#like every other school night its like 11:30 and later but on fridays | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sunflowerhae · 4 years

Text

-> Forgotten Love [M.L]

Requested by • @sweetie-yoongi7 hope you like it bb!✨🐌🍄

•3.7k

warnings• slight verbal abuse, language, a fight 👊💥😤

“Write about an experience where someone you love hurt you. Explain the situation, what was done or said, how you both responded, and what the outcome was. Must be 5 full pages long, and in MLA format. God, how annoying is that? I mean, what do I write about, my mom not letting me get McDonald’s one time because we had food at home?” You scoffed while pushing yourself back into your chair at the cool, air conditioned coffee shop you currently found yourself in. Summer was just officially ending, and October was creeping it’s way into the year, which meant the air wasn’t exactly hot, but it definitely wasn’t cool enough to walk around with a jacket on. You found solace in the beige and dark brown toned drink house, that smelled like coffee beans and lured in customers with its smooth jazz playlist. You were thankful Mark picked this place to have your little date in between classes, for the chill ambiance calmed down your irritated interior.

While you loved your creative writing class, and you absolutely adored your professor, you couldn’t help but be slightly pissed off at the writing prompt she randomly assigned you. You stared at it for what seemed like hours during class, no specific moment like described coming to your conscious. You were still thinking about it as you finally looked up at Mark’s shrunken frame, and the prompt was easily forgotten as worry took over your emotions.

“Babe? Are you okay?” At your concerned tone, Mark lifted his head to meet you eyes, before quickly looking back down at his coffee. He kept glancing between your eyes and his drink, while you patiently waited for him to explain what was bothering him.

Mark scratched the back of his neck, before looking back up at you one final time, and huffing out a soft sigh. “I know what you can write about.” He had barely even mumbled it, so neither of you were surprised when you asked him to repeat himself.

“I..know what you can write about.” The way Mark refused to look you in the eyes, and the tone of his voice, lead you to believe you knew what he was talking about, and you knew he didn’t want to say it.

You and Mark were an amazing couple.

You liked the same music, you both had the same sense of humor, and you were both equally loving towards each other and your friends. You were the two oldest people in your younger friend group, and two of the youngest in your older friend group. You both balanced it out quite well, and set an example for both groups as a healthy relationship while you did it.

But that’s not to say you were perfect.

It was a year ago, to be exact. You were both at the beginning of your sophomore year of college, and the priorities were starting to stack for both of you. Mark -being a music major- had to write a song and collab with the dance majors to make a dance for the song in about two months and turn it in as a beginning of the year exam. Meanwhile, you -being a film major- had to make a small movie using the theater kids as your actors; due in a month. To top on to all the stress, you had both recently moved in together, and had barely started unboxing before the projects got thrust at you.

You hadn’t noticed he was distancing himself from you, at first.

You were so distracted with your project, that every time he would blow off eating dinner together, or would stay at the school until well into the night, you didn’t complain much; just trying to finish your project and get a good grade. It wasn’t until a month later that you started to see that something was wrong. You had finished your project and had gotten amazing grades, and all you wanted to do was go out on a nice date with your boyfriend; something you hadn’t done in about a month. You texted him the time and place to meet you at, to dress nice, and that you’d be waiting with a surprise. You had seen the small “read 3:14pm” under the text, and while you were a bit puzzled as to why he didn’t respond, you didn’t worry about it too much - seeing as lately that was his thing - and just got ready for the night you hoped would be just as amazing as the day was.

You thought you looked pretty beautiful.

Your hair was nicely done, your nails were painted marks favorite color, and the black, tight dress with sleeves hanging off the side accentuated your body and breasts perfectly. You had even sent Haechan a picture to make sure it was “hot,” to which he replied that Mark’s a lucky man, which made you smile. You were looking fine tonight, and while you had had a reason to celebrate, you couldn’t wait to give Mark your all tonight.

{for more effect, I suggest playing It Happened Quiet by AURORA here}

You took your seat in the dimly lit restaurant that was definitely too expensive for a music and film major, and waited for your water that was requested to the waiter to arrive. With a quick glance at the time on your phone, you realized Mark wouldn’t be here for another ten minutes or so. So you just sat there, trying to distract yourself from the excessive amount of bread on your table, and watched the clock count down until 7:30, when Mark should be arriving.

7:40 rolled around and you couldn’t stop yourself from staring at the door like it just did you super dirty. While it was just 10 minutes late, Mark was never one to be late.

Okay, that’s a lie, but he was never late to these type of things. And you perfectly timed it so that he would have time to get home from school, change, and then get to the restaurant. You quickly shot Mark a “you on your way?” text, before setting down your phone, trying not to be the clingy girlfriend, and keep your hope that Mark would be there soon.

Yet, by the time the clock struck 9, and your bread was stale and you had drank enough water to definitely get a bladder infection if you didn’t pee soon, your hope was completely dead. You silently got up from your seat and gave a small smile and nod to the hostess - who shot a sympathetic smile to you - before pushing the door of the restaurant open and walking toward your car.

You tried not to cry on the way home, but when you walked through the front door to see a dark and cold apartment, indicating that Mark had not yet come home, you couldn’t help but let the tears fall at the thought of something happening to him. You had called and texted him multiple times, and when he answered none of them, you even called the hospital to see if they had seen a patient that fit Mark’s description, or had someone named Mark Lee come in. You called all the hospitals in your area, in fact, but nothing came up. Your last hope was someone you actually didn’t want to call. Not because you didn’t want to call her, but because you didn’t want what you’re thinking to be true. But when all of your friends said they hadn’t heard from him, you had almost no choice.

“Hello?” Her chipper voice on the other end made you want to cringe, but you held it together.

“If Mark is in the room, don’t say my name. It’s y/n. Is mark with you?”

Yerim honestly didn’t know what to say. She stuttered a bit on the other end, before clearing her throat and mumbling a, “yes”.

You sighed and gave a half hearted, “okay, don’t tell him I called or anything, okay? Can you just, like, pretend you never even talked to me? Thanks Yeri,” hanging up the phone before she could answer.

You didn’t know how you felt about Mark working on a school project with his ex. When you had met Mark, it was at a college party during freshman year, around a year or so ago, actually. He had just been through a terrible breakup with his high school sweetheart who was - you guessed it - Yeri. If you were being honest with yourself, you knew you were the rebound. You just, fell so hard for him in the short time you had known him that, it didn’t really matter. You guessed somewhere along the way, Mark actually did fall for you, because he stayed, and he said he loved you, and you moved in together. Because of this, and because of the fact that Yeri was never brought up, you didn’t feel too insecure about your relationship.

But now that you’re sitting on the couch in silence, thinking about the fact that your boyfriend ditched your date to hang out with his ex, you can’t help but feel a bit unconfident in where your standing was with Mark. You slowly started realizing that Mark had, in fact, been distancing himself the past month; choosing to instead spend time with his ex-girlfriend instead of the girl that he claimed he loved.

Jealously and insecurities bit away at your insides when you heard the door slowly being unlocked from the outside. Looking at your phone, you realized it was 11:32pm. You had called Yeri at 10:15, so you suppose she honored your request to not tell Mark you called.

Mark was surprised to see you sitting on the couch when he walked in. He had figured that you would have gone to bed already. It was quite late for a Friday for you, seeing as this was the day you usually went to bed early; tired from the week. He felt guilty looking at you, so he choose to train his eyes on anything besides your crumbled figure on the couch. Meanwhile, you stood up, trying to catch his gaze.

“Mark. Where were you tonight?” Your harsh infliction made Mark slightly flinch. He wanted to apologize, because he knows what he missed. And when he finally did look at you, he felt even more guilty, because you looked quite upset about the situation, and you also looked absolutely beautiful tonight. Your black dress fit your body and extenuated your curves perfectly. Your hair was done gorgeously, and he could tell you spent a long time on your makeup. Mark did want to apologize, but when you said,

“Do you even care about this relationship, I mean it seems like all you’ve done lately is ignore me-”

Mark had almost seen red. Every little thing bothering him lately just...boiled over. He wasn’t thinking before he spoke, which never worked for him; this time wasn’t so different.

“God, shut up! Just shut up! All you do is talk! This is why I prefer to spend my time with Yeri, because she’s not so extreme like you always are! You’re not even half the women Yeri is, and you’ll never be! Sometimes I wish I hadn’t picked you to be my rebound for her an-“ Mark stopped himself from talking by clamping his hand over his mouth with wide eyes.

He hadn’t meant that.

He had not meant that.

He was just so upset by everything lately, and he spoke without thinking, like an absolute idiot.

But you didn’t know that. The tears streaming out of your eyes and the wobbling chin showed that for him. He reached out for you and took a step forward, only for you to take a step back, which basically broke Mark in half.

“Y/n I...” Nothing was said between you too, what was there to be said? To you, Mark had finally shown how he had really felt for the past month or so. You gave him one last look, before walking past him, putting on your heels - which were the fastest thing you could slip on - and quickly opening the door.

At the sound of the door, Mark snapped out of his daze, and rushed after you. “Y/n, no! Give me the keys, you can’t drive right now!”

Your tears had, in fact, gotten worse, but you said nothing to Mark as you picked up your pace to the parking lot of your apartments. Mark almost caught up with you, but you sped up even faster, which silently baffled him because you were wearing heals.

You finally got into the car and quickly got in to the drivers seat and locked the door just as mark arrived at the door. He was practically begging you not to go, and pleading to open the door. You just cried more and put your keys into the ignition, before backing out and driving out; Mark feeling like he was watching his whole life drive away from him.

{for more effect, I suggest playing Forgotten Love by AURORA here. You may have to play it multiple times.}

It had been three months since that incident. Three months since you and Mark talked. Three months of you being single. You, unfortunately, had a basic math class with Mark, and while you two used to sit in the corner together, you now both sat on opposite sides of the classroom. Or you in the front - him in the back. Wherever the first one in sat, the other sat on the opposite side.

Mark felt like he went through hell and back in those three months. He felt incredibly bad for what he said to you, and the fact that after that night, he didn’t try to get you back at all. The Monday after, you just sat on opposite ends, quietly agreeing that it was over. You had gotten all your stuff from the apartment, and luckily Haechan had a spare room you could live in.

Speaking of Haechan, your friend group was absolutely baffled when you both told them you had broken up. It had seemed like just a month before, you two were completely in love with each other; on the same page and everything. Then a month later; it’s over. They didn’t know who they should invite where, but you both reassured them (seperately. You both were just secretly on the same page still, without knowing it.) that you would be fine at the same social events.

You, of course, didn’t factor in that you would be watching your ex-boyfriend bring girls up to random rooms in his friends frat during parties. And that at bonfires, you would see him kissing random girls cheeks from across the fire. Or that, when you all had a group study date, he would bring a girl that none of you knew. You didn’t factor in that your ex-boyfriend would actively go out of his way to hurt you.

Truthfully, Mark didn’t do it to hurt you. He did it because if he didn’t hook up with girls at frat parties, he would drink too much and end up trying to kiss you. And if he didn’t flirt with girls at bonfires, he would spend the whole time staring at your from across the fire. And if he didn’t bring a girl to the study dates, he would break his pencils in anger when jaemin would wrap his arm around you in affection. But, at every event, no matter who he was with, Mark always failed.

He couldn’t stop stealing glances at you from across the fire while you laughed at something Nayeon - Johnny’s girlfriend - said to you. He couldn’t stop himself from breaking his pencils under the table when jaemin played with the tips of your hair. And he always ended up leaving the girls before anything happened at frat parties because he couldn’t stop wishing it was you.

It was actually at a frat party that Mark had gotten you back.

You were trying to have a good time. You didn’t come to the frat parties much, because the pain of seeing Mark lead a girl upstairs hurt you so much, you felt like your chest was on fire. But Haechan had all but begged you show up to this one, and you would have never declined anyway; It was Taeil’s birthday, after all.

You were dancing with Dahyun and Chaeyoung when you felt two hands grip your waist. You expected it to be one of the guys, so you turned with a smile on your face, only to come face to face with a man you had never met. The smile on your face dropped, and you took a step back from his grip.

He gave you a sick smile, and moved forward, back into your space.

“Hey, pretty girl. Wanna dance?”

“No.” You exclaimed disgustingly, before trying to move away from the unknown man. However, that proved difficult as his grip on your wrist was quite violent, and strong. You winced, and kept tugging on your hand, to no avail.

“Leave me alone, I don’t want to dance with you.” You kept pushing your arm back, but he just tugged you closer to his chest. You could smell the alcohol on his breath, and felt sick to your stomach at what was about to happen. At the thought, you started wiggling out of his grip at a faster speed.

“Bitch, stop moving-“

“Call her a bitch one more fucking time, asshole.” You opened your eyes to see a small group has formed around you, your mystery creeper, and..Mark?!

“Get lost, man. This ones mine.”

Mark was seeing red again.

“She’s...not ....PROPERTY!” and with that final statement, Mark swung his fist and you ducked just in time for the weirdo to be struck in the face and loosen his grip on you completely. You pushed yourself forward, and ran behind Mark, to the open arms of your friends, who - as you understand - ran to get mark the minute they saw you struggling.

Mark fought this dude almost twice his size for a minute, and he was about to be taken out, before he locked eyes with you, and the power surged through him. One final punch to the unknown asshole, and he was on floor. Everyone cheered, and some people were already picking up his body, chanting “POOL! POOL! POOL!” But the noise faded out as Mark strides up to you, takes your hand, and drags you upstairs. He pushes you both into a bathroom, where you suddenly take charge as you force him down on the seat, and look through the cabinet for a first aid kit.

You and Mark say nothing as you rub his cut with alcohol. At the sudden sting, Mark hisses and places his hands on your hips, gripping them harshly to push himself through the burn. You can’t help but let your eyes flutter shut at the feeling of the love of your life’s hands on you again. You felt like you had lived a thousand years without water, and were suddenly given a water bottle.

You didn’t realize how long you stood there, relishing in the feeling of Marks hands on you. Mark had opened his eyes, to see you with your eyes closed and you hands clasped together in front of your chest - the cotton ball resting in your hands. Mark pulled you closer to him with a whimper, and when you opened your eyes back, you saw that you were significantly closer to Mark, and that he had tears threatening to fall.

With a cough, you looked back at the first aid kit and pushed yourself out of Mark’s strong grip. Another couple of minutes went by in silence, before Mark finally let out a soft, “I’m sorry.”

Your movements halted, and you couldn’t bring yourself to look down at the sad boys eyes.

“I spoke before thinking. I didn’t really mean the things I said, I was just stressed out from school, a-and, fuck I don’t know, y/n. I just..”

Mark was crying now, and he leaned down and placed his hands in his hands. You stepped back in surprise with wide eyes. “I just want you back. I want my girlfriend back. I want to love you again and spend a decade and then some apologizing for what I said. I’m such a fucking idiot I know I don’t deser-“

You shut him up by pushing his shoulders back up, sitting on his lap with your legs on either side of him (terribly hard to do on a toilet, but you’re a master), and kissing him like a woman starved. Mark quickly falls into your lips, and brings his hands up and under your butt, effectively scooping you up a bit.

You don’t know how long you and Mark sat there kissing, but when Yuta walked into the bathroom to pee and had to see two twenty year olds kissing, he never let you live it down.

You smile fondly at the memory, before looking back up at your lover, awkwardly sitting across from you. Before you know it, you’re leaning forward and taking his hand in yours.

“I’m not going to write about that. That was a personal thing between us, and I honestly don’t want to relive that moment longer than I have already. I’m going to write about the time my cousin stole my DS.” You laughed, and Mark visibly relaxed at hearing you weren’t going to write about it. While he had suggested it, that was because he wanted you to feel like you could talk about it if you wanted, but the truth is he hated reliving those three months too. He remembers what terrible state he was in without you, and he doesn’t like to think about it.

You knew he was dwelling on it, so you stood up slightly from the table and leaned down to kiss Mark - who saw what you were doing and met you half way. You both gave each other a few more pecks before you whispered, “I forgive you, always and forever. And I love you.”

123 notes · View notes

drippinl0ve · 4 years

Text

truth or dare

—idol!haechan x reader

summary: you are the assistant for nct dream and they have all grown fond of you, especially one ray of sunshine.

genre: fluff, confession, friends to lovers

word count: 1.6k

warnings: idk maybe swearing and mention of sexual acts? its really just fluff tbh

You have no idea on how you scored your job as NCT Dream's personal assistant. There you were, just a kid who came straight out of high school, working at a café in the fall. The university of your choice had advised you to wait one more year until you turn 18, for "maturity reasons". When you took your interview for the university last spring, you apparently "didn't have the composure that they were looking for", as restated by your high school principal. Sure, you may have been giddy and extremely excited for your interview, but that doesn't mean that you are too immature for university just because you are an age younger than everyone else. It turned out fine in the end though, because that same giddy and excited energy is what landed you the job at SM.

The job description you were handed was very intense, due to the special circumstances. They basically needed someone for the Dreamies to hang out with and to confide in, therefore there was a lot of liability contracts to sign. The SM managers believed with your feverish attitude and your seemingly caring nature, along with your age, you would be a perfect fit to keep the boys preoccupied. Along with the job came rooming and all expenses paid for by the management agency. You, of course, got a small dorm that wasn't too far away from the Dream members'.

When you first arrived the boys were distant, not knowing how to react to a new person around, especially a pretty girl their age. It wasn't until you ran into Chenle in the hall late one night that the distance was broken. You were just on your way to get your late night pizza delivery from downstairs when you saw Chenle trying to sneak back into his room. He knew he was busted since he can't be out past 10 but the clock currently read 11:30. You assured him his secret was safe and even invited him to eat pizza with you out in the hallway. You guys briefly discussed each of your individual backgrounds that got you both to where you were now. To Chenle's surprise, you were his age and yet still so chill? It just kind of blew his mind that he now has a girl friend. He also helped introduce you to the other members.

After a few months at this job and being with them every single day, you have made a special connection with each one of the boys. Jisung and you always love to pull pranks on the older boys just so Jisung could say "maknae on top", Chenle and you just enjoy each other's presence and try out a lot of new restaurants and cafés together, you love to go on outings to art museums and galleries with Renjun, and Jeno and Jaemin almost never leave your side and are constantly trying to push you to do new things with them. As for Mark and Haechan, you do see less of them as they have to go to NCT 127 and U practices and such, but Haechan always seems to find time in between to come and hang out with you and the boys.

The boys took a fast notice to Haechan's reappearing presence after you came, and they simply put the pieces together. One day when you had left to your dorm to go shower and get ready for bed, Jeno, Jaemin, and Renjun all bombarded into Haechan's room.

"So... Haechan it seems that you have been spending more time than usual with us instead of with the 127 hyungs, why is that?", Jaemin slyly asks.

Haechan tried his best not to tense up and replied calmly with, "I guess I just love you guys".

Renjun was quick to retort, "I bet we are not all you love", a grin spreading onto Renjun and Jeno's faces.

Haechan swallowed the apparent lump in his throat, "W-what do you mean?", he let out a dry laugh, "are you accusing me of loving Y/N?".

"Hey! You said it, not us!", Jeno countered while pointing at him.

"C'mon, admit it. It's written all over your face whenever she's here", Renjun whined.

Haechan took a seat and rubbed his face to prevent exhaustion. He hadn't even come to terms with his feelings. All he knew was that he thought you were spectacular and he loved being around you. Every time you needed to run an errand for the boys, such as coffee pick up or groceries, he would insist to come with you. He loved helping you pick out your clothes and when you would give him a mini fashion show of the options in your hall. He always made sure that you were standing right off stage waiting for him after a performance, as your mere presence calmed his jittery nerves down greatly. Every stressful moment he has had where he wanted to quit being an idol, you were consistently there to help him get through it.

Haechan sighed, "I guess I do like her", he quietly mumbled.

Ever since that confession, the boys haven't left Haechan alone, but alas, they did promise to keep his secret. Chenle and Jisung aren't in on the secret, as you are too close with Chenle and Jisung can't keep a secret to save his life.

It was currently 11 o'clock on a Friday night and you stuck inside with the Dreamies (minus Mark since he could actually go to some music ceremony), but Haechan had decided to stay with the boys after he heard you were bored inside with them. After growing tired of watching the ceremony live, Jaemin had mischievously suggested on playing truth or dare. With Jaemin, Jeno, and Renjun giving each other sly glances, Haechan knew that something bad was going to come out of this game. Haechan quickly tried to stand up, saying he was tired from the full day he had, but Chenle pushed down on his shoulder to get him to reluctantly stay.

"Please hyung? You never hang out with us!", Chenle whined.

You made a pouty face towards him while giving your best, "pretty please?".

Haechan sighed while fully knowing deep down, he couldn't say 'no' to your face.

After getting Renjun to admit his love for Ariana Grande, daring Jisung to touch a cockroach, and forcing Chenle to be tickled brutally so Jeno could get a video of him laughing to post later, it was finally Donghyuck's turn.

Jaemin gave him a roguish grin as he asked "truth or dare?".

Haechan knew that if he says 'truth' then he will be forced to admit his feelings towards Y/N, so confidently he went with 'dare'.

"Okay hyung", Jaemin pondered, "I dare you to give Y/N a lap dance".

"WHAT?", was all that managed to come out as you were choking on your soda.

"It's no big deal really", Jaemin calmly stated, although he had a devious plan in mind.

Chenle and Jisung were shocked as their hyungs have never been so dirty before, and Renjun and Jeno exchanging nervous glances while Jaemin sat with full confidence staring at Haechan. Haechan was shocked, he could never do that to Y/N!

"I p-pick truth!", was all that managed to come out of his agape mouth.

"Hmmm", Jaemin absent mindlessly thought, though he already knew what he was going to say. "Tell us who you like".

"And no lying!", Jeno quickly chimed in.

Haechan stuttered and avoided eye contact from everyone, "I-I can't".

Jaemin rolled his eyes, knowing Haechan had to fess up eventually, "well, you either have to do the dare of performing a very sexual act or you can merely tell us all who you like".

Haechan glared at Jaemin as he sat there with the biggest smirk on his face, knowing exactly what he was pushing at.

"What's wrong, Donghyuckie?", you say completely oblivious to who he likes, "don't you trust us?".

His face immediately softens towards you, but before he can reply Renjun counters with, "it's not that he doesn't trust us, he just doesn't want to tell them".

Your face filled with confusion as you look around the dorm, but it is only the six of you. "Are they here, hyuck?", you ask cluelessly.

He gives you a shy nod while still looking down. Chenle and Jisung's eyes widen as they look at you. Then only did it hit you, this lovable ray of sunlight had a liking towards you. You let out a small chuckle as you think about how kind and generous he has been and you now know why. While you sit there smiling like an idiot to yourself, Haechan is still avoiding eye contact and is physically shaking. You stand up and grab his hand, pulling him up with you, as you lead him to the balcony.

The view of Seoul was breathtaking, you let it linger in your head before you started speaking.

"I like you too, Donghyuckie", you say while still looking out into the city.

His head slowly rose and he was speechless. Everything seemed to add up. You looked so beautiful with the city lights reflecting onto your skin as the light breeze blew into your hair.

"You make my days better just by your presence, you always seemingly know how to make me feel better, you and your stupid jokes time and time again make me laugh", you pause to let out a small laugh just thinking about his jokes, "you really are my ray of sunshine, Hyuck". You finally get the nerves to look over at him, only to see him staring with his mouth agape, you can't help but giggle he's so precious.

"Y/N, you don't know how long i've been waiting for this", he says eyes filled with amazement as if he just saw a shooting star.

"Well then don't wait any longer and take me out", you say somehow radiating confidence, although you're holding back a laugh.

"You read my mind, Y/N".

86 notes · View notes

fairestcat · 5 years

Text

We Did The Thing: Musings On the AO3, Wiscon, and Winning the Fandom Culture Wars

HOLY SHIT WE WON A MOTHERFUCKING HUGO.

Ahem.

More seriously - or at least more verbosely - I think we won the fandom culture wars. How weird is that?

This is a sort of rambly post. It's about the OTW and the AO3, but it's also about Wiscon, because that's the community I'm in where old-school SFF fandom and transformative works fandom collide, and it's where I've watched this transformation happen over the last decade.

Back in October I made a tumblr post about the history of the OTW/AO3: On the AO3 all these years later.

That post is mostly just quotes from the comments to @astolat's original post that started the AO3: An Archive Of One's Own - and quotes from the post I made back then linking to hers: An Archive of One's Own, Or: Why Shouldn't We Ask For Everything We Want?

Those posts are from May 2007. I was on the OTW Finance Committee by that fall.

One year later, in May 2008, I went to my first Wiscon. I was on two panels: "Fanfic and Slash 201," and "Fanfic Rising: The Organization for Transformative Works."

They were back to back on Saturday night. "Fanfic and Slash 201" from 9:00 to 10:15 and the OTW panel from 10:30 to 11:45. All fanworks panels at non fanworks-specific cons were late night panels back then. Or, occasionally, on Monday morning after half the con had gone home.

I don't remember who else was on the Fanfic 201 panel, but the OTW panel was me, @oliviacirce and ellen_fremedon. The three of us had never met before that con. @oliviacirce and I had been in Chicago Friday night for a Panic! At the Disco concert and hadn't gotten back to Madison until 3am. I have no idea how we were even still coherent for a 10:30 PM panel.

None of us wrote the panel description, which reads even more impressively antagonistic in retrospect.

"The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), led by fanfic writers, fan vidders, and fan artists (including writer Naomi Novik) seeks to establish a new regime in copyright law, in which 'all fannish works are recognized as legal and transformative and are accepted as a legitimate creative activity.' Should there be an exception for fanfic under copyright? Is OTW a good idea? (Some fans are afraid that OTW's activities will end BigMedia's tolerance for fannish creations.) What does the law say? What's the viewpoint of those who create original works -- should authors lose control of their original creations, as long as fans claim protection under a fanfic exception? And what about OTW's commitment to offer protection for RPF (Real People Fanfic)?"

At the time I would have said it was a pretty good panel, and yet we spent a distressing percentage of the panel defending the mere right of fanworks to even exist.

I went back to Wiscon in 2009, which was an...eventful year. It was the first Wiscon post-Racefail and it sparked a lot of discussion of intersecting modes of fannishness and particularly online fandom vs. offline con-based fandom, which was at the time a much bigger divide.

Wiscon 2009 was also the year @ellen_fremedon went to a panel on historical fiction, and got jumped on by Ellen Klages, who was one of that year's Guests of Honor, for the sin of mentioning fanfic in her presence.

After that Wiscon I posted Wiscon, Media Fandom and The Larger Fannish Conversation, about my experience of that divide, particularly as a transformative works fan at Wiscon.

Here's the thing: online media and fanfic fandom is a vibrant, active community within broader SF fandom. [...] And to a large extent media fandom is where the young female fans are, the women who are the future of fandom. We're there at Wiscon too; I was amazed by the number of people from LJ fandom I saw at the con this year. And yet, when it comes to having a voice in larger fandom, we're still the embarrassing cousin shuffled off into the corner (or the hotel lobby). Even at Wiscon, the feminist science fiction convention, we're mostly under the radar, carving out a tiny niche for ourselves.

Last year we had two general, broad-topic fanfic panels. This year we had a fanfic panel, a vidding panel and the media vs. book fandom panel, which was not explicitly a media fandom panel but had an audience heavily weighted towards media fandom participants. And I walked into those panels and I thought "Here! Here are my people!" But it was frustrating too. Why are we relegated to the corner, why are we willing to be relegated to the corner? The conversations we're having, the things we're doing, they don't exist in a vacuum, they're relevant to the larger fannish conversation, they're especially relevant, I think, to the conversation going on at Wiscon. And I think it's time we were a bigger, more open part of that conversation.

So, we set out to make that happen. The OTW and the AO3 were a big part of that. Everyone who was worried at the time that the OTW would bring too much attention to fandom was right to be afraid. And wrong to be afraid too. Because that attention was how everything started to change. The OTW was fandom coming out of the closet, and like any coming out it was a powerful, transformative moment for those involved.

In 2010, a group of fans held the first ever Wiscon Vid Party.

At Wiscon in 2010, we held the first ever vid party in one of these hospitality suites on the Saturday night, from 9pm to 3am. That's six hours of vid programming! It was mostly unthemed, other than "here are some amazing vids!"[...] The general vibe of the party was loud, a little bit raucous, and pretty informal. We had a mixture of sofas and armchairs, stackable seating, and standing room. People came and went at will. We put a sign on the door asking people to keep conversations to a minimum, and it worked pretty well to keep chatter down while still allowing people to relax and have a good time. It was pretty much like a really big living room.

I missed that con due to the whole move to Canada and get married thing I did, but I remember my first Vid Party in 2012, looking around the party room and having this amazing feeling of being surrounded by my people.

I loved Wiscon, but it was always a fraught experience. There was always this worry that I'd say the wrong thing in the wrong place and suddenly get that disappointed, "oh, you're one of those fans," response. The vid party was the one place at the con that you could just walk in and that worry went away.

And then there started being more of those places. We started suggesting more and more fic and vid related panels.

In 2012, @oliviacirce and I were both on two transformative works panels. "What makes a great transformative work?" and "Fans Fix SF." In a step up from previous fanworks panels at Wiscon they were both during the day. But they were also both in the smallest panel rooms at the con, and both panels fit comfortably into those rooms. Conference 5, where "Fans Fix SF" was held, is still the only room Wiscon uses for programming that's so small it isn't wired for microphones.

And then in 2013 I suggested ten panels for Wiscon and nine of them ended up on the schedule. They weren't all explicitly transformative fandom panels, but a lot of them were, and most of the panel descriptions were informed by my experience in transformative works fandom. Looking back, that was a sea-change moment, because an interesting thing happened. There mostly stopped being transformative fandom-specific panels at Wiscon, because it started being okay, even expected, that fanfic and other transformative works might come up on any panel, from the audience or the panelists.

At Wiscon 2018, I went to a panel on #OwnVoices fiction. Every panelist was a published author and/or professional editor. In the course of the panel, every panelist mentioned fanfic in general or the AO3 in specific in an explicitly complementary fashion. I nearly burst into tears in the back of the panel room.

Afterwards, I met up with @oliviacirce and ellen_fremedon to flail about it, at which point we realized that it had been ten years since that first fateful OTW panel where we all met. And that ten years both felt like so long ago, and also so recent for everything to have changed so completely.

At Wiscon 2019, the three of us were on another panel together. We called it "Fanfic: Threat or Menace - Ten Years Later," and this time I wrote the description:

Do you remember a time before the AO3? Do you remember a time when mentioning fanfic at Wiscon risked a lecture on its illegality and/or immorality? We sure do! In 2008 we met on the panel “Fanfic Rising: The Organization for Transformative Works,” & spent most of our time defending the right of fanworks to exist. In 2018 we were amazed to realize just how much had changed. Let’s talk about how the perception & reception of fanworks have changed, both in fandom at large and right here at Wiscon.

We made it onto the schedule. They once again put us in the smallest panel room. We looked around the lobby on Thursday night and said, "yeah, that ain't happening." We eventually moved to one of the largest panel rooms.

It was almost completely full.

I started the panel by reading out the original panel description from 2008. There was laughter! revolutionaryjo came up afterwards and asked to take a picture of the description on my phone. There were so many people in that room who had no idea what the Wiscon of a decade previous had been like. It was amazing.

Best Related Work? The OTW and AO3 changed the nature of the relationship between fic readers and writers and the entirety of mainstream organized SFF fandom.

The Wiscon Vid Party is still happening, and it's still a marathon of amazing vids, but it's not a really big living room anymore. The Vid Party is the Friday night feature in the biggest panel room. There are Premieres. There’s a sing-a-long. People come who have never watched a vid outside of Wiscon. People come who've never even heard of vids outside of Wiscon. The first year the Vid Party was in the big room, I walked into the room just before the show started, looked around, and realized I didn't recognize ⅔ of the people in the room. And I was so happy. Because I no longer need the Vid Party as a safe space to let down my guard, the entire con is now that place.

We did that. We made that happen.

The OTW made that happen. The AO3 made that happen. But also, a whole lot of individual fans made that happen. We stepped out of our corner, we stepped out of our closet. We demanded a seat at the table. And now we have a motherfucking HUGO AWARD, and when Naomi Novik got on stage at the Hugos and asked everyone who felt that they were part of the AO3 to stand up to be acknowledged, a notable number of this year's other Hugo nominees were among the attendees who got to their feet.

#ao3 #HUGO AWARD WINNING AO3 #we did the thing #otw #wiscon #meta

818 notes · View notes

cmanonstillinhiding · 4 years

Text

second impact

@enbies-and-felonies pt 5!! i’m gonna call this one the end but i might write an epilogue of sorts at some point? i hope you like it! <3

Hotch was gracious enough to wait until 7:30 to call them in later that day, so they drove Ellie to school on their way to the BAU.

‘I’m getting my uniform today! We’re meeting our coach too, and having our first practice and-’

JJ groaned. ‘-and drowning your mothers in release forms, physical forms, contact forms, the list goes on.’

‘Oh, yeah. We got those already, they’re on the hall table. They need to be in by Friday.

Emily smirked. ‘Well, Ellie, I think your mom can help you with that. She does have experience.

‘Yeah, from the athlete’s perspective. I feel bad for my mother, having to fill all those out every year.’

Ellie rolled her eyes. ‘It’s not that bad. You have case reports longer almost every day.’

Emily sighed as they stopped in front of Ellie’s school. ‘All the more reason for you not to add on top of them! You have your things? Alright, we’ll pick you up after practice. Have a good day!’

Ellie hopped out of the car, waving as she headed into the building. Emily dodged through the rush hour traffic as they drove the familiar route to the BAU, neither one wanting to break the silence that had settled once Ellie left.

Hotch only kept them until around noon that day, just finishing up paperwork and tying off any loose ends that had been left in the investigation. After Morgan and Reid left arm-in-arm at 11:30, he gave up on anything productive and gave them the rest of the day off.

JJ drove home, half watching the road and half lost in thought until Emily reminded her she’d just missed the turn down their road. JJ sighed and turned the car around, aware of Emily’s eyes drilling into her. ‘You really want to have that talk, huh?’

‘Yeah, I do.’

‘Okay. As soon as we get home.’

JJ tossed her keys onto the hall table, grabbing Ellie’s small mountain of sports forms as she walked into the kitchen where Emily, who was already making coffee, stared at the stack. ‘All that for a middleschool sport?’

JJ sighed. ‘Oh, yeah. All that plus impact testing, insurance forms, allergy information, and gosh knows what else.’ She pulled the top packet off the pile. ‘This at least is information. Her team roster, game times, uniform rules, and her-’

Emily frowned over the counter at her pause. ‘Her what?’

JJ tossed the form back onto the table. ‘I’m going to go pick up Ellie.’

‘What? It’s 1:00, she doesn’t even get out of school for another hour and a half.’

‘I don’t want her going to practice today.’

Emily come around to grab the packet off the table. ‘I thought we were going to talk about this? What happened?’

‘Her-’ JJ’s voice broke. ‘Her coach. He used to be-’

Emily met her eyes. ‘Brian Andrews. That’s your old coach, isn’t it?’

JJ closed her eyes, barely nodding. ‘Yes. He was.’

‘You need to tell me what’s so bad about him. I don’t want your perception of him to affect Ellie.’

‘Why don’t you just trust me?’

‘JJ, you know I do. I just can’t-’

‘Can’t what? Can’t just please, please, listen to me without needing to hear exactly how he hurt me? Exactly what happened? Em, stop. Just stop, please. I don’t want to hear how I ‘need to look on the bright side’ and ‘just because I had a bad experience doesn’t mean Ellie will.’ Because that’s so, so, not what I need to hear right now. You think Ellie should be allowed to play, great, she can play. But I cannot look the man that almost killed me in the eye and tell him I’m glad he can do the same to my daughter. Emily, you have to hear this. I don’t want my life to ruin Ellie’s. But I need my life, my experience to mean something to you.’

Emily, entirely taken aback by her outburst, paused for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice had none of its previous edge. ‘What do you mean ‘he almost killed you?”

JJ shook her head, lips pressed together.

Emily nodded. ‘Okay. If you don’t want to talk right now, fine, but will you sit with me?’

‘What?’

Emily shifted over to make space for her on the couch. ‘Sit with me. Please.’

JJ sat down gingerly, bracing herself for Emily to continue the conversation.

Emily laid her hand on JJ’s knee, waiting for her to make the next move. JJ placed her own hand over Emily’s, leaning into her until she could rest her head on the other’s shoulder. Emily threaded her fingers into JJ’s hair, stroking gently until she felt her relax. ‘Hey, sweetheart. You with me?’

JJ nodded, tucking her head against Emily’s shoulder.

‘Okay. Do you want to talk now, or just stay here?’

Barely more than a whisper. ‘Talk.’

‘Can I ask you a question?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you mean when you said your coach almost killed you?’

JJ stiffened, her entire body tensing against Emily’s. She took a deep breath before beginning to speak. ‘I was 17, and got the flu just before a game. I had a fever of 102°. But missing a practice, let alone a game, as a captain was grounds for dismissal from the team. So I went. I almost passed out just walking to the field, so I swallowed my pride and asked to sit out.’

She paused, closing her eyes against the memory.

‘I stumbled out there, and he said to me,’

‘Are you serious? I trained you for years! Years! I made you everything you are, everything you will be, and you ask to sit out? How do you think that looks for me? My best senior, on the bench in the postseason? Not a chance! Get moving, girl. Three laps for your attitude, then practice.’

JJ had caught one word in five of his tirade through the pounding in her head. The tylenol the nurse had given her was wearing off, and she didn’t think making even one lap around the field was a possibility. She’d paused too long though, and a hand between her shoulder blades had her on the ground, facedown in the damp turf.

‘That’s four laps now, lazy. Get to it.’

JJ pulled herself up slowly, waiting for the world to stop spinning, then started a miserable jog around the field, barely upright. Pain, she was used to that. But this was different, a loss of ability, coordination, senses. Just three more laps, just two more laps, just-

‘I didn’t know I’d passed out until I woke up in the ER. I was left on the ground until practice was over. I was hypothermic and my temperature had spiked to 104°, but as far as Coach was concerned, I was useless.’

Emily was silent for so long JJ pulled back, turning her head up to look at Emily, hoping she hadn’t just ruined...well, everything. But Emily was staring down at her, mouth slightly open. ‘Sweetheart...I don’t know what to say.’

JJ didn’t answer, so Emily pulled her onto her lap, tucking the blonde’s head against her chest, wrapping her arms around her. ‘Shhhh, hey, I’m here. I have you.’

JJ nodded, staying where she was. ‘Do you understand now?’

‘Yeah. At least better than I did.’ Emily turned to look at her. ‘You lived like that for four years?’

‘Four years, year-round. We had an indoor rec league and spring games too. I saw him more than I saw my mother.’

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

‘Because that’s normal! He wasn’t out of the ordinary at all for what he did, and it made us better players.’

‘I can assure you none of that made you a better player.’

‘It made me stronger.’

‘You’re repeating something he said, aren’t you.’

‘Yeah. I don’t know what else to say.’

‘What else happened?’

Emily waited a minute before JJ answered, her voice flat and detached.

‘He kept us on the field for as many as six hours, running almost the whole time. We were to attend practice no matter what, sick, injured, sister had just died, whatever. We would bleed through our cleats from blisters. When I got home every night, I would have to soak my socks and uniform to make sure my mother didn’t see the bloodstains. I played concussed and on stress fractures for two years, almost all without any access to medical care, because that would mean I had to sit out, and I couldn’t do that. On weekends we played dawn til dusk, before and after our games, with laps if we weren’t performing well enough. I wanted to quit so badly, but I had no other way out, and he knew that. For all of us.’

‘How could he do that? You were a child!’

‘We were children, and had no idea what we’d gotten into. When you don’t know anything else...I didn’t even know something was wrong with what he did until I graduated college.’

‘My god...JJ, why didn’t you tell me this earlier?’

‘I really, really don’t like talking about it, and I was hoping you’d trust me enough I wouldn’t have to.’

‘I should have. I’m so, so sorry that happened to you, love.’

JJ nodded, still curled against Emily. ‘I can’t let that happen to Ellie.’

Emily kissed her hair, pulling her closer. ‘No. We won’t let that happen. But, if there’s a rec league, or maybe a travel team around here...she really does want to play.’

JJ paused. ‘I think I could handle that, if she had a different coach. I want her to be happy, but I-I can’t have her near that man.’

‘I understand. We’ll figure it out, okay?’

‘Okay.’

They stayed like that for a while, until JJ’s phone buzzed with a text from Garcia. Emily opened it with a sigh. ‘You’ll never guess what this says...’

JJ groaned. ‘We have a case?’

‘Four dead in Providence, Rhode Island. Hotch wants us there ASAP.

‘Of course he does. I’ll call my mom to get Ellie.’

Emily groused into the hall the grab the keys. ‘They really can’t give us a day off, huh?’

‘Oh, where else would you get your adrenaline if not from chasing down the scum of the earth?’

‘We’re going to be chasing down a teenage daughter soon, I think that should about cover it.’

JJ grinned. ‘You have a point.’

Emily smirked back. ‘I know.’

She turned just as she reached the door, reaching for JJ’s hand. ‘I love you.’

JJ took it. ‘I love you too.’

#fun fact! nothing i have tossed into jj's backstory is something i haven't seen or personally experienced over 4 years of hs varsity sports #so if you think 'this is barbaric! how could you come up with this??' just remember that i did not in fact make this shit up #have i had some coaches who were worse than the norm? yes #were those coaches worse bc we had a reputation for winning? also yes #have i dealt with a lot of this shit? also also yes #second impact

9 notes · View notes

ucb-llm · 3 years

Text

A Day in the Life at UC Berkeley

We are in a pandemic. While I would love to study in-person at Berkeley Law, this semester is conducted (almost) fully remotely. In fact, the desire to have in-person classes was the reason why I decided to defer my program start half a year ago. Six months later classes are still remote, but life has returned to the city of Berkeley. Streets are getting more and more crowded and the city seems to wake up from a year-long pandemic-sleep. Berkeley has also recently announced that it plans to return to fully in-person classes in the next semester.

So how does a day in the (virtual) life at UC Berkeley look like? I will give you an insight on a typical Wednesday – the day on which my timetable is the fullest:

7:30 AM: Coffee on the stove, catching up with some readings for today’s classes and getting ready for the day.

8:35 AM: First Class of the Day – Fundamentals to U.S. Law Fundamentals is one of the two core courses that every LL.M. needs to take. We go over the most relevant Supreme Court Cases in the history of the US. From the decision on same-sex marriage to women’s right to attend university. As often the case in US law school classes, the professor relies on the Socratis-method of teaching, meaning students get cold-called on the pre-assigned readings.

10 AM: It’s always sunny in California. I usually try to use the time between classes to get outside, grab a coffee and enjoy the sun. Wednesdays, it’s also time for the weekly Covid-test, that UCB asks all students living around campus to take. My test station is in Memorial Stadium, the Golden Bears home stadium.

11:20 AM: Second Class of the Day – First Amendment First Amendment is a typical J.D.-class. It covers important parts of U.S. constitutional law. Our professor calls students in a panel-system (a third of the class is on call every three weeks) and discusses important cases. I take the course to be eligible for the New York Bar. Quick word about the bar: With the courses at UC Berkeley, similar to all big law schools, you can basically take any state bars in the US. However, the overwhelming majority of students only want to take either the New York or the Californian Bar. For an LL.M. it is definitely not mandatory to take the bar – though many do it to higher their chances to find a job in the U.S., German LL.M.s are usually rather less interested in taking it. While the passing rates with the Californian bar are low, it is also a lot easier to be eligible than for the NY Bar. LL.M.s that are licensed attorneys in another jurisdiction do not need to take any specific courses to be eligible, while the NY Bar requires some commitment within the LL.M. course planning.

12:45 PM: Short Swim or Tennis In between classes, I hop onto my bike and go for a swim or play a quick tennis match. UC Berkeley provides for a number of wonderful pools and tennis courts that are free to use (or wait.. is tuition-financed really free or just prepaid?). Banners around the swimming stadium and other sports facilities boast of Berkeley’s athletes' Olympic victories.

2:00 PM: Lunch I usually meet friends on campus for a (socially distanced) lunch. Korean, Mexican, Chinese, American, Italian, you name it – Berkeley with its huge immigration culture has it all. (Fun fact: The streets surrounding campus supposedly have the highest bubble tea density in the US) Alternatively, the law school offers lunch talks basically every day of the week. Most of the times, it is a guest speaker (regularly quite famous, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg a while ago) addressing a current issue.

3:30 PM: Third Class of the Day – Legal Research and Writing The second core class for LLMs tends to be the least popular class in the curriculum. It’s all about learning research and citation methods for the writing project. However, compared to other LLM programs with a long Master’s thesis, it’s a rather short memo. This semester, Legal Research and Writing is also our only in-person class, conducted outdoor and with masks. Berkeley has guaranteed us this in-person class so that we can fulfill our visa requirements.

6:30 PM: Fourth Class of the Day – Practical Legal Ethics Legal Ethics is another class that J.D.s usually take to fulfill their study requirements. We simulate critical situations that demand ethically right decisions and analyze bar discipline rules. As many of the classes I chose, it is “seminar-style” and gives the opportunity to interact a lot with the professor and fellow classmates

8:15 PM: Done for the Day It was a long day. However, with only one class on Thursday and none on Friday, Wednesday night also feels close to the start of the long weekend. Time to grab a drink and enjoy the look from the Berkeley hills over the Bay.

(Yes, the sun sets right behind Golden Gate!)

2 notes · View notes

newstfionline · 3 years

Text

Sunday, April 18, 2021

Biden’s Afghanistan plan a plus to some vets (AP) Patrick Proctor Brown says the war in Afghanistan was lost within a year of its start. The suburban Milwaukee lawyer, who was an infantry captain in Iraq, said the trillions of dollars spent and the thousands of lives lost, including a lieutenant he trained with, make it “a tragedy.” “And the Taliban will be back in power in a year,” said Brown, 35, who also studied diplomacy at Norwich, a military university in Vermont. “It’s insane.” Brown supports President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, and by voting for the Democrat, he represents a subtle but potent shift in the voting behavior of some in the military. Voters who served in the military have long leaned toward Republicans. But there are signs that Biden may have cut into that advantage. “This president has got to end these wars,” said Jon Soltz, a former Army tank captain who formed the Democratic-leaning VoteVets.org in 2006. “He’s got to fulfill some of these promises. There’s a war-weariness in the military.”

Riot declared after windows smashed in Portland protests (AP) Police in Portland, Oregon, declared a riot Friday night after authorities said protesters smashed windows and burglarized businesses during demonstrations that started earlier in the day after police fatally shot a man while responding to reports of a person with a gun. The vandalism downtown came after the Friday morning police shooting but also was part of vigils and demonstrations already planned for the night in the name of people killed in other police shootings nationwide. They include 13-year-old Adam Toledo of Chicago and Daunte Wright, a Black man in a Minneapolis suburb. Deputy Police Chief Chris Davis told reporters earlier in the day that a white man in his 30s was shot and killed by police, who opened fire with a gun and weapons that fire non-lethal projectiles. A witness who spoke to reporters at the scene said the man, who had removed his shirt and was blocking an intersection, appeared to be in a mental health crisis.

Castro era in Cuba to end as Raul confirms he’s retiring (Reuters) Raul Castro confirmed he was handing over the leadership of the Cuban Communist Party to a younger generation at its congress that kicked off on Friday, ending six decades of rule by himself and older brother Fidel. In a speech opening the four-day event, Castro, 89, said the new leadership would be party loyalists with decades of experience working their way up the ranks and were “full of passion and anti-imperialist spirit.” The new generation of leaders, which did not forge itself through rebellion, has no easy task. The transition comes as Cuba faces the worst economic crisis since the collapse of former benefactor the Soviet Union, while there are signs of growing frustration, especially among younger Cubans. A tightening of the decades-old U.S. trade embargo and the coronavirus pandemic have exacerbated a liquidity crisis in Cuba’s ailing centrally planned economy. Shortages of even basic goods mean Cubans spend hours lining up to buy groceries.

Argentina closes schools, imposes curfew in Buenos Aires as COVID-19 cases spike (Reuters) Argentina’s government will tighten pandemic restrictions in and around the capital Buenos Aires to rein in a sharp spike in COVID-19 cases, including shutting schools and imposing a curfew from 8pm to limit social activity. President Alberto Fernández, 62, given his all-clear earlier in the day after he was infected with the virus, said the South American country needed to “gain time” in the fight against COVID-19 after daily cases hit a record this week. The measures will see schools closed in Greater Buenos Aires from Monday, and the suspension of indoor sports, recreational, religious and cultural activities until April 30.

The queen says goodbye to Philip, continues her reign alone (AP) Sitting by herself at the funeral of Prince Philip on Saturday, Queen Elizabeth cut a regal, but solitary figure: still the monarch, but now alone. The queen sat apart from family members at the simple but somber ceremony in accordance with strict social distancing rules during the coronavirus pandemic. But if the ceremony had been for anyone else, at her side would have been her husband of 73 years, who gave a lifetime of service to the crown. The monarch’s four children and eight grandchildren sat in small groups nearby, during a stripped-back service at Windsor Castle that made their loss somehow more personal for people who often live their lives in public. The service was quiet and without excessive pageantry. Philip was deeply involved in planning the ceremony. At his request, there was no sermon. There were also no eulogies or readings, in keeping with royal tradition. Former Bishop of London Richard Chartres, who knew Philip well, said the 50-minute service reflected the preferences of the prince, who was a man of faith but liked things to be succinct. “He was at home with broad church, high church and low church, but what he really liked was short church,” Chartres told the BBC.

Philip’s legacy lives in chef who traded prison for kitchen LONDON (AP)—Jon Watts was 18 years old when he woke up in a prison cell and decided he had to change. He enrolled in every course he could find, from mathematics to business. But he says it was a program founded by Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, that gave him a “passion for food” and a career as a chef when he got out of prison 3 1/2 years later. “I was a young boy in prison,” Watts, now 32, told The Associated Press. “It helped mold me to be what I like to think is a good person, and it set me up to believe in myself, to believe that I can achieve things.” After Philip’s death last week at age 99, politicians and world leaders rushed to eulogize his lifetime of service to his wife, Queen Elizabeth II, and to the British nation. For many people across the country, though, his greatest contribution was the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, a program which seeks to give young people the skills and confidence they need to succeed. Participants in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award must complete volunteer work, improve their physical fitness, learn new skills, and go on expeditions to earn each of three progressively more difficult levels of achievement—bronze, silver and gold. More than 6.7 million people between the ages of 14 and 24 have taken part in the U.K., and the program has expanded to 130 countries since Philip founded it in 1956.

A Bitter Family Feud Dominates the Race to Replace Merkel (NYT) With less than six months to go before Germans cast their ballots for a new chancellor, the political vacuum Angela Merkel leaves behind after 16 years of consensus-oriented leadership is coming more sharply into focus. A rare and rancorous power struggle has gripped Germany’s conservatives this week as two rivals vie to replace her, threatening to further hobble her Christian Democratic Union, which is already sliding in the polls. Normally, Armin Laschet, 60, who was elected in January to lead the party, would almost assuredly be the heir apparent to Ms. Merkel. Instead, he finds himself unexpectedly pitted against his biggest rival, Markus Söder, the more popular head of a smaller, Bavaria-only party, the Christian Social Union, in a kind of conservative family feud. Experts and party members alike are calling for the dispute to be resolved within the coming days, as it risks damaging the reputation of the two conservative parties, jointly referred to as the Union. Because the two parties operate as one on the national stage, they must choose one candidate for chancellor.

Russia to expel 10 US diplomats in response to Biden actions (AP) On Thursday, the Biden administration announced sanctions on Russia for interfering in the 2020 U.S. presidential election and involvement in the SolarWind hack of federal agencies—activities Moscow has denied. The U.S. ordered 10 Russian diplomats expelled, targeted dozens of companies and people, and imposed new curbs on Russia’s ability to borrow money. Russia responded by saying it would expel 10 U.S. diplomats and take other retaliatory moves in a tense showdown with Washington. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also said Moscow will move to shut down those U.S. nongovernment organizations that remain in Russia to end what he described as their meddling in Russia’s politics. The top Russian diplomat said the Kremlin suggested that U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan follow the example of his Russian counterpart and head home for consultations. Russia will also deny the U.S. Embassy the possibility of hiring personnel from Russia and third countries as support staff, limit visits by U.S. diplomats serving short-term stints at the embassy, and tighten requirements for U.S. diplomats’ travel in the country.

Russia’s surveillance state (Washington Post) Russian authorities are ramping up the use of facial recognition technology to track opposition protesters to their homes and arrest them—a powerful new Kremlin tool to crush opposition. But when state security agents are suspected of murders or attacks on journalists and opposition activists, surveillance cameras have at times been switched off or “malfunction.” And the system is so leaky that surveillance data on individuals can be bought for a small sum on Russia’s notorious black market in data, along with all kinds of other personal information. There is even a name for the clandestine cyber-bazaar: probiv. China leads the world in rolling out a vast network of facial recognition technology, including a system to track and repress its Uyghur minority. But Putin’s Russia is racing to catch up. Russian firms such as NtechLab produce some of the world’s most sophisticated facial recognition software as authorities grapple with counterpunches by the opposition, including using social media to expose Russia’s kleptocracy such as extravagances by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s political allies. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the facial recognition system—rolled out in Moscow en masse in January 2020 and expanded to at least 10 other Russian cities—is now used in 70 percent of crime investigations. Moscow has more than 189,000 cameras with facial recognition capabilities, as well as more than 12,300 on subway cars in Moscow’s Metro.

Health care: The medical cost crisis will outlast COVID (The Week) Few would disagree that “much-reviled Big Pharma pulled off one of the great achievements in medical history,” said Geoff Colvin at Fortune—quickly developing multiple effective COVID-19 vaccines. Hospital workers, too, “have been heroes in the truest sense” in the fight against the pandemic. These are not groups America “wants to punish” right now. But something has to give. A system of “perverse incentives,” from drug distribution to insurance rebates, has made health-care costs “maddeningly untamable.” In the six years since the Affordable Care Act was passed, health-care spending per capita has increased faster than it did in the six years prior. Three-quarters of Americans say that the quality of the health care they get isn’t worth what they are paying for it. Big Hospitals and Big Pharma are “at each other’s throats” over who is to blame, but the trend in costs “isn’t about to reverse.” Poorer hospitals have “limped through the year,” straining under the costs of COVID, said Jordan Rau and Christine Spolar at Kaiser Health News, but many wealthier ones have done just fine. The U.S. has budgeted $178 billion in aid for health-care providers, and even profitable hospitals have gotten help. After receiving $454 million in federal aid, Baylor, the biggest nonprofit hospital system in Texas, “accumulated an $815 million surplus, $20 million more than it had in 2019.” Despite this, hospitals have devised ways to pass on costs, said Sarah Kliff at The New York Times. Lenox Hill, one of the oldest and best-known hospitals in New York City, has “repeatedly billed patients more than $3,000 for the routine nasal swab test” for COVID, “about 30 times the test’s typical cost.” The hospital “advertised its COVID-19 testing on a large blue-and-white banner,” then charged each visit as an emergency room procedure. Federal legislation mandated that coronavirus testing be free for patients. “But eventually, American patients bear the costs in the form of higher insurance premiums.”

#headlines #news

1 note · View note

euphoricdumpsterfire · 3 years

Text

To the Moon and Back (Peter Parker x Stark OC) Chapter 3

Master List

Warnings: Curse words

Word Count: 2218

A/N: Guys, I’m so sorry I know I said I’d post by Friday but I had a lot of schoolwork. But the good news is, THE ORANGE MF LOST! I get to keep the small amount of rights I have as a WOC. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter and have a great day <3

Summary: Spiderman and Moonflower know each other’s identities. Nixie realizes she has a thing for Parker.

“So...” Peter trailed off.

“So...” Nixie did the same thing. Awkwardness filled the air as they both sat on the edge of a building in the middle of the night after they had fought a bunch of bad guys.

“How’d you find out that... I’m Spiderman?” Peter asked as he looked at the mask that he was holding onto.

“Oh it was actually simple. I saw you in Chemistry mixing up something and I kinda stalked you the whole day-”

“THE WHOLE DAY?!” Peter cut off Nixie and she glared at him for not letting her finish, “Sorry... Uhm continue.”

“So anyways, I saw you lift up that whole row of lockers, and your stash... But of course that wasn’t enough, I stalked you for several days after school and found out where you hide your backpack and put on your suit.” Nixie said.

Peter looked at Nixie with a confused face but he was also impressed that Nixie simply found out about Spiderman in a matter of days. “But why did you do all of this?” Peter asked.

“What specific thing are you talking about?” Nixie replied

“The whole stalking and showing up as Moonflower...” Despite things starting to unravel, Peter still can’t comprehend what exactly was happening. It’s as if he was having a fever dream.

“Oh that! It’s all part of my mission that my dad assigned.” Nixie answered. Peter’s jaw dropped as he finally started putting the pieces together.

“W-wait so you’re telling me... THE Tony Stark sent you here to go look for me?!” Peter exclaimed and Nixie nodded plainly, his heart felt like it jumped off a building. He never expected that a billionaire/superhero would set his eyes on a simple friendly neighborhood Spiderman. But one thing still didn’t make sense to him. “If you’re Moonflower, how come you never told the public like your father?” Peter asked.

“Because then the world would have their eyes on me all the time, and I don’t like that. I’d rather separate Nixie from Moonflower, it makes me feel like Hannah Montana.” Nixie smiled and Peter chuckled at her statement. While they were having a casual conversation, a car slowly drove by the building and stopped. Nixie looked down and realized it was a familiar car. The door opened and a huge man got out wearing sunglasses. “Hey Happy... Isn’t it too dark to be wearing sunglasses right now?” Nixie said cheekily.

“Your dad called TEN times already and I said you were at the grocery buying whatever it is that you need for your period. Now GET DOWN NOW and let’s get you home!” Happy said impatiently.

“Sorry about that, he’s always pissed for no reason.” Nixie said looking at Peter who seemed intimidated by Happy. “Happy, I met Spiderman!” Nixie said looking down.

“That’s very nice, but we need to go NOW!” Happy exclaimed.

“Geez, alright...” Nixie rolled her eyes as she put on her eye mask and looked back at Peter, “See you tomorrow?” Nixie said.

“Yeah, see ya.” Peter waved goodbye and Nixie used a vine to climb down the building and finally left. Peter looked down as the car drove away making sure his friend traveled safely and then, he went back home.

***

“You should’ve seen it Happy, it was so COOL!” Nixie said as she sat at the back of the car trying to explain what had happened earlier.

“You know what would be cool? If your dad would stop calling because he’s been awfully suspicious of your whereabouts and sooner or later he’ll find out, and we’ll get in trouble and...” Happy continued to talk but Nixie couldn’t focus because she started seeing another vision. This time it was with Peter again but they were at an airport in full suits going against an extremely tall figure the size of two tall buildings stacked together. Nixie couldn’t see it well but it was making her head hurt.

“Nix? Are you okay? Did you get hurt while fighting those guys?” Happy’s angry tone turned softer as he looked back at Nixie with concern.

“No, it’s alright, I think I’m just tired...” She answered.

They eventually got back to the Avengers Tower at 11:30 pm. Nixie and Happy hopped on the elevator and got to the top. The doors slid open revealing Tony with his arms crossed. The tv can be heard playing the news as the reporter said, “This just in, Spiderman and Moonflower were caught fighting armed men on a street in Queens. CCTV footage shows Moonflower tying up all of the men next to a stoplight. Thanks to this surprising team-up, our neighborhood is saved once again!” Tony held the remote and turned off the tv as Happy and Nixie got off the elevator.

“Grocery eh?” Tony said looking at Nixie as she held onto the strap of her backpack.

“I may or may not stumbled upon a serious situation and decided to help out our golden boy.” Nixie suggested with a grin on her face,

“I would suggest celebrating but now’s not the right time...” Tony trailed off as he walked back to the tv and Nixie jumped on the couch.

“Why not? I found Spiderman, so I get to be an Avenger now!” Nixie said confidently.

“Well... It had just dawned on us that the government doesn’t exactly trust us superheroes. Now we have to sign a contract.” Tony said as he handed Nixie an ipad showing the contract. “The huge problem here is that Cap won’t do it.” Nixie scrolled through the multiple pages of the contract and stopped halfway.

“I mean, I get why he won't... This contract basically makes all of you guys government puppets.” Nixie said as she noticed her dad looking more worried as ever.

“That’s not the point Nix, we don’t want innocent people involved in whatever it is that we do. With these accords we can make sure not one civilian gets hurt.” Tony’s usual smug face was gone and it was replaced by anxiousness which Nixie rarely saw. From the action packed news about Moonflower and Spiderman teaming up, the news switched topics on the Sokovia Accords.

“I’m just gonna head to bed now.” Nixie got up and grabbed her backpack,

“Night Moonie.”

“Night dad.”

Hours have passed, it was now 3 am, and Nixie lied on her bed in complete darkness as the visions kept showing up. “Maybe you should tell your Dr. Banner.” A voice said. She turned to the small succulent that stood on her bedside table, whom she had named Grizelda.

“For the millionth time, Banner’s not here Griz.” Nixie answered.

“Then what about Peter? He is the one you see in your visions after all…” The plant replied.

“That’s fucking stupid. I can’t just go up to him and say “Hey dude, I’ve been seeing visions of you and me together and it’s kinda weird!”, he’s gonna think I’m into him or something.” Nixie said glaring at the plant.

“Well aren’t you?” The plant retorted.

“JUST SHUT UP!” Nixie exclaimed as she covered her ears with the large pillow beside her and ignored her plant friend. After that quick banter, Nixie spent a sleepless night, rolling back and forth trying to fall asleep, from white noise, to sleeping pills, none worked. She wanted the visions to stop but it seemed like it could go on forever until she died. Then came the morning. FRIDAY turned on the lights and opened the curtains revealing the bright sun that hit Nixie’s tired face. She sighed and got up from her bed, she did her usual routine and headed to the kitchen where she only saw Natasha.

“Had nightmares kid?” Natasha asked without looking up at Nixie who was walking sluggishly to the dining table.

“Not necessarily.” Nixie replied as she sat down and poured herself a bowl of cereal.

“Saw what you did last night with Spiderman, how was it?” Nat asked,

“Turns out I was right, Spiderman’s Peter Parker.” Nixie shoved a spoonful of cereal into her mouth.

“The Star Wars dude?!” Nat exclaimed, she wasn’t totally surprised that Nixie’s hunch was right, but hearing the kid from her stories, he seemed like he would just be stuck in the lab making experiments or just plainly binge-watching every single Star Wars film there is and not the type to go out at night fighting crime. But of course, some people are just plainly good at hiding their powers.

“Nat, when do you think Banner’s gonna come back?” Nixie asked

“I-I don’t know. I’m not even sure if he’ll ever come back after what happened in Sokovia.” Nat’s face turned gloomy at the thought of him.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

“Kid, don’t worry. I know you miss him, we all do.” Nat’s eyes started to tear up.

“But not as much as you.” Nixie felt bad she had ever brought up Banner, but with whatever she had going on, she had wished he was here.

Later that day, Nixie was in chemistry sitting next to MJ. She was listening to the lecture intently while taking notes but then she felt something hit the back of her head. She looked around and saw a paper airplane that had a small note on one of its wings that said “open”. Nixie unfolded the paper airplane and inside was another note written down.

Wanna go on patrol tonight?

She looked behind her where she saw Peter looking at her with bright eyes, hoping she’d agree. “Fine, but only until 9:30.” Nixie whispered loudly.

“11?” Peter pleaded,

“9:30.”

“10:30?” Peter suggested again,

“Ugh, 10, take it or leave it!” Nixie said and Peter had a huge grin on his face as a sign of approval.

“DEAL!” Peter whispered loudly.

Nixie turned back to face the board but she noticed from her peripheral vision that MJ was looking at her. “Are you and Peter…” before MJ could even finish her sentence, Nixie immediately replied.

“No. NO! Definitely not. It’s just that we’re volunteering at a retirement center in Manhattan.”

“I would ask if I can go, but talking to old people isn’t really my thing.” MJ said which made Nixie feel more relieved.

***

It was 9:50 pm, there weren’t really any extremely dangerous situations for Moonflower and Spiderman to stop. The most they did was help a bunch of kindergartners walk across the street, stopped a guy from peeing on the sidewalk, and returned a lost cat to its original owner. As for the rest of their remaining time, they sat on the edge of the same building once again, talking, laughing, and getting to know each other.

“Wait, so you’re telling me Flash Thompson got kicked out of your preparatory school?!” Peter exclaimed,

“Yup, he was caught cheating several times and I was outside for cheer practice when the whole team heard his mom yell at him.” Nixie said and Peter laughed so hard he almost fell off the building, luckily for him, Nixie caught him right away. “Dude you need to chill.” Nixie laughed.

“I never really asked you about it, but how’d you get your powers?” Peter asked.

“It kinda just… Showed up. I was 11 and I was in Washington with Pepper when I just found out I can literally just make a plant grow out of nowhere. My dad and Dr. Banner eventually found out that I’m a mutant.” Nixie answered.

“Is there anything else you can do besides the whole plant thing?” Peter asked,

“It only happened once and it was during one of Banner’s tests, I was sitting in a small clear box and I sat there for hours until I started to have trouble breathing… I wanted to get out but Banner left to go to the toilet. It felt like every second my lungs were getting tighter and tighter and it was getting hard for me to breathe. I used up all my strength and then suddenly the blonde streaks on my hair glowed and I blacked out. Once I woke up, Banner told me that everyone heard a loud explosion from the lab but when they got there, the box was gone and the floor was just covered in moonflower petals.” Nixie replied,

“So that’s where you got the name!” Peter said and Nixie hummed in agreement. Nixie looked over at her watch and realized it was time for her to go.

“Welp, that’s all the time I’ve got for today. Gotta go now.” She said as she got up.

“Nix, is this gonna be a regular thing now?” Peter looked at Nixie with his doey eyes and she couldn’t help but melt at the sight of it. It was a weird feeling she had, she couldn’t comprehend it, but she liked it. She smiled at her friend and nodded.

“Sure Spidey.” She said,

“That’s great!” Peter exclaimed, “I guess I’ll uh… See you tomorrow, partner!” He waved goodbye and swung through building by building. Nixie looked at him from afar as she still tried to comprehend what she was feeling.

“Looks like she has a thing for the human bug.” She heard whispers from the nearby plants, she rolled her eyes and ignored what the plants were saying and headed home...

3 notes · View notes

dailyaudiobible · 3 years

Text

01/16/2021 DAB Transcript

Gen 32:13-34:31, Matt 11:7-30, Ps 14:1-7, Pr 3:19-20

Today is the 16th day of January welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian, and it is great to be here with you as we close a week down together. We have 52 of these in here and so we reach these weekends and understand, yeah, this is one of them and so here we are. Kind of marks the time when we pay attention to that. It’s like. “O another week has gone by.” And before you know it, we’re months into the journey. And then just like that, it's Christmas. It just so quickly comes. But right now, we are laying the groundwork for how the Bible will unfold before us, and it has been a fantastic beginning to this new year. So, let's dive it. We’ve been reading from the New Living Translation this week, which is what we’ll do today. Genesis chapter 32 verse 13 through 34 verse 31.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for this week that we've been able to spend in Your word. We thank You for all of the things that You are revealing to us and showing us all of the things that start knitting themselves together in this story of transformation and redemption that we call the Bible, we thank You. Because these stories, these people that we are meeting, these people that we are getting to know, these are our spiritual ancestors. This how we got here, and we thank You for allowing us to look in upon our heritage but more importantly to watch the way You reveal Yourself over time, and to understand that this story continues, and we are a part of it right now. So, come Holy Spirit we pray in all of the things that we have learned and considered this week. Plant them in the soil of our hearts and in the areas that need cultivation, that need care the soil is not good soil. Come Holy Spirit, as we surrender to You make us good soil we pray. In the name of Jesus, we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it is the website, its where you find out what's going on around here. It’s where the Global Campfire is burning. Of course, if you have Daily Audio Bible app all of this stuff is accessible, and the Global Campfire is burning there too. So, check it out. Stay tuned, stay connected.

Be aware of the Community section. There are links to get connected in the different social media channels that we participate in. The Prayer Wall is there and lives there. And, so, it's always easy. There's just always a place to reach out for prayer and always a place to reach out and offer prayer. So, definitely dive in and get connected as we continue our journey.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, if the …if the mission that we are sharing in common to bring the spoken word of God read fresh every day and offered to anyone who will listen anywhere on this planet any time of day or night, and to build a community around that rhythm so that we know we’re not alone as we take the spiritual journey, but we’re also not alone as we take a year of life and move through it. We’re in this together. If that is life-giving to you then thank you for your partnership. There is a link on the homepage. If you’re using the ap you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner, or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174.

And, as always, if you have prayer request or encouragement you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button up at the top no matter where you are in the world or there are phone numbers that you can use depending on where you are. In the Americas 877-942-4253 is the number to call. In the UK or Europe 44-20-3608-8078. And if you are in Australia or that part of the world 61-3-8820-5459 is the number to dial.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hey family this is Francine from Tennessee. My husband and I have Covid and he’s home from recovering from a blood clot in his lung and tonight he...he…he’s so sick and we’re waiting to get antibodies Tuesday, and this is Friday night. And I’m calling to ask prayer for his breathing to be what it needs to be and for his pickups to subside. They’re a rare side effect. And I am so thankful for you family and I appreciate your prayers. And I pray that the Lord will touch and help all of those who are sick and suffering and that he will heal and raise us up to live I healthy life. And I just appreciate the prayers so much. Thank you. His name is Danny Smith. Thank you.

Hi Daily Audio Bible this is Shannon in Southern California and I just heard Paul’s prayer request. He’s a longtime listener first time caller and he’s praying…he’s asking for prayer because his children…his children…say they don’t love him anymore. I’m working the same thing and I want to pray. I want to pray for Paul. And there was another young lady who called in and said that her daughter and she…her were having difficulties. And I want to tell you guys it’s been a long time that my daughter and I have not spoken, and I pray every day for their strength and for my strength and for reconciliation for clarity and I pray the Lord’s presence in their lives. And I pray that for you Paul. I pray that the Lord touch your children touch their hearts whisper to them to tell…and confirm that God loves you and loves them and I pray for reconciliation for your family. I pray for reunification Lord in the name of Jesus. I know that You can do it because I know You’re gonna do it for me and I thank you Lord. I thank you for every day. I thank you for…for allowing me to go through this because I know when you…when my reunification comes with my family, when we are reconciled it’s going to be so joyous and Your name will be praised. Thank you, Jesus. Paul, please, please continue to pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Hey family this is Debbie in Des Moines. Hey Paul, I was just listening to you talk about your children and how they said that they don’t like you anymore and don’t want to be around you. I want to tell you that they will come back. My son, I did not hear from him for 10 years. I lost a decade in not hearing from my son. He was very angry with me, very angry. And I prayed, you know, I just held onto the Lord and I just prayed and just put him in his hands. And it took 10 years, but he is back in my life now and now I am believing God for his salvation. Psalm 10:17, “Lord you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you hear their cries and comfort them. “Praise…praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercy and the God of all comforts.” And that’s second Corinthians 1:3. Hang on…hang on to God’s word. Hang on, He hears you, He sees her tears, He sees your heart. He loves you. He will bring your children back to you. Happy...

Hey brothers and sisters, hello DABbers it is your brother from Indiana. I was just listening to the audio Bible from today, I don’t know what today is right now. And I was just encouraged to just kind of lift up a prayer for a sister who is in her last semester of college. I understand school can be a extremely stressful and unnerving time and I really just lift you up in prayer, praying the Holy Spirit would interceded for this prayer, that you would trust on God and in His resources and what He gives us, that being the armor of God, the spiritual fruits. May you look for God and may you know Him, and may you come to a relationship with Him giving Him your burdens because His yoke is light, and it is not heavy. As I heard when my brother say in Arizona, walk in the freedom Jesus provides. Sister, know that we are praying for you. Please, do not hesitate to ask to call on God. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Thank you, God. Thank you brothers...

Hey daily audio Bible family this is Billy from Montgomery with a Trinity stone. I wanted to put a prayer request out there for Kairos outside. It is a group of ladies that get together and they do kinda like we do Kairos inside, our prison ministry. They do a Kairos outside. It’s a three or four day weekend that’s like a…a mass flock or Curcio or a Paseo. It is a three or four day religious experience. Basically, a weekend with God is what it is. But so, we do the same thing with prisoners inside the prison. Well, they have a Kairos outside team that works with the ladies or the significant others of people that are inside of prison. So, it’s like the…the women that are outside, they go to jail. The same time the husband goes to jail they go to jail also because it’s an isolated incident, that it’s something that is…it’s isolating for them. So, this is a weekend where they can kind of explain to the ladies what the husbands went through when they do their Kairos weekend. And it’s a wonderful, wonderful weekend. They do this without charging the ladies anything. So, anyway they’re doing a Kairos outside in South Alabama January 29th that’s a Friday and it’s gonna be the 29th and 30th and 31st I guess three days. So, I just wanted to cover them up in prayer. It is in South Alabama and it’s a Kairos outside and I will talk to guys later.

[singing starts] O sweet Jesus tell us what to do. Holy Spirit tune our hearts to you. Heavenly Father faithful and true. Be very near that we may walk with you. [singing stops]. Your heavenly Father has accountability here on your head. And make sure you’re on speaking terms with Him because He knows everything, you’re thinking too any loves you so dearly. Don’t abandon Him but turn your thoughts over to Him and let yourself melt in the beauty of His presence in His mysterious grace and love. [singing starts] turn your eyes upon Jesus [singing stops]. Look into His wonderful face. Let everything else fade to insignificance and set your heart to honor Him and everything you think and do and say. In Jesus’ name I pray this for each one of us. Candace from Oregon.

1 note · View note

nazariolahela · 5 years

Text

Something Domestic: Chapter 2

A/N: Hey y'all! This is a new TRR AU I’ve been working on. This story is told in first-person narrative, from Riley’s (MC) POV. There will likely be smidges of canon in this, but not too much. Thanks for reading, and please leave feedback, and/or if you would like to be tagged.

Catch up here

Series Tags: @burnsoslow @aworldoffandoms @dcbbw @ladyangel70 @texaskitten30 @sunandlemons @jlynn12273 @drakesensworld @badchoicesposts

Synopsis: When Riley Brooks takes a new job as a nanny for the affluent Rhys family in New York’s Upper East Side, she assumes she’s just going to care for the children of the couple who hired her. But instead of just school pick-ups and afternoon snacks, she also finds herself spending time with Liam, the handsome divorced dad. Can Riley control her feelings for Liam while still performing the job she was hired for?

All characters are the property of Pixelberry Studios. Thanks for allowing me to borrow them.

Chapter Summary: Riley gets the grand tour of her new employer’s home.

Madeleine walks me through the rest of the penthouse, showing off each room. We make our way to the second floor where the bedrooms and bathrooms are located. The second level has the best view, in my opinion. At the top of the stairs, the floor splits into two wings. Down the west wing, she points out a playroom, and Charlotte and Philip’s rooms, a large bathroom with a soaking tub, and a walk-in shower that’s probably bigger than my entire apartment.

There are doors on either side of the bathroom that lead to the kids’ rooms. We continue down to the end of the hall to the guest room, which has its own half bath. The size of this room makes me think it’s the master bedroom, except for the tiny bath. Looking around, I notice a book and a cell phone charger on the nightstand next to the bed. There is also a bathrobe hanging on the back of the door. This room looks pretty lived-in for being a guest room, and I wonder to myself who else is staying here.

Making our way back, we head down the east wing of the penthouse, and she shows me Liam’s office and the master suite. In the middle of the tour, Madeleine’s phone buzzes and she excuses herself to answer it. Letting my curiosity get the best of me, I slip in through the slightly ajar door to see the most amazing sprawling master bedroom with a four-poster bed. There’s a massive walk-in closet full of designer clothes and shoes.

A single framed photo sits on one of the nightstands. I make my way closer to inspect it and see that it’s a wedding photo. Awkward.

I inspect the photo. Liam looks like the happiest man in the world. Of course, Madeleine isn’t smiling. I’m pretty sure the woman is incapable. I step away from the photo and examine the rest of the bedroom.

To the left, is the five-fixture en-suite master bath. A sliding glass door leads out to a triple-wrap terrace where a fire pit sits in the middle of an eight-piece outdoor sofa set. The view from the balcony is absolutely stunning. The New York skyline sits in front of me like a priceless painting. I slip through the sliding door and make my way across the balcony. As I take in the view, I peek over the railing to see the bustling street below. A girl could get used to this.

“Enjoying the view?” A voice says from behind me, and I jump. I turn around to find Liam standing in the doorway, watching me. Good lord, this man is stunning. I need to control myself if I'm going to be working for him.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be out here. Madeleine was giving me a tour, and she had to take a phone call.” I say as my cheeks burn.

He smiles at me, shaking his head. “No biggie. She got a call from work so she asked me to finish giving you the tour. But it seems you’ve already found your way around the place. What do you think so far?”

“This place is incredible. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a home.” I say, turning back to stare out at the cityscape. I feel him behind me, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand.

“It is a pretty spectacular view,” he says, striding across the balcony toward me. “One of the reasons we bought this place is because of this. I fell in love with it the minute I saw it.”

I nod, looking around the balcony. “I can see why.” I don't even know how much he paid for this place, but it’s totally worth it. Note to self: Look up the value of his home on Zillow later tonight. I turn to him, “The place is amazing. Even though it's so spacious, it feels so cozy." I pause. Do I bring up the guest room? I don't know why it's necessary, but before I can stop myself, I blurt out the question. "Uhmmm..one more thing. Just curious if anyone else is going to be living here. I noticed the guest room looks like someone’s been staying in there.”

His body stiffens and he looks down at the ground as his hand rubs the back of his neck. “Uh, yeah. That’s actually what I wanted to speak with you about earlier, but the kids were in the room.”

I cock my eyebrow at him. “Oookay?”

He takes a deep breath and his steely blue eyes stare into mine. God, I could get lost in them. His voice wavers as he speaks. “Madeleine and are in the middle of a divorce. That’s her room.”

My own baby blues widen. Well, this just went from zero to awkward AF in about 2.5 seconds. How did I not notice that beforehand? The cold looks she shot him during my interview. The way she sat separately from her family. The martini at 11 o’clock in the morning. “Oh...I see,” I reply, averting my eyes back to the skyline.

“We haven’t told a lot of people yet. The tabloids don’t even know. The only people who know are our families and close friends. And, well you, now. We’re hoping to make this as civilized as possible without upsetting Charlotte and Philip too much. Once everything is finalized, we’re going to tell the kids and she’ll be moving out. In the meantime, she stays in the east wing with the kids.”

“So, what’s up with the wedding photo on the nightstand?”

He sighs deeply and runs his fingers through his hair. “I guess I haven’t gotten around to putting it away yet. Part of me hasn’t accepted that our marriage is over.”

I swallow, not entirely sure how to respond. He's opening up to me, and I don't know how to comfort him. Come to think of it, why does he feel the need to tell me this? I'm not family or close friends. I'm just a stranger. His kids' nanny, actually. I understand why he thinks this is important information for me to know, considering I’m going to be a part of his family’s lives for the foreseeable future, but it seems so personal. I wonder to myself, not daring to ask what happened. As if he’s reading my thoughts, he answers my question.

“She cheated on me. Slept with some stuffy suit from her PR firm. Rashad or something like that.” He turns to me and I catch him watching me out the corner of my eye.

Holy shit. Talk about a scandal. My heart breaks for him. I think to myself how someone could do something like that to someone they supposedly love. Especially someone as good looking as Liam. Even when he’s heartbroken, he looks so kissable. Damnit, Riley. Stop it. This is bordering on inappropriate. The man’s wife betrayed him and he's your motherloving boss, you horny bitch! I push the thoughts back and nod. “I'm sorry to hear that. Forgive me for overstepping, but why are you telling me this?”

He laughs in a rich, deep tone, the sound reverberating through my body. “Well, since you’re practically a part of our family now, I figured that you should know. I’m sorry if it feels like I’m pouring my heart out to you. I just wanted you to be aware of the situation in case it comes up.”

I give him a weak smile and rack my brain, thinking of something to change the subject with. Think Riley, think. After what feels like forever, I speak up. “So, other than your kids and your company, what do you do in your spare time?”

A grin spreads across his face. “Not much since the kids were born, but my best friend Drake owns a tavern a few blocks from here called The Double Tappe. I try to get down there once a week for a drink.”

“Oh my god! I love that place,” I reply. “It’s my favorite Happy Hour spot.” It’s more than that though, It’s practically the hottest dive bar in town for the under-30 crowd. I grin recalling that Hana and I spend every Friday night there sucking down $5 Whiskey Sours and singing karaoke. I rack my brain, trying to think if I’ve seen him there before, but given that I’m some form of intoxicated most of the time, it’s no use.

He nods. “Yeah, it’s gotten pretty popular over the years, much to Drake’s dismay. For a guy whose business thrives on customer service, he’s not the most outgoing person.”

“Drake,” I say to myself, trying to picture him in my head. “Wait... Dark brown hair, always wearing flannel and turning his nose up at anyone who orders something other than whiskey?”

Liam chuckles, “That’s the one. He’s kind of a stickler when it comes to a good spirit. I told him when he opened the place that not everyone drinks whiskey, but he didn’t want to hear it. He almost had to close the doors a few years back because he refused to serve any other drinks. Thankfully, he came to his senses and expanded his menu, but it took a little kicking and screaming for him to get there.”

I giggle. “Well, I’m glad things worked out for him. His bar is great for broke postgrads like myself. Great atmosphere and the drinks are cheap.”

“I’ll be sure to pass that along,” Liam smiles.

We both stand there listening to the sounds of the city before my stomach rudely interrupts. I smile and look at the time on my phone. It’s already past noon and clearly, I’m starting to get hungry. “Well, if there’s nothing more to show me, I suppose I should take off. Thank you again for this opportunity. I'm really looking forward to getting to know you and your family."

He reaches over and places his hand on my arm to stop me, then pulls it back. "Hey...if you don't have plans, how about we go get a bite to eat?"

I eye him warily. Did he really just invite me to lunch? He's extremely attractive, but he's also my boss. One lunch won't hurt, right? However, what would the agency say if they found out I was taking private lunches with employers? As I wage an inner battle with my thoughts, he clears his throat.

"I'm sorry. That was inappropriate. I don't want you to think I'm making a pass at you. I know how seriously you take your job."

I smile back at him. "Oh, no. It's fine. I'm actually supposed to meet my roommate in a little while. Umm...but I'll see you bright and early Monday morning."

He smiles and leads me back inside through the penthouse and back to the elevator. As I reach the foyer, I turn back to him and catch his eye. His gaze bores into me and my breath catches in my chest. Why do I suddenly feel flushed? Before I let my hormones take over and do something stupid, I extend my hand out and shake his. "Okay then. See you on Monday!" I say again a little too enthusiastically. The elevator door dings and I exhale, thanking the Gods for getting me out of this awkward situation. As I step in and turn around, I catch him smiling at me as the doors close.

Once the elevator makes its descent, I pull out my phone and immediately dial Hana. She picks up on the second ring.

"Hey! How did it go?"

Hoo boy, that's a loaded question. Do I tell her about the last sexually-charged hour? Shut up, Riley. It wasn't like that. Was there really chemistry between us or is it all in my head?

"Great! How about you meet me at our spot in half an hour and I'll tell you all about it over lunch?"

Her bubbly reply rings through the speaker. "Can't wait. See you soon!"

I hang up the phone and take a deep breath. When the elevator stops, and the doors glide open, I gather my thoughts and stride out into the lobby. The same receptionist is still at her perch, still catching up on her celebrity gossip.

Hmm...I notice that Liam and Madeleine are on the cover of her magazine with their children, looking like the perfect family. I frown as I think about how their situation really is. The receptionist looks up from her magazine, side-eying me as I wave goodbye and make my way out the front door to the busy sidewalk outside.

I stop for a moment and take a deep breath as the city buzzes with activity. I wave for a cab, and as one slows in front of me, I reflect on the last hour. Did all of that really just happen? Something about the way his eyes sparkled when he talked to me. I wonder if he felt it too. Either that or I totally imagined it and that’s just how looks at everyone. Maybe that's why Madeleine cheated. No, Riley. You don't know the whole situation so stop making assumptions. I swing open the cab door and climb inside. As I give the driver the address to the restaurant, I look back at the building and say a silent prayer for my sanity.

#trr au #trr fanfic #liam rhys #madeleine karlington #riley brooks #the royal romance #playchoices fanfic #something domestic #nanny au #nazariolahela fanfic

75 notes · View notes

turtlepated · 4 years

Text

Beetlejuice x Reader - Lonely Like Me

Part 2

This one’s waaaay longer than Part 1, and I cranked the angst up to 11 and broke off the knob, so tread lightly. Don’t wanna upset anyone. Thanks for reading!

@imtherain

---------------

Beetlejuice was invisible for a long, long time before Lydia came along. He hated it, but he got used to it because he had no choice. Now he’s got his own weird little family thing going on and he’s the most content he’s ever been. But then he discovers that someone else can see him, too, and he just has to check it out.

Your life wasn't much, but you did all right.

You didn't like your job very much, but it wasn't without it's perks. It was certainly a step up from ten years' worth of minimum wage drudgery in one department store after another. It was still far from your dream job, but you could get by. You tried hard to remember that.

Your social circle was... easy to keep track of. Over the course of your life you'd had really good friends from middle school on up through senior year. You'd been close with a couple people in particular, but as you all got older and your lives became more hectic, people spread out and lost touch. You understood that, it was only natural after all. You did think more than once that maybe you ought to reach out some time, just to touch base and catch up.

But then the thought would occur to you that if they really wanted to talk to you, they would do it. It seemed to happen sooner or later with every friendship you made. One day they just... stopped answering your messages and you figured that was that. It bothered you sometimes, but you were used to it. Life went on for everybody.

But not for you.

Things began changing the day you almost crashed your shopping cart into that strange man at the supermarket. You had never seen another person like him in your life, at least not in living color and outside the glow of the TV screen. He'd been dressed in a black and white striped suit in such a state of distress that it looked as though he'd fallen down a ravine while wearing it. And his hair! Brilliant green locks that stood straight up from his scalp as though electrified.

You'd apologized, of course, offering him a smile and heading on your way. You'd glanced back over your shoulder as you rounded the next aisle, but he wasn't there? No way you would have missed such an outlandishly dressed person, but it was as though he'd disappeared into thin air. Strangely, the black-clad teenage girl he'd presumably been with was still standing right where you'd seen her before, apparently talking to herself. You shrugged it off. After all, you often talked to yourself too.

Ever since that day you've had this feeling like you were being watched. It would be the barest flicker in your peripheral vision, enough to make your pulse speed up a little bit. But there was never anything there. Even your cat would apparently just stare at a random area of empty space. Which was, admittedly, not unusual for a cat.

You did your best to put it out of your mind. You had plenty of other things to concern yourself with than imaginary visitors. Your job was monotonous, it was repetitive. There were days you dreaded going to bed at night because you knew that in the morning you would have to go back there for nine hours with no escape. You tried to make your cubicle into your haven from the mind-numbing tedium. You tacked goofy little drawings and memes and poems all around your walls. You decorated it with seasonal trappings: fake flowers in the spring, pumpkins and leaves in fall, fairy lights and garland at Christmas. Some days it was enough to distract you. And some days it wasn’t.

One week, for no particular reason, it’s bad. You start out every day frustrated for no definable reason, and then you have to go to work where it only gets worse. From Monday to Friday, everything is awful and it sends you spiraling down a dark pit into despair that try as you might, you can’t seem to pull yourself out of. The hours drag by with unbearable slowness, each passing second seeming to cost you more than you knew you had to give. You soldier on as best you can, wanting more than anything to simply go home and collapse into someone’s comforting embrace and just cry. But no matter how fiercely you want it, how desperately you wish for it, no one will be there. You will spend the night as you always have; alone, aching, and drying your own tears.

Finally, blessedly, you leave work for the day and you would have the whole weekend to try and recover from this terrible week before doing it all over again. When you step through your door a short while later you find the house utterly empty save for yourself and your cat. Ordinarily shutting the door behind you after a long day would bring on such a sense of relief. You would pet your cat and change into your pajamas, sit on the couch and relax. But not today.

You kick your shoes off at the door and leave them there, slinging your coat over the back of the couch as you pass by it, dropping your shoulder bag on the floor as you begin shucking off your clothing, stripping right down to your underwear and crawling back into bed, pulling the covers up over your head. It only takes a few seconds before it begins to get stuffy in your cocoon, your face growing hot as your eyeballs burn. At long last tears come, soaking your pillow, coating your cheeks as you curl into as tight a ball as you can, trying to stave off the gnawing ache in the center of your chest.

When it becomes too difficult to breathe you sit up in bed, raking back the hair stuck to your damp face, sniffling, your eyes red and raw. God dammit, you’re being ridiculous. You’re an adult, for crap’s sake, you’re supposed to be stronger than this. Yet here you are, bawling your eyes out, wishing so damn badly just for someone to sit next to you and say everything will be ok.

Your phone rings loudly from its place on your headboard and you jump, your heart leaping into your throat at the unexpected sound. Curious, you raise it up to see who’s calling. The screen reads: “UNKNOWN – 2383543873”. You roll your eyes, clearly a telemarketer or robocall, and silence the phone before setting it back on the headboard. You take a deep breath, filling your lungs til they felt they might burst, and let it all out in a harsh exhale between pursed lips. You actually do feel better, at least, after the crying session, sort of emptied out. Your head jerks round as your phone rings again, “UNKNOWN – 2383543873”. What in the world?

You don’t silence it this time, but you don’t answer it either. You sit there watching the phone, and sure enough a minute later it rings once again: “UNKNOWN – 2383543873”. This time you pick it up, swiping your finger across the screen to accept the call. “Hello?” you say tentatively. Silence is your only response. “Hello?”

After nearly 30 seconds of no answer, you lower the phone to hang up. At the same moment your thumb hits the Call End button, you think you hear a voice on the line: “He-…Hello?” It’s low, raspy and gravelly and it sounds surprised, but before you have time to react you’ve already hung up the phone. Barely a minute later it rings again and you pick it up immediately. “Who is this?” you demand, the beginnings of real fear tightening in your chest. You can hear what sounds like heavy breathing on the other end of the line, and that same gravelly voice in your ear, “Holy crap, is this really working?” “What do you want?” There’s a burst of maniacal laughter that makes you snatch the phone away from your ear. “I can’t believe it, it is working! Hiya, babes!”

You’re completely dumbfounded. What is going on here? Who is this strange man (because by now you’re pretty sure it’s a man’s voice) and why is he calling you? Is he drunk? High? Some combination of the two? “Is there something I can help you with?” you ask him, interrupting his gleeful giggling and babbling, getting frustrated with this whole crazy situation. “First things first, sweet stuff,” he says in a sing-song tone. “I’m gonna need ya to say my name, and then I can help you.” You frown, confused by the request and a little unsettled by the eagerness in his voice. “All right, weirdo, I’m hanging up now,” you say flatly. “Have nice night or whatever.” As you lower the phone you hear him sputtering in alarm. “Wait wait wait wait!” With a sigh you raise the phone back up. “I know this is weird and I didn’t mean to piss you off, but I just wanted to say everything’s gonna be ok.”

He says it all in one breath, like he’s afraid of being cut off before he finishes speaking, so it takes you a minute to fully process the onslaught of words. But when you do you can’t help feeling a little unnerved. “What?” you ask dumbly, thinking maybe you’ve misunderstood him. “I know you’ve been havin a hard time, doll, and I just wanted to letcha know everything’s gonna be ok.”

Your breath catches in your throat. How did he-? “Are you… watching me??” There’s a pause before he answers. “Is there any possible way I can say yes to that question without you getting mad and hanging up on me?” You scoff, angry at the invasion of privacy, afraid of what his motive might be, and hang up at once, scrambling out of bed to put on more clothes. You feel unbelievably vulnerable, what if he’s watching you right now?

You throw on a t shirt and pajama bottoms, peering out through your blinds to see if you can spot anybody watching your house. It’s already dark, but as far as you can see there’s no one around. The phone rings again, the same number, the same Unknown caller. You ignore it and soon enough it stops. But then it rings again, and again. You snatch up your phone and turn it off. It’s not a permanent solution, but maybe it’ll buy you some peace of mind for the night.

----------------

Sorry for the massive angst-dump, but hopefully Part 3 will make up for it when Reader finally gets to meet the Ghost with the Most!

PS: there’s a little bit of an Easter Egg slipped into this part. If you figure it out, you get a high five!

#beetlejuice #beetlejuice x reader #beetlejuice x self insert #beetlejuice musical #beetlejuice the musical #beetlejuice broadway

20 notes · View notes

the-fushiguros · 4 years

Text

50 Questions You’ve Never Been Asked Before

I was tagged by @agoodafternoon Thanks so much!! These are fun!

1.What is the color of your hairbrush?

My hair is way too curly for a hairbrush. I just run my fingers through it in the shower. Otherwise it just breaks all my hair.

2.A food you never eat?

Onions! I know it’s a little childish, but I’ll sit there and pull all the little chopped up onions out of a dish before I eat it.

3.Are you typically too warm or too cold?

Too warm!

4.What were you doing 45 minutes ago?

Reading the paper. I do that every morning with a cup of coffee. Because my soul is really 85 years old.

5.What is your favorite candy bar?

Hershey

6.Have you ever been to a professional sports event?

Yup! I prefer college-level sports though and I go to basketball games at my school pretty often.

7.What is the last thing you said out loud?

"Physical Graffiti is the best Led Zeppelin album. I’ll fight you”

8.What is your favorite ice cream?

As much chocolate as you can fit in a bowl. Add brownies. And chocolate sauce. And marshamallows.

9.What was the last thing you to drink?

Coffee

10.Do you like your wallet?

I just have a purse. And I don’t like it that much, actually. It’s too big. I usually just shove my keys/credit cards in my pocket when I go out.

11.What was the last thing you ate?

Two hard boiled eggs and a cup of strawberries with hand-whipped cream. My usual breakfast.

12.Did you buy any new clothes last weekend?

No.

13.The Last sporting event you watched?

Sports have been cancelled with the pandemic. I think the last thing I actually sat down and paid attention to was a WNBA game.

14.What is your favorite flavor of popcorn?

Movie theatre butter.

15.Who was the last person you sent a text message to?

James

16.Ever go camping?

Not, like, sleeping in a tent kind of camping. My family takes yearly trips up to a pretty secluded lake but we stay in a cabin.

17. Do you take vitamins?

No.

18.Do you go to church every Sunday?

I think I’ve gone to church about three times in my life. All for other people’s weddings or funerals.

19.Do you have a tan?

No.

20.Do you prefer Chinese food or pizza?

Both? Depends on the mood.

21.Do you drink your soda with a straw?

I don’t drink soda. I don’t like the fizz. And yes, I know that’s weird.

22.What color socks do you usually wear?

Black

23.Do you ever drive above the speed limit?

Yeah. I don’t think I know anybody who only drives the speed limit or under tbh.

24.What terrifies you?

Real talk? Dying young because of my diabetes and its complications.

25.Look to your left, what do you see?

My guitar and amp

26.What chore do you hate?

Cleaning the bathroom. It’s just...yucky

27.What do you think of when you hear and Australian Accent?

No thoughts really? It’s not my favourite accent. Not my least favourite either.

28.What’s your favorite soda?

None

29.Do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive thru?

The drive thru

30.Favorite cut of beef?

Okay. Okay. I have a very strong opinion on this. Steak fillet, cooked on the stove after half an hour sitting in a sharp red wine. Thinly sliced. Served with a baked potato. And peas. That’s my go to meal when I’m trying to impress someone.

31.Who’s the last person you talked to?

My mother. She’s the one I was arguing with about the Led Zeppelin albums. Quarantine has exhausted our other topics of conversation 😂

32.Last Song you listened to?

What You Do to Me: John Legend

33.Last Book you read?

Cover to cover? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

34.Favorite Day of the week?

Friday. I don’t have class and it’s usually my one day a week to relax.

35.Can you say the alphabet backwards?

Nope!

36.How do you like your coffee?

Super sweet. I usually take mochas or something like that where there’s more milk than actual coffee.

37.Favorite pair of shoes?

I have a pair of brown ankle boots that I love! I don’t wear them too much though because most of my wardrobe is black. And you just can’t wear brown shoes with an all black outfit. You can’t.

38.At what time do you normally go to bed?

I try to stick to around 11. But that hardly ever works. Catch me up at 3am suddenly intent on writing a full-length novel.

39.At what time do you normally get up?

7:30. My dog won’t let me sleep any later than that.

40.What do you prefer sunrise or sunsets?

I think sunrises are prettier. But I’m hardly ever in a position where I can just sit and watch one. My mornings are usually hectic.

41.How many blankets are on your bed?

Two

42.Describe your kitchen plates?

Plain blue and brown. Got them from Ikea. On sale.

43.Do you have a favorite alcoholic beverage?

Whiskey. Two shots of whiskey almost always start my nights out when we go to a bar.

44.Do you play cards?

Yes? And no. I play cards a lot with my family and friends but we never play Poker and I know that’s what most people think when they say they’re playing cards.

45. What color is your car?

Silver

46. Can you change a tire?

I thought I knew how. And then a few months ago I had to change one in the middle of a road trip and things...didn’t go well.

47.What is your favorite state/providence?

I’m going to say New York, but only because if I do end up staying in America, NYC is the only place I can see myself happily living.

48.Favorite job you’ve ever had?

I’ve not really had a real, adult job yet. But I really enjoyed working at the zoo for a few summers.

49.How did you get your biggest scar?

Kitchen knife. The scar goes nearly all the way around my forearm.

50.What did you do today that made someone else happy?

My dad and I like to read the comics in the newspaper together, share the ones we liked best.

And i tag @a-secretkey @cibelica @snazzy-pickle and anyone else who wants to do it!

#rook speaks #answered

4 notes · View notes

drtanstravels · 4 years

Text

We recently stayed in Tel Aviv, Israel for four days so Anna could attend a teaching seminar for the International Retinal Panel. During our stay we would take a tour of Jerusalem, travel along the West Bank while venturing into Palestine, visit the ancient village of Masada, and then float and get all muddy in the Dead Sea. All of the main events happened in the final two days of the trip so this will just be a relatively short post in comparison, covering the initial two days of our journey, both spent in Tel Aviv.

Friday, November 1, 2019 We had left Singapore at 11:30pm the previous night, took an 11.5-hour flight to Turkey, had a 90-minute layover in Istanbul Airport, and then took another two-hour flight to Tel Aviv. When we were in Seoul, South Korea recently we got chatting to some friends of mine who had traveled to Israel in the past and the nightmares they had faced going through immigration once they had reached Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. One of them even told us about how he got cavity-searched, so we were both prepared for the worst. Once we were off the plane and inside the airport I cringed a bit when the first security guard snapped on a pair of disposable gloves, but it turned out to be just for him to search through our hand luggage. After that the line at the passport counter was taking forever, but it turned out that the reason the queue was taking so long to move was because we just had a really talkative guy checking our passports and when he first saw my Australian document, he looked up, gave me a curious look, and asked, “Do you watch Home and Away?” I smiled and mentioned that my sister used to have it on every night back in the day and that was it. We had to ask for entry border crossing cards, a separate slip of paper to be put into our passports instead of a stamp, because having an Israeli passport stamp can cause quite a bit of trouble when traveling overseas. There are currently eight countries that won’t accept passports containing Israeli visas, the most notable one being Saudi Arabia, a country to which we may need to travel one day. There are also quite a few countries whose passport holders are forbidden entrance to Israel without official confirmation from the Israeli government, Malaysia being on that list, so one of Anna’s colleagues was unable to attend. In fact, if Anna hadn’t taken Singaporean citizenship after we got married, this journey would never have happened.

As has been a pattern over recent trips, we arrived in Tel Aviv early in the morning, well before our hotel room was available so we dumped our bags with the concierge and decided to have a look around town. We were staying at the Crowne Plaza, which had an attached shopping mall so that was our first stop, mainly for a much-needed coffee and a couple of pastries, and then we discovered that there was a park and shopping district nearby called Sarona, a place with an interesting history:

Sarona was a German Templer colony established in Ottoman Palestine in 1871. Sarona is now a neighbourhood of Tel Aviv, Israel. It was one of the earliest modern villages established by Europeans in Ottoman Palestine. In July 1941, the British Mandate authorities deported 188 residents of Sarona, who were considered hard-core Nazi sympathisers. By the 2000s, the area had fallen into disrepair and was a haven for drug addicts. However, since 2003, the area has undergone massive renovation, which involved moving and relocating historical buildings before their restoration. The area is now a popular shopping district, as well as housing museums, cultural artefacts centring on its history, and IDF complexes.

Walking around Sarona was really cool with its mix of shops, bars, and cafes, as well as the Sarona Market. When Anna was purchasing a ring in one of the stores she asked for some recommendations in the area and the first one immediately given was Anita, a boutique ice-cream store. We initially thought this was a one-off, but we ended up finding incredible ice-cream shops all over the city. Anyway, we ordered a cup with two flavours, Pavlova & Mix Berries and Salted Pretzel, before we continued walking around, visiting among other shops a handmade dreidel store called Draydel House, a place with some unique takes on the spinning tops, and then it was on to Sarona Market. The market had some great looking food and there were plenty of free samples, but as you will find out over the course of this post and the next, it wasn’t an accurate representation of kosher food. We walked around sampling different cheeses, pickles, and halva, possibly the driest substance on earth. Seriously, dust is more mouth-watering than halva. Another thing that Israel is known for is pomegranate juice, generally used for detoxing, so we ordered a large one each, a decision we would later deeply regret and one that would also put the pair of us off pomegranates for the foreseeable future, despite how nice it tasted. Once we were done with the market and walking around the gardens in Sarona, we were able to check into our room at the Crowne Plaza at around 2:00pm and take a nap for a bit. Our day up until that point (besides the awesome pickle store in the market that wouldn’t let me take photos):

Anna near the entrance of Sarona

The way Sarona is set up is really cool

Looking down a row of stores

A map of Sarona in Hebrew

Anna’s dreidel

The dreidel Anna would probably get for me

Some of the ice-cream flavours available at Anita

A few more

They also had a custom soft-serve yoghurt bar

Anna about to buy ours

Our sweet and salty combination was definitely a good mix

Halva inside the market

One of the food stall rows

There is a huge variety available in this market

Unfortunately, not all Israeli food is as good as this looks

Anna in the garden

Now in our room

After sleeping for a bit we caught a cab to the waterfront, which is split into two parts; Alma Beach, a modern seaside area, and the Old City area of Jaffa. Most modern beach areas are similar, whereas ancient cities are always fascinating so Jaffa was the obvious choice to spend some time exploring first. It would be nigh on impossible to summarise the history of a 3,800-year-old port city in the Middle East, but here’s the general background:

Jaffa, in Hebrew Yafo and also called Japho or Joppa, the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv–Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda and Perseus, and later for its oranges. The city as such was established at the latest around 1800 BCE.

Modern Jaffa has a heterogeneous population of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Jaffa currently has 46,000 residents, of whom 30,000 are Jews and 16,000 are Arabs. The 2010 film Port of Memory explores these themes. Tabeetha School in Jaffa was founded in 1863. It is owned by the Church of Scotland. The school provides education in English to children from Christian, Jewish and Muslim backgrounds.

Our taxi driver was an elderly man who kept explaining to us along the way that Tel Aviv was a party city, that around 69% of people there were aged between 30-40, and that we’d be among the older people out that night. I wasn’t expecting that, but another thing we weren’t expecting was the fact that the sun sets in Tel Aviv before 5:00pm, it’s almost as if the city is in the entirely wrong timezone and is something that would throw our body clocks off for the duration of this trip. When it had been dark there for a few hours, you’d be led to think it was getting kind of late when in reality it was only about eight o’clock in the evening. So, despite the fact that we arrived at Jaffa at 4:30pm, the sun was already setting, but this just made the place that much more beautiful. We spent the evening wandering through the narrow streets and laneways of Jaffa, taking in all of the ancient buildings, towers, and structures, plus the major landmarks in the area such as Jaffa Lighthouse, Clock Square, and the coastal canons, all while the sun set over the ocean.

After all of that walking we were beginning to get hungry and the waterside restaurants at Alma Beach were supposed to be pretty decent so we chose one called Manta Ray for dinner where we sat outdoors with some drinks and feasted on some selections from their great meze platter, as well as a grilled fish. We were to meet the organisers and other attendees of Anna’s course at 9:30pm after everyone had arrived in town, but it was barely 7:30pm by the time we finished dinner so we found a nearby shisha bar for a few more drinks and a pipe. After a while we both began to bloat up, neither of us could stop farting, and I was burping constantly, feeling the need to vomit. It was too soon after dinner to be from the fish or the meze dishes we chose, I had already checked that the water was safe to drink so that wasn’t it, coffee, pastries, and ice-cream don’t have this effect on me, and nothing else we had tried had been a large enough sample to make us sick. Except for the pomegranate juice, that is. We had drunk about a litre (33.8 fl. oz.) each several hours ago and it now seemed like we were paying for it, however, we couldn’t be 100% certain. Whatever it was, we both wanted to go back to the hotel and let it all out, resulting in me violently throwing up for a few minutes once inside, but then we felt reasonably fine as soon as we were both empty.

We met up with Anna’s course-mates in the lobby of our hotel and we walked down to a pub in another nearby part of town where everyone chatted over some beers, while those who hadn’t eaten had dinner. It was a really fun night and Anna decided to ask one of the local organisers, Tamir, if it could’ve been the pomegranate juice that bloated us. He said it’s good for you, most people just take a small glass and share it. When she told him that we’d had a litre each he was gobsmacked. “That’s not detox, that’s just tox!” was the response. Here are a whole bunch of photos from around Jaffa that evening, plus a couple of our dinner and the shisha bar before we bloated up like a couple of non-embalmed corpses:

Hashan Square

Anna and and I on the peninsula

Part of Jaffa from a distance

Looking over the ocean

People washing their hands

One of the coastal canons, imported by the Ottoman government in the 18th century to protect Jaffa from Bedouin raids

Overlooking a mosque

You can even find cool bars in towns dating back to the bronze age

Walking down a wide thoroughfare

The sun setting over the ocean

A museum surrounded by shops

Walking down an avenue

Anna posing in an alley

One of many interesting sculptures in Jaffa

The view of Clock Square from a very narrow stairway

We were both wondering if this was the Jewish equivalent of leaving your tie on the door handle so your roommate knows you have a girl inside

Etzel House

Dinner is served

We chose a few dishes from this platter

Baked blue bream with Jerusalem artichokes

Smoking a shisha while we both rapidly expand

Saturday, November 2, 2019 Anna was going to her course so I was free to do my own thing for the bulk of the day, but there was one small problem — Saturday is the sabbath, also known as Shabbat in Judaism, and this would severely limit what I was able to do due to many actions being classed as melakhah and thus being prohibited on this day of rest or historically punishable by death! Here’s a better description of melakhah:

Jewish law (halakha) prohibits doing any form of melakhah (מְלָאכָה, plural melakhoth) on Shabbat, unless an urgent human or medical need is life-threatening. Though melakhah is commonly translated as “work” in English, a better definition is “deliberate activity” or “skill and craftmanship”. There are 39 categories of prohibited activities (melakhoth) listed in Mishnah Tractate Shabbat 7:2.

Some acts forbidden on Shabbat include:

Threshing/Extraction Definition: Removal of an undesirable outer from a desirable inner.

Dissection Definition: Reducing an earth-borne thing’s size for a productive purpose.

Kneading/Amalgamation Definition: Combining particles into a semi-solid or solid mass via liquid.

Cooking/Baking Definition for solids: Changing the properties of something via heat. Definition for liquids: Bringing a liquid’s temperature to the heat threshold. This threshold is known as yad soledet (lit. “A hand reflexively recoils [due to such heat]”). According to Igrot Moshe this temperature is 43 °C (110 °F).

Extinguishing a Fire Definition: Extinguishing a fire/flame, or diminishing its intensity.

Ignition: Definition: Igniting, fuelling or spreading a fire/flame.

Transferring Between Domains Definition: Transferring something from one domain type to another domain type, or transferring within a public thoroughfare.

Now, some of you reading this are probably thinking, “Why would you care, you’re not Jewish.” This is true, however, despite me seeing fewer Orthodox Jews in Israel than I did on any given day in New York City, prohibition of melakhah on Shabbat is enforced by law, although not to an extreme. Although no shops would be open, these restrictions would severely limit my food purchasing options. Because it had been powered down for Shabbat, I pushed my way through the revolving door to exit the hotel and hit the street. I was quite hungry due to the fact that I had vomited everything I had eaten the previous evening so I figured I might get lucky finding somewhere open to eat at Sarona. I saw a cafe with people all around it so that’s where I went and I ordered the egg white omelette on the menu, which came with some bread and a side salad. I guess the hotplate must’ve been kept burning from the previous day and eggs aren’t really a solid or liquid so changing their properties via heat would be fine. Salad was also okay because the form of the lettuce doesn’t change, only the size, and it was cut quite large so it wasn’t done to make it into a more usable, productive state. The bread had obviously been made the previous day and when it came to dissection of the food in order to eat, that was all on me, not the cafe. Juice wasn’t an option due to threshing/extraction, but it was when I ordered a latte that things got weird. The waiter told me that he could only offer me a “very weak coffee” which was the result of the water and milk only being heated to about 40°C in keeping with the law, a temperature that also isn’t really hot enough for the coffee to properly infuse the water, thus making it not very strong. It actually turned out to be infinitely easier to get a beer anywhere in town that morning than coffee. My order at the cafe was able to be brought from the kitchen to my table, and also to diners who were seated outside, without transferring between domains due to the installation of an eruv, described as:

An urban area enclosed by a wire boundary which symbolically extends the private domain of Jewish households into public areas, permitting activities within it that are normally forbidden in public on the Sabbath.

Although the Jewish community must strictly adhere to laws of prohibition on Shabbat, going to the effort of building eruvs and heating liquids to a slightly cooler temperature than normal seem like ways of pranking an almighty deity who is easily fooled by the loopholes in the rules he wrote. Then I remembered this scene from the documentary Religulous:

youtube

After eating I decided to have a look around the beach area, making my way there via the main shopping district en route, but obviously everything was closed except for bars, restaurants, and cafes and wouldn’t be opening again until late in the evening or within the next few days. I was also having trouble getting cash out of an ATM again and this time I wasn’t sure whether the machines weren’t accepting my card or were just unable to function in general. I arrived at the beach and it was quite nice with a bunch more seaside bars and restaurants, as well as plenty of entertainment, some of which was unintentionally funny. There was Israeli folk dancing that happens at Gordon Beach every Saturday, as well as a big outdoor gym area where meatheads could work out like in Venice Beach, California, all just grunting, flexing, and slapping butts. Instead, I walked out along the pier to a lighthouse, just taking in the sights. It was a nice walk, but I could feel myself getting sunburnt so I went back to a shaded area along the shore to sit down with a bunch of senior citizens for a bit and that’s where I got the biggest laugh of the day. There were three guys working out there, one was absolutely ripped and doing chin-ups and some other impressive feats on horizontal bars directly in front of us, another was doing push ups, all the while giving the third guy tips on capoeira moves. If you are unaware of what capoeira is, it’s a Brazilian martial art that combines acrobatics, dancing, and complex moves involving hand plants, kicks, and flips (that link is a video that will give you a decent idea). The only problem was that the guy trying to do it wasn’t particularly good at capoeira so I found myself sitting there with a bunch of confused older people who were innocently trying to figure out why a muscly dude was doing cartwheels in the sand in front of several other muscly guys. It was a hot day, a dry heat compared to the insane humidity of Singapore, but I had no cash for a drink so I had a sip out of the drinking fountain where people also washed the sand off their feet, and walked for forty minutes back to the hotel, passing a cheese shop that you could smell before you could see, despite it being closed, along the way. Once back I killed two birds with one stone, grabbing a bottle of sparkling water from the minibar and making an instant coffee in the room, which turned into mud when I added water, but it still gave me the caffeine fix I had been lacking. I also managed to get cash out of an ATM next our hotel and Anna was still going to be a while so I planted myself in a bar back in Sarona for a few hours until she was done.

My kosher Shabbat breakfast with very weak coffee

Walking into town

At the beach

Looking down the boardwalk and across the road

Some huts near the ocean

Now walking down the promenade

Was Banksy in town?

More art, this time honouring the older community

Israeli folk-dancing

Beanbags on the beach

One of many cafes along the promenade

Coming over a little cloudy

That’s better

Waves crashing along the pier

A lighthouse at the end

I’m still trying to figure out if this building had caught fire or was just art-deco

The cheese shop on the way home. I wish it was open

The bottom of my instant mud coffee

Anna was soon back from her teaching and we had a dinner that night with everyone else involved in the course. This meant taking a minibus with the International Retinal Panel crew back to a restaurant at the beach, Anna’s first venture into that area of Tel Aviv, so we had a look around the boardwalk and took a few photos first. It was nice to hang out with everyone while we were feeling 100%, they were really cool people and an interesting mix of nationalities, some local, others coming from Columbia, Italy, India, France, Argentina, China, and a multitude of other other countries. The restaurant we went to looked good, but the entire group, myself included, consisted of about 30 people, taking up two massive tables, and the platters we received, two per table, were to be shared. The problem with this system was that Anna, myself, and a few others were tucked away in a corner on the back table and our food and drinks kept failing to appear. Everyone else received a meze platter except us, we waited about 20 minutes and then had to ask for it, as well as remind the staff that we had also ordered drinks. When it finally arrived, the other areas of both tables were receiving a grilled fish that looked delicious, but when we finished our platter the fish never arrived, nor did the second drink I ordered. We asked about the fish and when it finally came ours was just what seemed like fish offcuts including several heads, all of which was deep-fried to the point that it was so crunchy it was pretty much inedible. We didn’t bother eating much of it, that second beer never came, and everyone that was there for the course had homework to do so we got back in the bus, the interior blue light making my��Rick and Morty “Pickle Rick” shirt appear as if it were covered in turds, and we went back to the hotel, them to do group work and me to have a couple of drinks at the hotel bar until it closed.

Anna’s first stroll along this area of the beach

The boardwalk at night

All of the people involved in Anna’s course

A merry-go-round

Some of the food has arrived, but it also looks like others are asking for stuff that hasn’t

If our fish were pork, it would’ve been the parts that go into a sausage roll

Definitely looks like faeces

Tel Aviv is such a cool city and nothing like we expected, yet a completely hidden gem when it comes to traveling, but this was just the beginning! Stay tuned for the next instalment when we do all the cool stuff you would expect one to do while in Israel that in no way would fit into this post, like visiting Jerusalem and floating in the Dead Sea.

The first two days of our four-night trip to Israel We recently stayed in Tel Aviv, Israel for four days so Anna could attend a teaching seminar for the International Retinal Panel.

#beach #Jaffa #sabbath #Sarona #Shabbat #Tel Aviv

3 notes · View notes

angelofberlin2000 · 5 years

Link

by Natalie Finn | Fri., May. 17, 2019 3:00 AM

When Keanu Reeves was asked the other night, "What do you think happens when we die?" interviewer Stephen Colbert probably wasn't expecting such a deep—or assured—answer from the movie star.

"I know that the ones that love us will miss us," the 54-year-old actor said sagely, rendering the Late Show host unusually speechless.

It was a sincere, thoughtful response—vintage Reeves, really—from someone who's had reason to think about such things.

"I haven't really thought about my career future, or what was going to happen, until really recently," he also told GQ in February. Asked why he started thinking about it, he replied, "Death!"

Watch https://www.eonline.com/videos/289305/how-keanu-reeves-training-for-john-wick-3-compares-to-the-matrix

How Keanu Reeves' Training for John Wick 3 Compares to The Matrix

The still eerily youthful-looking Reeves, who's back in theaters Friday in the third installment of the blockbuster John Wick franchise, has become a brand unto himself, the name "Keanu" signifying not just movie stardom but also a certain kind of performance and even a state of mind: chill, zen, blissfully checked out ("Sad Keanu" meme notwithstanding). His name—which has lent itself to a comedy about a cat and a recent hit song by Logic, and which of course a studio exec wanted him to change when he first came to Hollywood—does mean "cool breeze over the mountains" in Hawaiian, after all.

But still waters run deep, and despite being in the public eye for more than 30 years, he's one of the least-known people whose chiseled face you would recognize anywhere. Few play it as close to the vest as Reeves, who, though he does the occasional interview and shows up to fulfill his side of the bargain in promoting his films, does not talk about his personal life. And not in the way that most celebrities don't really talk about their personal lives.

As in, it's entirely unclear if he even has one, although—look at him—he must.

"I came to Hollywood to be in movies," Reeves told Parade recently. "I feel really grateful that I've had that opportunity, but I'm just a private person, and it's nice that can still exist."

He doesn't even publicize his charity work, but his causes include children's hospitals, fighting cancer, the arts and the environment.

"I always find it surreal that complete strangers come up and ask me personal questions," he told Parade back in 2008. "I don't mind speaking about work, but when the talk turns to 'Who are you?' and 'What do you do off-screen?' I'm like, 'Get out of here.' I've been in situations where people have felt they had a relationship with me or something and I didn't even know who they were."

Not that Reeves is an anti-star. He lives in the hills above West Hollywood, spent plenty of time enjoying the local nightlife in his youth and has starred in countless quotable action movies—and gets paid handsomely for them, enough so that he can take off and do passion projects like his first (and only, to date) directorial effort, 2013's The Man of Tai Chi, or show up unheralded on a Swedish sitcom (Swedish Dicks, now on Pop) or in any indie film he so desires, like the recent Destination Wedding, an acerbic comedy that reteamed him with Bram Stoker's Dracula co-star Winona Ryder.

He's perfectly congenial yet usually looks somewhat serious, but not because he's taking himself seriously—more as if he wants to answer even the most lighthearted of questions with respectful gravity. But hey, as Stephen Colbert just found out, if you ask Reeves a potentially loaded question, prepare to get an answer.

Asked by Parade in 2008 if he believed in aliens, because he was playing the alien Klaatu in a remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, he replied, "Some days I do. Some days I don't. There's so much unexplained and unexplainable phenomena that's presented to us. But beyond that, the cosmos is so vast. We can't be the only sentient entity. It might not look like us, but it's going to be out there."

His signature Keanu cadence used to be mistaken for a sign of vacuity, but Reeves attributed however he came off in interviews to his overall discomfort with talking about himself.

"I've never played stupid to keep someone distant," he told Vanity Fair in 1995. "I don't play stupid. Either it's been a failure on my part to articulate, or my naivete, or ingenuousness, or sometimes it's the nature of the form... And you know, I find myself more able to give an explanation of a project five years later than in the middle of it. It's so present-tense! I can tell you how I feel, but its context is harder to explain... Sometimes when I'm interviewed I'm not ready to do that. So you say...'excellent!' And you know what, man? It's OK."

It certainly was.

Ted Theodore Logan, Johnny Utah, Jack Travern, Neo, John Wick: all characters that had to be played by Reeves. He's done everything from Shakespeare to sports flicks to A Scanner Darkly, and soon you'll be hearing his voice as Duke Caboom, a motorcycle-riding stuntman with a wistful backstory, in Toy Story 4, which will probably sneak in to top The Matrix Reloaded, which made $742 million worldwide, as his single highest-grossing movie.

"So I made Duke a little more gravelly but still tried to give him energy and a big personality," Reeves shared with Entertainment Weekly in March. "I just thought that Duke should love what he does. He's the greatest stuntman in Canada! I wanted him to be constantly doing poses on the bike while he was talking, to have this great extroverted passion."

He turned down Speed 2 to play Hamlet onstage in Canada. He was one of the first big stars who memorably jammed on the side with his own band, Dogstar, in the '90s and now he co-owns a custom bike shop called ARCH Motorcycle in Hawthorne, Calif, because he loves motorcycles as much as you think he does.

"Riding can be a place to think and feel. It's a way to work things out," he recently told Parade, noting that inclement weather doesn't stop him. "I like riding in the rain. It's a little more sketchy." He rides mainly alone, but he and the ARCH crew cruise Pacific Coast Highway on Sunday mornings.

And if motorcycles provide one soul-soothing salve for Reeves, acting provides another.

"In acting, you're constantly discovering new feelings and thoughts and exposing yourself to them," he told Parade in 2008. "I guess it could be considered psycho-therapy. All I know is that, as an actor, I can tell you a story that you'll listen to. Maybe it won't just entertain you, it might also teach you something. I think film has the power to change your life if you want to let it.

Combine his real-life inscrutability with his is-it-genius-or-does-he-just-do-the-same-thing-every-time approach to acting, and he's become more myth than man—and that, too, is a huge part of his appeal. He's just so Keanu.

"I don't own a computer and I don't e-mail," he said in the 2008

Parade

interview. "I'm fascinated by people who freak out when they don't get an instant response to an e-mail. It's like they expect as soon as they send an email to get the answer back and if they don't it's like awful. I just hope people won't totally lose the ability to write letters because it's a good way to communicate."

He preferred typewriters, Reeves said—and we can only hope he and Toy Story star Tom Hanks had a chance to talk about typewriters together.

"I only have good things to say about him," Swedish Dicks star Peter Stormare, who met Reeves doing Constantine in 2005, which led to the actor's role on his show, told GQ. "Once a year, we'll have a beer together and talk about life and things. He's very private. He leads his life the way he wants to lead it. And I guess it can be lonely sometimes. But I think he's just like me. There's a comfort in being alone sometimes, especially when you're working on something."

"We bonded over motorcycles, bass guitar, and Harold Pinter," Alex Winter, the Bill to his Ted, also told the magazine. "Reeves had a really good book collection."

Reeves was born in Beirut, to a Hawaiian father and English mother, but they divorced when he was about 2. Mom Patricia remarried in the US., but after that didn't work out she settled with a 7-year-old Keanu and his younger sister, Kim, who was born in Australia, in Toronto. Reeves reportedly hasn't spoken to his dad since he was 13.

"We were latchkey kids," he told Esquire in 2017. "It was basically 'leave the house in the morning and come back at night'. It was cool." But, he told Parade, "Even for a runaway English girl, my mother gave us a proper upbringing. We learned manners, respect for our elders, formal table settings. I also learned a nonprejudicial, nonjudgmental acceptance of other people."

His favorite part of school was doing plays and studying Shakespeare in English class, so he dropped out at 17 to try his hand at acting.

"My attendance record was very bad. I was lazy," Reeves told Vanity Fair. "I knew I wanted to act when I was halfway through grade 11, I guess, and school wasn't important."

His first acting job came on the Canadian series Hangin' In in 1984. Then he moved to Los Angeles and made his big-screen debut in the Rob Lowe-starring drama Youngblood in 1986. Later that year he won his first major role in the gritty teen crime drama River's Edge, which went on to win Best Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards.

So it was off to the races for Reeves, who in the next five years made a wildly diverse array of movies, including the very-'80s comedy The Night Before, Dangerous Liaisons, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (and its sequel, Bogus Journey), Parenthood, Point Break and My Own Private Idaho.

He was very much living the fast Hollywood life, and it wasn't all charmed.

In 1993, River Phoenix died of an accidental drug overdose—another painful thing Reeves didn't want to talk about, but he spoke fondly of his friend and My Own Private Idaho co-star.

"I enjoyed his company. Very much," Reeves told Rolling Stone in 2000. "And enjoyed his mind and his spirit and his soul. We brought good out in each other. He was a real original thinker. He was not the status quo. In anything."

As for Phoenix's death, "It's something he thinks about all the time, something he never really talks about," a friend told People. "Friends know not to go there with him."

In 1994 his estranged father, Samuel, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for drug possession in Hawaii, but was released in two. "Jesus, man. No, the story with me and my dad's pretty heavy. It's full of pain and woe and fucking loss and all that s--t," he told RS around that time. In 1995, he told Vanity Fair, when asked why he didn't want to know more about his dad's case, "Why would I want to find out what I didn't know?" He called the situation "pretty incredible," and that was that.

Reeves has a massive scar on his abdomen from when he suffered a rupture spleen in a motorcycle crash while riding in L.A.'s Topanga Canyon in 1988. He went into a hairpin turn going about 50 mph.

"I call that a demon ride," he reflected to Rolling Stone. "That's when things are going badly. But there's other times when you go fast, or too fast, out of exhilaration...I remember saying in my head, 'I'm going to die.'"

"I remember calling out for help," he continued. "And someone answering out of the darkness, and then the flashing lights of an ambulance coming down. This was after a truck ran over my helmet. I took it off because I couldn't breathe, and a truck came down. I got out of the way, and it ran over my helmet."

Also while his star was on the rise, his sister Kim battled cancer for years starting in the late '80s. "He helped me through," she told Vanity Fair about her brother. "When the pain got bad, he used to hold my hand and keep the bad man from making me dance. He was there all the time, even when he was away."

Actor and Dogstar bandmate Roger Mailhouse told Rolling Stone about Reeves in 2000, "He's a really giving person. He'd give you his last shoe. Really smart, too. He's incredibly booksmart. He's a really interesting person who doesn't talk a lot of s--t."

Asked how his friend had changed over the past decade, i.e. the '90s, Mailhouse said, "I don't worry about him as much. I used to worry about him. Because I think of him as one of my best friends in the world, was he going to crash his motorcycle, or this or that. We did some wild things. I guess it's just growing up. I don't know—maybe it had something to do with River Phoenix, maybe. Losing someone close to him. But now I'm just proud of him. He's getting to do it the right way."

For years you'd be much more likely to see Kim or Patricia on Reeves' arm at a premiere or other big event—such as when he got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005—than any girlfriend, and the actor hasn't been publicly involved with anyone for years.

Not that he hasn't been linked to a bevy of his co-stars, including Sandra Bullock and Charlize Theron, but if he's in a serious relationship, it's not with a celebrity.

On The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2013 he was wearing what anyone would take for a wedding band on his left ring finger, but no revelations ever sprang from that accessory choice.

When Parade asked recently if he remained a bachelor, Reeves replied (squirming a bit, according to the magazine), "Well, I'm not married."

Through the interviews he's given over the years, a theme running through them is the visible discomfort he starts to evince when the conversation veers toward the too-personal. And some topics are just off-limits altogether.

Reeves started dating actress Jennifer Syme after meeting her at a party in 1998 and they were expecting a baby together—but the child, a girl they named Ava, was stillborn at 8 months. They laid her to rest in January 2000, according to People, and broke up weeks later.

Read

Sandra Bullock Almost Starred in The Matrix Instead of Keanu Reeves

They remained close up until Syme, who suffered from severe postpartum depression, died in 2001 when she crashed her Jeep Cherokee into several parked cars on a L.A. street and was thrown from the vehicle. In 2002, her mother, Maria St. John, sued Marilyn Manson, who had thrown a party that Syme attended that night, for wrongful death, alleging he had given Syme the cocaine that an autopsy found in her system.

"After Jennifer was sent home safely with a designated driver, she later got behind the wheel of her own car for reasons known only to her," Manson, who knew Syme through filmmaker David Lynch and had worked with her on Lost Highway, said in a statement.

The rocker continued, "This lawsuit, which is completely without merit, will not bring back Jennifer's life. It serves only to reopen the wounds and the pain felt by all who loved Jennifer. It is a pity that St. John sullies her own daughter's reputation by filing this baseless claim."

They reportedly reached a settlement out of court, but Manson maintained he had nothing to do with Syme taking drugs that night.

Reeves has never spoken publicly about his relationship with Syme, which certainly fits right into how he was before, let alone since. But he grieved. And he eventually had something to say about that.

"I think, after loss, life requires an act of reclaiming," he told Parade in 2006. "You have to reject being overwhelmed. Life has to go on."

The actor continued, "Grief changes shape, but it never ends. People have a misconception that you can deal with it and say, 'It's gone, and I'm better.' They're wrong. When the people you love are gone, you're alone. I miss being a part of their lives and them being part of mine. I wonder what the present would be like if they were here—what we might have done together. I miss all the great things that will never be."

So he knew exactly what he was talking about when he told Colbert, "I know that the ones that love us will miss us."

Calling it "unfair" and "absurd," Reeves told

Parade

, "All you can do is hope that grief will be transformed and, instead of feeling pain and confusion, you will be together again in memory, that there will be solace and pleasure there, not just loss."

"Much of my appreciation of life has come through loss," he concluded. "Life is precious. It's worthwhile."

He said at the time that he would like to have a family, and reiterated the sentiment a couple years later, but Reeves told Esquire in 2017 with regards to "settling down": "I'm too… it's too late. It's over." Asked to clarify, he added, "I'm 52. I'm not going to have any kids."

Famous last words from a litany of 50-something men, and he was reminded of that. Reeves just said, "That's a whole other… But no. I'm glad to still be here."

"I'm every cliché," he continued. "F--king mortality. Ageing. I'm just starting to get better at it. Just the amount of stuff you have to do before you're dead. I'm all of the clichés, and it's embarrassing. It's all of them. It's just, 'Oh my God. OK. Where did the time go? How come things are changing? How much time do I have left? What didn't I do?' I'm trying to think of the line from the sonnet… 'And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er / The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan / Which I new pay as if not paid before.'"

"So, yeah," he added, reportedly with a smile. "I'm that guy."

In turn, Reeves can't help but come off as the solitary figure he so often plays in his films, from Constantine to The Matrix to John Wick. Heck, even Duke Caboom sounds a little melancholy.

At the same time, you're just as likely to see him in a romantic tear-jerker or a quirky comedy as a shoot-em-up. He's played heroes and hustlers, sweethearts and cruel villains, teachers and slackers, doctors and lawyers.

"For me, it's just continuing to be able to work with great artists and tell stories that people enjoy," Reeves told Parade. "I was always hoping, even when I was young, that I could do different things," he says. "I'm really grateful for that. I'm

Though he had no idea John Wick would be such a hit, Reeves was in top form in the 2014 action extravaganza as a retired hit man who goes on a revenge spree after gangsters kill the beloved dog that was a gift from his late wife.

It made almost $89 million on a reported $20 million budget. Sequel time!

"You hope and you dream but the reality is even sweeter," he told E! News in 2017 about the first film's surprise success when he was promoting John Wick: Chapter 2. "It's great to be involved in a project that has so much affection."

Chapter 2 made $172 million worldwide.

Now back for John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum, Reeves has revealed that he started training heavily about three months before filming began to get back into dynamo shape, and he still goes whole-hog (or horse, in this movie's case) in the action sequences, right up until a car runs into him.

"I'll do some fight scenes and then John Wick will get hit by a car," Reeves explained to Colbert on The Late Show, "and that's Jackson Spidell, who's an amazing stuntman." Spidell has been Reeves' stunt double in all the John Wick movies. "He gets hit by the car, then I'll get up from the car, then I'll do a whole bunch more of, like, gun-fu and whatever, jujitsu, judo—and then, if I get thrown off something, Jackson does his thing."

Even more exciting for some fans, however, depending on whether you like your Keanu dark or more dude-like, is the news that he and Alex Winter are finally set to start shooting Bill & Ted Face the Music, the much-discussed follow-up to 1989's Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and sequel Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, which came out in 1991. The years-in-the-making comedy is tentatively due out in 2020.

And so on his latest press tour, Keanu Reeves left his usual trail of breadcrumbs. They may not lead you straight to his door, but they'll definitely keep you on the path.

#keanu reeves #Inside Keanu Reeves' Inscrutable Private World-Tragedy Motorcycles and Epic Movie Stardom

19 notes · View notes

golden-van-fleet · 5 years

Text

Class Ring

A/N: Hi this is my first “published” writing? And I don’t really know what I’m doing? I thought it was cute, and I really want to keep writing, I hope y’all think it’s as cute as I do :)

Warnings: none

Word Count: 2.2k

You’ll never forget the chaos that surrounded your junior class receiving their class rings. Constant debates on which style was the best, the “classic” look or the newer, modernized versions, engravings, the intricacies that made each ring unique, every detail that made it yours. You didn’t want a huge ring, just one with the year you’d graduate written somewhere on it. Joe, however, was all to pieces to make his ring perfect.

“I’m just saying, I’m about to pay for a ring that I’ll probably have for the rest of my life, I want it to be perfect. Literally. Perfect.” He flopped face first onto your bed to emphasize his point.

“Joe, no one wears their class ring outside of high school. Especially if they get a class ring in college. It’s not as big a deal as you want to make it.” You took the initiative to fall on the bed next to him, but laying on your back against the pillows as opposed to Joe’s awkward diagonal position across your bed. He rolled onto his left side to face you. You’d be lying if the face he gave you didn’t make your heart skip a beat. Or two.

“If I tell you this, do you promise not to laugh at me?”

“Depends what it is. I’m your best friend, I have the right to laugh at anything and everything you say.”

“Well,” he started, a faint blush gracing his cheeks, “I’ve kind of always wanted to be able to give my class ring to that “special someone,” you know? Like in Grease, when they’re at the drive-in. It seems so outdated by today’s standards, but that’s something I’ve always found really sweet. Like, hey, I want to give you something that means a lot to me, I’m just not ready to get married or anything quite yet. Here’s this piece of me, more or less,” he finished, his words beginning to run together as he thought out loud. You couldn’t stop the smile that spread across your face. You’d also be lying if you said that you weren’t hoping that special someone could be you, even if it was years and years down the road.

“I mean, it does seem pretty cheesy, but you’ve always been pretty cheesy,” you said, his eyes searching yours for validation. He rolled his eyes.

“You are absolutely no help, Y/N.” He let out an exaggerated huff and rolled onto his back, the weight of his torso on your feet.

“Okay, and you didn’t let me finish,” you teased, reaching down to pinch his cheek. “It’s sweet. I understand where you’re coming from. But my only question, is why make it so “perfect” if it’s eventually going to be worn by someone else? What if you break up?” You didn’t mean to sound so morbid or even so harsh, but reality was harsh, and it was something you couldn’t stop yourself from asking.

“Ideally, it would go to that perfect person. It would stay with that perfect person. And one day would be replaced by an engagement ring,” he answered, his eyes glancing at your hands, which were crossed over your chest. He thought you didn’t notice. You pretended not to.

“You didn’t answer the second part.”

He thought for a moment. He finally responded, saying, “I suppose I’d let them keep it if they wanted it. Even if we don’t stay together, they would still mean enough to me to get it in the first place.”

You couldn’t help the feeling in your chest at that point. Your whole life you’d grown up with Joe as your best friend, your confidant, your partner in crime. You never, in a million and a half years, would’ve thought you would ever develop a crush on him.

What you didn’t, and couldn’t know, was that Joe felt the same way. He wanted this ring to be perfect because he wanted to give it to the one person he had ever thought was perfect, his best friend. You.

As you went to college (and received your college ring), you’d forgotten about that day in your bedroom when you both were 16. Being best friends since birth, Joe still had a major role in your life, coming to visit you whenever he could bear the 15 minute drive to your apartment, which, by the way, was multiple times a week.

You’d both dated other people, your mutual longing never fading but never coming to fruition in that time. In fact, Joe had met a new girl, Hannah, at an audition he was at a few months prior. Despite how much your heart hurt, you were truly happy that he was happy. But when he invited you over to meet her, you couldn’t help but notice the necklace she was wearing. A sapphire class ring sat on a silver chain, hanging almost daintily around her neck despite its size. You grit your teeth and forced a smile you hoped seemed genuine. And to her, it did. Joe knew otherwise, but bit his tongue.

So when he showed up at your door at 11:30 on a Friday night a few months later, you knew something was wrong. With every girl he’d dated, he made a point to spend as much time with her as possible without cutting you out. But Friday nights were his date nights with Hannah. This particular Friday night, you’d returned from a date with a guy you’d met in passing while on your lunch break that you probably wouldn’t call back for a second date. Nursing what was left of your cup of tea, you snuck a glance to the storm in full force outside your window. You’d just barely turned your attention back to the movie that was playing when a pounding on your door scared the living daylights out of you.

Opening the door, you were met with the soaking wet form of your best friend, who walked through the door and almost collapsed into your arms.

“She cheated.” Your breath caught in your throat. You started plotting the ways you’d ruin her life without Joe knowing it was you (while knowing full well said revenge would be carried out by none other than his best friend in the entire world). Something fell to the floor, and as you shut the door and began leading Joe to the bathroom to get him a towel you caught a glimpse of what it was. Only after Joe was in the shower to warm up did you return to the door to retrieve it.

“I want you to have it.” Joe’s voice broke the silence, making you jump and almost drop the damned thing. Was his shower that short? Were you really looking at it for that long?

“What?”

“It’s yours. I don’t want it. But I can’t bring myself to throw it out, or to sell it, or hell, even give it to my mother as a keepsake.” He was fuming, it was evident in his voice. But when your eyes met his, his expression was the opposite of what his voice indicated.

“I’m not going to keep it just because you don’t want it,” you spoke softly. You remembered the conversation the two of you had about it, over 15 years prior. “You said it should go to that perfect person, that special someone, the love of your life. Do you remember that?” When you finished, your voice was no louder than a whisper. You felt a lump in your throat form as you spoke, setting yourself up for the inevitable disappointment you’d feel by the end of the conversation. Setting the ring and chain on the table next to your keys, you crossed the room to continue the conversation.

“I do remember that. I remember thinking how badly I wanted you to have it one day, you know.”

“You can’t come in here and say that after showing up at my door and saying that your girlfriend cheated on you. It went to her. She had to have been perfect enough to receive it in the first place.” You wanted nothing more than to send Joe either home or to sleep in the guest room and curl up in bed. You’d failed to notice the stray tear that began to fall down your face, but Joe didn’t. Silently, he wiped it away and pulled you into a hug. He wanted you to know he’d never been in love in the first place.

Every time she laughed at one of his jokes, he couldn’t help but notice how different her laugh was from yours. When he looked into her eyes, they weren’t as kind or as inviting as yours were. Just the way she said his name made him wish it was your voice instead. And of course, initially he’d thought it was because he’d been single for so long. You were the closest thing he’d known to true love without knowing what it was, and he thought maybe it was that driving him to make so many comparisons. He tried to love her, he really did. He wanted to want to wake up next to her, to love her with every part of his being, and yet for whatever reason, he couldn’t. She noticed, too. She could tell by the way he spoke about you that no one would replace you. He never answered her calls as quickly as he answered yours, or talked nearly as long with her as he did with you. As unjust as a reason as it may have been, she went to find love elsewhere, hoping Joe would go to you to do the same.

“I’ve loved you since we were kids, Y/N. And I let you get away for too long, and for that I’ll never forgive myself. The ring is yours, it always has been. I couldn’t love her simply because she wasn’t you.” You looked up to face him, eyes brimming with unshed tears and those that had fallen had soaked into his old sweatshirt you’d had that he changed into.

“I… really?” You couldn’t quite tell what you were asking about. It was a lot to process, and he knew that. With that, he began leading you back to your bedroom, guiding you towards the end of the bed where you could both sit and talk. Before he sat down, he ran back out to the hallway to get said ring, the very item you didn’t know if you could bear to see.

He came back to find you already laying in bed, half of the comforter folded back as an invitation for him to get in bed next to you. It was an unspoken rule between the two of you, and had been since you were small. He faced you, admiring all of your features and choosing his words carefully.

“I mean it when I say I love you. And I know by the way you responded that you love me, too. I’m not demanding anything from you. You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. I want you to know that you have always been the one for me, the one that I want to wake up next to, the one that I want to grow old with, the one that I want to remind every day just how much I love her and how much more I’ll love every day. I’m not asking you to marry me, at least, not right now. Maybe we can get there one day,” his eyes met yours as he finished his spiel.

“I love you too.” Finally, the words you’d wanted to say and mean in such a context were out into the world for all to hear, even if it was just between the two of you. He took your hand and set the ring in it, closing your fingers around it and kissing your knuckles. “I’ve always loved you.” You moved to be closer to him, your head tucked under his chin. “I want you, forever. Hell, I’ve wanted you for what feels like forever,” you added, pulling back to meet his eyes.

And then he kissed you.

The ring fell out of your shocked grasp, despite your conscience telling you that this was going to happen the entire time. You took his face in your hands, holding onto him for dear life.

“I’ve been waiting so long for that.” He smiled the warmest smile you’d ever seen, and you knew the smile across your face had the potential to put his to shame. Joe picked up the ring and set it on the nightstand beside him. “You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to. I just want you to have it until I can replace it with another one.”

“I’ll wear it until the chain breaks, Joseph. Don’t underestimate me,” you joked, kissing his cheek softly.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He kept his promise about the other ring, too. A year and a half later he presented to you a gorgeous sapphire engagement ring, and a year after that you had a wedding band to complete it. His class ring stayed on the chain, hung up with your other jewelry, front and center, to remind you of the perfect man who insisted on the perfect ring for the perfect girl.

#joe mazzello #joe mazzello x reader #joe mazzello imagine #y'all i'm so nervous for this lmao #my writing #bohemian rhapsody #i really don't want to tag this wrong

90 notes · View notes

cmarionthewilkid-blog · 4 years

Text

C.O.N.S.U.M.E.D

What happens when we consume more than we need? What happens when our choices are influenced by societal pressures of how things should be? Part 1 of my reflective journal will aim to provide a glimpse at two weeks of a working mom, head of a house of five, who also coincidentally adds event planner often to her job tasks.

Day 1: I specifically started my consumption journal on Friday, October 25. The day before a large case competition I was hosting on campus. Day 1 starts like most every other day of my life. The 20 minute drive to daycare, followed by the usual ice cap pit stop at Tim Horton’s. This day is special though, with the pressures of ensuring everything was just right for our judges and sponsors. I stroll off to Ferme Beaulieu to spend $328 on gifts. I am thinking that at least I am buying local products (honey, herbs, ketchup aux fruits) and feel pretty great about that. But why do I feel obliged to buy gifts at all? Wouldn’t a sincere thank you be enough? I guess according to Jonathan Porritt (2011), I have fallen victim to consumerism at its best. Somehow, I feel OK about it though.

A quick stop at Dollarama for gift bags, disposable coffee cups (cringe!), and plastic plastic trays. Finally, a $148 trip to Provigo for snacks for the case competitors and coaches. Oops, did I mention the trip to the t-shirt printer to pick up the 60 red printed competition momentos. Let’s add the 250+ pages I printed that day! As I sit here and reflect on the necessities (needs) of running a case competition versus expectations (and wants), I come to the realization that most of what I have purchased is simply there to enhance image.

Day 2 (October 26): Tim’s ice cap (check!). 60 Donuts, 60 pre-packed lunches, 24 cans of Perrier, 60 cans of soft drinks, 40 coffees in disposable cups, 100 plastic glasses of wine. Today, I am completely influenced by materialism and keeping the “image”. Let’s keep in mind that I work for a business school and that comes with some rather large assumptions around how things are supposed to look and be. Not to mention, I am hosting five people from the company who is sponsoring the event, so I need to keep them happy and ensure the event lives up to their expectations. I am reminded of Amitai Etzioni, (2012) and his sentiments about “keeping up with the Jones’”. It is true, when one party sets a certain expectation, we all rise to meet, or better, exceed them.

Today; however, my biggest disappointment was food waste. The boxed lunches were good, but about 25% of people didn’t eat all their meal. Almost 100% of the people didn’t eat the dessert included. We don’t have access to compost, so it went to the trash. Above the clear environmental impact of my event, I am reminded of the fact that one fifth of the world’s richest people consume 45% of all the meat and fish (Shah, 2014). Despite the company providing compostable cutlery and cups, I feel guilty that I sent so many things to the landfill today. To top it all off, Sodexo served a less than stellar menu at the Gala dinner (veal sous-vide). I swear I wanted to eat it, but alas, two bites in and I am done. More to the trash. Exhausted and mentally drained, I wonder to myself where the balance between convenience and waste needs to come into play. Why can’t we have compost stations on campus?

Day 3 (October 27): But first, my ice cap! A friend’s child’s birthday party today so I scramble to get things together. I run to Provigo to grab stuff for mini pizzas to share (forgot my grocery bags, so plastic it is). My friend insisted on no gifts at the party, which I wanted to accept, but quite frankly couldn’t. I’m glad I didn’t because apparently no one else respected it either. I think about this social obligation more deeply (Goodwin, Smith, & Spiggle, 1990). I try my best to make a compromise, we opt for a movie day among friends instead of a traditional gift. I am hoping this small intrinsically motivated action may decrease future landfill waste in the future. Nonetheless, we are filled with waxed juice cups and plates. Back to the Provigo to grab something for the family for supper. I grab peppers in a plastic bag, sausages in a styrofoam package, pasta sauce in a glass bottle, cheese in plastic packaging and pasta in a cardboard box. Nothing much to compost or recycle unfortunately.

Day 4 (October 28): Monday and back to work. Ice cap, yup! I am starting to get quite the collection in my office recycling bin. My boss just commented on it. I guess it is a bit of an eye sore..haha!

Two trips to Provigo today. One at lunch to grab George’s bread, deli ham, Coaticook cheese, carrots and dip. Next stop on the way home from work for supper, chicken, baby potatoes and stuffing.

Day 5 (October 29): If you haven’t guessed by now, ice cap time! Today, my brother (who lives with us) did a fridge clean up. Sigh! I can’t believe how much stuff we threw away. Past date, wilted vegetables, moldy fruits. Why don’t I just throw money directly into the garbage can? Is it normal that the first thing I think about is wasted money? According to a study by Graham-Rowe, Jessop, and Sparks (2014), wasting money is indeed a major motivator to minimize food waste. Inspired by this revelation, I am determined to have leftovers for lunch and transform the chicken salad sandwiches tonight for supper. I don’t even have to stop at Provigo today! WOW!

Day 6 (October 30): IC (that’s all I will say). Wednesdays are always tricky because I am running around and teach a class at night. It is one of those days. I grab lunch at Subway (steak sub, chips and a drink) -> garbage.

Run to Provigo after work and grab steak, carrots, potatoes and gravy from Provigo and throw it in pot to cook. I also realize that I haven’t really bought any candy for Halloween for my students in case class. $65.30 later and we have meat and candies! I’ve also been putting out chocolates outside my office door for students.

Day 7 (October 31): Another ice cap to go please. I don’t even eat lunch today. Now I realize we have no candy for the kids. Drive to Walmart and $68.03, we’ve got goodies. No lunch again, and we go to a friend’s for supper. Off with the 4 year old trick or treating in the rain. She gets a pail of treats, we have 2 boxes of stuff leftover.

Day 8 (November 1): Day of the dead? I think so! Actually order breakfast with my ice cap at Timmy’s this morning. No lunch today. We decide to go shopping after work today as my brother has a 40% discount at L’Equipeur. $218.58 later, my husband enjoys new shoes, jeans, sport jacket, t-shirts, and a pair of sneakers for my mom for Christmas. Oh wait! Marlee needs new winter boots, so $86.22 later, we have new winter boots for her. I also see the cutest dress boots at Marshall’s (fake baby Uggs). I suppose these is what the marketers are hoping for. Top it all off with super for the family at Guido’s. (Wow! I have really been eating like crap!) Day 8 hurt the bank account! Day 9 (November 2): Maybe I should actually buy some groceries for my empty fridge. I sludge off to Provigo early Saturday morning to spent near $200. At least I have meat, veggies, fruits, and some of the other basics for my family to actually live on. Stop at Tim’s on the way home for the usual.

Day 10 (November 3): Beautiful breakfast with family (and an ice cap). Spent the day making food (soup, roasted chicken, pasta sauce, etc....). Trying to cut down on the restaurant stops this week. End up at the library with some dear colleagues from GSE503, so I think another ice cap is in order to stay awake (and leftover Halloween Candy).

Day 11 (November 4): Check that thought. Day went to hell, running late, dead tired, no breakfast, grabbed Rima for supper. Fridge full, but I don’t even care at this point.

Day 12 (November 5): Today is a new day! I started making iced coffee at home! No Tim’s! I actually did not spend $1 today! Why do I feel so great? Apparently it is something referred to as perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE). When is comes to sustainable buying practices, this PCE is influenced directly by guilt and pride. This becomes important because it means that as a consumer, my behaviours could be modified by using emotions (Antonetti, & Maklan, 2014).

Day 13 (November 6): Another no spending kind of day! Feeling all pride and no guilt! Maybe Atonetti and Maklan are on to something!

Day 14 (November 7): Last day of recording! No ice caps and going strong. My husband and I are feeling like we need a little extra family time, so we go out for supper at Mike’s with Marlee. We follow it up by a little Chocolat Favoris. I asked myself why we went to Mike’s again? What a waste! A quick stop by Provigo to grab snacks for my basketball girls. I make an orzo salad plus pull together fruits, yogurt, cheese and granola bars.

Stay tuned for Part 2 to see if I actually made some changes and what this whole process has meant for me. Until then, I leave you on this note: Waiting on the World to Change

REFERENCES

Antonetti, P., & Maklan, S. (2014). Feelings that make a difference: How guilt and pride convince consumers of the effectiveness of sustainable consumption choices. Journal of Business Ethics, 124(1), 117-134. Retrieved from www.jstor.org/stable/24033218

Etzioni, A. (2012). You Don’t need to Buy This. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/FN3z8gtDUFE

Goodwin, C., Smith, K.L., & Spiggle, S. (1990). Gift giving: Consumer motivation and the gift purchase process. In NA - Advances in Consumer Research. 17, eds. Marvin E. Goldberg, Gerald Gorn, and Richard W. Pollay, Provo, UT : Association for Consumer Research, 690-698. Retrieved from http://acrwebsite.org/volumes/7086/volumes/v17/NA-17

Graham-Rowe, E., Jessop, D.C., & Sparks, P. (2014). Identifying motivations and barriers to minimising household food wasteby. Resources, Conservation & Recycling, 84, 15-23. doi: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2013.12.005

Porritt, J. (2011). The trap of materialism. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/DtwXryPNciM

Shah, A. (2014). Consumption and Consumerism: Global Issues. Retrieved from http://www.globalissues.org/issue/235/consumption-and-consumerism

1 note · View note