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syms-things-5 · 4 years ago

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Clear The Area - Chapter Seventeen

Previous Chapter Here

Warnings: Strong language and an air of discomfort.

Notes: I hope this reads OK as it’s quite dialogue-heavy.

Tags: @kelbabyblue @jennmurawski13

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The night shifts weren’t all bad. From time to time, they were even as good as “pretty straight forward”. They proved especially useful when trying to finish patient notes and random admin that always got left to the very end of the shift. Perhaps they’d endure a tidy-out of the stock cupboards if the crew was feeling generous. Since O’Brien had taken up his post at the hospital years earlier, he had insisted upon mandatory training updates for the ER units every three to four months (the national average was about once a year) so the team were regularly reminded not to set fire to their computers and not to leave boxes in places people could trip over. You’d be surprised how often both those things happened in an emerging crisis.

“I swear he thinks we’re idiots half the time.” Complained Jack, his head now glued to the palm of his hand. Jack was hurtling towards an early retirement thanks to an ever-increasing distrust of the corporate environment ER departments found themselves in. We trained to save lives, he’d say, not file stat reports. He was so right, it hurt.

The crew was sat round the reception desk. The ER was empty except for a local homeless man the team allowed in from time to time to sleep off his latest drunken adventures.

“Who doesn’t know how to bend their knees when lifting something heavy?” Jack asked again.

“Ryan for one.” Sarah joked, pointing her cold cup of tea towards the fellow nurse in question. Ryan was a tall and skinny guy, not dissimilar to Alexander Skarsgard in the right light but with less charm although he had left a few of the interns swooning of late. Shanna quite liked him, too.

“One time, Sarah. One time and I suffered for it greatly.” Ryan remarked, spinning a full 360 in his swivel chair. “Did you tick ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ for question eleven?”

“Oh, if you don’t tick ‘strongly agree’ even if you only ‘agree’, they mark you down a couple of percentage points.” Entered Audrey, slamming down a pile of files on the desk beside Sarah. Their nightly routine just got more interesting. “Just get it over with. It’s not worth the effort. It’s just O’Brien being obsessed with stats again. He turns everything into a competition. I swear it’s unhealthy.”

Ryan looked momentarily confused before returning to face his computer screen. He re-read the question for the fifth time and rubbed his eyes in resignation. Something about 3am made this far too complicated.

“When did you even find time to do this, Aud?” Jack asked, turning back to Sarah and Audrey in time to witness their shared look self-satisfaction. “I’ve been sat here for half an hour and am still only part way through the first section.”

“I logged in at home earlier.” she responded before catching Sarah’s quizzical look. “Well, Michael did most of it for me.”

“Fucking hell!” exclaimed Jack, chucking his pen on the table, giving up. “Got no chance then, have I? Michael’s a bloody genius. Hey, how much for him to do mine?”

“Normally I’d say $100 but he’s pretty cheap these days.” shrugged Audrey. “Probably a fancy cigar would do.”

“He still grumpy about the you-know-what?” whispered Sarah to her friend when the guys started joshing between themselves.

Audrey leaned back on the desk beside her and took the mug from Sarah’s hands to take a sip, grimacing slightly at the sweetness. For some reason, Sarah had to have at least three sugars in her tea if she was drinking it post-midnight. It helped to keep her more alert apparently. She didn’t drink it like that at any other time of the day. “No more than usual. Seems like we’re both unlucky in that department at the moment.”

Sarah smiled at her in acknowledgement, lips thin before biting the inside of her cheek.

Following their last meet-up, Chris had been decidedly quiet. Too quiet almost. It was weird. He hadn’t messaged her. He hadn’t called or visited their apartment except to collect a parcel he had left. Sarah has been out for a run at the time and had felt silently glad to have missed him. He hadn’t updated his twitter and there had been multiple sports events occurring that would have guaranteed a humblebrag or five. Shanna had pledged to buy rib-eye steaks for a Saturday night meal during a Celtics game and he had cancelled at the last minute citing an interview he had conveniently forgotten. Even Audrey thought it was weird. If anything was guaranteed to get his attention and bring him out of whatever funk he was in, it was the promise of sports and a ‘Grade A’ barbeque.

Shanna merely put it down to his laziness or him having something better turn up. Scott had started replacing Chris around their apartment, wanting to get some of his own distance from the tricky Zach situation and it helped her feel better knowing he was at least in touch with him if Shanna wasn’t. He was evidently still alive.

Sarah decided to swap a couple of daytime stints to partner up with Audrey for the nights. She needed the comfort of working with a good friend to calm her down from whatever ledge her anxiety had placed her on.

“You know that he’ll come back, right?” Audrey interrupted her thoughts. Maybe Sarah spoke too soon. “Haven’t you got that birthday thing for Lisa coming up?”

That trip was a couple of weeks away yet. She was trying to bank some reasonable excuses but everything sounded lame in the cold light of day and Lisa was never going to accept her not coming as well. Surely things would have smoothed themselves out by then?

“This won’t just fix itself, hun, you’ll need to speak to him eventually. And the sooner the better.”

It was like Audrey had a hotline straight into Sarah’s psyche. It was unnerving at the best of times. Sarah knew she was right of course. It’s just, a little bit of distance would be a good thing, right? Even Chris himself had offered that advice from time to time, and stressing herself out at this point almost seemed counterintuitive.

“I reckon you could go in an hour or so if you wanted.” Audrey offered, nudging her friend with her elbow to bring her back into the room. “It’s dead out there.”

“I hope not.” Sarah joked, trying to lighten the mood. “We’d be shit at our jobs if that was the case.”

Audrey laughed for the first time since Sarah could remember that day. It was moments like this that reminded her of why she enjoyed working alongside her so much, and why she didn’t mind if it resulted in overtime.

“You wanna take patient referrals while I take the EPRs?”

“How can I refuse an offer like that?” Sarah picked up the dozen or so documents sat in front of her and grabbed the nearest chair. Audrey told her she’d put the kettle on and nudged the guys still glued to their screens. Ryan had pretty much given up logical thinking and was now ticking random boxes. Jack was cursing under his breath. O’Brien was going to be in for a real treat when he could finally tabulate the responses.

It was nearing 6.20am when Sarah and Audrey finally packed up to go. Matt and Stephanie had just arrived to take over for the morning, bringing a fresh perspective for the day. There wasn’t much for them to catch up on so it should be a smooth few hours at least. Sarah even ran a mop through the staff locker room as an added gift – Steph was a notorious clean freak – nearly tripping Greg up in the process.

He’d been on leave for the past fortnight and his hair was a little longer than she remembered. A five o’clock shadow graced the lower part of his face and it suited him more than she thought it would. He had kept up with the informal tie-less attire and he seemed to be, dare she it, enjoying himself.

“God, I’m so sorry.” She held her hands up in a mock mea culpa. “I was just gonna put it away before heading out. It was a stupid place to leave it.”

“Did you not take the Health and Safety refresher?” he joked, rebalancing himself and trying to play down the redness creeping into his cheeks from the embarrassment of temporarily losing his footing in front of her.

“You gonna rat me out to O’Brien? ‘Cos you know as well as I do that he doesn’t need yet another reason to know he’s right.” She shifted the mop and bucket and placed them back in the supply closet before reaching for her bag again.

“Nah, don’t worry about it.” He moved passed her before turning to face her again. “Tell you the truth, I ghosted the last couple of tabs myself. Who knew there were so many ways to ask questions about standing in elevators?”

Sarah rolled her eyes in acknowledgement. “Yeh. I can’t wait to have the team meeting when he realises we’ve all pretty much done the same thing. That’s gonna be fun. I might finally take some of my holiday.”

“Yeh, good plan. Hey listen,” His words stopped her in her tracks, feet from the exit. “Um, I know it’s been a while but I was wondering if you might want to reschedule that tennis match some time? Or if not, we could get some dinner or something? There’s that new sushi place on Reagan Street. It’s meant to be really good if you fancy it?”

She was indeed familiar with that very restaurant thanks to the glowing reviews she had been unable to avoid since it opened. Audrey had only mentioned it a mere thousand times in her presence. Word was that bookings were now months in advance so she wasn’t sure how Greg was hoping to find a table unless he wanted to make plans with her in November. Given the number of commitments he always appeared to have going on, it wouldn’t be completely outside the realm of possibility.

“Wow, I thought that place was fully booked?”

“Yeh, it is, but I went to college with one of the investors and he’s promised me a one-off.”

Of course he did. Sarah bit her bottom lip to stop herself from chuckling out loud, imagining Audrey’s face when she would inevitably find out. To be honest, she was genuinely surprised he was still showing a minor interest in her. When she finally made eye contact with him, his earnestness was practically shining. Had he always had perfect skin?

“Um…” That was a good start, she thought.

“Honestly, it’s not a big deal if you’d rather not.” He helpfully pre-empted her awkward rejection but she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. “I’ve been meaning to go is all and I knew you liked sushi and figured it might be fun? They have live Jazz on Sunday nights.”

When did he find out she liked sushi? And live Jazz? Just how much had Audrey told him about her?

Realising she probably looked perplexed, she shuffled her shoulder strap back up onto her shoulder and tried to relax the awkwardness setting in between them. It was still quiet and no one was within earshot that she could figure out of her peripheral vision.

“It’s not you, Greg, I promise. It’s just, I’m not really looking to get into anything right now. With anyone. Plus, we work together and…I’m sorry. I hope that’s OK?”

“Hey, look, I promise it won’t be awkward. There’s absolutely no expectations from me and if you change your mind, just let me know, yeh? I literally know no one else who likes Sashimi so I can’t waste my only chance to get a table.” He chuckled and she felt more at ease.

“If it’s any consolation, I’m a pretty crap date.” She smiled at him as she edged herself down the hall, putting space between them both literally and figuratively. “You wouldn’t be missing out.”

“Oh, I doubt that somehow.” He returned her smile. “I’m serious, though. Just let me know. Anytime. No expiration date.”

And with that, she had been left dumbfounded by two men in the space of a single week.

It would have been easier to get the early morning bus home at this time, as tired as she was starting to feel. She hadn’t slept well in the last few days and she had a creeping nausea from the lack of proper rest. The walk and crisp, fresh air might do her some good. It was practically full daylight even at this hour, and it was sometimes fun to watch people on their own way to work, huffing along, trying not to drop their coffees.

The out-of-town school bus passed her a few minutes out from her apartment and as she rounded the corner, she got this weird sense that someone was watching her. Another corner turned and she could see her building in the near distance. Still, she couldn’t shake it. She stopped, pretending to fumble for her phone in her pocket and turned around swiftly to see a sweaty Chris stop a few steps behind her.

It took her a moment to register it was in fact him, his beard fuller and a Red Sox cap pulled down low over his eyes. He had sweats and sneakers on and looked like he was on a run. Honestly, if someone else had spotted him from this distance, they would have worried he was going to attack her.

“Hey,” she said, turning to fully face him. “What are you doing out at this time?”

He didn’t respond at first. He shuffled from one foot to the other before grounding himself and taking a couple of steps towards her. Again, he shuffled back a step like he was rethinking his move. She didn’t appreciate seeing him like this, so unsure of himself.

“Five months out from filming some pre-shoots so figured I’d make a start.” He finally spoke. Not a really a smile but he at least sounded OK.

“Cool.” She said, nodding back at him. “Um, I’m not sure if Shanna is awake yet but do you want to come inside for some water or coffee?”

“Yeh, that’d be great. Thanks.”

She turned to continue walking on. For a few long moments, he stayed walking slightly behind her. A couple more strides and he had decided to catch up. The last time it had taken this long to walk this same street, she had been so drunk she had narrowly avoided falling into her neighbour’s front garden.

“Five months? You’re not that out of shape.” She tried to make a joke. It was the only thing she could think of. Audrey would be eye-rolling like a champ if she could see them now.

Chris knew she was trying to make small talk now so he decided to indulge her. It was a fair response, he thought - he was doing OK - as he followed her up the stairs deliberately keeping two or three behind her in an effort to keep it casual.

“Oh, y’know. I fluctuate pretty easily. A few pizzas here and there and it’s game over.”

They walked into her kitchen and she had been right in assuming Shanna was still asleep. Unless she had awoken really early but that was highly unlikely, unless there was a sale at Ted Baker she didn’t know about.

He lingered in the doorway while she searched the fridge for a bottle of water. Grabbing one from the back, she turned to hand it to him expecting him to be within an arm’s reach from her but he had been distracted by something down the hall before turning back to her. Gratefully, he accepted it and walked into the kitchen to take up his usual spot leaning against the counter.

“Sorry, did you say you wanted a coffee?” She offered.

“Nah, I’m good. Can’t really take caffeine until this afternoon.”

“Sorry. I always forget how strict it is.” She apologised, offering him a sympathetic smile.

He took a long swig from the bottle, not breaking eye contact from her. “No need to apologise. You OK? Night shift?”

“Yeh. Pretty quiet, thankfully.”

“I’ve always meant to ask but what is it like, a night shift? I can’t work out if it would be worse or not.”

She understood what he meant and laughed. “It can go either way to be honest but it’s been quiet the last few nights. Nothing crazy. I caught up with some paperwork, so…” She shrugged again, acutely aware of how boring she must sound.

He nodded at her. “Aren’t people supposed to be crazier in the summertime?”

“Well, kids are around more and families tend to spend more time together, so…”

The apartment was unnervingly quiet now which was weird. She could hear the uptake in traffic outside which provided some relief that perhaps he couldn’t hear her heart beating out of her chest. She could make out some small sweat patches on his hoodie and it did something to her that she wasn’t expecting. Shaking the thought from her head, she turned to switch the kettle off.

“What?” He asked.

She jerked her head back around to face him. “Huh?”

“You were thinking of something. Your neck just went red.” He smiled, tilting his head at her and relishing the look of surprise making its way over her features, knowing he’d caught her out.

That was news to her. She knew she had “tells” but a red neck was not usually one of them. How come no one had ever told her about this?

“I can’t tell if you’re joking with me or not.” She inquired, playfully narrowing her eyes at him in an effort to lighten the mood.

He shrugged a shoulder at her, a smirk starting to cross his fine features. Joshing with her was good. She’d take that. A small step in the right direction.

“Sometimes, it’s really obvious. You get it when you’re embarrassed about something, or when you try to lie. I’d never really noticed it before, but...” He paused. His expression started to turn more thoughtful and she wished he’d just continue to make fun of her instead.

“Guess I won’t be playing poker anytime soon.” She finished the thought for him.

“Yeh, no, you’d be rubbish at that. Just terrible.” He took another swig from his bottle and waited for her to throw something at him.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

The room went quiet again. She stirred her mug of coffee and offered him another chance at one which he politely refused although his discipline was waning slightly now he could smell it.

“So this is fine.” He said after a couple of minutes, nodding in a slightly exaggerated manner. He looked out of the kitchen window. “We can do this, right? No awkwardness. No embarrassment. Just normal, everyday conversation.”

“’Course,” she nodded in agreement.

“Start as we mean to go on, right?”

She nodded again. This felt like a trap and she couldn’t put her finger on why. Chris had a knack for saying and doing two different things at the same time, an intimidating ability that often put people on edge if he thought it would serve his purpose, whatever that may be. Probably the actor in him. When you called him out, he would aggressively defend himself which only served to prove the point you were making in the first place.

Scott was the only one, truly, who knew when it was happening. It had taken Sarah years to get to a similar position but now, she wasn’t sure she was remotely close to it.

“It’s as good a starting point as any, I guess.” She shrugged again, sipping from her cup.

“So there’s no need to ignore me then.”

“I haven’t been ignoring you, have I?”

“You tell me. I’m just pre-empting it is all. I’m just saying we can still interact, you and me, if we need to. Like, it doesn’t always have to be in social settings with other people around.” He took a final drink from his bottle and turned to locate the recycling pot stashed away in the corner. Even with a mundane task, he always looked cool doing it.

“So don’t worry about it.”

“Alright then. That’s good to know.” She shot him a raised eyebrow which he caught and returned with a sly smirk. “I’m just trying to be sensible. We have to get this right or else there’s no point.”

“I know, I get that, too.” If he wasn’t attempting to be serious before, he was now. He had a hand on his hip and seemed to have grown a few inches in height. “What do you think I’m trying to say?”

“I…think I’m on the backfoot again and it’s weird.” She held a hand up in defence.

“Hey, I’m just doing what we agreed, OK? I’m just following your rules.”

“They’re not rules.” She struggled to regulate the volume in her voice in case she disturbed Shanna. “And you’re making it sound like I’m controlling the situation when I’m not. We both agreed on this. There’s no point being difficult about it.”

Was he being difficult? Yes. Obviously, he was. He wasn’t happy. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling but happy definitely wasn’t it. Things were out of sorts and he hadn’t been able to eat carbs or sugar for four days so the withdrawal symptoms certainly weren’t helping. He should go easier on her. She was doing the thinking for the both of them. He should learn to be more grateful for that.

He scratched the back of his head and let out an audible sigh in frustration. “I’ll try harder, I promise. We’ve got that cabin thing coming up with Mom, so…I promise I’ll be good.”

He imitated the scout salute and she smiled at him, a smile not quite reaching her eyes.

Another night shift and Audrey and was starting to get suspicious. No one willingly switched for a night shift. For one thing, there was a disproportionate amount of recovery time. A couple of night shifts often took in excess of a week to recover from; a week that a nurse definitely did not have to spare.

“He been buggin’ you?” she asked, finally growing tired of the silence.

“Who?” Sarah looked up from the cabinet. “No, not really. We haven’t really spoken.”

“So why are you ignoring him?”

“I’m not ignoring him! Why does everyone think that?”

“Who’s everyone?”

Crap. Audrey had her there. Sarah open and closed her mouth without a sound coming out. She took a breath. “He’s not bugging me. He’s not. I’m just trying to limit the times we’re in the same place at the same time.”

“Huh, you’d think he would at least allow you to have peace in your own home.”

“Well, to be fair, he hasn’t been around all that much, but…at least I don’t have to worry about him showing up unannounced. It’s stupid but I feel way more awkward about him than I thought I would. It’s like I can’t even stand to be under his gaze.”

Audrey glanced at her friend, wishing she could offer some words of comfort. Even for someone as verbose as she normally was, she was finding it a struggle. Sarah wasn’t much looking for words of comfort at the given time either. She was all too aware of the predicament she was in and how much responsibility laid at her feet. In her mind, waiting it out was the only logical solution she could come up with. The only logical solution that didn’t require more conversations with someone who could feasibly run rings around her “theory” that if they just stayed apart for a little while, they would suddenly and magically forget about the past couple of months.

They stayed filing documents in silence again, the air seemingly getting thicker.

“You ever spoken with someone and it’s like they’re thinking the complete opposite of what’s coming out of their mouth?” Sarah huffed while shoving the cabinet drawer closed.

“Not really. That person’s usually me.”

“But why?” she asked. “Why can’t you just be normal?”

“I mean, it’s not my go-to response of course. It’s normally reserved for occasions when I am trying to indulge someone because I know they’re talking bullshit. Like, when I know Mike has been gambling but he tries to deny it? It’s just easier to figure him out that way.”

Sarah froze to the spot, looking at her friend. She breathed a heavy sigh and turned to lean back on the table behind her and crossed her arms. She stared at her shoes for a second.

“Chris is a smart guy. I’ll give him that.” Audrey muttered loudly so she was sure Sarah could hear.

“Give me something! I’m your friend here.” She implored her before chuckling to herself at Audrey’s face and her own apparent lack of self-awareness.

“You know what I think? You’ve probably got withdrawal symptoms from the all the amazing sex you’ve had and now you’re sulking. I think you should get back on that horse and let him fuck you again. That’s what this is.”

Sarah eyed her friend again. For once, she would love to hear someone tell her that she was right. “That’s really not helping, y’know.”

“And this is?!” Audrey’s shriller tone cut through the dry air, smacking Sarah right in the face. “Honey, this isn’t healthy. You hiding out in the hospital and treating it like your own solace is not healthy at all. I love you but you are your own worst enemy.”

“Alright, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for your unswerving efforts to be honest with me at all times and not, like a normal pal, be comforting in any way.” Sarah comically bowed to her friend before considering leaving the office. She would have followed through with the idea as well if it wasn’t for the cosy warmth of O’Brien’s office versus the coldness of the ER department thanks to a leaking pipe. “It’s difficult. I’m sorry. I don’t wanna fall out with you, Audrey.”

Audrey just smiled at her. “I don’t know why you think you have to be the beacon of morality all the time, Sarah. Take a look around. No one else is. We all out here just trying to live our lives as best we can and a part of that is taking advantage of moments of happiness when we find them.”

Something about what Audrey was saying did resonate with her but comparing two months of happiness with Chris to ten years with Shanna was not something she could in good conscience do. Shanna was her security blanket. She provided a comfort of living with someone with shared life experience, of knowing how little you thought about yourself because you were given up as a baby. Honestly, from the very first day they had met, Sarah felt lucky to know her.

Yes, Shanna could be immature at times. Maybe a little selfish. She would often get carried away with trivial things and wasn’t the most reliable person, but what Sarah got in return was worth that and more. Her family enjoyed highlighting the maternal care Sarah would have to provide to someone who was seven months older than she was, but honestly it didn’t matter.

Maybe this was one of the rare occasions where Audrey was wrong.

Chris was a fling at best, Sarah told herself, when she was lying in bed struggling to fall asleep. When she was cold and missing his arms around her. They were both having shitty times and they both got something out of it. That was what Chris had said himself at the very beginning.

Chris 08.15am: You home? Shanna said you were working late again

It was like he knew she would be thinking about him.

Chris 08.17am: I really dont want u ignoring me all the time. This is hard for me right now as well

Fuck.

Sarah 08.21am: I kno. I’m so sorry I made you feel like that :(

He didn’t respond. She thought she saw the tell-tale three dots of him writing something but nothing appeared. Giving up on sleep, she got up and headed into the kitchen. Shanna had left her some bacon in the fridge and a fresh bread bun on the side so she turned on the grill and set about making some coffee.

She felt strangely awake for this time and the apartment was nice and warm from the bright sunshine streaming in from all corners. Maybe a run would help. Or a cold shower.

Chris 08.44am: I wanna be honest with u but I dont think u want that

Chris 08.45am: so what do i do??

Fuck knows.

Chris 08.51am: Can I come over?

Sarah 08.54am: that’s not a good idea

Chris 08.55am: cos you know what will happen?

Chris 08.56am: what does that tell you??

She was sure he was nursing some kind of hangover or, quite possibly, he was still a little bit drunk. There were two responses she could give, she figured. The first would be her usual denial and perhaps an excuse that she was busy or working later than planned. The second, and ultimately the one she opted for, was to agree with him.

Sarah 09.05am: I know what it tells me. That’s why I’m saying you shouldn’t come over

Another three dots followed. There was only so many times they could go around and around in circles and as much as Audrey’s words made sense to her, it felt like she had to make the effort to regain some normality.

He didn’t respond. She stared at her phone for an age but nothing came through. Maybe he got the message? Maybe he had fallen asleep. She was both relieved and suspicious; Chris wasn’t someone who backed down from an argument when he thought he was right. He had said as much himself.

She turned the grill off, having lost her appetite. A run might make more sense and could help clear her head.

She couldn’t sit around waiting for Chris to make his next move.

#Chris evans #chris evans fic #evans fic #fanfiction #clear the area #sarah bernette #chris evans x original female character

23 notes · View notes

quicksilverlightning · 5 years ago

Text

Number One In Our Hearts

It starts innocuously enough, with All Might being invited to run the yearly Quirkless course on Quirk Warrior.

“It’s been a rough course this year folks – only six runners have made it all the way through, but we’ve got one last contestant to go.”

“That’s right, Ken, and it’s the one you’ve all been waiting for. This year’s Quirkless Run has pulled out all the stops – the jump hang is longer, the wall is higher, and it’s all for this one last runner. Ladies and gentlemen, the one, the only, the legend, All Might!”

___________________________________________

cinnadust

My favorite thing about All Might running the QLC is that he doesn’t run at all. He strolls through like he’s fucking bored.

Staples083

his wingspan is enormous

pipe-fingers

Petition for All Might to run the Quirk course #NumberOneInOurHearts

GangOrg4n

look at him wave at the audience he’s not even tring lol Absolute Legend

Red-Phone-Wire

please someone make these announcers losing their shit into a meme

___________________________________________

All Might’s appearance rockets the ratings to unseen heights; the full video goes viral and has over a million views before the weekend is over. It isn’t long before the agency is fielding phone calls from the usual suspects – reporters, journalists, talk shows – but also from some more unusual places.

Toshinori lights up when PR brings him the first batch of requests and immediately agrees to do them all. The second flurry of requests comes before the cooking show segment is finished airing and the floodgates open. Every reality show and competition is clamoring for All Might to guest star.

___________________________________________

Quirky Kitchen makes it an hour-long special. The first half is dedicated to some old American favorites; he chats with the host and audience while slicing tomatoes with charming ease. The audience delights in his culinary prowess, gained over long years of bachelordom, and laughs at his silly anecdotes. Which makes the second half all the more surprising.

With the burden of secrecy lifted, Yagi Toshinori can finally see his way forward. All Might can no longer be a pillar, but, perhaps, Yagi Toshinori can be a support beam. While the live audience munches on potato chips hot from the fryer, Toshinori pulls a simple hardback chair from the set, seats himself, and opens up.

___________________________________________

“Cooking… it’s a lot like my Quirk – my strength is gone, but the reflexes, the training, all of that is still there. I can’t eat what I’m making anymore, but I still know how to make it. And I can still share it with all of you.”

___________________________________________

explendative

holy shit

out-of-batt

damn, look at him flipping burgers @9:32 this man is perfect??

h0m3b0dyJJ

Okay, guys, my dad had a gastrectomy a few years before he died and it’s seriously no joke. My dad lost 63 pounds just a few months after his; it’s hard to keep anything down and you have to eat little meals all the time and there’s just so. much. food. that you can’t have anymore. He was taking like a billion supplements and vitamins just to manage everyday challenges. I can’t even imagine going through that on top of being an active Pro.

its-ibuki

we must protect All Might at all costs

___________________________________________

He laughs when his students gather round, babbling about the dance show. He ruffles Ashido’s hair fondly.

“You don’t get to Number One without some fancy footwork! Take that to heart, my young students,” he nods sagely, managing to extract himself before he’s late to the staff meeting. He heads down the hall, but not before tossing one last piece of advice over his shoulder.

“And learn at least one social dance!”

___________________________________________

Honestly? I don’t like the hero rankings. I’d prefer they didn’t exist at all. How do you rank acts of heroism? Why is saving one life worth less than saving a hundred? You can’t quantify someone’s worth down to a data point. What’s a hundred lives to a parent that’s lost their only child?

- All Might discusses the ranking system on Hero Discourse

12,086 notes

LoreleiFae

another day, another reason to love All Might

FlipFlapItsATrap

you know, I never really got the hype around All Might. Like, I understood he was number one and super strong and all that, but I never got all the fervor around him. I started to get it after Kamino, but it’s really little moments like these that make me understand why he was number one. why he’s still number one, no matter what the ranking says. #NumberOneInOurHearts

07ohseven

@FlipFlapItsATrap: I’ve met All Might twice, both before and after Kamino (humblebrag, lol), and he really is just the nicest guy. He never treated anyone like they weren’t worth his time, from teenagers hunting autographs to little kids that wanted a hug. I ran into him again a few months ago at the Mustafu Library – he’d tucked himself away into a corner with a few books and we talked a little about what he was reading (a biography and a fantasy novel, if you were wondering). He asked me to call him Toshi and gave me some movie recommendations.

07ohseven

@FlipFlapItsATrap: I got off topic there, but what I wanted to say was that you’re right – All Might wasn’t number one because he was a good hero. He was number one because he’s a good person. All Might made me feel safe, but Toshi made me feel comfortable, like talking to an old friend. I hope I get to meet him again one day. #NumberOneInOurHearts

___________________________________________

Kizumi Takada @0Window0Knight0

@AllMightOfficial how many people have you kissed?

All Might @AllMightOfficial

@0Window0Knight0 None.

All Might @AllMightOfficial

@0Window0Knight0 But, many, many people have kissed me.

___________________________________________

Peony-crowned

Next time on Hero Theory – is All Might asexual?

Superxxchar04

@peony-crowned: OTP – All Might X Justice

Hkoin

@superxxchar04: All Might X A healthy mind body and soul in a long life filled with joy and laughter FTFY

___________________________________________

He’s carrying a stack of grading in one hand and nearly throws the entire pile in the air when Present Mic grabs him in the hallway, begging him to be on his show. After a few moments spent calming him down, Toshinori manages to gather that his guest for the night has had a last minute cancellation. He offers an easy smile and agrees to fill in.

He wasn’t expecting Hizashi to open the phone lines up for questions, but what kind of hero would he be if he couldn’t roll with the punches?

___________________________________________

Am I on the air?

That’s right, listener! You are live and you’ve got a question for us?

Yeah! Well, for All Might. Big fan by the way, you’re the greatest.

Thank you kindly, young man!

Right, so I was wondering – do you make more from your hero work, or from merchandising rights? I’ll hang up and listen, if that’s okay?

Perfectly fine, listener!

I don’t – didn’t – make any money at all from my hero work. Any bounties have gone to victims or to charity, and I’ve never sent anyone a bill for helping at a natural disaster. Merchandising rights more than cover the agency overhead – I’m not even the highest paid individual at my own company.

___________________________________________

TexasSmashMe

I’m sorry to inform the hero fandom that Stain was 100% correct – there is only one real hero, and his name is Yagi Toshinori.

___________________________________________

drrdrrdrrdrr reblogged from nessalee

[gif set]

[First image description]

A young All Might flies through the air, cape billowing like a banner

[Second image description]

Silver Age All Might holds up a collapsing bridge pillar with one arm while the other gives a thumbs up.

[Third image description]

Golden Age All Might overlooks the city from a skyscraper, bangs ruffling in the wind

[Fourth image description]

All Might stands tall, battered and bloody, a single fist raised into the air

[Fifth image description]

Yagi Toshinori bounces at the front of the course, posture relaxed, waiting for the starting bell

[Sixth image description]

A toddler yanks on Yagi Toshinori's bangs as he smiles indulgently

[Seventh image description]

Yagi Toshinori sitting in the bleachers at Yuuei, beaming proudly at the field where his students compete

[Eighth image description]

Yagi Toshinori stands, battered and bloody, face turned away, pointing into the distance

A Hero for Eternity

All Might / Yagi Toshinori

36,875 notes

CoraBakes

get u a man that can do both

la-la-lo-li

The one with the kid is so cute <3 Yagi-san would be a great dad

kainnn9056

pft look at him casually holding up a bridge with one arm hes so extra i love it.

___________________________________________

He's just leaving the school when PR messages him with the request from Hero Monthly magazine. It's usually the kind of thing he would sign off on without a second thought, but his eye lingers on a single word - photoshoot. This wouldn't be like answering questions about his gastrectomy online, or explaining his injury on a talk show - this would be actively showing off the wound that nearly killed him.

Toshinori never expected to retire; hell, he'd never expected to survive. He assumed he would die as he lived - being a hero - and take all his secrets with him. But now...

Now he thinks of young Midoriya with his scarred hand; of his friend Todoroki, who couldn't hide his burn if he wanted to. He thinks of Iida's older brother, learning to walk again. He remembers Best Jeanist may lose his own stomach in the near future and the scar under Aizawa's eye. He remembers hospital wards full of children with amputated body parts and prosthetic limbs and dreams of heroism. He remembers being twelve and Quirkless and thinks again of young Midoriya, to whom Quirkless may as well have been a synonym for disabled.

___________________________________________

[Image set]

[Cover image description]

Yagi Toshinori sits in a crisp white button-up on an angled couch, legs stretched over the cushions, looking at the camera over his shoulder.

[First image description]

Yagi Toshinori adjusts a cuff-link, grinning wildly at something off camera, suit jacket flared in the wind.

[Second image description]

Yagi Toshinori sits on the edge of a bed, hands together between his open knees. His white shirt is unbuttoned, revealing a skinny chest and hints of spiderwebbing red.

[Third image description]

Yagi Toshinori looks away from the camera shyly, one hand rubbing the back of his head. His scar is viciously red, stretching the full length of his torso before disappearing below the hem of the dark slacks clinging to his skinny hips.

108,792 notes

vedran-oligarch

All Might looks like someone punched a hole through him and I'm still lusting over his fine ass hot DAMN

i-am-a-blank-page

@vedran-oligarch: it's the eyes - they're always the same and they're always so intense

vedran-oligarch

@i-am-a-blank-page: point, but those beautiful hipbones aren't hurting my lady-boner

IrisEvergarden

I really, really love the last picture. His expression is so sweet and unsure and humanizing - the whole set is, but that one really does it for me <3

paperclipped-wildflowers

his hair looks so soft

IrisEvergarden

I just want to give this man a hug, he's so good and pure and brave

ExpectingDelay

okay, but how how no one mentioned the interview part?!

If I saved one person when I lost my stomach, it was worth it. If I brought one child home to their parents when I crushed my lungs, it was worth it. If my words have helped someone through a rough patch, if I inspired someone to do better, be better, it was all worth it. There are a great many regrets in my life, but helping others has never been one of them. There is nothing I wouldn’t break; no sacrifice that would make me hesitate.

That's what heroism is - it's taking these hits so that no one else has to.

this man is incredible.

flowwithit54

@ExpectingDelay: I'm fucking crying rn we don't deserve All Might OR Yagi Toshinori

___________________________________________

It's almost nine when Ishiyama finds him lazing on the teacher's lounge couch, idly scrolling through his own tag online. In the past few minutes alone, he's found post after post from individuals finding strength from last week's magazine shoot. A teenager with an arm mangled in a villain attack; an office worker embarrassed by needing a wheelchair; a boy with an annoying twitch thanks to an accident with his electricity Quirk. Thousands of messages of love and support, admiration and inspiration. It's almost enough to make him wonder why he'd been so worried about the inevitable. Ishiyama hands him a cup of tea.

"You look happy today, Yagi."

He closes the phone and takes the offered tea with a smile.

"Yeah. I guess I am."

#yagi toshinori #All Might #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #fanfic #social media fic #mha #bnha #I maintain that shows like Ninja Warrior would be AWESOME in a world of superpowers #which is how this fic started #and now I'm writing a whole series #about fandom and they ways in which we relate to our heroes #because I can't stop having Ideas #and I am LIVING #for All Might being a hero in a completely different way after Kamino #still salty about the lack of line breaks on tumblr

362 notes · View notes

davidmann95 · 5 years ago

Text

All-Star Superman #2

A scant year to the day since part 1!

All evidence to the contrary I actually have always wanted to go back to this, especially since I keep getting asked if I’ll do so and it stirs my omnipresent sense of guilt over my lack of productivity, and also the last year has not resulted in a mass turnaround of people realizing it’s a for-real good book and not just comfort food so this remains necessary. This isn’t going to be quite as in-depth as the first go-around - both that as the introductory issue and that as the introductory recap had a lot of groundwork to lay - but still plenty to cover, as this issue sets up Lois and Superman’s arcs for the series, which is rooted (amazingly, especially right off the bat, given the book’s reputation of being about how amazing Superman is) in how badly Superman’s let his fears and shortsightedness poison the most important relationship in his life.

If the first issue is the big classic Superman material - Superman saving the day from the monster! Lois and Clark and the rest of the Daily Planet crew! Lex Luthor’s sinister schemes! A ticking clock to doom! - this scales all the way down to the uncomfortably, stiflingly intimate. Classic archetypal Superman stuff gives way to the most Silver Age issue: casual huge ideas, relationship drama, misunderstandings, last-minute reveals that recontextualize the entire issue, and baaaarely latent psychodrama bubbling up at the edges. In service of that the visual framing here is not unlike a stage play, a limited set of physically connected locales as a pair of figures bounce off one another. Quitely and Grant’s work is therefore comparatively subdued next to issue #1, keeping to traditional panel layouts and wide or medium shots with a background color palate of mostly blacks and whites and grays with a handful of other colors popping out...until Lois starts to lose her shit at the end of the issue and we get close-ups and full black and white panels and eerie glowing and dutch angles and that unsettling abstract image of her clenched teeth, as the story starts to squeeze us like Lois’s gut.

She’s right to be unsettled for that matter; she’s alone on Superman’s turf (the one issue where that’s the case other than #6, and that one’s about how Smallville stopped being his home), the weird antiseptic alien lair of the ultimate super-hobbyist, and all the baggage of their relationship is spilling out into the open as she has less and less reason to think the best of this odd man who’s been lying to her for years. Unlike the Silver Age tales this is referencing, she’s absolutely on the money with her complaints about him: he’s been dicking around with her forever and thinks it can all be okay now (His little “What?” on the second page when she bursts his bubble says it all), and he’s awkwardly overcompensating trying to fix it.

While the Fortress tour serves to peacefully acclimate us to how utterly bizarre Superman’s world really gets past the traditional rescues (the little cubic starfield we don’t know the meaning of yet, trophies are floating rather than physically suspended, the glowing flowers in Lois’s room, “The Phantom Zone map room’s pretty dull unless you can see radio-negative anti-waves”), Superman himself is...humblebragging isn’t the right way of putting it, but it feels like he’s working way, way harder than he ever will again in this book to be cool and impressive and assuring. He’s a dope in love, but he can tell something’s up and that super-brain of his isn’t putting the obvious pieces together, or noticing that this is just putting her off further and further until, like Bluebeard’s wife before her, she stumbles through the threshold of the door she was never meant to, even of course in the end he’s still Superman and there’s a perfectly good reason. Not a good enough reason, however, for her accusations at dinner to not hit home - his mind may be expanding, but he’s still way up his own ass here in a genuinely unpleasant way that’ll be elaborated on momentarily. For now he’s left stammering that she should trust him and it’s limp and phony, especially compared to his big entreaty for someone to trust him in #10 (which’ll be right after he finally comes clean with her); while Superman may not be considered a savior figure by his friends in here the way he often is in the mainline comics Lois seems to be the only one who doesn’t look up to him at least a little bit, but that clarity means she’ll call him out where no one else will.

Across the next two pages it’s all laid out, and we get to the roots of where things have gone wrong between the two of them. Lois is paranoid, certainly, the panels are literally squeezing in on her, but with Superman seeming so out-there and alien like never before she would have every right to be even sans alien chemicals. But notably there remains throughout a part of her assuming the best of him wondering if maybe this is just another big misunderstanding or that he’s simply been mutated by the solar overexposure. And in her heart of hearts, she admits that maybe she wants this to be another big damn trick with a completely sensible justification, because the alternative is that this is the new normal and she has to accept that he’s a flawed mortal man. It’s ugly and it’s mean - especially since she likes Clark - and it’s human as hell in the worst, most understandable way. It’s not going to be until said mortality is staring her in the face that she’ll be able to accept it.

Superman, meanwhile...someone could write a thesis on these panels as an articulation of the Superman/Clark dynamic. The Mirror of Truth is actually preexisting, centerpiece of a Jerry Siegel/Curt Swan joint in Action Comics #269 that was later adapted into the Superman newspaper strip where Lois uses it to figure out Superman is Clark Kent until he tricks her into believing the mirror can lie, after which he tosses it in a volcano; here it’s survived, and curiously shows him as Superman rather than Clark, when in the original tale it displayed Kent even though that was fully the era of Clark as a disguise. In here too it’s Superman who’s the ‘true’ identity of the two and which this time is reflected in the mirror, yet as in #1 it’s Clark who says what he’s truly feeling. In that light, the final panel of the abandoned glasses reads like nothing so much as Superman using the mirror as affirmation that the truth of the solemn, steadfast Superman identity gives him licence to deny the uncomfortable emotions his squishy human farmboy side is dredging up, ‘lying’ to him in a way he had to fake in the source material. Those emotions however knock right on the door of what he can’t grasp here: Clark’s so wrapped up in his own head trying to do the ‘right’ thing that he’s overlooking how his attempts at self-sacrificing selflessness are hurting the people around him. Throughout the series he’ll come to rely on others, first at his lowest points with Jimmy and the Bizarros, until at last he comes to invest true trust in Lois, and the Kandorians, and Leo Quintum, and even Lex.

For now though Lois is deep in a hole, a brief but memorable meeting with the Unknown Superman of 4500AD - everything Superman seems to be becoming to her even before she wonders if it’s literally him, cryptic and masked and with a big ‘ol question mark right on his chest instead of the familiar comforting logo, even his gutbuster of a question reinforcing his distance from a recognizable human experience - leading her all the way to reimagining her Silver Age ideal happy ending of marriage and family with Superman as a Cronenbergian horror. It’s still a Superman story, it turns out he had the very best reason possible for wanting to keep her in the dark, but right through to the end he remains just a little condescending in his reassurance, and his gift of essentially bringing her up to his ‘level’ isn’t going to solve the problem. While the next issue lets us see the two of them properly in love, it won’t be until the elephant in the room comes out that they can come to terms.

Additional notes

* God Quitely is so good. Look at the way the seatbelt curves in the first panel! Lois’s bemused little disbelieving smirk!

* Pages 2-3: Aurora Borealis?!

* Lois is the only character other than Superman who gets to have actual narration (in both cases as looks at their in-text writing), the only one whose viewpoint is thus privileged in the same way as his.

* The key is the realization of this series’ aesthetic in a nutshell: the old-school idea in a sleek, shiny, clever new way that doesn’t take away from the fantastical toyeticness of it all. For that matter, the key is the centerpiece of a later bit with Superman that could be fairly described as the long-term goal of the book book as Morrison’s hoped-for perennial: “One day some future man or woman will open that door, with that key. When they do, I want them to know how it felt to live at the dawn of the age of superheroes.”

* This is A. The first note of a larger DC universe existing offscreen, something that I’ll go into more when discussing #8, B. A brilliant, concise, fun little summation of his place in Superman’s world, and C. Absolutely hilarious given Morrison suggested in his exit interview that this could be seen as much later on in the same universe as All-Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder, which entirely rewrites the tone of that moment.

* Already discussed the key but the muscles in Superman’s hand tensing a bit at picking it up is another great detail.

* The glimpse of the Fortress here is excellent: the statues of his friends and enemies instead of pictures because he does things bigger with the yellow electric something crackling at the end of it, the off-model but curious-looking robot appearing to glance at Kandor (are it and the bigger robot with the seats on top of it trophies, or Superman Robots with different designs tasked for specific purposes?), the classic Bad Penny Good For One Crime, the Legion time bubble that establishes his time-traveling credentials for later, the Titanic where he and Lois will dine when their relationship hits a proverbial iceberg, and most strikingly the space shuttle Columbia, his apparent rescue of which I have to imagine is a reference to Astro City’s Superman analogue Samaritan debuting by averting the Challenger disaster.

* It’s next issue that has my actual favorite Superman/Lois moment of all time, but “When we’re married fifteen years, when I’m sagging and he looks just the same, will he still meet me and say things like...” “These are for you. I picked them on Alpha Centauri 4.” is right up there.

* The technological aesthetic of the Fortress is so different than P.R.O.J.E.C.T., sleek and solid and cleanly-lit and antiseptic, beautiful and advanced but a little cold in its own way. As stuffed with wonder as this place may be, there’s something hauntingly empty about it, suiting both the tone of the issue and as a physical embodiment of Superman’s emotional state. The one part that goes against it is the forbidden room, it even has beakers and test tubes to sell the mad scientist vibe...though if you were to stretch it, it much more close resembles the human technology seen at P.R.O.J.E.C.T., and this is meant as a gift for one.

* The cosmic anvil made it along with the key into the CWverse, Lois used it in Elseworlds! I may not be expecting All-Star quality from the upcoming Superman and Lois, but it’s good to know the powers that be are using it as a reference point (beyond how it inspired Supergirl’s take on Cat Grant, a connection I discussed in a post that seems to have vanished into thin air). The whole page is perfect, Superman at his most joyfully benign and beautiful and godlike; it’s the one bit where Lois’s skepticism cracks a touch watching him feed his adorable little Lovecraftian abomination from beyond the stars.

* While he never appears physically aside from a statue Brainiac hovers over this series from beginning to end in name and deed, the ominous ultimate enemy of Superman’s past, the great trial overcome even as the scars forever remain. Morrison mentioned in the exit interview that he didn’t appear in here because he and Quitely already used him as the villain of JLA: Earth 2, but that if he had it would have borrowed Superman: The Animated Series’ take on him as a Kryptonian AI gone rogue. Personally I like his place in here as-is, a little totem parallel to the Justice League references indicating the breadth of Superman’s history between putting on the cape and Luthor’s final scheme.

* A pair of minor notes: Lois points at Superman with the pointy fork when asking him pointed questions, and while it’s not immediately clear on first read she does in fact ask the Unknown Superman exactly 3 questions (“Kal Kent?” “Will Superman and I ever marry and have children?” “What do you mean?”) before he replies with his own, as promised.

* “Oww.” and “Tickles.” literally could not be more perfect Superman moments.

* Worth taking a moment to marvel at just how many future plot elements are seeded here. There’s the obvious bit of Superman thinking about having a partner setting up the next issue, but we also for issue #6 have our first look at Kal Kent and Lois wondering “What if (the Unknown Superman) was really (Superman)?” when Clark will indeed pose as him, for #10 we get our first look at Qwewq, and for #11 not only is the Sun-Eater introduced but so is Robot 7′s malfunction as a result of Luthor’s tampering.

* The structure of the series according to Morrison is a solar cycle, beginning and ending at midday with nightfall in the center. If last issue was the sun at its brightest we begin the descent here, with Superman remaining larger-than-life and ultimately trustworthy but with his classic persona and habits held to an additional, unflattering degree of scrutiny.

#All Star Superman #Superman #Lois Lane #Grant Morrison #Frank Quitely #Jamie Grant #Phil Balsman #Art #Silver Age #Clark Kent #Batman #All Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder #Fortress of Solitude #Astro City #DCTV #Brainiac #Opinion #Analysis

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dafukdidiwatch · 5 years ago

Text

Cool Cat Saves The Kids

I watched this movie and I still can’t believe this is the actual cover art for it.

God I wrote so many notes about this that even my flipping Bullet Points were basically an essay. I don’t even know how to begin just thinking about it hurts my head.

Overview: Cool Cat is Cool. Things happen to him, and he has to deal with bullying.

That’s it. That’s the thing I watched. Because there is no Real Flipping Plot to this movie.

This is a kid’s show. Or at the very minimum, a movie that is intended for children. It was based on a kid’s book series I’ve never heard of whose author Derek Savage decided to turn it into a movie. Though movie isn’t exactly what I would call it. When you watch it, it honestly feels like there are six 15 minute shorts that they just mashed together to a feature film, but even then that is a Generous Description.

Basically, the film tries to be a children’s program (and I guess has beef with Barney?). And you can see intent behind it being informative child-friendly psa. But the execution was so bad.

First, there is no plot. Sure the cover says that this is “an anti-bullying kid gun safety movie,” but it really give you nothing. What would happen is that Cool Cat has a problem, like someone bullying him or his friends. It would either A) be addressed immediately and solved so that’s great, or B) it is dropped immediately and never really addressed throughout the rest of the film.

And example of A is that the bully kid Butch just starts stealing candy just to be “evil,” Cool Cat sees that and chases him, and the kid gets arrested twenty seconds later. The End.

For B, Cool Cat gets a mean email. And...that’s about it. He responds to the email, but doesn’t actually address the issue and the subplot drops entirely until that VERY Last wrap up scene.

I think the reason for this lack of plot is that there was just WAY too many messages in here. Like, take a shot every time you see a psa announcement. It ranges from don’t bully, how to deal with bullies, being creative, crossing the street safely, to fricking GUN?! Like, the gun thing that I Guess was promoted in the movie tagline, only shows up the last 10 minutes. It caught me so off guard. You cannot call this a Gun Safety movie when guns aren’t even prevalent!!

And the lack of plot is counterproductive when you want to make a Kid’s Movie like this. If you want to tackle each issue as a show or a short, the messages would come across better. There would be more time to develop each message for kids to really understand. But because there is So Much to cover, a lot of the things are gonna fall to the wayside. There is no way a kid would pay attention to this, and if they do I doubt they are gonna learn everything that Derek Savage is trying to teach. There just isn’t any real focus.

The acting, god like they Tried to go with the kid friendly vibe, but was not working. At All. It was like they thought that to add emotion is to just enunciate your words as loudly as you can. Cool Cat was way too yelly. Every line he was just screaming, has no change whatsoever. Even Elmo can sound sad when need be (fucking love Elmo, but he does has a similar voice vibe to Cool Cat, just better).

Then the kids....I don’t want to be mean but I’ll be blunt. They are just reading lines, this is a middle school stage play basically. I’m not blaming the kids, Butch look like he had a hell of a time doing his villain laugh. It’s just that some of the scenes felt like it was taken in one shot and they didn’t bother to retry. Example: One kid got too excited and jumped his line, but they couldn’t just retake that??

And the lines, man. OOF. Some of it was bad. Like, really really bad placement.They should have had someone proof-read this.

Cool Cat: “Why Are You Painting That Wall?”

Random Kid: “Because Nobody Loves Us”

lol what?

Maria: “I bet those kids have never been shown love before.”

Cool Cat: “Thanks, and it’s all true”

LOL What??

There are just a LOT of lines like that that should have been rephrased.

THEN there are the freaking technical issues.

The audio kept fluctuating in sound quality, which honestly started to hurt with Cool Cat’s constant yelling. Some scenes it sounds like they recorded in a studio, sometimes it sounded like the actors had to yell in order for the camera to capture it. There were echos, there were layers, you can’t hear the lines over the song, you can’t hear the song over the cheers. There was one point whispers overlaid on top of the lines where I thought that Cool Cat just got haunted now. And the fun side of having headphones on means I heard the phone button noises in only One Ear. LOUDLY.

Blocking could have been better. There were a lot of backs to the camera, shots of characters walking away from camera not just off screen. This didn’t bother me as much, because I know this isn’t professionally made. But it didn’t feel like they really tried as much as just half-assed it. Example:

Cool Cat was drawing a picture with different colors, but the actor only used one marker and just said different colors. Or Cool Cat is working on a poster but really just rubs the already completed poster on a clean table as him “working.” Like, how hard is it to just film on a table with a bunch of craft supplies around you?

Then there are the questionable camera shots. LOTS of lingering shots to I assume fill up run time. These are shots of just showing Cool Cat walking round without having any real purpose. It shows Cool Catwalk all the way Up Stairs. Walked all the way Down Stairs. Walking into the House, walking into the Car. Even just shots of the parents doing things with no real motivation or impact to whatever Cool Cat is doing. It’s just there. If you want to say stuff like "oh well its to show the parents relationship" no it doesn’t. You can’t really add nuance to characters when the rest of the film is just one chaotic shot after the other. It just gets lost in translation.

The music number is probably what hurts me the most. You see Cool Cat WRITE the song. Then he SINGS the song. Then he DANCES to a DIFFERENT song. And that was it. He just needed the song for the parade, but there wasn’t any explanation or anything. I don’t even know WHY he needs the song for the parade! There was no explanation. It was just an excuse to have two back-to-back bad music video of poor choreography that again, NO POINT to whatever plot/message/psa thing he is trying to do.

I get that there should be some leeway since it looked like this was shot at Derek Savage’s house/neighborhood, so there really isn’t much they could do with their setting. But they could at least tried more with what they had. Cool Cat’s room doesn’t look exactly child friendly. There are only blank drab walls with two, maybe three posters of just Cool Cat himself. There is a reason the settings in other children shows have vibrant colors to engage them. Along with that, another half-assing moment was Butch graffiting Cool Cat’s poster, but it was one of those political posters you stuck on the lawn so it was like a foot tall outside. 1) You can’t really see that shit that small. 2) You couldn’t put the poster on a wall to film that scene at, to give a better view to the audience? It’s just a bunch of little things like that all over this film that really adds up.

Also, what’s with the posters only being about Cool Cat in his own room? A bit narcissistic if you ask me.

I'm also like 70%,sure they made this movie around the footage of them being in the Hollywood parade twice. They were at the parade, got the film, and wanted to use it so they made a movie for it. And I know it was twice because the announcers that were there to announce the arrival of Cool Cat had a costume change after switching scenes.

And after ALL of this, there is just so many random shit that really don’t do anything. Elements are randomly introduced and just as randomly dropped. We get a “next day” transition in the middle of the movie when days have already passed before them. Cool Cat breaks the 4th wall a couple of times with no real reason why. There is this joke where the camera was following Cool Cat into the bathroom for Cool Cat to ask for privacy, only to just ignore that bit every time he goes to the bathroom afterwards. Cool Cat just makes random ass noises when doing things, not important stuff. Just Doing Things. And he does this weird thing where I think he is trying to do Air Guitar, but it just looks like he is just shaking his leg a lot. I don’t really get it.

(Oh Shit, it is only after like the 3rd proof-read of this review I notice that in the gif you can clearly see the dude’s actual leg. I don’t know how mascot suits actually work, but I’m pretty sure that you’re not supposed to let kids actually see that there’s a person underneath in a kid’s show.)

There is also this....lowkey humblebrag going on? Which does not do the movie favors. After the first dumb song number, Derek shows off that he has a signed guitar by Van Halen. Like not just him playing it (which after the 15th zoom in on the guitar how could you NOT notice it thank you Derek), but pointing out to the audience that, Yes it was Indeed signed by Van Halen. Then there is the footage from the Hollywood Parade about the cars there. Sure, I get showing off like the Ghostbusters car, or Jurassic Park car, or the Batmobile. But Hurby the Love Bug? Night Rider?? Starsky and Hutch??? Magnum P.I.?????? The target audience is elementary kids, they aren’t going to know these old shows. So who is this for exactly?

Kudos to the cop for actually doing this, seriously. That cop probably had a hell of a lot of better things to do than arrest children for a bad after-school special.

And this is just SOME of the main problems of this film. There’s so much going on it would be impossible for me to go over everything without

The thing is, there is good material here. Maybe not great results, but there are a lot of ideas here that you can work with to make a decent kid’s movie. I actually loved the part where Cool Cat is dreaming and trying to figure out how he should handle bullies. I thought that was a good scene and a good way to show kids how to think through different options. There are good ideas here, but it was just way to much going on at once the movie basically shoots itself in the foot.

So here is My Version of what Cool Cat should have done.

Cool Cat is running for School President. That’s the main story line. Early in the movie he learns of a writing contest where the winner gets their own float at the hollywood parade (stretch but roll with it). But Cool Cat has no idea what to write, and talks to it with his friends who offers ideas. So he is juggling that along with running for Student President.

However, the Butch the Bully doesn’t like that. He doesn’t want Cool Cat to win. So he vandalizes his posters. Cool cat still runs and makes better posters. Butch tries to frame Cool Cat for vandalizing the playground, but instead his cronies get caught and convinced that it was a bad idea. So Butch decides to cyberbully Cool Cat and his friends to scare them off. He works with the other kid running for President to make a hate ad against Cool Cat, telling everyone how terrible and bad Cool Cat is. Cool Cat tries to go against this my making his music video song over how cool he is to swing the votes, making Butch more angry and vindictive to his bullying scheme.

Cool Cat doesn’t know how to get Butch to stop, but after getting advice from his friends, parents, teachers, and some hard thinking, he decides to confront Butch about his bullying issue, tell someone, and thus solves the problem. Later on after talking to Butch, maybe manages to convince him to start being friends.

Finally, Cool Cat uses this scenario to write his story about how to deal with bullying and make new friends. Which wins and we end with the Hollywood Parade.

Is this perfect? No. But it focuses the idea to one main plot (running for president) with the other issues naturally coming off of it, instead of making each issue it’s own separate thing. There is no random shifts in narrative, no GUN moments (or GUN in general we kick that shit out) and just focus on the main bullying theme.

Overall: This was a weird and bad children’s show. You have to put in a lot of effort into making a movie, but there was just too much going on for this to be a Good Children’s Movie, least of all a Good Movie in general. But it isn’t to say that it wasn’t morbidly enjoyable. It’s was like playing Spot The Difference to find all the Wrong Things in here. It was fun in a bad way.

So will I show this to children? No. But will I play a drinking game with my friends where we take a shot every time someone says the phrase “Cool Cat”? Yeah that sounds enjoyable.

Take a shot for every time you read “Cool Cat” in my review.

Side Note:

You had this as a GUN PSA, wtf are you doing holding a gun!? Given how the only 3 videos this channel has is only Cool Cat Trailers, I’m assuming this is official Cool Cat. Soooo.....what the hell?

#dafukblog #dafuking films #cool cat #cool cat saves the kids #week 8 movie #derek savage

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lepus-arcticus · 5 years ago

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It's Thursday so that means today my universe is made up of protons, electrons, neutrons, electrons, morons, and, THANK GOD, more of your amazing talent. I know it's probably like Gillian being asked about TXF for you, but could I ask you about Incrementum? I'm just wondering why you stopped writing it. I know you've been working on other things, including Omens. Is that because you lost interest, or weren't sure how to continue or how to end it? Do you imagine ever going back to it someday?

Hahaha it’s totally fine!! I’m so happy that you’re excited for chapter two!Yeah I… don’t really know what happened with Incrementum, to be honest. It’s one of those things that felt like lightning in a bottle for a little while, but even after twelve or so chapters it became a real struggle to write. I think it’s obvious when things start to go awry, with the fact that I skipped over the whole cancer arc and then spent three chapters on the most hated character in the series, lol. It’s just… not as good as it might have been, I think. And I hate that this sounds like a humblebrag, because its not, but I kind of got overwhelmed by how well it was doing and man, it’s HARD to write something when you know people are waiting to read it. I really struggled with not wanting to disappoint people. I’ll also be the first to admit that I had a meltdown after the season 11 finale and vowed never to write another word of x-files fanfiction, but uh. then I proceeded to write 63000 of them, so…

ANYWAY, I had all of this internal pressure to live up to what Incrementum “had become”, which drove me to obsess over notes and kudos and shit, and then I was really disappointed, shocked, and hurt by how severely my favourite story was mangled by MSIV. I think that was the combination that did me in. And I really don’t want to be the kind of writer that values internet points over having fun! I actually do have the rest of the series planned out in some old neglected google doc, but I really waffle back and forth on whether I’d like to finish it eventually. And now that I’ve finished Omens, I’ve started working on an original novel, so I imagine that that project will be taking up a lot of my creative energy! I guess the thesis statement of this long-ass essay is that I might come back to it, I might not. It really depends on whether it can be fun for me again or not, you know? I know that’s sort of an infuriating answer, sorry!

#I'm trying really hard not to come off as an arrogant jerk #but like.#it just was so much more successful than I thought it would be #and if there's anything I'm good at its sabotaging any crumb of success I've ever had in this life lol #because if I succeed then I will have to be SEEN #there's a good chapter about the fear of success in Writing Alone & With Others by Pat Schneider #Anonymous

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buttercupsfrocks · 6 years ago

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Hey, Tumblr, did you know that there’s an Interior Design Police as well as a Fashion Police?! Strangely neither did I until I stumbled upon a listicle entitled 75 Things No Woman Over 50 Should Own on the delusionarily titled bestlifeonline.com. There, along with the usual arbitrary selections of sartorial crimes against humanity, (tracky bottoms, skinny scarves, bolero jackets), were the following:-

Tapestries. (What, even if one designed and made them oneself, comme ça?)

Neon signs.

A piggy bank.

Novelty salt and pepper shakers, (Oops!)

A vinyl tablecloth.

Novelty pillows. (Dang!)

A rolodex.

Indoor wicker furniture.

A lava lamp. (Who doesn’t love a lava lamp? Not this fully paid up B52s fan, I can assure you).

A dish of seashells. (D’oh! Missed the memo again).

Framed autographs (yep, got one of those too).

Talk about random. And there’s more; much more. It appears I should have jettisoned my giant pin boards at least twenty years ago, along with my magnifying mirror, stuffed animals, coloured pens, fairy lights, frameless posters, cheap mismatched silverware, decorations based on cartoon characters, mismatched towels, striped wallpaper, tassels, and elaborate keychains. (They’d have a blue fit if they knew that one of my keychains has both a twiddly fake key and a tassel on it). In fact the entire website is little more than an endless litany of stuff you should feel ashamed about owning, wearing, and in some cases, even saying. Like I totes can’t say “totes” – me, a writer, who loves slang so much she has at least a bookshelf-and-a-half dedicated to it. I also can’t say: “OMG”, “humblebrag”, “talk to the hand”, “fauxpology”, “sorry not sorry”, “I can’t even”, “as if”, “sus”, (a term in common UK parlance among people of all age groups for the duration of my lifetime), “ship”, (fuck you; Spuffy forever), and…wait for it…”adulting”, even though I plainly know a good deal more about doing it than the embarrassingly embarassable twelve year old ninny who probably wrote the article.

And still on the subjects of lists that give me the right royal pip, there’s thelist.com.

“If you are familiar with Dr Martens, you are too old to wear them.”

I’m sorry, what now?!

“We know those Crocs and orthopaedic shoes are super comfy, but they're not doing you any favours. There's something to be said for smart, sensible footwear, but you don't have to sacrifice your style and give away your age just to save yourself a few blisters”.

Unless of course you suffer with any kind of condition that dictates you have to wear fugly orthopaedic footwear, as numerous older people do. And blisters are the least of my problems, bub. Believe me the bunting and party hats come out when I can persuade anything approaching normal-looking footwear to accommodate my orthotics. Doc Martens are one of the precious few options available to me. I am, incidentally, feeling especially “salty” (another word my age precludes me from using), about this right now as, having discovered I can sometimes wear sandals with a moulded orthotic-like sole, these Office sandals...

...which I genuinely love and desperately wanted to rock this summer, damn near crippled me when I tried them on.

For all the blather about older women being able to cast off the shackles of convention and wear what we please, (or whatever the expert du jour thinks is within reason), the same unspoken assumptions that prevail in mainstream ladymedia are present in spades on these websites. Nobody reading could possibly be fat, or if they are they’re assumed to be fighting their poor beleaguered bodies unto death. The only chub ever alluded to, (albeit soto voce), is “middle aged spread”, but only the vestigial kind that can be miraculously rendered invisible by the belting of an “unflattering” oversized garment in the middle.

“Show off your curves by adding a cute belt to that dress or coat. It will accentuate your shape and let you still wear those comfortable items in your wardrobe without looking like you're wearing a muumuu.”

Never mind that I quite like wearing a muumuu, far from showing off my curves, belting any of my coats would make me look like the Albert Hall, which while undoubtably a Look, is not one I’m after.

“Balance is important when it comes to crafting a stylish look. Wearing oversized clothing disrupts that delicate equilibrium and unintentionally ages you.”

What. Ever.

The hectoring never lets up.

“There really is no such thing as grown up glitter when it comes to apparel, so it's best to accept that fact and avoid glittery tops, bottoms, and everything else!”

“Dressing like the '80s or '90s can be fun for a party, but being attached to a trend from your youth can look tired and disconnected and therefore can make one age themselves.”

“Large prints, especially on a tight clothing item like leggings, are an avoid-at-all-costs look. They are just too loud and aren't a piece that helps you look your best”

Among the ten items everyday.health.com bans me from wearing on account of my encroaching dotage are “too trendy denim”. Apparently I’m “not in my element” with it so my hard work was all for nought. Also verboten are oversized, overly decorated hobo bags, cheap unflattering underwear; (fat chance of finding cheap underwear in plus-sizes anyway though apparently I should do like the Sainted Gwyneth and wear Spanx under everything. Because she totally needs to and I so enjoy colic); and…wait for it…wait for it...

...“loud accessories”. This includes, horror of horrors, plastic earrings, which apparently I forfeited the right to wear at 35. (Do they count vintage phenolic, bakelite, and lucite as plastic I wonder? Because if enough rich older women get dissuaded from wearing it I might actually be able to afford some instead of faking it). Instead I’m exhorted to make a...

“Stunning Substitute: think quality and quantity. Limit yourself to one funky accessory per outfit – as long as it’s well-made. Think a leopard-print scarf, thin silver bangles or a gold clutch to dress up nice jeans and a simple top”.

Yeah, no. And, by the way here’s a picture of Helen Mirren in quite the loudest plastic necklace I’ve ever seen which, as you can plainly see, ages her terribly.

*snort*

Which brings me neatly to the subject of role models. Dame Helen comes up a lot. Here’s Harper’s Bazaar with some more:

“Pay close attention to the way women like Robin Wright, Julianne Moore, and Kristin Scott Thomas dress. And revel in the moment when you can justify shopping for labels like Céline, Calvin Klein, Jil Sander, and the Row — because not all sweaters are created equal. The Perfect Length (not too long, not Rihanna short), with the just-tantalizing-enough neckline, is more than worth the extra zeros”.

Wow. So much nope to pick apart in just three sentences!

Firstly, while I’m sure they’re all perfectly charming, I look nothing at all like any of these women, so why would I aspire to their style? Secondly, they have allllllll the extra zeros in their bank accounts while I have zero zeros. Thirdly, even if I could afford any of those labels, (a sweater from The Row costs well over a thousand quid by the way), why the love of little fluffy kittens would anyone think I want to dress like this?

I mean I know I like an oversized garment but I’m good with Monki, thanks. If that lot doesn’t say, “this was the only shit I could find to fit me”, I don’t know what does. And quite what the tiny, terminally haggard looking Olsen twins, who dreamed up the wretched label, would look like in any of this eye-bleedingly expensive folderol I shudder to think. You’d probably need to send in the fire brigade to find them in all that fabric, poor loves.

At its root shaming-as-entertainment is a tool for capitalism, both simple and complex. Feel mortified for owning something age inappropriate? Buy something new and more grown up, preferably at enormous expense. Or, if pay day’s too far off, invest in some garbage gossip rag and bitch about the state of those richer and more famous than you are. It’ll make you feel great for all of five minutes, then you can fill the emptiness that follows in its wake with some cheap fast fashion or cake. Even though cake is naughty and unclean and fast fashion is killing the environment; but hey that’s what diet books (kerching!) and gym memberships (kerching!) and ethical fashion, (with a cut-off size of 16), are for, right?

Ironically, in yet another catalogue of grievous mistakes to make once you’re over forty, bestlifemyarse.com includes “neglecting your mental health” and “basing yourself-worth on what other people think”. But how the hell are women expected to do that under a constant barrage of opprobrium, not least since also included in the aforementioned list is “avoiding the scale”?

Tumblr, I put it to you that people are just as likely to buy stuff if they’re feeling good about themselves than if they’re feeling shite. I fucking love stuff but there has to be an alternative way to sell it that’s less damaging to our sanity and self esteem. That’s in part why fat women created their own media. But, the more it edges into the mainstream, the more it it puts the wind up advertisers and those who rely on their sponsorship. So now our message – the one about self acceptance and being able to live unrepentantly in the bodies we have – has been appropriated, de-fanged, and rebranded as “Body Positivity”, an ersatz movement intended to reassure average-sized women fretful they might be a little bit fat, with the added proviso, “as long as you’re healthy”, (i.e not fat). And while the net abounds with token examples of older lady bloggers granted the status of fashion maven, they’re all slender as reeds, and most of them are ex-models. Big fucking whoop. Meanwhile anyone of any age who is objectively fat is “promoting obesity” simply by expressing our personal style in public.

My collection of shells incidentally, includes some my mum brought me back from the Channel Islands when I was a child; a conch a friend dove for in the Virgin Islands and presented me for my 19th birthday; several beauties that held pride of place in a late family friend’s study for decades; an abalone shell from New Zealand plucked from the beach by my Kiwi pal Di; a sand dollar from Ocean Beach in San Francisco given to me by my dear friend Jude who died of secondary breast cancer a few months before Jane did; some pebbles gathered with my friend Lesley in literal sub-zero temperatures on a completely deserted beach one not-so-flaming June up north, both of us in hysterics over the utter bleakness of it all, and a load more shells from the Pembrokeshire coast contributed by my friend Steve’s departed mum back in the 1980s. Even the bowl itself was given to me by Karen, whose parents found it in the attic of their new house and thought I might like it. It’s a veritable a lifetime in shells; a celebration of love and friendship spanning decades. In short it has meaning, which is a damned sight more than you can say for any of these wretched lists.

Rise above the buzzkill, Tumblr.

#What I'm wearing #Plus size style #Fatshion #OOTDs #Ageism #Sizeism #Got my ranty pants on #Fuck fashion rules #Fuck interior design rules too

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intrepidguardian · 6 years ago

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Moving onto 2019

Is this a humblebrag post? It’s probably just bragging.

But hey, I think I earned it.

2017 was a pretty miserable year for me. I spent the first couple of months unemployed, then six months working a job I hated, then the rest of the year unemployed. I spent a lot of that time wondering about living up to my expectations in life, and it was bleeding out into my play at Magic tournaments, where I put up a ton of mediocre results [like placing in the top 120 with Mardu Vehicles at a GP, in a format where I had no business playing Mardu Vehicles] and I felt like Magic was an obligation. Magic’s “fun value” started to ebb and flow for me, but I couldn’t place why. I was a big part of the community at my old LGS and I felt like I had to perform to make sure I kept my standing in that community. I moved to work at a new job, lost that community, and I didn’t have anywhere to play where I felt at home.

But that’s probably okay, right? I mean, I had a job I spent years training for. If I just got super into that, then the Magic thing would work itself out. Maybe I could do the MTGO thing? Maybe do some streaming?

The funny thing about training for my kind of job is that they don’t tell you how to handle when your job sucks. They don’t even train you on how to recognize your job sucks. I mean, I had to go to fucking Reddit to find out that my job sucked.Ultimately, I quit. I couldn’t handle the work environment that I was being forced through, but it took me months to realize that it was the work environment and not, you know, me being an awful employee. After that. I didn’t really feel like “the lawyer that’s great at Magic and has the best wife.” At that point, I was just “the guy who plays Magic and has the best wife”

So what happens when you feel like you’re losing half of what’s left of your identity?

Well, there would be times where I would walk away from a match and think,

“Wow, I can’t find a job and now I’m losing matches of Magic left and right. Aren’t I supposed to be good at this? What am I even good for now?”

There would be times where I’d overreact to minor mistakes I made at home - forgetting chores or dumb shit like that. I give my wife so much credit and I’m so grateful to her for knowing how to handle me because I didn’t really know how to handle myself. I would get up, look for jobs, walk my dog, play Fallout 4, walk my dog again, and keep playing Fallout 4 until my wife came out. It wasn’t fun, but it was the only thing that made me feel like I could get away from myself.

And it sucked, but as we started saying to each other a lot, like a magical chant, “it’s gonna get better.”

As it turns out, 2018 was a much better year for me. I found a new job that I both excel at and thoroughly enjoy, and Magic was becoming fun again once I was closer to an LGS I could become a part of. But losses were still incredibly frustrating to me and I couldn’t figure out why. It wasn’t until partway through July when a very good Magic Pro put it into words for me in a mailbag article.

John: I got 16th place at the recent team RPTQ with 2 teammates and had the lowest match win % on my team. They were very supportive, but I still haven’t gotten over it because I feel I let them down. Have you ever felt like you let down your team, and how did you overcome that?

Brad Nelson: This is a great question, John. Team tournaments are very tricky. Personally, I feel bad about costing my teammates games/matches/events, but I don't let that feeling linger too long. Team tournaments are different as your teammates are effectively extensions of you. I would never be upset at a teammate for costing me equity in an event because I made the decision to play with them in the first place. At the same time, Magic has a lot of difficult decisions compounded by a high level of variance. I cannot judge my teammate for making mistakes or losing games that I didn't witness. Even when I'm part of the decision, sometimes they're complex and a teammate performs a wrong move that you didn't want made. It's easy to be frustrated in this situation, as you were correct, but it's not like you've never made a mistake before.

If you tried your hardest yet still failed, you can't put additional stress on yourself or feel you've let your team down. Giving it your best effort is all your teammates can expect out of you, and if that's not enough for them, don't let that poison inside them affect you. In all honesty, if that ever happens, you probably should be looking for other people to play team events with.

If you still can't shake your own insecurities when it comes to team events, you should evaluate if you're investing self-worth into your results. This practice can have a very negative effect on not only your performance, but also your life in general. Magic is already a competition that creates more losers than winners. It's not a great place to invest self-worth, but is a wonderful environment to work on improving yourself not only as a player but also a person.

Three dumb little paragraphs opened my eyes. I got frustrated at losses in Magic because I was tying my self-worth to my match results. Without a job, I thought that winning at Magic would make me feel like less of a fuck-up. Turns out, when you don’t win every match you play with that mindset, they make me feel more like a fuck-up. I’m still working on getting past this mindset, but it’s getting better. And before you start questioning being a Spike, I’m not going to suddenly stop competing. I just realize now that I want to win every match I play, but I shouldn’t need to win every match I play. 2018 was my first year of really grinding in the competitive circuit.

And in terms of tournament results for 2018, I kinda killed it:

“Big-Ass” Modern Finalist - 5c Humans LGS Store Champs Standard Finalist - UB Control Standard PPTQ Win - UB Control Standard RPTQ Top 16 - UG Aggro [Team Unified Standard] Standard PPTQ Win - WB Aggro Standard RPTQ Top 8 - Esper Control Modern PPTQ Win - 5c Humans Modern RPTQ Top 8 - Bant Humans Standard PPTQ Win - Jeskai Control Standard RPTQ - Pending (will play this one in February 2019)

Looking back, I’ll remember 2017 as the year things fell apart, and 2018 as the year I put things back together. In 2019, these are my goals:

-get taller -work more on Bant Humans -qualify for the Pro Tour, meet Brad Nelson, and thank him.

So, in 2019, think of me as “The Legal Editor and Magic Competitor who has the best wife.” It’s the dawn of a new era, and I couldn’t be more excited. : )

#mtg #magic the gathering #personal

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empressxmachina · 6 years ago

Link

by Imperial-Radiance (that’s me)

1|1: Faux Pas, part 1, is also on Wattpad.

"All the shit we do, and this doesn't get any easier."

"It's only because no one does it like we do or... or, ugh, at all, really."

The Center of Colors, the most marveled museum of art in all of Oswana if not the entire world, was a fortress in its own right, and all attempts by a not-so-young maho madam to push open the one door inside it that led to its underground car park were to no avail. The age of the door was a blink in comparison to the building that housed it. Looking past that, it still was not used as proportionally often as originally designed due to 'more preferred' transit options for safety reasons. But, with the particular event taking place there – the biannual meeting of the Continental Couturiers' Council – and a certain, small minority quickly rising up its rankings, putting some oil on the door hinges would have been the easiest courtesy.

Yet, here this lady was, having to force all her might just from an unlocked but still stuck door, adding to the lengthy list of surprises of the night. But she wasn't alone in the struggle.

"Uh, Mel?" a concerned Lyanna expressed, quickly simmering down her tense self after seeing how roughly her best friend was fumbling with the push bar. "You good?"

"Come on! Really!?" Melanie continued to grunt, not allowing herself to give in so quickly, even if it possibly ruined her blazer in the process – not the best look at a fashion event. "What is this!?"

"Damn. If Miss 'Moore Gains, Moore Power' can't open the thing, it really must be tight," Lyanna claimed in jest. She, despite being in similar, unfortunately-formal-for-the-task fashion, joined Melanie's efforts at her side, groaning as she repeatedly rammed her upper arm into the surface like a linebacker. "Maybe, urgh... Lanky Ly can be... a little help."

Melanie was all for the assistance, especially given all the reasons she had to not expect it. But, getting it with a shaded humblebrag, even if jokingly, was not going to happen. A critical look was sent Lyanna's way in protest, and sassy yet complimentary projections soon were, too.

"'Lanky', my ass. How many ball sports... did you say you... played in school again? How many of them... weren't co-ed... before you joined? Which one of us... qualified for... for the... Superhero Circuit... over thirty... on accident!?"

It only took the first rebuttal for Lyanna to regret making her lighthearted comment at all. But, like the mature woman she was, she took it in stride with an apology.

"Okay, okay. I get it!" she stretched through more grouses of strain. "I'm sorry. You happy?" Melanie paused her own pushes for a second to shine a grin at her buddy that epitomized 'I told you so'. Her receiving a set of rolling eyes and a scoff back followed right after, paired with Lyanna taking her exertion efforts to the next level. "But," she resumed, feeling her shoulders start to slide out their sockets, "my athleticism... means nothing if... if it can't help us... get through... the fucking... DOOR!"

Giving in to all of the pressure, the bar lock finally began to budge. However, no one, especially not the designers of the door, ever figured for that much force, let alone by two, tired maho ladies, to be spread across the bar like that. They had much more strength than they realized, or the door was weaker than expected, and before they knew what they were doing, the door flew open out of their grasp, echoing with Lyanna's voice into the mostly empty garage as it slammed into the wall.

Inertia sent Lyanna and Melanie forward, unable to keep balance on their skinny, high heels. Melanie, closer to the hinges, managed to catch herself on a nearby parking barrier, but Lyanna found her stopping place not on the ground or on a structure but instead in the arms of an awaiting security guard.

"Got ya, ma'am," the uniform-donning young man assured with a slight strain in his voice upon catching her. "Are... Are you alright?"

Lyanna sneered at his brief struggle, knowing fully well that she wasn't that heavy until she realized it was not due to her at all, at least not completely. In the distance, the door to the office where all of the watching camera footage was housed was wide open with most screens showing the three of them right then. If he had been watching the ladies' struggles until not long ago and decided to help for himself, then he would've had to run to reach them in time. Looking at his tired but quickly recovering state, he probably did that, just slightly too late and switching to a catcher's role in the heat of the moment.

Getting over the drama of it all, Lyanna gave her savior some solace as she rose and composed herself. "Yes, thank you. I... I'm fine."

"Not as much as you, cutie pie," Melanie winked at the guard with her down-home charm, to which he returned a bashful gasp. "What's a handsome soul like yourself doing out on the town late on a weekend alone, guarding C-Cubed at CC, no less?"

"I, uh," the young lad had trouble finding the right words.

On one hand, getting a compliment was always nice, especially if both lighthearted and likely to result in an extra tip. On the other hand, if he egged it on too much, then it'd just be asking for a bunch of double-sided trouble for way too many reasons to count. Aware that he couldn't leave her hanging, he replied with something reasonable in between.

"I-I'm just working to pay for school, ma'am, getting what I can, whenever I can." He smoothed the wrinkles in his suit, hoping to worsen his seemingly bad first impression. "I'm not even a guard. I'm more like a concierge, though I can drive people around, too, so I don't even know if that's even the right term." He quickly recognized he was right on the cusp of rambling about his nondescript job position and soon reverted to a more robotic, reserved offer. "A-Anyway, shall I call you two a car?"

"You can do better than that," Lyanna surprisingly interjected, stretching her back with a backward, propped bend. "I'll call your bluff. Drive us home, then. The two of us aren't too much for you in this big city, are we?"

If Melanie's comment sent blood to the guy's face, then Lyanna's did the opposite, blanching it bright from assertive surprise. Though, knowing who they were and what they were known for, such responses were expected in the back of his mind. Nonetheless, he caught Lyanna's declaration of the challenge and accepted it.

"Let me, uh, just grab a key from the station," he stated, pointing back toward the office, "and we'll be on our way. Choose any one of the vehicles by the wall you like, and I'll meet you there."

Like a hummingbird, he zoomed away to grab the nectar of his choosing, leaving the two ladies to converse and corner a car... all the while cutting each other down.

"You were not just charming that child, were you?" Lyanna pressed, strutting over to her friend. "He's young enough to be either of our children, and I know you're not that crazy."

"Of course not, you dunce," Melanie defended, with an eye roll, offended being typecast from a simple false flirtation. "Like I'd court a kid to have a good time." She managed to get a chuckle out of her best friend as she wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her to the back of one of the vans. "I'm trying to make that young man into a mannequin. You don't think he'd be a good look for the new line?"

"It's less that and more 'You couldn't have asked more normally?'"

"What's more fitting than looking for fashion models at a meeting for fashion designers?"

"I don't know, giving out a business card and telling him to call you at a normal hour? Damn it!" For a second, Melanie thought that Lyanna was actually mad at her. But the pause just turned out to be a dramatic one, replaced by more giggles. "Damn you, innovative bitch."

Melanie soon joined into the laughing fit. "You know it. See? I'm always making money moves, even if people don't agree with my vision."

Her wording was too specific for it to not be related to and reignite the tensions acclimated over the duration of the meeting she had to hide behind glossy lips and gritting teeth. "We're back to talking about what we were before we found ourselves fighting the architecture, huh?"

"We do too much for too little reward, apparently. Is that what you said?"

"Not... exactly," Lyanna hissed, clicking every T with purpose, "but you're not wrong, either." Leaning back against the trunk, thankful for a siren not going off in the process, she looked up at the ceiling and processed her thoughts. Her memories of the evening.

Drinks. Hors d'oeuvres. Designs for two seasons from now. It wasn't much different than usual. Lyanna's peers had finally gotten used to how she ran her business after so many years of it 'not evolving' except in styles. But it was just tolerance rather than full-on acceptance, and the constant stares and murmurs that they seemed to throw in overtime toward her tonight garnered an equal reaction back: allowed but never wanted.

The worst part of it, aside from the blatant prejudice behind Lyanna's doings, was that they never considered why she does it. Seeing things from her and maybe Melanie's views would be more help than harm. Though, given how they got where they were, they'd forever be oblivious unless she made a scene.

While the two prim pals measured the parking deck to easily house multiple homes, it was barely worthy of an under-bed shoe organizer to the khadra: the larger, other halves opposite their maho selves with whom they shared the world. Well, their nation, at least. One couldn't be sure about the rest of the planet nowadays. Even so, everything Lyanna lived and worked for, no matter how high she rose, would forever be under their noses, perhaps even underfoot.

Simply thinking back to the dastardly door, once again, only made her more upset, remembering how it was basically a metal slab wedged within floor molding shadowed by a nearby stand. The Council could've paid someone to at least act like a security for smaller folk, but the fact that the Center kept their half of the deal was a little reassuring.

Probably one-twelfth of what her full pleasure banks could hold: the standard fraction.

"Sure, we get flooded in respect for our abilities," Lyanna commented, still gazing toward the above ground, "but it's just a cop-out. The collabs we do are never enough; they want more out of us. It's like they assume we have to give them everything not because they deserve it or because it's right but because they're fucking—"

"Ah, here we go," the young guard cut in, to Melanie's favor. Having known her bestie for two decades, she knew he had shown up right on time and prevented an imminent Lyanna explosion. Jiggling his keychain with a glowing smile as he unlocked the van's doors, sidewinding the looks of respective relief and heat diffusion on the ladies' faces, he was completely none the wiser. "We're ready for action. If you'd allow me..."

Continuing his act like a gentleman, he opened the doors for the two women, first Lyanna on the passenger's side of the backseat and then Melanie seated right behind him. Considering they thought they were simply in for a glorified taxi cab ride, they had quite the shock seeing how decked up the innards of the vehicle were. It wasn't a party bus or anything resembling a limo rented for a promenade, but the selection of fun-sized snacks, drinks, and reading material, on top of how comfy the seats and lighting were, was a sight to behold.

The ladies were greatly impressed all around, quickly sharing a look of wonder with each other, but the oblivious driver wouldn't be able to see that, focused only on the job at hand. Plus, the sight of Melanie on her phone and Lyanna already sipping on a tiny water bottle as she looked out her window gave no hint to it, whatsoever. He was happy to see them fully adjusted, totally bounced back from their tumbles and fumbles, and it irked him that he might break that calmness for the last necessities of his job.

"I do apologize for this, but I almost forgot," he said, looking in the rear-view mirror at them as he started the engine. "The Center of Colors has this policy where the drivers have to get crossed confirmations for—" His declaration faltered at the ladies' look of confusion at his jargon, thus needing clarification in common, much more comfortable language. "Basically, they want two forms of authorization for each passenger. Usually, a quick clip where you say your name or something like that should be fine. I know who you are, and I'm sure most others do, too, but it's the tradition. If you wouldn't mind...." He pressed a button on his controls and started recording, signaled by a light on his rear-view mirror and a mechanical bloopy noise. "...giving a quick roll call."

The two thirty-somethings looked at each other, both not saying a word and both testing each other to see who would crack first. After what felt like forever, emphasized by the driver's nervous coughing and wheel tapping to crack the silence, and in a noble act of succession, the first to introduce themselves was,

"Melanie Moore."

Melanie Moore. Chief marketing officer. Queen of advertising. Flirtatious firecracker. Part-time yogi. Slayer of Oswanian style boundaries with her pop-up collections like her golden-hued 'Code Mellow'. C-Cubed's 'Best New Designer' a few years ago because of them. She was happy to have made a name for herself, specifically under her own name, but she knew and never denied that she'd never be where she was if it weren't for,

"Lyanna Paulson." Lyanna fucking Paulson.

Naturally a brunette. Currently a blonde. Visible exercise and sports fanatic. Drink connoisseur. A flash celebrity made in the blink of an eye all based on luck. The epitome of nouveau riche. The youngest member to have been inducted into C-Cubed (and receive its BND award like Melanie) back when she was twenty-four. The Designer of the Year not long after. Melanie's best friend. Also, Melanie's boss, technically, but she rarely states that aloud. She was a lot of things and known for many more. But she was a household name for two.

Her fashion and design company 'Moonsong', along with its occasional luxury dabbles via 'Lunar Serenade', was going fifteen years strong with top sales and quality. Yet, in all of those fifteen years, with the exception of collaborations with industry peers and the even more occasional one-offs, every product was strictly for maho, leading to an aura of presumed racism constantly washing over her.

The two buddies bickered back and forth on the openness of their projects to those that towered over them, each having solid reasons for their views. But, with Lyanna having more say and severity, it always went her way. The threats and attempts of harm that were sent her way in the beginning when people realized her khadra-closed doors weren't just a phase, along with a few every now and then, weren't fun to experience. But even her miffed adversaries and confused familiars had to give her props for standing her ground and defending the safety of her staff, and each trouble always seemed to dissipate as quickly as it came.

That, and all of her giving back to just as many khadran causes as native maho ones helped, but people just seemed to always gloss over that.

Lyanna, even with her brief smile into the camera and mic, was still fuming from the event, and thinking of all her conflicts leading up to it wasn't making it better. Luckily for her, Driver Boy seemed to catch that, even with his back turned. Pushing her was the last thing he wanted to do. He just hoped his body could follow his heart and mind.

"I, uh..." he struggled to speak at first, seeing the coldness in Lyanna's eyes as she gazed into the camera. But that soon passed over, and his goal to make sure the drive did the same launched in full force. "I know you two must be looking for privacy going through the garage," he observed. "It's good that I know some scenic routes around the city. So, please make yourselves comfortable, and enjoy the ride."

Melanie had already found her way back to phone diving toward whatever as the van left the safety of the parking deck and, for the pair of couturiers, waved goodbye to C-Cubed for six months. The carpooling posse simultaneously passed under the art museum's overly cheerful exit sign, getting an eye roll of her own out of Lyanna.

'Thank you for visiting the Center of Colors!' it expectantly exclaimed. That farewell stayed still on the sign, but its lower half in all its mechanical glory had to show off, switching between presumably planned puns every few seconds. The trio managed to go under just as one went off – 'We hope to color you impressed once again really soon!' – and another took its place – 'May we brighten your day with flying colors upon your return!'

The wish for any sort of spectrum wasn't necessary as the aura around was still lively and beaming, perhaps being that last thing Lyanna's somewhat buzzed, water-guzzling person needed in her face.

"Hello, Xesant," she sarcastically greeted the outside world. "Glad to see you're still lively on a Sunday night." From its art-bordering white LEDs to the rainbow of marquees and HIDs along the streets, it was back to the big city they knew so well yet still a long way from home.

Xesant. A city nearly ten million strong by itself, and it looked like all of those citizens had filled the sidewalks like a sardine tin. A gem of Oswana, the city was, despite not being its capital. Half a tourist trap and half a modern marvel... and everything no one would've thought Lyanna would've submerged herself in for two decades. Luckily, she had Melanie by her side through it all, but she only eased the tension, not rid her of it.

She'd never be rid of it as long as she lived there.

Oswana was right at, if not itself being, the intersection of the planet's two historically opposite halves together: the more land- and khadra-filled northern Drakh and the sparser southern Hoemue with the maho. Time followed its course, and the communities came together, finally coalescing at the major metropolis literally on the equator between them: Lyanna's anxiety-driving abode.

Out of all the places in the world, Oswana, especially Xesant, had managed to optimize integration to a T, and it still amazed Lyanna after twenty years seeing it all work in action. It just made no sense in her head.

Watching vehicles and souls that were the size of houses pass by so strongly yet swiftly and never be in the way. Alternating stoplights and substitute paths for both sizes for undisrupted travel. Mismatched yet complementary pairs of windows, doors, and on every building for everyone to have a place to take in their surroundings. Blended groups – a surprisingly large minority – somehow walking in pace with each other, neither too fast nor too slow.

That one khadran girl crossing directly in front of the van – shoes taller and possibly heavier than the vehicle itself – with a maho in hand, losing her balance, and managing to fall with a resonating thud toward the Moonsong troupe with both her companion safely cupped to the chest and all her long and loose limbs snaking between all the tiny cars, including their van, on their side of the road.

All of this at once, emphasized by a cacophony of horn blaring and muffled, concerned voices. Yet, as Lyanna drank her way through more than a handful of bottles in seconds at the sights, the driver didn't even flinch, and Melanie may not have even noticed. Her lockage in her phone was made even more apparent by her following statement, cracking the lull of silence within their four, glass-peeking walls.

"Oh, look," she announced, sliding her phone over to Lyanna's vista. "In case you cared..."

With her nonchalant tone and apparent lack of awareness for her surroundings, even as the driver drove around the still collapsed cohorts, one could've assumed she found an article pertaining to the current slip and trip debacle outside that looked a lot like fake news if it weren't actually true. However, her carelessness was genuinely due to the routine with C-Cubed finally updating their social media and website with details from the meeting's latter half. What particularly caught Melanie's and now Lyanna's eyes was the results of the unimportant-aside-from-a-trophy, aptly named superlative voting, 'In Case You Cared'.

Lyanna usually didn't care enough to view them as soon as they were posted, regardless of having voted herself, mainly waiting until the next morning to see what any newcomers had to offer. However, with Melanie thrusting them in her face, she knew it had to be something interesting. Lo and behold,

"Congrats, Ms. 'Styled and Profiled,'" Melanie praised her bestie, who looked more or less unenthused except for an eyebrow raise. The 'Styled and Profiled' Award. Something between Best Dressed and Most Pulled Together, in the corporate sense. At least, that's what they said it meant. "The glassware company for the awards should just sponsor you at this point. Damn. What is this, your third time getting this? Fourth?"

"Seventh," Lyanna lifelessly corrected, pushing the phone away, "not that it matters." Considering how many times Lyanna earned it, with her reputation, it was probably neither in reality. "Your look is way better than mine. This was probably a brownnosing move, trying to be hyperaware of the culture or whatever."

Melanie chuckled at first at her snide remarks, until she reviewed exactly what Lyanna had said. With every word, she found more and more wrong with her perspective. Was she self-deprecating? Did she genuinely think she was right? What the fuck did she mean by them being 'hyper-aware' of her when no one other than them two knew why someone would even have to be? Melanie retracted her phone and sat in her seat, waiting for any clarifications, but none came, leaving her to ponder for herself with a stony stare. Unfortunately, as much as she tried to do otherwise, only unsavory ideas came to mind. For Lyanna's sake, Melanie hoped, if they turned out to be true, they weren't due to—

"Excuse me, Ms. Paulson, if I may..." Before Melanie had a chance to rebuke, question, or instantly judge her friend's suspicious commentary, the driver felt the need to interject. Luckily for all involved, it had no faults and raised the subconscious heating mood. "...I think you look great."

Lyanna's brows raised at the compliment, and Melanie joined her in shock, though she was more impressed as his bravery in speaking out of turn. He didn't realize that meaning upon looking back at them, seeing their expressions. He figured they were from him only recognizing one of them as opposed to both, and thus he made an addendum.

"N-Not that you don't, too, Ms. Moore," he nervously saved his hide, spouting a just-as-shy smile. "I just—Uh... you both probably earned it, okay?"

Lyanna's face stayed blank, but the driver immediately blushed at the sound of a tip being sent to his phone. Looking behind him to Lyanna's left, Melanie wore a grin of her own as her phone confirmed a scanned QR code and a quick transfer of payment.

"You're already paying him when he hasn't even signed on, yet?" Lyanna inquired, shooting the driver a smug look before turning toward the window... and cringing again at the mongrelized mania of it all. "But, hey, at least you have a good eye on you, wanting to represent the company with people that actually wear our stuff."

The redness on said subject's face instantly flushed back to his natural pallor. From a distance, there was nothing that discerned his uniform from that of any other worker at the Center of Colors. In fact, his pants and polo combo were exactly the same as any other's. But each soul was allowed a few extra freedoms employees had via accessories, body modifying, etc., and he did take part in that. As subtle as he tried to be in doing so, there were sprinkles of a certain brand down his person.

There was no way for them to go unnoticed by their head designers...especially with their owner catching them in his arms as a first impression.

"Uh, yeah," Melanie replied matter-of-factly. "He obviously knows how to read a room, er, van... and speaking of..." Going restless, once again, Melanie relocated to her seat's edge, setting a hand on the driver's chair back. "Hey, uh, I don't think you actually introduced yourself. What did your code say? Bryan? Bradley?"

"Br-Brenden, actually," the driver corrected, at least relinquishing anonymity. "I can't believe you noticed my gear."

He ran a hand across the small charm at the helix piercing on his left ear that matched a ring on his opposite hand, both pieces from a years-old collection. He would've twirled his feet and ankles around, too, showing off their extremely new shoes, both in age and ownership, but driving kept them still. The job correspondingly reminded him of a concern that was sure to get him penalized if he didn't address it soon.

"I also can't believe I haven't asked where I'm supposed to take you two," he chuckled, attempting to hide the ringing of his inner panic alarm. "Where did you have in mind? The Moonsong office?"

The ladies looked at each other briefly – Melanie slumping back again to face Lyanna head-on – to make a choice. The mistress of marketing implied, "I wouldn't mind heading there. It's not like we can do a late- or half-day tomorrow if we run super late doing random bullshit." A smirk briefly popped on Lyanna's mug. "Though," Melanie then countered, thus dropping said smile, "there were some, uh, biz things... I wanted to talk to you about."

"And, it's nothing you can't screen me at home?" Lyanna fought. By her tone alone, Melanie knew her idea had pancaked. "Mel, I love you, but I want to go home, sleep, and forget today."

The night had gone somewhat uncomfortably for them both, despite Lyanna's award, so she couldn't be blamed for not wanting to deal with anything anymore. But, Melanie shuddered, knowing how much more difficult things were going to become from it. She didn't want to make it worse, so she kept it to herself.

"A-Alright," she conceded. "I still want to head there. Your place in deeper inward, anyway, so I can get Brenden here to circle around and stop on by for a bit before going back to CC." A mutter of acceptance poked out of Lyanna before Melanie, at last, gave Brenden a destination. "Just head on over to T-Sa if you can, please. At least close enough to where Ly won't fall on her face if she'll need to walk."

The implication of inebriation was concerning, and the increased reference to some Moonsong deal was hyped as hell, but of all things to catch Brenden's attention, Lyanna's home was the showstopper. A fitting one but a surprise, nonetheless.

"You live at Sat Ave!?" he gasped, beaming through the rear-view mirror at her.

T-Sa. Sat Ave. Ten Saturn Avenue. One of the ritziest and private locales in all of Oswana, in spite of it being one of the most noticeable silhouettes in the lower Xesant skyline. Lower mutually in latitude and the height of its inhabitants. Only maho allowed. It was a sight to behold, but to Lyanna, it was the one place she could call her own. A fortress to be reckoned with. Literally.

"If you say anything," Lyanna hissed, jerking her eyes to Brendan's with a glower that could crack glass, "I will end you."

"Uh... I... N-Noted." Like the lapdog he was and now felt like, too, he complied, focusing back on the roads, pinning down the complex in his mental GPS, and heading on his way.

Melanie groaned at Lyanna's aggression, but rather than calling it out, she simply rolled her eyes and let it be. After all, from what it looked like, she had a long night ahead of her, and all of her energy should be saved for then. Well, most of it. The quietness that had encroached in the van quickly grew uncomfortable, leading to soft small talk between the driver and the fully-present passenger.

Lyanna let her eyes close, taking away the towering shadows and reverberations of titanic travel on all sides. The escapism, though brief, was blissful, opening opportunities to ponder plans for the upcoming week and beyond.

As they distanced themselves from downtown, the ratio of khadra decreased to nothing. The signs and sights of the borough where she burrowed on the daily shined to greet its golden girl. Through her slumber, it was easy to see her body adjust to its most familiar surroundings. Perfect tranquility... but it, unfortunately, had to end.

Brenden pulled into the drop-off lane of Ten Saturn Avenue, where a doorperson approached the van to help her out before halting and waiting outside her door, made aware of her still napping self. Melanie, risking a slapping fit her way, bit the bullet and rocked Lyanna back to the real world. Her waking softness resembled that of a baby; however, her too-old-for-this-shit sentimentalities soon broke through, along with the groan-inducing headaches that should've been here a long time ago.

"Welcome back, L.P.," Melanie greeted, thanking the gods for a passive awakening. "It's your stop."

A sequence of incoherent mumbles entered the airspace as the drowsy damsel attempted opening her door. The doorperson, seeing those multiple failures, eventually aided her exit, grabbing a hand then bracing around her back. Melanie, meanwhile, made out everything she was trying to say – a skill she had perfected after twenty years of tipsiness – amalgamating it all into a simple assurance,

"Nah, don't worry. You don't have to do anything. I've got this." Lyanna, even in her word salad of a mind, didn't feel too sure of that. But a quick kiss of valediction on the cheek sent her way made all those worries vanish and replaced them with giggling. "Now, get up there before you pass out."

More laughs ensued, but Lyanna eagerly obeyed, blowing a kiss back as her doorperson led her away. "Don't stay up too late, Mel!" she directed. "You, too, Brenden! None of us need eye bags."

Brenden, almost too in awe of the glamorous complex to catch her speaking, was surprised to be included in the farewell, even more so with a happy tone. Nonetheless, he appreciated it whole-heartedly, joining Melanie in waving her goodnight as she disappeared from view.

He took some time to calm from his high-fashion high before setting his course to Moonsong. However, before he drove off, Melanie locked him in place, reaching from the back to the steering wheel. He started to panic again, not even considering the presumably sweeter of the dynamic duo as a threat. The look on her face clearly showed a hidden craftiness that curdled his blood. Little did he know that none of it had to do with him.

No, actually, it slightly did. That cash drop Melanie made to him allowed for some new insight to reach her. He was more than qualified for plans she had had in the works for what felt like forever. His future modeling was only the tip of the iceberg, and she proved it by asking the last question along that path he ever expected to hear,

"Hey, Brenden, you had an order for alterations recently... but it wasn't for you, was it?"

#g/t #my writing #the high low life #faux pas #sw #fashion bitches #angst and cattiness but make it fashion... and with size differences

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mentalcurls · 6 years ago

Text

1. Sembri una pu***na

So I started the all-Skam Italia rewatch last Sunday and it turns out I have a lot to say about it. Like, four pages on Word of stuff to say. It took me three days to get evrything out and make it readable. So here, for you reading pleasure, my thoughts on ep.1 season 1 “Sembri una pu***ana”. There’s some kind of heavy stuff and I draw some parallels to my personal experience, since I was, unce upon a time, a teenager and a student at the same school all the highschoolers in SkamIT attend, and I’m also beginning to do the Bechdel test on the episodes!

The montage at the beginning is really powerful when you link the images from Giovanni and Eva’s class’s time at the Succursale to Gio’s essay, that Eva’s reading in the background, in particular the first part: LudoBesse is basically telling us how much of a waste Eva thinks her and Laura’s friendship is to Laura now

Something else about Gio’s essay (as someone who attended classico): it’s a YES from me because criticizing liceo classico is peak classico culture, it’s a HELL NO because classico is actually the best school in the world and I sincerely hope that if anyone else but himself said/wrote that kind of stuff about his school Gio would be at their throats

Eva has that “seeing someone outside the school gates and static fills your ears” moment just like Marti when he sees Niccolò for the first time! Hers is of course with Laura and Sara, who are with... Silvia and Fede! I like that they showed us a bit of this friendship that we didn’t really get to see in the og.

Martino and that iconic first “A zozzoni!” ❤️

Marti and Gio are competing for who got the best grades in the History test and I have a lot to say about this: we know Gio has really high grades (we are told he has an average of 9/10 in Latin and he got 8,5 in History) and that thing he does, bragging about it with his friend, the friendly competition between them, the actual talking about his grades without worrying who’s listening to him? That shit wouldn’t have flied for me, a once-upon-a-time student of liceo classico with an average of 8/10 in Latin, 8/10 in Ancient Greek and 9/10 in History and in part it was because I didn’t have the best classmates, but for the most part I couldn’t have done that because I am a girl (and my friends and classmates were 98% female)

girls are socialized to be humble about accomplishments, first and foremost, to avoid bragging AND humblebragging as well, and to always care about other people and their feelings; basically, whenever the topic of marks and grades came up while I was in high school, I had to try my best to avoid disclosing my own; if they were brought up directly, say them as dispassionately as possible and then try to change topic; I had be conscious of the fact I was talking someone who had much worse grades than me most of the time, so I had to keep into mind their experience of finding things I found doable (like translating from Latin) extremely hard, of disliking subjects I enjoyed (and most of the time the professor who taught them too, especially when they’d recently gotten a bad mark) and of being frustrated by their grades. I could never have competed with any of my friends about who got the highest marks (most of the time there was actually a sort of “gallows humor” competition over who got the lowest). I couldn’t show I was happy about my good grades, because I’d get negative comments from my friends (yes, even close friends, people I get on with and love to this day) who would dismiss my accomplishment as obvious, something that came easily to me because I was a nerd (the translation in Italian is “secchiona” and it doesn’t have any of the “cute” connotations pop culture gave its English counterpart) and something I shouldn’t “show off”. On top of that, if something was hard for me, it was whatever and what right did I have to complain when I had such high grades anyways, it wouldn’t be a problem in the long run.

So yeah, Martino and Giovanni, right now I kind of hate you for not having to take on any emotional labour in these kind of situations and society for socializing males and females in different ways when it comes to accomplishments and for accepting different behaviours from boys and girls.

QED Gio and Marti turn to Eva and ask her about her mark, she’s reticent but they get an answer out of her (that is not even the truth) and they mock her for it. Yes it’s all fun and games but Eva’s mark is really bad compared to Giovanni’s and Martino’s (especially her real mark) and grades are important for teens, no matter how much they deny it, if nothing else then because they influence their relationship with their parents

you can see Eva is hurt by their careless mocking, by Gio’s fake attempt at placating with “stuff she’s good at” (among which is re-heating pre-cooked food which is at the same time a way to have her “stay in the kitchen” and not even be able to properly cook) and by the way he and Marti underestimate her and laugh at her in the following exchange, when Marti shushes her and she calls him “asshole” with that annoyed face. It’s silly, “loving” mockery but it affects people anyways and it shows a lack of empathy only guys are allowed. She’s expected to take it with good grace (and this takes additional emotional labour) because it’s just for fun and they’re friends and they don’t mean it, but it’s not fair

“There are no secrets in a couple, but there aren’t between friends either.” THE WAY MARTINO PUTS HIMSELF ON THE SAME LEVEL AS EVA in Giovanni’s life, straight away! This boy. And Gio agrees! That shit must’ve been so frustrating, poor Eva.

This conversation between Gio, Eva and Marti: G: Today we’re going to Elia’s place to study. E: Oh, so that’s what you’re calling it now, studying. M: Oh c’mon, 6 minus, shhh. is the beginning of the reoccurring dynamic between them in the season that will make Eva paranoid and will bring her to confronting Laura and to cheating aka Giovanni keeping a secret, lying to Eva about where he goes and what he does, Martino enabling him by misdirecting or distracting her or Gio doing it himself, then either or both the guys calling her crazy or paranoid for doubting their words. You know what’s that? It’s called gaslighting.

[Gaslighting means manipulating a person by psychological means into questioning his or her own sanity. It’s the same technique that, according to some of his critics, Donald Trump used to get gain traction with voters (see Trump giving “alternative facts” and dubbing the media that fact checked and corrected him “fake news”).]

[I’M NOT SAYING THAT GIOVANNI IS THE SAME AS TRUMP, I DON’T THINK THEY’RE THE SAME, I only want to present an example of how this form of psychological manipulation is an actual thing in the real word and is really effective and dangerous.]

I am aware that Giovanni is just a dumb teenager trying to hide his weed habit from his girlfriend, that Martino is just being a good bro and covering for his best friend, that they’re doing this without any malicious intent towards Eva and that she’s insecure all by herself. Still, gaslighting is not a behaviour our societies should excuse, especially because it’s usually practiced by the usual suspects over women and minorities. I’d never seen it pointed out in the context of Skam Italia so I thought I’d bring it up, especially in light of S2 and of the “unproblematic” label Gio’s been given. He’s not perfect, he does shitty stuff too, then afterwards he simply grows up and becomes better. Let’s not forget about it and celebrate the person he’s become.

Case in point is the whole 1.2 Online clip. This is conversation between Eva and Gio: G: My battery died. E: But you were on-line. G: No, I wasn’t, my phone died a couple of hours ago. E: But I saw you. G: Eva, I don’t know how it happened. There must be something wrong with my phone, I don’t know. Sometimes I see you online and you’re not, too. I mean, everyone knows it happens. We can Google it if you want. E: No, it’s okay. And where were you? G: At Elia’s. E: Till now? G: Yeah. E: That’s weird. I talked to Martino earlier and he said you guys left a while ago. G: Eva, what’s wrong? Martino left earlier and I stayed till now. What, you don’t believe? Don’t you trust me? Are you insane, uh? [G kisses E] Everything’s alright. Little koala? Little koala always works. [G carries E to her room, then they have sex.] Giovanni lies about his phone being dead, then tells Eva that her seeing him online is impossible or a fluke, that everyone knows those kind of flukes happen, then lies again about being at Elia, when she tries to expose him he adjusts and starts questioning why she doesn’t believe him, finally calling her crazy and distracting her with kisses and sex. This is gaslighting.

(I had actual chills as I watched the scene again and typed this.)

Those theatre kids are so awkward, but quoting weird passages from greek/latin/italian poetry by heart is peak liceo classico culture

unsupportive boyfriend Gio shows up again when Eva suggest they go to the Easter party: his first reaction is “What? Why? You don’t even like that”, so savage, but fair Eva reminds him he’s actually a loser who, at 16, plays card to have fun with his friends like a 60 year old

Gio is being an asshole, he only considers going with Eva’s suggestion in exchange for something, then guilts her into accepting his “deal” bringing up Marti’s difficult family situation and her grades, implicitly, by promising to volunteer for the philosophy oral test, plus he’s rude and insensitive af because he brings up her inviting a friends when he knows fully well that when they cheated on Laura she got completely cut off

this will show up again, but let me just start to say it in the first episode: how unfair is it for Eva to be suffering most of the consequences in her life for getting together with her best friend’s boyfriend, when Giovanni faces no consequences that we know of for cheating on his girlfrien? And how unfair it must feel, deep deep down, to Eva

then, when she agrees, he takes back his side of the deal and Eva has to say it’s fine, it’s nothing because he says sorry and that’s socialization kicking in, telling her not to be difficult, not to be needy and not to complain cause that’s annoying and girls guys want to date are not any of those things; honestly, the emotional labour Eva has to go through

that getting ready montage, Eva really goes full on revenge mode like Lady D and she’s fully feeling her oats

the first dress Eva tries on is the same we saw Laura wearing at the party, but Eva’s red while Laura’s blue: I put all my money o it being a dress they bought together and on it being kind of their go-to dress, Eva thought about wearing it to remind Laura of their friendship but in the end decided it would only make things harder

oh, the conversation with Laura at the bar. God, if the situation is this tense can you imagine being in the same class as her and as Gio six hours a day everyday? We’ve talked about how shit it must have felt for Niccolò to be in the same class as Marco Covitti in S2, but Eva’s situation is awful too. I wonder how much of that factors in her bad grades and troubles with school

how more people don’t ship Italian Evanora is beyond me, have you seen this interaction?

on the other hand, I wonder how much Eleonora thought about it later, about how she must have come on too strong, about how maybe Eva thought she was weird or hitting on her and how much that weighed on Eleonora not reaching out first again, cause she makes a face like she regrets her life the minute Eva walks away

it breaks my heart, honestly: Eva has just been told she’s a whore by someone she once considered a friend, but when she finds this person’s new friend, who she doesn’t know, crying in the bathroom she doesn’t bat an eyelash, reassures her and tries her best to help her (so much emotional labour that women “naturally” take on themselves because we’re taught to be empathetic and caretakers even when we’re ourselves in distress)

one question: if Federico Canegallo is as popular as the Villa crew seems to be, how the hell does nobody know him when Eva is looking for “Fede”? Besides, Silvia doesn’t even react to the fact that he’s a friend of Edoardo’s when she sees him in the bathroom!

the interaction between the two Fedes kills me in every version

ok fuck you Silvia for not even saying thanks for trying and looking at Eva like she’s a decerebrate

Bechdel test: the episodes passes the test because of the conversations between Eva and Laura (nice 😑), Eva and Eleonora (though they’re mostly talking shit about other girls, so still not very good) and Eva and Silvia (though we actually don’t know her name yet at this point, we can only guess it from context, so it’s borderline). So this is cute.

This post is part of my complete series of meta about Skam Italia season 1. If you’d like to read more of my thoughts about the other episodes, you can find the mastepost linked in the top bar on my blog under SKAMIT: EVA. Cheers!

#skam italia #skamit s1 #eva brighi #martino rametta #giovanni garau #laura pandakovic #federico canegallo #eleonora sava #silvia mirabella #skamit meta #1x01 sembri una pu***ana #a. writes

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thepringlesofblood · 3 years ago

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#shout out to when I was dissociating and slammed my hand full force into a table#i was positive it would go through#i was wrong#it hurt

fuck @redacted-metallum I feel that.

the text on the images reads

(image 1) “What does Dissociation feel like?”

(image 2) “1. Checking out or zoning out/Especially during activities that trigger insecurities or during arguments with you or around you”

(image 3) “2. Feeling like your body isn’t real or feels like a foreign object/This is called depersonalization and it feels like your body isn’t part of you. Maybe like a robot”

(image 4) “3. Feeling like your surroundings aren’t real/This is called derealization and it can feel like you’re in a virtual reality universe. Like there is a shield between you and things around you. Objects may seem distorted”

(image 5) “4. Gaps in memory/You seem to miss entire conversations or events or gaps in time”

(image 6) “5. Emotional and physical numbness/you don’t seem to be able to feel emotions and parts of your body may feel numb or tingly”

all over these are lil pictures of people experiencing these issues, each one with the name @micheline.maalouf somewhere on them

here’s some text from a post i wrote a while back with hot tips for dealing with dissociation and depression so if you read this and go “aw fuck that’s me” you have something to help you (under the cut so this post isn’t super long)

if you been in therapy for over half a decade like me you’re probably incredibly fucking sick of counting 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, etc.* 

here’s some more off-the-beaten-path ones to shake things up!

write something in code. 

make a cipher or a symbol alphabet or something for yourself and write things in it - song lyrics, names, funny quotes, etc.  

i don’t mean ‘make up a whole ass language,’ I mean write down the alphabet and put funny shit on the other side of it 1:1 and then write things w that.  

mostly I do ciphers, which I learned from Kristen Cashore’s Bitterblue, which is NOT a book about codebreaking but is a good book from a good series. I’ll include a little description of how to do em at the end

you can do whatever though - write in greek letters, spell things backwards, write in cursive, try to form pictures or patterns with words, etc.

if you’re learning a 2nd language, or if you know the Elvish alphabet or Klingon or something, that can work too! 

physically writing shit out works well, but just writing something out that you already know from memory can get repetitive. so, add some challenge to it!  

while your brain is working out puzzles n shit, it is FORCED to be in the moment bc it is solving a problem that is happening right now, in real time.

Similarly, jigsaw puzzles can be helpful, although I must warn you that online jigsaw puzzles, while fun and good for other purposes, do NOT work as well for this one bc it’s less physical. 

also, don’t do something you’re completely fluent in. make it HARD. jigsaw puzzles stopped working for me bc I got too good at em (sorry for the humblebrag but it’s relevant). make yourself WORK for it

waltzing

it sounds fuckin crazy, but just walking around in 3/4 time often helps me focus on where I’m going.  

this may fall under the much-maligned ‘counting things’ category but hey no one’s ever told me waltzing will cure my depression and wipe all my problems away, so I consider that a win.

lotion.  

hear me out on this one, it’s a more advanced-prep thing but it fuckin works, especially if you’re prone to long periods of dissociation and derealization like I am.  

find a lotion that feels good to put on your body  

it does not have to be expensive, or even lotion - anything you’re supposed to put on your skin works. the only thing that matters is that you like it and it feels good on your skin.  

i’ve even done this with chapstick on my hands! (though i wouldn’t recommend full-body chapstick) 

start rubbing it all over your body. hands, arms, legs, torso, really get in there - wherever is comfortable for you.  

if you’re a bit dysphoric, or have body image issues, you can start small - try just your hands, or just your hands and arms 

feel the muscles and bones under your skin. as you rub it in, focus on feeling your physical body. remember that you are here in this moment, because you can feel your skin under your fingers.  

good little phrases/mantras/reminders to say/think about while doing this for this (if that’s your sort of thing, I find it helpful sometimes)

I am here. I am tangible. I am real 

this body is mine. my body is safe. I inhabit my body.  

I can see my [hands/arms/legs/etc]. I can feel my [hands/arms/legs/etc]. they are part of me, and they are mine, and they are real.  

I am safe. I am warm. I am loved.  

pick a song you know really well, and tap out the rhythm on your leg, arm, chair, desk, whatever.  

focus on the physicality of it, and on how you control your fingers to tap out the tune however you want.  

bread 

the reason why I’m saying bake bread specifically as opposed to other things, is because you gotta knead bread.  

to knead bread, you gotta put sweat into it, feel it beneath your hands, squeeze it, punch it, put force into it.

another more advanced-prep one, but can help a lot with keeping yourself here on earth

watch your hands kneading and feel the dough beneath them and think about their movements, and how you control them.  

i do have to warn you though some breads get real tough if you over-knead them so like. pick a bread that u gotta knead a lot

similarly, playdough can work really well for kneading, as well as the huge fidget-putty market. but the thing is bread and playdough can be BIG. that shit takes STRENGTH. your brain aint reliving traumatic memories bc its too focused on Slam Big Thing On Table 

if u go the playdough route, I highly suggest making your own "salt dough" bc you can make it in a big ol batch and knead the shit out of it.

not only can you put whatever colors you want in, you can put in whatever stink you want. my mom used to make it w cocoa powder, or with a bit of cinnamon mixed in, so it smelled nice to play with and not just like playdough.  

you could probably also put like mint or lavender extract or essential oil (although be CAREFUL w the essential oil - read the package and make sure it is safe for skin, and don't put a whole lot in), find your own perfect stink.  

also, homemade playdough can be fully edible (my mother is a preschool teacher, so that's why she makes her own playdough - that way if the kids eat a little bit, they won't get sick or anything, unlike brand name PlayDough).

i’m just saying. sometimes you make playdough/salt dough with cocoa powder in it so it smells nice and your brain goes full tide pod and says ‘fuck that smells good you should really eat some a little bits probably fine right? it’ll taste like chocolate bc thats what it smells like right?’ and you eat a little bit and THAT brings you back to reality bc it’s just salt baby!

  alright keep it frosty my good dudes! ^v^ and remember, the funniest acronym to help you remember basic self care tips is METH!

Meds (have you taken em)   Eat (food is fuel, whatever you are able to put in your body is OK even if it’s not your first choice)  Thirsty (hydrate or diedrate homie)  Hygiene (shower, brush teeth, new clothes, deodorant))       *not to say those methods don’t work! they very often do and are a great starting point, and a useful tool to have in your belt! but they don’t work for everyone, and if ya been around the block a bit it gets really frustrating when every single time you mention dissociation a therapist/psychiatrist/psychologist/parent you didn't ask the opinion of/doctor is like ‘well how about counting...’ YES WE KNOW THE COUNTING (if u don't know the counting here’s some of the basic shit it’s good stuff to know but it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution)

 it’s 5 things you can see, 4 things you can here, 3 things you can feel, 2 things you can smell, 1 thing you can taste

count how many blue/red/any color objects in the room

count tiles on the floor/panels on the ceiling/etc.

count your steps as you take them 

count your breaths - in for 4, hold for 4, out for 8, or whatever pattern works best for you - ppl will try to tell you a certain one can hack your brain and reset you or whatever but as someone with a less-than-stellar respiratory system, do whatever you need to do.

eyyy cipher time babey   so like. first of all Bitterblue is the 3rd book in a fantasy trilogy about people with heterochromia having superpowers, like it’s NOT a book about codes, but there is a kind of cipher that the titular character uses a lot that I find really cool so. steps to making fun code. 1. write down the alphabet 2. pick a word or phrase. i’m gonna use “sans undertale” as an example bc this is my tumblr post and I get to choose the memes 3. take all the letters that repeat out of the phrase. for instance, “sans undertale” has 2 “S”s in it, so we take out the 2nd one, and so on.   4. we end up with “san udertl” you’re gonna wanna take out spaces and punctuation too. so, our cipher phrase is “sanudertl”  5. above your written-down alphabet (or below if you want i’m not gonna harsh your vibe) write down your cipher phrase so that the first letter lines up with “a”, the 2nd letter with “b”, etc. i’m putting a thing below if you have trouble visualizing 6. now you may say wait a sec thepringlesofblood, that’s only like 8 letters, what if I want to write other things! heres the fun part - after the last letter of your cipher phrase, start writing down the rest of the alphabet, in order, NOT including the letters in your cipher phrase. 7. so, for “sanudertl”, we’d go through the alphabet and say ‘is that letter in “sanudertl” and if its not write it down if it is skip it. like, “a” is in “sanudertl” so we skip a and start w b, and so on 8. congratulations! now you have a cipher alphabet!   9. if you want someone else to be able to decipher your coded message, you can just give them the code phrase (e.g. sans undertale) and they can make the same alphabet themselves! 10. here’s our sans undertale example (undertale is a good game and I will die on that hill) (sorry its so low-res idk why that is) 

source

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thetravellingvagrant · 6 years ago

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Day 1- Glasgow/Warsaw: In Which I Rob The Post Office Again

Long time readers of this blog- all two of them- will likely be acutely aware of phenomenon I have come to refer to as the 'first day curse'. For new readers- all none of them- this curse strikes, as you might expect, on the first day of my trip and, without exception, turns what should, for all intents and purposes, be the most exciting part of my journey into an unrelentingly shitty maelstrom of sadness and fuck. Be it getting dragged around a museum of the European Parliament while about six hours beyond my elastic limit of staying awake; getting turned away from my couchsurfing host's apartment for several hours, to fend off cold and blisters by a diminutive racist; accidentally committing a home invasion or just getting fucked time after time by bastard taxi drivers, who seem to make it their business to ruin my life, the FDC is ever-present and ever-shitty in this Vagrant life of mine.

But not this year. I was determined to swerve that bullshit however I could, this time; my journey to Warsaw, the first stop of this trip, had been planned to a tee; I had managed to finagle an honest-to-God lift to the airport with my very helpful mother, nearly entirely eliminating the possibility of missing my flight, which I seem to manage to do, each and every time I fly by myself and perhaps, most important of all, as detailed in my last entry, I had already basically had my FDC this year, with the absolute shit-show of a day I had had, trying to get my passport sorted. Surely the travel-gods would see this as enough penance to let me pass both unhindered and unfucked into Vagrancy, for once. Just once, travel-gods. Be cool. Jesus.

I woke up bright and early, or at least early, in my own lovely bed for what will be the last time for almost a month and quickly set about mopping up the remaining tasks on my to-do list for the trip, including- but not limited to- faffing around trying to get the export settings right on Adobe's Premier Pro for a video I had been working on (which, let me tell you, is a lot of fun to do under pressure and with a strict time-limit), general packing of way more things than I need and having a series of increasingly severe mini-breakdowns.

While my flight didn't leave until 7:30pm, I regardless found myself with little time to spare in my flat, due to my having an unavoidable dentist's appointment (whose office, those of you who read the previous entry will know, is located close to my parent's house and is therefore some distance from my flat) at two in the afternoon.

By some miracle, I finished my to-do list, or at least the most important items on it in reasonably good time, or at least in enough time to still make it to the appointment if I hurried and caught a bus to the train station and so bid my cat a remarkably brief, though no less tearful than usual farewell

I won’t miss you.

And was quickly on my way to have my teeth all messed about. Hurrah.

Trips to the dentist, I'm aware, aren't usually regarded as a particularly pleasant thing, regardless, but holy shit, was this ever not a pleasant trip to the dentist. The appointment lasted a full hour (fifteen minutes longer than was scheduled, which was very helpful on a day when time was so limited for me) and consisted almost entirely of having the inflamed pulp inside one of my teeth jabbed at with a needle, which uh, yeah, isn't too great, let me tell you. The little cherry on top of the bakewell tart of shit that had been my orthodontic experience was the anaesthetic injection in my gums: it seemed that I was to spend the rest of my day with my face entirely numb in, apparently, every part of it except the bits that hurt. I was also told to expect my tooth to ache like buggery during my flight. So that was a treat.

A bit shaken and now behind schedule, I left the dentist to return to my parent's house briefly to pick up my passport, check in for my impending flight and to put some music and podcasts on my phone so as not to be terribly bored for the rest of my evening.

Ryanair do a lot of shit wrong- Like a lot- but I've got to say that being able to check in and get my boarding pass on my phone is a nice touch, or at least one that just about finally brings them level with other, better airlines in literally just that one aspect. Or...at least it should have been...

I entered my details into the app, triumphantly pressed 'continue' with an uncharacteristic arrogance for someone dealing with anything to do with Ryanair and...an error occurred. For god's sake, Ryanair, pull your shit together. I pressed the button again, my confidence slightly dented, but still in tact. Error. Umm.

“Okay...” I thought, “so the app's not working. I suppose I can always go and physically print the passes like some fucking caveman”.

I loaded the Ryanair website, my confidence now all but entirely replaced with pure vexation and...it wasn't there. Not my boarding pass- the website. It was down for maintenance and apparently had been for some time- days in fact. Indeed with a quick Google, I learned that it was national (albeit quite tabloidy) news that this website was down. People physically couldn't check in for their flights and were being stung for £55 for it when they arrived at the airport because of it, while Ryanair, in an ostrichian level display of burying their heads in the sand were maintaining through all this that the website was up, running and fully functional despite clear empirical evidence to the contrary.

I checked my phone. I needed to leave; I still had to pick up a travel money card at the post office and get some food before I headed to the airport and had no more time to spare, angrily pressing 'continue' over and over again, sighing a little louder each time it didn't work.

My mother and I bundled ourselves and my luggage into her car and drove quickly to a nearby town. I darted off into the post office for my card and she into Morrisons to buy some very delicious food for me, which was very nice of her, even if I was in far too bad a mood to properly acknowledge it at the time.

I had realised, some time prior, that I had also managed to forget my gloves. Given that I'd be travelling to basically Russia in the winter and realising that historically that can go poorly, I was understandably a little worried about this. It came as a genuinely nice surprise then to find that the post office sold nice gloves at he very reasonable price of £1.50 a pair. I grabbed two sets (for layering purposes) and headed to the till. I obtained my travel money card fairly effortlessly (#humblebrag) and left with it and my gloves in hand. So to speak. Wait, shit- I had been so wrapped up in getting the card and dwelling on the unbelievable amount of garbage that had been slopped on top of me throughout the day that I had actually forgotten to pay for not one, but two pairs of gloves, thereby robbing the post office for the second time in a week. Charles Bronson got life for that so I'm lucky to have gotten away with it. Anyway, sorry post office. Again...

Travel money card, several pairs of stolen gloves and some very delicious food now obtained, my mother and I set off, finally, to Edinburgh airport. As we drove, I continued mashing the Ryanair app, desperately looking for signs of life, my already critically low optimism dwindling even further as I did. On the verge of giving up, the two hour cut off point for obtaining boarding passes looming within mere minutes, the app spluttered up all the water it had swallowed in that devastating surfing accident and took a deep, ragged breath. It wasn't much and being clinically dead for as long as it was, only to come back to life would clearly lead to massive brain damage, but that was all I needed to get my foot in the door and my grubby mitts on my boarding pass. I was overjoyed, though, and I've said this before of Easyjet, when you're made this happy by a service being offered simply working as advertised, that really does speak poorly of how high the bar is set for your company...

We ended up arriving at Edinburgh airport in genuinely quite good time, which was...surprising, considering how my day had been going, to say the least. My mother and I shared a tearful goodbye or I'm sure we at least would have done, if she wasn't so concerned about the cost of her stay in the drop-off zone going up the longer she stayed there and with a single punch on the arm in lieu of a hug, I was off.

I navigated the airport security with ease for once, with my bag and genitals left unfondled by surly old security guards and sat down in the duty-free costa with some time to spare. Despite having a bag of, and I really must stress this, like crazy delicious food with me, I decided to treat myself to a warm panini and a hot chocolate as due to a combination of needing to rush in the morning and having to wait after dental work in the afternoon, I hadn't yet eaten. As I chewed, using only the right side of my mouth, through my pigs-under-blanket panini and sipped my a-little-too-hot hot chocolate, I reflected. It seemed that the first day curse had regardless struck me once more, despite my best efforts to the contrary as, to be totally honest, I had had a pretty cack day. Still, at least I wasn't going to almost miss my flight, for once.

Oh, right, shit, my flight...

I looked at the time- the gate was closing. I'd spent too long reflecting like some genius prilosopher might... I pushed the rest of the panini into my already overstuffed mouth and forced it down with the remainder of my drink, burning my tongue quite badly in the process (probably considerably less like a genus philosopher might...) and sped off towards the gate. I don't know how I managed to get myself into this situation, but I now found myself in not insubstantial danger of missing my flight, despite having literally been inside the airport for the past hour and a half.

I approached my gate doing that kind of half-walk-half-trot thing that people do when they're in a hurry, but are still unwilling to go full-run.

“Are you going to Warsaw?!” a flight attendant, standing by the gate shouted to me, from some distance away

“Uh, yeah!” I replied, breathlessly.

Even as far apart as we were, I could tell that her face wore a look of mixed shock and pity

“...You'll have to hurry, then, they're getting ready to take off!”

I went full run. I charged through the gate and onto the plane as quickly as I could, stored my probably slightly too large bit of luggage in the overhead lockers (incidentally, being very, very late for a flight is a great way to get the attendants to conveniently forget to check the size of your bag) and sat down, sweating, dishevelled and manic to the demonstrable disappointment of my new seat-neighbour. I honestly don't blame him.

After an uncharacteristically pleasant flight, barring some minor air-pressure-related toothache, I was spat out into Warsaw Modlin airport and found myself almost immediately on a bus to the city centre. I'm not quite sure how I managed this, as by this point it was around 11:30 at night, I was still in pain, hadn't slept particularly well the previous night and was, by now, flagging badly, but I assume it was some kind of lovely witchcraft. Thanks, lovely witchcraft.

Once in Warsaw, proper, I quickly darted to the central station, which, through my very careful planning both my bus stop and hostel were adjacent to. Despite it pushing midnight, the station was still open and, although all I really wanted to do was go to bed, I thought it prudent to buy my ticket for tomorrow's early morning train journey to Belarus as soon as possible. I took my place in the queue, or at least what looked like a queue. The woman behind the counter appeared to be reading some kind of document on her computer; a strange thing to do, I thought, with a line of seven or so people, steadily climbing in number, waiting specifically for her attention. She continued to read this document and sip her coffee for the next forty minutes or so. It was dangerously close to 1:00am and I was dangerously close to putting the entire idea of getting a ticket before morning in a big flaming bin before she deigned to start actually doing her job and serving people again. Albeit slowly. I bumbled through buying my ticket in the most 'me' way possible (awkwardly, quietly and tinged with rage) and left for my hostel, head shaking in disbelief and body aching for sleep.

After a scant ten minute walk through the pervasively freezing Polish night, I had arrived. The door had been left ajar for me by the night-receptionist, who greeted me with a nod. I nodded back, somehow accidentally yanking the door closed in front of myself in the process. Great. Good start. I had managed to lock myself out of the hostel before even getting inside. With an audible sigh, even through the locked door, the receptionist forced herself out of her chair to re-open it for me. I apologised as I stepped inside. She started back at me blankly, apparently not speaking enough English to respond. She pointed to a clipboard sitting on her desk; on it were written the names of everyone checking in that night. I pointed to my own name and she led me to my room.

As she opened the door I was hit by an ungodly stench; a sickly sweet combination of feet, body odour and death. I wretched as quietly as my body would allow me to, unsure whether to tough it out and try to get used to the smell or just hold my breath all night.

The receptionist flicked the light on. An audible groan came from one of the bunks as the more irritable of my roommates was woken up by this. The receptionist pointed me to my bed and left. It was the bunk above the angry man. In a room of six beds, only three of which were occupied, including mine, it seemed that they had opted to put us as close to one another as we could physically fucking get, without sharing a bunk, which is honestly exactly what everyone wants in a hostel, anyway, so good show.

Not wanting to be 'that guy', I flicked the light off and, as quietly as I could, put my stuff away. I was hungry again, by this point and so decided to go and sit in the hostel's kitchen and eat some of my, as yet untouched, unbelievably delicious Morrisons swag. I grabbed my bag and headed out into the hostel's halls, quickly realising that there was no kitchen or indeed dining area of any kind. There was a toilet that stank perpeptually and very strongly of shit and a receptionist whose disdain for me seemed to only grow each time she laid eyes on me, but no kitchen. Unwilling to rustle sandwich containers and crisp packets on the top bunk of a sleeping man who genuinely may have hated me, I put the idea in a big flaming bin and opted to just go to bed, having eaten once and drank little more than a hot chocolate throughout the entire day.

I re-entered the bedroom as stealthily as possible, given the sleep I had had and realised all too quickly that the bed hadn't actually been made. They expected me to do that for myself, which, let's be totally honest here a) is among the last things I want to do when I'm exhausted and physically fatigued from travelling, b)is like super, super disruptive to the other people in the room and c) probably should already have been done before my arrival, right? I mean that's like hospitality 101.

With little recourse but to do it myself, though, I did just that. Shockingly, I did not manage to do it particularly quietly and even more shockingly than that, Mr. Angry didn't seem to appreciate my inability to noiselessly prepare my own bed at past-one-in-the-morning.

After some bumbling around with sheets, my bed was ready, or as ready as I could be bothered making it. I grabbed the ladder to my bunk and hoisted myself up onto it. The entire bed shook, unsecured bits of metal rattled against one another and the entire thing bent considerably on its axis. I don't know if you've seen the viral video of several hundred squeaky rubber chickens being pushed down on all at once, which made the rounds a year or two ago, but that was uncannily what it sounded like, except louder, deeper and sadder. I was one rung up the ladder.

Out of options, there was little I could do but push on- one thousand terrified chickens screaming in pain with every step, until finally I was in my bunk. The noise didn't abate, even then, ringing out, entirely undampened with every tiny movement I made, but at least the bed had stopped rocking back and forth like a tiny, shitty, uncomfortable boat.

Once actually in my bunk, the room's other issues began to make themselves apparent. While the bed did have barriers on the far side from the wall, these barriers were similarly flimsy to the rest of the structure and were so insignificant and strangely placed so as to do literally nothing to stop all my stuff falling off the bed during the night. The side of the bed pressed against the wall had no barriers whatsoever, instead opting for the 'sheer drop' approach, which obviously wouldn't have been an issue had it not been for the bed being positioned approximately a foot and a half away from the wall for absolutely no good reason. As it stood, it was fairly likely that my phone would fall off one side of the bed during the night and my body the other. My best efforts to counteract this came in the form of neatly folding my trousers and placing them under my pillow, with my phone nestled in the back pocket: in this way it was unlikely to be knocked to the floor in the night and I could still hear my alarm, even with earplugs in. And let me tell you, boy howdy did I ever need earplugs. Mr. Angry wasn't my only roommate- I was sharing with one other person as well. Actually, I say person, but I never did get a very good look at them and honestly, from the noises they were making during the night, you could have been forgiven for thinking that what I was actually bunking down with was a pig being butchered with a chainsaw. The noise was honestly inhuman; wet, droning slurps and gurgles emanated constantly from the far side of the room and cut straight to my core, regardless of how deep I pushed my lovely and usually very effective gummy earplugs into my terrible, broken brainbox. Combined with my squeaking chicken bed and that fucking smell, it was honestly a bit like going to sleep in an abattoir. An abattoir with no power outlets.

How's that for a Trip Advisor review?

#Travelling #vagrant #scotland #glasgow #edinburgh #ryanair #dentist #root canal #app #warsaw #poland #disaster #hostel #lux

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