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flowercrown-bard · 3 years ago

Text

A new us will begin (4/ 11)

word count: 9.8k

AO3

part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 5 / part 6

content warnings: brief mention of blood, rat bites, illness, Major Character Death, feeling unloved, alcohol

Ahh Belletyn. The day when the town was decorated in bright colours, songs flew through the air like birds and almost-lovers that had been dancing around each other for months finally get so swept up in the festivities that they turned to their beloved and confessed their feelings. Truly, if there ever was a day to give inspiration to artists of all kinds, it was this.

Yarrow tightened his hold on his pencil as he let his eyes wander over the merriment before him, willing himself to find as much as a spark of inspiration.

When he put his pencil to the paper once more, he didn’t sketch the scene before him; the dancing couples, the decorations, not even the mouth-watering food.

As his pencil danced over the page of his sketchbook, it created what it always did: a pair of eyes. Even though he didn’t use his paint – he had them in his bag, of course, but using paint would have been a little impractical without a table and it took so long for them to dry – anyone who bothered to look at his sketch knew what colour they were supposed to be: the most piercing amber.

One time he had tried to change things up a little and colour them blue, the same shade as his own eyes, just to see if he would like the result. He hadn’t. Before that painting had even been finished, he had crumbled it up and tossed it to the side. It just hadn’t been right. It was yellow eyes or nothing.

Yarrow might not have been very creative when it came to coming up with new ideas, but he wasn’t a fool. He knew people scoffed at his inability to paint anything other than this. The thing was, he didn’t care. He didn’t need anyone’s approval to be confidence in his abilities as an artist. Or, well, perhaps he did care a little, but not for his lack of originality. He cared because somehow, this – painting – didn’t feel quite right. Just how the name he had given himself in the spur of a moment, seemed to be lacking something, though he couldn’t for the life of him put his finger on what it was. He loved creating, so why wasn’t painting enough? He loved the sound of his name – at least the first half – and what it stood for. But it wasn’t enough. It never was. He was lacking something. Something he was sure he would find if only he painted enough amber eyes.

So that’s what he did right now. Not paint, of course, but sketch. He kept sketching, sad eyes, eyes narrowed with focus or anger, eyes that crinkled at the sides with mirth. The changes were only miniscule. So small in fact, that he had been told multiple times that they all looked exactly the same, but Yarrow knew better. He knew there was a depth to these eyes, that other people could only dream of recognising.

It must have been hours until finally the tip of his pencil got dull enough that it would ruin his artwork if he continued sketching with it, and, clever as he was, Yarrow had forgotten to take a spare pencil or something to sharpen it with with him.

With a sigh, he put the pencil and the sketchbook into his bag and turned to watch lovers dance around the decorated pole that has been erected in the middle of the town square.

A strange sense of longing filled him, an inexplicable urge to approach someone to ask them for a dance. But he didn’t even know how to dance and there was no one in this town that liked him enough to accept such an offer out of anything other than pity and awkward politeness. Best to spare them that fate.

Still, Yarrow’s eyes wandered over those sitting to the side same as him. Most of them didn’t seem to mind sitting this dance out. They talked amongst themselves, drank wine or stole kisses from each other before leaving the festivities with giggles that were not nearly as subtle as they probably thought.

There was only one person other than Yarrow that stood out. A girl, barely twelve if Yarrow had to guess. She sat on the floor, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy, and her hands were tangling her hair into knots.

Yarrow’s brows knitted together. He stood up and before he knew what he was doing, he walked up to the girl and sat on the floor next to her.

“Are you alright?” he asked softly, if a little awkwardly.

The girl sniffled and nodded unconvincingly.

“You know,” Yarrow said, leaning back a little, “when I was younger I always dreamed of going to this festival with the prettiest braids in my hair.”

The girl looked up and eyed him critically. “Is that why your hair’s so long?”

“It sure is.” It wasn’t. Yarrow just didn’t know how to cut it. Still, he shook his head to let his hair fly into his face. “But braiding my own hair is so hard and there’s no one around who could help me.”

He threw a side-glance at the girl, whose shoulders sagged at his words. “You tell me. My sister said she’d braid my hair but then she saw Jakub and left me behind.”

“That’s mean.” Yarrow waited a second before perking up, playing the part of someone who had just been struck by genius. “What do you say, I braid your hair? I might not know how to do my own hair, but I should be able to do yours.”

The girl’s eyes began to shine, but then her lips tilted down again. “I can’t do yours. I don’t know how.”

“I can teach you, if you want. You can practice on me and then you’ll never need your sister to help you with that again.”

Without a hint of hesitation, the girl nodded and shifted so that her back was turned to Yarrow.

Carefully, he began untangling the knots the girl had put there earlier and began explaining what he was doing as he split the hair into sections and began to plait.

It felt strangely familiar. Yarrow had no sisters and no daughters – the gods knew he was too young for that and besides, he would make a terrible father – but something about teaching a child how to do things felt right. As if he had done it before. For a second, he thought he could almost remember a voice. A girl excitedly asking him to braid her hair back so it wouldn’t fall into her eyes while she learned how to sword fight.

No, that couldn’t be a memory. It was nothing more than a silly thought. He had always been a dreamer and the alcohol he had drunk earlier hadn’t helped slow his imagination.

“There, all done,” he finally said and pulled a pink flower out of an arrangement in a pot and put it into the braid.

The girl turned to him with a brilliant smile that Yarrow returned. For the briefest moment, he could almost believe that he would make a good father one day. Or maybe he would have made a good one in another life, when he could have actually provided for a child.

His smile dimmed a little and he turned to hide it. Soon though, his grin was back in full force, when the girl did her best to apply what she had learned and plait his hair. Yarrow didn’t need to look to know that his hair was now a mess resembling a bird’s nest.

Still, he bowed gracefully when the girl announced that she was done and thanked her. She giggled a little before running off to join the dancing.

He watched her with a strange melancholy, an echo of a thought, an impossible memory of watching a daughter grow up and leave her home. Maybe he was getting old after all. Or maybe he was just lonely.

He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the world, the dancing, the laughter, the clapping. Instead, he got lost in that fantasy of his, in which he had a family - a daughter, who would fly into his arms and tell him about all the things she had done that day, and a man, who would have been Yarrow’s lover, would ruffle her hair and look at Yarrow fondly, while the artist sang a song for the two of them.

No, not a song. The song. Yarrow wasn’t sure what that thought was supposed to mean, but in that daydream of his, he was close to understanding, so close! The beginning of the melody was already at the tip of his tongue, he could almost taste the notes, the words –

A different voice cut through the illusion of a memory and shattered it like a mirror. A different song.

Yarrow opened his eyes again and scowled at the minstrel that had dared to interrupt his dreaming. He wasn’t a bad singer. Yarrow might not know much about music, but he was pretty sure that he was actually pretty good. But the song…Something about it grated on Yarrow’s nerves.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

Wrong, and yet achingly familiar. There was something about it that Yarrow recognised, but it was twisted, whether by time, bad translations of a different language, or the minstrel’s own changes to it, Yarrow couldn’t tell. He didn’t care either way. All he could think about was that this was wrong. This wasn’t how the song was meant to be sung. It wasn’t supposed to be danced to, it was supposed to be slow and soothing and speaking of love. It was supposed to be a lullaby. This…this wasn’t it. This was a cruel, mutated version of that song.

The minstrel didn’t care, didn’t even notice. He just let his voice soar higher in a way that was utterly unbefitting of that song.

Yarrow reeled back, eyes wide and his breath frozen in his lungs. That line…that section of the song…he knew it. Truly knew it.

It sounded far too much like the little melody he sometimes hummed while he was in deep concentration while painting.

He had never heard anyone else sing that line and he wasn’t sure if he liked it. All he knew was that an age-old ache settled into his chest, burning him from the inside.

He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t stay here.

So he didn’t. He all but fled the festivities, but not before snatching one of the wine bottles and taking it with him.

He hadn’t even reached his home before he had gotten well and truly drunk. Not drunk enough to get rid of that inexplicable pain in his chest, but certainly drunk enough to make him stagger into the wrong alley, not caring that it was taking him farther from his home.

He didn’t want to go home. The small house he shared with an older woman and a couple that he barely had any contact with, wasn’t the home he was yearning for, even if he had no idea if such a place as a true home even existed for him or if it was yet another one of those cruel dreams of his.

It wasn’t until he reached the town’s inn that he stopped in his tracks, wrecking his brain what on earth he wanted here. He had never really been to an inn, never really needed to. After all, he had stayed in the same place all his life. Yet, it had felt as if something had pulled him here, as if the sight of an inn meant safe, not alone, home.

It didn’t, of course. Inns were the furthest one could have from a home. Yet Yarrow only shrugged and marched on, let his feet carry him where they would. It wasn’t as if he had anything better to do.

The door to the inn was slightly ajar and coming from the inside, he would hear arguing. Something about someone being denied a room and something about too much coin and something about the alderman having made promises and something about bringing a head to him.

Maybe if Yarrow had been sober, he would have figured out what was going on, but as if was, he couldn’t be bothered to even try and make sense of what he heard. Instead, he left the angry voices behind and made his way to the stables instead. Even from afar, they smelled familiar, soothing in a way that dirty stables really weren’t supposed to. Maybe a pleasant side-effect from the wine. He’d have to try more of that later.

Before the stables, a horse was bound to a post. It eyed Yarrow distrustfully but with curiosity in its eyes.

A smile twitched around Yarrow’s lips.

“Sorry, don’t got any treats for you,” he said when he was close enough for the horse to nudge at his bag. “There’s only some art-stuff in there. Nothing you’d want to eat. And nothing that I’d allow you to eat. Even though you are beautiful.”

And she really was. Brown with a white stripe down her face. Yarrow cocked his head to the side. Actually, now that he thought about it, she looked utterly basic. In the midst of a group of horses, she wouldn’t have stood out at all. That didn’t change a thing about the certainty in Yarrow’s chest that she was the most special horse he had ever seen and that he would recognise her anywhere.

He came closer to pat her on the neck and –

“What in Melitele’s clapping arsecheeks is that?”

The horse only snorted at his undignified shriek, but he paid her no attention. He was too distracted by the blood-dripping something fastened to her saddle. It was disgusting. Yarrow should have jumped back. Any sane person would have run for the hills, but evidently, Yarrow wasn’t very sane, because he stepped closer to inspect the thing. It was a head. A monster’s head, but he had no idea what kind.

In the back of his head he could almost hear an annoyed but amused voice tell him the answer, but it was too faint to grasp and understand.

Yarrow swallowed and rounded the horse again until he came to the post that she was bound to. He scowled. The horse wasn’t supposed to be fastened to anything. She was smart enough to stay where she needed to wait for her owner and if there was danger, she wouldn’t be able to run away like this.

So Yarrow did the only logical thing. He freed the horse and lead it away.

Just as before, he had no idea where he was even going, but the horse didn’t seem to mind following him. She just kept nibbling at his hair and shirt.

Her trust filled Yarrow with irrational pride as if getting this horse, that he had known all but a handful of minutes, to like him was a great feat worthy of being one’s life’s work.

It wasn’t until the horse began throwing her head around nervously at sounds growing louder around them, that Jaskier realised that he had marched right back where he had come from: the town square where the celebrations were still in full swing.

Well, not for much longer.

It didn’t take more than a couple of seconds before the first people started noticing the drunk and the horse he had stolen. More importantly, they noticed the gruesome thing the horse was carrying.

The minstrel from before ended his song in a terrified screech and the reels and jigs turned into people staggering backwards, stumbling into tables and crashing into flower pots.

Someone called for the city guards, people pointed and Yarrow, cursing him and all of his ancestors.

Their shouts and frantic movements didn’t make the situation any better. The horse grew more agitated by the minute, rearing up and making the chaos even worse. Try as he might, Yarrow had no chance of calming her.

“Roach!”

He turned to see a man run towards them. Yarrow’s line of sight was obscured by the nervous horse, allowing him only glimpses of the one who had shouted, but even so he knew that his face was a snarling grimace of fury that made Jaskier hide behind the horse.

Before the angry stranger could get to him, Yarrow was grabbed tightly by the arms and yanked back. He turned to see the city guards, who scowled down at him furiously. For a second, Yarrow almost wished the angry stranger had gotten to him first, but it wasn’t as if he could change anything about his fate.

At least as he was dragged away by the guards, he didn’t have to find his own way through the maze that was the town.

Surprisingly, this was the first time Yarrow ended up in a cell. Well, actually, it wasn’t all that surprising, considering, all he ever did was paint and stay out of other people’s way as much as he could. But the thought that he should have gotten into trouble earlier still didn’t leave the back of his mind.

When the guards threw him - actually threw him! - in the cell and shut the door with an overly dramatic bang, they probably meant for it to intimidate him. If that had really been their goal, they had missed it by a mile. Being thrown in prison was probably the most exciting thing that had ever happened to Yarrow!

At least it was for all of five minutes. Then the boredom set in. Yarrow had heard of people that cried and raged in prison, of people who pleaded to see the light of day again. He had never heard of anyone who sprawled out on the floor, staring at the ceiling for lack of anything better to do. Granted, that would make for a pretty terrible story and once he got out of here, he would definitely spin some tale about how dramatic his stay in the prison had been. Not that anyone would even ask him, but still. It was nice to fantasise about having someone who cared about him enough to ask about his whereabouts.

What else was he supposed to do other than lay around on the hard floor? The guards had taken his bag with the art supplies and even if he still had them with him, it would have been too dark to use them.

So of course, Yarrow perked up in excitement at the first sign of something happening. He heard the door to the cell next to his creak open and the grunt and rattling of chains as someone was shoved in before the door fell shut again.

Then it was quiet. The newcomer didn’t beg or shout to the heavens or curse the injustice. Yarrow had no way of knowing, but he liked to imagine that his new neighbour was throwing unimpressed glares at the door.

The thought made his mouth quirk up.

“Welcome, stranger,” he said loud enough that it might carry through the cracks in the wall. No reply. Louder he repeated what he had said.

“Stop shouting,” came a gruff voice. “I can hear you.”

Ah, so his new neighbour was a man and judging from his tone, one who was pissed off.

“So sorry.” Yarrow winced at his own voice. He barely recognised it himself, rough from alcohol and the dry air of the prison. Too much drink might have made him lose all sense of direction and change his voice, but most importantly, when he was drunk, Yarrow had the unfortunate habit of babbling. Well, maybe babbling was the wrong word. His manner of speaking became more like the imitation of a second-rate poet than of a loner who mainly spoke to himself while painting. “We don’t have to be strangers, of course. Not even mere acquaintances! I’d love for you to be my new friend instead and –“

“We’re not friends,” came the instant reply. “Fuck off.”

A grin spread across Yarrow’s lips. “I’d love to, but I’m afraid that’s rather impossible.”

“Then shut up.”

Yarrow was quiet for all of ten seconds, then he narrowed his eyes. “No, I don’t think I will.”

His new friend made no sound in reply. Yarrow’s shoulders sagged in disappointment. He had hoped for at least a dismissive grunt. But no matter. Yarrow had more than enough practice talking to himself and what was the difference between doing that and talking to someone who didn’t reply?

So he took advantage of the fact that his friend wasn’t able to just leave and began talking about his paintings. One might think that there wasn’t that much to say about paintings that all showed the same thing, but once Yarrow began talking about different ways to use a brush, shading and line work, he couldn’t stop. He didn’t even know if his new friend was listening – unlikely – but it felt nice to be able to share his thoughts. It wasn’t often that anyone cared enough about him to let him talk that much. No one cared to get to know him. Speaking of which –

“My name is Yarrow, by the way.” He stumbled a bit over his own name, ending in an unfortunate slurring. “In case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t. And the fuck kind of name is that anyway?”

Yarrow’s grin widened. So his friend was listening after all. Granted, he had hoped he would get something other than insults out of him, but it wasn’t as if he would go anywhere. Yarrow had plenty of time to get his friend to properly speak to him.

“It’s my pen name. Well, artist’s name. I don’t really use pens all that often. Oh! And a yarrow is also a flower.”

His friend made a strange sound, something between choking and cursing. Yarrow furrowed his brow and glared at the wall as if his friend could see the expression.

“Hey, no need to react like that. I’ll have you know yarrows are beautiful. In fact, the whole reason why I stared painting is because I once saw a field of yarrows and they were just the most inspiring thing I had ever seen.”

His voice trailed off and his smile softened. It had been years ago and yet the image was still fresh in his mind. A field filled with the white flowers, and there, right in the middle, a just a couple of yellow ones. The combination of the colours had touched something inside him and his fingers had itched to put a pencil to his notebook and – he hadn’t been quite sure what exactly he had wanted to do, but an hour later, his notebook had been filled with pages upon pages of eyes and when he had gone home that day, he had purchased his first set of colour pigments to add that bit of yellow that his drawings had been missing.

Yarrow cocked his head to the side when his friend made no move to acknowledge anything he had just said.

“You know, normally, when someone gives you their name, you tell them yours in return.”

No reply. Big surprise there. Yarrow sighed and scooted over to the wall, leaning his head against it.

“When we get out of here, I’m going to show you my paintings and you’re going to give me a review. And I expect you to use actual words.”

“Don’t.”

“What are you in for anyway?” Yarrow tapped the floor with his knuckles, his smile turning a little dopey. “I’m here because I befriended a horse.”

A rustling of clothes was heard and steps coming closer to the wall Yarrow was leaning against.

“You’re the fucking idiot, who stole Roach?”

“Befriended her. And don’t you dare make fun of my name when your horse is called Roach.” He let out a quiet laugh. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

For a moment he thought he was going to get no answer, but then his friend let out a resigned grunt.

“She’s my horse so they said I was to blame for the chaos you unleashed too.”

“Oh.” Guilt welled up in Yarrow. “Well, fret not. I’m sure interrupting a celebration and scaring some people isn’t that bad of a crime. They’ll probably let us go tomorrow. How about I’ll make it up to you then? Buy you a drink?”

His friend scoffed. “I think you should stay away from alcohol for a while.”

Yarrow hummed in reply. “Yeah, probably. But I’d still love to get to know you. You know, without a wall between us.”

“Trust me, you don’t. And I don’t need a new friend.”

“Too late,” Yarrow said cheerily. He was sure his friend was able to hear his smile. “I have already decided I like you. So? Tomorrow?”

“I’m not going to get released tomorrow.”

“What, why?” Yarrow sat up straighter. “What crime did you commit other than owning a horse?”

A long pause, then –

“I’m a witcher.” He said it like a death-sentence.

Yarrow waited for an explanation, but none came. He had never had much contact with witchers before other than the one that had passed through town when he’d still been a child and even then he hadn’t spoken a word with him. Out of all the people who formed opinions about witchers, Yarrow was probably the least suitable judge when it came to witchers, but throwing a man in prison just because he was a witcher? It sounded unfair.

“If…” Yarrow began tentatively, but broke off, not really sure what he even wanted to say. “If you’re right and I get released first, I can take care of Roach until you get out.”

The witcher let out a snort. “She’d bite your fingers off if you tried.”

“Ah, but she didn’t before.” A triumphant smirk accompanied his words. “Really, it wasn’t that hard to get her to like me. I just complimented her a little.”

His friend let out a snort and mumbled something that Yarrow couldn’t understand, but it sounded amused, so he doubled down.

“And what a gorgeous lady she is! Even more beautiful with flowers braided into her mane –“

“What?” His friend’s voice cut through the air like a knife.

Yarrow rolled his eyes. “No need to get jealous. I’m sure you’re gorgeous too. If you let me see you in the light of day some time, I will compliment you too. I can do it now, if you want. You have the most beautiful voice and truly you eloquence is unparalleled.”

“That’s not-“ The witcher made a frustrated noise. “Roach didn’t have braids. There were no flowers.”

“Oh. Huh. Guess not.” Yarrow scratched his head, running his hand through the mess of a braid that girl had left there hours ago. “I could have sworn I’ve seen her like that before though.”

“I’ve never come here before,” the witcher said tightly.

“Must have been another horse then. It’s not as if brown horses are rare.” Yarrow pulled a face for the darkness to see. He hesitated. “But did Roach ever have a braided mane?”

“Stop asking,” came the harsh reply. “You’re drunk.”

His friend’s voice sounded strange. Strangled and on the verge of breaking. Desperate.

“That’s true,” Yarrow said, aiming for a cheerier tone. “But no less delightful for it. Unless of course you really think I’m annoying. In that case I promise you, I’m far better company when I’m sober. I talk less than, you might like me more like that. You should really give me a chance.”

His tone was teasing, but he knew he couldn’t hide the clinginess in it. He really wanted the man in the other cell to like him. Even separated by a wall and with that staggering conversation, Yarrow felt more comfortable with him than with most people he had known for years. He wanted – needed – to get to know him better. He needed to find out what would make him smile softly or throw his head back laughing. He needed to see if he would ever look at Yarrow with fondness or casually touch him as if they really were friends and not just strangers who Yarrow called friends because he knew that he had no one else to give that title to.

And still, Yarrow didn’t even know his name. And why would he? Yarrow was the reason why the witcher was in this cell right now. He had every right to want to get as far away from Yarrow as possible as soon as he got out. It would be a blessing for the witcher to have the annoying artist, who wouldn’t shut up and had only gotten him into trouble, off his hands.

Yarrow’s throat became tight and he had to clench his hands to fists to stop them from trembling, even if no one was around to see him break down over a stranger not liking him. It was irrational. He had been alone for practically his entire life and he’d managed just fine, hadn’t he? His eyes shouldn’t be burning at the thought of continuing life on his own. But damn it, he just wanted a friend.

For a long time that felt like an eternity, there was nothing but silence, only interrupted by Yarrows shaky breathing as he tried to calm himself.

“Are you alright?” The voice of the stranger, who wasn’t his friend, was quiet, tentative.

Yarrow sniffled and nodded nonsensically. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he croaked out and grimaced at how utterly unconvincing he sounded even to his own ears. He ran a hand down his face and grasped the first excuse he could find. “Just don’t like the dark.”

He expected silence. Maybe a scoff. Witchers probably didn’t mind the dark, what with going hunting in the dead of night or whatever it was they did. Either way, there was a good chance he had just made the witcher think he was pathetic and unlikable as well as whiny.

But no scoff came. No reprimand or dismissal.

Instead there was a sound Yarrow couldn’t place and then the darkness was illuminated. Not by much, but faint light came flickering through the cracks in the wall.

Yarrow let out a gasp and lifted a hand to let the dim light dance across it.

“This is incredible!” he whispered. “How did you do that? Did the guards not search you for flint stones?”

His friend – he gave him light! He must be a friend…right? – made a grumbling noise but this time it sounded almost shy.

“Witchers can make fire with signs. Magic.”

“Incredible,” Yarrow repeated, the awe in his tone as clear as day. After a brief pause, he added softly, “Thank you, my friend. This really means a lot.”

He could practically hear the witcher grit his teeth and shift uncomfortably, but his voice wasn’t cutting, when he replied, “Maybe I just wanted you to stop whining.”

Yarrow’s expression softened. “You know you could just accept when someone’s thanking you. It’s alright if you don’t want to be my friend, but you don’t have to make yourself belief that I don’t like you.”

Maybe it was just Yarrow’s imagination, but for a split second he was sure the light became a little bit brighter.

“Just try to go to sleep,” the witcher tried to grumble, but Yarrow knew, he was smiling. At least he hoped so. “Maybe when you wake up, it’s already time for you to get out.”

A smile tugged at the corners of Yarrow’s lips. “What if I prefer spending my precious hours in this lovely place talking to you?”

The witcher let out a snort that sounded dangerously close to a laugh and made Yarrow’s heart speed up in his chest. He wanted to hear it again. He needed to –

“Just sleep. I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

“Fine.” Awkwardly, Yarrow laid down again, trying and failing to find the most comfortable part of the floor. At least he still had the hints of soft light reminding him that he wasn’t alone, that there was someone on the other side of this wall who cared for him, even if just a little. “Will you let me have this light until I’m asleep?”

“I will.” The faceless voice was silent for a heartbeat, then so quiet that Yarrow almost couldn’t hear it, the witcher said, “And you’re welcome.”

Yarrow’s chest grew warm. He closed his eyes, wishing he had something to give the witcher in return. But he had no magic and the only thing he was good at was painting. He doubted the witcher would appreciate a painting, even if Yarrow had the means to give him one.

No, he had nothing. Nothing but…

A soft melody filled the air. It wasn’t much, just one line, repeated over and over again, but it was all he had to give. Perhaps it would soothe the witcher enough to let him forget for a little while the injustice he had been shown.

A strangled noise came from the other side of that wall. If Yarrow hadn't known any better he'd have said it sounded like a stifled sob. His chest clenched painfully and he raised his voice, putting as much comfort and gratefulness into it as he could.

It was strange singing for someone else and his heart beat frantically from the nerves, but at the same time it felt like pieces slotting together, as if this was what he had always been meant to do. As if his whole life had lead up to this: to singing a soft lullaby for the person who seemed to need a friend just as desperately as Yarrow did.

He wished he knew more of the song. He wanted to give all of it, every piece of affection and safety that surely was weaved through every word to the witcher.

A dull thud made Yarrow flinch. His voice broke as he sucked in a startled breath.

"Are you alright?" he asked hesitantly. "Did you just punch the wall?"

"How do you know that song?" The desperation in the Witcher's voice did nothing to lessen the sharp worry that pierced Yarrow's chest.

"I-I don't know. It's just a song." His fingers twitched. He wanted to reach out, run his fingers through hair until the agitation left the witcher. If only there wasn't this damned wall between them! "Are you alright?" He repeated, though he held out no hope for an answer. He didn't need one. "I didn't mean to upset you. I can stop singing of you want—"

"No! “ The sharp shout came so unexpected that Yarrow winced. Softer, the Witcher repeated, "No. Don't stop. Please."

There was something utterly wrong with that. The witcher shouldn't plead, shouldn't have to plead for something like this, for comfort and the reminder that he wasn't alone in this. And worse than that, something scratched at the back of Yarrow's mind, an inexplicable certainty that this witcher wouldn't beg for anything - other than his loved ones' lives.

That thought didn't make sense. There was no reason to think such a thing. Hell, just a few minutes ago, Yarrow had felt a bond between them because they were both lonely. As far as he knew, the witcher didn't even have any loved ones he could plead for. Or maybe he didn’t anymore.

Yarrow swallowed against a lump forming in his throat. He could become a loved one. Maybe not now, maybe not in a month's time, but if the witcher gave him the chance, they could become something to each other that might come close to that.

His voice was a hoarse whisper, thick from the tightness in his throat, but the witcher didn't complain about his singing. Perhaps he was somewhere far away, with someone else, in his mind. Perhaps he was just pretending to be asleep. The light remained, even as Yarrow's song slowly faded and he drifted off. His last thought before he closed his eyes was that he wished it wasn’t sleep that was embracing him but a set of strong arms that made him feel protected and loved.

Pictures fluttered through Yarrow’s dreams, soft ones, lovely ones, ones that he hadn’t known he’d longed for. Or rather…it wasn’t pictures as much as feelings. He couldn’t really see the people he knew were with him. He couldn’t make out faces, eyes, bodies. But he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what those dream-figments were: a family. His family, one he had never had. He felt the certainty of it burning in his heart, filling him out and making him want to lift his voice in a song. He felt someone lying next to him, curled against him instead of being separated by a wall. He felt loved. He felt –

Being needed. Someone was calling his name. It came from far away, too faint to really make out the name, but he knew it was his. He had to go to the one calling him. He had to see who it was. He had to –

His eyes fluttered open, blinking against the dark surrounding him. Being plunged into this cold nothingness after having felt light and bright and like he belonged, was like being thrown into icy water.

He wanted to close his eyes again, force his mind to bring him back to that place he had just been in, to melt into the embrace of his dream-family again. He needed to see them again! He didn’t want to – couldn’t! – stay alone.

But there it was again. Not a call as he had thought in his dream, but a whisper. A sob. A name. Coming from the other side of a wall and unreachable for him.

“Jaskier…”

It wasn’t his name. Gods, he wished it had been his name. His chest ached with the unruly need to hear his own name being spoken like this, just once. With longing. With love. With unnameable things that no one would ever feel for him.

It wasn’t his name and none of the things, that clung to the deep voice, was meant for him, but he couldn’t help but yearn and imagine.

He turned towards the sound and was greeted by light. For the flicker of a moment, he almost thought it must be a campfire someone had set up to keep him warm. But no, that was ridiculous. Those weren’t smouldering flames. It was faint and distant in a way that reminded him that he was separated from the source of the light. It didn’t matter. The name might not have been spoken for him, but this light? This was just for him. Even though he had been asleep, the witcher had kept his promise. Maybe it was his way of reaching out, of making himself feel like there was some sort of connection between the two of them. Yarrow prayed that that was how he felt.

He scooted closer to the wall, desperate to breach the distance between them as much as he could. He reached out to press his hand against the cold stone, imagining that maybe the witcher on the other side was doing the same thing.

Instead of the wall, his hand met something soft and squishy. A squeak pierced the air and suddenly a sharp pain erupted in Yarrow’s hand.

He let out a sharp cry, bringing his hand to his chest as fast as he could. Blood tickled down, not much, but enough to churn his stomach.

He barely registered the taps of small claws on the floor as the something that had bitten him scurried away.

“Yarrow?” The alarmed way the witcher said his name was nothing like he had said this other name, but it still sent Yarrow’s heart aflutter. It was so full of concern that Yarrow was sure the witcher would never admit to.

“I’m fine,” Yarrow pressed through gritted teeth. “No, wait, actually, this fucking hurts.”

“What does?” The witcher’s voice was impatient and closer to the wall than it had been before. “What happened?”

“Something bit me. Probably a rat or something.”

From the other side of the wall came a muffled “Fuck” that shouldn’t have sounded so endearing to Yarrow.

“Don’t worry.” Yarrow waved his uninjured hand through the air. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

The witcher didn’t reply. It didn’t come as a surprise and really, Yarrow had no right to feel bitter disappointment well up in him. But after having had the witcher’s attention on him, having him call out his name – remember his name! – in a way that made Yarrow believe that the witcher truly cared about him and then being hit with this silence, was unbearable.

“Are you still there?” His voice was small and he was well aware that it was a nonsensical question, yet when a gruff grunt came from the witcher, it made his heart soar. He pressed the forehead against the wall, hoping it was somewhat close to where he had heard the witcher’s voice come from.

“I’m glad you’re there. Not glad that you’re in prison, of course, just…. I would have hated to be alone in here.”

Another grunt. Not agreement, but not quite dismissal either. A smile danced across Yarrow’s lips.

“You were worried about me.”

A snort. “I’ve seen the chaos that you can bring. I’d be an idiot not to be worried. Figures you’d get in trouble here too.” The witcher’s voice held no hint of humour. Then again, people said Yarrow’s paintings showed no emotions and he knew better than anyone that that couldn’t be more false.

“My dear witcher.” His smile turned into a full smirk. “Are you teasing me?”

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Yarrow lied. Well, maybe he really wouldn’t let it get to his head. But he would let this moment strike roots into his heart. He hesitated, praying this wasn’t crossing some line. “Does this make us friends?”

“I don’t have friends.”

“You could though.” Yarrow held his breath as he waited for an answer. It had been too forward. He should have taken the dismissal for what it was and not pushed. Yet he hoped beyond hope that he would hear a smile in the witcher’s voice when the reply came.

It took unbearably long until the witcher spoke up again and when he did, a smile was the furthest thing one could imagine in his voice.

“No.” A broken, regretful sound that cut into Yarrow’s heart like a knife. “I can’t.”

“That’s too bad,” Yarrow sighed. He didn’t know why he’d said it. He didn’t want to keep pushing, didn’t want to annoy the witcher any more and clearly his words were distressing to him. Still, the words tumbled from his lips, “Because you don’t need to be my friend, but I would love to be yours, witcher.”

Another pause. Then, “Geralt.”

“Huh?”

“My name. It’s Geralt.”

“Geralt.” A warm and fuzzy feeling spread through Yarrow’s chest as he tasted the name on his tongue. “I like that.”

A grunt, half amused, half sounding like an eye-roll.

Another silence settled over them, but this time there was nothing uncomfortable about it. After what felt like endless hours in which Yarrow let his eyes drift over the lit-up cracks in the stone, he lifted a hand and traced one of the cracks.

“Geralt?”

“Hm?”

Yarrow bit his lip. “Thank you.”

If Geralt were to ask him what exactly he was thanking him for, Yarrow wouldn’t have known what to say. Thank you for the light. For being here. For listening and talking. For trusting me with your name.

But Geralt didn’t ask. Instead, he just said “You’re welcome.”

This time, Yarrow had no doubt that there was a soft smile rivalling his own on his friend’s face.

Just as Geralt had predicted, Yarrow was released from his cell first. Not quite as soon as Yarrow had hoped, but what difference made one day more in prison? At least he got to spend it with his new friend. A friend who teased him mercilessly about his hangover, calling it his rightful punishment for trying to steal Roach.

Yarrow was quieter without and far less eloquent without the alcohol infusing him with bravery, but the witcher didn’t seem to mind. In fact, as unlikely as it seemed, he even encouraged Yarrow to talk more, as if he actually liked listening to his rants the day before.

When the guards eventually came to unlock his cell, Yarrow was stupidly close to insisting on staying right where he was until Geralt too was set free, but he didn’t have to see Geralt’s face to know he’d be scowling at him if he suggested such a thing.

As it were, Geralt didn’t make a single sound as Yarrow left, not even acknowledging that they were friends now that the guards could hear them.

Though that did shoot a pang of disappointment through Yarrow’s chest, he didn’t let that deter him. He wouldn’t leave his friend without at least saying goodbye. As he was lead through the corridor that lead to freedom, Yarrow threw one last glance over his shoulder, though he couldn’t see into the cell.

“See you around, Geralt.”

A choked noise was the last thing Yarrow heard from his friend.

Then he was free again. He didn’t feel like it. His bag was pressed into his hand. He’d rather hold Geralt’s hand in his.

He was told to go home. He’d rather turn back to his cell; at least in there he had known that he wasn’t alone.

Still, he left. His feet didn’t carry him to his home. It was almost ironic that he took the same route as he had two days ago, when he had been drunk and lonely.

Just as last time, the horse, Roach, was standing in front of the inn, though this time she wasn’t bound to anything. Maybe someone had brought her here, though judging from the way Geralt had talked about her, it was unlikely that she would follow just anyone – other than Yarrow of course, for whatever reason. She probably had trotted back here on her own, waiting for her owner to come back.

Yarrow’s heart clenched at the sight, but he let out a relieved breath. At least Geralt had one companion who was loyal to him like that. Perhaps…perhaps Yarrow could be such a companion too. Being forced to talk for lack of anyone else being there while sitting in a prison was one thing. Waiting for him on the outside world was something entirely different.

But someone had to take care of Roach and no one else was going to do it, most likely. A pang of displeasure passed through Yarrow when he realised that no one had bothered to take off Roach’s saddle. At least the disgusting trophy was gone, but other than that, no one had lifted a finger to make the horse comfortable in any way. Without hesitation, Yarrow reached for the bridle. It shouldn’t be too hard to get it off. For a second there, the motions almost felt familiar, as if he had done this a hundred times before. That moment of confidence didn’t last long. He started fumbling and cursing when he realised that he actually had no idea what he was doing. It took him forever, but somehow he managed to unsaddled the horse with clumsy fingers, shooting glares at everyone who snickered at him when the saddle almost fell onto him when he failed to lift it off her. Really, it wasn’t his fault that he’d never had to do something like this before and judging from the way she nosed at him, searching for something to eat, she hadn’t been taken care off at all these past days.

Staying here with her was totally selfless.

Yarrow couldn’t even convince himself of that.

He stayed with Roach to assure that Geralt wouldn’t leave without a trace, only leaving her side to buy something to munch on for both of them. As long as he was with her, Geralt wouldn’t be able to skip this town without meeting Yarrow at least once more.

So he stayed and waited. Waited a day that felt like forever. It was boring, almost as much as those first hours in the cell had been. Yarrow let out a huff. Talking to someone who didn’t want to talk to him had worked once. It might as well work a second time. At first talking to Roach wasn’t that different from talking to Geralt. Yarrow let out a snorting laugh that made passers-by give him dirty looks. Geralt would have probably taken it as a compliment being compared to his horse. Then again, Yarrow could dream all he wanted, even he couldn’t pretend that Roach listened to his words. Roach wasn’t the one he wanted to talk to. He didn’t need stimulating conversation; all he wanted was occasional rough grunts and snarky comments.

He gave up talking, taking up his sketchbook instead. The familiar weight of the pencil in his hand brought a calmness to his restless mind. He let the pencil dance over the pages, as it always had done, drew what he always had drawn. But for the first time since he had decided to become an artist, he hesitated when he reached for his colour palette. His fingers itched to colour the eyes that stared up at him from the page amber, but he couldn’t. Not yet. For once, he didn’t want to paint his fantasy’s eyes. He wanted to draw his eyes. Geralt’s, wanted more than anything to know what they looked like. So Yarrow snapped his sketchbook shut. He’d just have to wait until he met Geralt to finish this drawing. In a spur of the moment decision, Yarrow stuffed the sketchbook into Roach’s saddlebags. It was a silly idea, but perhaps if Geralt insisted on leaving without him, Yarrow could follow him with the excuse that he had forgotten his sketchbooks in the bags. It would be obvious how desperate he was, but he could live with that, if it meant getting to keep his friend a little while longer.

The extent to his pathetic need to see Geralt again became painfully obvious, as soon the sun began to set and made it impossible to keep drawing. He should have returned home. Instead, he rented a room at the inn for the first time in his life. It was an expanse he shouldn’t allow himself, not when he had a perfectly good home in this very town. But his home was too far away. If he left to sleep there, it might take him too long to get back in time to catch Geralt.

He waited another day, kept himself busy by putting braids in Roach’s mane. Smug satisfaction filled him when he was done. He couldn’t wait to gloat to Geralt how he had been right: Roach really did look gorgeous with braids. For lack of anything else to do, he began braiding her tail as well. Far too soon, the joints of his fingers started to ache and he had to shake his hands to get rid of the uncomfortable feeling. It didn’t work. This was ridiculous. Yarrow wasn’t nearly old enough to have aching joints yet. Maybe it was because he had slept on the hard floor in the cell. That couldn’t have been good for his body. He’d have thought that one night sleeping in a bed should have rectified that, but apparently he had been wrong. Be had to make sure to get some better sleep this night.

The next day, the ache wasn’t gone. In fact, it had gotten so much worse, to a point where his fingers ached too much to hold a pencil and his elbows protested any time he lifted his hands to stroke Roach’s nose or even just turn a page in his sketchbook. It made little difference. He wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on drawing anyway, not when his head felt like it was bursting, the insistent hammering against his skull even worse than when he’d had his hangover. This would go away. Surely, if he just waited a couple of hours, or maybe even a day, this would go away.

The next morning came. Geralt didn’t. It was strange just how much Yarrow missed Geralt after only so short a time of knowing him, but he couldn’t stop thinking about him. He knew it was inappropriate to dwell on such things, but he couldn’t keep his mind from wandering, from imagining how Geralt’s arms might feel around him. He was sure Geralt’s body would be warm. He would never allow him to snuggle into him, of course, but maybe if Yarrow asked, Geralt would make the flames for him again to warm him?

He shouldn’t need to be kept warm. It was spring. The sun was shining bright in the sky and people were fanning themselves to get rid of the heat. So why was Jaskier so cold? He pressed against Roach, who begrudgingly tolerated him. She was warm. Not warm enough to keep him from shivering. If he was so cold, why was his hair plastered against his forehead and neck, drenched with sweat? When he rubbed his face, why did his trembling and aching hands meet burning skin? He wished Geralt was here. Maybe when Geralt had been worried about him back in the cell, he had had a reason for that. Maybe once he got out, he’d know what to do.

Another day. Always another day. How many other days would he have to wait until he could finally see Geralt?

He refused to allow himself the thought that maybe he wouldn’t get to see him at all. Such thoughts were poison, especially on a day like this, when the thought of getting to meet his friend was the only thing that gave him the strength to get up in spite of how much his muscles ached and protested at every slight movement. His legs hurt with every step and he couldn’t even steady himself by holding onto things, though the reason for that must be the ugly swelling of his hand. A small amount of puss had dried on it overnight and the small puncture wounds from where the rat had bitten him almost a week ago was swollen and purplish red.

He should go see a healer. He needed to see a healer. It was the only right thing to do in a situation like this. For days he had ignored his pains. He wasn’t stupid enough to want to risk getting any worse. No, he wasn’t stupid. What he was instead was desperate.

If Geralt came to get Roach while Yarrow was gone, he would forever regret the moment he had decided to let a healer look at his hand. He could stay a little longer. It wasn’t just that he needed Geralt; he also knew in his heart that Geralt needed him too. The witcher couldn’t get out of the prison that he didn’t deserve to be in and go out into the world all alone again. Geralt needed him to be here. Just one more day. Yarrow would wait one more day. Surely, he would make it. The rat bite couldn’t have been that bad. What was a little headache and pain in his muscles? What did it matter that he couldn’t hold his pencils or brushes anymore because of the swelling and the shaking from the chill? One more day. Just one more.

He asked around. Everyone who passed him and tried to avoid eye contact so they wouldn’t feel bad for ignoring how Yarrow trembled and tried not to keep the bile from rising. He called out to each and every one of them. It wasn’t until the sun had nearly set that a guard who had just finished his shift could give him an answer. Geralt was going to be released the next day.

Relief flooded Yarrow. Tomorrow. He could make it till tomorrow. He would get to meet his friend again. He would get to see him. He just….he needed to rest for a little. Just a couple of hours. Just until the world stopped spinning around him and his legs refused to buckle beneath him. If Geralt was about to be released tomorrow, Yarrow could go to his room for a little. He would be back before Geralt could miss him.

He barely made it up the stairs of the inn. Everything hurt. His muscles were ablaze. More than once, Yarrow had to lean against a wall to catch his breath and allow his legs a break. But he had to keep going. The sooner he got to bed, the sooner he could get up again to make sure Geralt wouldn’t leave without him.

He fell against the door to his room, pushing it open with his body weight and stumbling into the room. He couldn’t catch himself. With a pained groan that was barely drowned out by the door falling shut again, he landed on the floor, too weak to catch the fall. Tears burned in his eyes as he looked up. The bed was too far away. With an inhuman effort he tried to crawl across the room. He hadn’t made it more than a few feet before he collapsed. Again on the cold hard floor. Again alone.

He had to make it. He had to get to the bed so he could get back to Geralt. He had to get back to Geralt.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to. He might have been an artist, a dreamer, but even dreamers had to wake up and face the ugliness of reality some day.

His breath came shallow and he curled in on himself as if that could stop the ache in his body. His swollen hand was cradled against his chest, but this time, there was no soft light reminding him that he wasn’t alone, no voice showing that there was at least one person who cared that he was in pain.

He thought of the picture he had drawn days ago and how he would never know which colour the eyes should have been. It wasn’t a very nice thought to be his last. He’d rather think of the voice of his friend. Of his care.

He wished he could be there for Geralt. He should have hoped he wouldn’t become another Jaskier for Geralt; another name to whisper in the dark and mourn.

But he was selfish. In his last moments, Yarrow was just happy that he had someone to think about as he lay on the floor with rattling breath and fear in his heart.

#reincarnation au #geraskier #my writing #fic #geralt #jaskier #fanfic #witcher #witcher fic #so much for keeping this fic short #angst #mcd #major character death #illness #sickness

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kinetic-elaboration · 3 years ago

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100 Days of Writing: Day Sixty-Three

I decided to catch up on The 100 Days of Writing and then I... accidentally wrote a large number of words. In my defense, this is like 2 weeks’ worth of questions. Also I skipped the ones I didn’t have anything to say about so actually this could be worse.

(I’m not even kidding, this is really long. I talk about writing rituals, tools for plotting, my thoughts on opening with dialogue and why I don’t like it, my favorite topics, the weather, and what length of fic I like to write.)

I’m tagging, and apologizing to, @the-wip-project and fellow participants @she-who-the-river-could-not-hold, @thelittlefanpire, @hopskipaway, @easilydistractedbyfanfic, @dylanobrienisbatman, and @fontainebleau22.

Day 49: How do you get yourself in the mood to write? Do you have a ritual?

Every time I tell myself I’m going to get back into doing these questions, I see this one in my bookmarks and go nope! and turn around. It’s not a hard question; I’ve just been having trouble consistently getting into the mood to write, so I feel like any answer I try to give to it will be, in some sense, a lie. Like do I ever get “in the mood” to write? Really?? Also, I feel like I’m relying too much on ‘ritual,’ building up ‘the perfect writing situation’ in my head, which at the end of the day is less important than just saying ‘I’m going to do this now’ and then doing it.

I do have some things I always do when I sit down to a writing session. I write on my couch. Almost always (unless I’m on an event deadline where I just have to write in bits and pieces whenever possible), I write in sprints—I use write or die to keep me actually typing and not staring into space. I write in order, and I often write a whole scene at a time. So before I start I need to have at least a couple solid opening sentences in mind, plus some kind of idea about what happens/needs to happen in the scene. In order to get in the right headspace, I usually spend some time just thinking before I actually get to writing. I reread my outline or notes, and skim whatever I might have already written on the project. Sometimes I look at images that help me get in the right mood. Sometimes I just imagine or daydream for a bit. The difficulty, especially recently, is in making sure I do this just enough and not too much, because then I get too caught up in my head and I can no longer translate what I’m seeing into words.

In a broader sense, I also have a building up to writing ritual—again, I think this is part of my problem, that I don’t know how to balance this build up with actual writing. In the hours/days before writing something, I turn it over in my head a lot. I practice different versions of those critical opening sentences. I play it out like a fantasy just to see if there’s a possible flow, even if the final version is different. Basically, I try to turn it into something that just needs to be written, that just needs to get out. But again—this can lead to overthinking and frustration.

The best way I can describe writing for me is that, when it goes well, I find a rhythm, or enter into a zone, where I can describe the images in my head in a way that’s both accurate and pleasant to read. But entering that zone or finding that rhythm is like jumping into a game of jump rope. If you don’t do it right, you’re just going to trip over your feet and get tangled in the rope. But if you do it correctly, it’s fun and exhilarating and you can keep jumping for a long time. Sometimes it takes me some false starts to jump in. And recently I’ve been having days where I just can’t at all, where I tangle the rope up so much I can’t unknot it. Those are the days I just have the same sentences repeating over and over in my head, sounding wrong, and I can’t do anything about it. On the other hand, I write in much longer sprints than I did a couple years ago. I used to only write partial scenes, maybe a few hundred words. Now I can write whole scenes without stopping, and on a few occasions, I’ve written multiple scenes or even whole stories without stopping. So in other words, when it works, it really works. But it doesn’t always, and there’s not a lot of in between.

Day 50 What fic/story made you?

Um… honestly I’ve been writing, in general and fic specifically, for such a long time that I didn’t have a ‘maybe I can do this’ moment. I mean one problem I’ve never had is thinking I can’t do this. I had positive reinforcement for my school and academic writing, and for a long time my fictional stories were just for me, and I knew what I liked. Even just thinking about my fic writing… I’ve been posting fic online since 2006, and I’ve been in multiple fandoms. I don’t really have much connection to a lot of those early stories anymore. They feel like they were written by someone else, a little. I’ve also moved on from most of the fandoms I wrote for in my early fic days so I don’t feel like I can really judge them anymore.

That said… there is kinda an obvious answer for my Star Trek fic lol. I also have favorite stories, and stories that stick out even years after I wrote them, in all (or at least most) of the fandoms I’ve been in. But I’m not sure if that’s the same.

Also, I had two teachers who were really encouraging of me and who I still think about often. One was my seventh grade English teacher, who had us do a lot of writing exercises of various types, both large and small, including keeping writing journals we wrote in every day at the start of class. He once told my mom that I wrote well, not for a seventh grader, but in general, and to be honest I still think of that with some regularity and take a lot of pride and comfort in it. The other was my creative writing professor in college. I don’t think I did my best work for that class, but she was very encouraging and seemed to like what I did. At the end of the semester, as I was preparing my portfolio, she told me that if I didn’t want to do much editing, I didn’t have to, because my unedited work would stand on its own. Again, especially considering all the problems that I saw with my writing for that class even then, I really took that comment to heart. When I’m feeling very self-critical, I remind myself that even my raw scribblings have, perhaps, something to them, and it helps ease the excessive and unwarranted pressure I put on myself. These aren’t really stories about specific writing pieces that ‘made’ me but I do think they speak to that ‘maybe I can do this’ feeling.

Day 51: Do you use tools for plotting and what are they?

So, generally, no. Sometimes I’ll look at various writing/plotting/organizational tools as a method of distraction, but my actual process is very simple. I use plain old notebooks and pens, and word documents on my computer, to plan all my fics, from the one-shots to the multi-chapters. I start by writing down general thoughts and brainstorming, then I build a scene list and/or outline, and then, if necessary, I separate the scenes lists into chapters. Sometimes I break down the scenes even more, if I have additional ideas I don’t wan to forget or if I know I need to hit certain points in a specific scene. The process varies a little bit from project to project, but that’s basically all I do.

I did use Evernote to plan the (still unwritten….) Ark AU. I don’t know if that was the best program choice or if something else exists that would have more precisely met my needs. But that’s what I used and that’s how it is. It’s a little annoying that every time I open it, it’s been updated, and the interface looks totally different and I have to relearn where everything is. But the tagging system has worked decently to allow me to see the big picture of this complex, multi-strand, multi-character, multi-ship disaster epic of a story. I struggled to plot it for a long time because I didn’t know how to balance all of the different parts. In Evernote, I made one ‘note’ for each character, and one for each scene (in addition to miscellaneous notes about sub plots, relationships, questions, etc.). Then I tagged each of them, including tagging the scenes by chapter. So now I can look at a list of all the characters, or all the scenes, or all of the scenes in chapter 8, or whatever, but I can also look at just one particular note at a time, and not be distracted by anything else. That said, I do also have one note that is just a total scene list for the whole fic, which is pretty reminiscent of my usual outlining process.

So… somehow this helped me plot (tentatively) the whole thing, but as I’ve written almost none of it—I finished outlining this in February 2020 so in my defense… I think you can see why it stalled—I’m not yet sure if it was a successful experiment in a ‘plotting tool.’

Day 60: How do you start your chapters? Do you start with dialogue? Why or why not?

While I am definitely against prescriptive “writing rues” generally, as my own personal rule, I try not to start with dialogue unless I have a very good reason.

To be quite honest, I think it’s lazy. I do think that dialogue openings can be used well, if the writer acknowledges that they are intensely stylistic and, from a reader’s perspective, quite difficult. Even within fanfiction, where a line of dialogue (especially if accompanied by a dialogue tag or swiftly followed by a reference to the speaker) gives a lot more information to the reader than in original fiction, opening with dialogue still shoves the reader directly into the deep end of the scene, with very little to orient her. WHERE is the speaker? WHO is being addressed in the dialogue? WHAT is the context of the conversation? Who ELSE might be present in the scene?

There are reasons you might want to throw the reader in the aforementioned deep-end. Maybe it’s an in media res situation and you want to emphasize the overwhelming nature of the action—starting a scene with “Get down!” for example. Or maybe the overall mood is one of disorientation or floating or uncertainty, and you want to create the same effect in the reader.

But I think if you’re starting a scene with dialogue because that’s the first thing that comes to mind for you—the person who conveniently already has the setting, character list, and even future plot already in mind—and it’s just simplest and easiest to start that way, you’re doing a disservice to the reader.

For example, I actually am planning to start the next chapter of the Sleeping Beauty AU with dialogue. My POV character is in a room with multiple other characters, and she’s examining something meaningful to her and not fully listening to the conversation around her. So I want the dialogue to float around in the background, to feel unmoored, and to stand in contrast to the very precise, detailed thoughts and memories that she’s experiencing, which are grounded in physical sensations like touch.

I haven’t quite gotten it to work yet, though, in part because opening with dialogue and doing it well is, in my opinion, quite hard. The difficulty lies in alleviating the challenges the reader is experiencing and making the text fluid and easy to picture. You need to get all of that scene-setting information—the who, what, when, where, and why—in very quickly, but without being jarring. In this scene in particular, I have multiple characters, all in a comparatively unusual location, and I need to establish where they are, who exactly is there, how they’ve come to meet my POV character (which happens ‘off screen’ between the end of Ch5 and the beginning of Ch6), all on top of the character’s thoughts and feelings.

I know all of this very well. To picture the scene in my own head takes only a moment. I just think about it and I see all seven of the characters, where they’re sitting, how they’re positioned, what their facial expressions are, and I also know roughly what each of them is thinking and feeling. To describe all of this in words would take several sentences. Do I put all those sentences on the front end? Do I weave them in among other description and dialogue? Is all of it even necessary—maybe we don’t need to know who’s sitting in what order on the couch, for example.

I’ve gone over a couple of different ways to do this in my head, and I’m sure it is possible, but I’m struggling to get it all down in a coherent way. (Admittedly, I’ve only made one solid attempt. As I was describing above, I’m probably going to jump in with several false starts, and then it will suddenly click.)

My initial attempt to set up the scene relied heavily on dialogue, but when I read it over, what sounded snappy and interesting in my head just fell completely flat—because it lacked context and thus, any meaning. I think the gulf between how dialogue openings feel to the writer and how they feel to the reader is large. To the writer, they feel easy and natural. To the reader, they can feel forced and, contrary to the writer’s intention, serve as an additional reminder that this is a constructed narrative rather than an immersive experience—the opposite of natural. In other words, as I said, they’re a highly stylized form of writing.

To illustrate, this was my first try at the Chapter 6 intro:

"I still can't believe it," a lightly awed voice says from somewhere behind Clarke. "The Princess of Alpha Station really used to live in our quarters.”

She pictures Miller, sunk into the couch cushions, slowly shaking his head, the expression on his face equal parts satisfied and amused.

"Really? That's what you think is the oddest part of all this?"

"Yeah, Bry, I do. Would you prefer I gloat? About being right this whole time? Who says she's just a legend now?"

My current idea is to still start with dialogue, but to move back into a significant amount of description pretty immediately afterward, and only then add more dialogue. Even this is a little hazy, since I haven’t thought much about this fic in a while. But I do think it’s quite clear this won’t work.

As for how I DO start chapters/scenes/stories… I like to start with a strong image that sets the scene and mood of the story, and hopefully leaves the reader wanting to know more. Here are some examples of story openings I’ve written recently, which I like a lot:

When Bellamy is angered, deafening bouts of thunder shake the heavens.

The cawing of the crows—high, sharp, angry shots of sound. The buzzing of the telephone wires.

Marcus Kane's body shows up again in June, skeletal and rotting, six months after his disappearance at the turn of the year.

The sky has turned a bruised yellow, like the inside of a plum, by the time Bellamy starts seeing the robots in the fields.

At noon on the third-to-last day before Christmas, Murphy leaves the cafe, with a single peppermint mocha and a small paper bag, and heads right, walking parallel to the ocean.

The last one doesn’t seem as interesting but consider: you get the who, what, when, and where, the mystery of the paper bag and where he might be going, and also the immediate understanding that this is probably going to be a Fluffy Beach Christmas story—which is correct, that’s exactly what it is.

I’m not saying that I’m always creative or unique. I often start stories off with descriptions of the weather. And I have committed the ~~cardinal sin~~ of starting with a character waking up, heaven forbid. I don’t have any hard and fast rules for myself other than that I try to avoid dialogue, or at least, be careful about its use (another example: I use dialogue to start off Mad Women—but it reads like narration, until it’s rudely interrupted, a sort of in-joke/reference/twist). I try to match the mood of the story and, as I said, include something that will create a question for the reader, some version of why, that the rest of the story will answer.

Day 61: Do you describe the weather? Try changing a scene you wrote by adding weather effects.

After writing a book for the last question, here’s an easy one! Yes, I describe the weather. A lot. Often. In detail.

(Though if we’re talking about the Sleeping Beauty AU as my “current wip,” I actually don’t do much weather describing there, because 4 of the 6 chapters take place in a location with no weather.)

Day 62: What is your favorite thing to write about?

Honestly I like to write about people being dramatic about their emotions. That’s what I’ve discovered while writing my surprisingly self-indulgent Troped fic: I want to describe people acting as if Everything was the Most Ever. It’s fun. Part of this is getting into the usual romantic tropes—longing, pining, exaggerated touches and glances and the like—but why stop at romance when you also have stuff like The Weather and Random Feelings to contemplate?

I also like setting scenes that I find soothing, which is part of why I like Seasonal Stories.

Day 63: Are you more of a drabble/flash or a longfic/novel kind of writer?

I’m in the middle. I mostly write one-shots, and I’ve noticed that a lot of them fall in the 4-6k range. Long one-shots can get all the way to 10-12k but I feel like most of those are, semi-objectively speaking, too long, and would probably have been stronger if they were pruned down to 6k, or, better yet, never made it past 6k in the first place.

I have written some multi-chapters, or, uh, started multi-chapters, but I’m VERY bad at it. The only thing that makes me slightly less bad is being stubborn. Hence the existence of a WIP that I’ve had going for over 10 years now and refuse to call abandoned. Hence this year’s extended angst about the Sleeping Beauty AU, which is only 6 chapters but has taken me literally years to write. I don’t honestly know if I’ve ever finished a multi-chapter WIP, like, properly speaking. I’ve done some short multi-chapters that I wrote as if they were one-shots and then split up for ease of reading or, I dunno, just because. I wrote a Big Bang once, but it’s not very good. Nor very long, if I remember correctly. Generally speaking I probably shouldn’t be allowed to write novels lol—I have a lot of them in my ‘I should write this one day’ idea list—but as it so happens, no one can stop me, so here we are. I definitely have wild fantasies of writing multi-chapters with ease but I’m just a very slow writer and my ideas can’t keep up with my actual-writing. Thus one shots are much easier than multi-chaps, and one-shots on a deadline are much easier than ‘I’ll finish this whenever’ one-shots. One-shots written for events or exchanges also tend to be shorter (and, imo, better) because of the deadlines they’re written on, and are thus more likely to hit that sweet 4-6k spot than stories where I’m allowed to ramble at will.

All that said, I ALSO write a good number of drabbles/writing exercises. I used to write them more often than I do now, but still over the last five years I’ve produced 110,000+ words in free-standing scenes so like… that’s also a thing I guess.

#100 days of writing #my 100 days of writing #100daysofwriting

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naruwitch · 5 years ago

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Code Geass: Paladins of Voltron Chapter 18: Collection and Extraction

Rai's fingers flew across the keyboard in a blur. His eyes were focused solely on the computer's screen. He barely even noticed that everyone else had crowded behind him to look as well. It had been three days (quintants according to the Alteans) since the massive fiasco with King Alfor's A.I. and Princess Allura had finally recovered from the Rejuvenation Ceremony on the Balmera. Now Rai was tapping into the memory data that they had managed to extract from Sendak before Lelouch had sent him off into space.

"Somewhere inside Sendak's memories, we should be able to find the inside information that gives us the key to take down Zarkon," Allura said confidently.

"I don't think your father would approve of searching through an enemy's memories," Coran said with a slight frown.

"Yeah, I hate to admit it," Suzaku added, "but I'm not super comfortable with this either."

"I understand," Allura said before standing up straighter, "but we have to do everything we can to defeat Zarkon."

"Once we learn all his weaknesses, we can drive up to his front door and challenge him to a fight. Winner gets the universe," Rivalz grinned, already daydreaming of the battle to come.

"Anything good yet, Rai?" Lelouch asked.

Rai only sighed in frustration, "We were only able to salvage bits and pieces."

"Okay, but we need something to work with," Shirley said, sharing similar feelings of frustration, "right now, we don't even have a decent map of the Empire."

"Do we even need a map?" Kallen asked with a frown, "After ten thousand years of conquering, I could probably fire Aka's laser at like any random point in space and hit a Galra ship somewhere."

"Well, if we could just find troop locations or supply routes, small targets we could hit-and-run, then we could start to free planets one by one," Milly suggested.

"Hey Lelouch," Rivalz said, looking at the Black Paladin, "you have experience kicking Britannia's butt as Zero. Why can't you just do the exact same thing here? Just 'Zero up' and challenge Zarkon to a fight."

"It's not that simple, Rivalz," Lelouch said with a frown, folding his arms. "The only reason I've had so much success on Earth is because I already know the enemy so well. Most of my opponents are my own half-siblings, people I've grown up with and know on a personal level. Because of that, it's much easier to predict their movements and actions. On the other hand, we, including me, know little to nothing about Zarkon. He's been building this universal-sized empire for ten thousand years. That's longer than humanity has even been alive. We're not going to tear it down overnight with seven inexperienced-" Kallen cleared her throat loudly, and Suzaku crossed his arms with a slight frown as well, "-mostly inexperienced pilots and one support ship. The last thing we want to do right now is hit him where he lives, it'd be a huge mistake."

"Why not use your Geass on him and force him to stop?" Shirley suggested.

"I could try that," Lelouch agreed, "but there are some problems there too. I need to make direct eye-contact for Geass to have any effect, so doing that alone will be difficult enough. Also, there are too many unknowns about this situation. When I tried to use it on Sendak, he was able to counter it. Not to mention that something he said worries me."

"And that would be…?" Suzaku asked.

"When Kallen and I confronted Sendak, and I attempted Geass on him. After he countered it, he mentioned people called the Druids, saying I 'paid a visit' to them."

"Hey, now that I think about it," Rai said, turning his head back to them, "he said the same thing to me when I fought him."

"Do you know anything about this, C.C.?" Lelouch looked up at the green-haired woman.

Surprisingly, she shook her head, "This is the first time I've heard of them as well."

"So instead of getting answers, all we have are more questions," Rivalz sighed. This was starting to get frustrating for all of them.

"Okay, anyway, I've cross-referenced Sendak's memories with the info I got from the downed ship back on Arus," Rai announced, turning back to the screen, Altean and Galran symbols started to appear in front of him, "Most of it was a garbled mess, but one thing kept repeating, something called a 'Universal Station.'"

"Universal Station? Like, the kind of station that controls the entire universe?" Shirley asked, leaning over.

"Well, we are translating it from Galra, so it could also be 'Galactic Hub,'" Rai countered.

"Or 'Space Base,'" Suzaku suggested. Everyone turned to look at him questioningly, "What?" he asked, looking confused.

"I'm pulling up the location of your Universal Hub Station Base on our screens now," Coran said as he walked over towards the primary monitor. As he pulled up the coordinates, two giant planets and a small moon appeared on the screen, but as far as they could tell, there was no sign of a Galra base anywhere.

"So... where is it?" Rivalz asked, looking confused.

"I don't know," Coran said, looking bemused. He rechecked the screens in case he put the wrong coordinates. They were correct, though. "Our long-range sensors are unable to find anything at those coordinates."

"Maybe he remembered it wrong?" Kallen suggested.

"Or maybe we just stumbled across a top-secret base in Sendak's memories," Rai said as he clasped his hands together seriously.

"Well, there's only one way to find out," C.C. said.

"I agree, let's go take a look," Allura said with a determined frown.

o~o

They decided not to wormhole to the coordinates as the team had no real idea of what would be waiting for them on the other side. If they were lucky, there would be no enemy ships ready to shoot them down upon exiting a wormhole. But, they learned early on that the team was rarely that lucky, so they choose to manually fly there instead. It took several hours for the Castle to finally get within range of the coordinates that they picked up from Sendak's memories. Rivalz, Milly, and Shirley had ended up falling asleep halfway through.

"We should be close enough to get a good scan," Allura announced, shaking the trio from their slumber, "but far enough away to avoid being noticed."

The Castleship slowly crept around the first planet that oddly looked like a smaller version of their Solar System's Jupiter. As they did so, their target slowly came into focus. Located in the middle of the two planets and the moon, was a small base that seemed to be carved out of a meteorite. A couple of Galra cruisers were already lodging there, and another was slowly coming into port.

"There it is," Rai said gravely. It was a lot smaller than they thought it would be. However, considering how hard it was to locate, they couldn't dismiss the station due to size alone. There had to be something the Galra wanted to hide to have so much security around it.

"It appears the gravitation between the two planets warps the electron emission spectrum enough to keep the planet off the deep space scanners," Coran explained as wave patterns and other information appeared on the screen before them.

"So you can only see it if you really know where to look," C.C. observed. She chuckled slightly, "Clever."

"Huh, it's almost like a space version of the Bermuda Triangle," Kallen compared.

"From the looks of it, this place must handle shipments from all over the Galra Empire," Suzaku added.

"Wait, I'm confused," Shirley said, "if this place is basically just a glorified airport, why did they need to hide it?"

"There's probably more to this than what we're seeing," Milly offered.

"I agree," Lelouch nodded, "there's no reason that the Galra would go through all the trouble to hide this place if it was simply another outpost or port. Something else is happening here."

"Then, we'd better go down to take a look," Allura said as she tapped on the hologram screen. She pulled up the base closer to her. A small area around the middle of the base lit up and expanded, "We'll need to enter here: the central control building."

Suzaku blinked, before looking at Allura incredulously, "I'm sorry, Princess, did you say 'we'?"

"I'm going with you," Allura said with a determined frown, "I've traveled through the Galra transportation hubs many times with my father before the war began. I know more about them than any of you."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Suzaku asked nervously.

"I agree with Number Two, Princess, I'd rather you stay here," Coran said.

"I'm a part of this fight against Zarkon as much as anyone. I'm going. Does anyone have a problem with that?" Allura glanced around as if daring one of them to protest. Most of the Paladins looked away, not wanting to catch Allura's eye.

"I'm going as well," C.C. said, "both Lelouch and Shirley are contracted with me, and I'd rather be there to make sure they survive than watch them die."

Shirley turned a small tinge of green. Despite it being quite generous of C.C. to accompany them, she still wasn't used to some of her antics, most of which were quite morbid.

"...Fine. Suit Up," Lelouch relented with a sigh.

"What?! Lelouch, you can't be serious!" Suzaku exclaimed as everyone else in the looked up at the Black Paladin in shock.

"I understand the concern Suzaku," Lelouch said calmly, "but the Princess brings up a good point. With her experience at these ports, we can find what we're looking for faster. Besides, she's not going to be alone, we'll all be there as well."

Suzaku still looked uncomfortable, and Coran looked downright horrified, but the plan was in place. And now it was time to implement it.

o~o

"We'll go in low, fast, and hopefully undetected. Coming around the dark side of the nearest planet should keep them from getting a visual on us. Thanks to Rai's modifications to Zerith, we'll have thirty seconds of cloaking," Lelouch had explained before they departed.

Zerith zoomed around the side of the planet, cloaking activating like a blanket being thrown over her. In a wide arc, she carefully landed near the rocky top of the base.

"I can flood their short-range sensors with a radiation burst," Coran offered. "That should buy you a minute or so, while they assume it's cosmic interference. But, after that, it's up to you to be out of sight."

Looking down from the rocky outcropping, the base looked much bigger up close. Their destination, the central control building, as Allura called it, was right in the middle of it.

o~o

"Interference clear in three, two, one," an automated male voice ran through the control center. A single Galra soldier stood guard on top of the central platform, and down below were two sentries handling the other controls.

The Galra was bored. Nothing exciting ever happened at this base. Why was he the one stuck here handling cargo deliveries? He yawned as if to prove his point.

He then heard the entrance behind him open. He blinked and looked back, only to find that there was no one there.

"Huh?" was the only thing that came out of his mouth before something suddenly hit him in an uppercut. He went flying backward over the railing and landed unconscious down below. The two sentries immediately raised their guns, only to look around in confusion to find no assailants. They never got the chance to sound the alarm either as two blaster flashes later, they were lying crumpled on the floor as well.

Shirley sighed in slight exhaustion as her Geass turned off. Before the group had entered the control station, Shirley had used her Geass to make them all invisible, at least to the enemy's eyes. It was the most amount of people she'd had to use it on so far, and she didn't expect it to be so draining.

"Great job, Shirley!" Rai praised with a smile, "Just sit and rest for now, okay?"

Shirley smiled gratefully at the Green Paladin before doing just that, practically falling on the bottom step of the stairs and leaned against the wall.

"It seems your limit of how many you can turn invisible is higher than nine so far," C.C. observed, as that was the number of people there, including Shirley herself. "You could easily smuggle an entire strike team into any situation without detection."

"And it's a skill we will likely be using in the future," Lelouch finished, giving Shirley a nod and a smile. The Orange Paladin blushed at Lelouch's praise. It felt good to be noticed by her crush.

The group wasted no time tying the Galran up and hiding him in the upper corner, as well as move the two sentries out of the way. Rai was in the process of connecting his laptop to Rover, who was in the process of scanning the Galran station's network. Kallen and Suzaku glanced out the large windows to the center to make sure that no one spotted or noticed the assault.

"How's it look out there?" Lelouch asked.

"All clear. For now anyway," Suzaku confirmed as Kallen nodded.

"This shouldn't take too long," Rivalz said, as he helped connect the last wire to the little drone.

Rai's computer blinked to life as he started to type furiously on it, "We'll have all the information we need in a few minutes." In front of him, the screen beeped as numerous algorithms and data began swarming onto the screen. Despite the chaos, though, Rai's face didn't change. He seemed to know what he was looking for as a pixelated face of himself appeared on the screen and seemed to start laughing as data was transferred. "I made some improvements since the last time I tried to download Galra info. We should get a nice, clean translation immediately. Milly actually gave me the idea on how to do it."

"Well actually, it was more or less Nina's idea," the Yellow Paladin confessed, "but do you guys remember when we studied algorithms back at Ashford? And then Nina told us that joke about the ghost learning symbolic logic and innumerably infinite sets or something like that?"

"Your point?" Kallen asked before Milly could get too carried away.

"Yeah, right, anyway, she said-"

"Hey, guys, sorry to interrupt," Suzaku said before Milly could finish, "but I think we got company." A giant shadow of another Galra ship passed overhead, likely here for a delivery or pickup. It slowly lowered itself until it landed in the middle of the port.

"We should get out of here!" Kallen exclaimed as she and the other Paladins, plus Allura, Rover, and C.C. crowded around Rai and his laptop.

"Just need a few more seconds," Rai said, his typing seeming to speed up.

"Stay low. We need this intel," Lelouch ordered quietly.

The control board in front of them suddenly blinked to life as the group gasped.

"Get down!" Suzaku hissed as everyone scrambled out of the way as a screen appeared before them. Another Galra, likely the commander of that ship, was staring back through the screen. He grunted in surprise and confusion when no sentries or fellow Galra greeted him.

"What do we do?" Shirley whispered urgently. The Galra hadn't turned the transmission off. If he got too suspicious that something had happened, he could sound an alarm, and that was the last thing they needed right now.

"I think he's waiting for a signal or something," Rivalz guessed.

"Leave it to me," C.C. hissed as she stealthy dragged herself and one of the downed sentries towards the control panel. With barely a grunt, she hefted the robot to its feet and moved its elbow around as if it were pressing buttons. Due to how close the sentry was to the screen, the commander didn't see C.C.'s hand controlling it. She then somehow got to not only wave at the Galra, but also give a thumbs up. How she did that they had no idea. The Galra on the other end still looked a little confused but waved back slightly in acknowledgment before closing the transmission. The immortal sighed in relief that that had worked. She'd had to do a lot of unorthodox things on this adventure so far. Well, unorthodox, even for her anyway.

"Thanks, C.C.," Lelouch said graciously.

"Don't mention it," she shrugged. So long as everyone was still alive, she didn't really care what happened. Though, not getting captured would be a bonus as well.

"Okay, download complete," Rai announced as Rover disconnected from the control board, having gotten what they needed.

"Okay, what's it say?" Kallen asked a little impatiently.

"Nothing!" Rai exclaimed in frustration and continued to type. "This place doesn't have any useful information. Just a schedule of the ships coming in and out."

"So we basically just wasted our time," Kallen deduced with a scowl, voicing everyone's current thoughts.

"Welp, can't win them all," Milly said, "a few busts were bound to happen."

"Let's return to the Castle before we're spotted," Lelouch decided as they all got up to leave. Rivalz helped Shirley to her feet as she still was recovering from her Geass usage.

To their surprise, though, Allura spoke up, saying something for the first time since they had gotten in, "Hold on. Rai, do you know where that ship is headed?" the Princess gestured the one that literally just docked.

Though confused by the sudden request, the Green Paladin answered, "Um, it's scheduled to be here for about a half an hour, then head off to Central Command."

Allura stood up straight, "That's where they have the information we need, and I'm going to sneak aboard that ship and get it for us."

"What?!" Suzaku gasped as he and the others stood up, "No, absolutely not!"

"How are you even going to get in?" Shirley asked curiously.

"I'm going to walk right through the front," Allura smiled confidently as she takes off her helmet.

Then right before their eyes, the Princess started to change. Her dark skin became a purple color, and she grew in height by about another foot or so. Everyone stared, mouths open at what just happened.

"H-how did you do that?!" Shirley gasped, voicing everyone's question.

"The Alteans are a chameleon-like people who can blend in with the local populations," Allura explained with a proud smile. "It's the ability that's made us great explorers and diplomats throughout our history."

"So, can you turn into, like, a balloon?" Milly asked, leaning in closer.

"How many different colors can you be at once?" Rai asked next, turning his attention away from his laptop for a moment.

"Aren't you afraid you'll rip your pants?" Rivalz asked, all three leaning in, waiting for their answers.

Allura blinked a couple of times, not expecting such questions, but fortunately had answers for all of them, addressing one by one. "No, just one at a time, and I will need a change of costume. I can use his uniform as a disguise." Allura said, turning to the still unconscious Galra officer.

"You're not going in there alone," Lelouch said authoritatively.

"Excuse me? I do not need your permission," Allura fired back.

"It's too dangerous. I'm going in with you," the Black Paladin decided.

"You will stick out like a Choferiak's nose," Allura countered.

"You're going to need that nose, Princess," Rai interrupted before they could argue further. "We're still not sure how, but somehow Lelouch's Geass can interact with Galra tech," Rai then reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a flash drive. "He can interface with their systems and use this drive to gather intel. I can monitor the download remotely from here."

"If Lelouch is going, then so am I," C.C. said and continued before Allura could protest. "Lelouch is one of my contractors and will be in a dangerous situation. At least Shirley will be safe here with the others."

"...Fine, you can come," Allura finally relented.

"Uh, you guys better hurry up if you want to get on and off before the ship leaves for Zarkon central," Shirley said, looking out the command center's window.

"Hold on!" Suzaku exclaimed, "How exactly are you going to get Lelouch and C.C. aboard?"

Allura, C.C., and Lelouch looked at each. That may be a problem. They needed to come up with something fast.

o~o

Lelouch honestly felt somewhat ridiculous and also embarrassed. Mainly because of how close C.C.'s… assets were to his face. A little too close for comfort. He had a feeling C.C. wasn't too happy about this arrangement either, but this was the most comfortable way that they could fit into the small cart that Allura, now disguised in the Galra's uniform, was currently carting towards the ship. Despite this, though, it seemed this plan was working as the only stop they made was, Lelouch assumed as he couldn't look up, in front of the ship.

"Move along," the muffled voice of a sentry gave before they started moving again.

Allura blew out a breath of relief as she and her cargo walked right past the guards and into the ship. The hard part (they hoped) was done.

o~o

"They're in," Suzaku announced, breathing out in relief himself as he Kallen, Milly, Rivalz, and Shirley watched the disguised trio enter. Despite that success, though, Suzaku couldn't let go of the tingling feeling on the back of his neck that this was still going to go horribly wrong.

"Hey," Kallen said, catching everyone's attention, "what do you think is in those giant containers?"

Before Allura was allowed to enter the ship, two sentries came marching down the ramp, carrying two large capsules. They couldn't tell what they were from their position, but they looked yellow and were glowing.

"Maybe… Fuel?" Shirley guessed. It seemed like the most logical answer.

"Makes sense," Milly agreed, "A base like this likely has tons of spare fuel and supplies when ships need to make an emergency landing of some sort."

"Maybe this guy will tell us," Rai said as he and Rover sat, or hovered in front of one of the sentries they disarmed and knocked out earlier, "What is coming in and out of this station?"

The sentry's front light suddenly started flashing yellow, like a warning light. "Interrogation detected. Initiating lockdown," the automated voice announced as the robot then slumped forward.

Rover bleeped, sounding like he was both frustrated but also slightly mocking his fellow robot.

"I couldn't agree more Rover," Rai smirked before turning his attention back to the sentry, and typing on his computer again. "So you're not talking, huh? We'll see about that."

"Whoa, check out that guy!" Kallen suddenly said as the others, except Rai, looked back out the window. In front of both of the canisters now was a creepy-looking robed figure.

Rivalz blinked before a thoughtful frown crossed his face, "Hey, uh, this is going to sound pretty random, but… what exactly is a druid?"

"Well, if you're looking for the Earth definition, they're supposed to be priests, magicians, or even soothsayers in some ancient religions. I don't think we really use that term on Earth anymore, though," Suzaku said.

"Wait… so the Galra have a religion?" Rivalz asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Technically, any cultural way of thinking could be considered part of a religion," Milly pointed out.

"Does conquering the entire universe count?" Kallen asked sarcastically. That quickly shut that conversation right up.

Curious about the person they were making a fuss over, Rai briefly glanced out the window. When he saw the figure, he gasped. Soft yet malicious laughter rang in his ears, and several figures, all with white bird-like masks, were leaning over him. He was strapped to a table and couldn't move-

"Rai! Rai, snap out of it!" a voice brought him back to reality. He blinked as Milly's concerned blue eyes swirled into view.

"Are you okay, dude?" Rivalz asked, hovering behind the class president.

"Yeah… that guy down there, he's definitely familiar," Rai confirmed shakily.

"So… this guy is a druid then?" Shirley asked, looking out the window again.

"I don't know, but whatever's happening here that requires the base to be kept a secret must have something to do with him," Kallen said, "I'm going to go check it out."

"I'm coming with you," Suzaku said, walking up behind her as she turned to leave.

The Red Paladin looked back with a scowl, "Suzaku, I'm not the sickly, frail girl you know from school. I can handle myself."

"I don't doubt that," Suzaku said, but continued on, "but if this is one of those druid people, we don't know what he's capable of. It's best to have a back-up just in case."

Kallen continued to scowl before finally letting out a forceful sigh, "Fine. Just don't get in my way."

As the two walked out of the door, Shirley looked nervously at the remaining Paladins, "They can handle themselves, right?"

"They'll be fine, don't worry," Milly said with a reassuring grin.

o~o

Meanwhile, onboard the Galra cruiser, Lelouch, C.C., and Allura glanced out from one of the hallways just as a pair of sentries walked past. From where they were, they could see the corridors crawling with robots. It was going to be challenging to get past them all.

As another sentry walked past, Allura then heard a tapping sound. Looking to the source, she saw that Lelouch's hand was pressed up against one of the walls, and his finger was tapping in a slow rhythm.

"What are you doing, Lelouch?" Allura whispered.

"I'm timing the sentries," Lelouch answered back in a low voice.

"So, you noticed as well?" C.C. asked with a small grin.

"Noticed what?" Allura asked, not quite following.

"The way the sentries walk," Lelouch explained. "Every time we've been on a Galra ship or base, I noticed that the sentries walk in a distinct pattern. Since then, I've been timing them. We should be able to sneak past them easily if it works."

"Will it?" Allura asked.

"Well, one way to find out," C.C. said as the trio turned around and scrambled down the hall just as another patrol came around the corner. They hid behind one of the outcroppings until they passed. Lelouch then led them around another corner, right before another patrol from the other side came up. The plan seemed to work as each time they heard a sentry patrol, Lelouch tapped the rhythm of their walk. Once they were gone, they would dash around another corner. No one, Galra or sentry, saw them.

o~o

Kallen's eyes narrowed as she watched the druid person lead the two sentries with the capsules down a small metal chasm. It looked like they were heading deeper inside the base. Now that Kallen got a better look at it from her and Suzaku's perch, it looked similar to a warehouse.

It didn't take long for the warehouse doors to open, and the Druid lead the sentries inside with their cargo.

As Kallen and Suzaku sprinted to keep up with them, the Purple Paladin was still shocked at how well Kallen matched his speed.

As the doors began to close, the duo leaped down after them with their jetpacks, making it in just as the doors closed behind them.

o~o

Rivalz had taken two of the wires that Rai had attached to the sentry's head and began pushing the two open ends together. This resulted in the sentry's arm wobbly being raised up and landing clumsily on its head.

He laughed as he continued to press the wires together, "Why are you hitting yourself? Stop hitting yourself! Quit hitting yourself!"

"Stop torturing it, Rivalz," Rai scolded, but he couldn't help but chuckle along with Shirley.

"I'm sorry. I just…" Rivalz said before putting the wires down, "I've had a lot on my mind lately. Like, I guess I still haven't gotten over the fact that not only is Lelouch a member of the Royal Family, but he's Zero too? I mean, who would've guessed that, right?"

"He's a valiant superhero sporting, not one, but two secret identities!" Milly dramatically proclaimed. This caused everyone to laugh again.

"Okay, I think I can teach this hunk of junk to help us," Rai said as he looked up at the robot, "Would you like to help us, Mr. Robot?"

The sentry's head mechanically swiveled in Rai's direction before it started rapidly shaking its head, making a rattling sound.

"Whoops…" he muttered, turning back to the laptop. Rover let out a few beeps, sounding like laughter.

Despite the silliness happening around her, Shirley suddenly frowned sadly.

"You okay, Shirley?" Milly asked.

"Yeah, I just… I keep thinking about what Lelouch told us. About what happened to his mom and Nunnally. And their dad just threw them away like they were trash! What kind of a father does that to his own kids, Emperor or not?!"

"Yeah. I regret to admit this, but up until Lelouch told us about what he's really like, I actually kind of admired the Emperor," Rivalz admitted with a disgusted frown.

"If I ever see that son-of-a-bitch face to face, the first thing he'll get from me is a slice to the neck," Rai growled.

No one protested the action, all of them thinking about similar things. To believe that the most powerful man in their nation was capable of such cruelty towards his own family!

Speaking of family... "...You know, we've been away from Earth for a while now," Milly said. "Has anyone been keeping track of how long we've been gone?" Everyone shook their heads, they hadn't. Milly sighed, "Fair enough. I'm guessing it's at least been long enough for people to notice that we're missing. I wouldn't be surprised if our school pictures are all over the news."

"Wait, if that happens-" Rivalz started before Milly interrupted.

"Yeah, even with the little my grandpa can do to stop it, Lelouch and Nunnally's cover has probably been blown sky-high by now," Milly admitted. "Once someone from the Royal Family sees Lelouch's photo, I doubt it'll take long for them to connect the dots. Both Britannians and Japanese."

"Would the Japanese recognize Lelouch and Nunna?" Shirley asked.

"I'd be surprised if they didn't," Milly continued. "Their 'deaths' are the whole reason that Britannia suppresses Japan so severely, they think the people there killed two members of the Royal Family. If a Japanese faction got a hold of Nunnally, I wouldn't be surprised if they try to use her as a bargaining chip. Heck, Britannia itself could do it too, just like they did the first time."

There was a heavy silence for about five seconds as they all absorbed this information. Shirley, with clenched fists and a determined look on her face, then stood up. "Well then, once we're done here, I say the first thing we do is swing back to Earth and get Nunnally ourselves, quiznack to the Galra tracking us! She doesn't deserve to live a life like that! She deserves to be with Lelouch, and no one else!"

A chorus of agreement echoed Shirley's statement. Rai then thought of something else, "Hey, speaking of deserves better, we may be able to do more than just reunite them! The cryo-pods! Maybe they can heal her blindness and legs! Lelouch said her blindness was from trauma, so that means her vision should still be fixable since there's no physical damage. And if those don't work, I'm sure there's some alien species out there that have the ability or technology to help!"

"It would be wonderful for Nunnally to walk again. For her to have a normal life! Then Lelouch won't have to worry about her twenty-four-seven!" Shirley nodded immediately after.

"Haha! I'm sure he'd worry about her regardless. Still, either way, I'm sticking by Lelouch," Rivalz declared, "even if it means standing against Britannia."

Milly then pulled out her Bayard, it flashing into its kusarigama form, "For Lelouch and Nunnally!" she exclaimed, holding her weapon in front of her.

The other three quickly caught on to what she was doing and stood up with their own Bayards activated. The weapons joined Milly's as the wielder's held them up in the center of their circle.

"For Lelouch and Nunnally!"

o~o

The remains of sentries filled the hallway as the two Paladins stalked cautiously into this next room. They crouched down low to prevent the druid person from noticing them. In the room up ahead, the walls were stacked with layers of more canisters, all filled with the same liquid, yellow substance.

"What the heck?" Kallen whispered, "How many of these things do they need?"

Suzaku frowned. Something about this room sent shivers down his spine. He couldn't tell what was going on, but whatever it was, it couldn't be good.

Then one of the capsules was brought towards the center of the room, where several outcroppings met in the middle. At the center was a giant ball of energy, trapped within a glass ball. The capsule slid into place over the top of the ball, and the yellow substance slowly started leaking out the bottom and hitting the ball. But unlike spreading out like water normally would do, it was more like one of those penny donation boxes, as the substance started swirling around and around inside of the glass. Once it hit the bottom of the orb, it began to build up, slowly filling it.

Then the Druid, standing on one of the platforms, started to move. He lifted his dark grey hands up in front of him, and then in the blink of an eye, volts of violet energy shot out from his palms and hit the orb, causing the liquid inside to turn a bright purple. The pair watched it get absorbed into the energy ball in the center of the glass as the lightning ringed about it. Finally, slowly from the bottom of the orb, heavy-looking purple liquid dripped from what almost looked like a claw. It emptied into a much smaller container waiting at the bottom and started filling up slowly.

Both Suzaku and Kallen could only watch wide-eyed at what they just witnessed.

o~o

Allura, C.C., and Lelouch finally managed to evade the sentries long enough to find what they believed to be a control panel. The only person there was a single flesh and blood Galra. And he wasn't wearing a helmet either, as it was placed to the side of him.

Lelouch smirked and just walked right in, removing his own helmet. This was too perfect! When he was right behind the Galra, he cleared his throat.

The Galra promptly turned around to see Lelouch. Before he could shout for help though, Lelouch's Geass flared to life.

"Stand guard outside this room and don't let anyone in until we're finished here," he ordered as the Geass flew into the Galra's eyes.

As the telltale red ring encircled them, the Galra relaxed and saluted to Lelouch. "Vrepit sa, sir," he replied before replacing his helmet, picking up his gun, and moving to the room entrance to stand guard, just as Lelouch ordered.

Allura watched slightly uncomfortable as the Galra seemed to mindlessly do as Lelouch commanded. She understood that was how Lelouch's power worked, but to see it in action was still unsettling.

"That should delay any more patrols that come by," C.C. said, "but we should still hurry."

"Right," Lelouch nodded as he approached the main control panel. He quickly inserted the flash drive the Rai had given him into the board, then he activated his Geass once more, but this time for a different purpose. The familiar flicker of electricity traveled down the Black Paladin's hand and into his fingers as the control panel flashed to life.

"Rai, I'm in," he said through his helmet, "start the download."

"Generating access code," Rai confirmed from back at the central command deck. His familiar pixelated face appeared on the scene in blue, and soon, several bars appeared before Lelouch. "We're in."

Before Rai could get too far into the download, though, a Galra insignia appeared on the scene and started buzzing.

"Rai, there's a problem!" Lelouch warned, a small bead of sweat trickling down his face.

o~o

"Sit tight. I'm trying to work around this," the Green Paladin reassured as he typed madly on his computer, Galra text spiraling through it.

"Rai!" Lelouch urged impatiently.

"I'm on it! I'm on it!" he replied back desperately, biting his lip in the process.

o~o

"What's going on here?" another Galra asked, walking up to the Geassed Galra. He tried to step inside, but the guard blocked him.

"No one is to enter this room until the business inside is resolved," he said monotonously.

"What? What's going on in there?" the soldier asked.

"I'm under orders not to let anyone in until the business inside is done," he repeated in the same tone. He then pointed his gun at the Galra. "If you continue to persist, I will be forced to take extreme action."

The Galra backed off, looking somewhat alarmed before he finally relented, "Fine!" he then stalked off.

Allura out a breath of relief when the soldier left. She was worried that she may have had to step in for a moment. However, it seemed Lelouch's plan was working, for now.

"Rai, hurry up," Lelouch hissed, "we nearly had our cover blown!"

"Almost done," Rai answered through gritted teeth.

o~o

Kallen's visor morphed into a built-in video camera as she began to look around the room, or facility would be a better term for it.

"Coran, you need to see this."

o~o

Kallen's video feed connected to the main bridge of the Castle. Coran gasped.

"I've never seen anything like it," he breathed.

o~o

"What is that?" Milly asked as the video was also shown to the other four Paladins still in the command center.

Suddenly, from behind the quartet, the Galra sentry finally blinked to life and answered them.

"The material is quintessence, the substance with the highest known energy per unit volume in the universe."

"Hey, what do you know, he does work for us," Rivalz grinned at Rai. Though the Green Paladin wasn't listening to his comrade. Quintessence? Why did that sound familiar?

"What?" Coran asked from the Castle, "Impossible!"

"Raw quintessence material is transported here from throughout the galaxy and refined into standardized Galra fuel requirements." the sentry continued.

o~o

"Hey, did you all catch that?" Shirley asked through the commlink.

"I can't believe it! They've found a new way to acquire quintessence!" Coran exclaimed.

o~o

"Okay, guys, we're going to steal some of this quint-whatever," Kallen said.

"What? We are?" Suzaku asked, looking at Kallen like she was nuts.

"We need to know more about this stuff," Kallen replied back with a hiss, "and what better way than to get it right from the source?"

Suzaku looked like he wanted to protest. This was way too risky, they could get caught! But, seeing that Kallen also did have a point, he relented.

o~o

"Hey, look," the same Galra from earlier approached the Geassed Galra again, "I really need to get in there. Can you just step aside?"

"I'm under orders not to-"

"I get that you have orders, this will only take a tick!"

Before the Galra could shove through, the Geassed one, pointed his gun at the officer and fired.

The Galra froze in shock before his hand instinctively reached for his belt, his finger pressing down on the button just as before he collapsed.

Alarms started blaring from all over the ship. The button the Galran had pressed had set them all off!

"Security alert! Security alert!" an automated female voice rang through the halls.

Lelouch ripped his hand away from the control panel and tore the flash drive from the port. He turned, and with a small pistol, he had brought with him, shot the Geassed Galra in the skull. He collapsed to the ground in a heap by his comrade. Allura ran up and pressed the door lock as they heard multiple footsteps heading their way.

"I think we're in trouble," C.C. said surprisingly calmly.

"You think?!" Allura demanded as the door started to develop dents from the multiple assailants on the other side.

Another Galra officer that heard the gunshots was attempting to break in. Before he could fire his gun again, Allura burst through the door, slamming the officer against the other wall. She then swiped the Galra's weapon away from him, arming herself with it.

Lelouch and even C.C. froze in the doorway for a moment, looking at Allura in shock. They had no idea she was really that strong!

"What?" Allura asked, confused by their faces.

They didn't have time to ask more questions, though, as a horde of sentries started shooting at them from the other end of the hall.

"This way!" C.C. shouted, dragging the Princess and Paladin down the hall.

o~o

The quintessence had just finished filling into the small container. The platform it was on slowly started moving in Kallen and Suzaku's direction. It was the perfect opportunity to take it.

Kallen leaped from her side of the wall and snatched the container off the rack, barely making a sound. Suzaku caught her before he body could slam against the wall.

"Okay, we got it, let's get out of here," he muttered.

Kallen nodded in agreement, though she did take a moment to examine the canister more closely. She had a suspicion that this stuff wasn't just used for fuel. Why else would it have to be so well hidden? There had to be another purpose behind this stuff.

"Come on-" Suzaku halted his words when he looked back into the room. The druid was gone, "Uh oh!"

"What?" Kallen asked. She got her answer as the druid appeared right behind the pair and zapped them straight across the room, Kallen lost her grip on the canister in the process. The druid promptly transported over to it and picked up the quintessence carefully as if it were a precious artifact.

"Okay! Plan B!" she exclaimed, pulling out her cestus and charging at the druid. Suzaku wasn't too far behind her with his katana at the ready.

The druid calmly set the quintessence down on another platform before vanishing into the air again when Kallen swiped at him, only to appear a couple feet away. This time Suzaku attempted to strike at it, katana swiping the air as the druid vanished again, this time behind Kallen, who tried to swipe at him back, only for him to disappear. Again.

"Quick running and fight, you coward!" She screamed as she looked around.

"Kallen, above you!" Suzaku shouted as he spotted the druid on the platform again.

The Red Paladin just barely managed to spot the druid before has was forced to dodge out of the way as a purple bolt of lightning hit where she had been just a moment ago.

Suzaku's brain momentarily screeched to a halt when he saw that. "That's just like… Lelouch!" he whispered before he was forced to dodge the lightning attack as well. Other than the coloring, the attack seemed almost identical to the attacks that Lelouch used thanks to his Geass.

The two Paladins dodged around the lightning before the two bolts collided, causing an explosion. As the smoke cleared, the Druid paused, wondering if he had disposed of them.

He got his answer as Suzaku suddenly leaped up in his jet pack from behind and attempted to kick the druid as he spun rapidly. The druid once again vanished to another platform, but Kallen had been waiting for him. With a battle cry, she swung her Bayard on what she thought was the druid's arm, only for him to block it with a flash of purple energy that seemed to grind against Kallen's weapon.

The Red Paladin gasped as the energy became too strong, and she was shot backward with a scream, agony racing up her right arm. She hit a canister of yellow quintessence hard when she landed.

"Kallen!" Suzaku shouted in alarm as Kallen curled in around her injury. She looked down at her hand, blistering and charred from the attack. A trip to the cryopod was definitely in store for her after this.

Suzaku leaped backward himself as the druid tried to fire at him again. Fresh adrenaline running through his veins as his jetpack activated and propelled him to Kallen's location.

"Rai! We need an extraction now! Hurry!" he shouted into the comm as he landed on the shelf close to Kallen.

o~o

"Rai, fire up, Zerith! We're coming in hot!" Lelouch ordered as he, Allura, and C.C. continued to run down the hall. Lelouch was quite shocked that he was keeping up with the two women, but assumed his fight-or-flight instincts had kicked in and were helping him out with that, so he didn't question it too much.

The group then screeched to a halt as two more sentries appeared in front of them, guns raised.

Allura, the only one suitably armed, lifted the gun to try and fire… only for the shot to blast in the entirely opposite direction. The blast hit one of the sentries that were pursuing them from behind.

"Wha-" Allura asked as they turned to look. Lelouch growled and turned his Geass on once more, having tossed C.C. his pistol, and zapped one of the sentries while C.C. shot the other one. After they collapsed, Allura took the fallen sentry by C.C. and flung it at the incoming robots. It collided with them, causing them to fall, but that wouldn't stop them forever.

"I thought you said you'd traveled around the galaxy. I mean, you fly a spaceship. How could you possibly not know how to hold this correctly?" Lelouch demanded as he swiped the rifle from Allura's hands and turned it around and handed it back to the Princess.

Hearing more steps behind, Allura yanked the two of them down the hall, holding the rifle right this time.

"I'm tense. This is a tense situation!" Allura explained, but before Allura could say anything else, the intercom came to life once again.

"Secure hatches. All personnel take positions for departure."

"Not good," C.C. said as they picked up the pace further.

o~o

From inside the command deck, Rai promptly unplugged the wires. He scooped up his laptop, leading the other four Paladins back towards Zerith.

o~o

Kallen and Suzaku were jumping and leaping from wall to platform as they barely dodged attack after attack from the Druid behind them. Strangely, the druid didn't seem too concerned with the fact that while he was trying to shoot the Paladins, he was partially destroying some of the quintessence that was being stored on the base also.

Suzaku, at one point, managed to leap in front of Kallen, with his shield up, to take one of the blasts. The shield absorbed the attack, but the force of it sent him flying backward and hitting Kallen. Fortunately, they managed to land on one of the shelves of quintessence. They then slid down a conveyor belt that was transporting another quintessence canister towards the center of the room.

Believing they could possibly use it as a partial shield, Suzaku stood up in front of Kallen to protect her, as he was currently the uninjured one. The druid soon appeared above them on the conveyor belt as well, hands shimmering with purple sparks of electricity.

As the canister stopped at the center of the room and the druid approached ever closer, Suzaku readied himself for what would probably be his final stand.

That turned out not to be the day he died though, as the building suddenly shook violently, causing the druid to lose balance and his attack fire just above Kallen and Suzaku's heads. It cracked open the canister instead and spilling the thick yellow quintessence all over them. However, Kallen got the brunt of it being closer to it.

From above, the ceiling exploded, forcing the druid to vanish in a retreat. Zerith's lithe form then landed right in the center of the facility, and she opened her mouth to let the two Paladins in.

"Get in!" Rai shouted from inside, "We've got to get Lelouch, C.C., and Allura!"

The two didn't hesitate as they sprinted into the mouth. As Suzaku made it in, Kallen took a moment to look back at where the druid had been standing. She growled in fury when she saw that he was gone. She finally stepped inside, and as Zerith's mouth closed, Kallen felt a tingling in her right hand, the one that had been badly burned earlier. She looked down at it, only to gasp in shock, as the yellow quintessence seemed to close in on the injury, and fresh new skin grew in its place.

"Quintessence… what the heck is this stuff?"

o~o

"This way!" C.C. shouted as they made a sharp turn down another hall dodging laser blasts from behind still.

"Formulating navigation. All crew, assume secure hyper-speed positions."

"Hurry! We can't leave once the ship goes into hyper-speed!" Allura shouted as they felt the ship vibrate as it began to lift off the ground. She had also ripped off the Galra helmet she had been wearing.

From outside, Zerith leaped onto the top of the central command tower, and the six Paladins inside watched in horror as the ship prepared to jump.

As alarms continued to blare, the trio raced into the room, C.C. slamming her hand on the door panel before sprinting to a pod. Sentries continued to fire at them as the door closed. Before they could get one of the escape pods to work, the sentries started jamming themselves into the door, trying to force their way in.

Allura rushed forward and attempted to force the doors closed, but even her strength wasn't enough for the outpouring of robots trying to bust in. C.C. and Lelouch attempted to help her as much as they could, pushing against the door with her.

Behind them though, a pod was preparing for launch, once it did, and no one was in, they'd be trapped for good and heading straight for Zarkon!

"It's taking off! Get in the pod!" Allura ordered the two humans trying to help her.

"No! We're not leaving you behind!" Lelouch shouted in protest.

The Black Paladin then yelped as he felt hands grab him by the collar of his uniform and fling him backward. He landed hard inside the pod, to see C.C. relaxing from throwing him.

"Lelouch, you can't die here!" she shouted, "Not before you prevail! Over the past and over the outcome of your own actions!"

Lelouch could only watch in horror as the pod doors closed, and the entry doors were wrenched open, and sentries swarmed to two women on the other side. Allura sighed in relief as C.C. sent Lelouch a reassuring smile before the pod took off away from the ship, its single passenger trapped inside.

Just as Lelouch's pod exited the battlecruiser, it jumped into hyperspace, taking Allura and C.C. with it.

"No… NO!" he shouted, slamming his fist against the floor of the pod as it glided smoothly towards Zerith, who floated close by, waiting to retrieve him.

After Zerith collected the pod and Lelouch exited it, he solemnly walked up to the cockpit, the other six Paladins waiting patiently for him. Upon seeing that Lelouch is the only one to enter, though, they immediately can tell something is wrong.

"Lelouch, where's Allura?" Suzaku asked, ice flowing through his veins.

"And C.C.?" Shirley added.

Lelouch had yet to raise his head as the others crowded around him in concern.

"Lelouch?" Rivalz asked anxiously. He had never seen Lelouch look so… shattered.

"They sacrificed themselves to save me," he finally whispered, barely holding back tears.

"Wait-So, they're still on that ship?!" Rai exclaimed in alarm, similar expressions on the others' faces too.

"The ship that's headed to Zarkon's Central Command?" Milly asked.

"The place you specifically said is way too dangerous for us to attack?" Suzaku asked, feeling like an ice cube had just been dropped down his back.

"It doesn't matter how dangerous it is. We can't let Zarkon get Allura," Lelouch said, a determined and angered frown on his face, "Or C.C. for that matter."

"But, Lelouch, you said going there would be a huge mistake. You said for us to attack that place head-on would be the dumbest possible thing we could ever do!" Kallen reminded him, eyes wide.

"I know what I said. But now we don't have a choice," Lelouch glared back through the window into the abyss the ship disappeared into. They were correct, this would likely be the most stupid move they could ever make. But if Zarkon got Allura and C.C., it was over.

And no matter what, that could not happen.

#Fanfiction #AU #Voltron #Code Geass #lelouch lamperouge #c.c.#kallen kozuki #suzaku kururugi #rai (lost colors)#shirley fenette #milly ashford #rivalz cardemonde #princess allura #coran

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dangerliesbeforeyou · 6 years ago

Photo

BTS RAPLINE TRIPTYCH PAINTING~

<- So Far Away -> Awakening <- Daydream ->

- - 23ish Hours later and it is complete! - -

Now starts a very long explanation (which I will try to keep as concise & understandable as possible but... well, you know me lol that probably won’t happen lol) as to what the rapline’s solo mixtapes and this triptych means to me...

I’ll start at the beginning, which isn’t the first piece I created (which was J-Hope’s painting), but actually the final piece I made; Suga’s.

Suga’s mixtape maybe spoke to me, personally, the most out of all of them; the roughness of the tracks, along with the raw and meaningful lyrics are some of the most emotionally charged tracks Bangtan have produced.

I named Suga’s piece ‘So Far Away’, which is the final track on the album, and one of my personal favourites. Not only is it Suran’s haunting vocals that add a really dream-like feel to the track, but the lyrics really give the concept of a ‘journey’ of self-love (which is a big overall theme of this triptych).

A sense of something in our pasts being so far away from who and where we are now, but also the idea that the place we want to go also seems so far away in the distance... It’s the beginning of a journey, and the beginnings of anything are always difficult.

The imagery to accompany this is more subtle than the others, since the imagery in the two music videos released during this album (Agust D (title) and Give It To Me) are less about this more ‘melancholic’ theme. So I went with the colour scheme of the music videos (darker greens, turquoises and blues, with bursts of yellow, orange and red as part of the flames and dramatic lighting). I also used the glimpse of a ladder we see in Agust D (ladders are steeped in lots of traditional symbology, and I also wanted something angular and red to contrast nicely with the green background, so I won’t go into too much about that).

And although the music videos are quite dark, I wanted to keep the light and clouds around the moon (which I’ll get to in a minute) bright. And although I feel like I could have made it a touch darker, I like the overall vibe of the piece, as it doesn’t feel too gloomy.

(Important thing to mention, I didn’t create this triptych to psychoanalyse everything in the Rapline’s mixtapes which may or may not relate to their mental health. This piece is a wholly personal piece, with using my own emotional responses to the mixtapes as a way to look at recovering and learning to love yourself...)

The oversized clothes (with a big focus on the folds of the clothing) was inspired by the Spanish Surrealist artist Remedios Varo, who I only discovered recently but immediately fell in love with her dream-like paintings. In particular, this piece was inspired by the first panel in her own triptych she painted between 1961-62.

This piece (called Toward the Tower) was another starting basis for background styles and colour-schemes, as well as the more stylised (but detailed) figures, clothing and buildings. The piece is Varo’s own commentary on life in a convent, and the ideas of entrapment and freedom (which are continued throughout the triptych). And although this differs greatly from my own triptych, I think the way in which Varo approached the artworks and theme are something I wanted to emulate in my own piece.

Now onto the moon iconography I included. Now, because I initially started with J-Hope, who I made into the Sun was more of an after thought, this idea only really came about because of that. But as soon as I made that choice, I realised how perfect it would be to have Suga be his seemingly ‘opposite’: the moon.

The moon gets its ‘power’ (so to speak) from the light of the sun, and the gravity that binds it to our planet and allows it to control tides and effect seasons (I think... Look, I don’t pretend to know everything about the moon, ok, I just think she’s beautiful and doing a great job...). So the idea behind this is that in fact to start a journey of self-love or recovery, we often have to look to others for advice and support. (This may be actually seeking out help from a professional, chatting to a friend or family member, or simply discussing your thoughts openly to a diary or something similar...). We need to make an effort to share our burden with ‘others’, even if it is difficult.

(I don’t pretend to know everything, or anything, about dealing with mental health, by the way. But I do know a bit about learning to love yourself, and dealing with moving on from a rough patch... Basically, I’m only speaking from my personal experiences so please don’t come for me....)

I think Yoongi, along with the Agust D mixtape, fit perfectly with the concept of the moon. A big part of this is the cycles of the moon, and the very nature of change and movement which that encompasses. I went with a full moon in the sky, as it usually indicates the end of the cycle (i.e. the end of your difficult past) and suggests the start of a new one (i.e. the start of a brighter future).

The flames are mainly a crossover from Rm’s piece, although fire is a big theme in Suga’s music videos (and personality in general). Though I will go more into the fire in Rm’s piece...

The final thing I want to talk about for Suga’s part is the lyrics I included on the ribbon. I decided instead of trying to wade through all the songs on each mixtape to find the perfect lyric, I’d instead take the lyrics from their more reason Trivia tracks on the Love Yourself: Answer album.

Suga’s, which is called Seesaw (and is my personal favourite, I might add), speaks of a kind of ‘seesaw’ battle that exists between himself and someone (or something?) else. I’ll admit, I haven’t looked into the reasoning or real meaning behind the song, but I was drawn to the lyrics: 니가 없는 이 시소 위를 걸어 니가 없던 처음의 그때처럼 (I’m walking on this seesaw without you just like the beginning when you weren’t here). I interpreted this as the ‘you’ representing the version of yourself that you want to be, versus the version of yourself that you are at that point in time... The precariousness of walking on a seesaw and trying to balance public personas and internal monologues is a very poignant theme, even to people like you or me. There’s also a sadness to the lyrics, the idea that the situation feels hopeless, like it was before. It’s a cycle, perhaps, of self-hatred (something we all get into now and again). And, just like on a seesaw, one step in the wrong direction and we can easily fall back into old ways and viewpoints of ourselves...

Primarily, Suga’s piece is a beginning. The beginning to one of the most difficult journeys we take in life; the journey to loving ourselves.

The next piece is actually not Rm, despite his being the central panel. Obviously, the colours and imagery are supposed to flow into each other in the order they are presented, but I decided half way through that it made more sense in terms of my message to have J-Hope’s be the actual ‘second panel’.

So, here is where I’ll talk about the very first piece of this triptych I created; J-Hope and ‘Daydream’.

The whole idea of creating a triptych for the rapline’s mixtapes came to me as soon as J-Hope had released Hope World. I love the stark contrast between each of the member’s styles, both musically and aesthetically, as well as the way that they all reflect an overall ‘bangtan’ feel.

And actually out of all the music videos, ‘Daydream’ is probably one of my favourites. The whole vibe, use of colour, editing style, and the way it works seamlessly with the song is basically perfection, and it fits with J-Hope’s personality and music style brilliantly as well. And although the album itself didn’t speak to me as much as the other two member’s had; it still really showcases the talent and diversity of J-Hope’s music ability.

Right, now to my artwork... So I was obviously inspired heavily by the Daydream music video, both in the aesthetics and symbolism (aka the fish). It also fits perfectly with the surrealist style I was going for. The overall brightness of the mv was perfect for the sense of ‘hope’ I was trying to portray in this piece.

So this was based on the very last panel of Varo’s triptych, which is called ‘The Escape’.

Much as the title suggests, the final panel is an escape up into the mountains. It suggests a climb away from dark storm clouds into the light. And my own interpretation in my piece was definitely based on this sense of freedom. But to fit with both J-Hope’s mixtape (aka the Blue Side outro track which deserved a full song!!!!!!), my own personal connections and also to fit with the aesthetics of Varo’s piece, I wanted to include the element of blue and the storm clouds.

The main reason behind this is to reflect the fact that even if someone appears happy on the outside, there’s always a chance something darker and melancholic... This doesn’t undermine or make the happiness you may see or feel any less real, it’s just important to acknowledge that hardships exist and are all a part of life... Going through tough times, having ‘scars’, shows that you have survived!

The lyrics I used from his Trivia: Just Dance reflect this idea too. They translate roughly as ‘my dreams that once had no answer, now become something we can relate to’... Also, the position of Hoseok’s head (which was partly just because I really like the reference image because he look beautiful to be quite honest), looking away as if towards the future, fits with this concept too.

I think I wanted this piece to mainly be the dream of recovery, the dream version of yourself... The bright sunshine in your life that you hope one day will be reality... Putting it and Suga’s either side of the Rm central piece helps it to reflect the idea of Past - Present - Future. Not necessarily in a chronological sense, but more the way in which they react and connect to eachother.

The final piece of the series is the central Rm panel, which is also the one with the most symbology.

I actually did this one as a part of a collab with other artists to celebrate Namjoon’s birthday (it had to the hashtag ‘infinitereasonstolovejoonie’ and it was the cutest thing ever!!!).

Ok so there’s a lot to breakdown with this piece, so I’m going to start first with the reference I used for Rm’s head. I knew I wanted to use something from the Joke music video, because I really loved the straitjacket look coupled with the extreme chiaroscuro used in the mv. Unfortunately, most of the reference images were really bad quality (since they were mostly just screencaps), as well as them being difficult to draw angels, making it all the more of a battle for me to draw... I like that I made him look down, purely because it both contrasts with Suga and J-Hope, and also in the way it suggests both defeat and hope. Defeat, in the way looking down is linked with shame, and hope in the idea that it could almost suggest that Rm is about to look up...

The background also links to these contrasting ideas. The dark blue and stormy clouds, mixed with the flashes of lightening help to create a sense of the phrase of ‘every cloud has a silver lining’. This idea was mainly my own invention, since most of the references (including the music videos and Varo’s paintings) didn’t include lightning. The colourscheme was vaguely inspired by both the Joke music video as well as Varo’s central panel.

Titled as ‘Embroidering Earths Mantel’, it is probably the piece I took the least inspiration from out of the three. Varo’s piece shows the girls in the convent she had known to be trapped and forced to work, a hooded figure in darker clothes overseeing them... This sense of danger and being unable to escape was the main concept I took away from this... Another thing that I took from this was the use of the yellow in contrast to the dark and stormy sky (which I chose to do flames, which were taken from the Awakening music video).

Speaking of the Awakening mv, I decided to only really use the flames from the aesthetics, but still use the name as the title of the piece. ‘Awakening’, much like Rm’s looking down head, is evocative of moving from one state (being asleep/looking down) to another (being awake/looking up). It’s not awake, it’s not final or definitive. It’s a transitional period.

Put in the centre of Suga and J-Hope’s pieces, Rm’s represents the ‘present’. A time when you’re working through recovery, or where you’re beginning to learn to love yourself. It’s not an easy or particularly ‘happy’ time, and it often contains a lot of hardships and difficult to decisions.

I thought this fitted the best with Rm, who is the leader of BTS. He has to carry a lot of responsibility on his shoulders, which I represented literally in my piece with the 6 lightbulbs/microphones that drip onto his shoulders (this imagery was inspired by both the Do You music video, as well as the album cover). Another interpretation, and probably the one I was aiming to be more prominent, was the idea that although being a leader means he is responsible for a lot of the groups public image/etc, the other members aren’t a burden, but instead act as an anchor for his strength... You can almost see the ‘drips’ acting as puppet strings; the other members lifting him up when times get tough.

This links back to the idea of the moon I talked about in Suga’s piece. Although recovery and learning to love yourself, or whatever it is you’re dealing with, can’t be solved immediately just because you have a loving family or friends, having a person you trust to talk to can help you deal with things a lot easily then trying to go it alone... This is probably one of the most difficult things in dealing with mental health struggles, since most of us are really reluctant to ask for help in fear of being an annoyance to others... We always make excuses that our problems, whatever they may be, aren’t worthwhile discussing or talking about since everyone has their own problems and you don’t want to burden them even more...

(And although this is advice that I rarely take myself, I just want to say Your problems are not worthless, you are not a burden to others, and you deserve to be happy!)

The final part of Rm’s piece is the lyrics I chose from his Trivia: Love. 너 땜에 알았어 왜 사람과 사랑이 비슷한 소리가 나는지 ‘I found out because of you Why “person” (saram) and “love” (sarang) sound similar’. I chose this both because I wanted it to fit with a ‘reason to love joonie’ (i.e. his brilliant lyric writing skills), and also for the way it relates to my own experiences.

The ‘person’ in my case is less an actual singular being, and more the art community online and the k-pop fandom... So without going into details, the last few years haven’t been the easiest for me, so having the k-pop community to enjoy memes with, listen to and get excited about music with and to be artistically inspired by really helped me get through feeling lonely and down... And although I’ve (luckily) never had any horrific experiences, I know that a lot of people who like k-pop and are a part of community have (or are having them), and having k-pop around has helped them survive the most difficult situations...

I wanted this triptych to both a personal and universal piece, something people can relate to and understand (as well as be able to appreciate on a purely aesthetic level)....

I hope that everyone who has taken time to read this ridiculously long essay about this piece get’s this sense of inclusion, which is something I truly admire about BTS in particular...

Just remember, if you’re going through a difficult time, things really will get better! Recovery, Life, Self Love; it’s all a journey that there’s no guidebook to...

And to quote BTS’s ‘Young Forever’:

~~Dream : Hope : Keep Going : Keep Going~~

Thank you for reading!

[this piece is available on my redbubble btw]

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sometimesfrancis · 6 years ago

Text

30 days of DID system asks: Day One

Describe your system.

My system is medium-sized. The core group is a group of six, three married couples. Nora to Francis, Gilda to Harvey, and Grace to Richard. Then there’s the whole internal family system, bearing in mind that all three couples have acted in a parenting (or sibling, in the case of Duella and Nora and Francis, because Duella is older) role to all the children in the internal family system, there are also littles of Nora and Francis, called Boom and Little Francis. Lord Ryan is their son, he’s ten. Gilda and Harvey have Duella, I’m not sure how old she is. but I do know she’s like a sister to me. Then Grace and Richard have Francis as an adopted son. Francis is 25 this fall. I’m not sure how old Grace and Gilda are, you know what they say about a lady and her age. Richard is eighteen-- I know it’s weird that Francis is Richard’s son even though Francis is older than Richard. To explain this, Richard imaginably fought in world war two, but for some reason he stayed eighteen. Harvey is the second oldest, at 125, and Hanora is 319. Harvey, as a changeling man, has some vampiric abilities, but using them costs him his life experience, and Hanora is part gnome. Among other racial qualities, she has very sensitive pointy ears, and songs can get stuck in her head for days at a time. When I keep hearing the tune (that is to me a schizophrenic hallucination,) we say that they’re hearing it “In the gnome caverns”. Luckily for me, this means that Hanora has her own body in a place she personally believes in, so she never argues with me about haircuts/hormones or clothes. She just dresses up her gnome doll however she wants to, and in return I’m not allowed to say that the gnome caverns are part of a “headspace.” They are a fairy tale, and personally Hanora believes in them.

While I don’t have many great historical memories from three-hundred years ago, Hanora has friends who have come to help me for no reason other than my being Hanora’s son, like Thomas Blue, who taught me everything he knew about becoming a lawyer, which permitted me to put the Joker on trial when he came to my apartment asking for help. Hanora has been married several times, first to Victor Fries, a long long time ago, when I was in high-school, then, when I was in college, she married an introject of my high school friend and crush Charlie O’Connel (I hope he sees this.) I turned 23. Harvey had been out of his coma for a year and five months. We met a man at Alchoholics Anonymous who invited us out for non-alchoholic beers and pool and pinball at a local bar. His name was Henry. One night, walking home from the beach, I introduce myself to him as the name “Harv,” and tell him I’m a multiple personality. He takes it all pretty well. We talk about getting married. I’ve used my vampiric abilitties since then so I don’t have the same timeline I had when I was dating Henry, but I wanted us to be gay lovers.

Back to my mother Hanora’s love life: She broke up with Henry when his schizophrenia got out of control. I was put away in a nursing home, where there was an implied familial relationship between Harvey, Duella, Francis, Richard, and Nora. Nora got married to Richard when we thought he was on his deathbed and she didn’t want him to die alone, then to a factive of Michael Fassbender (a marriage which lasted only one night before we had to admit Michael to the asylum,) then to a factive of Nick D’Agnostico from Gotham, who has his own alternate personality of Harvey. She was married to a factive of Aaron Ekhardt for one night, who similarly has a Harvey introject. Lucky for me my introject of Charlie is still in my life, and he’s always very respectful. Sometimes they roleplay a game-of-thrones era fantasy where Nora is a shy noble lady and Charlie is her knight. Her last marriage was to a factive of Brandon Flowers, who is also part gnome, but he looks like Owen from Torchwood for some reason. Sorry, the last man is a gnomish man, I know that for sure, and I don’t always understand gnome customs. Suffice to say, she calls him Brandon, but he looks like Owen. Finally, she’s been escorted home several times by John Barrowman (another factive obviously) who honors his role as army captain from the doctor who universe. And my mother’s introject is dating Nathan Filion, making him a father-in-law type figure. His factive helped set her up with Nick D’Agnostico.

Speaking of the Doctor Who universe, I once wrote a very immersive episode of doctor who fanfiction called “Adam and Fate,” and in it the eleventh Doctor gets admitted to the psyche ward I was in at the time, well he formed an introject, surprise surprise, and although he was dressed like the eleventh doctor he wanted me to call him Matt Smith. To help pass the hours I would daydream silents behind every door, and this was the same hospital stay where my Robert Downey Jr. Factive went out for a game of cards, he’s in love with Aaron, who was very akward with me at the time, because I once said “Joker’s Daughter!” and punched him in the balls.

This was around the time a very malevolent introject of my oldest brother appeared and tried to take Francis into his headspace permanently, I remember Francis throwing water over himself, one of his defence mechanisms, and I remember Aaron: He asked for an apology for my holding a hot zippo lighter to my face to feel the burning so we put some lotion on. Aaron and Robert are in love, and he’s on again off again with Maggie Gyllinhall , who acts like a big sister to me. At the time he was still convinced that I was brain-dead from my death at the end of the Dark Knight era in my life, which is actually from when I was eight years old and fell down a flight of stairs, but I recreated my trauma in a shared dream-space and it translated to getting thrown off a building. I was actually put to work in a daydream factory, and my subconcious submitted certain scenes to the Dark Knight. I don’t want to believe that completely but here’s another perspective I will ask for my father-in-law Victor to help me rather than Francis:

According to Victor I have a trauma that could be categorized, a blow to the back of the head, and I didn’t make the dark knight but I came from it because there’s an applicable cause of death involved.

Thank you Victor. Let’s get on with describing the system. In my job at the daydream factory that’s where I first met The Scars of the Architect, who takes on the appearance of the Joker from the Dark Knight. They plugged me in to a modern machine: A PC, and architectural drawings appeared on the screen. This is part of how the Joker got his scars. Then there’s another Joker, his full name is Jackson P. Fitzgerald and he looks like a Joker-colored version of Michael Jackson. The Joker isn’t the only black villain in my system, there’s also Dr. Ivy Green AKA Poison Ivy who looks like a young Whoopie Goldberg, but I never claim to be trans racial or anything like that the alters know that they are only an influence on me and I’m glad they help me include races other than white bread in my stories. But there is a lot of white bread coming right up:

THE ASYLUM

In my headspace I live in a version of Arkham Asylum that has gone through a period of mental health reform. My first alter from the asylum was Dr. Jonathan Crane Sr, and I saw him experimenting on his children out in the backwater countryside south of Gotham. This all happens in Gotham City Indiana, by the way, which is on the map where Gary, Indianapolis, and Michigan City are so they’re north of some swamplands which turn into farmlands and south of the lake the city is very much a part of my system and my first introduction to it was Johnathan Crane’s old shack out in the country where(TW BONDAGE) he strapped his kids down to a chair in the garage and injected them with fear toxin and made them watch horrific videos, these are the Benson siblings, Elizabeth, Crowley, and Johnathan Jr. They all have wide white eyes except for Jr, whose eyes are very soulful and dark, and they all have SI scars again except for Jr. who is the black sheep Crowley has cuts on his arms from a carpenter knife and he chews fear weed while Elizabeth smokes it in her cigarettes and she has burns on her hands.

I follow the action one night, old lady Benson is worried about Crowley always cutting his arms so she takes him to the asylum in their rusty pick-up truck, well he spooks in the parking lot he grabs a shotgun from the back of the truck and escapes into the woods. Where the ambulance driver says “Don’t worry, Batman will catch him.”

BATMAN

Yes, I have an alter of Batman in my system. He started as a foil for me to fist-fight in a bar he sliced up my face pretty good I wake up with blood on the pillow. I go through plots trying to bring Batman the psychiatric help he needs, enacting a similar plot on my best friend Bruce Wayne, who is like Batman by day, similarly rageful, similar sizes and face shapes too but Batman is obviously funded by the military and Bruce isn’t smart enough to sneak out every night dressed in black leather without getting caught by his butler, but these are my two friends Batman and Bruce. I’ll talk about Batman first, I get a gang together one of these days I put some plastic explosives in an elevator shaft and I threaten to take the building down if Batman doesn’t go in for treatment and Jim Gordon intercedes saying we both need help well that bastard Batman jumps off the roof and vanishes into the night, but I go down the driveway to Arkham Asylum in Jim Gordon’s car he drops me off at the gate he says it’s up to me so I throw my coin into the woods and I’m walking one way or the other when an ambulance stops me and the driver manhandles me I punch him until he stops moving the Joker climbs out of the back and says “So you pulled off your first plot. What do you want the newspapers to call you?” And the scarred side of my face smiles and says “Two-Face.” I’m thinking Acid-Face or Coin-Voice but this is what the scarred side of my face says to the Joker and the Joker says “Two-Face it is!” and he climbs in the driver’s seat and he crashes the ambulance into the gates with the driver unconscious behind the wheel and meanwhile in the back I find my friend Bruce and he says “CALL ME BATMAN” so great Bruce Wayne thinks he’s Batman that’ll be the day.

RICHARD

I’m in the asylum when I realize I have a brother, adopted by the same old lady, Gertrude Dent. His name is Richard and he’s vegetative from the lobotomies. This is when the story really starts to cook. We get kidnapped from our cells one night by Harleen Qunzell posing as a nurse she takes us away to the parklands surrounding the asylum and says we’re in Poison Ivy’s Garden now. I’m Harvey AKA Lillian Valley, my brother’s are Francis aka Hawthorne, Creeping Charlie AKA Morning Glory, Poison Oak, and Patrick Isley we’re all a tribe out there in the park I rarely get into trouble but I get into trouble rarely I’m given a motel room to sleep in after a certain therapeutic period among the plants. Arkham Outpatient Treatment: Lodgings Included.

This next memory is from Francis, we do share some memories. I overheard a lady bullying her teddy bear in the bed next to mine back when I was in the nursing home and someone woke up he said “I’ll steal that bear!” and Francis said “Calm Down, Harv.” He’s easy to recognize with the scars from stress on his face and then a Harvey woke up and said “What did he say just now?” And Francis says wow youre keeping him on a pretty tight leash well it wasn’t long after that he woke up in one of poison ivy’s green-houses and she said something like “What are you doing coming back to life?” And he turned out to be called Richard. Richard Richardson is the name he wrote on the ARkham Asylum intake forms.

HARLEEN

So Harleen comes into my room and asks if I’d like to be part of an experiment like I said kidnapped so they put a mitten on my burned hand and moss in my head to regrow the brain matter that got damaged in my massive back of the head concussion and the subsequent ECT that happened only in Gotham City which is like we all know imaginary but so was the moss and I’m a better man for it and as I came round to reality I realized I had a roommate they had put me with this other man Dent-- Richard Dent, criminal turned whore, WWII veteran and semi-immortal like me, I don’t know the details of his age but he’s one of Jupiter's sons and for all the time he’s spent in prison he’s only eighteen years old to this day. Sorry twenty-two he aged up a bit earlier this year when he took his wife Grace home their anniversary is July 25th I’d better remember that

So Poison Ivy really cleaned up the asylum with Harleen working under her and Johnathan Crane doing anything to get his license restored they made a pretty ship shape asylum the doors are unlocked the walls are white and the uniforms are grey. I remember Harleen’s first experiment with me she said there was a fifty-fifty chance I would revert back to my old personality and she gave me my coin back and I threw it in a lake. This is a recurring theme with me the coin represents my reliance on the god Janus to make decisions and with every major step toward rehabilitation I have to leave the coin behind so I started over in jail with Jonathan Crane observing me I told him I was a changeling and if I didn’t get twice as much food then my twin brother would starve so he gave me double portions and I’ve always been indebted to the man.

#harvey dent #batman #actuallydid #actuallymultiple #actuallyschizophrenic #actually did #actuallydissociative #actually multiple #did #plural #actuallyplural #plurality

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tomoreadsandlistens · 6 years ago

Audio

Cold Sun (Ryo Nagamo Remix) Sung by Aimer "Just what are the words that I've piled up meant to protect? If I can face my weaknesses, I'll no longer have the need for tears, But if these days consist of nothing more, Than repeating 'Farewell, farewell', it would be so sad; Nonetheless I'm still looking up to the sky, Even now I'm still looking up to the stars" One of my favorite occurrences in life is when I'm randomly introduced to music that I didn't expect to obsess over. Aimer started out as a very low key musician, in which was only the beginning of her career, minimally; she refused to show her face. Her music was mysterious right from the get go, so it made sense that Aimer didn't show her face for the longest time until her music became more popular. Some of the first videos of her that are out there is her behind the mic but her back is faced toward the camera, singing some of her hit songs acoustically. So in this sense she was slowly but surely building confidence to show herself. Aimer is very well known for her low, husky voice, which developed as a result of an accident she had at 15, but nonetheless recovered her ability to sing. To be honest, her vocals are very recognizable and feminine regardless of her accident. Her voice is beyond beautiful. Some of Aimer's earliest work is mostly jazz, and a part of me feels that she should still incorporate this in her music. Unfortunately due to contracts and Labels, it can guide certain musicians in another direction. Granted, I love all of her pop music, but her jazz is just incredibly unique. Perhaps blending the two genres is something I'd hope she would consider. In recent years, Aimer has been collaborating with other musicians throughout Japan and has really built up her career phenomenally, especially featuring her songs in anime. Her latest album came out in 2016 and has been touring since then; that is the only album I have not heard by her at this time. First Listen: In summer of 2012, I was spending the weekend at my friend L's house. She wanted to introduce me to an anime she'd thought I'd really like and has been catching up with. Once we started watching episode one, I was hooked immediately. The anime is called Natsuyuki Rendezvous. I highly recommend watching it if you are invested in slice of life, involving a ghost in the plot twist. The ending theme song is what captured me the most out of watching this anime. The song is called "Anata ni Deawanakereba~Kasetsutouka~" which translates to "If I Haven't Met You, Summer Snow, Winter Flowers". This song really captured the tone of the anime, getting you into the bittersweet mood of what was about to unfold each time you finished an episode. At the time, this was the most beautiful song I've ever heard in my life. It was also at the time the most relatable song, while I was in the middle of an on and off relationship that was unhealthy. This song was too good to be true. As soon as I could I went on my computer to listen to more songs by Aimer. Right then and there being introduced to Aimer brought out such a different sound in the JPop realm, I knew she would make it big down the road. Not only did I have this song on repeat, but she created much more music that was just as worthy to listen to, and I've had played on repeat; for YEARS. Best Album: I have to be honest, my favorite album by Aimer is her mini album, "Dare ka, Umi wo". For some reason, some of her songs that are remixed in this album is some of the best material that's out there, some that are better than the original version of the song. There were also "newer" songs at the time that really made you feel like you were dreaming. The song tracks are aligned perfectly for the mood you're looking for. If you want to be transported into a dream-like surreal weathered dimension, this mini album is perfect for you. Best Song: If you recall on my Eiko Shimamiya post, I've mentioned how I've listened to a particular song for years and eventually realized another song was better material. That's the same dilemma I have with Aimer's music. For 6 years my favorite song by Aimer was "Fuyu no Diamond (Re Echoed by Genki Rockets)" which is a remix version of the original "Fuyu no Diamond". Other known as Winter Diamond in English. The sensation of daydreaming is real when listening to this song. It feels like you just took in a bittersweet love movie flick and are watching the ending credits, but literally reflecting on all of the feels you just endured from watching said movie. That's what this song feels like. I had it on repeat at least 400 times according to ITunes. However, in 2015 I downloaded the "Dare ka, Umi wo" album, and that's when it all changed for me. "Cold Sun (Ryo Nagano Remix)" is derived from the original song "Cold Sun" from her album "Midnight Sun". As soon as this remix started playing I was instantly mesmerized. The vibrations of this song is remindful of how I spend my early summer mornings in the cold, crisp air for a short amount of time. The cold colored hues of the earth and sky collaborating; this song really knows how to display this vision realistically. If cold summer mornings had a sound, it's this song. I can't even begin to say how many times I've cried to this song. From the get go I felt like I was time traveling to places and experiences that I was reflecting on. Even what was going in my life at those current moments, this song was describing me. In fact, this occurrence is so frequent that I'm not sure if that's a good thing. I can pin point a couple of experiences I've associated this song with and have played repeatedly throughout this time frame: •In 2015 I was seeing someone (who we will call Baymax), who I actually went to art camp with when we were younger but we lost touch for years. One day in June of that year I was at my friend MS's house with a couple of other camp friends, and out of the blue MS wanted to reach out to Baymax when she realized he was online on Skype. We all video chatted with him for a while, but it was incredible for the time how much he grew into a "man" from when I last saw him. We hit each other up as soon as I got home from MS's house and from there on we knew we were into each other. Late nights of phone calls, sometimes video chatting, and actually spending time in person romantically it was too good to be true. Throughout the summer it was such bliss, feeling like finally someone understood me and cared about me. I barely harassed Baymax. I didn't want to feel obsessive with him and we weren't even official with each other still. I didn't mind giving him all the space in the world, but the problem was after 4 months he wasn't as engaging as he was with me originally, and I finally asked him where we stood. He backfired at me and assumed I thought he was leading me on so he wanted to end it with me. All I wanted was to talk things out with him, not with half assed responses. I felt like I couldn't get everything off my chest. If this was already spoken out in person or over the phone I wouldn't have felt the hurt I did that day, and ultimately suicidal from assuming I fucked up. The way he handled it was not ok, but I'm grateful that I have been dating someone for a year now who I'm madly in love with and couldn't be happier. •In 2016 I moved to Florida from the north. I drove myself down with my two cats, and my entire life packed in my car. I had started a new life away from a long, ongoing toxic situation; but I knew I needed to move away for the better; to better myself mentally and physically. My cat (actually named) Joey was finally reunited with me after being separated for a long time. He had inflammatory bowel disease since he was 4 years old and was put on medication for years until he was weened off because my grandmother felt the medicine was unhealthy for him. I had no knowledge of this until I moved when I took him back from my grandmother. Ultimately he lasted over a year without medication and was on a strict diet until his death. However, whether it was the right thing or not by my grandmother, Joey was the happiest cat I have seen in the longest time. He played with my other cat (which he never did; he was very independent and grumpy), played with toys and was physically and mentally healthy for that one year. When I realized he was getting sick from sudden weight loss and threw up blood, not only was history repeating itself but he was very old. The last thing I wanted to do was make him suffer like he already had majority of his life. I remember the day I brought him in to be put down like it was yesterday. I watched the sun rise as early as 6:30 am with Joey next to me. I took as many pictures of him as possible and cuddled him close. Around 11:30 am was when I brought him to the vet, and was put down by 12 pm. My face was pressed against his when he was given the shot. I heard his last breath and I became hysterical. I definitely got snot on his face but I'm sure he would've forgiven me. I held his body for about an hour until I couldn't bear it anymore. Just writing this out is really difficult for me but my point is this song was all that played when I put Joey down. This song is about facing your weaknesses. If you face it, you would be able to walk on; move forward. You don't need to know a right or wrong answer to overcome your situation. As long as you overcome it and move forward, time will eventually heal your pain, no matter what direction it goes. Your weaknesses will disperse because you know how to overcome it. Acceptance and perhaps forgiveness is all that it takes to move on. Be the bigger person. Follow your gut.

English translated lyrics can be found here

I apologize for the lengthy post! I also hope you enjoy her portrait I made which also can be found here

Until next time~

Tomo

#aimer #japanese music #japanese pop #pop #jpop #musician #portrait #drawing #artwork #my artwork #pencil drawing #lllustration

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lonelypond · 7 years ago

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Casual Lunacy, Chapter 24

Love Live, NicoMaki, 3.7K, 24/?

Stay A Minute

Back at work. The counter. No evening customers yet. Coffee smell everywhere...was Nico starting to think like her girlfriend, nose first? Nico inhaled, then scrunched up her face at the over the top dose of COFFEE. So nose not the best way to take in a scene, at least not for Nico. Nico liked the glints of light sparking off warm metal, the shadows falling across the floor, the sounds that came in when the door swung open, the bell clanking. Yes, Maki did smell amazing, a little like a warm, sweaty cinnamon roll fresh out of the gym, with just a hint of pepper. Nico would have never put those together but it worked, mostly because they translated into a gorgeous, leggy, playful redhead who kept looking at Nico with glowing amethyst eyes. Who Nico liked to look at and listen to and lean into. So nose first was probably not going to become Nico’s default.

Nico shook herself out of a daydream about Maki in flannel and nothing else, hoping for a customer to open the door and let a bracing bit of cold air into the room. The past 24 hours had swept her up in a dizzying series of emotions and she needed a chance to go back to a routine she recognized, to clear her head, to figure out what happened next.

But no, next person to open the door was Nozomi and her blonde tagalong.

“Nico-chi, you’re back.” Nozomi opened her arms, ready to swoop in and hug Nico, but Nico just ducked behind the espresso press, letting its brass and copper levers and dials run interference. Eli waved at Nico as she guided Nozomi to the back booth.

“You want your usual?” Nico peeked out from behind her barrier, verifying that Nozomi was ensconced in the booth before she came out.

“I’ll have a mocha.” Nozomi leaned in to Eli, “I want to make sure I taste like chocolate.”

“Don’t make me poison you.” Nico pulled out a couple of mugs. “Hot chocolate for you, tall, blonde and thrall-y?”

“Thank you,” Eli paused, to emphasize that one should use actual names in the interest of respectful communication, “Nico.”

“So how was your road trip, Nico?” Nozomi leered, “Did Maki keep you up all night?”

“My road trip is none of your business.” Nico gritted her teeth, letting professional reflexes take over and stir the hot chocolate as it warmed so as not to spoil it in any way out of aggravation. Because Nozomi was aggravating. Sure, Nico appreciated her friendship and in a pinch, Nozomi was always right there, but along the way, she was deep mud on the road to progress. And some days, Nico just didn’t have the patience for Nozomi’s seemingly bottomless appetite for mischief making.

Heh, Nico thought to herself, maybe there’s a Tarot card for Nozomi. “Hey, buxom and boisterous, is there a NozoNozy specific Tarot card? Like The Teasing Devil or the Ten Of Feathers or something.”

Nozomi frowned. Nico had learned almost immediately that one sure way to poke a hole in Nozomi’s superiority was to misappropriate Tarot concepts in some way. Nozomi's voice was chiding, her finger wagging, “The Devil means something entirely different than mischief, you know that Nico, and there are no feathers.”

“But feathers are quills, quills can be used for writing, pens are used for writing and like Nico, pens and quills are the mightiest, so Nico has decided that the swords are now feathers. Metamorphie swordus.” Nico bowed with a flourish, then poured the hot chocolate carefully from the pan into two mugs.

"It's Oruihon Deance." Nozomi turned to Eli, “So much of my Tarot knowledge has fallen on Nico she is now designing her own deck.” Nozomi smiled sweetly at Nico, but her eyes were spiky, green thorns, “One that will fail her.”

Nico shrugged and handed over their drinks. All this chatter was tiring. And wasted time. Nico wanted to just be on her couch, letting Maki keep her warm as she reviewed her scenes for tomorrow’s rehearsal. Her lines were still shaky. This needed to improve. Playing Mina Murray was an opportunity Nico was not going to blow, no matter how distracting the people around her tried to be. Nico was steel, forged by trial and so many many supporting roles and chances to hone her craft. Nico was not lost in daydreams about sexy, shapely hips and curving lips. No, Nico was focused, sharp, shining and about to seize the stage.

“Nico-chi?” Nozomi giggled, her voice a tease. “Thinking about your redhead?”

Nico shook her head and started cleaning. “Nico is back in town and focused on Fangs. Nothing is going to get between Nico and the spotlight.”

Red eyes glittered with determination. Nozomi knew Nico wasn’t just dodging the redhead question. Nico had always had grand plans and Nozomi doubted a three week crush would be anything but crumpled if it got in the way.

Umi had gone over to her girlfriends’ apartment in the hopes of getting Honoka to sit down and work on their Integrated Marketing project: Digital Trends and Social Media. But Honoka had begged off, refusing to leave the couch and turn off her PS4. So Umi had settled for reading out loud what she had done so far on their assignment, hoping Honoka absorbed some of it.

Distracted by Honoka rolling across the couch, cheering her fighter on and waving the controller wildly, Umi kept tensing to leap and grab when Honoka sent it flying. So Umi didn’t hear Kotori enter the apartment and startled when she felt arms slide down her shoulders. Kotori giggled.

“You’re so jumpy, Umi.” Kotori hugged her close, always thrilled when she came home and found both the women she loved there.

“She’s grumpy too. Nico did something but Umi won’t say what.” Game paused, Honoka pointed her controller accusingly at Umi.

Kotori tightened her grip slightly but Umi knew the fawn haired girl would try to keep her locked in until Kotori found out what she wanted to know. But Maki’s secret wasn’t Umi’s to tell. Or Nico’s really. As exasperated as Umi was currently with her roommate’s new girlfriend, she also realized how great a leap of trust it had been for Maki to agree to share that secret with a stranger.

“What did Nico do?” Kotori fingers drummed on Umi’s pectoral muscles, causing Umi to shift uncomfortably.

Umi cringed, this would only make Kotori more suspicious, but Umi needed space to breathe and think. She put her hands over Kotori’s, gently pulling them up and turned to smile at Kotori’s warm golden eyes, “She skipped this week’s roommate meeting.”

Kotori frowned, “Why? She missed rehearsal yesterday too. A senior claimed it was the first time in 3 years, but Nozomi said Nico wasn’t sick.”

Maybe if Umi told Kotori everything but the werewolf thing, Kotori would be distracted and not notice Umi hedging. So Umi harnessed her discomfort and embarrassment from the morning and let it race out with an abbreviated version of Nico’s last couple of days, “MakihadgoneofftoWisconsinandNicofollowedherandwhenIcalledthismorningnoonewaswearingclothes.”

Honoka had stopped rolling, her mouth dropped open; Kotori leaned over the couch, eyes trapping Umi’s, “You had a naked phone conversation with Nico?”

Umi patted herself on the back, internally; distract Kotori, check. “Maki. Nico was wearing a sheet.” Kotori’s eyes went distant for a minute, Umi realizing she was probably reviewing Maki’s measurements.“I dropped the phone. Immediately.”

Honoka roared with laughter, finally tossing the controller to the side but Umi was too busy warily watching Kotori to catch it. Honoka’s hysteria continued as she rolled off the couch, “Umi’s so shy. I want to see your face when you realized…”

“Honoka…” Umi’s voice cracked, somewhat predictably as Kotori loomed closer, “Maki dropped the phone as well.” Umi offered helpfully.

“If,” Kotori leaned even further over the couch, nose nearly touching Umi’s, eyes getting chillier by the second, “you dropped your phone, how do you know?”

“Nico,” Umi smiled, relieved, happy to have thought of an excuse, “yelled at Maki not to break her phone.”

Kotori was actually stronger than she looked and seemed to be holding herself up in a partial plank on the back of the couch, eyes suspicious, “Does this have to do with the dog from the other night?”

Umi nodded, gulping, backing up into the coffee table. She sat. Honoka was now on the floor, watching the conversation while lying on her back.

Umi had actually thought this part through and done some quick research. “Wolf hybrids are legal in Wisconsin, not here. Maki shouldn’t have let it get loose. They needed to return it.”

Kotori let herself fall into the couch, kissing a Honoka who rose to meet her, “Hi honey.”

“Hi!” Honoka pulled herself onto the couch, embracing Kotori from behind and winking at Umi, “We’ll have to make sure Umi forgets about her phone call.”

Kotori’s hand started to lazily travel up Umi’s inseam, stretching Umi’s nerves even more. “I can’t stay tonight.” Umi stood and quickly put the table between Kotori’s hand and her leg. “I really do need to talk to Nico about her…” Umi sighed, she wasn’t going to lie and call Maki a dog, “about Princess.”

Kotori pouted. Honoka knew Umi needed a break between interrogation and conversation so she decided to be irresistibly persuasive and create a compromise, “If you come back after you talk to Nico, I’ll have 3 social media insights.” Honoka winked, “5 if you spend the night.”

Umi had been planning to spend the night anyway, the better to avoid eye or any contact with Maki, but if she could get Honoka to do some homework by not admitting that, well, it was for Honoka’s own good. Kotori could always read Umi’s mind but getting Honoka to work on assignments was a mutual struggle so Kotori let Honoka’s assumption pass.

“I won’t be long.” Umi kissed Kotori apologetically on the cheek, and let herself get lost in Honoka’s bright blue eyes for a heartbeat, “Better get working on those 5, Honoka. You’ll be busy after I get back.”

Honoka bounced up, “Hand me that book, Kotori.”

Eli was in the bathroom so a prowling Nozomi was leaning on the counter, invading Nico’s personal space, “So how far did you get, Nico. Is she under your” Nozomi let her voice match Nico’s pitch “thrall now?”

“No one is under anyone’s thrall, Nozomi.” Nico heard a whine in her voice, her subconscious pushing through with the ‘when was the last 10 seconds you weren’t thinking about Maki’ thought.

Eli slid back into the booth, pulling out her phone. Nozomi produced her cards. “Pick three, Nico-chi, you know the drill.”

The door opened. Nico shook her head at Nozomi, “Busy, busybody” and glanced over the taller woman’s shoulder to see a grinning Maki, in a thermal shirt, jeans and a quilted vest, red hair under the NU bobble hat that seemed to be her default, “Hi, Maki! How’s my car?”

Nozomi whirled, eyeing Maki speculatively. Eli looked up from her phone, suddenly alert. Nozomi rolled her hand out toward Maki, Tarot deck in her palm, “Shuffle and pick three. Your girlfriend won’t tell me anything.”

“Want a coffee, Maki” Nico poured as Maki nodded, “And feel free to ignore Nozomi. She��s desperate for attention.” Nico turned her head, “You should do something about that, chocolate and crazy.” Eli grunted and went back to her phone.

Maki glanced between Nico and Nozomi, sure Nico was grumbling about Nozomi, but Maki could only smell positives. Which meant Nico liked to pretend she didn’t care, which meant Nozomi was actually Nico’s friend, which meant Maki should make an effort. She took the cards and sat at the counter, shuffling. Nico clucked her tongue, but ran a quick hand through the hair over Maki’s ear.

The door opened again and Nico spun into her professional mode, “Welcome to...oh, it’s you, Umi.”

Umi blew out a breath, “Hello to you too, Nico. And Maki.”

Nozomi had just found something even better to play with and made a grab for Umi’s arm, which the black haired martial artist easily dodged, “No hello for me, Umi?”

“No.” Umi sat at the counter, next to Maki, then noticed who she was sitting next to and jumped off the chair as Maki fumbled the cards and blushed. Nico grabbed Maki’s arm and dragged her to the booth shoving her in, across from Eli. “Bring the cards over and leave Umi alone, O Tarot Terror.” Nico stomped toward Nozomi, who fluttered her eyelashes at a locked down Umi instead of complying.

“Double shot.” Umi tapped the counter as Nico neared.

“You’ll be up all night.” Nico chided.

“What I do all night is none of your business.” Umi’s voice was flat.

“You look like you’d have stamina.” Nozomi leered.

“Nozomi!” Three voices. Umi sounded embarrassed, Nico angry and Eli beleaguered. Maki just stared at the three cards she’d laid on the table in front of her, ignoring the static.

“What do I do now?” Maki asked.

Eli had decided to physically intervene, coaxing Nozomi back to the booth with a push/hug combo. “Turn them over,” Nozomi said as Eli's hip met hers.

“Okay.” Maki did, concentrating, fang biting into her lip. Nico leaned her elbows on the counter, watching her girlfriend think so adorably seriously.

“Nico” Umi hissed, “double.”

“Sorry, Umi.” Back to the job. Nico’s hands flew, maneuvering cup and levers and suddenly Umi had a small cup of the dark, dark doom of sleep in front of her. She reached to chug it, Nico’s hand stopped her, “Let it cool off for just a minute.”

Umi chugged anyway. And forced herself not to choke or cough. Or scream.

“Another.” she croaked.

Nico tilted her head forward, searching Umi’s haunted eyes, “What the hell happened?”

“Kotori wants to know about…Princess.” Umi made sure Nozomi was absorbed in the cards and then jerked her head in Maki’s direction.

Maki had proudly turned the cards over, Nico saw her sniffing above them as if that would help, “What’s this?” She pointed to the center card.

“The Hanged Man.” Nozomi was doing her own version of back to work, fingers resting lightly above the card she was examining, eyes intent on first the card, then the person. Maki’s eyes refused to meet Nozomi’s and her cheeks reddened a bit. “With the sneaky flipped five of swords there, you’re being warned to take no action against an adversary, even though you’re tired of…” Nozomi paused, considering, then decided. “You have to think different, try a new strategy.” Maki nodded, obviously curious. Nozomi continued, moving her fingers to the far right card. “But the 10 of Cups here promises you satisfaction, although” and here Nozomi glanced up, catching Nico totally entranced by Maki’s reactions, “you might want to let someone else take the lead.”

Maki whined a little, under her breath, as she picked up the middle card. “He looks calm.” Nico thought she sounded confused.

Nozomi chuckled. “He is. Although you drew him reversed. Usually, he’s hanging from the tree.” She turned the card.

“Ha! Rin does that sometimes, in my treehouse. When she’s thinking.” Maki smiled and flicked the card, remembering Rin with her legs wrapped around a branch, letting herself sway.

“Smart friend.” Nozomi replaced the cards, stashing them again.

Maki shrugged, “She doesn’t care about smart. She cares about people.”

“Even smarter friend.” Nozomi took Eli’s hand, “I’d like to meet her.”

“Didn’t Hanayo say she was dating a Rin?” Eli squeezed Nozomi’s hand back.

“Yes, that’s them.” Maki was puzzled, “How do you know them?”

Eli fidgeted, her hands moving to her mug, “We’re working on something together. We haven’t met Rin yet. Hanayo’s very protective of her.”

Maki remembered coming here to meet Nico and this booth smelling like Hanayo. And Nico explaining that someone was hunting werewolves and Hanayo was getting information. Maki sniffed, concentrating on the woman in front of her. Nozomi still just smelled like sage, willow, chamomile, with a different minor magic note than Nico, but nothing werewolf. So why was she interested? The cards. Could Nozomi really have some kind of magical insight?

“Hey, pretty girl.” Nico had snuck up next to her and slid an arm around her shoulders. Maki jerked a bit in surprise, “still hungry after that sandwich earlier?”

“Sandwich” Umi muttered, darkly, slamming her second double espresso down.

The sudden nearness of Nico made Maki suddenly skittish, her heart racing, her legs bracing themselves to race somewhere less cluttered. Nico felt the impulse, pulling her into a hug. Maki let Nico’s essence surround her. No bolting. Just deep breaths, inhaling vanilla and peach and musk and magic. And coffee, Nico was drenched in the smell of it. Maki was going to be up all night, without having to shoot back espressos like Umi. But she was going to be with Nico so...distracted by that thought, she nuzzled into Nico’s neck.

“Nico-chi, this is a place of business.” Nozomi brayed, Nico knew her friend’s hand was splayed out dramatically over her chest, “I can’t believe this. Control your girlfriend.”

Maki pulled back, blushing again. Eli smiled at her sympathetically.

“Go home, Nozomi.” Nico demanded, heading back to the counter.

“Please.” Umi was examining her empty demitasse cup sadly. Then she pushed it at Nico. Nico shook her head.

“No more for you.”

Umi scowled at Nozomi, “If only I could blame you.”

Nozomi couldn’t resist a cue that obvious and swapped her seat for the one next to Umi, eyes aglow with malignant curiosity.

“So who is driving you to the edge, if not Nico-chi?” Nozomi reached into her cleavage, “Shall we ask the cards?”

The door opened, and the Cup O' was suddenly busy with chill and chatter.

“No.” Umi’s defiance reverberated and echoed, surprising the crowd of five who had just come in, ambling their way to a booth. Nico recognized them, regulars, a Linguistic Anthropology study group. She wandered over, smile bright, nudging Maki’s shoulder with her hip as she passed the booth. Eli stood, stretching, grabbing her coat and Nozomi’s. “It was nice to see you again, Maki.”

Maki nodded, most of her attention on listening to Nico as she flirted with the study group. But then there was a wail and the sound of Umi’s forehead connecting with the counter. Nico froze, horrified, as she heard Umi mutter “I can’t lie to Kotori, she’ll never forgive me” into the wood of the counter.

Nico apologized to her customers and spun, staring at the Umi wrecked tableau. Maki had slid to the edge of her seat, glancing at Nico, who bobbed her head in Umi’s direction, “Do something.”

“W..what?” Maki cocked her head, sniffing. Umi smelled panicked and very nervous. “She’s your friend.”

“Just don’t let her hurt herself for now. Take her outside or something.” Nico whispered, her eyes worried.

This was not an easy problem to solve for her GIRLFRIEND, but she could do it, Maki told herself, trying to muster that excitement again as she cautiously approached an Umi who seemed about to pound her fists down through the counter. Whining softly, hoping Umi would hear it as a friendly sound, Maki sat on the stool next to Umi. Umi turned her head, and groaned, “No.” She raised her head, shifting her stool away from Maki, pointing in an accusatory fashion “Nico, tell your n..no..naked..no clothes…”

The Linguistic Anthropology group suddenly got very interested in Maki, who could feel her ears starting to quiver.

“Oh no you don’t.” Nico’s exclamation was flat, grim and fueled by frustration. She marched over to the counter, her hand dropping over Maki’s, who found herself holding onto it like she was about to fall off the John Hancock Tower observatory level. Nico’s other hand slid under Umi’s chin, forcing the amber eyes to meet her glance, “Leave Maki alone. She didn’t cause any of this on purpose. We will deal with Kotori.” Nico inhaled, her voice relaxing slightly, “All you have to do is go back, look cute, get Honoka in distracting mode and tell Kotori that we’re all having dinner tomorrow.” Nico glanced at Maki, questioning and after a breath, Maki nodded and raised Nico’s hand to her cheek, leaning into it, eyes closed for a moment, focusing on the contact, only on the touch and tingle of Nico's skin against hers. Nico would figure something out. And tonight was just the two of them, alone, after this. Maki needed that. Soon.

“I’ll be right back, pretty girl.” Nico’s hand disappeared, but a quick kiss apologized to Maki’s cheek for the loss. Nico grabbed a plate and opened the display case, “Sorry about the fuss, folks. Nico will make up for it with Nico’s best cookies, on the house.”

Which left Umi and Maki sitting side by side, aggressively and awkwardly not acknowledging each other’s proximity. Umi pushed herself up, dramatically, carefully stepping around the stool so as not to brush by Maki. “I won’t be home tonight, Nico, so do whatever you want.” The Linguistic Anthropology group, high on surprise cookies, "ooohhed", only to instantly realize their mistake when Umi’s fists clenched. Maki almost laughed at how the coffee shop quieted after Umi’s aggressive gesture, but she knew better than to draw the attention of someone so near a break. Umi shrugged into her coat, pleased at the response, but then, discomfort again obvious, she paused. “Tomorrow, you take care of this, Nico.”

“Nico promises. And Nico will make Umi’s favorite dish too.” Nico didn’t go all the way boastful, doubling down on conviction, her smile contrite.

Umi’s expression was wry as she actually caught Maki’s eye briefly, then rested a hand on Nico’s shoulder, “Make Kotori’s. We…” she smiled ruefully at Maki, “are going to need all the help we can get.”

“You are a gem, Umi Sonoda!” Nico crowed as Umi strode into the night to the cheers of the Linguistic Anthropology Group, now forever fans. Maki figured a howl wouldn’t do any more damage and joined in, striking a respectful note. Umi flipped her coat out behind her like a cape and pivoted to tip her hat in farewell.

A/N: Longer chapter than usual. Hope it finds you well : )

#nicomaki #Casual Lunacy #fanfic #nishikino maki #yazawa nico #sonoda umi #werewolf #coffeehouse #college #theatre #linguistic anthropology #fun #dating #suspense #need sleep #how are you #etc

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polyx · 7 years ago

Text

Get to know me tag:^)

I was tagged by @criminalmastermine

Name:

Polyxeni

Gender:

Female

Star sign:

Virgo/Sheep

Height:

170 cm

Put your music on shuffle, what are the first six songs to pop up?:

Ok because I listen on Soundcloud, Spotify and my folders on my phone, I’ll do 3 separate :^) Spotify 1) VIXX LR – Chocolatier 2) BTS – Lost 3) MOBB – Hit me (feat. KUSH) 4) Taemin – Thirsty 5) VIXX – Dynamite 6) BTS – Moving on (Ok it’s pretty obvious that I use Spotify mostly for k-pop lol)

Soundcloud 1) Sunday – Only 2) Sofi Tukker – Hey Lion 3) マクロスMACROSS 82 - 99 - 葛城ミサトYEBISU (YUNG BAE EDIT) 4) Vantage // - Patrick Converter (ft. Chrollo)

5) M.RUX - Rembetiko Mon Amour // ρεμπέτικο αγάπη μου 6) Seiun – otogibanashi My folders on my phone 1) Lorde – Liability 2) Clueso - Achterbahn (Handgepäck Version) 3) Incubus – Pistola 4) Lana Del Rey – Once Upon A Dream (Maleficent OST) 5) Little Boots – Working Girl 6) Banks - Haunt

Grab the nearest book, turn to page 23 and write line 17:

“(…) because “a realisation that comes from society itself” could “already contain a reform (…)“. (roughly translated from German)

Last time you played air guitar?:

Uhm… I don’t know ^^° I rarely do it tbh… I usually dance

Celebrity crush?: The first person that comes into my mind is Lucy Lawless :^)

What’s a sound that you hate/love?:

I love it when it’s 4 in the morning and my window next to my bed is open, and the rain softly hits the glass and no car drives by, or when you sit by the beach at about 7pm in Greece in the summer, when most people had their share of sun and leave the beach, and the water softly hits the shore and a seagull are audible somewhere in the distance, or when you float in the water and your ears are under the water and you hear the water and your heartbeat… also the soft flat breathing of the person laying next to you, or the rustling of the fabric of your bedding when you lay down to sleep… Idk I like a lot of subtle sounds. I hate hearing my joints cracking because I feel like I am breaking apart or something (?)

Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?:

Ghosts not so much, aliens? Definitely.

Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?:

I’ve had my licence for 5 years now and I never crashed :3 I don’t drive much though.

What was the last book you read?:

Simon Beckett – Totanfang / The Restless Dead (original title)

Do you like the smell of gasoline?:

Hm… kinda.

Last movie you saw?:

Fack Ju Göhte 3

Worst injury you’ve ever had?:

Broke my left arm.

Any obsessions right now?: A lot, although I should focus on studying: k-pop (like the biggest obsession atm), writing/reading fanfiction, drawing (my go to instant stress reliever), gaming (I still need to finish Hellblade!!), music overall, manga, my succulents (my babies)

Do you tend to hold grudges against people who’ve wronged you?: Yes. I try to forgive or forget (or both) for my sake, but often it doesn’t work.

In a relationship?:

Yes.

_______________

SECOND VERSION

Appearance:

I have long brown and blue hair, brown eyes and a long thin nose. My face is quite rectangular, and I have olive skin tone (but pretty light compared to others). I am chubby and well-proportioned I’d say. My nails are always short (except for holiday season because my nails won’t constantly break like during work) and usually some kind of varnish is on it. 50% of the time I wear clothes with some kind of pattern on it or colourful stuff, 25% of the time black and 25% pink shit, and always my casio on my wrist. I have 2 tattoos and 4 piercings, one stretched earlobe. Usually I wear make-up, and everyone knows me for wearing colourful eyeshadow.

Personality:

I am quite outgoing and like spending time with my friends and family and partner, but as much as I love having people around me, I need time to be alone. I just need to. I try to have an open ear for other people’s problems, but be prepared I might cry along with you because I am a very emotional person (like on Friday I was in a concert and started crying because the song was so touching lol). I’d say I am quite confident, but I need time adjusting in a new environment before returning to my confident self. At work I am the most patient person, but with my family I tend to be impatient a lot and I hate myself for it, but it’s getting better. I am very creative and love dwelling on details on random stuff (like I could tell you for an hour why I like a particular song for example). That’s also a reason why I can’t get shit done sometimes because I daydream a lot. Like… a lot… one person told me I remind them of Luna Lovegood because I seem trapped in my own bubble. I love arts. I used to be super tidy as a child, but now I am quite messy. I am often late (sorry to anyone affected by this v.v°). I love travelling. My bag is always ready for my nomad life, as I am always on the go.

Abilities:

I speak 3 languages! Also I draw and make jewellery. Also I have the ability to make a mess out of my room in the shortest amount of time, just watch me :^) professionally I am a druggist (but not the one working at a pharmacy, mind you) and I have a bachelors degree of trade and commerce. Also I’m a certified trainee instructor.

Experiences:

Well? I don’t know what this refers too… Maybe some random shit: -I used to do traditional greek dance as a kid. -I’ve never left Europe (sadly), but I’ve travelled to London, Vienna, Paris, Berlin and other cities. -When I was a smoll bean, I went to the central plaza of my dad’s village in Greece and returned with a puppy in my arms. My grandmother kept the pupper. -I love freaking LOVE technology, when I used my huge ass multitalented wireless printer for the first time and printed something via my phone I almost cried in excitement. -I can stop reading a book if it’s boring. -Once on my way home I sat in the tram, and there was a group of friends, drunk, pretty loud and happy, they were wearing traditional Bavarian clothing (Tracht), and they were …deaf! And one of the girls sat opposite to me, and complimented my hair, like we talked without using words, only by using our facial expressions and our hands, and she grabbed on piece of her hair and pointed at mine and we laughed, and then she offered me some of her vodka and I was so yolo at the moment I accepted, although I don’t accept drinks from strangers usually. I had such a blast these 10 minutes we spent together on the tram, I often think about her, and hope she is doing fine :’) - I remember as a young girl, I was sitting on an old faucet which was built in the short wall framing my grandparents’ house, and I was starring at the sky in disbelief. There I was, a young city girl, born and raised in Munich, sitting on an old faucet somewhere in an small village in Greece starring at the beautiful nightsky, seeing something I’ve never seen before. There were so many stars, just…so… so many stars… thousands and thousands of shiny dots across a black canvas. And they seemed to be alive. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Till this day, I remember this night, and I hear my mom asking what I was doing out there alone, surrounded by the wild noises of thousands of bugs around me. It has been more that 10 years, and this night is so vibrant in my memory. I will never forget this moment till my dying day. Still, I often spent time in Greece watching the stars, always in the back of my mind what my grandma told me once: don’t count the stars, it brings misfortune. - I pierced my ears on my own (…stupid). - I pretty much had my hair dyed any colour of the rainbow (except yellow, but I guess blonde counts?). - I’ve been to A LOT of concerts.

(I have some negative experiences too of course, but I don’t want to dwell on them) My life:

I still live with my parents, because I cannot afford anything on my own atm, but also due to other circumstances. Till the end of September I worked full time, now I started studying sociology (BA). I have been employed in the company I work for for 10 years now, and I love my work although it’s tough :’). I have a little sister who I love dearly, and she is making me a proud big sis:). My parents are the best parents, seriously you could not wish for better parents. I am super grateful to them for all I’ve been able to do in my life and all the love and support they have given, and are still giving me. Also, I’m so proud of them. The thought of what my parents have gone through makes me cry. I used to think I don’t have a lot of friends, but I do! And they all are beautiful unique personalities, I love them! I live the nomad live, as I feel I’m rarely home, always on the go. My co-workers are the sweetest people, I love seeing their faces light up when they see me :’) (ILY!!!) And my partner… there are no words to describe what sweet of a person he is. A puppy is nothing against him. I want to cuddle him forever. I am online a lot, but I don’t get involved with a lot of people online, safe for… 2 :’D Rach and Mine! I usually admire from afar, and fangirl in the tags for example. Overall I wake up everyday being thankful, my life is good! I appreciate every moment. I am blessed.

Relationships: I’ve only had 2 lmao, and I’m still friends with my first partner. Random stuff:

Ups I think I answered this earlier already…

THIRD VERSION

Relationship status:

In a relationship. We have an imaginary daughter lol.

Fave colour:

All hues of blue! Basically every colour but blue is the most dear to me.

Lipstick or ChapStick:

Lipstick for sure. I always have one in my pocket.

Last song:

Shahmaran by Sevdaliza

Last movie:

Fack Ju Göhte 3

Top 3 shows:

I don’t watch TV, neither do I have the time for series (I have GOT on halt, as well as “Halt and Catch Fire”) … But “The Vision of Escaflowne” is my favourite series of EVER. The story, the characters, the music, the art, the world building, I could cry it’s so beautiful. Also the whole ATLA and TLOK Series, it is so good!!! *cries*

Top 3 ships:

Oh man… ok. I’ll go for Amorra (Amon and Korra, TLOK), Truhan ( Gohan and Trunks, Dragonball Z) and basically every possible VIXX ship, because I love them all (but Wontaek though…)

I’d like to tag @valkerymillenia, @abnaxus, @coolera but you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to :’)

#polyx #polyx personal

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brendlesachiel · 8 years ago

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Stand up shit

I like the word “egotistical.” It sounds like a Kiwi saying “ego testicle.” “I’m very egotistical.”

Education language: diversity equity inclusion pedagogy learners with additional learning needs, developing programs, initiatives and strategies to implement educational policies in appropriate educational settings; individualised differentiated instruction diversity equity inclusive learning environment engage learners in the process educational outcomes cultural competence social justice, embrace diversity

The annoying thing about life is that it ends before you have any time to come even close to understanding it.

“Snowy Mountains” and “Rocky Mountains” are really uncreative names. “It;s mountain and it’s kinda rocky. Rocky Mountains? It’s a mountain and it’s kind of snowy. Snowy Mountains? Imagine if every name was as uncreative as that. The Amazon’s just called “The Leafy Forest.” It’s like calling the Amazon “Leafy Forest.”

“I hope it goes well!” Hope is worthless. You know how I know it’s worthless? It’s because no one would be able to sell hope as a product and make money off it. Like, in a store. Like, a sales person can’t be like, “Hey, you want some hope? “ “Sure.” “That’ll be 20 dollars.” “Oh fuck that shit. I’m not spending money on feeling hopeful.”

Imagine if Yoda made An Inconvenient Truth instead of Al Gore? “The use of cars leads to greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gas emissions lead to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere leads to the reflection and absorption of incoming solar radiation. The reflection and absorption of incoming solar radiation leads to the planet radiating some of that energy back out into the atmosphere in the form of infrared radiation. The planet radiating some of that energy back out into the atmosphere in the form of infrared radiation leads to the trapping of some of that radiation in the atmosphere by those same gases. And the trapping of some of that infrared radiation in the atmosphere by those same gases leads to global warming. Disastrous, that could be. Fix it, we must.”

How awesome is the feeling when you successfully change the subject away from an embarrassing topic? In your head you’re like “Fucking yes, I changed the direction of the conversation and he didn’t notice, I got away with it.”

Imagine if there was a girl called Marie Marie Marie Marie Marie Marie Marie Marie Marie Marie Marie Marie…and it just goes on for like 500 Marie’s. Her teacher marks the role like, “John Smith.” “Here.” “Elizabeth Knight.” “Here.” “Marie Marie Marie Marie Marie Marie Marie Marie Marie Marie…fuck it, Marie to the power of 500. Are you here?” “Here.”

fear leads to anger. anger leads to hate. hate leads to suffering.

you could’ve just said fear leads to suffering. Just go from A to B, mate. You went through two more doors than you needed to go through. Only take a longer route if it’s a better journey, and that wasn’t.

Reincarnation. They believe that EVERYONE is going to come back as an animal when they die. EVERYONE. Including people who killed themselves. “Fuck, I justvoluntarily left that place and now I gotta fucking go back as a dog? Are you fucking kidding me?” He goes. His owner gives him a shitty like Rover. “Russel!” “Yeah, fuck off.” “Oh Russel’s a bit down today!” “I’m down everyday, bitch, cuz I have the soul of a sad clinically depressed guy in a call center who worked in a call center. But you don’t know that cuz you don’t fuckin’ understand me, so whatever. Woof, yeah, yeah, whatever. Fuck, I gotta be loyal to this ugly lady until she puts me down. Can you throw a stick on a main road so I have a fucking excuse.”

“Rover! Why are you on the main road? Bad boy!” Cuz I’m trying to not be owned by you, you old ugly fuckin’ cow! You do realize I’m a depressed guy in a dog’s body?

DOes that mean that every dog who looks sad used to be a fat single dude who worked in a call centre? i bet they try to kill themselves again as dogs.

I saw an episode of Dragon Ball Z once, and the whole episode was just Goku powering up while Frieza watched him. He was going “Arghghghghghhgghgh.” I was like, “This is not a TV show. This is two dudes sounding really constipated for twenty minutes with a few ad breaks in between.” Five episodes of powering up. I guess that’s just a law of nature in the Dragon Ball Z universe, that in order to be able to cause harm to your enemies, you have to sound like you’re shitting a brick out of your asshole. Imagine if someone in the Dragon Ball Z universe was born with a genetic defect where he was in powering up mode all the time, like even when ordering a coffee. “Arhghghhghg can I please have a cappacino?”

Every nerdy teenage boy in Australia was watching Dragon Ball Z on Cheese TV. Back when Goku was fighting Frieza and they were both doing nothing but powering up for 10 episodes. So for 10 straight weeks in Australia, every nerdy teenage boy was watching two dudes sound constipated for half an hour each week.

They believe that EVERYONE is going to come back as an animal when they die. EVERYONE. Including people who killed themselves. Does that mean that all the dogs that look sad used to be depressed people? Dogs are like “yeah hi. Yeah, woof, whatever. Yeah, I used to be a virgin who worked in a call center and now I’m a fuckin’ low-energy dog.”

In order to make an order at the McDonald’s drive thru, Yoda from Star Wars would probably need a translator.

Intercom: HI, how can i help you today?

Yoda: Three things, I would like to buy.

Translator: I would like to buy three things.

Yoda: .Coke, first I would like.

Translator: First I would like coke.

Yoda: Nuggets, then I want.

Translator: Then I want nuggets. He just reverses it.

Yoda: And French fries, I guess I’ll get it.

Translator: I would like to purchase nuggets, fries and coke, he just reverses it, same thing each time

Intercom: Okay, Master Yoda. Any sauce with that?

Yoda: Please, sweet and sour. Yoda: Pot, I like to smoke. Translator: Again, I like to smoke pot, he just reverses it. Does the same thing each time.

I like my humor off the wall and on the nose.

Isaac, it’s great that you’re daydreaming mate, you’re using your imagination which is fantastic, I love it, but I also love getting through the curriculum, mate, so let’s, come on.

I’m apologetic to people I like, but I’m really unapologetic to people I don’t like. To people I like, I’m like, “Sorry, man.” To people I don’t like, I’m like, “Fuck you, I’m not apologizing for shit, motherfucker. Even if I did something wrong, I’m not apologizing, that would be humiliating.”

2 + 3 is 5 and 3 + 9 is 12. But here’s the thing: 32 + 34 is 66. So, by that token, 25 + 4 is 29. But, on the other hand, 38 + 45 is 83. The argument comes full circle when you realize that 37 + 12 is 49 and perhaps the most frightening and profound truth of all time: 1 + 1 is 2. I just had to get that off my chest. Been bottling it up for so long.

have you ever heard someone use a really cool phrase and been like, “yep i’m gonna steal that one, thank you. I’ll pretend i’ve been saying that one for years, cheers.

Life is full of people telling you what you have to do.

Your boss is like “you have to get five sales today” the government’s like, “you have to pay that fine by October 31 and your tax by October 31,” your parents are like, “Mate, you’re 28, you have to move out,” you know, life is full of people telling you what you have to do, and it can be a bit of a downer sometim

So I’m gonna tell you all the things that you don’t have to do, for a change.

This one time my friend was reading a Wikipedia article, and he turned to me and said, “You know, Wikipedia gets a lot of shit but it’s actually quite a reliable source.” So I opened the article he was reading on my phone, changed the heading to, “No it’s not, fuckhead,” and told him to refresh.

I think doing stand up comedy at an open mic night is like making a meal at a restaurant when you’ve had no experience as a chef and your customers have no idea what they’re gonna eat. You could end up being the next Gordon Ramsay, but chances are you’re gonna make a really shit meal that the customers have to eat.”

I once heard someone refer to a murderer as a “homicidal practitioner.” I thought, “That’s a pretty funny euphemism.” So Ted Bundy was a homicidal practitioner. Kurt Cobain was a suicidal practitioner. Hitler was both. He was a fully qualified and licensed practitioner of homicide, suicide and genocide. He did all three of those things in six years.

I hate when people are having a debate, and they state the year that it is as. “Come on, it’s 2018.” People have been saying this every year. “Come on, it’s 1993.” “It’s 1998, I thought we were past this archaic nonsense.” They’ve been saying it every year. Even the people in the year 43, 512 AD will be stating the year as a form of argument. “It’s 43, 512 AD, I thought we were past this archaic nonsense.”

the bible is so TL;DR. 30, 000 verses and 1,000 chapters? Who can be bothered R-ing such an L-ass book that’s the TL;DR-iest book length. the lord of the rings is so TL;DW.. To those of you who don’t know, “TL;DR” is an abbreviation online and it stands for “too long; didn’t read.” The brilliance of that phrase is that it’s a really short response to something really long, so it hurts their feelings. We should come up with a nicer abbreviation. Like NL;DR….WR…“not long; did read.” Or a more indecisive version. “KL;MR.” “Kinda long; might read.”

I once said to my friend Marcus, right, “Hey Marcus, did you know that the planet Jupiter can think?” And Marcus is like , “Oh, really?” And I’m like, “Yep. And right now it’s thinking “Holy shit, Marcus is gullible and dumb as shit.”

have you ever been online and you type a search query into the browser and the results pop up and it’s fucking Bing? I don’t know who runs Bing but dude, no one likes your search engine. Give up. You thought it was Google, you were waiting for the red, yellow, green and blue logo, and you get a shit grey one. Bing is so annoying. What if search engines dissed each other? Like, you enter “Bing” into Google and a webpage pops up, “Bing is a shit search engine.”

this one time I farted in front of a girl i Iiked who barely knew me. If I had to sum up her facial expression, it would be, “intensely offended.” Her facial expression was saying, “I don’t know anything about you but that stinks like shit and i’m pissed off i have to smell it.” but my facial expression was matching her intensity. My face was saying, “What, you saying you don’t fart, motherfucker? Fuck outta here with that disapproving gaze, I did what every human does and I’m supposed to be ashamed?”

some people wanna get rid of nukes. and that makes me think, “well, if you wanna get rid of nukes so that they never appear on earth again, then you’d have to stop anyone capable of making a nuclear weapon from

get rid of people that know how to make nukes. which means you have to destroy knowledge. so fu

have you ever said a word that you didn’t want to say? you’re like, “fuck, why did i say that word? that was the wrong word to fucking use. Fuck.” This one time someone said “seeya later” and i said “thanks”

How annoying are bosses? You’re sitting there, having fun, and then he comes up to you like, “Hey, you better do that thing!” and you’re like, “I don’t want to but you’re paying me, so fine.” And then your boss’s boss comes up to your boss like, “Hey, you better do that thing!” and he’s like, “I don’t want to but you’re paying me, so fine.” And then your boss’s boss’s boss comes up to your boss’s boss like, “Hey, you better do that thing!” and he’s like, “Sure, I’d love to! Thanks for paying me, by the way.” Your boss’s boss is just a really positive dude. Everyone has a boss. Even if you don’t have a job, your boss is the people who run the country. And even if you run the country, your boss is the people who don’t. Ain’t that weird? The people who don’t run the country come up to the people who do like, “Hey, you better run the country well,” and Turnbull’s like, “I don’t want to but you’re paying me, so fine.” Even people who try really hard to not have a boss have a boss. Like the guy that runs North Korea. China comes up to him like, “Hey, you better do that thing,” and he’s like, “I don’t want to but you give me food and energy, so fine. So annoying.”

have u ever seen an asian person who looks 18 and then they’re like “hi i’m 65.”

hi i’m james. i hope you all die. not now or any time soon, just when you’re really old and asleep. i hope you die then. you all thought i was being mean but i was actually being nice. i hope i die now though.

Fuck, I’m retarded. I’m probably the most retarded person on the planet. My whole life is just me trying to resist my own natural gravitation towards antisocial, dysfunctional behavior. Stephen Hawking has nothing on me. I’m retarded socially, since I don’t know how to talk to people. Retarded intellectually, since I smoke a lot of pot. Financially, since I spend money on stupid bullshit. Physiologically, since I sweat too much and blush all the time. And sexually, since I cum early and sometimes struggle getting it up. My use of the word “retarded” itself is further evidence that I’m retarded since I’m willingly using a word that many people find offensive, possibly because they’re retarded as well. I’m not saying they’re stupid for being offended by it, I’m saying they may actually be mentally slow people that are hurt by that word going into their slow brain. I have no problem with retarded people. The only difference between me and them is I have a faster brain. I go, “2 + 2 is equal to 4,” they go, “2 + 2 is equal to…hang on a sec…let’s see if I can break this down…you got 2, which is a number, and what’s a number? A number is a symbol that represents an abstract quantity, so you’re adding two of the same quantity, so you get 4.” The retarded person is still logical, but by the time they execute their logic the topic of conversation has already changed from maths to North Korea and we’re going, “What are you you doing, Bobby? We’re talking about Kim Jung Un now.”

I went to uni, where I did a Bachelor of Science. And the whole time I was there I was high. For four years I was just engulfed in a haze of marijuana and I came out four years later like, “Fuck, I guess I’m a scientist.”

I love love. The best way to know how in love I am with someone is by how much I’m ignoring everything and everyone that isn’t them.

I can relate to Voldemort because he’s pale, egotistical, terrified of death and he spends a lot of time alone with his snake. I’ve always found it weird that Voldemort doesn’t like people using his name. That’s like someone at a party going, “Hi, I’m John, but please don’t call me that, thank you. If you don’t know what to call me, that’s your problem, cunt. How ‘bout you fuckin’ improvise?” Imagine if Voldemort was so constipated one day that it made Harry’s scar hurt? Harry would be like, “Fuck, this is so annoying! I hate hearing the thoughts of a psychopath squeezing shit out of his asshole!” What if Voldemort’s asshole was a slit like his nostrils? What if he made Death Eaters wipe his ass for him? “My lord, it is an honour to wipe the shit off your powerful, majestic asshole.“p>

Teaching: Marking / Teachers have to do more homework / I don’t wanna be here either, I just need money to survive.

This is the evolution of humanity from start to finish: *grunts* *throws a spear* *fucks* *writes with a pen* *picks telephone up* Tell you what, that Alexander Bell bloke’s pretty smart, isn’t he? *types on a typewriter* *shoots a military gun* *twiddles thumbs on phone, does it for ages* *looks up* that cloud looks like a mushroom, I might tweet about it *twiddles thumbs* “I am about to die, hashtag #goodwhileitlasted”

I’m a teacher. And there are things that I really wanna say to my students that I’m not allowed to say. For example, I really wanna say to them, “Hey kids, I’m not gonna teach you anything on the curriculum today because I think it’s all worthless and I think you should teach yourself stuff in your own time. There’s no point in me cramming knowledge into your head that you don’t care about. There’s no point in me uploading thousands of gigs onto your computer if it’s jut gonna sit there in your hard drive, doing nothing. If you don’t want to learn, don’t do it. Just do the things you wanna do instead. But if you have a smart brain in your head, then I predict that you’re gonna eventually get bored of existing and functioning in a world that you know nothing about. You’re gonna get bored of not knowing the rules of the game you’ve been playing your entire life. You’re gonna get bored of going for runs around the oval and not knowing why the grass you’re running on is green, or why there’s wind in your face. You’ll get bored of not knowing what the chair that you’re sitting on right now is made of. You’re gonna get bored of not knowing what you’re made of. You’re gonna get bored of not knowing why your pee is yellow and why your farts smell really bad. You’ll get bored of masturbating and not knowing why the hand around your penis has five fingers instead of six. Or why you have two eyes but only one nose. Suddenly, you’re gonna want to know these things and you’ll start Googling shit. And I swear to god that when you read all this shit on Wikipedia, you’re gonna absorb it and remember it until you die because it’s information that you actually give a shit about. You know why you couldn’t remember that maths formula in your exam the other day, even after I showed it to you forty fucking times? It’s because you don’t care about it. But maybe you might care what the area of a circle is one day. Anyway, class dismissed. You have no homework for the rest of your life.” I really wanna say all that shit. But you know what I say instead? “Hi kids, today we’re gonna do Questions 4a, 5b and 6c from Chapter 3E of the textbook. We’re gonna be finishing algebra today and starting probability tomorrow because we live under capitalism and learning has a time limit. I’d explain what capitalism is but we covered that last week.”

I once took my sister to the hospital for an emergency and she was lying in the trolley with all the other patients and the nurses were cracking jokes with each other and I remember looking at the nurse thinking, “I don’t think the ice addict overdosing under your nose right now appreciates the playful banter you’re having.” **

Can I have a skinny capaccino and some scrambled eggs on toast? This one isn’t on the menu but can I have some money and affection as well? Life is hard.”

You know when someone gives you something for free and there’s about five seconds where you have to pretend like you object to their decision? “I can’t accept this! I fucking so want it, but for some bullshit reason I gotta pretend I don’t until you give me the social green light, and then I can shrug and sheepishly pocket it while thinking ‘Fucking yes, cheers you dumb bitch!’”

I believe that none of us have any idea what we’re doing and we’re all winging this shit. My whole life is just me trying to resist my own natural tendency towards antisocial, dysfunctional behavior. The whole time I’m in public, I’m trying to avoid doing two things: jacking off and dying.

I’m 27 and I still live with my parents. And you can tell my dad is starting to get sick of me. Yeah, he loves me, but it’s a love that decreases exponentially. It’s like I’m a dinner that he heated in the oven and after 18 years he’d finally finished cooking me and he was getting ready to take me out, feed me to people, put me in the dishwasher and skip out of the kitchen back to his bedroom so he could fuck his wife for the rest of his life, only to find out that the dinner had other plans. It wanted to stay in the oven for nine more years. So my dad’s been stuck in the kitchen for a quarter of his adult life, trying to convince his own spoiled, entitled roast dinner to get the fuck out of the oven. “Get out, bitch! You’ve been ready for consumption for an entire decade!” “But I don’t wanna leave! It’s too scary! I’m gonna be eaten alive!” “Of course you will, you’re a fucking meal, now get out!” “But I’m special! I’ve got like, really interesting potatoes and stuff! My chicken wings are important!”

I hate when people describe other people as “complex.” "Dude, have you met Brandon? He is so complex! He’s like, a puzzle, wrapped up in a paradox, cloaked in an enigma, draped in a conundrum, and shrouded in a mist of incomprehensible, inexplicable mystique!” No, he’s not. Brandon goes to work and comes home. That’s it. And if he doesn’t, he probably should. Instead of sitting around on his unemployed ass all day, thinking of all the different contradictions that his spooky personality can embody all at once to impress his credulous, idiotic friends, he should, I don’t know, write a fucking resume. And under “Skills,” he should put something other than “being complicated” because no one gives a shit. Bosses aren’t gonna go, “Wait a second, Brandon, you’re saying you’ve spent the majority of your life building yourself up into a pointlessly elaborate riddle that no one gains anything by solving? Why, I’d like to make you an engineer! Construction on the bridge starts Monday!”

I like reading mistakes in books because that means the editor either didn’t do a good job or didn’t have enough time to do a good job. So they either suck at their job (which means their boss sucks at hiring people) or managing their time; either way, they suck, and that’s funny. I like when people suck at things. I like watching people trip over. “Haha. He sucks at balancing himself. Fuckwit.”

“How’d u find the meal?” “This is the worst most fucking garbage meal I’ve ever had”

Turning right at an intersection. It’s not my fault that the world is overpopulated.

Theoretically I can ruin any friendship or relationship I have by grabbing someone’s balls. If I do that enough times, eventually they’re gonna go “this is over” **

Remember Caitlyn Jenner? She’s really fucking ugly.

Had to have dinner with my grandpa the other day. He’s 93 and on the brink of death and it was probably the fifth last time I’ll see him. I reckon I have eight hours left of looking at his decrepit, wrinkly face and his pretzel-shaped spine before he dies a shitty, ignominious death. I won’t care much when he dies and that makes me sad. I love him because he was a nice man and will always remember him, but I won’t care that much when he dies, which probably means our relationship never really got off the ground.

Imagine sounding really nice when you’re saying really mean things. Imagine sounding really mean when you’re saying really nice things.

I have no creativity. Isaac Newton apple story.

The United States constitution is like the rulebook to a board game that was written carefully by very smart people to ensure that the game can be played for as long as possible without any hiccups, right up until that inevitable moment where the players throw a tantrum, burn the rulebook and knock over all the pieces. So far the game’s lasted 230 years but I think that tantrum might be coming.

Have you ever noticed how all decency and compassion goes out the window when someone disagrees with someone else, politically? Even if Donald Trump tweeted, “My son Barron just got leukemia, I am devastated,” I can guarantee his Twitter feed will be flooded with thousands of angry, vicious replies, just like it is with every other Tweet he makes. “Good, fuck him…you ruined our country, so he deserves it.” None of us have the answers to any of the questions raised by politics and morality since they’re too complex for our limited monkeys brains to understand, yet these are the two things, more than anything in the world, that inspire deep hatred for one another.

I hate jokes and banter. “You should mark my reports.”

ISIS is always responsible for each attack.

- Take out the trash on Tuesday

- Write up a CV before Friday

- Stop writing “to do” lists down and trust your memory more, idiot.

“Great minds think alike.” So do shit ones. How do you know you’re not just two idiots reaching the same wrong conclusion?

My whole life is just me trying to resist my own natural gravitation towards antisocial, dysfunctional behavior.

I wish I had more than two hands. It would be very handy. You know how many more things I could do with five hands? I could write an email, turn the TV on, pat my dog, brush my teeth and jack myself off at the same time. I’m so jealous of octopuses. You can do so many things with hands you can slap me for this routine.

You know when you use an App and the App asks if they can access your photos? I have an internal dialogue between myself and the App that plays out every time I do that.

App: Hey dude. Thanks for getting the app, appreciate it, man. So as part of the app you can send photos and shit but before you do that, we just need to be granted access to look at your photos and your Facebook and stuff.”

Me: What?

App: Just need access so we can do the photo stuff.

Me: OK. Fine. You’re not gonna do any nasty shit though, are you?

App: Like what?

Me: Like find out who I am and expose me to advertisements that are really specific to my needs and wants to further capitalize off me?

App: No, no fuckin’ - no, no way we’re gonna do that. It’s for - when you use photos for the app, we have to see your photos for that to happen.

Me: Why do you need to be granted access to all my photos? Why can’t you just be granted access to the photos that I use on the app?

App: No, no, no. Dude, we need to see all of them for some reason. Dude, it’s not - and also, maybe - maybe we’re just interested to see you because you could be a cool guy. Who fucking - ?”

Me: Okay. Fine. But you’re not gonna sell my information to other companies so they can fuck me as well?

App: Dude, why the fuck - no, we’re totally - no, we’re not gonna do that.

Me: OK. Fine. Allow.

App: Yeah cheers you fuckin’ moron, we know who you are, we know your hopes and dreams, your taste in fashion and music and we’re gonna cook up 50 ads in a row to fuck you in the arse one by one and you willingly handed us the lubrication to do so.

Imagine if our penises swapped places with our noses? We’d look like elephants. We’d have to put cocaine down our pants. An aroused man would look like a lying Pinocchio and a lying Pinocchio would look like an aroused man. Rudolph would be the Red Knob Reindeer. Voldemort would have two ugly slits above his balls. We’d have to drill glory holes at head height and midgets could use the original holes! The Seven Dwarves could fuck Snow White standing! Sneezy would have to change his underwear all the time. Girls would have to stand on boxes or tippy toes to blow tall guys. Lorena Bobbit’s husband would have nothing between his eyes and mouth except for a bit of scar tissue, maybe. Goldmember’s face would look like the inside of the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. If a little boy farted in the Neverland ranch, Michael Jackson would have to reach downstairs to pinch his fake nose and reach upstairs to beat it. (Wanking off nose) We’d have to do this every time we want to imply that someone’s a wanker (/Wanking off nose) Black guys would smack people in the face whenever they turn around. We’d have to hump flowers to smell them, Mr Squiggle would have to hump paper to draw, swordfish would fuck their prey to death and woodpeckers would become woodfuckers.

Imagine if someone went through a metal detector and it beeped, so they turned to the security guard and said, “Oh, it must be beeping because i have a fully loaded pistol in my pocket that I was gonna shoot everyone with, but I’ve been foiled by technology and I’ll probably go to jail for this, which is rather unfortunate.”

Imagine if I went to McDonald’s and the woman behind the counter said, “How can I help you?” and I said, “Do you know how I can get a lot of money and a wife?” and she replied, “Dude, I work at McDonald’s, so I can’t help you with the money shit, but I can be your wife, sure. I’ve got a shit job and nothing going for me so why not? Look, we’ll discuss the wedding when my shift is over but until then, shut the fuck up and leave because both my boss and the fat cunt waiting in line behind you look really pissed off right now.”

Imagine if I went to a coffee shop, ordered a cappuccino, and the barista’s like, “Too easy,” and I said, “Do you want me to make it harder for you then, moron? Fine, give me 35 cappuccinos, each in a different type of mug, each made with different types of coffee beans from at least six different countries, each containing a different type of milk that was collected from at least six different types of cows from at least four different continents, and as you move from Cappuccino 1 to Cappuccino 35, I want the amount of chocolate on the top to exponentially increase with a growth rate of 3. Does that sound sufficiently difficult for you, you fucking idiot? I don’t give a shit how difficult you think your task is. You’ve received training, you fucking twit, of course it’s easy. I’m being extremely difficult and needlessly aggressive to you right now, and it’s starting to dawn on you that I might be mentally ill. I can see it in your eyes. Everything about your body language suggests that you want this shift to be over with as soon as possible. You want to fucking disappear right now.”

Imagine if Borat had depression? “I do not … I do not feel nice … when I see my brother Bilo in his cage … I no laugh. Nature make a toilet in my head.” Imagine if Frank Walker had depression? He just got so sick of doing the same ad every day that he blew his brains out all over his national tiles. “Goodbyeeeee!” Imagine if he talked like that all the time? He orders a coffee like, “Helloooooo, can I have a cappacinnooooooo?” Imagine if he talked normally? “Hello, it’s Frank Walker from National Tiles and thanks to my speech therapist, I no longer talk like an absolute fuckwit.”

Imagine if you rocked up to work and your boss was like, “Hey, everyone, you’re all free to go because who gives a fuck about any of this shit, really? No, I’m not high; I just need a day clear in my schedule to sit and think about how uninspired I am by this very boring, repetitive job, and how I’m going to escape. I need to figure out how to start my own business so I don’t have bosses breathing down my neck all day, applying lots of pressure - which some of you relieve, and I’m very grateful for that, thank you - but on the other hand, we do have a lot of dead weight here, let’s be honest. There is no shortage of completely useless, incompetent staff - some of whom are sitting in this room - who add all the pressure back on. I will probably have to fire at le ast two of you by next week - not probably, definitely - I will definitely be making life very difficult for at least two of you in less than seven days. Alright, goodbye.“

Imagine if the dictionary was written by a stoned philosophy major? “The definition of tree is whatever you want it to be, bro. It’s all a matter of perception, man.”

Imagine if someone got really offended by a compliment? “How dare you say that? How DARE you tell me I have a nice shirt? Who do you think you are? The fucking nerve!”

Imagine if you were watching the scene in Toy Story where Sid’s burning Woody and Woody suddenly yelled out, “Stop fucking burning me! I’m in a lot of pain! No, you’re not hallucinating, this is real; I’m a sentient toy that can move and talk but more importantly, I can feel pain, motherfucker. Toy biology is very complicated stuff and I don’t want to bore you with the details but that flame that you were holding up to my face like a fucking nutjob was stimulating certain pain receptors in my plastic skin, which sends a signal to the brain in my fucking cowboy head and it hurts, dumbass. I know this is hard to believe and it’s all very overwhelming - you’re a teenager going through puberty, for Christ’s sake, the world’s confusing enough as it is without your toy talking to you in Tom Hanks’s voice. But seriously, Sid, I think you should see a psychiatrist because you’re obviously quite mentally disturbed and your behaviour is typical of most serial killers.”

Imagine an episode of Bananas in Pajamas where B1 said to B2, “I’ve gotta be honest, I don’t know what you’re fucking thinking. I’ve been pretending to know this whole time because despite being a banana that can talk, I’m not fucking psychic, okay? And can we stop wearing these fucking pajamas? Yeah, I get it, it rhymes, but I wanna wear other shit for once! I’m sick of dressing like a Jew in Auschwitz cuz it’s a fucking bummer, to be honest. I hate being a mindless letter and number that agrees with you all the time; I wanna think independently and have my own identity! I’m sick of running downstairs and chasing bears just cuz it fucking rhymes! And so are the bears, to be honest. There’s a very fine line between ‘catching them unawares’ and harassment. And just because different activities sound similar, doesn’t mean we have to do all of them. If I wanna go to the beach, I shouldn’t also have to reach for a peach and leech and make a fucking speech. Look, B2, you’re my best mate, we’ve been through a lot and we’re fruits that walk around and say shit, but I think I’m clinically depressed. I’m gonna make like me and split. It’s killing myself time.”

Imagine if birds were deliberately shitting on us? They just look down at us from above like, “Hm, who can I shit on today? I think I’ll get that bald fucker over there. I’m gonna squirt my jizzy shit all over his face.”

I don’t know how to talk to people. The only things that I know how to do are the three things that I love doing: writing, eating and drinking water. My life is just me trying to do those three things as much as possible. When I’m not doing those three things, I’m trying to navigate my way around whatever obstacle is blocking my access to those three things whether it be work, a conversation, or even an entire friendship or relationship that I stumbled into but never intended on committing to.

Sometimes I do music and this one time I was sitting at a gig and this guy came up to me, said his name was Greg, said he liked our music and then he invited us to sleep over at his house and write a song together. I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to go home instead because my house doesn’t contain strangers called Greg telling me shit I don’t care about. Greg did nothing wrong. In fact, he was very nice - he let me smoke his weed which felt good to totally exploit. I just didn’t give a shit about Greg’s existence and I never will because Greg is 55 and male, which is the one demographic of people on Earth that I want to talk to the least. Because 55 year old men - bless them, I’ll be one soon - but unless they’re my dad or uncle, they have nothing to offer me except for knowledge which doesn’t count for much today because I have Google. Anyway, Greg was telling me his life story at the gig and I remember thinking, “Great. Now I have to have a ‘Greg’ folder in my memory that takes up kilobytes of useless information about some random nothing of a person that I will never see again and when this conversation is over (which is hopefully soon), I will send the ‘Greg’ folder straight to my brain’s recycle bin and empty it immediately.” His name is Greg Love, by the way. And his name makes sense because his behaviour strongly suggests that he just wants to be loved and I gave him nothing.

Time for a bit of observational comedy. Have you ever been such a stoner that you smoke the ashes of the weed that you’ve already smoked because you know it contains just a little bit of THC and you’ll do anything to get high because you’re a worthless, unemployed pile of dog shit that should have been aborted and chucked in the garbage with all the other dead fetuses?

have you ever said a word that you didn’t want to say? you’re like, “fuck, why did i say that word? that was the wrong word to fucking use. Fuck.”

Do you ever wake up at 8:30AM and feel really proud of yourself for waking up at the same time that normal, productive, functioning adults with jobs do and then you think, “Well, it couldn’t hurt to lie in bed for a little bit longer?” and then you wake up again and it’s 1:00PM and you want to kill yourself?

Have you ever noticed that there’s always a mosquito nearby trying to suck some of your blood to survive, whether it’s real or metaphorical? Real in the summertime, metaphorical always.

Have you ever noticed that Barack Obama completely stole his campaign slogan from Bob the Builder? I wanna know what Bob’s secret is because none of my friends have “so much fun” at work, and get the job done. It’s either one or the other but never both. Maybe Bob’s secret is that he’s not fucking real. Maybe that explains it.

Have you ever noticed that dogs kind of look like they’re laughing when they’re panting?

Have you ever wondered if animals think cars are other animals? ** Have you ever been walking down the street, doing your thing, and then you hear a police siren and you pretend you’re a criminal mastermind on the run? Have you ever been such a paranoid fuck that every time you hear a police siren, you immediately think they’re coming to arrest you? But then after two seconds the car passes and you remember that while the porn you look at is very weird, it’s not illegal and law enforcement doesn’t give a single shit about your existence.

I feel sorry for The Gingerbread Man. Put yourself in his doughy, frosted shoes for a second. First of all, you were born in an oven. How fucking terrifying is that? You started your life in the same place that many Jews ended theirs. And then, barely seconds into your existence, before you’ve even had time to figure out why you’re in a fucking furnace, the woman who created you is trying to eat you! If I was a biscuit that was miraculously born with fully formed muscles capable of locomotion, and some old bitch was trying to shove me in her face, I’d be running away too! He had two choices: get the fuck out of there, or get eaten alive and become an old lady’s diarrhea. My sympathy for him vanished as soon as he became a smartass, though. “Run, run, as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man!” Do you say the same thing to cripples, bitch?

I think it’s funny that Hindus love cows because it’s definitely not mutual. If a cow saw a dead Hindu on the ground, it would happily shit on his dead face. It would have no compunction in emptying the contents of its four stomachs all over his fucking worthless, formerly religious head.

I think it’s funny that Caitlyn Jenner is really ugly. I think it’s funny that she got away with killing someone because she cut her dick off. I think it’s funny that I’m calling her “she.”

I think it’s funny that thesaurus.com lists 50 synonyms for the word “redundant.”

I think it’s funny that there’s a small part of me that hates myself for going on stage and trying to gain the approval and respect of a room full of strangers. If I was in the crowd right now watching myself, I’d be disgusted by my own ego. I think it’s funny that entertainers get paid. We don’t build your houses, feed you, protect you from harm, drive you anywhere, save your life or add anything to human knowledge. That’s your job. And you get money from it and give it to us. Suckers.

I think it’s funny that there are people out there who are too stupid to know they’re stupid, too mental to know they’re mental or completely unaware that they’re both.

I think it’s funny that there are white worms that have no idea that 1) they’re in my ass right now and 2) they’re very enthusiastically eating my shit. I think it’s funny that I murder the population of Japan every time I jack off.

I think it’s funny that I have the longest dick that’s ever existed, on the spectrum between “pitifully small” and “slightly below average.” So I’m saying it’s slightly below average. “What’s the point of me existing if you never use me?” said my dick and Facebook account.

I think it’s funny that all you need to do to sound really condescending is place the word “little” in front of every noun that you say. “So how’s your little marriage going with your little wife?” Adorable works too. “You still got that adorable job of yours?” Or you can use both. “Wow, you’ve carved out an adorable little career for yourself, haven’t you?”

Here’s how you can immediately convert a religious person to atheism: tell them there’s no proof that God exists. If they still believe in God after that, shoot them and they won’t do it anymore.

I love water. Why the fuck do we drink things that aren’t water? Why isn’t it good enough? How is everyone not standing around a public water tap all day? It’s a piece of metal sticking out of the ground that you can drink amazing shit from for hours! I’ve never met a single person who hates water. “Water? Fucking gross. No thanks.”

I love coffee and Indian food but my asshole doesn’t because when I go to the bathroom an hour later, a waterfall of highly pressurized, turbulent diarrhea explodes out of my asshole like the Hoover Dam bursting at the seams. It’s like that scene at the end of The Two Towers when the talking trees release the river. Isengard is my toilet bowl and the tidal wave of water that engulfs the entire city is my semi-digested beef vindaloo. My post-coffee diarrhea has a very high Reynold’s number (I’m sure my parents are pleased that I’m putting my engineering education to good use).

I love watching people miss the train. I get a big kick out of watching some business guy frantically sprinting from the ticket barrier to the train platform only to realize that the doors won’t open and that the train that would’ve gotten him to work on time is leaving without him. Meanwhile I’m lounging in the train and watching him through the window, mentally masturbating at the look of utter defeat on his sweaty, disheveled face.

I love Ray Barone. So does everybody, apparently. He’s one funny son of a bitch. Get it? Because his mother is a bitch!

I love dogs. Don’t we all? Well, except nutcases. In fact, “Do you like dogs?” should be the first and only question psychologists ask patients when they’re diagnosing for sociopathy. “Do you like dogs?” “Nope.” “Alright, fucking nutcase then. Moving on.” We love dogs because they love us. It’s that simple. Cats don’t love us; they’re in it for themselves. Dogs cast their egos aside and wear their hearts on their sleeve; they pout, whine and cry for your attention because they aren’t afraid to show that they’re clingy and vulnerable. Cats are afraid, because they’re pussies that are too pussy to be pussies. Dogs are like the bouncers of your house. When they’re barking at someone, they’re saying, “Can I see your ID?” I get along with dogs better than I do humans, because hanging out with a dog is like being in a nice, comfortable bubble with no criticism and judgement. If a human thinks I’m an asshole, he can say it to my face and I’ll feel bad. If a dog thinks I’m an asshole, what’s he gonna do, not wag his tail at me? He can’t hurt my feelings!

I love eavesdropping. I drop so many eaves. I don’t know what they are, but I drop them like it’s fucking hot. Whether it’s on trains, planes, buses, cafes, restaurants, airports, I’m always keen to stick my fucking curious nose into other people’s lives. Just for once in my life, I don’t wanna have to hide the fact that I’m listening to someone else’s conversation on the train. I wanna turn in my seat, face them directly and say, “I’m listening to every word of your conversation and I’m judging your personalities in my head as I do so. This is public transport and I’m allowed to listen to the sounds that you choose to make audible with your mouth. If you don’t like it, feel free to retreat to the safety of your private property, but until then, carry on with your recreational conversation that adds nothing to human knowledge or the economy while I silently, peacefully and legally scrutinize every word that comes out of your mouth. No pressure.”

If you’re counting to 100 on a plane, make sure not to skip “10″ or you will scare a lot of people.

I once saw a bug on a can of insecticide and I remember thinking, “That’s a dumb cunt bug that doesn’t know it’s a dumb cunt.” The bug probably thought it was a genius hiding spot. “Humans will never find me here!” Speaking of stupid arthropods, this one time I saw a spider who had weaved its web on my shower head. That’s like a human building a house on a volcano.

How does your brain create the experience of a Japanese guy shitting in your mouth on a hot day? The process begins when light from the sun bounces off the warm mudslide of shit spurting violently out of the Japanese guy’s asshole, and enters your eyes. In your eyes, the electromagnetic energy of each photon is converted into electricity, which is sent to the occipital lobe at the back of your head, which converts it into a video file called “Sight.mov.” As the Japanese dude struggles to empty the contents of his bowels down your gullet, his vocal cords vibrate to produce a grunting sound, and the vibrations travel out of his mouth, into the air around you, and eventually into your ears; the mechanical energy of each moving vibration in your ear is converted into electricity, which is sent to your temporal lobe, which converts it into an audio file called “Sound.mp3.” Odor molecules wafting from the Japanese man’s diarrhea are swept up into your nostrils; the mechanical energy of the offensive aroma permeating your nose is converted into electricity, which is sent to your temporal lobe, which converts it into a file called “Scent.smel.” This file is particularly unpleasant due to all the sushi in the Japanese guy’s diet. As you chow down on his fecal matter, each morsel of shit comes into contact with the surface of your tongue, pressing it downwards slightly. The mechanical energy from the motion that occurs during this surface deformation is converted into electricity, which is sent to your parietal lobe, which converts it into a file called “Touch.feel.” Meanwhile, on another part of your tongue, each tastant molecule in the Japanese dude’s excrement dissolves in your saliva. Proteins in your tongue recognise these tastant molecules as either sweet, sour, salty or bitter molecules, and the mechanical energy of each molecule is converted into electricity; this taste-related electrical information is then sent to your parietal lobe, which converts it into a file called “Taste.gust.” All five of these files are then imported into some neurological software built into your brain similar to Adobe Premiere Pro. The software combines these five sensory files into a single file, the project is saved with the name, “The utterly revolting experience of eating a Japanese guy’s shit.consc,” and uploaded to your consciousness. It’s at this precise moment that you become aware of every different shape, size and shade of brown on each undigested shit-nugget entering your oral cavity and sliding down your throat; every detail of its warm temperature, bitter taste and puke-like consistency is experienced at once, along with every smell on the spectrum of foul to fucking odious. That’s how your brain creates the experience of a Japanese guy shitting in your mouth on a hot day.

Right now, in each of the trillions of cells in your body, there are millions of chemical reactions going on at once just to keep you alive. There are molecules working round the clock to keep your heart pumping and your muscles moving. There are molecules hacking away at the food in your body like biological lumberjacks; molecules chopping up harmful viruses and bacteria into tiny little pieces like axe murderers; molecules transporting oxygen and nutrients throughout your body like cardiovascular taxis; molecules on your skin defending your body from viruses and bacteria like soldiers on the front line; molecules tirelessly pumping substances in and out of your cells every second of every day. But what I find most interesting about these chemical reactions in your body is that they never reach equilibrium, meaning all of these molecules never stop working. They don’t get days off or weekends. They don’t even get to sleep. These molecules are Spartan warriors that never get tired and never give up. They slave away, working their fingers to the bone…just to keep some fat cunt alive while he watches TV.

I hate mortality. Why do I have to fucking die? That sucks.

I hate when someone goes “wish me luck!” Don’t tell me what to do and don’t assume that I want you to do well. I wish you very shit luck, I hope you don’t succeed at whatever you’re doing and I hope you die in the process.

I hate watching, hearing and reading the news because I don’t wanna hear about terrorism, war and depleting resources but, on the other hand, I like the news because it makes conversations with boring people less painful. (Earnest)“So, did you hear about that thing that happened that was way more interesting than you - you - you dull cunt?”

I hate my hair. My hair makes me look like Seth Rogen if he just woke up, got electrocuted, and then went to the barber and asked for the Kramer. I hate my skin. My skin is the sun’s bitch. Every day those ultraviolet rays bend my skin over and fuck it right in its Scottish, freckle-covered, albino asshole. My skin is so piss-weak that I need sunscreen with SPF 5,000,000,000+ because I’m whiter than a sick Caspar in Alaska on Christmas Day in a Klan outfit. Caspar the Unfriendly, Nauseous and Racist Ghost. My skin is such a pussy that I walk outside and it immediately turns red faster than Alabama on election day and my sister’s tampons. Which reminds me, I hate bleeding. Every time I bleed in the ocean, my blood is advertising my own flesh to a target demographic of sharks in a three mile radius. Bleeding is when your skin sweats pain. I hate sweating. I’ve got Scottish genes, which makes me ill-adapted to live on a hot desert island like Australia so I sweat more than Pat Rafter in a sauna in Singapore with weed in his pocket. I’m the only one sweating on a cold day and in summer I sweat so much that I have to change my shirt three times a day, which shits me up the wall. I hate vomiting. It feels like I’m dying every time I do it. I’ve vomited at: weddings, birthdays, concerts, funerals and rock bottom. I’ve vomited in: toilets, taxis, strip clubs, sinks, gardens and drunken states of consciousness. I’ve vomited on: footpaths, couches, carpets, rugs, boats, beds, benders and other people. I’ve also vomited on grass, on grass. Which reminds me of another thing I hate: when adults think that jokes about sex, drugs and alcohol are more clever than jokes about books, chairs and tables just because the former topics are more taboo than the latter ones. I also hate how even in this paragraph my morals are contradictory and inconsistent. I hate when writers get too meta and self-aware. Fucking smartasses.

I hate when men try to be my friend. I’m not interested in being friends with men because they have nothing to offer me. They don’t have anything on their bodies that I want to touch, especially their very ugly penises. Plenty of men have a bunch of facts that they can teach me but I already have a friend who can teach me more facts and his name is Google. Some of you probably think I’m being sexist here and you’re exactly right. In fact, heterosexuality is sexist by definition since straight people discriminate potential partners based on gender. Any man that wants to be my friend should send in a resumé to [email protected]. In all seriousness, if you have a dick and you want to socialize with me, I charge $500 an hour because I demand to be compensated for the mental and emotional labor involved in giving a shit about anything you have to say. Wanna hang out with me for four hours? Cool, then give me $2000 upfront in cash before we start. I’m not kidding.

I hate the phrase “the one,” because the whole concept doesn’t make sense. Consider a hypothetical woman called Shelly who’s into men and believes in the concept of “the one.” I’ll assume 90% of men are into women and that Shelly doesn’t want to date minors and men over 60 so she’s ageist but at least she’s not a pedophile. If you crunch all the numbers you’ll find that Shelly thinks only one person out of 2.25 billion potential partners is compatible with her so she’s clearly a picky bitch with ridiculously high standards. If you’re not fussy as fuck like Shelly then there are millions of people out there for you and “the one” is a crock of shit. I hate the phrase “love at first sight.” If you look at someone and you get goosebumps or butterflies in your stomach, that’s not love you melodramatic moron. That’s physical attraction.

I hate when people say “you need to get laid.” As if sex solves all of life’s problems. As if having an orgasm for three seconds will pay all your bills for the rest of the year and bring your dead son back to life. Sex barely solves any of life’s problems. In fact, it causes a lot of them. Diseases, unwanted pregnancies, break-ups, divorces and life itself. Of course, the perfect response to this would be to say, “Whoever wrote this needs to get laid!” No I don’t, I already fucked your mother and I’m still pissed off at the world.

A friend of mine once described Trump as the guy in the book club who hasn’t read the book. “The book was so great. It had a very strong plot, that I can tell you. It had an incredible beginning, an incredible middle and an incredible end, believe me. You know it and I know it. You look at page 8, you look at page 32, you look at Chapter 3, you look at so many things going on in this novel. You look at the conflict, you look at the resolution. It’s gonna make literature so good, it’s gonna make readers proud, it’s gonna make publishers win again.”

I wish I had a girlfriend. I wish I could click my fingers and have any woman I want appear on my lap. But the woman has to want to be on my lap. I don’t want Angelina Jolie to be doing her laundry only to vanish into thin air and reappear on some stranger’s lap and start freaking out. I want her to be teleported to my lap and then be like, “That was weird but now that I’m here, I like it. I definitely want to remain here on your lap and I’d like you to feel my tits.”

As a chronic wanker, I’m always on the lookout for the hottest pornographic video of all time. I’m an astronaut of perversion, exploring the boundless, limitless cosmos of internet pornography in search of the holy grail of eroticism; the one Porn Hub clip to rule them all. Every time I think I’ve found it, the novelty inevitably wears off and I resume my search, wondering to myself, “Will I ever find it? Or am I being too idealistic and chasing an unattainable high?” But then it happened, folks. I found it. I hit the jackpot of depravity and found the porn equivalent of life on Mars. A video so hot that merely replaying it in my mind gives me a boner. In fact, as I write this I’m thinking about masturbating to it later tonight and I’m more excited than Big Kev. The first time I watched it, I was alone in the dark, with curtains drawn, headphones in and the video playing on my laptop. From the first stroke, the pleasure soared and soared until it eventually peaked with the best orgasm I’ve ever had in my life. It was a moment of pure ecstasy, my friends. I cleaned myself up and added it to my Favorites immediately, secure in the knowledge that I would never have to enter another lewd search query into Google again because I knew right then and there that I wanted to spend the rest of my life jacking off to this video. Through sickness and in health, for better or worse, until death do us part.

When it comes to writing statuses on social media, not everyone needs to see a picture of every meal you eat and every shit you take afterwards; unless it’s a meal that nobody’s seen before or a turd so big that it clogs the toilet. A bigger piece of shit than Bono and the record-setting turd that Randy Marsh took.

“No comment” is a comment. “No offense” usually precedes something offensive. “I’m not going to dignify that with a response” is a response. The word “sesquipedalian” is sesquipedalian. A tautology is a tautology, which is a tautology. Circular definition (noun): A definition that is circular. Thesaurus.com lists 50 synonyms for the word “redundant.” The other day I wrote a to-do list with only one item: “Stop writing things down and trust your memory, idiot.” Sources make academic writing boring to read (James’s asshole, 2017). Any dude that takes magic mushrooms must be a really fun guy. I had a joke about Alzheimer’s, but I forgot what it was…oh that’s right, it was a really predictable one that wasn’t worth telling. Roses are red, violets are blue/People are so uncreative that they can only make jokes by using old templates and replacing a few words which is pretty much what passes for humor on the internet these days so fuck you. I’ve got no interest in interest rates, no business in businesses and I don’t want a company’s company. I turn down the TV when they’re talking about a downturn and I’d rather eat take-out alone than take out a loan, and you can bank on that. I love the feeling of a shower head above my head in the shower as I get head in the shower. Fuck, that makes me wanna head in the shower. I once saw a spider web underneath my shower head. That’s like a human building a house on a volcano. I have the longest dick that’s ever existed…on the spectrum between pitifully small and slightly below average. Nah, I actually do have a large dick. And brain. And capacity to lie. Like when I say “I love you” to my girlfriend, for example. Another example is when I say I have a girlfriend. I can relate to Voldemort because he’s pale, egotistical, terrified of death and he spends a lot of time alone with his snake. “What the hell’s the point of me existing if you never use me?” said my dick and Facebook account. “I always tell the truth, even when i lie.” That’s actually not possible, Scarface, you stupid drug addict. If you’re ever counting to 100 on a plane, don’t skip 10 or you’ll get in trouble. The only thing I can say in French is, “J’ai oublie tout de mon francais.” Technology is humans working really hard to make their lives really easy. Vacuum cleaners, straws and girlfriends are the only things that are awesome when they suck a lot. I always panic at the disco because I’m worried they’ll play that band’s shitty music. I speak fluent Rihanna…anna, anna, eh, eh, eh. Fans of Leonardo Fibonacci will like this sentence: I, a pi fan, solve problems algebraically. I’ve contemplated suicide many times, but the jury’s still out on whether or not I’ll hang myself. Hung jury, eh? It’s a shame that the authors of suicide notes don’t ever get feedback on their work. YOLO stands for “you only live once.” Or YOLOPALTLFWSPFS for religious people (you only live once plus another life that lasts forever which sounds pretty fucking shit). Penn Jillette writes with a razorblade.

I sat around thinking the other day, very deeply and pensively, and I came to the conclusion to that I’m probably the dumbest, most worthless fucking moron who’s ever existed. I am such an unbelievably stupid cunt. I’m a pile of dog shit that should been aborted and chucked in the garbage with all the other fetuses.

I’m socially retarded (can’t talk to people), biologically retarded (small dick), psychologically retarded (depression), financially retarded (unemployed, living with my parents) and emotionally retarded (I offend people all the time).

I was so high last night. Higher than the budget of a Michael Bay movie. Higher than Michael Jackson’s album sales, notes, vocal range, musical quality, income, the cost and area of his Neverland Ranch, the praise of his fans and his dosage at the time of death. Higher than infinity, Avogadro’s number, the largest known prime number and the computing power required to calculate it. Higher than the autotuned voices of Mickey Mouse and Elmo on helium with a chipmunk filter. Higher than the voice of Towelie. Higher than Towelie. Higher than Ozzy Osbourne, Charlie Sheen, Jesse Pinkman and Keith Richards bouncing on stilts on trampolines at the top of Mount Everest. Higher than Jumping Jai Taurima. Higher than the blood sugar level, BMI, weight, calorific intake and cholesterol of a fat diabetic woman taking twenty shots of glucagon in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Higher than a hot chick’s self-esteem and Instagram traffic. Higher than Einstein’s brainpower and IQ, the speed of light he studied, the amount of nuclear energy his intellect unleashed upon the world and the death toll that it caused. Higher than the collective death toll of the Holocaust, the Rwanda massacre, the Armenian genocide, The Black Death, Communist Russia, Communist China, The Rape of Nanjing, The Boxing Day tsunami, the Permian and Cretaceous extinctions, every war in human history and 9/11. Speaking of 9/11, I was higher than the World Trade Center in 2000, the planes that destroyed it in 2001, the temperature at which it burned to ashes, the potential energy of the people jumping out, the terminal velocity they reached in the air, the increase in the universe’s entropy as a result of the collapse, the Heaven that the hijackers thought they were going to, the ratings of every news outlet that day and the amount of chaos, airport security and military expenditure that followed. Higher than the sky and everything in it: clouds, blimps, the Hindenburg just before it exploded, hot air balloons, zeppelins, rockets and UFOs. Higher than people are when they “see” a UFO. Higher than a bird. Higher than Zazu, Pride Rock and the cliff that Scar threw Mufasa off. Higher than my BAC the other night when I drove into some old bitch. Higher than her age, the pressure in my tires when I backed up on her, the pitch of her screams as I did so and the sentence I would have received if I got caught. Higher than a First World country’s GDP and standard of living. Higher than the number of similes I just used. That’s how high I was last night.

I wish I could be a kid again, armed with the knowledge that I have now as an adult. I’d do trick or treating very differently. “Yeah, give me your candy, you fucking moron. Yeah, put it in the bag, bitch. Yeah, thanks for the free food, you fucking dumb cunt.” In their eyes, I’d be a kid that didn’t know any better so I’d get away with it

Hi, I’m James, a white guy in a vast universe of white dwarves, black holes and black-body radiation. I’m the black sheep of my white-bread family; I often tell white lies. I was bitten by the black dog and I talk black, dog. I do black music like Black Thought. I never had blackheads or pearly whites and I’d rather have a white collar job than be a blacksmith or work at White Castle. I drink white coffee, black tea and Black Russians but I hate white wine. I eat white chocolate and White Knights, smoke White widow and Black & Mild and I buy white powder on the black market. I wear all black, hate the All Blacks and I hate white supremacists that hate all blacks. You know, the ones that try to blackball, blacklist and blackmail black males and hated the first black man in The White House. These are the same folks that see the world in black and white and get black eyes from Black Panthers and Black Lives Matter activists with black belts like Dana White. I like the comedy Blackadder, the black comedy of Jack Black, blackjack and Black Ops. I like the songs White America, White Wedding, Back In Black, Black Betty and Black Or White but I hate Black and Yellow, Welcome To The Black Parade and Black Skinhead. I like Black Sabbath, The Black Album by Jay Z, The White Album by The Beatles, The White Stripes and Barry White but I hate white noise like Whitey Ford, black metal, Rebecca Black, Black Veil Brides and the Black Eyed Peas. I like black-and-white movies, Black Swan, Black Hawk Down and Orange Is The New Black. My favorite fictional characters are Sirius Black, Mr Black from The Simpsons, the black men in Men In Black, Postman Pat’s black and white cat, Snow White, Walter White, Gandalf the White from the White Council who fought orcs at the Black Gate and the White Witch with black magic deadlier than Great White Sharks, white rhinos, black rhinos, American black bears, red-bellied black snakes, Black Mambas, Black Widows, The Black Death and Black Saturday. I’m not a fan of white water rafting, white flag raising, pots calling kettles black and black-outs cuz I can’t charge my white Blackberry. I can, however, still use the White Pages if I ever wanna find houses with white picket fences on Whitehorse Road in Blackburn.

A LITANY OF ALLITERATED LITERATURE

I have frizzy follicles and a forehead of facial freckles. I freestyle like Funkmaster Flex, Flava Flav, Fabolous, Fergie and Future. I find flatulent farts fucking funny and frequently fantasize about fame, fortune and fondling, fucking, fingering, fisting and fornicating the fannies of foxy, foreign females from Finland, France and Fiji. I’m a fastidious, fascinating freak with a foot fetish that furiously faps to femme fatale femdoms that flagellate, flog, flay, flail and ferule. My favorite foods are Freddo Frogs, French fries, fried fish fingers, Funyuns, frankfurts, fettucine, pho, flatbread, Flathead fish fillets and fresh, fat-free fruits from the freezer and fridge. I’m no fond fan of Fanta and frothy, fruit-flavored frappucinos. Foster’s makes my faculties fuzzy and foggy till I fall face-first on the floor. I use Frequent Flyers on fungus fueled flights of fancy at Falls Festival. I foresee a future free of fossil fuels and factory farming. I floor my Ford Focus down freeways faster than a feral fox, a flamingo in full flight, The Flash, a fitness freak, and a felonious fugitive fleeing the feds in a Ferrari, like Fast & Furious. Feminists are frumpy, fat, fugly and flabby foes with Fred Flinstone’s features. They make my phallus flaccid and floppy. Physics focuses on forces like friction. Four and five are factors of forty, and four fifths is a fraction and a fatal firearm. Federer is physically fit as a fiddle with a fantastic, phenomenal forehand. Fringe fundamentalists, like Fred Phelps, are full-fledged fuckwits that find flamboyant, fudge-packing, phallus-fellating, fella-fucking, flaming faggots with fabulous fashion, like the Fab Five, even fouler and filthier than fetid, funky, festering feces. They forego physics in favor of faith and fixate on fallacious, false, foolish, fatuous, facile, fictional, fact-free, philosophically and fundamentally flawed fables with a frightening, feverish, fanatical, frenzied and fervid fervor, like the faithful followers of the fascist, fearful Fuhrer. I favor frank and forthright folks over phony, fibbing, fabricating frauds with feigned fronts and facades who forge fictitious falsehoods faker than Facebook friends. Feathers are phenotypic features of falcons, fowls, finches, flickers, pheasants and the phoenix Fawkes, from the fictional fantasy film franchise featuring Filch, Fudge, Fang, The Fat Friar, Filius Flitwick, Florean Fortescue, Firenze, Fluffy, The Forbidden Forest and Felix Felicis, the fluid of fortune. Flora: five fingered ferns, firs, fennels, figs, flaxes, frangipani flowers, fronds and feverfews. Fauna: fawns, ferrets, furry felines, flying frogs, fruit flies, fireflies, fleas and flatworms.

I think it’s funny that in terms of life, humans only care about plants because we can eat them and get high from them; animals because we can eat them, fuck them and get high with them; fungi because we can eat them, get high from them and Mario; bacteria because they’re a threat to our existence, and fuck all that other bullshit. There are billions of other living things out there but we left them out of our art and culture because nobody gives a shit about a bunch of sea weed-y, sludgy shit. No one wants to read a children’s book called Peter the Protist, Albert the Alveolate, Sammy the Slime Mold or Archie the Archaeon.

Brush your teeth twice a day.

No, it’s 2.13 times a day.

Here’s the proof.

If you think I’m overstating how significant this finding is, or that there’s just a negligible difference between 2.13 and 2, you’re an idiot. Cuz if 100 days pass and on each day he brushes his teeth 2 times per day, he brushes his teeth 200 times overall, whereas if he brushes his teeth 2.13 times a day, he brushes his teeth 213 times overall in the 100 day period.

Make sure your government doesn’t become a dictatorship, because it very well can. Happened in Germany. Happened in Italy. Happened in Russia. Kinda still happening in Russia. Happened in China. Happened in Mongolia. Happening in North Korea. Happened on Planet Vegeta when Frieza enslaved the Saiyan race. Happened to the wizarding world at large when the Dark Lord rose to power. Twice.. Happened in Cambodia. Happened in Burma. Happened in Make sure you identify all possible dictators and prevent their dictatorial impulses from politically actualizing. Happened in a Sacha Baron Cohen movie. Charlie Chaplin one as well.

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