#the last time i saw her it was like peak covid so i couldn’t hold her or anything but i get to see that side of my family in a week and i’m

[one-time-i-jumped-off-a-cliff]

made a friend!

#he’s for my not-cousin hehe #she’s a little under two years old i think? and she’s literally the cutest #the last time i saw her it was like peak covid so i couldn’t hold her or anything but i get to see that side of my family in a week and i’m #so excited

[oh-for-fic-sake]

The Stand In Chapter Three

Masterlist

The filming is done and the trailer is coming ,but you have to deal with some unexpected consequences of being so close to Henry. Then your mother drops a bombshell that she may have let your career change slip to one of your many overprotective brothers. Meanwhile Henry has a revelation with some help from Anya and Joey.

Warnings: Adult Situations +18, Masturbation, fluff, Swearing

A/N:so here is chapter three,as I have said before I'm trying to make this realistic from a fangirls point of veiw. this is going to be a bit of a slow burn to so buckle up guys! anyway I hope you enjoy xxx see you soon xxx

Taglist: @dark-night-sky-99 @thummbelina @sofiebstar @jellicorn05 @m3anwhil3misha @thefangirlsblog  @al-wiisa  @healojane​  @thatgirly81​ @angelofthorr @iloveyouyen​   @two-unbeatable-beaters​

As the scene was called to an end a small round of applause was held, everyone seemed to be pleased with your performance which was a relief...your performance did dictate weather they kept there jobs or not so it was safe to say it was smiles all round. You finally let loose a breath slumping your shoulders 'Keira' receded and you shrunk under everyone's gaze blushing. You looked around seeing the crew and cast. Everyone seemed happy and you hadn't forgotten any of your cues or lines. You looked down at your shaking hands as relief and adrenaline flooded your system. You'd been shaking for most of the scene but thankfully the thick material of the costume covered it well. The scene itself was...Intense the air was thick for most of it as you Joey and Henry's interactions were carefully executed there were a few small hiccups but nothing you couldn't overlook...They added to the scene if you was quite honest.

As silly as it was you wanted to cry but was desperate to hold back not wanting to be silly. You jumped looking up as you were almost body slammed into a hug, the torso wasn't to wide so it had to be .Joey. You smiled brightly as the crew began to move about the hustle and bustle of set resumed. Joey plastered himself to you hugging tight and pulling you up off the floor for a second laughing.

"See? Nothing to worry about! That was brilliant Tink's!" You laughed nervously

"Err....Thank you...Can you let me go now...Please Joey?" He quickly released you letting you turn to face him gulping as you saw Henry smiling nodding.

"H-how do you feel about us- I mean all this now then?...It- wasn't as scary as you thought....W-was it?" You glanced to the floor and took a calming breath trying to get yourself under control then looked at the man sheepishly twiddling you fingers.

"N-no it was...Fun? Almost...You know once it got going...." he smiled sweetly at you

"Good! Good that’s err yeah I'm happy you found it fun....I'm sorry about you know....I err kind of forgot how err...I mean I...I tried to be gentle but..." you shook your head at him quickly

"Oh-oh that was...It's fine I knew it was going to happen but....It was my fault honestly and it doesn't even hurt so no harm done...It- your strength surprised me is all!" You said referring to what could have been seen as a incident, in the scene Geralt had to throw Keira to a wall and pin her there to interrogate her a little, at this point in the story neither really knew who the other was.

Tomasz had said the way you were so unprepared for him to throw you back was good that your surprise and flinching added to the scene making it more believable. Henry had misjudged his strength and you'd actually banged the back of your head on the faux brick of the 'corridor' he had gone to pull back immediately fearing he had hurt you, but you kept the scene going holding him still discretely out of shot and continued with the dialogue while you still had the nerve.

Henry smiled guilty he hadn't liked seeing you wince but he was glad that you'd continued he doubted any other takes would have been as authentic he would have held back to much.

"Still...I-I will try to be careful I don't want to hurt you...Your so tiny." Tomasz came over followed by Lauren both wearing huge grins.

"Yes! That was perfect! You did wonderful absolutely brilliant....Now your not needed for filming for another three or four days today was just so we can throw out a trailer...It should be done in a day or so?" You frowned at him days?

"That’s...quick is it always that quick?" Lauren chuckled

"No...but the trailer was done we just needed clips of you all the team need to do is slot you and a few of your lines in as a little narration and thats it!...With any luck it will be released on the app by....oh I’d say Thursday morning? If they upload it as soon as they get it...But in reality it will probably be by tomorrow afternoon sometime, after covid everyone is scrabbling to get their trailers out asap" Tomasz nodded in agreement then snapped to you remembering something.

"Yes and you will be announced as Keira the same day so be prepared." You blinked dumbfounded

"A-anounced?" He smile at you encouragingly

"Just on the main official websites, social media that sort of thing...You may end up having a Wikipedia page to but we don't have much control on that one...Don’t look so worried everything should go smoothly...Speaking of everything going smoothly would you like to watch what you’ve just done?" you gulped and shook your head

"Fuck no...I...I can't watch myself-OH FUCK I-I just realized...I cant watch it when it comes out!!..." All four laughed as you yelled swearing cursing to yourself Tomasz laughed patting your back.

"Don’t you worry you can work yourself up to it! Everything will be fine! You may get more media attention due to the circumstances of your audition...We are going to let it out that you was working on set and stepped up...we are naming you as our saving grace and explaining that if you didn't step in witcher would have been cancelled, that should help you get a welcome reception...If things do get hairy we will sort it out..Now as much as I'd love to chat we have a few more scenes with these two today and we need to shoot while we have the good weather... So you go get changed and relax while you can tomorrow you start your fight choreography" you nodded receiving one last hug from Joey and a pat on the back from Henry as they turned moving to their next scene. The one you just filmed was a little further into the season then where they were up to but as they said they needed it for the trailer.

Henry took a breath he didn't want to leave you..Not yet he had only just spoke to you for the first time and for the next few days you wont see much of each other, he had a few night scenes that needed to be filmed...At night that meant he would be asleep for most of the day when you would be up and about set. Even if he did manage to drag himself out of bed he doubted he would see you, you would be busy he had your schedule...He had managed to wrangle one from of the offices had he said you'd lost yours? Maybe...But he was just excited he wanted to see when you'd both be around one another so he could prepare himself. He seemed to just be on egg shells, blundering his way through conversations and if he wasn't stammering and mixing his words he was fucking staring. He really had to get this attraction under control, preferably by having you on his arm.

That scene had been incredible for him, it was a flirtatious piece before boiling into sexual tension as he Geralt had followed the shifty witch about the banquet hall before confronting her over his suspicions. He sighed happily the grabbing and touching, pinning you it sent his  thoughts running wild, he loathed to admit it but his manhandling of you had...Really did it for him, which surprised him he has never been one for the rough and tumble outside of the bed room...or in it really sure he topped but nothing majorly rough a few slaps on the ass here and there and some dirty talk. But ...with you he could see himself experimenting you just shook him! He wanted to go all alpha on your ass!, claim his woman and all that jazz...He  just- around you he truly felt like a man's man you know? The whole 'me Tarzan you Jane' scenario wanting to sling you over his shoulder and take you back to his trailer and fuck the living daylights out of your tiny little pussy!....Fuck!

Having his current infatuation, his fantasy! Pinned and held still to the wall had really fucked him up. I mean what was so sexy about overpowering you with a single hand on your chest? crowding you with his form? leaning so close he could feel your sweet breath fanning his face Fuck me!...Everything, all of it was sexy! he felt powerful and dominant, like he was this big bear who could protect you from everything even yourself!

His only gripe was that he had to remain stoic and irritated as you flirted with him...God he wanted to flirt back let you know he wanted you in the most depraved of ways but that wasn't in the scene. Just remembering the way he had held you was already making him twitch in the tight bottoms of his costume.

It didn't take long to slip, for his imagination to cross over into delicious dangerous territory. He had felt it! The way your heart picked up as he leaned in closer with vaguely threatening words, the soft pants and gasps between your breaths the way your pupils had blown only to return to the sarcastic unamused gaze of keira. He had watched closely as your lips trembled you were quivering and he loved everysecond of it.

"Henryyyy~ oh god really what you do one scene with your precious Tink's and we loose you completely?!" Henry grunted at Joey as they made their way across set, they now needed to film a town scene.

"I'm fine Joey...Just thinking" he snorted at Henry walking around the larger man stopping him in his tracks

"Well don't hurt yourself" Henry rolled his eyes then peaked at the impish grin Joey had.

"So? Happy? I mean you did just get to cop a feel! And be paid to do it mind you!" Henry stopped and stuttered

"I-I did not!  I would never! Joey it was a scene! I didn't cop a feel!" Joey pulled a face unconvinced.

"Uhuh? So your script said 'grab her by the tits' and not 'grab her by the throat'?" Henry stopped 'what?, it fucking? Did ? Oh fuck whats she going to think? Is that why she was unprepared? You are such a fucking dick shes gonna think your a god damn pervert!'

"Hey hey woah! Henry stop slow down mate...I can see what your thinking but just back up...I was joking....Fuck ...That's it calm down she didn't seem to mind...see its fine" Henry calmed down but not by much.

"What the fuck? How am I? Whats she gonna think of me now?"

"Whats who gonna think of what?" Both men looked up as Anya approached readying herself for the shoot. Joey spoke up before Henry could stop him.

"Well you know Henry's little crush had her first shoot today?"

"I don't have a crush!" Anya chuckled at his blatant lie and patted his shoulder

"We know Henry..." she looked to Joey whilst rubbing Henry's back in reassuring circles and continued as he pouted.

"So Tink's is the one replacing whatsherface I thought it was just a rumor" Joey laughed as Henry heaved a sigh becoming a light pink colour.

"How does? We-I don't have a...Fuck it" Henry gave up resigning to the fact that everyone probably knew no matter how discrete he thought he was being. Anya sighed at the buff man.

"Henry you wouldn't shut up about her we all know..." Henry looked between them a little sheepish he couldn't help it. Joey cleared his throat.

"...yes well at one point Henry here had to pin her to a wall by her throat but instead decided to use her boobs to keep her still...and he has only just realized" Anya sighed

"Oh god you didn't? Really?...please tell me you didn't squeeze..." he full on blushed.

"NO! FUCK-I I did not squeeze...I didn't even notice not until Joey just brought it up...Its probably why she wasn't ready and banged her head, she thought I was going for her throat to push her back but instead I....Fuck sake!" Anya looked to Joey for the full story.

"He pushed her a little hard and her head hit the wall...I'm sure it was your strength that caught her off guard not your meaty palm squishing her tits..." Henry groaned running his hands over his face.

Anya sighed looking at him she could tell this was going to eat away at him.

"Look if she didn't say anything then she probably doesn't even realize...just play it by ear...if she does bring it up then apologize sincerely...All women love a gentleman" Henry sighed Anya was right the scene just naturally progressed you probably wouldn't have noticed, but he couldn't help feel bad he liked you he didn't want to blow it.

"But...but what if she hasn't said anything because shes scared of me" anya scoffed shaking her head.

"Seriously? You think shes afraid of you?" Henry furrowed his brow as she and joey laughed

"Well she must be! She always ran away from me! And couldn't look at me when she auditioned and today she had to hide behind Kal just to speak a few words to me!...I can understand I mean shes small and I'm a big guy then I fucking throw her about like that!? Shit shes never gonna go out with me if I fucking frighten her! Why the fuck are you two laughing I'm serious?!" Anya managed to stem her chuckles feeling bad for him, he honestly had no clue.

"Shes not scared Henry...Fuck really you haven't noticed?"

"Noticed what?!" Joey intercepted still chuckling, honestly it was like watching a fumbling preteen with a first crush.

"She likes you...A lot shes embarrassed" Henry frowned at them were they making fun of him? He shook his head getting irritated.

"No...she can't it doesn't make sense why would she run and be all..."

"Nervous and stuttering?like oh I font know a girl meeting her favorite celebrity? " Joey added Henry blinked what? You were a fan?

"There we go the penny has dropped!" Henry moved shifting on his feet flushing red

"She cant be-"

"She is Tee told me, shes a fan of yours Henry so she gets all shy" 'was that true? You liked him; his work so got flustered and avoided him? Fuck Cavill you dumb ass! That makes perfect sense! She hid because she was nervous, and she used Kal as a coping mechanism! She probably doesn't want to freak you out!' Henry smiled getting more confident if..if it was true then all he had to do was get you used to being around him, he could relax now knowing he didn't scare you just made you...what? Happy nervous? He was snapped out of his thoughts by Joey.

"Why don't you come along with us tomorrow...Invite her out for a late lunch? We can go as a group so technically its not a date but we can get her a few wines down her and loosen her up a bit and get her relaxed and you two can talk get to know her more!"Anya gasped

"Thats a brilliant idea we can say its because me and Freya want to meet her before our scenes together! A nice casual lunch and we can sit her next to you Henry!" Henry smiled...That was a good idea he could get to know you and not come on to strong as like a date. He nodded to Anya and Joey he would go and ask you after shooting today, suddenly he couldn't wait for tomorrow envisioning finally getting to have a real conversation with you and hopefully get you to relax around him.

You ran back to your trailer, luckily it took half the time to get out of costume then it did to get in. It only took an hour and you were finally y/n again and ready to chill like Tomasz said. You heaved a huge sigh once alone in your new home. You wanted to just go back to bed but your mind was reeling ,that had been incredible and terrifying all in one. 'But bitch you did it! Fuck yes!...And oh my god he touched you....Okay so it was for a scene so does it count?...Maybe, and he got you food! He fed you girl~...Well again not really,...Just coffee but still he thought of you? like he Ugh! How the fuck are you gonna survive this?!...Okay breath you didn't squeal....or scream or dry hump him....So today is going to go down as a win! But oh my fuck he was so strong~ like fuck he could one hundred percent rip you in half and your sorry ass would fucking drool over his muscles during and thank him after! And he was warm to...So warm and his smelt handsome...How the fuck can anyone smell handsome? You didnt know but fuck he did clean and masculine and just UGH!...Yes...Just yes girl so handsome and big and buff and....Fuck you wanted to just UGH!...Fuck...Just oh my god how are we gonna get through this with him being all growly and beefy...Okay something else....Kal, Kal is so cute and fluffy and big just like his daddy-NO! No no no stop it...Stop that right now!...He was hot though' you could still feel where he had placed his hand over your chest, the tingles he left it was ridiculous! His palm had been so hot...Like the rest of him so no real surprise...But fuck for you to feel it through the thick dress he must be hot...Which some how was more of a turn on you were wet...Like whet.

You cringed as you shifted feeling the arousal in your knickers making them stick to your outer lips it was uncomfortable, should probably take care of that.. you got up moving to the small toilet flicking off your knickers and blushed...Wow okay the man had definitely done a number on your libido...And you thought tumblr smut did you good but shit this was almost laughable. You rolled your eyes moving to the toilet wiping yourself down cleaning yourself up. It did no use you growled twitching and bucking into your hand as you moved as fast as you could trying not to fan the flames as brushing past your clit silently praying that this wouldn't be a regular thing after shoots. But you fucking doubt it! Seriously on set he was a huge growly built witcher...Who was also a frequent fantasy so yeah looks like your knickers were in for a rough ride. You whined trying to wipe away as much as you could feeling embarrassed as well as a little naughty, but to be honest you didn't feel to bad about it. Was that weird? besides if you hid it then it wont be a problem...A few months of sexual frustration wont be so bad...would it? Not like the man didn't know he was attractive so if he did ever see well...He wont blame you...would he?.

You mulled over these thoughts then quickly shook your head deciding some questions are better left unanswered. You looked down at into the toilet...If you continued to wipe yourself down you'd have a hell of a job explaining a clogged toilet...There was no dignified way of explaining a clogged toilet. So it was settled you needed a shower....A cold shower and clean knickers then a nap! sounds like a plan. On that thought, You poked your head out of the shower checking for a mini washing machine...Nada great so had to settle for just quickly rinsing them in the sink then hang them somewhere. You moved quickly pulling the cord and flipping on the switch letting the water to pour through the shower head.

You hissed as you stepped into the cubicle and the cool water hit your bare skin. You blinked looking at the damp knickers on the floor of the tiny room you shrugged and threw them on the floor of the shower giving them a quick blast washing away your own mess then kicked them out choosing to find a spot to dry them later. It was only when you stood below the stream of water that you realized just how flushed you was. Your heated skin protested to the water but soon it was comfortable and relaxing you closed your eyes trying to take a few zen moments under the cool spray willing away all your troubles.

Mainly the throbbing between your thighs it only lasted a few minuets before you got irritated huffing it wasn't working! you growled  having a quick wash hoping your arousal would settle on its own but soon you realized it wasn't going to happen and you needed to clean your still tremble core. You hissed bucking having to bite your own hand as you moved the shower head to the apex of your thighs. You whined as the light spray washed away your arousal pressing against your clit. You moaned as the cool water seemed to be just what you needed cooling the heated flesh and giving you incredible waves of pleasure vibrating along your nerves in slow tremors as good as it felt it was...not enough? It felt nice and nice just wasn't going to cut it! you grunted trying desperately to find that spot, that angle and rhythm that will take you to paradise but this shower was shit... Nothing like your expensive high power shower at home.

You whined widening your legs thighs shaking one hand was on the side of the tiny cubicle bracing yourself as you rocked and circled trying to chase a high that was slipping away as your frustration built. You hissed out throwing your head back moaning in disappointment trying to conjure an image, fantasy anything that would help but each time you latched onto one it was him and for some reason it felt...wrong and dirty. You gave up with a angry grunt quickly hooking the shower head back up and flipped it off. Getting out and wrapping a towel around you now in a sour mood. How the fuck was it easy to masturbate over him when you've never met him yet fucking difficult when you had met him... But surely it should be easier to get yourself there thinking of him, you had more to go on now. Maybe it was to do with the fact you had to face him now? either way it wasn't going to happen well not today anyway...Or was it?

It was then you decided to start going through tumblr...Probably not going to help but fuck you were desperate! you were horny and had to try, tumblr smut fics had never done you wrong before hopeful the writers would work their magic once more quickly scrolling through to your favorite smut fics and settling in the bed at the back of the bus. You moved crawling across the soft covers still wrapped in the huge bath sheet towel not caring that everything  was getting damp, if you had your way they'd be getting a lot wetter!

You flopped on your back pillows propping you up a little getting comfy you took a deep breath and spread your legs your tablet leaning on one bent leg, headphones next to you just in case a porn audio took your fancy. You started eyes scanning the words of a particularity juicy fic that you'd reread hundreds of times by this point you knew it almost word for word but still found yourself becoming turned on by the well written words, the slow build up that had you panting as you ghosted your fingers across your thighs slowly making their way to your mound, then bypassing making you shiver as you continued the journey up your soft tummy goose bumps raising along the flesh under your slight touches all the way to your chest leaving light tiny pinches on the underside of your breasts and circled your nipples letting the words sink in getting yourself ready for a promising orgasm.

You moved things along skipping a few paragraphs finding the hottest part of the chapter finally you moved two fingers to circle your tiny throbbing bud. Arching as your soft fingers rolled in small figure eights around the swollen flesh you rocked lightly and dug your toes into the covers below you trying to hold still and enjoy your body for whats its worth. Sighing you moved plucking at it from side to side pulling and tugging it this way and that as your walls began contracting wanting to be full, aching to a full body shuddering orgasm! The pleasure built faster then in the shower under your own skilled fingers and you grunted moving rocking faster. Half of you wanting to make this last, to enjoy the slow build up the other half just wanted this over, already done with this shit. You lowered your fingers leaving your clit to drift lower and rubbing your opening digging in your fingertips to give the muscles a massage treating yourself before diving right inside your arousal was coating you making it easier. You closed your eyes forgoing the fic now finding yourself able to have your own fantasy. Imagining another of Henry's characters somehow you could separate Henry from captain syverson which was a fucking god send at this point! then just as you were going to impale yourself on your own fingers and finally get your well deserved release. Then you heard it, your phone. It was like god himself doesn't want you to cum today.

Your head fell back an you kicked at the mattress having a quick paddy before wrapping your towl around you with a grunt and clambered out of bed to see who was cock blocking you. It was a good thing you got up to answer it as the tell tale 'mama' by scissor sisters blaring out signalling it was your mum and you'd be in deep shit is you ignored her. you took a deep breath and sat at the small table just by the door tugging the towel tight and answered.

"hi mum..you alright?"

"hey baby! how did it go? did you enjoy it? when can I see my baby girls perfomance? it was for the trailer wasn't it? tell me!!" you chuckled and leaned back she was really excited about all this, probably moreso then you.

"It was...It was fun I was nervouse but everyone said I did good...Didn't forget lines and stuff...Tomasz said the trailer will be out early in a few days so just keep your eye out on netflix but don't send it to me or tag me in it please...don't wanna see it yet"

"Tomasz? he is the....Bard?!" you laughed out loud shaking your head

"No director...Joey is the bard"

"So it was all okay? I'm glad I was so worried for you I tried not to call but I couldn't help it been sitting here all day worrying...And I may have...Well don't be mad!" you took a deep breath oh god what has she done!

"Mum..Mum what have you done?..You didn't tell anyone yet did you please tell me you've kept quiet!" she chuckled nervously

"Well...I may have accidentally let slip to...Well Casper? just a tiny bit...Teeny weeny bit" you froze she fucking what?! oh god oh god oh god! if Casper knows then the others probably will soon! you'd hoped to keep this away from the entourage of seriously over protective older brothers!

"MOTHER!? WHA-why? what the fuck? please tell me your joking?" she sighed

"oh I'm sorry love...But I was here alone worried...I really tried but he called and well he knew something was up and I just...it was an accident....I just needed someone to share the news with sweetheart! I'm sorry besides they will be happy for you! you know that they look out for you they just care..I'm sure it will be fine!" you grumbled down the phone to her making her sigh

"I am sorry it just slipped...I know they are...overwhelming and cocky and stubborn but they are your brothers and they love you, your their baby sister and they just want what's best for you" you sighed you knew that but they were all very over the top, fuck they are the reason your a virgin! no one would dare cross them! when you had your first kiss the poor soul was pulled off you and got a smack in the mouth since then everyone knew you were off limits. Not that your mother ever found out that little detail she thought you’d done the 'hanky panky' in secondary school like the rest of them.

"Yes I know...I suppose that was why you called to huh? to warn me?" you heard her click her tongue and hummed

"Well yes...He was happy for you, then he seemed to get antsy over the whole fame thing...And then when he realized you'd be working scenes with Geralt...Especially when he know you like the man...God for the life of me I can't remember his name! Hank-Harry?

""Henry"

"AH! yes that's it Henry the one you saw on tudors? and superman and fuck what else was he in? The spy one...fuck haha! you know its funny I should know this of by heart from all the squealing and what did you call it? fangirling? ..How has that been going by the way I'm assuming you were filming with him?" you hesitated a little

"I-err well we spoke a little this morning..From what Joey;the bard before you ask, said Henry had come to the make up early to try and make sure I didn't freak out to much...its why I stopped messaging you" she gasped

"Oh well that was nice of him...He is looking out for you then?"

"Yes to an extent...He got me coffee and was nice and he let me cuddle Kal! I sort of had really bad anxiety and kal-bear noticed so crawled into my lap...Henry let him and then Joey and Henry walked me to set...Well dragged me I ...I tried to run a little bit"

"Well thats good! You’ll need someone to help you...I guess you didn't have a screaming fit then?" you scoffed

"NO! what am I a child puh-lease I am an adult woman mother and I can handle a small crush!" she snorted at you

"I think not! you should remember who your talking to I know you inside and out! just..I know you like the idea of him but looks can be deceiving okay? just be careful there's a reason people say don't meet your idols y/n" you sighed

"I know mum...But I promise he has been nothing but a gentleman he is nice and is very supportive, he said so himself at the audition he will mentor me so I can learn on the job...I'm effectively his apprentice and I have everything under control...We wont see one another for a few days now any way...Got fight choreography for the next few days then some more fittings for other costumes then I will be on set filming more...Any way I best go...Gotta get some lunch havent eaten today yet...was to nervous...gonna chill for the rest of the day..Tomasz thinks the trailer will be done and out by tomorrow sometime so its going to get hectic"

"Okay love...If Casper calls just answer him if you avoid it you'll make him worse and he will call the others and you'll be bombarded with texts and calls...he might even call Kane....besides if you sort it out now alt least you wont have to face any of them for a while...not till you come here for filming...Or Christmas"

"Oh did they get the go ahead from brian?"

"Yes he signed a few weeks ago free reign over the woods and fells so you will be here filming I think it was for five weeks...Okay then I will let you go, take it easy be careful and I will call tomorrow okay? love you"

"Love you two mum speak tomorrow...not before eleven though!"

"Yes yes I know now go eat!"

"I will bye" you hung up and took a deep breath. shit. if Casper knew he was bound to have told one or two of the others. You got up from the table sliping on a sweater dress and some leggings before making your way over to the dining tent for lunch deciding you would feel better after some food.

Jesus Christ, it had already begun! the chefs were all over you like a bad rash, it seems everyone had now either heard you was the stand in or seen it. They were all happy said nice encouraging things..A few teased you playfully like Mathew who had been a bit of a... well you wouldn't say creeper but he didn't seem to realize that you wasn't interested, not that he asked you out but he...You knew he wanted to but no...Just no. He was nice but you didn't like him like that,  he made you super uncomfortable and not in a nervous crush type of way that Henry had. After nearly forty five minuets of a cringey conversation you finally wriggled away from him and took a seat at one of the huge tables half way through the now cold soup thanks to Mathew you got the call.

Your phone buzzed to life with your brother Casper’s face. Fuck sake!. you debated ignoring it but knowing him he would go all commanding officer on your ass and you just didn't need that. You slipped the phone in your hand.

"Hello Cas"

"What the fuck do you think your upto?!" you winced oh yes definitely his officer voice

"What do you mean? look I know mum told you and if your just going to yell at me then fuck off okay? they needed someone"

"Then they should find someone, but not my little fucking little sister...Your still a little baby"

"Don't call me baby alright? Jesus Cas I do have my own life you know? I can do what I want!" he scoffed you could feel him shaking his head

"But-but with him how the fuck? your going to get hurt sis you know that don't you? please please please tell them no, say something came up and you have to come home" you growled

"NO! ABSOLUTLY NOT!" you looked around seeing people stop and stare as you shouted down the phone to your over zealous brother.you quickly tucked your self into your shoulders.

"No I will not let them down! I signed the contract and I'm doing it! I'm keeping my word and you know what I am fucking enjoying myself! You know being an adult cos funny enough that's what I am...I thought you'd be happy for me?" he grunted

"I am happy for you! but I'm also worried, your about to be in the fucking spotlight y/n don't you see that? interviews, award shows the whole nine yards! and with no fucking preparation! no one in your corner!" you scoffed

"Oh thank so I'm on my own? because I haven't packed it in and come home like a good girl? is that what your saying? huh how dare I go and do something for myself by myself?!" he groaned and huffed down the phone you heard a thump he had obviously just hit something.

"That’s is not what I'm saying and you know it!  I always have you back just like the others you know that! I'm worried for you...I love you y/n...I don't want to see you crushed..The media are cruel and the fan base can be crueler...Please just tell me that you thought this through." you took a deep calming breath and nodded covering your eyes and leaned on your elbow on the table.

"I have...Tomasz and Lauren; the director and producer...They are releasing it in a way to let people know that if I hadn't stepped in then there would be no season two so that's one brownie point...And Henry and Joey are also on board helping me, they are mentoring me along the way and-" Casper hummed

"I'm also worried about him to...I don't want you caught up with him, I know what you think of him but he is still a man and they are only after-" you suddenly got very angry at what he was insinuating.

"Casper! Dont you fucking go there! I know bloody well what you fucking think? for fuck sake you and the others made damn sure I would die a fucking spinster, never had a fucking boyfriend cos of that stupid 'boys want one thing' bullshit at this point I wouldn't even know what to do with one! so just drop it!" he sighed it was something that all the brothers shared guilt over, they had isolated you, stopped you from having that first love and heartbreak now you were terrified of intimacy and the thought of needing someone in our life...

They knew it was their fault in some overprotective male bullshit they had basically given you a complex and ruined prospect of marriage and a family. They each regretted it and wanted to go back and change it but they can't. And it wasn't just boys they kept you away from girls to, ones they thought would lead you astray embarrassing you by showing up at teen parties and dragging you home kicking and screaming in front of your friends at eight at night trying to protect your virtue wanting what was best for you leaving you now a twenty seven year old virgin...Not by choice they had kicked the shit out of anyone who fucking blinked in your direction to this day you were still bitter about it and rightfully so.

They were out of line and should have known better, even your parents pulled them up and had many talks about it warning that they were going to give you a complex and issues later on but they never listened and there were to many of them for your mum and dad to really keep track and keep an eye on.

"Look Cas please just trust me I...If I'm going to make mistakes let me decide which ones to make okay? I'm happy and I'm going to be careful...I know you have my best interests at heart but at some point I've got to..." he sighed sadly he knew where you was coming from they had suffocated you growing up and now you were naive and that was their fault and just made them worry more and more becoming one huge nasty cycle. They want you to be happy and settle down but they still saw you as the baby sister who needed her knights in shinning Armour! And they wasn't ready to let anyone else be your hero.

"Please Casper...Just tell me your with me? That you think I can do it? I really need my family right now to just have my back" you closed your eyes feeling a huge weight on your back, you loved each and every one of your brothers and always wanted to make them proud but it was hard when your the baby of the family, you know they all mean well but...Well they are men and idiots fucking, children if your honest. You took a deep breath waiting to hear his reply.

"I've got your back Titch, always got your back and I trust you...And if-if you do get close to him and want to ...You know go for it....But same thing goes I don't care if he is a big star he fucking upsets you I will break his legs! Okay? Anyway enough of that...Don't need to think of you doing the nasty...So who you playing anyway? mum couldn't remember" you sighed in relief at least Cas would back you up when the others found out.

"keira...I'm playing keira...Did a shoot today its going to be in the trailer...Think they are releasing it tomorrow sometime so keep your eyes peeled..." you smiled you heard someone in the back ground say something ad Casper grunt and swear

"Whats wrong cas?"

"Fucking recruits locked in the boiler room...Fucking tit honestly how I'm going to manage this lot I don't have a clue...Think I should send them to Kane...He'd fucking make them shit themselves" you laughed as he mentioned your stoic eldest brother who had a bit of a reputation for being a hard ass...Well a hard ass with a stick up his ass. He was good in the army terrified the newbies, if at least one didn't piss himself on the first day then Kane wasn't doing his job right..

"Oh god your not loosing your touch are you?" he swore at you grumbling

"No I'm not you cheeky little shit!" you giggled at his remark knowing the teasing meant there was no hard feelings and continued.

"weelll I don't know...Didn't scare me on the phone earlier and if it was Kane well...Yeah Kane is Kane" he hummed in reply before carrying on in a sly voice

"Well that’s cos you think that your not gonna face me for a while but I’m on leave in two months...And you never know your only gonna be in London~" you faltered the smug grin dropped

"What the- how'd you know?" he chuckled

"Mum gave each of us your schedule from when you got the job with Tee she knew we'd want to know sooo I'm guessing that things are gonna be the same, your in Scotland now then home in sturry and the rest in London...Not that far any way I'm off take care, be safe and I will see you soon~" you groaned into the phone

"Okay then see you soon? Love you miss you already"

"Love you to Titch" he hung up and you sighed well...that wasn't so bad? was it? you smiled moving to clear up your bowl an exited the tent just missing the down trodden Henry who had just left the tent himself.

Henry was devastated after spending an hour or so hold up in his trailer sulking playing what he heard over and over again trying to work out who you were talking to he had lost hope. He had summarized  that you had a boyfriend. After not hearing from Henry for over an hour when he said he’d text, Joey decided to pop over and had sat and listened as Henry was explaining what he had just heard.

Henry was nearly in tears he wanted to shout he felt so? so? what hurt? he was upset and embarrassed he had made a fool of himself and for what? You had a boyfriend fuck knowing his luck a fucking husband!

"No I'm sure you heard wrong Henry Tee said she isn't seeing anyone" Henry growled

"Yeah well shes fucking wrong! I know what I heard Joey! they argued her and this 'CaSpEr' he didn't want her to be here! or or do anything by the sounds of it a right dick head...She popped off at him...From what she said he must have ordered her home...Fucking cunt!...What kind of a name is Casper any way sounds like a fucking prick! and then by the end 'LoVe YoU MiSs YoU AlReAdY' and they must be serious cos she was all like 'how I need my family around me' so he is already family I've got no chance Joey! The one girl that catches my eye after all this time and shes fucking taken! Fuck how could I be so stupid...You know I'm lucky I heard and didn't make a complete fool of myself and ask her to come out with us! god why can't things just fuck?...ugh!" Joey watched hesitantly he hadn't seen Henry like this before...kal was curled up smothering him and he looked crushed. Joey sighed and pulled out his phone texting Tee again explaining things.

"Casper? was that the name?" Henry nodded still furious with himself he lifted a hand up.

"What the-Joey what are you doing? look fucking leave it its done move on...She'd never like me for me anyway, They all just want a fucking superman!" Joey scoffed

"Always so fucking dramatic-AHAH! Henry you fucktard!...Wow okay fuck you know I'd leave it, fuck that..Shes a lost cause I say" Henry sat up sharply making Kal groan a jump down to the floor with an indignant huff.

"W-what did she reply? whats wrong?" Joey cleared his throat re reading the text

"Henry she has siblings...A lot of siblings"

"Yeah and I have a few siblings I don't see how thats relevant?"

"No your not with me Henry. She is the youngest of nine....Shes got eight older brothers Casper is one of them...She was talking to her brother who is in the army" Henry blinked..siblings? Oh....Well shit he didn't even think..But yes that would make sense..wow he fucked up, and lost a chance to get to know her by throwing a temper tantrum like a spoilt little boy.

"Her brother?..In the army that's why she said she misses him...That would explain....Shit I fucked up"

"Yes you did! royally! you know Anya and Freya are expecting her to show tomorrow and its like nine at night so you can't exactly go ask now you fucking twat....My god such a child hang on Mama Joey will fix this but you owe me!" Joey sighed and quickly started texting Tee Henry moved looking over the mans shoulder watching as he typed letting Tee know what they had planned she replied instantly agreeing with lots of winky faces and eggplant emojis?.

"There all sorted Tee will invite her out and we will all casually bump into one another...And for fuck sake find out her brothers names so we don't have this again! Jesus!" Henry looked down sheepishly now ashamed of his reaction, it wasn't like him to sulk or as his mum would put it 'throw his toys out of the pram' Henry leaned over hugging the singer tight

"Thank you Joey...I really do owe you....And sorry for the sulking and bitching...Just you know I really like her, and I want this to...I just got a feeling about her...I-I think she could be the one...Never got this wound tight over a woman before and...And I don't want to fuck this up!" Joey smiled and stood up.

"Well to late for that my friend however I am here to help you know that! so is Anya and Tee and Freya if Anya has anything to say about it, you'll be a couple by the end of filming I'm sure of it...Hell when the betting starts im putting money down!” henry rolled his eyes pushing Joey a bit he laughed then began again

“Look your half way there she is a fan, just gotta get her out of the whole 'Henry Cavill movie star' mind set down to a more intimate 'Henry Cavill my sexy colleague who I want to fuck-OUCH FUCK! HE-HENRY! H-HEY NO PITCHING!" Henry laughed it was true he just had to get over the initial 'oh my god its superman' then things will be easier to manage...if he can control his own nerves that is. Henry gave Joey on final hug as the singer left thanking him and closed the door resting his back on the door taking a deep breath then jumpers the three steps up to the 'living area' and fist pumped the air having a little moment.

"Fucking Get In!! did you see that Kal!?! Daddy has a date with Tinks!!! hey you hear me buddy? tinks and daddy are having lunch!!...Okay well not a date but we are having lunch....Fuck...What should I wear boy?....cant go to dressed up...but sweats are...no....Shit! Kal son I've got fuck all to wear...I DIDN'T PREPARE FOR THIS!!"  Kal barely batted and eye lid at his human as he ran to the closet in a panic ripping through his clothes wanting to find something suitable. Kal yawned and looked to the huge bed in the back of the home away from home and huffed, Henry would be at this all night fussing over matching his body wash shampoo and conditioner scent and after shave...Not that he can shave but a bit of smelly never hurt to entice the ladies.

"Kal?KAL?! Coconut or Lynx Africa?!" Kal  blinked and turned on the spot and stretched yawning slowly away from Henry making the man sigh. With one huge leap Kal landed on the empty bed, if Henry wasn't going to use it then its no use letting the comfy spot go to waste, the Akita made a loud snort as he flopped down closing his eyes, when Henry got like this Kal just tried to ignore him, the human would tire himself out eventually until then Kal would get some shut eye. he peeked one last time seeing his dad who scrabbled about yanking out clothes sniffing them to see if they were clean or not, he shrugged digging through the tops he swore he packed a dark blue button up! and he was determined to find it even if it took all night!

#henry cavill x reader #henry cavill imagine #henry cavill #henry cavill fanfiction #henry cavill fic #henry cavill x y/n #henry cavill x you #geralt of rivia #geralt x reader #geralt x y/n

[oneweekoneband]

her Nebraska (1982)

In July I flew to Massachusetts with a plague on, and I felt that it was wrong, but my mother had begged and I’d been out of work for months. Mornings there I ran in long, uneven ovals on the same roads I’d memorized in high school. There’s no sidewalks, but the few feet of dirt between the craggy pavement and the open mouths of the fields serve all right for a single body in motion. When a truck comes up close from behind, the ground shakes, and I step away bouncingly from the street toward thigh-high yellow weeds and grass, and keep going. I was slowly picking my way back in that dirt, sweat-slick from only a plodding couple of miles in peak summer heat, and sucking the wet cotton of my mask in between my teeth on every inhale, when Taylor Swift announced she was releasing a surprise album produced by the guy from The National. Not the guy from The National, like, the voice, but the guy from The National whose photo was circulated on Twitter earlier this year as some kind of antifa super soldier, which isn’t the case, but would’ve been rad. First, I stopped dead to send some outraged, misspelled text messages, and then I ran home faster than I’d moved in years.

Tall, blonde, patrician pop star Taylor Swift is to me something like a cross-between a wife and a boogeyman. Bound we’ve been since we were really children. Time and its changes haven’t rid me of her, and what’s worse is I have never quite been able to wish they would, though I claim as much all the time. Countless hours of my one wild and precious life have been spent on endlessly analyzing the minutiae of Taylor Swift’s music, the mind that made it, the real world events which influenced it. And though all the while I have known she is only a person, and that people, while each strange and lovely in their own ways, are, in the end, mostly dull, needful in just the regular manner, the fantasy is better, the sick dream of a megalomaniac songstress, curious, thrilling, probably evil, and I choose that. I don’t know Taylor Alison Swift, born to this world in, I presume, the usual way. But my Taylor Swift? I’m a renowned expert. I’ve always eaten up stories—movies, music, celebrity news, the one my grandfather tells about falling off his bike once in Ireland as a boy and his face “cracking open like an egg”—like a starved dog. I’m obsessive about my interests, but not inclined to intense fandom, and certainly not fandom in the mode of the stan. For one, I’m too self-absorbed. But caring intensely for a famous person is falling in love with a ghost, and that’s all right—I mean, what the hell? We’re here together just dying... Let’s enjoy—but is an affair best undertaken with the knowledge that everyone alive has their own complex interiority, as unruly as your own, and that you, a stranger, are not in any real way connected to the lawless, blurry middle of that celebrity, and will never be. It’s freeing and fun to know this. I mean, these people are basically in your employ. Glamorous dollhouse dwellers. Acknowledging that uncrossable distance allows for a different, healthier closeness of pure imagination. My feelings, then, can comfortably be at once both fiercely intense and entirely silly. I am a foremost scholar in the art of the Taylor Swift who exists in my head. The real person raised in Pennsylvania I don’t know at all. I have some conjectures on the matter, and, as with all my conjectures, every hackneyed theory, each picky little opinion, I’m sure they’re perfect, brilliant, just absolutely right, but that’s still all they are. Taylor Swift, figure of the cultural imagination, is the Jodie Comer to my Sandra Oh in Killing Eve, annoying and pretty in frills, taunting me endlessly and holding us trapped together in a dance of most enchanting death. But the real Taylor Swift has favorite bed sheets and a social security number and a British boyfriend, none of which I have any desire to know about, and if I saw her at a restaurant I’d politely avert my eyes before, yes, dive-bombing the group text. There’s nobody on Earth I’d stand in line to speak to, but then I’ve been speaking to a certain figment of Taylor Swift for nearly half my life.

I went to a Taylor Swift concert the night before I moved into college in 2009. My father’s work friend, firefighter by day, near professional gambler by night, got comped tickets to the Fearless Tour stop taking place at the nearby casino, and he let me have them as a reward, mainly, for happening to be seventeen. Live in-person and performed acoustically, “Fifteen” made me cry. A few years after that, in the thick, sticky part of my first post-college summer, I wrote approximately twenty-three million words about her in these very pages.  (”Pages”) At that point, Taylor’s most recent release was 2012’s Red, and the work I produced that long ago July about Taylor and her career, writing I was fairly pleased with at the time, feels now, besides just being extremely clearly written by a twenty-one year old, strange to me for the way it favors the sweet over the sour almost uniformly. There is a wholesome kind of ardor in that writing which maybe I’ve outgrown the ability to hold. Or maybe Taylor just proceeded to spend the next half a decade plus releasing one bad single after another, and it was taste—and trespasses against taste—and not some shift in my nature which altered the tenor of our bond. I have real love for my particular image, gleaned from public statements and published art, of smart, bizarre famous woman Taylor Swift, and I admire the bulk of her output very much. I’m just no longer so inclined to fawn. This is not to say I am here to offer a Taylor Swift hate screed. I couldn’t swing it, and, anyway, I’m not a pop feminist-for-hire circa 2010. But we’re older now. Things are different. At twenty-eight, twenty-nine this month—Taylor will, also this December, turn thirty-one—I regard Taylor Swift warily, like an ex with whom you have a tentative friendship, perpetually on the brink of falling one way or the other into hatred or delight, only to wobble back the opposite direction again at the slightest provocation, but still, despite best efforts, even, I regard her all the time. 

folklore was released at midnight on July 24th 2020, but I was at a cabin in rural Vermont without Internet or cell service. I drank Bud Light seltzers with my mother while watching the eerie pandemic return of Major League Baseball, and when I got into a strange bed there I stewed, knowing there were people out in the world all over who were hearing Taylor Swift songs I never had, and that this was a fundamental wrong, a disruption in the balance of the universe. I listened to it the next morning in a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot. 

And folklore is great. That’s the terrible thing. Slightly less great, maybe, than some people have insisted, tricked, I think, by just the pronounced shift in sound. But it’s great. A little gift I asked for a thousand times and was still surprised to get, like a wife who didn’t expect her henpecked husband to ever follow through and buy the paraffin wax hand bath as-see-on-TV. For years, I’ve been halfheartedly insisting that Taylor had a great album in her. I’d say it even, perhaps especially, while she stubbornly fed me gruel. Or worse, gruel with the occasional whiff of something better. With a ripe, little raspberry dropped into the slop. The bright, villainous thrill of “Getaway Car” made me believe Taylor, my Taylor, was in there somewhere under the lacquer of sequins and synth, which, while not objectionable by default, seemed a costume, and an ill-fitting one. The lived-in world of “Cornelia Street” made those old scars sting. That gay “Delicate” video. When she did “Call It What You Want” on SNL and played guitar while wearing an ugly sweater. If the abominable “ME!”, lead single off Lover, was the stick, 1989’s “Clean” was the carrot. I was Charlie Brown, and Taylor my Lucy, yanking the football back again and again. Over drinks I still yelled that Taylor Swift’s next album would be, “her Nebraska”, referring to my favorite Bruce Springsteen record, and learned to live with that egg on my face for good. I suppose I even came to like it. There was something inherently funny in taking up, like, “blind faith in the as of yet untapped greater artistic potential of massively wealthy and popular singer Taylor Swift” as my totally inane personal cause du jour, and eventually it was a bit, a gag I performed to be obstinate and didactic, but way down somewhere awful near my kidneys I meant it the whole while. And then she did it. A pandemic befell the world and amid a sea of human suffering Taylor Swift remembered she can write. She wrote, and with a massive, crucial assist from Aaron Dessner, whose music on this record is sometimes so beautiful it actually angers me, as the last thing I needed in already perilous times was to be made to try and marry my uniquely perverse emotional responses to beloved divorced dad band The National and fucking Taylor Swift,  she made an album which, if not her Nebraska, per se (I’ve come to realize that a major part of believing Taylor Swift will one day make an album I find as quietly devastating and gorgeous as Nebraska is knowing that no album will ever actually be Her Nebraska... That each will, rather, to me, be more and more evidence that it’s coming still, more proof that the limit is untouched, on and on ad infinitum, or at least until the seas take us into a place of salty peace.) is a shocking credit to all my hard-fought and deluded confidence. folklore is great. This fact has made me feel almost equally as disoriented from my understanding of the world as the time-melting COVID-19 lockdowns have, and it turned my Spotify year in review annual collective AI humiliation kink thing into a glaring indictment of my mental state, but still, I mean... It’s great.

In talking about folklore a bit this week, there are a number of specific topics I intend to cover—what a thrill it is to hear Taylor say “fuck”; Taylor’s terrifying birth chart; the astoundingly perfect bridge of “the last great american dynasty”; “because my ass is located at the back of my body”; the bit in last year’s “Lover” where deranged WASP Taylor Swift implies that to “leave the Christmas lights up til January” is some signifier of being a love-struck bohemian, when actually everyone who doesn’t employ domestic staff to take their lights down does this; how reputation is the best of the Taylor Swift records released in the latter half of the 2010s, actually, and the people who can’t see that are cowards—but intend mostly to let the muse move me where she will. Against the advice of my better angels, she—that tie-in marketing eldritch terror—always does.

#taylor swift #folklore

[singingforthepromises]

fb manga lb - chs 90-95

I’m only going to be reading the manga up until this point for now, assuming that this is where s2 will end. I want to leave the rest of the manga for after the season ends so I still have something to look forward to during the break between seasons 2 and 3. With Covid, I’m assuming it’s going to be quite a while before we get the last season. So I want to enjoy this journey for as long as possible. If they end up going beyond this chapter, I’ll make sure to read further, but for right now I think this is a good stopping point, unless you guys think they’re going to adapt more or leave off somewhere else? O: 

We going into Kyoko’s backstory now apparently!

“I feel like imprinting all of her images into my brain, and forgetting everything else not related to her.” OH MY GOD. MY HEART?? This is peak romance. Kyo only wants to hold onto his memories of Tohru while he’s in confinement. 

Poor Kyo getting messed with lmao leave the boy alone

No, but... imagine how Kyo feels right now in this moment? Tohru has the DVD, the memories of Kyo in the play tangible right in front of her. I’m sure that Kyo is thinking of his future, of the fact that once he’s confined Tohru will never see him again, and having these DVDs will be a comfort to her. He doesn’t know that she’s trying to pursue a way to break the curse. So having this DVD, for Tohru, in Kyo’s eyes, is the best possible way for him to stay with her. I’m reaching, yeah, but that’s just how I’m choosing to view it rofl. 

He’s thinking about Kyoko I’m upset.

Kyo, sweetie... stop punishing yourself, please. You are allowed to be happy, you are allowed to wish to be with Tohru. You are allowed to think of her mother. Fuck what Akito told you. :( 

I can’t wait until Tohru learns that Kyo knew her mom. I don’t think she’d be the type to blame him for what happened to her. As it is, I don’t feel that Kyo had a ‘role’ in her death, anyway. He didn’t outright kill her. Perhaps he saw it, maybe he could’ve stopped it, I don’t know. But I don’t think it was his fault. Kyo has a massive inferiority and guilt complex (which is understandable after all of the abuse he’s suffered) and he’d blame himself no matter what, though.

Young Kyoko is something else rofl. But of course, she had a terrible past too. What awful parents. I think I can count on one hand the number of actual good or decent parents that this series has. 

Oooh is this Katsuya? He definitely looks like an older version of Kyo lmao.

This age gap though is kinda... yikes? I wonder if the anime will try and lessen it a bit. I don’t think they will, though, since it was mentioned that Kyoko never went to high school. 

Kyoko’s parents fucking S U C K.

GO OFF KATSUYA!!

I meaannn... marriage is so odd for a young girl Kyoko’s age, and it has a big “:/” factor, but...at the same time, if he marries her, she’’s no longer under her parents, and he can provide for her. 

Wow, she’s already pregnant with Tohru! O: 

omg baby Tohru is the CUTEST!

Katsuya was such a good dad though I’m upset.

Tohru was gonna have a sibling sfjsjfsjfjsfj she’d be the best big sister!

Oh this is just depressing. T__T

Poor Kyoko. She’s still so young, and is trying to grieve and raise a daughter.

omg she really was about to kill herself to be with Katsuya. T__T

Tohru is just the purest girl and I love her so much.

I love it so much that Kyoko told Kyo this story. 

Oh, Kyo, honey that isn’t what she was trying to say at all. :(

omg is he remembering?!

Oh, great, now Kyo’s hallucinating and suffering from ptsd. I hate it!

HE’S IMAGINING SOMETHING BAD HAPPENING TO TOHRU BECAUSE OF HIM IM OUT IM DONE ;A;

“Tohru, she.... she wouldn’t... to me... like me...” YES SHE DOES YOU ADORABLE IDIOT.

 “After seeing that dream, it means I can’t go near her anymore.” stop. Stop right there, bby. 

This hurts.

omg is Yuki involving himself in them cooking now too? I love it!

YUKI AND MACHIII YESSSS. I’m excited to see where they go!

Poor Machi. </3

Machi sees through Yuki’s walls in the same way that Kyo sees through Tohru’s. <333 And Yuki brings Machi out of her shell. 

omg she’s embarrassed lol 

lmao Kakeru getting protective + supportive at the same time hahahha

OMG KYO AND TOHRU ARE SLEEPING OVER AT KAZUMAS SJFJSFJSJF

Yuki is... going to the main house? I’m shocked tbh and nervous

LMAO YUKI AND SHIGURE ARE REALLY OUT HERE BEING KYORU SHIPPERS

KDGKDKG RIN IS HERE TOO!

hahahaha Kyo and Rin were jealous of each other’s relationship with Kazuma. XDDD

Poor Hatori XD

I don’t like that Yuki is visiting Akito. :/ Something bad is gonna happen. 

“I forgive Akito too!” .... uh...??? Yuki, honey, I really respect that. But I’m confused? 

AKITO JUST THREW A FUCKING VASE AT YUKI

“I definitely will not come back to your side.” Oooh. Was Yuki giving Akito one last indulgence? 

I love Yuki’s growth so much. Maybe it’s because of my own abuse, but while I am proud of Yuki’s capability to forgive, I know I couldn’t - because I still haven’t. And Akito hasn’t done anything to try and deserve that forgiveness yet. Also, Yuki is just shedding off the blame others had and taking it all upon himself which is... wrong. How he was treated by others, as a child, was not his fault. I hate that he feels he has to forgive Akito because he thinks he’s the one at fault. It’s okay to be angry and hateful of your abusers? 

OMG that scene between Hatori and Yuki was cute af though. 

“Kyo, you’re so cute!” IM

“Do you have any wishes for the new year?” I’m sad af.

Tohru’s wish is for them to break the curse!

Awww Rin and Haru are soo cute!

#fruits basket #fruits basket spoilers #fruits basket manga

[storiesabouthumanandthings]

Accidental Demon: Chapter 31 End

Todd and Damien went to the hospital everyday for a few hours. Bell would eventually rush them off and remind them of the chores they had to do around the house as she wasn’t there. Todd’s mother would be there every day, around the clock. Many days, Todd and Damien would walk in to the two of them arguing, Todd’s mother worrying about Grandma Bell’s health while Grandma Bell insisted she was fine. She sometimes insists that she is “still strong enough to bend her over my knee and give her a spanking.” This always made Todd laugh to himself and quieted his mother for a while.

 On one visit, Todd and Damien brought in their final grades to show to Bell. “We passed all of classes!”

 Bell clapped, “Great news. You all deserve a vacation. You should go on a vacation and relax for a few days.”

Todd spoke up first, “But, what about the animals? Someone must be there to care for them.”

 Bell waved her hand, “Your father can do it. I’ll tell him to do it and he will.”

 Damien began to argue, “But what about you, Grandma Bell? I know your daughter visits you but don’t you want someone else to talk to?”

 Bell laughed, “She is such a worry wort. She is fine. Just go for the weekend, relax, have fun.”

 Todd’s face scrunched up, “You sure?”

 Bell shooed them out the door, “Go, go, go. Get some sun, you’re looking like a vampire.”

 Todd and Damien returned to the house. They informed Ash that Bell is basically ordering them to go to the beach. They called over Jose to see if he wants to go and knows any good spots to visit. Over the next few days, they came up with a plan to go to the beach, rent a few hotel rooms, and picked a few local restaurants to try out. Once they had a plan, the four of them stopped by the hospital before leaving town. Bell wished them well and told them to call once they arrived.

 It was a long drive so they didn’t arrive until night. They checked into the hotel. Jose got the rooms as he was the only one with a credit card. Jose went back to Todd and Damien and handed them one room key. Todd blushed brightly, “Wait, you got us one room?”

 Jose stopped and looked between Todd and Damien and noticed both were blushing, “Oh, uh, yeah. I didn’t think it would be an issue. Since, you know, you’re dating.”

 Todd took the card quickly, “No, it’s fine. It’s just I was expecting two rooms.”

 Jose pointed back to the check in counter, “If you want, I can try and see if they can switch rooms or something?”

 Picking up his bags, “No, no, it’s fine,” and Todd rushes to the number on the key card.

 As he opens the door, he noticed that Jose planned a surprise for them. There was one bed. He was expecting at least two beds in one room but here was one queen size bed. Jose and Ash opened the door across the hall with them with a simple “Night,” before closing the door. Todd walked in and dragged his luggage. 

Damien walked in with his luggage and just collapsed onto the bed, “I hate to say it, but I think you’re right.”

Todd was startled by the sudden voice, “Right about what?”

“About us turning Human. I have never felt so exhausted and I haven’t really done anything.”

Todd laughed, “Yeah, driving does that to nearly everyone.”

Damien patted the bed, “Come, rest.” Todd looked at the spot next to Damien. The room was dark, lit by the light through the curtains. Todd slowly walked over to the bed. Damien outstretched a hand to Todd. Todd tentatively took it. Once he did. Damien yanked him into bed and held him tight. At first, Todd struggled but quickly relaxed. He knew he couldn’t break Damien’s hold if he tried, but now he could hear Damien’s heart beat. Did Damien know he had a heart beat? Could he hear it? Todd could feel Damien’s chest rise and fall with each breath. Did Damien breath before? Or does having to now mean that he is becoming Human? Todd listened to the noises Damien’s body made as he fell asleep.

 The next day, Damien and Todd were woken with a pounding on a door, “Wake up, losers! Time to go to the beach.”

Todd groaned and sat up. During the night, he didn’t realize but he was drooling into Damien’s shirt. Todd touched his face, embarrassed, rubbing off the remainder of the drool. Damien sat up slowly, “Alright, alright. We will be down in a few.” Todd turned toward the bathroom to get ready for the day. As he brushed his teeth, in the mirror, he could see Damien was stripping behind him, changing clothes. Damien’s muscular back was to Todd but it was enough to get Todd choking as Damien pulled down his pants. Todd remembered back to when they first met. Damien’s body had changed a lot. It is definitely more human. Todd kept his face down, to not peak into the mirror. He splashed his face to cool off. When he stood up, a shirtless Damien was standing behind him. Todd yelped a little in surprise. Damien laughed, “Sorry. But my turn to clean up.” Todd nodded and moved over. Todd changed clothes quickly, hiding in the corner so Damien doesn’t see him change.

 They went down to the lobby to an impatient Ash, “Finally, let’s go!” They got a good hotel that was close to all the places they wanted to see so they didn’t have to drive. They spent the morning walking around to attractions and getting lunch. After lunch, they headed down to the beach to cool off. After a while of swimming, building in the sand, and soaking in the rays, they all went back to the hotel. Todd was exhausted. The sun was getting to him and didn’t sleep well on a hotel bed, next to his demon boyfriend. He feel asleep as soon as they arrived back to the hotel. They later went out that night, found a restaurant on the beach. After dinner, Ash and Jose split off on their own.

Damien and Todd walked the beach. “This is sooo much better for me! No hot sun but it’s still warm enough for the ocean water to feel nice. And now there isn’t so many people around being loud.”

Damien nodded in agreement, “The water is almost too cold for me but the sand feels nice. But you know what is nicer?”

Todd stopped and looked at Damien, “The moon shining on the water?”

Damien grabbed Todd’s chin and pulled him in and gave a deep kiss, and in a husky whispering voice, “You are.”

Todd was startled and pushed away. “Where the hell did you get that from?!”

Damien shrugged, smiling at Todd’s bright blushing, “I saw it on a show once. Did it work?”

Todd looked down and mumbled, “It was smooth and nice.”

Damien leaning in, cupping his ear, “Sorry, I didn’t hear that.”

Todd rolled his eyes, “Oh! Shut up!” and grabbed Damien by the back of the neck and kissed him hard. They stood there for a while, just kissing. They only stopped when they heard people walking in their direction. They returned to the hotel for the night.

 They continued this for the next couple of days, of going out, enjoying the area, food, the beach. But as all great things, they had to return back home. Once they arrived back at Bell’s house, Todd gave his parents a call. “Hey, we’re back, we made it safe…..” Todd’s tone changed that made Damien and Ash stop, “….what? When? And you didn’t call us then? Yeah…..Yeah your right. She would have wanted it that way…..ok…..When?….ok…..yeah……We can do that…..ok….see you then.” Todd hung up the phone and sat on the couch, holding his head in his hands.

“What’s going on?” Ash asked first.

Todd slowly, choking on words, “Grandma Bell passed. She passed yesterday. They only told us now as that is the way she would have wanted, not ruin the vacation. The funeral is next week. They are asking for us to be part of the pallbearers.” Damien and Ash sit next to Todd and hugged him for a while.

 They went to the funeral. Afterwards, everyone met up at Bell’s house. Church member brought food for the family. They exchanged stories about Bell and how she helped out where she could. Once mostly everyone left but family, Bell’s Lawyer called them all into the kitchen. “Bell asked me to do this in the kitchen as the kitchen is the heart of the home.” There was a chorus of agreement from around the table. The lawyer continued and stated naming her assets and who they will go to. Ash received Bell’s wedding ring, “This has gone from Grandmother to granddaughter. Since I don’t have a granddaughter, you are the closest one that I have. Please have this and remember me, remember that you are loved, and remember that you have family.” The lawyer handed over the ring and Ash gingerly took it, excused herself, and left the room in a rush. The lawyer cleared his throat, “Lastly, the house, the land, and the animals. These will be left to Todd and Damien. I trust they will care for it as I have taught them how to over the year. As a reminder and order for the home, leave it open as I left it open to you. People occasionally get lost in life. Let the home remain a lighthouse in a storm.”

Todd and Damien stared at each other and back to the lawyer, “We get the house?!”

“That’s what she wrote.”

“Why?”

The lawyer laughed and packed up his items, “Who knows what Ms. Bell thought. Here is my card, call me and we will go over the asset transfer.” As the day turned to night, everyone left. It was Todd, Damien, Ash, and Jose that remained. Ash pulled Jose to her room with a quick good night. Todd shrugged and went to bed as well. And the house was silent.

 After a while, there was a knocking on Damien’s door. Damien opened it up to see Todd standing there, “Sorry if I woke you.”

“No, I was awake.”

“Well, I can’t sleep.”

“Me neither.”

They stood there is silence before Todd spoke, “Can I sleep with you?” Damien pulled Todd in and hugged him tight. After laying in bed, they were able to fall asleep quickly.

 First                                 Previous 

(Final notes from the author - Again to all of my readers, thank you so much. Your support and kind words helped me get through this COVID-19 slump I have had. Last story I actually wrote was in February or 6 months ago. And as with any author, I am not quite happy with it. I wish I explored more with Damien’s and Todd’s relationship. This is my first Enemies-to-Lovers story. I believe this is also my first slowburn which burned me too. To anyone who wants to continue this story, please fill free to, I just ask to be tagged so I can read it.)

#AD #accidental demon #grandma summons demon #grandma's little demon

[lokirupaul]

Lokiru Paul : The Life and Suspicious Death of Cachou the Bear

The Life and Suspicious Death of Cachou the Bear



Cachou the brown bear was found dead on the mountains just above the village of Les, in the Aran Valley.

Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

Conservationists saw the 6-year-old brown bear as a symbol of hope. Villagers saw him as a menace. Then he turned up dead.

By Laura Millan Lombrana for 

Bloomberg

July 8, 2021, 7:01 AM GMT+3

Para leer el reportaje en español.

Ivan Afonso checked his computer one last time before picking up the phone. It was April 2020, and like most of Spain, Afonso was stuck at home under a strict Covid lockdown. But his mind was in the mountains.

An environmental scientist, Afonso also served as head of the environmental division in the Aran Valley, a tiny area of the Pyrenees mountain range that forms a dent along Spain’s border with France. For the past three years, his duties had included monitoring the movements of Cachou, a 6-year-old, 130-kilo (287-pound) brown bear. The bear was a local celebrity, one of the few males born in the wild in the Pyrenees and living proof that conservationists’ efforts to rejuvenate the region’s struggling brown bear colony were working.

The task had been a nightmare from the start. Cachou was young and fiery, and—to the dismay of conservationists and farmers—prone to wreaking havoc. Like most bears, Cachou had a sweet tooth. He’d started with assaulting bee farms, but by 2019, he’d learned to hunt horses many times his size. Eventually, authorities put a tracker on him, but even that didn’t work. At one point he was blamed for four attacks within two weeks.

Aran Valley

Source: USGS, EarthExplorer

Cachou had given Afonso and horse breeders in the valley some rest during winter. But the tracker showed the bear had come out of hibernation earlier than usual. He’d been in France in March, but a more recent ping put him somewhere in the mountains above Les, a tiny village of fewer than 1,000 people. After that he’d ventured deeper into the forest, close to a trail—and then stopped. The next 24 pings were all in the same spot. Afonso couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

“Either the tracker had dropped, or he was dead,” he thought. 



The Garona river, seen here from the village of Bossost, is born high on the Pyrenees and flows into the Atlantic Ocean in France.

Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

In light of the vast extinction event currently underway on Earth, the death of a single bear might seem less than significant. And yet, on the morning of April 9, 2020, Afonso decided it was time to do something. He called the head of Aran Valley’s government first, then dialed the valley’s ranger corps and requested two trustworthy agents who could discreetly hike to the place the pings were coming from.

Finally, he dialed the head of Catalonia’s park ranger corps in the Northern Pyrenees, Anna Servent. Spry in her early 40s, with a resolute expression and brown hair cut short on one side, Servent heads a small, semi-secret team of investigators who specialize in animal poisonings. Their methods are unconventional. While most rangers focus on analyzing animal remains, the people on Servent’s team spend years building networks of local informers. They wear plainclothes, change vehicles often, and tend to visit their sources in the middle of the night to avoid drawing attention.

By the turn of the 21st century, brown bears were almost extinct here after decades of indiscriminate hunting and poisoning. In 1996, just three survived in the entire 430-kilometer (267-mile) mountain range. While the population has recovered after several European Union-sponsored conservation projects, it remains Europe’s smallest colony, with a count of 64 bears as of 2020. The lower Aran Valley, with its thick forests covered in old beech, oak, and chestnut trees and a milder climate, has become a breeding ground for the endangered predators.

But what conservationists consider a victory, many who’ve grown up in the mountains see as a declaration of war. “Naturally, when you reintroduce a species that has been previously eliminated on purpose, you’ll run again into similar conflicts that caused the reduction in numbers in the first place,” says Elisabeth Pötzelsberger, head of the resilience program at the European Forest Institute, an EU research center. “It would be quite naive to think everyone will be happy and clapping hands.”



Anna Servent heads a small, semi-secret team of investigators who specialize in animal poisonings.

Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

After talking to Afonso, Servent and one of her investigators—whose identity can’t be revealed to avoid compromising ongoing cases—jumped in a car and drove fast through deserted, meandering roads into the Aran Valley. The view on the way in is bucolic, with rocky peaks covered in snow and slopes so steep one fears they might collapse onto the bright green pastures below. The stone towers and slate roofs of Romanic churches dot the expanse, which is split in two by the Garona river. Those who live there still speak a modern version of Occitan, a romance language troubadours used for songs and poems before the Renaissance. They’re proud of their rural roots and tend to look suspiciously at anyone coming from south of the Pyrenees. 

The Aran Valley community is so tight, Servent’s rangers hadn’t been able to groom informants in the area, so she hoped their car would go unnoticed as she and her teammate neared Les. They headed up the mountain trail, climbed through the steep forest, and reached Cachou’s body at roughly the same time as the local rangers.



Joan Vazquez, founder of environmental organization Ipcena, holds a picture of a book showing Cachou’s body in the forest where it was found.

Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

The bear was lying belly up at the bottom of a 40-meter rocky cliff, a single canine sticking out of his half-open mouth. There were signs he’d been there for a long time, but that the death was quite recent, indicating that he could have lay there suffering for a long time, which happens sometimes in poisoning cases.

Servent speaks in a low voice and a calm tone as she details their inspection of the body and the surrounding area, but her face is serious behind a blue surgical mask. “We didn’t see any signs of poisoning initially,” she says. That made them even more restless. Before they left, Afonso had told them: “If you don’t find an obvious cause of death, look for antifreeze.” 

Ivan Afonso likes to think of himself as a man between two worlds. He was born of the Pyrenees, but not of the Aran Valley, and completed his university degree in cosmopolitan Barcelona. At 47 years old, he still feels more at ease in the mountains looking for endangered birds or scouring remote ponds for rare frogs than he does in his small office in the Aran government’s headquarters.



Born in the Pyrenees and educated in Barcelona, Ivan Afonso likes to think of himself as a man between two worlds.

Photographer:Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

It pained Afonso not to be able to go out into the mountains to find Cachou, but he had reason to believe that they’d be walking into a crime scene, which meant that the fewer people there disturbing evidence, the better. Twice during 2019, he told Servent’s rangers, he’d overheard a man from Les talk about using antifreeze against bears, according to court documents seen by Bloomberg Green—once during a private meeting, and once during a public speech. This same man had once headed the Aran Valley Land Department, and was partially responsible for overseeing 2.4 million euros ($2.8 million) of EU funds intended for brown bear conservation in the Pyrenees.

“I didn’t pay attention to him at that time. Maybe it was a mistake, but I was skeptical,” Afonso says. “There are rumors about killing bears all the time. People boast about having killed a bear and the next day we see it appear on a surveillance camera.

“Even if I had paid attention,” he goes on, “what could have I done? Everyone in the valley has antifreeze. I’ve got two bottles at home.” 



A rusty trap used to catch bears is kept on a storage room on the basement of the Catalan rangers’ headquarters in Tremp (left). Aldicarb (right) is a pesticide now banned in Europe. A small quantity is enough to kill a wild boar.

Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

Antifreeze is a ranger’s worst nightmare. Used to prevent car engines from freezing and therefore widely available in shops and petrol stations, it goes undetected in common post mortem tests and vanishes from corpses within days, if not hours. It can only be found if the body is fresh, and if pathologists are specifically looking for it. 

A few hundred miles from where Cachou’s body was found, wildlife pathologist Roser Velarde was sitting in in her office at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, surrounded by microscopes and deer skulls, when she got a call from Afonso, telling her that the bear would be on her operating table by the next day. With 20 years of practice behind her, Velarde didn’t flinch—Cachou’s would hardly be her first animal autopsy, and certainly not her most challenging. Once, much to the amusement of her students and colleagues, she performed a necropsy on a whale on the patio outside because the animal wouldn’t fit inside her lab. 

During Cachou’s necropsy, Velarde spoke in the same patient, explanatory tone she uses with her students. The body had no bullet wounds, no broken bones, cuts, or major signs of violence. Some superficial teeth marks on the side of his head suggested that an animal, most likely another bear, had bit him, but that was ruled out as the cause of death. As she opened him up, she also ruled out death by common poisons, as most cause massive internal bleeding. Velarde spent four hours cutting, weighing, measuring, gathering samples, and taking pictures, but she found nothing. It wasn’t until after all that that Servent’s investigator, who attended the necropsy, told Velarde about Afonso’s antifreeze suspicion.



A professor at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Roser Velarde has been performing necropsies, mostly on wild animals, for 20 years.

Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

Back in her office, Velarde processed samples of urine and brain tissue. Three days later, the university’s head of wildlife eco-pathology confirmed that the samples contained crystals of calcium oxalate, which are consistent with the presence of ethylene glycol, the chemical that comprises between 90 and 95% of antifreeze. 

About 12 hours after ingesting the antifreeze, Cachou’s neurological system would have started to malfunction. He would have felt severe stomach irritation and possibly slipped into a coma. His lungs and heart would have started to shut down within hours, but he could have stayed alive for as long as nine days later, until his kidneys finally failed. 

“Cachou the bear suffered a slow and very painful agony that went on for days—until he died,” Velarde concluded in her report, according to court documents. That, combined with the signals from the tracking device, meant Cachou was poisoned on or around March 26. 

“The first thing we did was to request the judge to keep the investigation secret,” Servent says—something typically only done in highly sensitive cases such as those involving drug trafficking and political corruption, and never before for the suspected murder of a wild animal. “It terrified us that people would find out and start getting ideas—and obviously we didn’t want the poisoner to know we knew.” Her request was granted. As a result, details of the investigation haven’t been made public.



Bees in the Aran Valley were among the first victims of Cachou’s attacks—like many bears, he had a sweet tooth.

Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

With no reliable sources in the area, Servent knew her team’s usual methods wouldn’t work, so she put in a call to the Catalan police, also known as Mossos d’Esquadra. 

Deputy inspector Cesar Jou tried to hide his surprise as the voice on the other side of the line told him about his next case. After 25 years as a policeman, most of them on the Mossos’ crime unit in the Pyrenees, he was used to homicides, drug trafficking, and organized violence. But Cachou was his first bear victim. “I was surprised when they asked me to investigate the death of a bear, but we treated it as if it was a homicide. It was a challenge,” he says.

Jou’s first move was to go to Les with his agents and ask locals if they’d seen anything strange in the days around when Cachou was poisoned. In places where everyone knows each other, crime is often seen as an attack on the community as a whole, Jou says. With the country on a strict lockdown, surely someone would have noticed something, he thought. 

He was wrong. “No one knew anything, no one had seen anything,” Jou says. Cachou’s killer was perceived as the savior of the village. “There was a sense of angst among the ranchers.”

Anti-bear sentiment in the region goes back generations. “Living with the bear is an obligation, something we haven’t decided,” says Frances Bruna, the current head of the Land Department in the Aran Valley government. A horse-breeder himself, Bruna talks dearly about his mares and explains that he, too, has suffered bear attacks in the past. “They’ll give us subsidies, aid, they’ll pay back whenever there are attacks. But inside us there will always be that feeling.”

Bruna’s various responsibilities are often at odds with each other. He’s charged with leading environmental and bear conservation initiatives in the valley, but he also looks after the wellbeing of farmers and their animals. Catalan authorities have spent years trying to mediate between these two worlds. The regional government now compensates ranchers for each animal killed by a bear, and last year spent 84,500 euros to install fences and pay for shepherds and mastiff dogs to watch over sheep and cattle in the Pyrenees during the summer months. It also pays for the animals’ insurance and has hired an external company that acts as a mediator between farmers and the administration.

“Bears were something imposed from Europe, paid with European funds that I guess someone was very happy to collect,” says Marc Cuny, the president of the Association of the Pyrenees Catalan Horse in the Aran Valley. “No one asked for our opinion, they just told us it would be the panacea—and it wasn’t.”



Marc Cuny feeds two of his mares at a field near Vielha. Breeders’ bond with their animals is emotional and goes back generations.

Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

It isn’t a matter of money, says Cuny. Standing in his field next to Ines, Monica, and Nera, three of his 16 mares, he keeps a close eye on a filly born just hours ago that his young daughter has named Peppa Pig. Horses are an important part of the valley’s traditions, and breeders’ bond with them is emotional, he says.

“Poisoning the bear was a mistake, and whoever did it wasn’t thinking about the consequences,” Cuny says. “But when a beast kills 12 or 13 horses and is not removed from the mountain, you can understand that someone decided to do it themselves.”



Two Mossos d’Esquadra agents hike across the steep slopes of the Pyrenees to the place where Cachou’s body was found.

Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

With no cooperation from locals, the investigation into Cachou’s death advanced slowly. Eventually, police identified five potential subjects, including the official who had talked publicly about poisoning bears; a local ranger who was part of the bear restoration program and had access to Cachou’s positioning data; two people whose phone signals showed they had been in the area around the date of the killing; and one who’d installed a surveillance camera near the place where the body was found.

Still, the investigation bore no real clues until the end of June. After weeks of fruitless interrogations, one witness—a ranger with the Aran Valley government—finally broke the code of silence, divulging the existence of a WhatsApp group called, bluntly, the Anti-Bear Platform, according to court documents. All the messages in the chat had been deleted, but Jou’s investigators could see that the group had over 140 members. Among the administrators was the official who’d talked about poisoning bears.  

Jou’s agents had already begun tapping the phones of the suspects they’d identified, but the Anti-Bear Platform gave them the key they needed to begin deciphering how the group operated. In the latter half of 2020, however, the investigation took an unexpected turn. The taps showed a network of people who were changing phone numbers frequently, working in tight shifts in a house in the valley. Some of them had Colombian accents.

On March 29, Jou’s team arrested 12 people suspected of belonging to a cocaine trafficking ring. Agents seized almost 2 kilos of pure cocaine worth about 200,000 euros, an unprecedented amount in an area where no one had previously suspected of drug-dealing activity of this magnitude. The Aran Valley is famous for the high-end resort of Baqueira, which attracts jet set skiers and mountain hikers from both sides of the border, including the Spanish royal family, and many now suspect the traffickers were serving its rich patrons.

“We thought it was Cachou’s way of saying ‘thank you’ for having investigated his death,” says Jou jokingly before getting serious again. “It’s been the most important cocaine operation for Mossos d’Esquadra in the Aran Valley for several years.” 

More than a year after Cachou’s murder, the investigation is almost complete. 

In November, police arrested two of their original five suspects, including the ranger who had access to Cachou’s positioning data and had been caught on a tapped phone discussing the position of a different bear entering the valley. The ranger denied the charges—which included the commission of a crime against fauna, revelation of secrets, and perversion of justice—and refused to give a statement. He was eventually released and remains a member of the Aran Valley rangers, although he’s no longer involved in bear-monitoring activities, according to the local government. The judge also summoned the official who’d boasted about antifreeze-soaked sponges, but he, too, refused to give a statement. 

Finally, in early June, police arrested the ranger who’d disclosed the existence of the Anti-Bear chat. His statements to the police were full of contradictions, and in tapped phone conversations with the other arrested ranger, he’d discussed deleting possibly incriminating messages. He also refused to give a statement and was freed on the same day.

The inquiry into Cachou’s death is the first criminal investigation into the death of a wild animal in Spain, and possibly anywhere else in Europe, environmental groups say. But it’s unlikely to be the last. The EU has made the conservation and restoration of natural habitats, including increasing biodiversity and expanding forests, an essential part in its fight against climate change, wildfires, and disease outbreaks.

Wolves, lynx and bears play a key role in that plan. These super-predators are known as umbrella species; because they’re at the top of the food chain, they can only thrive if every other animal and plant below them is healthy too. Their success or failure is therefore seen as a proxy for the state of conservation and biodiversity efforts, on which the bloc plans to spend 20 billion euros ($24 billion) a year over the next decade. 



A police agent looks down at the exact place where Cachou was found, deep inside the forest at the bottom of a rocky cliff.

Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

The trial could also bring further scrutiny to how European conservation funds are spent. In addition to the former Land official who was once in charge of administering this money in the Aran Valley, the ranger who allegedly leaked Cachou’s location was paid entirely by EU conservation funding.

“Aid must come with conditions,” says Joan Vazquez, founder of conservation organization Ipcena, which will appear as an individual prosecutor in the trial. “States are not watching how that money is spent, they just send reports to the EU saying everything’s going perfect. And the EU believes it unless there are cases like Cachou’s proving the contrary.”

This is not an isolated case of dubious oversight. A recent report by European nonprofit Bankwatch Network documented biodiversity plans by several Eastern European countries. Analysts found that some, including Bulgaria and Poland, directly infringe current laws, while others engage in greenwashing or other deceptive practices, all while receiving EU funding and applying for more.

In this harsher, more bureaucratic light, Cachou wasn’t just a bear, he was a bellwether. The fact that he was wearing a tracking device—and that Afonso moved fast to locate him—meant rangers got to the scene before his body deteriorated, which allowed Velarde to prove the cause of death in a way that would stand up in court. Because of Cachou’s fame and the existing tension between the Aran Valley’s bears and humans, the judge encouraged investigators on the case, include Servent and Jou, to use all means necessary to find the killer.

The judge in Vielha, the capital of the Aran Valley, is expected to formally charge the ranger, the public official, and potentially others when she closes the investigation, likely within the next few months. At that point, a different judge will bring the case to trial sometime next year in the city of Lleida, about 160 kilometers south of the valley. The mystery of Cachou’s death has raised so much attention that authorities fear Vielha’s tiny courthouse won’t be big enough to hold all the interested spectators.

Back in Les, locals await the start of the trial with a mix of uneasiness and indifference. On a foggy morning in April, a few of them read the paper and eat breakfast at an old cafe, casually chatting about whether the end of the lockdown would bring French tourists back. On the wall hang black and white pictures of dead bears and smiling hunters.

“I remember old people in the villages telling us stories about bears,” says Bruna, the current head of the Land Department. “Whoever arrived to the village with a dead bear was hailed as a hero and everyone wanted to be in the picture with them.”



Frances Bruna, the current head of the Land Department in the Aran Valley government, remembers the times when bear hunters were hailed as heroes.

Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

The investigation of Cachou’s murder has done nothing to erase those decades-old lines, Afonso says. Locals who either sympathized with the bears or who didn’t care either way have since turned against them after being summoned to testify, realizing their phones were tapped, or seeing the names friends and relatives written about as suspects in the local press. If anything, it’s made the community even more wary of strangers.

At base, the case is a clash between two ways of seeing the environment, Afonso says: the Araneses’ pragmatic view of nature as a profitable resource, and the outsider’s more romanticized view of humanity’s duty to protect and preserve.

“The most extreme examples of these two worlds are represented in this case,” Afonso says. “Very zealous justice and police systems that acted as if a person had been killed, and a wise guy who decided to take matters into his own hands.”

Servent thinks it will be a turning point in how authorities treat wildlife deaths. About 40 bears have died since 1996, some in circumstances that have never been properly investigated, according to Ipcena. Mysterious bear deaths include that of Cachou’s father, Balou, who according to reports by French authorities was hit by lightning and fell off a cliff.

“Everyone who has participated in this has taken it very seriously so it wouldn’t end in nothing,” Servent says. “Everyone has seen that the death of a bear can’t go unnoticed.”



The Pyrenees mountain range acts as a natural wall that isolates the Aran Valley from the rest of Spain. Its inhabitants are proud of their distinct identity and speak a modern version of Occitan.

Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

As for Cachou’s killer, there are different views of who did it. The police and rangers think it was someone from the area who had access to Cachou’s confidential positioning data, knows the forests well, and knows how to use poison. The perpetrator has also likely suffered bear attacks, they say, possibly at the teeth and paws of Cachou himself.

Afonso has a different guess. He suspects someone has been killing bears for a while, but that Cachou wasn’t necessarily the target. The area where his body was found is a route frequently used by bears, and at a time when sightings are increasing everywhere on the Pyrenees, they’re falling precisely in that place.

“If I was the poisoner, I wouldn’t kill the only bear that’s wearing a tracking device,” he says. “That person was unlucky that Cachou passed by. I’m quite sure of that.”

[aseriesofthrills]

Suzie Is Back

Suzie is back, and so are long, overly emotional, rambling posts.

I matched with Suzie mid-October 2020. Caileigh and I had broken up earlier that summer after 3.5 years together, and my plan was to take some time off dating to “figure myself out.” Caileigh was the first person I ever dated, so I thought being single and out at the same time - for the first time - was a necessary step in figuring out my identity as an individual. Well, I’m not sure if you’re aware, but there’s this big thing called a Global Pandemic going on that’s forcing us all to choose between our physical health and a social life. Put simply, I was lonelier than America’s Dad Tom Hanks on a deserted island before he found Wilson. Or maybe even lonelier than America’s Dad Tom Hanks after he struck up a friendship with Wilson, because after all, Wilson was a volleyball. I wanted to find my Wilson.

And boy did I find a lot of Wilsons. Unfortunately for me, I found a lot of off-brand Wilsons that were the wrong color, didn’t hold air well, or came out of the box with fabric missing. This is not to say these Wilsons are undesirable. I’m sure any of them would provide solid companionship to the next unfortunate soul whose fallen plane renders them a castaway. They were just not for me.

There was Emily, someone who I had strong feelings for and made me realize I’d really like to date someone who’s also Jewish. I was wowed by her philanthropic agenda of making candles and donating half the proceeds, until she did a very gay thing™ and got back with her ex, which was when I began to wish I instead had simply donated that $100 directly to charity and didn’t have to stare at her Tender Flame (more like Tinder Flame, amirite) candles sprinkled around my house. Looking back, we really were not compatible. Emily taught me that just because you have good banter with someone and a shared belief system, it doesn’t mean you wont clink teeth when you make out for the first time. It might even mean she will be extremely silent while you go down on her for what feels like hours, then not reciprocate because she is… probably thinking about getting back with her ex.

Then there was MK, someone who I’d actually met once before at a Hollywood Ladies Drinks Night Before The World Shut Down We Used To Have It So Good Oh My God. I remember wondering that night if she might be queer, but my gaydar couldn’t figure her out and I was in a relationship so it was a moot point anyway. I was hesitant to send her a “like” on Hinge because what if she didn’t feel the same way and then I ran into her at a work thing in 2023 and she KNOWS I liked HER but we BOTH know SHE didn’t like me BACK and -

It took me 3 seconds to get over that existential crisis because I remembered that thousands of people were dying every day and nothing actually mattered. So I liked one of her photos, and she matched with me in literally 4 minutes. I normally like to talk to someone for at least a few weeks - pandemic or not - before meeting in person, but she almost immediately suggested getting together the following weekend. Maybe that’s just her, or maybe she felt confident that I’m most likely not a serial killer since we have mutual friends, but she went for it and I agreed because I hadn’t yet figured out how to assert my own boundaries. But also, why not. It was just a picnic.

It was not just a picnic. It was a picnic conveniently a few blocks from her apartment. It was a picnic and then it was dinner and sex. I enjoyed spending time together at first, but the more we talked and hung out the more my feelings dissipated. In the middle stretch I thought for a second that I had perhaps cracked the mythical Friends With Benefits code, but after a few more dates I realized the code was far more complicated than I’d originally anticipated and what I thought was the treasure map key was actually just meaningless hieroglyphics and OK I will stop this metaphor now. It was time to take the high road and be honest, which for me manifested in telling her I was going to quarantine the next 2 weeks before flying home so this would be the last time I saw her before 2021 and we should check in when we’re back in LA in January - and then I texted her once I got to Florida to say lets just be friends. Not my proudest moment, but we’re learning.

There were a few other short-lived dalliances, but we all have places to go and people to see (from a distance). Just know I somehow managed to make the Pandemic Year my own personal Slut Year. And we’re using the term slut lovingly, simply to describe that 2020 was the year I managed to sleep with more people than any year prior. Tell me I can’t do something, then watch me work.

If you pay attention to detail, as I’m sure my 2 consistent followers do, you’ll remember Suzie and I matched mid-October which was in the midst of my MK chronicles. I am not exaggerating when I say that I was lovestruck by Suzie just from her Hinge profile and pictures. I don’t mean like, “Oh, she’s pretty, I hope she likes me back.” I mean like, something happened to my brain immediately that can only be described as some version of virtual pheromones invading my bloodstream. It felt uncontrollable and biological. And if we learned anything from Dr. Fauci this year, it’s that science knows best. The first real conversation we had - meaning that sweet sweet moment someone on a dating app finally admits that they, too, were looking at the app at the very same moment you messaged them - felt engaging and electric and right. At the end of the conversation I gave her my number and she immediately texted me “Talk to you tomorrow *kissy emoji*,” which probably made me precum. 

What ensued was months of talking every day. I’ll drone on for paragraphs if I let myself, so I’m not going to let myself. I’ll just say for a while it felt amazing. I liked her so deeply. It took us a good stretch of time before we broached the subject of seeing each other in person, but then a combination of her horrific time management skills (her words), a potential Covid exposure, and a highly contentious presidential election got in the way and lead us down a windy path ultimately culminating in a Zoom first date… a week and a half before I was supposed to fly home for 2 months. The Zoom date was everything I hoped it would be and more. I’d never felt more sad to click “End Meeting For All” but was too giddy to notice. She asked me about my holiday plans, so I told her about my impending travel, and then she more or less said we should have sex before I go. So we did. And it was the best sex of my life. And then I left the state of California, our mutual residence, for 2 months.  

Things were somewhat fine at first - we were still talking every day, with a few more Zooms sprinkled in - but then she went home to New Jersey, and suddenly we weren’t talking every day. It was more like every 3-4 days and rarely in actual conversational form. It was more like me waiting for her to reply, then waiting to respond since she’d waited so long, then we’d do it all over again. I felt anxious and tortured and dejected and had no appetite and my mom asked me on more than one occasion if I was ok. I was not ok. But I told myself to bE cHiLL, something that is often diametrically opposed to my natural state of being. I reminded myself that, despite the fact that we had spoken every day for 2 months - which is practically one step away from engagement in LesbianLand - we had only had one in-person date. I was careful to not make It seem more serious than It was, so instead I workshopped a lot of dramatic WHAT ARE WE? texts that I sent to all of my friends and never to Suzie.

We had mutually agreed upon “See you in January,” so I told myself I’d just ask her to hang out when we got back. Then she postponed her flight to LA for 2 more weeks because our Covid numbers were at a scary peak, the worst it had been since the beginning of the Pandemi Lovato. Finally she told me she’d rebooked her flight for the 15th, and I optimistically thought to myself, “You simply don’t tell someone the exact day you’re getting back into town if you don’t plan on seeing them! Right?” Wrong. I shot my shot, and she shot me down. She replied with a long series of texts explaining that her mental health wasn’t in a good place, and she couldn’t be accountable for communicating effectively. She sprinkled in some compliments for good measure, making sure to take a pit stop in “I think you are so wonderful so please don’t think this has anything to do with you” Town, which was reassuring but did not override my brain’s instinct to rethink everything I’d done and said the past few months. But I felt connected to her on a human level, and I didn’t want to lose that simply because she didn’t want to bump butts anymore, so I suggested we be friends and she enthusiastically agreed. End of conversation.

Until later that night, when she texted me Greetings after landing at LAX. I was confused, but I assumed that just meant she was taking me at my word, and this friendship started n.o.w. What followed was some of the most perplexing behavior I’ve witnessed as a living person and hands down the most confounding I’ve ever experienced in my dating career. She’d text me about a new vibrator she bought, or send me a song link then simply “heart” my response and be done with the exchange. It felt like she was just reminding me she existed, as if my small brain could forget. Sometimes she’d ask me how I was doing and we’d have semblances of a real friendship, but other times she’d tell me that I’m SO HOT or send me DMs of a sexy Phoebe Bridgers photo or a Normal People instagram post of Connell telling Marianne she’s pretty. Somewhere in the middle of all that my patient friend Caroline finally hit me with some tough love and told me I needed to block Suzie’s number and hide her on social media. For all intents and purposes, Suzie couldn’t exist anymore. Caroline was right, but I couldn’t do it, so I compromised that for the next week I wouldn’t reach out to Suzie first. Caroline told me “Alcoholics have to quit cold turkey, they don’t get to say well I drink on the weekends” but I decided I was simply not able to do anything more drastic than not text this freshly 25 year old girl who was slowly unraveling my emotional stability first for a week.

You will not believe this but I survived the week and actually felt better, so I did it again the next week. And the next. And the next. Until it had been a month and I hadn’t reached out to Suzie first. She was still texting and DMing me, but I felt my feelings finally waning! Gone were the days of finding her high school ex-boyfriend’s blog in the depths of the internet or looking her up on Venmo to see who she’d gotten Chipotle with the night before. I absolutely still liked her - those fucking pheromones are relentless - but it felt less fresh, so I started to formulate a plan. Once I felt FULLY (lol) over her, I’d text her the next time I was horny. Best case scenario she’d come over, worst case scenario she’d be so disgusted or insulted that she’d never want to talk to me again and I’d actually get over her, not pretend-get-over-her-so-I-could-trick-myself-into-safely-bootycalling-her. But then she sent me potentially the most flirtatious message yet, and I took my opening at 12:53p on a Wednesday and simply said “when are you going to fuck me.” She fucked me that Saturday night.

So. Suzie is back, and Saturday night (and Sunday morning, *wink* she slept over) was great. But now it’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad again, to borrow some words from Judith Viorst.

How we left things this time is that she does want to see me again, but it can’t be a talk-everyday-thing because she’s ~bUsY* and moving to NYC this summer anyway for grad school (did I forget to mention that? Oops!) and for whatever other reasons that exist that are preventing her from being obsessed with me. She asked what my boundaries and needs are too, and both her actions and words that night really felt clear that she still liked me. I asked if she thought she’d ever see me again. There are some things you really can only ask while cuddling post-sex, and that’s one of them. She paused and said yes. She explained the context around her poor communication and that she never wanted to stop talking to or seeing me, and the way she was holding me felt like she was feeling just as connected to me as I was to her. You can tell when someone just isn’t there with you, and this was not that. We were both right there.

But we were also right back to there being a power imbalance between us. There’s no escaping the fact that this is really on her terms in its present configuration. Our best plan was to promise to be honest moving forward, which felt like it had a lot of potential at the time, but it turns out being honest is hard. Things sort of reverted back to how they were, except with all of my feelings and expectations that I’d worked hard to push down rushing back to take their place on the frontlines of my brain.

It’s been almost 2 weeks, and we’ve talked a few times every 2-4 days. I’m fighting the urge to memorialize exactly what’s transpired, but there’s simply no use in holding onto the details. What finally made all of these not-at-all latent emotions bubble up to the surface and inspired this Intense Feelings Word Vomit is two pronged. First, because I love to torture myself, sometimes I look at Suzie’s Hinge profile to see if she’s changed anything. For some reason, if it stays the same, I feel safe that she’s not seeking out anyone else but me. Which is somewhat logical but also farcical in this particular situation, and I fully understand that. I guess I was really wanting to invite some pain into my life tonight, because even after she texted me yesterday and then proceeded to stretch a very short conversation into something that still is in limbo, I decided it would be fruitful to check her Hinge profile. I’m here to report that all 3 of her prompt questions & answers were different. And readers, I had previously checked it recently enough to know this was a very fresh edit.

The second thing that pushed my feelings over the top, out of my mouth, and directly onto my keyboard is that when she finally texted me back at like 11:30pm, she seemed to entirely brush over two clear attempts, in my opinion, at relaying that I’d like to see her again. And that feels not good. My instinct is to tell myself that maybe my comments weren’t as overt as I first believed them to be, but I think that’s a thinly veiled excuse and a defense mechanism. If someone wants to see you, they will.

I’m almost certain (I am certain) all of my friends - ALL of them! I have A LOT! - are up to their eyeballs in Suzie-flavored-shit, so before writing this I must admit I did the loneliest thing of all: instead of being honest and sharing my feelings directly with her, I texted them… to myself. Raw, unedited emotions that I hope to never re-read one day but probably will and when I do I sure hope I’m in a healthier place and can laugh about it and think about How Far I’ve Come.

The truth is, I’m sitting here all over again picturing the dates I could take her on (the Carlsbad Flower Fields), what restaurants she should experience before leaving LA (Pace), and what fun at-home activities I could plan for us before the world fully returns to a post-Covid society (the DIY pottery kit I bought for myself, fully aware she loves to make clay art). Dare I admit I even daydream about the cross-country road trip that I’ll offer to accompany her on when she moves back East. I look at the contents in my fridge and think, “Maybe I wont use that ingredient tonight in case I need it to make us dinner next time she comes over.” I was ready to plan trying to get vaccinated this weekend around her availability, which is actually insane. You look up simp in the dictionary, and there I am. I took the crumb she gave me and turned it into a huge fucking Mrs. Fields birthday cookie cake that serves 20. No wonder I feel sick.

Unless I’m entirely miscalculating, which I can safely say I am not, Suzie is not sitting in her home thinking the same about me. I think she does like me - I have to allow myself to believe she does, because she said she does, and if I don’t believe it now I never will - but I also have to admit that 6 months into this game of Suzie Mental Gymnastics, I can recognize that all signs are pointing directly to the fact that I like her far more than she likes me. I don’t say that as a form of self-flagellation; it’s just a fact that I need to finally accept. Not just accept, but also let go of the possibility that it’s going to change. That’s the hardest part. I naively thought we were getting back on the ride again, and I buckled up for what turned out to be just a detour.

It can feel nearly impossible to pull yourself away from someone, especially when it feels like their claws are deeply embedded in your brain and your heart. That sounds wildly dramatic, but it is genuinely how I feel. What’s doubly hard is being able to trust my own instincts. I can get attached very quickly, and then it’s almost indecipherable whether someone is actually mistreating me or if my unrealistic expectations don’t allow the other person a chance to actually meet them. This whole essay could potentially be described as an overreaction, but the more I think about it, the more confident I feel in the validity of my feelings. Even if part of the issue is setting my expectations too high, the bigger issue is how I’m being treated. Suzie and I did agree on a low-pressure situation, but it doesn’t take much more than the bare minimum effort to consider another person’s feelings. And I don’t think my feelings are being considered all too much.

Not that Suzie ever really left my life in a real way, but I’m starting to think she came “back” for me to get a second chance at prioritizing my boundaries, my feelings, myself. I don’t want to overreact and call a party foul too soon, but perhaps I need to readjust my idea of what constitutes too soon. After all, maybe it was a mistake to not have asked for clarity sooner the first time. It would have probably allowed me to enjoy my time at home with family more and saved my brain a heck of a lot of overtime I am still saving up to pay. A not-no doesn’t mean a yes, and waiting does not change the outcome. It’s a natural reaction to hold on tighter to someone while loosening your grip on your own needs when you feel them pulling away, but it’s often something you can’t stop from happening. And that’s a tough pill to swallow. Sometimes you have to assert your needs when they’re not being met and watch things fall apart, not because you have those needs but in spite of them. You start again. I will start again.

[memorylang]

2020’s End and 2021’s Beginning | #48 | December 2020

If 2020 came in a flash, it ended with a fade. Still, it was a pleasant fade. I describe here my U.S. adventures from Christmas to New Year’s. For photos from these stories, you can check my WeChat or Instagram @memoryLang. I also reference tales from Christmas 2019 and New Year’s 2020, about which you can read in December 2019 and January 2020 stories. Onward to adventures! 

Christmas 2020

Since my family couldn’t attend Midnight Mass as we usually do, a sister and I instead decided to carol at home. The year before, when I’d come home from Mongolia, we’d caroled at church. This time we caroled to Sister’s own piano accompaniment, with lyrics in old hymnals and online. We enjoyed singing harmonies inspired by Pentatonix and various years of choir. Through this, Dad mostly slept while other siblings did other activities. Our youngest sister was with her boyfriend’s family, our older brother with his girlfriend’s, and our stepsisters with our stepmom at their place. 

On Christmas Day, my siblings and I readied the house while Dad helped our stepfamily finish cooking. The evening before, we’d done cleaning with Dad, too, but Dad always had more for us to do. Then the stepsisters and Tita arrived, bringing food with which we filled the kitchen island upon which my siblings and I had draped a large cloth. We watched online a Christmas liturgy while waiting for my older brother and his girlfriend to arrive, I botched the before-meal prayer since I was put on the spot, then we enjoyed a delicious meal of both American and Filipino dishes and desserts. 

After the meal, we had about a half hour before Stepsisters needed to head to work, so we moved from the dining room to the living room for gifts. We began our Secret Santa. I delivered my gift first, to my youngest sister. She and the others felt amused that I’d simply wrapped the Amazon box in which her gifts came, scribbled out “Alexa” from some ads then wrote her name half a dozen times instead. Our oldest stepsister couldn’t make it since she was home with her partner and their newborn. But, she video called in to see my sibling’s reactions from her gift. 

As gifts that I’d received from my youngest stepsister, I’d gotten new travel items, like a journal and eye mask. I felt delighted. From my dad and Tita, I received a new brainstorming notebook and a jacket coincidentally in my Hogwarts house colors of silver, black and yellow. From myself I received a CrashCourse Mongol t-shirt that even a Mongol friend recognized and loved! 

National and State Parks, Monuments and Forests

From the next days, Dec. 26 to 29, my national parks friends and I embark on our last trip of the year, to see a collection of sights in Arizona. Over the next few days, we see Walnut Canyon, Petrified Forest, Meteor Crater, Sedona's Devil's Bridge and the Grand Canyon. I feel awed by the spectacles and amazed by the geological history of this earth. My friends and I take lots of photos. 

As on our other road trips, we talk politics and life goals and telenovelas, too. As a group of minorities, we’re pleased with the presidential election results that released since our previous road trip. Still, we’re glad that the current administration has been able to get COVID-19 vaccines out to people even before the year’s end. I feel relieved that my prospects of returning to Peace Corps Mongolia seem more likely. Till then, we’re also glad that we’ll get more stimulus money to help cover our weird year’s last expenses. As for the telenovelas, I find out about Turkish and Hispanic stories, popular characters and a global community of viewers. Between the day’s adventures, I complete online at our hotels some freemium Pokémon yearend challenges, too. 

Of the sights we behold, I’m most awed by the Grand Canyon. My family had visited it the year before we moved to Vegas, but that was over a decade ago. During that trip, my youngest brother had gone off the path to return down a slope to our minivan and had encouraged Mom to follow. Well, Mom slipped on the rocks and broke her ankle, which cut short that trip. I didn’t remember much from the Grand Canyon because of that. 

On this trip, my friends and I see the snow-covered Canyon blanketed by encroaching cloud banks only sometimes split by sunlit rays. I love the rainbow of colors, from the red rocks to the aqua Colorado River. The pines of green and dark brown hold sheaths of white. The sky shows hints of violet from the blues and pink as our sun sets. 

And the sheer faces of the rocks, my God—They were so steep! I’d wanted to hike into the Canyon, but the ice made that less safe. Instead, a friend and I hiked the southern Rim Trail to its first lookout points. I felt quite a fill of wonder. We saw fauna, too, perhaps elk. The animals added to the natural grandeur that we saw on our trek. With our trip having built up in scale from the smaller Walnut Canyon and Petrified Forest to the epic Devil's Bridge in Sedona, the Grand Canyon truly felt like our grand finale. 

New Year’s Eve 2020

Just after midnight passed to begin Dec. 31, 2020, I was taking a few hours to wrap up my year-in-review post for WeChat, to share with my Chinese family and friends. Concluding it, I slept many hours. I re-awoke during what was daytime for Dec. 31 in Vegas but in Asia just past midnight to begin Jan. 1, 2021. For the next hour, Chinese and Mongol friends wished me Happy New Year, and I returned the greetings. 

Vegas and Siblings 

After I broke from my New Year’s greetings, my siblings and I spent a little over an hour playing Nintendo Switch games. My little sister with whom I’d sung carols on Christmas Eve did the “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” yearend event, so I joined her in co-op to gather resources on her island. Our younger brother wanted to play “Smash: Ultimate,” so the three of us played that next, including for the first time the Roy amiibo that our older brother had gifted me for my July 2020 birthday. I played a lot of Byleth and Corrin since I’d still “Fire Emblem: Three Houses” on my mind. (Just before Christmas, I’d finally reached the time skip in the Blue Lions story.) 

After the games, our sister wanted to hike the Lone Mountain on the west side of the Vegas valley. So, we hopped in a sedan to ride over. Though on the day before, Sister had let me practice driving for my first time in over a year, I didn’t feel like asking to take on the highway. I comfortably rode in back. 

The hike felt surprisingly strenuous, given that the small peak sat right there in Vegas. Though, our hike was much quicker than my national and state park and monument trails. The scenery reminded me of my trip to Red Rock Canyon back on Nov. 18 with another friend. With no discernable single path up Lone Mountain, I remembered hikes on Mongolia’s mountains. My siblings and I found its summit windy. I registered our names in a composition notebook at the top, then we proceeded down. On our way home, we passed through a shopping plaza from which I’d accompanied Tita to pick up food for my older brother’s March 2020 birthday. I felt amazed by how many months have passed. 

Back at the Vegas house, I showered and had meal of Christmas leftovers. Then I finished packing my small personal item for my Allegiant flight, hopped back in a car with my younger sister, finished my last social post of 2020—a family-focused reflection—then began my march to airport security for Terminal A. 

Even though I reached the airport at my flight’s boarding time, the place was so empty that I went through security and found my gate before staff finished boarding passengers. I’d received a message that a Mongol friend wanted me to review her personal statements before she submitted them for U.S. college applications. So, I finished reading and commenting on those aboard my flight before staff had us turn our devices to airplane mode. I felt stressed about having dropped my learner’s permit card somewhere, penned a last journal entry of 2020, slept through most of my flight then felt relieved when a flight attendant found my ID card before our plane descended. 

Reno and Friends 

I disembark from my flight to Reno just after 8:40 p.m. I feel touched on my walk from the terminal by the voice of Mayor Schieve in an ad, “If this is your first visit or your home away from home, welcome to Reno.” At this moment I realize that Reno really is my home away from home. 

I exit the airport, where my guy friend who’d married last year walks up to me. To my surprise, his red sports jersey contains two Chinese characters, “火箭,” in gold across the top. He asks about their meaning. Given that we’re at New Year’s Eve, I think at first, “fireworks.” But, I know those characters as “烟火” /yānhuǒ/. 

Certainly, his jersey’s first character, “火” /huǒ/, means “fire.” As for the second, I only recognize parts. The top’s ⺮ /zhú/ radical means “bamboo,” while the bottom part resembles “前” /qián/, which means “before.” As for what fire, bamboo and before mean together, I’m not sure. 

While we walk, I at last consult my Pleco dictionary app. I scribble in the “箭” to see that it’s pronounced /jiàn/ and means “arrows.” This explains the presence of the bamboo radical. Thus, “fire” and “arrows” taken together, “火箭” /Huǒjiàn/, mean, “Rockets.” My friend explains that this is a sports team. 

After getting in the red vehicle with his wife whose first wedding anniversary was just the day before, my friend explains that he’d gotten to learn about Chinese characters in his religious studies course about contemporary Daoism. So cool! 

The couple and I had kept in touch the past year over video, but this New Year’s Eve is our first time together in the same city since my return to the Peace Corps in January. I’m elated to see them again! My friends and I arrive at the newish fencing studio of our friend who owns it and was part of their wedding party last year. Turns out that he’s relocated to a larger studio since the time that my friends took me fencing in the spring of 2018, before my second trip to China. This new studio used to be a mechanic shop apparently, so it’s quite spacious. 

2020 Ends in Dodgeball 

Though I don’t recognize the few others present, I’m warmly greeted by one who’s the girlfriend of our fencing friend. She introduces me to others. I’m touched by folks’ inclusiveness. I’m amazed to find on the food table Pizza Plus, as, just a few days before, I’d weirdly craved some Reno-Sparks Pizza Plus (which I hadn’t eaten in over a year). God blesses us. 

For the next few hours, after a series of mostly leg stretches, we play a physically distant sport that I haven’t played in years, dodgeball. While I’m not used to dashing with a facemask on and sanitizing my hands between rounds, I have great fun. While my aim remains lacking, I can for the most part still dodge, and I’m able to swipe balls to hand to my more capable teammates. To my surprise, I receive MVP status from folks after finishing a round by catching a  teammate’s fumble and getting our last opponent out. 

A couple hours in, we switch games to a form of “Mushroom Ball,” a free-for-all type of dodgeball game in which we individually try to take out other players before someone gets us. In this game that we play till just before midnight, I do much better. I’m able to catch and throw at close range against folks who don’t notice me. Still, the amount of times others hit me causes me to really work my legs, since we squat when we’re out. My legs haven’t recovered much from the recent dodgeball, the afternoon Lone Mountain hike nor the evening flight from Vegas. Yet, I love the fun. 

2021 Begins 

My friends new and old walk out into the cold night of light snow, where one pops a shower of confetti and another a champagne bottle when we see fireworks appear across the valley of Reno-Sparks. We chat about our resolutions and take selfies. I recount memes about how saying, “2021,” sounds like, “2020 won.” We laugh and return inside as the wind picks up. 

I discover that I don’t much like the taste of even flavored champagne, but thankfully my friends’ cookies have enough sweetness to cut the bitterness. My friends mention that their family always bakes holiday cookies, which brings back vague memories from their wedding when I stayed with their family at an Airbnb. Our 2019 had ended in what felt such different times. 

My friend in the Rockets jersey talks up my accomplishments and Mongolia service, which makes me feel both bashful and delighted. Turns out that some of the folks at this little get-together had been looking into Peace Corps service! I share my experiences with them and my hope to return. One woman and I had even taken a class together in fall 2017, which feels like a remarkable blast from my undergrad past. Before the couple who brought me from the airport drives me to my family’s house, I exchange contact info with my new friends. I’m surprised to realize that the new fencing studio is just a few blocks from the neighborhood in which I’d lived from fall 2017 to spring 2019 graduation. 

Into the New Year

I arrive at the now-quiet Reno house, where I continue to exchange New Year’s greetings over social media well past midnight. I shower then get my bearings while others are still out and about. After resting away the rest of my morning from aching over the eve’s soreness, I play some seasonal events on the freemium Pokémon games. Then, I reengage on social media with New Year’s greetings. 

Quite liking the quiet home, I bring together this New Year’s blog story. Oddly enough, many of the couches that were in Vegas during Christmas are now here in Reno, since my parents and siblings had moved them while I was in Arizona. Curiously, the little neighbor boy had alluded to this when calling from his window when he saw me having just returned to Vegas. Before I’d left Vegas for Reno, I’d seen him on a hoverboard that he and his siblings had gotten for Christmas, reminding me of the one that my Mongol host family had gotten the August 2019 week when we’d said goodbye. 

Here in Reno, there are Christmas leftovers brought up from Vegas, too. So, I’m grateful not to cook. For dinner, I reunite with the couple who’d greeted me last night, and we enjoy sushi to celebrate the end of their brief return to northern Nevada, in the fellowship of our fencing instructor friend and his girlfriend. I heard such wonderful stories from everyone and feel quite inspired for whatever blessings may come. Life’s been nice. 

My New Year’s theme is, “serenity,” through which I mean to focus less on the things I can’t control and more on those that I can. Part of this will involve closing up some old projects and making myself ready to go back to Mongolia as soon as the time comes. This is at least going to soak up the first quarter or half of 2021. Perhaps when I’m back in Mongolia I’ll focus more on readjusting. 

In the meantime, I’m trying to finish moving through the stories, “Kafka on the Shore” and “The Brothers Karamazov,” while I work on my memoir writing. I’m looking to finish my close-read of “The Souls of Mao” while I re-re-(re-, etc.)revise my thesis for journal submission. And, I’m looking to complete “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” while I tidy my things. I always welcome new suggestions to my lists, and you can see mine on Goodreads. 

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! 

I look forward to writing to you soon in 2021. May you stay vigilant against the spread of the Coronavirus disease, as we await wider access to vaccines. I pray that soon our lives will open into the new world that we’ll know when we can at last be together again. 

Sincerely, Daniel Lindbergh Lang

You can read more from me here at DanielLang.me :)

#Peace Corps #Mongolia #memoir #WithMe #story #Catholic #memoryLang #Nevada #Arizona #Las Vegas #Reno #winter #travel #COVID-19 #newyear #Christmas #holidays #Grand Canyon #books #Nintendo

[thehikingviking]

Nameless Pyramid, A Sharp Pinnacle Above Kearsarge Pass

Day 9 of the Sierra Challenge had the group climbing Nameless Pyramid, an impressive yet neglected spire just south of Kearsarge Pass. While this unofficially named point is rather modest in terms of prominence and notoriety, the summit block is rated at 5.7, which bolstered my interest. Any time I can find someone else to lead a class 5 pitch I will jump at the opportunity to follow. Asaka had started to get fed up with me leaving her every morning, so after a lot of back and forth in the motel room discussing how to spend our Saturday, we finally agreed to give the challenge peak a shot. My plan was for us to take turns climbing the summit block while the other parent watched the baby. We got a really late start from our motel, mostly due to our indecisiveness, but I figured this would probably be okay since I anticipated the others would take a long time to set up the rope and send everyone up. There was no parking at Onion Valley when we arrived, so I dropped off Asaka and Leif, telling her to get themselves a head start while I found a parking spot further down the road and used the restroom. After all was said and done, I started at least 15 minutes after them, and it wasn’t until several miles that I caught up with them. Asaka was moving quickly that morning, and I was proud to see her blowing past other non-baby carrying people.

I took Leif from there and we continued together towards Kearsarge Pass. Nameless Pyramid soon came into view. I admired the changing views of the peak as we progressed up the familiar trail.

The summit looked incredibly pointy from my vantage point. I could barely make out a few figures arriving at the base of the summit block. It appeared that we had a shot to make it in time.

We reached the 11,709 ft pass as a family. The peak wasn't much higher than us, and only a half mile south along the ridge.

I told Asaka to continue south along the ridge towards the peak while I waited at the pass with Leif. Not long after starting off, I saw her making her way back. She stated that she was not comfortable with the climb along the ridge. I was surprised and disappointed, since I expected the ridge run to be class 3 at worst. She offered to wait at the pass with the baby, allowing me to attempt the ridge and hopefully the peak. I told her I planned to go as fast and I could and cut the line so I could meet her back at the pass within a reasonable amount of time. I took off down the ridge with a sense of urgency.

It wasn't long before I found out why Asaka had turned around. By staying along the top of the ridge and minimizing elevation loss as much as possible, I soon found myself on class 4 terrain. There was a lot of climbing up and down that really slowed my pace. When safe to do so, I pushed my pace as fast as I could. My heart was beating out of my chest. The ridge took me much longer to traverse than I expected. There was some fun route finding in getting to the base of the actual summit block. I climbed a series of ledges that took me around to the east side of the summit block where the group was watching the action. Tom Grundy had set up a top rope utilizing two old bolts at the top, which had been struck by lightning in the past. Later Tom showed me the old melted carabiner he replaced. He belayed the challengers from the bottom; once a climber would reach the summit, he would simply lower them down. It was a timely and effective strategy. Fred Zalokar was on the climb when I arrived, and he was making the pitch look anything but easy. Fred eventually made it to the top, and he was lowered down with busted and bloodied shins and knees. Clement on the other hand made the climb appear much easier. The key message was to trust the shoes.

The feedback from the others was that the climb was "greasy", and there were no real hand holds. The other piece of feedback was that if one were to fall, they should try and lie flat on their belly along the slab of rock. While there was protection, there was nothing to prevent a serious pendulum if one were to fall to either the left or right. I watched as Bob climbed the pitch, clearly having the time of his life while doing so.

I asked to cut the line, with the excuse that I wanted to meet Asaka back at Kearsarge Pass. Many thankfully allowed my intrusion, so I tied into the rope and made my way to the start of the climb. Initially, there is a class 3-4 scramble before reaching the start of the class 5.

At first the friction slab was easy to climb, and there were opportunities to use my hands somewhat.

As I got higher, things got tougher. The pendulum effect was clearly a very realistic risk. I got to the greasy section of the pitch, where I could feel my feet slipping slightly. There was nowhere else to put my hands, and I was definitely scared. I didn't want to show any trepidation on my part, and followed the advice of the others. Without any hesitation, I trusted my feet and committed fully to the greasy friction slab.

A few steps later I was beyond this crux, and I was able to comfortably walk the remaining few feet to the top. Chris Henry took a photo of me summiting the pinnacle on his way to Snow Crown.

What a relief! I forgot to carry a small rock in my pocket, since the group was planning to make a summit cairn in which to store the new register, but I didn't care. I carefully repositioned myself to be lowered down.

Once at the bottom, someone made the comment that I had made it look easy. Externally that may have been the case, but internally I was pumping with adrenaline. Besides, first time Sierra Challenger Emma made it look the easiest out of all of us. How pathetic would I have looked if I showed any sense of fear, while the newcomer made it look like nothing? Fake it 'til you make it, as they say. Now I had to make it back to the trail. I looked over at Kearsarge Pass, but couldn't spot Asaka's bright pink shirt. I again slowly progressed back along the ridge towards the pass. I finally arrived, exhausted, but she was nowhere in sight. I asked some of the people at the pass if they had seen her, but none of them had. One backpacker asked me if there was a Covid vaccine yet. How long had this guy been in the back country? If I would have known that Asaka left, I could have simply descended to Big Pothole Lake, or even better, climbed Snow Crown as a bonus peak. I was too tired to tack on Mt Gould, so I began my descent back towards Onion Valley. I admired the striking summit fin of Nameless Pyramid on my retreat.

I really started to worry as I descended because no one had seen Asaka. She was very easy to spot in my opinion; bright pink shirt and a baby strapped to her chest. Could she have went down the west side of Kearsarge Pass? I couldn't put it past her. I finally met a lady who had seen her. I asked how far ahead of me she was, and the feedback was quite a bit. In an effort to catch up, I began cutting switchbacks and large sections of trail. If anyone complained, I could simply state that I was social distancing.

I made it all the way down to the parking lot without seeing Asaka. I then walked down the road to the car and she wasn't there either. This wasn't good. I was out of water and she had the keys to the car. I curled up in the dirt under the shade of Bob's Jeep, praying that she would appear from the trail soon. Tom Becht soon arrived but he hadn't seen Asaka either. This was rather troubling. Just when all hope seemed lost, I spotted her hiking down the last switchback of the trail. While taking short cuts, I must have inadvertently passed her. Tom walked by her without even noticing. We spent the next few hours eating and drinking to celebrate JD's SPS list finish, even though he was still on University Peak. Thunderstorms rolled in and it wasn't until much later that JD finally showed up, but by that point I had my fill and was getting cold, so we drove back to our motel in Independence.

[soysaucevictim]

Finishing up last programs and doing a few WODs for this week to reset. Will start next slate, next week.

Late to posting... lost track of time. Vaccine kicked my ass too.

-

May 22

I woke up around 2PM.

Updated my logs and then started to play a little more catch-up.

First, today’s DD. 20 body saws with EC. Doable.

Second, Day 28 of the 1′HIIT. Level 3, 1′ rest. Lotsa push-ups and they weren’t the most refined form-wise. But yeah, good enough. I knew prone/plank/belly-work would be ill-advised on a full stomach - since I ate after yoga yesterday... and lost track of time gaming to get going on this, then.

(After touching base with some of the brother’s friends...)

Last, Day 29 of the 1′HIIT. Level 3, 1′ rest. Leg work. Still not a huge fan of jumping lunges - but got it done as best I could. Had a brief false start that was interrupted by aforementioned visit - but I was half-expecting it and wasn’t a big deal.

Thought about closing everything up today... but didn’t feel like stacking more onto this.

After that, I made today’s Hello Fresh Meal. Garden mushroom-stuffed ravioli. I rather enjoyed this one - especially given how easy it was to whip up.

Spent rest of day chatting and gaming. Got to bed barely into the red zone, that night.

-

May 23

I woke up around 11AM today.

The first thing I did was get my second dose of the COVID vaccine done. Entry was less painful than last time, a small mercy.

Once I got home, one of the first things I did was get in my exercise, before I could feel any significant effects kick in.

First, today’s DD. 40 climber taps with EC. Doable, but then I deliberately tried to get going ASAP after the shot. Before I had much of a chance to feel much effects.

Second, Day 30 of the 1′HIIT Program. Level 3, 1′ rest. Arm work. Very glad I did this promptly after getting back home. Very manageable. Arm wasn’t too bad off to hinder things.

Last, Day 30 of Yoga with Adriene’s BREATH Yoga Journey / Program. “Begin“. As per the usual for final days - it was a freestyle sort of practice. I had Infected Mushroom’s “More than Just a Name“ as background noise and “timekeeper”. I listened through - “More of Just the Same“, “Splicon”, “Ani Mevushal“ and “No Line in MIDI“. So just under half an hour.

For the first song, I just did some Sun Salutation (this time opting to do the chaturanga-to-upward-dogs instead the milder belly-to-cobras I had been doing for much of the journey) cycles throughout it. After that:

I mixed in ~4′ of Tree Pose (1′/1′/1′/1′). Keeping arms raised was a challenge, but doable! A meditative pose, as expected.

A couple Half Moons for a few breaths each side, a bit wobbly and the hips were a lil stiff so I didn’t think holding these for very long was in the spirit of “finding what feels good“. But they were still fun while they lasted. :Ic

Some high lunge to Warrior IIs to Peaceful Warriors

A bit of Extended Child’s and Cat-Cow Poses

Boat folds/extensions, crunches, and bridges

Happy Baby, Cobbler’s Pose, some supine twists

Finished with an extended amount of time in Corpse Pose, meditating with the Ujjayi Breath until the final song was over.

Spent rest of night gaming and the usual until I hit my wall. Slowly started to feel too achy/tired to function. Managed to get to bed in the green zone.

But I only managed a few hours of sleep until I was too achy to get back to sleep for a few more hours and doses of ibuprofen.

-

May 24

I woke up around noon.

Obliterated my entire day gaming more than anything else.

I was still feeling pretty damn achy and tired. So I couldn’t do much else other than a round of dishes. Rain-checked on my exercise stuff entirely.

Despite exhaustion, I got to bed obscenely late again.

-

May 25

I woke up around noon again.

After some paperwork and downloading videos, I started feeling considerably better, so I did some exercise.

First, yesterday’s DD. 2′ un/clenching fists with EC. 256 reps estimated by the end of the duration. Manageable.

Second, today’s DD. 50 knee-to-elbows with EC. This was also doable work.

Last, the WOD. It was something called “Lazy Bear“, a Level 2 workout. Done at Level 3, with 1′ rest. Fairly gentle ab/back work. I kinda liked that after the vaccine side effects successfully wore off.

Spent rest of day gaming and whatnot. I went to bed just a bit earlier than yesterday.

-

May 26

I woke up around 10AM.

Hit the showers and waited just in case I had a trip reservatiion for group to get to at the usual time. But I didn’t.

Spent the next few hours gaming before I attended a special evening group/event today. It was with the county’s behavioral health crowd - we watched a Zoom presentation/show hosted by Victoria Maxwell. She’s a comedian and public speaker on mental illness stuff - I admit, I did like how she presented her stories and observations.

Got home, did some gaming before doing my exercise.

First, today’s DD. 30 raised leg crunches with EC. Knees were bent a little - but it took no less digging in to knock out.

Last, the WOD. “Lower Abs”, a Level 4 workout. Definitely only had Level 1 in me, maxed out my rests at 2′. Noticed I deliberately tried to speed up as much as I could because the neck strain was INTENSE. I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to deal with more neck lift time than I already put up with, by the end of Set 3. Oof, definitely not for beginners, indeed.

Spent rest of night gaming and whatever... getting to bed obscenely late again.

-

May 27

I woke up around noon.

Spent several hours gaming and whatnot.

Eventually, I made today’s Hello Fresh Meal. Teriyaki-styled chicken stir fry. A reasonably tasty-recipe. Not much else to really remark on.

Went right back to gaming before winding up doing my exercise after 2AM... but got it done.

First, today’s DD. 80 balance swings with EC (40/40). Fun and manageable.

Last, the WOD. “Maximus”, a Level 2 workout. Did it at Level 3 with no rest (pausing only long enough to tally set ct). Leg stuff. A lot breezier than the day prior’s. Yeah.

I got to bed a little earlier than yesterday, but still in the red zone.

-

May 28

I woke up around noon.

Besides a grocery shopping trip, and taking a short nap, all I did today really was gaming. Yeah.

I basically pulled another all-nighter.

-

Summary of Experience:

I managed to finish everything 3 days later than intended, on May 23. Given the family loss pulling the rug from underneath me halfway into them... not surprised. Last few weeks, I’ve been sinking into prolonged gaming binges.

For Yoga with Adriene’s BREATH Yoga Journey / Program, it was nice for the expected peaks and troughs. Quite a few relaxing segments that I enjoyed enough to Favorite (9). Only real sense of bittersweetness was invitations to “notice what it feels to be alive today“. Triggered pangs of survivor’s guilt, to be completely honest. But I don’t hold ill will for that, I did try to enjoy myself when I could.

For the 1′ HIIT Program, I managed to hit Level 3 the entire way through. I guess I’m too emotionally fogged to say more than it was a good way to stay somewhat consistently active. Emphasis on somewhat. Good complement to Yoga

#adventures with fitness #(second dose of covid vaccine in the bag) #family shit/ #death/

[oltnews]

You can sometimes get what you want - even a catchy appearance by the separate but united Rolling Stones - when you are Global Citizen and there is apparently no global superstar too big to refuse "One World: Together at Home" . "Saturday's prime-time show also included tricks from a Beatle, Paul McCartney, as well as artists currently inspired by mania like Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Lizzo and Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello. Global Citizen CEO Hugh Evans has already completed major all-star charity projects, including annual concerts in Central Park, but nothing like bringing together eight hours of programming (the two-hour television show at the prime time was preceded by a live web) in a matter of… let's say how many days. Variety spoke to him Sunday afternoon about a friend's expectation in the form of the Stones' last-minute contribution, as well as the difficulty of setting the right tone in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, how it worked for CBS, ABC and NBC to hold hands, and his feelings about the recent politicization of the World Health Organization. Anyone who has interviewed him knows he's more likely to pass for health care fans than the pop stars he rubs his elbows with in the ordinary course of his work, but even a dedicated philanthropist to keep an eye on the philanthropic award as Evans couldn't contain his enthusiasm for the Stones. VARIETY: Did you lock the program enough in advance to be sure that the navigation would go smoothly? EVANS: To be truly honest, it was extremely difficult to set up such a program in two and a half weeks. We literally started producing it two and a half weeks ago. And so the editing, all the sound mixing, the graphics, everything was in the thread. But we did not leave ourselves a choice. It was sink or swim. And I was so delighted with the result. I couldn't even watch a lot of it last night, because we worked all night around it. But just the pieces that I saw, I was so moved by the powerful stories of community health workers and how their lives were affected by the pandemic and how they served the community so diligently ... and by the songs and the artistic talent and the messages of hope from the world leaders who were also part of it. It was consistent, which delighted me when you are trying to gather more than seven hours of programming in two and a half weeks from a standing start. The Rolling Stones were announced for the last time on Friday. Would they be considered the artist you retained the most to see if he would stand out? These are definitely the Rolling Stones for which I was holding my breath, because as you saw, their performance was about five minutes and 12 seconds or so, so it's a pretty decent piece of the show. And we only got final confirmation on Wednesday in advance. Every day was like a week for us last week. [Laughs.] It was definitely the one I was the most ... I wouldn't say anxious, but just the most aware. And when David Joseph of UMG and Joyce (Smyth), who is their longtime manager, called and said they were completely confirmed and fully involved, our entire team was so thrilled. There is really only one group in the world called the Rolling Stones, which has increased the power of what was achieved on an already magnificent night. Did you wait until they actually had the piece on hand to announce it, or did their piece arrive even after that? We waited until we had the part in hand before announcing it. Because we didn't want to get ahead of ourselves. Have you talked to people in the Stones camp about how they got there? Well, they told me a funny story about it, but I probably shouldn't be giving it away, because I don't know if I have the right. I wish I could tell you, but this is their news to tell. But logistically, I don't even know how they did it over time, with extraordinarily mixed voices, and yet they did it in four entirely different regions of the country with very, very, very limited technology. Were you worried about having an inconsistency in tone with so many artists involved, each making their own choices? We wanted to give them hints on the tone, but you know, artists have this incredible ability to get the pulse of the feeling of society, and so we didn't want to overshadow what people were doing. We just wanted to give a first orientation. We have encouraged certain artists in terms of directionality. But I think they all had a perfect moment, whether it was the performance of Eddie Vedder in his bedroom, which was entirely spectacular and so moving, or whether it was the performance of Lizzo, that I thought of cutting the breath, or when Sam Smith and John Legend performed together… I also think of the performance of Christine and the Queens who was in the stream, too, during the six hours (before the broadcast during prime time)… We have received as much positive feedback on the stream, globally, as we did on the show. The addition of six hours of live streaming before the two hours of television bit a lot. It seems that different demographic data have been used. I think we had a younger demographic in the world listening to the broadcast, also because it was a little earlier in the day. We heard stories from families around the world who logged in for the full eight hours, or some who logged in for the digital six hours, and then the kids went to bed…. The reason we wanted to do the full six (extra) hours was because we thought it was really important that people from all over the world could be part of it. If we did it from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the eastern United States, then it was obviously already too late for people in Europe and across Africa, and also potentially extremely early for Asian time. And so I think the power of this interesting mix between digital and linear worked, because even though they felt like slightly different shows, they felt like brother and sister to each other. They came from the same sensitivity and the same outcome set to try to make sure we told stories about the powerful work of community health workers, while educating and informing the public about what can be done to stop COVID-19 . and what can be done to fight and stop the coronavirus. We also wanted to make sure the feed was available to everyone around the world for the next 72 hours. And that's why the BBC highlights this evening were so important. That’s why it’s also aired in Germany tonight and all over Europe. Going back to the general tone: a few weeks ago, when Fox did a musical special, some criticized the fact that some performances were too frivolous at the moment. And we have seen opposite answers about your show. Looking at the comments from readers, there were a few people who said it was depressing for them when they fixed it just to hear something that would cheer them up. In the end, it seems like most of the people who have watched it have loved it, but in a moment like this, you will get at least a little review, whatever approach you take. You had to consciously seek a delicate balance. Well, I firmly believe that you cannot tell people how to feel. And so all I think we can do in our job is to provide a platform for people to creatively express the various emotions that everyone is going through. Some people are devastated [and want music that takes that into account]. And as you say, some people want comfort, and that's fine too. And so when Jimmy Fallon created his beautiful song with the Roots [a spoof version of Men Without Hats’ “Safety Dance” featuring choreography from medical workers], I think it certainly comforted a lot of people. While I think that the song by Taylor Swift ("Soon you will be better"), which referred to the battle (against cancer) that her mother was going through at the time, was undoubtedly going to be extremely difficult, because it was so deeply personal. Indirectly, we knew that this period was going to be a period when there would be a spike in death in the United States and peak layoffs. So you're going to have people who are facing the total devastation of this, and others who want to be comforted. I think we have given people a bit of both. As you said, you weren't even able to watch the entire show continuously while it aired. But were there highlights for you? I found two songs that were extremely moving for me. I loved the Burna Boy song because it reminded me of why Nigeria's response to COVID-19 will be so important for the next wave. I thought his voice was essential. And I also loved the Rolling Stones because for me what COVID-19 taught me is that you can have all the best plans in the world, but unless we have strong health systems, all of these plans collapse overnight. And so I think what they sang, "you can't always get what you want" - that's it, for me. Let's talk about the World Health Organization. What a time to brag about their work and raise money for them. (Lady Gaga and Global Citizen helped raise more than $ 125 million from corporate and philanthropic sponsors, never asking viewers for money.) It was only last week that WHO became a Front page political football in the United States, with the president continuing the attack and threatening to withdraw funding. You were never going to do a politically targeted or divisive show. So how did you feel watching WHO become a controversial and polarizing thing, when normally it would have been something that almost everyone could agree on? I think Lady Gaga said it very well when she and I, with Dr. Tedros, gave the last press conference the day before the event. She said that the whole point was for it to be a love letter to the world and a love letter to community health workers. And it was great because we had a team meeting earlier today with all of our Global Citizen staff on this, and we just asked everyone to come around and share the comments that 'they had. And so many staff members had received overnight calls from nurses and doctors and midwives and lab practitioners from all over America and around the world saying they felt this love; they felt this attention on them. And if it's something, that's what WHO is supposed to do. It is designed to strengthen health systems so that health professionals can do their jobs more efficiently. And so I'm just glad that this result was felt. I had this beautiful and beautiful tweet from a health care worker in Seattle who said how moved she was by the show, and for me, she is the real hero. So I answered her immediately and I just told her that I'm so thankful that she did exactly what we wanted her to do. As for the politicization of WHO, when you are the key player in a major global crisis, it is not uncommon for world leaders of all sizes to try to point the finger, because politics is in some cases a question of survival. And so I think it's not so surprising that it became political football. But I think what we have to remember is that there is no second World Health Organization. There is only one. It is encouraged by the United Nations to be the multilateral institution to help respond. And it has the full support of the General Assembly of the United Nations. And in 2019, its year of fundraising was record, so there is clearly a lot of support as an institution. So I think with this support, they must continue their efforts to provide personal protective equipment, invest in vaccines and immunizations, and the best research in their class so that we can fight COVID-19 immediately. Finally, what importance was given to the same weight for the three major broadcasting networks - CBS, NBC and ABC? They were each represented with their news anchors as well as co-organizers Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert. Did they think the balance worked, so they didn't have to worry about being competitive that night? Oh, absolutely. I spoke last night - and I'm going to talk to them in three minutes, actually - to Doug Vaughan, Jack Sussman and Scott Iger from the three networks; we're going to skip a call together and do a debriefing. We formed a real link between the group. It's incredible. There is a real feeling that we are all fighting a common enemy. You have certainly felt this thanks to the unity of the three hosts, but the networks equally - in all their daytime programming, their evening programs, their morning programs - have constantly come forward to support the campaign. I don't know if you saw the rankings, but I think that among them, they exceeded (15 million) viewers last night, and it's just linear, the first count, not counting the cable, not the digital. So it's a testament to their hard work. It's very difficult to get figures from cable and streaming, but would you guess how many people could have connected in total? The challenge we have is that it was in 120 strange countries in a linear fashion, and then you had all the digital players. For example, if you take Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu only in China, that number would be crazy only in this country, because there are a billion people there. And then it was in Indonesia, and on all the major stations in India, which has a billion people. So if I gave you a number now, it would be just hyperbole. … In addition, Facebook alone had over 20 million unique content, as did YouTube, 20 million unique content. These are just two platforms. ... You cannot be on all the media in the world at a time when the whole planet is inside and people are consuming media at record rates and have no great numbers. !function(f, b, e, v, n, t, s) if (f.fbq) return; n = f.fbq = function() n.callMethod ? n.callMethod.apply(n, arguments) : n.queue.push(arguments); ; if (!f._fbq) f._fbq = n; n.push = n; n.loaded = !0; n.version = '2.0'; n.queue = []; t = b.createElement(e); t.async = !0; t.src = v; s = b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t, s); (window, document, 'script', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '586935388485447'); fbq('init', '315552255725686'); fbq('track', 'PageView'); https://oltnews.com/together-at-home-producer-talks-land-the-rolling-stones-unite-networks-ignore-who-politicization-variety?_unique_id=5e9e77c0dc905