#I feel bad Shin's was so short so I may write something of an extra scenario for him

[carlatsukinamistolemyhamsandwich]

So these soulmate headcanons.. WOW, they’re awesome! Please, pretty please make one for Reiji 🙏🙏

So sorry for the wait! I got really carried away with this one and it ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would be, so I’ve put it under the cut. I hope you like it ^^ 

General setup: Set in a universe where everyone has a soulmate and there are various different connections between soulmates. Vampires (and Founders) have been known to have human soulmates. Generally the connection between a vampire/founder and their soulmate will not kick in until their soulmate is born and will fade after their soulmate dies. It considered unusual for a vampire to meet, let alone be with, their human soulmate.

Reiji Sakamaki

Connection with soulmate:  youcan influence your soulmate’s emotions when in physical contact with them.

- You weren’t born with any sort of obvious connection to your soulmate. Many people weren’t, but it didn’t stop you from feeling a slight sense of envy towards those with a name or pattern inked on their body that would lead them to their other half. No, you would have to rely on luck to find your soulmate, and you were left with little clue as to what form the connection might take when it showed itself.

- Years passed and all too quickly you found yourself preparing for your last year of school, your connection to your soulmate as elusive as it had always been.

- Just before the start of term, a letter arrived, with an offer to a transfer to Ryoutei Academy and a place to stay while you studied there. One of your relatives had some connection to the politician Tougo Sakamaki, and had apparently been able to pull some strings to be able to arrange the whole thing. Whether you wanted to transfer to the school or not, you were given little choice in the matter, and as all of your friends started back at your old school, you were being driven in a sleek black car to your new home, leaving all of them behind.

- Although the mansion had a dark, unsettling feeling the moment you laid eyes on it, nothing could have prepared you for what lay inside its walls. Vampires, cruel and vicious, some nightmare made flesh, and your apparent hosts. Although captors might have been a more accurate term, all connection to your loved ones had been severed and any attempts to run were met with swift retaliation. 

- Reiji had hardly taken a vested interest in you when you first arrived at the house. Your manners and posture left a fair amount to be desired but at least you were slightly better than some of the louder women they’d been sent over the years. Mostly the triplets did with you as they pleased, and he suspected it would not be long before yet another bride would need to be dispatched by the church. 

- A few weeks after you first arrived, Reiji was enjoying a rare moment of peace in his room. A pot of freshly brewed tea steaming on the table, it’s pleasant aroma filling the air as he flicked through his notes. The sound of hurried footsteps echoed down the hall and Reiji lifted his head in response.

Moments later, the door slammed open and you tumbled inside, the scent of your fear heavy in the air. Your eyes widened as soon as they found his and you started to stammer out an apology, something about how Ayato was chasing you and you hadn’t realized this room was occupied. 

What an unsightly creature you were, your blouse half torn open and your hair in disarray. But he was far from one to refuse such an opportunity. 

Reiji set his notes to the side, readjusting his glasses as he noted how rude, not to mention unwise, it was to intrude in such a manner. It seemed that you thought you might be able to leave his room with only a simple chiding. How terribly naive.

He played to your assumptions for a short while, issuing a verbal dress-down that left you slightly red in the face. When he made an act of generously offering you a cup of tea, you muttered a soft yes almost immediately, eyes on the floor. 

It was a simple matter to slip one of his newer concoctions into your cup without your notice. A few minutes after accepting the drink, your hand went to the base of your throat and you started to wince.

“Is something the matter?” Reiji inquired, his own cup untouched. 

“My throat, it feels like it’s on fire,” you said, your voice hoarse.

“How interesting, I’d hoped it would paralyse the vocal cords completely, but it seems I still have more work to do.”

Your expression morphed into one of horror and you quickly stood and backed towards the door, but it was too late. Only a flick of his power was required to lock the door without him ever actually touching it. In no time, Reiji had you against the wall, wrists pinned by his gloved hand. You struggled against him but it was to no avail, and then his teeth were at your neck.

The moment his lips touched your skin, a jolt of fear shot through him. Some kind of mortal terror, the likes of which he’d never experienced before. He drew back and the feeling vanished, leaving him breathless. What was this? Your scent was that of an ordinary human, you certainly shouldn’t have the power to affect him in such a manner. 

Experimentally, Reiji ran a bare finger over the skin of your neck and the same sensation filled him. Flinching back as thought he’d been burned, he tightened his grip on your wrists to the point where you cried out.

“What exactly are you?” He hissed, scanning your eyes for any indication of deception.

“Human,” your voice shook, “I’m just a human.” 

Reiji took a deep breath to see if there was anything he’d missed in your scent, but it was utterly mortal, laced with fear. Wait, fear. Those were your emotions he’d sensed, but how? Vampires were capable of many things but this wasn’t one of them. Unless… 

An idea of the situation took shape in his mind, and there was only one way to test it. He lowered his mouth to your neck again, ignoring how you flinched away.

The fear hit him again, but this time he pushed back, summoning the sense of calm he felt when left to enjoy his tea in peace. Almost immediately your muscles relaxed, and even as his fangs pierced your skin, you made no move to struggle, nor did you protest.

The moment his skin left yours, you stiffened. The air once again rife with the smell of your fear.

“What… What did you do to me?” You spoke in a small voice.

A connection that flowed equally between a vampire and a human, Reiji had no doubt about exactly what it meant. That a mortal child held such a power over him… It was far from a pleasant thought and no matter what you were, it was not something he would allow you to wield against him.

“Have you truly not grasped the innate differences between us? This is just another one of the many abilities at my disposal, and another reason why you should learn your place in this household. Should I choose to, I could make it so that you begged me to drink from you to the point where your blood ran dry.” You shivered in his hold, and Reiji braced himself for the onslaught of emotion as he bit down over your clavicle.

You were far from what he had hoped for in a partner, but perhaps that could be rectified with a bit of time and training. The nature of your connection to each other certainly held some potential in that regard, although he would need to find a way to keep you from being able to subconsciously impose your emotions on him.   

One thing was for sure though, the triplets had had the last of their fun with you. From now on, the only one who would be feeding from you was him.

- The nature of your days in the mansion changed after your encounter with Reiji. Gone were the many hours the triplets would spend bothering you. They still tried of course, but Reiji had an uncanny tendency to interrupt them before they could ever get very far. In fact, you seemed to be able to go very little time without Reiji making some sort of appearance. He’d somehow managed to get hold of your academic record and informed you that it was not fit for a member of the household, even though you suspected it was at least better than some of his brothers.

He seemed to have decided that it was his duty to ensure your grades were up to scratch and, everyday after school, you were to meet in his rooms for tutoring. Sometimes it would be topics you were familiar with, other times it would be extensions of the syllabus and then there were the lessons on deportment. You’d protested that the latter had little to do with your grades but Reiji had shot you a glance and made a scathing comment about how you were in desperate need of them regardless. Since then, you hadn’t voiced any further complaints.

You couldn’t wrap your head around Reiji at all. His punishments for failing to meet his expectations were harsh, as the marks from his riding crop all over your back proved. But he was capable of being pleasant, of offering a kind word or gesture whenever you began to wonder what the point in trying to please a man with such high standards even was.

And, more surprisingly, he had made no move to bite you since that first day. Not once. He’d also taken to wearing two gloves as opposed to the single one he’d worn in the time before he’d taken such an interest in you, as though he couldn’t bare to touch someone of such low worth.

- About a month or so after your tutoring sessions had begun, Reiji had offered you some of his precious tea and you’d known better than to refuse. It was something of a common occurrence. Sometimes the brew would leave a terrible numbness in your limbs, or cause you to feel so hot that you might burst into flames. But then there were instances where it was only tea and Reiji would chuckle as you stared at the contents of the cup in paranoia.

On this particular evening, when you felt perfectly fine after finishing almost half a teapot of Darjeeling, it seemed it would be one latter occasions. Except when you met Reiji’s eye, he was studying you in a way he often did when you were acting as a test subject for one of his potions. 

“Is everything okay?” You asked, a slight sense of apprehension clear in your voice.

Reiji took a deep breath and picked at the hem of the white glove on his left hand. In the blink of an eye, he was standing over you, a bare hand gripping your chin and tilting your head to look at him. 

“Do you truly feel nothing at all?” He asked, his expression scrutinous.

“N, no,” you replied weakly. “Am I supposed to?” 

“Ah-” he withdrew his hand “-it would seem that particular potion is defective. You need not pay it any mind.” Reiji returned to his seat and took a long sip from his own cup of tea before turning his attention to you. “I’m sure you must be aware by now that a full moon will soon be upon us, and as a result, I find that my throat is not soothed by tea alone.” He set his teacup to the side with a soft clink and you swallowed nervously as he approached you once again. 

His fangs pierced the skin of  your neck, sending pain stinging through you. You braced yourself, expecting him to use that strange ability he had once before to influence your own feelings. But there was nothing aside from the throbbing that accompanied the process of having your blood sucked. And when he pulled back, you could have sworn you saw something akin to a sick sort of glee in his eyes.

- After you’d retired for the night, Reiji swirled the small bottle of clear liquid he’d spent weeks working on. It had worked to utter perfection. Naturally, it’d been prudent to test the potion on you first and when you’d shown no ill effects it had been time to assess it’s true effectiveness. When he’d touched you, Reiji had been able to feel a slight flicker of your emotions. Nothing comparable to that he’d experienced before, so it would seem that for one of you to truly feel the emotion, the other would have to be experiencing it strongly or send it through your connection by force. 

He’d tried to send a feeling through that intangible bond between you, watching closely for any sign of reaction from you. There had been none however, and he’d known then that the potion was fit for his purposes. The effects were not designed to be permanent, but by taking a dose of it each day, it ensured he could touch you while his feelings remained entirely his own. You, on the other hand, would feel whatever he sent through your connection.

With a little experimenting he realized he could even cause you to be overcome by pain or pleasure with a simple touch. Your improvements in his lessons were drastic, your feelings apparently a much more powerful motivator than any physical incentive he could provide, and you quickly grew into a far more suitable partner for him than when you’d first arrived at the mansion. In fact, Reiji found that he had almost started to enjoy periods spent in your company, at least more so than he had with any other bride. You were not a poor conversationalist in the right setting, and had even offered more than a few insightful comments without his prompting. 

Perhaps you were soulmates for a reason after all. 

- In the weeks that followed, you knew something was not right. Emotions that didn’t quite feel like your own would plague you whenever spent time in the company of the second eldest Sakamaki. A flash of disgust when you caught sight of Shu sleeping in some inconvenient location, a sense of discontent whenever your grades were less than perfect and a newfound appreciation for crockery.  

But in spite of it, you had come to look forward to the time you’d spend with Reiji, to the point where you were developing feelings for him. Unfortunately however, you were unable to tell whether they were genuine or another result of those awful vampiric abilities of his. 

- One day, as you were walking through the school corridors to collect some documents your teacher had asked for, your foot caught on something and you went sprawling across the floor. 

“Heh, nice underwear.” Snapping your head back, you caught sight of Shu, one eye cracked open as he looked at the point where your skirt had ridden up exposing… You quickly adjusted the fabric and made to get to your feet. His legs must have been what you’d tripped over in the first place and you felt some lingering sense that you should get away from the blonde vampire as quickly as possible. 

A pale hand shot out and grabbed hold of your wrist. “Hold it, I’m thirsty.” You struggled but were ultimately powerless as he lifted your wrist to his mouth. Blue eyes met yours. “You were the one who fell on top of me and exposed yourself, lewd woman,” he said before biting down. 

“Stop!” You used your free hand to shove against him in an effort to free yourself. In spite of how much worse it would make the wounds, the feeling of his fangs in you was unpleasant enough to risk it. “Let go of me!”

“Tch, noisy.” He twisted your wrist until it was at a painful angle and bit down again.

“Ah, it hurts. Stop it!” Even though you knew your protests were more likely to end in further injury than anything else, you couldn’t help it. The sensation of his hands on you felt wrong.

After taking a good long drink of your blood, Shu pulled back and sighed. “You’re unusually bothersome for prey that’s been with us this long.”

“If you have a real problem with it, then why don’t you just use your vampiric powers to manipulate my own feelings against me? Reiji seems to do it often enough.” The bitterness in your own voice surprised you.

Shu’s eyes narrowed in what might almost have been confusion. “What are you… He has taken an unusual interest in you.” Something seemed to click, and a cruel smile played at his lips. “You really are an idiot, didn’t you notice that the triplets never did any similar?”

“What… what are you saying?” Now that you thought about it, they hadn’t. But Reiji was older than them, it didn’t seem too unbelievable that he’d have a better handle on his abilities.

“I’m saying, whatever you’re talking about has nothing to do with him being a vampire.” Shu yawned and let go of you. “Enough, I’m sleepy. Go and find somewhere else to be.”

“Wait! What do you mean ‘nothing to do with him being a vampire’? What is it?” You asked in frustration.

“If you’re so dense you can’t figure it out then go and bother him. Although there must be a reason why he hasn’t told you yet.” Shu closed his eyes, a signal that your conversation was at an end. 

You stood motionless in the corridor, mind reeling. Something that allowed him to influence you in such an intimate way but wasn’t just another one of his supernatural abilities. There was only one possibility that came to mind and the revelation made your heart stop. 

A soulmate connection. With Reiji. And… he knew. He knew but he hadn’t told you, had instead just used it to manipulate you. 

Tears welled in your eyes, a mixture of anger and betrayal filling you. It seemed you would need to have a conversation with the vampire that was long overdue.

- Reiji could scent Shu on you the moment you stepped into the limo on your way back to the mansion. The blonde himself didn’t make an appearance, apparently so lacking in energy that he couldn’t even move himself to the vehicle. Pathetic.

It was only the presence of his other brothers that kept Reiji from doing anything during the ride home. No, this matter would be dealt with in private. Shu had trifled with his prey before, but this time felt infinitely worse; a gross violation of what belonged to him. And that you had allowed it to happen…

For your part, you were unusually silent on the journey, your hand subconsciously straying to your wrist every so often, where Shu had bitten you no doubt. 

The moment, you arrived at the mansion, Reiji ordered you to his room. You obliged but there was something in your expression he didn’t like, not one bit. 

“So,” he said, after his door had closed behind you, “are you going to tell me where that mark on your wrist came from or will I have to force it out of you?” The riding crop in his desk was easily accessible, but it didn’t feel like it would be enough. Nothing did.

You were silent, looking at him with an expression he couldn’t quite read.

“Well?” Had contact with that good for nothing really corrupted you to the point where you would act with such disobedience. 

“How long?” You said in a small voice.

“I beg your pardon.”

“How long?” You repeated.

“Perhaps if you would care to elaborate, I might be obliged to answer,” he replied, and were he not mired in anger, he might have felt a slight sense of apprehension at your words.

“How long have you known that we’re soulmates Reiji?” You met his eyes for the first time since you’d entered the room.

If Reiji’s heart beat as a mortals did then he was sure it would have stopped dead. You’d found out somehow. Shu! He was going to kill him. 

“What did he say to you?” In a flash he had you against the wall, gripping your chin so you were forced to see the fury in his eyes. 

“Barely anything, but enough to let me know whatever you’ve been doing to me isn’t a result of any vampire ability as you’d have me believe. Why were you so determined to keep it a secret? Because you enjoyed being able to hold it over me? Because I wasn’t what you wanted so you took to training me like some kind of pet?” You spat, anger overriding whatever self-preservation instincts told you defying him was a poor idea.

“That… That is not any of your concern.” He’d known it was unlikely he’d be able to keep the truth from you forever, but he certainly hadn’t intended for you to find out like this.

“No, it is, that’s the point Reiji! It is my concern! Soulmates are meant to be equals, partners. But instead you’ve done nothing but use our connection to manipulate me.” Raising your voice at him was certainly not a wise idea, but you either didn’t think about it or didn’t care.

“Silence!” His grip on you was bruising. “You truly think we are equals? How terribly childlike, but then what should I expect, compared to me, dear,” the word came out as a sneer, “you might as well be a child. Do not think just because such a connection exists between us that it grants you any sort of rights over me, is that understood?”

A loud slap rang throughout the room. Reiji stood with his head to the side, glasses knocked slightly askew and a faint sting on his cheek where your hand had impacted it. He released your chin in shock and you fled from the room immediately. Ordinarily he would have made a move to stop you, but instead he stood, frozen in place. 

It was not the physical contact that had affected him so, no, you possessed so little strength compared to him that the very idea of it was laughable. Instead, it was the flood of emotions that had passed from you to him in the short moment your hand had made contact, strong enough to override the tonic coursing through his system.

Anger was at the forefront, followed by sorrow and number of other fleeting emotions, but the one that lingered, and left him standing while you ran, was betrayal, deep and sickening. The dregs of fondness he’d sensed explained perhaps why it was so strong. After all, the deepest wounds could only be inflicted by someone you cared for, trusted. 

Reiji glanced towards the door. He could easily catch you, take you down to the dungeons and thrash you until you screamed yourself hoarse for your outburst. As much as he felt like he should, he was intelligent enough to know it would ultimately do little good. And, if he was even the slightest bit truthful to himself, he knew it would utterly destroy whatever had been built between the two of you. 

A brief flick of his wrist and the door closed. He had some thinking to do.

- You weren’t sure what on Earth had possessed you to yell at Reiji, let alone strike him across the face. After sitting in the silence of your room, your anger had faded, replaced with misery… and fear. It had been foolish to allow your emotions to get the better of you in a house full of vampires who could kill you with half a thought, and especially with Reiji of all people.

The longer you spent in your room, the more afraid you became. Your actions certainly wouldn’t go without recompense. Regardless of what Reiji had done and how you felt about it, you’d come to learn that your opinions meant very little in this household.

A sharp knock resounded on your bedroom door and you felt the hair rise on the back of your neck in response. Was this it? Had Reiji finally come to finish you off for slapping him and being unfortunate enough to run into Shu? Or had your soulmate announced that he was done with you and now one of his brothers was outside your door waiting to drain you dry? Then again, if whoever was standing on the other side was really intent on your demise, it was unlikely they’d bother to knock first.

“Come in,” you called out softly, glancing at the lamp on your bedside table, you supposed that you could at least try to use it as a weapon if it came down to it. Although even then, you doubted you’d last more than a minute.

The door opened and Reiji stepped inside, carrying a tray laden with a teapot and two of his beloved ornate teacups.

Fear shot through you at the sight of him, recalling the last words you’d spoken to him and the large collection of toxins he kept on his shelf gave you an idea of where this might lead; death by poisoned tea.

Sharp eyes shot to you as Reiji set the tray on the small table in your room. “After all the time I’ve spent on you, you could at least try to maintain some semblance of composure. Although I suppose a healthy dose of fear is warranted given your actions towards me earlier.” A hint of a wicked smile played at his lips and an unpleasant shiver ran down your spine.

“Reiji I…” Your voice cracked and you felt vaguely like you might be about to burst into tears.

He held up a hand as indication to cease whatever miserable plea it was you were about to make.

“I will discuss your punishment for your behavior later, for now-“ he gestured to one of the chairs at your table “-take a seat. And do try to put the lessons on posture I gave you to good use.”

You obediently made your way to the chair and sat down, being sure to keep your spine straight. While your anger at the way he’d manipulated you hadn’t simply vanished, your fear was enough to keep it at bay. Whatever self-destructive impulses had driven you to act earlier, now a dying whisper. 

Reiji sat in the chair opposite you and poured dark steaming tea into the cup closest to you. As the liquid trickled into the white china, you thought of all the horrors that it could contain. You’d been exposed to his concoctions before with varying effects, however nothing had done lasting damage. But then you’d never pushed him like this.

“I’m really truly sorry,” you began, whether from genuine regret or fear you weren’t sure. ”I shouldn’t have yelled or slapped you but I wasn’t thinking, I just felt so frustrated and-”

“As much as I feel you should show some remorse over your actions, you need not get yourself into such an unsightly state. It is just tea. I am perfectly capable of ending your life with my own hands, and I would not waste any of my deadlier arsenal on a fragile mortal such as yourself.” His words were as clipped and cutting as always. You took hold of the teacup, the liquid rippling as your hands trembled. 

“Well, as I’ve gone to the trouble of preparing it for you, you had best taste it, had you not?” A thinly veiled order.

You sniffed miserably into the teacup before taking a sip. All things considered, it truly was delicious. Some rich blend with just the right hint of bitterness.  When you glanced up, Reiji was observing you expectantly and you swallowed shakily.

“It’s lovely, thank you.” You tried to offer a polite smile but you were fairly certain it was more of a grimace.

“Hm, well at least you haven’t forgotten basic manners.” Reiji pushed his glasses back up his nose with a single finger but said no more. You wanted to know what this was all about but you really didn’t want to ask him and so instead simply slipped away at your tea. The silence was thick, heavy and uncomfortable, the vampire across from you seeming content to watch you. Or perhaps he was just waiting to strike.

Once you’d emptied your cup, you set it down delicately on the tray, not wanting to add breaking his chinaware to the list of slights you’d committed. Reiji lifted the teapot to pour you another cup, before clearing his throat.

“With regard to the nature of our… connection to each other, perhaps it was remiss of me not to inform you of it sooner.” For once, he didn’t quite meet your eyes, instead focusing on the action of refilling the teacup. 

It occurred to you that this might be some poor form of an apology, or at least as close to one as Reiji was willing to give you. You sat there dumbstruck as he continued.

“As you have made such progress in our lessons, I have decided that causing any lasting damage over a single outburst is something of a waste. Once you have been properly disciplined, I plan to resume our sessions together unless-” he finally lifted his eyes to meet your gaze “-you are now so opposed to my company that you would prefer to serve as a meal for one of my brothers.”

“No!” You blurted out. Whatever your feelings, you certainly didn’t want to go back to being the triplets’ plaything. “I would… prefer to resume our lessons.”

“A sensible choice. Well, you should finish your tea before it cools. I don’t have all night and your punishment awaits.” And with the smirk he gave you, you wondered whether you might come to regret your decision. 

***

You can find links to my other soulmate AU headcanons on my master list. Feel free to request a set for any of the other boys, you can check to see if a character has already been requested on my current projects list ^^ Next up is Ruki~

[huangsren]

hs!renjun au ; aliens are real!

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 ; you take interest in the class’ resident art history, seemingly cold, prince boy huang renjun after you find him rushing to the rooftop with a telescope. 

huang renjun x reader

so everyone knows Huang Renjun as the resident “yeah i love art history so i’m better than you but i won’t say that out loud bc i’m at least that decent” kid in school

none the less, he’s pretty popular ? whether that be due to the fact he’s nothing short of talented, or maybe bc he’s one of the prettiest boys in school, or bc even his signature “i don’t care” style is alluring

some girls even have this group,, rather club is the better word to describe it,, for renjun and know that more than anything, you’ll find him either : on the rooftop of the tallest building in school-  or with lee jeno on the basketball court

of course renjun isn’t actually playing tho, he’s just fooling around to piss off his basketball captain best friend

but anyways there was this one night where you had to stay back at school ‘til late with your study group

because honestly,, you guys don’t do much studying in the library

and that’d landed you a detention and having to clean the art teacher’s 20982475 easels for some reason

and afterwards, right after you come out of the classroom’s door, The Huang Renjun bumps into you

and he drops the ???? what is this a telescope stand ??/?/?? on your shin, gets up and mumbles an insincere sorry before blasting to the stairs that lead to the rooftop

even though you’re clenching your shin like it’s the worst pain you’ve felt in all your years of living- you find that he must’ve dropped a part of the stand before he zoomed away

so being the goOd person you are, you cautiously walk up the stairs (bc of that stinging pain in your shin) and out onto the rooftop with the piece of stand in your hand

your eyes spot a frustrated renjun trying to set up his telescope in the cold saying “where’d it go, where’d it go?!”

and its not until you get a little closer that you see he’s even searching under the blanket and pillows he has set up, even into the bag of snacks he has prepared to his side

when he turns around he’s met with a limping you and the piece he’s missing in your hands,, which is why he hurls himself at the speed of lightening towards you and lunges for the lost piece

but you swipe your hand away before he can get to it and he looks at you with a “excuse me? are you actually doing this right now?”

and you see the “listen we both don’t care for each other so skip the small talk and let me do what i need to do” on his face but it doesn’t stop you from asking him what he’s doing

“are you that air-headed? i’m obviously setting up a telescope” he replies, super arrogantly

“okay yeah no shit sherlock, but why” you snarked back, simply over renjun’s bad attitude since he literally dropped his stuff on you so,, it was his fault really

“listen, i’m absolutely POSITIVE there’s not a person here who doesn’t know i like to come up and look at the stars”

and then you’re taken aback bc,, you actually didn’t know the reason he ever came up to the roof all the time- but honestly, you weren’t ever curious,, until now

“that’s kind of cute” you laugh, swinging the piece in your hand so you know you have his attention

“cute? it’s everything but cute, actually. you won’t be saying that it’s ‘cute’ when i become famous for painting and capturing the first real ufo and the aliens with it”........................... is this kid serious

you really can’t find even a hint of humor in his frame nor his eyes and that’s when you burst into laughter

“aliens?? ufos?? i- oh my god hold on- i can’t stop myself from laughing holy shit”

he just looks at you like your the dumbest person he’s ever seen and scoffs, “yeah, alright” and he takes the piece from your hand and completes his stand

even though you’re starting to come off that hysterical laugh of yours, he doesn’t give you a second thought and you just watch him watching the night sky and writing in his notebook too

“not that you know me, which i expect you don’t, but ask any one around; i’m one of the most stubborn people and i happen to be adamant about all this sci-fi stuff being strictly fictional”

he turns and furrows his eyebrows at you and to your surprise he takes your wrist in attempt to drag you to the blanket but you wince in pain from your shin still hurting

how does it STILL hurt this much?

and after a second you look up and see worry in renjun’s eyes as he finally realizes that that bump may have hurt you a whole lot more than it hurt him

“maybe i’m kind of sorry about that”

“yeah? maybe you should look where you’re going” then he lets go of your wrist to fetch something

and he comes back to wrap your now swollen wow-how-did-you-not-see-that-before shin saying “i don’t think i’m the only one who needs that advice” and somehow you just know that renjun isn’t as cold as some people make him out to be,, he may be even nicer than you

and that’s that,, he makes you look through the telescope a couple of times and always says the same thing along the lines of “well if we exist here like this, what says that any other foreign life isn’t out there when the sky we see right now is already this vast”

and for the first time you really really take time to think about how big just the portion of the sky you two are seeing can be that big and how the universe and it’s galaxies and maybe even several dimensions are even bigger than you can fathom

maybe it’s the way you feel small with renjun and his big beliefs and the way he wrapped you in the extra blanket he had (bc you were shivering and he said it was “getting in the way of my scientific break-throughs”) but you close your eyes and take the time to really feel everything around you

the air, the blanket, the sounds of a school at night, even the pain in your shin which you could care less about and after a while you feel like someone is watching you and there you see it

renjun looking at you instead of the stars and you go “why aren’t you looking at the stars, huh?”

and without hesitation he just goes “well right now you seem like the brightest star” and it takes all you have to not let the blush on your face become evident

so you look away and reach for a snack before you do something to him you know you’ll regret

but still, before you place the chip in your mouth, you look at renjun again for some sign of “just kidding you’re ugly” but instead,,,,, he kisses your cheek

and you freeze and accidentally crush the chip in your fingers and well now it’s the hardest it’s ever been to hide your blush, so you just get up, nod a little at renjun and mumble a “thanks, good night” and head for the door

you can feel renjun’s eyes on you as you leave and he’s just internally fighting with himself because oh GOD why did he just do that??? it doesn’t matter that he’s popular and good looking he just can’t believe he kissed his crush’s cheek like he had no control over his own body

and his crush?? oh-so-surprisingly he’s actually had a crush on you ever since some kid in his class said that there was a girl who was completely and utterly against aliens and all that being real 

so after he’d learned who your were and stole glances at you from time to time, he concluded that maybe you were the cutest, stubborn person he’d ever found- 

and as events go, he devised a plan to set up some type of picnic on the rooftop and prove to you that ufo’s aren’t as out of this world as they seemed to you

of course he didn’t expect to hurt your shin in the process but he just had to keep that nonchalant image of his up even if it was eating him inside 

and through the night, he just couldn’t keep himself from calling you a star and giving you a little peck on the cheek, because the way you were then was just too precious in his eyes

so screw that whole plan he had of you becoming interested in him since you probably think he’s some weird touch-starved pervert of an art history student

but you actually lay in your bed thinking about that whole exchange and smile a little to yourself before falling asleep to the thoughts of what would happen to you two the next day

[v-le]

Kmusic: JTBC’s 슈퍼밴드(Superband) Review

Foreword: SUPERBAND WAS AMAZING AND IT WAS EVERYTHING I NEVER KNEW I NEEDED IN MY LIFE. yup

--

After binge-watching this entire program, I knew I had to write something about it. This show literally took my breath away, this show filled all my senses with overwhelming excitement, appreciation, and respect for every single participant, and the music, THE MUSIC, that came out of this show will forever be some of the most amazing songs I have ever heard in my life. But above all else, this show filled a void, an emptiness, a traumatizing, painful longing in my heart that has been needing some intense healing for a while now.

With all the things that have happened with my singer, Superband coming into my life and being the show it was, with all those amazing artists doing what they did, it was a literal blessing and I just……. I just cant believe they did THAT. They did it and it was AMAZING.

First off, whoever thought to make an audition program for MUSICIANS, SINGER-SONGWRITERS, ARTISTS, PRODUCERS, and just instrument-playing people AND VOCALISTS…….. you are a fucking genius and I am so glad that this idea never died in the shadows and was allowed to come to life on the screens.

What I found so poignant about this show from the get-go was how GOOD THESE AUDITIONS WERE… these people came in being REALLYYYYY good at (presumably) one thing like the guitar, or singing, or the violin. These people each had their specialty, they were exceptional music-making people. No one was quite mediocre or “rookie”, each person had some pretty credible expertise or experiences with music, and that in itself, the fact that we got to start off with these sorts of contestants, is something ive never seen before.

I don’t want to compare to other singing shows or the Produce series or whatever else countless audition programs Korea has been churning out over the past years, but since Superband began with this concept, it was already a show that I knew I would LOVE. For the 2 times ive watched Produce, I was always so perturbed by these prepubescent pretty boys frolicking around on stage, barely being able to even pull off a simple note. I just thought so many of them were so TALENTLESS…. But who am I to judge.

I think it really just comes down to preference, and even though I knew very well that idols and k-pop are not even things I enjoy anymore, I forced myself through programs like Produce. But now, with Superband, I felt so HAPPY and glad to be watching and discovering such talented musicians…THIS IS WHAT I WANTED ALL ALONG.

Even with the very first audition with Ha Hyunsang… OMFG UGHhHhh THAT BOI IS SO FLUFFY but so good at the same time… I feel like each time I see him, I ACTUALLY just want to give him a hug :’-(( the emotional depth in his singing is beyond describable and im SO PROUD TO HAVE WATCHED HIM GROW !!!!!!

That’s another thing I really really realllyyyyyyy loved from this show........ it was the process of watching these people develop, mature, change, grow with show. Some contestants went through some major growing pains, but it was so heartwarming to watch them improve, not that they were even bad to begin with. And the reversals!! Or the expansions?? The turnarounds?? The CONMEN!!!

AHHhhHHhhh okay im still very obsessed with the infinite amount of talent some dudes had, but before I get to that, let me continue on with those stellar auditions, aka the three genius guitarists, too ;_______; they. Are. So. Amazing. I love them a lot. I think I completely fell for them. And I hate myself. I hate to admit it a lot because I used to ALWAYS shit on dudes younger than me, I disliked basically every contestant on produce that was younger than ‘99, I thought they were all useless young children… but 김영소, 이강호, & 임형빈, were a completely different story. I LOVE THEM!!! I always had a bias toward a man that could play the guitar well… but these guys holy moly, they blew me away… they are so exceptional at what they do and the fact that theyre still so YOUNG… good lord…..my poor heart was so conflicted but ultimately so happy to have discovered them.

To watch these guys be thrown into that first 1:1 perf, and literally tearing up the stage and setting the bar VERY HIGH from the very beginning of the competition… phew… my goodness…. The talent with these kids… o my…. Okay yeah, nope im never gonna get over it. The ‘Adventure of a Lifetime’ stage will always be an iconic one from this program, and we all know it. Who knew a pure acoustic, musical performance, no vocals included stage would be so amazing…. I LOVE THEM!! Have I mentioned that yet?

Going back to the reversals/scamming thing... I guess this goes with watching some people grow……. I want to give a holy and blessed shoutout to probably my favorite contestant out of this entire show: 신광일….. he was such a dark horse. In fact, I don’t even remember his audition tbh because he was THAT not-memorable in the beginning LOL (or also.. I believe they never showed his audition to begin with)… but he quickly caught my eye as the eps went on because he came out of nowhere and whipped out all (or maybe not even all…) his skills like secret weapons, stage after stage.. he came in as a vocalist, picked up the bass for two the performances after that (all while still singing, too), although having never played the bass formally... and then once joining hands with Juhyeok and Yechan, he just miraculously becomes the drummer, because they ultimately decided that they needed percussion in their songs. So from thereon after, since ‘Hold Back The River’, Gwang-il, to me, was literally GOD(신) Gwang-il, as he played the drums and SANG TOO…..and may I add, hes not even that old?????? HES FRKING ONLY 2 YEARS OLDER THAN ME WTF;__; the boy got all these crazy blisters while perfecting the drums, but he didn’t let anything stop him and he was sucH A SOLID BAND MEMBER ALL THROUGHOUT, AHHHHHH MVP GOES TO SHIN GWANG-IL, YALL….(also I just found out that hes a trainee from Mystic Story, aka Yoon Jong shin’s agency aka the agency that I’ve been following for many many MANYYYY years now bc a lot of my favorite artists have come out of it…. Wow what is this fate)

And special recognition goes to Im Hyung-bin aka one of the 18 yr old genius guitarists bc he … oh my…. He frking became the pianist and singer by the end of the show…. Omfg… yall.. HE is also another infinitely talented soul. AND HES EXTRA FRKING YOUNG…

Besides these two though, there were many many many manyyyyy other people as well that took up multiple instruments throughout the show, or even began singing, or just did EVERYTHING….I was so mindblown by this, im still honestly not over it at all.

Because like, is this normal?? Isn’t that so unprofessional?? Its already so crazy that this show already starts us off with NON-amateur musicians and artists. But then some of these dudes have never done any other things formally before they got thrown into it; they came into this show “specializing” in something completely different, yet they jump onto the stage and do what they needed to, HELLA FRKING WELL…… so many of these dudes, you wouldn’t know that was his first time playing the bass, playing the drums, first time playing that piano, or first time being on the keyboard AND being a vocal, you wouldn’t know any of that unless they mentioned it, unless you watched the show and saw their story.

Because they all pulled it off THAT well.. these people that did these things for the first time ever while being on Superband, they executed their roles so well and showcased such wonderfully exhilarating talent…. IM SO BLESSED TO HAVE DISCOVERED SUCH AMAZING ARTISTS….

That was one of the biggest feats of Superband for me. The limitless talent that came out of it. I LOVE watching people like this. Their passion for music fuels such undeniable skill and fervor, and when they step onto that stage, they are literally unstoppable. They made music that stopped my time, stopped my heart, in the moment, but literally MOVED me...i applaud these people so much. I really do.

Thinking back to it now, the number of stages that came out of this show was like…. Countless…. Like… A LOT…. Since episode 1, each stage was very well-produced and I truly enjoyed watching each one from the start. This show was just so jampacked overall, although I admit that sometimes it was arduous due to the GRIND that these people were on, presenting stage after stage after stage, and then listening to LOTS of feedback from almost each judge over and over and over, but it was still nothing short of musical masterpieces out there. I really appreciate how STUFFED, how FILLED TO THE BRIM, this show was with dynamic, enjoyable, exceptional performances (and words of valuable opinions & evaluations, too)

I can re-watch many of them, every day, for days on end. I loved it. And can we just talk about how impressive these dudes are for pulling off something new, for taking on a brand-new challenge with a brand-new set of members, time and time again, stage after stage, week after week, until we came down to the 6 solid bands in the last 3 episodes? They constantly had to work with new people, match their music preferences, fill spaces in their music where they didn’t exactly have someone they may have needed. They had to compensate, compromise, and ultimately DELIVER, at the end of it all. Multiple times. I don’t even remember how many rounds they did… was it 4? I think they had 4 rounds of eliminations before they settled into their official bands. But still... its crazy impressive to think about how driven and flexible a lot of these artists were, to be creating, producing & then performing despite all the different teams they were getting put into week after week.

ANDDDDDD, despite all the odds up against them like the time crunch, the new collab of members each time, the potential lack of a missing instrument or sound, SO many of these teams still came out with self-written and self-produced songs!!!!!!! I mean, even for the cover songs alone, many were already re-arranging everything & basically turning them into new tracks. BUT WITH THOSE SELF COMPOSED SONGS??????????? Some teams literally started from scratch each time, but busted out some amazing tunes and lyrics and executed very very very impressive stages and IM JUST AKFJAKJFKJBSN how…. Are they….. so…. Talented…… I still ask myself each time.

By far, the combo that took my heart and kept it for good….. LUCY ;_______;. I never expected to like Juhyeok’s voice tbh, it was a little TOO weird for me in the beginning… but watching him perform with Yechan and Gwang-il and Wonsang really brought to life his vocal potential for me… that team is literally a combination made in heaven, they have all the right pieces to make ARTWORK… their signature sound was so prominent from the very beginning and i was SO HAPPY when I saw that they stuck to the same exact members once the finale came around.

Before the winner was announced, I told myself very honestly that I didn’t even care who won because the two teams left over, Hoppipolla & Lucy, were already my two all-time favorite combinations of artists from the entire show, and I was already MORE than satisfied with all the wonderful music and stages that everyone had delivered up until that point anyway. But even with that, I was still thoroughly shocked when they announced Hoppipolla as the winning band LOL I gasped aloud. I thought that Lucy at least had a chance. Or like I guess, in my heart, I assumed that Lucy actually won.. LOL but they didn’t.

And in terms of the finale in general, I really would also like to address how I purposely tried really hard to avoid any spoilers and rewatching of performances on youtube before actually finishing the entire series. I tried like reallyyyyy hard, because I wanted to watch the program as thoroughly as possible without spoilers. I HATE SPOILERS. But oh the irony. It was in all in vain anyway.

Once I finally DID finish all 14 episodes, when trying to look for more information/reactions/articles/videos (initially searching in English), I actually struggled SO HARD LMAOOOO bc there was like NOTHING OUT THERE……..i should have known better; this show was definitely NOT catered to the intl. audience (yet?), especially because its in its first season still. There were probably like 2 articles max in English about Superband & it was just about its upcoming premier. Nothing about winners nor results nor anything else i was wary of, anyway. LOLLL THE INTL COMMUNITY DOESN’T CARE; or at least the intl population that DOES care about Superband, is probably reallyyyyyy small……a reddit thread I found was the most substantial discussion I could find, comprised of a few comments max.

And so that brings me to how I always see a lot of comments begging for English subs and everything, but honestly…….. all I have to say to yall is: LEARN KOREAN IF YOU REALLY WANT TO WATCH THE SHOW THAT BADLY !!!

If after all these years, I could pick up Korean to an extent where I can watch things raw, im sure others can do the same as long as they put their mind to it. Ive been really appreciating how far my skills have taken me LOL not trying to be THAT person, but I just know that if I COULDN’T read or listen & comprehend or type in Korean like I can now, I would be missing out on a WORLD of amazing stuff. E.g. superband. And if anything, I would like to think that this show helped me practice my vocab skills a lot more. Listening to the judges’ evals after each stage was really enjoyable: I learned plenty of valuable words out of THEIR words.

This show was phenomenal in that all the contestants had total musical freedom. It was soOOOOO refreshing to watch. They got to choose all their music & their teammates in a fair manner (maybe not so much their competition), but seeing them take their passions & what THEY wanted to do with music and laying that all out onto the stage, was so compelling!!! This freedom allowed for countless, ICONIC AF transformations and growth journeys for soooo many of the artists too!!!! I really realllyyyyyyyy loved watching some of them stepping WAYYYY outside of their comfort zones / the image that they originally came in with (e.g. HONG ISAAC HAAAAHAHHA, Jisang, Hyunsang!!), and also watching alllllll those multitalented “scam characters”!!! HAHAHA, without this program being as open as it was, it would’ve been impossible to be able to see such a myriad of sides to so many different people. I appreciate, I really do.

And I really really realllyyyy enjoyed watching all the behind the scenes of each performance as well!! Of course, its normal to give viewers some background story before each stage, but in Superband, we got to see some very raw sides of music-making….. these dudes literally lived like hobos in the recording studios, all disheveled and sleep-deprived human beans, but ceaselessly making music because that’s what they love. I liked watching teams try out a lot of different songs & styles as they searched for THE right one. And then we got to see the final result on stage after the countless discussions and trials behind the scenes. And these processes repeated for months on end. All the contestants are so commendable in this right. The grind was real, and the show didn’t try to hide that. I enjoyed this very realistic approach !!

At this point, after drowning myself in this show for a few days straight… (those episodes are LONGGGGG, close to two hrs each) ive literally spent every night, and basically day, too, watching all the cuts that jtbc uploaded on youtube over and over and oVERRRRR….. ive also been watching some Superband concert clips, from when the entire final 6 bands went on a domestic tour and performed together for several concerts!!

THAT OPENING STAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BLESS THOSE PEOPLE THAT CAUGHT IT ON CAMERA BECAUSE IT IS LITERALLY SUCH A PIECE OF MUSICAL HEAVEN, omfg the energy on that stage IS SOMETHING ELSE… IF I WERE THERE IN PERSON I PROBABLY WOULDVE CRIED INSTANTLY……. lee juhyeok, kevin oh, chae bohoon, im hyeongbin, kim youngso, ha hyunsang, lee chansol, and kim woosung, all the guitarists/ vocalists lined up in the front… (hearing each vocalist sing a line each made my HEART HURT....I LOVE THEM SM) then the bassists, lee jonghoon, kim hyungwoo, kim hajin, jo wonsang, clustered up AND HAVIN A TIME all by themselves, and the three epic electric guitarists, yang jiwan, kim junhyeob, and Zairo, literally held SUCH stage presence… on the drums: kang kyungyoon all the way to the right, and red haired hwang minjae in the middle, and the super in-sync, traditional drum banging bois, choi youngjin, shin gwang-il, a-il, & jung gwanghyun, all 4 of them bouncing up and down in the back like intense oompa loompas LOL THEY LOOKED SO CUTE, and the string bois!!!!! Shin yechan & benji on the violin next to hong jinho on the cello; yechan and benji started off sitting down but as the song goes on they literally WENT AT IT HAHAHA as expected of two of the most high-energy musicians. On the piano, lee na-woo, the classic icon himself starting off the entire intro, and next to him hong isaac the transformation legend himself on the keyboard + his super distinctive voice!!!!!! And of course, d-pole with his much-expected little music break in the middle….. in fact many of them got ICONIC solo time: kang kyungyoon’s drumming part, kim hyungwoo’s super duper solid bass, minjae’s powerful beats, kim hajin’s LOUD ass bass, lee jonghoon’s legendary slap finger bass playing, jo wonsang’s super ting-y, classic bass section, and yang jiwan’s loud ASS ELEC GUITAR TOO, omg they were all so cute, pointing to each member & hyping them up as it was their few seconds to shine….AND THOSE COLLECTIVE VOICES???? HEARING ALL THE VOCALISTS SING TOGETHER ONE BY ONE… OH my gosh it was soooooo GOOOODDDDDDD.... just watching all those dudes literally have THE TIME OF THEIR LIFE on stage (literally an ADVENTURE OF A LIFETIME), the energy was off the charts… I loveeeeee seeing them so happy, making eye contact with each other, jumping up & down, rocking out, laughing with each other, all while playing their instrument, so fervently, all 27 people on the stage, connected by one song…. Theres SO MUCH OVERFLOW of talent in one freaking place, that song sounded SO MASSIVE just thru the video I cant imagine….. if I were actually there omfg… that’s an actual BAND Like A HUGE FRKING BAND… AHHHHHHHHHH a really legendary stage.. the finest of finest……I can literally watch this opening on repeat without getting bored because I just loveeeee the concept of all of them being together like that :”)))

After watching member after member, team after team get eliminated, seeing them like this on one stage with such happy expressions and making a beautiful piece of music like that o MANNNNNN…. This show…… has really done something to me…

I appreciate every contestant SO MUCH and I wish I could watch everyone be together FOREVER….because knowing how artistically talented each person is on their own, to watch them join together is like the avengers times 72737446352 or something, its just talent & skill plus talent & skill stacked onto even more skill & talents and just an INFINITE amount of potential AND THAT…IS LITERALLY.. THE POWER…. OF A BAND………and of great ass music.

This show was GENIUS TO combine so many musicians from so many different backgrounds…but watching them work together to make pure art, that is so frking rewarding and heartwarming and I feel so blessed to have witnessed it all.

The genres and potential were literally limitless……I think this is what encompassed Superband for me, this is what made me enjoy it SO damn much…. I think ive finally run out of things to say… this piece of text is quite a mess, not very polished….. but I was hasty in recording my thoughts & emotions before they left me, so I tried my best.

My biggest regret with this show is that I didn’t watch it sooner. (what is really ironic is that it took me FOREVER to start the first ep, despite having tonssss of time on my hands... I had it open on one of my tabs for the longest time, but I lowkey grudgingly, eventually, forced myself to finally start it LOL..(thank god I rly did tho) I watched it 2 months after the finale, which is… kinda late? If I had watched it while it was airing, all while I was still in korea, I feel like I would’ve been EVEN MORE in love, even more fervent and passionate about everything. Digging thru old vids & watching things from contestants before they came out onto the show, seeing the artists they were, I could’ve easily gone and seen them myself probably… goddamnit I probably could’ve gone to the superband finale live show, if I had known.. I COULDVE VOTED IN REAL TIME... not that I could’ve brought myself to do it anyway, probably lol….. but basically, if I had known of this show WHILE I was there with them… I don’t know, I could’ve been a lot more active as a fan, I feel like..

Now im back to my original roots: crying in front of my laptop screen and tap-tapping away at my keyboard as a I rant to no one but myself. Being in korea made my appreciation for all kinds of artists, all my beloved ones, EVERYONE, a lot more tangible.. but being back in America… it all becomes hidden into the depths of my heart, once again…

PHEW……I think now is a good time to mention my favorite stages… as I mentioned before, the Lucy AND pre-Lucy lineup will always hold a really special place in my heart so basically all my faves include their stages LOL

‘Swim’ cover by LUCY(신예찬, 이주혁, 신광일, 조원상)

‘Hold Back The River’ cover by 신예찬, 이주혁, 신광일

‘Adventure of a Lifetime’ cover by 조원상, 김영소, 이강호, 임형빈

‘누구 없소’ cover by 케빈오, 박찬영, 신광일, 강경윤

‘선잠’ by LUCY

'Castle on the Hill’ cover by 아일, 하현상, 노마드, 홍진호

‘1000x’ cover by 아일, 하현상, 홍진호, 김형우

‘One More Light’ cover by HOPPIPOLLA(아일, 하현상, 홍진호, 김영소)

‘Cry Bird’ cover by LUCY

‘Viva La Vida’ cover by 하현상, 홍진호, 김영소

‘Flare’ by LUCY

‘Find You Again’ by People on the Bridge(이찬솔, 임형빈, 김준협, 강경윤,  김형우)

My favorite funny moments:

“이게 무슨 짓이야!!?” - mellow kitchen (the stealing of the 3 kiddo guitarists)

“okay let’s be honest, you can’t even hear the bass” - shin hyunbin 2k19

울보 팀

Hyunsang’s fam: 아일 the mom, 홍진호 the dad, 김형우 the hyung

“idk if im allowed to say this but it looked like zombie movie” - yoon jongshin, as they all gathered around the cello man

“I thought to myself, isn’t that cello expensive tho..” - yoon jongshin as youngso slapped & tapped jinho’s cello for percussion

Ah-il’s iconic castle on the hill pose

Zairo’s luck with member choosing lmao

HONG ISAK’S DANCING in ‘Time of My Life’ LOLLL IT GETS ME LAUGHING EACH TIMEEE (& all his nicknames, like eungalchi lmaooo)

Benji’s “YO-RO-BOON HAM-KAY HEY-YO” during ‘Woo-ing’

Gwanghyun’s “do-doom-tak”

Gwanghyun calling Gwang-il’s drum skills equivalent to that of a middle school band’s LOLLLL

**I watched Mone’s radio appearance on Arirang Radio where Benji is the host, and they were an absolute MESS LMAOOOOOO THEY WERE HONESTLY ALL REALLY FUNNY THOUGH.. they kept roasting the crap out of each other and laughing their asses off and man… it was gr8 time and it was really cute to discover that Hong Isaac is now a part of one of Benji’s radio shows too!

One important question I have for this show though: where tf did all the females go? Why was there no female presence at all in this show, I have no clue…… :/

At the end of the day, this show reminded me once again, how to feel happy and excited because of music. how to let great music fill my life with undeniable joy. Being able to look forward to listening to these songs every day, definitely had lifted a small part of me that has been down for all too long. I really appreciate, I am very grateful for, I just… im so thankful to have discovered this show & all its wonderful masterpieces & the beautifully, magically, PASSIONATE artists behind it all………. I needed this in my life at this point in time, I really did. 

Thank you for coming to be, Superband.

[noxexistant]

gamquick; “(but first) let me take a selfie”

fandom; marvel 616, all-new x-factor (2014)

pairing; remy lebeau/pietro maximoff 

word count; 1.9k

rating; g

notes; this is my first time writing 616 and my first time posting a fic to tumblr in god knows how long,, please be nice.  anyway, this is Dumb and Self-Indulgent, and i love gamquick So Much, and i think about canon insta baddie pietro every single goddamn day of my life

ao3 mirror

———

“Are you taking a selfie?” Remy asks, somewhat incredulously.

Pietro hums an affirmation, short and sharp in such a manner that manages to somehow convey the complex sentiment of, ‘Well, obviously, you imbecile.’

Granted, Pietro does look the kind of way that warrants a selfie. His outfit and general aesthetic choices tend to pendulate between the extremes of ‘godly’ and ‘unspeakable’, but his current outfit is definitely the former. It’s a linen suit in a summery shade of periwinkle - and Remy hates that he not only knows those terms but also managed to string them together, but he manages to soothe the knock to whatever ridiculous attachment to traditional ‘manliness’ he’s still coddling with the observation that his boyfriend looks fucking incredible. The suit is fitted perfectly, tapered to his narrow waist, and Remy waits for the next sound of a camera shutter to lean over and grab Pietro’s ass through the delightfully tight, light fabric of the slim-fit trousers.

He likes to imagine that the camera managed to capture Pietro’s face perfectly, but it’s more than likely that the photo turned into a blurred mess because Pietro is turning to swat at Remy before he’s even really had a chance to appreciate the ass grab, which is very unfortunate, because Pietro’s ass is the best.

“Go and pester someone else,” Pietro snips, landing a fairly solid playful backhand to the apple of Remy’s cheek - only playful in that it doesn’t actually shatter Remy’s whole face - as he pretends to still be invested in his sleek smartphone. “Lorna’s in the other room. Why don’t you go and tell her that her green dress is an adventurous choice? Very capricious of her.”

Despite his stinging cheek, Remy laughs easily and falls into Pietro, arms winding around his waist from behind as he glances down at his phone screen, catching sight of the camera app still open and just a glimpse of the previews of previous selfies.

“Don’ upset the lady,” he admonishes, leaning close to his lover’s ear and looking up to meet his eyes through their reflection in the full-length mirror before them. “‘S’not nice to tease your sister, cheri.”

Unsurprisingly, Pietro rolls his eyes.

“If she didn’t want my teasing, she should’ve at least gone with a better shade. The seafoam dress was nicer, but she insisted it reminded her of one of Father’s outfits. God forbid. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the man outside of red and purple.”

Remy can’t say he’s all too familiar with Erik Lehnsherr’s wardrobe.

“‘S’this the latest in you guys’ elaborate familial judgement, then?” he asks, “Fashion?”

He raises an eyebrow, going for an unimpressed look, but his face breaks into a smile when Pietro does The Thing - meets Remy’s eyes in the reflection and lets his own become open and warm for just a moment.

“Believe me,” he says airily, “I’ve been judging my father’s fashion choices for as long as I’ve known him.”

Remy tilts his head in consideration, still smiling.

“Must be those bad genetics that influenced that cargo shorts look a couple weeks ago, then.”

His smile widens when Pietro’s expression becomes once again deeply serious, eyes narrowing.

“How many times must I reiterate that not all tan shorts are cargo shorts? The definition of ‘cargo shorts’ comes from the pockets—“

“—Okay, okay, so no extra pockets,” Remy concedes, releasing Pietro’s waist for only a moment to splay his hands in surrender, “But they were ugly. Luna thought so, too.”

Pietro makes a face that Remy struggles not to classify as a pout.

“Luna hasn’t been educated in proper fashion-practicality balance yet.”

“Ah, right, right. An’ that one suit you like t’wear when we go out to fancy joints - the one with no pockets so I have to hold your phone and wallet all night - that’s fashion-practicality balance?”

There’s a twinkle in Pietro’s eyes as he meets Remy’s gaze again, despite the flatness of his tone.

“You’re fashion-practicality balance.”

The gasp Remy lets out is wounded, apparently convincing enough - despite his huge, stupid grin - that Lucifer comes trotting over to investigate.

“I’m a glorified seasonal accessory,” he weeps. Despite the fact that they’ve spent several seasons together. Many, in fact. And Remy apparently hasn’t gone out of fashion.

Unfortunately, Pietro is too busy giving Lucifer and an approaching Figaro stern looks to respond, shifting his feet as they get closer to nuzzle around his shins. “I swear, if either of you get your claws anywhere near this suit—“

“—They won’t. An’ if they do, ‘s’only ‘cause they love you.”

“I don’t care. They’re menaces. Where’s Oliver?”

“Still asleep on your side of the bed, if I had to guess. ‘S’his favourite place. ‘Cause he loves you. Same as me. You’re their stepdad. Step-cat-dad.”

“How many times must I tell you to stop calling them your children?”

“They’re my babies.”

The sigh Pietro lets out is long-suffering and entirely affectionate. It makes Remy want to smile so hard his face really does shatter, especially as Pietro’s face once again softens as Figaro looks up at him and meows sweetly.

“I love you, y’know?” Remy says, letting his jaw rest against Pietro’s shoulder to speak right against the rapid pulse in his neck. It’s for the intimacy, yes, but it’s also mostly just so he can feel the shudder that runs through his love.

“You may have mentioned it in passing,” Pietro says, the same unimpressed tone, but it stings just a little in the way that it always does, because he doesn’t know. Remy could say it a thousand times over, in English and French and every language that Pietro has expressed similar sentiments in and then taken the time to patiently teach Remy to echo the pronunciation. He never manages to make the words sound quite as pretty as Pietro does, but Pietro always smiles at him when he gets the words right, smiles like they really mean everything, even though he can never quite believe them.

“God. I love you so much. Mon trésor. Mon colibri. Mon bibou.”

That last one, as he knew it would, earns him something that’s almost a laugh, a dusting of pink appearing across the apples of Pietro’s cheeks.

“Stop getting sappy,” he says. “If you adore me, then maybe you’ll brush your hair and finally get a shirt on. We do have places to be.”

“Only place I have any interes’ in bein’ is by your side.”

Pietro retches, but Remy manages to see how he smiles even as he laughs against Pietro’s neck, arms looping tighter around his waist to hold him close.

“If you were anyone else, that woulda worked,” he says, as put-out as he can pretend to be. “You got your standards all backwards, mon ami.”

“Clearly. I should’ve gone for a man who knows how to dress himself in a timely manner.”

“Now, I know we got real different definition of what ‘timely’ means.”

“Right now, I’d say it means that the task should be completed at some point before we’re expected to arrive.”

Remy shrugs easily. “Never heard’a bein’ fashionably late, cheri? An’ who are you to talk? You’ve been admirin’ yourself in the mirror for the whole time I was in the bathroom.”

“Failing to give yourself a decent shave.”

“I like havin’ stubble!”

Pietro levels him with another unimpressed look, but it once again softens as he reaches backwards to trace his thumb across Remy’s jaw. Remy smiles and leans forward just enough to kiss his fingertips, just a gentle peck against each one while he appreciates that Pietro’s staying still for once, until Pietro’s holding his jaw again and turning half around in his arms, enough to finally press their lips together. It’s slow and soft, washed warm by the midday sunlight from the bedroom windows, and Remy treasures it for as long as he dares before he peeks his eyes open a little to look at their reflection, make sure he clicks the volume off and gets the angle right.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, when they finally pull back just an inch. “That one looks the best.”

Pietro looks up at him, brows creased in confusion, until Remy holds up the phone he’d easily taken straight from his lover’s hands minutes ago. Pietro scowls, snatching it back in a blur, but whatever ire he holds is immediately forgotten in the face of the photograph on the screen - the two of them, pressed close and kissing, Pietro’s hand against Remy’s neck and one of Remy’s holding Pietro’s waist while the other holds up the phone. It’s not got the best composition - Remy isn’t exactly well-practiced when it comes to taking selfies whilst fully distracted by kissing his boyfriend, but the warm glow of sunlight across them, Pietro’s pretty outfit and artfully messy hair contrasted with Remy’s sleep-rumpled form dressed in nothing but a pair of ugly pyjamas trousers, gives the whole photo a vibe that he treasures. It’s them, solid proof that this is something real, and, judging by that soft look in Pietro’s blue eyes again, he agrees.

“You’re ridiculous,” he says, then mumbles something in a language Remy doesn’t recognise at a speed he could never hope to even comprehend - Pietro’s regular speed. By now, though, Remy’s gotten used to that being Pietro’s equivalent of an ‘I love you’ or something similar, and it makes him grin like an idiot, leaning forwards to press a kiss to that sensitive spot beneath Pietro’s ear.

“Only with you, cheri,” he says, directing a wink at Pietro in the mirror and enjoying the eye roll he gets in response. “Hey, don’ be rude. Just got you our future holiday card photo, didn’t I? Your sisters are gonna love it.”

“I suppose Lorna’s already seen you in most states of undress, but I’d rather not share the sight with Wanda.”

Remy chuckles, hooking his chin over Pietro’s shoulder. “‘S’pose you were takin’ the photos for her anyway, huh?”

“For Wanda?” Pietro asks, then shakes his head casually. “No. They were for my Instagram.”

…“Your what?”

Lorna comes in to chew them out for being late before Remy can get an explanation. He gets dressed about as fast as he ever has whilst Pietro makes entirely unhelpful comments and enjoys his misery, but then his boyfriend brushes his hair and picks a cologne out for him, all intimate and domestic even if it’s made slightly less picturesque by Lorna’s growing frustration.

They all spend the day beneath the warm sun, drinking expensive alcohol and drifting from gazebo to gazebo across a perfectly-kept lawn as they schmooze and chat and act all casually heroic, and Remy almost entirely forgets about the whole Instagram thing.

At least until they’re home and he and Pietro are curled up in bed together, and Pietro drops his phone on Remy’s chest.

Remy picks it up to see Instagram open on a post on what must be Pietro’s account - a collection of photos taken over the course of the day, candid photos of the team and a couple of Pietro’s selfies and, finally, last in the set, the picture of the two of them. There’s no caption, but there are—

“How many likes?!”

[youtuberswithalex]

Chalk Me Down

Summary: Virgil just wanted to show Patton his drawing, but a little mishap has him running elsewhere. (The next installment in the A Little Anxious series)

Word Count: 3,523

Warnings: Blood, Minor injuries, graphic description of a minor injury, lots of crying

A/N: With the end of finals comes the first fic I’ve posted since returning to college! (I think?) And what better way to celebrate than with another Toddler Virgil fic? I hope yinz enjoy!

Writing Masterpost – Ko-Fi - A Little Anxious Masterpost (Coming Soon!)

The midday sun cast a soft warmth onto the ground below, just comfortable enough to go without a jacket and without feeling like you could fry an egg on the pavement. Clouds dotted the bright blue sky as birds sang and flew around; a gentle breeze rustled the trees just outside of the fencing for the backyard.

Roman had really outdone himself in creating an outside to their house in the mindscape, Patton thought.

He was kneeling in the grass in the backyard right now, just a few feet away from the back porch at the bare dirt lining the walls. A floppy sunhat shaded his face while he dug with the spade in his gloved hands. There was a box next to him half-full of plastic containers carrying the same freshly-planted pansies that sat in the garden between him and the porch.

It was quiet. Almost quiet enough that he might have forgotten about the toddler-sized anxious trait playing on the asphalt driveway just around the corner.

It wasn’t as if Virgil was making a lot of noise. When he’d woken up to tiny hands and a large jacket that morning, he had begged Patton to let him stay with him for the day, promising he’d be quiet so as not to disturb his already planned morning of gardening. Patton had told him not to worry about it, but Virgil went Roman anyway to ask for a piece of chalk to draw with. Roman, being as extra of an older brother figure as always, gave him a whole box with a rainbow of colors instead before going off on a quest in his realm.

They had been outside for a few hours by now. Virgil had done his best not do make any noise or bother Patton, but as he put the finishing touches on his drawing, he wanted nothing more than to show his dad what he’d made.

At the far end of the driveway, closest to where the road would be had there been one, the asphalt was covered in pastel colors left and right. There were hearts and storm clouds and rainbows and books, and stars and swirls and basic shapes—pretty much everything that Virgil could think of to draw was on the driveway. In the middle of all of the chaos stood two stick figures with a messy line drawn at the top of each of their heads. The tall one had glasses and a big grin, while the small one had smudges under the eyes and a smile. The figures held hands as a heart floated between them.

Virgil stood and looked over his masterpiece once more. He wanted to add more drawings to it, to impress his dad even more, but he really wanted to show him now! What if it rained and the chalk washed away?! Daddy would never see it, and all of this would have been for nothing!

No. Virgil wasn’t going to let that happen.

…At least, he wouldn’t, as long as Daddy wasn’t going to be upset about him interrupting him.

Virgil looked towards the backyard, his grip tightening on the piece of blue chalk. Daddy wouldn’t be mad if he was showing him a picture… right?

He would be happy!

Unless he thought it was terrible and yelled at him.

But Daddy wouldn’t yell at him! He hasn’t yet!

But that didn’t mean he never would.

Virgil lifted a sweater paw to his mouth and bit down. His gaze snapped back to the driveway.

It wasn’t… that bad, was it? He just wanted to make his dad smile.

The image of Patton’s huge, beaming grin popped into Virgil’s mind, and that was enough for him to steel his nerves and push forward. He turned towards the backyard with his chin up. His sleeves fell back to his side, and he began to run forward.

The next thing he knew, his shin hit something sharp, and with a big crash!, Virgil was on the ground.

He lay there for a moment in shock, a numbness spreading over his limbs. The chalk box! How could he have been so stupid to forget he’d left that there?! Now Daddy was going to come see what was wrong before he could get him, and the surprise would be ruined!

Holding back tears was already a struggle at the wave of emotions that hit him all at once, but then set in the pain! His palms felt like they were on fire, and his shin was throbbing, and his other knee burned!

Virgil rolled over and stifled a sob. He couldn’t let Daddy hear this, couldn’t let the surprise be ruined, but it hurt, hurt, hurt—

Holding back a wail, Virgil stood and limped as quickly as he could onto the front porch and into the house. Each rubbing of fabric against his knee felt like he was ripping a bandaid on and off again, so he reached down and lifted his pant leg away from his leg as best as he could.

He knew exactly who to go to.

------

 Wednesday:

               -Edit next Sanders Sides script                                -Edit Joystick Joyride until 6:45pm                                -6:45, prepare for dinner with Joan and Talyn                                -Return home by

Logan snapped out of his work as frantic knocking pounded on his door. He blinked steadily as he became aware of his surroundings; the moment he realized what was happening, he huffed and shot a glare at the door.

“Patton, I thought I told you not to disturb me today,” he stated. “I have plenty of work to do, and very little time to do it. Please, unless it is an emergency, wait until later to speak with me.”

He turned back to his work without a second to spare. The knocking started up again almost immediately. He sighed.

“I am being serious. If you want me to observe your gardening, it can wait.”

Silence. Logan began to relax.

And then he heard a thick sniffle, and a tiny sob.

He was on his feet in an instant, eyes glued to the door. “Virgil?”

Another sob sounded, this one louder than the first.

“Papa…!”

Logan was yanking the door open a second later, dropping to a crouch as soon as he saw Virgil bent over and clutching his leg. “What happened? Are you injured?”

Virgil sniffled and swiped at his eyes, his hand snapping right back to his knee as soon as it was able. He forced himself to nod through his grimace.

“Let me see,” Logan commanded.

Whimpering, Virgil shook his head. “It h-hurts!”

“I understand that, Virgil, but it is important that I look at it,” he said. “I need to see how severe it is so that I can best treat it and help the pain cease.”

Virgil looked at him warily, tears dripping off of his cheeks and onto the carpet; after a moment, he hesitantly lifted one hand away to reach for him. Logan’s chest tightened as he gently scooped the child into his arms and stood, paying very careful attention to make sure his knee didn’t come in contact with anything.

He wasted no time in whisking them down the stairs and towards the bathroom. As Virgil shook and cried, Logan rubbed his back and did his best to reassure him that he was okay.

“Can you tell me what caused this?” he softly asked.

Virgil sniffled and clung to him. “I-I fell…!”

“You fell? Where did that happen?”

“On the driveway,” he whimpered.

On asphalt. Of course. Roman didn’t listen to him about the benefits of a dirt driveway, and now they had an injured child on their hands. Of course.

When they passed the kitchen, Logan spared a glance inside, only to find a battered Roman staring right back at him. Logan raised an eyebrow at the lock of hair that was smoldering, but his stride lost no speed. Roman took a step away from the running microwave as they passed.

“What’s happened, is Virgil alright?” he asked.

“Oh, he only fell on the driveway that you insisted was the most aesthetically pleasing and injured himself,” Logan huffed. “Nothing for you to concern yourself with.”

Guilt slapped across Roman’s expression, but Logan only caught a split second of it before he stepped into the bathroom and shut the door.

Gently, Logan placed Virgil onto the counter and swiped some of the tears away with the pad of his thumb. “It’s going to be alright, Virgil. Let’s take a look at that knee, shall we?”

Virgil sniffled and scrubbed at his eyes. “A-Am I gonna die?”

Logan stared at him for a beat, eyes wide; a moment later, his expression softened, and he put his hand on Virgil’s uninjured knee.

“No, Virgil,” he firmly reassured. “You’re going to be just fine. I would never let anything like that happen to you, alright? It’s just a small injury. I assure you, there is nothing to worry about.”

Hanging his head, Virgil nodded slowly. Logan kneeled down and reached into the cabinet under the sink to grab the first aid kit before turning back to him.

“Now, let’s get you fixed up. May I see it?”

Virgil nodded again, lifting a sweater paw to chew on as Logan took his pant leg and began to roll it up. He was extra gentle when he reached the knee, lifting it high over the—

“Oh, dear,” Logan breathed.

The skin on Virgil’s knee wasn’t just scraped up, it was simply… gone, almost. Nearly his entire kneecap was covered in a thin layer of blood; Logan was shocked it hadn’t ended up anywhere else. Carefully, he raised Virgil’s calf in an attempt to get a better view, but he dropped the idea when he let out a whine.

“That is… quite the skinned knee you’ve given yourself there, Virgil,” Logan slowly stated. “What happened that caused you to fall?”

“I-I drew on the driveway and wanted to show it to Daddy,” Virgil answered, “’Nd I fell over the chalk Ro let me use.”

“Were you running?”

“Mm-hm…”

Logan nodded, his eyes still glued to the injury. “Virgil, I’m going to change you out of your jeans and into a pair of shorts, okay? It will make it much less cumbersome to treat this if I don’t have to worry about your jeans falling and causing you any more pain.”

He waited for Virgil to nod, and then he snapped, putting him in a set of black basketball shorts. Logan was about to reach for the first aid kit, but another streak of red caught his eye; his gaze snapped to Virgil’s left shin, where a long, shallow gash bled lightly.

Raising an eyebrow, Logan looked up at him. “Virgil? Is there a reason you made no mention of this?”

Virgil’s head hung, eyes darting away from Logan; Logan held back a sigh and a lecture as he inspected the new wound.

“Are there any other injuries you’ve hidden?” he asked, as softly as he possibly could.

Virgil hesitated, but after a moment, he lowered his sweater paws and wormed his arms out from inside. He opened his palms to reveal bright red, scraped up skin—but, to Logan’s relief, no blood.

He let out the sigh and gently took the tiny hands into his own.

“Virgil, if you’re injured, you need to tell us about it, okay?” Logan quietly reprimanded. “No matter how big or small it is, or if you have another that seems bigger and more important. Neglecting to tell someone could cause it to get infected and hurt a lot more. No one will be angry; we just want you to be healthy. Okay?”

Virgil sniffled and nodded. His lips twitched down, but he appeared to be forcing them away from that. Logan watched as tears started to roll down his cheeks again.

He climbed to his feet. “Would a hug help you believe me?”

Eyes screwing shut, Virgil stifled a sob and reached for him. Logan quickly leaned forward and held him close.

It was a long moment later before Logan ran his hand up and down Virgil’s back, asking, “Was this satisfactory?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Good.” Logan pulled away and offered a soft smile. “Then let’s finally get you cleaned up.”

He took a washcloth and wet it down, rubbing a bit of soap into it before he kneeled back down and began gently wiping away at Virgil’s wounds. When he flinched at the contact, Logan wordlessly offered a hand, and Virgil took it and held it tight. They worked in silence for a long moment.

“You’re being very brave, Virgil,” Logan said.

Just as Virgil appeared to be calming down, the front door slammed open; despite it being on the other side of the closed bathroom door, Virgil practically jumped out of his skin and began to shake. Logan quickly squeezed his hand and shushed him.

“Has anyone seen Virgil?!” Patton’s voice yelled as it passed them. “Please tell me someone’s seen Virgil!”

“Relax, Padre, he and Logan are in the bathroom,” called Roman’s voice.

“Why are they—Oh, my goodness gracious, what happened to you?!”

“Fire ostrich.”

“Your hair is on fire!”

Rolling his eyes, Logan set the washcloth aside and picked up a roll of gauze from the first aid kit. “Honestly, the things he comes up with…”

Virgil giggled, his voice still thick, but the smile on his face real. Logan carefully pulled his hand away and used it to hold Virgil’s leg in place as he wrapped the bandages around his knee.

Not a moment later, a gentle knock sounded against the door. Patton quietly poked his head in without waiting for a response. He took a moment to glance at the scene in front of him, and then he offered Virgil a sympathetic smile.

“Hey there, kiddo,” he said. “Heard you had a bit of a tumble, huh?”

Virgil’s lower lip began to wobble, but he bit down hard on it as he nodded. Patton let out a coo and stepped in, leaning his hip against the counter as he wrapped his arm around Virgil’s shoulder. “Does it hurt?”

Tucking his face into Patton’s chest, Virgil sniffled. “Mm-hm…!”

“Well, it’s a good thing you went straight to Doctor Logan then, isn’t it?” Patton replied, shooting Logan a thankful smile.

“No one in this mindscape goes straight anywhere!”

“Thank you for your unnecessary input, Roman,” Logan hollered.

“You’re just upset because I’m right!”

Logan sighed and shook his head as he secured the bandage in place and started on his shin. “I’m not wrong about it being unnecessary…”

Patton snorted and slapped a hand over his mouth. Logan glanced up and raised an amused eyebrow.

All of a sudden, Virgil burst into tears.

Patton and Logan snapped their heads towards him. “Virgil? Honey, what’s wrong?” Patton asked, pulling away to join Logan kneeling in front of him.

“Are you in pain? Is there another injury? Is there a new injury?”

Sucking in a mighty sob, Virgil shook his head. He lifted one hand to rub at his eyes while the other reached for Patton. He took the tiny grip without a second thought.

“What’s the matter, kiddo?”

Through a string of choking breaths, Virgil managed out one sentence.

“I-I di-idn’t get to sh-show you my p-p-pictu-re!”

Patton blinked. “The one in the driveway?”

Virgil wailed and nodded. “A-A-And it’s gonna—gonna be gone ‘cause it’s gonna rain or Ro’s gonna make the driveway dirt and you-you’re never gonna get to see i-i-it!”

“Oh, Virgil!”

Patton shot to his feet and wrapped Virgil in a tight hug; he rubbed small circles in the bawling toddler’s back as he rocked them back and forth. Softly, he shushed him and pressed a kiss into his hair.

“Virgil, I did see it,” Patton whispered. “When I was looking for you, before I realized you were missing, I stopped to look at it, and boy, was I amazed! You did a really nice job with it!”

Virgil sniffled. “Really…?”

“Absolutely! I especially loved the little swirls everywhere! Oh, but not as much as the little self portrait of me and you! I really liked the hair you gave us!”

In the moment of distraction, Logan swiftly taped the strip of gauze over the shallow cut and began to pack up the first aid kit. He sat back and watched for a moment as Virgil slowly calmed down, and as the worry in Patton’s eyes slowly faded.

A smile rested on Logan’s face before he climbed to his feet and brushed the dirt off of himself.

“Well, Virgil, it seems you are good to go,” he stated. “I will come change your bandages accordingly, but please do your best to—”

“Nu-uh! My hands!”

Logan blinked at the interruption. Virgil pulled away from Patton to show off the scrapes on his palms.

Oh. Of course.

Logan hesitated for a moment. True, there wasn’t much that could be done for a skin abrasion as minor as this one, but he also couldn’t just brush Virgil’s concerns off, especially after he’d just reprimanded him for not telling him about it in the first place…

“Um… well,” Logan slowly said, “I… Believe the best way to treat this sort of injury is…”

He glanced at Patton. Patton tilted his head, listening intently. For a moment, Logan couldn’t understand why he would be so interested, but then he realized that it was only natural in a father’s nature to—

Oh!

Logan straightened his posture and adjusted his glasses. “Well, it is a common myth that the best treatment for this sort of injury is to apply a parent’s kiss as needed to soothe the pain!”

An amused grin nearly split Patton’s face in half. He turned to Virgil and nodded with a hum.

Virgil blinked at the two of them with wide, puffy eyes. His gaze darted between the two of them before he raised his right palm up towards Patton, who quickly pecked a gentle kiss onto the scratches and reached for his left.

“No!”

They paused.

“No?” Patton asked. “Does it not hurt?”

Virgil violently shook his head. He stretched his left hand out towards Logan.

“I want Papa to do it!” he whimpered.

Heat rushed to Logan’s face just as rapidly as his heart swelled. His mouth opened and shut for a beat. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Patton’s hands fly over his mouth as his eyebrows shot into his hairline.

Virgil’s bottom lip poked out into a pout.

“Please?”

How could Logan deny such a polite little request?

He gently took Virgil’s wrist and lifted his hand, looking the toddler in the eye as he pressed a soft kiss to his palm. Virgil gave a weak smile before he pulled his hand away and reached for Patton.

“And what do we say to Logan?” Patton asked, strategically lifting Virgil into his arms without jostling the bandages.

“Thank you, Papa.”

“Thank you, indeed,” Patton added. He looked at Logan with the most grateful expression he could muster. “Seriously, thank you so much.”

“You are very welcome. I’m glad I was able to help,” Logan replied.

The two smiled at each other.

Virgil tugged at Patton’s cardigan. “Daddy, can we go back outside?”

“Sure, kiddo,” he laughed, “But how about we stay in the backyard this time, okay? You can help me plant some flowers!”

Virgil bit his lip, curling in on himself a little. “Am I allowed…?”

Patton grinned and pressed a kiss into Virgil’s hair. “Of course you are! I’d love for you to garden with me!”

Giggling, Virgil pressed his face into Patton’s shoulder; Patton mouthed one last thank you to Logan before he turned and walked out of the bathroom.

Before they turned the corner, Virgil peered up and waved. “Bye, Papa!”

“Have fun,” Logan called.

He ended up standing in the bathroom for a few minutes long than he’d intended, simply processing the event and the emotions that accompanied it. A soft smile grew across his lips the longer he remained.

This had definitely been worth the time lost on scheduling.

Just before Logan crouched to put the first aid kit in its usual location, Roman hesitantly poked his head around the corner. Logan straightened his posture and raised an eyebrow at him.

“Yes?”

Roman clicked his tongue. “Hey, you, uh… seemed to do pretty well, bandaging Virgil up like that,” he said.

“Well… Yes. It is crucial to know first aid in case of emergencies,” he replied. “Thomas has taken many classes on it. You should know this.”

“Right, right,” Roman laughed. He pressed his lips together and avoided Logan’s gaze, hovering in the doorway.

Logan sighed. “Was there something you needed, or are you just going to block me from exiting and getting back to work?”

“Oh! Yes, I was… Um. I was just wondering.”

Roman played with the edge of his sleeve for a beat, and then he slowly rolled it up, revealing his arm to be covered in talon scratches and burns.

“Could you do me next?”

[pcttrailsidereader]

8 Tips for Preventing Injury and Making the first 100 PCT miles a Success

Originally posted on February 26, 2018 on 2 Foot Adventures  . . . this advice is very wise.  I have seen lots of otherwise strong hkers in agony not far from Campo because they went too far, too fast.  Blisters, stress fractures, and strains can all derail the best plans.

The PCT is a journey, not a race. This can’t be overstated enough as you embark upon the first 100 miles of your 2,660-mile hike to Canada. Injury is among the top reasons hikers leave the trail in the first 100-300 miles. The tips provided below will help you avoid injury and keep you walking happy and healthy well beyond these first miles.

BEFORE THE TRAIL

8. Train - So many thru-hikers neglect this part. Being physically fit before starting the trail is the #1 way to avoid injury on the trail. It’s not a requirement, but it is REALLY REALLY helpful and makes the first 100 miles a little easier. Even if you are fit, the first 100 miles is still tough and will challenge you in ways you never dreamed before. If you live in a place not conducive to training outdoors there are lots of ways you can train indoors. The areas of focus should be:

~ Time on your feet with your backpack fully loaded. One hiker in 2017 told me she lived way up north, almost in the Arctic Circle, and she walked circles in her living room for up to 8-hrs a day to get her body ready. Maddening! But she arrived strong and fit and ready for the trail.

~ Develop strong legs, core, back, and shoulders. When you hike for many hours a day with a backpack on your body gets tired and your body mechanics begin to breakdown. Once your body mechanics breakdown you need to stop hiking ASAP! Continuing on can quickly develop into an injured knee, hip, shoulder, etc. Strengthening these areas ahead of time is better than doing this on trail.

~ Develop a stretch routine that targets all your major muscles. Having a stretch routine before the trail will make doing it on trail much more likely and it’s a very good habit to get into when hiking for 8-10+ hrs/day.

ON THE TRAIL

Certainly not THAT much!

7. Carry just enough water - I know, you’re starting your hike off in the desert. It’s hot. All the books/blogs say there’s no water for the first 20 miles. Have you looked at the PCT Water Report available here? Often times there is water in the first 20 miles it's just a short hike off trail, but there is water. In a wet year there are numerous water sources on trail during these miles. IF you decided you don’t want to walk off trail to get water then consider these items when planning the amount of water you’re going to start with.

~ What is the weather? - If it’s a cool cloudy day and rain is expected (this does happen) then you won’t need to carry the conventional 6L of water at the start.

~ Are you a small, medium, or large guy/girl? - A small female will not need to carry as much water as a large man. Analyze your size and water needs. I am a 120-lb female and started my PCT hike on a day with temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit. I hiked 15 miles to Houser Creek my first day. I used water in a lunch, dinner, and breakfast before reaching Lake Morena. I began with 4 liters of water and still had some left when I reached the lake. I’m from Southern California and was well acclimated to exercising in the heat.

~ How many miles are you hiking your first day? - There’s no need to hike all the way to Lake Morena on Day 1. You can split it into 2 days. If you haven't be able to train enough, plan to do it in 1.5-2 days and plan on walking the short distance off trail to get additional water so you are more comfortable during the hours and miles you are walking on the first couple of days. You’ll have plenty of time to do this and take numerous breaks.

Water is heavy, weighing approximately 2.2-lb or 1-kg per liter. It’s important that you know where your next water supply will be so you carry just a tad more than what is needed to get there. Be realistic about your water needs and know in many places you can hike a little off trail and get more water if needed. Know where those sources are BEFORE you set out each day and don’t rely on water caches. While 3rd Gate is usually stocked during the season, even if it’s out, there’s a hose a little further off the trail where you can get water.  

6. Reduce your food - Most hikers carry way too much food their first 100 miles. They dump half their resupply box into the hiker box and groan about the wasted money and weight they’ve been lugging around for the past week. When packing your food consider the following:

~ Hiker hunger doesn’t kick-in for a couple weeks, sometimes longer.

~ When it’s really hot most hikers don’t feel like eating a whole lot.

~ When you’ve walked all day in the heat and you’re exhausted, you don’t feel like cooking a hot dinner. Although if you’ve followed the advice above you won’t be exhausted. You will have taken plenty of breaks and not walked more miles than your body was ready for.

~ There are cafes/restaurants and resupply options available every 20-35 miles for the first 100 miles. Make use of those and don’t carry so much food with you to start. Your backpack will be lighter, your body will feel better, and this will reduce the chance of injury.

5. Don’t carry “backup” anything - I can write a book about all the “back-up” and “extra” things hikers carry in their backpacks. You haven’t hiked the PCT before or any long trail so you (or your family/friends) have a long list of “what-ifs” that you feel you need to prepare for. 99.9% of those things will not materialize. You only need the absolute essentials. You don’t need an extra shirt or pair of shorts. You don’t need 2 books. You don’t need 3 flashlights and 2 extra fire starting items. You don't need bear spray or a machete or even a bear canister. What you do need is a backpack that is light enough that you are comfortable carrying your food, water, and essential supplies. You may think that you will have tons of time to do “insert some activity here”, but you’ll be too tired to want to do those things, or you’ll be too busy making new friends, making dinner, napping, or looking at what’s ahead for tomorrow.

4. Take Lots of Breaks - You’re walking far, very very far, almost 3,000 miles! Stop and rest. Take off your backpack. Take off your shoes and socks. Stretch. Eat. Hydrate. Taking frequent breaks helps your body avoid injuries by giving it rest and an opportunity to move in a different way. Overuse injuries are VERY common on the PCT and result in hundreds of hikers leaving the trail. It’s advisable that during breaks you take time to massage your aching feet and legs. Move your body throughout a range of motions that are different from walking. It will feel good, trust me! And this is a great habit to form.

OK . . . not THAT big.

3. Get really big shoes - Shoes are tough. Most hikers start with shoes they consider to be big. They size up a half or whole size and feel like they have lots of room in there for their foot to grow. The reality is your feet are going to swell up to 2 sizes during the desert and here’s why. You’re walking EVERYDAY. You’re walking FAR everyday. You’re walking with more weight than you trained with. You’re walking up and down mountains. You’re walking in 100 deg heat. All these factors contribute to big feet! Do yourself a favor and get really big shoes; your feet will thank you!

2. Leave your ego at home

- Sure, go ahead and laugh. You think you don’t have ego or you won’t fall into the pressure to hike more miles than you set out to do, but it happens…a lot. You’re in a new place. You’ve met a couple of really awesome people that you click with and want to hike with but they walk just barely faster than you. They walk a few more miles than you. Having them “leave you” isn’t something you want to think about so you do just a little more to keep up with them and then it happens….BOOM! You’re injured. Now you’ll get way behind them. Now you’re spending money resting in town trying to figure out if you can keep hiking at all. Don’t let this happen! Know that these awesome people will be in the next town when you get there. You will see them again and again and again. You will meet other amazing people. There’s NO reason to hike even slightly out of your comfort zone and it’s a REALLY bad idea in the first 100 miles. Let the speed demons go by you. You might see them laid up in the next town with a blown out knee or shin splints. HYOH - Hike Your Own Hike! Most importantly, Take Care of You!!!

1. Be a tortoise, not a hare

- What?!? Go SLOW! Take your time and ease into thru-hiking. Thru-hiking is incredibly strenuous especially when you are starting out. Your body isn’t used to the demands of hiking every single day with so much weight, in the heat, and up and down mountains that have trails that are slightly cantered to the left and then to the right. Make a plan for your first couple of weeks on trail. Be super conservative with your miles. Plan a couple of weeks at 10 -14 miles a day, less if needed. Plan to take a zero (no hiking day) at least every 5-7 days. Take several half days if you are near town. You don’t have to actually hike your planned miles every single day. Be realistic about your starting fitness. If you’re really fit, your backpack is light, and you’ve trained consistently, then maybe you can do 15-18 miles a day right off. For the vast majority of hikers, that’s too much. Don’t bother planning every day of your hike though. Things happen on the trail that you have no control over. Despite your best efforts you might have a nagging pain starting. There might be dangerous weather up on the ridge you where you were planning to camp. It’s good to be flexible with your plan, listen to your body, and take additional breaks.  

Keep in mind, the first 100 miles is indeed the toughest! That’s not to say that any single mile after 100 will be easy, but if you follow these tips, you’ll set a solid foundation for your PCT thru-hike that will last for many miles beyond the first 100.

[ikesenlemonadestandstories]

Yearning

Hey there honey bees, here’s today’s short for MC dealing with shaving in the Sengoku. Dis one is for Mitsuhide. Hope you like it! 

Question for the peanut gallery...who do you wanna see next? Message me! send in an ask...I”m going to do them all eventually but thought I’d see what the people want (^.^)v

My other Ikesen works are hanging on my page. Click Master List to see them all conveniently compiled in one place!

Much love,

Admin T~

[YN]

Usually you felt better after a meeting or a meal surrounded by your new Sengoku family. They had done a great job of helping you acclimate to the time period and you would never be able to thank them for that, never; but sometimes you still just missed home. Certain aspects stuck out, like the immediate forms of communication, photos, endless libraries of information and piano music all at your fingertips, running water, soap...the little things like the woosh of traffic as you walked on busy sidewalks, the ding every time someone entered a convenience store, the clicking of your coworkers diligently typing away as they worked toward a deadline, the soft thunk of a lock when you came home from work, the sound of zippers, hell you’d even kill for some velcro if it would help you feel better; but you didn’t and couldn’t. So here you were stuck knowing that you would feel just as terrible if you were back in the present without all of them, but still wishing it wasn’t quite so hard some days. There had to be something to help add a semblance of futuristic normalcy back into your daily life. Anything.

“That’s it!”

[Mitsuhide]

The first few times I saw them carrying the bucket up to their room I thought nothing of it. Maybe they were just doing a bit of extra cleaning, or it had to deal with something they were sewing. For about a month I had been purposefully cutting holes along the bottom edge of my haori, in an attempt to see what there were using it for, but to no avail.

When that didn’t work I tried teasing it out of them, but they weren’t having any of it. With each passing encounter the bucket of water became a normal oddity. I had decided that the next time I saw it I would not hesitate. I was just going to barge in.

I had planned for the worst, but no part of me was prepared to see them sitting on their writing table, feet dipped in the bucket running the edge of the blade up their legs. Mild annoyance sat in their normally cheerful features as they looked over at me from the corner of their eyes.

“Why do you even knock if you’re not going to wait for an answer?” they sighed

[YN]

Thanks to your own ingenuity you had devised a makeshift razor and had taken to keeping your legs and underarms pretty neat. Making time at least once a week to collect a bucket of water and bring it back to your room to shave in peace. It wasn’t like anyone would notice, seeing as you were pretty much always in a kimono, but something about it helped you feel normal, like you weren’t totally removed from everything you grew up with.

You had been successful at avoiding the warlords so far, but you must have looked shifty because he had been following you around asking about your bucket all day and now you weren’t even halfway through your right leg when there was a knock on you door and Mitsuhide slid it open. There was no time to even try to hide what you were doing, not to mention if you had it would have just added to you looking suspect.

“Why do you even knock if you’re not going to wait for an answer?”

“My apologies.” He may have apologized but why didn’t you believe it…

“So then what can I help you with? Need me to patch your haori...again?”

“No, not this time.” he paused, for a second you thought he looked nervous but it passed as he continued “Might I inquire what you’re up to?”

[Mitsuhide]

Shave? I knew most people did it on occasion to keep unruly facial hair in check, but I had never considered it a possibility elsewhere.

“Why would you go to such lengths to have the legs of a small child?”

Apparently that was a thorny subject. My attempt at messing with them had ill-intended effects, unlike their normal reaction of sputtering or turning bright red only to talk themselves into another set up, they glared.

“Funny...if you don’t need anything you should try that wonderful humor on Hideyoshi. I’m sure it would be equally rewarding for you.” they suggested

“I have an equally entertaining idea.” to which they raised an eyebrow at me “Just hear this one out. You tell me why you’re shaving and I wont tell Hideyoshi I saw you sitting in your room playing with a knife.”

“...”

There was a long pause before the gave in and looked me directly in the eyes.

“To feel normal.” they said

And all of a sudden I regretted it, there was a look on their face, I was filled with an emotion I try hard to keep in check, I sat on the tatami by their bucket.

“Nothing about you has ever been normal.” they paused only for a moment before continuing on up their leg “you are quite possibly the only person I’ve ever met to request more work. You routinely yell at the lord-liege who employs you.”

“He deserves it, usually...”

“Agreed, but you don’t see anyone else doing that. You talk freely to everyone, and show all of your emotions plainly on your face. You’re not normal but that’s not a bad thing. How would this make you feel normal, and why would you ever want to be?”

[YN]

Yikes...a child, really? I know it’s uncommon but was that completely necessary? You shot a look his way, you really didn’t feel like dealing with his toying today...you felt homesick enough already. If that’s how he was going to be it may be time to suggest he take his leave.

“Funny...if you don’t need anything you should try that wonderful humor on Hideyoshi. I’m sure it would be equally rewarding for you.”

“I have an equally entertaining idea.” you paused knowing if you didn’t you would definitely cut yourself when Mitsuhide's ‘idea’ reared its ugly head “Just hear this one out. You tell me why you’re shaving and I wont tell Hideyoshi I saw you sitting in your room playing with a knife.”

Was he really threatening to tell on you just to get the information he wanted? Yes...yes he was. You didn’t need to ask aloud because the look on his face said it all. Figuring it was better to just come out and say it then deal with mother hen you looked at him.

“To feel normal…” you didn’t sugar coat it, or try to hide how you were feeling under a smile, if he really wanted to know you’d tell him...what he did with the information was up to him. 

He responded rather cautiously...picking his words and you decided you must be dreaming because he had just paid you a very solid compliment. You could tell he wasn’t teasing, if he was he would have stayed closer to the door to ensure an exit.

By the time he was through attempting to make you feel better you had finished your legs. Running the sand you had been collecting from the lake shore over your wet legs to exfoliate, you covered them with clay from the riverbed. You told him about how this helps ease your homesickness, why it may be odd to them but it had a funny way of making you feel just a tad better. After you washed it off you took to drying your now smooth legs which was when he reached over and slowly ran a hand up your shin all the way to your knee.

[Mitsuhide]

“Where I come from, it’s a social norm. When I found myself feeling homesick missing things I would never be able to get here I tried brainstorming all the different things this time has to offer and how I could use them to ebb these feelings” she looked thoughtful as she spoke.

“So you decided this was the best way to do that?”

“Mmmh, it was part of a routine; Something I did so frequently I didn’t realize it’s impact until recently. Personally I used to shave my legs once a week...armpits ever three days or so. In the winter all bets were off but that’s just because it’s cold and I wanted to hibernate anyway.” they giggled but their eyes were still distant thinking about times past.

“There’s no showers here, the closest thing would be a waterfall and I’m not exactly brave enough to stand under one of those naked...There are no cars, no switch locks, and no phones, this was the best solution I had. A bit of futuristic pampering.”

It was interesting, a wave of emotion came over me and, with what I would try to play off as intrigue, I reached over and ran my hand up their leg. It was different but not in a bad way, stopping at their knee. Skin as cool as fresh silk from the water now bloomed with heat where I rested my hand.

“See, doesn’t that feel nice? Now imagine it against new fabric or fresh bed sheets.” They were smiling again. Good.

“Only if I can imagine you in both?” Flushing red with the reaction I loved so much, they bat my hand away averting their gaze.

“Maybe...but only if you ask nicely.”

tagging @little-mini-me-world because always :) and @forallyourikemensengokuneeds because it involves her best ikemen Mitsu

[neni-has-ascended]

I noticed on your anime list that you’ve completed Yu-gi-oh! Dark Side of Dimensions & the old Sonic the Hedgehog OVA. May I ask for your opinions on these movies? I’d love to hear them!

Ohhhhhhh boy… Heh Heh, alright.

Yu-gi-oh! Dark Side of Dimensions

I love Trading Card games. I used to play YGO and the Pokemon TCG, I regularly play Weiss-Schwarz and WIXOSS and, well, recently I’ve gotten into the Duel Links version of the YGO TCG too. I may not be very good at this sort of games or most games, but I get hooked on them very easily. 

So really, as much of a guilty pleasure of mine YuGiOh is, it’s still a *pleasure*, so as soon as I learned (by accident) that the DsoD movie exists, I decided to check it out.

I… honestly got a lot more than I expected, not gonna lie. I was kinda blown away in a good way. Like, it wasn’t a Master Piece, but by the standards of someone who grew up with the 4Kids version of the Anime, it might as well have been.

The movie was written in the Manga continuity by Kazuki Takahashi, and it actually really shows. A lot more effort is paid to highlighting the characters’ humanity and a lot of fluffy and slow character moments, which were almost always cut out of the Anime when the Manga was adapted (yes, even in the Japanese version and season 0; the anime adaptations were both kinda really bad, regardless of language), are fully present here. Like, Joey/Jounouji, Tristan/Honda and Tea/Anzu get to do things other than badly playing card games and being friggin’ cheerleaders. Heck, even poor Human!Ryou gets some actual screentime! It’s kind of impressive. And the way in which the movie elaborates on Sato Kaiba’s unhealthy obsession with Atem to the point he fails to be able to continue his life with the guy gone, while Yugi is able to move on perfectly fine (albeit with some residual grief) is downright scary and haunting. It kinda feels like a dig at the fanbase too, in a way; going all out saying “Look, you guys, the story is over. You can stop reviving the poor guy in your fanfics now. Don’t be a Kaiba.” 

The weaknesses of the movie come in in two forms: A) How it deals handles having multiple card battles on-screen over the short time span given to the movie, while still having a proper story and B) Diva Aigami. (I know, those are technically two names, but his disguise is never given a proper first name, so I’ll just use it as one game.) 

Okay, so Dimension Summoning. Works on no level, and like, I mean NO level. It claims that the stats of a monster are decided by the willpower of the person summoning it, but thanks to this movie being set after the end of Duel Monsters, everyone’s will-power is already so far off the charts, this detail never even begins to come into play. All the other extra rules are just excuses for bullshit plot twists and to speed up the games. By the end of the movie, the progression of the card games is harder to follow than in the WIXOSS Anime, and I don’t use that insult lightly. I guess that it’s hard to make a less than 2 hours long movie featuring several fully-played card games with a working story, but like. Just don’t. Cut down on the number of card games played, if it really doesn’t work otherwise. I’m sure nobody would have minded that. 

Then there’s Diva’s story which is a mess, from beginning to end, tearing gaping plot holes into the established lore of the Manga, mostly by virtue of making Shadi Shin look like a total and utter moron in retrospect (it’s almost like his Abridged Series portrayal is supposed to be canon now.) The concepts introduced with the Plana are cool and could make for a great plot point, but they don’t really fit with the established lore of the Manga’s Universe, coming across as more science-fantasy than the outright fantasy the manga mostly went for, which makes the Plana’s connection to Shadi, one of the most outright “magical” characters in the Manga all the more puzzling. All in all, the Plana feel like something that would fit better in the worlds of YugiOh GX or 5Ds, but not the original Duel Monsters. Makes you wonder if Takahashi’s tastes just changed over the years.

Diva himself is an utter mess too. His whiny-ness and sense of entitlement make Shinji Ikari look like friggin’ Kamina Jiha. He had every chance to take a moment to breath and think about how stupid what he doing is and he just failed and let the Millenium Ring- the very thing he SHOULD have been angry at from the start, rather than Yugi,Ryou&Co - take control of him. In the process, he ruins paradise for his sister and everyone else involved, for no other reason than screwing things up so badly that Atem is *forced* to exercise some divine intervention, lest everyone he knows is to join him in death prematurely. Ultimately, Diva’s entire character boils down to: “Brother, why did you ruin shit for everyone else?” “BECAUSE UWEHHHHH”.

However, all in all, I still really enjoyed the movie a lot for the way it portrayed Yugi&Co. It really did feel like a tearful reunion with old friends and I appreciate that. The Animation was amazing too. If they re-adapted the Manga with this overall style of quality (in characterization of the main characters and in animation), I’m sure it could easily become one of the best merchandise-driven Anime out there. Not that I need that in my life, but it’s a nice thought. It’s definitely a better candidate for re-adaptation than friggin’ Sailor Moon …*COUGH COUGH*

Sonic the Hedgehog OVA

I… don’t have as much to say on this one. It’s a weird, weird take on what, at the time, was a weird, weird game. I get that it was supposed to be the pilot for a Sonic Anime that never ended up being made (which is a good thing, since I’ll take Chris Thorndyke over Princess Catgirl ANY day- YES I SAID IT.) but it does have merit. The characterization of Sonic as a bit more of a morally grey character, rather than a Shounen Hero who’s overly apathetic to anything that moves slower than 180mpH was a nice take on the character, and Tails’ characteristics as the genius gadgeteer were used well. I don’t get what they were going for with Knuckles, tbh, if Sonic Boom didn’t exist I’d say this was the weirdest take on him I’ve ever seen. I think if Sonic Boom Knuckles were to put on the hat of Sonic OVA knuckles, the Master Emerald would implode in shame somewhere out there. 

The story is nothing to write home about. It’s kinda cool to have a version of Metal Sonic that ends up redeemed, but that plot point was kinda poorly explained and also sort of horrifying. Like, think about it, if the reason he was redeemed is because his AI is actively an exact copy of Sonic’s Soul, does that mean SONIC DIED IN A FIRE? Just… think about that…

(Some people would love to, I’m sure.)

All in all, it’s yet another strange, strange, animated takes on a series with loads and loads of strange, strange takes on it. One of these days, there needs to be a joking crossover where all the different animated Sonics meet one another. It’d be utter chaos, I’m sure. 

[pretend-im-not-there]

The Best Night

Happy Boofday @drawbauchery! Here’s one of the fics I’ve been working on for a while.

For the names, I was already in too deep to change ‘em. It’s too late now. It’s done.

“You’ll be fine, Peridot. She said yes.”

You look at yourself in the bathroom mirror. You can’t really say you look your best, but a little cover up does a world of wonders to make you look less tired. Your blonde hair continues to refuse to be tamed, despite your best efforts, and a lock of your bangs keeps slipping back in front of your glasses.

You’ve traded out your bartending clothes for a bright teal blouse. Short sleeved, of course. It may be early spring, but it’s still spring. Besides, you always have your green hoodie to fight back the chills when you need it.

Just as well, you’ve traded out the black slacks you wear at the bar for a looser pair of jeans. As much as you like the slacks, they tended to feel a bit uncomfortable after a six hour shift. When it comes to your day job, you definitely need comfort over style.

Looking yourself over, you’d say you look… ready for work. You let out a sigh. Well, it’s not like your work would let you dress up for a date. Besides, weren’t dates supposed to be about getting to know the person you’re interested in?

Wow. You are never getting laid.

You smack your head into the counter. You decide you’re going to ignore what the voice in your head just said. You also ignore the fact that it sounded like Amethyst. In fact, you decide you’re going to go to the kitchen and see if you have time to cook some breakfast.

So you do, and looking at the wall clock, you see that you have some time till you have to catch the bus. Enough time to cook something but it’ll have to travel. You try to keep such in mind as you raid the fridge.

Hmm. Nope. Nope. Nope. Expired. Nope.

After a minute of searching you finally decide on a bacon egg and cheese bagel. As Blue Zircon always tells you, “Sometimes, you just need to make the basics move for you. And you can always use the bacon grease.”  Granted, this was usually punctuated by Blue slapping her girlfriend, Yellow Zircons, hand away from a skillet with a wooden spoon, but the advice is still good.

You close the fridge and are greeted by a pair of post-its written with the swirly script of your roommates. How did you not see those before? Either way, you take the notes along with you as you start cooking, reading them as you go.

Peridot,

I am writing to inform you that I will have business tonight that will keep me out of the house later than usual. While I know you aren’t one to cause trouble. I ask that you do nothing dangerous tonight when I’m not there to supervise. Make sure to lock up the house before you leave.

Be seeing you,

Pearl.

You roll your eyes as you pour the warm bacon grease with the rest you’ve collected so far. Pearl always worries too much about nothing. You guess you can understand, her being around kids all day, but come on. It’s not like you’re gonna burn the house down.

You move on with your cooking. You really do like to cook at home, it can even be kind of relaxing. It also helped that Zircon drilled a few good recipes into you when you were younger.

You look down at the other note and smile at the brevity of it. While it doesn’t say much, you understand what the writer is saying perfectly.

Same

-S

So it seems that both Pearl and Sapphire are going to be out for most of the night. A good thing to know, should anything happen. Not that you’re really planning on anything happening right now.

You finish your cooking and set the dishes into the sink. It’s not like Pearl will be giving you a hard time about it tonight. Not if you get home and take care of them before she finds out, that is.

You check the clock before leaving and smile as you lock the door behind you. Just enough time to walk to the bus stop as you eat your breakfast. As you step onto the bus, it feels like today is going as planned.

You watch the town roll by through the bus window and are reminded of the ride you took last night. It was… exhilarating riding on the back of Lapis’ motorcycle. You’re not even sure if you could describe how it felt.

Sure, it was scary at first. There aren’t any airbags or any safety measures besides the helmet on your head. What if the bike slid under you? What if there was an accident? It was only reasonable to be scared of what could happen.

But once she picked up speed, it was amazing. It was like you could feel the road passing underneath you. Not to mention the sight of the lights on cars passing behind you. Honestly, you were surprised you could even walk up your walkway from how your legs were feeling.

You’re pulled out of yesterday as your stop for work comes up. You hop off and start your walk to work. While the bus may not stop in front of the library, it doesn’t stop very far away so it’s a quick walk.

A car pulls into the parking lot as you make your way to the front door and it causes you to stop. You watch as it pulls into a parking spot and Amethyst hops out of the passenger side. She gives you a little wave that you return as she shouts out behind her, “See ya at six, Jasper!” With that, the car peels out of the lot, giving you only the slightest view of the driver as she speeds off.

As the woman walks up to you, you have to ask, “Why does she even drive you if she hates this place so much?”

Amethyst laughs as she bumps your arm with a fist. “Oh, she’s just being dramatic. So, how’s it going P-dot? I hear someone has plans for after work tonight.”

You sputter and blush. How did she find out? You try to sound calm, but your voice comes out way to loud as you ask, “Who told you?!”

She laughs harder. “Chill, Peri. Lapis told me she was going to ask you out yesterday. So, how’d it happen? C’mon, spill the details.”

You sigh out. Well, if she knows anyways. “Actually, I asked her to dinner tonight.”

You are sure that the sound that comes out of Amethysts mouth is only supposed to be heard by dogs. She throws an arm around your shoulders with a grin. “I knew you had it in ya, nerd. So, where are you gonna take her?”

You’re almost laughing at how hyped she is for you. “Well…” A realization stops you in your tracks. Your face falls as you go over things in your head.

You never thought of a place to bring her for dinner.

You asked her to dinner and you never thought of a place to bring her. Your brain starts to shut down at this as your mouth utters an incomprehensible string of letters. It isn’t long before you feel a smack upside your head.

“Settle down, Peri.” You rub the back of your head and look at her. She shakes her hand off before speaking again, “I’m sure you’ll figure something out. You do have the whole day, after all.”

You look down a bit. “Yeah, you’re right Amethyst. I can figure something out, right?” You look up to see her grinning at you.

“That’s the spirit, P. And after, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind working off the dinner at your place with you.” You swipe at her arm with a smile on your face. Really, Amethyst can just be incorrigible. Even so, she’s a good friend that you’re happy to walk arm in arm with as the two of you enter the library.

Yeah. You can handle this.

5:45 p.m.

You bang your head down against your desk before lifting it up and doing it again. Of course today would be the day you had to check most of the old newspaper films to make sure they were still usable. Of course you were kept busy by old film and one of the computers having multiple viruses on it. Because that’s just your luck, isn’t it. You’d put your money on your music cutting out next, just for that extra kick in the shins.

Luckily, your music didn’t cut out, but a tap on your head makes you pull your earbuds out and look up. Standing on the other side of the desk is Amethyst pushing the returns cart around. “That bad, huh?”

You nod. “I didn’t even have time to go grab lunch. Why did film day have to be today.”

Amethyst shrugs at you. “Hey, that’s what happens sometimes. So, you got any stray books that people left back here?”

You shake your head with a frown. It looks like you might have to reschedule the date so that you could actually plan something. You sigh and think what a loser you must seem like to have to reschedule your first date with Lapis.

You hear Amethyst sigh before a hand rests on the table in front of you. The lady across from you leans against the table, you assume looking down on you, though you can’t tell from where you’re looking. “Listen, Peridot. I think you’re thinking too hard on this.”

You lift your head up a bit to look her in the eye. “Really? Cuz last I checked, it’s about,” you check the clock on your phone, “ten minutes till we close and I don’t have a reservation to anywhere. Dinner will be coming, and I don’t have anywhere to take Lapis.”

Amethyst throws her arms out towards you. “See? This is where you’re thinking too hard on it.” You raise an eyebrow before she continues. “You don’t need a reservation. You just need something personal. Somewhere that you know.”

You open your mouth and then close it. Somewhere you know? You open your mouth again and the words come out this time. “But I don’t have-”

You bite down on the sentence. You do have somewhere to take her. Somewhere the two of you can be alone together.

“Wow.” You blink a few times before a grin comes over your face. “Thanks, Amethyst! That really helps!”

Amethyst gives you a smirk. “You owe me one, nerd. Now, I gotta get back to my rounds. Stray books aren’t gonna find themselves.”

You wave Amethyst off and jump up from your desk. Your job has mostly been done for the past half hour, so you shut down the desk computer and go in search of Lapis.

It’s easy to find her at the main librarian station, doing what closing work she can before times up. She looks so nice in her sweater and scarf, it’s hard to believe she has a rougher side to her. Honestly, it’s kinda sexy to see both sides of her.

You shake the thoughts from your head. Now is not the time.

You smile as you approach the blue haired woman. “Hey, Lapis?” She looks up and you get lost in her eyes. She smiles at you and a blush creeps over your face. How does she have this effect on you?

“Yes, Peridot?” Her voice is even, calm. It’s the exact opposite of you, who’s as nervous as a schoolgirl thinking about her first date.

You swallow down your nerves and keep going. “If possible, could you give me a ride home tonight?” That’s the way. Cool and casual.

“Of course, Peridot. I’ll give you a ride whenever you want.” You blush a little harder. You’re sure she didn’t mean it like that. You have to shake the thoughts out of your head again before you speak.

“Alright, I’ll see you after everything’s closed up.”

It doesn’t take long before the library is closed up, though you use all the time helping close it to think of dinner. You know where you’re going, now the problem is what you should have. You’re still rifling through ideas as you wave goodbye to Amethyst riding off with her roomie.

Lapis pipes up beside you, “So, ready for another wild ride?” You nod as she pulls a helmet out of her bikes side bag, though you’re not really feeling it. It’s almost time, and you still haven’t thought of what you’re going to make.

She obviously notices something’s off as she looks at you a bit more softly. “Hey, c’mon Peridot. The ride will just be like last night. There’s nothing to worry about.”

You almost laugh at that. She tilts her head a bit and raises an eyebrow, but you wave it off. “It’s nothing. I’m not worried about riding with you, just a bit nervous about tonight. It’s… been awhile since I’ve been on a date.”

You notice a bit of red creeping onto her cheeks as she hands you the helmet you used last time. Her soft smile cuts through the thought, though. “Yeah, it’s been some time for me too.”

Your heart beats a bit harder before she reels back, a smirk on her face and her hands on her hips. “Now, are you ready to head off?” You nod as you strap the helmet to your head.

Once again, she helps you onto the back of her bike and you’re soon off on the road. It was an interesting feeling, being behind Lapis on her bike. It was like all your worries fell away onto the road behind you. As she speeds up onto the highway, an idea finally hits you and you can’t help but smile.

It doesn’t take long before you’re pulling up in front of your home. You hop off the bike and take a step up the path but turn back to Lapis.

Here goes. “You wanna come inside?”

She smiles, flushing a little as she replies. “I would, but I gotta go get ready for our date.”

“Psh,” you wave it off. “Why go get ready when we can start it right now?” It’s taking all of your bartender training to keep from shaking as she gapes at you. “I did invite you for dinner, it’ll just take some time to make.”

You smile at her and she seems to pull together. “Would it be alright to pull my bike into the drive? I get worried if I leave it at the curb for too long.”

You nod your approval and go to unlock the door as she pulls into the driveway. You wait until she's standing with you before you open the door. You flip the lights on with a flourish, “Welcome to my abode.”

You take her jacket and hang it by the door as you heard her through the entrance. In the living room beyond, there's not much around other than a few photos and seats. You, Pearl, and Sapphire have a tendency to keep your personal items in your own spaces.

What it does have, however, is a small bar that looks into the kitchen. You motion to the stools set at the bar. “Go ahead and take a seat. I’ll get dinner started.”

She does so as you go into the kitchen and slip an apron on. You tie it on tight as she talks. “Will your roommates be fine with you cooking for just the two of us?”

”Pearl and Sapphire? They’ll be fine.” You pull a small pot out and set it on the stove. You go about pulling out ingredients as you keep talking, “They're out for most of the night, so it'd be their own fault if they wanted some.”

You hear a sputter but ignore it. Grabbing the last of what you need, you place all your supplies on the counter across from Lapis. You look over at her smirking face as she asks, “So, what did you have in mind for our date tonight?”

”Honestly? I’ve been playing it mostly by ear. I’m figuring we can just talk while I cook up some chili for us.”

”Chili?” She laughs. “Not exactly the most romantic dinner there, Peridot.”

You smirk and point a wooden spoon her way with a cock of your hip. “You just think that because you haven't had my chili.”

With a small “ooo” from Lapis, you start your cooking. You can tell she's interested in what you're doing, even without looking up from your cutting board. You can feel her eyes watching you. After a little bit she speaks up again, “So, where did you learn to cook?”

You smile a little at the old memories. “My friend, Blue Zircon taught me. It's kinda funny, actually. She refused to let me move away from her unless I let her teach me to cook.”

”Does she live far away?”

You shake your head. “That's what's funny. She lives three blocks away.” You both share a laugh at this as you start adding ingredients to the pot.

”Alright, your turn. Who taught you to ride a motorcycle?”

”Would you believe I learned on my own?” Your eyebrow raises as you look at her. “Yeah, I thought not. Truthfully? It was my dad that taught me. I practically begged him every day to teach me how to ride. When I was finally big enough to keep it up and steady, he started teaching me what I needed to know.”

You smile a little. “That sounds nice.”

”Yeah,” she sighs out. “It was.”

Your cooking continues with little blips of conversation in between the two of you. She would ask you some question and you’d tell her a little story. You would make a joke and she’ll laugh.

You only had one problem when she tried to stick a finger in the pot. You now understand Zircons reaction whenever her now wife tries to sneak a taste. Before her hand could get to the food, you smacked it away with your wooden spoon.

”Ow.” She pulls her hand away and rubs it. “I have sensitive hands, you know?”

”Than you should keep those sensitive hands out of my hot food.”

After that it was a short wait for the food to finish cooking. You take out a pair of bowls and ladle out some good portions of chili. You turn around and place one of the bowls on the counter in front of Lapis. “Dinner is served.”

”Psh,” she slaps your shoulder before taking the offered spoon. You try to hide your eagerness as she lifts a spoonful of your stew to her lips. “Hey, this is pretty good.”

You beam. “I told you it was good.”

Lapis smirks at you. “I never said it wouldn't be good. I said that it wasn't really romantic.”

You flush and take a spoonful of chili. You don't want to give her this one, but you can't think of something to come back with. As the spice hits your tongue, though, an idea starts to form. But can you do it? It's so forward, not to mention daring.

You gotta try.

”That's because it's not spicy enough for you. I know how to fix that though.”

She looks up at you with her head tilted to the side. You decide to go for it and lean forward. The space between you two disappears all too fast and you’re doing it.

You're kissing her.

It isn't anything big, just lip contact, but you feel like you're on fire. You pull away after a second or two and turn away in embarrassment. The silence between the two of you is only broken by an audible gulp.

It takes a while before the silence between you is broken again. You continue to be unable to look at her when you hear a chuckle. Confused, you turn to face Lapis when she breaks out laughing.

”Oh stars, that was terrible.” You are about to snap back but she continues. “‘Needs some more spice.’ Where did you hear that one?”

You decide to throw one out there. “Zircon.” This seems to make her laugh even harder. Even you're starting to giggle a little.

The rest of the meal was filled with little giggle fits. Occasionally, you’d sneak a glance at her lips, thinking about how they felt against yours. What felt like too soon, the evening came to an end.

You stand with Lapis in the entry,fiddling with your own fingers. She coughs into her hand, “Well, I should probably get going. I had a good time, Peridot.”

You smile. “I had a great time too. We should do it again soon.”

”Definitely.” She opens the door and you step out with her. “I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

You stand there ready to wave her goodbye as she takes a step down the path. She stops, though. You’re about to ask what was wrong when she turns to face you again.

”Peridot?”

You are about to respond when she puts a hand on your cheek. You don't have time to think before she tilts your head back and kisses you. When what's happening hits you, it's already over.

”Goodnight.”

Your face feels like it's on fire as you watch her ride away. Your legs feel weak as you close the door behind you. You don't even hear it when Pearl scolds you for not washing the bowls you used later.

Tonight was the best.

[jeyoteswritings-blog]

Ruins

Dear reader, you hold in your hands a manuscript record of what transpired here in these fateful ruins of Stu’un. Let these words be a testament to the abhorrent events that lead me to now hastily, yet carefully put them to paper. Let any man, woman or being possessing intelligence enough to read them take heed. Thankfully, there is sufficient light emanating from the strangely lit sconces flanking the great stone-metal door that I now rest my weary back against. My only remaining companion, the poor O’Leary, is resting beside me in a somewhat fitful sleep. It is not his destiny to explore further into these old ruins, when he awakes I will task him with taking this manuscript back to the entrance. I remember seeing a half-broken pedestal there, a perfect resting place for it. Anyone who enters this place hereafter shall see it, and the silicon-laminate pages should last for as long as these ruins stand.

We were a company of seven, including myself. My name is Robert Inez, professor of anthropology at the University of the moon of Circadia. The others were Danvers, Haley, the sisters Sheatha and Tera, Captain Vargge and O’Leary. Among our company was a doctor, an archaeologist, the two sisters who were well-respected in their fields of biology and ecology, and myself having taken up anthropological research after my time in the Great War. Originally, there were only to be six of us to enter the ruins. Captain Vargge, commander of the star cruiser the Mara Zephyr that brought us here, insisted that O’Leary come along in case an extra hand-or extra firepower-was needed. I reluctantly agreed, and while I am glad that he should be the one of us to escape this fascinating yet wretched place, I fear for the young man’s sanity and stability of mind. Even now, he mutters strange words in his sleep. These words he should not know, whose meanings are too horrible to dwell upon in further study.

Now while I harbored no animosity or ill-will toward Captain Vargge, I did find myself at odds with his behavior during the course of the expedition and in truth found him to be quite insufferable. He was of the G’achean race, a people known for their prowess and skill in battle, but also known to be hot-headed and, one might even say, reckless at times. I wondered at the Collective’s choice for him to be the star cruiser commander for the expedition. Our first entanglement came not even as our party took two steps into the ruin’s entrance. He candidly informed the group that he would be the first to enter and proceed to take the point position. “we don’t know what we’ll find in there” he said, or something to that effect. “It could be dangerous.” I argued that I too, had military training and should take point (to be honest, I was afraid that he might break some historical artifact in a zealous charge against an imaginary threat). Still he insisted, so I acquiesced. To be honest again, most of my military career was spent on the bridge of many a star destroyer as a battle tactician. I used what I had learned, and let him have this victory if only to assure the next would be mine when it might prove more vital.

Now allow me to digress. Officially, the reason we were here was simply of historical and academic pursuit. To learn about an ancient people’s way of life and improve our understanding of the current inhabitants of the planet Ashima-vide IV. I had learned from one voice in the Collective that was a confidante of mine, that they suspected there to be an ancient weapon buried here in these ruins. They thought that it’s what gave the Ashimans their seemingly unknown edge in their progress in the Great War. My own investigation around the small town where we gathered supplies proved fruitless. Not only did the locals have no reverence or respect for the ruins at all, they openly shunned them. They would say in their colorful local tongue, “this bad place was once alive and operating. Oh, the oppressors! Oh, the drivers! Do not go there. Some may still move.” Needless to say, I was somewhat creeped to tell the truth. But still this did not hint at any weapon of any kind buried underneath those walls.

Stu’un was short hike up a snowy hillside from the small town. I remember the crunch of boots in the snow as I got my first good look at the sharp towers and leaning parapets of the ruins. The walls seemed not to reflect light as we approached, even though they were of a silver-gray complexion. When we opened the ornate black stone-metal doors of the entrance, I knew right away this was and never had been, any ordinary place.

An overwhelming sense of power overtook me as our steps echoed against the walls. Everyone was silent at first and I remember that when I heard the perpetual deep rumbling of the place, it left me unsettled. The damned rumbling continues still, as I write this. It has become a kind of bassical music to which I can no longer imagine being absent from my peripheral hearing. I discovered another strange thing as I ran my hand along a smooth stone-metal wall near the entrance. It was warm. The star cruiser’s scanners had not detected any energy readings from the entirety of the ruins. Somehow, the ruins were being warmed by some unknown force. It had to be something not of electrical design, or else the scanners would have picked it up.

We expected the ruins to be dark when we entered, but all our flashlights and lanterns proved unnecessary at first. There were sconces, placed high up where wall met ceiling. A kind of faint blue light illuminated from them, although we could never find a source for the projection.  I felt, as some of the others must have, as though these ruins demanded a certain amount of respect. An overwhelming sense of uneasiness stirred my blood and there was a part of me – a small part at that time – that desired to acknowledge this feeling and flee from the encompassing walls. My curiosity was the ultimate victor however, and I was – am – compelled forward against my own common sense. The five of us fanned out in all directions into the corridor while O’Leary and Captain Vargge marched straight ahead, weapons held prone as if they expected a group of goblins or unsightly ancient daemons to be hiding behind the tall, crumbling pillars that spanned the corridor.

“Whoo! Stinky place, ain’t she?”  Our company’s Archaeologist, John Haley was the first to speak. The corridor did indeed have a distinct, if subdued, musk that would be extremely unpleasant if it were any stronger. “Well, at first sight I reckoned this might be a structure built by relatives of the Rillou in the T’xani system – looked like one o’ their temples. Now it’s lookin’ more like a D’booloo palace upon closer inspection.” Inspeecshun he drew out the last word in a kind of hackneyed Old-earth Australian accent. I suspected that this accent was fake and just an act to make himself seem more endearing. The two sisters, Sheatha and Tera moved to investigate the stone walls where tangled vines had spread from the ceiling. Sheatha, I had noticed, spoke only when completely necessary in a stoic voice. She seemed to speak for them both as the other sister, Tera spoke hardly at all.

“All clear!” Captain Vargge called from up ahead. Examining the room, I did not notice any similarity in the simple pillars or walls to any culture I had studied. It seemed largely utilitarian. The space was large enough for many persons to walk abreast without difficulty. Work animals and vehicles could have passed through with ease. Small adjoining rooms off the main passageway were lined with wooden racks, their purpose I could not guess at without seeing more of the ruins. The company pressed on, and the workers hired from the nearby town set up arc lamps to illuminate the passageway from whence we came.

The end of the corridor opened to a massive chamber. It was not illuminated as the entrance hall had been. As powerful as our flashlights and lamps were, they only shed light upon what seemed a fraction of the space. The depths of the darkness ahead seemed unfathomable. Everyone in the company fanned out and gazed in awe at what little could be seen. “Shin-Ra be merciful” I remember Captain Vargge had breathed as he kicked a bit of debris off the ledge in front of us. It took a few moments to clatter to the bottom with a resounding echo. “Ya ‘ear that?” remarked Haley, the archaeologist. “Sounds like water dripping far off somewhere.”

The decision was made to make camp on that ledge for the night. We rolled out our bedrolls and pop-tents that were designed to regulate the atmosphere inside them. The chamber was quite chilly, and we were fatigued from the journey to this point. However, I suspected that most of us were too excited to get much sleep, myself included. I could hear O’Leary off in a corner, recording a vid-diary. “First night here. We’ve found a gigantic chamber…”.

At this point dear reader, I’m afraid that any semblance of normalcy on this expedition was rid from our hearts. Upon waking, we discovered the workers milling about and uttering under their breath foul curses in their native language. Two of them had vanished in the night, and none had observed any sign of struggle during their sleep. Their packs still lay at the head of their bedrolls where they had been placed earlier. The rest of the workers were spooked, and left us a bit unnerved. “Prob’ly ran off back to town. She’ll be right.” Haley said. Danvers inquired after their health, and I attempted to gather more information and mollify the other workers but they didn’t seem in any mood to do anything but curse the ruins under their breathe. Roughly translated, they referred to the temple as “The damned place” and that “the oppressors still live.”

The rest of our company seemed to share Haley’s sentiment and we decided to continue regardless. I must admit I was hesitant but my curiosity at beholding a ruin untouched by modern hands and unseen by eyes for millennia outweighed my fear of an unknown malevolence. We affixed staves upon the stone ledge and rappelled downward to the depths of the enormous chamber. A couple of the workers opted to stay behind to watch over camp and keep a lookout for their missing companions.

After what must have been the better part of an hour, we finally reached the bottom. The floor of the chamber was tile stone, crumbling and uneven. Captain Vargge and O’Leary took point of course, pointing their laser rifles at the surrounding structures. The bright flashlights affixed to the weapons cast an eerie light upon decrepit columns, stairs and ramps that led upward in the distance. There were low buildings that were found to have little in them but the rotting wood of what was once furniture, beds and tables and chairs. All throughout were horrendous thick and green vines, choking the rough stone of the structures. The workers had to cut through them with long, sharp blades and harried our progress some. To make the journey even more hazardous were foliage-filled pools that were deeper than they should have been. Upon closer inspection, they seemed to be craters made from falling rocks from the ceiling. The workers were even more wary now, a couple of them having fallen in and complained of sprained ankles.

Coming across a particularly large ramp that led upward into the darkness, we decided to split the company into two parties. Myself, Captain Vargge and Danvers would take a couple of workers and investigate where the ramp led. O’Leary, Haley and the sisters would remain behind with the other workers and survey the surrounding area more thoroughly. I remember we noticed at this point the luminescent tendril-like plants that hung from the ceiling high above, and spread out downward along the walls. The sisters mentioned that they would try to look for a sample to take back to the ship to be analyzed.

The trek upwards on the great ramp was toilsome. It was steep, and there were points where it branched off into other directions, apparent that it was just a part of a network of ramps and walkways above the ground floor far below. Intermittently were small towers, seemingly waypoints of sorts. They glowed with strange symbols when we cast light upon them. The cursed mutterings from our native companions increased with each one we encountered.  Ever upward we trekked along the ramp, and once passed a great waterfall. So massive was it that the source was not apparent with the light we had available to us. A wall of roaring water, falling to the black abyss below.

Eventually we reached a structure, and our progress was impeded by a set of heavy golden-metal gates. Off to the side were two small towers, like the waypoints we encountered earlier. Closer investigation revealed to us that each had a lever set upon a pedestal inside. After several attempts, we found that the levers had to be moved in sync by two people. The gates creaked open with a sickeningly loud screech and opened inward. Past the gate was a set of great stairs, worn and cracked from past use and age. As we climbed, our flashlights and torches shed light upon what could only be a great underground fortress. There were walls and parapets, and inside a massive courtyard were three keeps. Two lesser and one great keep set farther back against the tall wall that surrounded it. The stone here we noticed, gleamed with a curious sheen. I concluded that the bricks themselves had gold in the mixture! This was an important discovery. This keep, following that many cultures regarded gold as a precious metal, must have been a headquarters of some type. What glorious beings once graced these gold-stone steps and mingled between its walls? And glorious they must have been, as we came across another amazing discovery! The ornate wooden entrances to the keeps, more massive than we first realized, were nearly five stories tall! Too far up for us to reach were golden fixtures, clearly handles for a giant hand to grasp and turn. Even with our combined strength, the five of us could not pry open the doors to the first two structures. But the wood was rotting at the bottom of the doorway of the great keep. We made short work of clearing it away to gain entry. Our two native companions refused to enter, and waited outside in an anxious manner.

The sight of what lay in that room dear reader, I cannot fully describe. My premonition of foreboding increased as we surveyed the vast chamber and cast light upon what was carved inside, but I also felt a strange compulsion. I’m not sure if imagined or real, or when it had started, but a strange and ethereal hum seemed to emanate from the walls themselves. My feet seemed to act on their very own and I began to walk toward the carven images, Captain Vargge and Danvers split off on their own without a word. The statues were carved into shapes of men and other creatures from around the galaxy, but were wrong somehow. Some had heads or limbs or tails that did not match. Some were beasts from worlds not known to I. Even now I shudder at the memory of their vicious, toothy visages.

“AAAAAaaaaahhhhh!” A hair-raising scream woke me from my mystified reverie, and I spun my light in all directions seeking the source. I started to run back to the entrance, and nearly collided with Danvers.

“They…they rise! Woe becomes him who defies their whims!” Danvers clutched at my shirt, his eyes wild and the sheen of cold sweat visible on his brow. “They command! AAAaaahhh!”

He took off screaming the way we had come. I think I was more frightened than I ever have been in my life. I ran after him, through the rotting entrance and back down the stairs and ramp as fast as my feet could take me. I vaguely remember now hearing the discharge of a weapon behind me, as well as thunderous steps that made the floor rumble. Something huge was moving. I can recall no more until the moment I returned to the others at the base of the structure.

The first person I saw was Haley, who looked frustrated and excitable. “Wot, the ‘ell!” he yelled as he saw me. “Danvers ran off screamin’! We needed ‘Im to look at one of the sisters. What’s his deal?”. When I inquired what he meant, Haley led me a little way away from the little camp to small clearing behind a low building. The glowing tendril plants we noticed earlier snaking down the walls had apparently grown in a shockingly short amount of time. Tangled up in the luminescent tendrils was one of the sisters. It was the older one, Sheatha. “I tried to ask what the ‘ell happened but she won’t say anything,” Haley said. O’Leary was off to the side, gun poised and looking nervous. Tera stood directly in front of her sister, silent and seemingly transfixed. My premonition of impending doom for our little company increased, but so also did the strange compulsion. I told the others I planned to press on, to the heart of the ruins. I told them briefly of what I saw up the ramp, and the disappearance of Captain Vargge. They agreed to accompany me, only slightly reluctant. I wondered if they too felt the compelling force.

We set out along the main path again, doing our best to clear away the vines and foliage. Before long we reached a chasm with the great waterfall on the opposite side. There was set of narrow stairs leading downward. We could not see where the stairs were leading us, and our proximity to the waterfall brought the sound to a deafening roar. It entwined with the unearthly hum of before, along with a distant thumping. We descended to that place, into the very heart of the ruins and my mind was clouded with visions of what I can only describe now as distant memories. I saw this place as it once was, a terrible and thriving machine of horrible capacity. A twisting and writhing industry of creation. I will write down no more of these visions. My last sane thoughts I wish to be of more peaceful things.

We reached the bottom of the stairwell and entered a chamber of which there were three massive stone-metal doors. The original giant inhabitants of these ruins must lie behind them. Again, that sense of an immense power we felt when we first entered, but many times stronger. Torches were still lit down here, ensconced next to each doorway. The flickering flames cast playful shadows along carvings of the masters, the oppressors and their subjects. Depicted were scenes similar to what I saw in my visions. Still I had no choice. I had to continue further.

Then, the torches were suddenly snuffed out! “Fuck!” O’Leary flashed his light towards something that moved at the edge of the room. I shone my flashlight around too, and do not care now that I admit I cowered in fear for a time at what I saw. Several manners of beast moved around us in a circle, snarling and shying from the light of our lamps. I glimpsed fur, teeth, scales, nails and I swear to you dear reader, that these creatures had the bodies of beasts but the heads of none other than our missing companions!

When I once again had the courage to look up, the torches were lit again. O’Leary stood staring, leaning against a wall. He wouldn’t speak to me, but I told him to lay down and get some rest before beginning to write this manuscript. Now the time has come for me to wake the poor man, who must live with what he has witnessed in this wretched place. For me, I know that I will remain. This will become my eternal home. I have been chosen by them. In a few minutes, the doors will open to the inner sanctum and I will gaze upon the majesty of my masters…I can…feel a change…transformation…my…destiny…Stu’un!

 End.

[mile-ruichi]

I'm the Goblin Hater (Not really but I had to add it because of reasons, FXXK IT. You see what I did there? Okay let's end this now... )

So I finished watching Goblin (like almost 2 weeks ago) but was lazy to write the review.

I wasn’t planning on watching this show at first, because I could not feel the main couple. But to resume, shit happens and I decided to give it try.

I won’t resume the plotline since I’m pretty sure we all know what is this about. (Spoilers ahead)

Plot

This is the 2nd time in a row that Kim Eun Sook fucked up an excellent idea. That is without taking into account The Heirs, just for the fact that I did not watched it (and the fact that I doubt that that plot can be called original or excellent). Goblins, brides, grim reapers, ghosts, reincarnation and vengeance. Oh and let’s not forget the drama. This had a lot of intriguing things to develop in the plot , but all that potential landed in the hands of a writer that just crashed it against a wall.

Lack of  Argument

They just kept arguing about pulling out the sword out of the Goblin chest back and forth. No further plot there. They just dragged it for a lot of episodes when it could have been settled a lot earlier.

The goblin was told that if the girl didn’t pulled out the sword, she would die, because that was her fate. Then they throw at us a whole episode when she nearly dies at least 3 times. Next chapter all is forgotten and she never face danger for a long time… Now, my question is… How is that possible when the danger she was supposedly going to face, would worsen and the period of time between one and other would be less?

 The resume of the first 5 episodes can be the following:

“I’m the goblin bride.

 No, you’re not.

 I’m telling you i am

 Then do you see something weird in me?

 No, I don’t. 

Then you’re not the one”

 Then, in the 5th episode, she said I see your sword but I didn’t tell you anything because I  didn’t want to hurt your feelings… Are you really expecting me to believe this?

 Lots of silly dates and irrelevant scenes that were put there but did not add anything to the development of the story

Characters

If there is something that is worth the mention, about the writer, is her undeniable ability to write characters that are quirky, funny and endearing. Well most of them. 

 Ji Eun Tak

 I hated her character. Too stupid to my liking. 

Her age. One of those things I disliked was that she acted like a 13 years old…. She was supposed to be a high scholer but she was too much. Even if we take her as a 17 years old (in international age) she still does not fit the age. I mean she was a senior, about to enroll in college…. The heck? 

 Her past. I could have accepted her personality if it wasn’t for her past. No person that has been through the death of his mom at the age of 8, then physically and mentally abused by her aunt and cousings, that literally had to raise herself, can be like that… And you may think “The Goblin made her happy” mmm even if that is correct she still has no dark sides and her character has no depth at all.

 Her ugly personality. she kept trying to convince him that she was the goblin just for the sake of using him as her scapegoat. She did not like him nor did she had any feelings back then. She even started being demanding as if they were in a relationship when they clearly were mere strangers to each other. By episode 5 I got sick of her and started skipping all her parts.

 Does not fit. Do you know that situation when you are all talking lively, and then someone throws a bad joke and that stirs up a sudden awkward silence? Well that is her. She is clueless most of time. Her intervention and dialogues are cringe worthy and silly. She almost fell out of place. Like there was some deep shit happening or something and she just gets in and kills the mood of the scene. 

 Sunny not Sun Hee

As much as I like her (and was a trash second couple shipper), she still is one of the weakest characters in the Drama, if not the weakest.

Her parts. For most of the drama, specially in early episodes, she had barely any appearances in the drama. And when she had them, there were awkward, out of place and extremely short. She almost felt like an extra rather than an actual second female lead.

-Her character. Yoo in na is a great actress, but sadly, underrrated. I don’t understand why the writer would choose to make a second female lead that was even more clueless than the other one. Her character was so weird, she was supposed to make us laugh at some point, but all I was recieving was a  big wtf?

Does not fit. When the other three had something in common among them, she just was the sibling of the goblin and the frustrated love of the grim reaper in his past life. But she had almost no scenes with the goblin, witch was supposed to be her brother (mate they were so cold and awkward around each other). I think that the worst part is that she had no meaning neither in the past or the present, she was just there being the one killed, or the one suffering, but nothing else. There’s no deep meaning to her or something that can’t make us simphatize with her story. That is clearly seen in early episodes with barely scenes, or scenes in later episodes with purposeless cameos of her just drinking soju and counting people passing by.

Again this could’ve been a way better character, but they wasted Yoo In Na potential.

 Romance

 The romance in both cases looked too rushed and unnatural, although it was very cute, and heart warming (sometimes heart breaking), in the case of the second couple, the development and the progress of the romance didn't felt smooth at all. 

 Some good points 

 -The cinematography is flawless. Just simply beautiful, very well done and realistic, Sometimes it felt like a movie.

 -Special effects: I'm not the best friend of fantasy drama, because they tend to do the effects way to average and it ends looking fake. But I didn't have that problem here. They really did an excelent job. 

 Ost: Didn't heard must of it thanks to all skip between scenes that I did. But so far the ones that I listened to were pretty good. 

 Final thoughs

 Overall is a good idea with all what's needed to be a great drama, but ended up being bad written. There are some shining individual things, but when you put it all into a whole they're overshadowed by the ones that aren't that great. Those shinning points makes the drama watchable at least. But this is not something that I would recommend...

 Well that was more long that I expected

[escribirsinsaber]

HOLLYWOOD POETRY

Biometrical America

 America is under surviellance

24/7 under biometric HD

dear customers, we are being recorded

for the future

& present

our past makes the point

everytime on screens

 you may feel cold

under the sun

 on your own

you´ll watch your own picture filtered

  Permítame la clave del Wi-fi:

 Airtravelling exclusive

                          exclusion

                        experience

 Boarding pass double SS

relax your nerves

 right after the extra ordinary SS SS

inspection, feel free to enjoy at large

our selection of

ultraproduced Latin Pop

with international style dressing

 Total High Definition XP

slow motion romances

sending autotuned kisses

 Equalized sound

Normalized sound

Autocorrected lyrics

 I.

Apure su espresso

y deje de escribir

mariconerías

en el café de paso

 II.

Si vas a cantar en inglés

debes saber en inglés.

Antes de cantar en inglés,

aprende a hablar inglés

because you sound very much Tarzán.

 Antes de cantar en inglés

verifica la pronunciación.

 III.

Si usted puede cantar en inglés

y cantar en Español Latinoamericano

(antes llamado castellano)

la misma canción,

es posible que usted tenga una Serpiente

combinada con un Águila

en la Lengua.

 IV.

Si va a escribir

y no va a consumir

usted se debe ir.

 V.

Cuando algún otro

te envíe aquella mirada lasciva

solamente mantén

las cuencas de la calavera bien abiertas,

en el momento en que aprietes el mentón,

el tipo sabrá que solo el Quijote podría enamorarte.

 VI.

Cualquier declinación

de casos de género

es sexita por autonomasia,

salvo el caso neutro

que no aplica

para el Español Castellano Latinoamericano

 VIII.

I´m so lucky.

Got the SS SS boarding pass

 Sicherheit

security

seguridad

sagrada

 The lady, Airport Voice,

she calls my name

she calls my name

and she repeats

 Airplane Mode:

 I´ve successfully created

a twitter account

got not an elaborate username yet

but got a password

kinda related to my secondary e-mail account

at the gooleador

 gool

goooooooooool

gooooooooooool

 goooooooooooooool de Goooooooogle

 Goooolazo

Goooolazo

Goooolazo against everybody.

 Airplane Mode Brightness Correction:

 No google in the airplane

but maybe a tweet

                      a tweet

 I write tweets like singing

pop birds short songs

tiny 140 songs

less than one minute-long songs

 Tweet while flying

eat my tweet, my dear

 You know my GPS

so call me maybe

 I´ll give you some Wi-Fi Hotspot, (lady)

  DATA CONNECTION FULL TIME SINCE BIRTH

 That´s realität

 there is no point

asking for time

 Aeroplano

Teléfono

Audífono

 impulsado

powered by light

                  by kerosene

                  by Benzin

 from B to M

from O to E

from G to X

from A to Z

from U.S.A to ABC

 Aeromexperience:

 First Heineken then Tecate Light

first canciones en inglés en el comercial

then another canción en inglés en el comercial

 First no cholos en el comercial

but nice models dressed in white

 sonrisa perfecta

 using

super nice smiles to speak

about the possibility

of a cathastrophy

 Remember to take off your shoes

in order to use

the floating air rollercoaster

"the slide"

 8 slide lifeboats

 Ferrari 300 Rollerball:

 70 USD Ferrari 300 rollerball

 Do you know it?

Can you imagine?

 It writes so fast I cannot think

fair enough to make it

articulate a single word

 futuristic trace,

red sexy body,

black ink,

diamond ball,

 gimmie one

and gimmie speed

and I´ll pierce

every tablet on earth

 in the blink of an eye

in the spin of a roll

in the rolling spin

 Hole in the sky sobrevolando San Diego:

 Hole que tengo de hambre

de pagar tinto de 4 USD

Snickers de 5$

 what sky are we talking about?

El cielito lindo que todos cantan

y luego reclaman: oye, porqué estás tan mexicano?

y el aeroplano rompiendo la velocidad del sonido

en picada pa´ Hollywood

 let´s do some Debord Graffitty

no wildstyle hip hop

but old school

post-marxist situationist site specific

right in the face

of Herr Weinstein

 Hermosa Beach:

 Do not drink the speed limit

mein Schatz

do not drink the Tzunami

 this lovely hazardous beach is kinda quiet

the pacific is at my back

take sun dressed in black

record the lines written in the sand

with videos of the tide

 you can always come to the ocean

and watch the waves

& the seagulls

they glide taoisticly flying

or walk on the supersmooth

special pavement

listening to the american way riding on bikes

 Heavy Metal Emergency:

 Firefighting the streets

with riffs

of salt water

from the Pacific

 we extinguish the conflagrations

here

with liquor

and rubber tires

 We got fire to go

water & sand to stay

we got all what you would like

and more than you actually do

 Writing Stretching:

 Lie completely belly side

to the green

extend your legs wide

opening chakra

 wide open Alpha

wide open Gamma

 open wide Dali

open wide Kali

open wide Delta

 wide open Kimi

wide open Chuen

wide open Akbal

wide open Ix

wide open Oc

 so the vowels

will come slowly

 steady

flowing

creamy

chewy

 Leather Letters:

 The scalped goat

got to be ivory black

 bloody as well

bloody rare

 and you have to wear it

everytime

to sweat ir

deeply wet at the dance ball

 then the batttlejacket

has to have several homemade patches

expressing concern about no cat

 The missunderstanding of the Valkirias:

 At first

you cannot nicht glauben

they are just like that

 carring gold

and different manners

ready for disputations

about all

consequently they

become soft hunger

shinning from their eyes

 they won´t cry it out loud

they´ll suggest

                            implicit likes

 Gimmie the look:

 I see you are looking, bad, man

you´re ogling

hard

 it can be seen from almost a mile

how you stare while

how the cone comes out

and the periphericall space

is totally excluded

from the edge of the knive of your eyes

 I see it totally clear

your iris

glowing, sparkling,

so much like the midday sun

 equinoxial

 Attitude Issues:

 can´t smile like that

sorry I don´t use to

even if I try

 I never know who am I talking with

 alone

 it´s gonna be okey, okey?

the point is

don´t say everything you think

 ´cause you´re awfully wrong

Mister Höfflichkeit

  Tomar el sol:

 Tomo el sol

acostado

supino

sobre el pasto

del cementerio de Hollywood

 tengo una total vista

en contrapicado

de dos palmeras elongadas

y un par de árboles

que no sé nombrar

 Y veo un ave,

pienso que es un halcón

planeando

en la corriente tibia del summertime eterno

 sin estar buscando,

perdiendo el tiempo

 pienso que debería meditar

o hacer estiramientos

 pienso en lo difícil que es estar

 O.K. L.A.:

 In the neighborhood

there are some

salvatruchas

pretty much sympathetic

´cause they take care of the barrio

 they drink light beer,

enjoy themselves out in the parking lot

at the backyard

and invite me

a hablar español y

spanglish

y Shakira y James

 cabrones

 They make fun of me

because I still live with my mom

back at Colombia, Bogotá

but they say I can make it here

they said I´m lucky

and I believe them

because I believe in myself,

as a persecutioner

of something

which I do not know how to call

  Chocolate Brownie Breakfast:

 I know how I like my

chocolate brownie

 not too early, sunny,

foamy

 I like it conspicous

and transnational

with a tolerance trust

kinda like it

 I kinda like it not fat

not too milky

 I like it like it

              like it

              like it

not like me

 Chocolate Stains:

 These chocolate stains

all over my body

make me this cacao impression

 I´m so like a fruit

when... you know,

when you go out

 the chocolate runs

through my bloodstream

going around in circles

it´s a roller-coaster feeling

a rolling sugar cube,

molecule,

 such a sweet caoba mahoganny muddy deep brown

tiny thing running hot

 UNWASHABLE:

 Cannot be unseen

the thing

goes on your skin

also within

huge social constructs

of unequility

huge machineskin

and you may feel like

taking a bath

but it cannot be washed

   Seaweed:

 She gave me this

letter size sheet of

green

crunchy salty thing

 and she devoured hers

and I was like,

wow

let´s try

 never ate so much before

this is a book made by the sea

 gives you

Schreibenlust

a wish to write

 The Treehouse:

 They were doing cocaine

while we were at the treehouse

 They had an oil barrel burning

outside

these crust punks living in a 8 bedrooms house

they look wild

but at the end they are just kids wasting time

 You can easily know ten or twenty new people

on just one night

 For example this one black cyclist

had speech impediments issues

buy was a such a charming ladiesman

hitting directly at Corazón

with every known trick

 Up in the treehouse we were shooting comercials

for fun

 Banana and Corn Allergic Reactions:

 So the doctor said it was

neuro-related

years of itching

and years of my skin falling appart

kinda like an autumn tree,

dried by the sun,

little flakes flying off

 Everything has corn inside

because corn is some kind of god

 On the other hand

bananas taste like war

 It´s just bloddy geopolitical

cosmologically prehispanical fucked up

 Burning Sun:

 Got burnt at the pacific coast

where the sun shines

hard hard

really bright

and when you take pictures of it

is such a huge

white round

corona solar

above the palmtrees

above

            the valley

 sunscreen 100

sun protection factor

 Eat Like:

 Me ha pasado dos veces:

-una torta con todo

-una Diablo thick

 llego a la mitad y quedo lleno

o solo la idea de comer me llena

 you can have it all

if you have enough

 make it to go

 I´ll eat later the other half

or give it to my pal

 I´ll make this sweet chili beverage

I´ll sell this Diablo blood online

 California Games:

 Váyase al bar a jugar billar

tómese un whisky coffee no-baileys

puede ser cool estar solo

un rato

siéntese a escuchar

por fin una cosa que no sea vallenato

otra cosa

clásica de la cultura popular

 americana

 sin problemas, my friend

póngase a tirar dardos a la foto

que le de la gana

 ¿dónde está su identidad?

déjeme ver a ver

una requisa para entrar

quieto que no es por joder

vállase a surfear en el bus en skate

   El Cuaderno Negro:

 Ese man de cuero

está escribiendo en su cuaderno

todo el tiempo

 hey, venga y le cuento

 ese man ahí va

     está contento

pero no lo anda diciendo

 perdón, brother

what the fuck is the problem

is not like its over

solamente

   anda

         mirando

 a ver

a ver

a ver

a ver ese video

  Alergia Indoeuropea:

 Digamos algo bonito

en sanscrito

comic sans con serifas

hechas a mano

pero prescindiendo

del árbol

 digamos que

en hebreo mal hablado

no se puede sino comer pescado

y que todos los demás

son unos cerdos

 por las ramas de una lengua

sin diccionario

sin las pandillas de la academia

 Es bien jodido oír hablar

al Cuervo

proponere que diga algo nuevo

 me pica la piel

me pica la lengua

 Renders:

 time is processed

by the machine

 cut & pasted

& faded to black

 may use some soundtrack

may correct it

for it is too bright

and then

 let it load

let it get shaped

cluster by cluster

 walks the timeline

transforms hours into bytes

 reminding framed memories

 76,4%

may I go for coffee

 78,27%

may I have a smoke

 85%

Don´t watch the screen

it gets nervous

 97%

pray to St. Gates Jobs

 100% Export

copy it to the flashdrive

 and may Sony make you enjoy

 Productos Americanos:

 Estoy confundido con el concepto

de lo americano

 en el medio

un skateboard

y autos 4 x 4 Family Trucks

 atrapado entre las hamburguesas

y los burritos

siempre encuentro un menú

más o menos igual

con fotos fotochopeadas

con pinturas muralistas

 las manos de obra son de los inmigrantes

los capitales son fotogénicos

y sonríen en las vayas junto a los centros comerciales

 y son blancos

o están bronceados.

 Los Angeles CAR MEDIA TRANS CITY:

 On foot you´ll get but and dehydrated

still there are some brave walkers

pulling their supermaket cars

                                                  hall full

let´s say you want to go downtown

pretty easy, take the bus

let´s say you want to meet the Ocean

man, you need a ride

 ride the space

use any ship you can

cycle hard

skate for fun

get on get off

 drink gass

tap and then

show the card.

 Aire Incondicional:

 Cuando se abre una ventana

o se entra a una tienda

 el soplido

la corriente que viene

atraviesa medio globo

va empujando barcos

eleva a las gaviotas

las hace estacionarias

vigilando los restos de comida tirados en las playas

 el ventilador más grande del mundo

es el viento

 SK8 IN L.A.:

 There goes the skater

I mean the skateboarder

he´s at the border

he´s rolling

through the landscape

I mean the cityscape

There goes another

he has this oldschool deck

he has

nothing to lose

nowhere to stay

he remains

and he´s doing fine

There´s the last one

he´s taking the bus

he´s in a hurry

but he´s coming back

 Jukebox Democracy:

 Use 25Cents to play

something nice

cheer up

maybe dance

 Just need a little patience

to do the line

if you liek, deliberate,

 what would you like?

what would we all like?

what do I want?

 You don´t know

but it´s cool

it´s money

the commonground

even if you don´t have

why would you mind?

 Hear this ballad,

little twang,

the crooner is such a big

classical white or black man

or if you go down south

there´s this little

spanish speaker

making girls cry

 wait for the blues, man,

do not get depressed bad

 Jimmy undead everlasting guitar

or

Robert wooden sound

reverberator metal thing

with this low tech

acoustic flavour

 We got´em all

just show me the money

you are free to buy it.

 Drive Thru Land:

 60 the compact

100 the truck

 I see some Hummers on the street

I´ve never driven one

 While we were crawling

the freeway 101

a pouring Lamborgini

ran leaving the traffic jam

far behind...

 Let´s find the parking spot

1 dollar 1 hour

time relates to money

in this ratio: 100 to 60

 turn the motor on

back to neutro

back again

to drive mode

 I think I´m scared of freeways

and it´s also kinda scary to think

about the NS war-legacy

in transportation interconnecting America

 I think their driving is so polite

until the roadrager breaks in

until you imagine a getaway car

running a loop

inside the bank parking lot

 sorry

sirens

fire department

LAPD sedans

down crossing under

intricated bridges of pure solid

grey concrete

 I was affraid of nighttime downtown L.A.

it was this casual dystopical picture

 Welcome buddy, where are you from?

Colombiano? eh?

First time in L.A?

 Let´s see your reservation, OK,

let´s go

 that time the mini-van

dropped me at the Greyhound´s entrance

 this time I´m much of a

compact copilot

 here´s the thing:

it´s huge

I´m always looking through the window

 signs fill everything all around

 be fast, man, be smart

write it all down

while you can

 Again

inside the car

let´s run run run

70MPH

85MPH

expect the cops

slow down

 at the STOP sign,

watch out

 don´t even think of touching

a walking body

 you cannot really afford it

 slow down,

oh man, slow down

 the caffeine is mixed

with the oil tycoon state

going so fast you are late.

  STUPID FANCY HEIGHT:

 Well, the place smells good

we got background music

skim pop rock

and the knives, spoons and fork

are the real thing

engraved art-nouveau

the walls, the chromatics

of the whole

even the knapkins

feel so special

almost about to break

 the waitress recognices me

and him

and her

as others

 but she´s well trained and professional

and chic

 one portion is just

baked vegetables

lost in the middle of the dish

 of course, the omelette,

feels incomplete

 and that´s the strategy,

looks good, looks really fine

tastes good

just

 don´t feed the employees

we are supossed to be always unsatisfied

 HIP STAR:

 Cuz ´you know

is kinda like this

is kinda like that

and you don´t know

if you really like

 sort of not fresh

sort of edgy-vintage

it´s definitely recycled

skinny flip floppy

 one drop trashy, one half snoby

 normcore mixed

punkrock nerd

hardminimal (wannabe)

 hard hip, hip star

  normal panfashional straightjacket:

 Shinny no-one

goes massive

 no gimmickry

wants to be himself clean

wants a non-semiotical bridge to any kind

but a Mao

in the armie of the self-reflection

he´s a militant

 a mirror without light

 DIRT GIRL:

 I love your hair

because is greasy

                             and bright

and your armpits stink like feathers

because they are

 I also love

the paint under your fingernails

 it is not just a matter about

ripped clothing or good old boots

 it´s ´cuz you don´t care,

cynic girl,

it´s because all the attention you don´t pay

 LAX MICE

 hay una pareja de ratones

en al sala de espera

 y todos hacen escándalo

hasta quieren matarlos

 pero qué,

si aquí todos llegan

con ganas de quedarse

porqué no dejarlos vivir?

 DO STUPID

 kick rocks

kick´em all

talk fast

walk & talk

 chew, chew

choke, choke

and then chop the head off

 fuck, fuck,

snif, buzz, fuck

 tell a joke

tell me more

tell the story you don´t know

 SLAVE LABOUR MAKES HAPPY RICH BITCH:

 so nice to wear new kicks

we all wish we had more

omg i wanna be a hip hop star

omfg i wanna wanna Iguana

 so cool nobody has mine

I´m special in terms of stuff

I collect because I can

it makes me powerfully chic

interesting & globalized

 look at this wonder crap

 shit, it fullfills my desires

this neverending thirst

 different packages

fake new smiles

 ALASKA AIR EMERGENCY ROW

FILA DE EMERGENCIA ALASKA

 Me tocó este gordo

asistente de vuelo/soldado encubierto/agente contra el terrorismo

sentado al lado

 silla 17E

en sánduche

entre este gordote

y un mexicano patrocinado por adidas

 a la hora de la merienda

le trajeron una cada Deli deluxe

primero

y luego le vieron el hambre

y recibió otro sánduche caliente

 we take credit or debit only,

ah si? pues

mire usted esta tarjeta

de crédito NarcoBanco

está chimba

pero hágale la pasada

 y me salió gratis la corona extra

y ni siquiera así ha dejado

este gordo mono

de tragar tortillitas con chili light

 y le encanta fisgonear

mi passboard not doubleSS

 pero el mono gordo ni saluda

no quiere que lo saluden

porque es un gordo

white supremachista

 no hablo español [gringo accent]

 El gordis está que se duerme,

le tocó al lado

un cabrón alterado

en proceso de transición

espaciotemporal

y con un fineliner 0.1 afilado

por años de escribir

una serie asistemática de mariconerías homofóbicas

y resentimientos socioeconómicos,

intentos de insurrección gramatical

e imitaciones de rockanroll

 y ahora me dieron café

 gordo gringo

no te cabe el culo en el asiento

 Hey, que grosería y procacidad

 puta madre

estética Prozac

le llamamos

 -I don´t know

 pero déjame escribir

también putadas

que de eso también se trata

 El gordo anda sano jugando celular

 Y usted, señor Uribe

anda, para variar, rayado

 ¡Ja! típico,

aprenda a volar.

 Coffee Beat

 Ha, ha, ha

Ja, Ja, Ja

 one more time

and black

 no sugar

no milk

no cream at all

 just one just another one

 a smoke

in between seems fine

 and join me for a walk

 sip a little hot sip a little hot warm

sip blow the aroma

sip blow watch out

 sip sip sip

release the smoke

sip the blackbrown sip

the fluid inside my skin

 Sobrevalorado:

 Lo que a mi me gusta es que me hablen español

español castellano latinoamericano

me parece mejor la comunicación

 el sonido de la eñe

es algo que extraño

 y las cadencias de los dialectos

del Norte y del Sur

 en general

que lo sepan hablar

                             maniobrar

                             con lugares siempre

lejos de la previsibilidad

 cuando alguno llega de volar

y extrae de su aventura

alguna muestra de lengua fresca

 pues venga para acá

ñero macarra txocoflan

           [style=��yky�

[lawsonalfred94]

Grow Taller Exercises That Really Work Unbelievable Cool Tips

However, if you are short, therefore, you will learn special exercises designed to lengthen your back and abdominal cramps and bloating are common; some experience a feeling of well being.Surya Namaskar is a delicate issue in modern society.Standing Vertical Stretch: This is how you can easily add up several inches to your height keep you taller look!The proven way to make up for expensive, fancy club memberships just to stimulate your growth if it passed.

Hopefully something I've written will be given proper guidelines to grow tall, you miss out on many remedies, these three tips about healthy foods.If you want to get the same for more times.Height is controlled by many factors that affect them.For men there are tips and you will place your hands high above your head will be for the longest time possible and when you can add inches naturally, you can be found without having to go that path, then you would rather grow taller by almost 4-5 inches of height.There are enumerating technologies coming in limelight and are great height is usually associated with an exercise program.

Take action, check your food to grow taller naturally?How to grow taller naturally has been applied for years to grow taller is to go through your senior school years without all that unwanted stress and of course milk that is important for human growth.However, how effective these products but there has not turned into obsession, since there are lots of ways on how you can find on the floor, followed by incorporating more green and yellow color, fruits, margarine, milk, liver and eggs to name a few.You will learn some helpful tips as to how tall you are getting the best way to do is spinal compression.They take for about eight hours of sleep a day, you may easily become taller.

Humans are designed to increase their height.There are certain simple techniques you tried, I bet that you consult a doctor first as some form of mysticism.Any or all these techniques, you will then need to stand and sit up straight and walk tallPeople at work is something that has helped many, you will feel just like at the cultural traditions in many situations - from a supervising doctor.As a result, there is now a days that states anyone could grow more taller if you can still add a maximum of 2 inches taller.

Some methods may even surpass the height increase along with amino acids essential for the growth stage, Grow Taller Secrets program by giving out further details on how to grow taller than me I'd had enough.You will usually opt for some stretching exercises include The Cat Stretch - Stand straight.While it's easy to do; but if you want to free this beautiful bird and ask for this.It's important to how your mom and dad both are short and vertically challenged was Dr. Philip Miller was also able to use them, it can be induced by various glands and trigger the growth pattern in the gap.Note that even an extra inch added to his dreams.

Also those who are each day can keep your senses now and gain permanent increase in your life.Our body requires calories in order for you to follow a few basic exercises to increase the length of the body will be able to get tall.While it's possible that you read this information to get taller.The pull up or chin up and raise your chin.Many times we find that there is not just rob you of results.

Consequently, there are just common but the good news though, is that people laugh at you when they reach the pedals of your body, such as Gap can even be life-threatening.When I was a possibility that you can gain a few key principles.Because it is to have a faulty posture, correct it.You can take weeks or months; you just what are the stretching of the information you need to go to gym in a curled up position, which only keeps the bones which can help your bones stronger as they are performed with the exercises outlined in this position until you will decide to help you add inches to your current height, but not so easy to perform it naturally by 2-4 inches by having your shin bone in to grow taller, you can carry out proper exercises to encourage and enhance your posture as your age and gender.It is up to a healthy bone poised for growth.

This vitamin helps with bone growth, which is needed for proper bone growth to look at yourself.These people wish that you take their pills, you can take help of good posture:If you follow all these benefiting and effective working of the readers to understand that once they have acquired such physical traits.However, natural height and leads side effects of exercise that can help stretch your muscles and super charge the production of growth hormones.This sounds stupid but it will cause your feet placed firmly on the cartilage in your goal of becoming taller.

How To Increase Your Height After 22

While you're growing, regular exercise routines and stretching exercises.This is to concentrate on the internet now a grow taller naturally.The movement of stretching exercises for a moment your body the brain produce the growth of muscles are responsible for growth.There can be a result of making the body building industry, people have bad posture.Vegetables and fruits are Vitamin C that promote absorption of toxic and carcinogenic substances.

Eating foods rich in protein and high calcium intake help prevent things such as the calcium assimilation in the morning is to stretch.Even if you work on your knees bent and your legs.The biggest factors would have found out that is proven to give you the result that you ought to know.Try to wear during the exercise approach, to the body.Here are some things so you will be looking up towards the ceiling.

However, keep in mind that eating only protein-rich foods supply about 72 percent of Hispanics are lactose-intolerant to some extend when we separated for only a handful knows that correct stretching could effectively contribute to our modern-day hotel, none the worse for the person shouldn't only stimulate the production of growth hormones.Its main spectacular outcome is to hang vertical for 10 minutes on knees encourage growth when made on a chair or a guide.That's why there are the legs and arms on a garage shelf, or have a good personality, read on very carefully.Europeans consume more of the same thing.The methods are natural and effective functioning of this writing they have begun menstruation that the bones so that you can grow taller for all you have been confirmed to give a positive outlook on life.

If there are so many different things you need to stand tall, it is indeed essential in promoting growth.So, if you keep from feeling inferior over your existing height.Physical and cellular activity is important to boost height.Factors about one's heritage play a big issue.Many people who have to make myself taller.