fxnris

The first one in the left corner: It’s a first communion rosary, and it’s not cheap.

The black one in the first line: That’s a widow rosary and it’s old.

The white one in the second line:  is a commemoration rosary. It has a miniature picture in the round part. I haven’t seen that since the 70′s.

In the third line, multicolor one: It’s an Anima mundi, I have only seen those in the hands of Rosary ministery’s old ladies. The oldest ones are from the 80′s after Juan Pablo II came to Mexico for the first time. It’s one of the old ones, I know because the crucifixes are different.  The third one on the fourth line: Red and gold. The style is old, the metal is dark, that’s a 50′s rosary, probably a quinceañera one (or it’s maybe older, from the 40′s when the brides carried red roses with their offerings).

The fifth one on the fourth line: It’s a quinceañera rosary with Ignatius’s tear. The style is old and in my part of Mexico is orphan girls who used it. At least it was when I was young. The third one of the fifth line: the blue one with the anchor. That one I have only seen in Veracruz and it doesn’t look new. The fifth one on the fifth line: That’s a 90′s wedding rosary. Black and white patterns were popular on that date. The fourth one on the last line: That’s a first communion rosary from the 30′s. It’s delicate and most probably silver. The rest wrench my heart too, the humble everyday rosaries with wooden beads and knots. Those are cheap and bear the wear and tear of their user handling. But those  I described are much more.

Those are mother’s rosaries.

So this dude selling concessions at a circus back in like 1857 ran out of lemonade and he needed water to make more, but there wasn’t a stream or water pump, BUT the BAREBACK HORSE RIDER had just washed her pink tights in a bucket of water, staining the water pink. So, being the enterprising fella he was, dude just threw in the lemons and sugar and told everyone it was special strawberry lemonade. Well, the circus patrons saw pink lemonade and thought, “That’s fucking amazing!” and he ended up selling twice as much lemonade than usual.

To reiterate.

This dude sold people sweaty horse crotch water and it was so popular it became an Actual Fucking Thing.

DELICIOUS.

Shoving one hand between your jean-clad thighs, you gave him a brief second of eye contact before looking away.

“You okay?”

You nodded, lying to him and Sam smiled softly. He never bought it.

“Want me to put a film on or something?” he asked, pushing hair out of your face as you shook your head. “Want to go out?” A more emphatic shake made him chuckle. “Yeah, me either.”

There was a moment of silence before he got up and you stared impassively at the wall, listening to him shuffle around. A second later, his flannel flew across the room, missing the laundry bin by a mile and the bed dipped under his weight.

Sam settled in behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist and drawing you into the warm cocoon of his ridiculously huge body. He didn’t speak and didn’t move once he was comfortable and you smiled, covering his hand with yours where it was tucked under your breast.

“Love you,” he murmured and you closed your eyes.

“I wanted to kill myself today,” you admitted quietly and Sam’s reaction was a slight stiffening of his arm around your waist, like he could anchor you from the thought. “I wouldn’t but -”

“I know,” he assured you.

Of course he knew. He was there most days with you. It didn’t matter if it was the best day on Earth, there were moments when you just didn’t want to exist. Didn’t want to feel your heart beating or your lungs inflating on reflex. You didn’t want to get up and eat or sleep or watch TV.

Nothing. You craved nothing.

This blogger remembers when we didn’t have AO3.

This blogger remembers when we had to put disclaimers at the head of our fics and pray that someone didn’t take it into their heads to sue us for what we created.

This blogger remembers brilliant artists and writers getting decades of work obliterated on LJ because someone who wanted to tell people what they were allowed to create went running to someone who wanted a profit, and told them the artists and writers had been naughty.

This blogger remembers just how hard the creators of AO3 worked to build the thing we all seem to take for granted now.

This blogger watched friends dive into the creation process so heartily and determinedly that they all but disappeared from the writing/gaming/artistic side of their fandom for YEARS while they worked to make the archive happen.

This blogger remembers the sense of giddy wonder that there would possibly be LAWYERS involved, willing to defend our right to create these works, and not leave us hanging at the mercy of corporate legal teams.

This blogger is aware that she reads between twenty to fifty books’ worth of material every year on AO3, and is never REQUIRED to pay a penny for the privilege of getting access.

This blogger is aware that she will not ever see advertisements on AO3, and that her personal data and reading preferences won’t be sold to advertisers in order to raise the money that AO3 needs to pay for the services they provide.

This blogger is aware that AO3 is, and has always been, a labor of love; by fans, for fans, and not for profiting off fans – and this is what makes it unique in the whole of the media universe.