#i kind of don’t think they needed that it felt like some kind of bari weiss article bemoaning woke college students or whatever

[dtwof]

can’t tell how i felt about that film i think it handled metoo really weirdly and the identity politics thing as well

#i kind of don’t think they needed that it felt like some kind of bari weiss article bemoaning woke college students or whatever #and idk why you’d decide to make a metoo thing in which a woman is the abuser when like the whole thing about metoo is thst #it’s a gendered abuse of power #loooooved when she beat that guy up tho You go girl!

[kkwritr]

‘what is grief but love persevering’.

I haven’t written in maybe two years and approach writing for catharsis again with a careful caution. I contemplated a lot where I write this, and whether I share it. Writing and hosting it on Tumblr, a place I grew up and enjoyed some of the most wholesome, care-free years of my early adult life feels fitting as we talk about grief. Reason being, I’ve recently been grieving the loss of who I was before my late twenties. And whilst navigating the grief of a former happier, less fatigued and traumatised me, I lost my grandmother.

A few months ago, Vision said in Marvel’s WandaVision: ‘What is grief but love persevering’, and the quote stuck with me. It’s been one I’ve thought about often this past week. To grieve is to be sad, to mourn the loss of something or someone you love, it leaves a void of the former and an empty hollowness. But that love perseveres. And feeling this sadness just means that there was love to begin with, so much love, and here you are holding onto it. There’s kindness and warmth in this.

Hey Shona

My Grandma battled a series of aches in life, beyond sickness and ailments, she was a woman who stood graciously in the face of immense adversity, hurt and pain. In her final years, as she began deteriorating in front of us, during her last visit to London, I sat with her and asked if I could ask her about her life and record it. She agreed and I recorded hours of conversations. We laughed, we sat solemnly, I teased her, she scolded me, we didn’t cry, but it was cathartic and my cloud now holds this tender moment memorialised for her family and future great-grandchildren to enjoy.

She told me in said interview that her husband, my grandad, a young man from a neighbouring bari had declared to her pre marriage, ‘Hey Shona, did you hear? I want to marry you’. I swooned, and asked her whether that made her heart race, or whether she felt funny in her stomach (I couldn’t translate the feeling of butterflies in Bangla) and she told me off saying ‘you don’t need to know, go and find your own man instead of asking me such personal questions about mine’. I laughed because she is exactly where I get my sass from.  

We worried that she would pass earlier this year during a sudden bout of sickness and hospitalisation. I remember frantically driving to her, a few hours away from London. I was fortunate enough to spend the night sat by her, just the two of us. Our last real Nani/Khadijah moment. She was coherent enough for us to stay up talking. We wrote and drew a family tree together, she remembered the names of her family, distant and close, and told me stories about all of them. I wrote everything down and she asked me to turn it into a small book and share it with the others so we could look at it from time to time after she passes and remember her. I told her I would. (She also pushed me to get my nose pierced, I told her I’d think about it as I have a nose insecurity. I now think I may do it in her memory, although I’m sad she won’t be able to see and enjoy it and also compliment me lol).

Fast forward to a few days ago, my entire family got to spend a few hours with her before the burial. She lay in the middle of the room looking like she was asleep. Cosy almost, shrouded in white. Her face quite literally was illuminated with noor. I never understood what was meant by the deceased having noor until I saw it. The months leading up to her death, she kept saying she was ready to meet Allah SWT. And whilst we can’t say for sure, I have a resounding calmness and confidence in knowing she is happy with her Lord and surrounded by the Angels iA.

Adulting in death

I’ve described navigating a sudden bereavement as something that forces you to grow up. I’ve emerged from this week a more grown up and mature me. You’re forced to deal with life (and death) administration, to manage others’ grief whilst trying to manage your own, you juggle your responsibilities and figure out how to pause them, all the while, you try to maintain a spiritual high. Being strong for my mum who was rendered a child who just wanted her mum, calling my aunty to tell her her mother had died, and then having to break the news to tiny children who won’t get to see grandma again, these are conversations we are never ready to have, and there is no way to do it without feeling like you completely messed it up.

There are hundreds of other moments in the days that follow that you are met with, and each feels like you fumbled it, or as if you are emotionally drained and have nothing to give to all your loved ones who are grieving too. And then…

A full tank

… your tank is filled.

My heart this week has been a tank; empty, drained, tired, hollow, numb – and then, the outpour of love from every single friend, family member, loved one, acquaintance, mutual, colleague, sister and brother fills it up. Ounce by ounce, some litre by litre, others in the galleons to the point it over spills.

The ‘how many Juz’s do you need me to read’, the ‘I’ll have one khatam completed for you by tomorrow’, the ‘I’ll sort out your car’, the ‘this is how you apply for an assignment extension’, the ‘do you need me to bring food’, the ‘I’m praying for your mum’, the ‘what do you need from me’, the ‘don’t hesitate, please tell me’, the ‘I love you’s’, ‘please stay hydrated’, ‘I’m supporting and adore you’, ‘I’m holding you’. All of it. Every single text, every (missed) call, voice note, every ‘I’m just checking in’, every ‘no pressure to reply but I’m here and I’m praying for you all’ – they filled up the tank. In turn, this allowed me to be present for my family the way I needed to be, because I was being held up elsewhere.

Throughout this grief, I haven’t been able to sleep, and yesterday was my first day back home, away from my family - my friend stayed with me on the phone until five, discussing this grief and life and death, love and healing and we shared stories of our grandmothers until finally I was tired enough to fall asleep without getting lost in my head.

The way we love, comes back to us. Wholly, fully, completely - It always comes back. The same way my Grandma was loved and her face shone with noor, I’ve been glowing in the love of others this week. And thus, my navigating this grief was bearable. Cripplingly sad, (I honestly have no more tears left to cry) but bearable.

Life resumes

Such is life that the world goes on after death and loss. Inevitably our loved ones are left behind but stay in our memories and hearts and we go on. In the moving forward, may the love always remain. May we remain soft, thoughtful and kind, and remember this life is short and this world isn’t it. This world is a number of days, every whim, every desire, every hope that fails, every struggle we get lost in, every ache we are convinced will finish us, it’s all but a matter of days. Forever is promised, but this isn’t it. But here’s to the forever and getting there, with everyone we love. Until then, bittersweetly, life resumes.

#kkwrites #grief

[arcticdementor]

Media Twitter does not hate Substack because it’s pretending to be a platform when it’s a publisher; they don’t hate it because it’s filled with anti-woke white guys; they don’t hate it because of harassment or any such thing. I don’t think they really hate it at all. Substack is a small and ultimately not-very-relevant outpost in a vastly larger industry; they may not like it but it’s not important enough for them to hate it. What do they hate? They hate where their industry is and they hate where they are within their industry. But that’s a big problem that they don’t feel like they can solve. If you feel you can’t get mad at the industry that’s impoverishing you, it’s much easier to get mad at the people who you feel are unjustly succeeding in that industry. Trying to cancel Glenn Greenwald (again) because he criticizes the media harshly? Trying to tarnish Substack’s reputation so that cool, paid-up writer types leave it and the bad types like me get kicked off? That they can maybe do. Confronting their industry’s future with open eyes? Too scary, especially for people who were raised to see success as their birthright and have suddenly found that their degrees and their witheringly dry one-liners do not help them when the rent comes due.

…

Life in the “content” industry already sucks. A small handful of people make bank while the vast majority hustle relentlessly just to hold on to the meager pay they already receive. There are staff writers at big-name publications who produce thousands of words every week and who make less than $40,000 a year for their trouble. There are permanent employees of highly prestigious newspapers and magazines who don’t receive health insurance. Venues close all the time. Mourning another huge round of layoffs is a regular bonding experience for people in the industry. Writers have to constantly job hop just to try and grind out an extra $1,500 a year, making their whole lives permanent job interviews where they can’t risk offending their potential bosses and peers. Many of them dream of selling that book to save themselves financially, not seeming to understand that book advances have fallen 40% in 10 years - median figure now $6,080 - and that the odds of actually making back even that meager advance are slim, meaning most authors are making less than minimum wage from their books when you do the math. They have to tweet constantly for the good of their careers, or so they believe, which amounts to hundreds of hours of unpaid work a year. Their publications increasingly strong arm them into churning out pathetic pop-culture ephemera like listicles about the outfits on Wandavision. They live in fear of being the one to lose out when the next layoffs come and the game of media musical chairs spins up once again. They have to pretend to like ghouls like Ezra Klein and Jonah Peretti and make believe that there’s such a thing as “the Daily Beast reputation for excellence.”

I have always felt bad for them, despite our differences, because of these conditions. And they have a right to be angry. But they don’t have much in the way of self-awareness about where their anger really lies. A newsletter company hosting Bari Weiss is why you can’t pay your student loans? You sure?

They’ll tell you about the terrible conditions in their industry themselves, when they’re feeling honest. So what are they really mad about? That I’m making a really-just-decent guaranteed wage for just one year? Or that this decent wage is the kind of money many of them dream of making despite the fact that, in their minds, they’ve done everything right and played by all the rules? Is their anger really about a half-dozen guys whose writing you have to actively seek out to see? (If you click the button and put in your email address, you’ll get these newsletters. If you don’t, you won’t. So if you’re a media type who hates my writing, consider just… not clicking that button.) Or do they need someplace to put the rage and resentment that grows inside them as they realize, no, it’s not getting better, this is all I get?

It’s true that I have, in a very limited way, achieved the new American dream: getting a little bit of VC cash. I’m sorry. But it’s much much less than one half of what Felix Salmon was making in 2017 and again, it’s only for one year.

You think the writers complaining in that piece I linked to at the top wanted to be here, at this place in their career, after all those years of hustling? You think decades into their media career, the writers who decamped to Substack said to themselves “you know, I’d really like to be in my 40s and having to hope that enough people will pitch in $5 a month so I can pay my mortgage”? No. But the industry didn’t give them what they felt they deserved either. So they displace and project. They can hate Jesse Singal, but Jesse Singal isn’t where this burning anger is coming from. Neither am I. They’re so angry because they bought into a notoriously savage industry at the nadir of its labor conditions and were surprised to find that they’re drifting into middle age without anything resembling financial security. I feel for them as I feel for all people living economically precarious lives, but getting rid of Substack or any of its writers will not do anything to fix their industry or their jobs. They wanted more and they got less and it hurts. This isn’t what they dreamed. That’s what this is really about.

…

My own deal here is not mysterious. It’s just based on a fact that the blue checks on Twitter have never wanted to accept. I got offered money to write here for the same reason I got offered to write for The New York Times and Harper’s and The Washington Post and The LA Times, the same reason I’ve gotten a half-dozen invitations to pitch since I started here a few weeks ago, the same reason a literary agent sought me out and asked me to write a book, the same reason I sold that book for a decent advance: because I pull traffic. Though I am a social outcast from professional opinion writing, I have a better freelance publishing history than many, many of my critics who are paid-up, obedient members of the media social scene. Why? Because the editors who hired me thought I was a great guy? No. Because I pull traffic. I always have. That’s why you’re reading this on Substack right now.

…

A really important lesson to learn, in life, is this: your enemies are more honest about you than your friends ever will be. I’ve been telling the blue checks for over a decade that their industry was existentially fucked, that the all-advertising model was broken, that Google and Facebook would inevitably hoover up all the profit, that there are too many affluent kids fresh out of college just looking for a foothold in New York who’ll work for next to nothing and in doing so driving down the wages of everyone else, that their mockery of early subscription programs like Times Select was creating a disastrous industry expectation that asking your readers directly for money was embarrassing. Trump is gone and the news business is cratering. Michael Tracey didn’t make that happen. None of this anger will heal what’s wrong. If you get all of the people you don’t like fired from Substack tomorrow, what will change? How will your life improve? Greenwald will spend more time with his hottie husband and his beloved kids and his 6,000 dogs in his beautiful home in Rio. Glenn will be fine. How do we do the real work of getting you job security and a decent wage?

…

But how do things get better in that way? Only through real self-criticism (which Twitter makes impossible) and by asking hard questions. Questions like one that has not been credibly confronted a single time in this entire media meltdown: why are so many people subscribing to Substacks? What is the traditional media not providing that they’re seeking elsewhere? Why have half a million people signed up as paying subscribers of various Substack newsletters, if the establishment media is providing the diversity of viewpoints that is an absolute market requirement in a country with a vast diversity of opinions? You can try to make an adult determination about that question, to better understand what media is missing, or you can read this and write some shitty joke tweet while your industry burns to the ground around you. It’s your call.

Substack might fold tomorrow, but someone would else sell independent media; there’s a market. Substack might kick me and the rest of the unclean off of their platforms tomorrow, but other critics of social justice politics would pop up here; there’s a market. Establishment media’s takeover by this strange brand of academic identity politics might grow even more powerful, if that’s even possible, but dissenters will find a place to sell alternative opinion; there’s a market. What there might not be much of a market for anymore is, well, you - college educated, urban, upwardly striving if not economically improving, woke, ironic, and selling that wokeness and that irony as your only product. Because you flooded the market. Everyone in your entire industry is selling the exact same thing, tired sarcastic jokes and bleating righteousness about injustices they don’t suffer under themselves, and it’s not good in basic economic terms if you’re selling the same thing as everyone else. You add that on to structural problems within your business model and your utter subservience to a Silicon Valley that increasingly hates you, well…. I get why you’re mad. And I get that you don’t like me. But I’m not what you’re mad about. Not really.

In the span of a decade or so, essentially all professional media not explicitly branded as conservative has been taken over by a school of politics that emerged from humanities departments at elite universities and began colonizing the college educated through social media. Those politics are obscure, they are confusing, they are socially and culturally extreme, they are expressed in a bizarre vocabulary, they are deeply alienating to many, and they are very unpopular by any definition. The vast majority of the country is not woke, including the vast majority of women and people of color. How could it possibly be healthy for the entire media industry to be captured by any single niche political movement, let alone one that nobody likes? Why does no one in media seem willing to have an honest, uncomfortable conversation about the near-total takeover of their industry by a fringe ideology?

And the bizarre assumption of almost everyone in media seems to have been that they could adopt this brand of extreme niche politics, in mass, as an industry, and treat those politics as a crusade that trumps every other journalistic value, with no professional or economic consequences. They seem to have thought that Americans were just going to swallow it; they seem to have thought they could paint most of the country as vicious bigots and that their audiences would just come along for the ride. They haven’t. In fact Republicans are making great hay of the collapse of the media into pure unapologetic advocacy journalism. Some people are turning to alternative media to find options that are neither reactionary ideologues or self-righteous woke yelling. Can you blame them? Substack didn’t create this dynamic, and neither did I. The exact same media people who are so angry about Substack did, when they abandoned any pretense to serving the entire country and decided that their only job was to advance a political cause that most ordinary people, of any gender or race, find alienating and wrong. So maybe try and look at where your problems actually come from. They’re not going away.

Now steel yourselves, media people, take a shot of something strong, look yourself in the eye in the mirror, summon you most honest self, and tell me: am I wrong?

#freddie deboer #substack #journalism

[fangirl-imagines]

Hatred//Barry Berkman x Reader x Sally Reed

Warnings: Brief homophobic language, violence, and mentions of past domestic abuse

Prompt: You have never hated anyone as much as you hated your girlfriend Sally’s ex-husband. When he comes to town you can’t keep yourself from lashing out.

“How’s she doing?” Barry asked coming up beside you, eyes glued to Sally on the stage just like yours. 

You glanced up at him for a second before bringing your eyes right back to Sally. She was standing tall, running through her lines like a true professional actress. 

“Amazing.” You answered Barry proudly, letting your head fall gently against his chest. 

Barry smiled and shook his head as he watched Sally, in awe of how strong she really was. You both watched her proudly, knowing how hard she worked to be here. 

That’s your girl.

You heard the heavy clang of the audience door opening and glanced over briefly. Your eyes flickered back immediately though when you saw Sally’s ex husband standing there watching her. You tensed beside Barry and swallowed harshly. Looking at Sally it was clear she hadn’t seen him yet and from Barry’s relaxed posture next to you, you knew he hadn’t either. You glared harshly at Sam. 

You had never felt a feeling inside of you like this. Like your entire body was flushed and burning. You had never felt hatred towards anyone like you did towards this man. Sam must have felt your eyes boring into him because he looked over at you. He looked you over unimpressed before turning his gaze back to Sally. He watched her for a moment before shaking his head and turning to storm out of the theatre. 

You glanced up at Barry who was still watching Sally. He only nodded, distracted, when you told him, “I’ll be right back.”

You walked quickly out of the theater in long strides, your hands clenched by your side in tight fist. 

“Hey!” You called out loudly to Sam as he strode towards his car. 

He glanced back over his shoulder at you uninterestedly, “Hey.” 

His nonchalant attitude only pissed you off more. 

“Hey, Sally said she didn’t want you seeing that!” 

He scoffed, “No, her little boyfriend said he didn’t want me seeing it! It’s my story, I have the right!” 

“You have no right-!” You started, raising your voice when he stopped by his car and turned to look at you. 

“Hey, if he’s her boyfriend, what does that make you?” He cut you off with a smirk. 

You glared coldly at him. “Leave. Now.”

He shook his head, “You chicks are all so fucking overdramatic.” He scoffed.

“I’m telling you to leave one more time before I call the cops.” You seethed, nails digging into your palms. 

He stared at you for a moment like he couldn’t believe you would actually threaten to call the police. You guess he wasn’t use to women threatening him. He took a step closer to you, invading your personal space slightly but you stood your ground. The hatred you felt made it hard to be afraid of him. 

“You know I wouldn’t expect a dike like you to understand but I’ve got a family now! Something like this could compeltly fuck up my life!” He pointed to himself like he was the victim being ganged up on. 

“Oh you have a family now?” 

He nodded, “Yeah.”

“So tell me do you beat them too, tough guy? Or maybe I should call your wife and tell her what kind of man she really married?”

In retrospect following a violent man out into the parking lot by yourself to yell at him probably wasn’t a great idea. You heard the heavy theatre doors opening behind you at the same time you felt your head whip to the side followed by a harsh, stinging sensation in your cheek. The bastard had slapped you. Your hand flew up to your face, covering the spot where Sam had hit you. There was a shout and when you looked up Barry had Sam pinned to his car, his hand wrapped around his throat. 

Your eyes widened in surprise as you saw the rage painted on Barry’s face. You had seen Barry mad before you thought, but you had never seen your sweet, awkward boyfriend like this before. 

Like he could kill a man. 

You straightened up as you watched Bary throw his fist into Sam’s face. 

Again. 

And Again. 

“You don’t fucking touch them!” He shouted in Sam’s face. 

You looked around the parking lot nervously but the three of you were the only ones outside. You knew this anger wasn’t just for you but for Sally too and all the pain Sam had inflicted. There was blood pouring from Sam’s nose that sat at an awkward angle on his face, clearly broken and his eyes were wide as he tried to pry Barry’s hands off of his throat. Barry was still squeezing Sam’s throat and for a second you were afraid that he was going to kill him in front of you. 

“Barry!” You shouted, coming to your senses. You rushed forward and put your hands on his shoulders trying to push him back. “Barry come on, he’s not worth this!” 

Barry looked over at you, eyes wild as they looked into your frightened, nervous ones. He looked between you and Sam. With his eyes still on you he pulled his hands off of the other man’s throat and took a step back, grabbing your wrist and taking you with him. He pushed you behind his back slightly as if Sam could still be a threat. As if Barry hadn’t just beaten him bloody. Sam was slumped against his car, touching his bloody face gingerly as he stared at Barry in shock. 

“Leave.” Barry spoke coldly. 

For once, Sam didn’t argue. He scrambled up and got into his car. He stared at you both and for a second you thought he was going to say something. But he stayed quiet as he raced out of the parking lot. Barry waited until Sam was gone before whirling around to look at you. He took your face in his hands gently, looking concerned as he turned your face from side to side to take in whatever damage Sam had caused. It was almost startling how gently he touched you after having beaten a man with those same hands. 

“Are you okay?” He swallowed as he looked at the swelling spot on your cheekbone that would certainly leave a bruise. He clenched his jaw and shook his head, “I’m going to kill him.”

‘You almost did.’ You thought to yourself but just shook your head, pulling Barry’s hand from your face and squeezing it. 

“Look I hate him too Bare. But Sally needs us both right now. Not you in jail for assault.”

He nodded, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. 

“I know, I know. I just everything he did to Sally-, and then I saw him hit you and I just-!” 

He shook his head, jaw clenching. He looked back at you in surprise when you brought his hand up to your lips and kissed it. His face softened some at your gentle, understanding gaze. 

“Thank you for trying to protect me.” 

He shook his head. You never had to thank him for that. He leaned down and kissed your forehead gently. 

“Why don’t you go back inside and check on Sally okay? I’m gonna head home and get cleaned up before she sees me.”

You nodded, “Yeah, yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” You glanced back at the theater where Sally was waiting inside, completely unaware of the scene that had just played out in the parking lot. You looked back at Barry. “Are you sure you’re okay?” You hesitated. 

He forced a smile to you and nodded. “I just need a minute. I’ll be fine. Take care of Sally for me okay?”

Now that you could do. You leaned up and kissed him quickly before rushing back into the theater. With your back turned you completely missed the murderous look that had made its way back on Barry’s face. 

Sally was crossing something out on her script when you got back into the theater. 

“Hey, what do you think about-?” She turned to look at you and stopped mid sentence when she saw the bruise on your face. “What happened?!” She set her script down, crossing the stage quickly, brushing the hair out of your face to get a better look at the bruise on your face. 

“It’s nothing.” You shook your head, “Just a misunderstanding.”

But Sally saw right through you. You watched realization dawn on her face and her expression drop. 

“It was Sam wasn’t it?” She whispered. 

With a sigh, you nodded. Tears welled in Sally’s green eyes breaking your heart. She shrunk back from you and lowered herself down to lean against the small table on stage. 

“I left! I left and I moved halfway across the country and he is still trying to hurt me! Why can he still keep doing this?” 

“Hey,” You breathed, rushing forward and rubbing your hands up and down her arms gently. “Hey, he’s not gonna hurt you ever again, okay? I promise.” She looked up at you and you smiled reassuringly, “This bruise? This is nothing. And did I tell you Barry kicked his ass for it?”

She sniffled shaking her head. You gently brushed the tears back from her eyes. 

“He’s never gonna hurt any of us again Sally. You, me, and Barry have each other now and Barry and I aren’t gonna let him do anything.”

You were crying too now as you pressed your forehead to hers. She closed her eyes and shook her head. 

“I’m sorry.” She muttered.

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.” You whispered back. “Not a damn thing.”

#sally reed #sally reed imagine #sally reed x reader #barry berkman #barry berkman imagine #barry berkman x reader #barry berkman x reader x sally reed #poly barry berkman x reader x sally reed #barry block #barry block imagine #barry block x reader #bill hader #bill hader imagine #bill hader x reader #sarah goldberg #sarah goldberg imagine #sarah goldberg x reader #barry hbo #barry hbo imagine #barry hbo x reader #lgbtq reader #tw violence #tw abuse

[baritonetcc]

[December|Familiars]

What M was afraid of happening is happening, but it's happening to me instead. I have always been a fairly confident person, I definitely push myself through uncomfortable situations if that's what I'm instructed to do. Vaccines and blood draws were never an issue for me, I was always a complacent and brave child. I face a lot of my fears, knowing that in the end, I will benefit from it.

Being this kind of person, I tend to overstep boundaries a lot. No one has ever outright told me this, but I know that I just have to back off a little bit sometimes.

I usually would become incredibly nervous when M was in close proximity. I was like a car with one of those backup alarm systems. I'd begin sweating profusely or freeze up whenever she touched me.

That's right. I'm getting too comfortable with her.

As a person who has never had to suppress any sort of behavior, this is very dangerous. I'm not great at self-control since I never had a need for it. I need to watch myself, or else I'm going to do something I might regret.

On a lighter note, I had a great night with M tonight. We had a performance, and I think it went mostly well. I was sweating the entire time from the effort I was putting into everything.

My friend wanted to get some practice time in, so we showed up early. I bought a treat for M and left it out for her. She asked if it was us (my friend and I). I nodded, but my friend pointed to me. They played their cards right. M thanked me and and it sounded really sincere. She also kept poking fun at us/me.

Okay, so the actual performance. M kept looking at me even when I wasn't even doing anything important. I don't know why. I was a mess.

I got kind of snarky with her. I pouted at her jokingly. She went to take something, I went and snatched it first. We fumbled for a little bit, but I didn't feel like it was anything special. She was resting her hand on some cymbals, which I pulled away when she wasn't looking. She returned her hand to a cymbal that was running away from her, turned around, and we locked eyes.

I sat right next to her during our break, as I often do for this band event. I wasn't super close, but when we talked, we leaned in to close the gap. I felt nothing, just happy. I had my legs out and she stepped between them to scold another student. It was so hot. 🔥 M step on me plz 😩

We were gossiping about another person at the game. It's usually me getting her attention to tell me these things, but tonight she did this.

When we cleaned up, she kept making eye contact with me whenever we passed each other. Sometimes she'd make a face as a greeting, and I have no clue as to why. We were right next to each other for two-ish hours.

As I was getting in my car to go home, I saw her in the parking lot. As I said, I just seen her for three hours at that point. I didn't say anything to her since she was kind of far away and I literally just saw her. I'm cleaning off my car when M yells, "Is that Bari?!" She told me to drive safe again (to my house that is so close to school).

We never give each other a break, and I love it.

-Satisfied Bari

#journal #tc #tcc blog #tc community #tcc #teacher crush #t crush #tc love #tcc community #tcc love #teacher crush community #female teacher crush #female tc blog #music tc

[udnursingsa2019]

Final Blog

As I sit on the plane at 4AM eating my Aero bar (a South African delicacy), tiny moments of the last five weeks keep popping into my head. I think about entering JFK airport feeling nauseous and anxious about leaving the country for so long, seeing familiar faces but not having a clue if I would become close friends with any of them. I think about arriving to the Team House at Noordhoek and being greeted with Jeremy’s speech — he told us we could not save Africa but if we could make a difference in one person’s life, we are doing something worthwhile. I think about being apprehensive for the first clinic day expecting to feel a little lost, until I realized the sisters are some of the kindest people ever and are so willing to teach/ask for help at the same time. I think about the look of pure joy on a group of teenage girls’ faces after some peers and I taught sex/relationship-education at school — they’d always had the questions but never had the opportunity to talk to someone to get the answers, and seeing that we made some of that difference makes my heart warm. And I think about the town Soweto, and a celebration between two different cultures as we sat in a circle with local adults and had a productive conversation about the effects of apartheid and global politics, and afterwards we had a dance party. It’s that “connected” feeling that makes me think we have been making positive impacts on the people we’ve met because the people of South Africa have absolutely touched our hearts forever. Many of them live by the phrase “Ubuntu” which means “I am because we are” — they learned it from the animals who work together as packs — I think that just shows the full circle of how Africa is the one of the best places on earth.

Our last night was difficult but cathartic and necessary. After our last delicious safari dinner we all went around in a circle and stated our roses (our favorite parts of the trip), our thorns (least favorite) and our buds (what we can grow from). Many of the roses included the community days where we bonded with people of all ages and helped out in schools or kitchens/workshops, such as the reusable pads training day where we got to work together with so many women. Others mentioned the Soweto township day or their best experience in clinical (like when Carly V. and Sara delivered a baby and placenta!), and some mentioned their favorite excursions like skydiving. Thorns were when things got emotional — sometimes it’d be something funny like treacherously hiking Table Mountain or getting a stomach bug, but others rightfully wanted to let out emotions about something they’d seen in clinical that they wish they could’ve done more for, such as the group that experienced the death of a preterm baby born at home who probably would have lived if the clinic had the appropriate resources. Other thorns included the guilt we feel when we realize how privileged many of our lives are, and the overwhelming lack of knowing what to do in response when we see how many people need help. I believe this trip made many of us second-guess our career choices and what we want to make of our lives; for certain this trip has inspired lots of us to give back more and if we can’t go back to Africa and help the people there, there are ways we can help at home. Many of us turned our thorns into buds because lots of the bad things we experience are ways to make us grow. But lots of us also mentioned for buds the friends we have made and just the beauty of the world and all the people in it, as we have seen the strength in the people of South Africa as well as the strength in each other. I have made lots of new friendships that I have no doubt will last throughout our last semester and post-graduation. Though we’re a group with a bunch of different personality traits, we bring out the best in each other and have such a fun dynamic that never gets old — I can’t count the amount of long car rides and late nights (even though we would wake up at the crack of dawn almost every day) spent talking and laughing for hours on end with my new friends. It really is so special to have these meaningful bonds during our last year as nursing students, because we need each other!

There are many people worthy of “thank you’s” and I will start with ourselves, because we were the ones who decided to apply to go to South Africa and had the courage to actually go through with it, and for me it was the best decision I’ve ever made. Thank you to my peers for making this trip so meaningful and unforgettable, through all the laughs and tears. I really am so proud of everyone for making this the best experience possible and constantly lifting each other up. And I’d also like to thank my parents and all the other parents who allowed us to go on the trip (we know it wasn’t easy) and helped out with some expenses.

I’d like to give a shout-out to our drivers, Roy and Sibusisu, who turned out to be more than drivers — they became friends. We will miss Roy’s sarcastic sense of humor and charm, and we’ll miss Sibu’s quiet, sweet presence. They are two of the most hardworking men and seriously deserve a medal for boundlessly dealing with 30 21-year-old girls!

Rowan and Bari have also been blessings to us — we wouldn’t have survived the trip if it weren’t for their constant direction, reliability and support. Rowan made sure everything went smoothly at all times and was in a tough position to be TA as a senior; we give her lots of credit for all she could help us with through her L&D/cultural knowledge and experience. Bari has been an inspiration to all of us, as she’s lived, worked and volunteered in South Africa before and we can see first-hand how wonderful of a human being she is/has become through her experiences. So thank you guys!

Lisa — thank you for making this trip happen and for being willing to take so many of us — I know it’s not easy to lug 30 students to another continent. I give you so much praise for making this trip happen year after year, building upon what you’ve learned from past trips but always introducing new ideas. You have always been someone we can look up to and this trip further proved how you truly inspire us to be the people/nurses that we want to be — not what a structured nursing program/basic American society tells us to be. You’ve taught us to follow our guts and our dreams and that life is too short to only do one kind of job in a place we don’t feel we’re thriving. You also have successfully spread the word about Mother Nature and natural childbirth — I would trust any of us to teach about or facilitate a physiologic birth and it’s all thanks to you.

And last but not least, thank you to Jeremy. When I met Jeremy, I had heard good things and he seemed nice and cool and funny, but I didn’t really think anything would come of him being there besides being our tour guide. But he was so much more than that. He became a close friend to many of us. He worked towards making this trip a life-changing, monumental experience for everyone. If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t be able to dig deeper and work to find the meaningful takeaways behind all the experiences we’ve had. He encouraged the group to really spend time together and support each other, because he knew we’d need it. He was a shoulder to cry on when we had a hard day, and a person to run to when we had a funny story because his laugh can just make our day. His life story and his presence are so uplifting that he’s touched each and every one of us and has inspired us all to be ourselves, make good choices that build our ultimate destiny, and cut out all negativity. Thank you for making us all better people, Jer. We truly will never forget you and can’t wait for you to come to the U.S. one day.

Now we’re all exhausted with puffy eyes from crying either last night or at the airport saying bye to Jeremy, but we’re excited to see our families.....and not quite ready to go to school in just a few days. Luckily we have a whole group of us to lift one another up during this period of post-study-abroad depression, but after a few weeks our lives will probably return to normal. So we must continue for weeks, months, years down the road to remember what it felt like to be in Africa, reflect upon the connections we built, and never forget the lessons we learned. We’re back in America, but Africa has never left us.

-       Annie Sienrukos <3 

[avoidcrow]

So I was finally able to play Breath of the Wild recently! I’m a huuuuuge Zelda fan so here’s my thoughts under the cut

Totally just my personal opinion though so no pressure to agree with me!

Main Quest/Story: 8/10 Fantastic, loved every bit of the main storyline. It was cute, sad, funny, and delivered to the player in a way that I found unique. Loved discovering the memories and piecing it all back together, and the way it tied into the main series timeline. This Zelda was extremely likable, and the champions (maybe except Revali) and their descendants were wonderful too The Divine Beasts were mostly fun, I loved the expansion on the idea of changing the dungeons around like in MM. Made you think outside the box a bit. Could've been a bit longer, or had more of them One critique, I would have liked the (currently alive) supporting characters to have a more emotional weight to the story, it felt kind of anti-climactic to finish everything but Calamity Ganon just to have Impa tell me to get going. Or any time after getting onto a Divine Beast only to have my guide fuck off somewhere for very flimsy reasons

Also Yiga Clan quest was great but their presense got worse instead of better. Happy to get new weapons from them but this is an anti-reward and it makes this suck a bit. If I'd known this was going to happen I would've waited until the last possible second to complete it

Sidequests/Collecting/etc.: 5/10 Majority of sidequests are fetch quests with kind of poor payoff, usually something I could have gotten on my own easier than the thing I got for them in the first place. Found ALL of the romantic ones kind of depressing or uncomfortable? Why are Gerudo women going into these kind of resigned relationships

I really like the shrine challenges and finding Koroks, and the little challenges scattered about, they’re super fun to come across

Gameplay: 7/10 Exploration aspect is definitely the best part. I love how much there is to see and do, lots of little things to find, but very little you actually have to do. The freedom is immensely satisfying. I beat the main storyline and am still quite happy wandering around and looking for nothing specific Combat is mostly enjoyable, but could have used a few more unique items like ones earned from dungeons in past games, and I found the variation in enemies a little disappointing. Personally got sick of most enemies being either aggressive animals or 'biped with weapon' types, most didn't require much skill beyond remembering to eat and having enough weapons. Guardians were GREAT, would like more in that style that require extra awareness and strategy like wallmasters, bari, baba, helmasaurs, redead, etc. Cooking was cool, I thought it was gonna suck but it was creative and fun I really don't care for the weapon breaking mechanic. I think once you get to metal items you should at least be able to repair them, it's not like metal corrodes into splinters upon contact with flesh. We have RL swords from the Viking Age, but Link takes out a few 'blins and that's it? Have you ever tried to break a drill-shaft?

Graphics: 9/10 I think they chose a great style for this one, very little in the way of complaints. There's some weird shadows and such now and then, but this is my favourite execution of cell shading I've seen so far. Love that everything is bright and colourful, no ugly post-apocalyptic brown overload Looks great I did see this one overlaid crack in one the labyrinths that looked like a N64 graphic, it was impressively bad. This isn’t affecting my score I just don’t understand what happened here, everything else looked fine

Music: 6/10 There are some wonderful tracks in this game, but unfortunately that's about it. The music DOES suit the game very well while you're playing, but I find the music not up to the current standard of Zelda tunes. They lack that catchy 'you were working on the Forest Temple so that's all you're gonna be humming today' magic of previous series entries I got the soundtrack because I liked it while playing, but not so much on its own. Objectively good music I guess, but not really fun to listen to in my opinion

Other: No score needed, just rambles I love the clothes options - my boyfriend is doing a nudist wildman run and it’s hilarious The English voice acting was eegh Wolf Link is my best friend Crazy flower lady made me want to die, but she neglected to kill me entirely so I guess I just have to suffer STOP RAINING Oh my god the dragons I almost cried they're so pretty

Overall: 7/10 Great game with a few problems, but I’m having a blast and it’s generally awesome! Probably not in my top three Zeldas, but definitely like it better overall than Skyward Sword I'm really having fun, but I am pretty aware that once I run out of things to explore I probably won't wanna go back for awhile. The good parts don't stack up high enough next to my favourite Zelda series games, and if given the choice, I'd probably rather replay Majora's Mask or Twilight Princess instead

#mine #jackreview #long post #zelda

[rosyredlipstick]

gift wrap optional (1/1)

It's December 23rd. It's December 23rd, and Will Solace is just realizing this fact. Will hasn't done any Christmas shopping, Nico's just looking for an excuse to quit his crappy sales clerk job, and there are worst ways to meet during the holidays.

AO3 Link Here

i wrote this for tumblr user @xthis-rebelle for the @pjosecretsanta2k17, hope you enjoy your gift!! happy holidays! shoutout to my homegirl tumblr user @rinarraven for beta reading, cheerleading me through the writing process, and taking my drarry fic recs seriously i have a lot of emotions over them ok

“I need your help.” Never before had a sentence been so utterly true to Will Solace as the one he uttered then. He suspected it never would be so true ever again in his life.

The clerk at the help desk only sighed greatly, leaned forward onto the dull plastic surface of the counter, and gave Will a bored look. If the color gray could be held in someone’s voice, it would lace his next words. “Of course, sir. How can I help you?”

Will needed this retail worker - this poor, poor retail worker tasked to deal with people like Will himself two days before Christmas in an overly bright department store - to understand. Understand what was at stake at this moment in time.

His look was intense, his voice even more so, when he leaned down to better meet the workers bored gaze. This, at least, seemed to catch his attention more.

“It’s two days before Christmas,” Will stated obviously, the calendar on the wall proving this statement. “It’s the day before Christmas Eve, I have four younger sisters, and I have not bought a thing.”

He buried his head into his hands, stupidly grateful that this area of the store was mostly empty of customers for now, and let out a shaking breath. No one should see his shame.

“I need to get four awesome gifts for my four awesome sisters, and I need to do it soon. Like, yesterday soon. And I need them gift wrapped. I could honestly care less about the cost.” Will was well aware of the pathetic vibe that he was putting off. Maybe that would help his cause. His voice was weak as it rushed out of him. “Please help.”

The worker - Nico, his nametag read off in a neat font - gave him a considering look. Much more considering than Will would have thought. “Okay, I’ll help you.”

Will nearly wilted with relief. “Thank you.” He slumped against the counter, his breath rushing out of him. “I was looking at your online catalog - wait, where are you going?”

Nico, surprisingly, was pulling off his nametag and visor with a grin, dropping them both on the counter. He ignored Will’s question and turned in place only to cup his hands around his mouth.

“Tracey!” A scowling woman turned from the front counter, looking already ready to snap at him. But Nico only grinned gleefully in response to her piercing glare. “I quit!”

Will stuttered in shock, his hands coming up. “Wait - what - I - you said you were gonna -”

“I am,” Nico jumped over the counter, grabbing his arm and beginning to pull him down the long, glossy front aisle of the store. Around them, people were staring. “But you’re not going to find anything worthwhile in here, I promise.”

Will, for some unknown reason, allowed himself to be dragged out, casting a desperate look to the store around them as he was pulled through the front doors. Once outside, Nico stopped, pulling the other boy in front of him. Will cast a desperate look back towards the department store.

“We’ve got to game plan,” Nico made a motion of thinking it over. “And coffee. That shift felt like it would never end.”

Will was still sputtering along, making high pitched noises of confusion.

He just wanted to buy his sisters Christmas presents. Was that so hard?

“Starbucks,” Nico decided on, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “Overpriced and usually burnt, but it’ll work. Decent cider, if anything.”

“I -” Will’s eyes were wide and confused and settled on the stranger standing across from him. Well, at least he was cute. “There’s one the next street over.”

Nico grinned slightly, a crooked sort of thing, and was still holding onto Will’s arm - perfect, as he dragged the other boy along. “Great. Let’s go.”

“Name’s Nico di Angelo,” He shot Will a horribly lopsided, terribly handsome grin as they walked, their strides matching together nicely. “And what’s the name of the guy I just quit my job for?”

Was that Will? It had to be. Right? Yes.

But why?

“Will,” he finally choked out, still being led along by the arm. “Will Solace.”

Nico shot him a small grin over his shoulder. “Nice to meet you, Solace.”

After only a few more minutes of walking, and Will questioning his life decisions, they came across the familiar green and white logo. Nico wrinkled his nose again at the familiar coffee bean scent that was already hitting them from the streets. Nico pulled him in before, finally, releasing Will’s arm.

“Perfect,” Nico declared after a moment, jumping forward to snag an empty table. Rare, so close to the holidays. “What do you want?”

Will took a seat, blinking. “Um,” it seemed he would be needing caffeine for the day ahead of him. “White chocolate mocha, hot. Please.”

Nico nodded once, taking to the short line, leaving Will alone at the table.  

Okay. So. This changed his plans.

He was with a stranger in a Starbucks, still no closer to finishing up his gift list, two days before Christmas.

This was weird, right? Should he just… leave? Probably not after the other boy quit his job to help Will… but, like, who did that?

No one normal, right?

Nico was returning, two cardboard cups in his hands, a thoughtful look on his face. Looks like Will was staying.

He set the matching red cups on the table, taking the seat across from Will. He took his cup, mostly just to have his hands busy with something, and the other boy spoke up.

“We need to game plan,” the other boy pulled out his phone, frowning at the screen. “No major stores should have any major hour changes but the lines are going to be crazy. We need to figure out what stores we’re going to hit.”

Will’s eyebrows came together, “We were just at a store -”

“I’m never stepping into a Macy’s ever again.” Nico refused, “Anyways, there’s no such thing as a life-changing, bomb-ass present in a department store.”

Will sighed, sinking back into his chair. “I’m usually like, so good at this. Months in advance, personalized-designer-wrapping-paper good at this.”

Nico only looked mildly interested. “And? What happened?”

Will let his head hit the dark, glossy wood of the table, a satisfying thunk following. “Med school happened.”

Nico winced. “Ouch. My sister’s boyfriend is in med school right now and like, I think he died. I haven’t seen him in… weeks, probably.”

“That sounds accurate,” Will’s voice was one of a broken man. He lifted his head from the table. “I can’t believe I just...forgot.”

“At least you’re not trying to collect from the premade gift aisle,” Nico gave him a sympathetic look. Will could already tell it was a rare expression for the other boy.

“No, I just have to somehow provide four thoughtful, wonderful presents for my equally great sisters.” He groaned, “I really, really don’t know how I’m gonna do this.”

Nico took a long drink from his coffee. “Guess we’ll just have to get started then.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and seemingly got in the mindset.

“Alright,” Nico pulled a napkin from the stack he had thrown down in between them, followed by a pen from his jacket pocket. “Who are we shopping for?”

Will was still quickly adjusting to the ‘we’ factor of the equation but hey, he was a pretty adaptable guy.

“My sisters, four of them.” Will held his fingers, ticking them off as he listed their names. “I’m the oldest. Then it’s Hina, at twenty-one, then Kayla at seventeen, Selena at sixteen, and Marisol at eleven.” Nico was writing down the information in neater handwriting then Will would have thought.  

“What did you get them last year?” Nico paused, his pen hovering.

Will thought about it for a brief moment, “Subscription boxes, six months worth each.”

Nico considered that for a moment. “Not bad,” He finally settled on, “What kind?”

“Uh,” He squinted, thinking back to the horde of confirmation emails probably still sitting in his inbox. “Well, Hina got a music one where she got new CDs and like, music note socks or something every month. Kayla got one where they send you like, a new book every month, Selena got a make up one that she specifically asked for, and Marisol got one of those international snacks and candy ones, where you get a new country every month? It was cool.”

Nico scrawled a few more words on the napkin, nodding his head in approval. “Okay. We should be able to go off this.”

Will pursed his lips, giving the other boy a questioning look. “Seriously, like, not that I don’t appreciate it but -” Will moved to biting his lip instead. “Why are you doing this? I mean, quitting your job and helping me?”

Nico stopped writing and set his pen down, looking up to meet Will’s waiting gaze. “Wanna know something?”

Will blinked, “Uh, sure?”

Nico gave him a single nod, “I’ve had six jobs in the past year, and I’ve hated every single one.”

“What?” At that, Will’s voice was sharp and surprised. “What - I - how? How do you even like, pay bills? Survive?”

He gave Will a casual shrug, “My dad helps pay for everything I do. My sister decided to go to art school with it, but I’m not really cut out for school. So I -” He gestured to his surroundings, “work at department stores and quit on a whim to take a cute boy out for coffee.” Nico took a slow drink of his coffee, apparently not noticing Will’s rough blush. “I’m just looking for something that sticks, I guess. And it definitely wasn’t going to be fucking Macy’s. This sounded fun.” Nico gave him a look. “Can you blame me?”

Will blinked a few times, processing. “I guess not,” he finally decided. “...What else have you done this year?”

Nioc held out a hand, ticking off one with each job he named. “I’ve been a barista, waiter, assistant librarian, surf shack employee, gas station clerk, and uber driver.” His eyes lit up fo a quick second. “Hey! Seven jobs now. Got one in just before the year was up, nice.”

Will didn’t even know how to respond to that. He only shook his head, taking a long sip of his drink.

Nico seemed to take that as his que to turn back to the wrinkled napkin in front of him. He cocked his head to the side, chugging the last of his coffee, and looked back to Will in question.

“Who’s easiest to shop for?” Nico asked, absentmindedly rolling his pen between his fingers.

“Selena,” Will knew nearly instantly, because it was true. Selena would happy cry over a wilted flower if Will put enough effort into picking it.

Nico looked satisfied with that. “Selena, what does she like?”

Will chewed on his lip, “Makeup, usually. Reading - she and Kayla are always trading books - and, uh, science? She’s won her school’s science fair like, twice already.” There was a barely hidden note of pride in his voice. What? His sisters were awesome.

“Makeup, reading, and science.” Nico mused, his hand coming up to his chin and everything. He pocketed his pen and napkin. “Let’s start with the first.” He went quiet. “You know what that means, right?”

Will sighed. He did. Vividly, often through nightmare.

“There’s a Sephora in the mall,” Will set his shoulders like a man going off to war. He collected their cups and threw them towards the trash. “Let’s do this.”

Five steps in and Will Solace was truly feeling the definition of regret.

His eyes were wide, taking in the bright lights, the blinding glossy white interior, the crowded aisles, and he needed to take a deep breath.

“This is… a lot of options,” Nico stated the obvious, looking unsure for the first time during the whole experience. “Do you know what she wears?”

Will glanced around the brightly lit store, frowning, probably a little close to desperate tears. “I mean, I just, I don’t really know what she wants - she’s very particular about the ingredient lists and brand or stuff. For her birthday I just let her loose in here and let her get a handful of whatever.” He stepped hesitantly forward, some of the brand logos looking a bit familiar. “Maybe…?”

Did Selena even wear - he quickly read the label of the nearest bottle - setting mist? What even was that, and why in the world did a 4 oz plastic bottle cost thirty two dollars?

He set it down with a sigh, incredibly aware of the other boy’s waiting presence at his side.

He cast a look around the store - so close to the holidays it was near bursting. The line to the register was reaching nearly them, at the front of the store.

Will didn’t know the first thing about makeup. What the hell was he thinking?

He let out a sigh, his head hanging. “I should give them all cash or something. Admit defeat.”

Nico was clearly just as lost in the brightly lit store, but turned to the other boy with a fierce look on his face. “No,” he boldly declared, grabbing onto Will’s sleeve to pull him out of the store, something that was quickly becoming commonplace. “No.” he repeated once they were clear of the crowd, the look still on his face. “We’re only, what, an hour into shopping? We can’t give up yet!”

Will let his head hang, “I have no idea what to get her.” He gestured towards the store, “I don’t know the first thing about all that, and I’d rather let her get herself something she’d actually use rather than just play an expensive round of a guessing game.”

There was a beat of silence as Nico clearly thought that over. “Okay,” he said after a moment, “Okay, let’s give up on the makeup. You said she likes, what else, reading and science?”

Will let out a breath, nodding. “Yeah. She, uh, wants to go into chemistry and stuff.”

Nico was already nodding with thought. “Yeah, yeah.” His voice was absent-minded. After a moment, his eyes lit up. “She likes science?”

Will just said that. “I just said that,” Will agreed, a bit confused. Nico grabbed onto his wrist yet again and began pulling him along.

He let himself be guided, catching up to walk in stride with the other boy. “Where are you going?” Nico pulled him to the curb, already calling for a taxi. “Nico?”

“Trust me,” Nico shot him a quick half-grin, pulling him into the street as a taxi pulled over. To the driver, he flipped his phone to show the driver the screen, and shared a quick grin.

Despite the fact that he probably shouldn’t trust the total stranger pulling him around the streets of Chicago, Will kind-of, sort-of, did, just a little. Nico, already slid across the back seat of the car, gestured for him to get in after him. And Will, after only a quick moment of hesitation, did.

“Here,” Nico declared, leaning forward to pass the driver some folded bills. “Will, out on your side.”

Will, still staring out the window, blinked in surprise. “Here? What -”

“C’mon,” Nico pushed against his back, urging him forward. Will did as told, stupidly grateful the driver had managed to park to close to the sidewalk. They paused in front of the building, taking it in.

“The Museum of Science and Industry,” Nico announced after a moment, gesturing towards the grand building. “Here we are.”  

Will stepped back to better view the large building, apologizing as he nearly bumped into a few other people. He smiled, glancing to the other boy.

“I haven’t been here in forever,” he shot a fond look towards the building. “I always mean to come back. Their Christmas exhibit is up, isn’t it?”

Nico grabbed his wrist, just above his palm, and began pulling him up the stairs. “Every year.”

Will allowed himself a grin at the sight of the familiar building, even as the dunked through the crowded doorway. He bit his lip, thinking.

“I love this place but...why are we here?” As the words were coming out, Will realized. “Selena.”

Nico nodded in triumph, still pulling Will along. The crowd was nearly worse here then in most of the stores Will had seen. “She loves science right?”

Will was regaining the energy that Sephora had seeped out of him. “Totally! We can get her a...t-shirt?” He winced at that idea, “Or something cooler. I’m sure their gift shop has a lot of stuff.”

“Ooooor,” Nico dragged out, finally stopping in front of the ticket counter. He pointed towards the large sign that hung from the wall. “You can get her a membership. The exhibits are always coming and going, and she can come see them whenever she wants.”

Will paused. That wasn’t a...horrible idea.

Nico plucked a pamphlet from from the nearest desk, flipping through it for a moment before passing it along. The membership page, listing all the perks of each tier.

“This...might be a good idea,” he finally admitted, his hand rubbing along his chin as he thought. “She does love it here, I think she’s had like, three birthdays here. And free year round tickets would like, bind her here.”

Nico nodded in satisfaction, leading them towards the back of the line, letting Will continue to look over the paper. “If you wanna keep looking, I’m sure there’s somewhere else we can go. But this sounds good for her, at least from what you’ve said.”

“It does sound good,” Will agreed, holding the pamphlet into his pocket. “I think this is something she’ll definitely like.”

Nico shot him a grin, stepping forward as the line went up, and rolled his shoulders. “One down, three to go.”

They made some mindless small talk as they waited - Will was still basically spending his day with a stranger at this point - and learned a few things about Nico himself. He had a sister as well, younger, who’d he’d actually managed to shop for weeks ago. He added on the last bit with a grin, his eyes dancing and voice teasing, and Will only rolled his eyes goodheartendly in response.

Soon, thankfully, the line died down, and it was their turn at one of the many front desks. Will explained which membership he wanted - the dual, so she could bring along one of her nerdy friends whenever she wanted - and answered the few questions they asked as Nico stood at his side. The clerk, a tired but kind older woman, only shot the both of them a small, knowing grin as she typed into her ancient keyboard.

When the time came, he reached for his checkbook, glad he always kept a pen on his person, and filled out the accompanying paperwork quickly. It was mostly basic information, nothing too serious, and before long they were handing over a thick packet with bound papers and a rectangular membership ID with Selena’s name spelled neatly across.

He stuffed it all into the side packet of his coat, careful not to let anything spill out, and followed the other boy through the thick crowd out the front entrance. They pulled themselves to a corner without much crowd, close to a few of the neighboring buildings.

“Alright,” Nico tapped away at his phone screen for a moment, the Uber app screen flashing back at him, before turning his attention back to Will. “Who’s next?”

Will thought about it for a moment before deciding. “Kayla, she should be easy.”

Nico nodded, and Will could almost see the other boy mentally returning back to the quick list he had made in the coffeeshop. “What does she like?”

“She likes reading and exercise, mostly.” Will leaned his head back in thought, “She’s really gotten into archery this year so I was thinking maybe something related to that? I mean, she treats her bow like a literal baby so maybe not that but something with her arrows?”

Nico considered that, “That doesn’t sound bad,” he finally decided. There was a moment of silence before he spoke again. “Do you particularly know anything about archery that could help us shop for her gift?”

Will bit his lip, giving him a look that said everything.

Nico sighed, pulling his phone out, “Looks like I’m calling for help.”

Nico wandered off to side, his phone pressed to his cheek, leaving Will on his own, leaning against the side of the building. The crowd was much thinner than it had been inside the building, probably due to the harsh chill of the wind, but due to Will’s traditional layers-upon-layers for warmth, he didn’t mind much. At a bit of distance, Nico was laughing sharply into his speaker. Will huddled into himself, shielding himself for warmth.

Only a few minutes had passed before Nico returned, hitting the bright red end button on his screen, a small smile in place. Before Will could ask, Nico spoke up.

“My sister’s boyfriend,” Nico explained, pocketing his phone. He began heading in their opposite direction, purpose in his step. Will, pushing himself off the side of the building, followed.

“The one in med school?”

Nico nodded, seeming knowing the way. “He’s also pretty into archery when he’s not drowning under a flood of textbooks and essays, so I figured he might give us an idea.”

Not the worst idea. Will nodded in approval, “And?”

“And,” Nico continued, his hand finding Will’s to better pull him across the sidewalk. Will, with his hand circling loosely around the other boys, couldn’t find it in himself to pull away, or mind in the slightest. “He’s texting me some ideas which, coindeicently, will help serve as a benchmark to find his own gift. So -” he flashed a smile at Will, “win-win situation here.”

Will was still a bit thrown off from the other boy’s grin, “Yeah,” his voice wasn’t nearly as sure as he’d like. He cleared his throat, “Good idea. Where are we going now?”

Nico had paused on the side of the sidewalk, his phone back in his hand. The other one was still firmly holding onto Will’s, and Will wasn’t too sure on how to handle that. “Some sports shop Frank recommended, says its where he gets all his stuff. Our Uber should be here soon.”

Will hummed, “Where is it?”

At that, Nico paused, his free hand hovering in the air over his phone. He shot a quick look over at Will, almost like he had been hoping Will wouldn’t ask.

Will raised his eyebrows, a bit suspicious now. With a bit of regret, he pulled his hand away to cross his arms. “Nico?”

The other boy let out a large sigh. “Frank swears this place is great,” Nico’s voice took on a convincing tone, “and the prices are great.”

There was shoe Will was waiting to drop and swiftly kick him in the face. He kept his eyebrows raised. “But?”

Nico let out a breath, “But it’s...it’s in the Water Tower.”

Will’s arms dropped to his sides. “No.”

Nico grimaced, “Yeah.”

If Will was a weaker man, there would be tears in his eyes. “Nico, no.”

“Listen,” Nico was trying to keep his voice high, “I’ve worked in a Macy���s, a goddamn Macy’s, all through their holiday season. I have faced screaming soccer moms, shoplifting teens, and middle aged customers willing to do anything for a ten percent discount.” Nico took a breath, almost trying to convince himself now. “What’s that gotta have on one of the biggest malls in the city?”

“One of the biggest malls in the city, if the biggest, two days before Christmas.” Will corrected the other boy, a bit more back in himself now. “Nico, we can’t.”

“Will,” Nico’s hands were back on him, now one resting on each of Will’s shoulders. “Will Solace. Do you love your sisters?”

There was no hesitation. “Of course.”

“Okay,” Nico’s hands gripped at his shoulders. At the curb, a gray car was pulling up, an Uber sticker in its window. “You love your sisters. And because you do,” Nico glanced over his shoulder very quickly before returning his much-too-intense gaze back to Will. “Because you do, you’re going to get into that car. And we’re going to go the Water Tower Place two days before Christmas, and we’re going to get your sister the best present ever, alright?”

Will stared at the other boy with wide eyes, holding his breath, before letting it all rush out of him. His shoulders, pressed down my Nico’s gripping hands, fell. “Alright. Let’s...let’s go.”

It was worst then Will had imagined.

When he was a teen, Will’s best friend had convinced him to go Black Friday shopping in order to score some new winter clothes. They had lined up a few hours before with cups of hot cider in their hands and were both bundled in thick coats, scarves, and hats. They had made friends with a few of their fellow customers in line, even splitting a candy bar with one, and everything had been going relatively smooth and simple and calm.

But once those doors opened?

Chaos.

The end of the world will come in chaos and craze and Will was ninety percent sure it would be from the trigger of a shopping sale post-holiday.    

And this? The sight of one of the most notorious malls in the region, two days before Christmas?

This was worst.

As soon as they had entered through the doors, Nico had gripped onto Will’s hand, pulling him along. Will didn’t feel the flutter in his chest, the blush in his chest this time around at the other boy’s hand in his. No, this was for survival.

Nico led them into a department store, not Macy’s, never Macy’s with Nico at his side, that was thankfully a bit more deserted then the rest of the building. Sure, they were still bumping shoulders with strangers every few seconds, but no longer in the immediate danger of being trampled. So, like, that was an improvement.

Nico shot him a look, his chest heaving. “A breather?” It was more of beg then a question. Will only nodded, following the other boy as he found them a quiet bit of store.

Which was the women’s sock department, apparently.

They caught their breath, perusing the section out of boredom, and it wasn’t long before one of them spoke up.

“What time is it?” Nico asked a bit absentmindedly, shifting through a nearby rack of clothes. All violently covered in sequins and glitter so like, probably not for his personal style.

Will dug out his phone, squinting at his screen. “Around noon, I thin-”

“What is that.”

Will glanced up to Nico staring straight at him, his gaze intense. Will followed his eyes a bit down to his phone, cradled in his hand.

“My...phone?” Will answered as a question. He held it up for evidence.

Nico was staring at it in disbelief, “That’s not a phone. That’s a fossil. I think I’ve seen that exact phone in a museum.”

Will rolled his eyes goodheartedly, “Ha ha.” His voice was coated in sarcasm, “Very funny, Nico.”

Nico was still staring at it, squinting at it now as he examined it. “Can you even text off this thing?”

Will clicked his tongue, pocketing the piece of old tech. “Very slowly.” He finally admitted, “It takes awhile.”

The other boy looked almost fascinated, “But why?” He asked with gross fascination, “Like, you’re getting your sisters nice gifts. You’re wearing designer, and Macy’s sells the exact boots you’re wearing for like, a triple figure price. Can’t you afford a phone made before 2003?”

“I need it for work,” Will bumped his hip into the other boy’s, “It had to be able to work with my pager, or whatever.”

At that, Nico’s eyes went impossibly wider. “Your pager? My gods, Solace -”

“Aren’t we here for Christmas shopping?” Will interrupted impatiently, “Kayla, remember?”

Nico still looked lost as he processed this information. Will impatiently snapped his fingers in front of his eyes.  

Nico scowled, mostly playful. “Ignoring the travesty of your phone situation -” Will snorted, “we should be almost there. Just have to cut through this store’s escalator and Frank said it’ll be on the next level.”

Will nodded, not bothering with an answer, and let the other boy take the lead. He seemed to have more of an idea of the mall anyways, whereas Will hadn’t stepped foot in here in years. After going up the escalator and through a few more minutes through the department store, the crowd was back as they entered into the mall space. Screaming children, rushing adults, teens that were determined to travel in inflexible packs. Gods, Will hated it there.

But Nico was nearly immune to the heavy crowd, definitely in part to his job in retail, and only squared his shoulders and pushed them forward, his hand back around Will’s hand. They paused once to look over the mall map, a glowing screen pillar in the middle of the crowd, but were soon able to stop, their hands clenched again (for survival), and take a much needed breath.

“Here we go,” Nico gestured to the store, some kind of sports outlet. “Frank said the stuff we’re gonna look at will be towards the back wall.”

Nico lead them through, stopping to look over their supplies.

“What do you think she needs?” Nico asked, looking over the wall of supplies. “Maybe some arrows?”

Will shook his head already, “I don’t know her exact bow type or anything, or like if she has a preference for anything. Maybe something safe?”

Nico thought it over, still facing the wall. “Some gloves?”

Will shrugged, looking over the few pairs they had hanging. That wasn’t a bad idea, and Kayla would probably love a spare pair, but it didn’t seem enough.

Nico pointed to the wall, towards the bottom. Along the wall, they were displayed in a glass case. “What about one of those?”

Will looked up, following his gaze, and paused. Not bad. Pretty good, actually.

“Those are nice,” Will admitted, taking a step forward with the other boy.

“Does she have one?”

“A quiver?” Will turned back to the ones in the case, “I think she uses like, the beginner quiver that came with her arrows.” Will wrinkled his nose in thought, “It’s like, plastic and cheap fiber. She’s complained about it.”

Nico snapped, “That’s perfect. They’ve got some opinions here…” He turned to examine the wall better, bending down. “They’ve got some heavier duty ones, some metal or plastic ones but…” He straightened up, letting Will get a good look in. “The best looking one seems to be those leather ones.”

“They are pretty nice,” Will agreed, the more traditional ones proving most pleasing to the eye. They seemed to fit Kayla better, rather than the dull single colored cases they had on display.

“They do personalizations,” Nico nodded in approval at the small pinned sign declaring so, “You can get like, a name of symbol or whatever stitched in the leather. That would be cool.”

Will considered that, doubtful. “But can they get it done on such a short notice?”

Nico tapped the sign hanging on the wall, having already read it through. “If you put in your order before five, it says it can be ready for pick up tomorrow. It’s just a quick name stick, but I’ll look awesome.”

“But that means…” Will let out a breath, “That means I’ll have to come back.”

Nico’s face took the opposite of pity, a bit smug. “Have fun with that, then.” He pulled the stitching request form off the counter, waving one of the workers closer.

Will went through the motions, filling out the papers quickly, sliding his ID and card over to the bored looking sales teen. He ended up throwing in the gloves, she would be needing a new pair eventually, as well as some polish for her bow. A good gift, all in all, that would be ready once he was back to pick it up tomorrow afternoon.

He had to nearly suppress his sudder.

The mall. On Christmas Eve.

He would be having nightmares tonight in anticipation, he could already tell.

Will paid and grabbed his bags, pulling Nico away after the boy made his own similar purchases for his friend, and after rushing through the building and elevator at top speed, they were out again on the streets, the chilled air harsh against their faces. It had never felt so loving.

“We’re free,” they both shared a sigh of relief, collapsing on a nearby bench. Around them, the traffic was loud, and their breath curling in front of them.

“Two more,” Will let a small, victorious smile take place. He was doing better than he’d thought he’d do this morning.

They relaxed on the bench, Nico on his phone, Will’s feet aching a bit but relieved for the moment.

A bit of time had passed, long enough for Will’s leg to fall asleep, before Nico was clicking off his phone, looking up to the other boy. “Who’s next?”  

Will sat up at that, thinking it over, “I thinking Hina.”

Nico gave him a look telling him to go on, nodding a bit. Will sighed, his hands coming up.

“Hina is probably the hardest to shop for,” Will groaned, rubbing at his greasy eyelids. “Everything she wants, she just buys for herself.”

“We just have to find something she doesn’t know she wants,” Nico announced, like that was easiest thing in the world to do. “What’s she like?”

“She’s…” Will trailed off, a flicker of surprise flashing in his eyes, “She’s actually kind of like you.”

Nico raised both eyebrows, “Oh? And that is...?”

Will couldn’t suppress an eyeroll. “Attempts to be cooler than she actually is.”

Nico didn’t even bother to look annoyed, “But what does she like?”

Will shrugged, mostly to give himself a few more moments to think. “Music, mostly. She works at a radio station, and she’s obsessed with music quality or whatever. She likes cooking and poetry, and she collects gemstones.” He lifted his shoulder in a half-shrug, “But still, I have no idea what to get her.”

“Music, huh?” Nico went quiet for a moment. “I think I have an idea.”

“Are you actually going to tell me about it this time, or simply drop me off in front of it again?”  Will shot him an unimpressed look, crossing his arms.

Nico only matched Will’s bored look, “Sweetums, you already know the answer to that.”

At that, he turned, grabbed Will’s hand, and began to pull him along. At least with this, Nico couldn’t see the subtle flare of color that burst into Will’s cheeks.

The small victories, he supposed.

“I...don't think I've been here before.” Will finally admitted after a long period of silence standing in front of the small shop. Nico scoffed out a laugh.

“I didn't think so,”  His voice was amused, “but I know this place pretty well. Follow me.”

That seemed to be his task of the day, and he did so without complaint, following the other boy up the stairs and through the doorway. Nico did seem to know the aisles well enough, his pace determined as he lead them to the back of the store.

He paused as they reached the back wall, shooting an expectant look towards Will, and waited.

“A record player?” Will stated obviously, looking at the lined up boxes more closely. Distantly, a soft song from playing from the shop’s speakers, someone was popping their gum, and a group of teens were laughing as they flipped through dusty records. An odd soundtrack, but not an unpleasant one.

Nico seemed to almost take offense at his comment, “It's not just a record player. His hand came up to trace the cardboard box, the closest thing Will had seen to a loving gaze in his eyes. “It's the best record player.”

“I'll take your word on it,” Will muttered. Finally, after a few more moments of staring it down, he gave the other boy a doubtful look. “Are you sure? Do you think she'll like it?”

“I've never met your sister,” As if Nico had to clarify, “But I know any music fanatic would love this.”

Will was still looking doubtful, and Nico continued.

“It’s the only way music should be played,” At that, Nico stuck his nose in the air, angling up his chin. “No one should have to suffer through horrible music quality.”

“Gods,” Will nearly groaned out, “you two are so alike, I can’t believe it.”

Nico was unfazed by that, “Well, if we're so alike, then she'll love it. I got one for my birthday a few years ago and I haven't been able to go back.”

“Go back?”

Nico only rolled his eyes, “To horrible song quality, duh. I can hardly bear to listen to anything off my old iPod anymore.”

Will scoffed at that, but actually thought it over. “This isn't your worst idea.” He finally admitted, examining the box more carefully. It seemed to be nice quality, a dark purple color, with a leather case. He could already imagine it on Hina’s bookshelf. “This seems like something she'd actually use, at least.”

“You can thank me later,” Nico shot him a smug look.

Will, resisting the urge to roll his eyes, reached for his wallet.

His arms were weighed down by his few heavy bags - Nico had insisted on a few more additions to Hina’s record player, basically essentials the other boy had claimed, and it was nearing the late afternoon as they made their way down the street, Nico already thinking through the rest of their afternoon.

“We can drop these bags off at your place, regain our energy a bit - are you hungry? - and then we can -” Nico cut himself off almost violently with a choke, stumbling in place, and finally came to a halt. His hand came down to clench at Will’s wrist.

Will tripped back, a question on his lips, before following his line of sight. There was a moment of silence.

“No,” Will was already denying, shaking his head. “I - I can’t.”

“It would be perfect,” Nico was almost in awe of the idea, incredulous that he hadn’t realized it earlier. “Marisol - from what you said - this is perfect.”

A pained expression crossed Will’s face. People were making annoyed noise at them, paused in the middle of the sidewalk. Unwillingly, Will took a step forward if only to get them out of the way. He said nothing, Nico easily taking the step forward with him.

“She would love you forever,” Nico remarked, leaning against the side of the building, staring down into the box. He buried his hands deep in his pockets.

Will shook his head again, already too weak in the face of the idea. “No, I really can’t -”

“What did she ask for?” Nico asked innocently, despite already memorizing the small Christmas list Will had provided.

Will sighed, his head dropping. “A pony.”

Nico gave him an elaborate sweep of his arm, “A puppy comes close enough, doesn’t it? She can even name it pony, bet the poor thing won’t even care.” At that, he squatted down at the box, the cardboard ‘Free Puppies!’ sign moving in the cold wind, and let a wide smile break across his face. He gave Will a look reading hurry up already and thrust his hand down so, presumably, the pup could get a smell of him.  

A small puppy, probably the runt from the size of it, jumped up from where it had been curled into the pile of blankets at the sight of them bending down, excitement and boundless energy evident in every line of its tiny body. A chocolate colored pup, with lighter colored spots down its back and nuzzle, and dark, shiny eyes.

Marisol would adore it.

“I…can’t.” It was much, much less sure than it was moments before.

The small pup pushed its front paws on the side of the box, panting happily, its tag wagging behind it. It stared directly up at Will, despite Nico’s gentle hand rubbing up and down its back. The meaning of ‘puppy eyes’ was suddenly so intensely clear to Will.

“I can’t.”

“Thank you so much, Cecil.” Will’s voice was weary and exhausted, “I’ll bring everything over in an hour or so.”

Will flipped his phone closed, Nico not even bothering to hide his obvious distaste with the outdated piece of tech, and sighed. Nico perked up. “So?”

Will sighed, his gaze dropping down to Nico's lap. “The puppy is going to stay with my neighbor until Christmas morning, it seems.” The tiny puppy stared up at Will from under Nico’s hand, panting happily. A bead of dog drool started dripping onto Nico’s dark jeans, unknown to the boy himself. Good.

Nico gave him an amused look as he scratched behind the puppy’s ears. It was, to Will’s despair, stupidly cute. “Now?”

Will sighed, already mentally finding his way to the nearest shop. “Now, we pet shop.”

“There’s… a lot of opinions.”

Will’s eyes had fluttered close after being faced down with the vast aisles, more out of desperation. “Have you ever had a dog, Nico?”

“My dad got one after my sister and I moved out, but I’ve never had one personally. My roommate has a cat?” Nico’s voice was, at least, trying.

“They need…” Will finally opened his eyes, the aisle no less numerous than they had been before. This Petco could go on for miles, he swore. “They need a lot.”

The puppy was squirming in Nico’s hands as they both took in the sight, Nico finally just letting the pup to the glossy tile. He wouldn’t be running off it seemed, with its tiny body and smaller legs.

Will was resigned, “I’ll get a shopping cart.”

We’ll need it, he didn’t add despite the truth in the statement.

And truth did he think.

“I don’t think, like, a kid even needs this much stuff.” Nico was poking around the cart as they wheeled out of the store, as if surprised to find the amount of stuff Will had managed to collected. It was a truly remarkable mountain of stuff. He began pulling the many heavy plastic bags out, adding to Hina and Kayla’s bags already hanging around his wrists.  

“So that’s everyone,” Nico said, the pup still in his arms. “What next?”

“Next is…” Will trailed off. What was next? “Home?” He tried.

“Oh,” Nico blinked back in almost surprise at that. What had he been expecting? “So this is...over?”

Was it? What even was this?

Will bit his lip, shifting his weight in hesitation, before holding up the bags in his arms with a shrug. “Help me get these home?” The puppy in Nico’s arms squirmed around, somewhat answering the question for both of them. There was no way Will could get all the bags, and a puppy, up to his shared apartment by himself. Will was almost grateful for that.

For the first time that day it was Nico following him somewhere, as Will leaned forward to gesture for a taxi, Will relaying the address to the rushed looking man. Nico was, surprisingly, mostly quiet the entire time. Not even on his phone, just...quiet, with his hand softly petting the now sleeping pup in his nap.

Did that mean something? Or was Nico just tired, tired of leading a stranger around all day, of playing nice with him?

Will bit his lip, clenched at his plastic bags, and ignored the silence - if it even meant something, something worth ignoring - from the other boy. The driver had a radio station of soft, sad sounding Christmas music playing, so at least the silence was not the dead sort.

It was their longest drive of the day, a little over twenty minutes, before the driver was pulling to the cub in front of Will’s apartment building. He paid and tipped, getting a firm grip on all his bags, before leading Nico out down his familiar sidewalk, up the worn stone front steps. The walk was thankfully short, the elevator thankfully in order. Fourth floor, as Nico cooed softly to the whining pup in his hands. Will bit his lip.

They dropped the puppy off first, Cecil winking and grinning towards Nico in a way that told Will he’d be facing questioning later on. When they finally made it up to Will’s fourth floor apartment, they paused.

Nico set the bag he’d been carrying on the ground. Kayla’s stuff, he thinks. All the puppy stuff had been stored at Cecil’s, just to be careful about Marisol’s prying eyes, so that left them only with a few remaining bags. They went quiet.

“Thanks for…” Will just gestured to the air itself, “everything today, I guess.”

Nico gave him a crooked grin, a bit too casual. “Gave me an excuse to never return to that crap hole of a department store.” He gave Will a half-shrug. “Maybe I should be thanking you.”

There was a beat of silence. Almost awkward, surprising as it hadn’t been awkward nearly all day. Confusing, yes. Annoying, a bit. Frustrating, probably too much. Fun, completely.

But not awkward, not until now. Both boys seemed to be equally uncomfortable with this new emotion.

“I’ll....see you around?” Will bit his lip, suddenly unsure. Will wanted to say more but had no idea where to find the words. What would he even say? He’d only known the other boy a day and everything he thought of seemed...too much.

Nico began walking backwards, still facing him, with his hands deep in his pockets. “Sure, Solace.” There was a small smile on his face. He was almost to the elevator now, almost gone. Where Will was biting his lips with a hesitant look, Nico had the air of nonchalance. “See you around.”

Will held up a hand in goodbye, not a wave, just a simple goodbye in motion.

And with that, Nico turned into the silver elevator doors, and disappeared as they closed after him.

And with that, he was gone.

And that was it.

That was the end of it.

Or at least, that should have been it.

That should have been the end of it all, the crazy adventure Will had had with a stranger who dragged him all around Chicago and made for a funny, amusing Christmas story to tell his sisters around the tree and over hot chocolate.

That would have been it, as far as both boys were concerned in relation to their stupid stubbornness, their silly uncertainty. Would have been it, the end of their little story together, had Nico di Angelo not gone home and the next day been forced to explain his recent unemployment to his younger sister. Had his younger sister not been forced to watch her brother’s face glow and light up and positively radiate as he told her all about his day, a break in his usual eyerolls as he laughed and relayed funny lines the two had them had shared, the gifts they’d picked out, the places they’d gone.

Had his sister cared a bit less, impossible for a girl such as she, or had she been late to that holiday, or simply forgotten to ask about Nico’s job, maybe it would have all gone differently. Nico wouldn't have had that moment, that moment where he paused, his words still half-spilling out of him, looked up and met his sister's knowing gaze, and had known. He wouldn't have had that, remembering how Will’s eyes sparkled through laughter, the crease between his eyebrows that left when he grinned. He wouldn’t have had the moment when he realized that oh, he didn’t want that to be the end.

But he did have that moment, so this could not be the end. 

“Will, your boyfriend’s here!”

Will paused, his hands deep in soap and suds, hot water up to his wrists. Doing the dishes on Christmas morning after Hina’s chocolate pancakes was nearly a tradition at this point, a chore Will never really minded on the holiday.

Marisol yelled again from the living room, now sounding annoyed, and Will snapped back to attention. He rinsed his hands quickly, wiping them on his pajama pants, and stepped away from the kitchen sink. Calling back, he stepped over wrinkled wrapping paper in the hallway. “I don’t -”

He cut himself off as he stepped into the living room, blinking back in surprise.  

A leather jacket.

Nico was looking away from him, grinning as he bent low to more closely examine a construction paper ornament. Fifth grade, Will’s braces period. Great.

The other boy straightened up as Will paused in the doorway, still twisting his damp hands in the fabric of his shirt. There was a beat of silence as they took each other in. Will, still in his Christmas morning pajamas with messy bed head and zit cream still doting his face. Nico, however, looked as if he’d come straight off the runway, because of-fucking-course he did.

“Nice pants,” Nico was the first to break the silence, a shit-eating grin on his face.

A bright red color crawled up Will’s neck, and his words were numb with surprise. “They were a gift.”

Nico stepped forward, close enough to take a bit of the fabric and rub it between two fingers. “The Grinch. Nice. Very festive.”

“Thanks,” Will could barely speak. “How…” Will blinked a few times, “How did you know where I lived?”

Nico gave him a casual shrug, “Peeked off the address on your checks and hoped for the best.”

Will stared at him for a long moment. Nico grew just the slightest bit uneasy, before huffing out a laugh. Will broke out into a small grin, “Of course you did.” There was fondness in his tone. “And you just decided to show up Christmas day?”

It was Nico’s turn to look amused. “Well, I had to give you this.” He pulled out a perfectly squared box from his pocket. Will hadn’t even noticed it in the dark jacket. It was neatly wrapped, with ribbon spilling from the top.

“My sister wrapped it,” Nico explained, seeing the look on Will’s face. “She’s pretty good at crafts.

Will took the box with reverent fingers, peeking a look back up at the other boy. He was still in disbelief that Nico was here, in his living room, on Christmas morning.

Slowly, Will peeled back the wrapping paper, and had to stifle up the laughter crawling up his throat. He let the rest of the paper fall to the carpet, shooting the other boy a look.

“An iPhone,” Will’s voice was laughter filled despite himself. “Really.”

Nico gave him a look that matched Will’s tone. “It was fitting.” He ran a hand through his hair, glancing back before meeting Will’s eyes again. “Anyways, I have a reputation to uphold, and I can't date anyone still using a Nokia.”

An electric shock jumpkicked Will’s heart in his chest. “Date?”

Nico smiled. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. If you’d like?”

Will nodded slowly, his hands tightening around the phone box. “I’d like that.”

Nico’s smile became a grin, small and a bit shy. “Me too.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, just absorbing the other’s presence.

“I’m not getting rid of my flip phone,” Will finally got out, “I need it for work.”

“Guess you’ll be the weird guy at parties with two phones,” Nico smiled goodnaturedly through the entire exchange. Guess Christmas did that to you.

Nico’s face suddenly scrunched up with laughter, his eyes drifting to the ceiling “Look up.”

Will glanced up. Green leaves, bound with a bright red ribbon.

Will’s eyebrows came together. “How did that -”

Nico cut him off before he could question the decoration that had definitely not been there before but, well, Will could hardly complain.

With their lips pressed against another’s on Christmas morning, really, who would?

Will forced himself to break away from the other boy, only with a fierce reminder to himself that his sisters were most definitely still in their not-very-big-apartment and bound to wander in at any moment. He stared at the other boy, so close and smelling of winter and snow and cinnamon, and resisted the urge to lean back in.  

At that moment Pony bounced into the room, barking loudly at the sight of Nico, instantly going to jump around Nico’s feet. Will took a step back for some much needed room, and took a deep breath.

“I -” Will cut himself off, glancing away, his cheeks flared up. Just beyond the hallway, Marisol and Selena were peeking around the corner, giggles in their eyes that only made the blush on Will’s cheeks turn darker. Kayla, from the kitchen, was grinning behind her hand with Hina at her side. Hina was not even bothering to be secretive about the entire ordeal, staring straight ahead at them with a half-raised eyebrow. Will cursed his sisters and took another quick breath, glancing back.

Nico, of course, was now cradling the small puppy to his chest, smiling softly. Fuck. He looked up at Will.

Will swallowed. “Hot chocolate?” He asked, nodding his head to the side where, hopefully, Kayla and Hina weren’t waiting. “I have no idea how to work this phone anyways, I’ll need someone to show me.”

Nico only snorted at that, still running a gentle hand over Pony’s furry tummy. “Smooth, Solace.” But he followed Will into the kitchen nonetheless, smiling softly the whole time.

Will’s sisters still lingered in the kitchen, making an attempt to act like they hadn’t been eavesdropping the entire time. Marisol only beamed. “Merry Christmas!”

notes:

listen chicago is my bae and i fully understand that there is not an actual store in the water tower place that sells archery supplies/personalized arrows. i also understand this is fanfiction and nothing is real and i wanted a scene in a mall. so there's that. i! love! my! ocs!!!! pry them away from my cold, dead fingers. happy holiday season y'all!!! here's my obligatory solangelo holiday fic. it was intensely fun to write. reblog and review if you liked! i need validation to live so. feed me.

#pjosecretsanta2k17 #solangelo #Nico di Angelo #Will solace #holiday fic #alternate universe #chicago #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #Heroes of Olympus #trials of apollo #fanficiton #my fic #rosy writes #gift fic

[deepestwonderlandcloud]

Tatli Ask (Sweet Love) (Can & Ozge) - Chapter Fourteen: The Engagement; The Past

"What? Why?"

Ozge asked as Serkan twirled her around.

"Because Can likes you. You're important to him," Serkan said.

Ozge looked at Can. "Don't be ridiculous. We're just friends. And Can---"

"I can see the way he looks at you, Ozge," Serkan laughed. "He doesn't look at other women that way."

Ozge couldn't help but smile at what Serkan said. Can likes her? But... what does that even mean for her? She's not yet sure what she feels for him. I mean, she doesn't like it when Can is with Diletta... or if she thought about it, she couldn't stand seeing him with any other girl either.

Serkan observed Ozge's expression and laughed.

"Anyway, Mr. Derya is very important to Can. Mr. Derya is the wealthiest man in all of Turkey. Yes, even richer than Can's mother. He is among the top 20 of the world's richest people, having a net worth of 59 Billion US dollars. Mr. Derya and Can's father were best friends and they built a company together. That company is now the very famous company that Can's mother now owns. Signing a deal with Mr. Derya will not only mean success for Can, but for his mother to be proud of him as well."

Ozge looked at Serkan, still processing everything he's saying.

"See, Can may not say it but he loves his mother. And he wants her to be proud of him," Serkan said. "I don't really need Mr. Derya, quite frankly. I am already very successful and rich. My net worth of 500 Million US dollars is more than enough for me. But I do it because I wanna compete with Can. I have to be better than him."

"Why are you so obsessed with competing with Can?" Ozge asked. "Weren't you best friends?"

Serkan stopped swaying and Ozge let go of him. He had the same smug smile on his face.

"So, will you do it, Miss Ozge?" Serkan said. "If you accept my offer, I can guarantee a hundred percent that Mr. Derya will partner with Can."

"No!" Ozge said. "I can't betray Can like that. I'm... loyal to him."

Serkan chuckled.

"Always love over work, aren't you?" Serkan said. "I'm not in a rush, Miss Ozge. You can give me your answer at a later date. Think about it for now, alright? Think about Can. And how this will greatly help him."

Ozge turned to Can who was already heading to their direction.

"Ozge, will you dance with me?" Can said, holding out his hand.

And relief washed over Ozge like a waterfall. It was nice to hear Can's voice saying her name. She didn't wanna listen to anything else. She smiled and nodded, holding his hand as she took her in his arms, holding her close. Their faces were so close to each other that she could smell his perfume. He smelled nice. Like strawberries.

"What were you two talking about?" Can asked, almost in a whisper.

"Nothing," Ozge said, trying to think of what to say. "Serkan was just asking me about my day."

"Yeah. He seems too curious about you lately," Can said, frowning.

Ozge smiled and leaned in closer. "You don't like it?"

"No," Can said, silently.

"Why not?" Ozge asked.

Can smiled, leaning closer. "I think you know why, Miss Ozge."

Ozge smiled, putting her hands behind Can's neck. "Is it possible that Can Yaman is jealous?"

Can chuckled, leaning closer that their noses touch.

"And why would I be jealous, Miss Ozge?"

Ozge laughed, looking at Can intently. Then the music stopped. They both pulled away awkwardly. Guldem went to the stage, as she stepped behind the microphone.

"Everyone, thank you for coming to my 55th birthday," Guldem said. "I wanna thank each and everyone for their gifts and kind messages. But this party isn't just to celebrate my birthday but also a celebration of another."

Efe stood beside Can, looking at him, as if wondering what Guldem was talking about. Diletta smiled mischievously at Ozge.

"Tonight, I proudly announce the engagement of my son, Can Yaman and the lovely, Diletta Leotta," Guldem said, as everybody clapped.

It was like time stopped. Ozge looked at Can, who looked back at her, not knowing what was going on. The spotlight focused on Can and Diletta. Diletta slowly walked up to Can and kissed him in front of everyone. In front of Ozge.

Guldem gestured Can and Diletta to come up on stage. Diletta pulled Can and they went to the stage together. Ozge felt the tears coming and she immediately turned around and left the hall. Efe watched as Ozge leave and then he turned to Can. Can could not believe what was happening. His mother made a rash decision for him again. Something he didn't need with someone he did not want.

"What is this?" Efe mouthed at Can.

Can's eyes widened and he knitted his eyebrows.

"I don't know!" Can mouthed at Efe. "Where's Ozge?"

Efe shrugged, shaking his head. Serkan chuckled, then he left the hall to catch up with Ozge.

***

Ozge sat down at a bench by the beach, wiping her eyes with the back of her palm. She looked out at the ocean, wishing she was somewhere else. Some place far away from here. From Can.

"Ozge, look at you," she muttered to herself, sobbing. "What did you even expect, Ozge? That Can will like you back? That he would actually fall in love with you? He didn't even mention that he was already planning to be engaged with Diletta. But then again, why would he mention it to me? I'm nothing to him."

Serkan suddenly sat down beside Ozge, giving her a handkerchief.

"Here," he said.

Ozge took the hanky and wiped her tears.

"Thank you," she said, looking down.

"A beautiful girl like you don't deserve to cry like this," Serkan said, taking the hanky and wiping Ozge's tears.

***

Can immediately got off the stage and dragged Guldem outside the hall.

"Mom, what on earth is this?!" Can shouted.

"Son, I've arranged an engagement for you and Diletta. I think it's time for you to be together," Guldem said. "Diletta is a nice girl..."

"But I don't love her, Mom!" Can yelled, and his voice echoed through the hallway.

"Then, who do you love Can, huh? Demet?" Guldem exclaimed.

"No!" Can said.

"Then who?!"

Can glared at Guldem, his chest heaving. He couldn't say it. But he knew who it was.

"Don't tell me, Can---"

"Mom, please!" Can yelled again. "I'm an adult! I don't need you making decisions for me! Tell Diletta that this engagement isn't true. I can't deal with you right now."

Can left the hall, running to the beach, looking for Ozge.

***

"Look, Serkan, thanks for the handkerchief, but I need to go," Ozge said, standing up.

"Ozge," Serkan said, causing Ozge to turn back to him. "Think about my offer, alright? This will not only be good for Can. But for you, as well."

Ozge turned around to leave, then saw Can standing before her.

"Ozge," Can started to say.

"Look, Can, I'm tired. I'm going back to the suite. See you there," Ozge said, then she left.

***

"Baris."

Guldem stood by the window of her suite, holding a glass of wine. She called one of her assistants, Baris Atalar.

"Yes, Mrs. Guldem?"

"I need you to research everything about this girl, Ozge Gurel. Everything. I need to know where she lives, who her parents are, when and where did she meet Can. Now."

"Right away, Mrs. Guldem," Baris said.

This must be karma coming back to me now. The past coming back to me. I always knew this day would come. But not like this. Not this way. I thought I would handle this easily. But here it is, exploding like a bomb in front of our faces, Guldem thought to herself as she drank her red wine.

Guldem held an old picture of her and Kadir Gurel.

Kadir, is this your ghost trying to haunt me?

Flashback 35 years ago...

Kadir Gurel and Guldem Yaman were high school sweethearts. Being together for four years, Guldem thought nothing would ever tear them apart. Until college came, and they both went to different universities. Suddenly, Kadir went cold. He didn't call or text Guldem often anymore. Not even bothering to ask about her day when they do. Until Guldem went to his university one day, and saw him in the arms of Perran.

"Kadir?" Guldem said, crying.

"Guldem," Kadir said. "I didn't mean for you to find out this way."

"What does this mean?" Guldem said.

Kadir grabbed Guldem by the arm, leading her to the sidewalk where there were no people.

"I'm sorry, Guldem," Kadir said. "I've fallen in love with someone else. I'm breaking up with you."

"Kadir, please! Kadir!" Guldem kneeled down, hugging Kadir's legs, refusing to let him leave.

"Kadir, I love you. I love you, please don't leave me," Guldem begged.

Kadir finally let go from her grasp.

"Guldem, I'm sorry. Please forget about me. I'm happy with Perran," Kadir said.

"Miss Guldem, the baby died while it was in your stomach," the doctor said, holding Guldem's hand. "I'm so sorry but you got a miscarriage."

"No!" Guldem shouted, crying at the clinic.

"I never even got to meet my first born," Guldem said, as a tear fell from her eyes. She took another sip of her wine. "I remember cursing the day Perran ruined our relationship. The day she met Kadir. But it's like Fate wants to try me. Now, Ozge, is involved with my one and only son, Can."

She tore the picture apart, putting the pieces to a trash bin. She then lit her lighter and burned the pieces.

"Ozge Gurel shall never be with my son," Guldem said. "And I will do anything to hinder it."

[chaletnz]

Italy Day Nine: Amalfi/Salerno

I was woken up at 6am by the roommate I'd been so very considerate of last night turning the lights on, stomping around, coughing and spluttering, rustling around with plastic bags and coming in and out of the room. Once he finally left I couldn't get back to sleep in the uncomfortable bed so I lay there until 7.30 and then rushed to get up, have a shower and pack my bag. I ended up having to skip breakfast at the hostel so I could walk down to the port and catch the ferry to Amalfi. I wanted to be on the very first one at 8am because the next one would be in an hour and I thought that the earlier I could arrive there the better! On my brisk walk down to the port I frantically had my eyes peeled for an ATM, assuming that I'd need cash to buy my ferry ticket. Suddenly all the ATMs seemed to have disappeared but I finally had a stroke of luck and found a bank. The ATM inside took approximately 10 years to process the transaction and give me my measly €20. Cash fluttering in my hand I took off towards the port hoping I was going to the right place for the ferry to Amalfi and actually managed to find it without difficulty. I hopped aboard the ferry and climbed onto the upper deck which I had all to myself for the entire ride! I could take all the selfies I wanted! The views were incredible, both leaving Salerno and approaching Amalfi. As soon as I left the pier in Amalfi I felt like I was immediately surrounded by tourists. All the jeans and jackets worn in Salerno were replaced by swimsuits and flip flops despite the weather definitely not being above 20 degrees. They were on a sunny Italian vacation dammit! I began my self tour of Amalfi with a steep walk up the back streets to one side of the town, passing through lots of small narrow passageways, houses tucked away behind gates and oddly enough piles and piles of full water bottles everywhere. Do the locals get thirsty as they climb up so they all leave water everywhere for each other? As I neared the top of the hill I could only smell horse piss and then I saw the culprits, a man yelled at me to get out of his way as he led three horses down the steps I'd just walked up. Despite the horrendous smells the view was probably the most picturesque spot for taking the city shots of Amalfi (if the postcards for sale are anything to go by!). I ended up at the cinema and then backtracked down the one main road where all of the cafes, shops and restaurants seemed to be. I paid a visit to the tourist information desk to get the local recommendation for the best coffee because I hadn't seen any of the Italian style coffee bars here that have featured in all the other places I've visited. The lady working there told me she drinks her coffee at Andrea Pansa in the main square and was even so kind to explain in her broken English where I could find it. I was too polite to interrupt her but I thought to myself that anyone who had ever walked down the main road even just once would know where it is! Inside the cafe it was crowded at the bar and the tables were almost empty, seemingly only for those who wanted to pay the extra to be seen sitting there. I ordered a takeaway cappuccino and a raspberry filled croissant and stood back to wait for it. They appeared to forget all about making my coffee because I had to ask for it once the bar emptied and the baristas were enjoying their own espresso shot while eyeballing me still waiting. I don't like to complain (or do I...?) but this was simultaneously the worst and the most expensive coffee I'd had in Italy. I took it with the croissant to the beach where I sat to eat my breakfast among the tourist crowds. After eating I walked up and down the main street twice more and decided I was already bored after two hours in Amalfi. I went into the local Tabacchi and bought a bus ticket and a few postcards and headed back to Salerno. In the hostel when I'd chatted to Felicia the Dutch receptionist she'd told me to only take the bus one way because you need a very strong stomach. I'd forgotten her comments immediately as I couldn't remember the last time I'd ever been carsick but boy was she right. The road was windy and narrow the entire time and I think I lasted about ten minutes before I felt like I needed to get off and throw up. But it lasted an hour! The other passengers all looked as queasy as I felt, wishing the bus onwards faster as we ended up trapped multiple times on some very narrow stretches of road. One point was particularly bad as it was so tight the mirror had been smashed out and there was no way to see oncoming traffic so the driver was constantly honking at every corner to announce his hurtling presence. I contemplated getting off one small village earlier as Felicia had also said it would be walkable back to the hostel from there but I couldn't be bothered since I was feeling so ill. I hopped off at the beach and went to sit in the sun for a while until I felt better then I walked back to the hostel and sat on the roof balcony for a while to update my blog since the wifi was working great! After preparing a few blog posts I was feeling peckish but not in the mood for more takeaway food like pizza so I was checking all the supermarkets for a chicken sandwich or something but there weren't any that looked at all appetizing. I passed a smoothie shop and thought "yes that will be great!" until I saw the selection of fruits and vegetables looking very miserable in their cabinet. Slowly time was getting away on me and I was beginning to get really hungry to where I just took the next available option which was a burger, fries and Fanta meal. The idea was to sustain myself until I reached Bari as it seemed like it could be a long journey! The first leg was back to Napoli where I had a very long wait in the bus terminal because I was afraid of being late and missing the only bus of the day, but I spent the hour sitting near the entrance and people watching. There were a lot of dodgy people and beggars and a man who was annoying his dog in front of everyone almost like a show. Before getting on the bus I was hoping to refill my water bottle so I came up with the brilliant plan to go into the little cafe, get a macchiato and ask him to fill my water bottle up too. Well the macchiato part went smoothly but the water bottle could not be filled for unknown reasons so I had to make do with my quarter left. Finally I shoved my way onto the bus the Israeli way (which actually happens to be similar to the Italian way) and enjoyed watching all the idiot drivers get themselves stuck together in a circle on the roundabout. They were all shouting out their windows and flailing their arms about in madness. One guy was so irate he was flashing his lights but he was trapped because the girl in front wasn't going anywhere and he was already on top of her bumper! Further down the road once we finally got through the roundabout we saw a police car flashing away unable to move. And the drivers had formed a third lane on our side of the road to try and cut in front of everyone stuck at the roundabout. I tried to relax but was finding myself distracted by the girl sitting beside me who was taking Instagram photos of her book instead of actually reading it. At long last I arrived in Bari and checked into my hostel at around midnight. The receptionist Francesco was playing an ominous soundtrack that gave the hostel a bit of a creepy feel but it was clean and comfortable so I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow!

#Italy #Amalfi #Salerno

[deathbyvalentine]

Post DuD Drabbles

The chapel was still, and quiet, and after entering, so was Cal’s mind. They wondered what the windows would look like illuminated by sun. They made their way to the altar deliberately, their footsteps barely making a sound. They were used to feeling invisible, but here they felt seen. 

They knelt on the cold metal, ignoring the pricks of hurt that shot up through their bones. After coming here for several days, their knees were purple with bruises, but still they knelt. 

“Ave Imperator. Ave Omnissiah.” Their voice did not even slightly fill the space, but the words hung there for a moment, making the air tremble. Their prayers had taken a turn for the intimate, and sometimes, all their prayers were silent, as how lovers did not always need to speak in each other’s company. It was comfortable, their head bowed, their hands resting in the aquilla. 

This was where they belonged. Here, in awe, litanies and poems tracing familiar paths through their mind with little guidance. They found solace in this reverence. Submitting wholeheartedly to a being greater than yourself, greater than anything at all. They were enthralled, connected, trapped, yes, but freer still through the bond they had cultivated. 

They felt loved. And they returned that love so fiercely it robbed them of breath. How could they possibly have thought anything else mattered? Baris, their petty hatred of tech priests, their frustration with so many things - all of it faded into nothingness with the work they had ahead of them. The golden light that flooded their mind satisfied them as food, and air, and touch could not.

It turned out peace was knowing your path.

Not A Person

Personhood was a funny thing. Did they not have a body? Hands, a mind? Did they not feel, and hurt, and want? Cal (as much as they hated to acknowledge it, in the business of denying themselves) was a thing of wanting. And yet they were not a person - they were a thing. They held no rights, no property, no ability to marry or reproduce or freedom. 

As was right. A bomb may smile and wave, but they were still a weapon. And Cal was a weapon who never even intended harm. A weapon disguised as a tool. What rights should they have when their mere existence endangered everyone around them? By endangering real people, they had forfeited their rights.

And yet.

A treacherous, traitorous whisper had asked if others had the right to treat someone bound to the God-Emperor themself with such disdain, such disgust. This whisper was easily ignored, but not easily banished. 

Feelings Without Memories

Looking at him made them sad. It was a curious fact. Every time he breached their line of vision, their chest felt like it was so full of grief as to crack. They felt tears drip down their face from long unused tear ducts, and touched fingertips to the salt they found their. They did not know why they were crying. They did not know why their body shook like a sail in a storm. They did not know why they wanted to scream until their throat tore.

The skitarrii was dispassionate. Their gaze never lingered. Cal seemed profoundly uninteresting to them. And why not? The admech never cared for psykers beyond the distaste for their mutated flesh. They questioned why it was that their near-sense tracked him obsessively, always hyper aware of where he was. They found themselves able to picture him clearly, even when he wasn’t in sensing distance. This was peculiar - Cal’s memory had never been very reliable, but here the details were, carved into their mind.

And here the emotions were too, jumbled and confusing, and all jagged edges that cut. They felt not only like prey, that was usual and bearable, but they felt wounded, vulnerable. Don’t push. Commissar White had warned them against pushing too hard, against upsetting themselves. To seek understanding was to seek punishment after all.  They would stop wondering why every time they approached the creature of flesh and steel, they could hear the sound of the sea.

“I won’t tell a soul.”

Cal remembered nothing but a bang before the screaming started. They knew nothing of their own wickedness before it, of tricks and schemes and joy in being powerful for the first time in what seemed to be destined to be a short and miserable life. Their discovery had been over in a moment, from secrecy to exposure in the heat of a second. And then, the black ships. And then, the burning, the divinity. It was righteous, it was just, and they couldn’t let it happen to this psyker. 

They sought them out with their hands, desperately trying to drain the energy but it was too much, too fast, it slipped through their fingers like sand. The most they could do was make it a little softer, something that would level a tree not a village. They lost control together, and afterwards, found their feet together. 

What they ought to do is find the first inquisition member they could, handed them over. They didn’t know why they didn’t. Why they found themselves shushing them gently, guiding them back to the light of the huts, making promises they may not be able to keep.

They couldn’t wish the black ships on anyone. Not even a filthy psyker.

Rifle

Somethings, apparently, you just did not forget. Their hands had the memory even if their mind did not. Their hands traced along the barrel, their lips murmuring consolations and promises. The rifle was a flighty one, prone to having a quick temper and a difficult disposition. It had been at the back of the Confidence’s armoury, forgotten by some admech visitor. Cal had fallen in love instantly, and apparently so had the rifle. It worked for nobody else. They sat, carefully, bonding with it. They had no incense or candles, but it was a ritual all the same. 

It took them a moment to realise a magos was watching. They froze, their mind flickering through all the things they could have done wrong, before remembering there was no possible way they could have. He, it, put it’s hands out expectantly, and instantly Cal handed it over, ignoring the pang it caused. You did not deny a tech priest access to a machine. Not even one that felt like an extension of yourself.

They watched it carefully, as it’s hands traced the same patterns their own had. For a moment, they couldn’t find it within their own heart to despise it. Tenderness could be found in the oddest of places, like within a rifle. When it was handed back to them, Cal cradled it against their chest. They could feel the eyes of the magos on them, and could feel the tacit approval. It almost triggered a prickle of defiance - they did not need approval, not from a cog-lover, not from anyone but their own superiors. Almost. Instead, a glimmer of respect took root. 

Some things, you just did not forget.

“You can do this.”

The sun was shining, and the grass whispered around them. Trees swayed, birds chirped. This was paradise. Paradise soon to be corrupted perhaps, but paradise all the same. Oh, and it was confusing of course, those feelings that had bloomed in Cal’s chest like poisonous flowers. If the Imperium was right, and just, then why would colonising this place condemn it to ruin. A thought had started to form, one about the god-emperor’s wishes versus what actually occurred, but trying to capture it was trying to capture an image in water.

So they stopped trying, and merely enjoyed the feeling of peace settling across them, and the hand in theirs. Cal hated being touched - it amplified all the noise and emotion in the other person’s head. Additionally, it was the fact they so rarely had a choice about it. When you were property, nobody particularly thought to ask about things such as medical treatment, being hauled off the floor, or even how to comfort you. But this, this was something they had allowed. Something they had wanted. Remy hadn’t pushed or assumed.

So they held hands, and swapped thoughts, and stories. And later, they skipped stones by the reflection of the lake, and Cal laughed and laughed for the first time they could remember in so long. 

This, this is what they wanted. They wanted to live in a place with peace, and with thinking. With kindness, with compassion. They would be safe here - nobody would punish them for the taint that lay in their blood. They would learn how to become a Guardian, and they would cast away their past fully, no longer haunted by ghosts that clung to them no matter how hard they tried. They would find the purity that had evaded them.

And even as they accepted their wants, they knew they couldn’t have it. They were a different person to who they were even this morning. The God Emperor wanted them to follow their path, and their path was not here where they felt safe. They knew what the Warden would say to that. They knew. 

But for the first time, as their palms began bleeding, they knew something else too. They knew that they were capable. They had faith, not only in the love of the Emperor, but in themselves. They could do this.

“Would you kindly hate me?”

The opiates were still in their system as they stumbled back to base camp. The doctor had tricked them - he had no wounds at all, only the painkillers pumping around his blood, and Cal had taken them as if they were their own. And worse, still, there was a pressure in the back of their head, and growing. 

The warp. 

It was not something that could be ignored. Not ever. It was a needy force, wrapping it’s fingers around your chin, and forcing you to look it in the face. During the battle, they had been reckless with their abilities, so terrified of losing the skit, they had stunned more nameless enemies than they had intended to. They had taken the power for granted, and now they were going to pay. They idly touched their face as they dropped their gun and bag on the porch, wondering if the blood would start flowing soon. 

They walked up the hill a little, peacefully, turning to look at the lights of the cabin. People were painted in darkness, in silhouette, nothing but shapes whispering in the clearing. 

Someone shifted beside them, like their gravitational field had been disrupted. And another, and another, flowing out like a stone dropped in a pond. Cal paused, uncertain. 

“Filthy fucking witch.” 

The words had more force than a slap. Cal blinked, confused, and then with dawning horror realised the pressure behind their sockets had alleviated. The warp was gone, and had infected those around it. Surrounding them was a group of people with auras of hostility, of hate, of violence, all centering on themselves. It was a nightmare. 

An actual nightmare - in their dreams they heard the screaming of a crowd. Now, there were no screams, but there was disgust, horror, hatred. More insults, more venom, more spitting. They took a step back. And another. Out the corner of the eye, they saw a silhouette head perk up, look around him. The Warden’s conversation ceased as his brow furrowed in confusion. 

A noise now, as a knife was draw, and this, this is what that animal fear had been preparing them for. Panic flooded every part of their being, harsh and quick and sharp, and they took a step backwards as more weapons were draw and -

and they fell. 

The Warden and the Commissar and Remy were moving too, as they scrabbled back up the hill on their hands and back, forming a wall between them and what was rapidly becoming a mob. And then the murderess, the forgiven child hauling them to their feet, and uttering one word

“Run.”

And run they did, that familiar refrain pounding away with every heartbeat; “if they catch you, they will kill you, but first they must catch you.”

Trust

Cal did not only not trust easily, they did not trust. It was not a conscious choice. It was borne of the deep-seated belief that everybody wished them harm, and even if they did not currently, one day they would. This hypothesis had not been wrong - the warp could taint even the friendliest of people, and then all their darkest, truest thoughts would come spilling out. 

Of course, this lead to a profound loneliness, an exchange of company for safety. They spent most of their time on their own - in their chambers, in the astropath chamber, walking in some of the viewing galleries. The stars were a comfort, sensing their light touching the ship, knowing that a universe of people were just a astropathic message away. The irony of a thing built for communication being lonely did not escape them. 

Perhaps the problem was their body remembered having a second half, even if they did not. You would not know you were lonely if you had always been so, after all. Pain was only pain if you knew you were feeling it. For this to feel so crystal clear, somewhere along the way, they must have not been so. Not that they knew this. All they knew was as much as they appreciated the stars, they were just as aware of the spaces inbetween.

Handshake

They hadn’t realised right away, what the itching of their palms could mean. The itching that transformed into a burning, before finally becoming pain. They only became fully aware of it when they felt the blood sliding down the fingertips to set up a steady drip-dripping of scarlet. They peeked underneath their hand wraps - and a terror only rivalled by it’s friend hope appeared. Someone else saw, and grasped Cal by the shoulders, steering them up the hill. “Talk to the missionary.”

The one they had prayed with this morning, as he wept over the corruption of paradise. They had knelt together on the rotting leaves and in the soft quiet. They had watched him place his fingers near the flickering flame of the red candle, wincing as he recited what he needed to recite. Cal realised, dimly, they did not know his name, as someone pushed them towards him.

He turned at the sound of Cal calling, nothing but polite confusion written across his face. And then. 

And then he caught sight of their hands, the dripping blood, the holes bore through the direct center of their palms. This, this was the moment. This would decide if they were a heretic or... something else. Cal dare not think the words flickering through their mind, they were too big, too terrifying. They barely dared breathe as they watched him, half hope, half fear. But slowly, slowly like the sun breaking over the horizon, a smile broke across his face. It was pure in a way Cal was unused to - not only was it not full of malice, it was holy.

The priest took their hand, and enclosed it in his own, causing a lightning bolt of pain to shoot up their own, and make them wince. But the pain was irrelevant, really. It was nothing. What mattered was the golden light flooding their soul, and the fact they had found themselves smiling back. 

“Catch them.”

“I won’t fall.” Cal replied, in a tone that was meant to be defiant but in all likelihood probably came out a little childishly. The Warden raised an eyebrow. Cal frowned back, and raised their fingers in a question. He nodded, moving his legs so they could step forward, and gently, gently touch his temples. Touch wasn’t necessary, but oh, did it help. 

 It was easy to find the golden rope. It dominated almost everything else around it, lighting up certain corners of his mind with it’s glow. It was familiar - not like a home, or an object, but like the face of a lover. Cal knew this light, knew this feeling, and when they finally connected to it, knew that rush. They found it easy to follow it to Terra, they had started to suspect after all. 

They didn’t expect to hear his voice. They didn’t expect him to not only remember who they were, but to have noted them. They were not a scarcely recalled psyker in a wave of billions. He had a path for them. A destiny. And yes, also he was politely asking for them to leave this one alone, he had his own path too, but that faded slightly in the shadow of what they had just been told. They whipped their hands back from Armand’s temples as soon as they were told to, and didn’t fall.

Their breath rose and fell in their heaving chest as they gazed out at the lake, the setting sun painting it the colour of the divine. Armand watched them, carefully, a grin slowly spreading on his face, as Cal turned back, almost accusingly. Words failed them for a second, as they tried to scrabble for anything coherent. In the end, they didn’t have to. The Warden spoke first. 

“Right?”

Slowly, their palms began to burn.

Leaving

The words of the angels were still ringing in their ears. They had spoken to them, directly, without fear, and had not suffered. They had not been punished. They had been granted information that was making their mind hurt, but that could wait. There was a simple job waiting for them now, one they both believed in and desperately wanted to move along.

They wandered through the gathered throng, several times trying to speak and nobody hearing them. Their voice was not strong enough. Their first real task, their first real message, and they couldn’t even get someone to pause to listen to them. And then, someone much taller and bigger, with a kind face, saw their distress, and in an instant, had managed to put them on a bench. 

Gradually, a wave of quiet spread, the noise transforming into expectant faces. Cal swallowed. They weren’t used to this. They kept to the safe safe shadows, where if they couldn’t be seen, they couldn’t be hurt. For so long they had assumed the only goal they would need, the only motivation was survival. But that was over. They couldn’t exist on nothing but pure animal fear anymore. They wanted more. They needed more. And the Emperor expected more. 

So, for the first time, they spoke to an audience. Their voice had the thrill of a hymn, and it was like Cal was hearing themselves for the first time. This wasn’t them, not really, this was somebody else, somebody with worth. And nothing surprised them more than their final words.

“And if you don’t obey, it will not only be the angels that make you suffer.” They found they rather meant it.

The Warden

Cal found themselves sensing his hands mostly. They were expressive, but controlled. They never seemed to perform an action he hadn’t thought about. With a quick check, Cal could tell in a moment if he was inviting openness, or closing himself off. They weren’t sure if anybody else had realised this - evidently few had, if the unproductive conversations were anything to go by.

Cal wondered how they would feel, if a group of foreigners came to their planet to make it their own, and destroy the culture with the precision of both a scapel and a sledgehammer. Would they see the Imperium only wished to help? Or would they fight? Could both things be true at once? It was easier not to think, not to wonder, just accept.

Not many parts of him seemed soft. His stance was often set, especially when talking in groups. But his eyes may have been the kindest Cal had ever seen, and he observed everyone with a distance only the astropaths seemed to have closed. 

His touch did not make them flinch.

Healing

“By the rights and power the Emperor has given to me, I lay my hands on you, and remove your wounds. I vow to save those I can save, and remember those I cannot. I move through him, and I do his work, and all I do is for him. I take your wounds, and make them my own.”

It’s a lie when people say you can get used to pain. Each iteration of pain is new, unique. The burning of their eyes was different to the flaying of their back to the ache of stigmata. When blood starting pouring from their ears, the pressure they felt, the pain, if it happened a hundred times, a thousand, they would still have screamed.

They did it because it was right. They did it because their life was not worth more than anybody else’s. They did it because they had to. Their power was theirs for a reason. It was granted to be used. It would be an insult to the Emperor to refuse.

Pain could not be gotten used to. But it could be accepted. It could be woven into your life as part of the fabric. If you stopped being afraid of it, well, you could do anything. Nothing could touch you. The same rules applied to death. Once you stopped fearing it, you could be free.

Cal had been scared all their life of being punished for the taint in their blood. Now, the fear had dissipated. Nothing but a memory in the back of their mind, not even important enough to be locked away. They were done for apologising for being born - if they were favoured by the God Emperor, what right had anyone else to judge them? These thoughts were scary, new, revolutionary. They would wait to examine them, like an anticipated present.

For now, they had work to do.

#death unto darkness #larp #prose #drabbles #prompts

[inkingthewild]

Forsaken Legacy Chapter 3: Beginnings

read this on ao3 or ff.net

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Link stared blankly at the boy – or Ganondorf, since he had now revealed his name.

“Ga-non-dorf?” he repeated, pronouncing the unfamiliar word carefully. The other nodded with the same serious expression.

Ganondorf was definitely a foreign name, although he couldn’t pinpoint exactly where it originated from. Pronouncing it in its entirety gave off a grand, even regal, air. It was different, and sat strangely on the tongue, but somehow it seemed to fit him perfectly.

Ganondorf continued to observe him, his eyes boring into Link’s and holding far more scrutiny than he had ever encountered from anyone before – even from the most traditional of elders. His gaze was clear, yet it unsettled Link; causing his insides to squirm in discomfort.

It was as if he was issuing him a challenge; daring him to make fun out of his name. Link had no intention to do so; the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind until he became aware of Ganondorf’s stare. He wryly wondered how he was going to not mess up Ganondorf’s name when he talked to him. It was just so uncommon… Maybe if he practised in front of the mirror? But then again, someone might hear him, and that would definitely be awkward…

“Do you mind if I call you Ganon?” Link blurted out, without thinking his words through.

Immediately he shot up in his seat and cursed himself for making such a drastic move. What was he thinking? Here was a boy he had known for ten minutes, a boy who possibly might have become his friend, and he went and insulted him as soon as he met him. Ganondorf looked taken aback at Link’s suggestion, causing him to panic and hastily try to take back his words.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to! I’m sorry I even asked, it was probably really rude…”

“No… It’s fine.” Ganon said slowly. “I was only surprised. No one’s ever called me Ganon before.”

Link exhaled, relieved. “That’s… good. I thought I annoyed you for a bit.”

He rose, grabbing a pack of cards from the bedside drawer as he went. “I’ve got cards,” he explained, offering half the pack to Ganon, “so we don’t get bored.” He decided to ignore his trembling fingers and Ganon’s quizzical look.

Ganon looked at the pack, and for a split second Link was sure he had seen flashes of an expression flit across his face. It didn’t look like a smile - not a proper smile, anyway - but it wasn’t his default stoic expression either. Whatever victory Link was about to celebrate was replaced, however, by something far worse.

“That’s nice of you,” Ganon agreed, “but I don’t know how to play cards.”

Link stopped, and stared.

“You’ve… never played cards?”

Ganon shook his head.

A lengthy, palpable silence followed his statement, punctuated only by the pattering of the rain on the windows. Link felt rather than saw his jaw drop, followed by his eyes physically widening in slow motion. Ganon, for his part, looked wholly unconcerned, which had to be a crime in itself. The tension was like ice - of the red, unbreakable kind - until Link could handle it no longer and finally exploded in a burst of outrage.

“What do you mean you’ve never played cards?!”

“I just never did! I never had any!” Ganon defended hotly. He crossed his arms and looked away.

“You’re joking, right?” Shock reverberated through Link in deafening waves. How could one not have played cards, possibly the best game in the entirety of Hyrule?

Ganon didn’t respond. Sensing a heavy burden settle upon him, Link squared his shoulders, resolute. No one in Myrrha didn’t know how to play cards. No one in Hyrule didn’t know how to play cards! He felt then a little like his father, rising up to his duty as a knight - perhaps not as treacherous, but serious nonetheless.

“I’m teaching you.” he said firmly. “How have you never played? You can’t just… live in Hyrule and not have played cards!”

Ganon rolled his eyes and muttered, “I’ve seen people play. It’s not that great.”

That was it. Link stood, his mouth curving into a frown, and gave Ganon the sternest expression he could muster.

“I’m going to change your mind. When we’re finished, you’re going to love cards.” He shuffled until he was directly face to face with Ganon, and noticed with a start that Ganon had shed his sullen glare for an intrigued one. Inwardly he glowed, tallying his first victory away in his mind. He had a feeling that he had succeeded in his mission to get Ganon to open up to them, even if it was just a little and, so far, only to Link.

“First, you’ve heard of Snap, right? You need to get two cards that look the same, but it’s a lot harder than it sounds…”

Over the next few days, Ganon recovered, albeit slowly. Link kept him company throughout the day and long into the night, even foregoing his usual free time to try and squeeze a sentence or two out of the other. He had to admit, it was nice to have someone to talk to; despite said someone being utterly soundless and only talking when asked a question. It was clear that whatever happened in the woods had had an immense effect on Ganon, and Link sometimes wondered what he had been like before he was so savagely hurt.

It was sad that Ganon wasn’t the same around his parents. He averted his eyes and became more reserved whenever his parents checked in on him, like the snuffing out of a candle after a nasty gust of wind. This cold demeanour didn’t stop with just the two of them, but also extended to the people in the village who had come to greet the ‘newcomer’, as they called him. Link couldn’t help but notice that Ganon only went completely rigid and silent around the adults. He was much more relaxed with the kids that so often begged Link to show them how to fish; sometimes he even joined in with them. His behaviour was strange, but there wasn’t much Link could do about it without snooping.

His parents were a little hurt by Ganon’s unfriendliness, but they brushed it off and continued to care for the both of them as they had been doing. Link didn’t press Ganon, in fear of triggering a reaction like he had the first time they had talked. It had sent off a memory that he didn’t want to make Ganon experience again. Their relationship was steadily improving, and he didn’t want to ruin it as soon as it had started.

Weeks later, Ganon had finally been deemed fit to sit outside for a little while, mainly to catch some fresh air. Link had wasted no time in dragging him into their garden, where an impressive variety of plants waved lazily in the summer breeze. Link flopped into the shadow of their apple tree and patted the grass in a sluggish effort to get Ganon to lie down next to him. Slowly, Ganon knelt down and rested his hands on the floor, leaning back on them as he tipped back his face to meet the glaring sun.

“Sure is hot today, isn’t it?” Link sighed, shifting to get more comfortable under the sweltering heat. Ganon merely grunted; an affirmation that he had heard, and was listening. He rarely initiated conversation, so Link ploughed on.

“Last year, it was even hotter. I couldn’t even sit still in one place, so I kept wandering from house to house, talking to every kid as I passed.” Link smiled at the memory. “I was actually only walking around for the shade, and water, but I never got any water in the end because everyone had already drank their own.”

To his delight, Ganon gave a snort. “I bet you looked funny.”

“Hey! I looked normal!” Link swatted Ganon’s shoulder. “No one thought I was weird, but that was probably because everyone was feeling the heat too.”

Ganon raised one eyebrow before looking skywards to the tree branches, where the sunlight struggled to push through the thickets. “It’s a good thing you have this tree here, huh.”

“We planted it ages ago. It didn’t sprout for a long time, but when I was seven it really began to grow. Sometimes I pick the apples, so Mum gets to make apple pie from them.”

If Ganon noticed the collective way he called his mother, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he gave a heavy sigh and looked down at the ground, where the light dappled the grass and weaved through the leaves.

“Back home, it was always hot.” he murmured. “It was much hotter than it is here.”

Suddenly, Link was alert, all trace of drowsiness gone in span of a sentence. His surroundings ground to a stuttering halt, and the twittering sounds of the wildlife became muted. This was the first time Ganon had mentioned his home by himself, which surely meant something had changed. Maybe it was Link’s imagining, but he thought he noticed a hint of uncertainty behind Ganon’s voice; almost as if he wanted to say something, but didn’t know how to go about it. Link turned his full attention onto him.

Ganon studied Link’s reaction from his leaning position, eyes holding his own with a startling tiredness. “I suppose you want to know about where I come from.”

Link paused, and considered his words. Admittedly he was curious, but at the same time he didn’t want to scare Ganon off; or worse, make it seem as if he was interested in how Ganon had gotten to the forest in such a way. Ganon had gotten so triggered at the past mention of his home, and it had been terrible to watch. Link really didn’t want him to go through the same thing again.

“Not if you don’t want to.” he eventually answered. The underlying reassurance went unspoken.

Ganon wavered. He closed his eyes and inhaled softly, as if collecting his thoughts. Link waited patiently for him to say something.

“I was born in Gerudo Citadel, out in the desert.” he began at last. “I never knew my parents, and I don’t remember much from when I was small, but I do remember moving to an orphanage on the outskirts of the citadel, in Bari Village. I grew up there with a dozen or so other girls and an old woman, who cared for us as if we were her own.

"In time, I started to think of the girls as my sisters, and the woman as my mother. We were all very close, and I was… happy.” Ganon stopped for a bit, before his composure darkened. Link continued to wait in anticipation, digesting the barrage of new information all at once. A sense of foreboding settled over the two, but Link had no idea what was behind it.

It was an eternity before Ganon continued. He looked up to stare directly into Link’s eyes, his own emptied of any emotion, causing a cold pit of dread to pool in Link’s stomach. His eyes, terribly harrowing and sorrowful, were enough to make Link pause and reconsider his decision to listen to his past. Ganon swallowed thickly before averting his eyes.

“One day, a group of bandits broke in, stole our gold and burned the house down.”

Link clapped a hand quickly over his mouth to stifle his horror. Time itself seemed to slow as he tried to comprehend what Ganon had just told him. Whatever he had been expecting to hear, it hadn’t been this.

Bandits - although rare in these more peaceful times of Hyrule - were ruthless, bloodthirsty and unfortunately rather well-organised. They usually raided houses for gold, but countless tales told of their twisted glee after witnessing the fates of their helpless victims. As Link tried to process his haunting tale, Ganon dropped his gaze and turned away.

Suddenly, all of Ganon’s reservations around older people made sense.

“I… I’m sorry,” Link finished lamely.

'Sorry’ didn’t even cut it. The thin apology barely scratched the surface for the sadness Link felt for Ganon. To have a loving family ripped away in an instant… if Link lost his mother and father, he was sure he would go insane just from the grief alone. It was unthinkable, and he could only begin to imagine what it must’ve been like for Ganon.

'Sorry’ by itself had no impact, and Link knew as much.

“I was the only one to survive, so I fled the village and ran into mainland Hyrule. I hoped to find help somewhere, but I guess I wasn’t strong enough to make it by myself.”

There was a hard bitterness to his voice when he spoke of his escape, leaving Link anxious and feeling utterly useless. He could see no way to comfort Ganon without making it seem as if he were pitying him, and Ganon didn’t seem like the type of person who would appreciate overbearing sympathy.

He had only one idea: but it was equal parts risky and unpredictable. Half of him didn’t care whether Ganon resented him for it, while the other half screamed and hesitated with worry whenever Ganon gazed at him with those empty eyes. It was a dangerous idea and could possibly lead to the breaking of their unsteady friendship. Besides, what if Ganon didn’t accept?

Deep down Link knew that, if he didn’t ask Ganon now, he wouldn’t be able to find another opportunity in the future.

“You could stay here.” Link coughed, before he could chicken out. “With us, I mean.”

Ganon gave him a dubious look. His answer was immediate.

“I can’t impose. I need to find my own way somehow.”

With a plummeting heart, Link tried again. “I mean it. You can’t just leave now! It’s too dangerous out there!”

He didn’t add how much fun, and how much better life was now that Ganon was in it, or how much he wanted to help Ganon after hearing his unhappy tale. Desperation began to claw its way into his heart.

“I can’t be a burden, Link. I’m sorry, but I can’t.” With those last echoing words, Ganon swiftly leapt to his feet and stalked away into the dense bushes, no doubt to be alone with his thoughts again.

Link watched him go, unmoving, but internally his brain was shouting at him to stop Ganon, however you can! He knew it was unsafe to travel alone outside and without any proper training. However competent Ganon thought he was, a person who had lost everyone couldn’t cope all by themselves for too long.

Put simply, Link didn’t want Ganon to suffer by himself. He supposed that he felt this way because of lingering guilt, but still; if he could find a way to stop Ganon from leaving, then he would.

His mother looked up from her book as he entered the room a week later, a beaming smile spread across her face as always. She gestured for Link to sit down beside her, which he gratefully did, and held up the cover for him to see.

“Tales of Time,” she explained. “It used to be your favourite when you were younger. I found it under the bed when I was looking for something, and I thought I should have a read again, for old time’s sake.”

Link smiled, a little wistful. “I remember wanting to be like the hero,” he recalled. “It seems a bit silly now, though. I mean, I’m pretty sure the magical ocarina doesn’t exist anymore, or time travel.”

“Well, you never know. Some things are just hidden until it’s the right time to discover them. The Hero of Time only properly used the ocarina after he had slept for seven years, after all.”

Link fell silent, thinking back on his younger days. Life had seemed so much more straightforward with his set routine: eat, play, sleep and repeat. Now, with the sudden threat of dangers and pain in the world, things were a lot more complicated. The future was decidedly clouded, and unfogging it proved much more difficult than how the hero in the stories managed to do it.

Ganon’s actions crept back into Link’s mind, as they often did. He found that his words were stuck revolving around his head, refusing to leave him alone and constantly feeding upon his thoughts. Link had wracked his brains for any idea that could help. He had come up with nothing.

“Ganon wants to leave.” he burst out. He fiddled with the fabric of his tunic as he spoke. “He says he doesn’t want to impose, or something.”

He glanced up at his mother to find a surprised, a perhaps a little incredulous, expression. Tales was forgotten and laid upon her lap as she furrowed her brows at his words.

“Where does he mean to go?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. I told him that he has to stay, that we want him here, but I don’t think he listened. He started talking to me about his village, before. It… wasn’t very nice.”

“I see.” She didn’t speak for a while after that, gazing into the distance as if in a trance. Link watched with apprehension.

Then, her mouth gradually began to curve upwards, crinkling at the corners and making her smile lines more noticeable. She leapt up, placed the book on the table and turned to Link with a crooked smile.

“He still doesn’t like us, does he? Your father and I, I mean.”

Link stumbled as he hurriedly got up and followed her to where she had headed to the kitchen. “I wouldn’t put it like that… He does like you, it’s just… He’s a bit…”

“Don’t worry, I know.” she laughed. “Here. Come back after a bit,” she disappeared into the larder, “and give him some apple pie.”

Link nearly crashed into her back in his surprise. He looked up at her, flabbergasted. “What’s apple pie going to do?”

She patted his cheek, and reached up to the cupboard where the spices were kept. “Mother’s intuition!” she called over her shoulder, before ushering him out of the kitchen and into the hallway. Link was left thoroughly confused – really, what was apple pie going to do? Would apples actually change Ganon’s mind? Never before had his mother suggested such a thing, especially when it came to people’s actions and emotions.

It was a crazy idea, but it was better than sitting around and doing nothing. Despite her curious behaviour, Link believed in his mother all the same. He waited.

A few hours later, with a warm, fruity package pressed into his hands, Link found himself pacing the hallway outside Ganon’s room. He wasn’t scared, as such; he was honestly more nervous than afraid. He still had no idea how apple pie could persuade Ganon to stay with them by itself, but he supposed his mother knew what she was doing. After all, she had seemed quite positive as she cooked, whistling away in the kitchen and humming softly as she chopped the apples.

Hoping for the best, Link carefully pushed open the door with his free hand, the pie occupying the other.

Inside, Ganon was staring up at the ceiling with a melancholy expression – typical. Link fought the urge to ask him how he was feeling. Instead, he focused on the task at hand.

“Hey.” he said brightly. “Mum made you something. You might want to take a look.”

To his amusement, Ganon immediately dropped his gaze from the ceiling and rolled over to face him. He eyed the package with suspicion, but didn’t refuse it when Link offered it to him. Though he handled it tentatively between his fingers, there was no trace of a negative response. It was satisfying to see Ganon actually react to something rather than stay passive, as he did before.

He inhaled softly with surprise as he peeled away the wrapping. Link waited with bated breath as he lifted a tiny piece and nibbled at its edges.

Hours seem to pass as he chewed, slowly at first, before properly working through the layers of pastry. From painful experience, Link knew how long it was before someone’s teeth could free itself from the sticky clutches of his mother’s apple pie. It took time to get used to.

“Well?” Link asked, nervous. “What d'you think?”

Ganon chewed thoroughly. He swallowed, and then took another piece. Link waited, and hoped.

“It’s -,” he managed between bites, and Link’s spirits began to lift, “really…good… actually…”

Link fist-pumped the air and cheered, forgetting for a moment the circumstances in which he was in, before hastily lowering his arm as Ganon gave him a knowing smile. “Well,” he said, “it’s obviously good. Mum made it. Everything she makes is good.”

“I agree.” Ganon nodded. Link smiled, and added Ganon’s affirmation onto his slowly-growing Make-Ganon-Smile victory list.

Ganon paused for a moment as he devoured the rest of the pie, before looking up to meet Link’s eyes with a guilty expression.

“I’ve been thinking about what I said earlier, and…” he trailed off slowly, but continued at Link’s encouraging gestures, “I think… perhaps, I wouldn’t mind.”

Link felt a huge grin starting to spread across his face. “Wouldn’t mind what?”

Ganon gave him a dry, yet slightly embarrassed look. “Don’t make me say it.”

“Say what?”

“You know what!”

Afterwards, Link realised that perhaps his taunting really had gotten them somewhere. His ribs felt as if they had been thrown into Death Mountain Crater after the thumping he had been subjected to, but he discovered with a jolt that he didn’t really care. Ganon’s smiles were becoming a lot more frequent, and that was enough for him.

“You know,” he giggled, wiping a tear from his eye, “you should talk to my parents. Our parents. They still don’t understand why you ignore them.”

At this, Ganon instantly sobered, and looked down with a crestfallen expression. “I’ve been meaning to apologise for a while now, but I couldn’t really put it into words without sounding like… well, like an idiot.”

Link shuffled until he sat shoulder to shoulder with Ganon. It was a little uncomfortable against the stiff headboard, but he took no notice. “Is it because of… those bandits?” he asked softly.

Ganon stiffened at his words, causing Link to panic again, but his alarm soon vanished when Ganon relaxed. “…Partly,” he murmured, “but also because… every single person I asked for help while I was running away from the orphanage turned me away. No one offered me help, which is why I guess I’m a little… bitter, towards adults. They saw a desperate Gerudo child, yet they didn’t give me the time of day. I hated it.”

Sympathy tugged on Link’s heartstrings like the strum of a harp. Ganon’s past was becoming more tragic with every piece of information he revealed, and Link’s heart ached as he tried to understand how Ganon had managed to cope through it all. His inner strength truly was incredible.

“Ours aren’t like that.” Link said softly.

“I know, I know. Like I said, I sound a little stupid. I know all adults aren’t like that, but whenever I see one I keep thinking of what those bandits did, and what the people along the way didn’t do, and I just get so… angry.”

Ganon sighed, before turning to Link once again. “I still want to apologise to your parents, though. They’ve been kind to me, but I’ve been nothing but rude. It’s not right.”

Link nudged him. “Our parents,” he reminded once again. “If you’re going to live here, you can’t just call them my parents all the time – that’d sound too weird. Anyway, Mum’s dead-set on adopting you, and she’s kinda stubborn. I don’t think you could’ve left here, even if you wanted to.”

Ganon stayed quiet, and Link hoped beyond hope that his little speech was encouraging enough to provide all the persuasion Ganon needed.

Finally, the corners of Ganon’s mouth tugged upwards into the beginnings of a smirk. “I guess I’ll have to call you my little brother from now on.” he teased.

He seemed slightly anxious when he said 'brother’, as if he thought Link would be offended by it, until he felt the light impact from the friendly shove that Link gave him with a smile.

Another tally for the Make-Ganon-Smile victory list, then.

There was no talk at the dinner table later that evening, as had become normal over the past few weeks since Ganon’s arrival. However this time, the atmosphere had thawed slightly, with Ganon no longer actively avoiding the adults’ eyes, and even smiling at times (although nervously). Link pushed his leg against the other’s at the dinner table every minute or two, a silent motion of encouragement; they won’t be made at you, just say it! Even so, Link could see that Ganon was taking his time and steeling himself for his announcement. He was taking ages, but Link supposed that it would be better if he did it in his own time, rather than being pushed to do it when he wasn’t ready.

Ganon cleared his throat when his father had finished serving the fish stew. He waited until all eyes were on him. It was only when they had settled into the chairs, did he speak up.

“I just wanted to say that… well, I’m sorry for ignoring you.” Ganon’s voice quivered as he began.“You’ve been nothing but accommodating, and I feel as if I’ve been nothing but rude. I hope that you’ll be able to forgive me in time.”

Ganon’s voice was far too quiet and his tone was far too formal, with only his fidgeting thumbs betraying his mortification. However, Link didn’t pay it much attention, since his mother only beamed at Ganon and his father broke out into a relieved chuckle.

“It’s quite alright, son. I’m just glad you’ve finally decided to talk to us.”

“Did you like the pie?” his mother asked, shooting a knowing look at Link.

Ganon scratched the back of his neck, pleased at the supportive reaction. “Y-yeah. It was really good. I’d love to try some more, if you have some.”

She laughed and patted his hand. To Link’s relief, Ganon didn’t pull away from the contact as he was half-expecting him to. “That’s high praise. Link just devours it and runs off. He never even thanks me.”

“Hey! I do like your food! I even told Ganon so upstairs, remember, Ganon?”

Ganon pulled a face, before slyly smirking. “Eh, not really. I don’t remember you saying anything of the sort.”

“Hey! I know what I said! Stop denying it, Ganon! I know you’re lying!”

His protests trailed off into the air, as Ganon sniggered into his soup and his mother laid a hand on her hip. They were making fun of him, but as the family broke out into a bout of laughter at his expense, the atmosphere became a lot warmer than it had ever been in the past few weeks.

“Why isn’t this working?”

Ganon’s frustrated growls punctuated the air ceaselessly, leaving Link in a constant state of amusement. It seemed that he wasn’t suited for fishing, what with his large hands and hot impatience. They had been at the lake for an hour already, and while Link would’ve caught at least a couple in that time, Ganon had failed to catch even one. It was mainly due to his constant twitching and grumbling, but Link didn’t tell him that, instead choosing to watch him stew in his own frustration. It was, admittedly, funny to watch.

“That’s because you’re doing it all wrong.” Link said airily. “Here. I’ll show you how you’re supposed to do it.”

“No!” Ganon snapped, yanking the rod back from Link’s outstretched hand. “I’m doing it by myself. I will catch a fish by myself before the day’s finished. Just watch.”

“If you say so.”

Link sat back to watch Ganon as he crouched, with his brows furrowed in comical concentration, on the boardwalk. It was miraculous, the way he had opened up to everyone after that dinner. Ganon had switched from brooding and silent to humorous and outspoken overnight, with a bit of a sarcastic streak as well. Link was pleased to say that their friendship had also progressed swiftly. They bickered and argued at times, but it was always with a competitive undertone rather than a malicious one, and besides; the other village kids complained of exactly the same situations with their own siblings, so he knew that their relationship was a pretty normal one. Having someone to share his interests with was exciting, especially since Ganon never tired of Link’s enthusiasm, and even shared with him discoveries of his own.

“Look! I think I got one!”

Ganon’s exuberant shout brought Link out of his reverie, and he hastily leapt to his feet to watch as Ganon wrestled with the rod, tugging it this way and that.

“Keep pulling!” he encouraged, coming forward to help if he was needed. “Yeah, that’s it, pull it in the opposite direction, no not that way you idiot!-”

“I know, I’m doing it!”

Ganon yanked and strained with the rod, as Link kept an eye on the swelling ripples in the water. With the amount of pulling that was going on, this fish had to be huge.

“Nearly… there…!”

The ripples erupted into frantic splashing, which grew larger and louder, almost deafening, until-

“Look!”

The line flew out of the lake, shimmering and dripping with water. Dangling on the end of the rope was a fat, round and almost spherical sturgeon, wriggling desperately in the sudden exposure to air.

“Miharian Sturgeon, right?” Ganon said proudly, freeing the fish from the line and laying it gently into a wooden bucket.

Link smiled. “Not bad.”

“Oh, please. I was amazing. This one’s huge.”

Link huffed with mock indignation. “Excuse me? When I went fishing for the first time, I caught three catfish. Three! You only caught one sturgeon.”

“Yeah, but you told me that the sturgeon is bigger than the catfish anyway, so that doesn’t matter, does it?” Ganon hauled the bucket into one hand, before turning to Link with a smirk. “At any rate, we’re having a good dinner tonight.”

Link jogged to stay beside Ganon, rod in hand. “We are, but don’t change the subject. I was a better fisherman than you.”

Ganon rolled his eyes, and sped up. His large strides made it near impossible for Link to keep pace with him, especially holding a fishing rod, and he knew it.

Link stuck a tongue out from behind his back.

He watched, slightly envious, as Ganon sparred with his father.

His father was a trained knight, and so possessed a certain prowess as a swordsman that was impressive in its own right. However, it was somewhat predictable once one figured out how he moved. Link, having trained with his father for years now, could predict these moves to an extent, although he wasn’t very good at executing the parries needed to block his attacks.

Ganon, however, was on a whole other spectrum.

His movements were almost otherworldly. Every step he took was measured, calculated, and every swing of his sword held relentless power that had even his father struggling to keep back. His movements were fluid and resembled a dance, although not like the graceful movements of a common fire performer. It was more to do with the assurance and poise of his spins, and the vigour behind his strikes. No thrust was clunky, and no parry was misplaced. Link noticed that Ganon’s eyes had narrowed in fierce concentration, and he pursued his father’s movements unfailingly. It seemed as if he was trained in swordplay, and trained well.

With a sudden clang, the wooden sword was at his father’s neck.

“Yield?” Ganon asked.

His father nodded, smiling with approval as he lowered Grymhildr. “You’re a natural,” he praised, and despite his awe Link felt a swoop of pride as Ganon scratched his ears sheepishly. “You must have had skilled mentors to achieve this level of skill at such a young age.”

Ganon sighed, and Link recognised the sound from when he had spoken of Bari. “My sisters were even better than me,” he admitted. “They would’ve had me pinned down in a second.”

A pang of sorrow coursed through Link at the mention of Ganon’s family. He didn’t bring them up often anymore, but the subject wasn’t strictly taboo. Though he had found it easier to speak of them over the years, the subtle ache in his voice didn’t go unnoticed, and it was painfully obvious that their deaths still haunted him.

His father placed a large hand on his shoulder. “They must have been wonderful, then, if you’re anything to go by.” he told him reassuringly. At Ganon’s tiny nod, he straightened, before turning to Link.

“I’m sure you’ll be able to get Link on his toes in no time.”

His father’s attempt at lightening the solemn mood seemed to work when Ganon’s sombre expression slowly spread into a smirk. Link’s heart sank at the thought of the relentless teasing that was sure to follow their own sparring. He wouldn’t ever tell Ganon – he had to keep some dignity after all - but by Hylia, he really wasn’t the best swordsman around. It was probably something to do with how he was rarely bothered to get up so early in the morning just to train. Not that he was ever going to admit it, though…

Link sighed mournfully, and prepared himself for a thorough pummelling.

The frosty breeze whistled through the branches, propelling a shiver through Link’s fingers. The sun barely peeked out from behind the bulky cloud barrier, and the garden pond had hardened to stiff ice. Why he had wanted to go outside was now a mystery to him. It was true that he didn’t want to give up an old tradition, but at the same time the exposure was unforgiving and merciless. Rubbing his hands and shakily blowing on them in an attempt to generate some hot air, Link turned to glance over his shoulder.

Ganon was arguably in a worse shape, huddled in a cocoon of blankets against the apple tree and clutching a mug of warm tea as if it were his own lifeline. His teeth chattered, like hard rain pounding into the soil in the rainy season. Link supposed that, even after all these years, mainland Hyrule’s winter was difficult to get used to after a childhood in the desert.

Link shuffled towards the tree and stole a bit of the blanket himself, much to the cocoon’s chagrin.

“Don’t hog it all, I’m freezing,” Ganon demanded, tugging on it to retrieve his comfort back. “I don’t even know why we still do this. It’s the middle of the bloody winter.”

“Stop nagging.” Link muttered. “It’s tradition.”

Ganon rolled his eyes. “'Tradition’, my arse. If we get hypothermia, we can’t exactly use 'tradition’ as an excuse before we get scolded to death.”

“We’ll be fine, stop worrying. Anyway, I wanted to ask you something.” Link waited for Ganon’s complete attention before he continued.

“What is it?”

Link hesitated before he asked his question. It wasn’t something to be scared of or embarrassed about, but merely something he wanted Ganon’s input on. The only reason he paused was because the response he would get could possibly change his entire future.

“Where will you go for your Arelyth?” he asked.

The Trial of Arelyth was an ancient tradition in Hyrule, dating back centuries before even the previous Hero had risen. In short, it was a trial that all the youths of Hyrule from age thirteen and onwards undertook in order to gain the blessing of the Goddess Hylia herself. The old texts spoke of how Hylia had bestowed her first Trial upon the Hero long ago to temper his spirit. He had proven worthy of her blessing, and had drawn strength from it in the battle against the Fallen King. Since then, the people of Hyrule had celebrated his victory by honouring Hylia and sending their own youths to prove themselves, shadowing the Hero’s great trials.

In recent times the Trial’s difficulty had lessened significantly, only consisting of years in a trade the youths would labour towards and perfect themselves. It was still a matter of great importance, and an event all the children of Hyrule eagerly looked forward to.

Ganon paused to reflect. Link waited, a little apprehensive, for his response. The wind blew as erratically as ever, but was forgotten as he twisted his fingers into his scarf and fidgeted about the knees.

“The castle, I guess.” Ganon finally answered.

Link immediately brightened as a huge weight was lifted off his shoulders. “I was hoping you’d say that.” he beamed.

“Why, do you want to become a knight?”

“Of course! Dad was a knight, and he went to the castle for his Trial. I want to do the same too.”

Ganon sank back against the tree after his declaration, diving back into the blankets as he did so. “Guess I have to go, then,” he yawned, “can’t have you setting the castle on fire while you’re there, after all.”

“Hey!” Link protested. “I wouldn’t do that!”

“Oh, really.”

“Yes, really!”

“For some reason, knowing you, I highly doubt that.” Ganon grumbled as he tucked the blankets around him into a tighter shield, before standing up.

Link snorted. He looked absolutely ridiculous, shivering against the cold, yet holding the fabric around him like a king’s cloak.

“I’m heading back in,” he announced. “Try not to die out here.”

He stalked off towards the house. Link shoved his knuckles against his mouth to stifle his giggles when Ganon cursed and tripped over a tree root stretching innocently across the path.

“The Fallen King laughed and reformed into a mighty boar, which ploughed through the grasses of Hyrule Field. Blood and fire glowed in its eyes and its skin flared with the smokes of horror. The beast reared up on its back legs as lightning shot out of its mouth, shattering the blade of evil’s bane out of the hero’s hand and far out of his reach. All seemed to be lost, until the princess bestowed upon the hero the sacred Bow of Light. Well, that’s convenient, isn’t it?”

“Don’t interrupt, Ganon, you’re getting to the good part!”

“Fine, fine… The battle was long and arduous. The hero fought until his fingers split and were torn asunder, the bowstring bloodied, and the princess aided him however she could.

"Finally, the sky darkened to crimson as the beast howled in agony. The time had come. The hero, exhausted by his efforts, circled the beast as tremors shook the earth. The princess strained to restrain the beast, until the hero drew back his final arrow, and shot blinding, pure light into the soul of the beast itself.

"As it roared in anguish, the princess used her last lingering strength to call upon the Goddesses of old. She summoned the power handed down through the royal family, her own birthright, and as the beast descended upon her, she banished it into the voids of darkness. The skies faded into blue, and the world was saved.

"However, the Goddess Hylia had one last part to play. Urged by one of her anguished sisters, who couldn’t bear to watch her people turn against the birthplace of the conqueror, she lifted her divine hands and gently told the clouds to rain. Rain they did, and as the droplets poured upon the bodies of her people, so did their memory of the King of Evil fade away.

"Thus, Hyrule was purged, and with it the memories of the horrors the King had forced upon it. For the first time in many years, the sun rose to greet a land untouched by malice, and people lightened with joy.”

Ganon closed the book shut with a snap, and laid it aside. Link sighed, and stretched his arms from where he was dozing on the floor.

“I wonder why the Goddess wiped everyone’s memories?” he asked noncommittally.

Ganon snorted. “You’ve read this hundreds of times. One of the Goddess’s sisters didn’t want to see the Hylians turning on the Dark King’s people, so she took their memories to prevent any civil war.”

“Still,” Link murmured doubtfully, “doesn’t it seem like something’s missing from the story? The Goddess wouldn’t just wipe the memory of the entire world… it doesn’t seem very…” here he hesitated, “…wise. Wouldn’t it be better if the people remembered what happened, so it wouldn’t happen again?”

Ganon shrugged. “Don’t ask me how the Goddesses work. As long as there’s no Evil King now, I’m fine with whatever she did.”

Link didn’t answer, and instead chose to stare at his left hand. He wondered how the hero felt as he was called to his destiny, or when he blinked away the rain and found that he couldn’t recall the person he had fought. It seemed sad, even cruel. To forget what a person was fighting for…

“That reminds me,” Ganon interrupted, pulling Link out of his reverie, “isn’t the princess around the same age as you?”

“Oh, yeah… I think so.”

“Huh. You’re twelve now, so we’re due to head off to the castle soon. Maybe you’ll get to meet her there.”

“M-meet Princess Zelda?” Link stammered.

The princess was outgoing and brightly optimistic, or so he had been told. Villagers who had returned from the castle all spoke grandly about her: how she would travel around Castletown after her studies and ask after everyone she met, or how her eyes would light up whenever she heard an ancient story, or how her smile would lift even the gloomiest out of their melancholy.

They also spoke of how heavily she was guarded. The King cared greatly about the safety of his only daughter, and many men had been detained upon suspicion of threatening Her Highness. In some cases, they were allegedly shipped off to a distant land, never to be seen again. For good or for worse, nobody really knew.

Most importantly, Link couldn’t possibly become her friend. She was the Crown Princess, and he was to become a knight. It just wasn’t proper.

“I don’t see why not.” Ganon went on, unaware of Link’s inner agitation. “I heard she could talk a Lynel’s ears off. She’d be good for you and your snarky mutterings.”

“N-no! I’m supposed to be a knight, Ganon, I can’t just become the Princess’s friend out of nowhere! What would Dad say? And Mum? The King would probably kill me for even talking to her!”

“They wouldn’t even mind- okay, okay, calm down, I’m just messing with you! No need to get so flustered…” Ganon smirked as Link’s face reddened. “Also, you do know that the death penalty was abolished in Hyrule over a century ago?”

“Shut up. Of course I know.” Link grumbled petulantly. “And I wasn’t flustered.”

“Mm hm, of course you weren’t, which is why you’re blushing like a dodongo in heat. I hear that the court poets sing of her golden hair and… what was it? 'Eyes that shimmer like how the sun touches upon a flowing spring’? Don’t they call her the 'Sun of Hyrule’ too? Link?”

Ganon laughed as Link furiously rubbed at his face. “I’m not blushing, because I haven’t even met her yet!”

“Relax, little brother, I only jest. It’s just funny to see you stutter at the mention of a girl.”

“I didn’t stutter!”

Ganon ruffled his hair so that it was even messier than before, sticking up like the twigs of a bird’s nest. “I can’t wait to see you court someone.” he snickered. “You’d probably get so nervous that you’d drop the flowers, or spill water on their clothes. I’m going to have so much blackmail material without even trying…”

Link groaned at Ganon’s never-ending teasing and flopped backwards onto the grass, trying to block out his voice. As always, his efforts proved fruitless, and he was forced to endure Ganon’s sing-song taunts for the rest of that evening.

As the days sped by, life improved.

Weeks blended into months, which in turn whisked off into years. Evynne watched, unchanging, as her sons changed, barely noticeably. To her eyes, it was as if they had grown decades rather than years, but she supposed that was how all mothers felt in time.

She clasped her hands around the hot mug of coffee, blowing on it lightly and watching as Link and Ganon practised their swordplay not far off in the distance. It was apparent that Link still had much to learn. She chuckled as he once again drove at Ganon with a yell, and consequently found himself face first in the dust. He was enthusiastic, but rash, and it was noticeable in his attacks.

On the other hand, Ganon had almost certainly surpassed Cadmus himself. The years had done well for him; three years ago, he had only stood a hair’s breadth taller than Link. Now he towered over the latter, so that Link’s hair barely grazed his chest whenever they collided in one of their bear hugs. He was easily able to overpower him by sheer strength alone, even without his impressive skill. Evynne could not remember one time where Link had won, although he was steadily coming closer to doing so. Link’s stubbornness in his vision to defeat Ganon had enabled him to reach new peaks in skill that he could not have reached if he was unmotivated, like he had been before.

Her younger son was persistent. A little clumsy, and definitely needing work on both swordplay and archery, but he was determined. In time, she knew that he would achieve great heights, even if he did not believe it himself.

In the distance, Ganon was guffawing at a scowling Link who was once again covered in dirt on the floor.

She smiled. Link had become a lot happier ever since that fateful day years ago, as had Ganon. They truly were good for each other.

The time came to leave for Hyrule Castle.

At the tender age of thirteen, Link stood in the pathway in front of his house, adjusting Epona’s saddle. His father had left mysteriously in the night, announcing that he would return with 'one last surprise’ for both him and Ganon before they left. He had returned the following morning with two horses in tow: one chestnut-brown mare and another coal-black stallion. Ganon had immediately asked for the stallion, leaving Link to wrestle with the mare – Epona – by himself. She was feisty and had a wild temperament, and Link imagined that it would take time for them to bond. Fortunately she had soon quietened, blinking balefully at Link as he smoothed his hands over her neck. He was optimistic. After all, he had already suffered a few of her excruciating kicks – how worse could they possibly get?

“What’re you naming yours?” he called over his shoulder.

“Don’t know.” Ganon grinned as he hoisted himself into the stirrups. “I’m still thinking on it. It has to be something original, yet impressive…”

“What about Ganonhoof?” Link muttered under his breath, turning around as he made his final checks. “It’d suit someone as vain as you…”

“Sorry, what was that?” Ganon asked pleasantly, before trotting over and tugging on Link’s left sideburn, hard.

“Ow! What was that for, you git-!”

“Link! Language!” his mother scolded. Link winced, wishing he hadn’t been overheard at that exact moment.

“Yeah, Link. Language.” Ganon sniggered, grinning smugly. Somehow he hadn’t been overheard, which was completely unfair. Link had the sudden urge to douse his face with red Chu Chu jelly.

She strode quickly down the path with an armful of towering clothes, which looked as if they were about to topple onto the ground. Link groaned inwardly as he took in the amount of baggage they were going to end up with.

“We can’t take all that, it’s too much!” he whined.

“You either take it, or strut around the castle bare.” she told him sternly. He didn’t reply, instead turning away and grumbling.

She turned to Ganon with a strict expression, before softening and leaning up to straighten his collar. Ganon allowed her to do so, his smirk fading to a smile as she smoothed down his clothes. “Look after each other, okay?”

“We’ll be fine.” Link huffed, but his complaints fell on deaf ears. His mother rose to kiss his cheek.

“No funny business. I want to hear that you’ve been training hard.”

“Yeah, yeah, I will. I’ll write, or send along a Sheikah orb or something, so you don’t have to worry.”

“All right.” she smiled, pulling away wistfully. “You had better be off, then. It wouldn’t do to be late at your own Trial.”

She turned to stand at the gate. Link stalled for time, unwilling to leave so soon. It all hit him at once. He was about to begin his very own Trial, and embark on his own journey away from his parents for the very first time. He wouldn’t deny that he was excited, but… he still felt a pang of reluctance as he looked out to his house. The place had been his home for the past thirteen years, and he would miss its familiarity. It was only when he felt a tugging on his sleeve and looked up to see Ganon motioning for them to leave, did he finally start to pull out.

“Wait!”

Surprised, Link craned his neck to find his father hurrying down the lane with Grymhildr in hand. He came to a stop in front of the stallion. Link watched, his mouth open, as he reached up and presented the great sword to Ganon.

“Here,” he offered.

Ganon stared down at the sword in shock, as if the gleaming metal was a foreign object to him. He didn’t move for a minute, before quickly clearing his throat.

“Why?” he asked quietly.

His father chuckled. “I haven’t much need of it now, since I’m not a knight anymore. Besides, I’ve got other swords. You’re much better with heavier weapons, and I thought it would suit you. Don’t worry,” he added, when Ganon opened his mouth to protest, “I’ve thought this through, and I’m sure of my decision.”

Ganon nodded, awestruck. He gingerly reached out for the sword and accepted it with reverence, peering down into his reflection in the polished blade before strapping it to his back.

“Thank you.” he whispered. His father only nodded and clapped him on the back. Link almost felt as if he should complain about how he didn’t receive the family heirloom, but kept it back with a slight smile. Ganon really did suit the blade; Link found it difficult to even lift it properly, let alone swing it around. Besides, handing the sword down to Ganon only showed off another tie of his to the family, and he was perfectly fine with that.

At long last he spurred Epona towards the sprawling castle. It easily dwarfed every other building in Hyrule and stretched far into the sky. Numerous spires eclipsed the main palace, which was in itself an intricately carved monolith. The tallest tower, the colossal Astral Observatory, was obscured by the clouds themselves.

Link looked to his house, one last time. His mother waved upon seeing him, and his father was still smiling. It was difficult to make out, but he swore he saw a tissue in his father’s hands.

Feeling a burst of warmth and a little bit of longing, Link swivelled in his saddle to face forward and let his skin bask in the sun. The birds twittered from where they perched in the knarled apple tree, and he could feel the world slowly wake and come to life in the early hours.

He urged Epona on until he was next to Ganon, and jabbed him in the shoulder. The indignant squawk of surprise and forceful punch he received only made him laugh harder.

He could feel it. Their adventure was only just beginning.

#next chapter we meet someone over at the castle ;) #my fic #forsaken legacy #loz fic #legend of zelda

[noplanwithavan]

THE STUFF OF LEGENDS

Our voyage through the ancient world continues. Leaving behind the Romans, sailing East,  and journeying deeper into the Hellenic world. We’ve come ashore in Greece, and life is sweet here. I mean seriously sweet. Must be all the halva, honey and Easter eggs.

To get here, from Sicily we crossed the toe of Italy, arched around its instep, and arrived somewhere near the top of the high heel for a pressing assignation. We’d committed ourselves to the labours of HelpEx, having been accepted on a family small-holding in Mola di Bari. Yearning for a bit more interaction and social life, this seemed the perfect way to get under the skin - and into the kitchens - of Italian life. The girls bristled with excitement, keen to meet the family’s 8 year-old daughter named Fara. “Will it be like the olive farm we worked on in Spain?” they ask. Probably not, we say. It’s more domestic we think, not so much back-breaking work. “It’s kind of like the Roman times,” we explain “We offer to be slaves, and they feed us. Hopefully without the harsh punishment or threat of being thrown to the lions if we disobey.”

From the moment we arrived, there was a sense of familiarity, and it was clear we’d feel comfortable with Andrea, Angela and Fara. They welcomed us in to a large, round courtyard, an ancient gnarled olive tree at its centre, and a volley of yelping Italian children circling it by bike at the speed of charioteers racing the Circo Massimo. It soon became apparent the family had friends over, and Elsie and Lulu were immediately drawn into the melé, guided by the irresistible rules of play. As the sun went down the evening was warm enough to stay outside and enjoy focaccia, cheese and salad from their garden. It reminded Marcus of his family home in Pembrokeshire, Middlelands, in many ways. The same informality and open-house welcome. Throughout our week, as we worked in the garden this sense continued, people often dropping by, calling over. Meal times were sociable affairs, super-healthy and all vegetarian. There were no unhealthy snacks nor processed food of any kind in the house. So much so, they didn’t even possess a can opener. The girls responded well. They hero-worship Fara, following her lead in all things, even developing a taste for fennel, much to our surprise. During the mornings we’re left to get on with things by ourselves as the family worked and Fara went to school. Sometimes the girls would help us, other times they’d roam free, making up their own games, desperate for Fara to return home and lead the charge. At first it felt a bit strange, wandering around trying to find tools, or stopping for a snack and rummaging about in someone else’s kitchen. One morning I discovered a quote from Socrates pinned above a chalk-board. “Education is the kindling of a flame. Not the filling of a vessel,” it read. I had the simultaneous experience of agreeing profoundly, whilst at the same time wondering what to do if you suspected your kids needed a bloody blowtorch to get things lit. Nonetheless, it inspired me this quote, and I decided that incidental learning might be much less stressful. So they helped plant their own bed of wildflowers, and spent a morning in the vegetable patch studying and drawing the different shape leaves to identify which vegetables they would become. After a few days, we adjusted, found our pace, and fitted in with the family’s way of life. The work wasn’t hard - clearing plant beds, weeding paths, digging up trees which had self-seeded to replant elsewhere - but its the first physical work we’ve done for some time. Having thought this would be a breeze compared to olive harvesting, Marcus confesses he’s glad we’re only staying a week as he’s not sure his back can take much more. Trying to steer him on to lighter duties I volunteer his services in the cooking department, suggesting he make the family a curry. The idea gains traction, indeed becomes somewhat of “an event”. Despite the legendary devotion the Italians have for eating only their own, exceptionally local food, by the end of the week Marcus is consulting his brother’s “We Love Curry” pages. For come the weekend he’s headlining an Indian banquet for a gathering of our hosts’ close relatives and friends. Well, we all know he does love a dinner party, and we said we wanted to meet more people! The only complications being  a complete lack of Italian on his part, and little to no idea of how many close relatives and friends might turn up. Saturday arrives, and our hosts Andrea and Angela drift off, busily engaged in their own respective tasks. Marcus is left alone to make the final preparations. Guests begin arriving and filter through the kitchen, their curiosity piqued by such un-Mediterranean, unfamiliar smells. One by one they try and strike up a dialogue, but necessity dictates small talk is limited. Sensing familiarity as they watch him stretching out dough on the kitchen worktop, the dinner guests try a different tack: “Pizza?” they opine. “No pizza,” he demurs. “Focaccia?” “No focaccia” he emphasises, this time batted away with a definitive hand-swipe. “Panzarotte?”…and on it goes, with a list of about 20 Italian forms of bread, none of which are what he is making. “Chapatis,” he ventures. “Curry, with chapatis.” But this is an enigma, and the growing swell of puzzled faces signals they have arrived at a conversational cul-de-sac.

Thankfully, the delicious food does all the talking, and even the most hardened regional food purist has to admit it. One man takes Marcus aside, “Thank you for your curry,” he confides.  “Maybe I won’t eat again, but doesn’t mean I don’t like.” Then, continuing by way of clarification, “You see I only eat dishes from Bari. My wife is from Parma, but I don’t even let her cook food from her home town….unless we go there to visit her family.” Message received. In summary, partial success, but curry colonisation in Puglia remains far from complete.

Our time spent in the warmth of Fara’s family appears to have regenerated our social lives, and from Italy onwards we are constantly finding ourselves in good company. There is Ruth and Frank, the first campervanners we have met from Wales. The sight of the red dragon sicker on the back of their vehicle is such a surprise that we have to restrain ourselves from rushing out to greet them with open arms. We instantly take a liking to them, and within minutes of discussing where we’re from discover we have friends in common. A retired clown from Cardiff, Frank tells us he knows Tenby well, most fondly because of his pal there James Osbourn. From here, the conversation flows and I can’t remember quite how exactly but at some point it navigates around to toilets. (Probably something to do with it being Elsie’s specialist subject). Ruth offers to show the girls their loo.

“It’s a composting toilet, would you like to see it?” she beams. We all trail inside, fascinated to find out more. Is this even possible I think, and how does it not stink the place out in such a small space? Pulling out two large food recycling bins, courtesy of Cardiff City Council, from under the bed,  Ruth begins to explain. The couple are clearly very proud of their ingenuity and challenge us to a poo test. This involves opening up each container in turn, inviting us to have a sniff, and then guess which one contains the poo. It’s actually surprisingly difficult, and we have to admit defeat. Thrilled, Ruth goes on to explain that one box contains just sawdust and ash, and the other human excrement which has been covered with said sawdust and ash. “It takes away the smell entirely,” she says. “You wouldn’t even know. Amazing isn’t it?” And it is, and I love her obvious delight at the mastery of such an unpleasant problem. Strange too how you can find yourself examining a another’s most taboo bodily function within half an hour of meeting them.

Some days later, we are in Polignano de Mare, a seaside town set atop rocks, narrow balconies overlooking the caves eroding beneath. It’s dramatic and precarious position has led to it being picked as one of the Red Bull Cliff Diving locations, like Abereiddy back at home. While we wait to catch the ferry to Greece, we spend a wonderful few sunny days here. It’s a chance to dust off the canoe and explore the pretty inlets and coastline. It’s also our last opportunity to scoff pizza, try interesting gelato combinations like fig and ricotta, and drink good wine. And while we won’t miss the driving in Italy, we will miss the country itself. It’s fresh vegetables packed with flavour, the approach they have towards children - letting them run free, with trust and respect. And the people who seem to live life the way they coach their little ones to tackle obstacles - “piano, piano” (slowly, slowly). We park right by the sea, and the girls go scrambling over the rocks, in search of the blowholes they can hear snoring like dragons. They bring back a little blonde-haired girl called Poppy. And by sunset the girls are tucked up in her distinctive pink old-style VW campervan watching a movie, while we invite her parents Jane and Steve over for a drink. I guess its not that much of a surprise that a family who are doing a year out just like us, and having travelled much of the same route, would have met some of the same people. But it’s still heartening somehow to discover that they have. It fosters our sense of a community on the road when we learn that they too spent time with the wonderful Hilary, Richard, Jess, Chippie and Bonnie, whom we enjoyed Christmas with in Tarifa.

From Bari, we sail to Petrás in Greece. From the ferry we sight the islands, craggy and wild, whetting our appetite for what this next country will have to offer. The almond trees have now been replaced by the bright pink blossom of Judas trees, yellow explosions of Broom, and the purple profusion of low-hanging wisteria draped by the roadside. Our first supermarket stop, near to the ancient sanctuary of Olympia, doesn’t disappoint. There is olive paste spread, an explosion of sesame goods in the forms of tahini and halva, a whole aisle dedicated to yoghurt. “What do they call Greek yoghurt here?” Marcus muses. “Just yoghurt?” And then there’s the filo pastry, a world of new cooking opportunities lay open before us! On reaching the meat counter we are momentarily overcome by the language barrier, indeed the whole different alphabet, rendering us clueless. Luckily, some improvisation prevails, and by saying, “Baaaaa!!!” to the man a few times, he soon catches on that I would like lamb. There are no small portions in Greece, and he hacks off such a large chunk, it keeps us going for 3 days.

But the best thing so far has to be embracing the whole incidental learning idea full tilt. This month its purely Classics. The girls are in their element - it’s all about stories after all, which they love, and everywhere you look there’s another reference to a legend, another piece of the historical puzzle which still resonates through our culture today. Our maths lesson before visiting Olympia was measuring distances. The girls had to mark out intervals of 1m until we reached the crucial 200m mark, the distance ancient athletes would sprint. Appreciation of the site itself taxes the imagination more than the ruins of Rome or Pompei. But from the layout and the thickness of some of the columns its possible to guess at how impressive it would once have been. As always the devil is in the detail, and we try and point out as much as we came to bring it all to life. The wide open space of the Palaestra where hey have a mock wrestle, the plinths lining the approach to the stadium which would have held bronze statues of Zeus, paid for by the fines of athletes who had cheated. The inscriptions still visible beneath bearing their names and city of birth. The cheap seats up high on Mount Kronos, filled by woman and slaves, which overlooks the track where the girls race. But it is one detail in particular that really tickles them - the fact that the ancient competitors would have all been naked. This steers Elsie’s mind back onto another of her favourite topics. In many ways an ancillary to toilets - that of winkles. And she enjoys a saunter around the museum gaping at all the parts of male anatomy on statuesque display. I can’t get over the impression of soft, see-through chiton material etched out of stone on the statue of Nike, or the perfect proportions in the face of Athena and Hermes. There is a whole room dedicated to the many small figurines, votive offerings, left at the temples of Zeus and Hera. Displayed, they look like an installation of battle, exquisite in their painstaking detail.

We have a book of “Greek Myths” for children (or Greek Miffs, as they pronounce it), which is our all important educational go-to-guide for this part of the trip. And it’s mind boggling how many places and sites we have seen which are referenced in those stories. In Italy the sirens in the story of Odysseus just off the coast of Naples, the cyclops in Sicily he defeats on Mount Etna. And here in Greece, the 12 labours of Heracles depicted on the Temple of Zeus in Olympia, the temples to the oracles on the wild Peloponnese, the beautiful town of Kardamyli (one of seven gifted by Agamemnon to Achilles in return for rejoining the battle of Troy), and finally the caves of Diros. Once we discover these caves are behind the tales about the River Styx, and the journey to the Underworld, we just have to go and take a look. Brushing up beforehand on the chapters about Pluto and Cerberus his 3-headed dog. Located on the Mani peninsula near the town of Aereopoli, they are an other-world experience, and its not hard to imagine why the Greeks thought they led to a different realm. Entering the caves from a stone beach, you climb down to an underground lake where a “ferryman” awaits to transport you through a network of waterways, a labyrinth of caverns and tunnels adorned with stalactites and stalagmites. Floating along on a narrow gondola, amid the humidity and drips from above, I’m sure it would have been quite a spiritual experience, if it wasn’t for the kids hassling us to change seats and let them have a go at taking pictures.

For the last week or so we have been winding our way down the central finger of the Peloponnese, from Pylos, Kardamyli, Stoupa, Agios Nikolaus, Aereopoli, and right to the tip at Porto Kagio. Free camping is no problem here, and we can pitch up right by a pebbled beach, string out the hammock and spend our days swimming, and eating outside. Our favourite dish is experimenting with home-made pastries. Using the filo Marcus has been trying out different filled parcels - savoury spinach and feta, and sweet combinations of apple and raisin, sesame, honey and pistachio. Over the last week we’ve met a few friendly German families at some of our camping spots, sharing breakfasts on the beach and relaxed mornings with time to teach the girls card tricks, and giving them responsibilities like the chance to be head chef and make lunch for us, or earn extra pocket money by washing up.

The further south we travel, the wilder and more remote the landscape becomes. The road curving inwards along the steep terraced ancient hillsides, carpeted with wildflowers and punctuated by clusters of soft grey Mani tower houses. A few weeks ago we were inside the van discussing our concerns that the girls reading wasn’t improving greatly. They were both outside lobbing up sticks and any objects they could find into a large palm tree. At that moment Elsie burst in to ask if she could have a bowl because they were harvesting dates. As we stepped out to have a look, I had to smile. Remember Socrates, I thought. They weren’t actual dates, but they looked very similar. The girls might not be great readers just yet, but they can spend hours studying the many different shapes and varieties of plants we find here, and they can identify wild asparagus and fennel much better than I.

Easter is an important festival here in Greece, and we spent it in Kardamyli, smashing the bright red boiled eggs that symbolise the blood of Christ, and following the processions to the sound of church bells tolling out the call to worship. On Good Friday Marcus received a phonecall from his mum to say his beloved Grandmother, Gassie, had died at the age of 101. It was news he had been expecting for some time, yet forewarned and prepared as he was, it is never easy to be away from family at such a time. But thinking back on her legacy, and childhood memories of this unchanging constant in his life, it reaffirms why we are doing this trip. The more the months slide by, the more aware we are how precious this experience is. Each photo, each place has a poignancy that wasn’t there at the start. To spend this time with each other, to experience ourselves close-up it almost seems, is our gift and legacy to our children. One we hope will endure.

[adventurgal]

Marching Band AU

Part 1 out of 2

I mentioned this au in a chat and people were really enthusiastic about it! I was already compiling ideas for it, but I really wanted to share this! This is really long, so I’ll put the rest of it under the cut.

I’ll start with the Esper Squad.

Mob. Mobs in the color guard!

He wanted to play an instrument, but he just doesn't have the stamina to blow into something and march across a field at the same time.

What is that something??? I’m not sure yet. I was thinking a clarinet. He seems like a clarinet-ey kinda guy.

He plays the clarinet during concert band. He's actually not that bad!

He joins band because he was amazed by how much went into putting a show together! He thought it was cool, and felt that it would be a great use of his time. Tsubomi was a motivator too, she’s also in the color guard.

He's not that great at marching. At first, he's always off tempo and starts off with the wrong foot. After a year or so, he gets better at staying in form and not sticking out.

He’s surprisingly good at remembering his flag movements. He spaces out a lot during practice so it surprises everyone because he keeps to himself.

Carrying around heavy ass flags and batons isn't easy for him. He’s usually so sore after practice that he can't lift his arms

Note: I’ve only ever only held a flag like, once. I remember it being heavy, though I have no upper arm strength so who knows how heavy those things actually are. They look heavy...

Hes passed out on the field during practice before. Luckily it hasn't happened during a performance

All of his fellow guard members know he's the weakest link, but he tries so hard. They're proud of him and acknowledge how hard he's working!

Ritsu. He’s a flute/piccolo.

I might change this, but yeah. Ritsus in the flute section. (Self projecting? Oh, I'd never do that~)

His first year of band, he plays the flute during marching season. The next year he’s promoted to piccolo, and becomes a section leader.

He’s pretty good at playing the flute. He’s technically good at playing the piccolo too, but piccolos sound like shit. He manages to not make everyone's eardrums bleed, though.

He joins band because of Mob. He thought it was cool and wanted to be like his big bro

He has pretty good stamina. Impeccable posture. Almost perfect attendance. Always in tune. He's a model band student.

He always has his music memorized, always has his dot sheet. He’s always on point and makes sure that the rest of his section is too

He doesn't really talk so he doesn't get yelled at or told to stay focused

He helps out the other sections too. If they need instrument assistance, he’ll help them. He has extra reeds, valve oil~

Why the fuck does he have all of that stuff with him. Like, he just pulls it out of his pockets

He helps Shou the pit load their truck too. They could always use extra help

He gets really heated during competitions. If someone's goofing off, he’s the first to tell them be serious

Despite being a model student, he contemplates quitting band because he only joined because of Mob. School and such gets in the way too. After a while, he decides to stay, because he notices how much fun he has on the field! He starts to mellow out a bit once Shou joins too.

Shou. My precious fire child. He's a percussionist!

I’ve always imagined him being a percussionist. I don't know why, But he just seems like he’d play the drums.

I might flesh this aspect of the au out a bit more at some point? But Shou is a transfer student. He transfers into Mob and Ritz’s school (which is still Salt Mid. Or maybe Salt High? I’m not sure yet.) He transfers to Salt Mid. during Ritsus first marching season.

His first year, he's in the pit. (Which is the front ensemble. At my high school, we called it the pit.) He really wants to be in the drumline, and he begs Serizawa (Who I’m going to get to in a bit, along with Reigen and Dimple don’t worry,) to promote him. Seri says no, because he’s new to the marching scene.

He has a ton of fun playing so many instruments. The marimba, bells; The gong is his favorite. Especially during competitions. He loves the rush of adrenaline he gets when he hits it.

He practices a lot after school and outside of practice. He’s very passionate about what he’s doing.

Surprisingly, he’s the most composed when he’s practicing alone. He’s actually focused. He doesn't stay focused during practice.

 He’s always pulling a prank on someone, flirting messing with Ritsu, trying to piss off Reigen… He still manages to have any new material memorized by the end of practice some how.

He just,, YELLS at Ritz from across the field. He just wants to talk to him, he doesn't care if he’s annoying people.

It’s very rare that he’s close to him during practice. During their breaks, Ritsu usually scolds Shou for bothering him. Then they canoodle.

His second year of marching, he’s finally in the drumline. He's a tenor!

His lackeys are the rest of the drumline.

He breaks sticks all of the time. Not because he's playing too hard or something, but because he’s always twirling them when he’s not playing.

This drives Serizawa absolutely insane, but he’d never show that to Shou

He likes to throw them at Reigen when he’s distracted

Teru. He’s also in the color guard!

He’s not attending the same school as the rest of the squad. He still attends Black Vinegar.

Shou originally went to B.V, so he knows Teru. (I might change this) Teru meets Mob and Ritsu through Shou because of this

At first, he’s very competitive against Salt Mids guard, but once he gets to know everyone he chills out a bit and starts to root for them

He is B.Vinegars guard captain

He was originally a saxophone, but switched to guard because he thought everyone looked cool

He’s really good at playing the sax. He’s a bari sax! He also plays the clarinet, the trumpet; he's dabbled with every instrument there is in his school's band

He’s also a model band student, much like Ritsu

He has so much fun on the field and he’s very enthusiastic about marching in general

He has little spirit days with the rest of his section. Like, they’ll have pink day, they have to wear pink to practice. *wink wonk*

He doesn't get to hang with the rest of the squad that much because of his school, but at competitions, they hang and wait for their results together

Reigen. He’s a part of this too!

He's the boss of the field staff. He’s the one who puts each formation together and writes the show

He’s really enthusiastic. Everyone laughs at him because he’s just. All over the place, always

He’s a jack of all trades. When he helps out each section he knows what the fuck he’s talking about

I could see him being a brass player, maybe he was a trumpet or maybe even a mellophone when he was in school

But, yeah. He’s well versed in everything. If Mobs having trouble with his hand work, he’ll grab his flag and show him how to do whatever it is he has to do

It’s the same with Ritsu. If he's having a hard time with a set, Reigen will march it for him to see what the problem is

This annoys the fuck out of Ritsu

He’s so proud of Mob. Once Mob showed interest in marching he started showing him videos of his own shows when he was still in school. Once Mob told him he actually joined, he started crying

He gets so pumped up during competitions holy shit

If the band has a really powerful hit, he’s yelling at the top of his lungs! He’s so proud of the kiddos!

If he feels that the band wasn't scored correctly during results, he’ll go and try to fight the judges

Serizawa has stopped him from doing this wayyyy too many times

Dimple encourages him to fight the judges

The last competition of the season, he starts crying during the last note. They’ve come so far. He’s so proud ;O;

Serizawa. He’s also a percussionist!

He directs the pit and the drumline too, sometimes

He was reluctant to help out with the band, but once he saw how passionate the kids were he wanted to be a part of the magic

Once Shou joins the pit he’s so happy oh god

He’s just really proud of the kid and happy that he's found a less destructive outlet to let out his energy

He’s way more… open. During practice. He likes making music and is very happy to see children just as enthusiastic about it like how he was when he was still in school.

He gets really nervous during competitions. Everyone does, but he usually needs to step away after the band performs to compose himself

He’s always doting over his section. He brings snacks and extra blankets for when it starts to get colder during practices

Dimple. He’s also there.

I’m not really sure what his role is yet? He’s kind of just there. He helps Reigen and Seri whenever they need it though.

He helps the pit load their truck for competitions. He’s usually the one to drive it too

This isn't security guard Dimple. This is muscle man Dimple

He’s also really proud of the kids. It’s a ton of work and they do it pretty well

I’ll make another post with the Telepathy Club, Body Improvement Club, and Student council eventually. I burned myself out typing this out, lol

If you have any ideas, PLEASE send them to me. I would like to see them! Thank you for reading this!

@unluckyships

@brostrid

#mob psycho 100 #mp100 #kageyama shigeo #reigen arataka #kageyama ritsu #hanazawa teruki #suzuki shou #ekubo #serizawa katsuya #mp100 au #long post #I mentioned this in minigenos's dub stream and everyone wanted more apparently haha #I had a snow day so I got this done faster than I had originally planned #I hope you've enjoyed my rambling #I really thought this through #I was in band all four years of high school so naturally I thought of this

[shirlleycoyle]

Celebrities, Famous Pundits Put the Discourse at the Center of the Discourse

Yesterday, 150 or so well-known people published an open letter in Harper's, long America's most prestigious venue for a certain kind of writerly journalism and more recently the kind of place where a publicist can assign a contrarian essay on the #MeToo movement over the staff's objections. Signed by celebrities ranging from Noam Chomsky to Wynton Marsalis to J.K. Rowling, the letter advanced the uncontroversial position that open debate is good.

Why this issue was so compelling to the signatories wasn't made exactly clear in the text of the letter itself, which was anodyne and much longer on ominous generalities ("The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted," etc.) than on specifics. In all, the point was that free thinkers must be allowed to speak publicly without fear of being canceled even if their ideas are bad. What was important, though, was less what was being said than who was saying it: not just celebrities like Salman Rushdie, who famously had a bounty put out on him for publishing a novel, but a motley crew of prominent academics and journalists, many the sort who write ponderous articles and books with variants of the word "liberal" in the title. If the letter didn't make an especially convincing case that the principles underlying a free society are under assault, it did make clear that such worthies as former New York Review of Books editor Ian Buruma and Harvard professor Steven Pinker are willing to bravely defend them.

The most interesting thing about the letter was probably the question of who organized it and why, especially after some of the signatories began disavowing it. (Historian Kerri Greenridge tweeted that she did not endorse the letter and had asked for a retraction of her name, while author Jennifer Finney Boyland tweeted, “I did not know who else had signed that letter. I thought I was endorsing a well meaning, if vague, message against internet shaming. I did know Chomsky, Steinem, and Atwood were in, and I thought, good company. The consequences are mine to bear. I am so sorry.”) Even after the New York Times reported that the letter was "spearheaded" by the essayist Thomas Chatterton Williams and grew out of his discussions with a small group including Columbia professor Mark Lilla, Rutgers professor David Greenberg, Atlantic writer George Packer, and Times Magazine writer Robert Worth, though, the answer remains mildly unclear.

Yesterday, Motherboard emailed Greenberg, having heard he was a driving force behind the letter. He emphatically denied it. "I was happy to sign it, and I asked some friends to sign," he wrote. (This was technically true.) Motherboard also emailed Lilla, having heard that he was a driving force. He replied, "There were so many cooks stirring the pot that we designated Thomas Chatterton Williams to field all questions for us." When asked who "we" was, he said, "The undersigned." (This was definitely not true.)

Williams was happy to discuss the letter. "Starting about a month ago," he said in an email, "several of us were having an informal conversation about organizing a response to what many feel to be the censorious and sometimes punitive atmosphere affecting our media and cultural institutions. We reached out to friends and contacts we knew or wanted to include (though there are many more that we could have included that we missed for a variety of reasons, it wasn’t scientific) and the list grew organically from there. It was really about responding to a mood, not about any one specific incident or event."

The haziness of the letter can probably be attributed in part to that origin in a mood, a feeling on the part of a few professors and writers for some of America's most powerful institutions that censoriousness is one of the great problems of the day. It could also perhaps be attributed to the process by which the letter was composed—it was first written by the small group, then repeatedly crowdsourced, with nearly two dozen people contributing language. Among the feedback was that a version of the letter focused solely on the threat to the discourse posed by the left would perhaps not have the desired effect.

"This is where you get tonal differences as the letter becomes something that 150 ideologically diverse writers and intellectuals need to feel comfortable with," Williams said. "The critique is against censoriousness and so after realizing that the letter would be incomplete by solely focusing on the left, we felt it was necessary to be absolutely clear that Trump is the canceller-in-chief."

(A lacuna here is that it's not entirely clear how Williams became the spokesperson for the group. Lilla, after claiming that Williams spoke for the undersigned, subsequently said that he spoke only for "those of us who tried to herd some wayward cats" and did so because they'd drawn straws and he lost. According to Williams, "We all thought I might have the most energy for it at this particular time." In any event, what people involved describe as a collaborative project ended with him being credited for spearheading the effort in the Times.)

The people Motherboard talked to generally expressed bewilderment at our interest in the mechanics of how the letter was drawn up and how the campaign was organized, stressing the great principles at play. "One of the points of the letter—lost on the Twitteristi—was to defend the position that people can agree on X and not have to agree on Y, that it’s not about persons but about arguments," said Lilla. " It doesn’t matter who formulated the statement; what matters is 150+ people signed because they agreed with the argument."

This of course seems a bit disingenuous, and not just because the letter didn't advance much of an argument at all; an anonymous letter on these lines wouldn't have been published in Harper's, and wouldn't have drawn any interest if it did. The persuasive force of the letter is entirely bound up in who signed it, in whose mood it's expressing. To that end it seems notable that the driving force behind it includes, for example, Lilla, a Columbia professor who just a couple of years ago published The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics, based on his Times article "The End of Identity Liberalism." In a lengthy interview with New Yorker editor David Remnick discussing the book, he criticized the Black Lives Matter movement for using "Mau Mau tactics to put down dissent." His lack of fealty to the doctrines of the woke social-justice mobs doesn't seem to have done him much harm.

Most of the signatories Motherboard spoke to about the letter didn't have much to say about it other than that they think open debate is good. "I agreed with it and signed it," said Noam Chomsky, and that was a typical reaction. One, though, exasperated by some of the criticism the letter has received, mounted a vigorous defense.

"I don’t agree with the assessment that the letter is about people in cushy positions saying they shouldn’t have to be held accountable for their beliefs. I also don’t think it’s fair to say that this is a group of people who have never faced consequences for their work or attempts to be silenced," they said, noting Rushdie in particular. "I think it’s a form of silencing to dismiss anyone you disagree with as a racist, or transphobic, or, less seriously, as an out of touch elite."

The elites seem at little risk of being silenced. Malcolm Gladwell of the New Yorker congratulated himself for signing a document alongside people he disagreed with; Bari Weiss of the Times announced that she stood proudly with J.K. Rowling; and Yascha Mounk of Johns Hopkins and the Atlantic decried unspecified "crazy attempts to shame and fire people for signing this reasonably anodyne letter." (The closest thing to shaming that went on was probably Vox writer Emily VanDerWeff posting a perfectly civil note to her editors expressing disappointment at her colleague Matt Yglesias having signed the letter; it's unclear who called for anyone to be fired.) So the wheel spins. A vague open letter from a group of America's most prominent and most exasperated thinkers is probably not going to put paid to the censoriousness they are certain has gripped the culture. It will, though, do something to keep the discourse at the center of the discourse—a good thing, all can surely agree.

Additional reporting by Anna Merlan and Maxwell Strachan.

Celebrities, Famous Pundits Put the Discourse at the Center of the Discourse syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[ruminativerabbi]

Monsey

Most—but not all—of the responses to the horrific incident last week in Monsey struck me both as reasonable and heartfelt. But what was lacking even in the most sincere comments I read or heard was a clear sense of where we go from here, what specific path we must or should now follow forward into the uncertain future that lies beyond Pittsburgh and Poway, beyond Jersey City and (now) Monsey. And that is the specific issue I would like to address this week in my first letter of a new decade to you all.

Yes, some of the responses were outrageous. Particularly tone-deaf, for example, was the suggestion of Avigdor Lieberman, former Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defense Minister, that the only truly viable solution to the problem of anti-Semitic violence in America would be for all American Jews to move to Israel. Problem solved! Although most Israeli officials have traditionally shied away from encouraging mass aliyah by the Jews of the United States (which advice they certainly have not held back from offering to the Jews of other nations, including most recently France and the U.K.), Lieberman clearly saw no reason to hold back. (Click here for the Jerusalem Post account of his remarks.) Apparently unaware—or at least unwilling to accept—that American Jews are patriotic, deeply engaged citizens of their own country who have zero interest in solving their problems by running away to seek refuge in some other country, even one they hold as dear to their hearts as Israel, Lieberman’s comments betrayed such an abysmal understanding of the American Jewish community that I felt ashamed for my non-Jewish co-citizens to read accounts of his remarks.

His comments, however, did not sound entirely unfamiliar: In fact, I found them weirdly reminiscent of the position set forward by those people in the first half of the nineteenth century who felt that the most reasonable solution to the slavery issue that eventually did tear the country apart would have been to pack the slaves up en masse and ship them back to Africa. But the Back-to-Africa movement, predicated on the assumption that American society could never just consider black people to be “regular” citizens possessed of the same rights and privileges as white people, foundered precisely because it sought to solve a deep societal problem by shipping it overseas instead of solving it in the only way that injustice and inequity are ever successfully addressed on the national or societal level: for like-minded citizens to find the political will, the spiritual stamina, and the moral courage to morph forward into a finer, better iteration of their former national self. It was a simplistic, unreasonable solution to the slavery issue then. And it is a simplistic, entirely unreasonable solution to the problem of anti-Semitism in America today. And because the American Jewish community isn’t going anywhere at all, the resolution has to be to address the affliction and not simply to exile the afflicted.

Other responses were more reasonable, if mostly banal. Bernie Sanders, for example, pointed out that his own father came to this county as a teenager to escape anti-Semitic violence in Poland and that Monsey, by reminding him of his father’s plight, only made it clearer to him how important it is “to say no to religious bigotry.” The President called upon his fellow Americans “to fight, confront, and eradicate the evil scourge of anti-Semitism.” Mitch McConnell referenced Monsey as “another reminder that the fight against hate and bigotry, especially anti-Semitism, is far from finished,” adding that this was true not only on the global level but also “right here at home.” Isaac Herzog, the chairman of the Jewish Agency, called for “a relentless battle” to be waged against “this horrifying and painful spate of violent anti-Semitic attacks.” Israeli President Rivlin expressed his “shock and outrage,” and called for a worldwide effort “to confront this evil, which is raising its head again and is a genuine threat around the world.”  You get the general idea: bigotry is bad in any event, but violent expressions of racial or religious bigotry represent the kind of societal evil that cannot merely be dealt with by being roundly condemned but which must be addressed by some combination of law enforcement officials, government legists, and civic-minded civilians acting together forcefully and effectively.

So much for the macro level. On the ground here in the actual Jewish community, however, I sensed a far more equivocal response as people tried to negotiate the straits between Over- and Under-Concern.

When Governor Cuomo referenced the incident as “an act of domestic terrorism,” for example, it was hard to decide if he was speaking a bit exaggeratedly about an attack that seems to have been perpetrated by a mentally unstable man acting alone or if he was realistically assessing a new reality for the Jewish community, one in which the possibility of having one’s synagogue or one’s home invaded by angry anti-Semites armed with guns or machetes truly is part of a new normal that somehow crept up on us unawares.

Nor was Governor Cuomo alone in seeing a clear line from Oklahoma City to Monsey. Bryan Barnett, the president of the U.S. Council of Mayors, also unequivocally categorized Monsey as an act of domestic terrorism and called upon the nation “to recognize them—he was referring to Monsey and Jersey City—for what they are and work to prevent them from occurring in the future with the same commitment we have made to preventing international terrorism.”

But here too, I sensed uncertainty in the communal response as Jews on the ground tried to decide if a handful of violent acts undertaken by Jew-hating crazy people has really put the clock back to 1938…or if what this is really all about is the Jewish community taking its unhappy place in the mainstream of a nation so inured to gun violence that the incident of just two days ago in in White Settlement, Texas—a violent assault incident in which a gunman with no apparent motive entered a church during Sunday services, murdered two worshipers apparently at random, and was then himself shot to death by armed parishioners—was considered a front-page story for one single day and then vanished into the back pages of the paper where it will eventually be entirely forgotten other than by people directly and personally involved. Speaking honestly, it’s not that easy to say. And yet, despite it all, just waving Monsey away as another instance of senseless violence aimed arbitrarily at victims whose specific misfortune was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time—that seems entirely inconsonant with the way the facts on the ground feel to me…and, I suspect, to most within our Jewish community.

And so we enter a new decade on the horns of several dilemmas at once. The justice system will deal with the suspect in the Monsey incident, just as it will deal with the Pittsburgh shooter as it would have dealt with the Jersey City shooters if they hadn’t been killed. But how are we, the people on the ground, to respond as these incidents become more frequent, less unimaginable, more expectable, less shocking? To beef up security at our synagogues and schools is an obvious first step. To keep our doors locked and our powder dry, ditto. But the more profound question is whether we should allow these incidents to alter our self-conception…or our sense of ourselves as free citizens of a secure, democratic state, as people whose right to assemble where and when we wish is constitutionally sacrosanct, as Americans whose right to self-identify as Jews in public and to walk securely down any city street is non-negotiable? Is it weak and self-defeating to allow the sonim to affect who we are and what we do? Or is it merely prudent, even wise, to allow these incidents to guide us forward in a way rooted in realism rather than happy fantasy? I’m not speaking about whether we should or shouldn’t hire another security guard to watch over the synagogue when we’re gathered there in large numbers for some specific reason. I’m asking something else, something far more challenging to answer honestly or, even, at all: whether the noble path forward—and the clever and proper one—should involve allowing these incidents to shape who we are and how we understand ourselves (and, yes, how we do or don’t behave in public)…or whether the correct path into the future should specifically feature us refusing to accommodate the haters by altering our behavior at all…or our self-conception.

As Bari Weiss’s very admirable recent book, How to Fight Anti-Semitism, showed unequivocally, anti-Semitism is a feature of the extreme left and right in our country; neither extreme is immune. As of now, no thoughtful Jewish American can imagine that anti-Semitism is a thing of the past, a feature of older, less tolerant times. The origins of anti-Semitism run deep in Western culture—and that too is something known to all. So the real question is whether things have changed…or whether they’ve mere clarified. And that question leads to the one stated above: do we need to rethink everything because of a handful of violent incidents or should we simply refuse to submit to the crazies and insist on carrying on as we always have—as patriotic citizens well aware of our civil rights and as secure in our skin as were our parents before us? To my way of thinking, that is the real question that the Monsey assailant inadvertently lays at our feet: can knuckling under to a new normal be reasonably described as growth…or only rationally as surrender?

#Monsey #Jersey City #anti-Semitism #Bari Weiss