sun was setting right when I was about to skate up the massive hill on Route 1 into the Torrey Pines area of San Diego. Several People warned me that there would be a big hill at the end of the skate. In my mind though I was like “whatever dude, I’ve skated up big hills”. But this hill was so freaking big and took me nearly an hour to skate up it. I had already skated 100 miles before going up this hill. Once I ascended to the summit and saw San Diego in the distance I began to celebrate my victory.

Soon after I realized my GPS quit working and I had no idea where I was going. At this point I was just trying to see how many miles I could push before my body was done. I ended up skating all the way down a trail to Sea World. By the time I got there I had logged 121.33 miles in 12 hours and 54 minutes and was officially done. I had tried to make it to 125 miles, but my ankles were too sore from the vibrations of the roads.

What did you do when you got into San Diego?

When I arrived to Sea World I called my friend Dakota Richardson, who is a blader from Des Moines that lives in San Diego. He met me at a Denny’s near where I was at and we had a huge meal. I stayed with Dakota at his parent’s house in South Park for the rest of my time in San Diego. It was a really nice area and staying with them was one of the coolest parts of the whole trip!

His dad is a renewable energy engineer and his parents grew all their own food and cooked family meals everyday. All organic, all home cooked and eaten at the dinner table. All that food was better then any meals I paid for during the entire trip. The whole time I was there we had family meals together, played board games and hung out. It was such a super sick time.

Street skating in San Diego. Edit by Dakota Richardson.



Did you do any more skating in San Diego?

The next day I big wheel bladed around Balboa Park with Dakota. Then that night I met up with the San Diego big wheel bladers and skated Balboa Park again. They were all really cool dudes to skate and hang out with. The lightening at Balboa Park was really rad, and there were still lots of pedestrians walking around there at night. I was in San Diego for four days and spent the time skating around downtown and heading to all the beach towns to skate on their boardwalks.

How did you enjoy San Diego?

San Diego was really low key. It was almost like a life reset where I was able to relax and rewind. It was the complete opposite of Los Angeles.

Caleb taking in the majestic view of the Pacific Ocean in San Diego

Taking in the view

Waves splashing

So then you flew to Austin. What was the first thing you did there?

When I arrived in Austin I skated from the airport to Andrew Broom’s apartment. He was sick but that evening he drove me to Playland Skating Rink for adult night. His car was falling apart though really bad. I skated really hard at Playland for two hours and then skated 15 miles back to his apartment. It was a pretty brutal skate because I was really worn out.

How many miles had you skated so far on the trip?

I hit 400 miles of skating on my trip when I was in Austin. I ended up getting sick from Andrew while I was there, but didn’t want to become a burden on anyone. So even though I was sick, I drank a lot of beer and hung out. I don’t really drink much anymore, so it was fun and a change of pace.

One day we took a road trip to Waco to go street skating. I met Josh Glowicki and Fritz Peitzner from Dallas there. I didn’t have aggressive skates with me but it was still pretty sick to skate with those dudes.

The metaphorical finish line of Caleb’s journey. Photo by Joseph Gammill.

Fakie roll down the ramp of mystery

The metaphorical finish line of Caleb’s journey

And you went to the big ramp in Austin?

Oh yea, the ramp of mystery, that was the metaphorical finish line of the whole journey. I had already done everything I wanted to, I had gotten over the girl, the same girl from last time I was in Austin. So I got over her and did the century skate, I wanted my first century title, which I got. I went to a museum, coffee shop, a nice place to eat and a roller rink in every city I went to. I shed a bunch of skin and became a new me.

We went to that ramp and it was pretty huge. I went right to the top of it and rolled down it without even thinking. I went right back to the top and fakie bombed it. It was gnarly, with broken concrete, but it felt good. It felt like I wasn’t afraid of anything anymore and I could do anything I wanted in my life. Then I went home and didn’t blade at all in February which was weird because in January I bladed over 400 miles

Caleb with a mute grab into the Ramp of Mystery filmed by Anthony Medina

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Why did you take February off?

I’ve had chronic injures that I never let heal. Caitlin is a certified occupational therapy assistant and helps people with injuries. When I was in LA she asked me when was the last time I took a break from skating and I couldn’t tell her, because I don’t take any breaks. So she told me I needed to take a break to let my body recover.

Later on in the trip when I was in Waco, Texas I was talking to Josh Glowicki and      he told me if there is something in your life that you love, then try not doing it for 30 days and see how you feel about it after those 30 days. I took this as a sign and didn’t skate the whole month of February. I kind of cheated though because February is only 28 days!

And now you are back on the blades again?

Yes, I turned 28-years-old a couple of days ago and I wanted to skate 280-miles in March but the weather has been kind of shitty!

Caleb night skating in downtown Des Moines. Edit by Bruce James Bale.

Of all the cities you have skated in, which is the best for big wheel blading?

Des Moines! I am serious, the whole time I skated these major cities, I paid attention to the garbage, the traffic and the way the cities were designed. I started to miss Des Moines. It is big enough but small enough. It is clean and it’s nice. In fact Des Moines is so nice that I had to do one last skate before I started my month of no skating.

Did you have any bad things happen to you on the trip?

I did leave my camera in Minneapolis and  had to have it mailed to me, so I didn’t have my good film camera for my first six days in LA. I also was pulled over by the cops in LA for skating through an intersection too fast and ended up getting a warning ticket. It was so funny, they pulled me over and started running my ID and I was just rambling on about rollerblading because I was a little bit nervous.

I had my backpack on, was shirtless and sweaty. It was a female cop and I was just like “pull out your phone!” and I had here look at the Big Wheel Blading article about me skating in the RAGBRAI race. I had her pull it up on her phone and told her all about RAGBRAI. I think she just wanted me to stop talking so she let me go with a warning.

Caleb in downtown Minneapolis. Photo by Mike Lufhlom.

What are your skating plans for the rest of this year?

My next distance goal is 150 miles and once I’ve achieved that; I will attempt skating 200 miles. I’m going to skate RAGBRAI again in July, but this year I’m going to do it really hardcore. I’m going to try and make a big commotion and get some momentum coming from it for myself. After the race I am flying to Anchorage, Alaska. I’m going to be there for three months to blade and work on a fishing boat to save up money.

A lady at my coffee shop has a friend who lives in Anchorage and he has his own fishing boat. He told her the fishing season starts in July, but if I come up there at the end of July I would still be able to get a job within a day by just going around and asking for one. I would like to meet up with bladers up there but I don’t know any. I’m definitely bringing my big wheel blades and my aggressive skates.

After I’m done working in Alaska I will spend a week camping at White Sands National Park outside Albuquerque, New Mexico. The family I stayed with in San Diego have a house in Costa Rica so I will be going there for a month starting November 6th. I plan on spending a month in their house and getting adjusted, before I start backpacking across South America on my blades. I want to meet and blade with different skaters around South America so please contact me.

Links

To keep up Caleb’s adventures follow him on Facebook and Instagram.

To see more skating edits check out Bruce James Bale’s Vimeo page, Dakota Richardson’s YoutTube page and Anthony Medina’s YouTube page.

For more great photography visit the Instagram pages of Mike Lufholm, Joseph Gammill, Mashael ALObaiden and Cletus Kuhn.

For information on Oysi frames visit oysius.com. Also follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

Caleb Smith Goes on an Epic Winter Skate Adventure Throughout the USA Caleb Smith is an aggressive, urban and distance skater from Des Moines, Iowa. This past winter he had some time off work and decided to make a trip and get his century title before turning 28.

[klstheword]

In the pecking order of Christmas stories, A Christmas Carol is second only to the baby Jesus. Even if you’ve never read it, or had it read to you, you know about that flinty-hearted miser Ebenezer Scrooge and his redemption during one long dark night of the soul.

Bill Murray, Albert Finney, Michael Caine and Alastair Sim have all played Scrooge in one of the endless film remakes and reboots there have been over the years. Now comes the story behind the story, The Man Who Invented Christmas: a heavily fictionalised biopic with Dan Stevens playing Charles Dickens, bashing out A Christmas Carol in six weeks after contracting a nasty dose of writer’s block in 1843. Thanks to the success of Oliver Twist, Dickens is literary-rock-star famous. But at 31, after a handful of flops, he has a gnawing anxiety that his powers are on the wane. And with four kids, another baby on the way and debts piling up, he needs to make some serious cash, fast.

The film is a Quality Street treat for the holidays, with a gooey sweet centre – daft but immensely likable, and performed with pantomime gusto by a top-notch cast. Dickens yomps about London, meeting people who inspire the creation of Scrooge, Tiny Tim and the gang. These characters then literally come to life in his study as he writes, and they’re an unruly bunch, ruthlessly mocking his failure to finish his comeback. (Christopher Plummer is terrific as Scrooge.)

And with his flamboyant star turn as Dickens, there’s Stevens, a man who finally looks to be laying to rest his own ghost of Christmas past. Cast your mind back to 2012, when the shock death in the Downton Abbey Christmas special of his beloved character Matthew Crawley had the faithful crying into their sherry glasses.

Unlike many actors, Stevens is not at all uptight when chatting about the character who made him famous. Nevertheless, in the past five years, he has done everything possible to distance himself from Crawley, the interloping heir to the Downton pile. He has cross-dressed in the cult favourite Vimeo show High Maintenance, murdered with psychopathic charm in The Guest, freaked out on the Marvel TV spin-off Legion and locked up Emma Watson in Beauty and the Beast. He even looks different these days. Gone is the floppy blond hair, and the once boyish face is chiselled into sharp angles. Stevens credits the weight loss to moving to New York where he finds it easier to look after himself, working out at the gym and cutting out dairy.

Different, too, has been the reception granted Stevens’s post-Downton work. A pleasantly surprised tone crept into reviews, a perceptible sound of critics retracting knives and grudgingly acknowledging that, oh hang on, he’s actually a bit good, isn’t he? Stevens throws his head back laughing when asked how he feels about this change in critical fortunes. “It’s interesting. You do one show that goes everywhere, and people associate you with that. Do I think Downtown is my best work? Probably not. But if people enjoy it, or if that’s what they think of when they think of me, so be it. It served me well.” If he is offended by the question, he is too polite to say. Dan Stevens is scrupulously polite, so careful with his words that he often leaves you wondering what he really thinks.

Stevens studied English at Cambridge and was a Booker prize judge in 2012, reading 146 novels in seven months (the Downton costume team stitched secret pockets into his jackets for his Kindle). But he shrugs when I ask about historical accuracy, or the lack of it, in his latest film. (The Man Who Invented Christmas has been criticised by experts for, among other things, the inaccurate size of its newspaper headlines.) “Frankly, whether it’s historically accurate I’m not that concerned about. I was interested in that moment of the creative process, watching a great man struggle – to me, that’s dramatically and comedically interesting. Certainly I was keen not to play Dickens as a bearded old sage.”

He tells me that one of his co-stars, Miriam Margolyes, has a theory that Dickens was bipolar. Does Stevens buy that? “It’s a very interesting interpretation. I think there’s something to be said for it…” he tails off.

Needless to say, the film does not dwell on Dickens’s iffy relationships with women. (A year before publishing A Christmas Carol, he had this to say about his wife in a letter to a friend: “Catherine is as near being a donkey as one of her sex can be.”) “I think he was a good father and a terrible husband,” Stevens says diplomatically. “But yeah, I think it being a Christmas film, we wanted it to be fairly full of laughter. I don’t wish to take anything away from the man, and therefore you have to address the dark side of his nature and his work. There were moments when he was bleak and depressive. But I think there were moments when he was great fun to be around, very silly and playful.” I must say that, having watched the film, I’m still none the wiser about which yuletide customs Dickens has bragging rights on. Pudding, definitely. Turkey? Mistletoe?

Stevens loves Christmas, unironically, in a full-on, festive jumpers and stockings-hanging-on-the-fireplace kind of way. “I always have. Our house is pretty lively at Christmas,” he says. He is married to the singer Susie Hariet and they have three children. Family festivities at their gaff kick off on Christmas Eve, watching The Muppet Christmas Carol. Who does the cooking? “My mum and I usually team up. We’re quite a formidable duo in the kitchen.”

Stevens is well-spoken but not as posh as he seems. Now 35, he was adopted at seven days old, and raised in Wiltshire, Essex and Brecon in Wales. He spent his early teenage years rebelling against anything and everything, but still got the grades to win a scholarship to a prestigious boys’ boarding school in Kent at 13. He wasn’t happy, feeling isolated and as if he didn’t fit in with the other kids. What was going on? “I dunno. I guess I didn’t always toe the line,” he answers a tad testily, and with a definite air of finality.

I mention that going to a top university from a comprehensive, I always felt envious of the privately educated kids who never questioned whether they were talented enough to be in the room. “The entitlement thing is a problem,” Stevens says. “It’s interesting, living in America and seeing a different system. It’s definitely got as many flaws, but there is a sense that your own achievement and drive and curiosity can achieve great things, in a way that I think is stifled in Britain.”

By the time he landed Downton, Stevens had already toured the US opposite Rebecca Hall in a production of As You Like It, and appeared on stage in the West End with Judi Dench. Did he feel any disgruntlement at the time – being a Serious Actor suddenly lumped in with a Sunday night soap opera? He shakes his head: “I never felt that people weren’t taking me seriously. I did appreciate that some people were watching Downton with a kind of ironic appreciation – perhaps the Guardian readership particularly…” he shoots me a grin, adding: “and my friends, too. But no. There was no resentment. I still see a lot of the guys. It changed all of our lives. It had a seismic effect on all our careers.”

It goes without saying that appearing in a show watched by 12 million people opened doors that appearing in off-Broadway Shakespeare never could. But as soon as he left the show he bolted for New York. What was that all about? Did the comparisons to the young Hugh Grant scare him out of the country? “No! I was just very excited about the work I was afforded over there. People there were prepared to see me do something dark and weirder. Or something action-y and mental. Or something big and silly, like Night at the Museum. It couldn’t have turned out better.”

As for Dickens, he got his instant classic. A Christmas Carol sold out its first run of 6,000 copies before Christmas Eve. The tale melted hearts of even the most dyed-in-the-wool cynics – one American businessman gave his staff an extra day’s holiday. Not that Dickens made the killing he’d hoped for. After getting carried away with gilt lettering and fancy paper, he never trousered the £1,000 he had banked on. God bless us, every one.

The Man Who Invented Christmas is out in the US; released in the UK on 1 December

[inkognito97]

Star Wars Advent Calendar 2017

25) Presents

“Where in the Force’s name is Mace?” growled Qui-Gon.

“Where in the Force’s name has your ‘famous’ patience and serenity gone to?” countered Tahl. She was looking him up and down, searching for any mistakes in his attire. She found none. “I have to say, you can pull that look off.”

The long haired man, whose previously chestnut brown hair was now snow-white, shot her a dirty look. He looked ridiculous as Santa Clause and nobody could change his opinion. Red was not his color and he dreaded the day his hair would really turn white.

“Where is Mace?” he repeated his question.

“He is probably bringing Depa with him, you know she is ill. Give them some time.” In confusion did she watch, how her friend began to pace. “You could start without him, you know,” she raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Actually no, I can’t,” he sighed and barely stopped himself with running his gloved hand through his beard. “He got Obi-Wan’s present,” he explained.

“Oh,” the honey skilled female awkwardly cleared her throat. “I see… I could make Yoda dress as a Christmas Elf to play out some time.”

“Please?” he let himself drop onto his mattress, having changed into the costume in his bedroom. Things were not going as planned, then again, they rarely did.

“I’ll go talk to him,” silently, Tahl slid out of the room and truly, a couple of minutes later, she returned with the Jedi Order’s Grandmaster in tow. He looked quite amused.

“Good you look,” he pointed towards Qui-Gon.

Despite his impatience, the long haired man had to chuckle, “Wiser, no doubt.”

Yoda hummed and quickly changed as well. In the end he looked more like a small goblin than a Christmas Elf, but children were easy to please. Besides, it was the thought that counted.

“Now, you two look absolutely lovely,” Tahl cooed and Qui-Gon wanted to retort something, when the door to his bedroom was violently opened, revealing a panting Mace.

“I am here, I am here. And I brought this,” the package he was holding, had holes and was moving. Tahl was not sure what to think of it.

“What took you so long?” he jumped from his position on the bed.

“I brought Depa with me,” Mace explained, confirming what Tahl had thought. “You look good, Master,” he added towards Yoda, who inclined his head.

Qui-Gon sighed and took the shivering box out of the Korun Master’s hands, carefully placing it on the ground. “Thank you, Mace.”

“Anytime,” he and Tahl vanished.

“Now, my loyal Christmas elf,” it was in moments like these, that Qui-Gon was thankful that his voice was already so deep, “would you mind, holding this?” he pointed towards the present on the ground.

Yoda was eyeing it curiously. “Plan to make a zoo out of the temple, are you?” he picked it up nevertheless.

“Something like that,” he shouldered Santa Clause’s red sack, which was heavier than it looked and nodded towards Yoda.

 Qui-Gon was only a little bit surprised to see his living room so filled with people. Obi-Wan and Bant were not the only Padawans there, in fact, all their friends with their Masters, were present. His performance as Santa Clause, must have made the round. Midnight blue eyes locked with unimpressed gold-green striped ones and Tahl just smiled innocently. It certainly explained the weight of Santa Clause’s red sack.

“Ho ho ho, merry Christmas,” it was hard to say, who was more delighted by his appearance, the Padawans, or the adults. But Qui-Gon had more eyes for the ginger haired boy, who was sitting next to Bant, with Quinlan on the backrest behind him and with Garen halfway draped over his lap. He looked happy and highly amused.

 Obi-Wan was the last to receive his present, not that he seemed to mind. He was just as excited with what his friends and Masters were getting. But when his turn finally came, he WAS a little nervous wreck. Qui-Gon thought it was cute.

“Well, who do we have here?” he said in his fake Santa voice. “Young Obi-Wan Kenobi. Your Master told me that you have indeed been a good boy,” in delight did he watch, how freckled cheeks flushed in embarrassment. “That’s why I’ve got a special present for you.”

This was Yoda’s cue, who had held onto the trembling present until now. Obi-Wan took it, slightly flinching as he noticed that his present was moving and seemed to be alive. His gaze turned from worried to pleased.

Qui-Gon, who had kneeled down to be more on eye-level with the children, was startled, when Obi-Wan moved forward, whispering, “Thank you, Master,” right into his ear, before pecking his cheek.

“Open it already, Kenobi,” that was Quinlan Vos.

Obi-Wan rolled his eyes, sent another shy smile towards his disguised Master, who was still surprised by the open affection in public, and went to his friends to reveal the small Kiros bird that peeked out of its box, as soon as the lit was opened.

Now Qui-Gon was hardly a friend of gifting animals, especially not during such festivities as Christmas, but he had saved the bird a couple of days ago and it needed someone to take care of it. The bird had never seen freedom, it was raised in a cage and would never be able to survive on its own and he knew for a fact that Obi-Wan would take good care of it.

In awe and with extreme care, did Obi-Wan reach into the box to pick up the small bird that had yet to reach its full height. The intelligent bird – they were capable of understanding speech – immediately felt that it was safe with the Padawan and it friendly nibbled on the end of the braid, causing the small bell there to jingle.

“Hello there,” Obi-Wan greeted his newest friend. The smile he sent Qui-Gon’s way was answer enough.

“Great responsibility, this is,” commented Yoda quietly.

“Yes,” agreed Qui-Gon. “But I know he is ready.” There had been a time, once, when having an animal was part of the Jedi training. Young Padawans learned responsibility and depending on the animal, even death. It was usually the Master, who did the choosing of the creature, but sometimes the Force interfered.

“Ready, he is,” agreed Yoda, who was watching the children, who were standing around Obi-Wan wanting to see the animal, with a fond look. It became even fonder, when Obi-Wan allowed Bant to hold his pet.

  Even though it had been beautiful and happy and all that, Qui-Gon was grateful that Christmas was finally over and that he could FINALLY get out of his costume again, it was beginning to itch.

His Padawan was tired too, but he had yet to change into his sleeping attire. Instead, he carried the small bird, who could not fly since its wing was still healing, towards his room. He had created a small space for the bird to rest. A few things were still missing, branches for him to land and climb on, a few toys, more than one feeding ground and so on and so forth. For now, the bird had one of Obi-Wan’s old pillows to sleep on, a good substitute for a warm nest, with a bowl of water and a bowl with grain feed.

Qui-Gon followed quietly and watched how his student refilled the water bowl, setting it on a towel in case the bird decided to take a bath and gently petted his pet’s head. The bird leaned into the touch.

“Good night Cralen,” he said.

“Cralen?” Qui-Gon had not meant to speak out loud. Obi-Wan had felt him anyway. “Does it mean anything?”

“No,” there was a smile on Obi-Wan’s features. “It just sounds pretty.”

“Of course,” Qui-Gon let out an amused huff and turned his gaze towards the carpet that needed to be cleaned again. He would have to request the cleaning droids. He could feel Obi-Wan’s eyes on him. “Just say it, Padawan.”

“You look old,” said the accented voice.

“You don’t like it? Tahl said it suited me,” mocked the older male, causing his student to grimace. The bird chirped joyfully.

“No… not really,” he had stepped closer to the long haired man and was delighted, when his teacher followed the unspoken question for a hug. “Thank you Master,” he said.

“Thank YOU, Obi-Wan.” The Padawan knew that his teacher meant much more than the self-made leather wristband his Padawan had gifted him. On the inside of the wristband, was even an engraved message that Qui-Gon had yet to decode and Obi-Wan would not tell him.

The numbers, “6  1  20  8  5  18” were engraved in the inside, but Obi-Wan had PROMISED that they meant something. Qui-Gon was hardly someone to shrink from a challenge, quite the opposite actually, but he would solve this puzzle another day.

“Sleep well,” he finally said to his yawning student and sent him off, fully intending to take a shower to get rid of the white dye in his hair, before he went to bed too. And tomorrow, he would clean up his apartment… and probably help Obi-Wan to redecorate his room. And who knew, he might even get to decode his message. But all that, had time until tomorrow…

I am curios if there is anyone out there, who can crack the code... ^^ Write it in the comments, if you have an idea.

Also, I would like to say thank you to all the readers and supporters. This project had been both a joy, as well as very stressful sometimes. I would not miss the experience however. Just know that your support gave me the incentive to go on, so... THANK YOU!

[kcowgill]

12/20/2017 6.63* miles

Hi friends! I’ve been quiet too long, my apologies. Christmas was a little crazy with all the travel we did - 7:00am flight to Boston on Saturday, drove from Peabody to Natick and then Norwood on Sunday for Christmas eve dinner, back to Natick for the night, Norwood on Monday for Christmas day, back to Natick for the night, back to Peabody on Tuesday and Wednesday, and another 7:00am flight from Boston back to Chicago.

And when I got back on Thursday was greeted with frozen pipes! Several runs to the hardware store trying to get something to patch the burst so that when it thawed I’d have at least something temporary in place until a plumber could get there. It finally thawed around 5:30pm and the patch didn’t hold, so I tried to get some emergency plumbing services.

My wife had us scheduled to go to a friends party, so I was trying to coordinate a plumber (who kept calling and said “It’ll be another hour or two (many times)) so that my babysitter would be able to let him in and show him where to go. Eventually my wife ran out of gas and we left the party and started watching some TV at home; the plumber called at 10:00pm to say he’d be another hour. Well, I tried to stay awake, but I just passed out in front of the TV at maybe around 10:30 or so (recall I had a 7:00am flight that morning for which I had to wake up at 2:45am Chicago time) and missed the plumber’s call at midnight to say he was on his way.

The next morning I lit up the phone trying to get anyone to come over; finally a plumber from the original plumbing company showed up - at least I no longer was subject to the emergency dispatch fee! I spent a fair amount of time trying to come up with other ways to add more insulation to my basement to prevent this from happening again.

And then I got to wake up nice and early to run with Carlo and Kip!

The first picture is while we were waiting to see if Greg was going to join us, so we piled into Kip’s car which was still warm. The second picture is from our turnaround point with a nearly full frost beard in effect by yours truly.

(*) My Garmin reported 6.63 miles, but it seems it added an extra third of a mile or so somewhere along the way, because both Carlo and Kip reported around 6.3. I zoomed in on my path and saw some really bad tracking near the beginning of the run.

It was a tough run. I was dressed warm enough, but I wasn’t sure at the beginning - it was windier than I expected and nothing I had on really blocked the wind, but by the end of the first mile I had warmed up ‘enough’. But it was a snowy path, and while the terrain was level enough, it was hard trudging through a couple inches of snow. I finally wised up and ran to the sides of the trail where it was seemingly more packed down (which I could really see since it was still so dark out).

[in-the-name-of-the-holy-reborn]

Father Christmas - Tsuna

Arc 2 Secret Santa 2017 Participation   @theincrediblemoonchild , I really hope you enjoyed this little story and I wish you a wonderful Christmas ♥

The wind picked up when the sky darken onto the sweet suburbs of Namimori, announcing a cold night as the sweet film of snow settled on the restless pavements. People quickened their pace under the light of the street lamps, eager to join their comfy home away from the chilly weather of December. In one of this few perfectly tidy and identical houses, a wonderful mommy was cooking some pancakes while humming the Disney song playing on the tv, she smiled to herself, listening to her toddler singing and dancing on the couch waiting for his favorite snack to come. When the last notes of the credits rang, Tsuna got to his feet a happy glint still on his face, he pushed the button of the video recorder to rewind the movie, stopping by the window on his way to get a new one when he saw the snow flakes falling slowly. He let out the biggest sigh his little lungs could hold, landing his tiny hand on the cold steamy surface, a frown formed on his brows and he looked at the reflexion of his mother figure in the kitchen before letting his eyes wandered on the dark garden. The sudden silence grabbed Nana’s attention and she turned her head toward a focused Tsuna who hadn’t moved from the window. She slowly put down the last crepe on the plate and slipped behind her son with the delicacy of a cat, she seized him by the waist and carry him in the air as she kissed his belly with loudly sound, filling the room with laughter, she sat him down on her knees only when he couldn’t catch his breath anymore. The little boy wiped away the tears at the corner of his eyes, his mind back to his concern as soon as he caught the white dress on the grass, his frown back, he lowered his eyes on his sleeves before speaking in a rather stern voice for a child. «Mommy, do you think he’s cold out there?» Nana arched an eyebrow, eyeing cautiously the window, ready to strike if a prowler was sneaking outside. «Who are you talking about?» After a pause, Tsuna couldn’t gather his courage to answer properly to his mom, he didn’t watched her brownish hues when he lied «Santa. I-I don’t want him to catch a cold.» With a tender smile, she brushed away few pesky strands of hair, leaving a sweet peck on his forehead at the cute yet funny tought of Santa catching a cold, she let out a giggle as she got up, leaving Tsuna on the ground. «What if we knit him a scarf? Would you want to help mom so we could put it under the Christmas tree?» A faint smile grazed his lips as he nodded, looking at his happy mom walking away with a light step. The little boy sigh again when she was out of sight, maybe he should have share what was on his heart, he was a child and no children should keep that weight on their chest. But her smile was the only thing that could warm him in his deepest sorrow and he didn’t want it to fade away with the simple mention of him, him, who made her smile way more brighter than ever when he hugged them. When she came back with her basket full of wool balls, Tsuna’s concerned expression didn’t budge, still looking at the carpet, he blurted out. «Daddy will not be there for Christmas hn’?» Nana dropped the ball she was holding, words like keen knives breaking through her frail composure, she pinched her lips offering a smile which didn’t reach her eyes as she answered, like always «I-I don’t know honey, you know dad has to work very hard.. I can’t guarantee you, but he tries! You know how much he loves you, he loves us! Hey I’ve got an idea, do you want to write a letter with all the gifts you want for Christmas?!» He turned his head as to flee away from the sweet lies she was offering to him, he hoped, from the bottom of his heart she was telling the truth, that he will see him barge throught the front door to held both of them and never leave ever again. He answered with an almost inaudible sound of his throat, his eyes already on the dark street only enlightened by the cold light of the street lamp. Days passed and the little house was decorated little by little for the incoming event, the conversation long forgotten gave way to happy chit-chats and Christmas songs within the little family. Unbeknownst Nana, Tsuna’s little heart clenched each time the sound of the front door resound in their cosy home as he, more than once, sprinted toward the lobby to discover only the postman or the old neighbor sharing some recipes. Christmas eve was finally there and the last hopes of the future Vongola Boss were dying slowly as minutes passed, drowning in his cinnamon hot milk, the warmth of his mom love helped him understand he didn’t need anything else and he decided to forgot about this man he used to call dad. Tsuna opened his eyes on the dark ceilling, blinking several time to help them adjust as the silence of the night was embracing the city since hours while the snow kept falling flabbily on the desertic streets. He tossed and turned in his bed, unable to got back to sleep, excited to discovered all the gifts waiting for him, and, at the same time, frightened by the idea of all the horrible monsters that could hide under his bed. Before his mind borrowed a too terrific path, who would surely have guided him to a drenched bed, the soft clicking sound of the front door reached his ears while beams of light appeared on the floor. After spending few minutes listening to rustling noises coming from the living room, Tsuna persuaded himself that he was thirsty and opened his door cautiously as he went down the stairs without thinking twice about it. His mouth formed a perfect O shape when he discovered, on his tip-toe a man dressing in red and white putting down well wrapped boxes under the illuminated tree. Santa turned around, a satisfied smile on his lips when all the gifts were on the tiles, facing the little boy who hadn’t budge, he tried to stay composed and hid his voice as much as he could when he addressed to him. «Hello there, shouldn’t you be in bed?» No answer came from the nervous child, he hesitated at first but took a firm step toward the unknown man, he stopped to studied his face from his 3 feet, plundging into exhausted honey eyes, he then landed his own on the gifts, a sad expression running on his face. The red man kneeled down to his height as he spoke again. «What is it? Don’t you think you’ll be pleased with all those presents? - Sure, thanks.» Tsuna smiled politely to the man before boldly adding «I don’t think what I asked is in here, these boxes are not big enough» The man let out an heartly laugh behind his false beard, ruffling the beadhead of the boy «Oh yeah ? And what did you wanted, bigger than all the boxes wrapped here, I don’t think my faithful steeds would be able to carry anything else to be honest!» Tsuna offered a polite smile once again, he looked at the ground, hoping the Old Good Santa hadn’t been offended by his words, feeling the pressure, he gave those words «I’m sorry that’s not what I meant, I don’t want them to be tired, I only wanted to see mom’s brighter smile, I hoped you could have bring daddy in your hood» A hand still on Tsuna’s head, stroking his silky hair, the man didn’t find the strenght to answer, a guilty expression well hidden behind fluffy white hair. He wanted to pull off this ridiculous mask, he wanted to hold him, covered him with kisses and hug him tight, but he didn’t move and looked at him retreated to his bedroom after encouragements and a good night kiss. When the door of Tsuna’s room was shut, Iemitsu pulled off his hat and beard, scrubbing his tired face and letting out a huge sigh, he fell on the sofa, looking at the house and the details of the family life he missed so much. His eyes on the ceiling, he spent the rest of the night sitting there, wondering how much of a burden he was for his family and how many time he had left before he totally lose them, falling asleep on those thoughts haunting him each time he closed his eyes. — When Tsuna and Nana reached the living room smiling hand in hand after the first rays of sunshine hit his bedroom windows. They faced an interesting scene playing under their eyes, the red suit was lying on the floor as all of Iemitsu body was spread in an awkward position, he was only in his underpants, the red hand knitted scarf around his neck, the empty pitcher of eggnog was reversed on the table whereas loud snoring were coming out of his open mouth. Tsuna was the first to broke the ‘silence’ in a barely audible whisper «Mommy, he stole the gifts we made for Santa.. He even snatch off his clothes and beard..what are we going to say to the police ?»

[ambertrevino1997]

Hello Everyone! How are you all doing during this lock-down?

I thought if blogging was going to be a regular thing for me, I should probably introduce myself and my family to you all!

I’ll start with myself. My Name is Amber. I don’t want to reveal my full name because I would like to keep this blog kind of anonymus (even though yes I included a picture of myself in my profile picture as well as in this blog). I am 23 years old, and I love doing crafts. I also love going on vacation, spending time with all my wonderful animals, and doing cool projects and what nots with my hubby. Hubby and I just got married in December of 2019, and we are currently living with my parents to save enough money to buy a place of our own! (I will post about it when it happens, which will be soon!) A little backstory to my husband and I, we have been best friends for years and decided in 2018 it was time to give our dreams and love for each other a shot. It has been a success ever since! (I’ll save our special story for another blog day, cause it is really long, and super heart warming!)

My husband’s name is Joseph. He likes fishing, playing video games, looking at memes and videos on his phone, and playing with our animals. He is 24 years old. He will be 25 in a few short months! Crazy to think about (for me anyway). He recently decided while we are locked down, he wanted me to shave his head bald. So he has been sporting the bald look for a couple of days now. His nicknames are Jojo and TheNapCaptain.

My pride and joy, and my baby, Boomer. He is pictured in the blog below this one. He is a 4 year old boxer. I bought him from a breeder back in 2016 as a birthday present to myself, since I had always wanted one. He was born in December of 2015 on Christmas Eve. What a wonderful Christmas gift to the world. He is the most special thing to me on this planet. He has saved me from my past, my present, and I know he will save me from my future. He has helped me through numberous panic and anxiety attacks. He has helped me when I am sick, when I am happy, when I am sad, and even when I am mad. He knows when my blood sugar surges and falls. He is right by my side of each and everyday. He is part of what makes my life worth living again.

My other pride and joy of the world is Winston. He is my big, old, smelly, Rottweiler boy. He is 8 years old, and his birthday is 3 days past my husbands birthday in November. It makes me sad to see him growing older still, but he is special to me nonetheless. I bought him two days after Christmas in 2011. He was born on November 18th, 2011. I was going to my local grocery store with my mom and my cousin to get some odds and ends for the house, and there were a few people standing outside of the store in the cold with these little puppies. They said, “These puppies are $50 each. Take them, otherwise we have to take them to the pound.” There were 3 puppies left. One of which was being bought right in front of me. The other was being questioned, and then there was my little Winston. I decided instead of groceries I was going to buy a puppy. I gladly took him, in which my mom seemed a little upset, however, lightened up and smiled at him and said, “The only way you can keep him is if you name him Winston.” From then on, his name was Winston, of course.

Next, I’ll get into the hairless, and more scaley parts of my little family. I have my big, handsome man, Ozzy. Ozzy is a German giant, bearded dragon. He is 4 years old, and was born October of 2015. When I first bought him, I almost bought a ball python instead of him. I thought to myself, though, a bearded dragon is a much better option of me at that point and time. I bought him when he was just barely hatched, and was SO small. Little did I know he would get to be such a big healthy boy. In fact, when he was that small, I did not even know that he was a boy! He is definitely very special to me as well, like all my other pets. He makes me smile and watch him in curiosity and wonder.

Next, is my cool little slimey dude, Maui. Maui is an axolotl. Maui is 3 years old, and was born August 23rd, of 2017. An axolotl is a Mexican walking fish. They do not breath air, but they do walk around on the bottom of their tank with their arms and legs. He gets so excited when I feed him each and every morning! When I clean his tank, I hold out my hand to him and he will swim into my hand and lay down (yes he likes to snuggle). He also loves being pet!

Lastly, is my grumpy old Oscar the grouch (he’s not actually grumpy). Oscar is well, an Oscar fish. He was born in November of 2019 (not sure what day he hatched, unfortunately). He is orange and black. He loves laying on the bottom of his tank, and swimming all over his new giant tank I got him 2 weeks ago. He gets super excited to see that I am feeding him in the mornings. When he sees me grab his baggie of food pellets, he swims to the top of the tank. He also shakes his butt at my husband.

Well, there you go! You have a rough idea of my little family now. I’ll be posting more and more about them now that you know their names. 😊

[newstfionline]

Santa in Finland, Where Marketing Triumphs Over Geography

By Rod Nordland, NY Times, Dec. 20, 2017

ROVANIEMI, Finland--Here in Santa Claus Village, near the Arctic Circle, is the self-anointed “Official Santa,” a Finn who refused to give his real name, insisting he was actually Mr. Claus.

A couple of hundred yards away in a competing venue is Second Santa, whose real name is Kari Eskeli, 65, also a Finn. As soon as Christmas is over, he goes back home to the warmth of the Spanish Canary Islands. “I can’t wait,” he chuckled at the end of a long recent day of receiving supplicants. “Ho ho ho.”

And then there’s Evil Santa, as he calls himself, an outspoken raconteur holding forth in his son’s busy souvenir shop just downstairs from Official Santa’s grotto.

“This place is exploding now, it’s really taking off,” said Wolfgang Kassik, an Austrian business consultant with a long gray, all-natural beard, who is married to a Finn. “Personally, though, I don’t like kids.”

That could be a problem.

At this time of year around 20 airliners a day, chartered and scheduled, land here in the capital of Finnish Lapland, disgorging families from scores of countries, and bringing wide-eyed children to a reliably snowy place that is, for youngsters at least, a convincing recreation of the North Pole (which is actually 1,600 miles north), complete with reindeer-drawn sleighs, staff in elfin dress and an official Finnish government “Santa’s post office.”

The dedicated Santa postal code of 96930 attracts half a million letters a year.

While no more real than the Santa impersonators’ beards, Rovaniemi’s claim to be the base of the one and only true Santa is nonetheless a triumph of marketing, so much so that the town has trademarked its rubric, “The Official Hometown of Santa Claus. ®”

And for those who fret about the growing secularization of Christmas--with each year more and more X, and less and less Christ--they need only drop in here to confirm some of their worst fears.

Rumor has it there is a crèche somewhere in Santa Claus Village, but finding it is a challenge.

Despite temperatures in the single digits Fahrenheit, according to current figures, 330,000 people from 180 countries come to visit Santa, purchase 50 euro ($60) photos with him and patronize the dozens of Christmas trinket shops.

That nearly equals the combined total of reindeer (200,000) and people (180,000) in Lapland; tourism growth this year in Rovaniemi (population 50,000) is 25 percent, said Sanna Karkkainen, the managing director of Visit Rovaniemi, the tourist board. “We added 1,000 bed places just this Christmas season,” she said.

Many of the tourists are neither Christians nor even from countries that celebrate Christmas. The largest single group of visitors are Chinese, who typically come without their children because there are no school holidays this time of year in China.

That does not stop them from getting in the lines at the Santa grottoes to meet the jolly old Finns who often play the role to the hilt.

“What’s your real name?” many of the adult visitors ask official Santa, and he has a stock answer.

“It’s Santa Claus.” If they still insist, “Your original name?” then he responds, “Originally it was Joulupukki.”

Joulupukki is the name of Finns’ traditional Santa Claus figure, but therein lies both the rub, and the triumph, of marketing. Literally the name means Yule Goat, and the Finnish character historically was a sort of troll who was used to threaten children who were naughty.

Fifty years ago, travel marketers got the idea to attract tourists to remote Lapland and settled on Rovaniemi for its train station and airport. For many years, though, the Santa Claus attraction jostled for visitors with tours to see the Northern Lights or go on reindeer safaris; most of those who came were from countries with a strong Christmas tradition, bringing children along on the ultimate Santa’s Grotto experience.

Barry and Leanne Smyth, from Ireland, brought their daughters, Lauren, 9, and Jodie, 4, here last week, after a box of presents arrived at their house early with a note inside from Santy (as they know him in Ireland), inviting the girls to visit him in person. They found a flight to Helsinki, then all four crammed into a compartment with two beds on the overnight train to Rovaniemi, 500 miles to the north.

“We didn’t sleep a wink,” Mr. Smyth, an accountant, said. “But the girls loved it.” The girls thanked Santa for his invitation (the parents exchanged a furtive glance) and asked, as many children do these days, for a slime factory.

In 2010, Xi Jinping, then the Chinese vice-president, came on an official visit to Finland and detoured up here, posing for photos with Official Santa Claus.

Tian Zhang was here then, studying for her master’s degree, and would only rarely see another Chinese. She never imagined what would happen next.

“Xi Jinping became the president and everyone in China says Finland is a lucky land,” she said.

Chinese tourism steadily increased, helped by Finnish official visits that marketed Lapland as Santa’s home tundra. “A lot of Chinese now think the North Pole is here,” she said. “It just grew and grew.”

In recent years, Santa tourism has grown so drastically that “it’s like everyone is building a hotel,” Ms. Zhang said. Now an entrepreneur and married to a Finn, she was in charge of one of the new hotels, the first Chinese-financed one. It opened five months ago and is already running at full occupancy, she said.

At the Rovaniemi Lutheran Church where the local pastors Topi Litendahl and Elina Rask-Litendahlthey work, Christmas Eve services are in several languages, including English, Hebrew and Arabic, just in case any tourists want to stop by. Every year only a couple of dozen do, about the only visible religious aspect to the tourist juggernaut.

[pendragonfics]

Mr. I-Abandoned-You-To-Take-Over-Your-Home-Planet-And-Got-Jailed-Indefinitely

A Gem in a Rare Trove of Treasure: Chapter One | Chapter Two

Paring: Loki/Reader

Tags: female reader, reader is a waitress, reader is cousins with Maria Hill, canon compliant, set vaguely around Avengers (2012), set in both Midgard and Asgard, fluff, healing, angst with a happy ending.

Summary:  When most people say they have taken a lover, it sounds almost Bond-ish; like they had a day job, and a classy uptown life and had to splash out one day and find a person to warm their sheets by night and heart by day. But for you, the waitress who worked downtown by the train station in your little old town, when your friends suggested that’s the label to put with you and the handsome stranger who won you over, they laughed.

Word Count: 2,253

Posting Date:  2017-04-12

Current Date: 2017-06-18

When most people say their boyfriend had to go long distance, there's a lot of sympathy. Hugs and kisses. Warm cookies left at the door, pretty notes in pretty cards saying how sorry they are for you. But for you, you had no choice in it; the love of your life had once been laying beside you in the sheets, yes, but was gone, was brainwashed, was whisked away to the land where he was raised. Fathoms away from where you stood. But when people heard that you were in love with Loki, the guy who tore strips out of New York city and destroyed their favourite cafe downtown, they frowned, and didn't care for conversation anymore.

You didn't care for conversation, either, because talking of him hurt more than dreaming. You'd see the way his eyes were ice blue, and wicked, staring deep into your soul, taunting, treachery leaching from within. You'd see the verdant green, which was always his, would always be his, but were poisoned by the blue, treacherous blue.

If it weren't for your connection to the Avengers through your cousin, you would be sure that you'd never see Loki, son of Odin ever again, and be forever scarred by the memory of the lover from out of the world you knew. But you cradled the books he had shared with you, and graciously moved into the Avengers tower in New York, and got a job down the street from where you lived. It was lovely, for the first few months, but with every passing day, every passing holiday, you felt a growing sadness inside your chest.

You understood that he'd committed a crime, and you in no way were in love with the man who had committed it, but there was something inside you which made you want to have him beside you at night, to hold onto, to greet upon coming home, to take to Thanksgiving and share a present with on Christmas. You watched as Tony moved from Pepper to May Parker, Clint leave to visit his family, Nat take to internet dating and miraculously match up with Matt Murdock, the lawyer who helped around the legal matters of the tower.

When Thor came back from a long vacation with Jane, you snapped, rising from the sad stupor you put yourself in for all of that time, and did your best grovelling to the first in line for the Asgardian crown. Thor smiled, soft and small, his beard accentuating the sadness in his eyes. It had probably been a while since he had thought of his brother, having been away with Jane, and it showed.

But, unlike other unyielding attempts to access Asgard, this proved fruitful - as he was to return in a day, and you were more than welcome to come. At that moment, all you could do was thank him in less than coherent words, and run off to your little room to pack things in and try to not forget unimportant things. Before too long, the case was full, and all but the book Loki had shared with you, the fantastical one of which you loved just short the same amount as you did he, was in your arms. And not a day later, there was you biding goodbye, or at least, a temporary goodbye to the Avengers, and riding the rainbow bridge to Asgard. 

It was all you'd dreamed it to be - the city afire with gold, the aura of stars above the skies staring down upon your skin, the white-eyes of the gatekeeper Heimdall - all that Loki had whispered in your ear, had told you of. While Thor went on his way to the war rooms to debate with his father about tensions in the nine worlds, you were escorted down below the royal castle, where the prisoners of the King were kept.

There, sat Loki. 

His hair was a mess, long and bedraggled, his skin pale and eyes hollow from emotion. His feet were bare, his clothes ripped, trickles of blood staining his sole. It had only been a year and four months since he had been taken from you, but the God before you looked like he had aged twelve, and hadn't seen you for as long. He was a dying man. Small. Hurting.

But also, Loki was standing, his hair neatly combed; regal. Long. His jaw was held high, eyes regarding all with the air you'd expect of royalty, above it all. He wore the colours of his house, the bright emerald green that you loved on him, haunting leather ensemble that caught in your mind. He was a warrior. Tall. Strong.

Those escorting you stopped, but you did not. Slowly, you approached the transparent golden wall that separated the both of you, and bent to sit upon your knees at the gate. Neither of the Loki's in the prison turned their gaze to you - in fact, it would seem that they turned their nose elsewhere, in the direction you were not present. Without realising, a tear fell from your eye, as you raised your hand to touch the barrier. The gate stung upon your skin, an irritation that would surely increase if you tried to push through, you were sure of, and the tear, the little droplet that came from within you, splashed upon the marble floor.

"Of all your tricks, Odin, this is your cruellest," His voice was thick, yet weak, sad, but without emotion. "Leave me to rot." 

Your brow furrowed, and turning to the guards, "Let me in," you whispered. "Please." 

On one of the guards' belts, they pressed a button, and the wall before you descends. As soon as you step inside, it resumes its place, and you are isolated in the room where there are two Loki's inside, where the furniture is both regal and tidy and splintered around the floor. One of them watches you intently, his green eyes following you as you navigate around the broken stools and tables over the ground. The leather-clad Loki has a haughty air to the way he holds himself, the way he regards you.

"It has only taken you years to get here," he snarks.

You raise your chin. "Sixteen months. But you cannot judge me, Mr. I-Abandoned-You-To-Take-Over-Your-Home-Planet-And-Got-Jailed-Indefinitely." You snap. "So spare me any snark and angst, Loki, because I have gone through hell and back for you. I travelled to a new world! I've been exiled from my familiar circles for associating with you!" You scream. "So, please, give this mimicry up and talk to me through your own mouth," you turn to the Loki who sits on the floor, and grabbing a short plank of wood, you throw it through the illusion before you. 

He frowns. "How did you know?" 

You smile, but it is not a happy smile. It's wan. Tight. "I can see you both. Either I'm sort of magic in a mundane way, or you're getting slack, Loki." He does not laugh. You add, "It might have taken sixteen months, maybe because my mind is at war with itself over a male who has torn my soul and taken a piece for himself, and left me to fend for myself. You know what it's like to be rejected, from your own people, now imagine it for me, who has never had it happen! All because I dared to lay in bed and love the man whose brain was washed to take over Earth." You take a shaky breath, and feel a tear slip. "Forgive me."

Adjusting himself against the wall, he glances to the space beside him, bare of splinters and unpleasantness scattered. "Will you sit with me?" It is not a question. It is a plead. You do sit, but not close, keeping an eye on the two guards that stand on watch as you mingle with their prisoner. "Forgive me."

You lay your head upon his shoulder, feeling the essence of Loki there, present, warm, alive. It can't be a dream, because you can smell his scent, can hear his breathing, the pitter-patter of his heartbeat's pulse under the hand on his wrist. 

"Aren't we a pair," you sniff, looking to his distressed hair, "The common waitress, and the alien prince," your hand on his stroked his skin, his fingers intertwining with your digits. "Don't tell me it sounds like a good story," you warn him, inhaling his scent. 

"It sounds like a good story," he repeats, despite your cautionary words, "But I should always think of that tale to be of the dreamer who watched the stars, who wanted to touch them upon her skin, and the globe-trotter who wanted nothing more than to make just one place his true home," Loki's eyes turn to you, their bright green aura stirring you with their beauty, their grace. "I have done so much wrong, have done too much bad in the world to keep this weight upon your chest."

You withdraw from his side. "Don't - don't you dare," you whisper. "If you leave me, I will haunt you until the day I die, and even then, will never cease," you threaten. "If loyalty, or devotion was defined in the dictionary, there would be a picture of me right here, right now, beneath those words. I will always love you, even if you are the monster under children's beds, even if you are a shattered mirror."

"Really?" Barely a whisper. Barely heard. But only by you.

You nod. "Honest."

There is a silence between the pair of you, but unlike before, it does not chill your bones, or break your heart. It's kind. It's healing. He clears his throat, and nodding, affirms your words, and wraps his other hand over his, and yours, and that is where you stay, silent, and, with each other's company. You're not sure whether it is half a minute, or half an hour later, but the thud of boots came, and from your heavy eyelids, you saw the dark maroon of Odin, and the crimson of Thor's cape appear. Loki shifts, aware of his brother's and father's scrutiny, but squeezing his hand, you compel him to stay seated, to stay beside you, to not fight this fight. 

The silence is broken when Odin clears his throat. "I have been in council with the lords and jury of Asgard, and heard word from your brother of this development," His voice is deep, and regal, and you cannot help but not maintain eye contact with him - it's almost like a primal fear of the peasant vs. royal complex. "I must say, Loki, my son, you have shocked me more than I believed you ever could."

Beside you, Loki narrows his eyes, but before he can spit out a burning retort, you interject. "Inciting a war while waiting for peace is not a tactic most fruitful, King Odin." 

You don't know where the fancy words have come from - you're just a human. A barmaid. A little ant in comparison to the gods you are surrounded by. But adrenaline is a funny thing, and yet here you are, and you're staring down the one-eyed bearded man you know from mythology as the ruthless King of the Gods. 

He cracks a smile. "I like this girl, Loki, she will be good for you, for all the trouble you have put yourself through." He glances to Thor, and adds, "In the discussions, we have deliberated a punishment more fit for you than solitary confinement - ten years without your seidr to live a mortal life until the next court will come to session to review the next phase. You are fit to live with the watchful, honourable gaze of the Avengers on Midgard, and with your lady, the fierce _______." 

Loki nods, agreeing with his father. "I agree to these terms, my King." 

You bow your head, heeding the words, of both your lover, and your most likely, future father-in-law. "Thank you for this offer, King Odin."

---

It is light outside, but through the thick glass of the new Avengers Facility the birdsong heralding morning have not woken you. The bedside alarm is turned off, and reads to be nearly eight o'clock, but thankfully, you do not have work today. Turning in the sheets of your bed, you're still not sure what has woken you from slumber. But as you turn, you see him - the man you have fallen for, had fallen for, will always fall for, curled onto his side, his wide green eyes taking in your face in the morning. 

"It's early, you can sleep in," his voice in the morning incites something in you, a flutter in your chest. "What is it? Why are you staring?" He asks.

You can't help but smile. "I'm just ... I'm just in awe of this, of you, of ... being here," your grin widens, and reaching out, you cradle his face in your hands, and just touching his skin, you feel a fire building beneath your fingertips. "Gods, you're beautiful." 

Loki laughs. "But darling, that's what I'm supposed to say to you," he protests, and shifting beneath the bed sheets, he is closer to you, close enough to smell, to see every eyelash on his face, "Since we have nowhere to be until later, I can suggest a method to make it up to you," he offers.

"Oh, silver-tongue," you grin, carding your fingers through his raven hair. "Show, don't tell." 

<< PREVIOUS CHAPTER

[testosterone-diaries]

I realized this morning that I’m coming up so quickly on one year on T!

I know that last year at this time I didn’t think it would ever happen for me. I had multiple setbacks on getting started, and then I moved cities and had found a doctor who does help people start their HRT, but she typically doesn’t write a prescription until she’s met with them a few times over the course of about three months, and because I still had an endocrinologist appointment booked in my hometown (only two hours drive away), my doctor said that it would probably be fastest and best for me if I went to that appointment and then she could monitor/adjust my hormones as needed. I was frustrated, but in the end that’s what I did, and two days after I received my prescription, I got my first shot. 

I remember how excited I was when I first got my hands on the prescription, how fast I wanted to leave the office just in case she changed her mind, and I thought she wouldn’t if she didn’t see me anymore, how sad I was when I saw just how low my dose was but how excited because at least I was going to be able to start!

I don’t even know how to describe or explain what this past year has been for me. I think it’s been a long time of finding things out the hard way, for the most part, but I suppose at least that way some of the things will stick better than when others told me. 

I’m grateful that 2016 has passed. Despite all the good things that happened for me personally (moving cities, starting T, my full legal name change, reconnecting with a few family members who I actually don’t mind being around), there was so so much sadness throughout the year, and even though I do know that the calendar is something that we as people invented, and that maybe the new year doesn’t really change things, it just leads people to believe it does, I believe that the new year can lead people to being a better version of themselves. 

I have a few goals for 2017 - find a way to be with my girlfriend physically, so that we never have to be in a long distance relationship again - top surgery (hopefully before Christmas 2017!!! if the referral goes according to plan it should be possible to be done just before this Christmas) - read at least one book every week of the year - write a book because I realized recently that there is such a limited range of queer books that aren’t someone trying to study us, but just us telling our stories the way that they are, without any underhanded reason - cut toxic people out of my life - work, school, or both, but something that furthers my development and makes me happy/fulfilled at the same time - grow a fucking beard - sort out as much of my mental health issues/concerns as possible -

Most of all, I just want to be with my girlfriend and have top surgery. I want to be free, finally, and I want to be waking up with the love of my life every day. I don’t need a lot, most of the time, but I do need her, all of the time.. 

[oliverphisher]

Chrissie Krebs

Chrissie Krebs is an Australian Author Illustrator of children’s picture books. Her first book ’This Is A Circle' was published by Penguin Random House in 2016 and was followed up by a cheeky Christmas story ‘There is Something Weird In Santa’s Beard’. 

Chrissie had the wonderful opportunity to work with Michael Gerard Bauer on his hilarious story about a nutty rabbit - 'Rodney loses it' was released in 2017 by Omnibus Scholastic. Two more picture books are scheduled for release in 2018 by omnibus scholastic. Chrissie still cannot believe that she is getting paid to draw pictures all day.

She is currently living her inner four year old’s dream.

What are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life?

If I had to narrow it down, I would have to say that Dr Seuss - The Cat In The Hat would be the most influential book in terms of inspiring my career in writing and illustrating for children. I adore the clever and chaotic storyline that is coupled with Suess’ impressive and expressive illustrations. I remember studying the pictures very closely as a child.

The Harry Potter Books are also another deeply influential series. I was a lot older when I read them, but it certainly opened me up to another world full of opportunities and magic. Also JK Rowlings backstory - from struggling single mum to world renown author is truly inspirational.

What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)?

I was using a very old version of Adobe Photoshop (CS5.1) up until recently when it stopped working when I updated my iMac. I was devastated, this program was my livelihood, it was how I illustrated. I was dead against Adobe’s new business model of charging users $70 a month for their creative cloud suite so I began to search for another program.

I found, after much research, a program called Art Studio Pro. It cost me AU$32.00 and it works just as well as Adobe Photoshop and I don’t have to pay an exorbitant fee to Adobe every month. It has been a life saver.

How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?

The road to publication for me has been a long one. It took me fourteen years from dreaming about being a children’s book writer and illustrator to actually receiving a contract. I now have five books out in the wild. After so many years of trying, I entered a competition where I was dead certain that I would at least be shortlisted. I even gave myself an ultimatum - If I wasn’t going to get shortlisted in this competition I was going to throw away this crazy dream of becoming a children’s book creator. I would take it as a sign that this dream was just not meant to be. When the shortlist was announced - I discovered that I wasn’t on the list. I was devastated, but I had made the ultimatum. So I decided to let go of that dream and concentrate on other things in my life. It was only 6 days later I got an email out of the blue from a commissioning editor from Penguin Random House enquiring about a manuscript I submitted to their slush pile. That manuscript became my first picture book. Sometimes we hold on too tightly to a particular way that your dream should be realised that you become blind to other opportunities. That was me, I had to learn to let go for the flow to occur.

Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by?

Although not connected to children’s books, I have on a piece of paper on my studio board:

‘He who angers you controls you’

Sometimes it’s hard to move past a wrong deed or an injustice, but continually focussing on it is completely debilitating. I have felt this way before and it has drained me of all motivation and creativity. I don’t want to give anyone that isn’t worth my time that much of my energy anymore.

What is one of the best investment in a writing resource you’ve ever made?

Being a part of a writing community is so important when you are working in isolation (as most writers do) so becoming members of writing organisations is really important. I am a member of the Australian Writers Guild, SCBWI and the Australian Society of Authors. Not only do these organisations help you to stay in the loop of what is going on in the writers market, they also offer advice on contracts, competitions and opportunities to network with publishers through literary speed dating and pitch parties.

What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?

When I am nervous or I have to complete something challenging, I automatically (and without conscious thought) start humming the A Team theme song.

In the last five years, what new belief, behaviour, or habit has most improved your life?

Due to having a supportive husband, I have been able to work from home within the last five years. Working from home can be very isolating and there are many distractions - like housework and Youtube. I now break down everything into mini goals. I give myself a mini goal every day - a goal that is achievable. For example, I am currently working on writing a feature length animation, my aim is to complete at least five pages of the script every day. If I complete more - great! But I need to complete five pages before I allow myself to be distracted by other things. Beforehand I was putting too much pressure on completing everything now instead of realising that it is a marathon, not a 100 meter sprint. I would get overwhelmed and would give up too quickly, now I am feeling better about my progress.

What advice would you give to a smart, driven aspiring author? What advice should they ignore?

My advice would be - Keep practising. Keep entering competitions, attend networking events where you can spend time with publishers and other industry professionals. A big piece of advice regarding writing would be - When you finish your manuscript, keep it in a draw for at least six months (twelve would be better) then take it out and reread and edit it. I find that many people want to send off a manuscript to a publisher as soon as they finish it but in most cases it isn’t ready. Sometimes leaving it for a while and then going over it with a fresh set of eyes can be the best thing for your work. Sometimes you will see glaring errors that you didn’t see before because you were too close to the story.

What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession often?

Not so much a bad recommendation, but it is never a good idea to be too pushy. Book publishers and Agents really dislike forceful interactions. If they like your story - they will contact you. Don’t push yourself or your story on them, it isn’t a good look and they will remember you as that pushy person that should be avoided.

In the last five years, what have you become better at saying no to (distractions, invitations, etc.)?

Unfortunately, I am not good at saying no to people. But if a pushy person has contacted me under the guise that they are a fan but they want me to show their manuscript to my publisher (Yes, I get people like that, unfortunately) I have a basic template that I send out to them with generic advice on how to get your manuscript looked at. I never show my publisher other people’s work for them.

What marketing tactics should authors avoid?

Over saturating social media with your book is never a good idea. I don’t want to inflict that type of bombardment onto my friends and family anyway it also creates fatigue with your work. Your author pages on social media platforms like instagram and facebook should be interesting but not annoying and constant.

What new realizations and/or approaches have helped you achieve your goals?

Being an illustrator as well as an author, I realised that I need to expand my skills into other areas. This has included working on a humorous greeting card line as well as merchandise for a gift company. This keeps my ‘brand’ in the public eye still and gives me another source of revenue. Also being able to visit schools to talk about writing and illustrating and conducting workshops help me stay relevant in the children’s book world.

When you feel overwhelmed or have lost your focus temporarily, what do you do?

I take a break. As hard and as simple as that sounds, walking away from a project that just isn’t working is sometimes the best thing to do. I sometimes start work on a completely different project or I will start doodling in my sketchbook and create something completely different to give my brain a rest.

Any other tips?

Don’t give up. Don’t think your goal will come in the exact way you envisage, always be on the lookout for opportunities because they can come in ways you never thought possible. And don’t fall for vanity publishing! Research your potential publisher before agreeing to anything.

________

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