#what’s wilder is it’s even been pointed out I take responsibility. and actually paint myself as the asshole

[rowanhoney]

i love being happy and having a life full of blessings but it always surprises me when it sparks bitterness in others. Will never understand that. Anyways.

[thecoroutfitters]

Written by R. Ann Parris on The Prepper Journal.

Many aspects of the Modern Minuteman toolbox apply to preparedness in general, however personal and small-scale or widespread and earth shaking our pet disasters may be. As with overall preparedness, our exact situation and our expectations of disaster scenarios affects what we prioritize for our finite time and attention.

Last time, I concentrated on an “early/now” frame for prioritizing a handful of commonly recommended skills. This time, I’m actually taking the “at all” perspective, be it amped-up community watches, riot control, or some NWO-EROL situation we’re gearing up to oppose.

As always, opposing opinions are welcome. The more perspectives available, the better everyone is able to make their own decisions.

Gauge Community Climate

Absolutely and emphatically, yes.  

Heaven help me, I recently found myself agreeing with Nancy Pelosi. A group of students approached her in her office to express their displeasure in her lack of support for an AOC environmental bill. Her reply was essentially that stupid to waste time on something with absolutely zero chance of passing.

That was a fair enough point on its own, and speaks directly to taking the pulse of a population.

Even more so was a nugget that made fewer news sites in the following days: The belief that trying to push too-extreme an agenda – however much she personally might agree with it – was worse than doing nothing at all. It would only further ruffle feathers, making things harder to achieve the next time around.

I’m no more fan of politicians than the next, but the ability to accurately predict and read the masses is something that we do need to be aware of if we have any interest whatsoever in being a citizen soldier.

What the community will stand and what they won’t is the bedrock of insurgency and resistance movements.

What they will and won’t stand in good times, versus crux moments and tragedy, historically makes or breaks those movements, as well as the hold over a community by a commanding force – whether that’s a large, visible government with policing agents and military, or the behind-the-scenes types large and small. 

It applies to anticipating and either preventing or responding to something like a riot or demonstration, as well as guerrilla actions against occupations and undermining strongholds of loyalists for either/any faction.

Large scale, long-term or single-event short-term, we have to be able to gauge the mood of the mob and the climate of our communities, and our reactions have to come from a complete tool set – not just picking today’s hammer.

If we can’t, our chances of success are downright nil.

Denial & Disruption

Most emphatically, yes.

Riot control on sidewalks or countering the jackboot takeover, we want to be able to deny our enemy intel and assets, and disrupt their way of doing business (and ability to relax).

That can take all sorts of forms – and has, throughout history.

Interdiction and harassment take so many forms, it really rates its own set of articles even to nutshell the tactics and techniques employed by insurgency and resistance in guerrilla operations, community and large-force counters to guerilla operations, and even law enforcement and IT deterrents large and small, and internal policing by law enforcement and militaries and even lowly little small-business operations, as well as force-on-force operations from pre-tech eras to modern times.

On the larger scales, it involves all sorts of supply and travel disruptions, misinformation/counter-intel, harassing fire, false flags, etc.

Many of those can also be applied on the smallest of scales – even interpersonal conflict and self-defense situations – employing different techniques to the same theories, or adapting techniques to fit conditions.

Again, though, we really want to mind the effects on and reactions of our internal and closest-ties allies (family, coworkers, partners), the near neighbors, and the community at large, as well as our opposition and the reactions of their varying rings of influence.

Wilderness & Military Camp Setup

Yes, absolutely – anywhere.

Site development and placement of elements – modern or long past – have a lot of aspects that apply to preparedness in general, even “just” getting through a hurricane and “just” setting up our homes for everyday functional efficiency and security.

The same aspects keep them relevant to a modern minuteman intending to defend storefronts or residential communities from riots as well as the prepper who anticipates infantry-like service defending freedom.  

Positioning for ready communication, rapid responses, protection of key elements, LOS, external observation points, latrines/sanitation, deployment outside the wire and-or green zones, individual safety and incoming-fire cover, fire safety, supply distribution, and awareness of known effective ranges by position and armament all factor in.

They apply equally to both the able-bodied foot soldier and to the physically limited watchman or rear-echelon non-combatant, whatever the situation, however big or small the location.

*Think that one through, and consider our daily nothing-wrong lifestyles – It really does resonate everywhere, from where our smoke detectors and fire extinguishers are, to aggravations or eases when we grocery shop, bathe dogs, do laundry, file and maintain paperwork, coordinate with family and coworkers, get to and from our chores and recreations, etc. We don’t have to be totally paranoid or OCD to start seeing typical trends in non-prepper, non-minuteman sources for safety/protection and efficiency.

Camo & Concealment

Meh.

Really, it’s situationally dependent.

For most of the scenarios we can list off, from protecting our corner of Baltimore or Koreatown to taking our turn as the insurgents – or countering them, or splinter cells of a larger force – unless you’re a sniper operating from the woods, mostly, “meh” leaning “well, nah”.

Flip side: Oh hell yeah, because camo and concealment isn’t always green and tan splotches of paint or fabric.

Camo and concealment is a suit or slacks and a briefcase in a courthouse, yoga pants and a light bag at the park, a “normal” passenger vehicle instead of an off-road rock-climbing mudder or Humvee on the average street, high-vis vests with dirty pants on a road crew with their bucket or tool box/bag, and scuffed up boots on a farm hand.

That camo and concealment extends to mixing up travel patterns to avoid breaking foliage and creating “deer trails”, being able to slip out of a location without observation, and presenting the appearance of following habitual movements and activities while deviating from the norm.

It’s also developing the control to watch our mouths and non-verbals rather than fight every battle that comes our way and picking every hill as our hill to die on. (Return to Nancy Pelosi above to make that an even uglier pill to swallow.)

And, yeah, in a few situations, it’s being able to become a rock on the hill or another tuft of brush, but unless we’re evading birds or sniper hunters, mostly breaking up our outlines isn’t too hard and doesn’t always require paint or cammies.

Hand-to-Hand Combat

Yes and no.

Don’t get me wrong. Self-defense capabilities are great to have, period. It’s not like this world has ever been totally safe, or like it’s getting any crazier.

However you want to apply it, keep in mind how often we see 2-5 cops or foreign militias trying to wrestle a bad guy into cuffs or move them after arrest, and weigh how much training and daily practice they get, versus our ability to invest time and money into training.

Our expectations of the bad guy we’ll be encountering, and how we’re deploying also factor in pretty hugely.

If we’re countering a significant force, whether it’s widespread jackboots and organized invaders or forces that have the benefit of protective gear, our chances of success are much lower.

Similarly, our chances against servicemen from one of the nations that focus significant continuing training time on some pretty gnarly martial arts, knife work, and batons … not so hot.

There are exploits for hand-to-hand combat even against somebody wearing body armor groin to neck, face shields and helmets, and knee pads. We just have to be realistic about whether we’re going to personally stand a chance with our available investment capabilities, or if we want to focus instead on something else.

Learn some basics that fit your physical condition for everyday encounters, but don’t break the bank on this one.

Instead, for minuteman purposes develop awareness, de-escalation, and evasion skills as well as Gray Man presentation.

Also work reflex drills, ankle-knee lateral and start-stop strength (or chair skills), and balance exercises – especially for people who are limited in some way by age, injury, or genetic luck of the draw.

Urban or rural, footing can be iffy. The better able we are to compensate for shifting terrain, curbs, bumps, and slips, and the better able we are to change direction on a dime, the better chance we stand of staying in the fight, whatever the scenario we imagine.

Modern Minuteman Skillsets

Most likely, the term “Modern Minuteman” brings a certain image to our heads. And, most likely, any 2-20 of us would describe very different images – particularly as the most likely and most common potential for a modern minuteman to deploy.

Because we have very different situations and needs, with very different scenarios in mind and very different capabilities due to our physical shape and local environment, the skills we are most likely to need are going to vary.

Some, though, are pretty universal. We can sometimes assign a value across the board, regardless of situation or scenario.

With any luck, somebody disagrees with these, or the matrix I apply at large, and presents points for discussion.

If not and until then, go find somebody who thinks “bah, PC community-pulse nonsense” or “moron, every soldier should fight with sticks”. Weigh the argument presented for those situations, and decide what does actually make sense for you. It’s only having multiple perspectives that really lets us prioritize, whether we’re picking out groceries or putting together our minuteman to-do list.

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The post Modern Minuteman – Yes-No-Maybe Skillsets Vol. 2 appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

from The Prepper Journal Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

[everyonesfavouritealiens]

Interview with Tyler Blackburn from Pretty Little Liars | By Maranda Pleasant

Maranda Pleasant: What inspires you the most?

Tyler Blackburn: I know this might sound a little cliche but, I feel like everybody is searching for the same thing, and that is truth. I think that’s sort of the journey to define that which is most inspirational. Even in acting, when I watch an actor who I find to be so truthful in their craft, or a musician who gets up there and sings so truthfully—I like that. I really like individualism based on truth. That’s something I try to think about. What do I actually think about that, what do I actually feel right now? As opposed what should I feel.

MP: Love that. Powerful. What is it that makes you vulnerable?

TB: I’m very sensitive. It’s always been something I’m very in tune with. I am very emotional. Sometimes to the point of where I just want to hide away, because I can’t get a handle on myself. I don’t mind that idea. Vulnerability is kind of one of those things of, how do I really feel in this moment?

Wow, this is when I’m the most vulnerable. Obviously when I’m put in a situation where there is a lot of attention on me, it’s this weird dichotomy—I like it, because I feel like I’m a natural born performer. But I do feel the most vulnerable.

As life goes on I’m learning to trust myself more, so I am more comfortable— you have to be, doing things in front of people, especially when there’s lots of pressure. I have to make decisions. When you’re put in a position where you’re having to decide, Is this a good decision? Is this the right decision for everybody involved?—it makes me feel a little unsteady, unsure.

MP: Wow. I really appreciate that level of honesty. How do you process pain?

TB: I don’t have one go-to way to deal because circumstances change. One thing I’m recognizing more and more in myself—and looking to change—is going down more of a self-destructive path when I feel pain. I’m trying to avoid that as much as possible. That is an impulse, when I feel out of control. We don’t really understand why we feel what we do in that moment, so it’s almost like I’m trying to take control, even if it’s bad control. I do try to experience the emotions as they come, but sometimes it becomes just too much.

I lost my cousin. It’s been about a month. He’s a year younger than me. He OD’d. It was three days before my birthday. I grew up with this guy. It was such an intense scenario. I went through so many emotions. It kind of ran the gamut of anger and sadness and self-destruction and all those things.

MP: I understand.

TB: Even just talking about it, that’s very cathartic, too. That’s one way of doing that. Actually putting it out as a truth as opposed to trying to conceal it from yourself.

MP: I’m with you. I tend to isolate. Put on the Damien Rice and go paint and isolate for days and drink too much. [laughing] I get it. I’m learning more positive ways of handling myself.

TB: Absolutely. I don’t know about you but I look back at my sort of wilder days where I was doing lots of drugs, and I thought I was just trying to have a good time, but I was covering up so much pain. I haven’t done any drugs for five years now. Now I’m actually presented with these problems and I’m looking at them differently. I see even the small things. Like you said, Damien Rice—he’s perfect for those moments!

MP: You can get really f*cked up on Damien Rice!

TB: Oh my god, I know! I love the album O.

MP: When you run out of Damien Rice you always switch over to Glen Hansard. You said you’ve been clean for five years?

TB: I haven’t done any drugs for five years. I don’t even smoke pot anymore.

MP: That’s great. How was that process for you? Was there a wake up call?

TB: It mostly starts with a decision. I was inching towards making that final decision but I would always retract. It became a vicious cycle. I started realizing that I was no longer having fun with it. It was all-consuming. I had support from my girlfriend at the time. She didn’t do drugs. That was really helpful. I did do a sort of a detox program. I didn’t go to rehab or anything like that. It was a lighter detox program that really eliminates drugs and toxins from your body. Keeps the cravings and stuff from coming back. That made it a lot easier. And then just really reshaping myself.

It’s just so funny—as soon as I did that, that’s when I started booking acting work, which was my dream. So many things have gotten so much better. My life is just in a completely different place and I’m so happy about that.

MP: Deep bow. That is not an easy thing to do. Tell me what you’re passionate about? I heard you speak out against bullying?

TB: My interests lie in nurturing children. That’s part of the reason why the bullying thing has become an aspect of my life. I was bullied a lot growing up. I know firsthand the amount of life that is sucked out of you every time that happens, and how it affected me as a young adult. I was asked if I wanted to do a campaign through Seventeen magazine. And I was like, “Wow, yeah, I would like to.”

It was one of the first moments that I realized that being on a TV show didn’t stop when the director says, “Cut.” There’s a responsibility level that comes along with being a public figure. I can use this for really cool things. That really [allows] me to be very honest about my experiences.

I used to want to kill myself because I had lost so much of who I knew I was because of all the other invalidation from people. It sends you spiraling where you’re like, Wait, I know I have this quality, I know what my integrity is—until you’re being fed all this false information about yourself. You start to wonder why. You don’t feel good about yourself because you no longer believe in yourself.

It’s so important for everybody at every age, but especially kids. High school is a really strange time—you’re not a kid, you’re not an adult. You’re about to be an adult, you’re going to have to make some really intense decisions. It’s a really pivotal time to have as much self-confidence as you possibly can. Even if that means you have one friend who supports you completely. I’m sort of ranting but…

MP: I like your rant! Keep going.

TB: Thanks! I just feel like that spoke to me a lot. I know that the demographic for the show [Pretty Little Liars is pretty much high school students. Not all, but I know that’s a big part of it. I find that again, it’s beneficial to be as truthful as possible. I know that when that magazine issue came out, I got so many tweets about that, saying, Thank you for being honest. It was just really great.

I got to go to an anti-bullying rally in Washington, DC. That was really cool. Parents spoke whose kids have killed themselves because of bullying. It makes me sad. I was there and all the people on the panel were there to raise awareness about that. It’s fulfilling to me in a way that I had never experienced before. I love to act, I love that aspect of my life, but the fact that that sort of parlayed into this other sort of feeling of fulfillment was unbelievable. Now I’m Global Ambassador for Stomp Out Bully. I don’t get to do as much work with them as I would like to.

MP: Thank you for that, by the way. I was suicidal for years in my teens and even almost up into college. Just because of bullying. It doesn’t take long to start believing that stuff. Just living in fear and all kinds of self-worth issues—you don’t shake that off. It takes years to clear that.

TB: It does. In a lot of ways, certain things, it feels like they’re never going to go away. The best thing to do is continue to ask questions, look that fear in the eye.

I feel like from a very early age, we know who we are as individuals. I love when I see parents with their kids in these crazy outfits and they’re like, “That’s what they wanted to wear.” Those small things are so important.

That’s why I think children need to be nurtured for what they are as opposed to what you want them to be. I think that’s when those ideas come into your head of like, What should I feel in this moment? It’s because someone told you, “Your instinct was incorrect.” And you’re like, Why? Why is that wrong?

MP: What projects can we support you in right now?

TB: We just wrapped up the season of Pretty Little Liars. We’ve been working pretty hard on that. I am working on music presently, also through ABC Family. I’m recording some really great tracks right now.

MP: That’s right, you’re a musician.

TB: Mostly a singer. I just recently started writing lyrics. It’s been a new venture for me. I’m really proud of [what] I’m doing musically. The new season of Pretty Little Liars comes out around January 5th.

[makefrancehappen-blog]

The most romantic non-date

June 25 2019, retrospective

There’s a lot of things I want to remember about my day with Sèbastien. He was older than I expected, it turned out he was 46. And he was in incredible shape, much better than me, the kind of toned body from a person who actually uses their body every day, not at the gym but just through living life. He was so, so tan. Everybody was in the south. By the time I left, I was almost one of them. The hat was funny, it was one of those flat brimmed DC caps that gave him such a youthful touch and would be cliché or look dirt baggy on a younger guy. I remember thinking that his face seemed super French with his bone structure and mouth especially, but now I can’t even paint a mental picture of him. I remember a little greyness but I can’t remember if it was in his hair or whether I might have noticed it in a beard, or whether he even had one. I regret not looking at his hands. 

As he puttered around on the boat, getting us where we needed to go, he would sing and hum softly to himself. It absolutely caught me by surprise, almost every time. I still forget that he did that and then I remember all over again and think it’s a wonderful trait for a person to have. The one thing he did that I didn’t like was pull a starfish out of the water to show me... “she” was beautiful but I felt so uncomfortable knowing she was wrenched from her perch, and I just wanted him to put her back. In that moment though, there was a youthful and boyish fascination. He wanted me to see her little suction cups, and explain that her short legs were probably the result of an attack by birds. I like the enthusiasm, even though I already know or guessed most of these things.

Our first stop was the beach of Port Cros, where there’s a small dock to tie up. As he secured the boat he would murmur in French, English, or a combination. Several times I heard the word, “Alors,” not knowing what it meant. I asked, but he was confused, he didn’t know what word I was asking about. Then again he said it. “Aha!” I pointed at his face (bad manners). “There it is again!” “Which?” “The last one. Alore?” “Ahhh, Alors.” “Yeah that, what’s it mean?” Bafflement in attempting to explain. “Is it like how we use “okay” in English? It kind of fills lots of gaps?” Yes, kind of. 

From there we snorkeled and eventually went ashore because the waters were still pretty cold except for in the shallows. On shore we went without shoes, and he checked with me twice to make sure that I was sure I was comfortable (I was). I said I prefer living life barefoot, which is obviously not possible in the city. He said he kicks off his shoes in March and doesn’t put them back on until September, but that a few weeks ago he’d been touring with a German couple who insisted they didn’t need shoes, only to have to cut the hike short because of their sensitive feet. He took me to the top of a lookout point by an abandoned building that I think had a green door. Made a joke about it being a nice little house if you could fix it up. On the way back down I stopped on the trail to take a deep breath and he turned around, mistaking my inhale for a gasp. I was just taking in the piney, jasmine, mineral and dusty scent of the island that smelled so much like summer. On the walk back to the dock we stopped to people watch a minute at the beach, and for some reason on the dock I wound up explaining that next year I would be returning to go to Bordeaux for my sister’s wedding (”No, she’s not French, it’s just that you have a destination wedding when you want to be polite and invite people but you don’t want them to accept or actually come.” “That seems like a good solution.”) Had a small snack on the boat. I don’t remember in what order or when we got to talking, but the similarities were so striking - at least to me:

- On Mexican cenotes, both having been. His experience was to stop and listen. “What did you hear?” “My heart.” There was a thoughtfulness and a pause, there seemed to be more that couldn’t be expressed in English.

- On liveaboarding, both having done. He crossed the Atlantic in 11 days, 5 days of prep, on a catamaran with 3 or 4 friends, going from Africa to Brazil. God if that isn’t just the sexiest thing ever. I wonder if that was before the kids.

- On camping. Every year at the peak of tourist season in August he “disappears into the mountains” for a week. He mentions the calanques to me, and asserts that I know them, which I think is funny or flattering maybe that he assumes I know.

- On environmentalism. He tries to avoid plastic and brings his reusable bags to the weekly market, stepping into a grocery store only once or twice a month. Trying to teach environmentalism to his 3 kids. 

- On adventure. “Would you ever live on a boat and sail around the Mediterranean?” Absolutely. But there’s the kids to consider (2 teens, 1 around 9) and the several small businesses. (He seems to be a “guy I know” kind of guy). But someday. 

Maybe that’s when he asked my age, which surprised me mildly. I think that was when he mentioned I was young enough still to have those adventures. I regret noting out loud how he had his first kid when he was my age, because it put a space between us that I don’t think needed to be there.

There’s a word he used, a great one. I can’t remember what it was but it floored me that a non-native speaker knew it. I told him this, that I know many English speakers who don’t even know that word. He either didn't understand or didn’t have a response. I wish I could remember the word.

It’s funny to me that he thinks Italy’s food is better than France’s, on account of it being simple ingredients of the highest quality. That’s what I thought France did so well. His expression towards the ocean seems wistful, longing for the larger and wilder waves. 

I tell him about Arizona when he mentions the vast wildernesses of America being so alluring. I could live there if it weren’t so far from the sea, and he seems to nod agreement. 

I have a rant about rich people, their yachts, and the weird and annoying things they do with their money. I think he’s probably just humoring me or being polite and I mention that my friends tell me I talk about depressing things, which makes him laugh. I grimace and apologize. 

At a little cove where we stop again to snorkel, I wander ashore to look at the schist folds more closely and then I notice plastic, and the more I look the more of it I see. I already found a plastic bag and tucked it into my bikini side, to dispose of after swimming. I start collecting bits of plastic, rubber wine corks, and mostly styrofoam. When I turn around, Sèbastien had paddle boarded over and produced a half torn garbage bag from the ground and was filling it, so we worked silently, picking up pieces until the bag was full. I noticed moments before he said aloud that the more pieces we picked the smaller the remaining ones got. I made a comment about micro plastics. It was depressing, realizing in a moment of pause that there was still so much rubbish around. That’s when he unwittingly gifted me the mantra I didn’t know I needed: 

“Alors. It’s not everything, but it’s important.” It washes over me like cold water, jarring and refreshing all at once. I never believed in love at first sight until this day. 

There’s a seagull back by the boat that’s cautiously optimistic about our picnic lunch. Sèbastien tries to lure it with various treats (it doesn’t care for watermelon). Is it true that we both think these common birds are beautiful, or is he just being agreeable so I have a good tour experience? 

After about 5 hours in the sun I’m getting drowsy and the boat motion is lulling me to sleep as I nod off while he’s driving, and he offers me a towel for my head. I get the impression that this is someone used to caring for other people, and realize that’s what I need.

I need to be able to relax, but to relax I need to trust that somebody else has their hands on the wheel. And I could cry with relief at this realization and with frustration that the person who gave it to me is probably completely unattainable. 

Coming into the final harbor we talk about the Levant and he admits he never spends any time there but he isn’t sure why, other than that the kids are emphatic about not wanting to go. I laugh because of course that makes perfect sense. 

I want to see him again. The kids are going to NYC next week with their mother, but he’s never been. I say I have an AirBnB and he’s welcome to stay if he ever decides to go, and that I hope he does. It’s 5pm and it feels abrupt when he says he should leave. I’m left wondering if I came on too strong or made him uncomfortable with the overture of invitation. Then I wonder too if maybe I didn’t come on strongly enough. 

It’s a cruel coincidence that the house I stay at in Hyères is steps away from the one he rents out to vacationers. It’s even crueler that the day after our day I see the same yellow boat on the dock and have to convince myself it’s not his. I could have talked to him for many, many more hours than we had. I so want to see him again and have no idea if this is me being limerent again or whether there was some mutual connection. 

When’s the last time I had so much in common with a person? It feels like never. But maybe I am living in the wrong places, maybe for him it’s common and the people around here are often outdoorsy, adventurous environmentalists. This might be the (possibly misleading) lynchpin that convinces me to make the move.

3 days later I ask if he has a website for the environmentalist friend who runs the NGO and a week after that there’s still no response. I don’t have any recourse except to chalk it up to one-sided attraction, which makes me deeply sad and I’m not ready to let it go yet.

[cumulohimbus]

100 things I want to do in my lifetime

So, I had a really good conversation today with friends, and I opened up briefly about my stay in a psych ward a few years ago. It came up because I am acutely aware that I haven't been doing well, and am scared to return to a situation anything like my previous stay at said ward despite knowing that being hospitalized would probably be very beneficial at this time in my life. Talking about it did make me remember something though, something that gave me a lot of hope. While my experience with a psych ward was overwhelmingly negative, there was a part of treatment that really got through to me at the time. It especially helped with my suicidal ideation, which is something that's been really problematic for me again lately. Since I remembered it, I'm going to revisit the exercise, and I encourage anyone and everyone who also struggles with suicidal thoughts, thoughts of self harm, mental health issues, or even if you're just having a bad day, to give this a try. It's simple. Make a list of 100 things you want to do in your life. They can be as realistic or unrealistic as you want them to be. They can be big, long-term goals, or small, silly goals, and everything in between. The only rules are to write 100 things, and to avoid sarcastic or pessimistic things like saying one of your goals is to die or something like that. Save the list! Then someday you can go back and cross off things that you've accomplished or edit as you see necessary. Without further ado, here is my list:

1. I want to get my name legally changed to Larkspur Emmett so my dead name is no more

2. I want to get top surgery

3. I want to rekindle relationships within my family, especially with my cousins

4. I want to get scuba certified

5. I want to dive over the "sunken island" location on the lake my family had a cabin on that I visited frequently while growing up

6. I want to go diving in general, seeing a coral reef in person is an especially huge dream of mine

7. I want to rekindle my knowledge of the Spanish language and eventually become fluent

8. I want to continue learning American Sign Language

9. I want to learn more about my ancestry; I know I'm a vast mix of probably mostly European blood, but my family comes from so many different places and I'd like to know more about them

10. I want to finish the art commission I started for my close friend

11. I want to travel to places like Costa Rica, Japan, Chile, and Australia

12. I want to go on exotic travel adventures with a future romantic partner or close friend

13. I want to get my Bachelor's degree

14. I want to earn enough money to live comfortably, probably with pets

15. I want to adopt a pembroke welsh corgi

16. I want to beat my eating disorder(s) for good and be able to stop taking medication to help if at all possible

17. I want to go ziplining

18. I want to go skydiving

19. I want to hike through the Monteverde biological cloud forest reserve in Costa Rica

20. I want to develop a drag persona and perform as my persona on a regular basis

21. I want to make a fursuit (yes I said it, fite me)

22. I want to finish an entire animated music video

23. I want to learn more about plants and successfully keep one alive for longer than a year

24. I want to try my hand at raising an ant colony

25. I want to go swimming more often

26. I want to learn more martial arts

27. I want to learn to be a leader in my community

28. I want to work harder in my college classes

29. I want to learn to not fear loneliness and abandonment, and to appreciate my alone time

30. I want to get (many) more self-designed tattoos

31. I want to continue learning how to appreciate my body without caring about other people's opinions on what is considered "attractive"

32. I want to eat more whole foods both because they're healthy for me and taste far better than anything with chemicals in it

33. I want to meet a few famous people in person, can't think of many off the top of my head though, but I know there are a couple

34. I want to take dance classes again

35. I want to learn how to play a musical instrument (I mean, I took 7 years of piano and can kinda read music, but I wanna learn an instrument that's better suited for short fingers lolol, maybe french horn?)

36. I want to finish the paintings I've started

37. I want to learn how to digitally render things realistically

38. I want to finish the fanfiction piece I started a couple years ago

39. I want to become more patient and less envious

40. I want to heccing fly, okay?

41. I want to feel like relaxation is deserved and expected, and not a luxury only for those who can afford it

42. I want to reassemble an animal skeleton

43. I want to dig up a fossil (specifically of some sort of mesozoic creature, that'd be so cool)

44. I want to get back to using my planner

45. I want to play more (board, card, video, etc.) games with my friends

46. I want to disassociate less and be present in the real world more often

47. I want to be more informed about what is going on both in general, but especially in my more immediate environment

48. I want to take up better drawing habits (more life drawing, warm ups, breaks, etc.)

49. I want to try a real goddamn piña colada, bonus points if it's on the beach

50. I want to try existing in a portable living situation, like a renovated bus or van, for a while

51. I want to learn basic wilderness survival skills

52. I want to learn how to identify many different species of all types of organisms, especially plants and animals

53. I want to get my vehicle fixed up nice and maybe hand paint some things on it

54. I want to learn more about different cultures because they're fascinating and I want to be as respectful of all people as I possibly can be

55. I want to paint the waterfall jungle mural of my dreams in my future house

56. I want to gain better control of my emotions and my responses to them

57. I want to fabricate a working pair of wings for human beings

58. I want to learn/do more embroidery

59. I want to get a cerulean blue Corvette stingray

60. I want to get better about not procrastinating

61. I want to go to more events/be more involved wherever I am

62. I want to go for more walks to places I haven't been to before, bonus points if it's in the middle of the night and/or in the rain

63. I want to do things like play in inflatable obstacle courses and ride on roller coasters without caring about whether other people judge me for doing those things as an adult

64. I want to regain the physical strength I have lost from being sedentary while my mental health has been at its lowest

65. I want to spend more time laying in the sunshine, preferably with the bare minimum of clothes on because I enjoy the warmth on my skin

66. I want to cuddle more with others that feel comfortable enough to participate in that with me

67. I want to learn more about the fabrication of clothing and design/make some outfits for myself

68. I want to cosplay, maybe go to a convention sometime

69. I want to go skinny dipping >:3 (look, it's number 69 on the list, okay?)

70. I want to try all sorts of foods I've never had before

71. I want to see a butterfly leaving its cocoon in real life again

72. I want to read more of the books I own

73. I want to be kissed by someone again...it's been over 4 years...

74. I want to eliminate my habit of requiring a Youtube gaming playlist to be playing in order for me to fall asleep

75. I want to learn more about the history of the lgbtqia2s+ community

76. I want to learn how to cook for myself better, and like, actually use those skills on a regular basis

77. I want to learn how to take care of my vehicle better on my own, like how to change a tire and such

78. I want to learn to communicate better, and just, in general how to be the best friend I can be

79. I want to stop using all substances for the purpose of drowning out my surroundings and messing with my temporal senses, if I'm going to drink/smoke/get high/whatever, I want it to be because I want to for fun, not because I want the chemicals to take the edge off my mental illness(es)

80. I want to start taking better care of my dental hygiene

81. I want to learn more about my legal rights and finances and other "adult" stuff that doesn't really get taught to you unless you specifically go looking for it

82. You know the somewhat obnoxious game Bop It? Yeah, I want one of those again, keeps me entertained for a long time

83. I want to design more things in general, more characters and their outfits and personalities and the worlds they live in, I enjoy that

84. I want to spend more time outdoors with my friends, watch sunsets and collect miscellaneous objects from the universe and such

85. I want to teach someone something, sit down and maybe teach someone how I draw or about something that I am at least somewhat knowledgeable about

86. I want to go to more aquariums; if/when I travel more I want to go to every aquarium I come across

87. I want to start a legit collection of something and like, build it up over a long period of time so it gets pretty impressive

88. I want to get my eyes surgically corrected so I don't have to wear glasses or fiddle with contacts

89. I want to learn more about Greek and Latin roots and just words and symbolism in general

90. I want to lose the embarrassment I have about my hyperfixations because I deserve to not feel ashamed of the things that bring me satisfaction and joy, and it's okay if other people don't share my enthusiasm about such things, I just want to learn to not be embarrassed that I like stuff

91. I want to get over my fears/discomfort re: nudity, especially for life drawing classes; see, it's one thing to see someone nude and divert my eyes but for life drawing I'm kinda forced to look...

92. I want to understand myself better and learn to love me instead of the opposite; I want to be full of love for the beautiful people around me and I want to really solidify in my brain that I am one of those beautiful people

93. I want to do more things for others that are meaningful because that makes me happy, and I want to learn to do those things while also respecting everyone's, including my own, boundaries

94. I want to develop a sleep schedule that is healthy and appropriate, and that I'm able to maintain

95. I want to run in the rain more often and jump in puddles (edit: while typing this it started storming out and I had to run outside in my bunny pajama short-shorts, winter boots, and a sweatshirt, to grab my box of silly plant seed experiments before they blew away, so progress is already being made)

96. I want to get over my intense fear of making phone calls

97. I want to learn how to sing better with my new and improved deeper voice from being on Testosterone

98. I want to get my first tattoo fixed up and hopefully renew the meaning it had to me at the time that I got it -- I want to try to keep that promise

99. I want to spend more time actively working on improving my mental health

100. I want to see more, I want to learn more, I want to do more, I want to be the version of myself that is genuinely amazed and curious by all manner of things, and I know that part of me is still there

And now, once you've finished your list, you have 100 reasons to not give up, because there's no way of knowing what you're capable of doing if you don't exist to try.

[paul-tudor-owen]

How The Weighing of the Heart got published

It took a while for my novel The Weighing of the Heart to get published. I wrote for the Book Inspector blog about finding an agent, finding a publisher, and keeping the faith during the wilderness years.

Reading at my book launch in London

It’s been an exciting few months since my novel The Weighing of the Heart came out, but it definitely felt like it took a long while to get there.

The novel is about a young British guy living in New York called Nick Braeburn, who moves in with a couple of rich older ladies as a lodger in their opulent apartment on the Upper East Side. He gets together with their other tenant, Lydia, who lives next door, and the two of them steal a priceless work of art from the study wall.

The work of art that Nick and Lydia take is an Ancient Egyptian scene, and as the stress of the theft starts to work on them, the imagery of Ancient Egypt, the imagery in the painting, starts to come to life around them, and it’s intended to be unclear whether this is something that is really happening or whether it’s all in Nick’s head.

My wife Eleanor and I have just come back from a few years living in New York, where I was working for the Guardian newspaper, so people usually assume that I based the book based on my own experiences as a Brit in Manhattan. But actually I started it a long time before we ever moved there; it was all part of living out through writing a long-time fantasy I’d had about living in New York, going back to my teens growing up in Manchester, wrapped up in my love for all those great novels and films and songs set in the city – The Great Gatsby, Mean Streets, the music of Simon and Garfunkel.

And I had been writing fiction and trying to get published for a long time before that, starting in my early 20s, when I managed to get an agent and finished a draft of a novel. He was very encouraging and sent it out to publishers, but none of them took it up; reading it back now that seems slightly less outrageous than it did at the time.

So I kept on writing and working on ideas, and eventually around 2011 I started what was going to eventually become The Weighing of the Heart.

I think once I’d written the first couple of chapters I quickly felt quite confident that what I was writing now was much better than anything that I’d written before. I was particularly pleased with the set-up, which I thought was quite gripping immediately.

So I went back to my agent with what I’d written, but by this time, because of the unenthusiastic previous responses, he had more or less lost interest.

So I was faced with a choice. You’re usually told as an author – especially when you’re starting out – that you will never get anywhere without an agent, and that if you have managed to get one you should do everything you can to keep them.

I’m sure there is a lot of truth in that. But I felt that if I stayed with this agent, that was not going to result in this book getting published.

So I amicably cut ties with him and set about trying to find someone new. And luckily that turned out to be a much easier process than it had been in my early 20s. In those days agents had all expected manuscripts to be delivered by post, and I remember every weekend printing out page after page of my chapters, stapling these bundles together, taking them to the post office… It was very time-consuming.

But by the time I came to find a new agent, email had vastly simplified the whole system. I finished work one day and went to a secluded spot in the office, and started working my way from A to Z through The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, which lists all the agents in the UK, sending out my first two chapters to as many agents as I could. I think that first night I got about half way through the alphabet, to about M, and by the next morning, or the morning after that, I was already getting some interest, which was really heartening.

And I eventually started working with a brilliant agent called Maggie Hanbury, who I’m still working with now.

And with the input of her team, and of a brilliant professional editor called Ben Evans, who at that time was working for Cornerstones Literary Consultancy, I finished a workable draft of The Weighing of the Heart and we started sending it out.

But at that point I had a stroke of bad luck. Another book about art theft in New York – The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt – had just come out, and it was a massive hit. It was everywhere. Again and again I heard from publishers: “We really like your book, but it’s just too similar to The Goldfinch.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Tartt’s debut novel, The Secret History, was a big influence on me, especially in its tone and pace. And I remember reading the news on my phone on the way to work one day, having started The Weighing of the Heart, and seeing that Tartt had announced she had a new book coming out – a book set in New York, all about the theft of a painting. I distinctly remember thinking: “Oh no, that sounds very similar to my idea. I hope that doesn’t make things difficult for me.”

Momentum slowed down. But one small publisher was still interested, and my agent and I were in discussions with her at the beginning of 2015, when I moved to New York. This publisher really didn’t like the ending, and wanted the book to conclude in what I felt would have been a bit of a heavy-handed manner.

We went back and forth over this, and I asked myself whether I could compromise in order to finally get the book out there. But what often seems to happen when somebody points out a problem like this is that even if you don’t agree with that specific criticism, the process of thinking through the feedback turns up issues that you do feel need to be resolved.

And so I came up with an alternative ending, which didn’t feel like a compromise – it felt like an improvement.

But by this time the publisher had lost interest. And I had just moved to New York and started a new job and life had become extremely busy and complicated, and I don’t think I did any work on the novel or on trying to get it published for the next year or so.

When things started to settle down a bit, I went back to my agent, but she said she didn’t feel that she could send it out to anyone else because a number of publishers had turned it down already.

So again I was faced with a choice. I could just leave the manuscript in my metaphorical desk drawer and get on with something else. But I knew that it was a good book and it felt frustrating that it was sitting there, unread.

So I decided to send it out to small publishers myself. And again I went through the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook and the US equivalent, Writers’ Market, starting at A and sending out the first two chapters to as many publishers as I could.

And the response was very positive. The received wisdom in the literary world is that publishers will only talk to you if you’ve gone through an agent, and that may well be true for the big publishing houses. But many smaller presses seemed happy to consider my book without an agent being involved.

I had a really productive discussion with Obliterati Press, a small publishing house in the UK set up by two writers whose whole purpose is to get books out there that they feel enthusiastic about, which otherwise might not see the light of day. They agreed to publish it, and it was a great process working with them.

My publication date ended up roughly coinciding with our return to London from New York – and it felt very exciting to be coming back to the UK ready to achieve this ambition that I had been working towards for so long.

You can buy The Weighing of the Heart and read its 15 five-star reviews on Amazon here.

It has been nominated for the People’s Book Prize 2019 and the Not the Booker Prize 2019.

[biobliterator]

@synthzander​ made a super cool post answering questions abt her OCs and I got inspired to do it myself too!! I’m doing it for my five current faves. this is taken from @the-moon-dust-writings​‘s post here!

-OC’s full name?  Nix: Phoenix Eleanor Nova Rex: Bartholomew Alexander Achernar Orion: Orion Vela Io: Io Justine Pleione Ceres: Ceres Altair (Orion and Ceres don’t have middle names bc Orion picked his own name and didn’t want one and Ceres just straightup doesn’t care)

- Where were they born? Nix: Greece Rex: Scotland Orion: uhh I’m not 100% exactly sure yet but somewhere in South Asia  Io: idk man Ceres: Rwanda i think!

- What accent and language do they speak in? Nix: kinda a mix between English and Greek accents, speaks English, Greek, and a bit of French Rex: Scottish accent, only speaks English Orion: his accent and first language depend on where exactly he was born so i need to figure that out, but other than that he speaks English, Spanish, and French fluently, and many many other languages less so. Io: Io doesn’t “”speak”” but they can only use English Ceres: his first language is Kinyarwanda, altho he hasn’t had the opportunity to speak it for years. And he’s close to fluent in English!

this got super long so i’m putting it under a readmore from here! (also i accidentally switched ceres’ and io’s positions w/o realising fdkg)

- What flaws do they have? Nix: g od where do i even begin w this question. she’s manipulative and can be cruel. she wants her own way and she wants it now and she’s not afraid to go to great lengths to get it Rex: mm Rex isn’t developed enough to have significant flaws yet, but he has major attachment issues and tends to be lazy Orion: my boy is perfect wym he avoids all his problems and will always take the easy route rather than helping anybody out, also keeps a lot of knowledge of other people that would be better shared w certain others Ceres: Ceres is a difficult one tbh, but he doesn’t have any interest whatsoever in helping anybody who isn’t himself or very close friends, and doesn’t care if he hurts other people  Io: Io,, also is difficult? they make things harder for other people but that’s not their fault. yea idk Io is developed enough either

- What are things that they are good at? Nix: she’s very good at social situations and cheering people up! she’s also good at painting, photography, cooking, and is a talented engineer (she smart) Rex: video games his one true love.....he’s also a talented socialiser and good to have around in stressful situations bc he’s calm and level headed, AND he knows how to survive in the wilderness. Orion: music!! he’s a v talented musucian and singer. other than that he’s rly intelligent and can memorise almost anything - which includes the entire high school musical script. also he somehow makes friends super easily without realising how Ceres: his academic strong point is most definitely history. other than that he has a quiet way of being comforting? he notices the people he’s close to and is good at figuring them out without asking. he’s also REALLY good w animals Io: Io is pretty damn brilliant at building robots!! and they’re curious and are good at researching things they find interesting

- What are their pet peeves? Nix: ppl not taking things seriously when they should, rly loud music, ppl who don’t research before talking (basically her pet peeves are everything abt her younger self lmao) Rex: not listening when he’s trying to talk, disrespecting others’ interests, sore losers Orion: talking over him, being the punchline, being unwilling to change little things for him, chewing w ur mouth open Ceres: he only has one!: every single person on the entire earth  Io: not even bothering to try and understand their way of communicating, putting salt on things

- What is something they do not respect? Nix: ppl who talk down on her friends Rex: biting straight into the kitkat Orion: ppl who needlessly state their negative opinion Ceres: ppl who are mean to spiders Io: spiders

- Could they survive on their own in a forest? Nix: maybe?? as long as it wasn’t for too long Rex: yea Orion: quite possibly? he might have the knowledge but idk if he could put it into practise Ceres: fairly sure he could Io: no

- Are they social with others? Nix: very!! Rex: yes Orion: a lot of the time! Ceres: no Io: yea

- Do they have good social skills? Nix: yes Rex: yes Orion: ..sorta? Ceres: hell no Io: mm not really

- What is their deepest darkest secret?  Nix: she’s not as caring as she tries to make herself out to be Rex: idk he’s a pretty open book Orion: i think he keeps a lot of things secret, but knowing where his sister is and not finding her is prob a big one Ceres: his entire past p much? he doesn’t tell anybody shit Io: i think that they feel guilt over their existence sometimes. they try not to show it bc they don’t want people to worry but they need near constant care and can be difficult to live with. 

- Do they have a guilty pleasure? Nix: probably alcohol. she tries not to drink bc she has to be responsible at all times but damn does she wanna get drunk Rex: h onestly i feel like he would be into dolls and things but too embarrassed to share it Orion: eating all the ice cream. all of it Ceres: he rly likes anime... Io: they have secret social media accounts where they shitpost near constantly

- How do they express their feelings? Nix: in violent emotional outbursts or silent crying at midnight Rex: he does his best to hold it in at all times but sometimes he’ll just cry Orion: he wears his heart on his sleeve and has frequent meltdowns Ceres: he Doesn’t Io: very much phsyically. if they’re feeling something, you’ll know

- How do they react when they are proven wrong? Nix: depends. if she likes the person she’ll apologise and move on, if not she’ll just get Angery Rex: he doesn’t argue or shout unless he’s CERTAIN he’s right, so usually he’s in a situation where he can just say “oh yeah thats a good point” Orion: with confusion, mostly. knowing things grounds him, so its disorienting when he’s wrong Ceres: he’ll clench his jaw and walk away Io: [text] wot

- How do they mourn? Nix: she’s the Responsible One™ so she does her best to stay strong, but she’s very likely to lose control and resort to reckless activities Rex: loudly and angrily Orion: he withdraws and sabotages himself Ceres: he withdraws too, even more than usual. he’ll just...sit and stare at the wall Io: they don’t? understand? like when are they coming back? where did they go bring them back??

- When would they back talk someone? Nix: whenever she’s given the opportunity lmao Rex: only if they’re REALLY pissing him off Orion: not very often. probably only when somebody is talking abt his friends bc he can process that quicker Ceres: he wouldn’t. he just wouldn’t respond Io: when ppl aren’t listening to them (or whatever listening is through text)

- Do they gossip? Nix: YES and then feels bad about it later Rex: only if he knows it’s not harmful Orion: nah Ceres: no Io: lmao yes

- Would they ever be able to forgive themselves if they did something horrible? Example - Murder Nix: i think maybe? depends on the circumstances Rex: he cant even forgive himself for WITNESSING a murder when he was a kid :/ Orion: if he can rationalise it, yea Ceres: good question. the answer is i have no clue Io: i think so. it’d have to have been extreme circumstances for it to happen so they’d handle it

- Do they care about themselves or others more? Nix: herself unless it’s her friends (she has many friends) Rex: others Orion: others but he knows he needs to care abt himself more :/ Ceres: himself UNLESS it’s somebody he’s super close to Io: others BUT they’ll put their own needs first

- How would other OCs describe them? Nix: abt Rex - a solid friend. he’s safe and lovable and the one person who doesn’t depend on her abt Orion - so talented? she’s so proud of him and knows he’s gonna go far abt Ceres - after living with him for a while, he’s actually really sweet. you don’t notice him, but he notices you abt Io - the most precious lil bean!! she adores io even if they can be frustrating sometimes Rex: abt Nix - pushes herself way too hard. she needs to learn to relax so she doesn’t snap abt Orion - a good friend who he can have a real deep intelligent conversation with. lots of people underestimate him but rex knows he has a LOT to offer abt Ceres - hoo boy.....hoooooooo boy.......... abt Io - he struggles to understand io but he’s trying. the more he understands the more shocked he is at the kinda shit they text him

Orion: abt Nix - has no idea where he’d be without her, but couldn’t rely on her entirely. he’s thankful she introduced him to, and is part of, a solid support system abt Rex - he honestly loves hanging out w rex. he has so many interesting stories. while orion is more of a thinker, rex is more of a doer, so together they get up to a lot abt Ceres - ceres was the first one of them he met. he rly likes ceres. he’s a good listener. orion would like to learn more about him but he doesn’t want to push abt Io - what he loves abt io is how much they understand each other and can laugh about it. while the others definitely try, they don’t fully understand what it’s like to live as an autistic, but io does.

Ceres: abt Nix - he wants to trust her. he really really want to trust her, but deep down he doesn’t. she needs to fully and truly open up for him to trust her, but for her to do that he has to open up himself, but for him to open up he has to trust her..... abt Rex - complicated emotions. rex needs to learn how to not be taken advantage of abt Orion - persistent, but he’s grateful. without orion he doesn’t know where he’d be, and he really loves to hang out w him, especially as he’s one of the few people that doesn’t ask questions or make things awkward abt Io - he likes doing Quiet Things with io. like playing chess, baking, reading. io isn’t generally a quiet person, so he’s grateful they spend their quiet times with him Io: abt Nix - possibly one of the best people ever? while they adore their parents, without nix there’s a lot of things they wouldn’t have gotten to experience abt Rex - confusing. not the first person they’d go to in a crisis, but not the last either abt Orion - trouble buddy!! they get into trouble together a lot its great abt Ceres - needs to brush up on his chess skills bc they trash him every time but needs to ease up on his monopoly and poker skills bc they want to win ://

- How would your OC describe themselves? Nix: damn bitch you live here?? Rex: constantly just trying to fix his own mistakes Orion: existential crisis with a violin Ceres: reeeallly doesn’t know what he’s doing here Io: um?? the best Obviously ;)

- How would you as the writer describe them? Nix: nix is my eldest, and i probably have the closest relationship with her. she pushes herself too much and it only sends her backwards. she’s in a difficult position bc she has people that rely on her and they need her, but she needs to look after herself too bc she’s only gonna end up hurting the people she cares about, not to mention herself. but honestly? i love her so much. i admire her desire to go out of her way to help people, and to understand people, and i’m so happy she’s found herself a family that love her and she loves back. Rex: my boy has come so far. he’s the youngest of the group, but he’s still over a year old by now and he’s changed so much. he has such a genuine desire to make everybody happy, but like w nix needs to look after himself too bc he’s going to make himself sick. i hope to god someday he finds reason and purpose in his life and that he’s happy. Orion: such a shining light. i remember almost killing him off as soon as i made him and i’m so glad i didn’t. he has a power that draws people to him, and just seeing him smile could brighten any day. he deserves the world. i know things can be difficult for him, and people can be mean and say mean things, but he handles it so well and i am so proud that he’s found his family and he’s going to stick by them no matter what. they’re going to help him rise to the top and allow him to achieve his dreams, and he’s going to keep them with him when he does. Ceres: boyo...sweet boyo........this whole mess wasn’t his fault, no matter how much he believes it was. there’s no way he could have known what would have happened when he ran off w the promise of excitement and adventure. but yknow what it his fault? taking a chance and making a friend and it turning out w him having a family who’ll defend him to their graves. Io: my baby’s been through so much dramatic development recently, and is finally getting the attention they deserve. they’ve had a lot of luck in their life, and they’re starting to realise just how many things could have gone wrong so far, and the next step is realising that they absolutely deserve those things, and that they shouldn’t try and give things back out of obligation, but out of love.

- How well do they know their own limits? Nix: nix..knows her limits, but being a caregiver means she has to push them a lot even when she doesn’t want to. Rex: he doesn’t know his limits at all. he’s constantly finding himself at limit’s end and being unable to get out of it. Orion: he mostly knows his limits? sometimes he chooses to push them, but he’ll fight for his right to stay within them Ceres: oh nah he has no idea, and he doesn’t want to find out either Io: io knows their limits and refuses to have them pushed

that’s it and i just wanna say that if you read this far i admire your tolerance and i adore you

[flikissorry-blog]

Letters From the Sky || Self

Flik hadn’t been sure how long it would take for the letters to start arriving. He didn’t doubt in the slightest that they would. If nothing else, Daisy would hate what he was doing and would be determined to change his mind. But, considering they couldn’t even give the owls the slightest hint on even what direction to fly, he was fairly certain it would take at least a few days. In the meantime, he got to work.

It didn’t take him long to convert that second room into a usable workspace before spreading out everything he’d brought with him. Tools, journals, half finished projects, and junk covered nearly ever surface, and a few more that he constructed hastily to be sure that he wouldn’t trip over anything. Occasionally, he would use spells to speed up the process, but he kept the use of magic to a minimum. He couldn’t risk suspicion falling on him, either from his neighbors or from the Ministry. Suspicion would get him found. Which was the last thing he wanted.

But even doing everything almost entirely by hand, it only took him a few days to get everything situated the way he wanted so he could start to work. Journals spread out in front of him, he decided to start with one of his smaller old inventions. This one he was sure had been close to working. Now to see if he could make it work completely.

But just as he was about to start, the first letter arrived.

Dear Flik,

I know sometimes you go through stupid phases. But I think this is your stupidest. Where the hell are you?

Daisy

He smiled slightly to himself. It was exactly what he had been expecting from her. Short, to the point, a little insulting, but nothing he couldn’t handle. It was bound to get worse from here when he continued to deny her what she wanted. But he couldn’t help that. So instead, he pulled over one of the blank sheets of paper he had set aside for just this purpose, and wrote her a quick response.

Daisy,

If I told you where I was, that would kind of defeat the purpose of the letter I sent you. I know this is hard, but this is really for the best. Don’t worry, I’m safe and I have a roof over my head so it’s not like I’m wandering the streets in any sort of danger.

Flik,

As soon as he’d sent off the first letter, he rolled his shoulders, pulled out his tools, and began to work. He had two journals set out next to him. One was the journal with the notes for the invention itself, all of his tests and modifications, and space to add in anything new that he did. The other journal was for the notes on himself. If he really was the cause of whatever was going wrong, he was determined to take as detailed notes as possible around everything about himself. There had to be a pattern to this. He just needed to find it.

The next letter only took another day to arrive, which meant Daisy had probably written it as soon as she’d received his response. He was planning on just putting it aside until later, but the owl stared at him and hooted insistently. Apparently it was under orders to get a reply from him before it could fly back home. Flik sighed and pulled out the short message.

Right. I’m going to believe that. Didn’t you just say that you are the dangerous part of this equation? So anywhere you are is inherently dangerous to you?

Daisy

Ok. Maybe she had a point. But it was the same exact frustrating sort of point that he had been trying to make clear to everyone around him. He was dangerous. Which meant he was the one who needed to be removed from the equation until the danger could be neutralized. Since he couldn’t be removed from himself, he’d had to accept that percentage of danger and move forward with his plans.

The argument wasn’t a new one, so he didn’t bother to give it a long response. The work was waiting.

Daisy,

Maybe, but I’m ok with it being dangerous to me.

Flik,

Flik was making progress. Maybe not exactly the kind of progress that he’d hoped for, but progress. The first invention he’d tried working with had made it successfully through several test trials, and nothing happened to it. Nothing broke. Nothing exploded. In fact, it worked. Exactly as he’d hoped it would.

Of course, it was one of his simpler designs from the early years at Hogwarts, and it hadn’t told him anything about what was wrong with him. And there was nothing saying that it wouldn’t break soon enough. But this was better than he had been able to do in, well, years. It wasn’t enough to allow him to celebrate yet. But, maybe it was worth trying something a little more complicated.

Daisy’s next letter interrupted him right as he began to page through his journals, trying to figure out exactly what his next trial should be.

I AM NOT!!!!!

For the first time, he started to get annoyed with the letters from Daisy. He could feel her frustration through the letter and knew that if she’d been able to manage it, it would have been a howler. Scrawling a quick response, he fired it off so he could return to his work. He had better things to do.

Shouting at me isn’t actually going to change matters.

But that interruption had broken whatever easy concentration he’d managed to keep before then. What did she know? She didn’t have to live with whatever was going on inside of him. Didn’t she want him to get better? Why couldn’t she trust him? For once, he knew exactly what he was doing and it was right. For the first time in months, he felt an absolute certainty, and part of him wondered why he hadn’t thought to try this before.

When something was broken, you fixed it. If you didn’t know how to fix it, you ran tests to determine what the problem was and then proceeded from there. Ignoring the problem only caused further breakdowns. He’d known that with his inventions. Now he was living proof of exactly that idea.

But the break in his concentration meant that the easy work rhythm he had set up was broken as well. As soon as he had reached for the invention – the one that had been working almost perfectly -  it sparked in his hand and short circuited entirely. Biting his lip, he took down detailed notes on the situation, his emotional state, his thoughts, the weather, the level of cleanliness in the room, and anything else that might be remotely relevant. And then he left his workshop.

Daisy’s next letter found him with a paint scraper in hand, removing all the loose and damaged paint from the outside of the house. The manual labor was comforting in its  way, and it let him read Daisy’s next letter with a slightly clearer head. But that didn’t last long.

Nothing else seems to get through your thick skull. Do you have any idea how worried Mom and Dad are? I mean, you emptied out your entire trust, left us a cryptic letter, and disappeared into the wilderness of God knows where. And for what? So you can indulge your self pity in peace? What if you do get hurt or killed, are we just supposed to never know where you are? I love you you idiot and I want you home where I can yell at you in person.

Her letter had guilt pinching uncomfortably in his stomach. The last thing he wanted to do was worry his family, especially when they’d always been so good to him and he loved them so much. But from the way they had all been, he knew he’d been worrying them regardless. Wasn’t it better for them to be worried when he was trying to take actual steps to fix the problem, instead of being worried because he was doing nothing at all?

Maybe if he was a little more honest about his mental state, she would leave him alone. Because he was better here. He knew it. He felt it. He just needed to make her understand.

I’m sorry they’re worried. Really. I am. But Daisy, I needed this. Being here is the most myself I’ve felt in a long time. I haven’t had any of those grey days since I’ve been here. I can keep my mind focused on what I want through a whole activity. I’ve even been able to work without anything going wrong and I can’t remember the last time that happened. So I still think this was the right decision.

But was it? Now that he’d sent off the letter, he wasn’t so sure. But if this was wrong, what was the right decision? Did a right decision exist? If what he was doing made him feel good, how could it be bad?

Was it really that impossible for him to make a single good decision? Was that it? He was such an inherent screw up that everything he did resulted in pain for the people around him no matter what? Was this a fool’s errand that left him without any hope at all? And if it was, what was the point to anything at all?

The lantern next to him at the front of the house shattered and Flik looked up in surprise. That wasn’t natural. At all. Which meant the cause of the breakage was magical, and therefore related to Flik. He turned and walked back into his workshop, pulling out the journal he was keeping on himself and added another detailed passage for everything leading up to the breaking of the lamp. In the meantime, he would need to see what he could do about going into town to get it fixed.

By the time Daisy’s next letter arrived, he had managed to replace the lantern and finish scraping off the peeling paint. He had new house paint on order from the small local hardware store, and he had managed to get what he needed there to replace the small amounts of damage he could see to the house.

He hadn’t spent any time in his workshop since that explosion.

And what about sleeping? And eating? Are you doing any of that? Or are you going to waste away because there’s no one to remind you that there’s a whole world outside your work?

He sighed slightly to himself. He understood her point. Often during school, necessities like eating and sleeping would fall to the wayside as he focused intensely on the work he was trying to accomplish. But part of that had been the difficulty of balancing his bursts of inspiration with the kind of eating and class schedule most other people managed. He just didn’t live by their same time schedule.

Sure, he could improve. He had been a lot better when he’d had Daisy or Rose to remind him when he had spent too long isolated from any kind of contact, and the both of them had made sure that he ate. But he was far from starving here. And now, when he fell asleep he could sleep until he woke up, at whatever time that was. It was a much better way to live.

Actually I am remembering to eat. And I’m sleeping more than I ever did during school. It’s probably not on the same sort of schedule that other people consider normal, but it works for me. I’ve even gone out and met some of the local people around here. They all think I’m a bit strange, but they seem fine with that. So I’m fine.

What he said in his letter was true. It might have only been a few weeks, but he had already reached the status of ‘benevolent local eccentric’ among the locals, and he found that he liked it.

Sometimes, when he got hungry at a reasonable hour, he’d go into town to the local pub to get a meal. Invariably, someone would end up talking to him. He’d get their life stories and the local gossip, he gave an edited version of his own, and they passed the time amiably enough.

He wouldn’t say he was especially close to any of them here. But he could be. Given enough time, he could be.  

Why isn’t anything I’m saying getting through to you?

This time he stared at Daisy’s letter in disbelief. Getting through to him? As if he was some stubborn child who refused to let go of a bright shiny idea they hadn’t bothered to research in the slightest? As if none of his feelings, none of his reasons, mattered to her at all because they ran counter to what she wanted? Getting through?

She had tried to use his feelings of love and loyalty against him. She had tried to say that she was concerned, and then ruined things for him exactly when he was trying to get them to go right. Maybe there was some validity to what she was saying, but she wasn’t acknowledging the validity to his side, and for the first time in a long time, he was hurt. His sister had hurt him and he let himself acknowledge it.

Because you aren’t listening to me either! I told you, I figured out that there’s something about me messing up all my inventions. Something about me being around the inventions, or something about my magic, which is what is making them all go haywire now. I need to figure out what’s causing that to happen so I can make it stop. This is the only way I can think of to do that.

I wasn’t happy before. I thought I’d have to give up inventing forever because I wasn’t just a failure, I was a dangerous failure. But without it, I couldn’t figure out who I actually am or could be or anything. I was too worried about the possibility of someone else getting hurt to focus on anything else, and without thinking of inventions, I could barely think of anything at all.

There were a few people who could get through all of that. You, Professor McLeod, Dory, Scarlett. But that isn’t enough to build a life on Daisy. And besides, all of you kept saying that I couldn’t give up on inventing. Why are you mad now that I’m doing exactly what you wanted?

There. The words he hadn’t know he was going to write stared up at him, and he forced himself to reread them and imprint them on his mind. If he couldn’t be an inventor, he was nothing at all. Maybe it had started as a way to give something to Daisy, maybe it was just something bred into his bones. But none of that mattered. No matter how it began, the truth was, that now it was who he was. He tried to be someone else, to put it on hold, and instead he’d barely been a functional person at all.

Maybe this would get him killed. Maybe he was dangerous enough that he would be the cause of his own death. But if he was going to die, it was going to be because he actually felt alive.

Sending the letter off, he walked resolutely back up to his workshop. This was his place. His sanctuary. And no one – not even his sister – was going to take that from him.

Before he could think too much about it and begin to second guess himself, he pulled one of his old ever burning globe prototypes out of the careful packaging he had kept it wrapped in. This, this was the invention idea he was proudest of. If he could make it work, it would revolutionize lighting both at school and in the home. No more smoky rooms, no more children getting burned, no more fireproof spells needing to coat every inch of every surface, no more scrubbing away smoke stains. Just light.

It was the invention that had caused him the most problems, and the one he wanted the most to work. But putting off touching it just because he was scared wasn’t going to change matters. Facing himself meant facing the cause of his greatest personal accident. He began to work.

This time, it took several days for Daisy’s letter to arrive. In that time, he’d had two more minor explosions and one serious cut, but he was refusing to let that stop him now. Leaning against his desk, he read through her response with a clenched feeling in his gut.  

Because I don’t understand why you can’t do any of this surrounded by the people you love and who love you. You have a workshop at the house, you’ve banned all of us from it. It’s practically the same thing. But this way, if something did go wrong, we’d actually be there to help you. I’d get to talk to you and share books with you and do all those things we normally do.

Plus what does Scarlett think? Or Professor McLeod? Did you bother writing them letters? Did they respond? Because I bet they said exactly what I’m saying. And maybe if everyone else is on the same side of the argument you should think about exactly why that is and stop being such an insufferable moron.

His heart sank. No. She hadn’t understood. He could hear the hurt and frustration bleeding through her letter, and again, he knew she had a point. But at this point, she just couldn’t understand. She didn’t know what it was like to be so constantly afraid of yourself that you tried to lock everything away. She’d never felt so wrong in her own life and her own skin that you needed to be somewhere else to find what was right.

But the thing was? She so easily could have felt that way. By rights, she should have. She was the squib in a pureblood wizard family. She was the one constantly surrounded by the evidence of a world she could live adjacent too, but never really participate in. She was the odd one out. The accident of genetics that gave her a label and a status of ‘other’ that their whole family had had to actively defend her against. In theory, she should have understood.

But that wasn’t who Daisy was. She’d been raised with perfect love and unfailing support. More than that, she herself was full of confidence and self love. Her parents had supplied her with the ammunition to defend herself from unkind words, but it was Daisy herself who wielded it with abandon. Daisy who walked confidently into the muggle world and brought back all the knowledge she would need to keep operating in it successfully. Who walked the line between worlds with a grace that Flik himself could never even dream of managing.

Somehow, Flik had ended up with all the anxiety and self doubt in the family, struggling to find his place in a world that didn’t quite fit comfortably. Daisy drifted happily across the boundaries of worlds as if she owned them. She fit nowhere, and yet, she made it so that became a strength that allowed her to fit everywhere.

That would never be Flik. Maybe he couldn’t make her understand that. But he still had to try.

What they said to me is none of your business. And you know what? The group isn’t always right just because its louder. Sometimes all that means is that there are more people talking. But all it takes is one person at the right time showing a different way to be and the whole world can change. So, no, I’m not changing my mind. I’m not telling you where I am. And if you haven’t already figured out, I have protections put around this place so you can’t track the owls magically to find out where I am. I thought it was a good precaution.

Reading over his letter, he could hear the hurt and anger radiating through it. Anger that he was still struggling to acknowledge, even to himself, but that he couldn’t quite hide all the way.

Maybe the note about the precautions was snarky. Maybe it was hurtful. But they were one of the first things he had put in place when he’d moved in, because if he wanted to make sure he stayed off the grid, he needed to be hidden enough to actually accomplish it.

Of course, a decent private investigator would still be able to find him without too much trouble. Or an auror for that matter. But he’d been gone for over a month now, Daisy was still writing letters, and there was no sign of any other wizards at his door. He didn’t think one was coming after him.

However, he had learned enough by now to realize that there was some clue in his emotional state to point to the way his magic was responding. Which did make sense in its way. After all, confidence was said to be one of the greatest markers determining the success of a spell. And children did have instantaneous magical reactions to situations that made them feel angry or afraid. He hadn’t heard of it ever happening like this once someone had their wand, but it didn’t matter. The facts were that his emotions affected his magic in a wild slightly unusual way.

Which meant that if he was upset enough not to be able to control his temper in his writing, he shouldn’t immediately go back to his inventing and put himself in the path of danger. Grabbing the can of paint that had arrived just the other day, Flik walked to the outside of his little cottage and set up everything to paint. Maybe manual labor would help him again.

He hadn’t really been sure how Daisy would respond to that last letter, especially with how short (borderline accusatory really) he had been. So when he saw the owl coming near with the letter clutched in its beak, he opened it nervously.

I hadn’t actually tried that, but only because Mom and Dad refused, and I don’t know anyone else I could force to try and do that. I’ll figure something out Flik. This is only going to make me more creative with it. I won’t give up. And when I find you, I’m going to kick your ass myself. Got it?

Mom and Dad refused. Merlin bless his parents. They understood. Or at least, if they didn’t understand, they were willing to give him the space he needed to be able to come back to them on his own, regardless of the worry he was causing them. They trusted him enough to let him go and be alone, exactly as he’d needed to be. Just as they had done their best to support Daisy in every way possible, they were now giving him the same gift. Someday, he would be able to tell them exactly how grateful he was.

But for now, he wasn’t going to bother to reply to Daisy. He had no doubt she would try something new to be able to get to him. She was too stubborn to do anything else. But for now, he had nothing more to say.

He had his cottage. He had his solitude. He had his work. And for the first time in a long time? He was starting to feel like there was a chance he could be enough. Maybe he didn’t know exactly what was wrong, but he was closer to figuring out than he had ever been before, and in the process, he was potentially adding to the field of magical scientific research.

It was enough.  

[rorykillmore]

BELATED BIRTHDAY FIC FOR @ravenswood. may has been an anxiety-ridden disaster for me and i’ve just started crawling out of a writing slump BUT IT’S FINALLY HERE. she requested a god squad fic and i kind of... ran with that in the wackiest way possible and threw them in with the future hypothetical denny!guardians.

enjoy this little glimpse of their space roadtrip?? i had to narrow the focus on the main thematic elements since there were so many little tangent interactions i could have gone off on but hopefully you enjoy what i decided to do with it.

happy late birthday friend!! hope this improves your night as you are constantly improving my life <3

Family, in Heather’s mind, has always been ill-defined and hard to grasp. Once it had been a mother who’d hated and hated, no matter how hard Heather (not Heather, then) had tried to be good enough to love.  Once it had been paintings other kids had drawn, mothers and fathers and siblings all with smiles on their faces, and a little brown dog and a white picket fence.  

Later it had been something else. Not as whole and perfect as she’d imagined in some of her fantastical dreams (the kind that never came to life), but somehow managing to be happy. Worth holding onto (until she couldn’t any longer). A dad who had ruffled her hair and bandaged her scraped knees and told her he’d loved her in a way she knew he meant.

He’s gone now. Heather remembers thinking, once she actually had the capacity to think -- well, this is it. It was nice while it lasted. I’m glad I had it for awhile.

Probably never again, though. 

She’s already decided to keep moving forward, out of spite if nothing else.

‘Moving forward’, it turns out, isn’t as inspirational as it sounds. It’s a vague thing people say when they don’t want to brood about something forever (which, fair enough). It’s misleading, in Heather’s opinion. ‘Moving forward’ makes it sound like there’s only one direction to go in, when in reality, there are about a thousand -- each as wild and unpredictable as the next.

And she’s not sure it gets much more unpredictable than ‘stuck in a parallel dimension, palling around with an anthropomorphic fox and a paranormal investigator and his psychic wife’.

“Did you pack toothpaste?” Volle calls back to her, and Heather’s lips twitch.

Not that she’s complaining, really.

“Got it covered!” she calls back, then glances at Ed where he’s walking alongside her.  “Can you even use toothpaste in space?”

Ed gives her a baffled, goodnatured shrug. “Don’t look at me. I’m from not even ten years after the first moon landing, you know.”

This, Heather has decided, is wilder than anything that’s happened to them so far. And that’s saying something.

Just ahead of them looms the Milano. An actual spaceship! It belongs to someone calling himself Starlord, apparently, although Heather still isn’t entirely sure... who he is or how they’re supposed to know him.

Apparently Ed is friends with a banshee and a talking raccoon, both of which are facts which should not surprise her in the slightest. Now, the fact that said banshee and raccoon have fallen in with a group of space travelers -- who apparently need their help? That’s enough to jar her, a little (not that she’s not making every effort not to appear jarred -- or excited). And she’d thought she’d gotten used to this place.

“God, you’re so old,” she tells Ed with a playful roll of her eyes, and he looks mockingly offended. “So... where are we going, again?”

It’s Lorraine who answers her from Ed’s other side, soft and thoughtful, like absolutely none of this is bizarre in the slightest.  “Apparently there’s a governing party experiencing some pretty nasty hauntings in the... Andromeda galaxy.” Her brow furrows slightly, and Heather mirrors her expression. The Andromeda galaxy. Isn’t that kind of far away?

Maybe not for a futuristic spaceship, she concedes silently.

“Great. So we’re looking at space ghosts.” If she asks how different they could be from Earth ghosts, she’ll probably jinx it. “Why not, right?”

“It would be cruel to turn them away if there’s something we can do to help,” Volle points out as they finally catch up with him. He flicks an ear towards the ship, which is now looming directly overhead. “Although, I must admit I’m... entirely unfamiliar with vessels of this nature.”

“You aren’t the only one, if that makes you feel any better,” Ed notes wryly.

“Don’t tell me you’re scared.” This is a new voice.  Heather turns to see...

Yep, that’s the talking raccoon.

All... three feet of him, or so.

Waiting for them just inside the ship.

“C’mon. You know the odds of dyin’ in one of these are actually lower than dyin’ in a traffic accident.” A pause follows that statement. Then a snicker. “I completely pulled that out of my ass.”

Heather turns in unison with Volle to stare at Ed, just kind of -- seriously? These are your other friends? Lorraine, however, keeps a straight face.

“Hello, Rocket,” she greets him pleasantly.

Rocket twitches his ears at her. “Yeah. Hey. These your tagalongs?” His gaze falls on Heather and Volle. Heather opens her mouth to say something in retort, but Lorraine beats him to it.

“Yes. Heather Mason and Lord Vinton, respectively.” 

Volle’s title seems to vaguely piss Rocket off, because he stares directly at him. “And what the hell are you supposed to be?”

Heather tries to hide a smirk at Volle’s bemused expression.  “Er. Delighted to meet you,” he answers, his tone bordering on questioning. Rocket grunts at that, unamused by the quip but unable or unwilling to come up with a response, and turns around.

“You assholes are late enough as it is. C’mon, we’re about to take off,” he tells them, leading the way into the depths of the ship without looking back. Out of the corner of her eye, Heather catches Ed and Lorraine exchanging amused look, as if they’ve never been referred to as ‘you assholes’ in their lives (well -- maybe not to their faces, she thinks playfully).

Predictably, Volle takes point. She’s noticed that he likes to do that, when braving a new situation -- though depending on the danger level present, Ed sometimes beats him to it. For Heather’s own part, she’s usually content to hang in the back and watch the chaos unfold. She figures she’s earned it.

But with surprisingly little fanfare, considering they’re walking onto a fucking spaceship, they file on board -- Volle, then Ed and Lorraine walking arm and arm (ugh), then Heather herself bringing up the near. By sheer principle of teenage apathy combined with the fact that Rocket doesn’t strike her as the type to need an ego boost, she tries not to look too impressed.

But... alright. It is pretty cool.

“Hope this thing has seatbelts,” Ed jokes goodnaturedly, and Heather rolls her eyes with an unmistakable tinge of affection. If this is going to happen, she supposes, she couldn’t have picked a better group of losers to come along for the ride.

Within the first several hours, the group of losers expands considerably.

Heather, for one, has absolutely no idea how either Ed or Lorraine managed to become friends with someone like Siobhan Smythe, but it’s happened. It’s a thing. When she’s not trading insults with the other Guardians, she occasionally drops by to hang out with them (well, not them -- just Ed and Lorraine, basically, when they’re being subtle enough about their heterosexuality for them to tolerate).

The captain’s name is Peter Quill, and he and Ed share a disturbingly similar taste in music (Heather needs them to be separated, like, yesterday).  Lorraine gets on startlingly well with Gamora (who, even on a good day, looks like she’d happily kill a man -- exactly the sort of person Lorraine always wins over), and Volle seems to be having a little too much fun with Drax.

For her own part, she likes to flit around -- she’s cautious of getting too buddy-buddy with any of her new shipmates (caution, she’s found, is one of the hardest things to unlearn), but Rocket is easy enough to banter with. Every so often, Quill manages to remind her of Harry (they both share an affinity for the same weird A-ha song), and Mantis fascinates her in a way she can’t quite admit. She sees her and Lorraine talking, every now and again, and always finds herself tempted to go and join them.

She hasn’t, just yet.

“You know the worst thing to come of all of this,” Volle says to her one day with a mischievous swish of his tail. “Is that it seems you may have to endure the presence of a new baby brother.”

Heather follows his gaze to where Groot is toddling out to meet the Warrens with an eager familiarity that’s been accumulated over the initial duration of their trip. Both Ed and Lorraine are looking suspiciously misty-eyed.

Heather rolls her eyes, trying not to be phased by his fazing. “They can adopt all the kids they want, but I think Rocket has dibs on that one. Besides, I’m a little too old for that kind of thing.”

Volle gives her a lengthy, sideways look, but doesn’t say anything. Heather decides not to linger on it.

She tries not to, anyway.

“Hey, guys?” The next evening (she assumes it’s evening, at least) Quill pokes his head into their cabin. “We’re gonna be landing in a few hours, so uh. Make sure you like... rest up, or whatever. Not to sound too much like a dad.”

He’s probably one of the people least at risk for that here, Heather reflects dryly, but she shrugs and sets down her hand of cards. Across from her, Volle and Rocket do the same.

“Well, guess I’m out.” Rocket gets to his feet and shoots a smug look at Volle. “Wouldn’t wanna tread on the royal curfew. I was winning, anyway.”

Volle looks at him, straight-faced. “I’ll consider myself spared.”

Rocket chooses not to acknowledge the teasing sarcasm edging that statement, turning for the door. Heather catches Lorraine hiding a smile behind the book she’s reading.

“Where’s Ed?” Heather asks, starting to clean up.

“I think he just went to stretch his legs.” Lorraine glances at her briefly. “I’m sure he’ll be back before too long. Even Ed’s okay at keeping a decent sleep schedule, when it really counts.”

Yeah, Heather thinks dryly, when you’re around. That little quip goes unsaid, though -- however she might joke about it inwardly, she’d never betray any of the quiet vulnerabilities that manifested in Ed during the period of time when Lorraine wasn’t around. It’s not a trust thing -- she just gets the feeling Ed wouldn’t want her to.

 “Maybe I’ll go track him down,” she says aloud, rising to her feet. Lorraine smiles at her.  

“Good idea. Tell him if he takes too long, I’m coming out there.”

“Is that supposed to be a deterrent?” asks Volle wryly, and Heather snorts, turning for the door and leaving them to their playful banter.

Not that they’ve been traveling on it for a comparatively long time, but she doesn’t think she’s ever seen the Milano so quiet. It’s a rare event that everyone’s sleeping patterns align that perfectly, but Heather guesses that if the others aren’t all asleep, they’ve stowed away to make final preparations for their landing.

She finds Ed in the bridge, of all places, hands in his pockets.

“Thank god Quill left his ship in the hands of such an experienced pilot,” she quips, announcing herself. Ed only looks slightly startled as he turns to face her, giving her a smile that mirrors Lorraine’s in warmth and affection (did they practice that together, Heather occasionally wonders, or are they just naturally like that?).

“They send you out looking for me?” he guesses.

She shrugs teasingly. “I decided on my own that you were taking too long.” It turns her a chuckle.

“I was just -- watching the stars, for awhile,” he explains, gesturing. “It might sound cheesy, but it’s easy to get lost in thought up here.”

Pretty much everything Ed ever says sounds cheesy, but Heather neglects to point that out less out of tact and more because she’s worried she’ll make it sound too fond. “It’s not often that it’s quiet enough to, either,” she points out instead.

“Very true.”

There’s a pause. She hesitates.  “Seriously, though, if you wanna be alone, I can --”

“Oh -- no, don’t worry about it.”  Ed sounds genuine enough that Heather relaxes. “I didn’t come up here to brood, I promise. Just to think.”

She smiles a little at the goodnatured edge to his tone, and slowly steps up alongside him. She can see how easy it would be to get lost in those stars. They’re infinite in a way that’s more than a little daunting. “What were you... thinking about?”

There’s a short pause before he answers. “Honestly? That I never expected my life would turn out like this.”  He glances at her, smiling still.  “Pretty crazy, huh?”

“Even by our standards,” Heather grumbles in agreement, and then finds herself hesitating. “I know that, uh. You and Lorraine left a lot behind. ...Must be hard.”

“I can’t really imagine it’s easy for most people,” Ed replies, and Heather doesn’t tell him how little she had to leave.  She watches as his expression softens.  “But, y’know, we’ve found a lot too.”

She finds she doesn’t really know what to say to that. She folds her arms.  “Quite a ragtag crew you’ve assembled. Rocket and Siobhan are even weirder than we are, and that’s saying something.”  When that gets a proper laugh out of him, she can’t help but smile.

“Yeah,” Ed agrees amicably. “Yeah, I... honestly still can’t quite tell you how that one happened.”

They both fall silent for a moment, reflecting. It’s a good question. How did any of this happen?

She doesn’t have to question whether or not she’s glad it did.

“Sometimes I,” she starts, voice faltering uncharacteristically. Ed waits patiently for her to finish. “Sometimes I’m... scared. Of holding on to something else.”

She doesn’t explain what she means. He doesn’t ask.

After a moment, though, she feels a gentle hand on her shoulder. “We’re not going anywhere,” he tells her, empathetic as ever. “Not if we can help it, anyway. Wait until you’re ready.”

Something in her chest tightens, and she nods.

When they finally land, Heather’s pretty sure no one’s even worried about the space ghosts anymore -- those of them who aren’t used to space travel, at least, are just happy to hit solid ground and fresh air again.

“So what’s the plan, here?” Rocket asks, flicking his ears as he glances back at them. Heather almost doesn’t hear him, briefly distracted by the vibrant colors they’re suddenly surrounded by, the distinctly alien city looming in the distance. Realizing he’s looking to the Warrens for an answer, though, she casts an expectant glance their way. They’re keeping close to each other, fingers entwined -- Lorraine murmuring something unintelligible in Ed’s ear as they gaze out at the scene stretching before them.

Siobhan clears her throat very pointedly.  “Can you punch a space ghost?” she calls.

“That is a question I would like answered, as well,” Drax puts in grimly. He frowns at the look Gamora gives him.  “It would make things much simpler. Rocket says that these people whisper to ghosts. I do not see how such dulcet tones --”

He breaks off as Rocket starts snickering, and Lorraine looks over.

“Oh -- no, Drax. That’s not quite how it works.” She pauses, and she and Ed reluctantly disentwine. Heather can practically feel everyone present breathing an inward sigh of relief. 

“Before we even think about talking to any spirits, we’ll need to speak with the people experiencing the hauntings,” Ed puts in. “Considering that we’re also gonna need to pick up a bit of culture here, that may be a more... thorough process than usual.”

“I am Groot!”

Rocket wrinkles his nose. “What do you mean, snakes began manifesting in your house physically? When did we see any snakes?” 

Heather hurriedly looks away, deciding now isn’t a good time to extrapolate on Groot’s introduction to Youtube. “So, we should... plan to stay here a little while, then.”

“Not too long,” Ed promises, glancing around at the group. “Maybe a couple more days, though. Can we all spare that much?”

“No one has made any effort to engage me socially!” Mantis chirps. There’s an awkward pause, and Heather hears Siobhan murmur ‘shocker’.  Mantis hesitates, and then amends slightly, “Recently, I mean. I can stay as long as you would like.”

“We’ve all cleared our schedules,” Peter confirms.

“We’d always planned for a week or so away from home, anyway.” Volle gives them an easy smile.  “I’m sure we won’t be missed.”

It seems to be settled. Today, Heather reflects, this is what moving forward looks like. Parading off onto an unknown planet to face off against supernatural, extraterrestrial entities with a bunch of space misfits.

She can’t believe she thought her life was weird before.

But as she falls into her usual place beside Volle, this time walking just a little ways ahead of Ed and Lorraine (let them hold hands in peace, they’ve mutually decided), she can’t help but begin to feel content.

I love you, Dad,  she thinks, heartfelt and aching and resolved.  I wish you were here.

She’ll always hold onto that. To him.

But he’d be proud of her for wanting to reach out and hold on to something else.

[redscullyrevival]

Ship of Destiny: Liveship Traders Rundown

@sonnetscrewdriver this has been a wild ride! TW: Spoilers abound and discussion of rape follows. 

Setting/Plot/Narrative

For being my least favorite installment I do feel that this created world and it’s social/magical systems arrives at it’s most cohesive fruition in this last book, which makes sense, and I am thankful for that. 

I also found the idea that a large bulk of what was expressed and used to motivate and further the story is tossed away, or altered, by the end of the book - in the sense that Tintaglia and the reintroduction of dragons into the world along with the recognition of the Pirate Isles reorders power, society, and economy - to be a unique and interesting choice. 

Its a bit of a tricky move but it didn’t feel like “a waste” to me to have learned so thoroughly the world only for it to be rearranged at the end. It all worked towards the total theme of the series of inevitable change and response, in accepting life and taking responsibility for only what we can control. 

Or, at least, that’s the big takeaway I got!

Althea Vestrit

Fuck

Okay

We’ll... we’ll have to come back to Althea in a second.

Captain Kennit

HHHHMMMMMMMSLDKFNL:KSLDK

This fucker.

Like a lot of characters with well done tragic backstories I was rooting for Kennit. I didn’t hate him but I didn’t really like him either, you know? As I said last time he exudes the “cool motive, still murder” type of deal - Kennit is a character who the majority of the series straddles the line of never being someone who gains reader sympathy while still being recognized by the reader as a deeply damaged person not entirely of his own making. 

So I rooted for him. 

Through out the entire series Kennit gets away with a lot of stuff and I understand from a narrative perspective that him raping Althea was a choice to have him cross a line. As the reader we know he raped Althea whereas everyone around, aside from Althea and Etta, isn’t sure he is capable of it. 

Which turned into some intense fucking writing. 

Because it isn’t ‘Kennit raped Althea so now he is the bad man everyone hates and a common enemy’, no. He remains captain. He remains a hero, the pirate king, the freer of slaves. A “good man”. We know Kennit isn’t a good man, but then again we’ve known that all along. We really have. All the signs were there. What was done to Kennit was all that was left of Kennit. Paragon tried to take that pain and suffering from him, but Kennit gave the hurt he received and that’s one reality of trauma and failure to cope. Because Kennit was never coping. 

Ultimately I pitied Kennit while also accepting his actions as being abhorrent - getting angry and baring frothing teeth wasn’t my reaction. That isn’t how I react to this type of thing in narratives a lot of the time, especially with one that is trying it’s darnedest to be honest and respectable when it comes to this particular reflection of real life. 

In the chapter the rape happened, the second my eyes read it, I came to hate Kennit. And that was the right response. That’s why it was written the way it was, I believe, so as to finally push the reader into having a real solid opinion about Kennit beyond his fake persona and his personal grab for power and fame elevating others; to remove benefit of the doubt completely and say “This is not a good person” no matter what his puzzled together sob story is and no matter what he has done in the name of social and political progress. Kennit is a shitbag human. 

This series stresses, to an almost anxiety inducing degree, that people and life and situations are complex ever shifting, evolving, and decaying breathing entities. The only character who was truly stagnant and unmovable was Kennit, who hid under the guise of modernization and revolution. He had to be made irredeemable and dead. 

This is a tight narrative that doesn’t abide such a person, doesn’t let such a person survive - that’s why so much emphasis was placed on the idea of Kennit’s luck. Something had to keep him around until he finally made a change, a choice, that would actually alter him.  

To that end, I “like” the character as a device but not as an idea of a person or as a character-character. 

What’s just as cutting is that Winthrow, Vivacia, Jek, (and probably society/history) doubt Althea. It’s gut wrenchingly frustrating. And it taints those characters just as much as it paints Kennit; and entirely because we know the total truth how they don’t.  

Althea Vestrit

Phew, okay, lets try this again. 

This was some hard shit. 

Althea’s rape wasn’t the “worst” rape scene I’ve ever read and it probably won’t be the last, but what made the scene so difficult wasn’t any fucked up occupation with focusing on the physical but by focusing on the emotional and psychological confusion, terror, and exhaustion of the moment which worked to heighten the violation. I was thankful it wasn’t a long scene or I’d have to have skimmed it, and making it short was a smart choice because it gives strength to the idea that any form of unwanted physicality, no matter how briefly depicted (or in actuality), has massive repercussions. Basically it was a small mercy that we didn’t have to linger and wallow in the misery of the act to get across the wrongness of it and that’s all do to the writing.

I feel a bit bad for focusing on Althea’s rape so heavily when talking about her and when talking about Kennit because it’s kind of like “Wow, well, there is more to her than this” - but I also think that’s a thought better reserved for a real person more than a character. 

I said my reaction to this kind of thing in stories a lot of the time isn’t real true anger, and I stand by that, but come on! Obviously I get a little angry at the same time! I invest in characters and I get mad at what is done to them in-story just as much as I get mad they had something done to them because that was a choice made for the story, ya know? 

Like, sometimes the emotion is “UGH this character wouldn’t do that, why is this happening?” anger and other times it’s “UGH what is this character doing stop being a dummy (because I understand them as being capable of doing this dumb thing)” anger. And sometimes it’s both lol. I’m a mysterious woman!

Anyways, my point is that poor Althea gets a bit overshadowed by her rape but that isn’t to say I think her aftermath was handled poorly - on the contrary I was pleased with her outrage and paranoia and cunning and muddled swamp of complex reactions and fears and triumphs. 

What I can’t decide is whether my still not totally endearing myself to Althea even after all she came through is the biggest fault of the series or it’s most crowned achievement if I’m completely honest. 

Kyle Haven

Bye bitch. 

Winthrow Vestrit

This fucking kid.

I’m almost devastated that Winthrow was so enamored with Kennit but like I get it? uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuughghghghgh 

I love Winthrow and Etta, they have a kind of relationship I enjoy, and I guess I’m happy they’re on the mend post-Kennit? 

From Winthrow’s faulted, stunted, half-truth perspective of Kennit doubt over the man’s ability to rape makes some sense - but as the reader I felt I couldn’t allow Winthrow the grace of understanding his hesitation to believe his aunt.    

So, Winthrow was tainted by Kennit and now writing this I’m a little shocked to find I’m a little bitter about it! LOL

My sweet precious priest boy where did you go?!

sigh

Its one of those things were I respect the choice and it makes total sense and thus speaks true of the character for Winthrow to doubt Althea and only realize it possible after talking to Etta - but as a reader and fan I wish Winthrow disowned Kennit immediately so I could continue to like him as I had all along. 

sigh

I thought it hilarious Winthrow was scandalized by his sister and Reyn’s relationship though, lol, like step back and get some perspective you prude.

Keffria Vestrit

STILL THE FAVORITE!

I’m biased at this point though.

Locking down the home front by doing all she could, especially by letting go of things she didn’t want to - that’s some badass guts and fucking growth right there.

FUCK YEAH

Her struggle with how to rearrange her bedroom in tandem with her understanding of Kyle and her place in the world was brilliance.

Ronica Vestrit

My favorite spy.

I really wanted her to take Serilla under her wing and phew thankfully that kind of happened at the end - I was so worried about my girl Serilla, I’m glad her fate is tied with Ronica’s. 

Malta

Oh boy oh boy what a treat!

Malta is my hero lol

She is a lot more like her mother than she thinks - her ability to navigate social standings, to become smaller or larger as needed, and to read others and bargain comes from mama not Kyle. I hope, I really hope, she knows that. 

My little survivor.

Seriously though, Malta evolved so much faster than anyone else and proved to be much more adapt at it then anyone else. The political/social manipulation she grows to be an expert in was some of my favorite world building/scenes in the entire series. 

I love her so much. 

Reyn Khuprus

I love him too.

I’m so glad the Rain Wilder’s drop their veils and open up, I can’t wait to read more and see how that goes for them!

Reyn’s desperate search for Malta was some fun pining but the best bits was how the trip worked to better illustrate the workings of dragons and give some insight into the Elderlings and what’s in store for the future before we ever get to the bardering table.

Just a sweet, sweet dragon boy.

Vivacia

Good for her, I guess. 

Pretty apathetic to be honest lol

I don’t know why Vivacia slipped away from me, especially since she is now in a good place, her own real entity! What’s wrong with me as a reader?!

Paragon 

I’m so relieved but so upset omg

Etta

Oh baby girl I’m so so so sorry.

Etta is a really fascinating character and I really hope to see, or at least hear of her, again. She isn’t done, she has the least resolve and most open ended goodbye out of everyone and I want more of her and for her than that.

I really grew to appreciate Etta and if I was going to make a friend out of this cast of characters she and Keffria are my first picks; and I’d love if ever they got a chance to meet. They’d help each other so much. 

I wonder if their parallels are intentional as the two most influential women in Winthrow’s life? Hmm. Probably not. Both are much more interesting as they are on their own without pitting them against Winthrow; especially Etta.  

Satrap Cosgo

This fuck nugget gets no props for growing. 

Kiki redeemed herself by like a thousand and I felt for her in the end but Cosgo can suck an egg. 

Although there is a part of me that enjoyed his detached and surly attitude towards everything. 

[celestial-depths]

What’s Great About Cats (The Musical)

Lately, I’ve been thinking about Cats. The movie adaptation of the famous Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical premiered last month to absolutely scathing reviews. The critical and the popular response to the film has been so abysmal that it has become a spectacle of its own. Everyone in the world seems to have gathered around to join in the gleeful axing of this one trainwreck of a film – which is kind of cute. At least there’s one thing we seem to agree on in these divisive times. This is not a review of Cats (2019), because I have not seen it. I don’t care to, at least not for now. I couldn’t even get through the trailers without cringing myself to death. Still, I do have some fascination with the film as a cultural event, and I have found myself watching and reading numerous reviews and think pieces on Cats, both the original stage production and the movie adaptation, which all seemed to revolve around two major questions: 1. How did a movie like this get made? and 2. Why was this show ever popular in the first place? The latter question on particular has been on my mind. I should know the answer, because I was completely obsessed with it for a funny couple of years of my early teens – and I’m not sure why anymore. I first saw the 1998 adaptation of the musical on TV when I was 13, and something about it instantly struck a chord in me. I started watching it over and over again, until I knew every character by name and every step of the choreography. I know which cat is called Munkustrap and which one is Tumblebrutus, I’ve seen the show live a couple of times, and yes, I can even tell you what a goddamn Jellicle cat is. But eventually my interest in the musical waned, and I moved on to obsess over something else. Probably Neil Gaiman. In some ways, it’s no mystery to me why I fell in love with the show so hard at that point of my life. Teenagers tend to get obsessed over things they’re fond of, especially if they’re lonely. The show made me happy, so I kept watching it on repeat in search of a lost sense of joy. I have a tendency of becoming intensely invested in all sorts of cultural properties due to some part of my personality or brain chemistry that absolutely refuses to enjoy the things I like within reasonable limits, so of course I couldn’t stop watching it. And the show was campy as fuck; that’s certainly a common feature in a lot of things I’ve stanned since and before. So, that’s a part of the answer: I have an embarrassing history of being an ardent fan of Cats because I came across it in a time when I was in need of something fun and campy to escape to. But was in the show that made me like it so much more than anything else I might have caught on TV? That’s a harder question to answer, because I frankly can’t see it anymore. In fact, my enjoyment of the musical left me pretty much as soon as I stopped being a fan of it; just a couple of years later, I found myself looking back and wondering what on earth I saw in the show in the first place, because I could no longer stand it.

Revisiting the musical today, I don’t even feel any nostalgia for it. I don’t like the songs. I don’t find the characters compelling. The show is childish, but it never fully commits to being children’s show, which gives it a weird vibe. The lack of plot is a common complaint, but that one doesn’t actually bother me all that much, since I’ve always viewed it as a kind of a revue – but it’s not like not having a plot does a show as thematically empty as Cats any favors. The dancing is pretty good, and I quite like the costumes and make-up designs of the stage production, but not enough to say that I like the show overall more than I dislike it. So, what was it? Did I simply have a poorer taste in music as a thirteen-year-old? Probably. Am I secretly a furry? Definitely not. Is there a deeper meaning to Cats that most people simple miss? I don’t know. I thought about this a lot in the wake of the crazy reaction to the first trailer of the movie. That’s also where I eventually found my answer. I try to keep up with news about upcoming movies, and I first heard that they’re turning Cats into a movie right when they first announced it. I immediately thought it sounded like a bad idea, and I assumed that the movie would never actually make it into production. Then the casting announcements starting dropping, each wilder than the one before. Dame Judi Dench! Rebel Wilson! SIR IAN? TAYLOR SWIFT? IDRIS ELBA AS MACAVITY THE MYSTERY CAT??? At some point there, I started wondering if there really was something genius about the visual presentation or the script of the movie that was drawing all these big names in, but nope – even the news about the making of the film kept me reassured that the movie was going to be... not good. I heard that Tom Hooper was directing, which did not bode well since he’s not exactly the type of visual or conceptual mastermind (unless you’re very, very into unnerving close-ups, fisheye lenses, and unmotivated mise en scène) that a source material like Cats would need in order to become remotely interesting on the big screen, and because Hooper’s previous take on a from-stage-to-screen movie was pretty uninspired, at least as far as musical movies go (Les Mis is a garbage movie FIGHT ME). And then came the news about the state of the art digital fur technology, and I could already predict that the movie was going to be not just bad, but a disaster. The first trailer and the unanimously awful reviews only confirmed what I already knew. I’m not going to pan the actual movie because, as I said, I haven’t seen it. It looks too creepy, and I am not interested in spending my money to see what I imagine is the worst possible version of something that I already dislike. But I did see enough trailer footage to realize what was it about Cats that made me like it in the first place because it was so obviously missing in the movie adaptation. Allow me to explain. In the stage version of Cats, the performers are dressed in painted leotards, shaggy wigs, and ragged leg-warmers, and their faces are covered in fanciful make-up designs. The choreography is a mix of ballet, jazz, and modern dance moves with feline movements and hisses thrown in. In other words, the costumes and the performances suggest felinity rather than attempt to represent it as closely as possible. None of the performers look or act like real-life cats – yet the magic of the theater allows the audience to accept them as cats for the duration of the show. Cats also makes very good use of its format. It’s tailored to be enjoyed live in the theater, where the audience can really appreciate the big, elaborate dance numbers and feel the scale of the set, which usually consists of big junkyard items. The performers regularly jump off the stage and come out to interact with the audience, and they tend to goof around in the background during someone else’s number, which adds to the unique and personal feel of each performance. In the movie, wigs and leotards are ditched for CGI, which turns the actors into horrifying human-cat hybrid monstrosities. While they arguably look more cat-like with their hideous moving ears and furry faces than the stage actors, they also don’t look enough like cats to justify the decision to take the look of the characters so far. The rules of the theater don’t apply to CGI; it either looks right, or it looks wrong. And Cats looks VERY wrong. From what I’ve heard, the movie has also chopped down its dance numbers into such little pieces through quick-paced editing that it’s hard to appreciate the dancing. There’s obviously no audience interaction either, no electrifying presence of a live performance. The movie has apparently taken the show and stripped away everything that might have made it somewhat enjoyable. Which brings me to my point. What’s great about Cats? It’s not the music or the costumes. It’s not the characters or the lyrics. It’s not Memory. It’s the fact that Cats channels the essence of theater. It may not be good theater, but it’s definitely theatrical to the highest degree. It’s a show that brings out and relies on elements that are unique to the medium: the presence of a set and talented live performers, the interaction between the actors and the audience, the magic of conjuring up an impression that the audience believes in through clever costuming and movements alone. Take those elements out, and you’re left with nothing but an awkward group of celebrities prancing around to dated showtunes with nonsense lyrics.   

There’s a reason why theater hasn’t become outdated as a form of art, even though it’s been competing with movies for over a century. The two mediums are not interchangeable; there are still plenty of things the theater can do that simply do not work on screen. I’m sure that this isn’t the only reason Cats the movie became such a colossal failure (I’ve heard that human-faced cockroaches who were later consumed by Rebel Wilson’s character were also involved), but I like to think that it’s a part of it.  

I was pretty new to theater when I first saw Cats. Looking back now, I can finally tell that the thing that I fell in love with wasn’t the actual show, but theater itself. Cats introduced me to stage musicals, and while my interest in that particular genre has diminished over time as well, I did develop a life-long affection for theater in general. 

[annamcnuff]

Wisconsin: Trek and DreamBikes

This week has truly been one of my faves. I’ve felt (more than usual) like a naughty little scamp. Hopping from town to town, indulging three of my greatest passions - bike geekery, meeting adventurous people and learning about community projects. I even managed to find some beautiful countryside to cycle through too …

HEY THERE, BIG RIVER

The Mississippi is synonymous with adventure. Even trying to spell it can transport you to the most far flung corners of your brain (I can finally now do this without assistance). At the mere mention of this mighty river, my mind floods with childhood follies, thoughts of Huckleberry Finn and Mark Twain’s colourful depiction of the characters that line it’s shores. Entering Wisconsin via the town of Prarie du Chien, I crossed the river for the first time, and it was pure magic. At this time of year, the river bluffs are just dripping with colour. The most spectacular Golds, Oranges, Yellows and Reds - tripping over one another, scrambling and tumbling down cliff edges into the waters below.

Fall colours at The Mississippi

WISCONSIN - A CRITIQUE

I’m frequently asked “What’s your favourite state so far?”, and I struggle to answer. That said, I usually begin my (long winded) critique by splitting them into ‘states that made me go wow’ and 'states where I would really want to live’. Wisconsin has parked itself firmly in the latter. Until this week, it was simply the place that Love Actually’s Colin (“and he’s got a big knooob”) went to pick up babes. But the rolling hills, forests and network of bike paths through not-too-big-not-too-small cities are bang on the money. Wisconsin, Colin or no Colin, is my kind of place.

THE TREK EFFECT

The state is dominated by one bike brand, and one alone - Trek. America’s only bicycle factory is located just East of Madison, in Waterloo. I concluded it’d be downright ridiculous for me to ride thorough the 50 states and not make a pedal pilgrimage to this cycle mecca. So as a birthday treat to myself (and Boudica) I dropped in for a tour.

Trek HQ is reminiscent of Willy Wonker and his factory du choc. Instead of being greeted by Gene Wilder doing a roly poly on a red carpet, my Golden ticket had earned me a tour with the Head of advocacy, Brandon. We began with a display of the Trek’s of yesteryear (some seriously beautiful bikes, full of character), before being catapulted into the the 21st century. I watched carbon frames being formed, hand-sanded, custom sprayed, checked and boxed. By far the coolest introduction was to the new ’Project One’ robot. This little fella (yet to be officially named) will spray a frame with a bespoke design in the blink of an eye. It’s Nike’s ID concept, but for bikes. And it’s super sweet.

Trekin’ it up

Over the course of the morning spent at the factory, I got to understand that Trek really is a family company. Originally started in a small barn by Dick Burke, it later passed to his son and current CEO, John. And it seems that John really does care. The employees at Trek HQ are happy campers. As would you be if you had mountain bike trails in your office garden. Seriously. Many employees spend their lunch hours throwing themselves around in the mud on two wheels. There’s even a full time engineer who’s sole responsibility is to build and maintain the trails. It’s a clever move. Not only does it let employees live and breathe the brand, it also serves to provide designers and engineers with immediate product feedback. Design it, get it made in the factory, casually test it in the garden. And Bob’s your uncle (Fanny may be your aunt) - you can move forward with the design the next day. Genius.

My fave - A Paul Smith special

DREAM BIKES

Yet more impressive than the factory are the two unique, Trek run, community DreamBikes stores. These are situated either side of the HQ - One in Madison and one in Milwaukee. Dreambikes take good old fashioned community principles - exchanges of kindness, knowledge and trust, and shape them into something that works for the modern world. How? Oh I’m so glad you asked:

Affordability - DreamBikes accept bike donations from the general public, sometimes via other bike shops, and then restore them (as best they can) to the bike’s pre shed-storage glory days. They then sell them on at a price those in the local neighbourhood can afford - as low as $75 in Milwaukee. If this is still beyond budget, they offer a micro-finance payment option to those who live locally. What a host of ruddy sensible ideas.

Youth - The mechanics and shop assistants aren’t just any old Tom, Dick or Harriet. The stores are directly linked with the local ’Boys and Girls Club’. In Milwaukee kids do 6 week mechanics courses before joining the DreamBikes team. In Madison some work at DreamBikes as part of their class credits for High School. But for most, DreamBikes is a first job, and a stepping stone to a solid career.

With the Kids at The Madison store

Education - I’ll leave it to Madison store manager Erik to explain this one: “When John Burke decided to devise a community initiative, he asked the question 'what does this neighbourhood really need?’ The answer was more people on bikes …. so we’re trying to educate the community that cycling isn’t just a leisure activity. It’s an economic mode of transport.” With the investment in, and quality of bike trails around Madison, this isn’t an off the wall idea. Cycling is a realistic alternative to driving around town.

Non-profit - Trek makes no money whatsoever from the two stores. Both locations support one another and, after 5 years in operation, are just about breaking even. Any sales go to paying the kids who work there and covering overheads of the store space. They’re not short of bike donations, far from it. Each store gets in excess of 20 a week. In Milwaukee donated bikes are piled high in the basement, just waiting to be fixed up. There’s simply not enough funds, space and employees to get through the backlog. Grants are sought and used where possible, and should the stores start to make a profit it would go directly back into the local community via the Boys and Girls Club. Does that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, or what?

No shortage of donations in Milwaukee

THE DREAM FACTOR

When people go and eat at fancy restaurants, they talk about 'ambience’ and I’m always fascinated - because it’s an X-Factor kind of thing. There’s no cut and dry formula for it. When you go into a great place, it just feels… great. DreamBikes, Madison especially, has that feel. For me to describe it to you - it’s like watching the Church fundraising montage in Sister Act I (for those of you looking blankly, use the link). The place just oozes goodness. I wanted to hang out. I wanted to paint things. I wanted to stay and chat.

Compare this vibe to many of the cold, clinical bike shops you’ve been in over the years, and the contrast is stark. It’s not about whether a big brand owns a store, DreamBikes is evidence of that, it’s simply a shift in attitude. To the belief that a bike shop has the potential to be so much more than a place you go to buy aluminium and wheels. It’s the jumping off point for a new adventure. It’s a coffee lounge. A destination. A centre for learning. It’s a central force for good in a community, and something that makes the world a better place.

Milwaukee manager (and all round cool dude) Aris, outside the store

EASTWARDS FOR THE SECOND HALF

With all the commotion this week, I bizarrely no longer feel like I’m riding my bike across a country. Instead I ride it from one appointment to the next - like a mega-commute. And so it strikes me that this is going to be a trip of two halves. The first half was about vast spaces, incredible geology, small towns and … strange weather. From here, it’ll be more about the people, the hustle and bustle and the cities.

I’m now hanging out in Chicago. Exploring downtown and doing my best to be a 'normal’ tourist. Come the weekend I’ll be back on the road - headed East and making inroads into the 1,100 miles to Maine. It’s getting a wee bit nippy, down to just about freezing, but I’ve got a hunk of extra gear on its way to see me through.

Until next week - massive High Fives to you all McNuff out :)