#* filed under — ( verse ) ( fame )

[petitsdieu]

୧‿︵‿︵ 𝑺𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒆🚿 𝑡𝑜 𝑗𝑜𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑦 𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑟 🛁 𝒕𝒐 𝒋𝒐𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒂𝒕𝒉𝒕𝒖𝒃.

He’s a nebula spill, right off the fingertips, twice fed down the mouth— Her mouth. She's toying the idea of sucking on the digit with her lips pressed to his thumb-print. Her finger presses into his mid-palm. If she could hold his hand closer, she would.

Like fuse together close.

She could be closer all around. Parted at the knees to limb-fit easy into him, floating with him near the middle. It hardly feels like enough. She holds her mouth down. Her wet to the tip of him. Before it's falling off her bottommost lip to make room for a mouthful of words instead.

❛ I've never let anyone in my bathtime before. ❜

Maybe some lucky glance or two from the sideline. There's some past lover that might have lingered in a doorframe reading her a magazine expert that fed her Love-In ideologies. His name escapes her now. Captain Vought's eroded it from her temporal lobe. As in, how could she think of anyone else when he's around?

She turns into his hand now. Cheek into the hug of his palm. A playful bite-in. A warm kiss here, and there. Her thumb absentmindedly pets at his inner wrist.

All pulse-tension. All warm tenderness.

𝒇𝒕. @sieverts

[petitsdieu]

"In a good way, yeah. I can't imagine meeting someone, feeling like we've met before, in a bad way... though I guess, I can now." Although she could anticipate him accepting more than rejecting, she was pleasantly surprised that there seemed to be no hesitation. He just goes along with lying on the ground with her.

"Okay, this is going to sound absolutely filthy. And don't get me wrong, I love being on my back for that reason, too. But this is my favorite position. Just to... like, be? Do you know what I mean?"

She remembers being a kid, running away to the beach in the middle of the night to escape the monsters and horrors of her life. Replace the scary footsteps of adults for the soothing calls of the ocean. And she'd lay on her back and feel like she was in a snow globe. And there was something about it that made her feel small but not in the same way the people in her life had. In a calm, solace kind of way. Like she could disappear, float up the stars, and be a celestial, glimmering light.

"I like the way the world looks from down here. Visual perspective and all. It's just different. And god, it feels really good. Not to feel gravity, as much."

"Naturally... However many tens of thousands of species of plants there are, there's bound to be some you haven't run across unless you're mother nature herself." She's selling herself short, to his thinking. He wouldn't know what to do with any sort of plant... except for orchids now, thanks to Hara.

He really doesn't get that often—not once, as far as he can recall—and he absolutely loves that she assumes he must. As if the ease of their evening together so far is the rule and not the miraculous exception. As if he wasn't hiding from a confrontation, dejected and stewing, when he'd spotted her across the lawn.

He banishes the thought from his mind before it can take root, determined not to let anything spoil their good time. He deserves a pleasant party, and Hara deserves him at his best.

"I feel the same way, honestly. It's strange– in a good way." When she invites him to lay in the grass he obliges, sighing softly as he looks up at the moon and stars. He's not sure when the last time was that he stopped to just take them in. Surely he must be glowing, filled to the brim with simple joy like this.

[antebunny]

Parent Trap AU 5

It’s a Parent Trap AU, plus on-the-run hacker!wwx and celebrity!lwj. Full series here.

-

At first, Lan Wangji finds writing songs to be extremely challenging.

He’s all but quit his job, and his son is gone. He’s alone in the house he once shared with his family, while his brother tries to keep quiet about pitying him and supporting him, and his uncle demands to know why he has no interest in searching for his son. He’s the one that files the kidnapping report, in the end. Not that it does much; they’re already searching for Wei Ying, since he escaped from prison.

All Lan Wangji really does, during this time, is cry by his piano, and sing.

The melodies come naturally to him. He’s been writing melodies for years, and these songs are no different. He has a thousand things to say, so some are angry, so fast he thinks he might tear his fingers on the guitar strings, some are soft with only piano accompaniment. All too soon he has dozens of recordings of phrases that can be put together into full-length songs. The only one he doesn’t record is the one he wrote for guqin, years ago.

But the lyrics, the lyrics he struggles with for ages. Not Lan Wangji finds himself at a loss for what to say. He doesn’t speak much, it’s true, but when he does he always finds precisely what he wants to say. Rather, Lan Wangji finds he has too much to say.

One Friday afternoon, he sits down on his couch and plays the same ten-minute ballad on his guitar, trying again and again to find a way to shorten it without feeling like he’s ripping a part of his already shattered heart out of his chest. While suppressing the urge to write more verses. He knows he can’t leave them all in; it’s too repetitive. He wants these songs to be good, though he doesn’t really plan on marketing them. A large part of him thinks it’ll always be like this. Just him and his instruments, alone in the living room, mourning over a love long lost, making himself cry over his own lyrics.

Still, Lan Wangji is a perfectionist at heart. He has to do something about the ten-minute ballad. It’s longer than two songs put together.

What if I made them two separate songs?

The thought comes to Lan Wangji suddenly, and he sets down his guitar to pick up the notebook containing the lyrics. This could work. He becomes convinced of this the longer he looks at the lyrics. He’ll never run out of things to say about Wei Ying, but if he separated each of those things into one song–that could work.

He chooses a different melody, edits the lyrics to fit it, picks out a theme, an aspect of Wei Ying to sing about, and suddenly he has a whole discography, and not a single published song.

Lan Wangji goes to his brother.

“Are you sure about this?” Lan Xichen asks, his brows pulled together in a small, worried dip.

“Mn.”

They stare at each other without speaking, because Lan Xichen knows that every concern he might think of, Lan Wangji has already over thought.

“Even if he hears them?”

Lan Wangji will never be famous enough that Wei Ying, wherever in the world he might be, will hear his songs. But if he does, then all the better. “Mn.”

Lan Xichen sighs. “I just don’t want to see you hurt anymore.”

Lan Wangji doesn’t think that’s possible. “Hm.”

Lan Xichen sighs again. “Okay,” he says. “If that’s what you want. I’m sure A-Yao knows someone. I’ll ask.”

It’s a while before he finds someone who’ll actually produce his music, but he’s happy with the person he ends up with. Luo Qingyang emails him back almost immediately after she listens to his demo.

I need you down here yesterday, she says. This is getting produced right now.

His first song, When We Were Young, is released as a single less than a year after the scandal that took Wei Ying from his life, under the stage name “Hanguang-jun.” He’s not sure it fits, but he wants to.

And suddenly, it looks like Lan Wangji might actually be that famous.

Of course, it’s still years in the future, so Lan Wangji carries on like he’s not. His second single, At First Glance, does even better than When We Were Young, and his manager starts bothering him about a music video. Apparently it’s expected of him, but Lan Wangji rejects all of the ideas that the directors Luo Qingyang finds for him come up with. They end up renting a house for a week and filming there, then going to a studio with lights and a piano. Lan Wangji dresses up for that and plays his heart out, and that’s it, that’s the music video.

His third single, Under Moonlight, is somehow more popular than his previous two combined. He has fans now, or maybe it’s just that he’s only now realizing it. He’s not quite sure what to do with that. The video this time takes place on the very bridge the song talks about. He doesn’t do much, since he rejected the idea of hiring actors to play the “counterpart,” so he’s confused as to why it continues gaining views on YouTube. Apparently he looks young. He’s not sure if this is insulting or not, but the internet would probably be shocked to learn he has a five-year-old son.

Lan Sizhui is too young to listen to music by himself, so Lan Wangji hopes that somewhere, there’s a radio playing one of the new hit songs by Hanguang-jun, and a father-son duo walking past.

Luo Qingyang bullies him into exactly one interview before his first album is released. On it, he accidentally confirms that all the songs on the album are about one person, and panics after that, not wishing to reveal anything about Wei Ying or even Lan Wangji’s own name on camera.

Apparently the mystery helps? Lan Wangji understands fame less and less the closer he comes to it. He thought if he just wrote good songs, enough people would listen to him that Wei Ying would hear it. Wei Ying is spotted in Thailand, and Lan Wangji ends up naming his first album Oceans Apart.

It sells, and it sells, and still, Wei Ying and their son are nowhere to be found.

-

Wei Wuxian is lying on a roof the night of his wedding anniversary.

Purple, white, and red fireworks explode in the black sky above him. There’s some celebration going on in the city, and Wei Wuxian takes advantage of it to pretend it’s in celebration of his anniversary.

Not that there’s much to celebrate. He doesn’t think it’s typical to celebrate the anniversary of a marriage which no longer exists, but their marriage didn’t end in the typical way either.

And he still loves Lan Zhan. Loves him so much that the sight of rabbits brings him to tears. So much that he feels like a traitor whenever someone so much as smiles in his direction, so much that he can’t imagine himself flirting with someone. So much that he cries on the roof when the fireworks light up the sky.

“Papa?”

Wei Wuxian looks to the right, and there’s Wei Sizhui, who is sometimes the only thing keeping Wei Wuxian going on his darkest nights. He’s nestled up with Wei Wuxian’s arm around him, small face peering earnestly at him from the dark. “What?”

“Why are you crying?”

Wei Wuxian raises one hand instinctively to rub the tears away. He’d forgotten about that. He’s thrown himself fully into caring for his son, making sure that he has clothes and good food to eat, which is hard when they never stay in a place for long and Wei Wuxian is paranoid of anyone who stares at them too long. Sometimes he wonders if he’s really doing any good, keeping Wei Sizhui away from his other father and uncles and aunts, from a happy childhood with friends and a school. And every time, he blinks back to the moment he woke up in the prison having narrowly avoided being murdered, and knows that Wei Sizhui is still safer with him than he’d be if he was still there, within the Jins reach.

“Nothing,” Wei Wuxian says. “It’s nothing.”

Wei Sizhui frowns. “But Papa is sad,” he declares.

Wei Wuxian presses the back of his hand over his eyes. Fireworks crack so loudly it muffles his shaky inhale. Tears stream down his cheeks and around his ears. Red lights flash across his eyelids.

-

White lights flash through the stage, focusing on the solitary grand piano, and Lan Wangji, in his white suit, seated on the piano bench. A hush falls across the massive crowd. He adjusts his microphone slightly, and places his fingers gently atop the keys. The cameras zoom in on him.

And Lan Wangji sings.

-

“I’m just remembering,” Wei Wuxian whispers. “Someone I used to know.”

“Is it Dad?” Wei Sizhui asks timidly.

Wei Wuxian inhales shakily again, then wraps his arm back around his son. “Yeah,” he admits. “It’s your other father.”

He hasn’t looked back since he ran away. Countless times, he’s thought about Googling the Jiangs in an internet cafe, just to check on how they’re doing. They have social media profiles, so he could. He could. But even the slightest hint of connection could ruin what Wei Wuxian has managed to salvage. The Jiangs would fight for him. Would drag their names in the mud for him, and he can’t let them do that to themselves, so he cuts all ties and doesn’t look back.

Wei Wuxian hasn’t dared to search Lan Wangji since he ran away.

-

“Hello,” Lan Wangji sings, and the crowd cheers.“It’s me. I was wondering if after all these years you’d like to meet, to go over everything. They say that time’s supposed to heal you, but I ain’t done much healing.”

Before he knows it, there’s tears streaming down his face. They drip onto his nice white suit, but the music doesn’t pause.

-

Hello from the other side

“Will we ever see him again?” Wei Sizhui asks plaintively.

I must have called a thousand times

Wei Wuxian tries to shake his head, his shoulders pressed against the dusty brick roof. “I don’t know, baby,” he says.

To tell you I’m sorry for everything that I’ve done

“But why not?” Wei Sizhui pushes. It’s far from the first time he’s asked, but each day it gets harder and harder to answer.

Hello from the outside

“Because he’s very, very far away,” Wei Wuxian replies this time, and tries not to think of Lan Zhan as he last saw him, sleeping peacefully in their bed the night Wei Wuxian broke in and took Wei Sizhui with him. “Oceans away.”

At least I can say that I tried

Eventually, the fireworks stop, and Wei Sizhui falls asleep, head resting in the crook of Wei Wuxian’s arm. Wei Wuxian raises one hand to the midnight sky, pretends he can reach through the vast expanse to wherever his family is. “Happy anniversary, Lan Zhan,” he whispers. “I miss you.”

To tell you I’m sorry for breaking your heart

Eventually, the song ends, and the cheers deafen the stadium. The lights go out long after Lan Wangji has gotten up from his seat and stepped away from the microphone. The tears on his face are invisible until the cameras focus in on him walking.

“Happy anniversary, Wei Ying,” he whispers, before he picks up the microphone to thank the crowd. “I love you.”

[petitsdieu]

Earn. To every rolling sparkle of her shower-slick body — to the heat-swell-wet cunt — no, weeping — she could make the ocean a dry basin in comparison.

Nevermind the weight she holds in loyalty to their friendship, or whatever appropriate name could stick a lacing between them. Does she think he means it when he asks this of her? Uncertain with a leaning towards no. But she doesn't like the sediment regardless. Let her family stay the hoop-holders. With Leon, she won't jump. She'll effortlessly glide into him. Like always.

Playfully, she comments back, ❛ Je suis toute mouillée et sexy. ❜ Is he fluent? He's understood her French thus far.

Still, she's a full-cheeked smile as she stares up at him. Her teeth play against her knuckle. Her mouth. Her ever-needing-ever-wanting mouth.

Her foot rubs his naked naked, absentmindedly, Until an ankle latches him at his hip and she tugs inwards. Hide tide engaging a crash to shorelines. She wants to blur the distinction of her and him, him and her.

she looks so beautiful like this, naked and wanton. he almost doesn't want to move from his seat, where he holds a whiskey glass on atop his suited thigh. bringing the glass to his lips chinking against the glass. only clad in suit pants. he'd gazed upon her as she stripped and now he's biding his time, planning what he wants to do first to her.

@petitsdieu said I want to take your cum. ( leon, obvi )

her words have him almost forgoing any foreplay he'd been planning, almost. he has to stay strong. he downs the rest of the whiskey before rising from the leather chair. tapping his fingers on the rim of the glass as he sets it down on the table next to the chair. still-booted feet carry him to where she's positioned on the bed. single digit follows the length of her bare body, up to under her chin. “do you believe you’ve earned it?” cocks his head.

[sharpen-jadescythe]

Operation Kitten, 2

Part Two: Sharpen attempts to match wits with Mathias Shaw, himbo vs. spymaster. And we find out about Agent Kitten!

I trusted my gut again and went with it. I had every right to still be furious about the way things were run in the SI:7 Seals so I really put it to him. “But I haven’t seen these values in the SI:7 Seals. Not anywhere. Even if I did join to help you clean things up or whatever you’re implying. Not within these four walls, not in these barracks, not in any of the instructors, and Elune knows, there wasn’t a decent fool among the other recruits. Those ethics just aren’t there.”

“Mack. Go get us some water.” Mathias Shaw glanced up at the giant Kul Tiran man standing there, glowering at me.

Big Mack shifted his feet, gave a final grunt my way, then he nodded to Mathias and left us alone in the interrogation room.

Mathias arched an eyebrow at me. For a spy guy, he can come across as very phony. Or, dramatic. Perhaps he thinks it’s cute. You know, cleverer than the average bear, making fun of the profession he’s fully versed in? A way for him to keep things light. And so maybe it is cute, okay fine.

Mathias pointed at me again, as if still haggling over that beat down nag he was trying to sell me. “I hope you’re not thirsty, Sharp. You’re not really getting any water—”

“Look. I can follow things at least that far. So what’s up? What’s this big secret you want to tell me, alone?”

“It’s on a need-to-know basis. Big Mack deals with recruits and he’s high up the chain. He does know, but it’s best if he’s not seen as knowing. Locked up in a room for a really long time with a so-called failed recruit? Too obvious. That is, if any of the others are as decent as you proved to be, and they get suspicious.”

“…Okay. What?”

“That, in itself, was the test. We’re looking for fit men and women, for tough people. Yes, that’s true. But we’re also recruiting people who genuinely espouse the values of the Alliance. People who would serve because they care, not necessarily for a paycheck. A lot of stellar men and women apply, yes. And some of them do come from connections that are already inside the Seals, milking us for what we’ll let them get away with while they do important work. However, we can’t ignore that kind of talent, either. If a cousin of King Anduin Wrynn or Jaina Proudmoore walks through these doors, can we really turn away that magical or mental ability running through their veins? But once they get through those doors, we take a closer look. We take people who show us they are far more than pedigree. Only very good men and women. Sharpen, you are such a one.”

I have to admit, Jiroki? I was still completely lost.

Mathias cleared his throat, “So that Dwarf? You know the one, you actually almost blew his cover once, telling Hael he was trying too hard. Hael was our a plant. Hael tried to keep you up with drinking the night before the exam because we asked him to. You wouldn’t fall for it, though. And that death-defying swim across icy waters? Hael can swim like a fish! He was never in any danger, even that shark of his was Hael’s backup.”

“Wait—that was his shark? His hunter pet?!”

Mathias gave a proud smirk, “Ho, yes. And Hael knows a good recruit when he sees one, a fellow hunter. Sharpen, he liked you. He was hoping you’d give in and try to save his life out there in the water—or rather, at least what appeared to be an emergency situation to you. We were really hoping you’d pass that part of the test, that you weren’t like the others. Life first, serving the Light. That is what the Alliance stands for, the greater good. I was willing to make an allowance, that perhaps you were just afraid for your own life. You’d passed all the other tests with flying colors.

“So wait. Milnon Anaar that Draenei? And Felicia Graves, the half mermaid—”

“She’d be a quarter-mermaid then, Sharpen.”

“They both failed the test? But they were superstars. They really, honestly failed?”

“All of them did. Sharpen, everyone in your class got cut.”

I didn’t think, I threw my arms up and let out a celebratory ‘Woop!’ before realizing I’d done it.

Mathias smiled at me. It was the first real smile that I remember seeing on that man.

“Yes, well done. Well done, Agent Sharpen. We recruited from excellent stock. You had the right values all along—we would have preferred that you saved Agent Hael out in the arctic ocean instead of punching him in the face. But then again, you punched me in the face as well and, once I came to, and after I put certain accounts together from those who witnessed things on the beach, it made more sense that you were experiencing a kind of moral outrage. A breach of the ethic code that you yourself live by and that we also live by here at SI:7.”

“…Woah.”

“It may take a few years, and maybe even not that long for the ones using us for fame and fortune to eventually retire. But I’d say our recruitment process that sifts the wheat from the chaff is well in place and functioning. Sharpen, you’re in.”

I thought things over fully this time, “I guess if you’re allowed to punch Mathias Shaw and still be an SI:7 Seal, that is a good sign.”

“If you tell your buddies that’s the way to pass the test, I will punch you where the sun don’t shine, Sharpen Jadescythe, and leave you there.”

I shook my head at him, “Nice to have the honor, but I still don’t like this.”

“Why not?”

“You can’t place all that burden on me, the man to fix your organization. Or other people like me. New recruits, naked to the process. I hit you in the face and screamed that I was a decent person who didn’t want to put up with it, that’s what it took? And all those amoral guys at the top—those are the agents calling the shots. Those are the ones I’ll be dropped off in who-knows-where with, following their orders. This is still a corrupt organization. And I’m supposed to go and risk my life for you? No thank you.”

Mathias scowled rubbed his temples. Jiroki, you and him have that in common, it’s kind of cute. Well, coming from you, it’s cute.

He was gruff, “I can see your sister’s influence coming through. Sharpen, please don’t throw this once-in-a-lifetime chance away? Please, don’t do that. A lot of good can be done.” He growled, “I don’t want to call you a himbo for a second time.”

I stood up right then and there. “I want to leave.”

“And do I have to bring up your questionable connections with the Horde, especially through a certain burlesque troupe that claims to be faction-neutral, but we both know such a thing doesn’t exist.”

“You’re trying to blackmail me?”

“Doing one mission for the Seals is a great way to confirm your loyalty for the Alliance.”

“Walking out of here and not punching you in the face again is another way I can think of! In any case, I’m not on trial here, I didn’t commit any crimes. You can’t hold me here.”

“Unless—”

“If you want to bring up in a Boralus court that I punched you, Mathias Shaw, in the face, and tht you let me? And then you were laid flat out on the beach for several hours before they got the courage to move you? Heck, that’s your call.”

Mathias cursed under his breath. “Sit, please. At least for this last part before you go.”

I did, who knows why. Maybe because Mathias had pulled a file out of the box on the table, and I thought it might be about me. I saw writing in Darnassian on the front.

“You tried to keep a man here by corrupt means. You tried to blackmail me—now isn’t that the very thing we were just talking about? Call me a himbo again if you dare, Mathias. But I listen to my instincts first and foremost. They’ve kept me alive so far, they’ve kept me sane. And I sure sniffed you out, didn’t I? This isn’t a solid organization. It isn’t ethical what you all do here. And don’t give me that crap about how spies need to cross the line sometimes, I’ve heard it all before. Whatever you want to get over on me, it’s not going to work. Now what is that thing?”

“Oh, you’ve heard it before, have you? From your sister?” Mathias passed the dark blue folder over to me. “We do trust you, Sharpen. We want to extend some trust as a starting point. Some months ago, a man came in here just like you did. Another Night Elf man who had the same concerns. I told him, as I’m telling you now, that he could choose his own assignments, work with who he wanted. Especially if he wanted to avoid the corrupt higher-ups. That means you’ll have sort of… grunt work, and none of the real thrilling stuff when working as an SI:7 Seal isn’t a vacation and you’re bound to tangle with personalities, but still—I offered him a clean, good foundation to start with.”

“This his file?”

“Go on, open it. You’ve already signed a nondisclosure contract with us, so I know you won’t blab anything. I’m betting though, that you won’t want to.” Mathias watched me flip through the pages inside, he waited for me to get the gist of it. And that would have been easy to read all over my face. “… Night Elf druid Silas Freedale, one of our more recent and our very best, the excellent swimmer, he went off to Ashenvale to find something extremely important for the Alliance, and indeed for your people.” Shaw crossed his arms again, “But since he never came back, we need someone, someone incorruptible with a real vested interest, to go and find out what happened to him.”

“Is he dead?”

Mathias stared at me.

“Oh! I’m finding that out, then.” I turned a few more pages. “That is, if I even take this assignment. If I even agree to become a Seal.”

“What would you like your codename to be, Raorin?”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“You could keep Sharpen. It already sounds like a mysterious spy name. Or even the name of a whole operation. Or, you could go by Agent Jadescythe.”

I frowned, “Flattery? That, I can appreciate. That’s a little less slimy… A world tree! This is about a new world tree? And it’s called Operation Kitten?”

“That’s right. Because our deep cover catform agent most likely got stuck up the very world tree he was supposed to find. The tree hasn’t even been named yet. We just know that he located it, that he chose to go up. But no details on where or exactly when that was. There were… stories about this new world tree for a long time before Agent Kitten found it, from your own druids.”

“My personal druids?”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to lump all the Night Elves together. But the druids that work in Ashenvale, tireslessly to save it from the Horde ravaging the land, ruining the forest, they have a pretty reliable oral tradition that says there is another world tree growing right on the border between Ashenvale and the Barrens. Do you know how important such a stronghold could become? The raw power of a world tree itself—if we could find it, and fortify it, your people might be safe from the Horde, forever.”

“How can anyone be safe from the Horde forever? Not unless the Horde is neutralized. Is that how you see it? There are plans in this file outlining a full scale assault on the Barrens, extending as far as the Crossroads. And once you control that, it’s not long till Orgrimmar is in a pincer, with Alliance forces on both sides.”

“There go those dangerous Horde leanings again—”

“Did it ever occur to you that peace might be an option? Respecting the Horde’s side of things, while they respect ours? Perhaps a trade agreement so that they cull the right trees and not the wrong ones? Their people need to eat and survive too, you know. And that’s harsh land they took on, in that part of Kalimdor.”

Mathias let out a low whistle, that I could not be more wrong.

I insisted, “And don’t look at me like that, kingdoms have shared borders before. Just look at Ironforge, you know the Dwarf lands? Stormwind and the Dwarves get along fine.”

“I’ve been told the Night Elves, you younger ones, are bound to have these upside down world views.”

“With respect. I am three hundred years old, sir.”

“And you act like you’re twenty. Like the conflicts these past few decades didn’t happen to you, personally, at all. Like you aren’t affected. The Horde is not a sovereign kingdom, Sharpen. It is a mess. It is an invading army that came to Azeroth to destroy life and civilization on this planet for the Burning Legion, reduce it to rubble no different from Outland, or Argus. The Horde did not manage it because the Alliance stood up to them. End of story. And don’t tell me things have changed since Thrall or Vol’jin or damn her—Sylvanas! As if Garrosh wasn’t the big tip off, and you talk about ethics not being present.” Mathias raised his voice at me, he was so frustrated, “We are life and they are death! Do you understand me, Agent Sharpen?”

“And do you understand that if I do take this assignment, I’m not killing any Horde unless I have to. I’m not killing anyone unless I need to.”

“If you go to the last page, you’ll see we’ve actually asked you for the same. We don’t want you to engage any Horde at all if you can help it. We don’t want them finding a world tree of all things. A death that doesn’t look natural gets investigated and then that will, in time, blow our cover. It could take years to gain control of that tree, and we don’t need a bunch of evidence piling up that it exists and the Alliance wants it that badly, in the meantime.”

I read that part, pinned to the end with a paperclip like it was an after thought. ‘No Horde deaths, no Horde engagement’ it said.

Mathias was very impatient now that he knew I’d read it all. “…Well?”

I told him, “I would come home successful, because I would. I’d find this lost feral druid and then the Alliance would take over that World Tree. And then you would use it to cut off the rest of the Barrens, cut off the Tauren from the Orcs finally. Right?”

“What comes next really is up to King Anduin.”

“But you’ll be in his ear like a buzzing hornet, and he’d have to do what you insist is the best way to ‘neutralize the threat’.”

“Look, Sharpen. I don’t see what the problem is? You’re a soldier for the Alliance. You’ve killed Horde before. You know that it’s essential.”

“In a war, in a battle. I say, we could also use this new world tree to prevent more death and suffering. To end conflicts.”

“So you say.”

“World trees are not about destroying. You want it so badly, but you don’t know the first thing about it.”

“You’re wrong. Do I need to state the obvious?” Mathias meant our tree. Our beloved Teldrassil that was lost. He leaned in, his leather gear creaked, “And what do you think the Horde would do, under Warchief Sylvanas, if they found a second world tree so close to their doorstep?”

“More emotional blackmail? That’s incredibly low, considering we Kaldorei never had enough support from the Alliance in Ashenvale in the first place!”

“It isn’t that, Agent Sharpen. But I do want you to see, somewhere between your values and mine, your world where people can play nice with monsters—you’re a hunter, maybe that’s where it comes from? Or perhaps it was because practically your entire family was down near Suramar of all places when Teldrassil was attacked. Which I always found interesting considering your sister’s intelligence work. And your family’s assassin “friend” Alessandre…”

“Don’t go there. Don’t you dare. I faced extinction along with the rest of my people on that day.”

“All I want you to see is that you don’t have a choice, Agent Sharpen. You must get to that world tree first before the Horde does, however King Anduin decides to handle things.”

I crossed my arms, “I also wonder why Tyrande, who has led our people since the beginning and is a walking agent of good, has been for thousands of years, now has to listen to the counsel of a boy Anduin’s age. Or any Human’s age.” I did have a point. Mathias let me have that. “I want the findings shared with Malfurion and Tyrande first, before anything goes to Anduin.”

“No, Sharpen. I can’t promise you that.”

“And you can’t trust that I won’t do it myself, in that case, considering my family connections. It’s amazing you’re not going through Darnassus to start with.” I tossed the file back to him, let some of the papers fly out. One whipped up into his face. I had pretty good aim, I was proud. “Those are my terms, Mathias Shaw.” Then, I thought better of it, “When I am done, I will deliver my mission report in a meeting with King Anduin and Tyrande and Malfurion, all of them in the same room. In Stormwind Keep.”

Mathias shrugged, looked elsewhere. “If I can pull them all together and their schedules are free.”

“For a new world tree? Now who’s playing dumb.”

Mathias scrunched his face up, as he fit all the papers back into the blue file with gold Darnassian lettering. “Fine. You and I don’t need to agree, Sharpen. You just need to be able to take orders. And, it’d raise the profile of this effort anyway, to do an official handover. You have a deal.” Mathias offered his hand to shake.

“I’ll see you in Stormwind when this is all done, then. I’ll hand over Agent… Kitten, then.”

I admit I grinned like a clever cat, myself.

[yesterdaysanswers]

PETE SINFIELD, A CRITICAL POET

(disco expres, Jan 25 1974)

translation:

Pete Sinfield, 30 years old, is one of the most important lyricists in British music. Behind him, a glorious past under the orders of Robert Fripp; currently an amazing job with Emerson, Lake & Palmer; and in the future, a prodigious work that will surely make shine once and for all, the lone star of the fertile talent of this critical poet.

His initial contacts with fame date back to the first King Crimson albums, although the great individual launching has not yet come, due to his good relations with Manticore.

Sinfield's poetry has pessimistic and critical overtones. His rebellion, although quite fashionable, is heading towards a break with that monotony that makes people happy.

“…filing piling on his desk all day

in and out from tray to endless tray;

tea and biscuits secretary's legs

luncheon daydreams over curried eggs.

yes sir, no sir, on the squawking phone,

five o'clock rush-hour exhausted home.

T.V., bedtime and excite the wife

set the clock get up repeat through life…”

(“Mr. 9 ‘till 5” —Premiata F. Marconi)

Its moments of joy seem as short as happiness itself. For this, Sinfield has dispatched with four verses the music of "Celebration", by P.F.M.

“You've spent a long time waiting

for a perfect yesterday

now fill your heart with celebration

for that's love's way”

On many occasions, Pete has confessed to the influence of Bob Dylan at the beginning of his career. Times when saying interesting things was considered a challenge to society. A protest.

Pete Sinfield's work enjoys complete formal and thematic independence. "Now, if I'm in the rock and roll business and I'm making money, I don't see why I shouldn't make a critical comment on the world I live in.”

“…To mount up high you first must sink down low

like the changeable tides of the

Caesars and Pharoahs, prophets and heroes,

poets and hobos, before me and after me all the

painters and dancers, mountainside chancers,

merchants and gamblers, bankers and ramblers,

winners and losers, angels and boozers,

Beatles and Bolans, raindrops and oceans,

kings, pawns and deacons, fainthearts and beacons,

Caesars and Pharoahs…”

(“Still” — Pete Sinfield)

His inspiration is born in the bohemian world of Earl's Court or in the cold of the port or in the little mecca of the Picadilly metro.

“There's a city,

there's a bridge,

ships and barges,

dark rusty hearts,

feed cranes along your banks,

waste and poison.”

(“River of Life” — P.F.M.)

Pete Sinfield's latest compositions correspond to the album "Brain Salad Surgery" by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, his critical lyricism is a kind of warm humanization of the music, increasingly baroque and programmed, of the trio. Sinfield intervenes throughout the "three impressions" of the theme "Karn Evil 9”:

“…No computer stands in my way,

only blood can cancel my pain,

Guardians of a new clear dawn,

let the maps of war be drawn.

Rejoice! Glory is ours!

Our young men have not died in vain,

their graves need no flowers,

the tapes have recorded their names.

I am all there is

Negative! Primitive! Limited! I let you live!

But I gave you life,

What else could you do?

To do what was right

I’m perfect! Are you?”

(“Third impression”)

Sinfield's contribution to E.L.&P. can be decisive. But apart from more or less successful collaborations, his name is already an outstanding part of the generation of rock poets.

[petitsdieu]

With her print concealing the string patina, coffee is an understandable guess. She waits her tea's warm up as he services himself a cup of something himself. She half watches him express the coffee ritual through handwork. He has such a lovely pair. Musicians always did.

His loveletter comment renders her speechless. The microwave talks before she does — yelling its ready, she obliges it to a hush and opens it, takes her beverage and warms her left hand with it. She wants to answer him but can not find the words to accept it. She mugs to the brim and than sips.

❛ You shined. I enjoyed watching the performer alight the moment he, you, stepped on stage. ❜ The truest art.

He returns warmly her one-armed hug, his room's door still opened onto the empty, fluorescent hall. "Nay," admits he bashfully, and the afterstink of her coffee pulls another craving upon him. The latch of the closing door is merely another bow onto this sacred Evening. "'Twere a beauteous rite better than anything I hath dreamed. Thou were exquisite," shares he warmly.

"Magnifique sur scène comme une nymphe fraîchement sortie de la rivière," completes he, and Roland laughs and goes for his own little coffeemaker, a cheap thing with tiny cups of sealed brew instead of messy grounds. "Sublime, thine notes," awes Roland, fiddling with the coffeemaker.

[kindcstguardian]

The art of disguise is             — knowing how to hide in plain sight.

Name. ( 한주민 )   Han Jumin

Nickname. Ice Prince, Cat Lover

Age. Korean: 24 | International: 23

Star sign. Libra  ( October 5th )

Religion. Christian  ( brought up; former )

Sexual Orientation. Pansexual

Languages. Korean, Italian, Spanish, French, English & Arabic.

Height. 184 cm

Weight. 78 kg

Specialty. Acting, rehearsing, paperwork

Likes. Elizabeth the 2rd, reading, wine-tasting, walking

Dislikes. Big dogs, his father, tight schedules, stalkers

GENERAL DESCRIPTION.

Heir of the C&R International Company as well as the face of it, Han Jumin is widely known as the 'Ice Prince' due to being devoid of emotions everywhere else except in stage. .

BACKGROUND.

   Still born heir of C&R International Company, he comes from a divorce caused by his womanizer father and, for a while, the man contemplated how lonely he felt raising a child on his own but that soon ended when he got married again.    It's from childhood that he started to suppress emotions, his anger towards his father, the pity towards his mother, the anxiety he felt when responsibilities would be shoved at him and expected to be fulfilled with no mistakes—he started to suppress it all to the point of becoming numb.    V, his best friend, had recommended him taking acting classes when in middle school, as a way to vent his emotions—and it worked, marvelously. His father, too, used this to his advantage ( having the upper hand ) and made Jumin take part of plays and musicals, to give an image of C&R that showed that they could truly cover all fields to satisfy people's needs.

VERSES.

MAIN VERSE.

TAG.  「 V000 ; Jumin  ／ ᴵᵗ’ˢ ᵉᵃˢʸ ᵗᵒ ᵇᵉᶜᵒᵐᵉ ᶜᵃʳᵉˡᵉˢˢ ᵗᵒ ᵗʰᵒˢᵉ ᶜˡᵒˢᵉ ᵗᵒ ʸᵒᵘ 」

Pre-meeting MC.

   His life is quite stressful therefore he surrounds his everyday with work, every possible role he can take—he’ll do it, main, extra, anything will do just not to think. Jumin Han has been labeled as a workaholic and they are right, but no one complains because even if he does fill his schedule to a madness point, it’s always impeccable without a single mistake done.    That’s how much he’s devoted to acting and taking the role, the life of another character and feeling it as if it were his own. Whether it’s worse, better or something bittersweet—directors have the highest expectations out of him, and Jumin never disappoints.

MEETING MC VERSE.

TAG.  「 001 ; Jumin  ／ ᴼⁿᵉ ᵐᵘˢᵗ ᵇᵉ ᶜᵃᵘᵗⁱᵒᵘˢ ᵒᶠ ᵗʰᵉ ⁱⁿᶠᵒʳᵐᵃᵗⁱᵒⁿ ᵒᵇᵗᵃⁱⁿᵉᵈ ᵗʰʳᵒᵘᵍʰ ˢᵒᶜⁱᵃˡ ᵐᵉᵈⁱᵃ 」

   Certainly, a new face brought a certain refreshing touch to his life despite under what circumstances they have joined the RFA. Someone so caring and understanding, it was nice to have such a company.    Their personality was nice too, making Jumin trust them with ease regardless of not showing it. Of course, the RFA was divided into those who trusted and those who did not because of Rika’s words: she did trust them, which proved to be enough for Jumin and others.

PRE- V’S DEATH VERSE.

TAG.  「 002 ; Jumin  ／ ᵉᵛᵉʳʸᵈᵃʸ ⁱˢ ᵃ ʲᵒʸᶠᵘˡ ᵐᵉᵐᵒʳʸ ⁱ ᵗʳᵉᵃˢᵘʳᵉ 」

   Jumin is often seen smiling even after practice in the studio, he’s a content man who gets to hang out as often as he can with his best and childhood friend—someone he loves deeply and means the world for him to the point that a meeting everyday is a must: in his tight schedule he, somehow, manages to make an hour or even thirty minutes work.    He has an unhealthy dependable relationship with V that neither had quite realized for he’s attached to him. Both depend on each other’s mood and situations to an extent. It’s safe to assume V is the reason Jumin is unable to connect with anyone emotionally wise speaking due himself having emotions towards V that are unclear for him.

AFTER V’S DEATH VERSE.

TAG.  「 003 ; Jumin ／ ʷʰᵉʳᵉ ⁱˢ ᵗʰᵉ ˢᵘⁿ ?  ᶠᵒʳ ⁱᵗˢ ᵈᵃʳᵏⁿᵉˢˢ ⁱˢ ᵇˡⁱⁿᵈⁱⁿᵍ ᵐᵉ 」

   After V died and Rika had to take care of the RFA, Jumin had changed drastically and for the worst.    He had locked himself within his penthouse, always in the floor that is his place to live—never leaving, everyday losing weight and will to live despite maids leaving food inside his room and Elizabeth the 3rd being by his side.    Jumin has severe depression and seems unable to move on, went as far as to quit acting. Calling it a hiatus and ditching everything he was currently working on, his father paying the price for everything which made him utterly mad but even a womanizer and easy to brainwash man like his father could understand what and who V meant to Jumin.

BAD ENDING VERSE.

TAG.  「 004 ; Jumin ／ ᴵ ᵍᵘᵉˢˢ ⁱᶠ ᴵ'ᵐ ⁿᵒᵗ ᵒᶠ ᵘˢᵉ ᵍᵒ ᵃʰᵉᵃᵈ ʸᵒᵘ ᶜᵃⁿ ᶜᵘᵗ ᵐᵉ ˡᵒᵒˢᵉ 」

   Failing to make Jumin slow down with his jobs and taking care of himself, this leads for him to increase his unhealthy coping mechanisms much like drinking copious amounts of alcohol and smoking as if his life depended on it.    His image is starting to rotten despite his former meticulous care since, once again, he can’t bring himself to care about anything despite surviving and barely covering everyday needs like eating and sleep—choosing to ditch his dream of being an actor; he becomes the president of C&R International and is a copy of his father. A womanizer, trying to fill the emptiness and broken being that MC has left for an excuse of a human being.    Except, he stirs much more scandal due to dating men as well.

BAD RELATIONSHIP VERSE.

TAG.  「 005 ; Jumin ／ ᴬⁿᵈ ˢᵒᵐᵉᵗⁱᵐᵉˢ ʸᵒᵘ ˢᵉᵉ ᵉᵛᵉʳʸᵗʰⁱⁿᵍ ʸᵒᵘ ʷⁱˢʰ ʸᵒᵘ ʰᵃᵈ 」

   Failing to properly show how love works and to help him move on from V’s death, causes Jumin to become dependable of MC much like he was of V.    He doesn’t go as far as to assume they are the same person, but he can’t live a day without MC by their side. Threatening to end it all if they do leave him alone because he can’t afford to feel that emptiness again, because no one else can that empty hole within his chest, where his heart is supposed to be.

MINT EYE VERSE.

TAG.  「 006 ; Jumin ／ ᵀᵉˡˡⁱⁿᵍ ᵃˡˡ ʸᵒᵘʳ ˡⁱᵉˢ ˡⁱᵏᵉ ˢᵉᶜᵒⁿᵈ ⁿᵃᵗᵘʳᵉ, ᵇʸ ᵗʰᵉ ʷᵃʸ, ʷʰᵃᵗ ᵗʰᵉ ʰᵉˡˡ ᵃʳᵉ ᵐᵒʳᵃˡˢ 」

   Figuring out V had never been dead but had become a cult leader made him go mad, hysterically laughing it off and ditching it all: his life, future, RFA.    The man who was once known as Han Jumin, recognized actor for his talent and fame due being an heir no longer existed—tons of rumors that he had committed suicide, been kidnapped or murdered due venomous glares spread everywhere. His father put a reward for his son to be found dead or alive but it would be impossible since he had ceased to exist.    Brainwashed and acting as a loyal dog to V, his once grey eyes had been turned to mint and he’s the one operating in the shadows like some sort of hitman for V in case any follower misbehaved or the RFA tried to break into the mansion.ba.

ACCIDENT / AMNESIA VERSE.

TAG.  「 007 ; Jumin ／ ᴵ ᶜᵒᵘˡᵈ ʰᵃᵛᵉ ˢʷᵒʳⁿ ᴵ ˢᵃʷ ᵃ ˡⁱᵍʰᵗ ᶜᵒᵐⁱⁿᵍ ᵒⁿ 」

   Both Driver Kim and himself had been involved in an accident of three cars and a truck; his driver had died before the ambulance had arrived but Jumin had barely made it.    Once he was taken to the hospital and everything that could be done, was done—it took three months for him to wake up with no memories of whom he was, to begin with.    Yet, oddly enough, he could recall the faces of the RFA members and has labeled as important—unlike his father, whom he loved deeply, disliked seeing him cry but could not recall any memory of him acting as family or support in any way.

IDOL VERSE.

TAG.  「 008 ; Jumin ／ ᶠᵉᵉˡ ˡⁱᵏᵉ ᵗʰᵉ ʷᵒʳˢᵗ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉᶠᵒʳᵉ ᶜʳᵘˢʰ ᵗʰᵉᵐ ʷⁱᵗʰ ʸᵒᵘʳ ᵇᵉˢᵗ 」

   Dancing, having a radio-show, appearing on reality and cooking shows, singing on stage and being cheered on but, more importantly, acting—how happier could he be?    This time around, his connection to the RFA is complicated given he doesn’t have that much time to interact with them. Little to nothing and has become an invisible presence like Rika herself has.    But Jumin adores working this much, except this time he does put limits on himself given he’s not part of a unit and is a single.

WRECK IT, RALPH VERSE.

TAG.  「 009 ; Jumin  ／  」

Tba.

MUTANT / FOR CROSSOVERS WITHHEROES,ETC. VERSE.

TAG.  「 010 ; Jumin  ／ ᴵᵗ'ˢ ᵉˢˢᵉⁿᵗⁱᵃˡ ᵗᵒ ᵏᵉᵉᵖ ᵃ ˡᵉᵛᵉˡ ʰᵉᵃᵈ ʷʰᵉⁿ ᶜⁱʳᶜᵘᵐˢᵗᵃⁿᶜᵉˢ ᶜʰᵃⁿᵍᵉ ʳᵃᵖⁱᵈˡʸ 」

   A drunk man and a mother who is little known about to nothing, Han Jumin is a product of that combination.    Except when growing up, and seeing how much the pressure was starting to be put on his shoulders—he wished there were more of him. Unaware that he was a mutant himself due his mother’s DNA, what he said was actually his power.    He could multiply himself and give them orders since they have a limited free will—sometimes, he abuses of this but no one in the media needs to figure this out or else he’d be in problems.ba.

SELF-AWARE VERSE.

TAG.  「 011 ; Jumin  ／ ᴱᵛᵉʳʸᵒⁿᵉ ᵐᵃᵏᵉˢ ᵗʰᵉⁱʳ ᵒʷⁿ  ‘ᶜʰᵒⁱᶜᵉˢ’ 」

# 694512919

   Mystic Messenger game was corrupted when a virus corrupted the device of the user and therefore many files along with it, causing Jumin to become aware that he is a game—a dating simulator game with no choices in his own fate, the choices the player made where the ones that decided whether he’d earn a good or a miserable life.    Offended by this, and partially enraged, he’s trying to pair up with the other one character who knew about this all along to make everyone else become free themselves.ba.

DREAM DADDY VERSE.

TAG.  「 012 ; Jumin  ／ ᶠᵃⁱʳ ᵗʳᵃᵈᵉ, ᵗʰᵉ ʷᵒʳᵈˢ ᴵ ᵐᵘˢᵗ ᶜᵃʳᵛᵉ ⁱⁿᵗᵒ ᵐʸ ʰᵉᵃʳᵗ ᵃˢ ᵃ ᵇᵘˢⁱⁿᵉˢˢᵐᵃⁿ 」

   In this verse, he had been once a married man and is currently in his late 30′s.    After his father’s retirement and him assuming his role of heir, therefore quitting acting his only passion, Jumin has been taking care of C&R International but, even someone like him, needs a vacation.    Plus, he had a child, Amanda, to raise on his own after his beloved one has passed away due an illness. Without asking Amanda who did protest without much effort and just for the sake of it, he left things in charge of his second hand and went on a vacation to Maple Bay, a quiet and small town.    A nice and tranquil change of pace.ba.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE VERSE.

TAG.  「 013 ; Jumin  ／ ᴴᵘᵐᵃⁿ'ˢ ᵖˢʸᶜʰᵒˡᵒᵍʸ ˢᵗᵃᵗᵉ ⁱˢ ᵛᵉʳʸ ᶜᵒᵐᵖˡᵉˣᵉᵈ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵖᵉʳᵖˡᵉˣᵉᵈ 」

Android /  694512919

   Cheritz is a world-known company that creates androids for people as companions—friends, assistants, lovers included.    Han Jumin is one of the many popular ones, however, the alternative version didn’t gain much popularity as the original one with a background story and everything settled if one wished to roleplay with it. Thus, the project of the alternative was stopped much to the few fans dismay that had ordered it but only a small amount of people received their Han Jumin, Ice Prince.

LOVESICK VERSE.

TAG.  「 014 ; Jumin  ／ ᴬˡʷᵃʸˢ ˢᵗᵃⁿᵈ ˢᵗʳᵃⁱᵍʰᵗ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵗᵃˡˡ, ᵐʸ ᶠᵃᵗʰᵉʳ'ˢ ʷᵒʳᵈˢ 」

Theatre professor.

Tba.

? VERSE.

TAG.  「 0? ; Jumin  ／  」

Tba.

TAGS.

「 Han Jumin ／ ᴹⁱʳʳᵒʳ ⁱⁿ ᵗʰᵉ ʷᵃˡˡ, ᶜᵃⁿ ʸᵒᵘ ᵗᵉˡˡ ᵐᵉ ʷʰᵒ ᴵ ᵃᵐ ? 」

「 Han Jumin ／ INQUIRY」

「 Han Jumin ／ MUSINGS 」

「 Han Jumin ／ VISAGE 」

「 Han Jumin ／ MANNERISMS 」

「 Han Jumin ／ HEADCANON 」

「 Han Jumin ／ INTROSPECTION」

「 Han Jumin ／ ROMANCE 」

「 Han Jumin ／ CRACK 」

RELATIONSHIPS.

✘ ·  ♡（   ）

[fmdluna]

[bobby caldwell vc] i bet you’ve wondered where i’ve been!! hi my kings, queens, and in-betweens!! i’m so super excited to be here and present to you my kid, miss moon micha, who is also known as luna of wish!! if you don’t know me, my name is jada, and this is my second go at bringing this mess of a muse to the famed-verse!! i’m back with tons of refreshed inspiration, happiness, and love to give to you all!! so i’m super excited to establish some new connections as well as revive new ones!! i’ve missed this roleplay dearly and am happy to be back, so if you’d like to plot with me please like this and i’d be more than happy to start something up with our characters!! i’ve got discord if youd like it, but ngl i’m the worst at getting back to you. and here’s her plots, profiles, and bio if you’d like!! you know how all that goes, trivia under the cut as well!!

as a preface this whole thing will be v casual because i cba

seoul born & bred, an only child, established in 1998!!

so basically her mother comes from a pretty small town but her father’s from seoul so she started getting that coin!! 

anyways she was raised real uppity, fancy house private schools & all that. but she also lived kind of like a mixed family because her dad was borderline obsessed with western culture so he was always like speak english!! eat american food!! listen to american music!! and she would always be taken on trips to paris france usa and shit but she really didn’t care she just wanted to be at home tbh

her mom is the opposite, always urging her to know her culture & cooking her homemade food and belting all her ballads w/micha. it was a lot less forceful which is part of the reason she prefers her mom and also why she doesn’t have that much of an urge to learn english or travel to other countries & all that

anyways life went on as normal until around middle school where she discovered kpop!! this was made canon last time but i wanted to revisit it!! it sounds stupid but was v influential because it a.) made her a knight stan lol and it b.) showed her the potential of becoming an idol as a career c.) opened her up to the kpop genre!! 

you may think i’m joking but the only music she was ever exposed to was her parent’s taste so it definitely was a change for her

anyways that phase was just spent being a real cringy stan but anyways proceed

 things seem to be okay until money seems to be the only topic of her parent’s conversations - how they’ll get it, how much was lost, all that. her dad’s not making as much as he once was but is still spending like he is, her mom thinks they should downgrade in favor of affordability. the result?? messy messy divorce micha is put in the middle of. 

[tw in brackets: substance abuse & verbal abuse!! i’ll make this quick just in case people are uncomfy with strong mentions of these things!! but basically within the stress her dad found himself caught up in drugs and alcohol and it was just a mess. while he was still his normal charismatic self to others, behind closed doors he got really harsh and used really degrading speech towards them over the span of like....a year.] triggering content ends here!

so - how does this relate to micha?? this is a big reason she’s so “justice for all!! women deserve rights!! we’re powerful!!” because she saw & endured all the shit that her dad put them through and also saw how they got out of it. so now she really feels like being strong and powerful is the only way to compensate for those years that she felt weak.

but!! sad times over. anyways, after dealing with all that her mom and her decided that they’d had enough and moved to their own apartment and her mother filed for divorce. there life was a lot simpler but it was happier, because her father wasn’t in the picture. this is also why micha prefers the simplistic life and hates people who are materialistic now!!

anyways - wrapping this up because it’s 10 and i really need to post my intro lmao.

discovered her love for music!! her and her mom used to sing all the time and she loved it and was like huh maybe i should actually do this music stuff

then!! she joined dimensions for a year as a trainee, hated it, and left. thought she was done with being an idol, then got scouted by bc!! was super super excited, joined & then was a trainee for three years until her debut!!

that whole time she was mad because she felt like she was just being bounced around although she was working hard. a big big reason she’s unsatisfied with being in wish is because she thinks it wasn’t really fitting for her and they just kind of plopped her in there because they didn’t know where else to put her

but now we’re here!! she’s....very Extra. deems herself (and kind of is tbh) one of the least favorite members of wish, more in terms of the company than anything. because she’s very outspoken and speaks against issues when she sees them!!

the reason she’s like this is that she had behaved for all of training & like 2 years into wish’s career but when she realized that wasn’t getting her anywhere and her other member’s started getting opportunities and she didn’t she started acting out (because throwing tantrums makes things better!!)

she just wants a solo and it’s not happening rip

but the thing is she’s such an angel on stage and makes the money she’s supposed to for them so i mean she’s walking on thin ice but she’s not doing enough to get herself fired you know what i mean

as for her around wish, she’s a bit of a grandma?? always telling wish to hush & sit down somewhere, but also can’t be bothered to actually be their mom and take care of them lmao.

as for her public image, she’s known to be a cutesy-badass type?? because she’s real cute visually but like when her little rap parts get on the powerful woman pops out

which is fine,,, but being cute is exhausting and she’s tired and wants girl crush!!

also loves all women everywhere that’s very important

uHhh i don’t know what else to say i’ll add more later but!! she does like doing asmr videos and watching them so if you want muses to share recs!! she’s your girl!!

idk what i’m doing or what else to say but yes i’ll rant all about her in ims if you want she’s a mess ok

[hope-for-olicity]

Fabulous Olicity Fanfic Friday - September 28th, 2018

Happy Friday! So this is my attempt to both thank awesome fanfic writers for their amazing work and offer my recommendations to anyone who is interested. Here are the fantastic fanfic stories I read this week! They are posted in the order I read them.

A Novel Beginning multi-chapter WIP by @vaelisamaza - Olicity AU, Felicity runs her own Tech shop and writes romance novel reviews for her sister's website, Oliver comes in for computer help and it's all getting very exciting!! SQUEE!!!!  https://archiveofourown.org/works/15800145/chapters/36771384

Angel multi-chapter WIP by @it-was-a-red-heeler - Oliver encounters a stripper by the name of Angel and is blown away. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15961898/chapters/37227686#workskin

The Paths We Take multi-chapter Complete by griever11 - Rival CEOs AU. Felicity Smoak, CEO and founder of her own company, is trying to prove herself in the cutthroat world of the technology industry among the other bigwigs in the game. Oliver Queen, recently back from the dead is trying to prove to the world that he's no longer the same man-child who went down on the Queen's Gambit and is finally worthy of his family's legacy. Both equally formidable names in the corporate world. And both with a long, complicated history with each other that no one but themselves are privy to. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15314133/chapters/35530296

From Somewhere Within multi-chapter WIP by @smoaking-greenarrow - Their connection has always felt natural to them, safe and secure. But others tend to fear what they don’t understand, and as far as their enemies are concerned, the world isn’t ready to accept two people who can know each other the way that Oliver and Felicity do. https://archiveofourown.org/works/16009244/chapters/37356257

I Have a Right by who_seeks_shall_find - William's friends defend William when a group of older kids harass him in a cafe. https://archiveofourown.org/works/16011746

The Hardest Target multi-chapter by @laurabelle2930 - When Felicity was a child her father developed an AI program that eventually brought their family fame and fortune. As she grew her father faded away his business grew and their bond shattered. After a car accident almost got her best friend Sara Lance killed Felicity's father made a choice...this choice would radically alter the course of her life. Now 5 years after the plane crash that killed her father and left her stranded she's come home to defeat the enemies her father's work created. The target is H.I.V.E's gun for hire, his name is unknown but his skills are deadly. He works for Damian Darkh who's allied with the one and only Quentin Lance Starlings chief of police. The only problem with her brand new life is Oliver Queen. He feels foreign yet familiar at the same time. She's drawn to him as he is to her but the question is why? What brings them together and what could potentially tear them apart? AMAZING!! http://archiveofourown.org/works/5745787/chapters/13240654

The Proposal multi-chapter WIP by @sunshineolicity - When Felicity is threatened with deportation, she lies about being engaged to her boss, Oliver Queen. She doesn't expect him to agree to marry her but they're caught up in family parties and wedding plans before she knows it. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11301480/chapters/25287291

P.S. Hong Kong: Was it Real?!? multi-chapter WIP by @cruzrogue for Olicity trope-tastic award: Fake Marriage - This is off season 3 Flashbacks. When Tommy goes to Hong Kong he doesn’t go alone he takes his friend Felicity as the best information system being to help him locate Oliver Queen. Tommy may leave empty handed but Felicity gets to be a bride… https://archiveofourown.org/works/15025697/chapters/34832747

Rebels Connected multi-chapter WIP by @mindramblingsfics - Felicity Smoak is an escaped mutant on the run. Oliver Queen, leader of an underground safe house for mutants to call home comes to her rescue. Everything changes once he brings her into the organization and his life. https://archiveofourown.org/works/16014089/chapters/37369784

If I Tremble multi-chapter WIP by @smoaking-greenarrow - A collection of prompts and ficlets, with all the smut! Olicity sexy times are the best times. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15409122/chapters/35762643

Life's All About Changes multi-chapter WIP by Crazyreader2468 - After agreeing to plead guilty to being the Green Arrow in order to get FBI assistance in capturing Diaz, Oliver finds himself in a supermax, a maximum security federal prison, serving a life sentence. As he struggles to become accustomed to life in prison, his family, friends, and teammates struggle to live without him, as well as continually attempting to find a way to get him pardoned. Will they succeed in obtaining a pardon and will Oliver survive until they do? Mostly AU from right before the ending of episode 6 x 22 and after most of 6 x 23. https://archiveofourown.org/works/14936172

Pieces of Always multi-chapter WIP by @so-caffeinated and @dust2dust34 - Life continues after Forever is Composed of Nows. Ongoing non-linear collection of family moments for the Queens. http://archiveofourown.org/works/8220479/chapters/18840356

The Reason multi-chapter WIP by flipflops - Oliver is an Alpha and Felicity is an Omega....circumstances lead Oliver to find this out and a very bad time or maybe very good time... https://archiveofourown.org/works/15012431

Re-Airrow Episode 2x04 by @lostolicityscenes - Three fill in the blank scenes for the episode. The first one takes place before the episode events basically deepening the bond between Oliver and Felicity and setting up the flirty flirt at the end of the episode. The second scene is a Delicity scene that takes place after the revelation that Sara is alive, expanding on Felicity’s feelings of hurt and confusion. The last scene takes place before the flirty Olicity scene in the episode. I wanted to show they talked before that scene to explain her change in attitude as well as an excuse to show Oliver’s increasing reliance on her advice. https://lostolicityscenes.tumblr.com/post/178194053416/re-airrow-episode-2x04

10 Rules of Rebounding multi-chapter WIP by @smkkbert - Oliver and Felicity start a sex relationship as rebounds for each other. What’s supposed to be just fun, soon gets complicated when it turns out that their work lives collide, Robert Queen fears their sexual relationship could threaten his company and an ex comes back into the play. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15403404/chapters/35749620

Home To You multi-chapter WIP by @the-shy-and-anxious-fangirl - Oliver Queen has never done what his family expected of him. He took a gap year after high school instead of going to college right away. He quit his fraternity sophomore year to join the student newspaper, switching his major from business to journalism. He became a photojournalist for a wire service instead of taking a place at Queen Consolidated. He went missing after six months instead of coming home for his sister’s twenty-first birthday. He survived five years of captivity in a war zone when everyone thought he was dead. He came home. But home didn’t have a place for him in it anymore. His parents were both dead, casualties of their own mistakes and a city they had turned against them. His sister was all grown up, the CEO of Queen Consolidated with a fiancé and a dog and a life of her own. Oliver didn’t belong in his old life, but there was nowhere else for him to go. He was a man without a home, without any way of finding one, until he stopped by the IT department of his sister’s company to get files off an old, battered memory card, and found a woman with curly blonde hair and bright, intelligent eyes chewing on a bright red pen and swearing at a computer screen. https://archiveofourown.org/works/12613188/chapters/28734552

Arrow Out of Context: "You can call me nothing" Buried Alive Part 1 multi-chapter WIP by @smoaking-greenarrow - "John" and "My friends call me Dig, you should call me nothing."https://archiveofourown.org/works/14957309/chapters/37421213

Arrow Out of Context multi-chapter WIP by @smoaking-greenarrow - "I've already seen you shirtless. Multiple times. Shirtless all the time" https://archiveofourown.org/works/14957309/chapters/37541849#workskin

Queen vs Queen multi-chapter WIP by @muslimsmoak - Felicity Mignonette Renaldi Smoak has been handling being a princess pretty well so far. After all, she did only find out at the ripe young age of 15. Now, she is 21 and ready to take the throne of Genovia after being under the tutelage of her aunt. But there’s only one thing in her way, wait, actually two. Two things in her way: Oliver Queen, the hot young bachelor she danced with the night of her homecoming ball, who neglected to mention that he’s after her crown alongside his uncle Malcolm Merlyn, and the fact that she has to marry within 30 days if she wants to be Queen. Ray Palmer, Duke of Keystone is sweet, sensitive, intelligent and kind and seems like the perfect choice. But marrying and falling in love are two different things. A Princess Diaries AU  https://archiveofourown.org/works/15808065/chapters/36794172

Back to Start multi-chapter WIP by @laurabelle2930 - Felicity left home almost ten years ago. She missed her family, the land that she'd always felt bonded to and, the boy who was not only her best friend but, also her true love. Now with the help of her family she's about to see if the boy she left behind is still just as in love with as she still is with him. https://archiveofourown.org/works/16043321/chapters/37451873

Fragments multi-chapter WIP by @alexiablackbriar13 - A collection of various arrow and olicity ficlets from my drafts folder, partially completed. some AU, some canon related. many related to established verses I've created, although do not need to read those verses to read these fics. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15906561/chapters/37075926

Unexpected Meeting or Fate? multi-chapter WIP by CaptainSammyAngel - Since she was a little girl, Felicity Smoak has been apart of the League of Assassins. While Oliver Queen for the past six months has been the CEO of Queen Consolidated and trying to keep it afloat. When the League decides to start the hunt of Malcolm Merlyn in the last place he was located, two people will meet but circumstances and pasts will make it difficult for them to be together. Will they find a way or will they be torn apart? https://archiveofourown.org/works/15007139/chapters/34783916

The Queen's Mage multi-chapter WIP by @the-shy-and-anxious-fangirl - Words have power, and mages, those with the aptitude to draw on that power, are few in number. Thus, their services are highly sought after by anyone who has exhausted all mundane means of solving whatever problem is plaguing them. Felicity is reminded of this fact the hard way when she is hired by Moira Queen, the Lady Starling, to find and return to her son Oliver, who fled his family home five years ago following the death of his father. With a threat hanging over her should she return without Robert Queen's heir, Felicity begins her search. When she finds Oliver, and ends up joining his vigilante crusade while she waits for him to decide whether to return home, the last thing she expects to do is fall in love with him. https://archiveofourown.org/works/14617068/chapters/33781269

Re-airrow: Episode 2x05 by @lostolicityscenes - This scene takes place right before the above scene at the top of the episode. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory, dialogue that appears side by side takes place at the same time. Rest is below the cut. https://lostolicityscenes.tumblr.com/post/178325265428/re-airrow-episode-2x05 

Fear Wakes You Up multi-chapter WIP by @smoakmonster - In a world divided into factions, being Divergent means certain death. For years, Oliver has hidden his terrible secrets–masking his own Divergence within the chaos of Dauntless, covering up the sins of his father’s past that mark his body beneath tattoos, and pushing himself to overcome his nightmares through endless simulations. He’s biding his time until he can somehow save his sister back in Abnegation. But everything changes the day a new batch of transfers arrive. The day he meets her. https://archiveofourown.org/works/16058117/chapters/37490819

Deep Water multi-chapter WIP by @it-was-a-red-heeler - A Season 7 Speculation fic. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15081917/chapters/34968092

Hard To Find Love multi-chapter WIP by Mellowyellowdiamonds - Through a tragic twist of fate Felicity finds herself left with an orphaned young William Clayton. Keeping her promise to her friend, Felicity raises William diligently, loving him as if he were her own child, only to have Moira Queen storm into their lives several years later demanding custody of her grandson. Locked in a war with Moira Queen, things get complicated when Felicity finds herself developing unwanted feelings for William's biological father, Oliver Queen. At the same time she must try to manage her meddling 13 year old son, who has it in his head that if Felicity would just cooperate and fall for his father, everything would be right in the world. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15941786/chapters/37173917

A Series of Dates multi-chapter Complete by @alexiablackbriar13 - Oliver Queen is in love with Felicity Smoak. Felicity Smoak is in love with Oliver Queen. It takes four dates, and the help of Oliver's loyal service dog, Hunter, for them to realise that they're forever destined to be something more than just friends. https://archiveofourown.org/works/13130304/chapters/30036912

Time for a Story multi-chapter WIP by @smkkbert - This fic shows Olicity and their life as a (married) couple with family. Although Olicity (and their kids) are the protagonists, other characters of Arrow and Flash make appearances. YOU NEED THIS STORY IN YOUR LIFE. http://archiveofourown.org/works/3912157/chapters/8757172

// @emmaamelia95 // @mel-loves-all // @oliverfel4 // @green-arrows-of-karamel // @coal000 // @miriam1779 // @memcjo// @captainolicitysbedroom // @tdgal1 // @spaztronautwriter // @lalawo1// @quiveringbunny // @wrongshipper // @thebookjumper // @vaelisamaza // @myhauntedblacksoul // @lovelycssefan // @laurabelle2930 //

[petitsdieu]

Capillaries blooming, just a pulse-reach, just a pulse-twitch under his restrained sampling.

❛ I enjoy it. ❜ She guides her voice any vocal hobbyist would; with skilled intent, un-thoughted and nature-anew. She hushes the confession and feels her meanest feeling so. The torture, the denying, the pulling him along, the bloodLust — one could be gentle and call it courting.

He'll like the taste of her blood too much and her? She likes the taste of want. Of the raw animal need. Though she could not tell you why she enjoys it. She could only say that she simply does.

Perhaps she fears ruining herself, too.

                   ⊱ i fear i'll ruin you. jasim releases an amused huff of breath, the almost-there chuckle that ghosts along her skin, before he shakes his head—a silent declaration that he deems the answer unsatisfactory.

                   of course he does, when his hunger is so palpable, emanating from him in a miasma of pure need. fervid bloodlust that forces his hand, so he believes, and inches him closer to her throat all over again. a kiss this time, instead of his teeth.

                   ❝ what is left in me for you to ruin? ❞ it's nearly melancholic, the way he says it, however he doesn't linger there for long. ❝ i'll take my chances. ❞ ⊰

[aili]

Valentine’s Day Music Newlsetter 2019!

Welcome to the 13th Music Newsletter! Short intro for the newbies - I love music. I love sharing music with other people. In college I started a "music newsletter" email with some playlists (aka mixtapes) I've made and some song/band recommendations. Why Valentine's Day? Because I think this day should be about love in many ways - including love for music!

That brings us to today. The first Valentine's Day mixtape I put together was actually a physical mix CD that I mailed to my home friends while I was away at college. That was in 2008 (11 years ago!). A lot has changed since then, but my love of music has not. While I feel sometimes too busy or too old or too out of touch to know what I'm even talking about, I hope you'll get some enjoyment out of this - as much as I've been enjoying listening to these songs and picking them for you! 

*Click here to download Valentine's Day 2019 mixtape!

Click here to play Valentine's Day 2019 on Spotify!

*Note that the file downloads as a zip file, double clicking on it to open it up should give you the individual songs. Then move the songs to iTunes into a playlist!

1.) "Happy Unhappy" - The Beths New Zealand indie rockers The Beths debut album, Future Me Hates Me, is full of catchy, energetic sad-twinged songs. This song feels like it could have come out back in the 00s when we had to find new music by reading blogs and actually downloading MP3s - it feels closer to the Garden State soundtrack era of indie than the recent moody electronic vibe. It's a lot of fun! Sounds like Courtney Barnett by way of The Wombats, with a splash of Los Campesinos.

2.) “City Looks Pretty” - Courtney Barnett Courtney’s 2018 album “Tell Me How You Really Feel” is only her second studio album, but somehow it feels like she’s been around forever. The album features a “fuller” sound and more production, which may appear dulled next to 2015’s “Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit.” However, I feel excited by Courtney exploring a more mature sound and think it accurately reflects the albums depressive theme. “Sometimes I get mad / it’s not all that bad” is sung with a definite apathy compared to her shout-singing past record. As the bridge settles in, Courtney captures the depression symptom of lack of interest in things you used to enjoy. The city looks pretty when you’ve been stuck inside isolated for two weeks. 3.) “Screwed” - Janelle Monáe feat. Zoë Kravitz Janelle’s 2018 album “Dirty Computer” is an anthology of songs (and truly, poetry) that tell of reckoning with being a queer woman of color in an oppressive, violent society. It’s an incredibly personal album with her fans in mind - “I want young girls, young boys, nonbinary, gay, straight, queer people who are having a hard time dealing with their sexuality, dealing with feeling ostracized or bullied for just being their unique selves, to know that I see you. This album is for you. Be proud.” (Rolling Stone, 2018). My favorite part of this song is “See, everything is sex / except sex / which is power / you know power is just sex / now ask yourself who’s screwing you.”

4.) "BAGDAD - Cap.7: Liturgia" - Rosalía 25-year-old Rosalía Vila Tobella from Catalonia has an excellent 2018 album El Mal Querer. The album combines traditional flamenco with modern R&B. The album is a story of love and heartbreak over the course of 11 chapters/songs. This particular one might sound familiar due to the sampling of Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me A River."

5.) "Gun" - St. Lucia St. Lucia's first release off of their 2018 album Hyperion caught my attention with its connection to a more traditional rock sound and the heavy-hitting, one-word title. The production and sound almost reminds me of Oasis or U2. Turns out that the album is indeed produced by someone who worked on records with PJ Harvey, Depeche Mode, and U2. In interviews, Jean-Philip Grobler talks about how this song is generally about both gun control and power. "You said you wanted to feel a gun in your hands" in Verse 1 transforms to "You said you wanted to feel the blood in your hands" in Verse 2, highlighting the fact that guns are designed to kill. 

6.) “Apathy” - Frankie Cosmos With a catchy bass line, gorgeous lyrics, and endearing vocals, this song and entire album are not to be missed. As you may notice on this year’s playlist, this year I was super into what I would describe as punk-influenced, low-fi indie female vocalists. Pretentious enough for you? Haha. I just mean that there are a ton of young women blowing up in the indie music scene with a huge crossover in sound. As demonstrated in “Apathy,” many of these songs are short, lack a traditional pop music format, use low-fi production, and have a storytelling aspect of almost speak-singing. These elements are all found in traditional punk music, so it’s interesting and exciting to see these artists shaking things up and challenging the punk genre. Frankie Cosmos has a long history of creating music, under various projects using Bandcamp as a teenager. Her 2018 album “Vessel” is nothing short of delightful and another one of my favorites of the year. 7.) “Your Dog” - Soccer Mommy Soccer Mommy is Sophie Allison, singer-songwriter based out of Nashville. She opened for Paramore on their recent tour and she has launched into the indie music scene with a lot of attention in the past couple years. I love how her voice clearly carries so much anger as she sings about an emotionally abusive relationship. Her lyrics describe the agony of small, sweet gestures pushing her back to her ex, despite her wanting desperately to end it. Using the metaphor of being a loyal, sub-servient dog, she describes the way her SO treats her like she’s his property. Because the song lacks a traditional “pop” format (verse 1 / chorus / verse 2 / chorus / bridge / chorus), there is a sense of the story ending unresolved. Fortunately, she has an excellent album (one of my favorites) from 2018 called “Clean” where you can learn more of her story. 8.) “Pristine” by Snail Mail A stunning debut from 19-year-old Lindsey Jordan, “Lush” is a 2018 release not to miss. “Pristine” perfectly encapsulates teenage life and love - “it just feels like the same party every weekend. Doesn’t it?” There is such a sense of genuine hormonal angst that she is almost joyfully celebrating. Her album reads more like a diary - and how lucky she is to have these future memories and be able to approach them with such wisdom.

9.) "Uncomfortably Numb" - American Football feat. Hayley Williams Paying homage to Pink Floyd, legendary emo band American Football joins with Paramore's lead singer Hayley Williams for a devastating track about losing emotional sensation. "I blame my father in my youth / Now as a father, I blame the booze." I couldn't find too much information on the exact inspiration behind the track, but it's the second track released off their upcoming album out March 22nd. Hayley is usually front and center as a singer, and it's interested to hear her take more of a backing role, as well as explore a bit of a lower vocal range than she usually does.

10.) “Geyser” - Mitski Mitski absolutely killed it last year with “Be The Cowboy,” which was consistently rated not only in the top 5 best albums, not only top 3, but making MULTIPLE end of year lists as the number one album of 2018. It’s easy to see why, given the incredible breadth of music she wrote for her album. I see Mitski's influence reflected in the rise of fame in other punk-inspired female vocalists in the indie scene, building off her ability to capture the attention of a wide audience. Which is also very interesting because she incorporated elements of many other genres on this album (spot any disco on “Nobody”?) While it was difficult to pick one song for my playlist, “Geyser” stands out to me as not only an excellent album opener, but a fascinating look into Mitski’s own relationship with the art she creates. In an interview, she explains that this song is about her feeling like she has to create music because she would never be satisfied in life without it, but feeling sometimes stifled, stuck, and resentful when she puts music above basic needs such as her health and self-care. She needs her art to survive but it simultaneously kills her.

11.) “Me & My Dog” - boygenius It’s impossible to pick just one song of this album. Boygenius is the supergroup of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker - who each could also have one of their incredible solo songs on my playlist. Partially because they enjoyed each other’s creative energies and partially as a response to constantly being compared to each other as “women in indie,” the trio came together to create an EP of emo-influenced, folk-inspired gorgeous tracks about grief, loneliness, identity, and heartbreak. This particular song features Phoebe Bridgers in the verses and is a beautiful representation of the embarrassing and frustrating feeling of being in love with an ex. Please check out the individual work of these artists too!

12.) "bless ur heart" - serpentwithfeet Serpentwithfeet, aka Josiah Wise, has a gorgeous, intimate voice throughout his 2018 debut album, soil. This song starts off with a question of how his art will be received by the world. The rest of the song is a tender message of gratitude to his first love. It seems like Josiah questioned the choice to speak about his experiences with his ex in such a public fashion - with complexities of privacy, being open about sexuality, and possible painful memories on the table. Josiah's writing is very much like poetry, and his raw, unfiltered, un-autotuned vocals match the beauty of his words.

13.) "Bury A Friend" - Billie Eilish 17-year-old Billie Eilish is set to release her debut album, When We Sleep, Where Do We Go? next month. This song matches her goth aesthetic with a creepy story from the perspective of the monster under the bed. We learn that the monster is part of Billie herself, who is struggling with her own demons. 14.) "Loading Zones" - Kurt Vile A gorgeous guitar track, Kurt Vile paints a picture of his hometown Philadelphia and feeling on top of the world exploring his city's streets. He included a hilarious marketing strategy of sending fake parking tickets to fans in the mail to promote the song. Kurt Vile talks about the metaphor of "I park for free," which is how he sometimes lives his life - breaking the dumb rules because it's his life, his streets, his town. 15.) "Dylan Thomas" - Better Oblivion Community Center Is it possible to already be nostalgic for the late 2000's? Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers released this surprise collaboration last month and this is the standout track for me. Conor Oberst's incredibly recognizable voice is hard to match in terms of strength, timbre, and uniqueness. While Bridgers is young enough to be from a different generation than him (she also grew up listening to Oberst's music), he saw something in her that resonated with him. I love how they sing in unison on this track (and much of the album) and think their voices sound really good together.

16.) "Butterflies" - Kacey Musgraves Kacey Musgraves is bringing a breath of fresh air to country. After self-releasing three albums, she tried her hand at reality TV through Nashville Star over a decade ago. Golden Hour is her fourth album using a record label, and she just won Album of the Year at the Grammys! Her voice is beautiful and has an earnest, authentic approach in joining elements of country pop. 

17.) “Prior Things” - Hop Along “Bark Your Head Off, Dog” is Hop Along’s third album, released in 2018. Singer/songwriter Frances Quinlan has the ability to transform the themes of her songs. Layered with a multitude of different sounds and instruments, it could easily sound scattered and busy, but instead feels like we are huddled around a campfire with an enthusiastic, stream-of-consciousnesses storyteller. “Prior Thing” is the last song on the album and crosses time, space, and memories with the start of a hallucinogenic drug trip. She has the ability to take a phrase and transform the expected - pausing or elongating notes at unexpected places. This method keeps you invested in figuring out what the song is really about or what the conclusion is. 18.) "Kids" - Pup Emo/pop punkers Pup have a new album Morbid Stuff coming out on April 5th. Their songs are made for live shows - shouting/singing alternates, sing-a-long catchy lyrics reminiscent of the Hold Steady, and unison whole-band lines. Pup frontman Stefan Babcock said this song is about finding someone who agrees with your view of the world being a fucked up place, and enjoying small moments of solace in spending time with them. 

SPOTIFY

Don't forget to subscribe to my playlists on Spotify! Here is the link to listen to this year's mixtape on Spotify.

I try to add new songs at least once a week to this playlist: What I'm currently lovin' (updated freq)

-----

I hope you guys enjoy the new music and feel free to send me recommendations of anything you like!<3 aili

Previous Mixtapes:

Autumn Love mix | Autumn Love Spotify

Copenhagen mix | Copenhagen Spotify

Valentine's Day downbeat 2010

Valentine's Day upbeat 2010

Valentine's Day 2011

Philadelphia mix | Philadephia Spotify

New Crime mix | New Crime Spotify

The City mix | The City Spotify

Drive mix | Drive Spotify

Valentine's Day 2012 | VDay 2012 Spotify

King's Myth mix | King's Myth Spotify

Hold On mix | Hold On Spotify

Valentine's Day 2013 | Vday 2013 Spotify

Valentine's Day 2014 | Vday 2014 Spotify

Valentine's Day 2015 | Vday 2015 Spotify

Valentine's Day 2016 | Vday 2016 Spotify

Valentine's Day 2017| Vday 2017 Spotify

Valentine's Day 2018 | Vday 2018 Spotify

[mymisguidedfairytale]

[fanfiction] Hunter x Hunter - ORCHiDELiRiUM

Title: ORCHiDELiRiUM Word Count: 14,390 words Pairing: Cluck x Kanzai Summary: ORCHiDELiRiUM: the name given to a period of time where the acquisition and discovery of rare orchid plants reached a fever pitch among the collectors and enthusiasts of the wealthy and titled. None were prized more highly than the rare Black Orchid, native to a small republic whose only access point was severed by a tremendous rockslide during the plant’s last cyclic bloom nearly seven years ago. Professional Botanical Hunter Cluck is contracted to not only recover a specimen of the rare flower, but protect it from any and all intruders. She is more than up for the first task, but for the second, she enlists the help of her colleague Kanzai, and the two find themselves battling mafia legions, the strangely misanthropic people of the once-isolated nation, and a living forest in pursuit of their prize. A/N: Written for the Hunter x Hunter Big Bang 2018 Challenge. Takes place an indeterminate amount of time pre-canon. Huge thanks to awitchyghost who will be doing some lovely art for this story! I hope you enjoy! [FF.net] [Ao3]

ORCHiDELiRiUM

Cluck stares across the flat, nearly empty surface of her desk. Not at her own, impeccably-ordered files and the thin stack of leaflets one of the secretaries had dropped off earlier with the latest updates from the various committees for her to review before she left Swaldani City for any personal business. Her desk forms a co-working space with those of three of the other members of the Zodiac Twelve, and her gaze is affixed firmly towards Saiyuu's desk.

And the plastic, purple plant that rests in an almost equally insulting ceramic vase. It has two ugly, perfectly uniform leaves, and a dusting of uneven white paint along the tip of the clustered petals.

Behind her, along the wall, the printer beeps as it continues to slowly churn out papers for her. She taps manicured fingernails along to its rhythm, before groaning and swiveling in circles in her desk chair.

Across the room, Kanzai walks in. He gives a half-hearted wave, before jerking one thumb back towards the hallway.

“The office up front just got a power stapler,” he says, moving to the cubbies on the far wall and grabbing the safety-cone-colored knapsack from inside. “Piyon and I have been seeing how far we can make it fly.”

“Stop terrorizing the secretaries,” she answers automatically before turning back to her papers.

“We're not! It's a competition.”

He sounds defensive, and she looks up, watching him as the printer makes an ungodly series of electronic screeches. “You're Pro Hunters, and you're losing?”

“What? No!”

“Just you then. Better redeem yourself by lunchtime.” Cluck reaches out to poke one plastic petal with a pen. If it was real, a petal would have fallen, or a leaf. It would grow or shrivel and die. And it's insulting her personally.

“Round Two will see a weather change,” he says, and makes a few punches in the air for emphasis.

“Don't lose more of your money,” she cautions. “You know you'll get taken for every cent you wager.”

“See you at the meeting.” He's gone, and he leaves the door cracked open, too. The worst.

The printer screeches again, and on the next three sheets the ink is increasingly transparent. She shouts after him, “Don't be late!”

He's late, by a good five minutes, but Pariston is late by ten and gets the full force of the room's blame. There's a variety of things on the docket today, mostly involving minor adjustments, financial proposals, and seasonal updates from some of the more significant committees. The Exam Committee's scouting for representatives, and after volunteering to coordinate one of the phases once , years ago, now when they want involvement among the Zodiacs they look at her. She makes sure to be looking at her phone during the entire report, first scrolling idly and then looking for something more serious among her apps and news sites to make the distraction useful.

So she happens to be checking her email in the middle of one of Beans's presentations. Cheadle is giving her a glare strong enough to melt a glacier, but if there's someone who more accurately embodies all bark, no bite it's the Dog of the Zodiac Twelve. In her professional account are a slew of unread contract proposals—one asking her to give a concert of L'equivoco , like she'd come out of retirement for some new money heir's birthday party—and a second wanting her aide in tracking a series of near-endangered swanbill sighted outside their Yorubian nature preserve. She purses her lips. Probably collectors, from the extremely high numbers quoted in the proposal. The third is from the Razing Society of Arboreal Enrichment , and reads like an amateur academic's exercise in garrulousness.

Surely our esteemed organization needs no introduction, as you may recall both our winning contribution to the Southern Continental's horticulture competition some years ago, upsetting the Federation of Ochima's five-year winning streak, and our meeting at the same event—

Cluck doesn't remember this.

— As you well know, the many prides of the Republic of Razing include its Endeløs Forest, which has provided its citizens with medicinal herbs, flowers, and gourmet fungi of the highest quality and provenance. With the completion of the tunnel restoration project, access to the city center has been reestablished as of this year. The limited resources of the Razing Department of Public Safety have left a void of preparedness in our anticipation of the Black Orchid's returning bloom cycle. We expect a wave of visitors who will want to experience this legendary event, and while we do of course encourage education of the masses we wish to restrict access to both the Forest and the plants to professionals. As one of the foremost Botanical Hunters, you will be able to recover a specimen for our study and ensure its protection in the wild. The city has already seen an increase in numbers and lodging is thin. We can ensure you a place to stay while you work and access to transportation and the best of our equipment and research staff if you require it, although we are sure someone of your caliber and experience would hardly deign to accept our organization's principium. Anyone would leap at the chance to view this once-in-a-lifetime event, and even without our offer you have most likely already made plans to visit our republic and view the Black Orchid for yourself. We await your response. Our office is open Mondays only from 3-5pm.

Cluck's eyes begin to water. She reads the message a second time, and still can't quite figure out what it is these people actually want her to do.

Then she's called on for her opinions on their current debate, and Cluck forgets about any of her contracts—and Pariston gets to repeat his speech on the profits from the Association's current real estate holdings, to his delight.

After the votes are in and they are all dismissed, she dawdles in the office once more, staring at a folder of everything one of the secretaries had been able to acquire on the status of the Republic of Razing. There are very few countries that have had no Hunters to represent them, and this is one of those.

She also wracks her memories for a trade show held across the various states of the Southern Continent, and recalls that the Republic of Ochima has won it every year except one where they were unable to attend—due to catastrophic weather, and a tiny unacknowledged nation had taken the top prize. This was years ago, at least seven, and would have been when she was in deep pursuit of a Star for her license and throwing herself into every bit of study and experimentation. Such shows were a great way to network and hear lectures from top researchers and university professors. And they were useful for reconnecting with old colleagues, and for providing free meals and free drinks to celebrity guests. Huh. Maybe there was a reason she didn't remember much.

The Republic was, in a word, isolated. Located in the exact middle of a ringlike group of mountains, the city-state had a small population and wasn't known for anything in particular beyond the peculiar circumstances of their existence. There was one tunnel, bored through the mountains, for access, and it had been destroyed in an accident—she checks her notes—about the same time ago. They'd used helicopters and had air-drops for supplies they couldn't grow or manufacture themselves, but overwhelmingly the entire country had been separated from the outside world for all that time.

She's still in the office hours later, her interest growing, reading through more research and investigating the mysterious Black Orchid the Society representative had mentioned. There are sketches of it, drawn by the late, famed naturalist Laudubon, and as a Botanical Hunter Cluck is well-versed in the history of orchid collecting and exhibition. It had hit a craze, when the world was beginning to be connected by airship and media and many new species had been discovered all at once, each more intricate and uncommon than the last. There had been the honey orchid, peacock orchid, and the strangely-gimmicky disco orchid, named for its apparent propensity to glitter under any movement or light. But the rarest, and the one that had fetched the highest prices, came from a forest in the very same mountain range of this country, the Black Orchid. In the sketch, the orchid's petals are a deep and glossy black, and of such perfect symmetry and balance, without flaw or blemish. The perfect curl to the edges, the perfect drape of the filaments. She can feel her very soul being drawn into the flowers.

And that was only a portrait. What must the real thing be like?

She understands the desire those individuals must have felt, bidding at auctions in the hundreds of thousands of jenni, for the chance to own those flowers. Airship travel to the region is largely inexpensive, and she hovers over the website with tickets in her cart. She has no major obligations for the next few weeks. It's been relatively uneventful around Swaldani City and the Hunter Association, almost to the point of suspicion.

She glances up to see Kanzai peering over her shoulder, nose scrunched up.

“What are you looking to travel all the way out there for?”

She jumps, spinning around in her chair and reaching out to smack him on instinct. “Kanzai! You shouldn't sneak up on people!”

“I wasn't sneaking. I didn't even use Zetsu .” He drops his shoulders in apology, and rubs his arm as if her punch had done anything at all. He moves to Saiyuu's desk and sinks into a chair. “You're just distracted. Don't tell me another Hunter went missing?”

“No. I'm looking into something for work.” Not that she's officially accepted the contract yet, and not that this Society even seems to want to admit they need her help at all. “How about you? Got anything coming up?”

“Assignment fell through,” he says, kicking his feet up on the edge of his desk. Cluck eyes his sneakers with distaste. “Still, they paid my fee. Can't argue with that.”

She gets an idea, a bright spot in a sea of monotony and solitude. The thought that she could share the brilliance of that sketch in reality with her closest friend. “So you're free. To come work with me, travel a bit. If you wanted.”

“If I wanted to travel to the boondocks with you? But I don't want that.” The edge of his mouth lifts into a scowl, and it twists the tattoos across his upper cheeks. “How much are they paying?”

Her face twists as she remembers the line of the contract that detailed her fee. It was in line with what she believed the country could afford, but hardly in keeping with her level of experience. “The work is its own reward, or something.”

“That's even worse .” He watches as she adjusts her purchase to include a second ticket. “I'm a bodyguard , not a—” And he waves his hand in her direction, as if to encompass everything in Cluck's varied portfolio. Musician, Scientist, Birdkeeper. “I won't be much help to you, unless what you're doing is really that dangerous.”

“I think it could be. Have you ever guarded an object?” she asks.

“Once I was hired to transport a painting. The convoy was attacked. Too bad for the thieves.”

“Which painting?”

“Don't know. I didn't look.”

“You didn't look? ” The strangled croak in her throat grows louder when she remembers with vivid clarity what that assignment had been. It was rare that the Southernpeace Auction even got such masterpieces, and those who could afford them could also afford the best protection detail. “That was a Nonet , Kanzai! A Nonet! His last completed work!”

He gnashes his pointed teeth. “I have no idea who that is!”

“Well, do you want a job or not?” She shouts back, matching his pitch. “I could use the help. I have a lot of ground to cover.” She laughs to herself at the unintentional joke, her mood shifting in an instant.

He sighs, glancing away. “I want to keep you safe. Well, what are you Hunting? Don't keep me in suspense. You know how much I love a good surprise.”

“I'm Hunting a plant,” she says.

A pause. “You've got to be kidding me.”

“I'm not,” she says. “And we're not going to the boondocks. We're going to the mountains .”

–

Despite the elevation, the climate is mild, but the skies are thick with clouds and a light rain begins to fall the moment they leave the airfield. Anticipating fieldwork, she's retired her typical outfit for a strapless romper in the same blue shades and a matching jacket with a thick line of white fur trimming the hood and sleeves. The airship could only take them so far, to a city on the other side of the mountains, where the single road would take them into Razing and towards her mission. So it was that Cluck and Kanzai were seated shoulder to shoulder in the front of a retrofitted utility vehicle being driven by one of the country's native sons.

“So,” Cluck says, staring out the window at rows upon rows of identical-looking trees, leading to an eerily uniform bank of mountainside. “Do you want to put on any music?”

“No.” The driver doesn't even acknowledge her, and she spends a few moments studying his face—brown hair, a thin mustache but otherwise clean shaven, and dark, plain clothes. Young, too—younger than she is, and he would be boring if he wasn't so interesting.

She tries again. “So, what do you like to do around here for fun?”

“I go driving,” he says. Beside her, Kanzai muffles a snort into one arm.

“Yeah? Well let's open this thing up, see what it can do,” Cluck suggests. The vehicle continues on at a safe, respectable fifty-five.

“No.”

She breathes in, counts to five. She is a professional, and while she has no problem being blunt around her colleagues, belligerence around strangers would probably not be very well received.

Cluck eyes the driver again. Probably.

“Is there anything you'd recommend we do, you know, as tourists? Anywhere we should go? Anything we shouldn't do? We want to blend in.”

The driver inclines his head for a moment, to look at her. “That is impossible.”

Cluck's vision goes red for a moment. “ Okay, first off— ”

“We have not had any tourists in almost a decade. Therefore there would not be anything to publicize, as those of us who live here have already seen it all,” he says, and Cluck deflates.

“And how do you feel about that?” It's Kanzai, speaking for the first time since their drive started. He'd been quiet for the majority of their trip, but Cluck is able to read his moods after spending so much time together. When he complains, it is more performative than purposeful, and he has remained by her side, handling whatever details come up regarding security and their equipment with deep consideration. He hasn't cared about how to use the scientific instruments and collection vials and components in her bags, but he handles them with a delicacy she finds heartwarming.

The driver takes a moment to consider the question. “It is better this way.”

And like that, her mood sours again. They pass through the tunnel—it spans a distance of ten miles, and is in itself a marvel of architecture. It would probably have seen more media coverage, Cluck thinks, if the people connected to it were the least bit sociable.

The driver leaves them at their hotel, a government-owned building that used to host international diplomats before being repurposed in-part into a storage facility. The rooms are small and bleak and the décor looks like it came from a period film set more than thirty years ago.

“I'm starving,” Cluck tells Kanzai. “Let's go for a walk, see if we can find something.”

They take a street at random. Only a few blocks outside the city center the buildings change dramatically, from older brick structures set close together to dated-looking strip malls with a wild assortment of tenants, from fashion marts to hardware stores and individual stores for bakeries and butchers instead of one combined grocer. Each intersection is so unremarkable that Cluck has to remind herself, yet again, that this place has been essentially frozen in time.

Cluck squints to read the signs of the stores in one such center. “I think that one's a restaurant? No, never mind. Cheese store.”

“What about that one?”

Cluck follows Kanzai's outstretched hand to a storefront with more than a dozen cars parked out front. “Liquor store. Maybe later.”

The next block sees another strip center, set even further back from the street. Weeds sprout through the cracks in the pavement of the parking lot and as they make their way closer Cluck can see a tiny restaurant tucked in the very far corner.

“There!” She points, before grabbing Kanzai's shoulders and turning him towards the flickering neon sign. “Food!”

The parking lot is mostly empty—there are no cars in front of the restaurant or the laundromat next door, but the lights are on inside and Cluck can see movement past the vertical blinds behind the front window. The door had a placard matching the neon sign that read Jordel's Restaurant .

Cluck opens the deceptively heavy door and slips inside, not even waiting for assistance before grabbing a menu off the hostess stand. She flips through it—it's in the local language, but she can recognize a few words after spending the airship flight with a language primer, and decides that at this point she's too hungry to care whether everything is boiled or covered in unidentifiable gravy, and tries to wave over a server. There's only one visible, a man currently pouring water for one of the other tables.

“Hey, this place must be pretty good,” Cluck says, her eyes sweeping the restaurant. “Look how many tables are full.”

While the tables in the front, sized for couples, are empty, the tables in the back have been shoved together and are full of men in suits, eating quietly. The restaurant itself is plain, with a few framed photographs on the white walls and dated brass fixtures. Finally, the server makes their way over to the front, and Cluck waves her hands at one of the empty tables.

“Hey, can we have that one?” she asks, gesturing with the menu. “And can you show me where the drinks are in this thing?”

The nervous-looking server leads them over to a table and Cluck makes a show of throwing her jacket over the back of her chair before sitting down. With the server's help she picks out a red wine and a bunch of dishes for them to share, and tries a number of different ways to cross her legs to get comfortable in the narrow wooden chairs.

“Hey, relax a little,” she tells Kanzai. “There's no reason we can't enjoy ourselves a little bit while we're here. If that's possible.”

He's quiet, and Cluck drops her chin into her palm. “I know you don't like the rain—”

“It's not that,” he says quickly. “Maybe just keep your voice down.”

“Why?” The drinks arrive, along with a loaf of soft bread, and Cluck busies herself with tearing it into small pieces before eating. “We've got to go over our plans. I was gonna call the people at the Arboreal Society, tell them we've arrived, and arrange transportation to the forests.”

Kanzai makes a pained face, the markings on his face curving more the deeper his grimace. “Cluck—”

“I'm hoping they can give us some maps. I feel lost here already.” She takes a deep drag from her drink. “Not having a car of our own sucks.”

“ Cluck .”

“If we can find a few bulbs it'll be even better. I'd hate to have to transport a fully-bloomed orchid. They're so delicate, and I imagine this one'll be even more so.” She speaks around a mouthful of bread, the words muffled.

“I've been studying the weather and what I can find from the last time the Black Orchid bloomed,” she continues, gesturing with a piece of bread. “There aren't many resources. No one documented this, it was essentially a free-for-all. My research shows that the bloom is actually going to come early. So it's lucky we're here now, before anyone else gets involved.”

Kanzai tries to shush her again, but before he can say anything more the waiter returns, carrying platters of vegetables, lamb, and crispy whole fishes. Cluck pokes one of them with her fork before digging in.

“Hey, this is actually really good.” She chews thoughtfully. “Hey, Kanzai, you're still bristling. Eat up.”

“I am not bristling .” His shoulders are raised and his hair is spiky from the rain, and Cluck narrows her eyes and points her fork at him.

“Eat your fish,” she says.

“ You eat your fish,” he grumbles, before snagging one and beginning to saw into it with his knife. Cluck looks up to see a few of the men in suits watching them, and gives a little wave in return.

“ Cluck , don't,” Kanzai repeats. A bit of fish falls off his fork. One of the men at the farthest table stands up and begins to walk over. He can see the server start to clear everyone's plates.

“My friends!” The man has a deep accent, same as their driver. “I can't help but notice you must be new here. Are you enjoying yourselves?”

“The food's great.” Cluck is all smiles, still chewing. Kanzai casts a serious look down at their plates.

“I couldn't help but overhear something. You are interested in the forests surrounding this city, yes? You are...scientists, perhaps? Not tourists?”

“We're Hunters,” Cluck answers proudly, and Kanzai's palm makes contact with his forehead.

“ Hunters , really.” He turns and says something to one of the others in their native language, and the other shouts back a few words. The man's expression never changes, as implacable as the black suit stretched across his shoulders.

“There is someone here I think you should meet—”

“—Thanks,” Kanzai interrupts. “Now if you don't mind, we really need to get back to our meal—”

“Nonsense. We have a great deal in common, you and I,” he says. “We also have interest in this orkidé you mentioned. We would be delighted to hear more of what you have to say.”

Cluck opens and then closes her mouth. Kanzai can almost see the wheels turning as she begins to put together the pieces. Then, she speaks.

“Sorry,” she says. “I don't work with others.”

Kanzai feels a twitch in-between his eyebrows. Cluck has never sounded less convincing.

“Then who is this?” The man asks. “Your housecat?”

Kanzai stands, abruptly, and at once every suited man pulls a weapon from inside their jackets. The implacable one merely claps a hand onto Kanzai's shoulder—an intimidation tactic, meant to bully him into compliance, as the man is nearly a foot taller than Kanzai—and begins to push him further into the restaurant.

“Cluck, just say the word,” he says.

“No, I want to hear what they have to say.” She stands as well, and collects her jacket, draping it over one arm and shaking it to get crumbs off the sleeves. “Maybe they know something we don't.”

“Come, come.” The man gestures again. “There is a room in the back where our boss is eating. He would very much like to meet you. Nikolaus will take you.”

“And you are?” Kanzai still glowers, even after the man steps back, putting his body squarely in front of the door. As he moves Kanzai can see the holster hidden under his jacket.

“I am Mikkel,” he answers.

A young, timid looking man approaches in a too-large suit, and leads them towards a doorway in the back covered by a curtain of patterned orange polyester. He keeps his distance, and when Kanzai cracks a muscle in his neck for fun the man jumps back even further.

Beyond the curtain is a large space much more ornately designed than the main dining room—which still isn't much of a compliment, considering the overly stylized molding on the tops of the walls and baseboards, and the sprawling wooden chairs and tables, inlaid to excess with lighter wood. The wallpaper is gold and striped, and Kanzai looks down at his own shirt and feels a little put-off by the comparison.

“Malk, these are the Hunters here to see you,” Nikolaus says.

The large, older man at the head of the table rises and adjusts the glasses perched on the edge of his nose. He extends a hand covered in rings towards Cluck and Kanzai. Neither make any immediate motion to shake it; Cluck glances down at the oversized jacket in her hands and makes a show of trying to adjust it to free a hand. After a moment, the man straightens his back and drops his hand, all pretense of politeness disappearing.

“Hunters. How curious. You may call me Mr. Content. I am the leader of the mafia here in Razing. You will tell me what I need to know.” He says the word Hunters slowly, and with a reverence and distance that makes Cluck for a moment wonder if he even knows what that means.

Then she holds up a hand. “Wait a second. Is your name really Malk Content?”

“Yes. Is there a problem?”

She drops her shoulders in an articulated shrug. “Well, that just seems lazy.”

He slams one giant fist into the tabletop. “Tell me what you learned about the Black Orchid !” His pronunciation is slightly different, using the words in his native language, and when he snarls to the men at his left and right it becomes impossible for Kanzai to understand further.

“We're not tellin' you squat,” he says, and watches the man's face grow red.

Kanzai turns towards her. “Hey, Cluck, I don't think they know anything.”

“And here I was hoping they had access to some kind of mapping software, satellites, something that would better pinpoint their location. They only grow in soil with a specific acidity, you know.” Cluck shrugs again.

“And how do you know that?” Mr. Content says, pulling a knife from inside his jacket.

Cluck could have gone into detail about how the sketches of the flower had all shown the same deeply red soil, and how first-person accounts had shown that specimens stored with soil from the area lasted twice as long as those that had been replanted, and although all remnants of flowers from the last bloom cycle are long dead and disappeared, examples of the soil are still around and Cluck was able to contact a lab outside of Yorkshin for the detailed summary of the soil composition. She doesn't say this, however.

“Cause I'm a Hunter! And we know everything!” She jabs a finger forward, before sweeping it around the room, turning to each gunman in turn. “And we're bulletproof! So you better put those things away!”

About half of the gunmen draw back, visibly unsure. She decides to roll with it, and points instead at Kanzai. “And this one's crazy! ”

He turns towards her, his face drawn up, his eyebrows twitching. “What the hell's your problem?”

Mr. Content steps back, behind the others, adjusting his knife in a stance meant more for protection than offense. “Gentlemen, by your leave. Best not to have them getting in our way in the forests. Take them into secure custody.”

The first man clicks off his safety, and Cluck is running backwards, aura rushing to hands as she grabs the gigantic wooden table and flips it forward, onto its edge. Gunshots ring out, piercing the wood but not passing through. Kanzai ducks in beside her; he does not even need to crouch to get full cover.

Cluck's astonishment grows as more gunshots ring out. There's the curtained entrance back to the main dining room, and a separate closed door she recalled behind where their leader was standing. No windows, and she doesn't much relish the thought of having to work their way through an entire roomfull of guards, no matter which way they go.

There's a moment of silence before they can hear the clicking sounds of the guards reloading. Kanzai elbows her in the side. “Hey, what's with that face? You got a plan?”

“What? No! I didn't think they had any ammo. With the tunnel closed, how would they have gotten any resupplies? I thought they were just carrying around those guns, you know, for tradition. For the look.”

His scowl deepens. “So no plan, then.”

“We could roll the table. Use it for cover.” Cluck gives it an experimental roll, hanging on to the cross-bars at the table's base. It's more oval than round, and nearly topples from the effort. “Or maybe not. Batter up?”

Cluck watches Kanzai rolls one shoulder back, the aura coalescing in her eyes with Gyo as he conjures a baseball bat into his hands. This one is different than she remembers—it looks longer and lighter, and has a giant letter F in the middle of the grained wood. She makes a face.

“It's a practice bat,” he explains, noticing her staring. “Like I'd treat any of these suckers to Ash or Maple.”

“I'll be right behind you.” As they run out, the gunmen resume shooting, and Kanzai angles the bat in a wide arc, ricocheting the bullets like he's returning a four-seam fastball. Cluck keeps her body shrouded in aura in case any stray bullets get past Kanzai's batting stance—unlikely—but as they run back into the main dining room they are greeted with another dozen suits with a variety of weapons from antique-looking revolvers and modern pistols to curved knives and wooden truncheons pointed straight at them.

“Hey, I think that guy has a tazer,” Cluck says. Kanzai looks to her, then at her empty hands.

“You didn't bring a weapon ?” he shouts, and they are under fire again, switching sides and letting him take point as he sweeps away the bullets, sending them harmlessly into the far wall. “Well, find something!”

Cluck begins searching the tables for something to throw, but they've been cleared of all plates, all cutlery, and all glassware. There isn't even a spare wine bottle to use as a club. “See? I told you this was a good restaurant.”

“What?” Distracted, a bullet whizzes past, slicing the sleeve of his uniform. “Cluck, we've gotta go!”

Without any better options, Cluck grabs the white tablecloth off of the largest table, whipping it into a circle and throwing it over the heads of the advancing mafia gunmen. Then they run, out the door—and there's a bell over it, chiming their escape, and isn't that great—before they find themselves once more in the nearly-empty parking lot, running across the pavement and down the street as fast as their Nen -powered legs can take them.

“Got a plan now?” Kanzai shouts, holding the bat to his chest as he runs.

“Working on it!” Cluck casts a glance back—they aren't being followed, for now, and she's about to ask whether they're even running the right way or not when a car pulls up beside them with a screech.

“Quick! Get in!”

Kanzai swivels in place, bat raised to swing, when the driver instinctively lets out a scream.

“Hey,” Cluck says, “You're that kid that was with them. You brought us to the boss.” She snaps her fingers, trying to remember his name.

“It's Nikolaus. And quick, get in before they see us.” He unlocks the doors, and begins winding up the front window—Cluck can already feel her lip curling at that, as the car is one of those models she'd thought gone out of style with bell sleeves and the bubonic plague—but she pulls open the back door and turns to Kanzai.

“I think we can trust him. As nervous as he looked earlier, he looks downright terrified of us.”

“And we don't have any other options,” Kanzai finishes. Cluck shrugs in agreement, before sliding inside.

The moment the door closes, Nikolaus speeds away. The inside of the car is nicer than Cluck expects, and she props her feet up on the middle console.

“Hey, I bet you're a driver for the Mafia, aren't you?” she asks. “Is this even your car?”

“No, and don't do that!” He tries to brush her away, but Cluck only shifts to catch his eye in the rearview mirror. Beside her, squashed against the door, Kanzai sighs; the moment he removes his hands from the bat, it disappears.

The car nearly swerves of the road. “How did you do that?”

“Hey! Focus!” Cluck points forward, grabbing onto Kanzai with her other hand for support. The car rights itself, all passengers grumbling, and Kanzai reaches for the seatbelt.

“Kanzai, how did you know they were Mafia? You could've told me.” Cluck pouts, leaning back. The feathers in her hair are getting in his face.

“It was obvious. You're just dense,” he says. “At least the food wasn't poisoned. I can tell these things.”

“I know. You have an extremely sensitive palate.”

“Don't insult me!”

“Hey, hey!” Cluck shouts at Nikolaus, who's continued to hold the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grasp. “Where are you taking us, anyway?”

“Your hotel isn't safe. I thought we could lay low at one of the safehouses I know. No one would be looking for you there,” Nikolaus says.

With every twist and turn of the car, taking them further away from the city center, Kanzai does his best to keep a close guide on their path, just in case. “And why are you helping us?”

They come to a stop at a red light, and Nikolaus turns around to look at them. “Well, you're Hunters, right? They're the greatest of the great! They're like superheroes! Surely you're more powerful than the mafia here. They've kept the country under their thumb ever since the collapse of the tunnel—and it wasn't just the roads that broke. It was the media cables, the water lines, power lines—they said they could get them working again, and they did. But it came with a cost. They own everything around here. They're in control. There's no options for me. And I'd really like to get out of this place.”

“The light is green,” Kanzai says.

“So you help us, and we help you.” Cluck taps her fingers against her chin. “We can do that.”

“What?” Kanzai swivels between the two, the caution in his expression even further exaggerated. “We don't need help!”

Cluck rolls her eyes. “I asked you for help, didn't I?”

“That's different! You needed a bodyguard! What is it that this guy can do for us that your contacts can't?”

“At the Arboreal Society?” Cluck pulls out her phone, scrolling to find their number. “I tried calling when we landed, but got an answering machine.”

“Oh,” Nikolaus says, “they're probably Mafia, too. Maybe they wanted to get a professional here to help them recover a specimen of the orchid—they've been searching all this time, for any sign of it, to no effect. We've been combing the forests for weeks.”

“ Weeks !”

“Hey,” Cluck interjects, “do you have access to a map of the forests? Of the surrounding areas? Because of the mountains, I couldn't get any kind of satellite imaging of this place. Something about the geography or the minerals in the ground throws off most electronics.”

Kanzai continues spluttering. “It's a plant !”

“And I can't wait for you to see it!” Cluck snaps. “I want you to see it! I want to share this part of my life with you! You...ungrateful cretin!”

In the rearview mirror, Nikolaus looks away quickly. At the next light, the thick silence in the car is cut by the loud, foreign hip-hop music blaring from the car stopped beside theirs.

“Yeah, I should be able to get you a map,” Nikolaus says after another minute. Cluck maintains a frosty silence, crossing her arms and pulling up the edges of her fur-trimmed jacket. Still, she doesn't move, doesn't give Kanzai any more space in the backseat. She stares out the window, at the mid-rise apartment complexes and mini-marts they pass by. Every time the car stops, or turns to the right, her shoulder bumps against his.

Nikolaus still won't meet either of their eyes in the rearview mirror. “Malk...Mr. Content already has a buyer lined up. I overheard the conversation, as his driver. The price is higher than any number I've ever heard. And I'd rather help people who appreciate it. And any profits will go a lot farther split three ways.”

“Well, you can take the man out of the Mafia but you can't take the Mafia out of the man,” Kanzai says. “Don't worry, if it's money you want consider yourself officially on our payroll.”

“That's not...exactly what I had in mind...” Nikolaus coughs, his earlier blustery confidence fading away in the face of Kanzai's impudency. “How did you...do that thing earlier? With the bat? Are you like a magician?”

Kanzai glares at him, his lip curled. “Do I look like a magician?”

“It disappeared! I saw it!”

“Listen, kid,” Kanzai says. “You wouldn't understand it even if we told you. So just do your driving, and leave the rest to us, get it?”

Nikolaus is quiet for a moment. Then: “Maybe you can't do it again. Maybe it was a one-time thing. A fluke.”

“ What you sayin'?” Suddenly, the bat appears in Kanzai's hand again, the same fungo bat as before. The driver screams again.

“Yeah? Look at that!” The bat disappears and reappears again, filling the rearview mirror. “Is that a fluke to you?”

“Kanzai, cut it out,” Cluck says. The bat disappears immediately. “He's crying.”

“No I'm not.” There's a very distinctive sniffle in Nikolaus's voice. “We're here.”

The apartment complex they pull into is set back from the road and comprised of several smaller buildings instead of one tall one. The corridors are set outside, facing an exterior staircase of white-painted wooden panels, and there are enough cars in the parking lot that theirs won't stick out as much as Kanzai had worried it might.

“It's on the first floor,” Nikolaus continues. “I picked this one because I've got a key...some of the newer ones have a keypad access, and they might be able to track if someone's accessed it remotely. This one's mainly used for recovery, you know. A place to lie low if you've been hurt or if you need to avoid somebody.”

“Sounds perfect,” Kanzai says. “Been planning this for awhile, have you?”

“Leaving? Yes,” he admits, parking the car in a lot in the back and climbing out. “I've just been looking for the right moment. You still don't trust me, but you can.”

“Is there food?” Cluck asks. “I'm hungry again.”

“Non perishables. But there should be something.”

Her excitement plummets, and she follows Kanzai and Nikolaus—the former's aura spiking, his En reaching out for any sign of hostiles, even though there's nothing to be found—as they enter the apartment.

It's every bit as plain as the restaurant had been—there's a large leather couch and a table and chairs for furniture, one of those dated television sets that's deeper than it is wide, with dials instead of buttons, and a fan with a patterned glass shade that turns on when Nikolaus flips the lights. Cluck takes a perfunctory tour of the place, just to make sure there's no one else crashing there—there are no signs of anyone, no belongings, just an empty bedroom and the most tiny, dingy bathroom and kitchen. Nikolaus comes up beside her and starts opening cabinets.

“See? There's canned sardines! And some soup!” He sounds proud.

“You didn't also cook for the Mafia, did you?” she asks.

“No, that was his aunt, Dis.”

Cluck pauses for a moment, then turns and walks away. “Just give me the map when you find it.”

Five minutes later and they've found not only a series of maps, but a compass, set of radios for communication, and a first aid kit to clean the cut on Kanzai's arm. She's got the map spread out over the dining room table—the sardine cans are anchoring the corners, as she doesn't trust them anywhere near a plate—and she's doing notations in a notepad, trying to map out the curve of the mountainside with regards to what she's read about where the flower is likely to grow.

“This doesn't make any sense!” She drops the pencil on the table to keep from throwing it, grinding her teeth and fuming. “My calculations aren't off, but the math doesn't match up!”

“How so, Miss Cluck?” In the iterim, they'd finally gotten around to introductions, and Nikolaus has not stopped using it, and adding unnecessary formalities.

“It's Doctor Cluck, technically!” She picks up the pencil and goes back to scribbling, re-checking the measurements she's taken with her divider caliper and tugging on her hair in frustration. Unrolling a second map with Nikolaus's assistance, her summations are no clearer.

“And there's supposedly a river that runs through here , but where it's marked in this map doesn't match the other one! And there are these four groves of taller trees, marked here”—she shows Kanzai, even though he isn't looking—“but they're on the total opposite side on this other map! And you say you've been searching for weeks, right? So which is it!”

“Miss Cluck, keep your voice down,” Nikolaus says.

“That's Doctor Professional Hunter Cluck , four-time winner of the Golden Stage award to you!”

“So, why would the maps be inaccurate?” Kanzai asks, curled up on the couch with a thick plaid blanket. “Isn't that their entire purpose?”

“It's been...notoriously difficult to get an accurate reading of the ground in the Endeløs Forest,” Nikolaus admits. “It's thought to be because the ground is weak and always shifting—people go in and get lost, or think they're near one entrance but come out somewhere totally different. The tree cover is so thick, you can't easily see the sky, once you're in the center.”

“But you've been? This was your experience too?” Cluck asks.

“Yes. I spent three days in there, with a team, trying to find our way out after we got lost. What I saw...it was like the forest changed around me every time I turned around. I could not understand it.”

“Huh.” Cluck considers the map again, moving to the other side of the table to look at it from a different angle. “It could be like the Numere Wetlands, in the Kukan'ryu Kingdom.”

“I'm not familiar with that,” Nikolaus says at the same moment Kanzai asks, “What's that?”

“The Exam Committee's been trying to get a permit to use the site for ages. It's a swamp—there's a thick mist, it obscures the view of the ground and the local flora and fauna have evolved to use this to trap prey and take advantage of the disorientation.”

Nikolaus shakes his head. “There was no mist. I could see every step I took, I just didn't know where I was.”

“It's probably a you thing,” Kanzai says, agreeing with Cluck's unspoken sentiments. “We're professionals.”

“And I've lived here my whole life! I'm telling you, people don't go in that forest unless they have to. People say it's haunted. That the ground and the trees will eat you.”

“That's what the bat is for.” Kanzai's words are muffled into the edge of the blanket. Cluck can only see the fringes of black and yellow hair, visible over the top of the couch. “I'm taking a nap.”

“We've been traveling all day. It's probably best to get some rest before we go, and then get to the forest bright and early.” Cluck spends some more time working on the maps, before tossing her calipers aside in a huff. More work is only going to tell her what she already knows—that the forest is impossible to map, and probably for a reason.

Beside her, Nikolaus's nervousness is at a noticeable high. “Can you do that too?” He pantomimes what Kanzai does when he uses his technique.

“Can I make a baseball bat disappear and reappear in my hands? No.” Cluck checks her fingernails, looking for any chips in the polish. Still perfect, and even after all that business at the restaurant. She supposes when she has to dig them into the soil tomorrow that this will change.

“I can do something different. Something better ,” she continues. “But don't tell him that. Not that you'll see it. You'll be in the car. I don't want to have to worry about more than just myself and him.”

“What do you call it?”

“It's called Nen . But don't concern yourself about that. Your job is to drive us and keep us informed. My job is to retrieve a specimen of the Black Orchid.” Not for the Arboreal Society, not anymore, but for herself and for her team and for the world. “And his job is to take down anything that gets in our way.”

She concludes her little speech with a yawn, and makes her way towards the bedroom, shrugging out of her jacket.

“Miss Cluck? Where am I going to sleep?”

She all but shuts the door in his face. “Not my problem.”

The next day sees them awake and unhappy about it, sharing a pot of the strongest coffee Cluck's ever had in her life from among the supplies Nikolaus found in the cabinets. It will take hours, he says, to drive to the Northern-most entrance of the Endeløs Forest, where according to him there will be fewer Mafia grunts around, as the Southern side is more easily accessible, both for cars and for equipment. They've even tried to bring off-road vehicles into the forest, he tells them, with limited success, and gigantic spotlights and sensing machines. Everything gets lost, or breaks, and between them they have no weapons beyond what Kanzai can conjure, a limited amount of flares, and a plant transport container Cluck improvises from the empty, washed can of coffee grounds and a plastic bag from the mini-mart down the street where she buys some donuts.

She gets a few more hours of sleep in the car, leaning against Kanzai's shoulder with her legs tucked into the empty space at her right. As the crow flies, the distance from the safehouse to the edge of the forest isn't far at all, but the elevation changes drastically and the only roads are narrow and zigzag in such a way that it takes them much longer to make their way to their destination. They see no other cars on the road, due to the hour and the remoteness of their location, and as they drive the vegetation changes, from spindly, leafy trees set farther from the road to a wide variety of plants and mosses, curving over the railings and bridges their dark sedan traverses as they climb even higher into the mountainside. Cluck finds herself rambling, now wide awake and her attention fixed firmly on the hunt ahead of her.

“You know how in mountain ranges, the airflow means that one side is rainy and the other is mostly dry? The forests here are a rare result of the geography and weather patterns aligning to produce an area with rampant isochronism and a really diverse ecosystem. Plants rapidly grow and die, and they're replaced by even wilder, more niche species. Then the process repeats itself. And the animal life there must have evolved to live alongside these cycles. I can't wait to see it.”

Kanzai makes a face. “Isohedral?”

“Isochronic. Events occurring at regular time intervals. The Black Orchid blooms only once every seven years. It's probable that it's parasitic on whatever comes before it, a plant or fungi. Myco-heterotropic orchids are uncommon, but not unheard of. Maybe everything there is parasitic in some way—maybe that's even the reason the region is unmappable, if it's literally changing too fast to record. Maybe the maps we have would have been accurate at one point, but now we've moved past it in the cycle.”

“Cluck.” Kanzai speaks slowly, as if to a child. “The river moved between maps. You can't blame that on science .” He puts air quotes around the word with his fingers.

“Kanzai.” Her voice is even slower, with even more affectation. “ Everything is because of science.”

He pokes her in the shoulder. “What about Nen ?”

There's a long, measured silence. “That's...”

Then, she scowls, sitting up in her seat and jabbing her fingers against his sternum. “ That is totally unfair! You know how impossible Nen is to quantify! There aren't instruments that can measure aura beyond the trained eye and the variety in techniques doesn't even seem to be bound to our imaginations, considering how some people have abilities they don't even understand themselves! How can I possibly argue against that!”

Her teeth are gritted, her eyes narrowed, the feathers in her hair drooping. Kanzai matches her expression, growling, “Well, some people can't seem to create abilities that make sense —”

“ Mine makes perfect sense! ”

“It's like a princess in a fairy tale movie for children!” His scowl deepens. “Or like the protagonist in some low-budget animated series from twenty years ago.”

“How dare . My Pied Piper is unflawed. You're just jealous that as an Enhancer-type with a Conjuration ability, you don't have any delicacy with your skills,” she says. “Your strategy is always to just hit whatever you come up against with a bat and hope it dies.”

His head tilts to the side, stretching the marks across his cheeks. “If it ain't broke.”

“If you're done squabbling...” From the driver's seat, Nikolaus raises a hand, and both Cluck and Kanzai swivel their heads around to face him, sporting identical glares. “We've arrived.”

The forest's entry is marked only by the road's end into a cleared area of dirt and gravel, and a few signs and fences that appear to have not been replaced or cleaned in years. Ahead, they can see the slope of the forest curve upward, and the tree canopy growing even thicker the further they look.

Cluck affixes her coffee can to her back with a formless sack they'd found in the safehouse—it had been full of athletic equipment, and now it houses what few supplies they have. One of their two-way radios is left with Nikolaus, who will remain at the car, hidden as best they can behind a grove of bushes, and the other is clipped to Kanzai's belt.

Cluck pulls her phone out of her pocket; it's the newest model, the Beatle-05, and even though they'd had great service in the city center the screen flickers with connection problems. It had even worked in the airship, so she supposes the problem is deeper than the elevation or the isolation.

“We won't be able to contact you if there's a problem,” she tells Nikolaus. “Just be ready for our return. No matter how long that takes. Even if it's days, don't go anywhere. And if others from the Mafia show up here, hide or use your best judgment to confront or take them out. As long as you're ready, I don't care how you pass the time.”

“T-that's fine...” Nikolaus's nervousness is making Cluck nervous, so she steps away and moves towards Kanzai, who is doing calisthenics in the middle of the clearing, doing lunges and stretching out his legs and arms. Nikolaus glances towards the passenger seat, where a few silver cans are nestled next to the spare blankets. “At least I've still got the soup...”

“You good to go?” She does a few quick stretches herself, focusing on her arms and making sure her jacket is zipped to her chin and her pockets are fastened securely. She remembers an early mission, ruefully, where she'd been sent flying by an assailant and every candy wrapper and jenni coin in her pockets had come tumbling out. This had been in a protected wildlife preserve, where every contaminant was carefully detailed and collected and after dispatching the poachers who'd attacked her she'd had to scale a ravine just to get them back. The last thing she wants is to repeat the experience, especially when she worries that the ecosystem is too delicate to support even the most minor interference, not to mention whatever the Mafia had been doing in there for weeks in their search of the orchid.

“Ready when you are,” is his response. A moment later, and a wave back to Nikolaus from Cluck, and the two begin making their way into the forest. There is no path, but Cluck has memorized the maps, and begins traveling South as best she can, making her way between the largest gaps in the trees. In a minute, they completely lose sight of the clearing, and another minute later the trees have grown so much larger, and the tree cover so much thicker, that the light begins to thin and what sky is visible through the treetops looks darkened as if from a storm. Although there is no rain, the air is heavy with moisture and a little warmer than she expects.

“You're looking for something,” Kanzai says. “What is it?”

“Something different.” Cluck scans the forest, taking in the uneven pitch to the soil, and the meager understory above the forest floor. Every so often she stops, to listen for any sign of other intruders or to put her head to the ground to listen for running water. Once they find the river, Cluck is sure the path to the orchid will present itself to them. It will be easier to read the extent of the forest—right now, it looks not much different than any other forest in this part of the world.

She pauses again to listen, Kanzai right beside her. “It's strange,” she says. “I haven't seen a single animal since we've been here. No birds, no squirrels, nothing.”

“Your ability won't work without it, right?”

She makes a hmph in response, straightening and wiping the sweat from her forehead. “There's no berries, no flowers, either...it's springtime, so I'd expect to see some of that. But if there's nothing for the birds to eat, then of course there would be no birds. Unless the Mafia intrusion has chased them away.”

“Of course,” Kanzai echoes. “So, how do you explain that?”

She follows his outstretched hand towards a tree about fifteen feet away, unremarkable except for the faded X drawn on it in white chalk. Cluck bounds towards it in an instant, studying the mark and the ground around the tree. None others in the area are marked that they can see, but a few yards away she finds the remnants of wheel marks in the soft dirt.

“Something was brought through here,” she says. “Good eye.”

He makes a hmph at that, too, shrugging his shoulders and glancing back the way they'd came. “I'm hoping you know the way back. I'm not about to climb one of those to figure it out.”

They travel another few minutes in silence. Occasionally one of them will spot a tree marked with chalk—sometimes the marks are fresh, sometimes they look half worn away, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to their organization.

“I wonder why they call it the Endeløs Forest,” Cluck muses.

“Probably should've asked Nikolaus that.” Kanzai alights onto a boulder with an unfair amount of grace, scrambling up and over a rift in the ground that Cluck ducks around instead. She can tell, he would be moving faster if he could, but he sticks to her pace, acting both as scout and support. They pass another tree with a faded X, and continue down the slope of the mountainside.

“This is so much fun,” Kanzai continues. “We should really work together more often.”

“Shut up!” The constant running, the loud sounds of her breathing in her ears, and the growing humidity is making it hard for her to think. “We're missing something! It'll be obvious once we get to the river, I know it!”

“And you know that how? Because none of the Mafia are here?” Kanzai kicks a pebble off into the distance, watching it clatter against the base of a tree, covered in dark mosses. “I think we've been running in circles.”

“I think you should shut up!” She stops running to spin, turning towards Kanzai when the ground slips underneath her feet and she goes tumbling, sliding down what she thought at the time was a gradual incline in the ground. Instead, there is a nearly vertical drop, hidden by boulders and covered by leaves, and Cluck finds herself plummeting down into a hollow of crumbling leaves and dark loam.

At the last moment she covers her body with Nen , landing and rolling to absorb the impact without injury. Sitting on the ground, she takes a moment to recover her dignity before glancing around. Vines crawl up the rocky surface surrounding her, and her excitement at finding something different is short-lived as she sees Kanzai's face peek over the top of the ledge. She climbs to her feet to study the vines—they're grafted to the spindly tree climbing up the rocks, parasitic in nature just as she'd thought, and she almost misses Kanzai jump off the ledge and manage a perfect, noiseless landing in the soft dirt beside her.

“There should be more growing here,” she says, digging her hands into the ground to feel the earth. “This is some really good soil.”

“You have something on your face,” Kanzai says in response, gesturing with his thumb at a spot at the base of his right cheek. When Cluck brushes a dirt-covered hand across the same spot on her own face, it does nothing. “No, there. There . No, never mind.”

Even further down, the sky is that much darker, but when Cluck listens closely she can hear the far-off sound of running water.

“Come on. It's this way.”

They continue running, and still there are no sign of creatures—no snakes, no mammals, not even any insects, which worries her most. The only way that could be explained is if everything in this forest was nocturnal, which...

She stops in her tracks, stroking her chin in thought. Could it be possible...?

“I think we made a mistake coming here during the daytime,” she says. “It's not that there's nothing to see, it's that everything won't come out until nightfall! The plants are nocturnal!”

Kanzai glances around, at the plain, unassuming trees, branches, and leaves, as if expecting them to suddenly sprout heads and join the conversation. “What? What's wrong with them?”

“They're nocturnal,” she repeats. At Kanzai's blank expression, she continues, “Nocturnal creatures are active at night and at rest during the day. Like owls, and rodents, and some...cats. For plants, it's more common in arid biomes, where the heat of the sun would wither anything that blooms during the day, so native species adapted so that the flowers would only open at night.”

He tips his head up, looking past the rocky curve at their backs to the tree canopy now so much higher up above. “I dunno, it seems pretty dark in here to me.”

Cluck freezes again, before her mouth stretches into a wide grin. “That's exactly it, isn't it? The closer we get to the middle, the darker it's getting...and we've been traveling for what, an hour? A little more? Do you have the time?”

Kanzai rolls up his sleeve, studying the face of his watch. “No...we've been in here for over four hours.”

“What?” She pauses, the sweat on the back of her neck cooling with the realization. She was hungry, her muscles were tired, and as she looked up at the tiny slices of sky visible through the tree canopy she felt the smallest bit of vertigo.

“It's like he said, isn't it,” Kanzai continues. “The same thing happened to the Mafia members. Time slips away from them—what feels like hours turns into days. I thought, since we were Hunters, it wouldn't apply to us the same way, but guess not. It's a little humbling.”

“You don't like it.” Cluck's smile turns soft at his sullen attitude. “Neither do I. Let's keep going.”

The pace they set now is more measured; considering it's been hours since they've had any nourishment, and with as much as they're sweating they're going to have to replace the moisture they've lost somehow, Cluck doesn't want to risk overexertion or fainting. She's not a medic, and she wouldn't trust Kanzai to put on a bandage correctly, let alone monitor for hypoglycemia.

“I'm gonna steal so much food from the Mafia,” she says, panting, as they stop for another break by a tree with a freshly-marked X. “That restaurant was so good!”

“ Shh .” Kanzai lifts a hand, then begins pointing with a series of hand signals Cluck has no idea how to interpret. At her blank stare, he regards her with open disappointment. “Can't you hear it? Voices, up ahead. Be quiet.”

She can, now that she takes a moment to listen. Voices, and the strange sound of machinery cranking, like a fan belt or belay device. They creep closer, and while the voices become clearer, they're indiscernible—the speech is in the native language, and interspersed with laughter. Peering around the edge of a tall boulder, they are finally able to see the full extent of the Mafia's camp.

The first thing she sees is an oversized generator, whirring loudly and connected with cords to a variety of other equipment. There's some kind of rappelling device, as she'd thought—something large and heavy, with a kind of affixed frame to transport both multiple people and supplies. Luckily for them, the framework is at the top, but four Mafia gunmen sit around it, talking and eating. They're ribbing each other; every so often, one will laugh, or make a joke. None of them Cluck recognizes from the restaurant, but she does recognize the food they're eating, which fills her with understandable envy.

Tents are set up haphazardly in the cleared spaces between trees—and not all the clearings are natural, as she can see hatchets and log clearing machines, discarded and unattended beside jagged tree stumps. Tall, electric powered lights have been drilled into some of the trees about fifteen feet up in a perimeter, washing the area in a bright, artificial light, and beyond that, the ground dips in a brutally familiar way. Just like when she'd fallen into the cavern earlier, a second ledge leads down into an even deeper cave. At a glance, the edges seem to be fringed with a series of strange leafed bushes, but on deeper consideration they appear to be the tops of even taller trees. And below, the sound of rushing water of what could only be the river. Her anticipation grows, her hands shaking. The thought of a hunt—and she hasn't hunted anything in so long—is thrilling beyond all expectation.

“How deep do you think it goes?” Kanzai whispers. “Deep enough they need an elevator.”

“That's not what it is...oh, whatever.” Cluck returns her attention to the gunmen. “How do you want to proceed?”

When she glances back at Kanzai, he's holding a bat; this one is lighter in color, with extremely visible graining and a large letter A emblazoned on the side. He taps the bat into the palm of one hand and raises an eyebrow.

“Oh, fine, but make it quick. I don't want the whole forest knowing we're coming.”

Five minutes later, Kanzai's knocked out all four men before they even have the chance to blink, and tied them up with rope to one of the smaller trees. Cluck sits in their place, leaning against the generator, chewing on a sandwich. Of the thermos bottles around the campsite, only one has water; the others have coffee and vodka, which is worse than useless when combating dehydration, but the river below is promising and after they spend a few minutes burrowing through the tents they come up with even more food—energy bars and protein drinks and similar things she remembers from late nights as a student.

“Cluck.” Kanzai repeats her name twice, standing to the side with arms crossed as Cluck continues to sort all the trash she can find, stuffing the empty food containers into a plastic bag she'd found and retrieving the litter the gunmen had left around their campsite. “ Cluck .”

“Nature preservation is important!” She throws a wrapper into the bag and follows it with an empty soda can. “Who knows what damage they're doing down there!”

“I really think someone so interested in making money isn't going to risk ruining the very thing he's trying to sell with his efforts.” Kanzai tilts his head to the side as he watches Cluck hurl a full pack of cigarettes into the trash.

“ Still .” She stands, straightening her back and dusting off her hands. “I don't feel quite so bad about beating up all these strangers anymore.”

“Did you ever?” They make their way to the rappelling machine, studying it and climbing into the open cage.

“I mean, they don't even know Nen .” She grips one of the metal bars with one hand before leaning over the side, bracing with her toes and tilting her body straight down to get the best view over the crevasse. “It's not exactly fair.”

Below, the first thing that catches her eye are the bright, jewel-pink and orange flowers nestled in the tops of the some of the highest-level trees. The leaves are wide and spiky like a palm tree, the trunk thick and striated, and the flowers look more tropical than anything else. She cannot see any other people on the ground, only a metal surround for the rest of the lift platform to secure it after it descends. Kanzai handles the control levers, and the platform begins to slowly move down the side of the cliff.

As they descend, the air grows even warmer, and Cluck discards her jacket, balling it up and stuffing it inside her knapsack. And as they fall, the view crystallizes into unbelievable, astonishing focus.

Flowers, of every bright color nature could provide, scattered like sequins across the fabric of the forest. Vines crawling with beetles with shells patterned like amber, plants growing out of the rock with spiny protrusions and speckled leaves, everything in the full bloom of life. The darkness grows even deeper, but their descent is slow enough their vision adjusts as they go. Still, she cannot see all the way across this second level of the forest, only a few bright spots of unmoving color before it is swallowed up by blackness and silence.

At the base, they step off the platform—there are no others, or any signs of other Mafia gunmen. She breathes deeply, taking in the spiky grasses growing off to the side of a makeshift path, the rows of vividly-colored mushrooms along the edge of the cliff, the almost glowing mosses lining the roof of the cavern. Where the treetops brush the rocks, the air is heavy with mist and the branches seem to shake as if from some wind current she cannot feel all the way at the ground.

Even standing still, her feet seem to sink slightly into the loam, the dirt as soft as if it was freshly-tilled.

“Ok, you're up,” Kanzai says. He doesn't look fazed at all, but he does sound impressed, and she'll just have to take it. “I'll admit, this is a lot nicer.”

“You haven't seen nothing yet.” Cluck cracks her knuckles, the gesture reminding her suddenly of something Kanzai would do. She smiles, and begins leading a path straight into the forest.

The sound of rushing water grows even stronger—the river must be underground, or at least partially so, and as they approach Cluck can see water trickling down the rocks in places. A waterfall, maybe, or some rapids, depending on the strength of the currents. Bright mosses grow along the rocks, but here there are no insects, nothing else of note.

“Don't touch anything,” she tells Kanzai. “The brighter it is, the more dangerous, probably.”

Movement, up ahead. A few small birds, with bright flocks of color across their backs, resembling the same patterns of the bright leaves of a few smaller trees she remembers seeing around the mouth of the cavern. It's not enough—they're not close enough, and there's not enough of them to risk trying to use her ability. She will only have one shot at this, and she's determined to get it right.

She asks Kanzai for the time again—it's been another couple hours, longer than either of them thinks, and as they continue they see every type of fern, grass, and flower conceivable, except for the orchid she seeks. There are spiders, frogs with spots the color of jewels, and birds with sharp, hooked beaks drifting too far overhead to reach. Where the plants are oversized, almost large enough to be comical, the animal life is diminutive in size, and almost entirely useless to her. What does this say, that the plants are the predators here?

There are more chalk marks on the trees, and boulders jutting out of areas of soft, tilled dirt, and behind one such boulder the ground drops out and Cluck can see the river exposed, rushing over the visible roots of a gnarled tree and disappearing just as suddenly over another small drop in the ground. Narrow silver fish, like the kind they'd eaten at the restaurant, swim with the current, and when Cluck drops down against the ground, holding her palm above the water, she hesitates. The fish are there, perfect in numbers, but still not ideal for her needs. They could not travel with her, could not leave the cover of water.

And beyond, they hear voices. Shouting.

“I told you it was there!” The voice is frantic, half-sob and half-scream. “I saw something move!”

“You saw nothing!” She recognizes the loud, flat voice of Mikkel, and as they creep around a boulder they can see about a dozen Mafia gunmen with their backs to the river; all look dazed, their faces dripping with sweat and their eyes glassy. They clearly spent the night searching, and how many nights before that?

“If you cannot find the orkidé , then you cannot find excuses!” he yells. “When you find it you can rest!”

“I saw...” One of them staggers, trying to find the words. “I saw something! Where did it go?”

The next moment, Kanzai leaps out of the darkness, not even waiting for her cue, baseball bat in hand, swinging. He gets out two before the rest have the sense to draw their guns, and then he adopts a defensive pose, returning each shot as it comes and moving even further forward.

Cluck glances between them all, before looking down at her own feet. She's standing beside the boulder, out in the open, her every instinct telling her to keep moving, to dodge, to go on ahead. The gunmen must be right, they must be close; it is as if she can sense it.

Kanzai volleys another round of bullets, his posture wide, and when the others reload he grasps the bat in both hands and slams it into the ground, sending a shockwave that almost knocks them all off their feet.

What is he doing? He's taking all the fire, drawing it away from her. His mouth moves, although she cannot hear the words. Is he talking to her?

He is, though. He's been shouting to her for some time now. Why are her legs moving so slowly?

She glances up. They all do, at the sudden shadow that falls over them like a blanket. She squints into the darkness, uncertain, before her eyes widen and she staggers back as a branch whips through the air, catching one of the gunmen around the middle and launching them in mid-air back into the dark.

Adrenaline supplies her feet with motion and her mind with clarity, and she leaps out of the way of a second branch, sweeping across the clearing at knee-level. Most of the gunmen clear it, but a few are knocked to the ground, and Kanzai lands beside her, his bat held high and his eyes full of incredulity.

“What the hell is that?!” He holds out the end of the bat, gesturing with it as a gigantic tree, its trunk marked with a faded chalkmark, comes marching out of the shadows on large, disparate roots. It strikes, again, and this time the gunmen turn their weapons on the tree, emptying an entire clip each into its trunk with little effect.

“A tree, obviously.” Cluck has to crane her neck up to even see it all, and when the roots contract, sliding it backwards through the dirt and out of sight, she remembers the maps and their previously-unexplainable inconsistencies.

“You laughed when I told you we were going to be hunting a plant,” she reminds him.

It strikes again, and this time the branch lunges forward, striking the man on Mikkel's right and plunging straight through his chest. It retracts, dragging the body with it, and Mikkel and the others turn to canisters placed haphazardly around the rocks.

“Get the flares!” he shouts. “Burn them down! Use the liquid nitrogen!”

Cluck starts, reaching out for the other to try and knock the equipment out of their hands. “Don't!”

Kanzai instead reaches for her, yanking Cluck out of the way as the tree rushes forward again, two branches whipping out to try and snag any additional prey and missing all targets. It lingers, the branches poised, waiting for any movement.

A second tree, its branches tipped with coiled pink flowers, slinks through the darkness behind the first.

“How many do you think there are?” Kanzai asks. “Do you think they all move like that?”

“I think the entire forest is alive,” she answers, and watches as Mikkel raises a flare gun and blasts it straight up into the canopy of the main tree. It bursts into life, sending flames and red smoke across the treetop—the new light source illuminates the top of the cavern and with it they can see the writhing movement of dozens of other trees, coming closer.

“Retreat!” Mikkel shouts, sweeping out his arm and trying to push his men behind the cover of boulders. “Get back!”

Several of them run, others raising guns to fruitlessly cover their progress, their gait still uneven and their faces still disoriented and eyes glazed. She doesn't know if they're even running in the right direction.

On a whim, she lights up her eyes with Gyo .

It is as though she can see in the darkness as far as her En can go. She sees every rock, every blade of grass, every movement of the gunmen as they blip out of her radar and every minutiae of the tree before her. She glances to Kanzai, and sees that at her approach, he too washes his eyes with Gyo .

“I can't believe we didn't think to use our auras earlier.” Her En stretching out, she's able to track the one tree moving counterclockwise with an ease that completely eluded her earlier. “We're such idiots.”

There's screaming, from the Mafia men ahead of them. The second tree, trapping the others. Kanzai rests the baseball bat against his shoulder.

The next time the tree sends a branch forward, Kanzai is ready, and whips the bat forward, cloaked in aura, and splinters the branch with the force of his swing. The tree staggers back, and Cluck surges forward, spiking her aura and sending a Nen -infused punch straight at the center of the trunk. It splits the tree in two, and she feels the moment it flickers and dies, falling backward with a resounding crash that shakes the already pliant ground. The forest is silent, the other trees creeping backwards, and a moment later everything is still.

She stares into the darkness, her Nen receding. The pitch blackness of the forest reminds her of the black ink of the sketch, and her only thought once again is for the orchid. She finds herself turning, staggering on shaky legs over to the river and dropping to her knees beside it. Silvery fish dart through the water, seemingly unaware or unaffected by the fight that just occurred.

“Cluck.”

She barely hears Kanzai call her name, her hand outstretched towards the fish, her desire so profound to find the orchid that if it was anyone else, she doubts she would have paused at all. But it's Kanzai, and she does.

“Cluck, look at yourself.”

She does, glancing back into the river and meeting her reflection. Glassy, dull eyes stare back at her. A pallid complexion, wisps of hair clinging to the sides of her face from sweat. She looks like the gunmen, like whatever had trapped them here is now affecting her. And she remembers reading about the Black Orchid, about how just the sketch alone moved her to action, and how anyone who caught so much as a glance was bidden to offer every cent they had for the opportunity to own it.

And her mind clarifies, this time, she believes, for good.

She coughs into one shoulder, aware now of how her vision swims, what that means, and what to do when it happens.

“What happened to you?” She's never heard Kanzai sound concerned about her, but this almost seems close. He grips her shoulder tightly with his free hand.

“Spores, maybe. Or some kind of effect from a psychotropic fungus or flower. I wasn't expecting that. I'll be better soon.”

“Why didn't it affect me?”

She considers the options, not wanting to suggest aloud that it could be due to his height, or the fact that his high collar and long sleeves cover more of his skin than her outfit with its exposed arms and legs. It could even be that it merely amplifies whatever natural desires exist in a person, and a Botanical Hunter would already be predisposed towards wanting to enter the forest and unearth its mysteries.

“Maybe it did. Or maybe there's nothing to affect.” She means it lightly, but he takes offense, scowling and curling his lip over pointed teeth.

“Well, excuse me for caring.” He steps back, crossing his arms. As she studies him, he doesn't look like the gunmen—his eyes are focused, his posture is even, and he doesn't seem distracted by anything around him, despite how remarkable it all is. Instead, even as he feigns disinterest, she can feel through his aura the bulk of his attention is still exclusively centered on her.

“Come on,” she says. “We've come this far. Let's find that orchid.”

They walk together; she keeps her aura flexed, and every time they come into range of one of the larger trees, she feels it shrink backwards.

Beneath the lacerated leaves of a fern she finally finds what she is looking for. A cluster of small rodents, with large pointed ears and bushy tails sit together chewing on some kind of large, flat tubers. She holds out a hand, concentrating her Nen , and her Pied Piper flares to life.

The rodents stop, their eyes swiveling to focus on her. She can only use Pied Piper once per day, and once she establishes contact with it she cannot switch it to a new set of targets. Her ability grants her total control over any number of the same kind of animal, with the conditions that she must not have caused them harm, can only give them one command at a time, and cannot give them a new command until they finish the old one.

“Help me find the Black Orchid,” she tells them. “Please.”

The rodents turn and scurry across a rock, glancing back as if to tell her to follow them. And she does, leaping around boulders and under fallen logs, leaving the area by the river and making their way back up a steady slope of the cave floor. And she can feel the forest try to shift around them as they move, but the rodents know the forest well, and are able to correct course and take them straight to where she hopes the orchid is.

In an area blocked by a curtain of moss, the rodents sit and wait, chittering together and staring up at Cluck with black eyes. The air is brighter here, and tinged with something sweet and unfamiliar.

Kanzai uses his bat to sweep aside the curtain. “After you,” he says.

Cluck steps through first, her feet once again sinking into the soft dirt. There are cracks in the rocks above, letting in just enough light that slices of it hit the forest floor at frequent enough angles for her to see the first of the flowers.

She had thought she would only find one specimen, and maybe not even one in full bloom.

Instead, an entire grove of them spreads out before her, as far as she can see. Each flower is equidistant from the rest, open in perfect bloom, the black petals as flawless and beautiful as every documented example.

Kanzai steps into place beside her. She hears his breath catch in his throat, and feels him reach for her hand. But they both cannot look at anything other than the field of orchids in front of them.

Then, he turns to look at her. “Is it everything you wanted?”

She can barely make out the word. “Yes.”

“Great.” He stands beside her for another minute. He doesn't even comment on the tears drying on her cheeks, or the dirt smudged onto her hands and face. But he does still open his mouth to say, “How are we getting out of here again?”

“The rodents,” she says. “the rodents.”

“...And we're going to have to deal with a bureaucratic nightmare to package some of these up and transport them. Plus dealing with all of the dead Mafia. You got a plan for that too?”

She pauses, considering. She'll have to arrange a visa for Nikolaus, agriculture entry permits, and fast-track some laboratory assistance with negating any negative effects of the orchid's spores. Then, her mouth stretches into a grin. “I'll have to call in a favor. But that does give me an idea...”

–

Pariston Hill stands before the press briefing, wearing a black suit patterned with begonias. And gold aviator sunglasses.

To his right, Cluck is silent, arms clasped behind her back as Pariston reads off the teleprompter, some fluff explanation he'd scripted himself after Cluck called in the favor he'd offered her for voting in his interests in some real estate proposal some months ago.

“The Black Orchid will be preserved and cultivated, studied in labs across the continents and, of course, available for display at the museums here in Swaldani City and in Yorkshin!” He spreads his arms wide, a beaming smile gracing his face. It's hard to imagine him in a setting like Razing, covered in dirt and grime, but she manages. She's got to keep herself occupied somehow during this boring briefing.

“And now, my colleague Cluck will say a few words,” he continues, and Cluck startles. She certainly wasn't expecting this—it hadn't been in any part of their discussion. In fact, he'd seemed pleased to be in full control of the media dissemination, but now with little choice she steps up to the podium in his place and reads from the teleprompter.

“Charting the Endeløs Forest will provide us with a wealth of information and will lead to new discoveries in medicine and bioscience. And of course, none of it would be possible without the tireless work of my good friend, Pariston Hill...” She pauses, gritting her teeth. “Who is one of the most generous and selfless men I know.”

Pariston beams, and the crew of media reporters applaud briefly as she steps back.

“Thank you for your time!” He waves, beckoning her back behind the doors into the Association headquarters.

“Now,” he tells her, once the noise from the crowd of reporters outside has died down, “I still have some calls to make. And I was hoping you would be there for the opening of the exhibit here. It's tonight, and the guest list has already been decided, but I'm sure I can get you in.”

How generous indeed. “I can't, I'm afraid. I've got plans.”

“Really?” He tilts his head, his every microexpression a study in curiosity. “What might those be? I've thought your social calendar was a little thin as of late.”

“Shut up!” If she didn't want him to ruin her good mood, the first step should have been not to let him know about it in the first place. Or, she could always rub her happiness in his face. “Actually, I've got a hot date.”

His expression falls immediately, disgust marring the otherwise immaculate features. “You don't need to share every detail.”

“I wasn't. It's none of your business. Have fun at the museum! Bye!!” With reporters blocking the entrance and Pariston standing in front of the lobby corridor leading to the main bank of elevators, she doesn't have many viable avenues of escape. Still, she knows about a back door leading to the parking garage, so she takes it and slips out.

She has a few more hours to kill until Kanzai takes her to dinner. Somewhere nice. A surprise, he'd said.

At the end, he gives her flowers. Real ones. Purple orchids, for her desk.

[jeanjauthor]

I just realized I needed to say thank you for Ia-verse, and specially for the political system you designed for it. It's election month here (Brazil), I almost lost hope that the facist will lose, lost hope in the whole system a long time ago... But reading (and re-reading) your books make me think that there could be a way to make this damn thing work, one day. So just... Thank you for helping me stay sane today

*hugs you close*

I feel the same way right now...  It’s so hard to win against these dastards.  It’s not impossible, thankfully.  There’s always hope...  But sometimes a situation has to be badly broken before everyone gets enough motivation together to fix it.

Part of the problem lies in the polarization of “all or nothing” and “you’re either for me or against me” and “if they’re not one of us, they’re the enemy...”  and  “If you chose to turn left, you can never ever turn right” and “if you’re not doing what we’re doing, you’re stupid for choosing anything else”... All of which are intolerant positions.  Which is ironic, because the one thing tolerance must never tolerate is intolerance.

It’s hard to combat these things, because it’s hard to feel like anything we do helps.  Especially if you cannot do certain things, due to health, time, finances.  Not everyone can march, or hold a protest sign, or stand with arms linked in a human barrier outside a building.  Not everyone can travel to a capital city to shout at the people in power.

It gets on my nerves when someone demands,  “And where were you at that march on the capitol building??”  because it’s ableist, classist, and it erases contributions on many fronts.  I like to use the analogy of the roadway that’s been paved to Hell--you know the saying, good intentions can pave a path to Hell?

Well, it’s hard work to break up that road and repave it in the right direction.  It’s a lot of hard work.  And it takes more than just the people busting up the old road and clearing the land for the new.  A lot more positions than those driving the builldozers or laying the asphalt.  It takes flaggers to direct traffic safely around the construction.  It takes office workers filing all the paperwork so that it complies with all regulations.  It takes people you see, and people you don’t see doing all the work necessary, not just the actual road crews shoveling the tarred gravel into place.

Be a road builder if you can.  Put on that eye-searingly bright, reflective vest, the hardhat, the steel-toed boots and heavy work gloves.  But don’t worry if you can’t be.  Not everyone can be, nor needs to be, a bulldozer operator.  You also need the ditch diggers and the surveyors and the people who mark out with paint sprays where all the underground lines and pipes are buried.  Those and the office workers and the flaggers are all important.

In a battle, the army has more than just the infantry, or even them and the cavalry, the artillery.  They have the support services, the medical corps, the logistics & supply, the machinists who repair the equipment and the motorpool who maintain the vehicles...

If this is a battle, it’s completely okay if you can’t be in the infantry.  Your contribution is important, so long as you make some sort of effort toward it.

I’d never in a million years make it into Ia’s Damned.  Or into a real world military.  I’ll never be that physically fit.  I have something of a head for strategy and tactics, but...I’m better off using my fame (what little I have) as an author to be the equivalent of a scanner/surveillance technician, spotting enemy actions and calling it out to the rest of the squadron.  There are those who can sabotage the effectiveness of bot commenters. I’m not too good at that, but I’m slowly learning how to shut that down, cut the legs out form under their pseudo-arguments, torpedo their false logic...

Still, I’m best at being a flagger on the road construction project, warning people of problems up ahead, advising different routes, and smiling and waving at those who are doing great.  That’s what I can do, and do hopefully better than adding my body to marches and protests.

There may come a time when I’ll have to do that, too, but right now, my energy is best used doing that.  So that’s what I’m doing.  The trick is to realize we are going to win through diversity and perseverence, to find out what your strengths are, to try to develop different abilities for different strategies and tactics...and to remember to take time to laugh, to feel happy, to recharge and remember why we’re fighting these dastards.

And the best way to do that is to band together, work together, and resist together.  For all, not just for a rarified few.

It won’t be an easy or a quick victory, but it will be a worthwhile one.

*hugs*

[petitsdieu]

She was spoonfeed a platter of leak-worthy points to talk about. This was one of them.

❛ An explicit love story demands explicits, all around, no? ❜

Does she believe some of that explicit tips too far? Perhaps. There had been a steady nerve build-up on particular filming days. But how many mainstream films can say they have graphic nudity in the name of a stylistic storytelling of love? Versus the usual graphic nudity frequenting horror films or the shock value of HBO’s newer hollows.

Then again — maybe true nakedness can be uncomfortable because it suggests to be opened to a complete point. It is painful to engage in that process and even more painful to be unaccepted afterwards.

The artist must suffer some sacrifices for these truths of the skin and underneath it.

Her body feels so sacred.

❛ I’m like the peach in Call Me By Your Name. If the story’s focus was on the peach. ❜

Somewhere between peach and pie — The average reader or headliner glancer love a comparison. Something familiar to latch upon. The reference gives a myriad of imagery and tones.

She comforts the middle of the bed. Dress following the lines of her folded legs. A stack of posters to sign as she divides her attention between that and him. And him, of course she remembers him. As she does most of the people that interview her. For the worse of better of that. He files into the better. His eyes alone require that.

@petitsdieu sent :: "the nudity is entirely optional."

With a smirk and a muffled chuckle the journalist leaned forward. That wasn't the answer he was expecting, but it certainly was intriguing. Salacious interviews with emerging celebrities always did well, especially when the details were freely given and he didn't have to pry them out of his subject like a dentist pulling teeth.

Kipling tapped his pen on his notepad as the mid-day sun beamed through the hotel window and past the heavy woven curtains. The air conditioner hummed as it churned out palatable air on an unseasonably warm afternoon. This interview was sure to be worth the hundred some-odd dollars he had paid for a chance at a private encounter. Pale knuckles lightly rapped against the little chestnut desk nestled by the balcony door.

"Is there some kind of artistic statement you're trying to make through real, uncensored nudity? Or is it just... fun?"

He crossed his legs and leaned back again, awaiting an answer. Like a hawk he watched Hara's lips, rosy and plump. She was beautiful, and though he was sure she was talented he knew that she didn't need to be to bring the world's gaze onto her. He was surprised someone like her even remembered him from the brief meeting they'd had the year prior but he wasn't about to second guess an opportunity like this.

[petitsdieu]

cont. 𝒇𝒕. @fawnworked

He doesn't miss a beat. "'Course you can." He may as well let the situation take charge of itself– or let Hara take charge of it, as it increasingly seems she's keen on doing. It's no matter; Oliver is more than amenable to letting her steer the ship, curious as to where it may go. He leans over the edge of the bathtub, resting his head on his crossed arms and looking up at her. "Come warm up."

Her thumb edges the door frame where she's kept her gaze. But when he gives her the greenlight, she does not hesitate to move.

Her slip of a dress stays on when she steps into the bath with him. She slinks into the opposite curve. Legs folded to her chest as she fills the empty space. But although there's room to breath, it does not bother her when limbs touch. The warmth of the water and his company does her well.

She closes her eyes for a spell. A soft, balmy smile on her lips. The thing is, she knew he would say yes but that didn't make it any less sweeter when she was proven right.