#//again that tag is there to cover bases since this is ideas *from* the cult

[photosynthesis-and-you]

i um i think maybe not all fairies are like that just maybe i mean i heard a lot about that stuff too but maybe some fairies are nice or nicer than that at least

👹-tell me of demons

The demons I know most about are Fairies. They're beings of life, tied to Xerneas, and they want nothing but for people to suffer forever without getting to die when it's their time. They'll steal your name, or trick you into giving everything to them, or take you away forever, and you'll never get to die.

[lake-arrius-caverns]

Nerevarine Rising

Chapter 4: Arkngthand

summary After a few days of guild work and running odd jobs around Balmora, Fahjoth’s thirst for adventure continues to grow. On being given an assignment to venture into a Dwemer ruin, he is elated — but is he getting ahead of himself?

content warnings mild threat/violence

tag list @boulderfall-cave , @padomaicocean (lmk if you’d like to be added!)

read under the cut or on AO3, cheers 👍

:: First :: || << Previous << || >> Next >> || :: Masterpost ::

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“I joined the Mages Guild.”

“You what?”

Fahjoth stood there, knee deep in the Odai River and grinned back at Ribyna, who was sitting on the bank sharpening a chitin dagger. He knew he had the dopiest, silliest smile on his face, but he couldn’t help it; Ribyna’s incredulous expression was tickling him. 

“The fuck have you done that for?” Ribyna asked. “The only thing you can cast is a shadow.” 

“Oi!” Fahjoth laughed, too accustomed to Ribyna’s mean teasing to take offence. “That’s why I joined it. I want to learn! You should join, too.” 

Ribyna grimaced. “Nah, you’re alright. Didn’t you join the Fighters Guild as well?”

“I did! I think that’s where I’ll be most useful,” Fahjoth admitted. “I might not be any good at magic, but turns out I can swing a sword decently.”

In the days that had passed since Fahjoth arrived at Cosades’ house, he had done as advised and set out to build up his strength. In addition to securing membership in — and running a few menial jobs for — the Fighters Guild and Mages Guild, Fahjoth had visited several of Cosades’ recommended trainers to get some practise in moving in armour and using larger weapons than the daggers he was used to. With the gold he had been gifted, he had even purchased a set of chitin armour and a gleaming steel shortsword for himself, which certainly came in handy when exterminating rats from old ladies’ homes. 

Today, he was to meet Cosades at noon to receive his first assignment. Fahjoth was even beginning to feel a little excited; this was the very reason he was here, after all. Who knew what thrilling mission Cosades had lined up for the newest Blades recruit? 

But for now, while the sun was up and basking Balmora in a warm early light, Fahjoth had taken the morning off and met with Ribyna to catch up and relax. She squinted at him, finally paying attention to the fact that he was standing in the shallows of the river. 

“Any particular reason you’re going for a paddle?” she asked, finally setting down her dagger and nodding towards his feet. “It’s not that hot today.” 

“I’m practising a water walking spell I got from the Guild,” Fahjoth answered happily. 

Ribyna raised a brow. “You sure that wasn’t a water sinking spell instead? ‘Cause if it is, you’re doing great.”

“Oh ha ha. It’s a hard spell!” However, Fahjoth was ready to admit defeat for now, emerging from the river and sitting beside his twin to let his feet dry off in the sun. “So, what’ve you got planned for today?”

Ribyna shrugged. “Not much. I’ll see if Habasi wants anything doing. What about you? You off to see this Cosades bloke?”

“In a bit,” Fahjoth said. “He’s got my first job for me today, apparently.”

“Juicy. So are you gonna tell me what it is you’re doing now?”

“You know I can’t.” 

Ribyna turned to Fahjoth, her face falling into a rather petulant frown. “You‘ve never given a shit before. Come on, can’t you just tell me? Not like I’m gonna tell anyone, is it?” 

Fahjoth sighed, trying to look as sincere as possible. “I’d love to tell you, Beebs, honestly. I would. But Cosades made me swear to secrecy. I’m not allowed to tell anyone.”

Ribyna was quiet for a moment. “Is it really that serious?” Then she laughed. “I mean, it’s not like you’re a secret agent for the Emperor, is it?”

Fahjoth forced a laugh, feeling wildly uncomfortable all of a sudden. “Hah! Wouldn’t that be mad?” Partly for a distraction, he shielded his eyes and glanced up at the sky. “Anyway, I should probably get going. Don’t wanna be late for Cosades,” he said, as he replaced his boots and hauled himself to his feet. 

“Alright.” Following Fahjoth’s example, Ribyna stood up and stretched with a dramatic groan. “I’ll see you later then. If you’re free, meet me in the South Wall Cornerclub this evening? I’ll get the first round in.” 

“Sounds good!” Fahjoth agreed with a grin, patting his twin on the shoulder as he set off for Cosades’ house. “See you later.” He turned and waved over his shoulder as Ribyna called back to him. 

“Bye, Fahji. Good luck!” 

 —————————————————————————————

As Fahjoth let himself into Cosades’ house, he was unsurprised now to find the older man completely shirtless yet again. In fact, it was a rarer sight to see him actually wearing anything over his chest. 

“You’re early,” Cosades remarked. “Good, that shows eagerness. Are you ready for your first task?”

“Yessir!” Fahjoth confirmed, trying to curb his enthusiasm and resisting the urge to salute. 

“Excellent. Here’s what I need you to do.” Cosades handed over a scrap of parchment, upon which instructions had been neatly scrawled — fairly useless to Fahjoth, as his reading ability was no better now than it had been when he had first arrived. He took it regardless and waited for Cosades to continue. “Go talk to Hasphat Antabolis at the Balmora Fighters Guild. Ask him what he knows about the Nerevarine secret cult and the Sixth House secret cult. You'll have to do him a favour first. Probably an ugly favour. But do it. Then get the information from Antabolis and report back to me.” 

Fahjoth paused, the spark of excitement that had been burning in his chest shrivelling up and dying within seconds. Disappointed didn’t even begin to cover it; he had been expecting daring missions full of adventure and maybe a little bit of danger to get the blood pumping. Instead, he was being sent to... gather intel? 

Well, there’s a bit of glamour in that, in a way, Fahjoth reasoned to himself as he made his way over to the Balmora Fighters Guild. Learning about secret cults was sure to be fascinating — not that he had any idea what the ‘Nerevarine’ or the ‘Sixth House’ even were. Still, it must have been important — to Cosades at least, if nobody else — and Fahjoth was determined to make his first assignment a success.

Hasphat Antabolis was, thankfully, easy to locate, standing in the base of the Guild in discussion with another member. Trying his utmost to seem polite and professional, he approached the Fighters Guild’s Drillmaster and waited for Antabolis’ conversation to end. 

“Good day, Associate,” Antabolis greeted, turning to Fahjoth once he had finished. “What can I do for you?”

“Hi, sir. I’m actually here on a job from Caius Cosades,” Fahjoth explained. 

“So you're with Caius, eh? Let me guess, he wants information?”

“Yes sir.”

“I see.” Antabolis didn’t seem overly surprised. “Of course, there's a this-for-that involved here. I’d like to ask a favour first, and then I'll tell you what you want to know.”

Fahjoth had been expecting that. “Of course, sir,” he said, wondering what kind of favour Antabolis was looking for. Maybe to run some shopping errands, or to take some armour to be repaired?

“There are Dwemer ruins nearby called Arkngthand. I need you to run over there and find me a little copper cube. It's called a ‘Dwemer puzzle box’. Bring me back the box, and I'll tell you what you want to know.”

Fahjoth’s smile slipped for a moment as he realised what Antabolis had asked of him. “A Dwemer ruin?” he repeated, beginning to feel that flicker of excitement again — accompanied by apprehension, of course, but he pushed that aside. After the rigorous training he had received, an expedition into some Dwemer ruins was bound to be a breeze!

“Yes.” Antabolis began tracing the approximate shape of the cube in the air with his fingers. “It’s a little cube, about the size of a fist, maybe a little bigger. It will have a circular design, symbols on one side and some lined marks on the others. That's all I want, that little cube. You probably won’t even need to go venturing too deep into the ruins. Can you do that for me, Associate?”

Fahjoth nodded, feeling a wave of hopeful determination flooding his chest. “Yes sir! I’ll head there right now.”

After lingering for long enough to commit the instructions regarding Arkngthand to memory, Fahjoth set off, stopping at Cosades’ to collect his armour and sword before strolling out of Balmora on his next adventure. The sense of trepidation persisted, but it was drowned out by Fahjoth’s overwhelming curiosity and eagerness to explore new places and put his new skills to the test. It was just an old, uninhabited ruin, after all — as long as he was careful, he should be just fine.

Plus, he did have some experience with old ruins; he and Ribyna had ventured through the weathered stone doors of ancient Ayleid ruins back in Cyrodiil, with a group of friends from the Waterfront. Granted, they had barely gone deeper than the entrance hallway, but still! That had to count for something.

Fahjoth’s good mood only continued to grow as he reached the crest of an earthy hill, the vegetation having grown more and more sparse the nearer he got to Caldera. Once he spotted the Dwemer bridge, he couldn’t hold back a jubilant grin. He’d made it! Perhaps it was his euphoria at having successfully followed directions, but even the broad metal bridge itself had a certain rustic charm to it, despite being coated in a layer of dust and dirt built up over the years. Each footstep caused a reverberating clang to echo over the crevasse beneath, which Fahjoth peered down at with interest as he crossed, running his fingertips over the brass handle and feeling its mild, sunkissed warmth against his skin. 

Once he reached the other side, he was plunged into the shadow of Arkngthand. For a few moments, he was struck silent with awe at the sheer scale of it, the surrounding hills dotted by colossal turrets jutting out of the earth — and that was just the part he could see. From his position outside, all seemed still and quiet, but if he strained his ears and listened, he could hear something from deep within the ruins; the soft whisper of steam and a slow, gentle rumble that caused the hairs along his arms to stand on end with anticipation. And here was a scent that hung faintly in the air, growing more potent the closer in proximity he got to the ruins — a strange earthy yet metallic tang that lingered in his nose and even left a hint on his tongue. 

He recalled Antabolis giving him advice, suggesting that there would likely be an external mechanism to power the door. Fortunately, Fahjoth didn’t have to look too far before his eyes fell on a rusted metal wheel protruding out of the ground, which was somewhat stiff but still mobile. And once Fahjoth succeeded in twisting it, he heard the unpleasant groaning of metal and looked up just in time to see the ruin’s spherical entrance gliding open, revealing a door leading into what he assumed was the entrance hall. To his alarm, the rotating sphere began to slowly shut again, and so Fahjoth leapt into action and hurtled in through the entrance before it was sealed once more, assuming — and hoping — there would be some kind of opening mechanism on the other side. 

Once inside, Fahjoth’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the gloom. Along the dim hallways, strange elongated lights were fastened to the walls, casting a warm orange glow with which he was able to navigate. It didn’t escape his notice, however, that several wooden boxes and containers lined the halls, upon which candles sat — many flickering with a small flame. That seemed very unusual for somewhere that was supposedly uninhabited…

Then, he froze as it slowly dawned on him that Antabolis had never once claimed that Arkngthand was uninhabited. That was entirely Fahjoth’s own assumption.

And with that his confidence evaporated in an instant, to be replaced with a heavy apprehension that he could not shake. The ambience of the ruins only exacerbated his nervousness; now that he was inside, he could hear the clanking and groaning of ancient Dwemer machinery all too clearly, along with the occasional hiss as a puff of steam escaped from a loose joint in a brass pipe, both of which provided a constant, repetitive backdrop of noise that was impossible to ignore. Every so often, a much louder clunk or creak echoed through the tunnels, and Fahjoth flinched and froze, half-expecting the rusted supports holding up the dense stone walls to finally give way and collapse overhead. But there was no turning back now. He needed that cube.

The air now was stifling; warm, stale and thick with the acrid taste of metal, and only getting worse the further and deeper he delved into the ruins. Fahjoth began to feel beads of sweat gently dripping down his forehead and back, making him cringe with discomfort. With caution he pressed onwards, frequently pausing and straining his senses to listen out for any sign of life. And soon, it reached him; voices, coming from an area just up ahead, chatting amongst themselves and apparently oblivious to his presence. 

Fahjoth soon left the corridor and found himself overlooking a vast chamber, cut into the ground itself with stone slopes leading down to the base and up again on the opposite side to a second floor built into the cavern wall. Neither slope looked particularly structurally sound, and he grimaced at the thought of trying to sneak down undetected. So instead he stopped to listen, hoping to glean any information from the two men — an Imperial and a Redguard — loitering around a collection of boxes on the rough, stony ground beneath him. 

“How long are we staying in this shithole anyway? It’s fucking roasting in here.”

“No idea. Long enough for us to find enough Dwarven shit to make a profit off of, I guess. Since Crito’s found that weird cube, he reckons there’s more lying around that the right people will pay a fortune for.” 

“Really? He’s still holding onto that junk?”

“Yup. Keeping it in the safe room up there. He seems to know his stuff, so maybe he’s right.”

“Maybe. I still think we’d have been better off raiding a tomb, though.” 

As the men continued to debate the merits of sacking an ancestral tomb over looting Dwemer ruins, Fahjoth had his answers at least. The Imperial below had pointed upwards as he spoke, gesturing to a doorway on the upper floor of the chamber across from where he stood, which was as good a hint as he was likely to get. But even armed with this information, he was still faced with the issue of how to actually get himself over there without being noticed. He’d never been a particularly skilled sneak, but just maybe— 

“Come on, I’m sure there’s some flin ‘round here somewhere. I’m sure nobody’ll miss it if we just take one or two bottles.” 

Fahjoth could scarcely believe his luck. As the men began to amble further away and rummage around in some crates in the alcove beneath the second floor, he took his chance. As light-footed as a cat, but with less than half the grace, he scrabbled down the slope to his right, occasionally gasping and half-running as he felt rocks and soil shifting beneath his boots. It was with relief that he reached the ground, but there was no time to hesitate — within seconds he had crossed the chamber and was ascending the second slope, having to use his hands for balance as he clambered up the dilapidated ramp. At last he reached the next floor, where he was faced with another circular bronze door which he fully expected to be locked, but to his surprise, it swung open as enthusiastically as he pushed it with scarcely a creak. Clearly it was in frequent use. 

But as Fahjoth took a single step into the room, he found himself face to face with the largest Imperial he had ever seen in his life, whose broad shoulders were barely contained by the iron cuirass he donned. For a few moments the two simply locked eyes and stood in silence, both rather stunned by the sudden appearance of the other. Then, with a ferocious yell, the Imperial grasped the gleaming handle of a nearby battleaxe and swung it at Fahjoth without hesitation. 

With only a second to react, Fahjoth threw himself to the ground, panic wiping his mind completely blank. His first instinct was to flee, but now the man stood between him and the doorway, and there were no alternative means of escape that he could see. As he scrambled to his feet, Fahjoth leapt back as the man came lunging at him again and again with his axe, horrified by the determination on the Imperial’s face as he made one attempt after another to cleave him in half. 

The room, cluttered as it was with crates and stacks of shelves, was definitely not spacious enough to keep up these kinds of manoeuvres. Fahjoth’s only saving grace was that the man, in his heavy armour and wielding his cumbersome battleaxe, was far slower in comparison to him. But the man also had the advantage of both facing ahead and knowing the layout of the room. Continually driven back by the pendulous momentum of the blade, Fahjoth’s heart leapt into his mouth as his heel suddenly collided with a small box on the floor. With an almighty crash, he plummeted straight to the ground, bashing his shoulders on a brass pipe mounted on the wall behind him.

He risked a glance upwards. The axe blade was poised high in the air once more, ready to come crashing down over his head and split his skull into two. With blood pounding in his ears and adrenalin flooding his system, Fahjoth launched himself into a clumsy barrel-roll, tumbling past the Imperial’s legs a mere heartbeat before the axe fell upon the pipe that he had been leaning against. 

There was an ear-splitting shriek of metal on metal, but that barely measured up to the scream of the Imperial as a scalding jet of steam suddenly erupted from the broken pipe, filling the room with a hot, dense white fog within seconds. Fahjoth didn’t stop to check on the state of the man as he heard the axe fall clattering to the floor — his only goal was to escape. Squinting through the mist, he dashed around the scattered shelves and crates and hurtled towards the door, but as he neared it, something caught his eye. 

A small bronze cube sat innocuously on a row of shelves to his right, and Fahjoth’s heart skipped a beat. Without pausing to examine it, he grasped the little box tightly in his hand and threw his whole body weight against the door to shove it open. 

What he hadn’t been expecting was the door to smack the Redguard from earlier in the face, knocking him back against the wall with a yell and leaving him in a dazed slump, blood already pouring from his now crooked nose. Which meant that—

Sure enough, the first Imperial stood slack-jawed at the top of the slope, flabbergasted by the sudden appearance of a strange Dunmer. It didn’t take long for him to recover, however, and Fahjoth’s breath caught in his throat as he saw the man reaching down to his waist where a dagger hung in its sheath.  Fahjoth didn’t hesitate; driven by sheer desperation, he charged straight ahead like a wild guar, bashing his shoulder hard against the Imperial’s as he legged it haphazardly down the rocky slope. There was a yell and a dull thud from behind him as the Imperial, pushed clean off the edge of the slope by the force of Fahjoth’s bash, collided with the ground, and Fahjoth could hear only too clearly the enraged shouts of a number of men from behind him as they began to give chase. He didn’t look back. 

With his gaze fixed ahead of him and mouth dry, the beating of his heart as well as own footsteps ringing in his ears, his face feeling hot and his lungs cramping as a result of the sweltering atmosphere in the subterranean ruins, Fahjoth put his every ounce of strength into fleeing. With the head start he had secured he was able to bolt up the opposite slope, clambering up into the entrance tunnels and sprinting the length of the dimly lit corridors to the exit. At last, he turned a corner and Arkngthand’s entrance, his passage to the safe haven that was the outside world, suddenly popped into view. He stopped only to twist the copper wheel powering the entrance mechanism, his hands slippery with sweat yet whizzing around faster than they had ever moved in his life until, with a telltale groan, the spherical door ground open and daylight flooded the gloom.

The voices behind him were getting louder, their vicious insults and threats echoing through the tunnels, and though Fahjoth’s muscles were screaming for respite, he didn’t halt. He took off, rushing out into the fresh air, where a cool breeze caressed his clammy skin as his hands worked to spin the outside wheel powering the door machinery. Glancing up, he saw two figures come loping through the darkness of Arkngthand’s tunnels — before the door rasped shut once more, obscuring them from sight completely. 

As dearly as he wished to collapse into an inert heap on the dusty ground, Fahjoth knew he couldn’t relax yet. It would be seconds before the men — looters? bandits? smugglers? — reopened the door and resumed their pursuit of him. So it was with trembling legs that he trotted down the hill back towards the bridge, breathing a sigh of relief as no sound to indicate that he was still being chased reached his ears. 

Finally, he began to feel as if he could slow down. Now, with the adrenalin beginning to subside, he was left acutely aware of the stitch tearing up his midsection and each step felt almost torturous. The fog of panic was beginning to dissipate from his head, leaving him able to think clearly at last.

He glanced down at the cube in his hand, cold and surprisingly heavy now that he really focused on it. He examined the inscriptions donning the sides, feeling a stab of anxiety— what if, after all that trouble, he had picked up the wrong cube? But the more he scrutinised it, he realised it was more or less a perfect match for Antabolis’ description. And then came the overwhelming euphoria. 

He’d done it!

A grin spread across Fahjoth’s features as he gazed at the cube, so wide it almost hurt his cheeks. His first mission had been a rousing success — alright, it had been far from perfect, but besides a few scuff marks on the chitin of his armour, it was near impossible to tell that he’d even faced a struggle at all. And surely his superiors didn’t need to know about his unfortunate encounter. Why, he hadn’t even used his sword—

Suddenly, Fahjoth threw up a hand and slapped his forehead, eyes squeezed tightly shut in annoyance and embarrassment. Blinded by fear, he’d completely forgotten about the perfectly good weapon that hung in a sheath from his belt. But the more he thought about it, the more he realised that he and his shortsword may not have been much of a match for the brute of a man wielding a battleaxe anyway. At least, not yet. That was something to focus on in training. 

An echoing clang roused him from his thoughts and announced that he’d set foot on the bridge, but as Fahjoth looked up, he was surprised to see a man standing ahead. He’d been so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he’d completely failed to realise that he wasn’t alone. He wasn’t alarmed to see the grey-haired Imperial, but he did wonder what the older gentleman was doing out here in the middle of nowhere. 

“Ah, don’t mind me!” Fahjoth called to announce his presence, holding up a hand to signify that he was not hostile as he began to stride across the bridge. “Just, uh, heading home—”

His words abruptly died in his throat, however, as a pulsating ball of blinding light suddenly erupted from the man’s outstretched hand, hitting Fahjoth square in the chest and flinging him to the ground like a ragdoll. He yowled in pain as the electricity coursed through his body briefly before dissipating, leaving him gasping for breath and struggling to regain full control of his limbs. The Dwemer box had been thrown from his hand as he fell; it lay around two metres away, between himself and the battlemage, whose hand pulsed with a sinister indigo aura as a walking skeleton clutching a war-axe suddenly materialised into thin air beside him. 

“What are you doing—?!” Fahjoth yelled, wheezing after the collision with the hard metal base of the bridge knocked the air out of his lungs. “I’m not— I don’t want to fight you—!”

But the Imperial didn’t seem to be paying any heed. He summoned another spell, a blistering ball of flame that he launched at Fahjoth, who managed to avoid it by a whisker by frantically rolling to one side, although he still felt a scorching wave of heat as the fireball exploded on the spot where he had been lying a mere second prior. Scrambling to his feet, panic building once more, Fahjoth was faced with the man preparing another spell and the skeleton, an actual intact human skeleton, loping towards him, brandishing its rusted blade and its bones creaking as they scraped against each other with every movement. For a split second, Fahjoth’s hand twitched towards his sword — but another convulsing ball of sparks coming his way dissuaded him from that idea completely. This was certainly not a battle he had any chance of winning. 

He lunged for the ground just as the skeleton swung its axe for his head, and Fahjoth felt the blade skimming the top of his hair as he narrowly missed being struck by it. With fumbling fingers he grasped the cube and heaved himself back to his feet, dancing backwards to avoid the spells still being flung in his direction and to put as much distance as possible between himself and the skeleton. Except, now, he had another issue; his opponents were in the middle of the bridge, obstructing the way ahead and preventing his escape. Thinking fast, there was only one thing for it; Fahjoth clambered over the metal railing at the side of the bridge, desperate for an alternative escape route. He was close enough to the start of the bridge, it probably wouldn’t be too far a fall—

But the moment he put both feet on the railing, he felt himself losing his balance on the rounded surface. He had just enough time to catch a glimpse of the side of the crevasse below, the walls of which were much steeper than he had anticipated, before he lost his balance completely and felt himself plummeting down, his stomach lurching up sharply as he descended. With a strangled yelp he hit the rocky sides of the cleft and tumbled down the rest of the way to the base, almost choked by the dense cloud of dust he had disturbed on impact with the soil. Once again adrenalin overtook him, lending him the strength he needed to drag himself to his feet and stagger the width of the crevasse and over to the other side, his grazed fingers still firmly clutching the precious cube. He felt more than heard the crackling of spells as they went whistling past his head, and a scuffing against the ground behind him indicated that the skeleton had followed his path down into the chasm. Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself into beginning the arduous climb back to the top of the crevasse, scrambling up the rock face and skidding on loose dirt before finally emerging at the top. From the corner of his eye he could see the battlemage running the length of the bridge, trailing Fahjoth like a hungry wolf while still firing hostile spells at him as he gave chase. 

With one last burst of energy Fahjoth broke into another furious dash, bolting down the hill and sprinting along the path he now found himself on. He didn’t stop to look back, to check if he was being followed. His only objective was to return to Balmora as fast as possible. His lungs screamed with every frantic gasp of air he drew in, his heart hammering against his ribcage and reverberating dully between his ears. It was only once he passed under the arch at the town entrance and fled into the sanctuary of Balmora did he finally stop, and, in a haze of pain, exhaustion and sickening dizziness, he promptly fell to his knees. 

As he kneeled there on the dusty ground, struggling to get his erratic breathing back under control, it was a few moments before Fahjoth could even begin to process his thoughts again. The first thing he noted was that he was safe now; he was back in civilisation at last. Numerous guards patrolled the streets, their helmed faces occasionally turning to look at the outlander collapsed into the dirt — probably with disdain but that was the least of Fahjoth's worries right now. With his chest feeling as though it was on fire, burning up from the inside with every inhalation, he closed his eyes and let the pleasant warmth of the late afternoon sun wash over him, easing the tension in his aching muscles. Finally, his breathing began to slow, allowing for more thoughts to surface in his troubled mind.

The truth had hit Fahjoth like a warhammer to the face. Today had been nothing short of a disaster. It was almost laughable to reminisce on how excited and confident he had been when he initially departed from Balmora. He struggled to believe that mere hours ago, he thought he was prepared for anything. What a ridiculous notion that was. How could he have been so naive? If that was only the first assignment Cosades had given him, he believed wholeheartedly that he needed the blessing of the gods to survive what else might lay in store. 

His eyes fell down to the little cube he still clutched in his bloodied hand, the sight inspiring bitterness in his sore chest. First things first, he needed to return it to Antabolis; truthfully, he would be glad to see the back of it. The last thing he wanted was a reminder of how disastrous his little mission had gone. With embarrassment and misery now settling in his gut and pain racking him with every movement, Fahjoth dragged himself to his feet and finally limped his way back to the Fighters Guild for a less-than-triumphant return. 

[vampireacademysims]

Scrapped Story Challenge

I got tagged by @skyburned​, thank you! <3

The Rules:

Post a few screenshots from a scrapped scene / edit / story!

Share why you scrapped this specific thing

Tag five friends, and watch the fun play out!

As for the Vampire Academy comic, I don’t actually have many scrapped scenes/edits, I actually only found one XD I tend to plan everything as to avoid wasting time on things I’ll not use, so I guess this was an exception.

This is the full panel that got cut to only focus on Rose’s face, back in chapter I - page 7 (top right). After the wasted time editing the whole thing to just use a bit of it made me rethink how I was doing things, so I plan better now. As for scrapped stories.... oh boy, sit down and have some popcorn XD Since it’s not VA related, I’ll put it under a cut. It’s trying to keep the comic going that is hindering alternate projects, but it’s nothing too new if you fallow my other Tumblr... unless you read to the end.

I don’t want to say these are scrapped stories.... more like, Temporarily In Limbo Projects:

The NaNo-born HP thing.

Before I started the VA comic, I nearly started a comic about an original story that was born in a NaNoWriMo over 10 years ago. It was a sort of alternate future of OCs I had in a Roleplay in back in the day, set in the Harry Potter universe. I never finished the story - 250 pages in English and 3 chapters away from finishing it to this day =’). Once a year I go back to read it just to feel the cringe.

What stopped me was all the extras I’d have to edit in, mainly cloaks and robes - because everyone had cloaks/robes, dragons (even if only for a chapter... 6 years ago no one had converted the dragons to sims 2 yet) and the hair of the protagonist. So I started VA instead, because it felt easier.

The AU Slice of Life thing.

From time to time, on my reblogs tumblr, I post images from the most “recent” OCs from the last roleplay I was in - I like to roleplay, ok? Once on FB a friend had posted a link to one of those online generators, there was one about generating demons and I tried it out. Funny enough, the very first result I got remembered about me about my character Thea. So I jumped to Sims and tried to make her as a demon, based on what the generator gave me and this was the result:

This was the first pass at the idea, but I wanted a tail and different feet...

And so came the no.2 pass, that I’m still sort of working on in the background. I liked this idea, placing my characters and the characters or my friend in a different setting. I wanted to write that story, but I needed the input of my friend and she doesn’t seem very interested, so I dunno if I’d be able to write a full story, I need her to bounce ideas with. Then I thought to just make slice of life images, the cool parts I have in my head, without having to layout a whole story. Again, problem would be having to edit things in, mainly tails (all tails would have to be hand painted in), feet aaand in the case of one of my friend’s girls, wings would have to be edited in. Oh and clothes. I don’t think finding decent harem style clothes is easy even today.

The I-Was-14-and-Wrote-Detective-Stories thing.

I got my first PC in 1996/7, no internet those days. And after I finished watching the last episode of a Brazilian soap opera about a female detective (A Justiceira), I decided create my own female detective and write stories. I wrote the 1st story in one hour and it only had 7 pages (in which I believed that American female detectives sporting midriff tops and high heel shoes to active work was completely normal). I still have those printed 7 pages XD And the cover I made for the book lol Only one friend of mine has ever lay eyes on those stories. It started all good and well, robberies and murders and stuff, but fast I branched out to human cloning, space travel, time travel, genetically altered wolves, alien abductions, religious/alien cults in Mexico, plane crashes, ghosts and an incident during the Paris-Dakar event... I was a huge X-Files fan at that time and got hugely influenced u_u I had 22 books planed, I wrote from 1997 to like 2003-ish if memory serves. Only finished 11 while the others stand in various degrees of scattered notes. As mentioned before, from time to time I go back to read it all and feel the ultimate cringe and wonder what I was on back in the day. It’s completely insane at times, but maybe with a bit (A LOT) of polish I could make something out of it. If nothing else, maybe remake the book covers in the Sims because back in the day it was only MS Paint and some cartoons on Powerpoint that I stripped and drew over on paint with a mouse to draw the covers and other scenes. It’s hilarious looking back at how dedicated I was, hot damn! I made wallpapers, Win95 desktop themes, Winamp skins, you name it XD That female Detective was the very first of my OCs and I never made her in the Sims correctly, maybe I should look into that because all I have to show for her is this XD Covers ranging from 1998 to 2003 (I only learned about Photoshop in 2005).

So these are my dirty little secrets that I might or might not one day act upon. Here, have a cookie if you made it this far. As for tags, people who have stories going probably have stuff to show so, @grecadeasimsstudios​, @esotheria-sims​, @veninorchid​, @quiddity-jones​, @cindysimblr, @grisdidthis​​ :P Again, if it is not your cup of tea, it’s ok :)

[sentientpaperbag]

So this not only ended up being longer than I meant, but most of it is lore related because I changed some stuff involving the lore of magic in this universe. So you get to learn about Dark and Light Husks a little more

Also i might have gone on a bit and rambled in the tags, whoops~

Under the cut!

                                                           --------

Zonta was tired. She’d gone a little overboard with the spellcasting practice. She just desperately wanted to get her spells right without causing too much trouble. She knew using Dark Magic was dangerous, and usually using it as much as she had would result in some form of permanent change in her appearance or even becoming a Dark Husk.

But... she hadn’t had any side effects. She was actually, weirdly enough, good at it. To her knowledge, every witch had a specific form of magic that they excelled in. For example, Zonta knew a nice girl who lived outside of town in the forest, and her specialty happened to be plant based, although she usually used mostly fungi.

Zonta, however, learned pretty quickly that she was very good with Dark Magic. It wasn’t necessarily forbidden, but it was frowned upon to use this kind of magic, due to the very dangerous consequences of overuse.

Zonta supposed it could be worse. She could be in the cult of Light Magic. Or she could be a Light Husk, those were far worse than a Dark Husk, and Zonta decided long ago that if she ever turned into a Husk, she’d go for the less depressing Dark version. At least that way she knew people would leave her alone.

“What exactly are Light Husks again?” Markus, who had come over to help her as best he could with her practice, had absolutely no idea how magic worked. Zonta liked being able to explain things to her friend, even if he didn’t really get it. She supposed it was only fair, however. After all, she hardly knew how werewolves worked and he had done his best to explain that all to her.

“Light Husks are people who used Light Magic. It’s far more powerful than Dark Magic,” she explained, “It’s also more unstable. If you have to use any kind of frowned upon or illegal magic, it’s better to use Dark instead of Light, even if people seem to be more scared of the former.”

“So since it’s unstable it’s easier to turn into a Husk, right?”

“Mm-hm,” Zonta sat down on the long couch in her living room, propping her feet on her friend’s legs as he sat down beside her, “Light Magic, being incredibly unstable and dangerous, usually tends to turn a person into a Husk pretty fast. You get like… the weirdest God complex, too. I went to a gathering with some other witches one time, and there was a Light Husk there in this like… I wanna call it a tube but it wasn’t really one. Anyway, they were in this anti-magic container thing, because if a Light Husk got loose, the world would probably be in a shit-ton of trouble. Light Husks have a whole cult following, cuz they’re usually thought of as godlike. It’s… really creepy, actually.”

“Yikes.”

“Exactly. Anyway, this Light Husk was a woman, probably like… three, four years older than us, and she’s all glowing and ethereal and it’s absolutely terrifying. But like… these people are coming up to the container and they’re asking questions and she’s answering them and her voice is absolutely mesmerizing. Really echo-y and unearthly. Honestly if she looked more like a horrifying creature made of eyes and flaming wheels and wings she could have passed as what people thought angels looked like. I don’t like it. People are obsessed with Light Husks.”

“I hope there’s not that many out there…,” Markus looked a little worried for a moment. Zonta smiled reassuringly at him, shaking her head.

“Nah, there’s like seven. After the seventh person turned into a Husk, people kinda realized that hey, this shit is dangerous and probably lethal, let’s not turn ourselves into ethereal beings of light and energy.”

Markus frowned, lost in thought for a moment. Zonta glanced out the window behind them, silently thinking her own private thoughts, mostly about how grateful she was that the two of them were comfortable with one another to talk about the less appealing sides of their abilities.

“What about Dark Husks? Are you worried about becoming one? If you use your magic too much, I mean,” Markus finally said.

“I mean, I used to worry about it. But I usually can feel when I’m going a little too far and I think that stops me from going overboard. So it should be fine, as long as I remember to take breaks and stuff. Gotta let my magic replenish or I would definitely turn into a Husk.”

“What do they usually look like?”

Zonta shuddered, thinking about the depressing forms she once saw roaming the countryside, “They look like ghosts. Or at least what I think ghosts look like. To my knowledge, Jason is the only one who can see the dead, and I’m too afraid to ask if they look like Dark Husks.

“But they like… they have hallow eyes and sunken cheeks, their bodies are usually thin and bony. Their whole body takes on a monochromatic color scheme that matches their magic. So, for example, if I turned into a Husk, my body would turn different shades of purple,” she explained, shrugging slightly.

Markus tried to envision that for a moment, furrowing his brows together. Zonta thought he looked cute when he tried to imagine something she explained. He usually looked very serious like that.

“You keep furrowing your eyebrows like that and you’ll get a crease in between them,” she teased. He relaxed his face, a small smile forming.

“I think you’d be a pretty color, but I also think you’d look scary if that happened,” Markus said.

“You think my magic color is pretty?” Zonta tried to stay calm, her heart fluttering. Usually her magic color bothered people. Magic usually was a bright color, but hers was a darker purple, almost an indigo of sorts.

“Well yeah. I mean… I think your magic is cool. And the color is kinda nice, it suits you.”

She smiled, “Thanks dude, that means a lot to me. Usually when people find out my magic color, they freak out. And then, when they find out I specialize in Dark Magic of all things, they start thinking I’m like, evil or something.”

“Do you know what kind of magic your dad did?”

She shook her head, “My mom said she can’t remember, and he left before I was born. She told me she just remembers what color his magic is. It’s red. I’ve never seen that color for magic before, it’s kinda unique. Like the dark purple for my magic. Guess weird colors run in the family.”

“Maybe he did Dark Magic like you and that’s why you’re good at it.”

“Haha, maybe.”

Zonta fought the urge to yawn, her eyes heavy. She wanted to keep talking to Markus, but she had really worn herself out practicing.

“You look tired, Hummingbird,” Markus said softly, “You should probably rest.”

“Nah, I’m.. fine,” she mumbled. She knew she needed to rest, she just didn’t want to.

“At least close your eyes. You can still talk to me, but with your eyes closed.”

She complied, closing her eyes. It was fine for a moment until she felt fingers gently brush across her face and her eyes shot open.

Markus looked embarrassed, “Ah, sorry. Should’ve said something. You had a stray hair in your face and it was bugging me. You can close your eyes again, I won’t do that without asking next time.”

She chuckled, shutting her eyes again. She tried not to think about how soft his fingers had been when they moved across her cheek.

“Your accent popped out for a minute there,” she said, laughing when Markus replied, “Howdy, ma’am,” in the most Texan accent she’d ever heard.

“Hey... If I fall asleep, don’t let me sleep too long. I have to make dinner for my mom when she gets home in a few hours. The flight she was supposed to work on next got cancelled or something, so she gets to come home for a few days,” Zonta mumbled, her words slurring a little as she felt sleep start taking over.

“Or, you could sleep and I could make your mom something. She knows you practice a lot and wear yourself out, I’m pretty sure she’d be fine with my cooking.”

“She liked that one thing your mom made,” Zonta replied, opening one eye slightly, “Those tamale things. They were really good.”

Markus grinned, “I told you. You didn’t wanna try them.”

“I didn’t wanna end up not liking them and disappoint you.”

“You could never disappoint me, Zonta,” Zonta felt her face heat up at how sincere he sounded. She opened her eyes fully, sitting up a little more and moving slightly so she was closer.

“That’s nice to know,” she said quietly, wondering if what she was feeling was genuine or just because it’d been so long since she’d dated that any form of kindness from a cute guy sent her into a romantic frenzy.

He smiled gently at her, pushing her slightly on her shoulder so she was lying back down, “You need to rest, Z. Close your eyes again.”

“Fine,” she mumbled, “Hey, you think you could you try teaching me Spanish again sometime?”

“Only if you try teaching me how to dance.”

Zonta snorted, “You have two left feet.”

“And you can’t roll your R’s.”

“That’s fair,” she laughed.

Her mind started wandering as she felt sleep start drifting over her again. Her mind drifted to thinking about what holding Markus’ hand would be like. It was such a specific thought, and she was fairly certain it was because she was a little touch starved, but she just wanted to hold his hand sometimes.

She was half tempted to say something, but felt herself grow nervous at the thought of asking, instead opting to stay quiet.

She felt herself drifting off to sleep, and she swore she heard Markus say something, but her mind was foggy and she was pretty out of it. She felt herself growing limp as sleep overtook her, and she hoped that maybe she’d have a decent dream for once instead of the weird and sometimes frightening dreams she commonly had.

Markus quietly and gently moved her so her legs weren’t on him anymore, and he found one of the small blankets she kept around the house, covering her with it. He smiled softly at her and walked into the other room to go find something to make for her and her mother when she returned home.

[chyrstis]

OTP Questions Meme

Tagged by @faithchel​​​​ and @shelliechen​​​​! You’re both awesome, and thank you! I’d also like to apologize for taking an eternity to think this over and fill it out, because that probably means I overthought every last question that popped up. XD The worst part is that I’m probably going to come back to this list later for a few other pairs, but that’s neither here nor there.

Tagging: @sharky-broshaw​​​ (I kind of want to subtly peer-pressure you into doing this for Audrey/Troy, by the way) @amistrio​​ @shallow-gravy​ @ma-sulevin​​​​ @geronimo-11​ @guileandgall​​​​ @teamhawkeye​​​ @jackalopestride​​​ @honesthearts​​ ​ @risenlucifer​​​ @fromathelastoveritaserum​​​ @raisinghellinotherworlds​​​ and @naromoreau​​ ! But no obligation’s ever intended (and since this is a long one, doubly so this time around), and anyone else that’s interested you can totally snag this as a free tag. <3

It’s always tough to figure out which ship to focus on, but I’m going to have to focus on Hana/Sharky here. :D

Art by the lovely @nihildep​!

DISAGREEMENTS

Who is more likely to raise their voice? Sharky’s naturally a loud talker, but it’s more likely to be Hana here.

Who threatens to leave but never actually does? Neither. Sharky’s got a person that actually seems to actively want him around, and Hana’s got someone determined to have her back no matter what, and for either of these two, they’d never try to threaten that. Even if annoyances ever reached a peak, Hana would head off to cool her head, and Sharky would do the same – while probably setting off a controlled fire if he's able to get away with it.

Who actually keeps their word and leaves? Neither!

Who trashes the house? They’re both accidental house trashers, with Sharky’s tendency to call her over to show off something cool really a 50/50 shot that disaster’s about to strike.

Do either of them get physical? Absolutely not. There’s a playful swat to the shoulder at times, and Hana’ll poke a finger in his chest, but never to harm.

How often do they argue/disagree? It’s pretty uncommon, with most spats having to do with concern over being separated (this is a pretty big sticking point with Sharky), and the dangers of the cult. Then it’s minor stuff that’s almost petty, like practical safety, needing a fire extinguisher whenever fire’s involved, and someone deciding not to wear a seatbelt.

Who is the first to apologize? Sharky. It’s a knee-jerk reflex for him, unfortunately, and Hana works like hell to make sure he doesn’t try to shoulder that responsibility every time.

(additional questions under the cut, but the sexy(?) ones are first if anyone wants to dodge them)

SEX

Who is on top? Neither are very picky, so while Hana may end up on top, they switch pretty frequently, and she loves having him up and over her too.

Who is on the bottom? See above!

Who has the strangest desires? I honestly want to say they’re both pretty run of the mill here, but aside from a particular *coughs* item of Sharky’s that’s about it.

Any kinks? Nothing too out there, really. And that’s the extent of detail I feel like going into at this moment. XD

Who’s dominant in bed? Sharky’s all too glad to let Hana have the reins if she wants them.

Is head ever in the equation? Absolutely.

If so, who is better at performing it? *waggles eyebrows* Let’s just say that Hana’s happy Sharky’s comments proved to be pretty legit. And the fact that he’s all too eager and glad to doesn’t hurt one bit.

Ever had sex in public? Not intentionally...? Sneaking around the bunker’s the worst they get up to, along with trying to see how discrete they can be in a tent. The answer? Not very. And there might’ve been a time up at Moonflower where a night spent watching the stars got a little friskier than intended. Neither complained much, though.

Who moans the most? Both, because they’re awful.

Who leaves the most marks? Sharky’ll leave plenty without thinking twice about it.

Who is the more experienced of the two? They’re fairly equal, but Hana might edge him out here by a sliver.

Do they ‘fuck’ or ‘make love’? Make love. They’re total saps, so no matter what there’ll always be a soft edge to any fucking taking place.

Rough or soft? Mostly soft, but sometimes quick and rough’s just what the doctor ordered.

How long do they usually last? It comes down to how long they have, where they’re at, and how desperate they’re feeling, so it’ll vary plenty. But when they want it to last, they try their hardest to.

Is protection used? Hana’s got an implant to cover their bases, but they try to use condoms whenever they can find them.

Does it ever get boring? No, Sharky’s up for anything as long as she’s happy, and Hana’s determined to make him feel good in as many ways as humanly possible, so it’s on.

Where is the strangest place they’d have sex? I actually thought for a long time it would be the damn boathouse at John’s ranch, because the singing bass being there amused me too much not to (and that’s entirely where the boathouse idea for I won’t ask for much came from), but they may just surprise me yet. 

FAMILY

Do they plan on having children/or have children? Hana was on the fence about it for a while, worrying if she would even be a good influence to any kid she’d have (and always felt guilty that she gave her mother too much hell). But she grew more comfortable with the idea once she volunteered to babysit Carmina a couple of times, and after she and Sharky discussed it properly, making sure that nervous as they were, it was something they were actually on board with.

Sharky was much warmer to it at the start, but never knew if it’d be in the cards for him, and didn’t give it much thought until he caught Hana being adorable with Carmina too. But it stuck with him for a while until they sat down to talk it out.

If so, how many children do they want/have? They end up with a little girl that loves working in the explosives lab with her dad, named Gabby. Xena was their first pick, but Hana talked Sharky into going with Gabrielle instead, b/c she’s also a badass, and Xena Boshaw/Voy’s a little over the top. I’m actually thinking they might have a little boy as well, which was a bit of an epiphany the other night, but we’ll see where that leads!

(there’s also one another theoretical kid, but that involves Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Questionnaire, and maybe if I’m feeling ambitious later on, I’ll tackle this again for the three of them)

AFFECTION

Who likes to cuddle? Both! They’re constantly on the verge of cuddling before making it official, so the minute it happens, it’s an absolute free-for-all, taking all the comfort they can from having the other wrapped around them.

Who gets naughty in the most inappropriate of places? Sharky.

Who struggles to keep their hands to themself? Sharky.

How long can they cuddle until one becomes uncomfortable? It takes a lot for either to want to move, but Hana’s probably the first to say uncle, because after a while it’s like spooning an oven.

Who gives the most kisses? This might be pretty even as well, but Sharky loves giving her a small peck (and a bigger one if he can get away with it) whenever he’s coming and going, and it’s no surprise to Hana at all to be 100% focused on working only to have Sharky stop by and press a kiss to her hair.

What is their favourite non-sexual activity? Talking, and curling up for a movie marathon. They could seriously do that for hours on end, and if they can pull together a bunch for a theme, even better.

Where is their favourite place to cuddle? The room’s Hana’s renting out above the Eagle is likely the safest bet. Other than that, any place that’s able to give them more than five minutes of peace at a time.

How often do they get time to themselves? Not much as events keep on progressing, and things really amp up. But the moments that they can slip away, they always try to make count.

SLEEPING

Who snores? Sharky. Hana might a little from time to time, but it’s not common.

If both do, who snores the loudest? Sharky.

Do they share a bed or sleep separately? They totally share a bed.  They’ll share a sleeping bag, the floor, damn near anything.

If they sleep together, do they cozy up together or lay far apart? While it might not always start off that way at first, they’re magnets, with one or the other curled up close before the night’s out.

What do they wear to bed? Before they’re together, just regular things, but together, it’ll vary wildly depending on safety level. If they had their way, nothing much at all.

Are either of them insomniacs? Once things kick off, Hana’s sleeping patterns come dangerously close to this, keeping her up later and later as time goes on. With Sharky close however, it’s easier to relax and ease off of the thoughts that keep her up and they’ll often try to talk as much as possible, easing any nerves he’s feeling too. If he notices her shifting around and struggling to nod off, he’ll hold her close and rub her back, her shoulders, anything until he’s sure she’s managed to fall asleep. And even if she isn’t, he’ll try to stay awake with her as long as possible.

Can sleeping pills be found by the bedside? Nope! Hana would probably consider taking them if she had a prescription, though. Or if she could find any, but medicine’s pretty damn scarce.

Do they wrap their limbs around each other or just lay side by side? Someone’s getting wrapped up in the other, guaranteed.

Who wakes up with bed hair? Hana wins this, because she’s got more for one, and it’s infamously messy upon waking if she doesn’t tie it back.

Who wakes up first? It’s a toss up, but usually Hana, and it’ll be to check the radio or go over the maps she’s set on marking up.  

Who prepares breakfast in bed for the other? ‘Breakfast’ is oftentimes a pack of jerky or a snack bar, but Hana will try to surprise Sharky with them as soon as he’s awake, while he’ll try to hunt her down some coffee.

What is their favourite sleeping position? They’ll curl up next to each other, only to become a tangle as the night goes on. Or until someone’s got an arm or leg that’s fallen asleep.

Do they set an alarm each night? If they have a clock nearby, Hana will try and set one, and tries to limit smacking the snooze button to once or twice.

Can a television be found in their bedroom? In the bunker when they’re able to borrow one, they do. There’s nothing like being able to kick back with a movie, only to either fall asleep or get a little frisky during it.

Who has nightmares? Hana. They’re not persistent, but there’s a period of time where she’s unable to sleep through the night only to have that waiting for her.  

Who has ridiculous dreams? Both, but Sharky wins this one.

Who sprawls out and takes up most of the bed? Both, but Sharky’s actually pushed her out of bed while resting before, and much as she’s teased him about it, he did warn her.  

Who makes the bed? …Neither.

What time is bed time? Anytime they’re too dead on their feet to do anything else.

Any routines/rituals before bed? Nothing fancy, though if they have access to a shower, they’ll definitely try and use that to unwind.

Who’s the grumpiest when they wake up? Hana, because leaving a warm cozy bed, with an even warmer, cozier person in it’s not easy at all.

WORK

Who is the busiest? Hana.

Who rakes in the highest income? Hana.

Are any of them unemployed? Sharky’s got spells where he is, but tries to find work when he can and when people will take him.

Who takes the most sick days? Sharky doesn’t get sick days with most of the jobs he takes, and Hana tries not to use hers a bunch, so that would probably go to her by default?

Who is more likely to turn up late to work? Sharky, probably due to accidentally sleeping through any alarm he’d set.

Who sucks up to their boss? …Hana. Not that she’s trying, but she really doesn’t want to make a bad impression on Whitehorse, and the moment he tells her to relax and ease off a little because she’s doing fine, she’s more than a little mortified.

What are their jobs? Junior Deputy and unofficially Local Pyro/Fire Enthusiast.

Who stresses the most? They both downplay the things that are stressing them, Sharky more so than her which isn’t great, but I think Hana’s more overt about it.  

Do they enjoy or despise their careers/occupations? Sharky’s pretty enthusiastic about what he loves, and Hana’s happy enough to see what it’s like in her mother’s shoes, but it’s a lot to live up to, and she’s trying.

Are they financially stable? What with their current situation being as it is, they’re doing pretty okay for themselves.

HOME

Who does the washing? It’s a switch off! Though Hana takes point, and wonders how the hell Sharky always seems to run out of underwear so fast.

Who takes out the trash? They do it pretty regularly, but only after drawing straws for it.

Who does the ironing? *laughs* Hana hasn’t seen an iron since her last hotel stay, and any iron Sharky has has likely been repurposed for any of a number of his extracurricular activities.

Who does the cooking? They switch off even though they’re both pretty rowdy in the kitchen, but Sharky’s actually pretty good at cooking over fires, and she’s decent enough at reading the instructions on stuff before nuking them in the microwave, so it’s not a total disaster.

Who is more likely to burn the house down just trying? Sharky, Sharky, Sharky. Hana’s had some fun times with unattended cigarettes too, but she’s trying to do better, darn it.

Who is messier? It’s close, but Sharky.

Who leaves the toilet roll empty? Sharky. (Hana: :-/)

Who leaves their dirty clothes on the floor? Both of them are equally guilty.

Who forgets to flush the toilet? Let’s be real, Sharky would, but it’s a work in progress.

Who is the prankster around the house? Sharky gets the edge up on her, but Hana’s also a decent contender here.

Who loses the car keys when it comes time to go somewhere? Hana. She’ll feel for every pocket, thinking it’s the right one only to realize she’d left them in the very spot she swore she’d never forget. One time Sharky did have them, however, and sticking her hand in his pocket to check while he was teasing her about losing them shut him up pretty quickly.

Who mows the lawn? Honestly, neither. But if he did, she’d get in more than a little watching during it.

Who answers the telephone? Hana.

Who does the vacuuming? Either if they remember to do it.

Who does the groceries? It would’ve been Hana, mostly because while she could eat her weight in pizza, snack cakes, and burgers, it’d probably send her straight to an early grave if she wasn’t careful.

Who takes the longest to shower? Hana, and if she gets a hold of him, they’ll stay in there until the hot water runs out, easy.

MISCELLANEOUS

Is money a problem? No, not with the direction things end up heading.

How many cars do they own? Ideally Hana would have a motorcycle (she sold hers to help make the move easier), and possibly a car to go with that. Sharky would also have a very ancient and beat up sedan, but the poor thing didn’t survive the cult’s nonsense. Hell, it barely survived him.

Do they own their home or do they rent? I’m not sure if Sharky officially owns his house or just rents from Adelaide, but once they’re able to head out of the bunker, it’s all free real estate. Hana had an apartment, but that went up pretty quickly once things went south.

Do they live in the city or in the country? Country. Hana misses the city, but the change was sorely needed.

Do they enjoy their surroundings? Sharky’s lived there his whole life, and likes it well enough. Hana’s trying to get used to the quiet, and the smaller numbers of people she runs into, but it’s a needed change. The city was getting to her for a while, and having time and space to think and breathe was the way to go even if she did do it on impulse.

What’s their song? There’s definitely more than a few! And this isn’t all of them either.

The Trammps - Disco Inferno (I can’t not include this) Journey - Any Way You Want It Queens of the Stone Age - Make It Wit Chu Queen - Don’t Stop Me Now

What do they do when they’re away from each other? Miss the other terribly. Hana checks calls to see where there’s an area that might need her, and tries to stay busy just so her brain won’t go into overdrive. Sharky talks to Hurk and Adelaide (and Nick over at 8-bit), sneaks back up to Moonflower every now and then, tinkers with his flamethrower, and makes a boatload of explosives. There might be more than a little joyriding involved, but that’s entirely to go on a…testing run. He’s got to see if what he’s making actually works, right?

Where did they first meet? Right at Moonflower when Hana charged on in only to wonder what on earth this guy was doing, lighting everything in sight on fire with a smile a mile wide.

Who spends the most money when out shopping? Sharky, probably would’ve. Mostly because he’ll impulse shop like no one’s business, and grabs beer, handfuls of chips, jerky, lighter fluid, matches, etc.

Who’s more likely to flash their assets? Sharky. Mostly on accident because he’ll strip down at a second’s notice. Not that she’s complaining.

Who finds it amusing when the other trips over themselves? Hana loves the moments when he gets tongue-tied, and he gets an equal shot in whenever he aims a compliment at her. Now, Hana’s a bit more danger-prone in terms of actual mishaps (she’s fallen out of a window, almost driven off of a cliff, sprinted down a ravine, etc), but once it’s determined that everything’s fine, they both get in a solid laugh.

Any mental issues? Anxiety, depression, varying levels of ADHD, and a few others I haven’t nailed down directly.

Who’s terrified of bugs? Hana’s a bit, but it all comes down to which kind.

Who kills the spiders around the house? Hana would prefer Sharky did at times, but he’s got...’methods’ of doing so that might not be the best. Hairspray and a lighter, included.

Their favourite place? Watching the stars up at Moonflower, and the room above the Spread Eagle.

Who pays the bills? Hana’s got a more stable income, so she would’ve front-loaded it, and also remembered the deadlines, but Sharky would pony up the cash as soon as he has it.

Do they have any fears for their future? They both mainly live in the present, but much as she’d like to deny it, Hana’s terrified of Joseph being right. Of the end, of being wrong and being the one to doom them.

Sharky’s main fear that he tries to keep buried deep is being abandoned. Of losing his family and Hana during any point of this, and being the only one left on keep on going.

Who’s more likely to surprise the other with a fancy dinner? Define fancy. Because Sharky’s ambushed her on the road with a bottle of home-brewed liquor, three packs of jerky, and a couple of snack cakes before, and Hana hardly gave him a chance to say something before she’d tackled him and kissed him all over.

But in all seriousness, Sharky would attempt it, and pair it with a movie he’s 99% sure she’s already seen and would be fine with watching again for the fiftieth time, and she’d love every second of it.

Who’s the tallest? Sharky.

Who’s more likely to just randomly hop into the shower with the other? A little of H, and a little of S. They both love taking the chance when it’s possible. Even if Sharky’s shower has no business having two people in it.

Who wanders around in their underwear? Both, the only difference is that Hana tends to limit that to the times where it’s just the two of them one-on-one. Sharky’s nowhere near as restrained or self-conscious.

Who sings the loudest when singing along to the radio? Sharky beats her out by a sliver, but it’s always a joint effort, and Hana loves it.

What do they tease each other about? Anything’s really fair game between them since it never gets mean. He loves ragging on her about her cold hands (and holding them) and her driving. She loves poking at him about his need to boogie (and waits a solid minute before trying to join in), and how he can’t whisper to save his life. But the one time he joked about revoking her ‘Brian’ card due to drifting them straight into a ditch, she was not having. :’)

Who is more likely to cringe at the other’s fashion sense at times? Hana, though it’s mostly to get him wearing anything other than his hoodie of choice some days. 1) it needs to be washed, and 2) it’ll fall apart at the rate he wearing it (and the things he’s dodging)

Who crushed first? Sharky. It took him very little time, but was one of those ‘Man, I think you’re neat, but we’re friends, and I’m not into you unless you’d be cool with me being into you. But...would you totally be cool with me being into you, because I’d love if it if you were’ type moments, and this was just his internal narrative for a long while.. He also strikes me as the kind of person that easily gets friend-crushes, so the flirting’s easy enough to downplay until someone actually shows interest and he fumbles through it even harder. Hurk’s also cornered him more than once on this subject and given him the talk, but not a single one’s been successful.

Hana is equally guilty of friend crushes, except she’s more than willing to cram herself into the denial corner for as long as possible, which leads to this simmering for an absurd amount of time.

Any alcohol or substance related problems? They both drink, Sharky more than her by far, but it’s still within semi-reasonable levels.

Who is more likely to stumble home, drunk, at 3am? Both of them together. It’s a joint effort, because no good round of karaoke’s possible without it!

Who swears the most? Sharky. It’s just flows right out of him without even trying.

[headoverhiddles]

Hide Your Hand - Marilyn Manson x Reader [Smut]

Synopsis: You can throw your rock and hide your hand, working in the dark against your fellow man. As sure as god made black and white, what's done in the dark will be brought to the light. 

Notes: Started this when the God's Gonna Cut You Down video came out, and it's been a while, but I rewatched it and finished this! The ending is kinda up for interpretation. Also, this is kinda based on the idea that this video is a sequel of sorts to Man That You Fear. Enjoy! 

Tagging: @blueinkblot​ @antichristsuperslut​ @skin-slave​ @peachynun​ @plagued-rat​ @livelifewondering​ @elrosew​

His eyes open.

The lids crack with falling dust as he attempts to move his head, but notices white plastic in his peripherals. Confirming his suspicions, he finds his limbs packed too tight to move as well. Flexing the muscles in his shoulders and making fists, he begins to rock, the necessary evil of desert dirt filling his mouth as he cracks his confines. Tattooed fingers break ground, and blunt fingernails pick their way out of the makedo grave.

Thankfully the coward who buried him didn't do a very good job. Then again, not many people expect a dead man to emerge from the dirt, especially when they can't see past the ends of their noses. A reanimated corpse would have given whatever bastard who did this a heart attack; then he'd be the one holding the shovel.

Shaking the dry dirt from his black hair, he tries to remember why he was buried in the first place. It's as if he's half brain dead-- or half his brain hasn't been awakened yet. Every time he tries to think of his past, it's as if a mental dam would go up, blocking him access. But it isn't mechanical-- no, he is the opposite of mechanical. He is biodegradable, or he should have been. The only undeniable clarity in his mind is one single fact: he should be dead, and he should've stayed dead.

Seeing as it isn't really an option to get back in the hole and cover himself up again, he starts walking. He has hopes that this was some kind of underworldly mirage in a sea of punishment, that he'd wake up and see some nightmare only he would be capable of dreaming up. But thus far, the devil wasn't popping up to laugh in his face, so he supposed he could stop being so cynical.

Once bitten, twice shy.

Why the fuck is that? Who had done the proverbial biting? What had happened, and how had he awakened? He lets out a long sigh, the air in his lungs brittle and unnatural. What he does remember of his life before, is there was an element of relief found in simple country indulgence. Whoever he is, he recalls the taste of whiskey sour and the satisfying singe of burning herb on his tongue, filling his mouth, filling his dry lungs.

He has to find a bar.

 -

You feel like the ice box in front of the motel you passed on the highway: melting slowly in the desert heat.

A single coin, older than three of your lifetimes, tumbles down your fingers like a staircase, swiped up into your palm and placed again at the top. The pure silver glints under the bar lights, and your drink is placed in front of you.

"On the house," the bearded man, who was as close to a modern day cowboy as he could get, smiles at you. You tip your wide brimmed hat. Nobody questioned why you were wearing a hat and dark glasses inside, or why you had taken the very end of the bar, farthest away from everyone. Southwestern places like this get people from all walks of life passing through, and people, in general, were all just as fundamentally odd as they pretend not to be.

Finally placing the coin heads up on the cracked wooden table, you swirl your drink and observe.

Something had drawn you to this town. Last time you had contacted the other world, they had directed you here, and though you hadn't studied the occult for long, you understood that that many signs, from the living world or otherwise, meant something catastrophic had just happened out here in the desert. You'd wait it out, and see if whatever it was would come to you first. You can already feel it, whatever it is-- you can feel the energy, and it makes you shiver. Fermented hatred, violent impulse, and bitter restlessness buzz beneath your skin, and you're dying to figure out where-- or who-- this bad mix of hoodoo is coming from.

-

A white pickup truck, damaged by some kind of weather, sits abandoned on the side of the road. He looks around, and as he suspected, there isn't another soul as far as the eye can see. That, by his standards, makes this his pickup truck.

As if a gift from god, the keys are still in the ignition, and he doesn't have time to worry about the two bloody bullet holes in the seat. He drives out of there in a cloud of dust, hoping for civilization.

Civilization, and people.

He suddenly swerves violently, eyes snapping shut.

He had a wife. She looked somewhat like him, only more feminine. Her name was Marilyn.

He wore a hat. He had long hair back then, hair that would get tugged in moments of passion and brushed in moments of vulnerability. Soft hands interrupted rivulets of warm water cascading down his back as he sat under a showerhead and let tears fall.

He lived in a small community. A cult created out of fear. A pointing finger, blindfolded shot caller.

He had been a scapegoat.

Bare chest, open palms, and a deep, aching pain, repetitive, blood running down into his eyes, until...

Those eyes snap open, and he swerves back onto the road. Narrowly missing a white painted cross, he looks back to see a graveyard.

"Marilyn," he says to himself. His voice sounds like paper ripping, and he coughs, growling a little until his throat begins to feel normal again. He still doesn't remember what they called him, or who he properly was... his wife wouldn't be needing her name anymore, since she must be long dead; he decided it suited him.

 -

The sun is just going down over the Mojave hills as you finger the black crystals dangling between your breasts. Whatever it is, it's taking its time.

Licking a small sheet of rolling paper, you fill it with some of your own homegrown bud, and strike a match off your boot.

"You waiting for someone?" the bearded cowboy asks you, and you recognize the charming glint in his eye as someone who's barking up the wrong tree.

"I don't know yet," you reply honestly, and leave it at that. The man presses.

"What do you mean? You've been sitting here all day." He leans in. "My name's Shooter. What's yours?"

"Call me Clint Eastwood, cause I'm the Woman With No Name," you answer drily.

"Hey now..." Shooter leans in, "It would just break my heart if a pretty little lady like you got stood up... left lonely for the night."

You meet his gaze. "I'm far from lonely. And the night is far from over."

Just then, a breeze blows the door open, and someone walks in. It's a man in a white wife beater and a plaid button up over it, jet black hair covered in dust and dirt. His eyes are dark, just like the rest of his aura, and you're drawn to him. This is him. This is the feeling.

He sits next to you at the bar, but doesn't look over immediately. First, he checks the place out... then his eyes land on you.

"Thirsty?" he asks. You nod, smiling.

The twitch of his lips carve a mysterious half smile in his face as he lifts his fingers to catch the bartender's attention. Not like he hadn't already.

A drink is placed in front of you, not on the house as it was when you were "lonely and pretty". The man takes his own glass of dark amber liquid. Nursing his own poison and seeming to revel in it, he lifts it to his lips. You notice the alchemical symbols tattooed onto his fingers. 

"Marilyn," he glances up, catching a newspaper clipping of the old Tate murders glued to the wall, "-Manson."

"Manson," you nod, "I'm (y/n) (y/l/n)."

"Pretty name." You wait for the "for a pretty girl", but that part never comes. You tilt your head, intrigued.

"Where are you from?"

He gives a mirthless chuckle, voice still caked with dust and the unfortunate secret that he had just freed himself from his own grave. "I have no goddamn idea where I'm from."

Now you're very interested. “You have amnesia or something?”

He considers this. “Maybe. I just woke up this morning in a body bag out in the middle of devil’s asshole, Nevada.”

“Sounds like someone tried to kill you,” you say softly, heartbeat picking up. He drains his glass, pushing it forward for another.

“Mhm. The strange part is, it feels like they succeeded.” The crystals hanging around your neck begin to warm against your chest, and you look down. He spots your dwindling joint in the nearby ashtray, and sees that half of it is ash now. “If you’re not gonna finish that, hun,” he nods to it. You gesture to it for him to take. He does, studies you, and puts it to his lips. His eyes squint through the haze, and his mouth opens in an ‘o’ to free the smoke. You feel a different sort of warmth fill you.

“You live here?” he asks.

“No.”

“Why you here?”

“I felt like I should be.”

He looks around slowly. “Sure. This is really the place to be, huh?” A fly lands on your glass, and a bearded guy burps over by the cobwebbed jukebox. You look down, smiling.

“I have my reasons.”

He watches how your lips graze the mouth of the glass, leaving a faint red imprint. He feels something rouse inside of him. Now that drinking’s out of the way, he’s suddenly reminded of another need. But he's not certain how everything's working just yet... best to make sure. Shooter fills up Manson's glass again, turned away but intent on eavesdropping.

Manson lifts it to his lips, drinking the Tennessee Whiskey down like it's water from a mirage. Finally, he decides he can trust you.

"I have something inside of me," he murmurs. You rest your elbow on the bar.

"Like what?"

"A sort of intuition. There's somebody I need to kill. Lots of people." 

"I hope you don't mean everyone in this bar," you joke.

He smiles, looking down. "Wouldn't kill you. And that guy over there by the jukebox looks like he's on a mission from God to drink the most whiskey any man's ever drunk, and I'm not about to stop him on his righteous path."

You laugh. "I think you're well on your way to getting there first."

He looks back down to his now emptied glass. "That's another thing. I can't even feel the effects." He cocks his head. "Fuckin' awful. That was the best part about living."

"Was?" you ask in amusement.

"I'm telling you. I can't be alive. Something brought me back, and it's not for good."

"That's it," Shooter says, loading a rifle from behind the bar and pointing it at Manson. "You two take your devilspeak and you get the hell outta here before I blow you away." Manson lifts his eyes to Shooter, taking in the man's much smaller form. He stands, and it all happens in a blur. You snatch the rifle in what can only be described as symbiotic intuition on both your parts, and Manson rushes Shooter, grabbing him by the vest and pulling him over the bar.

"M-Mister I'm--" the bartender begins to say, but Manson impales him with a sickening crack on the deer antlers hanging on the wall below the Budweiser sign.

You pass Manson the rifle, watching the drunk in the corner try and decipher what just happened. He's no threat. Manson slings the rifle over his shoulder, and grabs the bottle from the other side of the bar, drinking from it. He passes it to you, where you’re standing, leaning with your back against the bar. You take the bottle, swirling your tongue around the top, before drinking. You watch the body drip blood from where it’s hanging. He watches you.

 As he stares at your lips, the need building inside of him is almost undeterrable. He remembers what it was like before, to be deep inside a woman, to get everything he can take from a willing, welcoming girl.

"What makes you tick?" he murmurs.

You exhale. "I'm certain you could find out."

He drives toward the address of the motel you had given him, shotgun in the backseat for safe keeping, and parks the truck in the front. You unlock the door, ignoring the strange look from the motel owner, and let Manson in. He sits down on the edge of the bed, and you take your jacket off. Sensing how he reacts to that, you pause, and begin to unbutton your shirt. You turn to him, and take the rest of your top off. 

Manson stares, watching every movement closely. You take off your shorts slowly, and your panties with it. Soon, you're fully naked, and his breathing has increased. He's aroused even more when you walk toward and get in his lap on the edge of the bed, breasts pressed against his chest. 

He brings his hands up to feel your back, and smooths them all the way down to your ass. You straddle him, helping him take his shirt off. You trace his mosaic of tattoos with your fingertips, and cup his cheeks, pressing your lips to his. They're dry, cracked, but you don't care, and neither does he. He kisses back, and a surge of violent desire prompts him to pick you up, clearing everything off the table and sitting you there. You help him work at his pants, and he finally gets them down just enough to lay you on your back on the table and push into you.

You groan, reaching down to help yourself along. He takes a black rosary hanging from the TV set, and ties your hands together with it, keeping them above your head. You whine as he fucks into you, moans increasing as he touches your clit. He uses one hand to massage your breasts, giving attention to both, and his hips stutter. 

"It's... okay," you breathe out, "You can..."

He grunts, but refuses to cum before you, no matter how long it's been. He picks you up and moves you to the bed, lying you on your back. Your hands fist the sheets as his lips move down your body, pressing kisses down your chest, between your breasts, to your stomach, sucking hickies down your inner thighs, licking down your legs to your feet. Then he finally kisses back up to your pussy, watching the wetness leak to the mattress.

"I want to hear you," he rasps, and you sigh, appreciative noises building as he darts his tongue out to make small circles around your clit.

"Oh," you whisper, "Oh yeah."

"Louder," he growls, licking faster.

"Please, please!" you whine, "Right there!"

You cry out loudly as he brings you to the edge of your peak, but he disappears from between your legs before you can cum. Disoriented, you wiggle your hips, but look up to find him standing at the foot of the bed. He tugs you by your ankles down to where he is, and lifts you up. You arch your back in relief as he slides his cock back into you, like it’s your lifeline. That's all it takes for you to come undone, crying out his name as you cum on his cock. 

"Baby, baby... so good," he grumbles, drawing out almost all the way and slamming back in deep. He keeps up his bruising, thorough pace until he too becomes erratic, leaning his head back and groaning your name. You feel him finish inside you, and sigh contentedly, spreading your arms out. 

He drops your legs, and you crawl back up to the pillows. He lays down on the other side of the single bed, letting you cuddle into his space. Your head rests on Manson’s chest, as you close your eyes and search for the stranger’s heartbeat. 

You're awakened from your dreamlike state as you notice he doesn't have one.

--

It's 3 am. Hours have gone by, and he can't sleep.

He realizes, hands behind his head, that nobody who killed him is still around. They all must have died years ago, that he would be chasing ghosts. That's just what he was... a ghost. Or a demon. Maybe he was the devil himself. Sooner or later, he knew that the darkness would return. It came for them, it would come for him. 

He turns to look down at your sleeping, naked form, and strokes you. You look like an angel, sleeping on a halo of the hair spread out over his chest. He defiled you last night, spread his darkness over you. 

Maybe he wasn't a scapegoat after all. Maybe he deserved everything he got. Maybe he wasn't an avenging angel. Maybe he was chaos on earth, brought back for a short time. But his feelings, his human urges were so real when he felt them raging through him. He felt like he needed to kill everyone who wronged him, but he didn’t know how to find them. So many unanswered questions, and the sun would rise on them all in a few hours.

The dim TV with the rosary draped over it glitches, and turns from snowy static to a black fuzz.

-

You wake up in the morning, and find that the spot next to you is empty. You expected that-- the man was on a mission, but it was a nice detour. Still, you get up, and look out the motel window. 

That's strange. His car is still there. You start to search the bed for your panties, but stop. There's a strange dust left in his side of the bed, and a note on the bedside table. 

You can run on for a long time, but sooner or later God'll cut you down.

- The Stranger

[angrylizardjacket]

people change {Vince Neil}

@champagneandspice asked: hey! I adore your writing!!! could u please do a one shot but in the form of an article ? you’d be writing it as if you worked for people magazine or something like that. could u pls write ab the “speculated rumors” ab vince and I dating are true?? u could insert pictures or whatever u like. thank u <3

A/N: 2065 words. I love!! This style!! Of Writing!! also probably not what you were asking for, but i had fun and i hope you do too. i really sort of like this world/reader persona i’ve built?? i even added a few pictures for effect lmao. hope it’s enjoyable. i don’t usually do tags for one-shots but @cosmicsskies and @crazylittlethingcalledobsession asked and im too giddy to refuse.

WHAT THE F*** DO YOU THINK? - Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts newest guitarist Y/N Y/L/N spotted getting cosy after Crüe’s Atlanta show last Saturday? Does this hint at a collaboration between two bands, or is this more personal than professional? [Read more on Page 10...]

“What the f*** do you think?”

If you’re a woman working in or around the rock and roll music scene in the past half a decade, you’ve probably heard these words, or some variation of them, if you’ve come within a ten foot radius of the glam metal juggernauts Mötley Crüe; Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, and their blonde, boyish singer Vince Neil. They’re crass by reputation, however this is unsurprisingly true to life, though if you were interested in reading an expose regarding the number of gigs they’ve done while high, or how many hotel rooms they’ve set fire to, there’s innumerable gossip rags and magazines covering those particular scandals, including at least two Rolling Stone articles in the past two years, and we’re not here to retell old stories. 

When attending their concert in Atlanta last week, which I highly recommend; if given the opportunity, and you enjoy their music, see Mötley Crüe live, they give an almost unparalleled live performance, in my humble opinion as a music journalist of almost a decade, I was fortunately privy to the moment that sparked debate and controversy within the rock music gossip sphere. After the show, while I was made to wait at the stage door, their manager Doc Mcghee was kind enough to invite me to the afterparty. There, at the stage door, restless fans were held at bay, young men in black leather pants, emulating their idols, young women in barely anything at all, there to catch attention and garner the same invitation that I had received, and when the band themselves appear, it’s as if the gates of Hell had opened; the screaming I heard, ladies and gentleman.

First through the doors is Mars, already looking like he needs a shot or a nap, and he dodges more than one bra thrown his way, giving me a longsuffering look as he passes. To be that exhausted by fame is on a level I can’t even begin to comprehend. He’s on the tour bus which will take us to the hotel bar for drinks almost before anyone else is even out of the building.

Next comes what the fans have affectionately dubbed ‘The Terror Twins’, Sixx and Lee, both carrying a beer each, followed by several very pretty women who head to the bus whilst the musicians take the time to say high to their fans, signing various body parts and generally taking the time to interact with the more hardcore of their following who were waiting in the cold night air. They’re enough of a distraction that one might have missed the final band member, Vince Neil, laying uncharacteristically low, and who had actually been preceded by a surprising figure; Y/N Y/L/N, the most recent addition to Joan Jett & The Blackhearts as their rhythm guitarist. 

And this, dear readers, is the moment I decide to write the first gossip piece of my life.

As someone who regularly set fire to the copies of Hollywood Star my then-housemate had been getting delivered to our apartment back when I first began my journalistic career, the idea of writing an article based on speculation about the sexual conduct of celebrities was an idea I rejected out of hand. I’d told myself I had integrity. 

But then my proto-punk loving heart betrayed me, as I recalled Y/L/N’s lyrics from my favourite song of her’s, Sucker Punch, ‘speculate / scream my name / my heart, my love, baby it’s a game / they call me heartless, fancy-free / as if anyone’s meant something to a girl like me’. Y/L/N has been credited as the sole writer for the single, under her band at the time, Nuclear Patricide, who had garnered a cult following that has been credited as an idol for Joan Jett herself. After the Nuclear Patricide’s split in early ‘83, it’s been relative radio silence from the writer and lead guitarist until Joan Jett & The Blackhearts announce her as their newest addition, and she’s been with them for almost two years since.

[ID: Stills from Nuclear Patricide’s music video for Sucker Punch, 1980, known for the appearance of then-break out star Jamie Lee-Curtis. Editor’s Note: Y/L/N did not appear in the music video herself.]

So, upon seeing Y/L/N trying to keep a low profile whilst exiting a gig she clearly was not playing at, without any of her own bandmates to keep her company, I must confess I began to wonder, to speculate about the nature of her relationship with Mötley Crüe. She’s adamantly and publicly denounced romantic relationships in her work and in her public appearances up until her split from her original band, so has anything changed in the past few years?

Back at the hotel, I find myself weaving in amongst groupies and fanboys. My dark jeans and leather jacket act as a camouflage in this den of debauchery; I’ve worn professional clothing to this kind of thing before, and it usually doesn’t go over well; if the band sees a reporter there’s a sense of immediate hostility in what’s meant to be a safe space, relatively speaking, however, I’ve found that blending in, and making it clear I’m not on the offensive makes them drop their guard enough that they’ll give an honest interview. 

At least until a pretty girl walks past.

Neil and Y/L/N are nowhere to be spotted as I finally take a seat with a table that has neither cocaine nor a woman on it, and once I’ve ordered a drink and looked over my notes, someone actually joins me of their own accord. It’s Tommy Lee, who, to my surprise, recognises me from the last time Crüe had played in town. 

He talks about the tour, about how exciting it’s been and how he loves Atlanta, but he’s losing focus very quickly, not surprisingly since his name is being called by other tables every few moments, and there’s a faint dusting of telltale white powder around his nose. He promises ‘see you ‘round’ [sic] and then he’s off again. However, it’s as he leaves that I spot Y/N coming from a room by the back of the bar, and I make my move.

Mars has, as I’ve been told, already retired for the night, Lee is up to his eyes in cocaine, Sixx already has his dick out under his table judging by the look of him, and Neil is surprisingly MIA, so Y/L/N is easy to spot as the odd one out.

Not nearly as f***ed up or strung out as the rest of them, I watch her order a jack and coke, and down the drink mere moments after receiving it, before she turns to me. It takes her barely a second before she correctly identifies me as a reporter. I ask if she remembers meeting me, back in ‘82, she says no, but that she can pick a reporter from a mile away. 

People still fawn over her, pretty girls and pretty boys alike, her aloofness drawing them in, and I’d forgotten how overwhelming it was to be this close to her. She kicks a fanboy and a groupie who are messily groping each other out of a booth and we take their seats.

This is meant to be about Mötley Crüe, and I try to tell her as such, but she just gives me a thin smile.

“Then why did you come find me?”

And she gives me that stare, you know, the one from the cover of Nuclear Patricide’s final album, Treason Is A Girl’s Best Friend. It’s that piercing stare of hers that makes you feel like she knows everything you’ve ever done wrong in your life. 

I ask about her relationship with Mötley Crüe, and to my relief she looks away.

She’s candid about admitting she’s travelling with them, but not touring, right up until I ask her about her relationship with each member of the band specifically.

“Mick’s fun; he’s very talented and easily riled up. They’re all very talented of course, but Mick’s dynamic, [because] of his age and everything, is interesting within the group [sic] and I enjoy watching it all play out. He’s smacked Tommy a few times.” I’m assured that nine times out of ten he deserved it. 

She’s filled with glowing praise for both Sixx and Lee in turn, and even Doc Mcghee, but Neil she is oddly silent about. He’s the first of the band she’d met; he’d seen her play a few times with The Blackhearts and has admitted to enjoying her work in previous interviews when she’s been brought up, as the pair have been spotted together before. Well, she’s been spotted with the band before. Here is where she starts, to my surprise, to get antsy. So the rumours, which I had thought to be incredibly false given her history and general attitude, have more basis than she likes to let on.

And then she gets defensive.

He’s like cocaine; everyone’s doing him, it’s just the industry; no-one’s going to judge her for a fling. She does not appear to take comfort in the sentiment.

“People change.”

I ask her what she means. She refuses to clarify and leaves. Perhaps I pushed too far, but now I feel like a detective, and like I only have one more person I need to talk to. But perhaps I should have eased myself into talking about Y/L/N to Vince himself, but I’ll have to admit, between Y/L/N leaving and finding Neil, I may have done a bit of socialising with Sixx, which I recommend recreationally, and also if you have a high tolerance for most things.

“I don’t think we’re any of your f***ing business.” 

Neil does not mess around, and apparently she’d already spoken to him about our earlier meeting. I leave it be, spend the night enjoying the festivities with Sixx and Lee when I can, leaving just before the sun comes up. 

Some of you may be thinking this is dissatisfying, that you came into this article wanting me to confirm or dismiss the speculated relationship between Vince Neil and Y/N Y/L/N, but I can’t. Neither of them would speak to me, and I can only leave you with a list of things I saw that night, and you can make up your own mind.

- The room Y/L/N had exited from when I first spotted her is the same room Neil left less than five minutes later as we were talking. I went to investigate later; it’s a supply closet.

- After my encounter with Neil, and I’d stayed clear of them, whenever I would spot either of them, the other was almost always within arm’s reach. Make of that what you will.

- He definitely did a line of coke off her thigh at about three in the morning.

- I asked both Sixx and Lee about it. Lee’s response was ‘loud’ with something akin to a knowing smirk, and Sixx’s was ‘he’s a lucky bastard’ and when I ask him to clarify he just says ‘flexible’ and climbs to the next booth over where they’ve been asking him to do a line; I’m not even sure what to make of it, but personally I think it’s pretty damning.

- Readers, they were all over each other, I apologise for throwing my professionalism out the window for a moment, but if I’m being honest I couldn’t look to a secluded corner of the room without there being a 40% chance of seeing Vince and Y/N. It got worse as the night went on. Believe me.

So, while I don’t believe there is set to be a collaboration between Joan Jett and Mötley Crüe, I do come baring good news for those fans who had been speculating regarding Y/L/N’s relationship with the hair metal band’s lead singer. So are they together? Are they dating? Though neither party will publicly state anything, I’ll leave you with my thoughts, my observations, and the oft spoke words of the man himself;

What the f*** do you think?

[manjuhitorie]

Hitorie’s various antics + bonus bursts of trivia - Mid June-July 2019

I’ll begin this long digest with news of ygarshy’s recent involvements! Because he has been dipping his toes into a few pools of waters and his bass is *chef’s kiss* precious.

It’s been disclosed that he played for the song ‘Shadow Tag’ on Ken Kamikita’s new album! Kamikita is a singer songwriter, also once known as KK, who belches out vivid vocals from his diaphragm while the substructure of skilled technique is there as instrumentals, holding it together sturdy. His songs are very thought-provoking alone, yet music isn’t his only reign as he writes scripts for his shows, he puts careful consideration into his visuals: and abracadabra! ygarshy is continuing to be supporting Wasureranne yo with concerts for the summer.Concurrent reports consist of ygarshy smiling, poker facing to hide his smile, yet his smile seeping out because of Shibata’s noble passion for music. Shibata will do risqué shouts or gatling release the word "sex" out of his mouth, when which yg will subtly sip his water in a means to dodge, or just knifesharp glare at him. I love these drunken bards. Wasureranee yo's twitter posts clips of them performing after ever show also!

Also Wasurerannee yo with The 50 Kaitenz↑ good. June 8th was the Kankaku Pierrot x Hitorie concert, which was originally meant to be a joint show for their tour, yet was now turned into a jamboree of respects and thunder... Rie themselves were unable to attend yet Kan-ero nevertheless performed a cover of Ao, Polaris, and clenched a spiritual presence...! The cover of Ao is a tear trenchcoat I'm a trench of water... Kan-ero so good...

I was finally able to tell Shinoda-san that “These lyrics are way too long.”. For the sake of today I had to spend the whole week sleeping on the couch, as my bed is practically buried by all the alphabet He wrote, yet still I simply want to thank him for leaving us with so many words. They’re really all so cool. I’m sorry for being unable to sing them well. Let’s meet up again soon. The photo shows a large cloth-covered bed-like surface strewn with printout papers of World End Dancehall, Montage Girl, Imperfection, and Senseless Wonder lyrics.... Because..... The setlist for Village Man’s Store’s concert on 6/13 went like this. 1. Senseless Wonder 5. Montage Girl 7. Imperfection 13. Ao Encore 1: World’s End Dancehall

Thanks for coming to our show, “The Holy Land Pilgrimage - Village Man’s Store VS Hitorie”! Utmost love and gratitude goes out to Hitorie and all of you who made this day possible. P.S. Hitorie, cheers to doing even more with you in the future. From vocalist: Mizuno Gii. Mizugi “I sent Shinoda-san a LINE message reading “I'm going to be playing this song and this song and this song and~~... at the next show”. And normally right, you’d think someone’d reply “Sorry ‘bout making you do this” right? Yet Shinoda replied “Why’re you doin’ that many lololol” Han (drummer): “He laughed at you" After all is said and done, have y'all properly purchased 'Tsuiraku, Kurushiku wa Lucky Strike’ yet or what. It’s fire isn’t it

((I hate(love) how Mizugi has (14 years old pun) in his profile, (63 years old) in this MV while dressing up as a slanky old man, and is actually 31 years old.)

When is the rain going to stoppp

There's a lot of people who dislike Weezer's Green Album but I like Green Album Is it cause the music takes such a different turn? Reply from Saito Shinya, the vocalist and producer of ONIGAWARA: The drums suddenly neatened up so it hit by surprise. Also Matt Sharp left. SND: Ahhh so it’s because of Matt Saito: Fans of their first-second album’s more squishy sound went into denial I think

I can’t believe 'Sayonara Dake ga Jinsei da' isn’t here *The late 90's band 'Eastern Youth’ has uploaded the majority of their discography unto music streaming sites. Except for the niche EP which SND is fond of, but all their albums are cool so zipper your lips and open your eyes shuuush!

Is Tanktop Shoutai's new video out yet They're a posse of blurred out faces with burlesque bases. Their current series is one where they dress up as Yugioh characters, roleplay them with accurate voices and cult-like enthusiasm, before the instigation of the series’ famous ~Shadow Games~ together. Which are all uhh, epic card games, yeah, like tabletop Jenga or  or Mariomaker or electric Russian roulette, pick them up like they’re Kuribos. It’s a riot.

 I’m sure I’ve said this for the umpteenth time now but, my favorite album from syrup16g is “delayed" syrup16g are an indie band who began in 1993 and keep resurging again to pop off. With performances in Budoukan and high Oricon points on their back. This pivotal album of theres is mellow with whimpering instruments and ephemeral sounding visuals and it's really nice, thank you SND.

Media outlets have been making misleading headlines like “A manga opposing the legalization of euthanasia”, and I bet there’s a lot of people are blindly dissing Death Harassment now Death Harassment is a comic written by Yoshida Yori, challenging the problems which could come with euthanasia, and a society which might pressure departure unto the unwilling. Euthanasia has been becoming a uproarious subject in Japan, ever since a woman fled to Sweden because she suffered brain diseases, and wanted to die while still preserving her sanity and dignity. People are now starting to welcome the prospect and yearn for a mercy fate but, please consider the demerits and the demoralization also, is the message. I translated the comic for fun also here.

This evening as I was eating soba alone, in front of me were a middle-aged couple throwing curses at each other with sullied mouths, but by the time I finished my soba they were smiling together. I think that’s perfectly peachy. That reminds me, I ate 4 whole eggs today. I think I ate too much.

My habit of getting the urge to play with people only at this time of the day, is really bad.  Posted at 3 AM JST.

Yumao, also at 3~ AM JST.  Bubble milk tea for sensible people has been gaining traction on twitter but, the fact that it's not Chinese tea milk tea is the nonsense to me. There was a post about purchasing uncooked tapioca pearls at a Seijou Ishii (an exotic super market chain), and putting them inside of a convenience store bought bottle of cheap tea. Budget bubble tea.  In regards to Yumao’s comment, the Chinese oolong tea is such a standard I’m assuming he’s referring to that. Is this more flavor wars, the civil wars over various flavors of integrated foods from equal or same brands is rampant throughout Japan’s domestic history. It’s kinoko VS. takenoko etc. Why such fervor over flavor YUMA

I gotta buy toothpaste I can’t sleep whatsoever so I thought if I drank I would get sleepy but I drank and it’s somehow backfired by revitalizing me so now I got no idea what the fuck to do, I’m screwed I’m screwed I know that feeling when your stomach is in a frenzy, too well

I haven’t heard the term “moe” used in a while I kinda want to go heavy on it now Replies: "Shinoda you’re moe” “Shimoeda” “Your expression when you got kicked was so moe" (He was kicked by yg during SLEEPWALK ref: the 6/1 report)” “The term moe technically d- (*The definition copypasta-ed from wikipedia*).” Within a split second replies have already turned into hell so I’m putting the lid back on moe, please forgive me Damn it’s hot.

I saw Tokyo Syoki Syodo in concert for my first time today. It was the best. I seriously thought I was gonna burst into tears. It might be a long time since I was last this excited to see a band live - it's been a long time since I even saw a concert live but still,,, I was surprised by how much of the lyrics to Saisei Button I subconsciously remembered. It just shows that Tokyo Syoki Syodo's songs are that good. They are a group who indulge in the typicality of cutesy culture, instagram filters, sparkling make-up, and all while flexing the power to whack you with whamming hard rock. He mentioned them again in his June 9th twitcast also, calling them natural and epiphanic to how bands can just be just as they are. I have no doubts that this is my top-played song these past few months. This is my anthem. -Saisei Rock, their most recent music video, check it out! I don’t even know how many years I’ve lived at this point but it’s not commonplace to find a song this great. 

This example will only be understood by super like-minded folk, but I haven’t felt this way since I got obsessed with Sakasama Cider. 

He’s expressed countless times how much he likes this song and the artist, Gucha Gucha's, Though the story behind SND’s partiality may be ultimately uncertain, it can be easily understood from one listen. The guitarist and cofounder of the Gucha Gucha’s, Shimoyaka, borrowed Shinoda’s guitar for their first live. Chikyuu Monogatari chapter 3 uses Shimoyaka as a model.  Shimoyaka has posted porn on forums, getting banned from youtube, he was on a team with infamous Shotacon Kurage, here’s SND’s cover of Sakasama Cider playing over the team, nowadays he does retro~modern gaming livestreams or his own cooking episodes because he got kicked off a cooking show, he slipped at the Niconico Douga Game Party, he’s videos are quite civil now though Shinoda even joined him for a stream and is watching them often.  Shinoda on the July 9th live said not verbatim “When I heard Sakasama Cider and ‘Sad Delay-chan’’ live, I was amazed by Shimoyaka that he can actually make good songs. Justice doesn’t have to be one-sided~ Gucha Gucha’s are unrefined and shitty and helpless, but then they bounce back up with a sudden good song and it’s irresistible. I’m always yearning to meet those sort of exciting experiences. 

We are people who clench our fists until our palms are red with blood, and we keep going on singing. Though we tend to forget it

Happy birthday ygarshy!! ygarshy's birthday is on June 17th and I hope you celebrated. SND’s birthday is also on June 6th. And I Hope. If not they can still be celebrated 365/24. Because even SND had proceeded to tweet these words of celebration at…. 12 o’ clock AM June 18th. Right when the clock changed!!

Look at this simultaneous trickery. Then Yumao RT-ed them both. I love you Rie… I love you so much...

I liked when Brocken Jr. was hit by Prisman's rainbow shower and super fucking glowed. (Timestamp 1:38) Also Mariposa’s victory pose was freakish-, ly cool (Timestamp 3:14) Kinnikuman is branded as Ultimate Muscle foreignly, if you recognize it! This youtube video is is a short promo reel celebrating the 40th anniversary of the series, Yudetamago has been in it for the long haul and is well honored by the lords of the wrestlers.

Wooooooooooah

I wanna eat a negitoro bowl Raw tuna and scallions plomped on top of a bowl of rice The special issue of Kinnikuman, I didn’t think it would put me on the verge of tears like this. Chairman takes way too many goods to the table. Plus everyone is cheerfully chit-chatting about how absolutely maniacal of a character Robin Mask is. Robin Mask really is one loony mister. Most characters are weirdos on thin ice but Robin Mask is in a whole different league of weirdo so,,, Also for the 40th anniversary, an original episode was spotlighted in the 29th issue of Shounen Jump magazine. and taken for another spin! Chairman, AKA Harabote Muscle, had an emotional arc in it too. Robin Mask I'm guessing is as rambunctiously malicious as ever in it.

The final episode of Sarazanmai had me bawling like a baby.

A photo of the possession of Kinnikuman -Supermen Dictionary-.

futurrrrrrrreee funnnnnnnnnnnk

I spent about 4 hours dancing alone in the club I am a party person Party people(パリピ is just ENG articulated into JP)* is a slang which means just that. It’s believed to have been originally popularized by a song called Let’s Party People from Illmania. Since then it’s curved to hold different nuances for all kinds of different people also. It can indicate ‘avid partygoers' or ’normies’ or it can just be for people who’re having a good time.

Puuuuuuussssshhhh! An issue of 100M, an upcoming shounen manga by the author Uoto. It's bout a runner who’s world revolves around his sport and nothing other, who then meets a boy who runs only to forget the troubles of the rest of the world. The story spurts off from there. 笑顔いっぱい！ https://youtu.be/QXuGweSMxUI @YouTubeさんから ときめきメモリアル　キャラソング【おサカナになりたい～1000wに願いを～】～虹野沙希～（TokimekiMemorial music） https://youtu.be/rV16KgKKUi8 @YouTubeさんから YUNG BAE - Fly With Me https://youtu.be/BWgQvj0Nd_U @YouTubeさんから TenmaTenma - September https://youtu.be/6VsJgk5Qw6s @YouTubeさんから ~~~A slew of various song recommendations~~~

People that're posting pics of ramen while talking about being on a vegan diet, and people who gang up on them both, aren't they all becoming a clusterfuck of boringness without even heed to their actions

People who were peacefully posting their favorite music until suddenly bursting blustery onto the net, ain’t that the definition of emotional instability SND are you heeding your own actions Seven-eleven when are you gonna sell microwavable mugimeshi (rice with boiled barley mixed in) Task-san (a trusty companion of all of Rie’s, and an even more lovable animator who runs most of Minaken): *Replied to SND with a photo of Seveneleven brand microwavable mugimeshi*  SND: So they do have it

As I was frying some fried eggs, it hit me, people who heedlessly throw heavy words at other people tend not to let anyone else complain about the heavy weights they themselves may put onto other people huh.. But actually that’s not necessarily true so whatever

I just recently caught up with Murata-sensei’s version of One-Punch Man but, thanks to the insanity of the quality level, Tatsumaki has gotten so sexy I burst out laughing See: ONE VS. Yusuke Murata 

Clever folks, I’m positive you could figure out who my favorite One Punch Man characters are. There’s two of them.  The answer is King and Unlicensed Rider Oops there’s Zombieman too

I’ve noticed that washing ashtrays squeaky clean seems to put me in a better mood The Marías - Cariño youtu.be/QHVp9xiUr9U @YouTubeさんから The Marias are soo good The 3 monkies game, the host is so cockeyed that I’m laughing out loud I think he’s talking about サルヂエ(Sarudie), a quiz show about 3 people donned in hyper-realistic monkey attire, overseeing the “homo sapiens” as they try to solve unique questions. Which are usually twists on daily life concepts, find the difference, or digesting puns on pop culture. The word Sarudie(猿知恵) itself refers to something which seems profound but is actually simple and shallow, like monkey business etc, and the hosts are spoofs of The Three Wise Monkeys, while they hooked in a lot of famous figures to be the quiz undertakers. I want the DVDs. Though if SND is talking about a different 3 monkey game then I’m oopsie-doopsie. I heard a voice for the first time in a while

I can feel my manga-artist muscles crippling

nico.ms/sm35308083?ref… #sm35308083 #ニコニコ動画 It’s here!!!!!!!!!! Ref his tweet from earlier 'Is Tanktop Shoutai's new video out yet’. So if any youtuber works with a band on a music video then everyone’s going to assume they’re Starmie next I guess A recent cause of discourse was the twitter account A Starmie Who Wants to Quit My Band(@shhf9kr)*. It originally was suspected of being the side-account of KANA-BOOM's bassist, Meshida, due to the timing of the account's appearance and the unsettling content. Meshida had gone missing for about a week’s time, much to relief he’s returned home, but upon return he’s now taking a break from the band to heal from pressure/anxiety… Which is a huge worry in itself (On top of Alexandros’ drummer going on hiatus because of physical issues and then MONGOL800.....) though for now we only have the power ease his soul.. BUT ANYWAY - This Starmie twitter account tweeted “I’m so far gone with band work that I’ve devolved into a Starmie. ~~~~ I feel so disgusting.” on the exact same date as the dilemma. As the situation progressed the details Starmie revealed about financial problems and wage didn’t match up with KANA-BOOM, so they’ve continued to suspected to be SEKAI NO OWARI, now signing salient as someone named Ishihidari from BASEMENT TIMES, the writer of a snazzy sassy J-Rock blog and band of that same name. Shinoda here is a direct reaction to Starmie’s recent tweet under the lines of “I hate having to work with a youtuber.” Yeah SND you're 100% right, it's now on the radars of us curious critters. Why is the J-rock scene such a pain hoho. I bought new shorts but it’s chilly out today so I’m in a sort of pickle

I tried out lo-fi hiphop style for a change of pace and I ended up making songs I get to feel like I’ve done good work as easy as fast-food, lo-fi hiphop is good Maybe this is fine, we have flowers here (The word in the insta video means "to hide from the rain")

I don’t wanna add screentones

He used a southern accent on this, unlike his usual slurry casual city boy tone. I notice that southern JP seems to simplify the connotation of tone by omitting certain sounds or replacing them with vowels and then they’ll proceed to make the whole phrase more musical, it’s like ending your sentences with a “~” but it’s a whole accent done that way~ vowels are cute, gimme more~ Or maybe not idk It’s a hardship to even work on my manga because of my back pains, people who’ve actually wrecked their back must go through serious hell Kobayashi Doumu (*ref: later in this post): *sends SND a photo of himself hospitalized with crutches and bandages for his back* I was watching Kura-kyun’s stream but, does that guy actually still live in Aichi…? This seems like a rabbit hole I don’t want to dip my toes so I’ll take a step back but… Shotacon Kurage is a long time streamer who seems to get up to a lot of unfavorable antics. のどちんこって呼び名、いくらなんでもメチャクチャ過ぎないか No matter how you put it, isn’t the nickname “throat schlong” just a little too messed up Kids super often call the uvula part of the mouth by that nickname I don’t like the rain because I can’t go out drinking

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ボディメンテナンス怠るべからず

A post shared by シノダ (@snd_vs_snd) on Jun 27, 2019 at 11:14pm PDT

One mustn’t slack off on their self-care The drawing says “Shoulder pains”.

シノダ「地球物語 35話 – BABYBABYの夢 – 」 | MEETIA After a 2 month break period, the 35th issue has been topped off. It’s full of all the ideas and memes I’ve accumulated over the whole 2 month span, so please if you may, take it easy on me. And please give it a read. Shinoda “Chikyuu Monogatari: Chapter 35 - Dreams of BABYBABY - meetia.net/manga/shinoda-… #meetia 

Shiohigari, fantastic artist of 1 panel light-heavyhearted gags, girls who share their feelings and a Picasso-esque mascot named after himself. He also happens to share many interests with SND and a decade-long historic friendship with him: That part there, that’s the Robin Mask moment! During the Survivor Match for the Kinniku Throne Arc, the match against Kinnikuman Zebra and Parthenon!  SND: I’ve been exposed Trivia: ●The title "Dreams of BABYBABY” is a reference to the song by TANUKI of the same name. SND’s interest in future funk grows. ●The Chikyuu Monogatari chapter has a parallel to a Kinnikuman scene. When that manga went on hiatus for 3 months due to an illness of the author's, right in the middle of a fight scene's cliffhanger, he returned and doubled-down on it. By making the characters do this:

And SND’s comic has this parallel:

“Wake up!” “Please excuse me. How could I not get sleepy after being left here for 2 months….”“Are we allowed to say this stuff, I’m sorry Yudetamago-sensei.” ●Please keep having fun Shinoda-sensei.

I made 10 lo-fi hiphop songs *They’re magnificent and they’re incoming, check his Instagram for the ongoing bonanza! https://www.instagram.com/snd_vs_snd/  Laundry is so draining  Harassment sentences are going to such extremes that now it’s as if they’re the one’s doing the harassment meow, said the kitten who’s sleeping next to me There’s not actually any kitten sleeping next to me: it’s the imaginary friends in my head

What an article. Don’t be releasing things like this into the world. Do they have no dignity, mishandling words while trying to write about the subject of words.  Emo, in terms of usage and genre, has especially been through a lot of change. But upholding only the era you lived in and then proceeding to feel nostalgia and begrudging the next generation for being different is amazing in itself, not to mention their absolute subjectivity combined with presumptuous usage of “Us”. 

Or, so had spoke the kitten sleeping next to me... In reference to his retweet of this article: https://letters-to-you.life/emoi It’s a petty, convoluted text rebuking the masses for a simplicity and resisting the implacable evolution of language. The word “emoi” in Japan (which is super equivalent to the English "emo") is transforming from not only the emo band subculture or a descriptive of emotional experiences, but also to mean the likes of an adjective for any emotion-evoker and the author is uhhh conservative. Let us get emotional over things!! wowawa lived through all the evolution also and he’s still an enthusiastic user of all definitions of “emo” too...

I’ve been cooking nukaduke at home recently and all I have to say is that home-cooked nukaduke is the best. 

Trivia: Yumao lives together with his super duper saikou cool mother, Yurika.

My nukaduke paste is getting better and better, and the pickles I’m making are amazing. I need to consider cutting back on the salt a bit though.

Ah nukaduke is emo

Yumao has nowset his location to nukaduke, hunger ensues

Kobayashi Doom congrats on a good run & Congrats on the new issue #SupportForLet’sMeal

The picture shown is SND’s face was drawn in the background of Meshi ni Shimashou(Let’s have some food!), a manga by Kobayashi Doom. It’s a story which digs into the lives of a a manga artist and her assistant, who bask in the dying embryos of production and then cook meals with crazy twists or gimmicks to restore their “MP”. There’s an official sneak-peak preview of it here! It’s only available in JP though… If you like the look of it please feel free to yell at your local manga provider to officially translate it, Kobayashi Doom is someone SND is so undeniably influenced by. Especially their series Negi nee-san. A webcomic about a surreal girl drowned in surreal antics. It’s usually rooted in nonsense and that’s the grandest appeal. The visuals consist of copy-pasted collages, intricate professional art dynamics, cute girls, to stoic jokes such as “’seven eleven is an integer so seven & I is a complex number” and mostly references to mathematics or science or Jojo. The most parroted one is “Yes” “Not yes”. Also worthy of mention is that things resembling Negi-neesan’s various nameless beasts will show up as backdrop etc. in SND’s manga Chikyuu Monogatari. And most importantly here, there’s even a comic about Shinoda on that link, with the Let’s Meal characters! It reads: Madare ”Who's that?" Omega "From the band 'Hitorie',His name is Shinoda and he seems to be a zealous fan of mine, (sign reads: zealous whatever food hall) He told me he wants me to experience his recent works so he sent me the mp3"Madare “Ooh Isn’t Hitorie that [insert amazing praise here]“. Omega “Look, he’s even wearing a Negi-T (Negi-nee-san’s surreal brand) in this video” (Reference: In the Talkie Dance MV he wears this one) Woah　Click-click Omega “So now, I’ve listened to it 100 times but in sheer honesty I don’t know anything about rock besides the band Ningen Isu so I thought I’d use this comic as an equivalent of an answer to him, a sort of "guess my feelings" quiz. Madare “I see you're popping your conman skill again. (You’ve even beaten me with that skill before )” “I’ve been eavesdropping. Time to cook a meal and get together with him” Omega “I like it." *The chorus lyrics to Hitorie's NAI from ai/SOlate are written on the top left corner, Kobayashi Doumu on the right, and the beastly text written next to the youkai-looking Shinoda in slide one I believe is an feisty ateji encrypting ‘For Shinoda’. SND replied to that comic too! Saying “Even insane miracles can happen huh, Doom-sensei thank you so much!! No this is seriously sick, wtf…." Q.E.D. Kobayashi Doom is strangely important for SND’s character development.

This isn’t specifically concurrent with my current feelings but The text on the video reads “I like you I like you!l I snuck a glance at myself in the mirror and my back has a hunch far worse than I even imagined SND’s RT:  ONE BY ONE RECORDS, the indies label, is hanging up the hat after 12 years of service…. Ahhhh… Congrats and good luck on future ventures oh employees..  Key to this article is the band, JONNY. A Weezer cover/original group of which, a certain familiar chestnut-headed rock hero played for. I’ll save the stories of the explorations into that beloved dark past dungeon for another day but, yes, click that link and you’ll see, that glasses fella is a young Shinoda in the flesh.  I woke up in the middle of the night. Have a listen to this if you plan to go to bed anytime soon. instagram.com/p/BzV23p6HpRl/… Written on the drawing is “Poyashimi”, which simply means “Oyasumi (Good night)". It was originally just a misspell due to “O” and “P” being so close on standard keyboards but, it’s cute so it’s been adopted in it’s own rights. Can been paired with “Pokita (= Okita = I just woke up)” in the morning. Cute. I wanna go to the beach instagram.com/p/BzawsWGHaGg/…

I wrote MUNEYAKE but I myself don’t have any muneyake heartburn, that’s all there is to it I couldn’t make the bubble tea visible without making the emblem on the hat invisible, and just fought a weird-ass battle with this https://www.instagram.com/p/Bzh7fqRnkBQ/?igshid=1hmx49pswt6ns … “Yasumi" means like “take a breather"

I recorded drums for Sasaki Sayaka’s song, the ending theme for 'Ultraman Taiga’. I used a big and powerful setup for this. The broadcasts start on 7/6. I can’t wait. Also Taro's son is crazy. Ultraman Taro's son is the main character of this new spinoff tokusatsu series! The ending song is called “Hitotsubishi” and will premiere along the first episode, I’ll update this if an official video arrives later, so we can listen to it! I watched the first episode of Taiga, I’m think I’m gonna cry.

This morning a drunken me slipped while walking down the stairs, and turned into the Kinnikuman side of the Kinniku-Buster. My butt hurts. Smack down on the floor, legs aflight.

colormal’s concert was downright fantastic, everybody listen to colormal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ83BZ_BIHA&feature=youtu.be

colormal, a galvanized nerd who turned his hobby into a hopping constitution for his livelihood, his quest for the alternative rock. He makes music alone and he’s namely even inspired by Shinoda’s past solo project “cakebox”. He’s bound to mention a cakebox song in his interviews, on top of a whopping list of other western or indie bands. His music itself has flows of climaxes into unfluctuating concord and it’s either guitar or guitar with pretty effects and I enjoy it SND. His filling bassist, Matsuyama, was even thrilled! https://twitter.com/mtymJb/status/1147537998898069504

My body isn’t able to finish even the small size ramen with full toppings. “Mashi” is a trademark menu option of the chain Ramen Jiro. It’s under the lines of “Pile it up”. You can choose to pile up a bit of everything like Shinoda seems to, or you can choose from specific topping such as veggies or meats. If you ever go into such a ramen shop, try shouting “yasai mashi mashi!” or “buta mashi mashi!” for a heap of piggie. 

Tokyo Shoegazer are definite They’re an indies band who had a concert in Shinjuku that day! One of their most recent tweets draws my attention 👀 The wheat and grated yam beef meal at Yoshinoya is delectable but, the sign says the large rice portion and refills are given for free until 11 PM, but when I go there’s a fee on the large portion, how am I supposed to interpret this Reply: I work at Yoshinoya but the free portions and refills is a recent offer, the menus just haven’t been reprinted to represent it… The meal packages generally all have free refills and large rice portions. Shinoda: Thank you. Ref: their ENG menu. Feel free to use this information if you ever get the chance to go to a Yoshidora!!(?) SWEET https://www.instagram.com/p/Bznm6DTH-Gs/ I want to see Siamese Cats live They’re a definite J-rock band who have tinges of psychedelic and a sort of 80’s pop style to their music. They had an outdoor show the day before SND tweeted this, but they also have a 10th Year Anniversary Celebration concert this December. SND GO! Siamese Cats - Escape Eve (Official Video) 2018　　シャムキャッツ - 逃亡前夜 https://youtu.be/5Jtd5nmI0Fc

salad days was on Amazon Prime so I gave it a gander but it was really fucking good. The walking alone Straight Edge scene or at the beginning when everyone was partying together until strange people starting flooding in one by one and the safety of the concert went downhill Or how the terminology “emocore” doesn’t resonate at all with people who were directly associated with it at the outset.

The fact that controversy which we’re still having today has existed since the 80’s is an astonishment
 Also once the Smells Like~ MV wrought the knowledge of crowd-surfing (stage-diving) upon the world, and then the crowd became a flood of stage-divers so much that Fugazi lost his temper, that scene was so good

The joint show with Trouble Funk, when they were reflecting on what became the final Minor Threat show, everyone was vocalizing the horrors, the turmoil of it, yet I laughed when only Ian said it wasn’t that bad

Not disregarding how these types of issues really did exist those days, ultimately the concerts and their music really are awesome, the energy and thrill everyone held was amazing

Formidable figures such as Thurston Moore and Dave Grohl are shown looking back on the past, and then pops in J Mascis with such batshit indifference that I laughed again 
Why does Ian MacKaye not have a Japanese wiki page If it draws your attention here’s the link!:https://www.amazon.com/Salad-Days-Fred-Armisen/dp/B01MAV0YAH I’m not specifically feeling emo https://www.instagram.com/p/BzqVd4wnaOX/?igshid=nhnyzm9vipdi …“emoi”

[dabble-writes]

Death’s Bride--(3)

| Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |

Pairing:

Namjoon/Reader

Summary:

You are a Seer. What is a Seer? A Seer is someone whose sixth sense is stronger than most people’s and can see Death. You did not want to be one, you just want to be normal—yet what happens when Death comes for you? No, not for you to die—for you to be his bride.

*Based on a novel I wrote before in Wattpad by the same title*

Tags:

Romance, Fantasy, Comedy

Warnings:

Alcohol usage, suggestive sexual content, questionable consent, violence

CHAPTER 3: DEATH ON EARTH

“Oh my goodness!” Your mother pulled you into a tight hug, tears in her eyes, “You’re safe!”

Her hold tightened and you could feel her sobbing, “you’re safe.” She murmured again, as if hoping that this was not a dream.

“I’m fine mom, really.” You murmured, though it was muffled because she was pressed so tight against you.

“I thought you were kidnapped, raped, or even dead!” She cried as she pulled away to study your face, “You haven’t been eating well.”

You bit your lip, feeling insanely guilty that you couldn’t tell your mother the truth and that you left her all alone. You wondered if she would understand, or if she would send you to a psychologist.

“…and right after mama died…it was too much pain.” Your mom burst into tears again and it pained you so much to see her like that.

Fuck it, so what if she thinks I’m crazy.

Before you could say a word though, she grabbed your arms and gave you a stern look, “Who took you, where did they took you, and when can I kick their ass?”

“Mom!”

“Y/N, dear, tell me.” For a woman of her size, she looked quite intimating at the moment.

You sighed as you lead her to the couch and sat down, “I don’t know where to begin—”

“From the beginning of course, silly.”

“—Or if you would believe me. Trust me, it’s some crazy stuff.”

Your mom squeezed your hand, “Try me.”

You took a deep breath, searching for the right words to say, “Well…to start off, grandma and I have been hiding something from you. Not on purpose,” you said quickly, “but because we didn’t know how to explain it or if we could tell other people.”

“You make it sound like you guys were in a cult. Wait, were you and mother in a cult and mother angered someone and they kidnapped you?”

“Wow, that actually sounds more believable than the truth.”, you admitted and she looked at you curiously.

“Just tell me, honey, I swear I’ll be as open-minded as possible.”

“Okay…”, you said, “…you know how grandma can sometimes tell the future and it’ll be weirdly accurate? Like the weather or a specific event in your day or something you just thought about? Or when she can pinpoint a person’s character by just looking at them?”

“Yeah, your grandma always had those eccentricities about her and she seemed to have taught them to you.”

“The reason she can do those things, among others, is because we are Seers. It’s not an official name or anything, just a name grandma came up with. Basically, our sixth sense is stronger than most people’s and we can see…usual things.”

“…I see.”

“You don’t believe me.” you accused.

“Hold on, I’m getting used to the idea! But it does make sense…still, it doesn’t explain why you were missing for weeks!”

“I’m getting there,” you answered, “well one of the things we can see is Death.”

“Death?”

“Actually his name is Namjoon, but don’t tell him I told you that. He’s a being that collects your soul when you die.”

“….and you lost me. So this Namjoon guy,”

“Death,” you corrected, regretting telling your mother his real name. He’s going to be so pissed.

“He collects souls when you die?”

“Correct. And takes you to his kingdom. Which is technically purgatory. And sentences you to work off your sins so you can enter Paradise.”

Your mother gave you a strange look, “Honey, you sure this isn’t a cult—”

“Please, mom, trust me,” you begged, “this is all real. I wish I could show you prove but the only way to do that is if you die—which I don’t want.”

“But you must understand that this is a bit hard to take in…”

“I get it, but that’s not even half of it.”

“There’s more?”

You nod, “So there’s this prophecy involving Namjoon and…me.”

“Now there’s a prophecy? Can’t you make it any more believable? Even the cult story is more believable than this!”

“I’m just telling you the truth.” You said defensively and your mom gave a sigh of resignation.

“What’s the prophecy?”

“What?”

“The prophecy. I’m assuming that’s why you were gone.”

You took a deep breath, “I’m not sure. I’ve only heard bits and pieces and what people have told me. It involves me marrying him—”

“What?” Your mother screeched, “You have to marry Namjoon?”

“…it’s complicated.”

“Do you even like each other?”

You made a face, do you? You know for sure he doesn’t, “Not really…but supposedly that’s the other part of the prophecy—that we’ll love each other or something like that.”

Then again, you couldn’t relay so much on the source since it was the traitor who said it after all. Thinking about it makes your blood boil.

“Still, for you to agree to that is ridiculous. Why would you do such a thing?”

You bit your lip, “I wanted to see grandma.”

“What?”

“I…just wanted to see her one last time. I figured that if I go with Namjoon I’ll have the opportunity to talk to grandma.”

“And did you?” Your mom perked up.

“No, I didn’t have the chance to yet. Everything is just so hectic and going on so fast.”

“I see. Did he manipulate you with your grandma to marry him?”

“Mani—no, it wasn’t like that. I mean, he did mention it—”

“That sounds like manipulation.”

“Okay, maybe he did a little bit, but he’s a victim of the prophecy as well. He’s tried to not follow it, but it never works out. Plus, in the end it was my decision. I do want to see grandma.”

You honestly didn’t know why you were defending Namjoon to your mother.

Her eyes softened, “I get that you wanted to see mother, but is it worth giving up your life here?”

You bit your lip, “Can I be honest, mom? It’s actually not so bad over there. Definitely boring, but not bad. I have a purpose. Here, I don’t really have a purpose. I’m not really good at anything and I don’t even like what I’m studying in school. I’m not particularly close to anyone here except for you and grandma so I wasn’t leaving much behind.”

“Oh honey,” She brought you to a hug, “How can you say that? Of course you have a purpose.”

“But maybe this is my purpose.” You answered, pulling away from her to look to her eyes. 

“If that’s what you think.” Your mom said with a sad smile, “I’ll support any decision you have.”

“Thanks mom.”

“So if you were happy there, how did you end up back here? Why aren’t you still wherever-the-hell-that-place-was?”

“Funny story….I, um, got kidnapped there.”

“You got kidnapped from your kidnapper?”

“I said I wasn’t kidnapped! I went there willingly. This time though…yeah it was kidnapped. Turned out it was Namjoon’s best friend and adviser, Jin, who wants revenge on Namjoon. I managed to escape, but got sent here so that I can be safe until Namjoon picks me up.”

Your mom stared at you, “That’s literally a soap opera.”

“Yes, well apparently I am now a main character in some soap opera.”

“This guy, Jin…is he dangerous?”

You frowned, “I’m not sure. But it didn’t seem like he was going to be making daisy chains with me though.”

“Did you got hurt?”

“Not really. I guess they were just waiting for Namjoon to arrive.”

“You know this sounds crazy.”

“I know.”

“And I’ll probably be a fool if I believe you.”

“Probably.”

She sighed, “But I trust you. You were never one for fantasies, always very logical. Maybe if I heard this from my mom I’ll be skeptical because she was always in the clouds and has a very vivid imagination, but you hold not one artistic bone in your body.”

“Hey!”

“It’s true, honey, don’t bother denying it. Remember when your grandmother tried to teach you to paint but it turned out to be a disaster?”

You winced, “She said it was fine, but it was a mess, huh?”

“The ugliest thing I ever saw.”

“Thanks, mom.”

“I’m only saying the truth. Don’t worry, your grandmother was disappointed when I didn’t inherit her passion for paint. I’m way too much like my father in that sense, I guess you got that too.”

You smiled, “So you believe me?”

“…tentatively. I will need evidence to support the truth, but I’ll let it be for now.”

“Thank you, mom.” You gave her a hug, “I really appreciate it.

“Oh!” Your mom suddenly let go and went to grab her phone, “I gotta call the police and tell them to call off the missing person case.”

“You went to the police?”

“Of course! You were missing, where else I’m to turn? Give me a minute.”

She started dialing a phone number as she walked out of the room.

“Officer Diaz? Yes this is Mrs. Y/L/N. Good news, my daughter is back home…”

Honestly that went better than I thought. I don’t think she believes me, but at least she’s humoring me and not sending me to an insane asylum or something.

You were innocently walking down the halls of your school when you heard a familiar voice.

“You have some explaining to do Y/N  Y/L/N !”

Lisa stalked the hall, narrowing her eyes at you.

You put on a cheerful smile, hoping to deter her, “Hey Lisa!”

“Don’t ‘hey Lisa’ me. What the hell happened to you?”

You sighed; your mom and you decided on a cover story for the police and anyone who asked.

“I don’t remember anything, Monica,” you said innocently, “the last thing I remember was going to the funeral.”

“They drugged you? What low-lives!” She exclaimed and pulled you into a hug, “I’m so glad you’re back though. It was really lonely without you here.”

Well that was easy, you thought.

You smiled and pulled away, “So what did I miss?”

“Besides that Spring Break is in a week? Jungkook and that long-term girlfriend of his broke up.”

“No way.”

“Yup, it just happened last week. It’s been the gossip of the school. Jungkook doesn’t seem so bothered by it.”

“Oh.”

It’s strange, if you heard this news before you left with Namjoon you would have been ecstatic. But you didn’t seem to feel much joy right now. Strange.

“Oh? Just oh? Hello, this can finally be your chance with him.”

“Me?” you asked, confused, “what about you?  I seemed to recall I wasn’t the only one to like Jungkook.”

“I’m willing to make the sacrifice for you. Also, I’m kind of seeing his friend Taehyung now so…”

You rolled your eyes as Lisa started to speak of how they met and how he asked her out.

“Anyway, never mind that right now, we need you to get ready for this party. I will not let you go in your usual getup.”

“What party?”

“What party? What party? Weren’t you listening to me just now? Jungkook is hosting a huge party at his house with his frat brothers and he invited me and you to come.”

“He asked me to come?” You asked, somehow not believing those words.

“Okay, he told me I could invite a friend but---:

You groaned, “Do I really have to do this?”

Parties really weren’t your thing. Especially frat parties. Even if Jungkook was there.

“Yes! And we are going to make you gorgeous. Come over my place tonight—”

“Wait, I thought the party was in a week?”

“And you think you are going to get Jungkook to notice you looking like that?”

“But I don’t—”

“We are so going to make Jungkook fall for you.”

You sighed, resigned to your fate. Maybe if you let her do this stupid ‘makeover’ on you she will leave you alone.

You checked yourself in the compact mirror Lisa gave you earlier and frowned. The “makeover” you had last night involved skin care, makeup, straightening your hair, and clothes for you to borrow. You honestly didn’t see the big deal, although you had to admit your face is pretty fucking smooth now.

“For the last time, you look amazing. Relax.” Lisa said as she snatched the mirror from you.

“I can’t relax when people are looking at me,” you answered back, “I keep thinking there’s something wrong with my face.”

Lisa just rolled her eyes and smiled brightly at a group of girls and walked over to them. You followed her and recognized them as part of her sorority.

“Hiya Lisa!”

“How’s it going, boo?”

“It’s been forever.”

“Lisa, you have to hear the latest news on Hyuna.”

The girls all greeted Lisa enthusiastically and Lisa was happily chatting with them. As for you, you just sort of lingered in the back since you didn’t really know these girls and weren’t quite comfortable. Yet it wasn’t long before one of the girls noticed your presence.

“Who’s this, Lisa?”

“Is she a new friend of yours?”

Everyone turned to you and Lisa was by your side.

“Girls, this is my friend, Y/N. She’s new to the scene so be nice.”

They smiled at you and began to ask you questions. They were nice enough but were a bit like Lisa in that they were boy-crazy.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” One of the girls, Rose, asked.

You thought of Namjoon but instantly pushed away that thought. We are not going out. It’s more like a…like an arranged marriage.

“No, not at the moment.” You answered and forced yourself to give a bright smile.

“Oh but you’re so cute.”

“We have to set you up with someone.”

“She’ll look cute with Yoongi.”

Inside you were panicking and looked at Lisa for help.

“Girls, I already have someone in mind for her.”

You nearly groaned, this was not the help I asked for.

“Really? Who?”

“Yeah, who?”

“Jungkook.”

They squealed.

“Good one.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty hot.”

“I heard he was a pretty good kisser and has a big dick.”

And I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that last remark, you thought. You looked at your phone and saw the time.

“Um, it was nice meeting you guys, but we have class in a few minutes.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” Lisa said as if she just remembered that she goes to school, “Well, see you girls later.”

“Bye Lisa, and good luck hooking them up.”

“Yeah, good luck. I heard a lot of girls are waiting to get their claws on Jungkook.”

You waited until you were a safe distance away before you spoke to Lisa.

“What was that?”

“What was what?”, Lisa asked innocently.

“You want to hook me up with Jungkook! Why?”

“Look, you’ve had a crush on him since forever and I want to help you out like the good friend that I am. Plus you two would look so good together.”

“This has nothing to do with the fact that you’re going out with his best friend, Taehyung?” You asked.

“I mean, we could have some pretty fun double dates. But Tae has been mentioning to me that Jungkook is lonely so this is the perfect opportunity for you.”

“Oh so it’s Tae now?” You teased and she blushed.

“Stop changing the subject. Shouldn’t you be happy? You like Jungkook.”

You didn’t know how to explain to her that whenever you tried to think of Jungkook in any sexual situation, Namjoon’s face would pop up instead. That maybe you don’t like Jungkook so much anymore…because you like someone else.

No! You tried to shake your thoughts, you don’t like Namjoon. You are merely…attracted to him. Yes, he is very hot. Also it doesn’t help that since Jin told you about the prophecy, you wondered what it’ll be like to be with Namjoon…

“Yeah, I’m happy. I just don’t know if I’m ready…”

“Jeesh girl, I’m not telling you to marry him or anything. Just go to the party with him and enjoy yourself, that’s it.”

You sighed, “Lisa, I hate to burst your bubble, but why would you think he’ll ask me to the party?”

She grinned, “You’ll see. We have biology now.”

You gave her a puzzled look, “And?”

“And Jungkook has that class with us.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Lisa just gave you a confident smile, “Just sit in your seat and look pretty, I’ll fix everything up.”

You both walked into the class and took your seats. The professor came in and smiled at the class.

“Today is going to be another lab, so pair up with your lab partner and complete the lab sheet. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.”

You turned to Lisa, who is normally your partner, but found she was no longer next to you. So you started to look around the room and noticed Jungkook coming towards you. You had to admit, as you watched him approach you, he really was easy on the eyes. Easily one of the handsomest man you’ve seen in your life.

“Hey.”, Jungkook smiled at you, looking all adorable. He didn’t have dimples though, like Namjoon.

Stop thinking about Namjoon!

“Hi.” You answered, not sure what to say. It’s not every day a very hot guy comes up and talks to you.

“What’s your name?”

“Y/N.”

“That’s a beautiful name, it suits you.”

You blushed, not used to being complimented, “Thanks, I was born with it.”

He laughed and you felt your face grow hotter from embarrassment. Oh my god, I really am an idiot.

“I mean, what’s your name?” You said and wanted to smack yourself in the head.

You already know his name you dumb-ass!

“Name’s Jungkook.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Jungkook.”

Why oh why am I so fucking awkward?, you lamented. If Jungkook wanted to go out with me before, he definitely doesn’t want to now.

“So do you want to be my lab partner? Yours seemed to have stolen mine today.”

You looked at the direction he was looking at and sure enough Lisa was flirting with Taehyung. You internally sighed, so this was her plan.

“Yeah, she seems really into your friend.”

“Tell me about, I can’t get him to shut up about her.”

“Me either.”

“So, partners?”

“Sure, partners. Sorry about Lisa, she sometimes does things without thinking.”

“Nah, don’t sweat it. It’s good to switch things up once in a while. Plus, I wouldn’t have such a cute girl as my partner.”

He complimented me again.

You blushed and looked down at you paper, at the assignment you were supposed to do, “Um, you want to start?”

“Sure.” Jungkook said as he looked at his paper and you guys started to do the assignment.

Jungkook was actually not a bad partner and was very easy to talk to. When you finished the assignment and handed in your lab sheets, you walked out of the class together.

“Do you have somewhere to be right now?” Jungkook asked.

You thought of going home to an empty house, without your grandma, and said, “Not particularly. Why?”

“You want to maybe grab a coffee together?”

You shrugged, “Why not? I need some caffeine in my life.”

And a distraction. Jungkook seems like a good distraction, you thought.

You went to the coffee shop in the campus and ordered your coffees. It was nice and relaxing and Jungkook was very easy to talk to. You talked about school and what classes you were taking. Jungkook studies politics, which you thought was very boring but did not say to him. You then briefly discussed politics and then there was a lull in the conversation.

Jungkook then broke the ice again, “So I’m holding a party in my house next week, you heard about it?”

You nodded, “Yeah, Lisa won’t shut up about it.”

“Oh right,” He laughed, “Are you coming?”

You took a sip of your coffee, “Yup, wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

You couldn’t stop the sarcasm from seeping into your voice, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Do you want to come with me?”

“You mean like a date?”

My IQ must have lowered since Namjoon took me because that was pitiful.

“Sure, if you want to call it that.”

Lisa would be ecstatic to hear about this development.

You suddenly felt a strange sense of guilt; wouldn’t this be betraying Namjoon? No, wait, you’re not even dating Namjoon. You don’t even like him. Of course it’s not cheating.

“Sure, I’ll go with you.”

Your first impression when you walked into the house was that there were too many people and that it was way too loud; you can already feel the headache that’ll plague you tomorrow morning.

You scanned the room for Lisa or Jungkook but couldn’t find them in the sea of faces. You began to feel more and more anxious; you didn’t know what to do.

Slowly, you made your way to the table filled with food. You can’t go wrong with food.

You pulled up your dress that Lisa insisted you wore. She said you looked hot in it, and you had to admit it did show your figure nicely. Still, who were you trying to impress? Jungkook? Sure, maybe. But deep down, you were a tiny bit disappointed Namjoon can’t see you like this.

And there you go thinking about Namjoon again, get a grip girl.

You picked up a Dorito chip awkwardly and started to nibble on it.

“And why is a fine lady like yourself doing by yourself in a place like this?”

You felt a blush make its way to your face and quickly turned around.

“Jungkook!” You said in relief, mostly because you couldn’t stand being here alone anymore.

You then were able to see him properly. It was undeniable, he looked pretty hot. His button-down shirt was tight fitting and the top buttons were not buttoned. His sleeves were also rolled up to show his nice, toned arms. His hair was perfectly styled, his hair pushed back with a few strands dipping unto his forehead. He gave you a sexy smirk.

“Yes, that’s my name.” Jungkook teased as he stepped close to you. You could smell his cologne, which was a nice change from the weed and sweat you could smell in the room.

“You look very gorgeous tonight.”, he murmured in your ear.  

You felt yourself grow hotter by the minute and willed yourself to not stutter like a middle schooler, “T-thank you.”

You then heard your name being called. You scanned the room, wondering who could possibility call your name. You saw Lisa making her way towards you with seven-inch heels on.

“All I’m saying, Lisa, is how that takes real skill.” You commented dryly as you pointed to her shoes.

Lisa laughed, “This is a skill that took many years to perfect. Do you want a drink?’

She held two plastic cups and offered one to you. You smiled and accepted the drink, even though you weren’t that thirsty. Maybe some liquid courage can help. Lisa noticed Jungkook next to you.

“Nice party, Jungkook.” Lisa greeted him.

He smiled and took a drink from his beer, “Yeah, it is a nice party.”

“Do you know where Tae is?” Lisa asked and Jungkook shrugged.

“He might be out in the back playing beer pong with some of the other brothers. You might want to try there.”

“Alright, thanks.” Lisa said and turned to me, “You good?”

You force a smile; you hated it here but didn’t want to disappoint Lisa. Maybe being with Jungkook will make things better.

She took your smile as a ‘yes’ and said, “Okay, enjoy yourselves. I’ll see you later.”

Lisa gave a little wave and walked to the direction of the backyard.

You took a cautious sip of your drink. It took everything in your power to not cough; vodka was not really your style. It tastes like rubbing alcohol. You took another sip, not wanting to seem like a wimp in front of Jungkook, but you ended up coughing.

“You don’t have to drink that if you don’t want to.” Jungkook said and you blushed.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Kind of, but that’s okay; I’ll let you off the hook because you’re so cute. Do you want a beer instead?”

This caused your face to heat up further and you knew you couldn’t blame it at the alcohol. He offered you a beer and you took it.

“Thanks.” You said gratefully as you deposited the vodka cup on a nearby table, “So what does one do in these kind of parties?”

“Drink, flirt, dance, the usual.” Jungkook said casually, “Do you want to dance?”

You saw him finish his drink and grab another beer. You took a sip. Still tastes terrible, but at least it didn’t burn your throat like the vodka.

“Well I’m not such a big fan of dancing…”

“It’s really easy,” He said, “You just have to move your body to the music, it’s not like we are ballroom dancing or any of that shit.”

You bit your lip, debating on whether you want to be in a sweaty crowd of people with horrible music pounding in your ears. On the other hand, you don’t want Jungkook to get bored and leave you all by yourself.

He sensed your dilemma, “Look I can teach you, it won’t be that bad.”

“Alright.” You found yourself saying.

You frowned, I must not be thinking clearly, but followed him to the dance floor and drowned the rest of the beer.

It was hot; there were so many bodies in the dance floor you could barely move. Jungkook was pressed close to you and you weren’t sure if you liked it or hated it. He brought your hands around his neck.

“Place your arms here.” He said and you can feel his silky hair on the back of his neck. He then placed his hands on your hips and brought them against his. Oh my.

“Now just move your body to the beat of the music.” He murmured against your ear, sending shivers down your spine.

You tried to get into the mood of the music and move your body, but you just felt awkward. Jungkook gave you a few more pointers, but they didn’t seem to help. You were too self-conscious. 

“Just let loose, forget what anyone has to say.” Jungkook murmured, his hips grinding into yours and you dropped your hands from his neck to grip his shoulders. 

“I’m sorry, Jungkook,” you confessed, “I’m just comfortable bumping and grinding.”

“It’s okay, babe, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

Your smile was a bit forced as he tightened his hold on you and made you feel a bit uncomfortable. Jungkook was nice and all, but sometimes he would get carried away and you have to remind him to not get carried away. Like now.

“Jungkook?”

“Yeah?”

“Please remove your hands from my ass now.”

He quickly took them off, looking embarrassed.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize—”

“It’s okay, just don’t let it happen again.” You said.

Namjoon wouldn’t have pressured you to dance, that annoying little voice in your head said. He wouldn’t need to be reminded to keep his hands off of you.

Yeah, I highly doubt he dances or does any fun things at all, you argue back, Plus, he wouldn’t touch me because he doesn’t feel that way to me at all. At least I know Jungkook is attracted to me.

Dancing isn’t fun for you, so isn’t that a win-win?, the little voice continued, plus, according to the prophecy—

The prophecy is bullshit.

You ignored the voice, you didn’t want to think about Namjoon when you were with Jungkook. You danced for a bit more, but between the music and the alcohol you developed quite a headache.

“Jungkook, I have a headache. Can we stop dancing?”

“Sure, are you okay? Do you want me to take you home?” Jungkook asked, sounding very concerned as he led you away from the dance floor.

“Nah, I’m fine. I just need to sit down a bit.”

You looked around but all the chairs were taken and the couch was being used for…other stuff; you made a face.

“I can take you upstairs since all the seats down here are taken?”

You bit your lip and nodded, the alcohol not helping with this headache of yours, “Okay then.”

You rubbed your temples, reminder: don’t drink alcohol, it seems to not agree with me.

As you start up the stairs, you thought you saw Namjoon’s concerned face in the crowd but when you looked again you didn’t see him.

I must be imagining him since I’ve been thinking about him, you thought, what’s wrong with you? You have a perfectly hot boy in your reach and you’re thinking about some magical being who doesn’t even like you? Grow up.

You were on the second floor and there were several people around—mainly couples making out—and you started to grow a little wary.

“Maybe we should go back downstairs.” You tried to get out of his grasp but he held on.

“Are you sure?”

A little voice in your head said that this was a very bad idea, but it was very faint. The pounding in your head was making it hard to hear that faint voice.

“…I don’t know.” You said truthfully as you looked at a couple making out next to you. You didn’t really want to go back down there with all those people.

He noticed that you were uncomfortable by this atmosphere and said, “We can go to my room, if you want to. There shouldn’t be anyone there and you can rest.”

Some peace and quiet sounded pretty good right now, so you nodded. He led you to a more secluded part of the house and opened the door to what you assume was his room. He fumbled for the light switch and turned it on.

The light wasn’t good for your headache and you winced. Jungkook noticed.

“Would you rather I turned off the lights?”

“Maybe.” You admitted and he turned off the lights. The was a little light coming from the window, so you weren’t in complete darkness. Your head felt like it was splitting in half and you walked to the bed so you can sit down. Jungkook followed and sat next to you.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He brought his hand to your forehead and your face started to heat up at the contact, “Do you want an aspirin or something?”

“I’m not sure if I should have an aspirin if I had alcohol..” You admit, “But maybe if I just drank water it’ll be fine.”

“Oh, I think I have a bottle here.”

He got up and search around his desk to find an unopened bottle of water.

“Here you go.”

You gave him a grateful smile, “Thanks. You should probably head back to the party though, they probably miss you out there.”

“Nah, they’ll be fine.” He smiled and you opened the bottle and drank it.

Water did help, but your mind was still fuzzy from the alcohol.

“Did that help?”

“A little, thanks.”

“That’s good”, Jungkook leaned closer and you just realized how close he was to you.

You nodded, “Yeah.”

He pushed a strand of your hair behind your ear and he let his hand linger on your chin. His hands were soft and you didn’t necessarily hate the touch. He then leaned forward and brushed his lips against yours. You didn’t respond, frozen and not sure what to do. Should I kiss him? Should I slap him away? You were confused and you couldn’t keep your thoughts straight. He figured your frozen state must have been some sort of consent because he added pressure unto your lips, which your mouth automatically responded to. He let out a hum of approval and his hand traveled from your chin to the back of your head, bringing you closer.

Jungkook broke the kiss, his eyes filled with lust as he licked his lips.

“You taste so good.”

You couldn’t think straight between the alcohol and the lust, your breath heavy and your heart racing.

He kissed along your clavicle and found a sensitive spot. You made a noise as started to lick and suck that spot.

“Namjoon.” You moaned and Jungkook stopped.

“Who’s Namjoon?”

Oh shit. That sobered you up a little.

You blushed, embarrassed at your slip up, “He’s no one.”

“Doesn’t sound like no one.” He murmured against your neck and you bit your lip.

“It’s…complicated.”

“Well I don’t like it when I’m with a woman and she says some other man’s name. But don’t worry, soon I’ll have it that the only name you can even think of is mine.”

He brought his hand to your bare knee and started to stroke your skin, reaching higher and higher—

“Jungkook, stop it.” You said, grabbing his hand to push it away, but he used his other hand to hold you hand down.

“C’mon, just a moment ago you really liked it.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t in my right mind.” Finally, your head was clearing up and you realized you got yourself in a tricky situation.

He pulled away and frowned at you, “What do you mean?”

“I…I’m not sure I want to do this.”

Jungkook brought his hand to stroke your face, “Is it because of that Namjoon? Do you like him?”

“No, I just—”

“Then don’t worry, I’m going to make you feel so good.”

His free hand grabbed your breast and started to knead them harshly from on top of your thin dress. You gasped.

“Please—”

“You’re not even wearing a bra. It’s like you were expecting something to happen tonight.”

More like Lisa told you that none of your bras fit this dress, you thought bitterly and were about to say so when he kissed you again.

He pinched your nipple and you yelped, trying to shove him away from you but he was really strong. Guess those muscles are legit.

“Jungkook, I—”

“Shh,” He murmured, pressing his fingers against your lips, “Don’t talk too much.”

You started to get angry, if he doesn’t get his hands off you—

You heard the door slam open and you both jumped.

“Get off her.”

You blinked.

You didn’t imagine that voice.

You slowly turned to the door and saw Namjoon standing at the doorway, looking furious.

“Dude, chill.” Jungkook said, a bit annoyed, “You’re sort of interrupting something.”

“I said let her go.” Namjoon repeated, walking towards us.

“Fuck off man, this is none of your business—”

Namjoon grabbed Jungkook by the collar, “It is my business what you do to my bride.”

“Your bride?”

“Namjoon, stop.” You said.

“Oh so this is Namjoon?”, Jungkook laughed.

You blushed, remembering your slip up. You were also a bit scared; this was the angriest you’ve ever seen Namjoon; he looked so scary. And hot. Wow, the alcohol must still be in my system because what the fuck.  

“I’m warning you.” Namjoon said.

“What? Obviously you can’t satisfy her if she’s coming to me for some—"

Before he had a chance to finish his sentence, Namjoon peeled Jungkook off you and punched him in the face. Jungkook tries to fight back, but this seemed to agitate Namjoon further and he doesn’t stop hitting him. 

“This should teach you the meaning of consent.”, Namjoon growled as he landed another punch on Jungkook and you winced. You realize that if Namjoon doesn’t stop now, he’ll legit kill Jungkook.

“Namjoon! Stop!” You grab his arm, trying to calm him down.

Namjoon turned to you, about to yell at you for stopping him, when he sees the tears in your eyes. You didn’t even realize you were crying. His gaze immediately softens and brings you to arms, trying to comfort you.

“Let’s go home.”

You nod, realizing that you have started considering his palace as your home.

“Let’s go.” You said softly and he teleports you back, holding you firmly in his arms.

When you arrive, he let’s you go, much to your disappointment. He studied you.

“Are you alright? Did he hurt you?”, he asked softly and you were struck at this different side to him. Since when was he so...gentle?

“I’m fine.” You said simply and his eyes narrowed to a spot on your neck.

“What’s that?”

You brought your hand up to hide it, but he took your hand and moved it away. He studied the mark, which probably started to bruise already, and lightly touched it with his fingertips. You couldn’t help but shiver at the light touch.

“I could kill him for that.”, his tone was hard.

“Don’t.” You said, “It’s not worth it.”

He looked at you, nodded, then looked away.            

“Well, I should be g—"

You then remembered something.

“Wait, why am I here? What happened to me being ‘safer on earth’?”

“I didn’t count the dangers of humans.”, Namjoon muttered, “If you’re here with me I can protect you better anyway.”

You couldn’t help it, your heart warmed at those words.

“Thank you for saving me,” You murmured, “I don’t know what would have happened if you didn’t come.”

He gave you a small smile and you could see those adorable dimples, “Of course I came for you, you’re my bride.”

A/N

Wow, that dance scene was kind of inspiring. May have to write a drabble with Jungkook now with a proper dance scene. Also, sorry that this was so late, I’m literal trash  

[thesydneyfeminists]

Fitness Programs For Women aka That Time Vee Joined A Cult

Disclaimer: I am in no way getting paid to spruik these programs (but if they want to throw some money my way, I wouldn’t object) and I am definitely not a qualified health professional. This is all based off my own experiences with these programs and my very poor level of fitness.

Over the last few years, one thing that I’ve learned about myself and had to come to terms with, is that I am shockingly susceptible to a fitness cult. There’s no use denying it, the evidence speaks for itself. Like most people, when I started my “fitness journey” (God, I really am a pod person), I had absolutely no idea about what I should be doing for exercise or eating to fuel my body. My knowledge of nutrition and overall health was basically “go for a run and eat salads”, so it shouldn’t be surprising to hear that when I first lost a large(ish) amount of weight (in 2006), it was just by running on the treadmill and restricting calories in an extreme way – I was also going through a lot of personal issues at the time, so stress played a part as well. So I may have lost weight, but I was in no way healthy, and once I’d stopped running, my weight fluctuated once more.

Cut to September 2015, and I’d decided it may be time to change my life a little. I still ate the way I did when I was a teenager, and unsurprisingly, I constantly felt bloated and sick, and I was drastically unhappy with how I looked and felt. Mind you, this was all personal, I’m not saying I looked bad, but my clothes weren’t fitting properly anymore, and I was tired of it (and too cheap to replace anything). I’d been seeing ads on social media, and hearing from people I knew, about an online program called The Bikini Body Guide (hereafter known as BBG) by Kayla Itsines, that people (mostly women) were getting great results from. So, after obtaining a copy through dubious means (as in, I never paid for it, but received it from someone who did), I decided to give it a go – despite my doubts and reservations that the results from the #bbgtransformation / #bbgprogress tags could be real and/or achieved at home, like the guides claimed. I was very wrong.

For some background, BBG was founded by Kayla Itsines and her partner, Tobi Pearce, in 2013, based off the training regimes Itsines (a personal trainer) had been using with her clients. The first two guides (BBG1 & BBG2) were made available for purchase online as ebooks in January 2014, and the program is relatively simple in theory. It’s a 12 week program that consists of three 28 minute high intensity circuit work outs a week, and for the first month, on your “off” days (the days you don’t complete the circuit training), you have three days of LISS training (Low Intensity Steady State – as in a 35-45 minute walk), and one day of stretching. It then ramps up, and for weeks 5-8, you do the 2-3 days of circuit training, 4-5 days of LISS, and one stretch session. Come weeks 9-12 (the home stretch), you then up your game with 3-4 days of circuit training, 2-3 sessions of LISS, 1-2 days of HIIT training (my least favourite cardio activity – sprints!) and 1-2 stretch sessions. The idea of the resistance circuit work outs, are also pretty simple. It’s broken down two 7 minute circuits with 4 exercises in each, and you repeat both circuits twice – but you do the four exercise sets in each circuit as many times as you can in the seven minute timer. That sounds a little confusing when written down, but basically it means if you get through all your repetitions of the four exercises, you start again at the beginning of that set, and keep going until that blessed 7 minute timer goes off. Then you rest for (a year) 30-90 seconds, and restart the timer for the next set. So it’s easy, you can mostly do it at home with some improvisations (I bought a few hand weights, but when I started, I was literally using bottles of water as my weights, and I used a chair from my kitchen to step up onto).

Example of the way the guides are set up

There are some pros and cons to doing exercise this way, for example, on one hand, you can do everything in the comfort of your own home. I used to put a TV show on and watch that while I did it. Plus, it’s only 28 minutes out of your day, and I found that made it hard to make excuses as to why I couldn’t do it. It also means you don’t have to join a gym if you don’t want to, as long as you can either buy some weights yourself, or substitute with various heavy objects in your house. The biggest thing I took away from doing BBG was that it taught me about habits and routines. Working out stopped being “a chore” for me, and it just became part of my daily routine, something that’s held up to this day. There are some definite cons, however, and I think the biggest one is because it’s an online program, you actually can’t tell if you’re doing the exercises correctly (or in exercise speak, “if your form is correct”). It also gets a little boring after a while, because there’s no variation (this has changed now, since Itsines launched the Sweat With Kayla app where there are at least 3-4 different programs) – I did BBG1 and BBG2 twice over, so I completed 48 weeks all up, and by the end of it, I was bored and ready for a challenge.

Photo of me at 4 weeks, then 24 weeks, and finally, 48 weeks (apologies for the terrible quality).

So for the first time in my life, I set foot in and joined a gym. I started slow, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be strict about going, so I joined one of the cheaper 24 hour gyms, just to get a feel for it. After all, my workouts at this point had only been at home, DIY sort of jobs, and now I was venturing into the scary world of weights and men taking up way too much space. Knowing what I know now, this wouldn’t be an issue, but looking back, I probably should’ve joined a gym just for women. I used to feel intimidated walking into the weights section, where too many buff dude-bros were busy “do you even lift?”-ing, and (it felt like) staring at me. So, I did what I do best in these situations, and in busy hours, I stuck to the cardio section (a treadmill, stair master and cross trainer, I can work with), only daring to venture into the weights section when I worked out at odd hours (the benefit of a 24 hour gym is that I could do a 10pm weight workout – though, unstaffed and only with a panic switch around my neck, luckily I never got into any trouble). But it was the best way for me to learn and gain confidence. After a few weeks of working out late at night to avoid people (mostly men), I finally felt confident enough to start working with weights at normal hours. And I soon learned that no one was looking at me, everyone is too busy doing their own thing to worry about the five foot Korean girl squatting a measly 10kg (total).

Now it’s 2018 and here I am, flirting with F45, the latest cult. F45 (functional training for 45 minutes) started in 2011, and it’s whole schtick is that it’s a fast paced HIIT circuit that goes for 45 minutes, for classes of up to 30 people. Men do attend, but it was initially targeted at women, as the classes are set up like group personal training sessions (and all the people I know who have signed up, are women – not to mention at all the classes I’ve been to are 99% women). I’d seen F45 around for a while, and I’d heard various things about it; how it “changed your whole life” on the positive, and “how I threw up during a session” as a negative. I’d always been tempted to give it a go, but the price tag always stopped me (and the thought of throwing up mid workout, to be honest). But then, just two weeks ago, a brand new studio opened up in my suburb, a 5 minute walk from my house. They were offering a free class on their open day, so I bit the bullet and signed up for it, anxious about whether or not I’d be able to keep up. I was sceptical going in, after all, it’s literally a HIIT class, and I’d done those before, so I didn’t think it would, in the words of Shania Twain, impress me much. Well, as I’ve probably proved by now… you introduce me to a fitness cult, and I’ll want to join. The class I did was Hollywood, a torturous hour mix of cardio and weights training, and though I kept my eye on that timer the whole time, I had an absolute blast (by the way, the me from 2015 cannot believe I’m saying this). The atmosphere is great, you’re in there with a team of 20+ people (all drowning in sweat together), and the trainers are encouraging and really do push you as hard as you can go (one trainer asked if I could do push ups on my toes, and I said that could was a strong word, but sure enough, with her encouragement, I managed to complete my 40 second round on my toes with proper form). There are the standard cringey high fives and supportive cheering (I feel high fiving strangers while covered in sweat is not a pleasant experience for either party involved), but after the class, I felt elated (I also nearly threw up while walking home, but managed to swallow my pride… and vomit, I guess), high on those exercise endorphins, and I really started to understand why people swore by it. So now I’m signed up for the free ten day trial, and I’ve even dragged myself to a few 6am classes (it’s a different class each day, so you can pick and choose which you want to do, and they alternate cardio and resistance days) – I’m at the point where I have to choose what I’m going to do, and I think I’m going to stick with it, at least for the summer, to see if I can push myself a little harder and add some variety to my workouts.

Kayla Itsines, the cult leader of BBG

For me though, it all comes back down to that original program, if I hadn’t started BBG, I never would’ve gained any confidence to join a gym, or even to know what to do in a gym. I’ve heard people look down on the BBG program, or say that the results aren’t real, that the people doing it were already fit when they started (definitely not true, especially in my case), but I think a lot of flack seems to come from the fact that it’s specifically targeted at women and as a result, it’s seen as a waste or time, or something to not take seriously – that’s the real heart of the problem, like most things in society. Things for women are deemed frivolous, not as good, or something to look down on. But the reason Itsines has built this multimillion-dollar empire is because it’s for women. It’s a program designed by a woman, for women, and that goes a long way to proving its worth, in my opinion. Women all over the world swear by this program (I’m one of them), because if you follow it properly, it works. Itsines understands what her target market are looking for in terms of fitness goals, and she gives a very easy guide to achieve them (note: I don’t mean easy as in it’s way too simple to do, honestly I pushed myself so hard in these I threw up in my mouth several times while completing her workouts).

There are many programs out there like BBG, ones targeted for women, off the top of my head, there’s FitazFk and Toned by Ashy Bines, all designed to help women achieve some relatively easy fitness goals. It’s definitely a good way to start, if you’re new to working out and intimidated (like I was) at the idea of joining a gym and jumping right into it. The worst thing that happens with at home programs is you just feel like an idiot squatting while holding a 1L water bottle to simulate weights.

I honestly think fitness programs for women (and especially by women) are essential; they give you routine and structure, they know their target market and teach you to build muscle and strength in a way that’s easy to understand; and most importantly, they create a supportive community online –during my time using BBG, I had my own little #fitfam, with whom I would share progress and exchange tips and tricks. I think that’s probably the best thing about programs like BBG, the community that grows behind it and the support you get from random strangers on the internet, there’s no room for negativity, it’s a safe space that’s all about supporting one another and cheering on successes, but encouraging each other when things are tough. So yes, I may have joined a cult back in 2015, but it changed my life for the better.

By: Vee H

Image sources:

BBG1, Kayla Itsines

Personal photos

https://twitter.com/kayla_itsines/status/758793723270627328

[whittertwitter]

Re-imagining Persona 3 Portable’s Social Links: Part 2.5

Much like this post revisited Part 1, this post will revisit Part 2 of me essentially re-writing P3P, with this post in particular covering how I imagine the new Social Links/romances for the FeMC would work, as well as thoughts on her version of The Answer; I’m basing this off Alt #3 in the first link.

Kikuno’s is the one I’m having the most trouble figuring out. I feel like she would approach you first, maybe asking you to help watch over Mitsuru since you’ll be around her more often as a member of both SEES and the student council. For a hangout place, I’m thinking either Be Blue V or Chagall Cafe, the former because it used to be the accessory shop and Kikuno is proficient in making equipment. Over time, you’ll start to learn more about her, including her friendship with Mitsuru and being a subject of the same experiment that produced Strega. Still trying to figure out what her Memento should be; I’m thinking some kind of handmade accessory? Maybe the Handmade Choker since I’ve given Kenji the boot.

For Jin and Takaya, I’ve settled on you meeting Jin online after the June Full Moon Operation, but meeting him in-person after the first or second rank instead of the third or fourth; Takaya’s Social Link still starts with him tagging along to the meeting. Jin can be found at Iwatodai Station and Takaya at Port Island Station, both during the day for obvious reasons. Both Social Links will pause after a couple more ranks until the August Full Moon Operation, then resume (with full knowledge of who they are and what they’re about) until the October Full Moon Operation.

If Takaya’s Social Link is maxed before the October Full Moon Operation, he won’t kill Shinji; I’m still trying to figure out how events will play out instead, because Ken probably would’ve succeeded in his little murder-suicide if Takaya hadn’t shown up. I really like the idea of fighting Shadow Shinji, Jin, Takaya, and Chidori to help them get their Personas under control without suppressants--and even join your party after a brief hospital stay--but in Strega’s case, those boss fights are set to happen if you’ve maxed out their Social Links before a deadline, so they’d have to either make Shinji’s Social Link rank up automatically (or at least start automatically, to justify why this doesn’t happen for the MC) or have the Shadow Shinji boss fight happen no matter what; I kinda prefer the latter, because it fits with the party members having their own character development outside of the player’s involvement, and Shadow Shinji still provides delicious, delicious angst for Akihiko and Ken. (Shadow Shinji also provides a good reason for Takaya to nope out of there even if he isn’t maxed.)

Jin and Takaya’s Social Links pause again for the month of October; Shadow Jin and Takaya boss fight on November 3 if you maxed out Takaya before October 4. (If you just maxed out Jin, he’ll be conflicted but ultimately side with Takaya) And I’ve decided for sure that they’ll fill out the FeMC’s last two slots for romance options; Jin will be the tsundere one a la Yukari, and the best way I can describe Takaya's feelings for the FeMC is how Zenos yae Galvus feels about the Warrior of Light in Final Fantasy XIV, where he’s both depressed and horny on main at once. Still don’t know what their Mementos should be, and with them and Shinji being around for the Christmas date (and Junpei replacing Ken as a romance option), I need to come up with Christmas presents as well.

Romancing Junpei before he meets Chidori will result in them being just friends, though Junpei will be like Akihiko where you pretty much can’t lock in a romance without a guide. I can’t decide whether it should start shortly after Junpei meets her over summer vacation and pause after a few ranks until her hospitalization, or after she’s hospitalized following the September Full Moon Operation. Regardless, I feel like Junpei would introduce you, because he’d want the two most important ladies in his life to be friends! Shadow Chidori boss fight on November 22 if you maxed her out before November 6; I’m still not sure how to handle Trismegistus since its existence kinda depends on Chidori dying/losing her Persona. On the plus side, since it seems to take about a month tops to recover from having your Shadow beaten in P4, Chidori should be well enough to go on a Christmas date with Junpei! (If you’re not romancing him, of course.)

For Ikutsuki, I know I said Chagall Cafe for his hangout place, but after a conversation with candidcallalily I think Mandragora might be a better fit, since he wants to sing karaoke at Yakushima. Still don’t know what his Memento should be, but I’m tentatively calling the bad ending where you side with him after maxing him out the Queen of the Fall Ending. And even if you don’t choose the Queen of the Fall Ending, he survives the fall and becomes an artificial Persona user if maxed out, essentially taking the place of Jin and Takaya (whose own fall if not maxed out is now fatal) as the founder of the Nyx cult and the bosses you fight on the way to Nyx on December 31: first normally, then as a Shadow.

As for The Answer, it’ll assume Shinji and Strega surviving and joining the party is canon. Also, I feel like for the FeMC, Akihiko and Ken would be the ones wanting to bring her back and Yukari and Mitsuru wanting to respect her decision, because Akihiko and Ken are both at least partially projecting the loss of important women in their lives onto her, so her death is going to be even more devastating than the MC’s. It’s hard to say who Shinji and Strega would side with, since I think there’s an argument to be made for any of them wanting to bring her back, but tentatively I think it’d be Shinji with Aigis/Metis/Fuuka, Takaya with Akihiko/Ken, Jin with Junpei/Koromaru, and Chidori with Yukari/Mitsuru, for maximum angst.

[athousandrows-blog]

when I was eleven, my friend introduced me to a game that I will never forget

When I was eleven I had a friend who claimed she was a witch.

It’s not a big deal when you’re eleven; kids are flexible. If you call yourself a witch, kids will believe you. I believed her. We all did.

I ran with a small group at school. The witch girl – Mari – and four others. Jasmine, Alex, Harry and Kia. We were tight-knit, we played with each other every school day and even most weekends.

Now, our group were the ‘weird kids’ at school. Every school had them and we were indifferent about the title. They started calling us that after Mari introduced us to a strange variation of ‘make-believe’. Lots of kids liked to play pretend with their dolls, or role-play family dynamics in the wooden gazebo on the field, but with our group, we liked to play around with different ideas.

You’ve heard of imaginary friends, right? Well, our group had ‘ghost friends’.

A/N: Hello everyone, I’m a new horror writer on the block and it’d mean the world to me if you gave my work a read. @sixpenceee care to help?

Ghost friends was Mari’s idea. One day she came to school and didn’t speak a word to any of us all morning. She talked, alright, but not with us. Instead, she would talk animatedly with something we couldn’t see that was always right next to her. She saved a chair for it in class, left a gap in our circle when we had our snacks at morning break, she even claimed it was feeding her answers every time she raised her hand in maths.

She said it was her ‘ghost friend’ and we could all have them. They were simply spirits who had never passed on. Kids, a lot of them. She claimed kids were never happy about dying. Refusing to pass on was like a whole game to them. Mari enforced this story with one based in fact. It was common knowledge that a kid had passed away a few years prior from our year group. He’d gone in for a rudimentary surgery when we were seven, but there had been a complication with the procedure. He’d died on the operating table and the school put a plaque on a bench in the gazebo in his honour. It was the first and only time I’d ever seen our teacher cry.

Mari spoke proudly about this kid, that all of her ghost friends knew him and played with him regularly on the other side of the veil. Soon enough, we all had ‘ghost friends’ of our own. Except, I think Mari was the only one to ever truly believe what she was seeing. Jasmine, Kia and I usually grouped up when Mari declared we would be spending lunch break with our ghost friends, mostly because that way we had someone real to talk to. Alex and Harry played along at first, but soon the ruse lifted and we forgot all about our ghost friends. We started playing tag instead.

Mari never gave up. In fact, after a while, she suggested something new. ‘Better than make-believe’ she’d said.

I remember the day it all started. It was close to summer, and the playground smelt uniquely of burning asphalt and an overzealous use of sun cream. Kids screamed and tumbled on the grass, and Jasmine made a daisy chain with flowers she’d picked that morning.

“Do you remember your ghost friends?” Mari asked indifferently.

We all paused to look at her. We were sat by the main school block, legs crossed, playing stupid games that didn’t involve much movement. In truth, it had been months since we’d even thought about them. I shared a look with Kia, and Harry and Alex suddenly looked very guilty. Jasmine continued her daisy chain.

“It’s alright if you don’t,” Mari added, shrugging. “The ghosts lost interest in us. Even me.” She seemed genuinely upset about this.

“Yeah, but it was never real, was it?” Harry asked. “I mean, you never actually saw no ghosts.”

Mari didn’t respond to that. She was a powerful young thing, I’ll always remember that of her. With bronzed skin and chestnut ringlets, she would be popular with the boys in a few years without even trying. Her dark eyes though, they always unsettled me. Even in direct sunlight on that summer’s day, they were still as black as coals. As she held her gaze with each of us, we felt a chill pass through the air, thrilling us to our core.

“I have something new to show you,” Mari said, straightening her back. “They’re called shadow people.”

It was impossible to look away from her now. There was an intenseness in Mari that seemed to accumulate the longer she held you captive with her eyes. She smiled at us, each of us, and glanced away. “They’re not like our ghost friends, they don’t live on the other side of the veil.”

“Where do they live?” Kia, bless her, seemed genuinely intrigued.

“Come off it,” Harry said, knocking Alex in the arm. “We ain’t doing this again, Mari.”

“Can we jus’ play bulldog?” Alex complained.

“No!” Mari’s tone was forceful and it silenced us all. Then she smiled again, bright and genuine. “You know when I said that I was a witch?”

Harry snorted, Mari ignored him. “Technically, my mum and dad are,” she said. “But I’m their prodigy. They gave me something. I want to show it to you all.”

Mari kept it in her bag in the classes’ cloak room. It was a small rucksack packed tightly with a rectangular object. At the end of the school day, Mari led us through the school gates, down three streets, through an alleyway and down to the old playground. It had a few swing sets and an old slide, but most kids came for the skate ramp and zip wire. They were new additions to the park that could be located further down the field. The swings were just out of sight of the newer park and Mari took us there, sitting herself down on the one swing that wasn’t crooked.

The rest of us sat on the grass.

Mari made a big deal out of pulling the object from her rucksack. It was a book, we realised. Some kind of old children’s picture book. On the front of the book was a title scrawled in staggered curls the same colour as blood.

SLEEP LIKE THE DEAD

“No way,” Jasmine said, shaking her head.

“What is it?” Alex asked.

“It’s a book my parents started reading to me,” Mari said. She seemed very proud. “I’m old enough to learn about their world now. This is their world.” She tapped the book in her hands. “This is the book of the shadow people.”

“It’s a picture book,” Harry said blankly. “My brother still reads those. They’re shit.”

“What picture books have you seen that look like that?” Kia asked quietly. Her eyes were wide.

“What’s that?” I asked, standing. Mari let me come closer and I ran my fingers across the cover. It was course on my fingers, but I still followed the shape of the creature indented on the cardboard. A dark shadow-like blob. I looked at, at the bright white eyes that were drawn on what must have been its head.

“That’s my shadow,” Mari said fondly, stroking the surface. “And the title is its game.”

“Sleep like the dead,” Alex said, reading it aloud.

Harry hit him. “Don’t tell me you believe this.”

Alex pursed his lips.

Jasmine shook her head again. “I don’t like this,” she said. “This doesn’t seem right.”

“Its game?” Kia said, talking over her. “Is it better than ghost friends?”

“Much better,” Mari said. “Ghost friends get bored and they leave you alone. Shadows never leave you, they’re loyal, they can always find you.” Mari pointed at her feet where a long black shape stretched from her body. The shape’s feet dangled along with her own. She giggled. “We’re connected to them, see?”

I was suddenly very frightened of my own shadow. I remembered a scene from Peter Pan, a cartoon that I adored, and recalled the moment that his shadow had broken from his feet. At that time, the shadow had had a life of its own. Only when Wendy managed to sew their feet back together did the shadow lose its autonomy.

My shadow was as it always was, of course. A perfect, dark, image of myself, stretched by the sun but completely reliant on my movement to guide its own. Of course, I moved my arms to confirm this, and all around me my friends did this as well.

Mari chuckled fondly. “Of course, a witch’s shadow is different! It’s not your body blocking out the light, it’s its own thing! My shadow is darkness. It’s… it’s void!”

“That’s stupid,” Harry said, sniffing. “A shadow is a shadow. Your shadow ain’t no different from ours.” He stood from the grass. “I’m goin’ home, I’ve had enough of this crap. I’m not playing along jus’ ‘cause you wanna be more special than us.”

Alex went to stand as well, but Mari glanced at him and he stayed where he was. Kia was completely enraptured. Jasmine was a lot like me. We were both there because we were curious, but we were also incredibly terrified. I took a step away from the book and felt my stomach clench. Something cold settled inside me, and I had the urge to reclaim that step, to remain where I was beside the book. Instead, with a lot more effort than I anticipated, I joined Jasmine on the grass.

Harry began to storm away, but Mari called after him, “My address is,” and she told him her address, “join us tomorrow after school. I want to show you the game!”

Harry paused long enough to listen, but he didn’t come back that evening.

Mari tapped the book cover with a far-away look in her eyes. “It’s time we go home,” she said. “But I want you all to meet me at my house tomorrow. My parents will be away, they’re collecting ingredients for a big trip we’re taking on the weekend!” She was thrilled by this. “It means you’ll all be able to stay as long as you like. And we won’t be disturbed.” She slipped the book back into her bag. “I’ll explain the rules then,” she said, glancing up at us. “Then we can play.”

We all gathered our things ready to leave. Kia walked by Mari’s side, asking her a hundred questions at once. I stayed with Jasmine, and Alex tagged along with us, looking a little lost without Harry to bounce off of.

We were just out of the alleyway when Mari called me back.

“You go on with Jasmine,” Mari told Kia. “I just need to speak with Allie alone.”

Kia did so as dutifully as a cult groupie. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to follow Mari into the dark of the alleyway, but I did anyway.

Mari took my arm, linking us together. I could feel the warmth of her and it warmed me too. She was bright with a wild energy, like she could do all and anything she so wanted. Still, as the sky darkened, I couldn’t help but feel unnerved. I’d very rarely been alone with Mari, and I suddenly felt exposed.

“You felt it, didn’t you?” Mari asked. “When you touched the book?”

“I don’t know what I felt,” I told her.

She made a small humming sound. “After school tomorrow, I want you to help me set up for my shadow.”

I didn’t know what that meant and I think she could tell by my silence. Mari laughed sweetly. “It’s alright, it’s nothing too spooky, I promise. We’ll just be lighting some candles and burning a few things that my shadow will like. Then we can play the game!” Mari stopped suddenly, turning to me. “You’ll love it,” she said, “I promise.”

I didn’t agree with her, but I smiled.

She walked with me a little longer before we parted ways. I walked home alone and tried desperately not to think about the things I’d seen or the way I felt. That is, not until the next day.

When we got to school, our group was a lot less talkative than usual. Mari, however, was bright and boastful throughout the day. She answered questions like clockwork in class and on the playground, she kept us all on our toes about what would be happening that afternoon.

“What did she ask you?” Jasmine asked me just before lunch. Mari had marched out of the class the second the bell had rung, but Jasmine loitered in the cloak room, ready to grab my attention.

I don’t know why, but I didn’t want to tell her. I had always been closest to Jasmine, but Mari’s words hung with me. She’d wanted my help and she understood the way I’d felt when I’d touched the cover of her picture book. Magic or not, that coldness in my chest was still present nearly a whole day later and I didn’t like it. I felt as though to say anything about our conversation would be to betray Mari. The cold feeling twisted itself a little deeper, like a sharp screw.

“It was nothing,” I told Jasmine. “She wanted to borrow my homework to copy. I don’t think she wanted anyone knowing she hadn’t completed it herself.”

It was a strong enough lie that would match Mari’s personality. She was a very astute girl and to be caught missing an assignment was her idea of social suicide. Jasmine seemed to believe my lie enough to let it pass, and we spent the rest of the day chatting about anything other than Mari’s special game.

My head felt light by the time we were let out of class that afternoon. We could all feel it – that same apprehension - but I knew now that I had been placed with a responsibility beyond that of my friend’s.

None of us had been to Mari’s house before. She always said that after school was time she spent with her parents, and they were teaching her more about witchcraft and the powers that she possessed. Of course, Mari never performed any spells in school. She claimed that was against the rules her parents had set for her.

Mari didn’t live far from the school and her house was completely unassuming from the outside. A typical detached house in British suburbia. The front of the house was decorated with old Tudor frames. The front garden was neat and trimmed and summer flowers grew in abundance by her front door.

Mari unlocked the door and we stepped inside. The hallway was large and wooden and the air was lightly fragranced with cinnamon. Mari guided us into a moderately sized living space with two brown fabric sofas and a boxy TV. There were shelves on every available wall space, filled with flowers and pottery, old books and jars of what looked like jams and honey.

A brown Norwegian Forest Cat lay on one of the sofas, accompanied by a black and white tabby. They were indifferent to the company our group posed and promptly went back to sleep the moment we were settled on the shaggy red rug in the centre of the room.

Mari motioned to me. “Come on, Allie,” she said. “I need your help.”

I tried to look confused by this – as though Mari hadn’t asked me yesterday. Jasmine shuffled closer to Kia and they both muttered and pointed around the room. Alex sat a little ways away, admiring the cats from a safe distance. Harry hadn’t turned up yet, but Mari was adamant that he would arrive soon.

Harry hadn’t spent lunch with us and he’d swapped seats with another boy in class so that he’d sat on the other side of the room from us all day. He’d played with another group of friends at break time and I hadn’t seen him after the bell had rung to dismiss us at end of day. I didn’t have the same optimism as Mari, but then again, I wasn’t sure anyone did.

Mari guided me to a kitchen behind a wooden panelled screen door. It was larger than the living room with enough space to sit a dining table and chairs in a small nook on the far right. The kitchen was spotless, almost as though it hadn’t been used. Mari was quick to open one of the cupboards, lifting out a handful of tea lights.

“Take these,” she said, “and spread them in a circle on the table.”

I did as she asked. The tea lights were red wax and smelt of pomegranate.

Next, Mari left the room only to return with a larger, thicker red candle. She placed this at the centre of my tea lights on top of a silver dish.

“Is that real silver?” I asked her, to which she nodded happily.

“It’s real alright,” she said. “The candle is homemade. My parents made it with a drop of their own blood mixed into the wax. They took a drop of mine as well. It gives the candle its power over the shadow people.”

I stared at her, unsure how to respond. Everything about what she was saying should have horrified me, should have activated my fight or flight response, but instead I just stood there.

Mari chuckled. “It’s not that scary,” she told me. “Anyway, what we need to do is light the candles. Then,” and she strode to one of the draws, “we take this thread and we burn it on the centre candle.”

It was a red piece of thread and, as I watched, Mari began to wrap it methodically over her index finger, muttering something quietly under her breath.

After a few moments of this, she gestured to the matches on the table and told me to light the candles for her.

Now, as an eleven-year-old, I’d only used matches a handful of times and never done so unsupervised. Still, muscle memory was enough for me to strike the matches and light them after five failed attempts. I quickly went about lighting the tea lights, swearing softly each time one burned out and I was forced to light another. By the fourth match, I felt like a pro, watching the fire as it danced idyllic on their wicks.

Mari took the matches from me for the special candle at the centre. She said loud enough for me to hear, “I tie and bind, I tie and bind, I tie and bind.”

She repeated this as she lit the candle, and again for several minutes after. I could feel that coldness inside of me again. It felt like the ice was melting into even colder water, puddling through my chest and further into my stomach. I didn’t feel sick, though. I wasn’t sure I felt anything. I simply stared into the candles as she spoke those same words over and over.

Then suddenly, there was a bang. I nearly screamed, but fortunately I froze instead. My jaw locked and a hard breath rolled out of my lungs like fire. I glanced to where the noise had come from and instantly felt the heat inside of me evaporate. It had been the front door. Someone was knocking on it.

“It’s unlocked,” Mari called out happily.

A moment later, I watched through the screen door as Harry passed by. I could see Alex pop his head out of the living room and welcome him inside. I looked at that scene before me with uncomprehending eyes. Harry had been so standoffish all day, and I knew that boy. I knew him the way any kid who’d grown up with him would. He was stubborn, and it was rare for him to change his mind.

I looked at Mari for an answer, but she only pressed her finger to her lips – the one with the red thread – and gave it a gentle kiss. She then unwrapped the thread from her hand and stretched it out over the blood candle’s open flame.

I watched the flame eat away at the thread from its centre. It snapped apart and Mari held them both under the flame, letting it eat them away at the exact same moment.

“Done,” she said, looking at me with a satisfied grin. “Tell the others to meet me in the garden.”

There was a door that went out to the back garden from the kitchen and, as I left, I felt as though I was walking through a thick mist. A mist of my own mind’s creation, perhaps, but it was still unnerving. I hadn’t known what it was to disassociate until that moment, but as I told my friends to follow me out to the garden, I did so without feeling my body at all.

The air was cooler now the sun had begun to set, and Mari had laid out a picnic blanket on the grass near the back of her garden. There was a generous amount of space and as I walked out there, I felt a little of myself return as I joined her on the blanket.

She’d taken the candles and placed them at the blanket’s centre. I didn’t think to ask about how safe that was, I was still a little out of it. Jasmine did instead, and Mari waved her off exactly as I expected her to.

“I’ve done most of the work for you,” Mari said with a secretive smile. It looked all the more unsettling with the candlelight licking shadows under her eyes. “               All you have to do is play the game.”

“How do we play?” Kia asked eagerly.

“Simple,” Mari said, teasing the flames with her fingers. “You have to pretend that you’re asleep.”

Mari elaborated: “I’m going to play some music, and you are all going to dance to it. When the music shuts off, you’re all going to drop to the ground and pretend to be asleep.

“Here’s the catch. You have to sleep like the dead. That means relaxed breathing and no movement of any kind. You move and you lose the game. Make a noise and you lose the game.” Mari looked at us all very closely. This expression was heightened by the growing dark and the candles flickering across her face. “I can’t stress this enough. Whatever you do, no matter what happens, you can’t open your eyes. Open your eyes and I will ban you from playing the game ever again. You’ll be disqualified. Whoever is the last one left wins. I’ll start the music up again when its safe for you to open your eyes. That means there’s a winner. Okay?”

I immediately looked at Harry. His expression was hard to read, but I could tell he didn’t believe what Mari was saying. Was he going to ruin the game? Was he willing to play along?

“So it’s a waiting game?” Jasmine asked. “I don’t get it. Are you saying that all this game is is lying still on the grass?”

Mari grinned. “It’s not as easy as that.” She looked at me and winked. “Think about the cover of the book.”

The coldness was back, but more nagging than uncomfortable this time around. I found that Jasmine was watching me, like she’d noticed what Mari was implying to me. I ignored her look and got to my feet. “Are we starting now?” I asked.

Mari clapped, standing as well. “I’ll get the music started.”

There are few things more surreal than dancing in the dark, the smell of pomegranates in the air, to music you’ve never heard of. It was strange music, and I was sure the lyrics were being sung in another language. Now I think back on it I’m positive it was Swedish. The song had Nordic ties to it, the low humming of men and women and a hypnotic beat on traditional drums. We danced to it because that was what we’d been told to do. The music heightened the sense of dysphoria I’d been experiencing and, as I looked around myself, I realised I wasn’t the only one feeling it.

Kia was bobbing along on the spot, arms spread wide, face staring up at the stars beginning to litter the sky. Jasmine was giggling, she couldn’t seem to help it, and she whirled from right to left, her eyes glazed and warm. Alex was dancing in an odd way, jumping with his arms stretched to the sky before landing, pounding his hands against the grass. He did this repeatedly without tiring once. Even Harry was dancing, although his dance seemed to just be him aimlessly staggering from one foot to the other, mouth hung slightly agape.

To an outsider, we may have looked possessed, but we were enjoying ourselves. We were captivated by the music, by the candles, by the new senses that had opened up to us.

And then the music stopped.

It was like a weight dropped from my head down to my feet. My whole body suddenly felt incredibly heavy and without thinking, without knowing how or why, I collapsed to the ground. I held my hands palm down close to my face. The grass cushioned my head and I found myself in a rather comfortable position. Around me, I could hear the grass rustle as my friends dropped along with me.

Soon, we were all lying there. Pretending to sleep like the dead.

I kept my eyes closed. What Mari had said seemed very important to me and so I did it without question. I stared at the darkness behind my eyes and felt the cool wetness of the grass beneath me. I could feel moisture sink into my clothes, but I ignored it. I ignored everything.

The silence stretched on. My breathing was relaxed and calm despite the energy I had been exuding to dance. I felt the real urge to sleep begin to claim me, but I refused to let it drag me down. If I moved in my sleep, I’d lose the game. I wasn’t quite sure why I cared so much about that but in this moment, I did.

Time passed without any of us knowing how long. I was beginning to feel pins and needles in one of my feet and tried to focus on the static inside my blood as a way from keeping my mind from wandering.

Then I heard it.

A rustle. Barely perceptible, but enough to change my attention. At first I thought it was one of my friends moving in the grass, but then I remembered the rules of the game.

Then it happened again.

This rustle was more distinct, and I realised that it sounded like footsteps. One footfall followed by another. A few seconds would stretch by and then it would happen again. It was coming from the house. It was coming closer.

I wondered if it could be Mari. She was playing the referee role. I wondered if this was part of the game. Maybe she’d try to tickle us or poke us to get us to move. It was a game of endurance, right? We’d have be tested in some way, otherwise we could all very easily lie here forever. It wouldn’t be much of a game without a hidden factor.

The grass rustled again. The footfalls never changed their pace, but they were coming closer with each one. My stomach began to clench with apprehension and I had to force my breathing to remain calm. I tried to map out where each one of us had fallen. Who would meet the footsteps first?

Kia, I remembered. Kia had been the closest one to the house. The rustling stopped. I heard a muffled sound. A sharp intake of breath.

Don’t make a sound. That was one of the rules. Kia’s breathing caught in her throat. I could hear more shuffling. Then I heard a shriek.

My body locked instinctively. The rules pounded inside my head and I refused to move even an inch. Kia shrieked again and with it I heard a hard, dragging sound. Fabric dragging against grass. Kia dragging against the grass.

Was Mari dragging her to try and get her to move? Or had she screamed and forfeited? I stayed where I was. I didn’t move. I refused to move.

My breathing calmed.

It wasn’t the first time I heard the dragging. It was following by other things along the way. I heard a thump at one point, a tear as someone’s fingers caught in the dirt and ripped the grass away. I heard Jasmine scream, heard Alex hiss out a swear word. Harry yelled out, too.

I was the furthest from the house, but eventually I could hear the rustling movements coming towards me. I don’t know how much time there had been between each of us, but I imagined that Mari grabbed us each alone, dragging us a little way and smiling brilliantly when we caved. I refused to lose like that.

The footsteps came slowly. My heart hurt in my ribs but I continued to breath as calmly as possible through my nose and teeth. The coldness in my chest blossomed again and I could feel cold sweat on the back of my neck. Anticipation was murder.

Then I felt something.

Even looking back its hard to find the words to explain my first experience with it. All I can say is that I remember it like all the warmth in the air had been sucked away. A chill flooded over my body like a wave of cold water. It settled there, digging deep into my bones. At the same time the quietness in the air above me was replaced with something else. Like whispers that are just too faint to hear. My ears were filled with them. Words that made no sense, words that weren’t words because I couldn’t hear them properly.

Then came the most horrendous sound of all. There isn’t anything I could say that would come close to what it sounded like, but think of a fox when it cries out in heat. Think of a cat yowling in the most inhumane way you could imagine. Take those sounds and throw them in a mixer, lower the vocals and feed it through slow motion. Imagine that sound and imagine it from the mouth of a creature that you can’t see, but you can feel. You can feel it in the absence of warmth around you, can feel it in the darkness behind the eyes that you aren’t allowed to open.

Can feel it in the cold dull claws that suddenly wrap around your ankles and drag you… no, propel you across the grass.

It dragged me so quickly I felt my stomach burn against the grass.

Still, I didn’t move.

I don’t know why I didn’t scream or cry or try to hold onto the grass to keep from losing myself. I can only assume that it was because I was still, somewhat, away from my body. Away from all of this. The Nordic music was still pounding through my blood and the smell of cinnamon and pomegranate permeated my nostrils. Preparing with Mari had somehow prepared me for this. For keeping calm.

And so I did, even when the pain against my stomach and chest felt so great. Even when the thunderous, yowling roar of this creature threatened my every instinct.

I was dragged a few more feet before the claws evaporated from my ankles. They fell clumsily against the grass, just like that of a dead body. I lay there for several moments before the Nordic music started again. Harsh drum beats and throat singing on the bed of a low, droning horn.

The air opened up to me again and the warmth of the summer greeted my back and soothed the rug burn on my stomach. I still kept my eyes closed, even when I heard Mari laughing and clapping.

She grabbed my shoulder. “It’s okay,” she said. “Open your eyes. You won!”

And so I did. It was nearly pitch black outside now and the candles glowed fondly beneath the night sky. I realised that I was nearly ten feet from where I’d been dancing, and my limbs jolted to life alongside that realisation.

I pushed myself up, staring at the picnic blanket and my absence from it. I looked at Mari. Then I looked for the rest of my friends.

I was the only one on the grass.

“Come, come!” Mari said, grabbing my arm and heaving me onto two very unsteady legs. The pins and needles had come and gone and left me with little support to recover. I struggled awkwardly for a few steps, balancing myself against the wall of her house.

“Where is everyone?” I asked her. “What… what was that?”

“I’ll tell you in a second,” Mari said. “Come on, they’ll be around somewhere.”

Mari jumped through the kitchen doors, calling out at the top of her lungs.

“THE GAME’S OVER. YOU GUYS LOST. YOU CAN COME OUT NOW!”

I saw the living room door open and Jasmine, with grass sticking from her hair, staggered out. Her eyes were wide, haunted.

Next there was a thump from upstairs. Mari jerked her chin at me and I ran out, blinking rapidly to force my eyes to adjust to the new level of light. I ran to the carpeted stairway, grabbing uselessly to the railing. A moment later, I saw Alex there, looking very dazed.

“Alex!” I said, running to hug him. “Oh you’re alright, thank God.”

Alex’s skin was very cold. “What was that?” he whispered.

I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I told him honestly. “I… I don’t care, actually. I’m just glad it’s over.”

“Did you win?” Alex asked.

I snorted. “Yeah, I think I did.”

“Thought you would,” he muttered. “You’re fearless, you are.”

I helped him downstairs, only to realise Kia was now in the kitchen too. Her hair was a mess and her skirt and tights were torn. She was sat at the table, shaking like a leaf.

“I was in the garden,” Kia said hopelessly. “The front garden. Right next to a rose bush. I don’t… how did I…”

Mari placed a steaming cup of chamomile tea in front of her. “Drink up,” she ordered. “You’ll be fine soon.”

The last to appear was Harry. He walked through to the kitchen drenched head to foot with water. His dark hair stuck to his face and he grimaced, hugging his chest. “I want to go home,” he said.

Harry had been in the bathtub. From the sounds of it, he’d panicked and pulled the shower chord on his way out. We all sat at Mari’s dining table and drank tea. We were all suddenly far more grown up than what we had been that afternoon. The night’s events had changed us. I’m sure they had changed us for good.

“I think congratulations are in order,” Mari said after twenty minutes of silence. She looked directly at me. “Well done, Allie. You won the first round!”

Jasmine slammed her cup down. “First?” she ground out.

Harry had his hands pressed against his face. Alex looked ill. Kia stared blankly at the wall.

I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“What was that thing?” Jasmine demanded fiercely. “We’re not gonna pretend we didn’t hear it, we didn’t feel it. It dragged us away!”

“It carried me up the stairs,” Alex said meekly. All the colour had drained from his face.

We all looked at Harry. He’d been upstairs too, after all. He didn’t look at any of us.

“I told you to think of my book.” Mari chuckled. “It’s all in the book.”

“We didn’t read your stupid book!” Jasmine shouted. “Or do you not remember that?”

Mari pouted. She walked over to the kitchen counter and picked a drawer almost at random.  From it she plucked the book she’d had in the park yesterday. We all stared at it, motionless, voiceless. She placed it on the table for all of us to see.

The shadow creature with no discernible shape stared up at us with its pale white eyes. I stared back at it, Jasmine and Alex did too.

“My shadow,” Mari said proudly. “It likes to play. When you move, my shadow will take you away to other places inside the house. Kind of like being disqualified and having to go sit on the bench. Whoever wins is the one that’s still outside.”

“I don’t believe it,” Jasmine said quietly.

Kia whimpered.

“First round,” Harry said suddenly. He dragged his hands from his face. “Are you saying we have to play this stupid game again?”

We all looked at him, at the anger in his eyes, the terror.  

“My shadow likes to play,” Mari said again. She perked up. “This time next week, then?”

Mari let us each borrow the book to read up on the rules throughout the week. I was the first to have it - a winner’s perk, she’d said - and after reading through it... it was harder than I had imagined to let it go.

It was a children’s picture book as we had all known. The pictures inside were hand-drawn and simple, but there was something so captivating about this shadow-like blob with the white eyes. Something I could never understand.

MY SHADOW LIKES TO PLAY

The first page was an introduction like any other, written in a similar curling font. The same picture as the one on the cover stared back at me, except, along with it, there was also a drawing of a sleeping girl. A girl who looked a lot like Mari. I began to wonder if her parents had made the book for her as some kind of sick gift.

PLAYS AT NIGHT, SHUNS THE DAY

There was a picture of the little Mari girl playing in the daylight, a passive shadow just like anyone else’s attached to her feet. The next page was completely black, save for those pale eyes.

MY SHADOW NEVER GOES AWAY

I watched the little Mari girl lying on the ground in the grass. There were other children on the grass too, drawn as little coloured blobs.

WITH MY FRIENDS MY SHADOW PLAYS

The coloured blobs had faces now. Drawn, pale faces.

I DON’T CARE WHAT THEY SAY

The faces were scared.

DEAD ON THE GRASS WE MUST LAY

A dark garden exactly like Mari’s. Little children-sized blobs lying in the streaked grass. Above them, almost as an afterthought, two white circles had been painted. They hung over the children, watching without being seen.

MY SHADOW TAKES US EACH AWAY

The child’s face was filled with anguish, drawn in more detail than I’d seen in any previous picture. It was hung over the shadow-creature’s shoulder. The child seemed to beat the creature’s body. The child had no eyes.

UNTIL THE LAST ONE WINS, HOORAY!

A victory medal. A child holding it, bathed in the safe glow of the day.

AGAIN, AGAIN WE MUST PLAY!

At this moment I realised the pictures were repeating themselves. I saw the same shadow, the same garden, the same eyeless children lying in the grass.

SLEEP LIKE THE DEAD ANOTHER DAY

Over and over again the drawings repeated.

I DON’T CARE WHAT THEY SAY!

A double-page spread of the front cover with Mari stood next to her shadow. She was grinning.

SLEEP LIKE THE DEAD ANOTHER DAY

The poem left me with a deep feeling of dread in my stomach. The pictures continued to repeat themselves along with the words, burning deeper indents into my brain until finally, I came across the final few pictures.

A red candle burning on a silver plate.

ITIEANDBINDITIEANDBINDITIEANDBIND

Three figures. Mari holding the hands of two faceless adults.

The last page was blank, and yet I still felt as though those eyes were watching me from somewhere behind the page.

I gave the book to Jasmine over the weekend and Jasmine gave it to Kia. On Monday, Alex read it and then together we sat Harry down and forced him to read the pages. None of us liked it, but we were being driven by a force that none of us knew or recognised. We were kids. We were young and impressionable. And our best friend was a witch.

We played the game again the same day and time the next week. Mari asked me into the kitchen just like before and I helped her set up. The kitchen was in the same state as the week prior, and her two cats watched us with mild interest from the dining chairs. Mari said her parents were out getting supplies again, something about their trip being pushed back and now they needed to get more things to prepare. I wondered whether they were planning some kind of camping trip. My gut twisted at the thought of any darker theories.

We played the game for months. Mari’s shadow would take us and drag us away and it would be terrifying every time. The more we played it, the better we got, but that never deterred the shadow. It seemed more adamant than ever to trip us up.

I didn’t win every time. The shadow would dig its claws into my leg and force a scream out of me, or it would suck all the heat from my lungs so that I spasmed on the floor. When that happened the yowling and mewling began. The deeply unsettling roars of the creature would warp the very atmosphere around me and I would feel a great and heavy presence descent upon me. I could feel it like a large, demented figure. The creature had arms that were wide and wet and cold. They felt like wet fur. It stank as well, of old meat and fish.

It carried us differently each time. I found myself thrown over its shoulder one night and taken to the master bedroom. Another time I don’t even remember the journey, I only know I came to in a wardrobe with a coat sleeve wrapped around my neck. It was always in the boundaries of the house, though. Even if that meant being left in a foetal ball by the front gate.

The shadow was rough with us. We came home with carpet burns and red lines across our ankles and legs. It never cut us, but that didn’t mean the welts were painless. I found myself hiding these injuries from my parents, trying to explain away the ones they noticed as accidents during school. I know that they were worried, but rough-housing happened and I remained adamant to them that I wasn’t being bullied.

Looking back as an adult, I know that this was more than bullying. This was manipulation to the highest degree. Of course, what could we have done about it? The creature, the shadow wasn’t within the realms of possible. You couldn’t tell a teacher or call the police. All we had was our small group and the only leader we knew to follow was Mari.

Mari seemed to get less and less stable the longer this ‘trip’ was postponed. Sometimes when she took me to the kitchen to prepare, she’d lose herself. She nearly set fire to the table one night and I had to encourage her to let me finish. I caught her talking to herself, muttering things more than the usual witchy gibberish. She became less bright, less intense. After all this time, we still never saw her parents, never saw any signs of life in the house other than the games we played that night once every week.

Mari yelled at nothing in the middle of class one day and got sent out to cool down. The teacher went out to talk to her and she came back tight lipped and pale faced. She didn’t speak to anyone for the rest of the day. Later that same week, she really did ask if she could copy a homework assignment from me.

It wasn’t long after that that Harry appeared on my doorstep, looking pale and incredibly sleep deprived. We all felt that way, the shadow took its toll on all of us, but Harry walked to school with me that morning anyway. My parents had been worried about him. They thought he was sick. I think a deep part of all of us had been sick the moment we’d let the shadow in.

Half way to school, Harry snapped.

“We need to see it,” Harry said. “I don’ care if we get disqualified from the game. Actually, I’d like that. We need to see this fucking thing.”

Swearing was still a taboo in my mind and I flinched at the use of it. Harry could be quite misspoken, and he’d had several interventions with teachers about it, but he only swore when he was being passionate about something. I couldn’t help but agree with his logic.

“We don’t know what it is,” I said carefully. “What if you don’t like what you see?”

“Then I’ll never have to see it again.” Harry snorted. “Don’t you see? This is our way out!”

Harry tried talking all of us into doing it, and the game had frayed our minds so much so that we were each just crazy enough to consider it.

“What about Mari?” Kia asked. “She wants us to play!”

“Screw Mari,” Harry sneered. “She’s been using us all this time. Haven’t you seen her, anyway? She’s gone nuts, she’s one detention away from being suspended.” Harry threw his arms up. “Why are we followin’ her still, hm?”

“Because she’s a witch,” Jasmine said bitterly.

Alex winced. “We don’t know that.”

“I don’t know what that shadow is,” I said, “but I think it makes her pretty flippin’ close to a witch.”

Harry’s expression was grim. “I’m doing it. This week, I’m opening my eyes.”

Whether or not we agreed with Harry, we could each understand what he meant. We were scared of the shadow, but Mari had said it herself. If we looked at the shadow, then we’d be banned from the game. If we couldn’t play the game, then maybe Mari wouldn’t see any use for us. Maybe we could just leave her to find some other kids to play her sick little game with.

Mari brought us home that week. I sat in the living room with everyone else until Mari was ready for me. This time, however, Alex took my hand.

“Are you gonna do it?” he asked.

“Not sure,” I said honestly.

“Me either,” he muttered.

I shared a look with Jasmine and Kia. “Don’t do it if you don’t want to,” I told them.

“Says the bravest of the brave,” Harry said suddenly. “Allie, the fearless. Allie, the girl who went and won the first round. You can’t really sit there an’ say you don’t wanna do it?”

“Allie!”

Mari’s voice.

I didn’t respond to Harry. Instead I stood and walked out, leaving for the kitchen as always.

Mari’s hands were shaking as she tried to light the candle. She was restless, and she kept turning her head as though she was listening to someone speaking.

“Leave me alone,” she muttered.

“Mari?” I asked uncertainly.

She jumped, nearly dropping the match. “Sorry!” she said, grinning a strained and dull smile. “I just…” she shook her head. “Remember when I said our ghost friends got bored of us?”

I nodded, unsure.

“Not anymore,” Mari said brightly. “They talk so much. It’s doing my head in. Hah!” She lit the candle. “I keep hoping the next game, my shadow might do something about it. Might shut the veil up. My shadow is darkness, you know? It’ll block the light out. I know it will. One day.”

She wasn’t making sense, but there was nothing I could say. I was scared of her, I’d always been scared of her, right from our first meeting.

I helped her light the candles and we went out to the garden together. Dancing to the music was always the best part of the evening. No matter how terrifying the shadow was, as soon as Mari started the music, we all fell into a trance-like state. Nothing could bother us. We danced uninhibited, wild. I still miss that feeling. No matter what else happened, dancing to that music was the most content I’d ever been.

When the music stopped, our bodies turned to led and we fell to the ground like puppets without a master. I kept my hands by my face like usual, closed my eyes and waited for the shadow.

It was always slow, but it didn’t wait around like our first game. Now, the shadow was let loose the second the music stopped. It stepped into the garden, grass rustling around whatever appendages it had. I liked to imagine what it looked like sometimes, but the images that came to me were always grotesque and disturbing. Nothing like the bodiless image in Mari’s book. The only thing identical in my mind were the eyes.

Harry was near me. I knew that. I’d planned on that. I hadn’t decided whether I would open my eyes, in fact, a part of me wondered if I would be able to at all. After all, our bodies fell like bricks without our control. Would it be so hard to believe that our eyes wouldn’t open, either?

I could feel the air begin to cool around us and I could hear Jasmine whimpering and writhing on the ground. The creature made a strange chittering sound, low and guttural and threatening to its core. Jasmine screamed and the next moment she was thrashing, yelling out, the grass ripping away from the soil. It sounded awful and, like every time before it, we all just lay there. Asleep like the dead.

The creature took different routes with us each time, a way of messing with our heads. I could feel its claws run over my ankles and tried to breath calmly through my nose. Winning a round was always easier for our psyche, and sometimes we’d fight over it after the game was over for the week. Kia had begged that we take it in turns, that we agree to let someone win every week. Of course, none of us liked the feeling of being touched without our consent by a creature we couldn’t see, but none of us could make the promise that we’d be able to remain unresponsive to the creature anyway. It seemed to learn from us, and the fact that we’d tried to create some kind of pattern led it to randomising its own.

My legs lifted only for them to be dropped suddenly. My ankles ached as shockwaves of pain rushed through them and I held my tongue to keep from sobbing. The shadow moved around me, the pressure of its presence so intense that I could barely breathe. I could feel its wet, furry appendages slithering over me, playing me like a rag doll. It would lift me only to lower me down. Hold me close, letting the stink of it meld with my clothes, and then drop me again.

Then I felt something cold and wet slither into my ear. I didn’t want to know what it was, didn’t want to think about it for a second. I clenched my jaw so hard it burned. Finally, the shadow let me go.

It moved on to Harry.

I heard the rustle in the grass and imagined in my head where Harry would be lying. I linked that to the movement I could hear and together it created an image in my head. The creature moved over Harry, chirps and deep, bass groans dripping from its maw. Harry didn’t make a sound, and I wondered whether he might not go through with it.

The creature moved on. Teasing back and forth between Kia and Alex, Harry and me. I tracked it back, listening for Harry’s breathing, wondering what would happen next.

And then I heard a sound. A wet smack of flesh against fur. Someone must have hit the creature.

I kept my eyes closed, but my fingers sank hard and fast into the soil as the shadow let out a terrible howl. A sound that would surely peel wallpaper. It staggered, a thousand whispers shooting from its body. I tracked its footfalls, the way the grass rustled. I heard another wet smack, following by another howl.

Then there was a scream. A horribly high-pitched, incredibly human scream. Someone choked, and then someone yelled, “I SEE YOU!”

Underneath the yowling and growling the voice was hard to make out. The next sound, however, was very easy to track.

The wet, thick sound of ripping paper. The crack of something like bone. The garbled screams cut short by wet gargling.

The heaviness in my limbs redacted and I pushed myself upwards. I was terrified, the cold was everywhere, the voices were whispering from every direction and there was still someone screaming. I grabbed my face, ashamed by my own fear. My heart thudded so hard I felt sick. Finally, as another wet sound resounded, I opened my eyes.

I don’t know what I saw. It was so quick that the picture in my mind may have been false.

In the short moment I could see, the creature was black. More than black. It was so dark that it was darker than the night itself. It wasn’t a creature, more like a shape that sucked light right out of it. A very literal, walking shadow.

But the edges were serrated by tufts of fur and its long arms stretched down to the grass, dragging by its feet like some kind of ape. The creature was large, taller than seven foot, surely. I didn’t see a face, though. Its face was a void.

Then one of its wet appendages struck me and my whole body was ripped through the grass. I travelled so fast that the world blurred around me. I remember feeling pain as my body collided with the wall of the house. I remember my shoulder taking the brunt of the hit.

Another slap and I saw Kia come skidding to my side. I looked out to the garden, but the dark shape was gone. The pain in my arm was blinding. From somewhere near me I could hear drum beats ringing through the night, and low voices chanting song lyrics. I felt a hand grab my shoulder and looked up in terror to see Mari, grinning brightly. It may have been the pain, but as I stared at her, I couldn’t see her eyes. Just two bright, pale lights where they should have been.

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on the rug in the master bedroom. I’d been in various places here before, and I immediately registered the familiarity of the surroundings.

Mari’s two cats were stretched out on the bed. They watched me as I sat up, rubbing my eyes, trying to understand what had just happened.

Then I remembered the screaming, the wet ripping, the bones crunching. I reached for my own shoulder, confused when I felt no pain. I pushed my hands into the floor, steadying myself as I stood. I needed to get downstairs, to meet up with everyone. I had to know what happened.

I met Kia on the stairs. She was crying freely, hugging her own body as though to let go would mean falling apart entirely.

“What did you see?” I asked her, holding her arms.

She shook her head, her lips trembled as a sob broke from her throat.

Jasmine appeared in the downstairs hallway. “Guys,” she said. “I think, I think something bad happened.”

In context with a normal game round, hearing Jasmine say that was equivalent to quite possibly the worst thing we could have heard. We followed her without questioning. I nearly tripped over myself in a bid to get to the kitchen.

The first thing I saw was red. Red liquid oozing over the kitchen tile, puddling down from the table. My head spun, I couldn’t see straight. I couldn’t breathe.

Jasmine shook my shoulder, and I took a step inside. I let out a harsh breath, nearly laughing at my own stupidity. The red liquid was wax. Wet, red wax that had melted from Mari’s candle. She must have brought it back inside and forgotten to put it out. The flame was gone now, the candle had melted completely.

Harry was sat at the table, a grim line set to his face.

“Hey,” I said, moving to take his shoulder. “Did you- did you get disqualified?”

“Allie,” Jasmine said quietly.

I heard Kia sob again.

I looked at them, then back at Harry. He had his face in his hands now. He was shaking his head.

“I hit it,” he muttered. “Proper hard. Just went for it.” She shook his head. “I didn’t open my eyes. I was so scared an’ I jus’ couldn’t open my eyes.”

He was shaking.

“You’re lying,” I said. “You hit it and you yelled at it, didn’t you?” My stomach was sinking already. “You hit it. You saw it. I… I thought I saw it too, but it wasn’t looking at me. It was looking at…”

My chest hitched. I looked around the room. “Where’s Alex?” I asked. The blonde boy was nowhere to be seen. “Did he come out from where the shadow put him?”

“No,” Jasmine said bitterly.

Kia was crying fully now, thick tears streaking down her cheeks.

“Mari never came back either,” Jasmine added.

Harry’s fist slammed against the table. “I shouldda opened my eyes. I was stupid! I didn’t open my eyes and that fucking shadow took him!”

“Took…”

I shook my head.

“It took Alex?”

“Must have,” Jasmine said. “He’s not in the house. I’ve already looked.”

“Oh god,” Kia sobbed. “I heard, what I heard, out there… what I heard was awful.”

I shuddered. Bones breaking. Screaming. Something wet ripping. Could it have been Alex? Had the shadow…?

I wanted to be sick, but the coldness in my chest opened up to take that feeling away. All that was left was a bitter emptiness. An emptiness where Alex should have been.

“What do we do?” I asked. “Where’s Mari? She can’t just be gone, this is her house!”

“How do we know that?” Jasmine shot back. “We’ve never met her parents, the house never has any mess! This could be anyone’s house!”

“No,” I said. “She’s a kid. Guys, she’s a kid like us, she wouldn’t have… she wouldn’t have.”

“She’s a witch!” Kia moaned. “A real witch and she took Alex!”

None of us said a word until the following day. We all remained in our modest dream world, hoping against hope that Alex would show up for school in the morning. Of course, he didn’t.

Mari didn’t turn up either.

That’s when the phone calls started. Alex’s parents rang my parents, rang Jasmine’s parents, rang Harry’s, Kia’s. The police were involved. And what were we supposed to say? Were we supposed to tell the truth, tell the cops that we’d been playing a game with a witch and her shadow? That we’d been manipulated, brutalised, tortured by something that went beyond the realms of possible?

What did we say?

We said that we’d been at Mari’s house and we’d been watching scary movies. We’d said Alex got scared, left early and that was the last we saw of him.

When the police went knocking at Mari’s house, no one was there. No proof of address could be found. Nothing linking Mari or her family to that house at all. The house we’d spent months in, the house we’d grown intimate with each and every room. We were forbidden to go there again. It was another mystery in a sea of mysteries. And we were all terrified.

I remember feeling so cold after that. Like whatever had been inside me since that night so long ago by the swing set had finally had enough. It opened up and swallowed me whole. There was a constant coldness in my blood. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t feel, couldn’t dream. I think we all felt that way after Alex’s disappearance, but no one felt the cold like I did. I had no way to explain it to anyone.

Not until one night, at least. A night I felt so tired and so destroyed that I got out of bed and snuck out of the house. The night I walked all the way to Mari’s house and just stared at it. At the dying flowers by the door, at the rotting wood on the front wall.

In that moment, I felt the cold shift. It crept from my chest and moved into my blood, rushing to a single spot on my shoulder. The shoulder I should have shattered weeks ago.

I turned into that feeling and stared at a little blonde-haired boy about my age. A blonde-haired boy named Alex.

He was so cold.

“Thought you were never afraid,” he said.

“I was wrong,” I said. I thought I was disassociating again. There was no way this could be real.

We stared at each other for a long time.

“You saw it,” I said. “What did it look like?”

“I saw it,” Alex confirmed. “I can’t tell you, though. All I can say is it looked how you think you remember it. All dark. No light.”

“How do you know that?”

Alex shrugged. “I know a lot now.”

“You’re not really here,” I said. “I’m going mad. My parents think I must be.”

“You’re not mad,” Alex said. His smile was intensely sad.

“Where did you go, then?” I asked him. “You can’t have just disappeared. Did Mari take you?”

“Mari’s around,” Alex agreed. “She doesn’t like me. She doesn’t like any of us. I think I get it now, though. The reason she’s like that.” He shrugged, hands slipping into his pockets. “It’s not her fault. I think her parents just got her into some bad stuff, y’know? Those shadows have to stay fed…”

“Any of us?” I asked.

“The shadows always play games. People like Mari, they just help, I think. And then there’s kids like me who play the game and get disqualified.”

“Is that what happened?”

“Yeah.” Alex’s smile was close to heart breaking. “I definitely can’t play the game again.”

A sob broke out of my throat. I grabbed him, hugging him hard. He wasn’t soft or warm or human. He was cold and hard and nothing.

“She did this to you,” I muttered. “I’ll kill her.”

“You can’t,” Alex said softly. “And I don’t want you to. Just… things are going to be different in a few days. I want you to let them be. Can you do that?”

“I don’t know what you mean!”

“But you will,” he said, smiling sadly. “I have to go soon. I have to see Harry, still. And then… then I have to go back.”

“Where?” I demanded.

His eyes creased and I think if he could, he may have started to cry. “Do you remember ghost friends?”

The next day at school, no one talked about Alex like before. No rumours about his disappearance or the grizzly stories people were concocting about him being dead, cut in two on some rail tracks or found face down and bloated in a lake.

No, the next day the faculty told us about an idea they’d had. We were going to sign a card for Alex’s family and then we were going to have half a day off to see a new plaque installed on one of the benches in the gazebo. Kids died in freak accidents all the time, and what happened to Alex in hospital after that allergic reaction was heart breaking. But at least we knew where he was. At least we knew we could pray to him if we wanted.

If the day had played out in any other way I may have decided that seeing Alex had been nothing but a dream. Instead, Harry, Kia, Jasmine and I all met at the school gates after the plaque ceremony.

Harry kept kicking the wire fence by the gate.

“You saw him?” I asked.

Harry nodded.

“We all did,” Jasmine said.

“This sucks,” I said. “This is so wrong. He… Mari killed him.”

“Sh,” Kia whispered.

“No!” I said, louder. “Mari killed him and she’s going to get away with that!”

“Will I?”

The air froze in my lungs. A collective chill ran down each of our spines.

I can’t tell you what went through my mind when I saw Mari stood there. Her dark ringlets were perfect and her eyes were black, intense, smiling at us as though she wasn’t revisiting a crime scene. I wanted to kill her. In that moment I’d never wanted to kill anyone more than I’d wanted to kill her. I took a swing at her but Harry grabbed me, pulling me back. I kicked at him, but he didn’t let me go, not even when I was sobbing.

“I killed him,” Mari said. “Is that what you want to hear?”

None of us said anything.

“If it’s any consolation,” Mari said, “he won’t leave me alone.”

“How many?” Harry asked suddenly.

Mari’s dark eyes moved to him, solid and cold. “How many?” she repeated.

“How many are there?” Harry asked. “That you’ve…”

“It’s not a simple answer,” Mari said. “My family are quite old and if you can believe it, that’s the first that my shadow has…” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t think you’d understand. Maybe one day you might. But not today. Not tomorrow.”

“He’s behind the veil,” I spat. “You said kids who couldn’t move on were there.”

“He died a very terrible and painful death,” Mari said matter-of-factly. “Where else did you think he would be?”

I wanted to strike her again and I think Harry did too, because he tensed where he was holding me. We both stayed where we were, though.

“You’re not welcome here, anymore,” Jasmine sneered. “Wherever you live, whoever you live with, none of you are wanted back here. Alex said you were leaving. I hope you stick to that.” She sniffed. “Least you could do for him.”

Kia didn’t say a word. Her body shook with a hatred so pure that it hurt to look at.

Mari nodded solemnly. “My family will be taking me away now. I won’t tell you where we’re going. What will happen.”

“Don’t come back,” I growled.

Mari smiled solemnly. “It was a nice service,” she said. “I’m glad his parents get some closure.”

Yes, ‘closure’. Alex’s parents would spend the rest of their lives with a warped version of reality inside their heads. A reality where Alex had had a fatal allergic reaction and had passed away in the early hours of the morning the same night he’d been at Mari’s. Alex had been torn to pieces by a shadow, but outside of our group, no one would ever know that.

Mari walked away from us, down across the road where two cats were waiting for her. I don’t remember seeing them go any further than that, but they were gone by the time we had blinked. Just like that.

I sometimes wonder if Mari will ever come back. More than fifteen years down the line, I wonder if she’s the same little girl I met on the playground. It’s impossible to know what she was, aside from what she’d told us. She was a witch with a shadow and after months of postponing, she finally got to go on that trip with her family.

For fifteen years, no one outside of the four of us knew what really happened to Alex. Now you do too.

[asfeedin]

BTS, Beatles, Madonna, Taylor Swift, More

BURBANK, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 27: (L-R) Jin, Jungkook, RM, Jimin, and J-Hope of “BTS” speak onstage … [+] at iHeartRadio LIVE with BTS presented by HOT TOPIC at iHeartRadio Theater on January 27, 2020 in Burbank, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for iHeartMedia)

Getty Images for iHeartMedia

Upbeat songs are having a surge of popularity in this time of coronavirus gloom. “Happy“ by Pharrell Williams and “Get Lucky“ by Daft Punk are among the most-played tracks of the last decade. The optimistic “Lovely Day” and “Lean On Me” by the late Bill Withers are enjoying a boost on YouTube and other file-sharing and streaming sites.

Here is a list of some musical medicine – songs that are doing well in lockdown, and some alternative cheer-up suggestions.

Recent Songs Doing Well: It is no coincidence that the song doing best in recent weeks is as upbeat as possible. Tones and I’s hit “Dance Monkey“ continues to dominate the YouTube charts and in the top slot on the Global Top Songs chart for the fifth straight week and 20th week overall with 75 million hits. It is followed by the likes of “Don’t Start Now” by Dua Lipa, whose new collection Future Nostalgia set a number of Spotify steaming records, including the most streamed album in a day globally by a British female artist. These songs are followed by more pure pop by the likes of Ariana Grande, Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Rihanna, the Sugababes and Katy Perry. “Say So” by Doja Cat tops various happy 2020 playlists, as does “Stupid Love” by Lady Gaga. Among other tracks picking up plays: “Red Light, Green Light” by Duke Dumont, plus the slightly older songs “Green Light” by Lorde and “Can’t Stop The Feeling” by Justin Timberlake.

BTS: Songs by the K-Pop sensation have been doing well. The septet’s online concert Bang Bang Con had 50.5 million views last weekend. Even some of the group’s older and more obscure tracks are picking up hits, such as “Just One Day” off the Skool Luv Affair EP from 2014, in which each group member imagines one day with his love. The song has topped playlist ideas, and quietly racked up 24 million views on YouTube.

Be Happy: Not surprisingly, people wanting to be happy seek out songs with the word in the title. Apart from “Happy” by Pharrell Williams, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin is back on top of the Spotify playlists. “Happy” tops a YouTube equivalent playlist along with “Shots” by Imagine Dragons.

“Shiny Happy People” by R.E.M., which Michael Stipe said he wrote for children, is also finding its way into radio and internet playlists. The Georgia band’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” returned to Billboard charts last month, while Stripe did his own solo version, adding some tips to avoid coronavirus. Also recommended is R.E.M.’s “I’m Gonna DJ” with its insane lyric: “Death is pretty final/ I’m collecting vinyl/ I’m gonna DJ at the end of the world!”

Not everyone likes singles that force joy, but if you do, try any version of “Happy Days Are Here Again” or “Oh Happy Day,” such as that by Spiritualized. Sting’s remake of “Spread a Little Happiness,” Captain Sensible’s “Happy Talk,” “Happy Together” by The Turtles, and “Happiness” by Goldfrapp are all ripe for a comeback.

Sunny Songs: “Lovely Day” returned to the charts (along with “Lean On Me”) after the death of Withers. Lyrics with optimistic meteorological metaphors do well: “I Can See Clearly Now” by Johnny Nash; U2’s “Beautiful Day”; “Here Comes The Sun” or “Good Day Sunshine” by the Beatles; “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves; and “Rainbow” by Kacey Musgraves.

Reggae Joy: “Three Little Birds” by Bob Marley has been much played for its universal message: “Don’t worry about a thing, ‘cause every little thing is gonna be all right.” For more reggae joy, there is always Marley’s “One Love,” his own version of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and “You Can Get It If You Really Want” by Jimmy Cliff.

Some Kind Of Wonderful: Another Cliff song, “Wonderful World, Beautiful People,” reminds us that even at the time of COVID-19, listeners still know that life can be wonderful. The words of Otis Redding have been ringing out online (“If you love me too, oh what a wonderful world this could be”) as well as Louis Armstrong (“I hear babies cry, I watch them grow, they’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know/ and I think to myself, what a wonderful world.”). Singles such as “Wonderful Life” by Black and Hurts, two different songs, have also gained some traction.

Material Girl: Madonna’s upbeat 1980s hits such as “Holiday” and “Lucky Star” have been much mentioned in 2020 playlists.

Lightening Up: Bob Dylan’s long and downcast comeback “Murder Most Foul” has a modest 192,000 hits so far on YouTube after its surprise release amid lockdown last month. Still, the Nobel laureate’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” “Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat” and “Highway 61 Revisited” all are witty and fast-moving and recommended to raise a smile. Simon & Garfunkel are getting played for “Cecilia,” “59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy),” the bittersweet “I Am A Rock” and Paul Simon solo tracks such as “Loves Me Like A Rock” or “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard.”

For all the gl0om of “The End” and “When The Music’s Over,” Jim Morrison of The Doors had his lighter moments and “Hyacinth House” has a false cheer a bit like Elvis Costello’s later “Other Side of Summer” or The Flaming Lips song “Do You Realize?”

David Bowie provides cheer with “Fill Your Heart” and “Kooks,” though probably not “The Laughing Gnome.” His “Heroes” is one of the anthems for frontline workers, with 9 million YouTube views, and has enjoyed a new lease of life with the cover version by Motörhead racking up 36 million views.

Kanye West: Yeezy’s can-do anthem “Stronger,” and his “American Boy” with Estelle, are enjoying playlist success. So has his “Runaway,” as is the Linkin Park song of the same name.

Kids’ Stuff: The lockdown proved to be an ideal time to launch Disney+ in new regions. It was announced this month that the channel reached 50 million subscribers in just six months. A lot of its songs are uplifting for children and others: much of The Jungle Book (“The Bare Necessities”) or Mary Poppins (“Let’s Go Fly a Kite”.)

Elsewhere, listeners of all ages may enjoy Jonathan Richman’s child-like “Ice Cream Man,” “The Tag Game” and “That Summer Feeling.”

Love Songs: “Sex on Fire” by the Kings of Leon came at No 10 in the list of most-played songs of the last decade. Most people have their own personal romantic smile inducer, with those recently mentioned online including James Brown’s “I Got You (I Feel Good)” and Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend.” The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside” has shown up in a few lists, even though it is a song about jealousy. Others include Motown classics “My Girl” by The Temptations and “My Guy” by Mary Wells; Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me”; and Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl.”

Good Times: Van Morrison’s “St. Dominic’s Preview” is an example of a feel-great-right-now song. Trending tracks with a similar vibe include “One Day Like This” by Elbow; “Perfect” by The The; “(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay” by Otis Redding; or Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight.” “I Got a Feeling” by Black Eyed Peas says “I gotta feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night.” Prince has much the same sentiment in “It’s Gonna Be A Beautiful Night,” while his “Let’s Go Crazy” has brought happiness to 15 million via YouTube. Prince died exactly four years ago, so expect his streaming numbers to rise on the anniversary.

Rock The Trouble Away: When times get tough, the tough get rocking. Think Elvis Presley, Nirvana, AC/DC, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, or Guns N’ Roses, if they make you punch the air. Bon Jovi has also popped up on fan playlists for COVID-19 tunes with “Livin’ On A Prayer” and “It’s My Life.” He declares: “I ain’t gonna live forever, I just want to live while I’m alive.”

‘On The Rise’ Pick-Me-Up Songs: Primal Scream has also been popping up on fans’ playlists with “Movin’ On Up” and “Loaded,” both off the album Screamadelica. Also recommended: “Up!” by Shania Twain and “The Only Way Is Up” by Yazz.

‘I Am The Greatest’ Music: Spirit-raising tracks include “We Are The Champions” by Queen, especially popular since the Bohemian Rhaposdy movie; “The Best” by Tina Turner; “So What,” by Pink; and “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga. Also recommended: “The Greatest” (Ringo Starr and Cat Power, two very different songs.)

Songs Relevant To COVID-19: “Don’t Stand So Close To Me“ by The Police has surged as lockdown became a reality, even though it is really about a school romance. Just because of the titles, “Splendid Isolation,” by Warren Zevon, “Isolation“ by Joy Division and “Isolation“ by John Lennon have all got extra plays, though none are particularly cheery.

The streaming and file-sharing sites also see boosts for defiant-mortality songs, really just based on their titles. Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” from 1978 has been a standout, an anthem for strength, with the singer taking to TikTok to rework it and inspire others to properly wash their hands.

“Stayin’ Alive” by Bee Gees and “Don’t Fear The Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult have also added plays, as has “Stronger” by Kelly Clarkson, with its words “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

“Resistiré” (I Will Resist), originally by Dúo Dínamico in 1988, has been redone for 2020 and has had 19 million hits on YouTube. The equally defiant “Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift is also the YouTube happy songs playlist, Natasha Bedingfield’s “Pocketful Of Sunshine” also raises spirts with its message “Do what you want, but you’re never gonna break me.”

More COVID-19 relevant titles boosting hits are “Work From Home” by Fifth Harmony and “Down With the Sickness” by Disturbed, which has surged 31% in digital song sales, according to Nielsen Music/ MRC Data; and “Quarantined” by At the Drive-In, which is up 70%.

COVID Spoofs: There are many memes out there but it is hard to fault Chris Mann with “My Carona,” spoofing “My Sharona,” and “Stay At Home Vogue,” parodying Madonna’s “Vogue.”

Songs In Response To The Virus: Not necessarily so bubbly are Bono’s “Let Your Love Be Known” and Randy Newman’s “Stay Away.”

A three-minute single won’t doesn’t erase the tragedy of COVID-19, its threat to jobs and economy but helps to lighten our load. As the record and radio-industry slogan says, “life sounds better to music.” Some relentlessly light tunes are madly irritating to some people and inspiring to others. Based on listening to 1,000 new albums a year and thousands of singles, here is a personal choice: “Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3” by Ian Dury and the Blockheads; “My Favorite Things” from The Sound Of Music; “Pure” by The Lightning Seeds; “Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)” by Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel; “Candy” by Paulo Nutini; “It’s Gonna Be Okay, Baby” by MUNA; “Song 2” by Blur; and “One More Time” by Daft Punk.

Maybe add to the playlist a few pieces of 1960s psychedelic pop such as “Itchycoo Park” or “Lazy Sunday” by the Small Faces; “Sugar Sugar” by The Archies or “Marrakesh Express” by Crosby, Stills and Nash. If you are making a playlist, hopefully these suggestions will help boost your “quarantune” spirits.

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Not really a huge development, but a random thought about the undeveloped wild dragon mom rpg idea thing!

I had a cute concept for an ally dragon and/or love interest? I dunno, I haven’t decided yet how rare the dragon species is gonna be. Like, if there’s gonna be multiple potential eligable batchelor draigs then that could be cute. it could be kinda nostalgic like in the oldest harvest moon games where there was barely much dialogue and it was just like Here A Gift Of A Cheese. Win over your potential mates wiv one (1) interestingly shaped rock and some groovy dragon danceys! Tho I feel like if this other character was instead gonna be the ONLY other dragon npc, then it’d be a total waste to just use that plot thread on the same old ‘literally no chemistry except we need to repopulate the species’ thing that’s been done a bazillion times. mebbe jus b friendz!

Anyway, the idea was that this dragon (preemptively named Roger) would be more based on that extra tiny caterpillar with the brown fluffy catflike face. Lil kitten churro! Lil fluffle mc hug! This would be a valuable pedigree breed from a human perspective. So we have a group of human poachers as a very rare enemy around the jungle, and you’d be able to meet like The One Good Human who keeps this lil dragon pal as his secret pet while all his commanding officers are trying to skin them for their valuable scales. Roger would basically be like a pampered dog, and it’d be a super surreal experience from the perspective of the wolf in this scenario. Why are you sitting on that human’s lap?? What’s that jingle bell around your neck?? WHAT EXACTLY IS A ‘ROGER��??? I’m thinking Roger isn’t 100% oblivious about wild life tho, since after all he’s just being kept at some guy’s wilderness habitat, and he was ‘rescued’ from the wild in the first place. Tho its been so long that he’s lost a lot of his survival skills, and he’s absolutely terrified of returning to the forest. I suppose that’s natural when he was the only one that survived the poachers attacking his nest. Even if he had to survive by becoming a coward and living in servitude to one of the same poachers :( So his sidequest would be a lot of you both learning about each other’s different way of life, and trying to figure out if this human named ‘Owner’ is really the one human who isn’t as evil as sin itself. And Roger has a lot of tales to tell about the mythical ‘Apartment’ land, somewhere across the ocean, where you can sleep in a warm indoors forever and try amazing foods that come out of steel cans! He’s kinda a bit like a cult member sometimes... And.. like.. he’s not even really domesticated or anything, he’s literally like if you stuck a collar on a wolf. One that’s been mentally broken might be able to be obedient to some degree, but they’re still a wild animal that’s potentially dangerous and living in this environment is potentially dangerous to them too. Not to mention he’s probably always almost blowing his human friend’s cover cos he doesn’t know how to stay quiet. “Uhh.. yeah boss... someone ate all the paperwork... it was me. I was sleepwalking.” *muffled yelps of something moderately dragon sized hiding inside a duffel bag* Possibly a sidequest or two could be you sorta helping this human figure out how to take care of Roger properly? like, the human camp doesn’t have any meat rations so he’s completely malnourished. Or he accidentally eats something that’s poisonous to dragons. Or he gets a claw caught in the fence and everyone’s panicking trying to get him out before the seargeant sees him, and then roger is like ‘THIS IS AN OMEN! This is what i get for trying to follow you back to that scary forest! I BELONG IN THE DUFFEL BAGGGGG’

So there’d probably be a choice in the end of whether you wanna prematurely end your story here and let yourself be tamed by this human too, or if you manage to convince Roger to leave. And either way could go good or bad, if you try and force Roger out of his safe home against his will then he’s not gonna magically realise you were ‘right’ as soon as he gets in the wild, he’s just gonna be depressed as fuck and never trust you again. It’s more about making him realise that he’s being delusional about the housepet life being 100% safe, and about it really being what he wants. And hell, you could even help him work through his past traumas while coming to the opposite realization about yourself, and deciding that living with humans is actually where you’re meant to be. Orrrrr you could decide to go with Roger before actually talking out all these issues, and you could end up being dragged into this paranoid worship of humans and never feel safe again for a single day of your life even as you tell yourself its the safest place on earth. ‘They won’t kill me cos I’m useful, I have to stay cute forever’ is a pretty messed up way to live your life! Oh, or you could just get a version where you chose to dislike all the stuff about being a pet, yet went along with it anyway cos Roger Wuv, which ends in the absolute opposite of all cheesy romance endings because seriously yo don’t give up your entire life for your man!

And then like The True Route would have Roger’s human owner finishing up his redemption route, basically. He’s been doubting his boss’s orders and he hid Roger as his pet to protect him, but he hasn’t been brave enough to actually try and stand up and stop all of this. Him and Roger are very well matched in fear! So ultimately if you do everything right he’ll be inspired by your beautiful tale of small animal romance to go forth and protect you, even at the cost of his own life! The ending would play out the same as if you get Roger to leave him, but instead the human seemingly abandons him and vanishes overnight. After a few weeks of sorrow, he actually comes back... along with a giant fleet of more human soldiers! Aaaa, is it an invasion?! but for some reason these humans fight off the bad humans and take them to ‘arrest’ for ‘illegal smuggling of dragons’ and you don’t understand any of these words but OK something is happening I guess!! And it’s all yay, but then Roger’s human has to leave again, this time for a much longer time. he went back home and told the authorities about the smuggling operation, but that meant confessing that he was part of it too. So he’s got a long sentence to carry out... And then depending on whether you sided with the pro-wild or pro-tame philosophy, your lil family’s fate is different. The good guy humans might just set you free into the wild again and promise to protect your forest from this ever happening again. (Tho you get a weird tag on your back foot and some vaccinations for rabies.) Or, if Roger never managed to adjust back into the wild, then the human scientists conclude that you’ll never survive on your own now, and the humans need to take responsibility for what they’ve done. So you don’t get to stay with that one particular human, but you get rehomed to a wildlife sanctuary and get even more snuggles from even more nice people. ^_^ And then it could be kinda bittersweet cos dragons live very long. From your perspective you thankfully didn’t have to wait too much until you could see your first human friend again, but you barely even recognise him cos 20 years in prison does a lot to a person. Oh, and in the version where you stay in the forest, he’d actually join with the wildlife conservationists after he finishes his sentence, so he’s finally able to see you every day! 20 long years and seeing his lil pet Roger again was his only reason to live. And now he can meet your whole big ol cuddly dragon family!

[aion-rsa]

15 Comic Book Characters Too Weird For Movies

As comic book movies continue to grow in popularity, Hollywood studios are becoming more and more comfortable with taking what appears on the comic book page and putting it up on screen. Characters often appear in comic accurate costumes, and concepts like a shared universe are now commonplace.

RELATED: 15 Marvel Characters Who Need Their Own Movie Despite all of that, there are still some characters who have little chance of appearing in any of the movies. Whether it’s because their powers are too weird, their story is too bizarre, or they just physically don’t work in the real world, these characters may forever remain left out. The best shot many of the entries on this list have of appearing is as minor background Easter egg, or getting name dropped. They will probably never appear on screen in all of their glory, however. Then again, never say never, right? Still, here are 15 characters we think may be too weird for the movies.

EGG FU

Older comics can be really strange to read in a modern context. For example, the original appearance of Wonder Woman villain Egg Fu in “Wonder Woman” #157 (1965) by Robert Kanigher and Ross Andru is really a product of its time. Originally, he was a Chinese communist agent who just happens to be a giant egg. He was later retconned and turned into an alien supercomputer, and then finally into a mad scientist. The one constant feature is that he’s always a giant evil egg.

That’s pretty much the obvious reason that Egg Fu won’t appear in the movies: being a giant egg. There’s really no way that this character can work in a serious, live action setting. Even the most recent version, from “Harley Quinn Annual” #1 (2014) by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner, where he had a regular-shaped robot body, still had a big egg for a head. Given the serious nature of DC’s recent movies, a talking egg just doesn’t fit in… some might say unfortunately.

DEX-STARR

First appearing in “Final Crisis: Rage of the Green Lantern Corps” (2008) by Geoff Johns and Shane Davis, Dex-Starr is a member of the rage-fueled red lanterns. Before being drafted into the corps, he was just a regular kitten living on Earth. He had a love-filled life, until his owner was killed by a burglar. Dexter ended up on the streets, and was picked up by two men, tortured and placed in a bag. Right as the bag was thrown over the side of the Brooklyn Bridge, a red ring found Dexter and recognized the anger in his heart, drafting him into the Red Lantern Corps.

Like most Red Lanterns, Dex-Starr’s power ring provides him with one of the grossest super powers in the cosmos. His blood has been replaced with rage-blood, and he can vomit it on his enemies, burning them alive. While the idea of a cat being a member of a Lantern corps might sound cute, an abused animal that vomits fiery rage-blood is something that audiences probably won’t want to see.

BAT-MITE

Batman is a dark and brooding character, especially in the current movies. Bat-mite, on the other hand, is an imp from the fifth dimension that has access to highly advanced technology. First appearing in “Detective Comics” #267 (1959) by Bill Finger and Sheldon Moldoff, Bat-Mite traveled to Earth to help Batman and Robin fight crime. Of course, Batman isn’t thrilled to have a magical imp tagging along, but Bat-Mite worships the heroes and won’t leave them alone.

Grant Morrison tried to update the character during his run on Batman, revealing that Bruce had created a backup personality in case his mind got wiped. In “Batman” #678 (2008), this backup personality takes over and begins hallucinating Bat-Mite, who served as his conscience. While this was a creative way to bring this character to modern comics, the concept is still just too silly for DC’s modern movies. There’s simply no way audiences ever get to see Ben Affleck arguing with a flying magical imp.

STARRO

Before 1960, there was no Justice League. They didn’t form until Starro the Conqueror came to Earth in “Brave and the Bold” #28 (1960) by Gardner Fox and Mike Sekowsky. An alien lifeform that resembles a giant starfish, it has the ability to release spores that can attach to a host’s face. While these spores are attached, Starro can control the host. Unable to defeat the alien on their own, Aquaman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter team up, forming one of the most popular super teams ever.

Multiple versions of Starro have shown up since then, including the massive Star Conqueror. This version of the alien was gigantic, being large enough to cover Europe. Once again, it took a combination of the Earth’s most powerful heroes to defeat it. While Starro is a major villain, and directly tied to the origin of the Justice League, the odds of the movie heroes fighting a giant space star fish are basically zero. Sure, he may show up on a comedy riff like “Powerless,” but there’s no way to make him gritty enough for the big leagues.

BEAK

Not every mutant is going to get a cool power like telepathy, healing factors or retractable bone claws. Some mutants’ powers manifest in ways that deform their bodies, like with Barnell Bohusk, who is better known as Beak. He first appeared in “New X-Men” #117 (2001) by Grant Morrison and Ethan Van Sciver, and he’s one of the oddest X-Men ever. When he hit puberty, Barnell basically turned into a human/bird hybrid. Unlike similar mutants, however, his transformation resulted in an odd and clumsy creature, as opposed to an elegant feathered hero.

His awkwardness was part of his charm, however. He was a good natured guy who just wanted to fit in. He played a major role in Grant Morrison’s “Planet X” storyline, showing that a mutant doesn’t need the best power to fight for what’s right. Of course, his mutation makes him a difficult character to pull off in live action, even for a quick cameo. Combine that with the fact that he doesn’t look good in leather, and Beak’s movie odds aren’t good.

STRONG GUY

Some characters, like Strong Guy, only work when they look completely over the top. In “New Mutants” #29 (1985) by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz, he is introduced as Guido Carosella and is working as Lila Cheney’s bodyguard. He has the power to absorb kinetic energy, but with a catch. He has to release that energy quickly, or else it will permanently distort his body. He learned this the hard way when his powers first developed and he was hit by a bus. He didn’t get rid of the energy fast enough, and it left the top half of his body extremely large. He also wears coke-bottle glasses, just FYI.

Strong Guy can’t just be a big guy, he has to have the extremely distorted look. The appeal of the character is how ridiculous he appears, contrasted with how funny his personality is. Without that, he just comes across as a generic tough guy. Unfortunately, the “X-Men” movies don’t seem to be too interested in truly adapting the physically bizarre characters, so we might see Strong Guy at some point… but it won’t actually be Strong Guy, know what we mean?

THE ORB

Another character who seems to be based on one single extremely bizarre physical trait, the Orb is a villain who has a giant eyeball for a head. Surprisingly, this silly looking villain is actually a nemesis of Ghost Rider, who usually fights against demons. As revealed in his first appearance in “Marvel Team-Up” #15 (1973) by Len Wein and Ross Andru, the Orb was a stunt cyclist who was disfigured in a motorcycle accident, which occurred during a race with Crash Simpson, Ghost Rider’s mentor. He received a motorcycle helmet that looked like a giant eyeball that could hypnotize people and eventually shoot lasers out of the pupil.

There’s another version of the Orb running around, and he actually has a giant eyeball for a head, instead of a mask. This version of the character played a major role in the recent crossover event “Original Sin,” where he ended up with one of the Watcher’s eyeballs and learned many of the Marvel Universe’s most well-guarded secrets. Also, he’ll probably never appear in a movie because it’s not even clear how a giant eyeball with no mouth even talks. It would be a nightmare for the special effects department.

THE MAXX

Starring in a dark and surreal series of comics, the Maxx exists within two different worlds. In the real world, he is a homeless vagrant. He also exists in a place called the Outback, a jungle world where he is a giant purple creature who protects the Jungle Queen, who greatly resembles his social worker from the real world, Julie Winters. “The Maxx” was created by Sam Kieth, and his ongoing series first premiered in 1993.

Aside from the comics, the Maxx was the star of a cult cartoon series that ran on MTV in 1995. It only ran for one season, and struggled to find an audience at the time. One of the major complaints about the cartoon was that the animation styles would often change, based on the perspective of the scene. While it has a cult following, the cost of making a movie that does this character justice would just be too great, considering that the concept has never found mainstream appeal.

LOCKHEED

First appearing in “Uncanny X-Men” #166 (1983) by Chris Claremont and Paul Smith, Lockheed is a small dragon that befriended Kitty Pryde. They met when the X-Men were kidnapped by the alien race known as the Brood, and taken to a world overrun by the parasites. Kitty got separated from her teammates and found herself cornered by several Brood drones. Luckily, Lockheed appeared and saved her. When the X-Men went back to Earth, Lockheed tagged along, living in the X-mansion as Kitty’s pet.

Lockheed also grew close with Illyana, Colossus’ younger sister. She had been kidnapped as a child, taken to the hellish dimension of Limbo and returned as a teenager. Illyana, now calling herself Magik, was roomed with Kitty and bonded with Lockheed. The dragon even traveled with the X-Men to Battleworld during the first Secret Wars, where he ended up getting a girlfriend for a brief period of time. While the “X-Men” movies have hinted that they could go into space, Lockheed is just too cute for the tone of the films.

DOCTOR BONG

Picking the right villain name is important. A poorly chosen identity will inspire laughter instead of dread, ruining an entire villainous career. Doctor Bong, who first appeared in “Howard the Duck” #15 (1977) by Steve Gerber and Gene Colan, is a perfect example of this. Lester Verde was a tabloid reporter and music critic who had lost his hand while working with a punk band. As it turns out, his origin gets even more complicated because he was also a genius scientist and was obsessed with Howard’s girlfriend, Beverly.

He began experimenting with genetic engineering and built a bell-shaped helmet. He kidnapped Howard and Bev and took them to his island, where he temporarily tricked Beverly into marrying him. Since then, Bong occasionally pops up in comics as a comic relief villain. While the Marvel movies haven’t avoided humor, Dr Bong’s bell helmet is just too ridiculous for an “Avengers” movie. You could argue that, as a villain of Deadpool’s, he might hit the screen, but we doubt the writers would want to make Wade Wilson the straight man in his own film. Against Doctor Bong, that’s just what he would be.

MARVEL ZOMBIES

In “Ultimate Fantastic Four” #21 (2005), by Mark Millar and Greg Land, the Reed Richards of the Ultimate Universe seemingly makes contact with the mainstream Marvel Universe. When he opens a dimensional gateway, however, it’s revealed to be a trick. He actually travelled to a dimension where most of the Marvel heroes have been infected with a zombie virus, and all but a handful of humans remain. While Richards escaped the apocalyptic dimension, the Marvel Zombies were a hit and eventually starred in several of their own miniseries.

While they might be one of Marvel’s most popular creations since the year 2000, there’s very little chance they’ll ever end up in any of the movies. As zombies, the super heroes have all turned into rotting corpses that feed on living flesh, which doesn’t really fit with the mostly-family friendly tone of the Cinematic Universe. Marvel will never make a movie where an infected Spider-Man kills and eats Aunt May and Mary Jane, no matter how well the comic version sold.

BIG WHEEL

Some villains don’t go too crazy when they come up with an alter ego. For example, Jackson Weele drove around a giant, armored wheel, so he called himself Big Wheel. Weele first appeared as Big Wheel in “Amazing Spider-Man” #183 (1978) by Marv Wolfman and Ross Andru. Weele had previously tried to hire Rocket Racer to steal evidence of his embezzling, but Racer ended up blackmailing him instead. After a failed suicide attempt, Weele hired the Tinkerer to build him a giant wheel.

He chose the Big Wheel motif to get back at Rocket Racer tauntingly calling him “big Weele.” Big Wheel has only made a few appearances in the comics, but he left a lasting impression… though not in an especially good way. He even made an appearance in the “Spider-Man: The Animated Series” episode “Rocket Racer.” Unfortunately, since Sony is trying to repair Spider-Man’s box office presence, it’s highly unlikely that they make a movie about him fighting a wheel-themed villain. Then again, they turned the Rhino into a truck driver, so what do we know?

MOJO

In a dimension where all of the inhabitants are addicted to televised gladiator battles, Mojo rules with a slimy fist. A member of an alien race known as the spineless ones, Mojo is a disgustingly fat creature controlled by greed. He’s confined to an armored robotic platform, mostly due to his species’ laziness. The vast majority of stars on Mojo’s television networks are slaves, many of which are genetically engineered for maximum entertainment value.

He made his first appearance in “Longshot” #3 (1985), by Ann Nocenti and Arthur Adams. Since then, he’s been fixated on enslaving the earth heroes and turning them into reality TV stars, with a special interest in the X-Men. He even made several appearances in the popular ’90s “X-Men” cartoon, and is one of the mutants’ most unique enemies, which is why he’ll never make it to the movies. Not only is he visually bizarre, his origin and motives are just too complicated for one movie, and unfortuantely, we doubt any studio would commit to the character for a whole series.

X-BABIES

Speaking of Mojo, during a time period when the public believed the X-Men to be dead, Mojo tried creating new X-Men he could control. Basing them off an encounter where he de-aged the X-Men in “Uncanny X-Men Annual” #10 (1987) by Chris Claremont and Art Adams, Mojo debuted the X-Babies in “Uncanny X-Men Annual” #12 (1988), also by Chris Claremont and Art Adams. Almost all of the major X-Men team members have had baby versions appear on the roster, including Wolverine, Rogue, Storm, Colossus and even Professor X.

Like most of Mojo’s best creations, the X-Babies quickly rebelled against their master and would have been killed if not for the extremely high ratings they drew on Mojo’s network. They’re not just popular in the fictional Mojoverse, either. Marvel keeps bringing them back, and even introduced the A-Babies, and Avengers baby team, in “A-Babies vs X-Babies” #1 (2012) by Scottie Young and Gurihiru. They’re often the subject of alternate covers as well. Considering that Fox isn’t willing to even give fans actual X-Men uniforms in the movies, however, there’s no way they make a movie with super powered babies.

SUGAR MAN

The 1995 crossover event “Age of Apocalypse” showed a world where the villain Apocalypse had conquered North America. The story mainly focused on alternate versions of previously existing characters, although it did introduce a few new ones. Sugar Man first appeared in “Generation Next” #2 (1995) by Scott Lobdell and Chris Bachalo. A sadistic monster, he ruled over the human slave camp where Colossus’ sister was being held. When Generation Next arrived to free her, Sugar Man and his followers took out most of the team.

Visually, Sugar Man is a truly bizarre mutant. It’s not clear if his appearance is due to his mutation or from genetic manipulation, but he’s basically just a giant head with four arms, razor sharp teeth and claws, and no torso. While he was able to escape the Age of Apocalypse universe and jump into the mainstream Marvel universe, there’s little chance of him showing up in Fox’s Marvel movies. At least, not without adding an actual body, and that just wouldn’t be Sugar Man.

What do you think of our picks? Who do you think is too weird for the movies? Let us know in the comments!

The post 15 Comic Book Characters Too Weird For Movies appeared first on CBR.com.

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