#who enjoy soaps being miserable over Christmas

[a-tad-bit-obsessed]

I know this isn’t really a thing tumblr cares about, but that Outnumbered special was my version of what the Gavin and Stacey one was for other people in the UK.

Like yes people will complain due to one of the main themes of it, but to me who’s having something similar happen in my life, it felt familiar, felt somehow almost, I don’t know how to explain it, not comforting but you know. (Also, outnumbered has never shied away from serious topics like this, not even in specials, it toes the line between sometimes ridiculously exaggerated and other times so true to life).

And the rest of it felt perfect, it made me laugh, it had a handful of references to old eps but not too much, the characters felt so right (especially Karen as a queer woman who got arrested at a just stop oil protest, calls her co-workers idiots, hates that her name is Karen and does a podcast) and like little stuff like Jake’s kid being obsessed with being an animal felt like things that happens in my family that it all just feels right for it.

Sometimes I know that ep might be a tough watch for me, I know I’m glad I went in knowing what the story thread was and not caught off guard, but I needed a show like this doing something like this, I think it’s done me good

[velvetures]

omg hey just here to shoot a request, idk if you do gaz as well but only soap is ok too. maybe something like soap x reader where the reader is a transfer from the american sector and she's just this super energetic, "AMERICA SCRAAAWWW" kind of person but is also super in learning about cultures and stuff. then the boys take her to this texas themed pub that she just criticizes the shit ton as she's from texas. i think it'll be funny to see a scot x texan lol thxx

God Bless Texas... and Scotland

A/N: I believe my goal here is to make something a little more on the joking/humorous side here... I'm not trying to get into politics or country pride on a deep level. This is just for fun. Nevertheless, thank you for requesting, I hope you enjoy the direction I went with this. This is sooo damn cheesy... Summary: On shore leave, you and Soap get into a conversation about what it was like in your home countries. A couple funny stereotypes and light-hearted argument later, the 141 decide that experiencing both sides of the coin are necessary to settle the score. T/W's: stereotypes ofc, cursing, friendly banter/teasing, and as always not proofread.

It all started when you came out of your private quarters into the shared living room with an old t-shirt on with the admittedly cliche statement 'God Bless Texas' printed boldly over the front inside of a state-boundary shape. Out of all of the members of the 141, you were undoubtedly the most... shall we say... patriotic. At least in terms of your state pride and your unwavering happiness of having family still living there who were so in support of you and your work. Having family in the first place was something different compared to the rest of the squad, and it made the whole pride of where you came from a lot more difficult to understand.

You'd spent years at this point being around the 141 and learning all kinds of very unique and traditional habits that they carried with them despite oftentimes not having a family to share them with. Most of those, they shared with each other, and after getting comfortable with you was extended as a way to bond with you outside of the missions and other job requirements that you did together. From Soap's requirement of the "First Footing" tradition on New Year's, Captian Price never missing a Soccer World Cup no matter where he is, and Gaz's refusal to have a Christmas dinner without Christmas pudding, there isn't a time when someone isn't explaining their desire to incorporate some country, cultural, or family tradition in one way or another.

So, naturally, Soap was ecstatic when he found out about some little niche place that had opened up an 'American, Texas-Themed' restaurant. He knew it would be totally overdone, as did everyone else, so they all thought it would be something of a light-hearted way to poke fun at your loyalties by taking you there as a "resident expert" that could point them in the right direction and away from everything else. Truly the idea of having at least on full hour of teaisng you with everything they could just sounded like a damn good way to spend an afternoon.

The place was a little hole-in-the-wall pub with a little bit of seating that wasn’t directly at the bar. Dim lighting made it feel pretty inviting, but the obvious country music choices including Texas natives: George Strait, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson made it feel a little cheap. Especially with the taxidermy Longhorn head above the bar and the “cowboy” style of practically everything hanging on the walls. Although it wasn’t quite the most miserable place you’d even been, it certainly felt like a little more than just a healthy appreciation.

“Home away from home, right lass?” Soap’s devilish grin only made the wound sting your pride that much more.

"Ya know... actually, not one bit." You answer a bit awestruck and looking around the place with bated breath and the hope that it wouldn't get much worse than it already was.

To your irritation, it got worse. Much worse.

After getting seated by an -obviously- British woman forced to fake a deep and southern drawl, you were all handed menus that named off the most "popular" foods in the Southern United States that not only made you chuckle out loud with disbelief but actually voice the total inaccuracies of certain dishes that the men sitting around you actually thought were legitimate staple items.

"You actually eat rattlesnakes often?" Gaz thought it was a bit far off since he spent quite a bit of time in his service in South Carolina, but thought he'd clarify with you anyway.

"For Christ's sake, Garrick. No!" You roll your eyes, taking a drink of the iced sweet tea you were actually shocked to see was listed as a drink option.

That in itself was the largest contention point with Ghost who stared at you with an iron-clad will of hatred seeing you pleasantly drinking iced sweet tea like you were enjoying the abomination. To his horror, you were quick to compliment that they'd actually gotten it pretty close to how you made it yourself or people at home did.

"What is a pecan pie?" Captain Price was quick to question the dessert menu before a waitress had even come back around to take main course orders.

His question sounded somewhat confused and downright scandalized at the same time. And to be honest, you really didn't know how to explain that it was simply a pie with corn syrup and brown sugar-based sweet filling, covered with pecans that were baked in a regular pie shell. You attempted to describe the basic ingredients and how it was made to the table of interested men, only to have them all stare in guarded horror... Save for Gaz. He'd actually tried it while in the States and said he'd enjoyed it. Luckily he was on your side for that particular topic.

The men as a whole hilariously didn't order anything that you -or they- considered uniquely "Texan" or "American". Soap insisted that you pick a meal that sounded the most authentic to you and that they would try some of the food off of your plate. Of course, the idea sounded good to them, but you weren't sure you wanted to share a plate of food that could possibly be decently "American" when it would still be months before you could go back home.

You folded quickly and picked a meal that you believed would be safe enough to keep them from being outwardly horrified with you but would still be interesting to compare to the meals you grew up with at home. The most simple and safe option was what they called the 'Home Run Special', most certainly a knock-off of the American chain breakfast restaurant. It came with pancakes, fried eggs, bacon, biscuits, sausage gravy, grits, and hashbrowns.

When the platter came out, you were pleasantly surprised at the look of everything, seeing as it visually had promise and even smelled just about right as well. With one glance around the table, you saw every single man staring at the three-plate meal sitting in front of you and couldn't believe that all of that food was supposedly for one person. That comment alone did make you laugh. It was one thing that you weren't afraid to admit. You could eat a whole lot. And it was a family thing that you never could be shy to not own up to. Eating all of that breakfast to them might've seemed totally unacceptable, yet for you, it looked very accomplishable, given the food tasted good. They each wanted you to give your own personal opinions before they tried anything and watched you intently for any sign of your acceptance or lack thereof.

By the end of the meal, the men had all tried everything and had mixed opinions of what they thought was actually good or not. You believed the biscuits and gravy were totally garbage and vowed that you could make them better, and wouldn't even allow them to taste them for fear of cementing an even more concrete belief that biscuits weren't meant to be savory. They were half-and-half on the bacon, some saying it was really good while others complained it wasn't enough meat for so much grease. You... were quite pleased. Eggs were fine, they all didn't really pay them much mind, while the grits were such a contested topic that you weren't sure if they lost respect for you since you finished the entire serving.

"Although I've enjoyed the majority of the food and I was surprised with it... this isn't anything legitimate." You mutter with a full stomach, looking around the place and beginning to feel a little more homesick than you thought such a tacky pub could produce.

Soap, who was finishing off your pancakes nudged your shoulder a little and smiled. "You'll have to take me home with ya. Then I ken' really find out why ye' think Texas is so damn special."

"You have to take me home with you too Johnny," You take the fork out of his hand and eat one more bite of pancakes. "So I can see if God blessed Scotland, too."

Reblogs & Comments are Appreciated

[doof-doofblog]

"Phil Mitchell Will Never Get Anywhere Near My Boy!"

Thursday 1st October 2020

Good afternoon folks! I realise these posts are going to be late, I've had a few family things going on over the past few days so I have been unable to watch Thursday and Friday's episode. However today there will be two posts following those episodes! But before I start I have to mention the exciting news that was announced a couple of days ago! LUCAS IS RETURNING TO THE SQUARE!!!  Don Gilet will be reprising his role as the villainous Lucas Johnson!!! I'm sure some of you are fully aware of who Lucas is, but for those who don't remember, Lucas first arrived in the Square in 2008 - wanting to rekindle his relationship with his and Denise's daughter, Chelsea Fox. The main storylines Lucas was involved in was for the killing of his ex-wife Trina and also Denise's ex (Libby's Father) Owen! After Denise found out what her ex was capable of, he imprisoned her and faked her suicide! Lucas was eventually caught for his awful crimes in 2010. The only time we have seen Lucas since then is when he made a brief appearance, when both Denise and Patrick went to visit him in prison, instructing him never to contact them again!

I am SO excited to see Lucas return to the Square! What we know at this moment in time is that he will be returning at the end of the year. Could this be the big Christmas return that EastEnders hinted about?! What is going to be his reason for returning to the Square? Unfinished business with Denise possibly? Could it be something to do with Denise's son Raymond - who knows? Either way, I am so excited to see him back on screen and doing scenes with the amazing Diane Parish and seeing what the soap has in store for Denise and Lucas! It's going to be brilliant!! 

Anyway, let's get back to business and focus on Thursday's episode - the episode starts with Denise in the hospital visiting Raymond, it looks as if she's been by the child's beside all night long. She appears to be waking up after a long sleep. As she wakes, Ellie walks in, surprised to see her there again, more surprised to the fact that she's been allowed to stay there by Raymond's side all night long, considering the fact that Ellie is his Grandmother and she's not even been allowed to do that. Ellie is clearly suspicious, it doesn't make sense to her how "a friend of the family" can stay, but a Grandmother can't. She asks Denise straight out whether she is being truthful about who she really is, of course Denise can't tell her her identity, she remains silent. Ellie then decides that it would probably be for the best if Denise doesn't return! 

At the Prince Albert, Kathy is talking to Frankie about considering getting another full-time member of staff. Tina is watching on and suggests whether Frankie could be considered for the role. Frankie is instantly eager on making an effort and becoming part of the team. Kathy decides to give her the chance of making a big impression on the club and if she succeeds then there could be a permanent role for her. Does anyone else suspect a romance blossoming between Tina and Frankie?! I want to say there will be, but who knows? We know Frankie has some connection to the Carter family, could her romance with Tina be caught in the crossfire of it all?! Or it her way of a plan in getting into the Carter family? Who knows? Either way - I'm really enjoying Frankie's character and I'm really looking forward to seeing more from her! 

Ooooo does any one else suspect some tension between Jags and his mother, Suki?! At the Minute Mart, Jags and Vinny are discussing Martin and Ruby going away on holiday to Paris. Suki states the fact that Martin has been left unharmed from his recent accident and the Panesar family are looking like they're in the clear of being to blame for his assault. Suki then makes a snide comment saying how dishonest it looks on Ruby, claiming to be broke and then flying off on holiday - Jags then responds to his Mum, "Yea, we can't have dishonesty!" - the look she gives him is such a dirty one! As if to say, how dare you speak to your Mum like that! Jags clearly doesn't approve of what his family does, as well as Ash. To me, it looks as if Jags is perhaps the black sheep of the family, and I do NOT mean that in a racist way, I mean, like - does he feel he's the odd one out? Like does his Mother look at him differently or treat him differently compared to his siblings? There is clearly some tension between them, Jags clearly does not like the way his Mum does things, the way they've been brought up is, perhaps, not normal! 

Back at home, Denise quietly makes her way into the house. Jack has been clearly worried out of his mind, where has his girlfriend been? Denise is too emotionally drained to even tell him the truth, she lies and tells him she's been with a friend. Jack is clearly not buying her story, I'm certain he's convinced she's having an affair - which couldn't be further from the truth. I think Denise is going to have to tell him at some point, or will it be too late? 

Meanwhile, on the Square, Ben and Phil are discussing Callum, Ben is trying to explain to his Dad that Callum's recent job was a serous car accident and it must be hard for him to overcome such a traumatic experience. He really doesn't want his boyfriend to be doing any dodgy deals for his old man, he explains to his Dad that Callum can't be doing it while having to deal with other Police stuff. As they walk out of the picture, we can see Jack and Amy leaving their house and walking across the Square, Jack is trying to explain to his daughter why she should go the dentist, of course - not everyone likes the dentist, but trying to be the decent father, Jack explains to her that sometimes people have to do things that they don't like to do, and it just so happens that the dentist happens to be one of them things. As they continue their walk, they past Isaac as he sits in the gardens. At first their greeting is polite and civil, he says Good Morning to Amy, it's only when Isaac turns the conversation into something a bit more serious that Jack tries his best to defend his daughter. Isaac explains to the young girl that he has been suspended from his job due to lies being told about him, he makes it clear that he doesn't blame Amy, but sometimes children shouldn't believe stories they've been told. Jack then defends his daughter stating that she's not a liar, Amy stands by as she watches her Dad shouting at her school teacher. The only thing she can do is call to him to stop! "Dad! Dad!" 

At the Beale household, Ian is looking miserable as he looks over the newspaper. Bobby has made the headline news regarding his charity for Lucy. Kathy walks in and says to him he needs to be more proud of his son, he shows him very little help and very little advice, which is why Bobby goes to Max, much to Ian's disappointment. Ian states to his Mum that Max will be wanting his money, which he still hasn't got. Kathy tries her best to help her son by suggesting things to help, sell the Vic, mortgage something? The sooner he can pay Max back, the sooner he can focus on his family! Is Ian maybe jealous of his son? He clearly doesn't like the friendship that Max and Bobby are building, but perhaps it might be what he needs to wake himself up a bit! 

As they continue to walk across the Square, Amy is talking to her Dad about him being a policeman. As a young girl, she makes brilliant points. Being a policeman he shouldn't go around accusing people, and when he gets angry he should apologise, as that is what he has taught her. Jack assures his daughter that he'll apologise to Isaac and that she has nothing to worry about. It's then she bows her head, looks to the floor and says "I'm sorry!" - Jack looks back in confusion, what is she sorry for? As far as Jack is concerned, she has nothing to be sorry for, he was the one who lost his temper and started shouting at Isaac. He tries to coax it out of his daughter, it then she reveals to her Dad that she had lied about Isaac smoking drugs, and now he's gone and made the whole situation worse. Jack is clearly stunned! He can't believe what he's hearing, he lets out a deep sigh! 

Outside the Prince Albert, Tina is catching up with Mick, asking him if he'd like to work a shift there. Ollie is back at school, and Mick is still looking for a job, he agrees to help his sister out. She explains to her brother that Frankie is planning a big night for the club, Mick smiles and make small talk about Frankie, much to Tina's surprise. Tina can clearly see that Mick has a problem with the girl, Mick is tries to defend himself, he uses the word "Nice" to describe Frankie, but Tina isn't accepting of it. It's obvious that Tina is besotted with her new co-worker, she states that Frankie is a truly lovely person. She wants to know what Mick has got against her, it's then as he goes to explain his reasons that Frankie makes an appearance from the club, she announces her big plan for the club will be a Drag Bingo night! Tina praises her idea and informs her that Mick will give her a life in his car so she can pick up her equipment for the event. Mick looks on in surprise, as Frankie looks at him with hope in her eyes, Mick can see he's defeated by both Frankie and Tina and picks up his car keys. 

In the cafe, Jags and Habiba are catching up, it's been a while since we've seen these two together on screen. Jags is explaining to Habiba about the house he's just been to to collect rent money. He describes the scene to her, a mother trying to feed her child, mould and damp on the walls, she can barely afford food to feed her child, let alone rent. He explains he gave the lady a couple of days to get the money, but then once those few days are over, someone else will be going to collect the rent money. He admits that during that visit, he felt like he was the bad guy. From day one, Habiba has wanted Jags to give up his job and try and do something else, she's never liked the fact that he's a rent collector, leaving people in debt etc etc. She states that Jags could do so much better with his life if he just stood up for what he believed in. Plus, if he really wanted them to rekindle their relationship, then he'd stand up to his Mum. Something tells me that Suki is going to kill her son? I'm not sure how, but I do believe that everything will get on top of Jags, we'll begin to see him struggle to cope with his Mum's demands and eventually he'll stand up to her. I believe then she will then take her anger out on her son, will she attack him in a rage and perhaps cause him to die? I just have a feeling there's going to be a horrible confrontation between the Mother and Son and it'll end up worse for Jags. 

Back on the Square, Mick and Frankie are approaching his car, Frankie smiles as she asks questions about it and even compliments it, much to Mick's surprise. He smiles and nods "You're alright!". Frankie smiles as she gets inside the vehicle. Meanwhile, at Ruby's club, Ian and Bobby are sat together, Bobby is sat with laptop ready to show his Dad what he's been working on. Honestly, I felt quite sorry for Bobby in this scene. He has been working so hard on this new charity he's created for his sister, Lucy and Ian is just showing no interest at all! Bobby tries to ask him advice on tax, he's unsure on how it all works so he is seeking his Dad's advice, he turns the computer around to show his Dad, but as he does so, Ian is focusing on his phone, just more interested in letting people know that he's just been made Chair Of The Planning Committee. The only thing he asks his son is how much he has made from his charity, as soon as Bobby mentions he has made near enough 12 grand on the page, Ian's ears prick up! He looks up, smiles at his boy and congratulates him! Bobby is happy his Dad is finally showing some interest, however it's short-lived, as as soon as that happens, Ian's phone rings and he walks away from his son's presentation, much to the teenagers disappointment. 

The next scene, we see Jack visiting Isaac. He's wanting to do the right thing and apologise to Isaac. He admits that Amy has come clean about lying about him using drugs. He tries to do the decent thing, he apologises to Isaac for verbally abusing him, he promises he'll have a word with the school, explain everything to them and hopefully Isaac will be given his job back. He also leaves him his business card if he wanted to make a complaint to the Met. Isaac makes a statement to Jack, he shouldn't have done what he did but he needs to make double sure he doesn't make the same mistake in future. He needs to keep a straight head in his line of work, Jack nods in agreement and they leave their conversation with a civil understanding with each other. 

Back at the Beale household, Ian is returning from his catch up with Bobby. Kathy has been trying to get a hold of him as they had a meeting with a solicitor to discuss their wills. Kathy has everything laid out on the table and informs him that she has gone through everything with the solicitor on her own. Everything is all correct, all he needs to do is sign the forms. As Ian looks through the paperwork, he claims that his Mother has made some kind of mistake, as her assets have turned out more than his! She confirms to her son that the figures he is looking at are correct, her assets go to Peter and Ben, whilst his assets go to Bobby and Abi. Meanwhile, back on the Square, Mick and Frankie return to the Prince Albert, as they pull up and Mick helps Frankie unload her equipment, things are looking friendly as Mick is chatting away to her about how impressed he is that she's pulled off getting things together in such a small amount of time. It's as his speech goes on, he mentions an Aunt Pat to Frankie, instantly Frankie seems to recognise the name. She starts questioning Mick about her and the rest of his family - whether this Aunt Pat had met Linda and any of his children? She mentions to him to he has other children and asks where they are. It's at this point that things are getting too personal for his liking! Why is she asking all of these questions? Why is she so interested in him? Mick lashes out and asks if she wants an address, he then reveals that he doesn't know where his children are at this moment in time. Frankie realises she's touched a nerve, she backs down and slowly walks away. Tina then rushes out of the club announcing that she has found a perfect host for their Drag Bingo night, Frankie is less than excited as she walks away. Tina knows something has happened between her brother and her co-worker, she instantly asks Mick what he's done to offend her. It's then he states that it's not always him, perhaps Frankie is a bit weird herself? Tina has none of it and refuses to help him unload the car. 

As Jack returns home, he approaches Denise who is sat alone in the kitchen. He softly explains to her that he's getting to old to be playing games. He doesn't want to be playing second best to anyone, he reveals to Denise that he has had a go at Isaac because of everything that is going around in his head, all his questions, thoughts, speculations. He doesn't want it! He asks her straight out if she's seeing someone else, Denise's only reaction is to break down, she sobs as Jack is convinced he's right about her having an affair. She promises him that she's not seeing anyone else, he then asks her, demanding an explanation, where was she last night? As he goes to walk away, she shouts back at him "With Raymond!" Jack looks back at her in shock!

At the Mitchell household, Phil is seen reading the newspaper, Callum can be heard on the phone talking to his support officer. As he comes off the phone, Phil asks him how he's getting on. He reveals to him that Ben told him about Callum having a form of councillor. Callum decides to open up to Phil, since witness the huge car accident he can't get the image out of his head, he can't control his behaviour. He informs Phil about the family in question that lost their life in the accident, explaining how they lived a good life and went to church regularly, he then reveals to Phil that the little boy named Raymond, aged 3, is the only one who survived. As Phil hears the name, Raymond, he seems very interested in what Callum is saying. He asks him whether he's sure that that was the name of the child, Callum confirms to him that the young boy who survived, was named Raymond. Callum leaves saying he's going to ring the hospital to see how the child is getting on. Phil turns and we know he's clicked on that that is his young son! 

As we return to the Beale household, Ian is seen sat at the diner table, it looks as if he's getting ready to sign the will documents, before the camera reveals anything. I instantly thought he was trying to figure out his asset amount, trying to work out why it had turned out low than he thought. But then the camera revealed he's actually practising writing Kathy's signature. Is he going to forge his Mum's signature on one of the will documents? Is he basically stealing from his Mum? This is going to be an all new low for Ian! We see him finishing a conversation on the phone with someone, they're asking about Kathy's Cafe, they explain to him that if he signs on the dotted line then they will be happy to talk business. As he hangs up, we see him forge Kathy's signature on a document. He's gone and sold Kathy's Café hasn't he?! Kathy advised him to sell something, and that is what he's done! He's sold his Mum's café to someone else just so he can get himself out of his money situation! Oooooh Kathy is going to be blooming devastated when she finds out, she's going to be so angry and so disappointed with her son! How dare he go behind her back like that! 

At the Panesar household, Jags returns from collecting rent, Suki asks him whether he had got the money. He responds by placing a stack of cash on their dining room table. As Suki counts it, she asks her son "Where's the rest?" as some seems to be missing. Jags explains to his Mother that he's given the lady a couple of more days to get the money as she barely has any money for food and she a tiny baby to look after. Suki is less than sympathetic, she instructs Jags to go back and collect the rest. As Jags turns to leave the room, we see him hesitate, and finally he decides to stand up to his Mum, "No!" he shouts at his Mum, he's sick of the way they treat their tenants, he says that the houses they're staying in are in such terrible condition, he doesn't want to be the bad guy anymore. He doesn't want to be a part of their business anymore. Suki listens to her son's words, nothing seems to phase her, she simply says that he is entitled to his opinion, as first Jags seems to think he's gotten through to his Mother, but then she grabs a table of food from the diner table and chucks it in the bin as her children watch. She informs her children that the money they receive from their tenants pays for everything they have, a roof over their head and food in their bellies!

As we return to Jack and Denise, they are sat together as Denise is calmly explaining to Jack how much she's tried to cope with the decision she made about giving Raymond up 3 years ago. She admits to her boyfriend that it's been a very hard 3 years for her, She reveals that now after this sudden, terrible car accident, this could be the chance to handle things differently, she also informs him that she was there when Ellie informed the young child that his parents were no longer around. Her voice begins to break with passion as she tells Jack the poor boy does have parents, as soon as she saw him, she fell in love with him. Jack just sits and listens as his girlfriend pours her heart out, he can only feel deep sympathy for both her and for poor Raymond. She says those very important words to him "He is my son Jack, and I love him!" but then the realisation sinks in, she's been told to stay away and not see him anymore.  As Jack asks her why, she reveals is because of Phil. As she frets the fact of Phil finding out, we see someone walking through the hospital, Denise is adamant that Phil can never find out as she'll never stand a chance of seeing her son again if he does! A hospital door opens and we see Phil enter young Raymond's room, his eyes fill with tears as he looks over to his son. 

What is going to happen now? Will Denise find out that Phil knows about Raymond? Will they team up to try and get custody of their son? Will there be a 3 way custody battle between Ellie, Phil and Denise? I'm really looking forward to seeing the progress of this story! I apologise once again folks for this post being up late, Friday's blog will be up very soon! Feel free to message me, I'd love to know your thoughts on the current story-lines! Thanks again everyone! xXx

[gaiatheorist]

Try a bit harder.

There’s an article in The Guardian about the author Tom Cutler, and his diagnosis of Asperger’s. My pedantic head wants to correct that to ‘Autistic Spectrum Condition’, but that’s just as problematic for my twisted linguistic brain to cope with. ‘If you look at anyone hard enough you will see traits consistent with autism.’, the ‘spectrum’ and being ‘a bit autistic’. 

All of my life, my entire life I’ve dealt with the ‘come on, it will be fun’, the ‘come in, sit down’, the ‘smile, fake it until you make it’. Most of my life, I did the joining-in things, and assumed that everyone else was as uncomfortable as I was, and that they were just better at pretending. When my last manager told me they wanted me to be ‘happy, with a sense of belonging’, all of the air was sucked out of the room, and I had to escape, quickly. ‘I have no desire to belong to anyone or anything, can I go now, I lost half a day of work to the interview?’ I CAN work as part of a team, I just don’t do the ‘socialising’ thing. Work is work, and in my peculiar mind, work and home/life are distinct and separate. There’s a half-chuckle there, the ex never actually told me I couldn’t ‘go out’ with work, but the sulky strops he threw meant it wasn’t worth the hassle, the hissed conversations about where I’d been, with whom, and why.  I eventually stopped going out with him, too. If I stayed in the shadows, and didn’t speak to anyone, I was a miserable bitch, ruining everyone’s night. If I spoke to anyone who wasn’t ‘in the band’, there’d be allegations of infidelity. Most of the time, I drank heavily, to blur the edges of my world, and his.

‘Come in, sit down, we won’t bite you.’ Almost 20 years of that from the in-laws, my cigarette consumption was massive, because I could go into the garage to smoke, away from the heat, the smells, the people being uncomfortably close to me, TV blaring away with nobody paying attention... I originally started to sit at the dining table, away from the sofas and TV, but that generated ‘Come here, lass, do we smell?’ Yes, yes they did smell. The father-in-law didn’t believe in anti-perspirant, because ‘fresh sweat doesn’t smell’, it does, and, given that he had a bath about twice a week, the sweat wasn’t always fresh. The mother-in-law was worse, hairspray, perfume, and dental decay, she was only about 5ft tall, and had a habit of touching the person she was talking to. They both needed hearing aids, and I’m very softly spoken. My son despairs at them, the F-i-l will complain that the TV is on too loud, and the M-i-l will say ‘Well turn your hearing aid off.’ 

The family Sunday Lunch was even worse, one of my compulsions/behaviours/traits is objecting to eating ‘contaminated’ food, by, let’s say the M-i-l using her eating utensils that had been In Her Mouth to take food from a serving dish. I’m hyper-sensitive to smells, crowds, and sounds, especially eating sounds, it’s misophonia . Sunday Lunch was torture.

Bugger, I’ve done something to the font. This keyboard is knackered, I’m already contending with missing keys e, r, t and down-arrow, the number keys have stopped working, I’m consciously avoiding contractions within quotation marks, because I’m a Grammar Pedant, and don’t want nested apostrophes.

I wandered off a bit, there, describing the sensory overload of a ‘normal’ environment. It honestly is overwhelming, for years I thought I was being ungrateful, or miserable, because people seemed to enjoy things I found almost intolerable.   I tried, I really did, whether it was my mother taking me to nasty wine bars, and hiking my skirt up, and my top down before repeating that all-men-are-bastards-and-they-only-want-one-thing, or being dragged hither and yon to watch the ex’s band in yet another working men’s club. I ‘put my foot down’ in my last job, procedural-precise, and mostly professional, apart from all the times I flung my exasperated self into colleagues’  offices, and said ‘She is doing that thing with her tea again.’ In the 14 years I was there, I ‘went out’ once, it was a train-wreck.

Going-out aside, there were multiple things at work I found difficult, but worked-around. I can’t apologise enough to the old ‘matron’, when I shared an office with her, I always had the BBC news playing at low volume. I was trying to drown-out her incessant verbalising of what she was typing or writing so I could concentrate, and she was speaking-out-loud to concentrate over the tinny terrible headlines. Chuckling at myself, for the period when I had two walkie-talkies, one on channel 2, for medical, on earphones, and the other on channel 3, for behavioural.

I’d generally do that working men’s club thing of having ‘my’ seat in any given meeting-room, and had a bit of a showdown with the Health and Safety manager, about having a map of the site, in an attempt to ascertain a reason for a student always heading for a precise corridor when he was distressed. I have worked with some VERY autistic students.

The point of this 3am waffle is the ‘try to join in’ ethos, whether it’s employers, friends, or family. A couple of years back, I crossed swords with a man I’d known since I was 18, him saying all the trite ‘you only have one family’ gubbins, and me bouncing back that I didn’t ‘have to’ do Christmas, or family gatherings. I don’t. My brother appears to have drawn the short straw this year, I’ve politely declined his offer of Christmas Lunch. 

Rounding this up, I’m not a size-ten-blonde, I haven’t bought new clothes in years, my make-up kit is one eyeliner, one mascara, and one lipstick, I wash my face with soap, and haven’t been to a hairdresser since 2014. Somehow, for some people, my objection to aesthetic ‘norms’ is easier to deal with than the whole biopsychosocial mess that IS me. I’ve had years of people telling me to ‘try’ to fit in socially. I don’t. I’m not quite as bad as the gentleman in The Guardian, I’m incredibly careful about what I say, so I’ve never been ejected from a house-party for upsetting the host. Even that time when I vomited chilli-con-carne all over myself, and ended up with the hostess hosing me down in the bath, then giving me a pair of her pyjamas to wear.

To some extent, I know that I’ll have to do things that make me feel uncomfortable to ‘fit in’, I’m not unique in that, my odd  brain is the equivalent of trying to access stairs in a wheelchair, I just have to look at it differently. Thanks, head, for the name of the man in the Local Authority that organised the evac-chair training, and the general observation that the interim site-safety-manager looked like Elvis Costello.   

[lovemesomesurveys]

Do you have pets? If so, what kind? If not, why not? Yep. I have a 1 year old German Shepherd/Lab mix named Princess Leia. She takes the princess part very seriously. haha.

Who do you live with? My parents, younger brother, and the Princess herself.

Are there any family members you never get along with? It’s not that we don’t get along, but we do bicker and butt heads sometimes.

What is the saddest thing that has happened to you? What about the happiest? I’d have to say the incident that made me a paraplegic at just 7 months old would be the saddest, but I’ve had a lot of other things happen as well throughout my life with health stuff and obstacles along with that, loss of loved ones, heartbreak, etc.  As for the happiest... I have a harder time pinpointing something. I’ve had happy times, like my childhood was great despite some obstacles. I look back on my childhood very fondly. Many happy memories with family like vacations, holidays, and just times together. Getting my dogs, Brandie and Princess Leia. Graduating. Getting accepted into the college of my choice. Stuff like that is what comes to mind.

How many years has it been since you graduated high school? It’s been 10 years. D:

What was the last new drink you discovered that was delicious? Hmm. I haven’t had a new drink in a long time, so I don’t recall.

What are five things you are good at? 1. Taking surveys. 2. drinking coffee. 3. Pushing people away. 4. Putting myself down and being my own toughest critic and enemy. 5. Overthinking everything.

What are five things you are bad at? 1. Doing some things that would really be beneficial for me. 2. Being a functional adult. 3. Not pushing people away. 4. Masking my emotions. 5. Math.

Do you have a YouTube channel? Yes. I don’t upload videos, although I actually did upload a few years ago. Those videos will never see the light of day again, though. lol.

Do you have trouble letting things go? Yes.

What was the easiest subject for you in school? English.

Do you decorate for holidays? Yep. I especially love to decorate for Christmas.

Do you dress up for holidays? I used to sometimes, but nah not anymore.

Did your high school have a strict dress code? I don’t think it was different than most high school’s dress codes.

Were you happy as a teenager? I struggled with low self-esteem and depression, but not like how I do now.

What do you do for your mom on Mother’s Day? I take her to breakfast or lunch and buy her some gifts.

Do you know anyone who follows a raw vegan diet and lifestyle? No.

Have you killed a bug this week? No.

What was the first food you learned how to cook? Top Ramen.

Do you have a Bachelor’s degree? If so, what in? Yes, in psychology.

Can you go see a doctor alone or do you like to take someone with you? I always go with my mom.

How long is your average shower? 30-45 minutes.

What color is your soap? Like a peachy color.

What is the most awful thing about the world today? There’s a lot.

Have you ever been arrested? If so, what for? No.

Have you ever been in court? If so, in which role? No.

Could you go a day without talking to the last person you kissed? We’ve gone like 3 years now.

Would you die for someone you love? Yes, but my favorite counter question to that, which I think says even more in my case is, “would you live for someone you love?” The way things are going right now in my life with health stuff and me not taking care of myself like I should be, plus the fact that I’ve let my health consume and take over... I’m not really living. I’m letting my life pass me by as I just waste away I feel like. My family worries a lot about me and they’re stressed out and also frustrated. They don’t want to see me this way. They of course want more for me than this.

Would you have sex with someone of the same gender as you? No.

What do you identify as? Like my name or gender? I’m a female named Stephanie.

Have you ever been addicted to something? Yes.

Have you ever gotten drunk? Yes, a few times.

Have you ever dealt with an eating disorder? I feel like I have something of an eating disorder, but I don’t know. It’s not anorexia or bulimia, but something is going on with me and food.

Have you ever stolen a street sign? No. I don’t get why people do that.

Have you ever eaten a piece (even just a small bit) of paper? No.

Introvert or extrovert? Introvert to the core.

Trump or Hillary? Blah.

Have you ever stepped in something disgusting with bare feet? No, but I’ve ran over cat and dog poop on accident *BARF* SO disgusting.

Have you ever had a concussion? No.

How many dresses do you own? Like 5.

When was the last time someone scared you? Yesterday. My mom came running out of the bathroom towards me with a Scream mask on and I screamed bloody murder lol. It was too real cause the way she came rushing out was just like how it’s does it in the movie slkjskdlfjlds.

Have you ever thought someone died when they didn’t? Yes! Such a weird thing. I had a dream and I wasn’t sure if I really did dream it or if it was real, so I ended up looking this person up on Facebook. They were very much alive, thankfully. It was just random, too, because it’s not even someone I’m friends with. It was someone from elementary and high school that I haven’t seen or talked to sine then.

Can you crack anything besides your knuckles? I sometimes crack my neck by just moving my head side to side. I don’t like do the whole, grab my chin and twist my head as far as I can. That freaks me out. I also stretch out my arm sometimes if I feel like it needs it and it cracks.

Do you know anyone who has a pet gecko? No.

Would you ever go bear hunting? No.

When was the last time you sang along with a song? Which one was it? It was recently, but I forget what song it was at the moment.

Do you prefer drawing or painting? Any particular reason why? I only color and that works for me.

Name something you thought was cool when you were younger but don’t now: Hmm.

What was the last book you read? I’m reading, “The Lonely Girl” by Gracie Wilson.

Do you like raisins? Chocolate covered ones are better.

Do you have a printer? Yeah.

Did you like the movie Antz? I’ve never seen it.

Is it okay to have crushes while in a relationship with someone else? I wouldn’t be okay with that. I mean, unless it was like a celebrity crush.

What do you think of sexism and double-standards? Do you believe in double-standards or do you think we should stop doing stuff like that? (ex. women can wear skirts and pants, but guys can only wear pants or they’ll get made fun of if they wore skirts): Uh, I think that they suck.

What’s your age range when it comes to dating? I think I’d go a year younger, but I’d really prefer them to be my age or older up to like 5 years.

If you had kids, would you want them to look like you? I’m not having kids.

Were you born with hair on your head? Yeah.

Would you rather have a home birth or hospital birth? Hospital.

If you could go back to your senior prom, what would you do differently? My prom went fine.

Do you currently live in the house you grew up in? No.

Do you remember your locker combinations from high school? I didn’t have one.

Who were your best friends in high school? Derek, Gabby, Gage, and Amanda.

Would you rather sleep on the top bunk or bottom bunk? It’d have to be the bottom bunk for me.

Are you close with your cousins? I used to be with a few, but not anymore. :(

Are you close to any aunts or uncles? One of my aunts and I are pretty close.

Are you close to your grandparents? I was very close to my maternal grandparents, especially my grandmother. I have a good relationship with my paternal grandparents as well, but again especially to my Nana. It’s not the same how it was with my maternal grandma, though.

Who betrayed your trust? Meh.

Who was your first best friend (apart from a sibling)? These 2 girls, Crystal and Starr, in preschool.

What’s the name of the gas station you last stopped at? *shrug*

Is there a topic that gets you really heated when it’s brought up? I avoid ones that would.

Do you forget to flip the page of your calendar at the start of each month? No, I’m pretty good about that.

Would you ever agree to an open relationship with someone? No.

Who is your least favorite actor? I don’t know if I really have a particular least favorite.

When is the last time you had a cigarette? Never.

Was babysitting your first job? It’s been my only one, if you want to count it since I only ever babysat my younger brother and a couple of my cousins. I need get money for it sometimes, though.

Do people always say you’re too thin? Yes, I hear that a lot from family and my doctors. I’m very well aware of it.

Is there something that you could never give up? Coffee, it would seem. ha.

Do you prefer piano music or violin music? Piano.

Would you ever get a tattoo on your collarbone? No. Have you ever showered with someone? No.

Are you racist to any race? No.

Have you ever intentionally hurt an animal? No.

Do you like being hot or cold better? Cold. I like cozying up under a blanket, wearing a hoodie or sweatshirt,  enjoying a nice hot beverage, and/or sitting near the fireplace. Being hot is just absolutely miserable to me and there’s nothing enjoyable about it.

What’s the best thing about school? I liked the learning part and some of the assignments/projects for the most part, but I could have done without all the stressed. I got so overwhelmed and burnt out so easily.

Do you watch independent movies? Have a favorite? Not usually.

In relationships, are you obsessive? No.

Have you ever auditioned for American Idol? Ha, no. I can’t sing at all. I mean, I can, technically, but I can’t sing well.

What’s your favorite Dr. Suess book? Hmm. Not sure I really have a particular favorite.

Do you dot your “i"s will little hearts? No.

Do you own any autographed memorabilia? No.

Have you ever dated a twin? No.

Do you own any expensive designer purses? No.

Do you look like a boring person? Probably. They’d be right to think that.

Oreos or Chips Ahoy? Oreos.

Do you have a better body or a better face? Neither.

Is it hard for you to admit when you’re hurt? No.

Have you ever considered being a cop? Nope.

Name the strangest game you’ve ever played (video game or real game): Life is Strange. ha.

Do you like sitting in the front, back, or middle of the classroom? I had to sit in the front.

Do you know anyone who has been struck by lightning before? No.

What’s your favorite superhero movie? The Avengers films, Deadpool 1& 2, Guardians of the Galaxy volume 1 & 2.

Do you struggle with acne? Not really. I get a little now and then. I did when I was a teenager and through my early 20s, though.

Have you ever fostered an animal? No.

Do you have a back pack in a shape of an animal? Yeah, I have a giraffe backpack.

[littleredroseonthevalley]

Red Rose - Chapter 17

Prologue Ch. 1 Ch. 2 Ch. 3 Ch. 4 Ch. 5 Ch. 6 Ch. 7 Ch. 8 Ch. 9 Ch. 10 Ch. 11Ch. 12 Ch. 13 Ch. 14 Ch. 15 Ch. 16 CH. 17

Summary: Christmas arrives to Cordonia, and Riley feels emotional with the lack of snow and her solitude. Her hopes for a quiet holiday were soon twarted, though, with an attack where she least expected.

Rating: M -  Not suitable for children or teens below the age of 16 with non-explicit suggestive adult themes, references to some violence, or coarse language.

Avlona, Cordonia, Christmas Eve 2015

The holidays were a silent happening for Riley that year. It has been that way for years, now. This time, however, it seemed more so, as she now had friends, something like a boyfriend, and had reconnected with Charlotte.

She wasn’t alone by choice, but by circumstance.

Hana was at the Baleares with her parents and other relatives, spending their season under the Mediterranean sun. Drake and Liam were a short drive away from her, at Brigade Hill, but she doubted either the King or the Queen would be too glad seeing her.

Maxwell called her from Switzerland the day after Charlotte and she fled from Applewood. He had apologized he couldn’t say goodbye before the holidays, as Bertrand, unsurprisingly, was in a hurry. It was a good thing, though, as she wouldn’t have to explain why she left in the middle of the night.

After their flight from Applewood, Riley and Charlotte stopped by a deposit, as in to leave in safe-keeping some of her prized possessions, especially those which could compromise her identity, such as other fake passports, her bank card, the key to a Swiss safe deposit box in which she kept other important valuables and miscellaneous documents, which bared her birth name. Her journals, under Liam’s possession, were the only other sensitive object not protected.

Those, and a small jewelry box. One Charlotte wasn’t privy to its existance.

After their quick stop at the warehouse, the two women parted ways. Riley checked into a tourist-y hotel near Paparoúna Court, while Charlotte left for Italy. Not that her marriage was in any good shape, but it was to be expected she would spend her holidays with the Duke in Guastalla, rather than with her in Valona.

While Riley dwelled on that line of thought, her phone went off. “Your ears were burning?” She answered.

“Why?” Charlotte asks, confused.

“I was just thinking about you.” Riley responded, with a smile. “What gives?”

“Not much.” She shrugged. “Federigo is passed out in the couch, thankfully. I’m finishing dinner. You?”

“Room service.” The other said, simply.

“Well, I called to wish you a merry Christmas, but since yours is being as miserable as mine, I can give you a piece of bad news.”

“Bad news?” Riley echoes, concerned. “What happened?”

“Do you remember that Art teacher you were so fond of?” Charlotte lead with that. “Peter Brandl?”

She recalled the mouse-y man who used to teach her Art. “Yes, I do. He was a broker for Ludwig, right?”

“Yeah, he worked for the Fund in Prague.” The blonde hummed.

“What about him?”

“Well, I called mother earlier for wishing her a merry Christmas, and she said his body had been found at the Danube in Hainburg.” Charlotte ripped off the band-aid.

“Mister Brandl is dead?!” The other woman asks, incredulously. “Do they know what happened?”

Charlotte hummed. “The police ruled it as a suicide. Apparently, he was debt-ridden. Besides, he was a lonely man, no friends, no family, no wife, no children. If not for mother’s solidarity, he would go to the homeless pit. At the very least, he got a proper burial.”

“How sad!” Riley lamented. “I wish I could have been to his funeral.”

“Have you read the file I gave you?” She asked, changing the subject.

“Yes, it appears Bellevue kept a comprehensive file of the girls who worked for him.” The black-haired said, calm. “This is about some girl named Leda. She ‘joined’ in 1990 and was relieved of her position a few years later.”

“Anything special about her?” The blonde questioned. “There must be something special about it. Katya said it was on a safe.”

She shook her head instinctively. “Not that I can tell. Except for one thing, she has the marking for a client, number 830, who enjoyed her services for over five months.”

“That’s an awful amount of time to be with a hooker.” Charlotte commented.

“Charlotte.” Riley chastised.

“What?” She asked, in a teasing high pitch. “It is.”

“Be as it may,” The other responded, demeaning. “There is a photo attached to the file. That should be a lead to find out where she is.”

“And who she is.” The blonde echoed.

As she finishes her sentence, the TV blasts the opening theme for ‘María la del Barrio’, a Mexican soap opera.

“I cannot believe you’re watching this crap.” She scoffed. “It’s Christmas. Have some respect for yourself.”

“I like it, okay?” The other defended. “It’s dubbed in Greek. It’s terrible. But I like it.”

Itatí Cantoral, who played the main antagonist Soraya, gave a malicious laughter over at the TV.

“Terrible indeed.” Charlotte echoed. “Hey, remember when Grandmother would play those sappy French radio soaps?”

“Old woman Franziska sure loved those. She put me, you and Alexander to hear those, and then we went out and replay the episode out in the garden.” Riley reminisced.

“Mother got crazy mad with us playing at the flower beds.”

“Of course, she would. We destroyed the roses, making Alexander pluck them every once in a while, to propose to you or to me, as the script dictated.” The black-haired pointed out.

Just then, a knock came from her door. “Are you expecting anyone?” Charlotte asks.

“No, not really.” She responded and walked over to answer the door. The presence startled her. “Drake?!”

“What?!” The woman shouted over the phone. “Drake’s over there?! What on Hell he’s doing?! Pass over the phone to him at once! Are you listening, Riley?!”

Ignoring Charlotte’s voice but mirroring her question, Riley asks: “What are you doing here?”

He scoffed, good naturedly. “Some welcoming, huh, Flowers?”

“I’m sorry, but I wasn’t expecting you.” She said. “Do you want to come in?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” He said, and she let him in.

“What are you doing?” Charlotte asks, over the phone.

“Excuse me for a minute.” Riley says, and then places the cell on her ear. “Talk to you later.”

“No! Wait!” The blonde tried to meddle, but Riley hung up.

The black-haired woman walked him over to the small sitting area on her room and motioned for him to sit. “Now, what good winds bring you here? I thought you’d be dining with Liam and his family tonight.”

“Oh, please.” He scoffed. “You think Regina would let me at the table with them? Sometimes the security let me join their feast, but normally I spend it alone.”

She smirked. “So, you came here to be alone together?”

“Pretty much.” He lowered his sight. “I also brought you something. From Liam.”

He pulled a small box from his coat pocket and slid across the table to her. Inside, there was a small pendant. “It’s beautiful!” She gushed. “Help me put it on?”

“Sure.” He coughed and stood up. She pulled her hair, baring her milky white, soft skin of her neck and shoulders to him. He took the necklace and fastened it.

Suddenly, he was taken by a want to kiss that exposed skin. He lowered his face to it, the warm breath sending chills to Riley’s spine. His height shadowed the woman, who wasn’t short herself. When he was millimeters from the flustering body, a knock resounded through the room.

With that, he sobered up and took a step back. “You should go answer.” He chocked.

She sighed. “Okay.”

Riley walked over to the door the second time that night and opened it.

“Riley!” Maxwell’s perky voice screeched on Drake’s ears and damping his mood.

“Merry Christmas!” Hana wished, sweetly.

Riley was dumbstruck. “Maxwell! Hana! I thought you were abroad.”

“We were.” The young man responded. “But Switzerland was boring, the room was terrible, Bertrand wouldn’t let me ski, so I came back.”

“We met at the lobby, actually.” Hana provided. “My family was thrilled I was invited to the Royal Family private Christmas feast.”

“But you’re here.” Riley pointed out.

“They don’t need to know that.” Hana said, with a wicked smile that felt foreign on her face. “They also don’t need to know I wasn’t invited, either.”

“Well, it is great to have you both here.” Riley smiled at them. “Come in, make yourselves comfortable.”

They stepped into the room and met Drake, standing there. “Drake! You’re here!” Maxwell exclaimed, surprised.

“Are we interrupting anything?” Hana asked, politely.

“No.” The man grumbled in response. “I was just bringing a parcel to Riley. I should leave.”

“Nonsense.” Riley said. “I’ll call room service and we can have a feast up here ourselves.”

“Great! I’m starving!” Maxwell said, sitting at one of the chairs. Hana gave the other three an appraising look and sat down next to the excitable man.

Drake waited standing for Riley to finish the call, as in to offer the last one of the three chairs. She declined with a: “I’ll sit on the bed.”

The black-haired picked up the remote and turned off the finishing credits to María la del Barrio.

“What were you watching?” Hana asks, curious.

“A Mexican soap opera.” Riley answers, dismissive. “It’s just something I do when I’m bored.”

Drake scoffs, mockingly.

“What? Did you think I’d study etiquette for fun?” Riley defies.

“Honestly, I don’t know which one is worse.” He answered.

The woman looked dirty at him and went over to her closet. She put a glass bottle in front of him. “Here, take it before I throw it on your head.”

He looked carefully at her and opened the wrapping. It was a 23-year-old Evan Williams Bourbon Whiskey. It sold for two thousand dollars in most of Cordonia, which was enough for making Drake gape.

“Jesus, Flowers, are you nuts?” He asks, taken aback. “Those things are crazy expensive.”

“I have a friend who let me have it for cheap.” She dismissed his worry. “Charlotte said you preferred Schlitzer, but I couldn’t find any for sale.”

He tried to disguise a grateful blush from seeping into his cheeks. “Thanks, Flowers. I’m sorry I don’t have anything for you.”

“You’ll have to outdo yourself next year, then.” She smirked at him. “Hana, this is yours.” She handed a rectangular package to her.

The Asian felt the package, trying to guess what was inside. Unable to, she asked: “What is it?”

Riley smiled. “Open up and see for yourself!”

The other woman obeyed and teared the wrapping paper. There was a leather-bound notebook.

“It is a sheet music notebook.” Riley explained. “It is completely blank, for you to write down your piano compositions. Well, blank save for the first page.”

“Sie zog tief in sein Herz, wie die Melodie eines Liedes, die aus der Kindheit heraufklingt.“ She read the dedication and wiped her eyes clean of tears. “Thank you, Riley. Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome, Hana.” They hugged the moment out. “Now, last but not least, Maxwell.”

He was sitting by the edge of his chair, in childish anxiety. “Gimme!”

“Now, Maxwell, I’m going to give you something that symbolizes my trust and care for you.” She handed him a DVD. “This is the recording of the New York leg of ‘Straight to the Heart 2010 Tour’.”

“Sophie Ellis-Baxtor?” He tested the name and took the DVD, confused. “Thanks, I guess.”

She neared his face and whispered to his ear. “Watch it, and then you tell me what you think.”

He looked at her like a kicked puppy. It didn’t take a genius to know he was disappointed. “Okay, Riley.”

The bellboys arrived with their Christmas feast and they settled poorly around the small table and served themselves with turkey and chestnuts.

By ten o’clock, she was alone yet again. Maxwell and Hana excused themselves to get checked into the Hilton, in Vougliameni, while Drake had to return early to the palace, as security wouldn’t let him in later.

Out of some kind of childish sentimentality, Riley persuaded herself to go to the Midnight Mass at a Catholic church nearby. She would have attended the ceremony at Anastasis, but since the Orthodox followed the Julian calendar, Christmas would arrive a week later for the Greek community in Cordonia.

The Cathedral of Our Lady of Good Council was an Italian-style church at the South end of the port area, on top of Gloire Hill. It was the cathedra for the Archdiocese of Valona, and the main congregation for the French Catholics in Cordonia.

She arrived at the temple ten minutes before the start of the mass. The benches were full, but the church wasn’t crowded. Riley waked over to the altar and paid her respects to the image of Cordonia’s patron saint.

With little difficulty, Riley found a secluded seat and waited for the ceremony to begin. The mass started, and a few minutes in, a man sat right next to her.

The priest and a deacon enter the altar and start the Act of Penitence. “I confess to Almighty God, to blessed Mary ever Virgin, to blessed Michael the Archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, to all the Saints, and to you, brethren, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word and deed: through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.

“Therefore, I beseech blessed Mary ever Virgin, blessed Michael the Archangel, blessed John the Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, all the Saints, and you, brethren, to pray for me to the Lord our God.” The congregation repeats after the clergyman.

“You know, this part always tears me up.” The man next to Riley commented.

“Nothing is more wretched than a guilty conscience.” She offhandedly offered.

“Shakespeare?” He asks, uncertain.

“Plautus, a Roman playwright.”

He laughed quietly. “You’re full of little aphorisms, aren’t you, Lady Riley?”

“It is as much fun as it denotes a certain elevation of the intellect.” She shrugged it off. “But we were talking about guilt, were we not, Lord Bellevue?”

“I believe we were.” He hummed. “Though, this is less about my guilty conscience then it is about what you had printed on the papers about me.”

“That much was a given. After all, to have a guilty conscience, one must have a conscience beforehand.” She said, daringly.

He scoffed. “So brave, so much gall.” He took off a black piece of metal from his trench coat’s pocket. It glistened on the Christmas lights of the church and it had an almost-inconspicuous unlocking click. It was a pistol. “Are you still feeling brave?”

Her teeth glistened on an unease smile. “You’d have to be pretty stupid to murder me here now. I’d wager I have until the communion, at the very least.”

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will. We praise You, we bless You, we adore You, we glorify You, we give You thanks for Your great glory, Lord God, heavenly King, O God Almighty Father.

“Lord Jesus Christ, Only-Begotten Son, Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, who take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us; Who take away the sins of the world, hear our prayer. You Who sit at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us. For You alone are the Holy One, you alone the Lord, you alone the Most High, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in the Glory of God the Father. Amen.” The community chanted the Gloria.

“Mercy, that is a funny sentiment.” He scoffed. “You and the press certainly had none for me.”

“And you had none to Katya and Zarina and all the other girls.” She pointed out.

“Merciless? Me? After rescuing those girls from deject poverty? After leading this country through its golden age? I should be hailed.”

“How unfair is life, isn’t it?” She said, sarcastic.

“You are not without your secrets, Lady Riley.” He said, changing the subject slightly. “It is intriguing how you managed to waltz into circles any other person, even with all sorts of noble titles, take a lifetime to infiltrate.”

“I was at the wrong place, at the wrong time.” She countered. “Believe me, I would much prefer to be in New York by now.”

He trailed her neck with his right index finger, while the gun rested on his left hand. “You have posture, you have class, you have beauty. You’re no peasant.”

“Reading the right books and dressing the right clothes, it happens to be not that hard.” She said, shrugging

“So very opinionated. This is not a flattering attribute. And yet, you’ll become Queen of Cordonia soon enough.” He ironized.

She scoffed. “You’re naïve if you think so. Regina picks the Queen, and she chose Madeleine.”

“So, I have heard, but I merely assumed you would have a plan to take her down, just like you had me.” He countered.

She laughed, quietly, as in not to call attention to herself. “And what makes you think I would have taken you down if I had any plans to become Queen? Expose myself like that would be very counterproductive, don’t you think?”

“So, this is what this is all about? Revenge for not being picked?” He said, incredulous for being collateral damage.

“In a way.” She conceded. “But mainly because it is fun to see the world burn.”

The priest begins his sermon: “When the angel tells Mary that she’s going to give birth to Jesus, the message is ‘don’t be afraid’. ‘Fear not’ is what the angel also says to Joseph in his dream. That’s the dream which convinces him to stay faithful to this girl to whom he’s betrothed and who finds herself strangely pregnant. There are lots of reasons to be afraid in the Christmas story. Who wouldn’t be afraid away from home with nowhere to stay and about to give birth? Who wouldn’t be afraid when there was a despot like King Herod around? He wasn’t above murdering members of his own family if he took a dislike to them.

“A couple of months ago I was in Bethlehem for the first time in almost twenty years. We went to Beit Sahour about three kilometers outside Bethlehem. It’s where the Shepherds’ Fields are found. Despite the constant stream of pilgrims, it’s a peaceful place. But there is fear in air. The Shepherds’ Fields look across the valley to an Israeli settlement. In between there’s the security fence and wall separating Israel from the Palestinian Territories. It’s a vivid symbol that where the Prince of Peace was born there is no peace. And yet to troubled Bethlehem countless people come as pilgrims on a journey of faith, curious to see the place where Jesus was born, wanting to catch something of the joy, mystery and love of the Christ-child, God with us. The little town of Bethlehem will be packed tonight.

“Suddenly it seemed to make entire sense to me that Jesus was not born in a place of stability, security, prosperity and freedom. He was born in occupied territory, in poverty, in danger, and where there was no room for him at the inn. Pilgrims to Bethlehem still go to a problem place of high unemployment, where many of its citizens cannot visit Jerusalem just a few miles away and where many citizens of Jerusalem cannot visit Bethlehem. But that’s the point. God reveals himself to us within the troubles of the world, not after our problems are solved. Jesus Christ is born in us when we are ill or after we’ve had a row, when we’re divorced, or when we are lonely. The birth of this child in Bethlehem two thousand years ago wasn’t some simple solution to the world’s problems. He grew to be a man who had to face suffering, an unfair trial and an undeserved death himself. He knew life wasn’t fair. But this is God coming to live alongside us, within us, to bring us hope because even when we don’t love one another he never gives up loving us. That’s the joy of the Christmas message.

“There’s a chapel in the Shepherds’ Fields at Beit Sahour, just outside Bethlehem. There are three paintings within it depicting the story of the shepherds. The first recalls the angels telling the shepherds of the birth of Jesus; the second pictures them at the stable where they find this new born child. The third is of their return journey for Luke says, ‘the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen’.

“Each of the scenes features a dog with the shepherds. The dog is terrified in the first painting, attentive in the stable, and is clearly dancing with joy on the return journey, ears pricked up, caught in mid-bark and tail wagging. The shepherds and their dog return to work but transformed. They face the same problems and live the same lives but with new hope because of the joy coming from this child, Jesus Christ, God with us.

“Fear not. May the message of the angels and the joy of the shepherds be yours and mine tonight. A very happy and joyful Christmas to you all.” He finishes his sermon.

“Are you a Catholic, Lady Riley?” Lord Bellevue asks.

“I am hardly anything, Lord Bellevue.” She said, inattentive. “I haven’t step on a temple of anything for almost a decade now.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” He scoffed. “For all your single-minded dedication to a fleeting, insubstantial goal, you would have a future as a crusader.”

She smirked. “Much the opposite. I do what I do because I believe God is dead, therefore my actions are completely inconsequential.”

“You’ll know for certain soon enough.” He taunted, twisting the gun he held to her waist.

“I’m certain you would much prefer if I was crying and begging for my life.”

He laughed. “I cannot say I would not. You are making this whole thing very boring.”

“I’ll keep your notes in mind next time someone abducts me from a church.” She defied. “But, I fear, I am a lady worthy of the name.”

“If all noblewomen were like you, Lady Riley, there wouldn’t be a single republic in the world.” He praised, ironic.

“I thank you, Lord Bellevue, and as a gesture of goodwill, I would like to remind you we are at the Anaphora. In ten minutes, the old lady to my left is going to come over and wish me a merry Christmas.” She commented. “As much as she’s being a good sport about your more vocal disturbances, I find it hard to believe she wouldn’t notice you’re holding me at gunpoint.”

“Then we should be going to a more private place, no?” His smirk glinted.

Lord Bellevue took her arm, pulled her up and shot to the ceiling three times. The mass came to a halt, and the parishioners started to scream in terror. Taking advantage of the commotion, the former politician pulls her from the seats and out the door.

As the two of them exit the church, however, a police operation had been formed on the stairs. The building was completely surrounded.

“You planned this!” He shouted, angrily.

“You never asked whether I had my phone.” She smirked at him.

He pushed her and was about to shoot her, but he got shot first by the police officers. With the wound, he dropped the gun and Riley scurried away quickly to behind the lines.

She finally found a familiar face, Drake’s, and hugs him, crying, as the adrenaline wears off. “It’s okay,” He whispered feverishly to her ear. “You’re okay now.”

Hana and Maxwell appeared soon after, and Riley hugged them both, tightly. The two of them led her to a car and took her away from the scene.

As the car drove off, Riley could hear Bellevue being taken forcefully by the policemen, cursing and shouting.

Red Rose - Masterlist

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Taglist: @boneandfur; @mfackenthal; @zilch3

[180abroad]

Day 61: Yet More Paris

We decided to spend our last day in Paris visiting a few final sights on the central island and in the Latin Quarter across the Seine.

Starting with a return to Notre Dame, we saw that the bread festival was still running. It was free to enter, so there was no need to ask whether we would take a look.

We got to see bakers preparing breads and pastries firsthand. And of course, the finished products were all on offer. We had just eaten breakfast back home, but we made a note to come back for lunch.

Right outside the tent,where we had left it, was the main facade of Notre Dame. Feeling much better than we did the last time we were here, we decided to linger a bit and appreciate the various statues, researching who they all represented.

We confirmed that the headless gentleman guarding the left portal is Saint Denis, Paris’s first appointed bishop and one of its patron saints. The story goes that after being beheaded by the city’s Roman priests, Denis proceeded to pick up his head and carry it several miles across the city, preaching as he walked. Only after he finished his sermon did he collapse and die for good.

Next, we walked through the side gardens to the Deportation Memorial at the end of the island behind the cathedral.

The Memorial is dedicated to the Jews and other prisoners who were rounded up by the Vichy puppet government during World War II and deported to Nazi concentration camps.

I went into the memorial expecting it to be an interesting side-show to our day’s sightseeing. It turned out to be the main event.

The first thing you see of the memorial is a low, ugly concrete slab with the name of the memorial scratched roughly into the side like the etching of a prisoner on a cell wall. A narrow gap in the slab reveals stairs leading down into a small, drab courtyard.

The courtyard’s concrete floor is rough and uneven, forcing you to walk carefully and uneasily to the long, narrow entryway. Inside, the memorial is dark, colorless, and claustrophobic. And the walls are covered in writing using the same prisoner scrawl. Every detail is intentionally and masterfully designed to make you feel imprisoned and vulnerable.

After squeezing through the entryway, you are immediately faced with the monument’s centerpiece: a long corridor studded with thousands of tiny crystals along each side. Two hundred thousand crystals, to be precise--one for each prisoner deported from France, abandoned by their homeland to a cruel fate at the hands of merciless evil.

On the floor of the corridor is a tomb containing the remains of an unknown deportee, recovered from a Nazi camp after the war.

Moving to the side, you step into a series of rooms detailing the horrors of the Nazi deportation and concentration camp machine.

You see a map showing the Nazi camps. I knew there were a lot more camps than just the famous ones like Dachau and Auschwitz-Birkenau, but I never imagined just how many there actually were. Every single one of those dots is a camp. And even that is just a sampling. Altogether, the Nazi death camp system included more than 40,000 sites across Europe and North Africa.

Another map numbers precisely how many people were deported from each district of France. Somehow, seeing the numbers broken into such cruel specifics makes them even harder to stomach.

By this point we were both starting to tear up in spite of ourselves. No deportees were ever actually held at this site, but it seems to channel a dark power nonetheless.

In another room, the names of various detainment and extermination camps are etched across all four walls. A stark touchscreen terminal presents detailed information and photographs for more camps that we could stand to scroll through.

Next, you’re taken through a black hallway, studded with small brick windows where you can read about each step that prisoners would go through, from deportation to the end.

You also learn about the ways that the prisoners were able to hold onto scraps of their humanity. They would write poetry and Christmas cards with stolen pencils and scraps of paper. One prisoner made a painting with pigments improvised from rust, soap residue, and dried paint chips from his cell wall. He painted it on newsprint with a piece of straw from his bedding.

When they could, individual prisoners assigned to factories would commit acts of sabotage--usually on the order of misassembling bullets so that they wouldn’t fire properly. When caught, such saboteurs would be executed in especially painful and public ways to discourage others from following their example.

Copies of SS documents show the clinical detachment of the officers who ran the camps and the atrocities they casually suggest to improve their efficiency.

As you leave the memorial, the final words etched above the door read:

“Forgive, but never forget...”

Emerging back into the sunlight gardens behind Notre Dame, it took us a while to regain our composure. And we were so glad that we had the chance to visit this amazing and powerful place.

I shudder to think what it will be like to visit Auschwitz and Dachau later this summer.

Life must go on, however, and it was well into the early afternoon. We got some very tasty sandwiches from the bread festival tent, then headed over to walk through the Latin Quarter on the southern Left Bank of the Seine.

Though lined with a colorful mixture of fancy boutiques and ethnic takeout joints today, this was historically a neighborhood of students, workers, and social malcontents. Because of that, it was also where riots and revolts often began, including the failed 1832 revolution that inspired the second half of Les Miserables. Although the specific battle shown in the musical didn’t exactly happen, it’s easy to picture the narrow, winding streets filled with makeshift barricades.

At the center of the Latin Quarter, we found the Place St. Michel with its dramatic statue of the archangel Michael.

Our last destination was at the western tip of the central island: the Palais de la Cite, featuring the still-operational High Courts, the defunct Conciergerie prison, and the spectacular Sainte-Chapelle cathedral. We started with the cathedral.

When you first enter the cathedral, it is spectacularly adorned but a bit cramped--even for a private royal chapel. That’s because the bottom floor was for the servants and other commoners. The lion’s share was reserved for the king and royal family on the next floor up.

One interesting detail is in the ceiling. At first glance, it looks like a night sky. We’ve seen similar (if less spectacular) executions of this concept in other cathedrals. But instead of stars, the ceiling is dotted with golden fleurs-de-lys--another reminder that the king stood above any ordinary person.

Up a steep and narrow spiral staircase, we came to the real show.

Almost every surface of the walls is covered in brilliant stained glass. And the few spaces where the builders were forced to put a support buttress are covered in vibrantly painted sculptures and murals.

It is easily one of the most visually impressive churches we’ve seen, but I have to say it didn’t really do anything for me on a deeper level. The kings who worshiped in it may have been devout believers, but in the end, it just seems like another decadent display of wealth and the glorification of inequality.

Leaving Sainte-Chapelle down a matching spiral staircase, we headed over to the Conciergerie museum.

The main entry chamber was filled with a series of wooden channels carrying water from the Seinne around the building. Apparently it was some kind of an art installation.

Nothing original from the Conciergerie’s days as a palace or a prison remain, but it still makes for an interesting side-trip for history-buffs. The standing displays and free map briefly explain the original roles of the larger rooms. Then they give you a crash course on how the justice system in the post-Revolution First Republic spiraled into a paranoid Reign of Terror--sowing the seeds for Napoleon to rise up on the promise of a return to sanity and stability.

You don’t get to see the actual cell where Marie Antoinette was held prisoner before her trial and execution, but you do see the chapel that her cell was converted into after the monarchy was restored to power.

Exiting the Conciergerie, you find yourself unceremoniously dumped out onto the sidewalk. As we were looking up how to get back home, we unfortunately fell victim to our first scam (not including the bracelet man in Rome, who we paid just to make him go away without threatening us). Fortunately, it was relatively harmless.

The way the scam works is that a pair of kindly-looking women walk up to you while you are looking at your phone or otherwise visibly distracted. They shove a clipboard into your hands and ask you to sign their petition. Not wanting to be rude, you take their pen and fill in your name just to make them go away. But when you get to the end of the line, you see the last column is marked “donation.” Rereading the paper more closely, you realize that it is actually a donation form, and you just made an embarrassing misunderstanding. On the lines above, you see how much other signers donated (assuming that the scammers didn’t just fill those lines in themselves).

Not wanting to back out, you fill in a small amount of money and hand over some Euros. With your money safely in hand, they turn around and inform you that there is actually a minimum donation, which happens to be double what you gave. At this point you’ll realize that this is obviously a scam, but they already have your money--why not try for more?

We firmly declined and just walked away, slightly embarrassed that we had finally fallen for a scam after avoiding them so well to date. (Except for the bracelet guy in Rome, but we just paid him a couple Euros to make him go away without threatening us or making a scene.)

Our embarrassing moment of the day taken care of, we enjoyed an uneventful trip home to enjoy an early evening and a late morning before heading out for Normandy tomorrow.

Next Post: Bayeux

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[platinumshawnn]

merry christmas, baby | Jack Lowden

Summary: a slightly drunk Jack misses and needs to see reader on a cold Christmas eve.

A/N: here's some Christmas themed content for the fact that it's Christmas eve. I have another imagine idea or two to come tbat should be up soon. Merry Christmas.

Word count: 1,935

Jack huffed and ran his hands down over his face, blue eyes darting up to the ceiling and then over to the right side of the bed; the sheets undisturbed and untouched, cold, because she wasn't there. All four pillows were stacked up and even though he wanted to just pretend she was at work, staying late to squeeze in one last manuscript before locking up and coming home, he couldn't bring himself to do it because a voice in his mind screamed louder than his begging thoughts for her to come home; the word FOOL being chanted like some sort of prayer. Those pillows were usually shoved off the bed, keeping only one thin one nearby for her head -- Jack sat up, his temples throbbing. It took him a moment, the habit to shove them aside for her overpowering common sense that told him to stop it because he was only hurting himself, turning and digging until her found her pillow; shoving the three others off like he always did when she worked late.

He knew he was only hurting himself with such a simple action but it, for the time being, would ease the ache in his chest that her absence left behind. Jack was very much aware that she would be somewhere halfway across the city, snuggled up against her new lovers side with a glass of champagne in that red dress she had bought just a few months earlier after coming across it in the mall while they were out doing a little browsing -- she could never go out and just look, he recalled, she always had to buy something. And this time it was a red dress that had fit her quite well, but insisting she needed to lose five pounds before wearing it for Christmas -- he knew she had stuck through to her goal. He had seen her only last week at the mall, leaned over a display table at one of those soap shops that had way too many smells for his brain to comprehend, walls upon walls and shelves stacked with body lotions and soaps and candles, hand sanitizers, everything, her lips parted and turning bottles to read with a concentrated look; one he knew every line of. He could see it in her face, the babyish cheeks that he used to tenderly brush and hold whenever he kissed her had slimmed down, not too much but he knew them because they were one of his features, and it nearly broke his heart to discover their disappearance.

Her hair was probably smoothly styled and she was probably all glammed up, wearing her favourite red lipstick that she only wore for special occasions, wearing heels that hurt her calves and would later need a massage, sipping on her drink while surrounded by all his friends and family -- he knew she had to be the center of all the attention to, he just knew it, because she was stunning. Exquisite. How many times he had told her that, whispered it against her skin..

He kicked the duvet from his legs and swung his feet over the edge of the bed, contemplating another swig from the half gone whiskey bottle that he had been trying to drown his sorrows in; searching for her at the bottom of the bottle, but it did nothing and he never found her -- he just found more sadness, that being why it was decided against as he hung his head and rested his hands on his knees. He didn't want to be that ex, especially not on Christmas eve, but he couldn't -- he just needed to hear her voice, see her. Maybe. He had stumbled into some sweat pants and grabbed the nearest shirt, forgetting socks as he hurried to make his way down the hall and to where his boots were, beside the door and sliding on his jacket. He felt no need to grab his hat or gloves, he just needed her.

Even with all the festivities and the holiday spirit in the air, it felt like everyone was in on this whole Christmas thing, like it was some club -- some joke he wasn't in on, or a party he hadn't been invited to because for the first time in his life, he really didn't care for any of it. The lights were too bright and he had shoved over a plastic snowman in somebody's yard, kicking it into the street out of frustration, annoyed by the very fact that everybody else was out having a grand old time, happy and he was...well, he felt awful. His cheeks and nose were pink when he found himself stumbling down her street, hands shoved in his pockets and practically sulking like a child. He could see her through the window of her living room, laughing as her friend, Ginny, leaned into her hair and whispered something in her ear; a wide smile on her face and relaxed, enjoying herself.

His emotions were a whirlwind because seeing her, happy, he was relieved and content, glad but he was jealous because how was it fair that he be miserable and alone with just his hand tonight but she's happy and alive and surrounded by love and positivity? Jack huffed, stopped at the end of the walkway that lead up to her door, questioning every reason he had even bothered to go there, confused and feeling stupid as he turned slightly and glanced down the road; his breath a cloud of smoke in front of his face as he decided whether it was even a bright idea to go knocking on her door. He had called quits. And yet there he was, like an idiot, crawling right back.

He found her eyes staring at him from the window, her mouth ajar and face contorted into a look of one that was obviously shock, surprised to see him and he was embarrassed -- frozen like a deer in headlights as he stood there, staring rumbly and mentally panicking, his sense of fight or flight kicking into action. He stayed there though and couldn't will himself to move. She set her glass down and had disappeared from view, Jack only assuming she was pulling on her coat and coming to the door, probably to shoo his from her lawn and call him names, that or call her boyfriend who would probably punch him for even daring show up-

“Jack?” her sweet voice carried from the door as she stepped outside, her heels crunching in the snow as she closed the door behind her. Her eyebrows were tugged into a confused frown, a little crease formed between them as she shoved her hands in her pockets and shivered, glancing up and down the street. “What are you doing out here? Where's your hat and scarf? It's freezing out here.”

He mentally smiled because there she was -- any previous jealousy and frustration was long gone, hearing the concern in her voice, but with an undertone of scolding him, the motherly woman he knew and loved. He cleared his throat, “They uh- it's not that bad out.” He stuttered, shrugging. “I just...was in the area, was at a friend's house for a Christmas party. Figure I would come say merry Christmas.” He was lying though and he knew she could tell, his voice still groggy from the nap he had taken after passing out drunk and eyes glassy as she hesitantly nodded.

“Oh.” She shortly said, that frown still on her face and embedded into her features. He realized he made her frown a lot.

“So uh…” he drifted, pointing towards the house. “Is David inside? How is he?”

“Oh, he-" she said, curls bouncing slightly as her head whipped to glance back at the house, right hand raising and pointing towards the door, “He and I are taking a break. He uh...he's too dependent on his mother, a mommy's boy I suppose. She's too involved and it's a bit too much to handle, you know how that goes. So he's back home with her for the holidays. Indefinitely.” her last word was quiet, almost inaudible but he caught it.

Jack frowned, “I'm sorry to hear that.”

She shook her head. “No, it's fine. It’s for the best and I like having my side of the bed back. He would do this thing where,” she said, making small gestures with her hands as she spoke, “He would roll into my side of the bed and he practically pants when he sleeps, it was a little uncomfortable and suffocating. Plus he insists on sleeping with a thick blanket every night and you know that just…” she explained, scrubbing her nose up in distaste which he laughed.

“Yer like a human furnace, the last thing you need is a blanket.” He finished.

“Exactly.” She sighed playfully, the two letting out relaxed laughs that came easily, naturally. But the silence fell back over them quite quickly, avoiding each other's gaze for a moment before she cleared her throat. “You know, we have coffee and tea inside if you'd...like to come in and hang around for a bit. Shelley brought some nice wine, I think Mick brought some beer even. If you'd like.” She hurriedly rambled, his mouth opening slightly and having to suppress a giddy smile.

“Are you sure? I mean I don't want to intrude.” Jack answered.

“God, no, you're not intruding. I could use the company, everybody is in couples or old. I need somebody whose mutually sane and just as much a loner and is actually closer to my age.” (Y/N) breathed out, laughing. “That guy, Phil, is here. Still emphasizes being single and swears he's young at heart.” Jack snorted in reply.

“Christ, that old dinosaur is still up and around? He's like what? Sixty?”

“Forty seven, he’s aging okay for someone his age but had a real bad smokers cough that sounds like he's been smoking since birth.” She said, raising her eyebrows.

He had to consider it, because his pride wanted to say he couldn't stay and refused to come crawling back so quickly and easily, like putty in her hands; but he missed her too much and if being in her presence as just a friend again was the best he could get, he would take it. He just wanted to be -- needed to be near her again. “Okay, alright. Only cause somebody needs to keep him in line and remind him he’s old enough to be your father.” He joked, starting to make his way up the pathway, winking. “Also I feel bad.”

She rolled her eyes and laughed, freezing and looking up when he gently nudged her in the process of trying to pass, nearly losing her footing but being caught by his hand. They both had frozen, staring at each other with wide eyes, his hand still round her elbow after a long minute. “You alright?” he quietly asked, releasing her arm finally.

Clearing her throat, she nodded. “Yeah, for sure. Thank you.” She answered, flashing a small smile and shoving her hands back in her pockets as she turned and hurried back up to the door, “Hurry up, it’s cold and I'm in a dress.” She called while opening the door and waiting for him, glancing over her shoulder whilst he still stood there, just looking at her, admiring and memorizing this image.

He finally let out a short laugh and hurried behind her, gently nudging her by the small of her back as they stepped inside and closed the door.

[klstheword]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[bartsugsy]

You're happy about this, great. There are certain people, and I am one of them, where every single thing that has happened since March, actually probably since January, has been a detail of the worst case scenario. Every day I think it can't get worse and Emmerdale end up laughing at me, or that's how it feels like. I am also a real person, with real happiness that matters, and none of this makes me happy. I can't even see Christmas resolving it in any way, though I desperately want it to.

anon, my dude.... i get that this is going to sound harsh and i don’t mean it to but.... if it makes you so consistently miserable, why are you watching right now? live your life, find things that make you happy, spread ur wings, you know? i’m not even saying stop watching forever, i’m saying you could literally just catch up every few weeks if you wanted? 

like? what’s stopping you?

do you need something else to keep you occupied or distracted? the internet is HUGE and FULL of fandoms, have a browse, see what’s around, see if you can see anything else you can attach yourself to. i can recommend stuff! i watch other things, although you would never think it from this blog alone.

the reality of fandoms is that they come and go - they’re a moment in time. if you’ve been in fandom spaces for a long time, you’ll likely have moved through multiple. i’ve gone through probably five (or six?) major fandoms spanning multiple years each, in just over a decade. some i’ve left out of eventual lack of interest, some have finished because a show has finished. 

of course your feelings matter, of course they do, but you - you - are the only one who can actively help yourself - remove the things that make you sad, find things you enjoy, take care of yourself. 

i’ve spoken before about how i, in every aspect of my life, use the power of positive thinking to keep myself on a fairly even level and to do what i personally can to help manage my depression - it’s not the magic cure but it works well for me personally - as a dam, almost - it stops me from wallowing because wallowing in negative feelings is, for me, the most dangerous place to be

so this is how i cope - i take steps back and i look at bigger pictures, i find the things i like and focus on those, i look at things i don’t like and turn them into positives, i think about all the things i am incapable of changing and find ways to accept that

and that works for me, personally. and it’s taken a long fuckin time for me to get here.

and every person is different - some people thrive on negative emotions. i’m just not one of them.

so your feelings matter but i’m here on my own blog doing everything i can about my feelings - i can’t be responsible for yours as well. no one else can be. the show itself can’t be - because it’s a tv show and it is not something within your control. 

but there are things you can control - you can find things that make you happy, because there’s so many beautiful and fun and interesting things in the world. we have our own little space here, sure, but there’s more out there. i just...

i just hate the thought of people being sad. i don’t want you to be sad. but i can’t do anything about it in the longer term and honestly neither can the show - it’s a soap, there’s always going to be soapy happenings going on - always. that’s how soaps work. there’s a reason why we’ve always joked that being in soap fandoms is hardcore, even by fandom standards. don’t assume that this bump in the road will be the last bump, you know? history tells us that’s never the case.

i just... you can find ways to be happy. i can recommend things to watch, things to read etc. i’m sure a hell of a lot of people can. there are other things you can invest your heart in.

or you can stay! and find ways to have fun in fandom - read All The Fic, find fic that you love and create content about that, even, if you want to! develop random future headcanons and talk about those! go rewatch your favourite era over and over and think about all the missing cute scenes and domestic moments for fun! 

but, like... i guess, what i’m saying is.... you have more control here than you think over your happiness

don’t just accept that you’re gonna be sad, no one likes to be sad

there’s ways to find fun and excitement and lovely things that make your heart fizz and burst and things that will make you laugh and things that will make you Feel All The Things

but you’re maybe just looking in the wrong places?

[adorkablephil]

Fic: Listen (Chapter 7)

Title: Listen Rating: PG Word Count: 5.2K (this chapter) Summary: Phil is a successful YouTuber, and Dan is a fan desperate for attention. Sounds like 2009, right? Except Phil is Deaf. Tags: AU, Deaf!Phil, Mute!Dan, Both YouTubers, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Conversion Disorder Author’s Note: This chapter contains a brief reference to SimCom (”simultaneous communication”), which is when someone speaks orally and signs at the same time. The practice is a bit controversial, and you can read about it here if you’re interested. I’ve also written a post with a bunch of notes for this fic, discussing stuff about the deaf/Deaf distinction, Deaf culture, sign language, and links to some neat deaf YouTubers. Check it out if you’re interested in the issues and not just Dan and Phil. :) Fic also available on AO3 here

[Masterlist of all “Listen” chapters on Tumblr]

Chapter 7: Communication

The first night Dan stayed with him in his bed wasn’t what Phil expected.

Phil got ready first, then waited in his bedroom in his pajamas while Dan took his turn in the bathroom. Thus far, they’d followed their usual pattern for when Dan stayed over, except tonight Dan wouldn’t be going to sleep on the futon.

He came into Phil’s room, face scrubbed bright like a fresh penny, and he wasn’t wearing the t-shirt Phil usually saw him wear when they said good night and went to their separate bedrooms. Bare-chested in his track bottoms, he smiled hesitantly as he walked to where Phil hovered uncertainly near the window.

He needed to make sure that Dan didn’t do anything more than he felt truly comfortable with. Once they were in the bed, it would be pretty weird to text each other, and Dan’s signing still wasn’t the best, and so Dan might not feel able to tell Phil if something made him uncomfortable. Phil needed to make sure that Dan knew that this would all depend on him, on what he wanted, that Phil would let Dan set the pace, that Phil wouldn’t push…

His thoughts derailed as Dan came nearer and Phil smelled his soap and toothpaste. “I want you to know…” he began to sign, but Dan stepped even closer and gently took Phil’s hands in his, stilling their movement. He shook his head slightly, his eyes bright and intense, and just placed Phil’s right palm flat against the smooth, bare skin over his heart, lacing his fingers with Phil’s other hand and squeezing in reassurance. Phil could feel Dan’s heart beating, strong and a little fast, beneath his palm, could feel the warmth of his skin.

Dan leaned in to press his lips to Phil’s, just once, softly, and then pulled away to look into Phil’s eyes before using their clasped hands to lead him toward the bed.

They didn’t need sign language or texts or white boards or any of that. Dan clearly showed how he felt and what he wanted through the arching of his neck, the grasping of his fingers on Phil’s bare back, the glide of skin against skin, the delicate fluttering of his eyelids, the insistent pulling and pushing of Phil’s hands to where he wanted them, the huff of breath against sensitive lips. They knew each other, and they spoke a language that was primal and universal.

They communicated more clearly than they ever had with words.

As planned, Phil went to the Playlist Live convention in Florida at the end of March, and to Vidcon in Los Angeles at the end of June. He got an interpreter to work with him, as he did at all the major conventions he attended, but this year he was surprised by how many of his fans made earnest attempts at using BSL signs when they met him, and how excited they were at his delight when they did so.

After the initial signing video with Dan had been so popular, Phil had made a couple BSL tutorial videos that taught simple terms like “videos,” “YouTube,” “funny,” “hug,” “selfie,” “thank you,” “happy to meet you,” and various other words, phrases, and sentences that he thought people might see him use at conventions or that they might want to use when meeting him.

But before he even made it to Playlist, just a few days after he’d posted his first BSL tutorial, he encountered a fan in downtown Manchester who signed to him a very slow and clumsy, “I love your videos,” for which he gave her the biggest hug ever. They took a selfie together which he posted on Twitter with an excited tweet about his first time meeting a viewer who signed to him. The tweet got so many likes and retweets that it probably raised his audience’s awareness of how much the issue meant to him.

At the conventions, fans also gave him artwork and presents for Dan, asking him to pass them along, asking him why Dan hadn’t come. Phil always just shrugged and smiled and promised to tell Dan they said hello.

While at Vidcon, Phil filmed a couple of collab videos with his friend Shawna, one of the people he’d known since the early days of YouTube. Since she was American, they didn’t get to see each other often except at conventions, so Phil always tried to take advantage of times when they happened to be on the same continent to at least get together and watch some anime, the shared interest that had first drawn them together. This time they had a good time filming a short, funny skit for Shawna’s channel and an exchange of silly convention anecdotes for Phil’s channel.

In late November, Jessica Kellgren-Fozard DM’d him on Twitter to ask if he’d like to collab on a BSL adaptation of a Christmas song. She’d done a number of BSL adaptations of popular songs on her channel, and after seeing his “singing” in the Phil Is Not On Fire video, she wondered if he’d be interested in trying it her way, especially as they were both in England and it wouldn’t be difficult to get together. The result was a hysterically funny video of Jessica gracefully swaying to music neither of them could hear while Phil awkwardly bounced around beside her as they both signed the lyrics to “Jingle Bells.” Phil looked ridiculous, and he loved it.

He had to admit that from a purely pragmatic standpoint working with Jessica was easier than his other collabs, since she knew BSL and so they communicated effortlessly, but he still enjoyed working with all kinds of people.

Dan, on the other hand, continued to refuse to meet any of Phil’s other YouTuber friends, let alone do collabs or attend conventions.

“If anyone finds out I can’t talk, they’ll want to know why,” he insisted, refusing to discuss it further. He didn’t want to expose himself, make himself vulnerable, which Phil understood, but he thought Dan would probably be a lot happier with more than one real friend in his life.

Dan still spent most of his time interacting with people online, mostly on Twitter, where he responded to more tweets than most popular YouTubers did. His audience clamored more and more loudly and excitedly to get to meet him in person, begging him to come to one of the conventions.

He never responded to those particular tweets.

“My friend Craig is coming to town next weekend and he’d love to meet you,” Phil signed in a Skype call. Dan’s signing seemed to get better every day. At this point, Phil tended to just sign a little more slowly than normal and trust that Dan would pick up a lot just from context, and that Dan would stop him and ask if he didn’t understand.

Dan looked down, his brows knitted. Phil had known this request would push Dan, challenging him to interact with someone he didn’t know, but he was sure that if Dan met Craig it would go great and boost Dan’s self-confidence.

When Dan looked up again, Phil signed, “He’s hearing, he speaks orally, but he also signs. So you would be able to understand what he says with his voice but also what he says with his hands, and he would be able to understand your signing, too. I’ve known him forever.”

Dan glanced away again, signing sullenly, “My BSL sucks.”

Phil waited for him to look at the screen again. When Dan kept looking into his lap, Phil decided to take advantage of the fact that Dan could hear, picking up a nearby pen and tapping it against the microphone on his laptop.

Dan jumped, looking up to glare at Phil on his screen. “That scared me, you twat!”

Phil shrugged. “You wouldn’t look at me. I was forced to take extreme measures.”

Dan rolled his eyes. Then he signed, “I haven’t talked to anybody but you.” His eyes looked wide and scared.

Phil hurried to reassure him. “Craig is really nice. You’ll like him, I promise. We could invite him over to my flat so it’s somewhere you feel comfortable. And you can just take off to the bedroom if it’s too much. He’ll understand. He’s a nice guy, Dan. And he would really like to meet you while he’s in town.”

“He knows I can’t talk?” Dan asked reluctantly. He looked like a man being dragged to the gallows.

“He knows. He also knows how much I love you. I’ve been raving to him about you for years.”

“Is he going to ask why?”

Confused, Phil asked, “Why I love you?”

Dan rolled his eyes, then looked down again while he signed, “Why I don’t talk.”

Phil waited patiently until Dan looked up to meet his eyes again before signing with a gentle smile, “He won’t ask.”

He let a long moment pass as they just looked at each other, then kissed his fingers and pressed them to the camera. After another moment, he added, “But if you ever want to talk about it, I’m here.”

Dan nodded, not meeting Phil’s gaze.

Phil could practically feel the anxiety radiating off Dan as they sat in the lounge waiting for Craig to arrive. He ran a hand down Dan’s back and leaned over to kiss his cheek. Dan gave him a miserable smile.

“It’s going to be fine,” Phil reassured him. “You’re going to like Craig. I promise.”

Dan jumped at the same time the light flashed to indicate the doorbell ringing. Phil reached over to squeeze Dan’s hand before getting up and going to answer the door. Craig waited in the hall with a wide grin on his face, immediately pulling Phil into a back-slapping hug as soon as the door was open. Phil kept his back to the lounge as he signed quickly, “Dan’s a nervous wreck.”

Craig nodded and signed stealthily, “Leave it to me.” He winked. “I’ve got a plan.”

Knowing Craig as well as he did, with all the scrapes they’d gotten into together, Phil found those words a tiny bit worrying, but he also had faith in Craig’s ability to make friends with pretty much anyone on earth—Craig could probably befriend a postbox if he tried hard enough—and so resolved to give him free reign and see how things went.

They walked into the lounge and Dan stood up from the sofa, wiping his palms on his jeans and then fussing with his fringe before looking toward Craig. When Phil introduced them, Craig held out a hand, and Dan shook it rather formally, then looked around as if not sure what to do next. Phil asked if they’d like drinks, and Craig held up the bottle of wine he’d brought.

“Nothing fancy,” he SimCommed, speaking orally and signing at the same time. “But I thought if we all got a little drunk I might have a chance at beating one of you at a video game later.”

Dan’s lips curved very slightly, but he didn’t crack an actual smile, and he didn’t look directly at Craig. They all went into the kitchen together and helped themselves to glasses of the red wine, then returned to the lounge and sat down. Dan’s back was straight, and he sat much further from Phil than he usually would, his fingers white where they clutched the glass in his hands.

Phil and Craig made small talk, just about the train ride and their parents, and Dan did his best impression of being invisible, just looking into his wine glass and occasionally taking a sip, not even really following the conversation, since he wasn’t watching everything Phil was signing.

Then Craig looked at Dan and said, “I’ve been really looking forward to meeting you, Dan.” Dan looked up at the sound of his name, face startled, clearly feeling on the spot. Craig flicked his eyes over to Phil and smirked. “I can finally tell you all the embarrassing stories about Phil’s past that he wouldn’t want you to hear.”

Oh, Craig had always been clever! Phil had to admit this was a masterful stroke of genius. Dan’s eyes suddenly lit up with interest, and a mischievous grin began to creep over his face. Craig had won him over with just a single sentence. Sneaky!

“What kind of stories?” Dan signed hesitantly.

“Did he ever tell you about the mice?” Craig asked. Phil sighed. Not this story again!

Dan shook his head eagerly. “I know about the hamsters, but he never told me anything about mice.” He leaned his elbow on the table, chin on his hand, gazing raptly at Craig, all nervousness forgotten.

“Well, a mouse family moved into Phil’s house when we were … oh, I don’t know … I guess we were about 5? And Phil’s mum is a nice lady, so she got some of those humane traps, you know, the kind where the mouse gets safely trapped inside and then you can let them out somewhere far away where they won’t come back. But Phil…” He glanced over at Phil and grinned. Phil rolled his eyes, and Dan laughed, then looked back at Craig, waiting. “Phil couldn’t stand to see the poor little mice trapped, so every time one would get caught, he would let it out before his mum even knew what he was about. He watched those traps constantly! She thought they just weren’t working.”

Dan laughed again, then signed quickly, “Did she ever catch on?” He seemed completely unselfconscious now, just signing naturally as if he’d known Craig for years. Phil leaned back and let them bond over silly stories about himself. Just seeing Dan so relaxed, talking with someone else … he’d never seen it before, and he tried to hide how proud he was, because he didn’t want Dan to get embarrassed or defensive. So he just sat back and watched, smiling indulgently.

Craig grinned at Dan and continued, “She still doesn’t know to this day, as far as I know.” He glanced questioningly at Phil, who shook his head and shrugged, then chuckled. “But eventually Phil gave it up, because his mum found one of the trapped mice before he could, and she took the little guy out to a local park and let him go. Phil was devastated, totally obsessed with this one mouse all alone by himself out there, so he stopped emptying the traps and let his mum eventually catch all the mice and relocate them to the park, because that way Phil was sure they could all be reunited and none of them would be lonely.”

Dan turned to look at Phil, and his smile was fond and indulgent. He looked back at Craig and asked, “Did the mice ever come back?”

Craig shook his head. “Nope. But we used to go to that park all the time, because Phil wanted to visit them. Whenever we’re back home visiting our parents and we pass that park, we still call it the Mouse Park. Phil says their mouse descendants still live there.”

Dan peppered Craig with questions, requests for more stories, smiling and laughing and just being himself. Phil had known Craig could win him over. Craig could win anybody over.

“You know, it’s funny. Phil and I never would have met if he wasn’t deaf,” Craig commented when there was a comfortable lull in the conversation.

Dan looked curious, glanced at Phil, then asked Craig, “Why?”

Craig explained, “His family used to live in Rossendale, but when he was born and they found out he couldn’t hear … well, they picked up and moved to Manchester. Sold their house, bought the one next door to mine, and that’s how we met, next door neighbors almost since birth.”

Dan looked confused, glancing at Phil. “Why would they move just because you were deaf?” But Phil let Craig continue the story.

“Well, there weren’t any schools for deaf kids in Rossendale, and his parents wanted him to have everything, because you know they’re disgustingly perfect that way. Did he tell you that when we were 7 I asked his parents to adopt me? I’m just lucky my parents never learned enough sign language for him to be able to rat me out. But, hey! His parents always had crisps in the house! And they let us eat pretty much all we wanted! Why would I want to live with my parents if I could have that instead?”

Dan turned to Phil, looking amazed, and asked, “Your parents moved to Manchester just so you could go to school with other deaf kids?

Phil nodded. “I’m really glad they did, too. Going to the mainstream university at York was good, but I’m glad I got to spend my childhood and teen years with people who understood me better.” He smiled and shrugged. “My parents are pretty great.”

Craig made an exaggeratedly shocked face and asked Dan, “You haven’t met them yet?” Dan shook his head, cheeks getting a bit pink. Phil had suggested it—even requested it—many times, but Dan had been too shy and had always said no. “Oh well,” Craig replied, face gone serious, “you’re going to hate them. Really horrible, horrible people. The absolute worst.” Phil punched him in the arm, not enough to hurt, and they both laughed. “Monsters!” Craig added, and Phil punched his arm again, giggling.

Then somehow Dan and Craig segued into a discussion about Muse and Kanye West and Debussy and Phil got really bored and pulled out his phone and started playing Crossy Road. Dan tapped him on the arm and apologized, “I’m sorry we got so caught up in talking about music. I know you can’t…” But Phil just waved them on.

“It makes me happy to see you discussing it with somebody who actually knows what the heck you’re talking about. I’m fine with my game.” Then he made a shooing motion with his hands, happily encouraging Dan to return to the conversation. Dan hesitated, but after watching Phil’s face closely a moment to make sure, turned back to Craig and began signing animatedly again.

When Craig eventually stretched and seemed like he might be getting ready to leave, Phil asked him, “How long are you in town? Can we get together again before you head back up to Edinburgh?”

“Actually, I have some news,” Craig started, then paused dramatically. Phil just raised his eyebrows in question. “Well, you know how Kelly and I sort of got back together, but we’ve been doing the long-distance thing this past year because my job pays really well but she doesn’t want to move away from her family. Well … the long-distance thing isn’t really working out.” Craig’s face was impossible to read.

Phil wasn’t sure how to respond. Were Craig and Kelly breaking up? They’d dated throughout much of their teen years and Craig had been miserable without her during uni. He’d seemed much happier since they’d started the long-distance relationship, but maybe Phil had been reading him wrong?

The mischief in Craig’s eye gave him a bit of warning, and then Craig said, “So … know any good IT jobs here in Manchester? Or am I going to have to go on the dole and let Kelly support me?”

“You’re moving home?” Phil exclaimed, leaping out of his chair to run over and pull Craig into a hug.

“Well, not ‘home’ as in ‘with mum and dad next door to your parents,’ but yes ‘home’ as in Manchester. So you’ll be stuck seeing me a lot more often.”

The gladness on Dan’s face made Phil’s own happiness at the news only more sweet.

Dan had another friend now.

About a month later as they started a Skype call, Dan’s eyes looked puffy and red, as if he’d been crying. Phil had never actually seen him cry, so maybe he was wrong, but that’s what it looked like.

“I don’t think I’m going to be able to visit much anymore,” he signed, and then Phil saw the tears spring to Dan’s eyes and knew his first interpretation had been accurate.

“Why?” he asked desperately. “Dan! What’s wrong?”

Dan swiped at his eyes in disgust, obviously embarrassed to be seen crying, and then just signed, “I don’t have enough money.”

Phil knew Dan didn’t make much working in the stockroom at Asda, but there weren’t a lot of companies that would hire someone who didn’t speak. Dan always said it was a miracle that Asda had even been willing to take him on just to unload boxes in the back room. Such an intelligent, creative person … spending his life unloading tins of beans for a pittance.

“Your parents…” Phil didn’t finish the sentence. He knew Dan’s parents had been helping him out with money, since his job paid so little, but he had a bad feeling he knew what Dan was going to say.

“They said … well … my dad said … they aren’t going to … that I don’t need to waste their money … that…” Dan’s tears flowed openly now, and he used his hands to wipe his face so frequently that his signing was difficult to follow.

Phil waved his hand to try to get Dan’s attention, and Dan stopped to stare at him, obviously desolate. “Would it help if I come to meet them? So they know you aren’t just taking a train out to meet some axe murderer every weekend?”

Dan bit his lip and shook his head. “I don’t think it would make any difference.”

“But it’s worth a try, right?” Phil gave his best encouraging smile.

“I don’t think … I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Phil made his most determined face. “Once they meet me and see how irresistible I am, they’ll be begging you to come visit me! They’ll be throwing money at you like at a wild strip club!” He grinned.

Dan laughed weakly, then sort of hiccuped. Probably the result of all the crying. “I’d say it’s impossible, but if anybody could win them over, maybe it’s you.”

That was how Phil found himself on a train to Reading the next Friday, wearing his nicest shirt and preparing mentally to meet Dan’s parents for the first time. Dan had told him they’d never met a deaf person before, so he was determined to be utterly charming, to make things as easy and comfortable as possible. He was going to win them over, and everything would be fine.

Martyn always did tell him he was unrealistically optimistic.

Martyn had never been so right.

The Howells didn’t meet Phil at the train station, which struck Phil as a bit odd, but he tried not to judge and just followed Dan’s texted bus instructions to get to their house in Wokingham. Once there, he rang the doorbell and straightened his tie.

Yes, he’d even worn a tie. Dan was going to faint when he saw him.

Dan did indeed immediately flick his eyes down to the tie when he opened the door, and he smirked a little bit before letting his face settle back into anxious lines. “Come on in,” he signed, opening the door wide, and Phil stepped over the threshold into what appeared to be a fairly comfortable middle-class home. He didn’t see Dan’s parents anywhere.

He turned to Dan and asked in confusion, “Your parents aren’t here?”

Dan bit his lip and shrugged uncomfortably. “They’re in the lounge.” He gestured for Phil to follow him. They hadn’t bothered to even get up to come meet their guest? Phil started to get a bad feeling.

Mr. Howell sat in a chair that was partially reclined, his feet propped on a foot rest, while Mrs. Howell sat on the sofa nearby, apparently doing a crossword puzzle. They both looked up when Dan led Phil into the room, their faces not particularly welcoming. Phil smiled at them both and typed into his phone, “I’m Phil. It’s very nice to finally meet you both!” He showed the screen first to Dan’s mother, then to Dan’s father, smiling all the while. Then he offered Mr. Howell his right hand to shake.

Dan’s father just looked at Phil’s outstretched hand, then shifted his chair to its upright position and stood to shake Phil’s hand with a firm grip. He didn’t smile. And then he sat back down and slid the chair back to its previous position. He took a newspaper from the side table and opened it as if to read. Phil glanced at Dan’s mum, and she just smiled tightly and then looked back down at her crossword.

Dan shuffled his feet a bit on the carpet, then waved his hands, obviously trying to get their attention. His mother looked up impassively, but Dan’s father rolled his eyes as he lowered his newspaper. Dan gestured between himself and Phil, then pointed back toward some other part of the house. Mr. Howell said something Phil didn’t quite catch, but it looked like part of it was possibly the word “don’t care.” Then he pulled his paper up again, and Phil looked at Dan.

Dan led him through the house toward what Phil was guessing would be his bedroom. He’d seen it in Dan’s videos, though he knew Dan also used the rest of the house for filming when his parents were at work. Dan pulled him inside and closed the door behind them. He looked miserable. “I spend most of my time in here anyway. But I thought they would at least pretend to be nice for five minutes.”

“It’s okay,” Phil assured him. “Maybe they just feel awkward meeting a deaf person for the first time. Maybe they’ll relax when they see I don’t bite.” He tried to smile.

Dan just shook his head. “They’re always like this. But let me show you something,” and his lips curved just the tiniest bit. He opened his door again and looked around the hallway, then led Phil to another room which seemed barely large enough to contain the piano in its center. “It’s my mum’s,” Dan explained. “But I love it.” He sat on the bench and patted for Phil to sit beside him. Dan’s fingers rested on the keys and moved, pressing and gliding in a graceful sort of dance.

Phil watched Dan’s hands for a while, then stood and rested his hip against the side of the piano. He placed his palms flat against the black wood of its lid in illustration, then signed, “Play me something…. Play me ‘Interrupted by Fireworks.’” And they smiled at each other, remembering those first messages back and forth, when they hadn’t known each other at all, when this was all first starting.

Dan’s hands began to move on the keys, and Phil felt the vibration through the wood of the piano lid. After a moment, he leaned over and pressed his cheek to the surface between his palms, his eyes on Dan’s face as his lover shared the precious music with him. Their eyes held, and Dan gave his first genuine smile since Phil had arrived.

Dinner with the Howells was bizarre. Mrs. Howell prepared spaghetti bolognese, and Phil was shocked when everyone filled their plates and walked into the lounge instead of to the dining room table. Mr. Howell returned to his recliner, Mrs. Howell to her spot on the sofa. Dan and Phil took the other spots on the sofa, sitting side-by-side with their plates of spag bol on their laps. Dan’s father produced a remote from within the folds of his chair and turned on the television. Dan’s parents proceeded to start eating.

Dan typed something into his phone and held it out to his father, who rolled his eyes again but then read the screen. He shook his head and said something, but Phil couldn’t read his lips while he was chewing. Dan typed on his phone again, looking very tense, and then held it out to his father again, but this time Mr. Howell just knocked the phone—and his son’s hand—aside with his elbow and said something else, his eyes never leaving the television.

Dan stared down at his phone for a moment before putting it away and signing to Phil, “He won’t turn on the subtitles. He says they’re too distracting.” Dan looked mortified, so Phil just nodded, then took a bite of his pasta and chewed slowly as they all turned to look at the glowing box in the corner of the room. Phil obviously couldn’t follow the show, so he kept a discreet eye on a very unhappy-looking Dan in his peripheral vision.

When they’d finished eating and everyone had simply placed their empty plates on the coffee table, Dan turned to sign to Phil to explain to him what was happening on the tv show. After only a moment, though, his head jerked toward his father. Phil glanced over and saw that the man was talking. Without the spaghetti complicating things, Phil could read his lips a bit more easily, and he caught a few phrases. His lip reading still wasn’t great, but he was pretty sure he saw “finally have a friend” and “that stupid shit you’re doing with your hands” and “just an embarrassment to this family.” Phil decided he didn’t need to watch anything else that man had to say and turned to look at Dan instead.

Dan’s face, pale and drawn, gazed down at his hands in his lap. He occasionally twitched slightly, presumably at what Phil assumed was a particularly well-aimed barb from his father.

Unsure what to do in this situation, not wanting to be rude to his hosts but also not wanting to sit idly by while Dan suffered some kind of personal attack, Phil wracked his brain. He yawned widely and mimed stretching his arms out as if exhausted, then patted his stomach as if appreciating the fine meal. He smiled widely at everyone and then stacked up the plates to take them to the kitchen. He nudged Dan and raised his brows, gesturing his head toward the kitchen as if asking for help with the washing up. Mrs. Howell started to stand, but Phil put out a hand, shaking his head and smiling his most winning smile, then pointed at himself and Dan, at the dishes, then back toward the kitchen, then smiled again. Her brows were drawn together, but she sat back down, looking distinctly uncomfortable as Phil herded Dan out of the room, their hands full of cups and plates and cutlery.

At the sink, Phil turned to look at Dan again and saw a roiling mixture of hurt, anger, and embarrassment in his brown eyes. Phil turned on the warm water, rinsed the plates, grabbed the bottle of Fairy Liquid and handed it to Dan before signing with wet hands, “So … how would you feel about moving in with me in Manchester?”

Author’s End Notes: A couple of different YouTubers are mentioned in this chapter making collabs with Phil. Shawna/Nanalew is one of Phil’s rl YouTuber friends, the person who got him addicted to anime. They did a couple collabs recently when Phil was in the U.S. for the 2017 convention season, and you can watch the one on Phil’s channel here. I figured my fictional Deaf Phil would also have made friends with her, since anime would have been something he could comfortably watch with hearing people who would also need the subtitles.

My reference to Phil making a BSL adaptation of a Christmas song with Jessica Kellgren-Fozard was inspired by her many song videos, but especially her 2011 rendition of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” and her 2015 rendition of the same song with a bit of BSL tutorial. But if you really want to see Jessica at the top of her rockin’ BSL song adaptation game, check out one of her recent ones, like her late-2016 version of Pharrell Williams’s “Happy.” Jessica is amazing.

[Continue to Chapter 8]

[ohnohetaliasues]

Republic of Indonesia - OC

Hi! I’m the anon that asks you if I can submit an oc with a canon design. This is a bit long, so if you want to cut out unnecessary parts, fell free to do it!

Country/City/State Information-

Name: Republic of Indonesia Age: Around 700 years old (She was born when the concept ‘nusantara’ was created and there’s no exact date to it) Capital City (if country): Jakarta Biggest City: Jakarta Boss (Mayor/President): Joko Widodo (President) Biggest Ethnic Group: Javanese Language(s) spoken: Indonesian, English, Hundreds other regional language Population: 257,600,000 Religion: Islam, Christian, Hindu, Buddha (She mainly practices Hindu and Islam because there’s an island where everybody is Hindu and Islam is the majority, but Indonesians tend to celebrate holidays that have nothing to do with their religion) Government: Republic Climate: Tropical Economy: Growing Human Information- Name: Kirana Putri Pertiwi  Nickname(s): Kirana/Kir Age: 21 Gender: Female Birthday: August 17th Current Residence: Central Jakarta Bad Habit(s): Laziness, 'rubber clock’/rarely on time(expect her to arrive 30 minutes after scheduled time), littering, smoking Like(s): Being with her family, Traveling around the archipelago, Her own cultures, Padang food( (every indonesian likes it) Dislike(s): Alcoholic drinks, Gambling, People that are too straight-forward, Strictness  Hobbies: Watching sinetron (Indonesian soap opera), Hanging out, Karaoke, Shipping (soap opera influence) Fear(s): Ghosts, Separated from her family Equipment/Weapons: Keris (Javanese dagger) Culture Favorites: Hari Nyepi, Eid al Fitr, Christmas, The many temples in Java and Bali Personality: She’s a cheerful and extroverted girl. She is also friendly and polite towards most people. She’s family-oriented and loves her sisters, although there are a love-hate kind of relationship with Malaysia. She’s extremely superstitious, to the point not going to some places just because of rumors of haunting and such. She’s an indirect person and often uses euphemism on conversations. She lacks discipline and rarely arrive on time, except for very important events.  Appearance- Height: 157 cm Weight: 54 kg Hair: medium-length black hair, tied into a ponytail. Her bangs are split in the middle Eyes: Dark brown eyes Skin: light brown  Outfit(s): Daily, she wears shirt with Indonesia emblem on it (yes, we’re over-proud people),jeans, and heels. At meetings, she usually wears a white baju kurung with batik as the skirt, and wears brown high heels Accessories: Golden earrings Relationships- Ancestor: Majapahit, Singhasari, Ternate-Tidore, and many other kingdoms in the Indonesian Archipelago Family: Malaysia, Philippines, and Timor Leste (sisters), India (not blood-related, but considered as big brother bc he has a great influence on Southeast Asia), Pre-colonial kingdoms in Indonesia Friends: Asean 11, Papua new guinea, New Zealand, China Rivals: Malaysia, Australia   Enemies: Israel (70-75% Indonesians have a negative sentiment towards Israel) Pet: A Komodo and chickens Potential Love Interest: Australia (IF the current APH Australia is the same one as the aboriginal Australia, Indonesia -as a Macassan- will have met him long before England does, and this is often romanticized in the Indonesian fandom) Foreign Relationships:  -Malaysia : Indonesia’s younger sister. Before the colonization, they used to have a nice relationship, with Malacca as the main spices distributor for her. After the 1963 confrontation, however, they have a love-hate relationship to this day. -Philippines : Indonesia’s younger sister. During Majapahit era, they are trading partners and Majapahit had an influence on Tawalisi. Today, they are each other’s closest ally. Indonesia is planning to send troops to help Philippines combat the ISIS army in Marawi. -East Timor : Indonesia’s youngest sister. They share a border in the island Timor. Their relationship was strained when Indonesia occupied her, but from 2002 onwards, they have a pretty good relationship. -Singapore : From the Majapahit era, Temasek (Singapore) already have a trading relationship with her. He also take in the Palembang Prince Parameswara when he fled from Majapahit occupation. During the confrontation between Majapahit and Siam (Thailand), Temasek was attacked by Majapahit, which ended with him sharing a house with Indonesia under Majapahit’s rule until the founding of the Malacca Sultanate. Today, Singapore is Indonesia’s trading link to the world. They have a little dispute during the Riau Forest Fire because the smoke from the fire clouded Singapore. -Brunei Darussalam : During the Majapahit era, the Bruneian Empire was a vassal state to Majapahit. After the fall of the empire, Brunei started spreading it’s influence to cover the Borneo island. Indonesia was one of the nations that supported Brunei to join Asean. Indonesia often tells Brunei and Philippines to 'get back together’ (Tondo-Brunei alliance) since she doesn’t approve Philippines’s closeness to America.  -India : Indonesia’s considered-to-be-brother. Majapahit introduced her to India as an influental figure, and even before that, Indonesia had taken a liking to the Ramayana epic brought to Java by India. India was also the one to introduce the Palawa and Sanskrit script, which later became the basis to the Javanese and Sundanese text. Both of them are part of the founding members of non-bloc alignment. Today, they have economic and cultural cooperation. They enjoy watching Bollywood movies together or re-enacting Ramayana with the other Asean members. -The Netherlands : The Netherlands colonized her in the past under the VOC. When the company falls, the dutch government itself starts to governs the Dutch East Indies. Indonesia have a heavy disliking towards him, especially for the cultuurstelsel (force work). She declares independence against him first chance and fight a 4-years guerrilla war until her independence was recognized. Today, he is Indonesia’s most important trading partner in Europe and a gateway for most Indonesian scholar. Indonesia has forgiven most of his actions, even though she still hold a little grudge for him. -Australia : Before the colonization, they’ve met through Macassan trepangers that came to Australia to hunt for sea cucumbers and become close friends. They’re separated by the colonization afterwards. Today, Indonesia and Australia have a pretty close relationship. They have bilateral cooperation in education, trade, and defence. Australia often visits Indonesia in Bali for a vacation. After the incident of Bali 9 and Australian tapping on the previous president and first lady, their relationship are a little strained, although it gets better. Indonesia has a crush on him, even though he considers her as a mere neighbour.

There’s not really much for me to say. This is really good looking.

History:      She was born around the 13th century, when Patih Gajah Mada started the concept of 'Nusantara’, a unity of the many kingdoms and sultanates in the archipelago. During that time she was mostly taken care by Majapahit, who introduced her to India. After the fall of Majapahit, she got taken care by other kingdoms too. She’s the oldest among her sisters, with Tawalisi (Philippines) second, Malacca (Malaysia) third, and East Timor as the youngest (can’t find the name of the pre-colonial kingdom). She met Yolngu (aboriginal Australia) as a part of the Macassan sailor that went there to catch sea cucumbers. Later, during the 17th century, she got colonized by the Netherlands as the Dutch East Indies, and separated from her sisters. She grows a disliking towards him, and helps the uncolonized kingdoms rebel against him. In the 19th century, the Netherlands conquered the whole archipelago. 

Good.

    In 1942, like most of the other Southeast Asian nations, she got colonized by Japan, and declares independence in 1945. She spent the next 4 years on a guerrilla war against the Netherlands that tries to take her back. In 1949, her independence was formally recognized by the UN. In 1963, she started an invasion on Sarawak and Sabah that recently joined the Malaysian Federation, supported by the Soviet Union, which fails miserably. This leads to a love-hate relationship between the two until this day.  In 1975, supported by The United States, the pro-US New Order invaded East Timor in order to destroy Fretilin, a communist party. The occupation lasts until 1999, when the New Order was brought down and the new president apologized for the occupation and grants independence to East Timor. Indonesia deeply regretted the occupation, and tries to make up for it by helping her join Asean. Today, Indonesia is a prominent and one of the founding members of Asean, and have a fairly good relationship with her neighbours. She aims to be a leading economy by 2050. Note : In the first paragraph of her history, she’s a child, and a teen on the last sentence. She became an adult on the second paragraph.

Okay, I was a bit warey about this considering she already had a canon design, but this looks really fantastic. Good job.

~Kat

[ecotone99]

[MF] I'm an old man.

I’m an old man.

Okay, I’m not that old. I’m only seventy-five. I’m being dramatic. They say that the seventies are the new fifties. But, I’m entitled to being a little grumpy at my age. I’ve earned it.

When I was younger, birthdays earned you new privileges, like buying tobacco (albeit I hate the smell and only occasionally smoke a cigar, which even then I still find it mildly revolting), getting married, joining the military, voting, alcohol, and cheaper car insurance.

But now the doctors inform me that, based on my age and my insurance provider, I’ve earned the privilege of undergoing another test for some disease that’s sure to end my life miserably. Every year I go in for my physical, and every year the doctor runs a complete battery; cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, hearing, prostate, bone density, and on and on.

I see a dermatologist annually owing to my fair complexion; a trait I inherited from my mother who had strawberry blonde hair and a spattering of freckles that ran up and down her cheeks. And every three years I have to drink that God-awful Crystal Light and apple juice concoction, shit my brains out for two days, and then get little cameras inserted up my ass and down my throat. If it wasn’t for the drugs, I’m not sure I’d enjoy it much.

Or would I? When you get old, sometimes you wonder about these things. I’m not gay (and I don’t have a problem with it, mind you), but these thoughts run through my head on occasion as I get older.

What if I actually enjoyed it?

Maybe I would have when I was younger and a bit more open to those kinds of things. Apparently, the prostate, that little walnut-sized gland near your bladder, is also called the “male G-spot.”

All I know is that on occasion, when the doctor sticks his fingers up my rectum, I get a little chubby. It’s kind of embarrassing, but if it weren’t for the sterile formality of it all, maybe I’d relax enough to enjoy it.

You see, I never considered these things before.

Just like every time I get some new test. It gnaws away at my mind’s ability to ignore the fact that my time on this earth is coming to an end, something my younger self never once considered as a real possibility. Where death was something that happened to other people, each phone call from my specialist inches me closer to the realization that I’m not a spring-chicken anymore, and I’m one rotten biopsy away from the grave.

So, when the doctor says “you’re as healthy a twenty-year-old,” I always respond (still a little slick between the cheeks), “that’s just great, Doc.”

But who am I fooling?

They say that the seventies are the new fifties, but on Tinder I am old. I’m old, and I’m creepy. At least, that’s what all the young girls tell me.

Swipe right, swipe left? I don’t know how we matched, because I can barely text my wife without transferring my life savings to an African prince. I joke, because they all end up in my spam folder anyway, along with my daughter’s e-mails … why can’t you just call me on the phone like a normal human being, or God-forbid, visit once in a while? I know you have a family of your own and live a couple thousand miles away, but would it hurt to bring them down to get to know their Papa before he chokes?

Online dating is as foreign to me as Ching Chang Chong. Or is that too pejorative of an idiom these days? One thing I’ve also realized is that the older I get, the more bigoted and wrong about the world I am, at least that’s what everyone keeps telling me.

But let me be clear, Chief, it wasn’t me who changed; it was the world.

When I was a kid, these things didn’t have the same context. People weren’t so sensitive. I grew up in New England, for fuck’s sake. If you don’t recall, we fought to end slavery during the Civil War. We championed equal rights, and I even marched to end segregation, and now I’m a bigot? Please, spare me.

I don’t want to get political, but there’s a reason Trump won. I don’t care much for the man, with his gold-plated shit palace and orange skin, but he appreciates what being American used to mean. In a lot of ways, those were the gold-old-days. Those were the days before Twitter, Facebook, and Insta-whatever. Things were simpler: you sent a letter in the mail and then you waited. And when you waited you learned patience. Kids don’t have patience these days. They want everything now, now, now.

The world has changed, and maybe I’ve stayed the same.

A few years ago, we decided we were going to audit an ethics class at a local community college. Being that we are retired and didn’t have to work for food, we thought it would keep us engaged with the world that seemed to be changing daily. At any rate, the professor, some snotty, high-falutin’, thirty-something who couldn’t commit to a PhD, decided he was going to lecture me about objective moral values.

Objective moral values? What’s so objective about values these days when a man can decide to be a woman, and a woman can decide to be a Furry? A Furry. One interesting thing I learned in class: an employee filed an equal opportunity complaint because she not only believed she was a cat, but that she was being discriminated against because there weren’t any litter boxes for her to shit in.

Can you believe that?

Did the world go crazy, or am I going crazy?

One of the advantages of age is that it provides some perspective. A disadvantage is that facts about the world that one picks up in one era may not apply in a subsequent one. It’s not that the facts weren’t facts, but that those facts were time sensitive. What used to be true is not true now. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t true.

I’m time sensitive these days. I’m sensitive to the fact that I’m not getting any younger.

But eventually, you have to move on. You have to give new things a try. You have to embrace—and I hate to sound so callous, but at seventy, you appreciate the time you had and you appreciate the time you have left—change. It is hard to move on, but, sometimes, the world changes and you just have to hang on for the ride.

So, when Judith messaged me (not sure if it was through Our Time, Zoosk, Elite or Silver Singles, or whatever dating app I ended up contributing practically my entire 401k towards), it was a bit unexpected. I have to admit, it was hard. It was hard to carry on a conversation through my keyboard to some stranger in the internet ether. Hell, for all I knew, she was some Russian hacker trying to steal my e-mails.

I’m kidding.

We decided we’d meet at a local café. We’d have some coffee, maybe some breakfast, and we’d simply talk. That sounded great, honestly.

Because another thing about growing old is that everyone you know is constantly dying. When you’re twenty, it’s one wedding after another. When you’re seventy, it’s one funeral after another. Your address book gets smaller and smaller over time, and conversations become few and far between. You find yourself talking a bit too much to that clerk at the grocery store, or the telemarketer who’s trying to sell you a timeshare.

I give my daughter a hard time, but she has a career, a husband, and children, and I feel a bit guilty expecting anything from her beyond a call on Thanksgiving or Christmas. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a wonderful daughter. She’s always trying to get me to move back to Maine, but I’ve grown accustomed to the Southern climate. They keep going on and on about climate change and saying Florida will be sucked into the ocean one day, but that won’t happen until long after I’m dead and gone. I keep telling her not to worry about me, and while she does, she knows I’m too stubborn to leave. But, daughters have a way of softening even the most hardened assholes like myself.

I showed up at the Waffle House a bit earlier than we agreed. Sitting at the booth I was reminded about how nervous I was when I was a kid.

But seventy is the new fifty, right? One thing I appreciate about technology is that it opens doors (both figuratively and non-figuratively). When I was a kid, you had to muster up the guts to approach a girl at the bar, an ice cream parlor, a diner, or the library. You had to introduce yourself while her and her friends pretended not to notice, but which made you even more nervous and uncomfortable. You had to invest an inordinate amount of time and resources into the act of dating that, probably, would be a waste of time in the end. It was a shot in the dark. You’d discover something about her personality, her values, her parents, her outlook, three or four dates into it, and you’d be back at square one.

Luck. That’s what it took to find the right one.

The great thing about online dating is you can weed out all those people you know aren’t cut out for you, that don’t share your worldview. It opens up the pool of dating I didn’t have when I was a kid. It’s simple math; the wider your net, the more chance you have of making the catch.

Sitting there I realized I still had my wedding ring on. I hadn’t taken it off for nearly fifty years.

In the bathroom, with a great deal of soap, I worked the ring backwards and forwards. The once smooth band was now sharp and cut into my finger that had grown a size (or two) larger than it was when I had first gotten married. The ring refused to budge over my knuckle. No matter how much I yanked, the damn thing wouldn’t come off. And the harder I pulled, the more I smiled and the more those crow’s feet, winkles, and loose skin scrunched up into an adolescent grin ear-to-ear as I realized I hadn’t taken it for nearly fifty years.

Judith ordered black coffee, two eggs sunny-side up, turkey bacon, and wheat toast. From her purse, she pulled out a shaker of Morton Salt Substitute, and that’s when I saw that she hadn’t taken her ring off either.

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