The Sibling Gap

I've mentioned before that I have two older sisters, and I now have a nephew by each of them (D's baby F came on 24th July). By this, you can probably guess that there is quite the age gap between the three of us; in fact there is ten years, on average between us, I refer to this difference as the Sibling Gap

I love my sisters, but this gap does provide some different perspectives.
Out of my group of friends, I am one of maybe two who are the youngest siblings in their respective families. I've also noticed that there can be a semblance of resentment between siblings in some of my friends, especially the ones who are the oldest in their families.
I don't think I could harbour any ill will for long against my sisters, because since I was young, I've had an appreciation of my sister's time. I only actually realised the other week, but my eldest sister was doing her GCSE year the year I started in reception, so how she actually made time for a five year old whilst studying was amazing, so thank you! (I know she reads this)
My sisters both moved out around the time I was seven-ish, one to work, and another to university, so since then I've come to appreciate the time my sisters spend with me, because they both have their own lives to live; also, I can't exactly drive to see them or anything, especially seeing as one lives in Portsmouth, so I appreciate it even more.

I've also found that I'm learning a whole lot more about my sisters now that I'm older, because they were living their lives at my age whilst I was ten years younger, so I'm only now learning the antics of my sisters when they were in their teens, because I was pretty oblivious to all the stuff going on with them.

I've found that there are downsides to the Sibling Gap at the same time. First being, my sisters are adults, they're not dictated by the things that teenagers are, such as exams and the burdens of growing up. One thing I've realised since baby F was born that 'I'm next'; both of my sisters have had kids now, so if they have more, it won't be anything new (well, it will be, but you know what I'm getting at). That's kind of the feeling I have for the rest of my life now; finishing school, my sisters have done that, going on to college, one of them has done that, getting jobs that I'm good at, they've both managed that pretty well.

The Sibling Gap also means that I get a lot of advice, like a lot. A couple of years ago, I had a 'career' in fanfiction writing, which ended up witfh a lecture from one sister talking about the twilight fandom being weird and kinky (much appreciated, my tastes have changed, American dorito heroes are much better!)
Then when I first actually started with my internet presence on Google +, I had a lecture from the other sister. I greatly appreciate all the advice I've received, but also my sisters don't exactly say 'don't do this', more like 'you should probably stay away from this'. because I prefer to make my own mistakes rather than just take my sisters' words for it.

So yeah, I live in a very strange generation wapr, because I'm technically in the same as my sisters, but they were 90's kids and I was a noughties kid.
So, I should be working on some new, more beauty type stuff in the next couple of weeks before chol starts, after that I have no clue how busy I'll be, because of year 11 and controlled assessments and stuff. Here's hoping I won't be, because I love coming to my little corner!
Love you, Eve <3

Writing Wednesday #18 ~ Railroad

It was the railroad, he decided, that brought them together. A hodge-podge team who you wouldn’t see together on an everyday.
They were made up of a self-taught website hacker, a personal training nut, a frantic commuter, an army dropout, and a single mother of two.
He liked to think of them as the civilian Avengers, except the only thing they had avenged so far was a morning coffee run.
They had all met before; he had asked the hacker for laptop recommendations when he had needed a new one; the gym nut and army drop out had bonded over juice cleansing; the commuter and the mum had met in the ice cream aisle after a shared bad day.
They came together for the first time in the coffee shop, offered nods of acknowledgement, smiles tainted by 8am yawns of ‘what am I doing in civilisation at this hour’, raised eyebrows of agreement.
It was after that that they noticed each other’s presence in their lives; his niece was in the same class as the single mother’s twins; the website hacker’s brother had served alongside the dropout; the commuter and the gym goer worked only two buildings apart.
They didn’t do much; they weren’t the Avengers, much as he wanted them to be; they met for coffee whenever they could, arguing over this and agreeing over that.
Until the day it crashed, with him on it; the smiling high school teacher.
It was the railroad that brought them together, and it was the railroad that tore them apart.

* * *

I liked the idea of a railroad being the kind of catalyst that brings a group of people together, kind of like in the Railway Children, so I wrote it! Sorry about the ending, I just kind of felt it fit, and I couldn't shake myself from writing that last line, so it went in.

Got to take some pictures at some point tomorrow and Friday for posts to work on.

Also, if you haven't noticed the picture to the right, I am now on Bloglovin', which if you haven't heard of it, it's essentially a platform where you can save all the blogs you read, whilst also saving the posts you like into collections!

You can find my account here. Combining the followers I have on blogger, and on Bloglovin', we're up to around 44 followers, and no I'm not going to cross match followers, just let me be happy with my numbers :)

So, yeah, love you <3

Temporary Hiatus

A tragedy has befallen me!
You know when you've had your headphones for a while, and they only transport the sound if you bend the wire in a certain way? (side note, I recommend you look into 'bobinos', they're a device that you can wrap your headphones around, but they also come in different sizes for larger wires)
I discovered that was happening a couple nights ago...

To my laptop charger

As you can imagine, I was mortified. My entire life is quite literally within the hard drive of this laptop, whether it's stories I have worked/am working on, pictures from my primary school days, or just my itunes library.

I survived for a day twisting the wire to charge it. Until I lost the kink in the wire last night.

In a panic, I closed my laptop, not wanting to decimate the 38 minutes of charge I had left.

So I went to sleep. Until about 5 this morning when I began getting anxious over it , and paranoid, and also guilty; I'd looked up the cost of a replacement charger, and I honestly didn't want to have to ask my parents to pay for it, and this all kind of culminated so that I was up at 6 this morning backing a load of files into usb keys in the off chance that I lost all my files.

We do have a charger ordered, so I'm at rest now, and am simply anxious over whether it'll work or not!

So yes, back to the hiatus. To be quite honest with you, as handy as it is to blog from my phone, it's a pain in the arse, and I can only really stand it for small posts, like Writing Wednesdays, so I'll take this as a tiny hiatus until the charger arrives.

Remember I love you all, and back up your files for God's sake!

Would You Rather ~ Collab ~ The Terrible Tales of an Awkward Teen

 (Just lost half an entire post trying to correct some mishaps with highlighting D: WHY HAVE I NOT LEARNED TO SAVE SHIT!)

So today, I have a bit of a different post. A couple of weeks ago, I found another blogger through the Teenage Blogger Central community on google plus who was asking if anybody wanted to collab. So I checked out her blog, and I feel like we have quite similar senses of humour and writing styles.

This is with The Terrible Tales of an Awkward Teen, and she's going to be posting these questions also and her answers to them, but I suggest you check out her blog and share the Pen and Key love! (that was far too enthusiastic, it's twenty five to two in the morning, I'm sorry!)

Would You Rather?...

~ Spend a week without wifi or a week without blogging? (that means no reading other blogs or writing for your own)

I find wifi literally wherever I can, so I'd probably go mad without it. Maybe a break from blogging would give me some actually good ideas ;)

~ Be trapped in the last book you read or be trapped in the last tv series you watched? (for interest, what were they?)

Seeing as the last TV show I watched was Hair (I am eternally jealous of their skills), I'd have to say the last book, which was called Wild Designs by Katie Fforde, because Patrick Donahugh sounds hot (if I were Althea's age, not the age I am!)

~ Drive a motorbike or a car?

I'd love to ride a motorbike, but I barely have the centre of gravity to keep a pushbike stable, so a car would probably be safer for me and everybody in my vicinity.

~ Only listen to songs that were popular ten years ago, or only listen to songs that were popular fifty years ago?

I quite like the songs from 10 years ago, because my sisters were my age ten years ago, so I was influenced a lot when I was younger by their music tastes.

~ Spend the rest of your life living in small towns or big cities (you can still move around, just not from one to another)

I love small towns, because they adapt to the changing times. I'd love to live in a big city, but small towns have my heart.

~ Stay in school for the next 30 years or leave school after the 2nd grade?

In second grade, I knew how to add up and how to read, and that was it, so I'd have to say 30 years, as long as the curriculum changed, because I could not stand learning the same thing over and over for thirty years.

~ Live in a world with no problems or live in a world where you rule?

I'd say live in a world with no problems, because I'd probably start a load more if I started rulin

~ Be three feet taller or three feet shorter?

I like being relatively tall (though a lot of friends and classmates have grown taller over the years D:), so I'd say three feet taller.

~ Have hiccups for the rest of your life or itch you can't reach for the rest of your life?

Hiccups for me are physically painful, but at least itches can be tuned out eventually, so I'd have to put up with the itch.

~ Would you rather lose half your hair or half your hearing?

Hearing for me is pretty bad, my sister complains whenever I'm on the phone to her because I have to say 'what' a dozen times, and I've been wondering recently what I'd look like with shorter hair, so I'd lose half my hair.

So that's my answers to all ten questions, I gave the ones in bold, Awkward Teen sent me the italicised questions. If you want to see her answers, you'll have to check out her blog!

And hey, if you wanna collab with me, I've just created an email specifically for just that, so if you ever want to collab, guest post, or if you just need someone to talk to (I'm pretty sure I'm halfway to either a psychiatry or philosophy degree by now!), you can contact me at

penandkeyeve@gmail.com

Somebody's already taken penandkey, the nerve of some people!

But yeah, guess who's been on holiday for three weeks out of seven, and hasn't even opened a book to attempt holiday homework!

Have a good weekend everybody, sudden epiphany impending!

Love Eve <3

Writing Wednesday #17 ~ X-Ray

His gaze was an x-ray, however instead of stripping her of her clothes or a layer or two of skin, he saw beyond the facade, so skilfully crafted, yet so easily broken.
Was it wrong of her to want someone to see through it all? She had spent so long creating this persona, could she really throw all that time away the minute a person strolled by who knew what she was doing?
The first time, he asked her what her real life plans were, having listened to her drone on to a friend about studying something like law, or maybe human nature. He had leant over to her once her friend had turned away to natter on to somebody else, requesting the truth. One look told her he knew, and she might as well not bother lying when they both knew it.
That day became the first of many; whilst one answer was given, he would request the truth, and she would willingly give it.

The time they spent together was honest, until the time came whence she must choose.
While her suitor had already been chosen, he begged to know whether she would truly marry one who she did not love.
Her answer, her truth, was seen by his eyes in her regretful tears, that fell behind her bridal veil, as she said 'I do'.

* * *

This took a different turn to when I started writing this, but that was something like three weeks ago, so I'm sorry for that, the end of school and work experience had me busy, and I needed a week afterwards just to get myself together.
And then I went and missed Wednesday to post this, FFS Eve!

Five Nights at Freddy's Theories

I'll insert a disclaimer right here: I am in no way a gamer, the closest I've gotten to gaming is a DS Lite that's very nearly half my age (it's still going strong, though the left and right buttons don't work)

I'm also not one for scary games; I watched the Woman in Black once, three years ago, but am still scared shitless by it, and am horrified of dark corners due to what may be lurking in them.

However, Five Nights at Freddy's presents a mystery that just has me interested. I've been watching Markiplier play through the series; his reactions just feel genuine, and he sits and talks through his theories at the end of the videos.

Here's Mark's first video, as well as a playlist of all his Five Nights stuff

Also spoiler post has spoilers!

With four games available on Steam, Five Nights still has yet to see a conclusion, with a DLC to be released on Halloween of this year, which will hopefully carry some answers. Primarily, it's an indie game that just provides a good scare to the player, but intermingled into the scares is a story of a cursed franchise, each game presenting both answers and new questions that lead to one big mystery that is so utterly intriguing.

So today, I'm going to discuss my theories, and what I think is going on throughout the four games.

One thing that has been debated and redebated since the release of Five Nights 4 a couple of weeks ago is 'when was it set?'

(*Note* I'm sat watching Five Nights 4 whilst watching this, and the first jump scare just shocked me! I thought I was immune!)

We are misled in one of the 'between night' games by this image on the TV that reads Fredbear & Friends! 1983
However, whilst rewatching Mark playing Five Nights 2, I noticed something in 'Phone Guy's' dialogue in the extension of Night 6 (I found the transcripts *here*)

Night 6: Hello? Hello...uh...what on earth are you doing there, uh didn’t you get the memo, uh, the place is closed down, uh, at least for a while. Someone used one of the suits. We had a spare in the back, a yellow one, someone used it...now none of them are acting right. Listen j-just finish your shift it’s safer than trying to leave in the middle of the night. Uh we have one more event scheduled for tomorrow, a birthday. You’ll be on day shift, wear your uniform, stay close to the animatronics, make sure they don’t hurt anyone okay, uh for now just make it through the night, uh when the place eventually opens again I’ll probably take the night shift myself. Okay, good night and good luck.

While most have a tendency to overlook what the Phone Guy says (guilty!), I'd like to draw your attention to the point in his dialogue that I have highlighted. In Five Nights 4, each night has a precursor of 'x days until the party'. It is due to this tiny sentence from the Phone Guy that makes me believe that both Five Nights 2 and 4 run on the same timeline, or at least those precursor minigames do in relation to Five Nights 2.

Five Nights 2 is set in 1987, as we learn through the cheque awarded to the game's protagonist, Jeremy Fitzgerald at the end of his working week.
With my belief that Five Nights 2 and 4 operating on the same week, the bite that we witness after night 5 of Five Nights 4, truly is the Bite of '87 (or at least, that's what I think)

Onto the second question brought to light with Five Nights 4 of 'was it me?'. This question features in each of the teaser images released prior to the game.

Whilst some speculate that these ask the question of 'which animatronic caused the Bite?', who as we learn is 'Golden Freddy' (or Fredbear), however, could it also point towards the actual causer of the Bite. In the final minigame of night 4, we learn that it was the protagonist's brother who suggested he 'give Fredbear a kiss'; the protagonist's brother was wearing the Foxy head.

As a side note to this, I'm also currently watching The Game Theorists theories, and in the video surrounding Five Nights 2, we listen to the Phone Guy, who asks after Foxy, saying 'he was always my favourite', correlating with a theory I've seen elsewhere (no idea where) that the Phone Guy is the brother we see in Five Nights 4.

Does this also mean, according to MatPat's theory, that Phone Guy is the elusive Purple Guy? No idea!

A lot of my theories, honestly, are based on other theories I've seen/heard. My only true theory I haven't seen elsewhere is the Night 6 birthday mention. I'm going to wait until more FNAF 4 theories are seen, because I am in need of some closure here!

Anybody else hooked by the Five Nights Franchise? Got any theories? I'd love to hear them?

Love, Eve <3

P.S. Normal, none-gamey posts will resume with a Writing Wednesday (yes, I actually completed it!)

My Stance on Alcohol

As you may or may not know, I turn 16 in September, exactly 7 weeks from today. This will be my last birthday in secondary school, and as I haven't even figured out where I will be spending my sixth form/college years, I've decided I want to spend my 16th with all the people I'd miss if I weren't to see them again the next year, which comes to around a dozen people.

16 may not be the legal drinking age in England, but it does feel like a milestone, and with milestones, comes alcohol.

Since I originally mentioned the idea to some of my friends, and the fact that there may be alcohol present, they've been fixated on getting hammered (feel free to insert whatever verb you connotate with getting drunk here). I've been firm in trying to rehash that it'll be a small amount of alcohol, which in turn has made these friends want to see me angered by such statements.

I've used excuses such as 'I don't want to be responsible', 'it'll be me and my parents in the wrong with yours', 'there's a lot of stuff around you could get hurt on', but I'm going to be real with you, because that's what I do in my little corner of the internet.



I don't want there to be a lot of alcohol around, because I've never been truly drunk before, and am scared to be. I've had alcohol before, sure, I quite like rose, if I'm honest with you. Alcohol, however has always been something I've put off as something I'll try 'when I'm older'.

Except I am older, and I don't know if I want to be. On top of that, I've mentioned before that I'm a control freak, and the idea of getting drunk, and thus losing control because of that, it just isn't appealing to me.

Too long; didn't read: I've never been drunk, kind of scared to be; I should really reign in my control freak tendencies; my birthday is in less than two months!!!


I'd like to now take a moment to point you in the direction of a blog run by my dear friend, Jack. I've mentioned him a couple of times before, most notably in my Valentine's 'friend appreciation' post. He's one of my greatest friends, and I'd love to see him gain some visibility, because his writing style shows so much of his personality (I can hear him talking in every blog post).
Also, he's currently taking questions for a Q&A based around ear stretching, so if you have any questions, Jack can probably give you an answer!

That's it for now, but I have a couple of ideas for the next couple of weeks, ranging from beauty to gaming theories!
Love you, Eve <3