#also from the brief look i took at the store: prices aren’t even that bad. most of them are under five bucks.

[wickedghxst]

also sea of thieves’ monetization makes me wanna throttle the halo infinite devs for theirs.

[super-duper-stupor]

Not so bad - George Syszek (Banzai runner) x reader 

"Beck what have you gotten yourself into now." you muttered to yourself, irritation and fear manifesting in the quickness in your walk. 

"What the hell are you doing here?" You scold yourself. 

You approached the Motel room door with a sudden sense of realization of what you were doing. You were gonna be entering an isolated, dark place in the dead of night quite possibly surrounded by dangerous people. Nobody knows you're here and you have no place to run to if things go awry as you're at least an hour away from any help that you know of. This was a horribly thought out plan, to put it bluntly. Yes you can run back to the car but a bullet will always be quicker than you. 

Beck was your longtime friend, since childhood even and you suspected he'd fall into the temptations of this fast lifestyle but you also knew him well enough to know that he'd eventually see this seedy way of life for what it truly was, a snakepit. 

It was a foolish idea of Beck to meet George Syszek, the main cocaine supplier of this racing circle, or anyone for that matter from this reckless "sport" in such an isolated place. From what Beck told you he was the main supplier for not only cocaine but for plenty of racing cars off the black market.

He also told you, however about how the people affiliated with this type of racing was bad news, drugs, sex and apparently even murder was the lifestyle and you quite frankly wanted to keep as far away from it as possible. But you, at least an hour ago, felt it necessary to come and either rescue Beck from this idiotic situation, somehow or at the very least make sure he wasn't in this dreadful ordeal alone. 

You took in a deep breath and did your best to swallow the fear in your chest, tilting your head upward slightly to fake some defiance and rose a closed fist to knock. However your hand barely touched the door before you nearly jumped out of your skin when the door swung open, revealing Beck with an expression of worry and surprise. 

"Y/n" he whispered loudly, looking back at the men inside then quickly back to you. "What are you doing here? You shouldn't be here, it isn't safe." Panic prevalent in his tone.

"No! I'm here t-" 

"Well well well," a tall man with devilish blue eyes and a devious smirk on his face crept from inside the room and laid a hand on Beck's shoulder, leaning against the doorway, eyeing you up and down.

"Kid, you didn't mention your woman stoppin by." The man said staring seemingly right into your soul with his intense gaze. "And a fine lookin one at that" he said in a slightly softer tone, tilting his head in curiosity of the pretty young woman. 

The man was handsome, that was for certain, just as certain was the sense of danger that hung around him, despite this you couldn't help but notice his high, perfectly sculpted cheekbones, his devilish good looks...

You caught yourself before you completely zoned out and quickly  cleared your throat, taking your eyes off of the man and onto the ground below before looking back up at him, putting on the bravest attitude you could conjure up.

"I'm here to take my friend home, his father's wondering where he is." You said coldly. 

"Is that right?" The man said, removing his hand from Beck's shoulder and stepping off of the front stoop closer to you.

 You gulped nervously as he came nearer to you. 

"Well aren't you sweet" The man smirked then proceeded to look down to your chest. 

"Kids got good taste.." He looked back up into your eyes  "In friends." 

You couldn't help but look away from him, trying your best to hide your bashful expression, as repulsive as this man seemed, he sure was having an effect on you. 

"Y/n, i think it'd be best if you just left-" Beck stepped forward

"Not so fast, kid" The man interrupted whilst placing a hand on Beck's forearm, stopping Beck in his tracks.

You looked up at Beck then back to the man, inwardly, panic was stirring in your stomach, outwardly you kept a stern expression. 

Keeping his strong gaze on you he spoke "Y/n, a pretty name for a pretty girl." A sly grin grazing across his features, removing his hand from Beck's arm.

"Now I'm sure ya won't mind joining us while he and i settle some business, won't ya sweet thing?" 

With that you finally noticed that there was two other men in the room. Lightly peeking around the man's stature you caught a brief glimpse into the room and the two men. 

One of them a tall man with dark brown hair, wearing a gray suit with a black button up underneath and a flashy gold watch, he was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed watching the exchange intently, brows slightly furrowed in curiosity. Also there, is a shorter man with slicked back blonde hair, blue suit with the buttons done up with a white button up underneath, he was leaning back on a small dresser drawer that was right across from the door. His attention also on the interaction, only he had a slight smirk playing on his lips. 

Before long the man in front of you moved right into your line of sight, obscuring your view of the room "Don't mind them, sweet thing. I'll be sure they won't hurt ya." 

"Syszek, just let her leave, please" Beck urged the man.

Before you can make an argument for Beck to leave with you, Syszek spoke again, taking his eyes off of you and onto your friend, a trace of amusement in his expression.

"Now now, I'm sure she'd like to see how we settle our business." 

Syszek looked at you with a grin "Whaddya say, kitten?" He said softly, looking your body up and down, taking in your form with a hungry expression as he took a step closer towards you, you took a step back.

"Ya don't need to worry with me, you'll be in really good hands" He purred. 

"Please-" you practically whispered, every bit of confidence you've had before, fake or not was gone. 

"Dammit Syszek, leave her out of this." Beck stepped in front of Syszek, acting as a barrier between him and you. Syszek's grin fades into a look of contempt. 

"She has nothing to do with anything-" 

"She does now. If the girl wants to be a hero then she's gotta pay the price for her bravery." 

The man then violently shoved Beck aside, knocking him to the ground before grabbing y/n. You fought, clawed and kicked with every bit of energy you had but he was still able to get a grip around your torso and one of your arms and drag you inside the room, you yelled and screamed, that was until he moved his hand from your arm to over your lips, stifling your screams. The man was strong, no matter how much you'd kick and drop your full weight downward, he was still able to drag your dead weight into the room.

Whilst you put up your fight with Syszek, the two men inside had come out and managed to restrain Beck and drag him inside as well.

You were thrown down onto the floor with a loud thud that was sure to leave you bruised. 

You grunted as you hit the solid carpeted floor, ignoring the throbbing pain in your hip and shoulder, you rolled over onto your back and with a wince you sat up, staring incredulously at Syszek as he clicked the doorlock and fastened the latch closed. 

The yells and insults from Beck towards Syszek and the men were all you could hear.

With fear and shock coursing through you, you looked up towards the bathroom sink area to find Beck being restrained by his arms by the pair of Syszek's goons. 

"Fuck you Syszek!"  Beck was yelling and hurling swears left and right. Like you, he was putting up quite a fight to break free of his captures but to no avail. 

Syszek sauntered over to the boy, bringing a hand up to Beck's jaw before gripping it tightly, making Beck grunt in pain.

"If you don't keep it down then I'm just gonna have to shush you myself, aren't I?"." Syszek sneered.

Then to your's as well as Beck's horror, Syszek reached inside of his jacket and pulled out a gun, Beck practically froze in place, eyes widening and breath hitching in his throat. Bringing the edge of the barrel up to the frightened boy's chin, a sinister smirk graced Syszek's features.

"That's a boy. Now, when we put our trust in a client we expect that trust in return and part of that trust is that the client don't run their mouth!" the man exclaimed through gritted teeth.

"How many people have ya told about this exchange?" Syszek demanded, pushing the barrel into Beck's cheek, making the boy grimace. Syszek's grip on his jaw still firm, he held his head in place, forcing Beck to face him.

"No-nobody just her! I told her, yeah but all i said was that i had an important meeting, that's all! I don't know how she found this place, i swear! She's not a threat, George please" Beck pleaded.

"Well isn't that sweet, what with you protecting her and all" Syszek said in a condescending tone. 

"It's true, she's not gonna rat you out, i promise." 

"It's not that i don't trust her, it's that I don't trust the both of ya." Syszek loosened his grip on Beck's jaw with a light shove and lowered his gun.

"The fact ya ran your mouth at all has landed you into some deep shit, kid. Now you gotta pay the price." At that Syszek gave a brutal gut punch to Beck, Beck keeled over, coughing and gasping for air before the man almost immediately brought Beck to stand straight again with a forceful tug of his hair making Beck groan in pain.

"Take this as a lesson." The man remarked coldly, without releasing the boy, Syszek turned his sights toward you.

As this was happening, you were watching it all from the floor in sheer terror, yelping in horror when he struck Beck, afraid to say or do anything knowing this lunatic had a gun and would most likely blow either of you or Beck's brains out, no problem. Not to mention the two men that most were likely armed as well.

Eyeing you intently as if contemplating. Syszek's gaze made you look away towards the floor, heart pounding profusely. You shut your eyes and hoped what ever was in store for you wasn't as bad as it could be.

Syszek took another glance towards Beck.

"I'll let these gentlemen deal with you someplace else, I can take care of your little friend, here." Syszek remarked, giving a menacing grin before releasing Beck's hair and waving his hand to the men to take him out of there.

"You son of a bitch! Don't you fucking touch her or I'll kill you!" Beck was shouting, pain quickly subsiding and vicious anger taking its place as he was drug towards the door. However he was cut off by another demand from Syszek to his goons.

"And shut him the hell up!" 

At that the man in the gray suit gave Beck a savage blow square on his jaw, knocking Beck out cold. You stifled a cry behind your hand and watched as they drug Beck's limp figure out the door. 

Syszek didn't waste anytime to close the door behind the men. Using his free hand to click the dead bolt lock shut then fastening the latch back on. 

Turning back towards you, he leaned himself against the door letting a lazy grin grace his features "Now with that out of the way, we can get to know each other a little better." 

As terrified as you were, you couldn't help the faint blush that covered your cheeks and your heart to skip a beat despite how clearly sadistic this man was. Which is why you shifted your gaze from Syszek to the floor beside you once more, crossing your arms over your chest and hugging yourself, inwardly cursing yourself for feeling such a way. He eyed you like a hungry lion stalking a wounded gazelle, you were his prey and he savored that fact.

Syszek raised himself from the door, swiping the curtain as closed as it could go and made his way over, never taking his intense gaze off of you. Stopping just in front of you, eyeing you intently, no doubt admiring your helpless form below him. 

"Look at me." He says softly but maintaining his commanding tone. 

It took every ounce of willpower but you did as the man said and slowly brought your eyes from the carpet to the man in front of you.

You took in the sight of his stature above you, taking your time to let your sights linger over his body before meeting his gaze. 

"That's a good girl." Your heart leapt into your throat at those words. 

Bringing the tip of the gun to your chin your breath hitched in your throat and you suppressed a frightened whimper

"C'mon, where's that hellcat I met outside? Not so confident now are we?" He smiled.

Leaning down and snaking a hand behind your neck, with the barrel of the gun still pressed to your chin, Syszek ushers you to stand with a slight upward wave of the gun. 

You do so, the pain in your hip making you cringe, your eyes close momentarily before setting your gaze on his again once your standing. 

"Syszek, please-" 

"If you had any brains honey, you'd keep your mouth shut." He taps your jaw lightly with the gun. "I have to give it to the kid, though. He picked one loyal woman." He says releasing you from the grip on your neck and lowers his gun.

"He'll be alright, don't you worry about him. As for you, I'll take real good care of ya." 

                          end of part 1.

@thehighsign♥️

[redevenir]

living alike (pt. i)

joshua x reader

wc : ~ 3800

a/n : It all started with @tearsofsyrup ‘s suggestion for the made-up title fic game and here i am... So thank you! I took the liberty to use the title again, hopefully it’s ok with you? Otherwise just tell me! I have said it before, but I think  shua and dark au... it is the thing, you know. Which is why I strongly encourage you to read paradigm shift (apocalypse au) as well as you hide; i’ll seek (both sexy titles by the way) and to check on these two writers’ other work because they’re excellent.

« I feel entirely dehumanised by the sun now and wish for fog, snow, rain, humanity. » from a letter to Edward Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf.

The soft clunks of water droping from the leaking sink behind you make your hair stand on end. You should be used to it by now, but you aren’t. Like everything else, it makes you uncomfortable. You wanted nothing more than to be buried deep in the swamps of the Administration. Hidden. Except you were a little frog on a desert, except everyone has seen you, and will remember your face. Hiding is no longer an option for you, the only way out is to disappear.

You take one last look at your ransacked room. You break a window for good measure, and head out, living the door open.

The soft thuds of rain against the cars’ glasses. Tight heart, empty lungs, he is the silent audience of an artificial show. A shadow wandering around the streets, the ghost of a ghost. Counting his footsteps. Counting the people on the sidewalk. Counting the cars. Counting the officials around the Prefecture. Thirty more steps to go. Joshua takes a deep breathe into his scarf. It seems no one is paying attention to him. Grey car, blue car. His hands are soaked, buried deep inside the pockets of his rain coat. Nothing can protect him from the summer rains. He takes a brief look above the ground, checks out the position of the sun, goes back to his feet. He needs to move faster. He cannot afford to be out during office hours. Twenty steps. He spots the door to his place and restrains himself from going faster. One excruciating step at a time. All around him, people move, people go from places to places. They listen to the speeches, they read the speeches, they learn the speeches, they believe the speeches. It is already hard for Joshua to breathe, let alone act. A small field mouse trapped in a gigantic machine. There is no room here for him, he feels it, fears because of it. Knows that in an instant everything could spin around him. Field mice are preys. There are so many predators around him, it is only a matter of time. Light turns green, the cars stop. He goes his way. Unsure, uneasy. Five steps. He reaches his door, doesn’t look back, and goes down the stair to his tiny underground studio.

Once he’s inside, finally, he lets out an exhale he didn’t notice he was holding. Double locks his door, puts the chair against it, and turns the light on. Here, underground, there is no sun light to warm up the air. He crosses the only room as he gets undressed, leaving his soggy coat for the clamminess of his quarter, and rummages through his clothes to find a change, replaying his stroll of the day. Nothing new. They are still agitated. Until they calm down there is no need to contact anyone, he decides. He reheats some unsavory stew for the fifth time this week, cleans up his plate, and crashes on the single bed, hoping for time to pass quickly.

He spends an agitated day, running after sleep, running from his thoughts. Even though he never sleeps well, there is always a part of him which foolishly hopes for a good rest. Remembering the kind of sleep he relished as kid, when he didn’t have to think about falling asleep. When laying down in bed was enough to dive deep in a warm unconsciousness, full of foolproof dreams. No matter where his drowsy mind takes him, he feels overwhelmed, on the edge of being assaulted. Faceless and formless assailants gathering in the dark to slaughter him.

Rising up, he picks a bottle of drinking water, ignores the remnants of the garbage stew, plans his wandering for tonight. He never follows the same path twice, in case someone might notice him. He puts on his parka which hasn’t dried, shivers when it brushes against his neck. There is nothing to do about it. Most of the time, Joshua tries to ignore his apartment. It is a disgusting place, filthy the minute he finishes to clean up. It is never warm, nor dry, nor hot. He never sees the light of day, never feels a breeze, for there are no windows down there. It is the best he can afford this close of the Great Palace. A miserable rat hole, nothing close to a nice burrow. It is the price to pay for a night cashier to get involved in bigger schemes. His eyes are priceless now that he has sold their sight. It is the only comfort he has found in doing so. The thrill of being useful – for whom? He has no right to know. But every morning after his shift, he goes out for his stroll, looking for anything out of the ordinary, and when there is, he reports it. One of them comes to the shop every week. Usually, though, Joshua tells nothing to his contact. Things do not change that often. But recently there has been movement. Why, he does not know, but they’ve been agitated, walking faster. Even though no one, of course, will tell him why, he knows something has happened. Something bad enough to be noticeable, bad enough that there has been no announcement on TV.

This is life now, he knows. Waiting and waiting and waiting for something which might never come. Joshua hesitates, then goes out without looking back. Maybe today, he’ll see something worth reporting. It’s raining as usual, but the sun is still up, somewhere behind the gray sky. The street lamps are not lighten yet. As usual, he goes right, then waits for the traffic lights to let him cross. He could not live closer to the supermarket, yet the path still bothers him – the ugliness of the streets, the noises of the city, the sickening smell of corruption and silent violence. He goes his way to the store, spends his night registering meaningless shop lists for night owls craving sugar or salt. His curved lips draw an empty smile to every customer while his mind goes through various scenarios of what might bother the authorities. He has no clue. What could indeed bother them? He is as ignorant when his shift ends as he was when it began. It is not a life. He could find out more, if he were a bit more audacious. But any step out of his supposed way is a risk he might pay with his life. Maybe, walking around the Palace’s streets is enough for now.

He puts his hands deeper in his pockets and waits for the lights to turn green. From the corner of his eyes, he notices a figure running in his direction. They storm before him, and throw themselves on the road. The sound of the car hitting your body is horrifying.

You spend an eternity drowning. Lungs full of mud, every living minute is a suffocation. The crushing weight of an undisturbed blackwater river is grinding your bones into mush, entangled between the roots of indifferent trees. You barely see the light, on the rare moments you emerge from your drowning, vision blurred by silt burning your eyes. You fight and you fight, and every new moon, every new tide brings you a new death.

In flashes you see faces, and you try to remember who pushed you into the river. A thin string of lost rooms and half forgotten conversations torments you, sending you in every direction. You lose yourself into a labyrinth of bewildered and electrifying memories. You try to scream for help but the dark water suffocates you more.

You cease to fight.

You let yourself flow, descending quietly in the abyss, a faint contentment when you touch the ground. An unusual corpse for shellfish and crustaceans to feast on. The soft pulse of your heart clawing his way out of your defeated chest. Far above you, you feel the lazy current going its way, ignoring you. There, cocooned in a silence older than a lifetime, it is easier for memories to come back to you. Faint lights above the school’s playground, burnt smells from the overcooked plum jam, a terrifying voice on the intercom freezing you to the core. You remember the pointy hat of the master, the piles of administrative sheets in his warm office, its walls painted of a deep, ancient red. You remember his whispers in your ears, which you tried so hard to ignore. His discreet threats disguised as indecent offers. Your remember going for his grocery shopping every four days, in the late hours of the quiet city. You remember knocking one of the piles over, and reading them against your best will. A pale breeze of rage brushes your cheek, unable to harm you.

You remember taking it with you, the vivid proof of the crime, on a hasty decision. You remember destroying your dorm. You remember the streets.

The moment you wake up you immediately regret it.

Every inch of your body is aching a thousand burn. You cannot open your eyes, the throb in your head makes you nauseous. Your throat is parched, and the feeble whine you manage to cry out is a pain in itself. Miles away you feel movement, in the distance you hear a voice filled with concerned, asking you words which you can’t separate from each other. It seems a worried litany of disquiet. Suddenly you feel cold and wet on you forehead, a divine relief to the pounding. The voice comes closer and takes your hand. You feel your hand. You have a hand. Panic rushes through your body like it never felt it, you try to move away, to get out, how can it touch you, what is touching you when you can’t even feel yourself?

Weirdly the voice seems to understand. It becomes quieter, soothing almost, ushering things you don’t understand, but it appeases you nonetheless. You feel it close to your hear, you feel its breathe against you. You’re sensitive and it has you tensed immediately, but it doesn’t last for long. A few seconds, the promise of safety. You pass out again.

The next time you wake up, everything is much clearer. You manage to open your eyes despite the soreness of your head. What you see when you do has you freezing up again, afraid you might have lost part of your sight. It is all black and gray. Gray ceiling above your head, a worrisome pattern of cracks. Gray walls, empty of any embellishment. Even the duvet cover is a dirty white. You try to straighten yourself, leaning on your elbow. It has you wincing but it is worth it. You take in your surrounding, even in the darkness of the unlit room. Someone has put your right leg into a splint of fortune, and did the same to your right elbow. You hold your breathe a minute, until you are assured to be alone. Nothing about it is familiar. There is a strong smell of menthol ointment that might come from you – the scent is overwhelming, and you cannot be sure. Your attempt to sit properly ends up worsening the piercing pain in your brain, and you resolve to wait until someone brings you water or food. Without any indication of the passing of time, you lose all notion of it, examining each clue of the room. You have never come here, and it makes you uneasy. You are facing the door and it reassures you a bit, whoever comes here will not have you at their mercy. At last, you hear the creaking of a key into its hole, which makes your heart racing. The door opens behind you in a squeak.

The man is tall, his shoulders wide as he bends a bit to come inside. The youth of his face strikes you the most. He might not be older than you are – and you are rare. The both of you belong to the last generation of children – it is also why, now that all of you are grown-ups, the officials are monitoring each and every one of you carefully. The last trace of unpredictability in the country. And, well, looking at the current situation, maybe they are right. It takes him a while to notice you, and you quietly observe him locking the door, putting a chair against it. Breathing, eyes closed, he relaxes before you. When he turns around, you see him immediately checking on the mattress – checking on you. And his face lightens up when he sees you facing him, rushing to you.

« Oh! You’re up! Are you okay? Do you need anything? Water? Hungry? Space? He chuckles. Take your time, he adds with a smile. » He exudes relief. Your throat hurts too much, so you mimic drinking and he’s on it, handing you a full glass of water. Then you point at him.

It is not going well. Your convalescence is endless. Your are weak and shattered to unclean pieces and every morning he comes back from work wondering if you will still be in this coma or if he’ll have to dispose of your body. In retrospect, it was a mistake, but even though he thinks it over again and again he does not see any other outcome. He would never have left you there to rot. What if you weren’t doomed to die? Suicide is forbidden by law. You are suffering enough as it is, despite Joshua’s best efforts to take care of you, he cannot even imagine the tortures the officials would have given you, had they been the ones to find you.

Yet here you are, at the end of a frustrating shift and a lousy stroll. Sitting up in his bed, watching him coming back. An unmatched joy floods through his body as he comes to you, taking a good look at your conscious face. A belligerent stranger, eyes empty and circled of mauve. Clearly distressed and looking weak. Joshua thinks that you being awake is a wonder, he remembers the poor bag of raggedy bones and torn flesh you were when you arrived. When he brought you to his basement. The clothes he has given you hide most of your skin, but he knows your body looks just like your face. A battlefield of bruises and scars and a timestamp to the day you met. For weeks, he has imagined what your first words would be, were you to wake up. What you would do, what your voice would sound like. He would fall asleep to the sound of your haunting rattles next to him, praying they wouldn’t stop before his wake. Nonetheless he has outdone himself. He has brought you back to life. You look bad, but you’re looking at him and he can’ t help but smile in satisfaction. When you point your finger at him, two things hit him.

You can’t talk and you haven’t lived with him for the past week. You know nothing. You don’t know him. He feels foolish to realize it just now. He sits down by your side, filling up an another glass for you. Ponders a bit – in your place, what would be his priorities ? But you’ve thrown yourself under a car and he never has, so he has no fucking clue.

« All right then I’m Joshua. I live here, obviously. Alone. Well, not anymore, since you’ve been there for a while now – the surprise in your eyes aggrieves him. I work at a supermarket down the grand avenue. I brought you here after you… You know. Wait, do you remember what happened to you? You answer him a simple nod. Okay, then, this car hit you, and, well, I brought you back here. You forget your soar throat but he doesn’t need to hear you to read the only word on your lips.

«Well… I know, I know, we are not supposed to interfere but… His eyes roam you, looking for all the mending he has done you. His voice is only a whisper when he finishes his sentence. How could I leave you there? » You clear your throat with pain. Clearly, the water did you do good. Joshua looks up eagerly, to see what you might say first.

«Who else knows I’m here? » Your words are a cold shower. You don’t trust him one bit. He tries to reassure himself, of course you don’t, you’ve just met him.

« Only this one guy – you scoff. I’m serious! There was barely anyone that day and, the driver died, I believe. I didn’t stay to check on him. But, turns out, something else happened that day and we managed to… slip through the cracks, I guess. »

«What? What happened? » He picks his words carefully.

« Someone bombed the Blue Palace. » You remain silent at first. Eyes closed, you take a deep breathe, then another one, until you look at him again, your facial expressions are still too knew you for him to read them. So he asks you. «What? What? »

« You’re saying someone fired a bomb on the Blue Palace? Quick, the shadow of a smile crosses your face. You close your eyes once again, licking your lips as if it’ll help you collect your thoughts. A bomb. On a palace. A bomb. On the exact day I had an accident? He hums in agreement. You lay back on the wall – he hadn’t even noticed how you had bent yourself closer to him, eager for news. Who did it? »

« I don’t know. »

«Wait, you’re saying someone attacked the blues and they haven’t been caught? »

« I don’t know, that’s what I’m saying. You may have not noticed yet, he gives a brief look around him. But I have no TV here. All I know is that they haven’t made any announcement about it. But if you ask me… » He bites his lips, unsure how much he can tell you yet. You give him a short moment, expecting him to go on. You let out a sigh when he doesn’t.

« Listen, Joshua – that’s it, right? From what I see, you could be sentenced to death as much as I do. I have spent hours in the dark, waiting for someone to show up. I don’t care if you did it, I don’t care if you work for the Palace, but please give me something. I need to know. » He comes closer to you.

« I think they have no idea who did it. They’ve been on the lookout for weeks. If they knew, there is no way someone could hide from them that long. He stays quiet, letting you register the information. And I didn’t do it, I swear. »

« I’ve been there... for weeks? » There is no use in lying to you but he hears the miserable realization in your tone and his heart aches too.

« Seven, to be precise. You’ve been really sick, you know. I patched you up as good as I could, and goodness! That DK guy knows a thing or two but even he can’t put a splint on your ribs. You say nothing. You don’t have to tell me everything, but I think it’s better to tell you right now. You… Said things when you were sick, he says. You work, hm, worked for the governor. You were his maid or something. You did his groceries. I have seen you before. » He is not asking.

« That’s right. » You ignore the elephant in the room that is the question on the tip of Joshua’s tongue. Maybe it is too soon. Maybe he doesn’t need to know now. Maybe your action was self-explanatory enough, and the details don’t matter. For today, Joshua decides he won’t push you.

« Who’s that guy you mentioned? » The way you don’t miss a word he says reassures Joshua – at least your head is fine.

« DK? He’s… Well, I don’t know much about him, I give him my reports. » You frown.

« What reports? You need to make report at a grocery shop? »

« I… Joshua shifts. It is going too fast to his liking. You should take it slow, and so should he. He wished to get to know you, and to make both of your comfortable before diving into such matters. He takes a deep breathe. I… Watch the Palace. Well, no, he stutters, I, hm, well, I go for walks around the Palace. Every day. Well, I work night shifts, so, after that, I go for walks. Every morning. And, hm, once a week, more or less, someone comes to the supermarket, and if I’ve seen something interesting I tell them. Usually it’s DK but sometimes someone else comes. I asked him for help when I saw how sick you were. » You chew the inside of your lips for a while and just when you’re about to speak again you close your mouth right away. This goes on for a few minutes, until you hum in acknowledgment. The silence between the two of you is only broken when Joshua hears your stomach grumble and jumps on his feet. « You should have said something! Of course you’re hungry! » He walks the few steps separating him from the cooking area of his quarter – he decided long ago he could not give the name kitchen to it. Kitchens were warm and full of promises. This was neither, just enough to eat some tasteless soups. He swears to himself he feels you watching him as he fumbles in his cupboard. When he turns back to ask if the soup is indeed fine for you, he notices the life back on your cheeks.

You eat dinner together for the first time. It is not quite lively but it is comforting and Joshua pretends he doesn’t notice the few quiet tears on your cheeks as you savor it. You fall asleep shortly after and as usual he lies down by your side, replaying his day.

No one can ever find out about you, he realizes. Not the officials, not his contact. He is playing a wild card which could backfire in so many wrong ways. The easiest way out would be to run away from the city, but it would involve so many people just to get you out, not to mention he has no idea of what he might find there. Joshua is dubious, but even he somehow believes the Palace’s tales. Maybe it is just a desert outside. Then what? What good would it do to them, to die of ignorance on foreign lands ? How much better would it be, to make all this vain efforts, when you might as well be sentenced to a much quicker death, without the discomfort of plotting an escape? Even if it is miserable, and he has even less room that before, Joshua still finds it better to sleep in his own bed. He is good at keeping secrets anyway.

Times passes slowly.

[blurry-fics]

Between the Lines

Pairing: Tyler Joseph x Reader

Warnings: None

Word Count: 2209

Request: a bookstore fic where they meet reaching for the same book orrrrr they’re both too into their books that they aren’t looking and run into each other. idc as long as they’re in a powell’s living their best lives 😪 -@blackbeanietyler​

Author’s Note: For anyone who doesn’t know what Powell’s is, it’s a bookstore in Portland, Oregon (where I’m from) that has all sorts of used and new books (and I highly recommend going if you ever have the chance). Anyway, I really enjoyed writing Tyler as a book nerd and I hope you enjoy it too :) (picture credit)

Your arm started to ache as you walked down the steps that led to the fiction section. Although your original plan had only been to stop in the bookstore to pick up a new release from your favorite author, you had inevitably ended up finding three additional novels that you wanted to take home. Before you knew it, you had spent the better part of the stormy afternoon wandering through aisles of books before even finding what you had come for.

You managed to find an unoccupied bench nestled between a couple of bookshelves where you could sit down and let your tired arms rest for a bit. Not wanting to be in the way, you tucked your knees up to your chest and leaned against the side of the shelf, keeping your books safe in your lap. You had managed to snag a special edition of your favorite book for a good price and you didn’t want to risk losing or damaging it. People hardly even gave you a second glance as you rested on the bench; it was a common occurrence to find someone who had been nestled in a corner for hours reading a book that they had still yet to purchase.

When the circulation had finally returned to your arm and you felt ready to venture down the aisles once again, you got up, collected your things, and started your slow crawl along the shelves. Sure, you knew the author of the book you were looking for, but what was the fun of being in a bookstore if you didn’t also look at what else they had to offer? You would get to the book you needed eventually.

A couple other people were hovering around the section you needed to get to, so you hung back for a little while until they eventually walked away. You didn’t really feel like pushing through a crowd of people, even if you knew exactly what you needed. Thankfully, they only stuck around for a minute or so before growing bored and moving on to the next shelf. After a final adjustment of the books already in your arms, you made your move and started to reach for what happened to be the last copy of the novel.

Unfortunately for you, someone else had the same idea.

Your hand brushed against the stranger’s before either of you were actually able to reach the book. Embarrassed, you recoiled your hand and tried to make peace with the fact that you had missed out on a fresh copy of a novel that you had been looking forward to reading for months. At least you would be able to order a copy online.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were going for the same book,” they said.

You turned to face the stranger, not having expected them to actually talk to you. Most of the people you encountered in bookstores were more than willing to keep to themselves, or steal a last copy away from someone else.

“It’s fine,” you shrugged. “You can have it, if you want.”

“You should take it, I insist.”

You took a moment to get a good look at the stranger. He couldn’t have been much older than you, a year or two at most, though the deep bags under his eyes made him look older. The hood on his sweatshirt was pulled up nearly to his ears, casting shadows over his thin face and nearly blending into the mess of dark hair on top of his head. If you didn’t know any better, you would have thought he just rolled out of bed. You also took note of the fact that he was only carrying a couple other smaller books in his arms.

“I really don’t think I need another book,” you said, holding up the stack in your arms for emphasis. “You should take it.”

“The only thing that tells me is that you’re a more avid reader than I am, so by all means you should take it,” he smiled. He had a nice smile.

“I’m really not going to take a book that someone else wants. I can just come back in a few weeks when they get the next shipment in. I live close. Please, just take the book.”

“You’re from around here?”

“Are you not?” you asked.

The stranger shook his head. “I’m in a band. We’re currently on tour, which is why I’m even here. All my friends were saying that I needed to check this place out if I had a chance and I figured it was a good opportunity to pick up some books for the road.”

“So what you’re saying is that you really should be the one to keep the book,” you said, raising an eyebrow.

“No!” he laughed. “That’s not why I brought it up.”

“I know, I know,” you smiled. “But still, it really doesn’t matter if I wait a little longer to get it. Like I said, I have all these books to keep me busy until I can get my hands on a copy.”

“Ok, what if I make you a deal?”

“I’m listening.”

“You can have this copy of the book if you pick out a different book for me.”

“You want me to pick out a book for you?”

“Yeah.”

“What if I have terrible taste in books?” you laughed.

He laughed along with you, “I looked at the books you’re carrying and I can assure you that you don’t have bad taste in books.”

“And I can pick out any book for you?”

“Yep.”

“Deal,” you smiled, holding out a hand.

The stranger shifted his books to one side before reaching out and shaking your hand. Your mind was already running over an endless list of potential books you could give to this stranger.

“I’m Tyler, by the way,” he said as he pulled his hand away.

“Y/N,” you said, trying to ignore the newfound sense of nervousness you felt after shaking his hand. “So, I’m going to go grab the book real quick. Are you going to stick around here?”

“Yeah, I’ll be in this aisle or the next.”

“Perfect.”

“I’ll hold onto this until you get back,” he said, grabbing the last copy of the book. “Just to make sure you hold up your half of the deal.”

You raised an eyebrow, “And how do I know you’ll hold up yours and not just run off with the copy of the book?”

He held the book over his heart, “You have my word, Y/N.”

“Alright,” you said. Before he had a chance to see the dorky grin on your face at his cute remark, you turned and quickly walked out of the aisle.

After some thinking, you had decided to give him a copy of your favorite book in hopes that he hadn’t already read it. Even if he had, maybe he would enjoy rereading it as much as you did. You shook your head, hardly believing the thoughts that were running through your head. How had you gotten yourself into this position, picking out a copy of your favorite book for a complete stranger?

Not a stranger. Tyler.

The mere thought of his name was enough to make your stomach erupt in butterflies. You pressed your lips together, trying to push the thought from your mind. There was no use in getting yourself worked up over what was going to be a brief encounter at best. He had already told you that he was in a band, meaning that he would probably be gone by tomorrow morning. Never to be seen again.

You were quickly distracted by your arrival to the correct aisle. It was one that you had been in so many times that you already knew exactly where the book would be from memory. There were a few copies to choose from, and after some debate you eventually settled on a new one. It was a bit more expensive than the used ones, but it would give Tyler a chance to make it all his own, if that was even something he enjoyed doing. You knew not everyone enjoyed writing in their books the same way you did.

Enough thinking. Time to find Tyler.

You eventually did find him curled up on one of the benches, already flipping through one of his books. He looked up when he heard you approaching and tucked the books back into the crook of his arm.

“Did you find something for me?” he asked, once again standing up to his full height.

“Yep, a copy of my favorite book of all time. Hopefully you haven’t read it,” you said, passing it to him.

He took a moment to look over the cover before flipping to the back and reading the synopsis. You chewed on your lower lip, waiting for his reaction.

“This sounds amazing,” he grinned. “I can’t wait to read it.”

You almost said something about being excited to hear his thoughts, then remembered the situation the two of you were in. Instead, you stayed quiet.

“And here’s your book, as promised.”

You took the book from him and added it to the top of your pile. Between the tiredness of your arms and the darkening of the sky, you figured it was about time you got home to make yourself dinner.

“Well, I should be getting home. It was really nice meeting you, Tyler.”

“Wait,” he said, “do you mind if I walk with you to the registers? Might be nice to wait in line together.”

“Yeah, that would be nice.”

You started to walk towards the front of the store and Tyler quickly fell into step with you. The butterflies had returned to your stomach, but this time you didn’t try so hard to push them away. With this new development in the story, there was still a chance for something to happen before you said goodbye for good.

“So, you said you’re not from around here?” you asked.

“Yeah, I’m actually living in Ohio right now.”

“Ohio,” you repeated. “How is that?”

“It’s alright, but I like having a chance to tour and see the whole country. It leads to some pretty cool experiences.”

You were sure that Tyler had cast a glance at you when he said that, but you were too shy to meet his eyes.

“How is being in a band?”

“The best,” he smiled. “And the other guy in the band, his name is Josh, is my best friend, so that’s really awesome. I mean, I’m essentially traveling and doing what I love with the closest person I have in my life. It doesn’t really get better than that.”

Normally you were relieved when the line at the registers was short, but today was different. You wouldn’t have minded being in line for half an hour if it meant more time to talk to Tyler.

“That sounds amazing. I would love to hear some of your music.”

“It’s on iTunes and Spotify and all that. We’re called Twenty One Pilots.”

“Oh, like the Arthur Miller play?”

“Yes, exactly,” Tyler grinned.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“What about you? What’s your life like?”

“That’s a loaded question,” you exhaled. “I guess the short answer is that I’m working and trying to figure out what I want to do in life.”

“I’ve been there,” Tyler nodded. “I’m still kind of there, if I’m being honest.”

“Next!” the cashier called.

A frown passed over Tyler’s face, “I guess this is goodbye.”

You tried to hide the disappointment that he hadn’t asked for your number, or maybe you had read the entire situation wrong. Perhaps his remarks hadn’t been anything other than friendly.

“It was really nice meeting you, Tyler. Maybe we’ll run into each other in another bookstore sometime,” you smiled.

“I hope so.”

He waved before turning and walking up to the open register. You had just started to relive all of your interactions with Tyler when the next register opened up. Setting your books on the counter and digging through your bag for a card became a quick distraction.

“Do you want a bag?” the cashier asked.

“No, I have my own. Thank you.”

She finished ringing you up before handing you the receipt and sliding the books your way. You grabbed them and stepped out of the way so that she could begin to help the next person. Before tucking all the books away, you opened up the one on the top so that you could slide the receipt inside.

“What is that?” you muttered, noticing some pencil marks below the title page. You picked up the book and brought it closer to your face, only to realize it was a note.

Sorry for writing in your book, I know not everyone likes to mark up their books like I do. Also sorry for being too embarrassed to do this in person. -Tyler

Beneath all of it was a hastily scribbled phone number. You couldn’t help but smile as you closed the book cover and tucked all of them safely into your bag so they wouldn’t get soaked by the rain.

Maybe you hadn’t misread things after all.

[prorevenge]

My wannabe fashionista coworker always threw shade at me for being frumpy. She looked frumpier, unemployed!

TL;DR at the bottom

*******

I worked at a popular, high end clothing store while I was in graduate school (I'm an engineer). I won't name the brand, but it's the sort that charged $50 for a pair of male boxer briefs, $200 for a lady's fancy bra, or $400 or more for a pair of jeans, $1,000 or more for those skinny suits that hip guys wear to their job, where the hems of their pants reveal that they're wearing loafers without socks.

The clothes there weren't really my style but the starting pay was two dollars higher than minimum wage, and higher than most of the other, surrounding stores. This was at a rich people shopping center, where lots of people who shop there are wannabe celebrities and constant selfie-takers.

I was surprised to get hired there, but was relieved that I wouldn't have to really do customer service, as I worked only in the stock room. I'd put out clothes on the shelves and racks before and after closing, and also arrange everything in the back to make it organized. I was also trained so that in emergency situations I could cover register if we were short handed, so that the regular associates could go on break.

I was hardly seen by customers, but I still had to wear the clothes the store sold, to promote the image of the company. I didn't, thankfully, have to wear the dainty little suits, but I did sport the jeans and other casual things we sold.

It was a job. I didn't love it and I didn't hate it. I just worked, took my pay, went to school, and went home.

At least that's the way it was for two months.

After those two months, "Jessica" began to work during the same hours as me. She was about my age (I was 22), maybe twenty five, tops. She didn't work in the stock room (it was just me back there, with one or two other college guys), but worked the front. She wasn't the manager, or even a supervisor, but she SWORE she was in charge of me.

She made it known to everyone, even customers, that she graduated with an associates degree in fashion marketing from FIDM. I suppose it's a big deal but I was thinking girl if you're a college graduate why are you bragging about it as if it has something to do with you folding jeans and ringing people up at the register? She talked like she was fashion expert and in the "fashion industry," and would talk about the New York or Paris fashion weeks in a familiar way that implied that she just got of the plane after attending these events personally. You know the type, the kind that talks about famous fashion designers by their first name, as if they knew them.

Well she always criticized the way I wore the jeans because I didn't tuck in my T-shirt like the mannequin, or that I work Chuck Taylors on my feet instead of the little leather Sperry Topsiders knockoffs we sold for $300.

We were given a clothing allowance as employees. As a stockperson, I was allowed three complete outfits for free, everything from tops, to underear, to socks, and pants (but not shoes). If I wanted more and it was specifically for wearing at the store, I could mark it as a "uniform purchase" and have the price deducted from my check a little at a time. This was advantageous because they wouldn't charge you tax for them, and charge you only a third of the retail price.

Uniform Purchase was distinctly separate from "Store Discount," for which we also received a percentage off, but it wasn't the incredible 66% discount we got for uniform purchases.

Jessica would snicker at me when I took over register for someone, shake her head or roll her eyes at me as if I looked really ugly. I'm always thinking, whatever girl, you wannabe model you aren't even hot and you're not the boss, who are you? But I held my tongue.

She'd also complain if I was supposedly not fast enough in grabbing a size medium from the back because a customer is requesting the dress and all we have on the floor are smalls and larges. She'd trash me to the customer and when I showed up would sarcastically say "finally!" and turn to the customer with a "see what I have to put up with?" expression.

She was especially mean if any customers got chatty with me and treated me with respect. And if those customers were female and were getting flirty with me, Jessica would be a total cockblock.

The real manager, Paula, had their own issues to deal with beyond petty bickering between a stockboy and an entry level sales associate with delusions of "Project Runway" grandeur. The assistant manager, another fashion industry wannabe named "Heather," was just like Jessica, but thankfully I hardly interacted with her. According to my coworkers, Heather was just as bad as Jessica.

Even though I didn't plan on making this store my career, and even though Jessica didn't bother me THAT much, I thought it won't hurt to get this bitch fired.

To her face, I'd just smile and act like I was following her orders happily, or didn't mind when she would point at me rudely, or snap her fingers at me like she was calling a dog.

Jessica would always hear a directive from one of the managers, and then go around telling the other employees what to do, as if they didn't have ears. She'd try to act as if it was HER directive. LOL.

Her coworkers who were the same "rank" as her would sometimes vent to me about how Jessica acted like she was in charge, when in some cases she had even less time in the company than other employees on the floor.

I noticed that when I arranged clothes in back, especially big ticket, desirable clothes that were seen in magazines in our company's advertisement campaigns, she'd "order" me to set aside things in her size.

I'd do it, because it's my job to set aside things if employees want to buy them outright at a discount or put it as a uniform purchase.

Whenever an employee was on register (really, a big Ipad with a cash drawer beneath), you could tap in a code and the register would show a rundown of every non-customer transaction that employees performed that day, and with a few more keystrokes, their transactions over MANY days. The managers knew this code, of course, and I'll assume Jessica knew the code too because Heather shared the code with her.

I WASN'T supposed to know the code, but I did, because there's a mirror in the wall behind the register, and I was re-stocking paper handbags behind Heather when I saw her tap in her four digit code. She assumed I was stupid and didn't understand the incredibly complex wizardry that is a two year old, low-end spec Ipad.

I knew Jessica was getting rung up for "uniform purchases" when she should have been getting rung up for regular employee discount.

She assumed that when I set aside all those expensive items for her, that I was too dumb to know what she was doing, just because I might have something of a mouth breather countenance.

Even if I look on the surface like a fugitive from the trailer park, something told me Jessica wasn't going to be using $800 heels, a $500 dress, and $1200 motorcycle jacket while working at the store.

And anyway, I asked around. No one saw Jessica wearing any of the truly fancy clothes she bought at our store at what the other employees assumed was simply a regular employee discount.

I thought maybe she was being honest, too. It WAS possible, after all, because I didn't always work with her. Maybe she wore evening dresses to work on her other shifts? Whatever, I decided to make sure.

One time when everyone was busy doing other stuff and the store had to resort to putting me on the register, I typed in Heather's code and pulled up Jessica's purchases. As I suspected, she had bought thousands of dollars worth of our store's best items, but put them all as "uniform purchases" and not at her regular discount.

So I swiped "print" and the register switches from the regular tape to the 8.5"x11" printer beneath the counter, and a complete rundown of all of Jessica's purchases come out.

I highlight all the most expensive items that she was charged for "uniform purchase" (such as, her $1200 jacket would only be $300, and even that was tax free and she got to pay it little by little).

I knew that my manager, Paula, wasn't exactly a nuclear physicist and she was more interested in moving up the chain of command to be working at a job higher than store manager in the company, so as long as her store's sales numbers looked good she didn't care what her assistant Heather did.

Except, if it was a violation of company policy that might reflect badly on her.

I knew Heather was in on Jessica's scam because you're not allowed to ring yourself up at the store, you have to have someone else do it, and none of the other associates would want to conspire with her for fear of getting fired or worse.

To make sure, I printed HEATHER's purchase history too. I didn't see Heather as often as I saw Jessica, but I could also see really glaring red flags on her purchase report. Like, she bought a $900 nightclub dress as a uniform purchase, which I'm quite sure she never wore to work. I did the same highlighting on suspicious items as I did with Jessica's.

Then, because none of this was REALLY my business, I was just a part time asshole who worked in the stockroom, I waited for the most fun opportunity to lower the boom.

Jessica got on her little bluetooth earpiece that she wears on he sales floor that she thinks makes her look like a VIP, and says, "OP, I'm going to need XXX in a size small, customer waiting, get the lead out." So I bring the item, and Jessica says I'm "not passing muster." I thought wow Jessica you sounded really 1940s there, you wannabe pinup girl LOL.

After the customer leaves, Jessica says, "I'm going to need you to go on a trash run and sweep out the receiving bay. And I need you to cover Annie's lunch."

I laugh and tell her, "who died and made you supervisor, you fucking headass burnout?"

She looks like she was the fucking Crypt Keeper for a second and that she wanted to punch me, before she remembered that I'm 6'2" and outweigh her by a hundred pounds.

She hisses, "You are SO fired, you fucking geek. Heather's going to hear about this."

I tell her, "Fuck you, I'm going to lunch."

And I clock out and leave.

When I come back, I see Jessica immediately get on her little earpiece.

Before I even reach the stock room, Heather is there, and the manager Paula intercept me.

"Annie, can you cover register? We have an urgent matter to deal with."

I know I'm supposed to be fired.

Which is why, during my lunch, I went to the copy place and made PDF scans of the printouts I made for Jessica and Heather. I had all the corporate bigshots' emails. They were in the new hire handbook all of us get when we start working. I saved a draft to each but didn't hit SEND yet. I had the printouts as attachements. In the BODY of my email, I described exactly what had been going on. I did send ONE email. And that was to Paula the manager, herself.

But I didn't press SEND until we were on our way to the employee break room.

Paula tells me, "OP, Heather sent me a text that says you were verbally abusive to Jessica. Heather herself says that Jessica has complained to her on numerous occasions that you are a substandard employee, and only her own, personal kindness has presented her from firing you. I came in myself to see if you have anything to say in order to save your job."

It's been a couple of years so of course that can't be exactly what she said, but it was something typical and rehearsed and faux-professional that any low-level boss would say when trying to sound important.

I said I didn't have anything to say in my defense, and that in fact I quit.

Jessica and Heather looked surprised, but then Jessica started smiling.

Paula looked disappointed, and said, "I'm very sorry to hear you say that. You may collect your last..."

"Oh, but before I go, I think you should look at these printouts. I know you don't spend a lot of time studying this stuff, but I thought you might find it interesting. It's the last three months of Jessica's and Heather's employee purchases. Notice how they always ring each other up, and notice all that stuff they're claiming to use as uniforms. If you're having trouble understanding it, I explained it in an email I sent to your cellphone. You should have it already, if you check.

I have the same email ready to go to Dan and Pam and Kimberly and Victor and Kevin but I haven't sent it in yet. I was hoping you could look it over and email me back when you're ready, I mean if you want me to edit anything."

Then I got up and left.

Later that afternoon, my phone was ringing.

It was Paula.

She was practically crying, telling me, please don't send those emails, "I've fired Heather and Jessica. They're GONE. And please don't quit. Please don't tell anyone about--"

I tell her to relax.

I already quit. And I'm keeping my mouth shut.

A few days later, I showed up for my final check. I learned from one of the sales associates that corporate Loss Prevention was called in (our corporate office is only a few miles from the retail location) to interview both Heather and Jessica about their fraud.

In lieu of arrest and heavy fines for what amounted to outright theft and fraud, they were simply fired and unable to use the company as a reference, and due to being fired for cause, could not file for unemployment.

Paula was actually in the store that day, and practically ran to me to thank me for "keeping this scandal at a store level. It's been handled."

I told her no problem. What I didn't tell her was that I never did delete those drafts.

She offered me a reward of free merchandise.

No thanks.

I'm going to look awfully silly in those dainty little suits at my super cool new job of working at Sizzler.

It all ended okay.

A year later I finished my degree, and now I'm doing what I really want to do. Except now at my job, guess what we have to wear. Yeah. Dainty little suits.

I wear socks, though.

I would have never torpedoed Heather and Jessica if they just left me alone to do my job in peace, and didn't try to feel big and important at my expense.

I would have left them to live in their self-medicating lies, live and let live.

Other than some difficult customers, people like Heather and Jessica are what make working retail such a nightmare for so many.

And that's why I feel no guilt about destroying them.

I'm sure Jessica had lots to talk about at that year's Milan Fashion Week.

Hold this L, bitch.

****************

TL;DR: I was stockboy at a fancy clothes store. A low level associate would always boss me around and call me stupid even though she wasn't in charge. I found out she was stealing from the store. I was mean to her on purpose so that I'd be called in to a manager meeting to be fired. I quit, and presented proof to the manager that the associate and the assistant manager were both thieves. They both got fired. I began work at Sizzler.

(source) story by (/u/SaggingSkinnyJeans)

[hellzyeahwebwieldingreviews]

Untold Tales of Spider-Man 03: Celebrity – by Christopher Golden and Jose R. Nieto

Well this story sucked.

Peter Parker is hanging out at the Daily Bugle flirting with Betty Brant when J. Jonah Jameson orders him to head to Angelique's, a Fifth Avenue French restaurant where Johnny Storm is escorting starlet Heather Fox "to an early dinner...before her big premiere tonight." The Bugle is doing an article comparing "the heroic Torch to the criminal insect" Spider-Man. Jonah promises Pete two-thirds of his usual rate because "these paparazzi things are a breeze." (An amusing comment considering what's going on in ASM these days.)Peter positions himself on the sidewalk at the restaurant and is nearly trampled by the professional paparazzi when Johnny and Heather show up. He wonders how Johnny ended up so famous while Spider-Man ended up so infamous.Johnny and Heather aren't the only ones dining at Angelique's. William Baker is there with his date Candace. The menu prices are almost more than he can afford but it's worth it to him to impress Candace. He met her when he was casing the jewelry store at which she works but had to wait until he was out on parole to ask her out since he is the Sandman and had been captured by Spider-Man. But Candace doesn't know any of that and, spotting the Torch, she moons and sighs over him so much that William's jealousy gets the better of him. He attacks the Torch, trying to prove to his date who the real man is. Soon, Spider-Man joins the fight. The Sandman thinks this is great. It gives him more opportunity to prove himself to Candace. He doesn't know that she is mortified, that she is experiencing her worst date ever. She ends up side-by-side with Heather who is "looking bored and exasperated." The women talk. Candace fawns over the Torch only to learn that Heather thinks Johnny is a boring kid, that she'd rather go out with a different member of the Fantastic Four ("I mean, a girl has to be curious," she says) and that she thinks the Sandman is a "sandy hunk".In the fight, Spidey lets the comments of the crowd get to him ("Ya can't expect real heroes like the Torch to keep bailing you out!"), which translates into him letting the Sandman wallop Johnny from behind. Sandy realizes he has ruined his date. When he sees the rest of the Fantastic Four arrive, he skips out. Spidey hears the crowd cheer and thinks they are cheering for him until he sees the Fantasticar with Reed, Sue, and Ben in it. The recovering Torch angrily tells Spidey, "You need to relax, buddy." Spidey, unrepentant, tells Johnny to get back to his date. "I'm sure she's really impressed by your feats of derring-do," he says. "Not particularly," says Heather who has approached the two super-heroes. As the paparazzi snap photos of Johnny and Heather, she tells him that she is ditching him to go have café au lait with her new friend Candace. She only joined the heroes because she wanted to ask Spider-Man "if there was any way he could put me in touch with that Sandman guy." Hearing this, Johnny's face turns bright red ("For once, the change in color wasn't brought on by fire.") and, seeing that, Spidey swings away whistling a happy tune.

I really hope we didn’t peak with the second story in this anthology. This story is by far the weakest of the three I’ve looked at thus far and bears more similarities to the first story than the second.

This was another Marvel Team Up issue except one weirdly more focused upon the Sandman than the Human Torch. We get things from Peter’s, Sandman’s and Sandman girlfriend’s point of view in that order.

The majority of the story consists of  a super powered brawl in a fancy restaurant. Were this a comic book it’d be good enough for maybe a backup story or at a push a filler issue. Here it’s downright unacceptable.

Prose is (aside from maybe radio) is the weakest possible medium to do action set pieces in. Whilst the likes of Horowitz or Fleming can pull it off it’s notoriously difficult and especially so when you have characters designed for a visual medium in the first place. Spider-Man action set pieces typically involve a lot of punching, kicking, dodging, etc. in prose that just isn’t that interesting to read about. You just find yourself lamenting that you can’t see what is happening. Although a part from a neat trick where Torch burns Sandman the action we get is bog standard.

Sandman attacks the Torch, the Torch retaliates backed up by Spidey, they go back and forth, Spidey uses the fact that he is made of sand against him, he escapes. That is the sum total of the action here and it constitutes half the goddam story if not more.

Like the first story, this one isn’t much as a Spider-Man tale because it doesn’t really get personal at all and it doesn’t involve the two halves of his life really impacting upon one another. The closest we get is that Peter’s day job positions him to be at the scene of Sandman’s attack. Frustratingly the story doesn’t start like that as we actually visit the Bugle and get what might be our third exposition dump about Peter’s status quo in the whole book. Here at least we see Betty Brant and the story seemed like it was going to touch on her and Peter’s relationship somehow but it’s pure filler.

Spidey is also weirdly out of character here. It’s like if they took the jerkass Spidey from ASM #8’s backup story and used him as the basis for this story. He’s not quite as bad but he kind of enjoys Human Torch’s rejection, is seriously jealous and frustrated by the public’s lack of appreciation. Him being upset that the public hate him is one thing, but here he’s almost back to being AF #15 Spidey.

The story also makes little sense in regards to the Sandman. First of all there is a mind boggling line about how when he isn’t in his sandform he’s literally flesh and blood. Nooooooooooo he really isn’t. As Spider-Man 3 wonderfully demonstrated, he’s always sand 100% of the time. He can make himself look and like a human’s senses, but even if he looks human you can’t knock him out as though he was a normal guy. And Spidey doesn’t even do that when he gets the chance because he alerts him like a moron.

The plot is also dumb because Sandman, a repeat felon who is also now super empowered was released on parole…for good behavior. Not only is it unbelievable for Sandman to act that way at all, but why the fuck would the prison allow him to leave given his record and more importantly his super powers?!

Just about the only good thing about this story was the brief insight into Sandman’s mind where we learn how he’s grown resentful of normal life’s rules given his power and the brief scenes of his and Torch’s dates chatting. But the latter is purely because it was something vaguely different that broke up the dullness of the fight scene.

The experience was made all the more unpleasant by DeSantos ear grating performance for this story. His Sandman isn’t too bad but everyone else sounded subpar at best and unbearable at worst (chiefly the female characters).

All in all this story was rather pathetic and skippable.

P.S. This story’s placement within Spidey canon is vague but it seems to broadly happen towards the end of Peter’s high school career. It is clearly influenced by ASM #21 even if it’s placement in relation to that issue is not clear at all.

[baeklooming-day]

Fleeting | Baekhyun

Summary: You lead a double life. For everyone else, you are the pretty girl with a great sense of fashion who works at Sephora. But it isn't your only job. For the other one you require only two things: the collection of weapons you keep in your closet - and zero emotions.

ft. Luhan

Genre: assassin!au, mafia!au, street racer!au, fluff, angst

Word count: 4.5k

playlist

"Really, Y/N? You know I love you, but lately I feel like the only reason you call me is for you to ask for favors."

"That's not true! Pretty please Sujin! I will be just a few minutes late."

"Hahaha! Good one."

"Sujin. I really need to take care of something right now. Will you help me out one more time?"

"..."

"Sujin!"

"Okay, okay. I'll cover for you. But, whatever it is, hurry up and come here right after, understood?"

"Of course. See you in a bit!"

You hung up.

Sujin was your coworker and friend. She totally adored you, and maybe that's the only reason why in the end she always let slide you being late for work. Well, you weren't always late. Sometimes it just happened for the problem to have to be solved during your usual work hours at Sephora.

Like today.

Your grip on your rifle tightened.

Easy. Focus.

After all, you've done it many times.

In this long time you've worked for Zhang Yixing you've never seen him as nervous as that evening.

"Listen Y/N, you do know the CEO of Kang Corporation, is that right?"

"Yeah, I mean, not personally but I know who he is. Kang-something...?"

"Yes, him. Listen. You also happen to know who Jackson Wang is, right? The CEO of Wang Enterprises?

"Yes-"

"Alright, here is your task."

He quickly slid a piece of paper in your direction.

You picked it and started to read.

You snorted.

"Why could I see something like this coming? It was so obvious. I assume our big CEO Mr. Wang wants all the power and glory to himself. Is he actually aware what might happen if suddenly the second big CEO disappears from the scene? Everyone knows those two don't particularly love each other."

"This is none of our concern, Y/N. Make sure you take care of this."

You paused for a brief moment.

"How much?"

Yixing hesitated. Woah there, you thought. So it is the highest price I've ever got.

"10 Million American dollars." He said, not breaking eye contact with you.

"Woah."

It always amused you, how desperate some people could be only to take down somebody who wasn't doing in their favor.

"'Woah' is a good word to describe it. Anyway, Y/N, I trust you to solve it without any complications as always."

"Will do, boss!"

With that being said, you directed yourself to the exit where you paused, only to quickly turn around and send Yixing a childish 'bang!' with a finger gun.

So now, you found yourself sitting on the roof of the Plaza Hotel - it would be quite romantic to say the least, if it wasn't for the purpose you were there.

You were a paid murderer. You killed people in an exchange for money.

Your current target was a certain Kang Seojun - the CEO of one of the biggest corporations in the city.

It wasn't your first time that you had to eliminate some important persona. You already had a minister, a few influential politicians and even a famous actress on your account.

It was always the same process. Find the target, observe them for a while, get some more information and finally, attack.

You adjusted your rifle.

To be quite honest, you've never been a fan of making a 'task' look like an accident. This regards arranging a car accident or literally setting the target's house on fire.

No, it was too much work than it already was.

So you just sticked to the classic solution.

Right now you were waiting for Kang Seojun to arrive at the Corporation's building right next to Plaza where their company meeting took place.

"Where on earth is this man", you mumbled to yourself. "If I don't kill you today, Sujin will kill me for being late again."

While you still waited, you looked at your own reflection in the small pocket mirror you always carried with you.

Your dark red lipstick and eyebrows were perfect as always. At least you looked good doing bad stuff.

Then you heard a vehicle pulling to stop and muffled voices in the distance that was separating you from the street beneath you.

You immediately straightened.

You could see the car's door open and a blonde head peeking out.

There he is.

He surely took his sweet time. Ironically, he didn't have much of it left.

3.

Don't move a muscle. Concentrate.

He was now slowly heading to the entrance of the building. You had to act quickly and effectively.

2.

Breath in. Breath out. It's a piece of cake.

Your fingers carefully clasped around the trigger.

1.

"Bang."

You shoot.

It didn't take long for the hell to break loose. But by now, you were accustomed to it. After all, that part of your job was always the same as well - after having eliminated the target, you had to escape as fast as you could. Without being seen by anyone.

You had to have your eyes wide open. And you had to be careful.

Very, very careful.

You knew exactly what happened to people like you who were being careless about the whole thing. So already in your early training days you decided to never put your guard down.

The moment you entered Sephora you were met with Sujin putting a new delivery of Nars foundation onto the perfectly cleaned shelf.

To be honest, you actually really enjoyed working there. In your free time - time, when with a gun hidden in your boot you didn't run down the stairs of hotels, skyscrapers, apartment buildings, you name it - you liked playing with makeup and going shopping.

You could say it was a little benefit for you. You had to seem innocent, powerless. You had to be like a normal girl.

Well, at least pretend to be one.

"Hey, Sujin!"

"Finally! I would say 'right on time', but..."

"I'm sorry?"

She looked at you with an unreadable expression on her pretty face.

"Come on, help me sort it all." She pointed to the big box that rested beside her leg.

"Oh my." Your eyes scanned the new arrivals. "These are all so nice."

"Y/N, I know what you are thinking right now, come on. You basically have half of this store at home, you do not need another bottle of foundation."

You chuckled. "I didn't say anything!"

There was silence for a moment before Sujin spoke again.

"Actually, Y/N, are you seeing anyone at the moment?"

There it was. The question. You knew that one day she will completely see through you and get it that you were lying all along the way.

You always told her poor excuses for how come you never go out on any dates and aren't particularly interested in boys in general.

Because what else could you tell her?

You couldn't get too attached. Being who you were, didn't include love. You couldn't show anything that could be easily used against you.

"No, why? And on top of that, I already told you I'm too busy for a boyfriend." She looked unconvinced.

"What about Baekhyun?"

"What about him?"

You could expect her to ask about Baekhyun. Except for Sujin, he was your only friend. As if it wasn't obvious by now that you didn't have many friends. The less, the better, you always told yourself. In the end you were risking their safety as well. If you ever got discovered…

No. It won't happen.

Not again.

"Oh, don't be like that Y/N. Even a blind person could tell he likes you. He's liked you since you moved here! Why don't you just give it a chance? You two would be so cute together-"

"Sujin." You paused her. "Please, just leave it already, will you? Me and Baekhyun are good friends, but nothing more. Besides, Baekhyun is-"

"I'm what?"

You froze. Speaking of the devil. How did he even manage to sneak up on you like that everytime you least expected it?

"Baekhyun!" Sujin stood up to give him a quick hug. "Good to see you, how are things going?"

"I'm not complaining." He chuckled at her enthusiasm. "I see you two have some work to do."

"Just the usual. What brings you here?"

"Actually, I'm here for Y/N. Can I borrow her for a sec?"

You looked up at him from the foundation box you were sitting by.

His black hair was all messy, yet still managed to looked presentable. He was dressed in his standard outfit - plain white tee, black leather jacket and black ripped jeans, which, to be honest, were a little more than worn out.

Any other guy would look ridiculous, so why did he look so good?

Damn you, Baekhyun.

You stood up to properly face him.

"Sure, let's go."

He flashed you a wide smile before turning around and heading for the exit with you following behind him.

"So, what is it you wanted to talk about Baek?", you asked once you were in the main venue of the mall.

"To tell the truth, I just wanted to see you."

Is this guy being serious right now?

Every other girl like Sujin, would probably think it was the cutest thing for a boy to do. But you weren't like the other girls.

"Aww, could it possibly be that you missed me?"

"Maybe."

"You literally just saw me yesterday, Baekhyun."

Well, that was very true, you two used to quickly meet at the crossing in the morning before work quite often.

"Oh c'mon, you know what I'm trying to say." He lightly poked your arm. "We aren't spending so much time together anymore. And you always tell me you're busy. If I was somebody else I would even think you are avoiding me or something."

He didn't say it in an accusing tone but you knew he was partly right. Baekhyun just happened to be around almost always. It would be a lie if you said you didn't enjoy his company, because you did. But in your opinion, that alone was already one step too far. You preferred to turn him down and have him upset with you for a couple of hours than to risk being seen by someone who could use that information for certain purposes, or turn him down just because you had to take care of something at that time. Of course you told him you were busy, which also was true. But it seemed like it looked like a one big lie to him.

"Look, I know, but it's really not like that. If I say I'm busy, I really am. You know I wouldn't lie to you like that.

"So..." Baekhyun looked at you with puppy eyes. "Are you free this afternoon?" Another feature about him that honestly annoyed you, because you just couldn't help it but melt, was when he used that puppy look on you.

"Yeah, sure." Those words left your mouth before you could even think about it.

Dammit. You really needed to do some practising in resisting that boy's requests.

You found yourself sitting on the rooftop of an apartment building sipping on a big cup of Starbucks coffee. The spot was lovely - actually, it was your favourite spot in the city back then when you first moved in into your apartment. It was also the spot where Baekhyun brought you when you hung out for the first time. Of course it wasn't a date - none of the times you two hung out was. At least you wouldn't call it in that manner. Maybe Sujin would, but in her eyes everything had a different meaning.

Baekhyun was sitting right beside you and sipping on his own cotton candy frappuccino while gazing onto some unindentified point in the space.

Funny, you thought. He usually was the one to talk, he rarely got so quiet when you two were together.

You turned to him and sipped as loud as you could to get his attention.

"Hmm?"

"Something happened?" You brought your attention back to your cup. "It's strange to see you shut up like that."

"Nah, it's nothing." He hesitated for a brief moment but then spoke again. "Actually, Y/N. There is something I've been meaning to ask you, but..."

Oh no. Sujin couldn't be possibly right, could she? Shit.

"I mean, for the past two years that we've been best friends I don't really know much about you when I think of it, and it just kind of bothers me."

Oh my god. You let the breath you didn't realise you were holding. So he wasn't about to ask you out. Good.

But what were you going to tell him now anyway?

"Uhm, what do you exactly mean?"

Baekhyun shrugged.

"Besides that you are eyebrows-obsessed, speak more languages than any other person I know and can't get through the day without coffee or chocolate I don't know nothing about the times before I met you and where you came from, who your parents are..." He glanced at you.

You gulped. Why did he suddenly want to know all of this?

"I don't know who your parents are either. And before moving here my life was just a little, hm, complicated to say the least." You carelessly run your hand through your locks hoping that he won't dig any deeper.

"Fine, let's leave the parents thing out." Now he was directly looking you in the eyes. "But what do you exactly mean by complica-"

Buzzzzzzz.

Buzzzzzzz, buzzzzzzz.

He didn't get to finish the sentence when both your phones started vibrating in your pockets.

Baekhyun took his phone and looked and the bright screen.

"Aish, sorry I have to take this." He gave you an apologetic look.

"No worries, I have to take mine as well. Might be something important at work."

 You smiled before quickly staying up and taking a little distance to finally slide your finger across the screen to accept the call.

"What the actual hell Yixing? I told you not to call me during the day!" You were careful to not be too loud, just in case.

But still, you completed your task just as he wanted, so what could it possibly be now?

"What-" His voice on the other line sounded a little bit irritated. "Would you quit shouting like that? Geez, my poor ear…"

"Look, I'm with a friend right now, so hurry up and tell me why you're calling before he hears everything."

"I'm calling you because I need you to show up at my office, like, right now." He paused before quickly adding "very urgent."

Sometimes you really just wanted to throw a shoe in his face.

"Yeah, fine. Already on my way."

You hung up.

When you were about to go back to where you and Baekhyun were sitting just a few moments ago, you saw him approaching you first.

"Y/N, I'm so sorry, but I have to go." He started to nervously scratch his neck.

"I have to go too. Something came up and they need me at... uhm, work." You wanted to sound confident but your voice sounded like anything else but that to you.

"The universe just wants to keep us apart for some reason, huh?" Baekhyun smiled ironically before quickly hugging you and making himself on his way.

Keep us apart, you thought to yourself. Maybe this is just the way things should be.

You arrived at Yixing's office not more than 15 minutes after you said goodbye to Baekhyun. You entered without knocking and immediately sat on the chair in front of his desk.

"So, what is this all about? Everything went smoothly in the morning, the guy is still very dead."

Yixing looked up from his laptop.

"I know, but this is not about that."

You raised your eyebrows.

"I just got a phone call. I don't know how to explain this, this is the first time a client requests something like that, though." He furrowed his eyebrows.

"What exactly is this request?"

"The client asked to meet you before you complete what they want you to do. Tomorrow, Cloud 9 at 11 o'clock."

What?

"Cloud 9? That fancy café on the 22nd floor? Pardon me, but what for?"

Yixing raised his palms. "I seriously don't know Y/N. They only said they wanted to reveal to you some particular information on the target. Other than that, they didn't name any price, so I suppose that's what they want to discuss with you personally."

"Well. Well, alright. How will I recognise them? Is it a man or a woman?"

"It was a woman's voice on the phone, and she didn't say anything about her appearance except for short blonde hair. She said she will recognise you."

"Fine, so be it." You nodded. "Can I go now?"

Yixing waved his hand in the yeah-go-away manner. "Yes, dismissed."

A client wanting to meet up with you? Well that was new.

The next day, you were preparing yourself for the "meeting". That woman said she would recognise you, right? But wait. How was she going to recognise you? And how did she even know how you look like?

Hold on, calm down.

After all you were pretty popular among the more significant people from dark businesses. There's no need to invent things.

You didn't really have a plan what to wear, so you decided you will keep it simple but with style. You went for black ripped jeans, white off-shoulder top and your casual white sneakers.

Perfect. None would even think of who you actually were, which was always your kind of a motto.

When you arrived at Cloud 9 it was 10:45. The client should appear soon as well. You walked in and took a seat at a table possibly far from unsuspecting ears.

The Cloud 9 café was a really nice place. It was on the 22nd floor, so it had a wonderful view at the entire city. The floor was a white marble while the walls where in warm shade of deep chocolate brown. The café alone was in shape of a circle, so it basically had glass all around, through which you could admire the beautiful view.

You took a look on your phone. 11:10. The client is not here yet. But they said 11 o'clock, right? Do they really think they can just keep you waiting like this? Instead, your screen lit up once again with an incoming call from Baekhyun.

That boy.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Y/N! Where are you right now?"

"I'm supposed to meet up with someone but they're already 10 minutes late." You stopped. You shouldn't be just spilling everything so carelessly to Baekhyun.

"What? With who?"

"Uhm, none in particular. Work, you know. She's a... she's the boss of Sephora on the other side of the town, you know. We wanted to discuss which new brands our both stores could take to... to widen the whole thing. Or something." You weren't convincing even yourself, but scratch that right now.

"Oh." If he didn't believe you he didn't show it. "Uhm, so, did you say they were late? Where are you?" His voice sounded as if he had been running.

"I'm at Cloud 9. Why?"

"I, well, I just happen to be nearby so I can keep you a little company while you wait?"

"Yeah, alright. I'm hanging up now."

You looked at your screen once again. 11:20. Was ist some kind of a joke? Why is this woman, or whoever that client is, already 20 minutes late?

You decided to wait another 15 minutes, and if they won't show up, you will go straight up to Yixing and tell him to stop playing some stupid tricks on you, or whichever ridiculousness that was, which was just taking place.

You couldn't get more annoyed because just then you noticed Baekhyun's black fringe peeking inside. You waved him over.

When he approached your table, you also noticed that he was breathing heavily, just as if he really had been running.

"Woah, there. Are you running away from someone?"

His eyes immediately widened. "What? No, no."

"You look like you just ran in a marathon."

"Well, thanks Y/N." He glanced at you with a pout. He always looked like a little boy when he did that. "Anyway, how long are you planning to wait? When were they supposed to be here?"

You frowned. "They were supposed to be here at 11, but looks like I have been forgotten." You looked over to your phone for the 10th time. 11:28. Really?

You glanced at Baekhyun. His cheeks were red and he was licking his lips nervously. Something clearly was going on, and you wanted to know what.

You put your arms on the table.

"Baekhyun, come on, tell me what-"

You didn't get the chance to finish your sentence when there was a loud BANG! just a few meters away from you.

You both snapped your heads in the direction where the noise came from.

There was a man wearing a long black coat along with the rest of his clothes as well as his hair which also were all black.

He was holding a gun in his right Hand.

But then he turned around and you saw his face.

You knew that face.

And apparently, he recognised you. But also, his gaze seemed to waver on Baekhyun as well with a spark of recognition too.

You quickly glanced at Baekhyun.

His eyes were wide and his expression blank.

Then the man spoke.

"Well, well, well. What do we got here?" He looked around himself and at the frightened people who were probably praying for their life. "To tell the truth, this doesn't concern any of you here, so will you gather your asses and fuck off before I change my mind and kill y'all?"

The people started rushing out of the café making as little noise as possible, probably terrified of the thought that that crazy man in all black could start shooting anytime.

"And don't even think of going to the police! If you still want your brains in your heads, just saying!" The man called behind them, waving with his gun.

Shit. This was all so confusing that all you could do was to look back and forth at the man and at Baekhyun, who, still motionless, sat beside you.

The man took a few steps forward before speaking again.

"No, this is just too good to be true. Honestly, I would never, ever think that our two delinquents know each other." He was now grinning maniacally, which to be completely honest, creeped you out like nothing before.

But wait, did he just say "our two delinquents"?

"What do you want Tao?" You and Baekhyun spoke at the exact same time.

What?

You both looked at each other. "You know him?!" Baekhyun pointed at the man called Tao.

"Yes, but how do you know him?!" Now you also raised your finger to point at Tao.

Then you heard a very loud laugh.

"Seriously, stop!" Tao was rubbing his wet eyes. "Ah, this is so good. You have no idea who he is - and you, you have no fucking idea who she is!"

Okay, now it was getting really sick.

"Care to explain what's going on?" You glared at Tao.

"But of course. I'm here because of two reasons. First" He looked at Baekhyun. "I really was hoping to find you here, to be honest. Like we made it clear the last time we saw each other - you won't get away with what you pulled on that race. And also, we want that car back."

"Are fucking kidding me?" Now it was Baekhyun who snapped. "Where are your eyes? Everyone saw and can confirm that it was all fair! I won. And that car was never yours, so quit talking nonsense."

You felt your head spinning. Race? Car? Was Baekhyun also hiding Secrets?

"Wait." You turned to Baekhyun. "You are racing?"

"Y/N, I..." He run a hand through his hair.

Tao began to laugh again. "Right, let me make this clear to you. This idiot over here, is doing illegal street races for about, let me think, 2 years now? He somehow managed to drive off with our car from the last race in Shanghai, so that's why I'm here for his sorry ass."

"I told you that car is NOT yours!"

"Yeah, whatever. I will deal with you later." Tao turned to look at you. "And you darling, tell me, isn't it too much for you to live with the awareness of all the lives you have taken?"

You swallowed. Shit. That bastard just exposed you in front of Baekhyun, and nothing can take it back.

"Don't talk to me as if you're better, Tao."

"Oh, besides I heard the news. Kang Seojun is dead? Good job, Y/N. Were you playing hunter on the roof again? But fuck, you really must be a millionaire by now, with all these little paid crimes."

"What..." Baekhyun opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, imitating a goldfish. "Wait, no. You... you kill for money...?" He looked as confused as a human being can look. "Hold on a sec, you mean... like seriously doing that stuff assassins in the movies do?"

You felt like you were about to cry. You never wanted him to find out. Now he probably will hate you. Probably will be disgusted and disappointed in you.

"This is so funny" Tao chuckled. "And guess what I'm about to do with you, little princess? Remember Kris, right? Well, long story short he wants you dead."

Tao pointed his gun at you.

You saw your life fleeting before your eyes.

Shit. Shit, that wasn't how it was supposed to end.

"It was nice knowing you, Y/N. For the good old tim-" Shatter. He didn't finish the sentence, when a glass bottle shattered on his head.

Tao fell on the floor, unconscious.

You stared in complete shock at the person who just knocked him down. A scream of surprise left your lips.

You were met with a petite figure of brown-haired boy with sweet eyes which looked at you.

No, this can't be. After these years, you thought he might have ended up dead. But he was standing right in front of you, very alive.

The first most important person in your life. You grew up together and went through good and bad times together, arm in arm.

He was the reason why you promised yourself that you won't get attached to people, ever again.

You saw everything in a blur. What has just happened?

You placed your palm on your cheek, still looking at the petite boy in front of you, who still was holding the half-broken glass bottle.

You slowly stood up.

"L-Luhan...?"

The boy threw the glass on the side and smiled.

"Long time no see, honey."

A/N: End of the first chapter! This is my first ever fanfiction, so I’m really excited (and hella scared, lol) to finally post it! If this piece gets positive feedback, I will be more than happy and motivated to continue and make it a mini-series! I put lots of my time and heart into this first ever fanfic and I would love to properly start writing and improve my skills. So please please please leave me your thoughts, I would very appreciate it! Also don’t forget to leave a heart if you liked it, and feel free to reblog if you want to! <3

[agirlinjapan]

Red Data Girl: My Wish on the Night of the Shooting Stars (Week 33)

Red Data Girl: My Wish on the Night of the Shooting Stars By Noriko Ogiwara A Translation

Miss the last piece? Read it here!

Check out the RDG Translation twitter!

Help me pay for my next translation project on Ko-fi.

Wow! We’re so close to the end here! Just two more installations after this one and we’ll be done!

Translation notes

Near the beginning of this week’s installation, Izumiko drives past Kumano Hongu Taisha. This is a famous Shinto shrine.

While driving through Japan’s countryside, it’s not unusual to find rest stops that specialize in local goods and produce. They’re always worth stopping at! You can find great stuff at really reasonable prices.

-10 degrees Celsius is equal to 14 degrees Fahrenheit.

Red Data Girl: My Wish on the Night of the Shooting Stars By Noriko Ogiwara Chapter 4: Mizuho Part 3 (1 of 3)

Izumiko returned to Mt. Tamakura with Yukariko.

It was difficult to say how Yukariko had worked this out with her job. Maybe she was acting as Izumiko’s guard. However, she showed no signs of this as they headed towards Haneda Airport. Instead, she simply acted like a normal parent. Izumiko hadn’t walked together with her mother like this since she had been about four years old.

Miyuki hadn’t changed his plans, choosing to stay in Tokyo with Yukimasa as he had said he would. Still, Izumiko couldn’t have wished for anything better than having the chance to travel with Yukariko.  She was grateful for the opportunity to tell her mother everything Mizuho had said. If she hadn’t been able to share what had happened so quickly, the story would have welled up inside of her like pus until it consumed her. As Yukariko was both someone involved in the event and the listener, she was happy to take in every tiny detail. As a result, it was the first time in a long while where a conversation they shared could not be called awkward.

When Izumiko told Yukariko how Mizuho had said she could stop Izumiko’s abilities, Yukariko was clearly shocked.

“She chose to say that in an attempt to trick you. She wanted to persuade you of what she might be capable of because she thought you wouldn’t be able to fight back against her that way. Mizuho wouldn’t have been able to control you long term though. She probably just said it to keep you quiet.”

Izumiko let her head droop, feeling relieved. “I think I’m too easily persuaded into believing what people tell me. I guess I’m just gullible.”

“There are times when people are easily persuaded into things, but that’s not always a bad thing.”

“But I got tricked into thinking that Dad knew about going to Hong Kong. There are bad parts about being easily persuaded too, aren’t there?”

“In the case of Mizuho, Daisei wasn’t connected to what was going on at all. That was guaranteed to trick you. I keep a close eye on everything Daisei does.” As they sat next to each other on the chairs in the gate waiting area, Yukariko smiled. “After all this, being gullible is a problem you will have only had in the past. Going forward, I doubt you’ll be tricked into anything again.”

Izumiko unconsciously wrapped her fingers around her braids. “So, can I change my hairstyle now?”

“Hair is said to be a source of spiritual power,” Yukariko said, somehow sounding like Yukimasa. She took one of her daughter’s braids and examined it. “My biggest wish hasn’t come true just yet. Keep these the way they are for just a little longer. I can’t say your abilities are stable quite yet and—”

Yukariko paused.

Izumiko looked curiously at her mother. “And what?”

“And Miyuki thinks your braids are cute.”

Izumiko pulled back in surprise.

“You’re lying.”

Chuckling, Yukariko said, “Yes, I’m lying. I’m the one who thinks they’re cute.”

There was nothing Izumiko could do about her red face and so she made herself as small as possible instead. Still, it felt unusual to have this sort of discussion with Yukariko. It didn’t feel like they hadn’t talked in a long time. Now that they were getting close again, Izumiko could tell that Yukariko was a playful person, but she had already known that somehow.

Oh right. The goddess…  

She agreed with what Miyuki had said. Yukariko was certainly a lot like the goddess.

When Izumiko and Yukariko left Nanki Shirahama Airport in the Kii Peninsula, Shingo Nonomura was there to pick them up in his car. It took more than three hours to drive across the prefecture to Mt. Tamakura, but Izumiko was much happier that he had come all this way for them instead of having them take a helicopter. She was overcome with relief to be back home.

Yukariko seemed happy as well.

“Thank you, Mr. Nonomura. As long as you’re driving, we can stop somewhere on the way so that I can get you something good.”

Seeming pleased, Mr. Nonomura looked over at Yukariko and smiled.

“Sawa’s already making a huge feast.”

“I know that. I was thinking more along the lines of some good local sake for you to take home.”

While she said that, Yukariko ended up buying more than just sake when they stopped. This was a new experience for Izumiko who had never stopped at a roadside local specialty store before. It was also unusual to be entering a store with her mother.

While driving, they passed Kumano Hongu Taisha, a major Shinto shrine, and followed a road north that ran next to the Kumano River for some time. The temperature was always mild in the Kii Peninsula, but it was still negative ten degrees Celsius.  While the roads didn’t tend to freeze entirely in December, once January came around, there would be plenty of times when it became impossible to drive all the way up to the top of the mountains.

In the winter, Tamakura Shrine was isolated from the people who lived at the base of the mountain and became a lonely place. Being away after so long, Izumiko savored the cold, clear, crisp smell of the top of the mountain. However, with their arrival, the connection that had formed between mother and daughter quietly lessened a bit. All the people who worked at the shrine had come up for the occasion and now they were surrounded by people.

Takeomi and Sawa came out to greet them, their expressions relaxed. Izumiko had heard plenty of stories about how Yukariko and her father, Takeomi, hadn’t gotten along well, but after Yukariko had entrusted Izumiko to the shrine and had left for Tokyo, Izumiko had barely seen them fight when her mother had come home for her brief visits. This was because during her rare returns, she always went out drinking with him and they were both impressive drinkers.

The evening meal on the night of their return was indeed impressive enough to be called a feast. There was drinking and singing and Izumiko, too, ate to her heart’s content and spent as long as she could with the people who had come to see her and Yukariko. Still, there was a limit to how long she could sit with people who were drinking so much.

Why is Mom so popular with everyone?

No matter how she looked at it, it was plain to see that all the people who worked at the shrine had come so as not to miss an opportunity to be with Yukariko. However, Yukariko, with sake in her cup, was not like any other woman Izumiko knew, and she acted as if she didn’t care at all. To Izumiko, her mother was cruder than she was charming, but it was obvious that people liked her anyway.

I wonder if I’ll ever wish I’m more like Mom…  

Thinking that she had a long way to go before she was ever like her mother, Izumiko went up to her room. There was a lot to think about when it came to the connection between the goddess, Yukariko, and her, but she was too tired for that now. The noise from downstairs didn’t bother her as she slipped off into sleep.

~*~

Yukariko’s return home was short. The next morning, she received a work call and a helicopter came to bring her back that afternoon.

“Mom, you really don’t get a lot of time off.”

“Well, there isn’t much time between one incident that requires my attention and the next.”

Izumiko felt disappointed as she sat at the table with her mother as Yukariko ate breakfast. It might have been the late morning, but Yukariko was still wearing the yukata she had slept in. She had already finished Sawa’s miso soup and was now leaning back in her chair as it digested.

“I really wanted to see you off to school myself this time. I know that Mizuho was able to take you because I wasn’t there for you. How could I not know it?” she said, her voice gentle. “So, I need a break. That arrest did not feel good…”

Yukariko usually wore a lot of makeup, but seeing as it hadn’t been long since she had woken up and she hadn’t put any on yet, her skin looked a little plain in the morning light. Izumiko liked this side of her mother more than the one she had seen the night before. Her eyes were downcast and she was calm as she quietly chose her words.

Still, it was clear that she was suffering from a hangover.

“Mom… Are you okay?”

“My head is pounding.”  

Yukariko groaned and then made her way carefully to take a bath. Izumiko let out an unconscious sigh. Just like that, she had barely gotten any time to talk with her mother. It was always like this.

However, the Yukariko who came out of the bath had recovered from her hangover surprisingly quickly. Her hair was already dry, and she was dressed and made up perfectly. She invited Izumiko on a walk.

The fog had cleared up early that day, but it was still a winter day and the weather reflected that. Izumiko and her mother walked through the cold under the tall pine trees and the other trees who had all since dropped their fall colored leaves to the ground. In this season where the usual green thickets had disappeared, there were now unusual boulders to be seen around Tamakura Shrine. The two of them walked past many of them as if greeting old friends.

“A sacred stone…” Yukariko said, running a hand across a bare stone face. “The Japanese people of old used to think the gods dropped special stones from the sky. The gods were said to have picked up these stones from incredibly hot places deep down in the earth. You could tell which stones were from the gods by touching them. That’s all because Japan is in a volcanic zone, and volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and hot springs gushing from the earth are all regular occurrences here. That’s what I think at least.”

“In other words, you think the gods are the magma inside the earth?” Izumiko asked her mother in surprise. She’d never heard anyone say that before.

Yukariko gave her daughter a tiny smile.

“In other words, stones are made of minerals. They’re the furthest things from life forms and while we think of them as hard and unmoving, they also make up the core of the earth. Long before there was life on the planet, stones were moving beneath it. Most likely, that’s the earth’s true destiny and organic lifeforms are just a small part of what’s happening here. You know those first organisms that crawled up onto the surface of the earth are distant relatives of everything walking under the sun today. That fact makes me happy. Gods are the true essence of happiness. Most likely, so is the goddess.

Izumiko gazed at the boulder in front of them.

“Happiness. That’s a good thing...”

“Life invites good and evil. But for that very reason, it’s right to appreciate fear. No matter what a living thing does, the gods will bring about a bad outcome. Even so, it’s right to pray for the strength to respect the fear that comes with the outcome.”

The perfectly clear air at the top of the mountain was cold even in the bright sunlight. In the silence of the open space where they stood, Yukariko’s voice sounded flat with nothing to reverberate off of. It sounded smaller than Izumiko had ever heard it before.

“The ancient ascetic monks walked on the mountains they had devoted themselves to, training in their ascetic ways, and knew the stones around them better than anyone else. They would burn sacred sticks to ask for the gods’ blessings.—They worked with fire as well. They also learned how to refine metal. They knew where deposits of metal were and could take gold, silver, and mercury from the ground. At that time in society, people were suspicious of this knowledge and treated the people who had learned these skills like frauds.

“Traces of this lifestyle still live on in today’s ascetic monks. The goddess is capable of the same connection to the past. She can see those ascetic monks in the distant past and learn from their experiences. When the goddess’s true nature is misjudged, the gods’ purity falls victim to human suspicion. Such are the lives of humans. It’s sad, but it happens so easily.”

Not looking at her mother, Izumiko asked quietly, “What should I do? How much should I hate being born into a life like this? How much do you hate it? I’ve been wanting to ask you those things for a long time now.”

Yukariko was quiet for a minute, but then she let out a loud laugh.

“You’re still not looking beyond yourself. For the time being, go out and live a little more. Expand your point of view. When you look further, inside and out, you won’t just find good things. You’ll probably find things you don’t like. Ugly things. But if you don’t let them frighten you, you’ll find things about yourself that you can’t even imagine now. Not discovering those things would be a waste of living your life.”

“Have you discovered those things, Mom? Are you happy with the way you are and with working in public safety?”

“I don’t regret having you. That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it? I’m strong because you make me so.”

Izumiko looked at Yukariko in frustration. Her words felt empty as if she was saying them just to placate her.

“Are you strong enough not to be afraid of the goddess’s future? I’m definitely not strong enough for that.”

Yukariko’s manner changed at the emotion in Izumiko’s voice. When she looked at Izumiko this time, her expression was honest. Her eyes narrowed and she said softly, “If you’re talking about becoming a World Heritage Candidate, you’re right to be apprehensive. During my time with the goddess, I’ve tried to direct all such outcomes in a positive direction. Of course, no one can determine the future and in the end, it all comes down to what you decide. When it comes down to it though, there are the things I was able to do and the things the goddess was able to accomplish for the sake of the future. You know, your going to Houjou Academy is a new development in the goddess’s existence. It’s a place the goddess of the past has never seen before. You’ll be able to find new possibilities going forward.”

“…So, all the people I’ve met at Houjou Academy are new to the goddess too?”

Yukariko crossed her arms and then reached out to take one of her daughter’s braids in her hand. She ran the tip of her finger down it. Until now, the only other person who had made that searching gesture had been the goddess while she had been possessing her. It was so much like what she had done.

“That’s right. Even with those student’s you’ve met at school, your destiny is already slipping away from the futures I’ve experienced. The you in your braids now is a new person. A new me. A new you. We’re unique from anyone else on this planet. But isn’t that to be expected?”

“If I’m a new person, can I change the destruction in the future?” She took a breath and asked, “How can I change it?”

Yukariko smiled but then shook her head slowly.

“Don’t ask me that. You have to look for the new answers yourself. The path to those answers is spread out in front of you. Most likely, my own power will run out before you find them. But I take pride in the part I’ve played. And that feeling is nothing special. Everyone takes hold of their destiny and walks a path towards making what they want a reality.”

The way her mother spoke, Izumiko wondered if she was talking about the goddess. Still, she got the sense that it was okay if she couldn’t distinguish between the two. Her mother, the goddess… all the people in their lineage stretching all the way back had a wish—a wish to give people a better future—and that was what they strove for. For thousands of years, this was all the goddess had wanted for humankind.

Keep reading!

[lajulie24]

Quiet Storm

This one goes out to @organanation, who rightly pointed out that there are few, if any, fics in which Han and Leia are actually secretly dating (not fake dating or just sleeping together). She also offered to grovel in exchange for fic, but it didn’t take much convincing. Title is a lyric from Sade’s “The Sweetest Taboo.”

Luke strode through the hangar toward the Falcon’s berth, glad to finally be back on base after three days of scouting missions with the Rogues. Not only was he eager to see his friends, but the mess was featuring ration bars again, and chances were pretty good Han had something better on hand than that.

But as he got closer, he approached more cautiously. Jizz music was playing from the Falcon’s sound system, which normally meant one thing: Han had a date, or was preparing for one.

Luke checked his chrono. It was relatively early, so perhaps Han’s date was making their appearance later. He could knock, and if Han answered, that meant they were yet to arrive. Luke could at least say hello, give him a little friendly ribbing, maybe nab a decent snack or drink before he left. Heck, Han might be willing to part with more just to get Luke out of the way; as casual and open as Han tended to be, he was pretty protective of his privacy when it came to his love life. Even Luke and Leia had no idea whom Han was seeing at the moment, though rumors abounded. Chewie claimed not to know either, though Luke suspected he knew something.

“Luke?” asked a familiar voice behind him.

“Leia!” He turned around, delighted to see her again. She hadn’t been in the command center when he’d dropped by earlier.

She ran up and hugged him. “When did you get back?” she asked, evidently happy to see him as well, judging from her smile. Luke loved that smile of hers, especially since it seemed like he, Han, and Chewie were the only ones who got to see it. Most people got a much more subdued version. This was the real one.

“Just about an hour ago,” he said. “Was on my way to see Han, but he might, ah, have company.”

Leia raised an eyebrow. “Oh really?”

“The jizz music. He plays it when he’s getting ready for a date.”

“Hmph. Guess this assignment—” she gestured to the datapad in her hand— “can keep till after he’s done entertaining.” She rolled her eyes. “So how was the scouting mission?” she asked, leading Luke away from the Falcon.

Han’s comm buzzed, and he groaned as he read the terse text message that came through.

Sunshine’s back early. Close call. Be there when I can.

It’s not like she was never late; their dates were constantly getting delayed by something coming up at the Command Center, or a briefing she couldn’t get out of. They’d had close calls before, too, but usually that was because of the Rogues showing up looking for a sabacc game and a bit of decent whiskey. “Sorry, boys,” Han would say with a wink, “expectin’ someone.” Then he’d close the hatch and send her an urgent comm (usually just “Rogues”) and she’d know to stay away until later in the evening.

But the Kid was the whole reason they were being secret about this in the first place. And the last thing either of them wanted to do was hurt his feelings. Which was sure to happen if Luke discovered that Han and Leia had been dating on the sly for the last six months.

Han poured himself a glass of whiskey, poured another for Leia, and sat down to wait.

He had to chuckle at himself a bit; this was like something out of a bad holodrama. The princess and the smuggler dating was preposterous enough. Different worlds, all that. The princess who also was a revolutionary dating a smuggler who had somehow also gotten roped into becoming a revolutionary was another thing entirely. And that they were secretly dating so that their best friend with otherworldly powers (who had a crush on at least one and probably both of them) didn’t feel left out was—damn ludicrous. If they weren’t careful, someone was probably going to get amnesia or have a secret love child or a long-lost twin or something.

Not to mention the price on all their heads, and the gangster Han still owed money to. That was the other reason they were keeping it quiet; if Han waited long enough, eventually someone else would cross Jabba and the money Han owed him would be old news. But if Jabba got wind of him dating one of the Empire’s most wanted, the Last Princess of Alderaan, both he and Leia would be even more attractive targets for bounty hunters.

Han took another sip of whiskey. Yep. Bad holodrama for sure. But so far, it had been worth it.

Thankfully, it hadn’t taken Leia long to get Luke off the trail; not long after Han had finally finished his glass of whiskey, he’d gotten a knock at the hatch.

He opened it to find her looking stern, datapad in hand. She’s a little too good at this, he thought as he greeted her, throwing in a stray “Your Worship” for good measure, in case anyone outside was listening.

As soon as they were safely alone, the stern look dropped, replaced by a wry, teasing smile. “Jizz music? Really?”

“I thought you liked jizz music.”

“Apparently it’s what you play for all your dates.” She was still scolding him, but there was no heat in it. Her eyes were twinkling, her smile fond.

He approached her, a grin spreading slowly across his face. “All my dates. You’re the only date that matters,” he said, winding an arm around her waist to pull her close to him.

She laughed softly. “Smooth,” she said, but tipped her head back to meet his kiss.

This never got old, their banter silenced with a slow, luxurious kiss. Plenty of time to enjoy the feeling of her lips on his, her arms around him. This was a habit he could get used to. Had gotten used to.

“Mmm,” Leia said as they finally pulled apart. “You taste like whiskey.”

He smiled, quirking an eyebrow at her. “Got a glass of Whyren’s with your name on it,” he said. “Dinner’s still warm, too. Go sit down.” He headed to the galley to get the food.

Leia laughed again when he revealed their meal: grilled nerf cheese sandwiches with starfruit on the side.

“’S not much,” he said apologetically, “but we were all out of nerf steaks and malla petals, so y’know—had to make do.”

Despite her laughter, Leia was already digging in greedily. “Oh, I’m not complaining,” she said between bites. “Had so many ration bars lately, I forgot food could actually have taste.”

Han was eating his meal at a slightly more leisurely pace, and watched her for a moment. “How’s your day?” he asked. “You forget to eat lunch again?”

She looked up, a little self-conscious, and put her sandwich down for a minute. “Sorry. I’m just wolfing this down, aren’t I? How was your day?”

He noticed her attempt to change the subject, and played along, to a point. “Fine. Fixed the forward thrusters. Gearin’ up for another supply run,” he answered casually, before narrowing his eyes and giving her a serious look. “You skipped lunch again, didn’t you.”

It wasn’t really a question. Leia did this all the time, ran herself ragged for the Rebellion as if they gave out medals for food and sleep deprivation. And he knew she still felt like she wasn’t doing enough.

“I was busy,” she retorted. “And sick of ration bars.”

He rolled his eyes lightly, shaking his head. Stubborn as all hells. He’d learned already that he couldn’t argue Leia Organa out of anything when she was convinced she was right. Not that it necessarily stopped him from trying.

Enough about this. “Got a new holo,” he said, turning the conversation to the evening’s entertainment “One Night on Akahista.”

Leia smiled and nodded her approval, picking up her sandwich again.

Leia had to admit, Han had created quite the cozy little den out of the rarely-used third cargo bay of the ship. It had been filled with what he and Chewie agreed was junk—random smuggled goods of various types that they’d been stuck with after someone refused to pay, or the job had gone south. Han had draped blankets and gathered cushions to create a warm little sitting area amid the stored treasures, tacked up a white sheet onto which he projected holos for them to watch. And since Chewie had all but written off this cargo area, they never had to worry about him discovering them. It was like their own little world.

Sometimes the pleasures Leia missed most were innocent ones like this: watching a heist movie and sharing a bowl of bang-corn as you cuddled up to your date. Or boyfriend, or whatever the hell Han was to her. They had both sort of avoided defining that too precisely. They had established that they were dating, and that neither of them were interested in dating other people, but everything felt far too ephemeral to specify beyond that.

Besides, those kinds of discussions took valuable time away from kissing.

And Goddess, how Han Solo could kiss. It made her weak in the knees, made her forget everything but the taste of him, the feel of his lips on hers. He didn’t so much claim her mouth as invite her in, like they were dancing together. And it never got boring, either. Sometimes it was languid and tender, taking the limited time they had together and stretching it out with each pass of their lips. Other times, it was fervent, breathless, leaving them panting and pleading with each other, shakily breathing the other’s name.

They had to be careful, of course, particularly Leia. She’d noted with some bitterness that while Han was expected to be playing the field, having a being in every port, that sort of thing, she was apparently supposed to be guarding her purity even more closely than the Death Star plans. So Han didn’t have to hide that he was preparing for a date; he just let people assume it was with one of several potential people on base, and no one would question him if a bit of lipstick stained his cheek or he showed up to a briefing with bedhead or a mark on his neck. Leia, on the other hand, couldn’t leave with so much as a hair out of place, and certainly could not be seen leaving the Falcon in the middle of the night. So their dates tended to end early, with Han resorting to various shenanigans to sneak her into her office in the Command Center or a briefing room close to the hangar.

Sometimes he would even go back to the Command Center and ask people if they’d seen her, pretending either to be concerned about her lack of sleep or looking to chastise her for interrupting his date earlier.

“What I do on my own time is my business, Sweetheart. Just ‘cause you’re jealous, you don’t have to come knocking all hours with business could wait till morning,” he’d say, and she’d meet him with the coldest reply she could muster.

They were getting a little too good at this little play, but Leia tried not to think about that. She had a Rebellion to run, he had a gangster to avoid. They couldn’t afford to let this little diversion get in the way of their friendship, or their priorities. And neither of them could afford to get attached.

A few weeks later, Leia was in the midst of an argument that was making her want very much to punch Jan Dodonna in the face. And she was a pacifist.

She took another deep breath and turned back to him, channeling all the diplomatic tricks she’d learned over her years of study. “With all due respect, General, I fail to see the issue,” she began again. “We either move on this now, or miss our chance.”

Carlist Rieekan, bless him, was quick to back her up. “She’s right,” he said. “He knows the sector, they’ve run plenty of missions together before, and he’s the best we’ve got for the job.”

“Best for the job?” Jan sputtered, stubbornly refusing to cede the point. “To—to pose as her—her—“

“I appreciate the attempt to defend my honor,” Leia said patiently, trying a new tack. “And while Captain Solo might not have been my choice, and certainly is a little rougher around the edges than I might like, he’s effective in the field. And he’s a friend,” she added. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about. I’ll be fine.”

“But Skywalker—Antilles—“

“—Are not here, and time is of the essence,” Leia pointed out. “It’s Captain Solo, or nothing. Assuming he’s even willing to do the mission.”

General Dodonna grumbled something unintelligible, then finally nodded.

“I don’t know how you managed this, Sweetheart,” Han said after they hit hyperspace, “but I like it. Just the two of us for four days. Pretending we’re newlyweds. No sneakin’ around.”

Leia grinned. “Some sneaking around. We’re here for a mission, not a vacation,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, I know. But maybe you could let yourself have a little fun for once?”

“Maybe,” Leia allowed, raising her eyebrow coyly.

Han leaned over and caught her lips with his, and she sank into the kiss. Maybe a little bit like a vacation, she thought.

It felt even more like a vacation when they reached the resort where they’d be staying, a massive hotel on a beach with snow-white sands and clear blue water. Despite her commitment to the Rebellion, Leia had to admit that a tiny part of her wanted to ditch the mission entirely in favor of lying on that beach, diving into that water, kissing Han in the surf—

She was definitely getting ahead of herself.

She stepped off the elevator on their floor. Han had gone upstairs earlier to check the room for bugs or cameras, and Leia had distracted the concierge with a barrage of questions about snorkeling excursions and pool hours while she evaluated the hotel’s security situation.

At their room, Han greeted her with a rather serious look on his face. “All clear,” he assured her, preventing her from drawing her blaster. “But Sweetheart, there is something I have to tell you about the conditions for this mission.”

He led her into the suite’s bedroom, still with that serious look on his face. “There’s only one bed.”

“Oh, no,” Leia said with a smile. “Whatever will we do?”

“I have a few ideas,” he said, and kissed her.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Infinity Thoughts

 So I have something of a tradition of reading comics that will in some way tie into upcoming Marvel live action films. To this end with Avengers: Endgame approaching I read through, among other things, the TPBs ‘Avengers vs. Thanos’. ‘Rebirth of Thanos’, ‘Infinity Gauntlet’ and ‘Infinity’ volumes 1-2.

For the most part I rather enjoyed them. My respect for Jim Stalin grew and I’d argue Infinity Gauntlet may well be Marvel’s finest ever crossover event story of all time...Then I got to Infinity.

Hooooooooo-boy.

This was a lame story.

To be crystal clear the trades I read through collected the main issues of the event plus the tie-in issues of Avengers and New Avengers. Since all were written by Jonathan Hickman the tie-ins are actually essential to the reading experience and I was never exactly lost reading the story. There was a brief but well done reference to the Guardians of the Galaxy tie in issues that weren’t collected but that was it.

You know how I said my respect for Stalin grew through reading this stuff? Ell my respect for Hickman sunk...even lower than it already was.

First off reading Infinity seems to have been a waste of time for my personal purposes. Whilst I do not know what Endgame has in store Infinity War took precious little from this story. It just borrowed 4/5 of Thanos’ inner circle of henchmen (Corvus Glaive, Prixima Midnight, Ebony Maw) and also the Outriders, those four limbed footsoldiers Thanos uses to invade Wakanda. Speakin of which the mere idea of Thanos invading Wakanda was also borrowed from this story but it plays out drastically differently.

That’s not really a problem with the story just a personal complaint I had.

On the flipside something I can’t really complain about but will point to as a problem is that to follow the main story of Infinity you HAD to pick up the tie-ins I mentioned. A well written event shouldn’t price gouge you like that. Noticeably Infinity Gauntlet didn’t. Reading all 6 issues was a satisfying experience unto itself, I never felt like I was missing anything.

But saying Stalin is a better cosmic writer than Hickman would be redundant.

Another problem I discovered after the fact with this story was how the first 15 pages of Infinity #1 are literally just reprints of New Avengers #6 and the Free Comic book day Infinity issue. So 15/54 pages were stuff you’d either read before or could read for free.

This isn’t even getting into the writing problems in general. First of all Hickman had this insufferable habit of within issues themselves having like chapter breaks in the for of entirely blank pages with a grey title and symbol at the top. So you know...nice that you are paying for nearly blank pages amidst your £4+ comic books.

Second of all Hickman has this habit of like throwing meaningless lore at you.

In Infinity #1 for example he throws at you the brief backstory of this planet you have never seen before nor will see again as though it means something, complete with flashbacks and exposition about this planet’s great champion who’s already dead courtesy of the guy delivering the narration. And when I say it’s meaningless lore I mean Hickman has the guy say “Whatever happened to your proud champion to won the Water Wars and untied the tribes by defeating the Great Beast of Pol?”

Like...who gives a shit no one knows where or what Pol is or what the Water Wars were. The best part is that this is all adding up to this planet giving Thanos’ henchmen a tribute of several dead people.

Basically it stretched out 11 pages with meaningless lore to communicate Thanos is bad, Thanos has bad henchmen, Thanos’ demands defeated planets pay him tribute in dead people. Seems like you could accomplish that in maybe 4 pages at a push, especially for a villain everyone knows about already.

What makes this all the more confusing is that Thanos isn’t even really the central plot or threat in the story. This is in spite of being on the covers, mentioned in the solicits, the story’s name referencing stories that explicitly involve him and the story frankly existing because of his post-credits scene in Avengers 2012.

The story’s central conceit I guess is that it’s a war on two fronts.

Captain America leads most of the Avengers into space to join the Kree, Shi’ar, Skrulls, Annihilus and other alien races in a war against the army of the Builders. Meanwhile the remaining heroes (including Iron Man and the Illuminati) have to contend with Thanos who has invaded Earth looking for the sole remaining Infinity Gem and the last of his children, the half-Inhuman Thane.*

Essentially in spite of the advertisement Thanos is really just one of two antagonists in this story. And frankly clearly the one Hickman is less interested in compared to the Builders, whom shockingly, just so happen to be his own creations.

What follows is essentially a cosmic war story all about military strategy and game theory and so on, with very smart people doing very smart things.

Now in fairness conceptually this isn’t a bad idea whatsoever.

So what if Thanos is just one of two antagonistic forces. So what if it’s a war story. Those are ideas that can be done great right?

Yep...except...they aren’t.

Let’s talk about Thanos first.

His central motivation to kill his half Inhuman son is contrived and whilst it COULD have worked it just doesn’t.

As the lead in issues to Infinity Gauntlet make clear with Nebula, who claimed to be Thanos’ granddaughter, Thanos finds the idea of reproducing an affront to his nihilistic beliefs.

Thnos of course is in love with Death. As in he sees Death as a woman he’d like to make out with. To this end he committed his life to mass slaughter to win her love.

Thus entirely logically his creator Jim Stalin established that Thanos would not seek to have any offspring because, duh, if your goal is to kill as many people as possible you aren’t going to create MORE life.

So on the most basic of levels, Thanos even having any children seems out of character.

But it could have worked because the story does establish Thanos has killed his other children too. So it is entirely possible to argue that Thanos, whilst no celibate, made a point of killing his off spring to balance the scales, possibly even seeing his kids as mistakes of his youth before he’d entirely committed himself to Death.

Except the story doesn’t say anything like that. Thanos simply states the idea of Thane existing keeps him awake at night. In other words one of the 2 central antagonists has at best vague motivations.

To make matters worse Thanos is defeated via a total dues ex machina. Basically Thane undergoes a mutation as a result of Black Bolt unleashing a Terrigen mist throughout Earth, this causes him to inadvertently and instantly murder everyone within a certain radius by waving his left hand. He can only control this with the help of a containment suit one of Thanos’ inner circle, Ebony Maw provides. Maw acts as a kind of evil mentor/advisor to Thane, think Wormtongue from the Two Towers but more powerful and sinister, but we’ll get to him in a minute.

Anyway Thane is captured by Maw and presented to Thanos and whilst Thanos and his last surviving inner circle (they’re called the Black Order btw) Proxima Midnight are beating the shit out of the Avengers. Maw then says some shit about wanting to see if Thane has evolved and how he’s the only one who can beat Thanos. So Thane waves his right  hand and encases Thanos and Proxima in a great big amber cube.

Oh and this comes out of exactly nowhere!

That’s the resolution to the final issue by the way. THAT is how this 2 volume event friggin ends. Pathetic.

More pathetic even than the already pretty pathetic motives and characterization given over to Ebony Maw and the entirety of the Black Order.

Look, the idea of Thanos having an elite entourage as opposed to just hordes of gneric nameless thralls** is a good one.

The idea of them worshipping him and/or Death is fine.

But beyond their looks we get little characterization from any of them. Glaive and Midnight are offhandily established as married. Black Dwarf is just a big dumb warrior thug. We get a mini-monologue about Supergiant’s childhood and why she follows Thanos in the pages just prior to hear death towards the end of the story. And Ebony Maw...nothing. We have no reason for why he acts against his master or what the fuck his agenda is.

What little we know of the Black Order comes from I kid you not a mini Marvel Handbook segment randomly inserted into the story that gives you like a short paragraph on each member and their abilities.

So you know...literally telling us instead of showing us who these people are and to boot it’s not even actually part of the story.

Then the story has the audacity to say that Thane, Hickman’s new underdeveloped character has and will become even worse than his Dad. His Dad who I will remind you literally caused universal genocide when he snapped his fingers and killed half the universe’s population...and THEN murdered all the cosmic beings. Oh but Thane is worse because he...can trap people in amber...?????

There is also precious little characterization or development lent to Thanos in the entire story, whereas the events its trading off of (Infinity Gauntlet, etc) absolutely did. Here Thanos is the big bad villain and little else. He isn’t even the biggest threat nor does he comprise the majority of the panel time.

That distinction goes to the Builders.

Oh lord...the builders. Who also count among their ranks the Gardners known as the Ex Nihili, the Alephs robot soldiers and exist in the superflow of the multiverse having created the Starbrand and other cosmic tools to shape the evolution of species across the universe.

Did any of that sound bland, boring, meaningless and simply pretentious mastabatory science fiction talk?

Well that’s only because it is.

Marvel has a robust cosmic lore to them. The first generation of that was really installed by Lee and Steve Ditko in Doctor Strange and to a much greater extent Lee and Jack Kirby in Thor, Fantastic Four, Avengers and other titles. That’s where we of course get guys like Galactus.

The second generation I’d argue was Jim Stalin who set up Thanos, Drax the Destroyer Adam Warlock, the Infinity Gems and also Chris Claremont along with his collaborators who birthed the Phoenix Force and the Shi’ar and so on.

The third generation was Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Keith Giffen. These guys added a few things to Marvel Cosmic but really their forte was more adopting stuff already in the Marvel universe and expanding it or using it in interesting ways. The best examples of this being their Magnum Opus, Annihilation which made Annihilus a Big Bad for the Marvel Universe, and ESTABLISHING the Guardians of the Galaxy that the movies took inspiration from. Whilst they didn’t necessarily create any of the Guardians they were the guys who essentially made them the space Avengers.

Hickman is essentially the headliner for the fourth generation and by far and away the most creative.

And by creative I mean he is very good at dreaming up ideas. He’s a classic ‘Big Concepts’ science fiction writer.

Where he falls down is in executing said concepts.

Whilst the past generation of Marvel Cosmic creators vacillated between going for something sweepingly epic or else fun and bombastic or something in between, Hickman’s work is devoid of the fun bombast of a Silver dude riding a surfboard in space but is also if anything trying way too hard to be ‘Epic Cosmic’ than anything the older creators did. And they at least were doing it at a different time when standards for comics were different.

Let’s take the Galactus Trilogy and Infinity Gauntlet as an example. In the 1960s presenting us a science fiction comic book antagonist who was an allegory for God was really impressive and him engaging in a debate with the Watcher about the nature of humanity was deep stuff.***

Similarly the Infinity Gauntlet was concerned with the burden of Godhood and acted as something of a bizarre love story between Thanos and death, the ultimate character study of the Mad Titan.

Hickman in Infinity though mostly just throws Big Science Fiction Concepts (tm) at you and expects you to be impressed by their mere existence, as though ‘the Avengers fight a big space war’ is something to be impressed by in 2013 when we’ve had how many stories like that?

Worse his Big Concepts aren’t just expected to be impressive via their mere existence but are also just...rather dull. There is little personality to the boringly named Builders and only slightly more in the pretentiously named Ex Nihili (Hickman loves throwing around very impressive big nonsense words for his science fiction crap, God forbid they be something simple and/or silly but memorable like ‘Galactus’, ‘the Infinity Gauntlet’, ‘Annihilus’, etc). The Gardners/Ex Nihili kind of look interesting but the Builders themselves are just the most boringly designed aliens ever.

When you see the Watchers or the Celestials you BUY that they are the oldest race in the universe, you buy they are cosmic beings on a higher plane than mere mortals. The Builders are just grey vaguely buggish dudes. Their footsoldiers the Alephs are worse. They’re generic Terminator rip off robots.

The art throughout the story looks pretty but it’s design sense is lame at best and it has the eternal problem of so many 2000s/early 2010s comics that the art looks beautiful panel to panel but is also stiff and looks like a series of very pretty portraits that lack life or the illusion of movement. Comic book art shouldn’t be  a series if paintings next to one another conveying the highlights of a scene but an organic flow from one panel to the next creating the illusion of movement. Want to see this done well in a big event story? Check out Mike Zeck on Secret Wars or Perez/Lim on Infinity Gauntlet. Or hell anything Ron Frenz draws.

Okay, they look boring, they sound boring, their concepts aren’t used that effectively BUT...surely the Builders storyline has merit? Surely this cosmic war story is at least a good war story.

Well...yes and no.

The military strategy used in the story is pretty realistic and well thought out, speaking as someone who isn’t familiar with military strategy history or stories rooted in that stuff.

If nothing else the core concept of Thanos attacking Earth whilst the Avengers are off fighting on another front and the X-Men are divided (because of Schism) is basic and interesting use of strategy.

And the space warfare for the most part seemed reminiscent of Star Trek, speaking as someone who’s got novice knowledge at best of that franchise.

Here is the problem though...it’s also painfully dull for anyone who isn’t hyper into that stuff.

Which would be fine...if the story was solely contained within the main Infinity book.

I’ve long defended Secret Wars 1984 on the grounds that as it’s own mini-series it wasn’t obliged to follow thematic conventions or writing conventions of the solo or team titles, it could be it’s own sandbox. So if it wanted to be a light war story/series of fun action set pieces, fine.

So if Infinity wanted to be an Avengers space military strategy comic book for 6 issues okay fine. Except it wasn’t, it roped in Avengers and New Avengers into it too.

And at that point the tie-ins at the very least needed to have something more. You know like...personality.

The single biggest problem with pretty much any Hickman story I’ve read is that far too often the characters talk stiffly and unrealistically, with a coldness to them, a functionality. There is precious little personality or emotion to them. Even when the art is showing us emotion you simply see it as opposed to actually connecting with it.

There are only the briefest of smatterings of truly emotional or personable moments in the entire story and as a consequence they kind of stick out like a sore thumb. Smasher and Cannonball hooking up (out of nowhere in the story like there was no inclination they had the hots for one another earlier) and Sunspot quipping about it is the most human moment in the entire story closely followed by Manifold expressing exhaustion over constantly fighting.

The closest thing to a charismatic character in the entire story is friggin Maximus the Mad!

How do you do that in a story with Captain America, Captain Marvel, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye, Black Panther, Reed Richards, Namor and friggin Thanos!!!!

All this and the story exists for anything but a genuine creative drive. It exists because

a)      Marvel needed to make bank off of Thanos’ cameo in Avengers 2012

b)      Marvel needed to remind people Thanos exists after his cameo

c)       Marvel needed to workshop some possible concepts for the then inevitable Thanos movie on the horizon

d)      Marvel needed to amp up the Inhumans via their stupid cloud unleashed in this story so they could begin their dastardly master plan to supplant the X-Men with them

 Ugh. I recommend you simply skip this story wholesale.

*The other 5 Infinity Gems were destroyed

 **By the way in Stalin’s stories Thanos’ armies comprised of a diverse group of alien baddies. Here...there are different kinds of aliens but they seem to be a few species who all look the same. Hardly what Stalin and other artists rendered, which gave you an idea of the scope of Thanos’ travels.

If we’re going to be paying more money for comics nowdays could they maybe put in at minimum the same effort as cheaper comics from 40 years ago!

 ***The Watchers and Celestials by the way, Jack Kirby creations, get supplanted by Hickman as the oldest and most powerful race in the universe for the sake of his boringly named ‘Builders’

[rotationalsymmetry]

Commenting on without reblogging re: thrifting and plus sized clothes.

The thrift store aspect isn’t super personal for me, because crossing over to “definitely not size 14 any more” only happened a little bit before “too sick to spend any more time than I absolutely have to clothes shopping” and “can actually afford non-thrift clothes.” (I was pretty broke during my 20’s.)

But I’m really glad people know about it. I was shocked how much harder it became to find clothes that fit me, either in thrift stores (there was a brief period where I was plus sized and still thrifting) or in new-clothing stores. It’s not just...thing is, if you’d asked me when I was a size 12 or 14, I would have said yeah it was kinda hard to find pants that fit well, because pants wide enough to get over my hips/butt tended to have a lot of space left over around the waist.

But, that’s nothing compared to my adventures as a plus sized woman. Plus sized clothes are dramatically more expensive for the same quality. Clothes that should be decent-quality prices are actually bare minimum quality. And, it’s not as available: either you go to one of the relatively few plus sized stores, or else a lot of the clothes just aren’t going to come in your size. And, when it is available it’s less likely to come even close to fitting well: a lot of “plus sized” clothes are actually straight sized clothes that have been sized up really badly. The proportions are comically wrong, belt loops have too much space between them, etc. The cheap brand of t-shirts I used to buy from, now if I buy it in my size the shoulder seams are halfway down to my elbows. (And the collar is too tight.) Sized up badly.

Funny thing is, I’m not a clothing snob. Far from it. My core aesthetic is baggy sweatshirts. (Can you mess up the fit on a baggy sweatshirt? There’s actually several different ways! Who knew?) I have considerable difficulty buying pajamas I like. Pajamas! Think about that!

Anyways: when I was a size 12-14 in my 20’s and had more time and energy than money, I didn’t mind thrifting. It’d take a while, sometimes it took more than one trip, but I knew I’d find pants or shirts that fit well enough eventually, and that looked fine. As long as I wasn’t super picky, which I wasn’t. And then they’d last a time that was entirely reasonable given what I’d spent on them. And sometimes I could buy something nice just for fun, like a pretty scarf. Or something that wasn’t really my style but that I wanted to experiment with.

With my body now though (and, as plus sized people go, I’m normal plus sized if that makes sense, larger people have more trouble) I have about as much trouble (sometimes more) finding something that works at a regular store, where they have a bunch of sizes of the same item, as I used to at a thrift store. I suspect thrifting either wouldn’t be a viable option for me at all at this point, or I’d have to spend dramatically more time doing it (and start looking before my last pair of jeans became nigh unwearable) and also lower my already pretty loose standards considerably.

It’s a problem. It’s bad. And I would have been completely oblivious in my 20’s. People tend to not see what doesn’t affect them.

Anyways, don’t buy plus sized thrift store clothes to modify or “upcycle” if you’re straight sized. Sure, that’s not the main problem, the main problem is systemic, but it’s also not likely to get fixed soon, unfortunately.

[geniuscloud]

Bad Liar- Chapter Four (JB GOT7)

Here is the long awaited chapter four! This series won’t be extremely long, but decently lengthed!

Genre: Fluff, Angst, and a little suggestive.

Jaebum/JB (GOT7) X Original Character

Collage/University AU

Warnings: Swearing. May cause slight heart break, and rage towards characters.

May contain: Brief mentions of BTS members.

“Uh, hey…” JB said awkwardly pulling away from Amie quickly.

“Um, sorry I didn’t mean to intrude. I was, uh… Sorry.”

“No-no it’s okay we were just, you know… It’s okay,” Amie stammered out looking at the floor as she brushed past me to get inside.

Suddenly I was left out in the hallway, mildly embarrassed, with JB. His hands were now buried in his pockets, lighting kicking the ground as he too, had his face to the ground.

“I really didn’t mean to walk in like that. It wasn’t my intention to disrupt you two, I was just going to give Jimin his headphones.”

“Oh yeah, how was your date?”

“It was good.”

“Just good?”

“I mean, not too much happened. It was a pretty normal date.”

“Are you going to keep seeing him? Like, are you going on a second date?” JB asked, smoothing a fly away strand from his face, slicking it back with the rest of his hair.

“Yeah, probably.”

“Anyways, I should probably get going. Have a good night okay? We should hang out soon, just the two of us. Are you free on Friday?.”

“I’ll check my schedule. Get home safe, okay?”

“Aren’t I always?” He winked, walking back to the staircase.

I rolled my eyes, smirking to myself before walking back into the dorm room. I saw a flushed Amie, sitting on the couch while scrolling through her phone. “So, you and JB… Are you guys an item?”

“Huh? An item. No, I don’t really do boyfriends. You know?”

“What?”

“I just don’t think I’m ready to be tied down quite yet.”

“Oh? Well, does JB know? Despite the bad boy look with the leather jacket, and the piercings, he’s really loyal… He likes having one girl to spoil.”

“Really? He’s so hot that he looks intimidating. I would never suspect that he could be a big softie.”

“The only thing intimidating about him is his temper. Seriously, watch out for the clench jaw. That means he’s pissed. Give him a pillow, walk away, and leave him for 5 minutes. He’ll beat the crap out of the pillow, and then he should be good,” I warned, grabbing some food from the fridge.

“Oh really? Hmm, maybe I should snap him up while I have the chance then. It’ll be my first real relationship.”

“Seriously? You’re like 23.”

“Hey, I said I’ve never really been the committed type” she grinned, shrugging her shoulders.

“Wow who hurt you…?” I laughed walking back to my room.

I closed the door behind me and flopped face first onto my bed. With a loud groan I started rocking my body side to side in frustration. I hate that I keep inserting myself into awkward situations. I decided to make the best of my situation by just taking the time to be alone. I grabbed some cookie dough ice cream from the freezer, ran a hot bath, and “read a book.” By reading a book, I mean I opened it, put it back down, and then basically took a nap in the tub.

“Hey Micah!”

“Yeah?!” I yelled through the door.

“Do you want to go shopping with me tomorrow?”

“Sure! What time?”

“Just after your class!” Amie called back.

“Okay, I’ll meet you by the main bus terminal.”

“Cool, good night! Don’t take too long, you’ll turn into a prune.”

It’ll be nice to spend some girl time together, since we haven’t gotten to do much since we moved in together.

I waited by the bus terminal, hands in my pockets. The air was a little chilly today so I decided to wear a comfy sweater-dress. I was excited to go shopping with Amie today, because taking a look at my closet… 50 Shades of Grey wasn’t an erotic novel, it was my closet. Every shade of grey, black, and white, as well as the occasional olive/army green could be found there. Amie often wore cute pastel clothes, or just some kind of color. I hardly ever saw her wear black or grey.

“Micah! Are you ready to go?!” A voice yelled.

“Yup! If we take the 181 we’ll be there in about 20 minutes.”

“Forget the bus, JB’s driving us. I called him last night and asked if he would take me to the mall but he said he didn’t like shopping, but that he’d still drive me anyways.”

“Oh.”

“He’s waiting for us by the south campus entrance, let’s go,” Amie said tugging on my hand.

Now I was in the backseat of JB’s car, feeling like the third wheel. Amie interlocked her hand with one of JB’s while he drove with the other. “It’s a safety hazard, you idiots” I thought to myself. Though I know saying that out loud would make me sound like a jealous bastard, even though I was soaking in self-pity. Oh, what I would do to hurl myself out of this car right now.

“Hey, hey Micah! Are you listening?” Amie asked, peeking her head back at me.

“Huh? Sorry. I was just thinking.”

“That’s okay. Anyways, I was thinking what if I helped you pick an outfit for your next fancy date with Jimin?”

“Oh, you don’t… You don’t have to do that. I don’t think we’re going on a fancy date soon anyways. I mean, we’re both university students.”

“I want to pick you out an outfit. It’ll be a thank you gift since you had to lease out the dorm by yourself since I didn’t have my registration completed. It’s a big deal having to put down the entire deposit by yourself” Amie smiled.

“Okay, fine. You lead the way” I sighed getting out of the car. Amie instantly linked arms between JB and myself, leading the three of us inside.

“I didn’t know I was coming inside too” JB replied.

“You’ll be our bag boy for the day. Right? Won’t you do that for your new girlfriend?” She pouted.

“Fine baby, I’ll do it” he smirked before kissing her cheek. I looked away and rolled my eyes so hard, I could have probably seen my brain if I tried hard enough. The first store we went into Amie was instantly pulling things off the racks. If there was one thing you needed to know about Amie was that if shopping was an Olympic sport, she’d take home the gold metal every time. She could shop, sow, and DIY herself into the next life time. Most of her clothes had some kind of vintage feel to them, and some kind of alteration.

“Why don’t you look for something?” JB asked.

“I don’t really have the money for anything. I just wanted to spend some girl time with her but…”

“But I’m here, and it’s ruining the mood, right?”

“A little. It’s okay though. You’re her boyfriend after all…”

“Hey, I’m still your best friend. I hate that you’ve been acting a little awkward with me recently. Are you okay?”

I wanted to say ‘No, it feels weird having my ex-boyfriend/best friend dating my friend/roommate. I hate that I still have a little bit of feelings for you when it’s obvious that you’ve moved on.’ “Yeah, I’m fine. Just, now that I’m dating Jimin, I feel a little guilty hanging out with you. Since you’re my ex after all. Most guys would be pissed if they found out they are still hanging around their ex’s. It’s not really normal.”

“Oh, okay. Well we both moved on, so I don’t see how it’s a problem. I respect you staying loyal to him though.”

“Yeah…”

“Micah, you have to try these on right now.” Amie squealed while thrusting a bunch of hangers at me. I saw dress, after dress, in every color of the rainbow. Purple maxi dresses, pink satin dresses, and even blue velvet ones as well.

“Come on out!”

“Yeah, one second. Can you help me with the zipper?” I opened the door slightly while Amie stuck her hands in the change room to assist me. With the same hand, she tugged on my wrist to pull me out of the stall and into the walk way where JB was sitting on the couch surrounded by her bags.

“Well? Isn’t it perfect?!” Amie said stepping back, while drawing JB’s attention to me. His mouth went agape, and locked his eyes on my torso.

“It’s beautiful,” I exclaimed looking into the mirror.

“Can I pick a dress or what?! It’s red-wine colored, which means dark, and it’s suitable for evening outs. It has long sleeves which makes it modest and elegant; plus, the sleeves compensate for the shorter skater skirt. The lacey material also adds both sex appeal and class, and finally it has an easy glide back zipper, which means it’s easy to take off… If you know what I mean” she winked. I started blushing at her last comment a little; staring at my bare feet against the wooden floor.

“What do you think JB, from a guy’s perspective?” Amie asked.

“I think you take too much time thinking about the meaning of clothes.” Amie smacked his shoulder, while he laughed it off.

“Seriously though, you look good.”

“Perfect, you should get it!”

“You know, I work hard. I deserve to treat myself a little bit! I am going to get it, even though it’s… Oh my God, $120?! FOR THIS LITTLE AMOUNT OF CLOTHING? I HAVE SWEATERS WHICH COSTED LESS THAN HALF THE PRICE AND COVER MORE OF ME!”

“You’re such a stingy girl. Just buy the damn dress, and then we’ll get you some shoes to go with it. If you want, I’ll buy you the shoes. You should buy the dress, it looks really good on you” Amie suggested.

“No, you don’t need to buy me anything. This isn’t 'Pretty Woman’ and I don’t need your money.”

“Stop being a shit and let me buy you some damn shoes. I saw some really cute black strappy wedges that would look so cute with almost any outfit! You’re a size 8, right? I’ll be right back, okay?”

I just waved her away before going back into the changing room and getting back into my normal clothes. “Oh, you’re still here? Why didn’t you go with your girlfriend?”

“Too many bags, I don’t feel like walking, so I thought I’d wait for you instead” JB shrugged as I purchased the dress.

“Why don’t we go put her bags in the car? Here I’ll help you,” I said while grabbing a few bags. “So, how have the guys been?”

“They’re doing alright. They miss you a lot. You should stop by and hang out with the rest of us like old times.”

“Meh, I doubt that they even miss me. They just miss me walking around in booty shorts around them.”

“Oh, just shut up, and in the defense of those booty shorts… I never let you walk around in those things around the guys.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about jealous and overprotective JB. Haven’t seen him in a while, next time he’s around, tell him I say hello.”

“Hey! You know how I feel about girlfriends. I don’t want anyone trying to make a move, being disrespectful, or even having a single unclean thought about someone I love. My girlfriend, means that she’s mine. I’m not sharing with anybody!”

“Hey, haven’t seen you in a while Jelly-bum, how’ve you been doing all this time?” I laughed.

“Shut up. I’m trying to be less temperamental, be nice,” JB pouted while putting the bags in the trunk.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Come on, let’s just get back inside.” I spun around on my heels, walking faster towards the shopping mall.

“Hurry up slowpoke! We got some more bag carrying to do!” Jaebum yelled while running after me, grabbing onto my waist, spinning me around a little before taking off ahead of me. I couldn’t help but dizzily laugh and start sprinting after him. With all the power I lack in my legs, I sprung up onto his back, and forced a piggyback. “Oh my God, it’s like deadweight on me!”

“Hurry up my noble steed! For we must partake in the act of "shopping” once again!“

"I was going to go along with this, until you said that…”

“Go fuck yourself, my noble steed!”

JB finally put me down once we got through the parking lot to be greeted by a half smiling Amie. “Sorry, we went to go put your bags in the car.”

“Yeah, I saw, I walked outside and saw you guys by the car. I just had to use the washroom so I went back inside.”

“Oh okay.”

“Oh uh, by the way. The store didn’t have your shoes in your size at the moment. Sorry, maybe next time, okay?” Amie said, stroking my arm lightly.I’m not sure how someone petting your arm could be condecending, but that’s how it felt.

“That’s totally fine!”

“Um, I don’t mean to be a total ass but would you mind if JB and I spent some time together alone?”

“Don’t worry, that’s okay. I understand, I can just bus home. I’m just going to go look around a little bit before. I’ll see you later?” I asked.

“I can just drive her home quickly before, it’s a little rude to just ditch her like this when you invited her out in the first place” Jaebum added.

“No, it’s okay. You guys go and do your couple things. I’ll see you guys later.”

Amie smiled at me, and took JB’s arm, leading him away from the entrance and towards the chain of restaurants. I’m not going to lie, I felt a little shitty getting ditched like this, but I understand at the same time. She just wants to be with her boyfriend. Rather than feeling shitty, I decided to just go into the shoe store and look around for some heels on my own.

“Hello, how are you doing today?” The sales clerk said.

“I’m doing fine, how are you?”

“Doing just lovely, what brings you in today?”

“I’m looking for some heels to go with this dress I just bought, but also with other outfits too.”

“So black is probably your best bet. What kind of heel do you prefer and what size?”

“Any one that is easy to walk in. I’m clumsy. I usually go for wedges, and size 8” I admitted.

“I have the cutest pair of black strappy wedges! You’re also, very lucky. We sold the last pair in that size to a young blonde girl a few minutes ago, and she came back about 2 minutes later looking angry and returned them. They are perfectly fine, she basically walked out of the mall and came back in and decided she "wasn’t feeling” the shoes anymore. As long as you don’t mind someone owning them for like 2 minutes, you can purchase them. She didn’t even try them on.“

"Was the girl who bought the shoes wearing a pastel pink dress by the way?”

“Yes, she also had a cute leather purse, which I adore! is she a friend of yours?”

“Yeah… She is.”

Wait, why did Amie lie to me? Was she angry that JB and I went to the car without telling her?

[sushiodessa-blog]

The Way to Tell a Good Sushi Bar From a Bad Sushi Bar

"If it looks like sushi, it is sushi"

There isn't any doubt the earning of sushi is not only a culinary commerce, but it is also considered to be an art perfected over a lifetime. Below are a few points and memories that emphasize various matters that make good and poor sushi bars. Matters like shop conditions, ingredients caliber, etc., but most importantly, the sushi chefs themselves are the ones which stand out as affecting the good sushi vs. bad sushi comparison.

"Bad" Sushi Bar 1: Tokyo, Japan -- A neighborhood place caught my attention as a cheap and quick ways to finish my weekly sushi craving. Unfortunately, more frequently than not,"cheap" and"quick" needs to be considered as red flags when it comes to sushi. The restaurant immediately smelled of fish on entering and afterwards taken my seat, the counter tops smelled of cleaner, a shear signal that the meal wouldn't move well. However, hunger and convenience overpowered my reason and I started to purchase.

Every order seemed to take 5 minutes and in my opinion way too long to serve 1 individual out of half a dozen customers, many of them already in their way to the register. I could tell immediately that the bass was spending far too long at the hands of the chef, and it smelled and tasted faintly of different forms of fish -- meaning he wasn't doing a fantastic job of hammering his hands in between orders. After a couple of pieces, I decided to cut my visit short and finish up with a bit of sushi that I thought no sushi place could get incorrect -- maguro nigiri (lettuce sushi) -- but again they failed me. Regardless of a 3-4 minute wait (currently becoming the only customer in the store ), the maguro was freezing and was still frozen in the center despite being handled for such a long time. I paid my (brief ) bill and left vowing never to return (I wonder when the 6 or so patrons before me were thinking the exact same thing as well...).

Some points to take away from this adventure:

A sushi restaurant shouldn't smell especially fishy because means the ingredients aren't fresh, or they've (unlikely) overstocked on fatty fish such as salmon or (low grade) salmon. Residue from overuse of cleaning chemicals interferes with a sense of smell, partially ruining the beef's flavor -- giving those part-timers extra cleaning responsibilities during the day did not pay off. Sushi that spends too long in a chef's hands runs the risk of coming into a lot of contact with warmth in the chef's hands and body oils, which can cut the freshness of their fish also interferes with the total taste of the sushi. It might have been fresh at a moment, but it just took 5 minutes to destroy it. Sushi ingredients with the exclusion of bintoro (bincho maguro) shouldn't be ice cold since not only is it akin to eating a sashimi popsicle, it brings into consideration the freshness of their components (if it is still frozen, it wasn't procured anytime in the near past). "Bad" Sushi Bar 2: An even smaller location in Shinagawa, Japan stuck out as with a brand new made-to-order menu at a reasonable price. I gave it a shot but has been turned off for different motives from"Bad" Sushi Bar 1. For example, shortly after ordering, I could observe that the sushi chefs that had been on standby smoking in the kitchen. Just picturing the tobacco smell and nicotine stains on the palms that prepare my beef was enough to make me a bit cautious of what I will be feasting on. I also noticed that most of the fish to be utilized for sushi has been pre-sliced and put on metal trays in the transparent refrigeration units around the pub. I thought this a little let down since I wish to make sure the fish has been taken out of a brand new"slab" of lettuce and so on.

My customized sushi platter was made in record time and was picture perfect. While I appreciate rate when being served in a restaurant, I know that it takes skill and care in tackling the ingredients to make a fantastic item. The sushi seemed like works of art, but they were quite delicate. The rice fell apart at the slightest touch without the mastery of chopsticks or after attempts by hand could keep my soy sauce dish from filling up with rice grains. It was a real hassle to eat. Additionally, the cut bass looked like it had been sliced hastily and some pieces were lopsided, which influenced its taste as it blended with the rice inside my mouth. That is another area I will not be moving back to.

Pre-sliced fish, though not having any immediate effect on taste that I could tell, looks like it was cranked out of a machine. Sushi must not just look appetizing, but should also maintain its shape with minimal effort from the eater. Sushi requires some time to create, but that time should be dedicated to skill and care. "If it looks like sushi, then it is sushi" failed . While many"fast-food sushi" stores exist, it will take a number of visits and lots of let downs to find that perfect place. "Good" Sushi Bar: A unforgettable adventure in Fukuoka, Japan in a sushi bar that was very packed but quite good and worth the 20 minute lunch rush wait. The store was clean and smelled of tatami and wheat. The lone sushi chef'd mastered a simple 5-step nigiri (molding) procedure that restricted contact with his palms, wasted no movement, and retained the finished item from trickling into the lap. The fish for each piece of sushi has been professionally sliced as every order came up and it had been an enjoyable sight seeing his knife-work. The maximum degree of freshness and attention of the customers' needs was very apparent and the chef, even during slow periods, did not take a smoke break or anything that might diminish the quality of his sushi. A glass of water and a moist towel seemed to be the only objects he needed to keep himself going.

Probably the most memorable thing about being served by this chef was that after eating his sushi, he would ask,"How is it?" He engaged with me and wanted me to critique his work, a sign that he not only cares about how I felt about his sushi, but tells me that he wants to improve -- one of the fastest way to improvement as a sushi chef is hearing directly from the customer.

A chef's appearance and manner while at work is a clear sign of how good your sushi will be. Clean and disciplined chefs seem to make better sushi. Dirty and smoky chefs might not be giving you their best (as was with the cases above). The sushi chef should make it clear to his customer, who in a sense is his"crowd", his performance is going to result in high quality sushi, from clipping, to molding, to introducing it. In several instances, price and rate are reduced to give a customer just the bear minimum of exactly what he or she desires -- fast food does so quite well. However, this shouldn't be the situation with sushi -- the very best sushi chefs skillfully balance time with effort, action with outcomes and above all, they also balance your expectations with their abilities. When hunting to your next nice sushi destination, it is helpful to take notice of the aforementioned points. Some points cannot be noticed simply from 1 appearance, but inquiring via word-of-mouth or assessing restaurant reviews on the internet or in the newspapers can hopefully help you in making a good choice. The next time you pass a sushi bar, have a peak through the window and watch the chef mould a few pieces of sushi. Can he consider (much) as long? Can he rush from piece to piece? Does he smoke? Does he participate with his customer? These items may be observed and mentioned, in order that when you finally enter the shop, you might have a general idea of what to expect. Find out more information click Одесса суши

[leighbot]

valentine’s day fluffy drabble - part of my ‘zayn as a beauty vlogger’ ‘verse. featuring gender fluid zayn/veronica and harry the adorable boyfriend. note: this is not intended to portray the only way for a person to be nonbinary or genderfluid- this is simply one interpretation. this drabble is told from veronica’s perspective.

BEFORE ANYONE ASKS: i don’t know, okay? this just... happened today.

It’s almost perfect but there’s something still wrong with the lighting. Since moving to her new flat in Norwalk, Veronica’s never been able to completely figure out the complicated overhead ceiling lights. She’s lucked into getting the perfect levels before but tonight, her luck seems to have run out.

It’s no big deal- there wasn’t really a video planned for tonight so her viewers aren’t going to be as critical as if it were one of her makeup tutorials. A quick update has more room for error.

“Hey, everyone,” she says into the camera, shifting so her shadow doesn’t block her features. Her hair tonight is long and curly like a Disney princess and her makeup is still mostly flawless even after a long evening. She catches sight of a bit of color outside of her lip lines and she wipes it away with another quick look to the viewer to check. “Just wanted to post a quick update.”

“I know it’s usually annoying when people come on YouTube and gush about their S.O.’s around Valentine’s Day- how many posts do we have to see, really?- but I think I’m becoming one of those people.”

Veronica ducks her head for a second, catching herself speaking too quickly to be understood. Her Northern accent is a bit hard for people to follow, especially when she doesn’t enunciate, so she forces a breath and calms down. She casts a glance at the camera again, knowing her lashes are perfectly done up tonight and that it will translate to the camera well enough.

Can’t take the beauty blogger out of the girl.

“You guys have heard me talk about Harry,” she says carefully. “He’s… he’s really, really great. He had this grand idea of a Valentine’s Day date but it kind of went terribly?” she laughs. “I don’t know how he managed to do it, but he failed harder than I’ve ever heard of and it was pretty perfect because of that.”

“So, first off, he told me to be ready at five for our evening but he forgot he had to help a relative with their own VDay surprise until the last second so he calls me at four forty-five to let me know he’s moving it back an hour. He had the most panicked tone, too, like I was going to call it off right then and there. I didn’t mind, of course, because I’m a terrible procrastinator and had only just started getting ready. I got to take it slower and take my time- getting my hair just right, do you guys like it tonight?”

Veronica pauses again, tilting her head so the lights show off the different shades in her hair piece. It’s her most expensive one and her least favorite, if she’s honest, just because of the work associated with it. But she will never deny how pretty it is.

“I like it. Anyway, so we lost our reservation at the restaurant Harry had picked out- he won’t tell me which one it was but I’m sure it was ridiculous and we both would have been uncomfortable anyway. So we ended up going to a Chili’s, instead which- let me tell you a secret: you don’t need a fancy, prissy dinner with waitstaff in tuxes or anything ridiculous like that. Your everyday chain restaurant like Chili’s is going to be perfect- you’re comfortable already in the environment, you already know the food is good and they don’t give those tiny plate things, and it’s got the same Valentine’s Day ambiance and décor. It’s a hundred times better than any fancy place and probably half the price, too.”

Veronica sighs, irritated. “Not that Harry let me pay or even see the check. I tried to swipe my card on the kiosk- I know how much his gigs have been paying him lately- but he wrestled it away from me. Almost knocked our drinks over but he managed to keep his gangly limbs in check long enough.”

“After dinner- I had the Cajun chicken pasta but I skipped the garlic bread because I didn’t want to have bad breath, I knew I’d regret it,” she says, flipping her hair over her shoulder and shifting on her bed. “After dinner, we got back to his car and he gave me flowers and a box of chocolates he’d forgotten about. The flowers are a little wilted-“ she reaches out to pan the camera and show the slightly sad display on her nightstand behind her- “but they’re still lovely. The chocolate, on the other hand…” she laughs, bringing her hand to her mouth to keep the sound quiet. “Chocolate and black cars in LA don’t really mesh. They were almost completely melted and, I went to try one anyway because Harry had his disappointed puppy dog expression on, but I dropped it because it was so soft and it stained my dress.”

“Harry was so mad- at himself, not me obviously- and promised to have it dry cleaned. But I’m hoping you guys will have some suggestions. If not, I’ll search around on Google and figure out a secret. Not paying to have it cleaned when I can do it myself, right?”

“So my dress is- the stain is huge,” she holds up her hands, demonstrating the apple-sized stain now on the thigh of her dress. “And this is a really sexy dress, too. Puts my chicken legs all on display, gives Harry something to look at, the whole nine yards. But now it has a stain that, quite frankly, looks like poo.”

“He had planned on taking me out for drinks and dancing but I didn’t want to go with my dress looking like that and it wouldn’t make sense to come all the way back home here and change when we were already downtown. So we went driving around for a bit- I tried convincing him to just call it a night and chill together at home, but he was determined to have a night out.”

Veronica grins, waving her hands again. “He’s ridiculous. Finally, I told him to find a shop where I could buy something else to wear. We were right by a mall so we ran in- twenty minutes before close. The shop associates probably hated us but I’m pretty lucky because I found a pair of jeans I already know I like and a cardigan. I just dressed in the changing room and paid from the tags, keeping my slip on and putting the sweater over it. I think it looked pretty cute, if not so dressy. Harry got a few pictures of us in the before outfits and then in mine after. I’ll put those on Insta if he hasn’t already.”

“Make sure you guys are following both of us anyway,” she says, pointing to the corner of the screen. She’ll put a “SHAMELESS SELF-PROMO” dialogue box up later with links to their Instagram accounts. It didn’t used to be so easy to put plugs in like that, but a couple years of practice has made it more normal to do and now there’s almost no hesitation to remind viewers to follow the other social media accounts tying back to the uploaded videos. “I’m always popping up in Harry’s photos and half of the pics on my personal one, here,” she says, pointing to the opposite corner, “are of the two of us also. Forgive my boyfriend’s black and white aesthetic,” she smiles at the camera. “He thinks he’s pretty cool. I haven’t had the heart to tell him the truth.”

“Heeeeeyyyyyyyy,” she hears from behind her.

Veronica turns around, smiling over her shoulder at Harry where he’s stood in the doorway in just a towel, drops of water dripping from his long curls to his chest. She winks at him before turning back.

“Harry’s here,” she says with a sly grin. “He took us to the club after all but ended up spilling a whole tray of shots down his shirt. Came to mine to shower.” She pauses, ignoring the flush she feels on her face. “Think I’m going to go now, actually. Just wanted to pop in for a quick update of my day. Hope you all had a great Valentine’s Day like I did, even if you just treated it like a regular Tuesday. Be safe, be sweet and be strong,” she says, blowing a quick kiss at the camera before pulling a silly face and reaching to turn it off.

The mattress bounces as Harry settles in next to her. “You didn’t really mean what you said about me not being cool, right?” he asks, kissing her shoulder where her tank leaves some skin bare. “I’m pretty cool.”

“You’re the coolest,” Veronica assures him, grinning and turning her head to kiss his pouty mouth.

“Come convince me of that,” Harry murmurs against her lips, one hand slipping down her arm and trying to link their fingers together.

“I gotta edit the video, babe,” she protests, pulling away and laughing when Harry whines. “C’mon.”

“You c’mon,” he returns. “Edit it in the morning.”

“Doesn’t make sense to post a Valentine’s night update the next morning,” she reasons. “It’ll take me ten minutes.”

“It’ll take an hour because you’re a perfectionist and by then I won’t be horny at all.”

“That’s a bit of a falsehood.”

“A bit,” Harry allows. He settles back against the pillows behind her for a moment while she opens her editing apps and sets about cutting any parts she thinks are too awkward. “I’m a little hungry still,” Harry says a few minutes later. “I can go whip up something if you’ve got anything in.”

“Just went to the store yesterday,” she says. Harry shifts off of the bed, tugging on a pair of boxer briefs and discarding his towel in the hamper. “Harry,” she calls before he heads out of the room.

“Yeah?” he asks, turning and walking closer to her.

Veronica tilts her head back for a kiss, smiling softly against Harry’s lips. “Tonight was amazing. I’ve never enjoyed anything more.”

“Tonight was a disaster and now your viewers will all know.”

“It was not. Thank you, honestly. You’re good to me.”

Harry brushes her cheek with his palm, cupping her face and tilting her head back for another kiss, which she gives up easily. “You’re good, period.”

“I might be more Zayn when you come back,” she lets him know. “Feeling middle-ish right now.” She doesn’t always know the words to say but Harry always seems to understand- or, he asks the right questions when he doesn’t. Or says the right things.

“I love you always,” Harry assures, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

Six months ago, she wouldn’t have believed someone saying that. Not because she didn’t know she deserved it- of course she knew- but just because it was one of those statements that carried a lot of weight with it and sounded cliché if not said with care. But one thing Harry has always shown- whether it’s to Veronica or Zayn or any of their in-between days- is the utmost amount of care.

“I love you,” she says. “So much that I’m going to get this done in ten minutes- I mean it,” she interjects when Harry looks doubtful, “and then I’m going to come help you in the kitchen.”

“I’m timing it.”

Veronica rolls her eyes. “You do that, babe.”

[healthstoresnow-blog]

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[ginnyzero]

Fashion is a Science (A Harsh Truth of the Industry Pt 2)

Fashion is also a science.

Jon Taffer has made a very successful and high profile career touting the concept of ‘bar science.’ He even has his own show going around the country trying to revitalize failing bars. The first few seasons, Jon talked a lot about bar science in the show itself, giving factoids and explaining to a point why he was doing what he was doing. Then he wrote a book. Then the show started leaning towards drama instead of science and such is the fate of most reality shows.

In the fashion world, we don’t talk about it a lot, but fashion is a science. In fact, a lot of times, it feels like this science is some type of trade secret that we can’t even tell those that are trying to get into the industry and be successful at it!

One of the first fashion courses I took at Bluffton University was called the Social Psychology of Clothing. The gist of the course to teach fashion students why people wore clothes and how trends and fashion cycles worked using the psychology of people’s minds. It had 2 text books, both about an inch and a half thick, one the name of the course, the other called the Meanings of Dress (she never used the second) and then on top of it, she had piles of newspaper clippings at the library she wanted us to photocopy. (This was bad because she never actually took us to the library and explained how we were to get the clippings, we were just supposed to know or something. I didn’t have the money for photocopies for one and for two, I think I was ¾ of the way through the course before she figured out I hadn’t actually read any of the damn things and gave me a blistering lecture. Why she had a book FULL of articles and then insisted we go copy MORE articles, I don’t know.) She also had a third optional book she was using called the Language of Clothes written by a Cornell Linguistics professor that explained what the clothes people wore said about them and went through some of fashion history and fashion niche markets. This was the type of thing I loved, so yeah, I used some cash to buy that book because much more useful than articles I’d never read again.

I took a course at the Academy of Art called Fashion Forecasting where we went over again the psychology of clothes and how trends are made and the differences between fads and iconic styles. I have read trend forecasting magazines. I’ve visited Cotton Incorporated. Trend Forecasting is a science.

So, yes, the fashion industry uses your own psychology against you. There is a method and science behind the colors in the collections and those that are used to decorate the store, the way the store is laid out and what you see first as you walk past and walk into the store and even the music playing on the speakers. Fashion Merchandising is a science.

Fashion Design is also a science. And it’s based upon a false need.

Harsh truth time.

Since the industrial revolution took hold, the Fashion Industry has spent thousands upon millions upon billions of dollars selling the idea to the masses (not just the well to do, top 10%) that they need new clothes every six months. And the faster the economy and the global social media sphere has grown, the shorter this time has become. Now, there are entire stores dedicated to selling to you the consumer that you need new clothes every month.

This is fast fashion and it happens because those retailers own their own manufacturing plants and can turn around everything from textiles to finished garments in a matter of weeks to ship! H&M, Zara’s, Bebe, Forever 21, these stores are stores that cater to the flash fads of fashion that come and go every month or two. And they spend a lot of money advertising to get you to come back to the store every few weeks to see the new products!

Of course, the idea you need new clothes all the time is a lie. It’s not true! You don’t need new clothes that often.

Ah, but do you want to be stylish and trendy? You need new clothes to keep up with the stylish celebrities and elite. We have new clothes in new colors in new cuts and with new trims and details and you must buy, buy, buy them!

Think about it. In a rational world, you wouldn’t buy new clothes until the old ones were worn out. This could take a decade at least. Or, if the clothes were well made and you were young, you’d outgrow them and give them to a younger sibling and on it goes.

One of the biggest complaints that you hear from anyone buying clothes is the clothes just aren’t the same quality as they “used to be.” If they were the same quality as they used to be, you wouldn’t have to buy new ones because they wouldn’t wear out! That goes against the fashion industry’s best interests. (There are also other factors at play here, I won’t lie and that’s another part of fashion science.)

In fact, fashion waste has become such a problem that “going green” and “recycling” are still huge buzzwords in the fashion industry over a decade after I left college and those were just getting off the ground. People throw out and give away perfectly good clothes every day! No one has to be naked. Clothes don’t have to be so expensive. The Fashion Industry doesn’t really have any financial incentive to stop the practices of fast fashion and fashion waste. It’s simply not in their best interests and anything along those lines is mostly lip service.

The fashion industry has figured out that people respond better to different colors at different times of the year. These colors show up on runways and in stores for two reasons, it’s the right time of year, and they’ve been forecasted to be “popular.” So, if you know what colors favor your complexion and know the season those colors show up, you know when to go shopping. (I like black. Focusing on black actually tends to cut down on 90% of the merchandise and makes my life that much easier. But I’m a chic person at heart.)

And this is reflected in the inspirations for the collections. I was in my third design class at the Academy. Our second project was to teach us about merchandising a collection. Our brief had a specific price point and a specific season that we were allowed to use and we were to go from there. I was feeling in the mood for spiders for some reason. And I’d found a picture of a very cute spider with fuzzy aqua mouth pincers on a purple flower. I was going to use this as my main picture for my mood board and I had a few spider web pictures too. I lay it out for my professor and am explaining my idea and he looks at me and with a straight face goes, “This reads spring, Ginny. The assignment is for fall.”

This was not the FIRST time I’d had this problem. And I’m looking at my spider and my spider webs baffled because I grew up in the country and you see spiders in the summer and in the FALL. To me, the subject itself doesn’t lend well to spring. But I knew better at this point than to argue, and I did like this teacher (for once) so I said I’d go find something else that would work, fit my theme and that said fall. All of this because my spider was sitting on a purple flower. I went and I found some pictures of frozen spider webs and ended up cutting my cute spider out, but guess what, this changed the entire collection. It changed the colors. It changed the fabrics and it changed the ideas.

Because teachers see sand and think summer and they see a purple flower and think spring. (It’s insane.) So, it feels almost impossible to do anything outside the box. I tried to use ice and snow for a resort collection once and instead of getting the idea that I wanted to do clear vinyl raincoats and white feathery printed chiffons, they saw fur coats and knits and I wouldn’t let it GO until I did “you’re going on an Alaskan cruise” instead of… “You’re going to the beach in white feather stitched cottons and printed silks and pine green and sheers okay with a muff shaped handbag of terrycloth.” It would have really helped if they had explained resort PROPERLY but noooo.

I laugh now. I was close to frustrated tears back then.

The number of clothes that get different colors and fabrications is a science. The number of blouses to jackets to knits to bottoms to skirts to dresses is also a science. There is a percentage ratio of clothes that are staple to the brand and are relatively common, to clothes that get minor changes, to new fashion forward clothes that cater to the trend setters. The sizing ranges and how many of each size are bought is also another science.

To be successful in fashion, you have to know these things.

I’m the daughter of a mechanical engineer. And my father and I share a brain. He taught me to write numbers so my 7s look like an engineer wrote them because I put the dash in them. If I’m writing in all capitals (something my father does all the time) and using numbers my zeros will also have dashes to separate them from my ohs. And depending on my mood and how fast I am, sometimes my 2s look more like Z so my zs also have to have dashes or sometimes I use the more cursive looking 2. (My handwriting is a mess and my father despairs because his penmanship is perfect.)

So, when I started doing design and doing these projects at school, part of me knew that there had to be a rhyme and reason. There had to be at least X amount of each type of garment. But, I’d been at two schools now and had taken two courses in basic fashion business and you’d think these numbers would have come up. And they hadn’t. And you’d think that in a fashion design class where part of the assignment is to create X amount of fashion outfits, that these numbers would come up as well. And they hadn’t. Hell, the traditional colors for each season hadn’t come up! (And that’s scary.)

And I’ll admit. I was floundering. Because I’m a person who likes lists. And the book for Fashion Design wasn’t actually a fashion design course book at all. It was a Fashion Illustration book called 9 Heads. I actually never bought it until after I left college because it is frankly far too expensive for a student and you do need a physical copy of it.

Yes, I was taking a college level fashion design course that didn’t have a fashion design textbook. That is insane. Now there are 2 Fashion Design Textbooks that I have on my shelves (and one that is actually a course work book) that I could recommend that actually have the colors and the numbers and the information a fashion student needs. One was published in 2007, the other in 2011 and the course work book in 2010. They were all published after I left college. And I don’t think any of them are still in print.

Being an enterprising student and wanting to get this right, I went to my teacher and asked her if she knew the numbers or if there was someplace I could find these numbers. Her answer was not encouraging. She told me to look at the runway shows and copy what they did.

What?

Seriously, what?

I walked away from that conversation wondering if I was wasting my father’s hard earned money.

Because fashion is a science.

And every single brand out there does something called customer groups. (Not that they had taught us this either.) And each of these groups has their own fabrications and their own colors. Unless I knew how many groups each brand had, there was absolutely no way for me to be able to determine what was the reasonable and logical ratio of tops to bottoms, of jackets to outerwear. None. I could spend hours trying and come up with a different answer each time. (You want to see me cry. That’s a way to make me cry.)

So, every single project I just winged it. No one ever called me on it. And then when I had a job and had money and wanted to find books, I was able to do it at just the right time when these books were being published and finally get my hands on what my engineering list loving brain wanted and needed, numbers.

Every brand has a retail price point. So, when you go into a store and see that the prices have stayed the same but the fabric quality has gone down, it’s because fabric costs, manufacturing costs or shipping costs have gone up and in order to maintain their prices where they are at, they have sacrificed quality of fabric or amount of fabric for that price point. It’s science.

Psychology, sociology, color theory, mood manipulation, mathematics, fashion is a science and that doesn’t touch the way patterns are made and laid out in manufacturing. It’s not easy and it’s a juggling act to get the right amount of designs versus the many ideas in your head. And you won’t be successful unless you know or someone on your team knows those very basic things.

And that’s a harsh truth.