#also he would steal the crabs to eat them not just to set them free

[jalapenobee]

dazai and tanizaki walk into the supermarket. five minutes later the crabs have been released and there is a small guy wearing a hat running around yelling 'dazai! dazai!'

[katsona-the-katsequel]

Persona Fun Facts Pt. 2

Everyone seemed to like the last entry so here's the sequel. Reminder that all these facts were taken from Atlus' fanbooks and novels (and some even from the Persona Stalker Club).

Another reason Mitsuru worried about Minato was because he had a tight schedule, was pale, and never complained about anything nor mentioned if something was bothering him 🥺

Iwai likes to watch reruns of old Western films (I wonder what's his favorite movie).

Ryuji's mother has the personality of a loud, older sister.

Lisa knows how to snowboard.

The necktie Adachi is wearing is probably Dojima's.

Shiho is "drawn to what she doesn't have".

If he won 700 million yen, Akechi would travel the world.

Tatsuya's handwriting is shit.

In his briefcase, Akechi carries a set of student supplies, food, water, and free samples of sweets and cosmetics people give him.

Yu was the type of person who wanted to be seen as wise beyond his years and more of an adult than he really was. He grew out of it by the end of the game by becoming an actually mature person.

Chihaya redesigns clothes.

The first thing Ulala did after realizing her ex was scamming her was call Maya to a restaurant where they got drinks.

Yusuke would be okay with crossdressing if he felt it would help him discover the secret of beauty.

Junes wages are 690 yen per hour for high school students and 900 yen per hour for the rest.

Jin was the member of Strega in charge of raising funds and taking care of meals.

Maruki is aware of the relationship between food and mental health, so he always tries to eat a balanced diet (with cheap ingredients that won't affect his mental health by being a financial burden).

Yukari's mother, Risako, was financially blessed and came from a good family associated with the Kirijo Group.

The Shiroganes have a butler named Yakushiji who has served them for three generations. He, along with Grandpa Shirogane, was Naoto's main caretaker growing up.

The place where Ken's house used to be is now a parking lot.

Junpei's father failed in business.

Akechi's ideal type of lover is "someone who can give [him] space".

Dojima bought Nanako's clothes at Junes.

Maya always keeps a can of crab in her purse... that's her lunch at work. 😔

Futaba is more specific when it comes to her ideal lover. I'm just going to copy and paste here: "Their specs must be just as follows: must be more of an indoors person more than an outdoors one, won’t barge selfishly into people’s room to clean without the owner’s consent, old fashioned romantic and can sing all the theme songs of Neo Featherman."

Yosuke and Kanji aren't the only ones who dye their hair. Chie also dyes hers.

Kandori sealed his deal with Nyarly by strangling his lover/coworker, Mayo Miyashita, to death. He seemed kind of in a trance while he did so (a lot was from Mayo's POV), so it's up to you to decide how much agency he had in that murder.

Members of Strega don't even know their real names (this won't deter me from the "Chidori is Natsumi's daughter theory"). They also steal household goods and clothes during the night.

Elly has twin sisters.

I can't remember if I included this one in the last post, but here it goes again. After Makoto pointed out how difficult taking care of lobsters would be, Yusuke ate them with tears in his eyes.

[ibis-gt]

i made a fairytale au for cam and luther and then wrote nearly 5k words of fic for it?? which is wild bc i am not much of a writer. but. that’s under the cut. content warning for a pretty violent scene towards the end but there’s a happy ending i prommy

Once upon a time, there lived a prince. This prince, Luther by name, lived in a kingdom that was plagued by monsters. His father, the king, had gained his throne by feats of heroism, most notably by slaying a fearsome dragon that had ruled the land for years. The time came for Luther to prove he was worthy of the title of prince by slaying a monster of his own… 

Down in the countryside, farmers have been complaining for weeks of an ogre stealing their cattle and frightening their children. So Luther sets off in a splendid suit of armor, with a sword sheathed on one hip, a quiver of arrows on the other, and his bow slung on his back.

Luther rides his horse down to the village where the ogre was last spotted. He talks with the locals and gets a description of the creature. At least forty feet tall, they say, with greenish-grey skin and dark hair and teeth the length of a man’s forearm. Luther leaves his horse behind with the farmers because he doesn’t want her getting hurt and marches off, following a set of giant footprints left behind by the ogre, sword in hand. He would have to admit that he isn’t the best at sword fighting, and that really he’s never faced a monster on his own. But his father gave him a crucial tip: every monster has a weak point. Find the weak point, exploit it, and you’ll win every time. 

The footprints lead through the plains of grass, past the area where the farmers let their cattle out to graze, and into a dark forest. The sun is going down before he manages to find the ogre, so he sets up a little camp with a little fire and rests his tired bones. His armor isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, but it takes forever to get on and off even with someone helping him, let alone by himself. He sits with his back to a big boulder so nothing can sneak up behind him and eventually drifts off.

Luther awakens the next morning and groans at how stiff and sore he is. He sits up and pauses, brow furrowed, remembering that he’d gone to bed sitting upright. But just now, he’d been lying on his back. And he’s not the best tracker, but those giant footprints look… disconcertingly fresh. These things add up in his mind. He just about passes out. He crouches down and puts his head between his knees for a moment until he can breathe again and his heart stops pounding quite so hard. He was right next to it! He fell asleep leaning on it! If his father heard about this he’d give him such a beating. How could he not have noticed that the boulder was actually - 

His stomach rumbles, interrupting his panicked thoughts, and Luther remembers that the last time he ate was back in that farming village around two in the afternoon yesterday. He digs out a bit of beef jerky and morosely works at it. His father swears by the stuff, but it just makes his teeth hurt. Luther dreams of the kitchens back home and drools a little.

He gives up on the jerky and manages to take down a couple squirrels with his bow and arrows. He gets his fire blazing again and sets them cooking over it, and sits down to draw in the dirt and form a battle plan. He gets wrapped up in his drawing and loses track of time, but is startled violently back to reality as a deep booming voice from behind him says, “Your squirrel’s burning.”

Luther’s eyes snap up to the fire. He hastily pulls the stick with his squirrels off of it, waving it in the air to put out the bit of squirrel that had caught fire. He blows on it and inspects the damage. Not too bad, a little charred. Still definitely edible. Then realization dawns, and he slowly looks up and over his shoulder.

That’s the ogre. He’s unmistakable. Huge, greyish-green, with shaggy black hair and big tusks that jut out of his mouth. He’s down on one knee looming over Luther, modesty barely preserved by a loincloth stitched together out of the pelts of many different furry animals. Luther wills himself to not faint for the second time that day. 

“You gonna eat that?” The ogre booms. “’Cause I will if you won’t.”

“W-well, yes, I was planning to,” Luther quavers, “But there are two, so, um, you can have one if you want? We can share?”

He takes the non-burned squirrel off the stick and holds it up. His hand only shakes a little. The ogre takes it carefully between thumb and forefinger and tosses it in his mouth. With such a tiny morsel, he’d usually just swallow it whole, but an interesting flavor makes him stop and savor it for a moment. 

“What’d you do to it? Not like any squirrel I’ve eaten. And I’ve eaten a whole army of squirrels.” He slaps a hand on his formidable belly. The sound makes Luther jump. 

“I- I didn’t do much, j-just some seasoning, I-I’m sorry, I d-didn’t mean to, please don’t eat me next." 

"You?” The ogre laughs. “Why would I eat you? You shared your food with me. That’s mighty polite. I’d say that makes us friends now, and I don’t eat friends.” He grunts as he shifts position, sitting down heavily and stretching out his legs. “Bad knees,” he grumbles. “Sat like that too long, but I wanted to see what you were drawing." 

Luther is now horrifically aware that he is directly between the ogre’s legs. He is also horrifically aware that he was drawing himself hitting an ogre with a sword. He hurriedly kicks some dirt over it. 

"Nothing. Nothing interesting. I’m a bad artist anyway.”

“Sure. What’s your name, little tin man? You didn’t seem too talkative when you snuggled up to me last night, but I thought maybe you were just tired. I’m Cam." 

"L-Luther.” Oh god. He was supposed to kill this thing, it - well, no, not ‘it’, he can’t think of Cam as an ‘it’ now he knows his name - he’s terrorizing folks, stealing their livelihoods, he’s supposed to drive him away, save the day, bring peace to the kingdom. Instead he’s sharing his meager breakfast and making friends with the monster. How did it all go so wrong!!

“So, Luther, you made of metal? I thought you were gonna take all that off, looks pretty uncomfortable, but you wore it all night. Unless it’s like… you?" 

"No, no, um, it’s just… it takes a long time to put it on and take it off? And I usually need help.”

 "Well shoot, friend, why didn’t you say so?“ Before Luther can object, a giant hand descends and plucks him up. He panics, struggles in Cam’s grasp, and Cam tsks at him. "I can’t get all that off you if you don’t hold still. Don’t make me squeeze." 

Luther goes still. If Cam squeezes the armor, it’ll stay squeezed. He wouldn’t want to still be in it if that happens. Cam clearly has no idea how to get someone out of armor though. He just pulls at clasps and buckles till they break, then shucks the metal off of Luther like an ear of corn. His helmet comes off first, freeing his dark brown curls.

“Aww,” Cam says, “lookit you. You’re kinda cute for a tin man.” He musses up Luther’s hair with a fingertip. "You’re like a little crab,” Cam chuckles. “Crack open the hard shell to get to the soft stuff underneath.” The food metaphor does not put Luther any more at ease as the rest of his armor is pulled off and tossed aside, piece by piece. Cam even strips the chainmail off of him and dumps it on the ground. This leaves Luther in his shirt and breeches, shaking like a leaf and terrified for his life. 

“Oh, you cold? Here, I gotcha.” Cam sandwiches him between his hands. Luther awaits the pressure and the horrible crunch that will no doubt be the end of his short life, but it never comes. Cam just holds him there, and truth be told his hands are very warm, and it had been a chilly morning. Luther relaxes very slightly.

After a few minutes, Cam lifts one hand a little and peeks at Luther. “Better?" 

"Much better, thank you. Even a little too warm, actually? Can I, um, come out now?" 

Cam laughs and opens his hands like a book, then tilts them so Luther tumbles into the palm of his left hand. "So what’s a fancy little shrimp like you doing all the way out here, with that tough shell and those sharp weapons? You huntin’ something?" 

Luther hesitates. It’s not… technically a lie, just an omission of truth, right? "Yeees…. Hunting.”

Cam laughs out loud, leaning back and slapping his knee with his free hand. “HA! You are just about the worst liar I ever met, Luther. Whew.” He actually wipes a tear from his eye. Luther feels his face heating up with anger and embarrassment.

“I am hunting! I’m hunting you!” As soon as he says it he regrets it. He slaps his hands over his mouth and cowers back as Cam sits up straight again and looks down at him, raising an eyebrow. 

“That so? Huh. Well, you found me, oh mighty hunter. And you fed me, and let me take your armor off you, and left all your sharp things on the ground while you sit in the palm of my hand. So, uh… how’s that goin’ for ya?”

“It… I… um… please don’t kill me?”

Cam grins. It’s not a nice grin anymore. It shows off too many teeth. “Lotsa folks have hunted me, you know. Not a one has succeeded. Most of ‘em can’t find me in the first place, not unless I want them to. Neat little trick we ogres have. We blend in well. The ones who did find me, they regretted it pretty quick. When I heard you clanking along with your silly armor and your little sword, I thought oh boy, here comes another one. But it turns out this one couldn’t find his own ass with both hands and a map, so he ain’t one of them legendary monster hunters lookin’ to claim some bounty. And he’s a little scrawny slip of a thing, too, and he keeps stopping to look at birds. I kinda liked you. And honestly, when you found me, it took me by surprise. Thought I had you pegged all wrong. Then you made your little fire, curled up next to me, and went to sleep, and it took everything I had not to bust my gut laughing right then and there. And now… well, I don’t rightly know what to make of you. Cute little thing, I know that. But cute won’t save you if you wanna tussle with me. So, little hunter… what’re you gonna do now?”

Luther’s nearly in tears. He manages to say, “Then… were you just… toying with me? This whole time? Waiting to see what I’d do?" 

Cam shrugs. "Pretty much.” That does it. The waterworks are in full swing. Luther’s chin trembles, his lower lip wobbles, and then tears are streaming down his face and he’s sobbing. 

“Y- you’re s-so-ho meeeaaaan,” Luther wails. “Y-you’re j-just making f-fun of me, I thought w-we were friends!” 

Cam has absolutely no idea how to respond to this. For some reason he actually feels guilty. “Aw - no - now look, there’s no call for - just… just stop crying, okay? Please?” Luther continues to sob, heedless of Cam’s pleading. “There, there,” Cam tries, patting Luther’s head. “I’m not going to kill you. Okay? How’s that? I’m sorry I called you - well. All those things. I’m sure you’re a great hunter. Look, you got those squirrels. And hey! That one I ate tasted great. You got some real skill there." 

Luther wipes his eyes and looks up, teetering dangerously on the edge of another sobbing fit. His eyes are all watery and a little red-rimmed. "R-really?" 

"Yes! Of course!” Cam clings to the compliment like a life preserver. “I bet you’re like, like the king’s cook or something, right? Cause you’re the best in the land?" 

Luther’s face crumples a little and he looks down, mutters something. 

"What?” Cam holds him up a little closer to his ear. 

“’m his son,” Luther mumbles again. 

“His son? You’re a prince? And you’re all - oh, hell.” Now he’s really put his foot in it. Luther bursts into tears again and curls up in a little ball.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I - oh, ugh, you’re getting my hand all wet.” Cam picks him up between thumb and forefinger and shakes the little tear droplets off his palm. “Now look here,” he says, attempting a sterner approach. “You’re a prince, all right? You can’t be crying and going to pieces just ‘cause some big bad monster was mean to you. You gotta kill big bad monsters, right? So here’s what you’re gonna do.” Cam sets him down gently, picks up his sword and hands it to him. “There you go. You’re gonna take that sword, right, and you’re gonna really let me have it. That’ll make you feel better, won’t it?“ 

Luther purses his lips and looks up at him. "But… all I can hit from here is your foot. That’s no good. I need a shot at something vital." 

"Oh fine, fine, Mr. Picky,” Cam grumbles. He shuffles his legs to the side and leans down til he’s practically laying on his belly. “Face shot. Free one for ya. Go on, hit something good.” Luther considers. Just as Cam realizes how ridiculous this whole thing is, he draws his sword back and plunges it into Cam’s eye.

- Almost plunges it into Cam’s eye. The ogre moves suddenly, turning his head to the side to avoid the blow. Luther makes a deep gash in Cam’s cheek, and Cam roars. “Oh, you sly little shit. Very good, very sneaky. You almost had me there. Fine. We do this the hard way.”

He gets to his feet, draws himself up to his full, impressive height, and looks down at the dirt where Luther was a moment ago. Cam blinks in surprise. “Where’d you… goddammit…” He looks around, trying to catch a glimpse of where Luther could’ve gotten to. 

Luther was not about to let the golden opportunity to run and hide during a big dramatic show of power go to waste. He slides into a patch of underbrush, catches his breath, and takes stock. He has no armor, no food, no bow or arrows. Those are all back at his camp, which is currently ogre territory. He has one sword that he’s okay at using. The ogre has the homefield advantage, and some kind of ability, possibly magical, to hide himself from those who want to find him. Luther shouldn’t let him out of his sight. But he should work on camouflaging himself. He takes a handful of dirt and smears it on his face and shirt. The sword he can’t do much about, he’ll just have to try and keep it from glinting. He glances to his left, away from where Cam still stands, turning in circles and peering around. Luther had only gone a little ways into the woods before he stopped for camp last night. He can almost see the forest’s edge from here. He could dart for the grasslands and try to make it back to the village, but he’d be in plain sight as soon as he’s out of the trees and there’s no guarantee Cam won’t just follow him all the way back. The further he goes into the trees the more firmly he is in Cam’s territory, but the more coverage he has. 

Possibilities begin swirling around in his head. His best bet is trickery rather than a face to face confrontation. He’s got a running list in his mind of Cam’s weak points now. Food, monologuing, emotional outbursts. Although that last one’s probably off the table now. Bursting into tears isn’t going to get him out of a second pinch. Bad knees - if he can trip Cam up, he can get a shot at his face again, maybe cut his throat or get at his soft belly and sides. Cam’s a talker and likes to gloat, maybe if he gets him distracted by looking pathetic he could get him to walk right into a trap of some kind. He likes food… but Luther doesn’t have the resources to make a big feast to distract him or sate him, just a pouchful of seasoning that he never leaves home without. His lip wobbles again as he thinks about how that’s back at his camp… he may never see his precious seasonings again.

Meanwhile, Cam is getting frustrated. “Well, the little shit can’t have gone far,” he grumbles. “Just gotta flush 'im out.” Luther watches, petrified, as Cam lumbers over to a nearby patch of underbrush and without warning stomps down on it hard, twisting his foot and smashing every inch of it. He steps back and leans down to inspect what’s left. Luther bites his lip hard to stifle a whimper. 

“Nope, not there,” Cam announces. “Eeney, meeney, miney…..” Another bunch of bushes are mercilessly ground into the dirt. “Moe. Hmmm. Where are you?”

Luther can’t stay in his hiding place for long. It’s only a matter of time before Cam gets to him. He needs an opening to make a break for it though, if he runs now Cam will spot him right away. As slowly as he dares, he picks up a large, flat rock, then skims it like a frisbee off to his right, where it hits a tree with a satisfying thock. Cam whirls around, and Luther bolts out of the brush. Cam hears the leaves rustling and turns back around, catching sight of him as he flees. 

“There you are! Hold on now, don’t go running off! I just wanna talk, I swear. The whole monster-slaying prince thing not working out for ya? I got a better job offer! You can be my dinner!” Luther keeps sprinting as fast as he can, not even bothering to glance behind him. The last thing he needs is to miss a fallen branch or a groundhog hole and trip.

On flat, open land, the ogre would outpace him easily. But if he can get deeper into the forest where the trees are closer together, that could slow him down enough for Luther to get some distance and hide again, have a moment to breathe and think so he can work on his plan. He’s starting to get an idea of what he’ll need. He needs the element of surprise for sure, and he needs more than just his sword. If he had some rope he could set up a tripwire, maybe. He curses himself for not taking his father’s advice about packing, for letting Cam strip him, for being too weak and scared to do anything when he had the chance, for being born in the first place. His eyes well up with tears and he scrubs at them furiously. He can’t afford to have his sight blurred right now, he needs to keep his head clear and keep moving. He can hear Cam’s thudding footsteps behind him, gaining quickly. He can cover so much more ground in a single step. It’s simply not fair. The little bit of distance he was able to gain with his rock trick is disappearing fast and it won’t be long before he’s in arm’s reach.

Almost as if he can read his thoughts, Cam lunges forward and takes a swipe at him, trying to knock him off his feet. Luther hits the deck and Cam overbalances, stumbling and crashing into a tree. The tree snaps when his weight collides with it, and Cam has to windmill his arms to keep from falling over. Luther scrambles to his feet and keeps running. He even manages to put on an extra burst of speed when he hears Cam roar with frustration behind him. He’s not as fast as he could be because he’s lugging the sword along with him, but he doesn’t dare drop it. It proves its usefulness in the next minute. Cam closes the distance and grabs for him. Luther sees the shadow fall over him and whirls around, lashing out at the reaching hand. He slices across Cam’s palm, and Cam howls with pain and pulls back. Luther dashes away, and Cam stomps his foot in frustration. 

"Hold still, dammit! You’re just making it worse for yourself!” He takes off after Luther again, but his stamina’s flagging. It’s harder for a creature his size to haul himself around and he’s used to running down his prey in the first minutes of the chase. This has dragged on long enough to tire him out, but he’s not willing to give up just yet. “When I get my hands on you, tin man, you’re paste,” he growls. “They’re gonna have to come up with new words for how dead you’re gonna be.”

The trees start getting close enough together that Luther has to dodge around them from time to time. He can hear Cam behind him crashing through them, spluttering as he gets a face full of branches and leaves. Luther smiles to himself. That’s nice, at least. At last he gathers up his nerve and dodges to the side behind a particularly large tree, hoping that Cam’s too busy navigating the foliage to notice. His gamble pays off. A few seconds later, the ogre goes lumbering past him without so much as a sideways glance. Luther waits just a moment more, then bolts in the opposite direction.

He’s got a plan now. He probably won’t be able to find Cam again, but Cam can find him. So he’ll set up an ambush. He circles back around to his camp and grabs his supplies as quickly as he can, his bow and arrow, his helmet, his tinderbox, and most importantly, his seasoning. He hunts for deer, takes down a decent-sized buck, and sets up a new campfire, deep in the woods, where the trees are close. He’s hoping that Cam will think that Luther thinks he’s safe in there, and that the smell of the meat cooking will lure Cam in. He takes off his shirt and fills it with twigs and leaves, sets his helmet up on a stick driven into the ground, and makes a decently convincing decoy Luther that he leans against a log. The helmet tilts at an angle that makes it look like he’s fallen asleep. With that set up, and night closing in, Luther climbs up a nearby tree and waits, sword in hand.

He doesn’t watch the fire. He wants to keep his night vision sharp. And sure enough, before too long here comes Cam, moving surprisingly quietly for his size. He squeezes through the trees with barely a rustling of leaves. Cam’s eyes are fixed on the fire and the silhouette that the decoy makes against it. Cam gets right behind the decoy and slams his foot down on it. He grinds it into the dirt with a relish that makes Luther shudder. Then Cam looks at the deer cooking with that lovely smell rising off it, and his eyes go big and shiny. As Cam bends down to pick it up, Luther chooses his moment. He drops like a stone and buries his sword lengthwise in the back of Cam’s neck. The impact sends a jolt up his arms and he hangs on as tight as he can. Cam lets out a garbled scream of pain and collapses face first on the ground. Luther gets to his feet, pulls his sword out with some difficulty, takes a deep breath, and begins to chop.

It’s messy, horrible work. By the third swing tears are rolling down Luther’s cheeks. By the seventh, he’s sobbing. After the twenty-third cut, Cam’s head is finally severed, and rolls to the side. Luther stumbles back. He’s trembling, covered in blood, panting and crying, but it’s finally done. 

And then Cam’s head says, “Wow, kid. I didn’t think you had it in you.” Luther watches, dumbfounded, as Cam’s body sits up, searches around with its hands, locates his head, and puts it back on his shoulders as the flesh knits together again. Luther drops his sword in disbelief. He falls to his knees. That was it. That was all he had. He can’t even imagine what he could do against a foe who can just reattach his own head. 

“Oh,” he says quietly. “Okay. Um. Make it quick, please?” Cam had been planning to crunch the little shit once he was back on his feet, but he can’t help but feel a pang of guilt at how despondent Luther looks.

“Aw, no, no, don’t give up so quick! Really, you almost had me!” Cam scoops him up and pats him on the head. “Look, it was a good effort. I’m sure if you had known I can’t be killed, you wouldn’t have spent all that time and energy trying to kill me. Just do a little more research next time, yeah?" 

"Next time,” Luther repeats, and gives a hollow laugh. “There isn’t going to be a next time. I’m not welcome as part of the royal family if I can’t kill a monster. Even my sister’s done her first slaying already. A whole nest of vampires! And I can’t kill one measly ogre." 

"Hey, watch who you’re calling measly,” Cam warns, but his heart isn’t in it. “Jeez. You’ve got some issues, kid. Not much of a fighter, I take it?" 

Luther shakes his head and sighs. "I’m just not very good at it." 

"Well they chose one hell of a first mission for you, that’s for sure. Ogres are tricky ones. We’ve got a lot of defense mechanisms.” Cam thinks for a moment. “You know what you are good at, though? You’re a good talker. Very convincing. I mean, you really had me going, with the crying and all? It was a really good ruse." 

Luther bites his lip. "Um…" 

"Okay, so it was for real and not a ruse. But you made the best of a bad situation! That’s also a good skill for a ruler to have. You just gotta show your family that your skills are less conventional, but still effective! Like, okay, why do you have to kill me? What’d I do?" 

“You’re eating all the farmers’ cattle and scaring people." 

"I thought free range meant I had free reign. Eh? Eh?” Cam pokes Luther in the ribs. Luther frowns at him. “Oh, fine, whatever. No sense of humor. You know, that’s pretty important for a king too. Yeah, all right, I’ll leave the cows alone." 

"And the sheep,” Luther says sharply. “And the pigs, and chickens." 

"I haven’t eaten any pigs or chickens,” Cam protests. 

“Not yet. I’m being proactive." 

"There you go!” Cam says, beaming. “There’s that negotiator skill! But seriously, if I can’t eat the cows and sheep I’ve got to eat something. Can you make it worth my while? 'Cause I’m not going back to squirrels." 

"Well…” Luther says slowly. “What if… I hire you?" 

"You… hire me?" 

"Yeah. Like, as a bodyguard or something. Then I’d have to pay you, right? I could pay you in food?” 

Cam is quiet for a moment. He brings Luther up closer to his face and scrutinizes him. Luther’s heart is pounding out of his chest. For a moment he thinks he’s made some horrible mistake and offended Cam and it’s all over for him. "You’re serious? Not kidding me, here? That’s your offer?”

“Y-yes? Is that… is it bad?" 

"Bad? Bad? That’s the best offer I’ve ever heard! Pay me in food? HELL yes, kid! That’s what I like to hear!” The force of Cam’s enthusiasm knocks Luther over on his back. He stares at the sky for a moment. His life is so goddamn weird.

~~~~~~~~~

Luther’s father’s dragon slaying days are behind him. He’s an old man now. He has good days and bad days, but even on his best days he frequently needs help getting around. But when he sees that giant ogre enter his royal halls, he reaches for his spear. Luther eases it out of his hand. 

“No, see, it’s okay. I didn’t kill him, but I stopped him terrorizing the countryside, and I kind of… hired him. As my bodyguard. This was easier, and we both benefit, see? Also, um, were you going to tell me ogres are immortal?" 

"You were supposed to figure something out,” his father says. “Since you’re so damned smart." 

"Well, I did figure something out. Just… maybe not what you wanted me to." 

Cam waves lazily. "Hi, Yer Majesty." 

"Cam,” Luther hisses. “We talked about this." 

"Oh, fine, fine,” Cam grumbles, and takes a knee to bow low before the king. “I humbly pledge my service to your son,” he intones, hamming it up just a little. “Please allow me to protect him from all harms, and so on." 

The king glares. His stabbing hand is itching. But he doesn’t currently have a better plan, and this’ll keep the peasants quiet for a bit. "Fine,” he spits, “But you’re taking care of him. Feeding him, walking him, cleaning up after him, whatever. No getting the servants to do it for you. He’s your responsibility now." 

Cam grins at Luther. "So, speaking of feeding… when’s dinner?”

[brutal-nemesis]

Arthropod Day 2021: 🦀Time For Crab 🦀

Malacostraca Moment 😳🦀

So fun story I wanted this to be on a Saturday because SIDEWAYS SATURDAY but when I was deciding on the date I looked at the calendar for July without realizing it. Happy Sideways Stuesday I guess? 

Castys Masterlist

Ingredients: drowning mention, animal attack (kinda chill tho it’s not really violent), dehydration, autocannibalism mention, parasitic insects, partial nudity, heckin surgery (but it’s CONSENSUAL (⊙ˍ⊙) who am I), suicide for convenience (immortal)

“This looks like a lovely spot for a vacation; thank you guys so much for finding it for me.” The small dingy had just landed on a sandy beach enclosed by dark rocks on either side, a lush forest leading deeper into the island. Casyts’s captor glared at him before harshly tugging the rope tied to his wrists, trying to get him to stand and step onto the beach with her.

“Shut your trap, Ragnarok, or I might change my mind about gagging you. Now get up or I’ll have my men drag you.” 

Castys sighed and rolled his eyes, getting up and following her so his rope burn didn’t get any worse. “Aye aye, Yvonne.” 

“That’s Captain Veldna to you,” she growled, jerking him forward. He stumbled a bit, but he was able to catch himself before he got sand up his nose. He debated trying to yank the rope out of her hands and running away or stealing the boat, but her very strong men were right behind him and that would probably just end in him having extra bruises. So he just followed her like a stupid little goat as she led him towards the rocks, hoping she wouldn’t leave him tied up so he could at least enjoy his time being stranded. But no, this was about sending a message to his crew or making him suffer or something. He didn’t really remember, he’d been dazed as hell when he’d initially gotten captured during a fight between their two ships. Blood loss was a bitch sometimes.

They forced him to sit with his back against a large rock, yanking his bound hands above his head and worming a large nail through the knotted rope before hammering it into the rock. “Not gonna lie, this seems a little extra. I’m not going to go anywhere, so, like, just let me-” Yvonne slapped him harshly across the face.

“You’re not here to have fun, you annoying little parrot.” She looked over at her men, who had just finished tying his ankles together and nailing them down in a similar fashion to his wrists. “If you lot are done, let’s leave.” She turned back to Castys, a wicked grin on her face. “I wonder how many times you’ll die before your crew finds you?”

“My money’s on eight. Do you want me to keep track and tell you next time we see each other? If only I could write in a diary what horrors I suffer sitting on this warm rock that you tied me to during high tide so I won’t even drown later. Now that-agh!” Yvonne stabbed him in the stomach, and Castys bit back a scream as she twisted her blade. 

“The sound of your silence is something I could get used to.”

“Well, the real question is, is silence actually a sound-” Castys’s very valid observation was cut off by the bitch yanking out her sword and promptly kicking him in the stomach. He couldn’t help but cry out, doubling over as far as he could. Yeah, yeah he should probably just shut the fuck up and let them get on their merry way before he got more unnecessary injuries. 

“Enjoy your vacation, Ragnarok,” Yvonne spat. As one last gesture of maturity, she kicked sand at him before walking off, and some of it definitely got in his stab hole, so that was nice. He watched them row away, sighing. Now it was just boredom city, but hey, at least he had a nice beach view. The sun was a few hours away from setting, not that it mattered that much since his skin was dark enough that he probably wasn’t going to get sunburned. 

Being tied to a rock on the beach was...just about as boring as he expected. His arms got all tingly after a while from being stuck above his head, so he couldn’t even properly relax, and a man could only watch little waves roll for so long. He had a nice view of the setting sun, and hey, that means the light of dawn wouldn’t be shining in his face. While the sun was still a little ways above the horizon, he heard an odd rustling noise over in the vegetation, different from the background sounds he had gotten used to. He looked over, hoping it was a friendly man with a knife.

It was not a friendly man with a knife. But it wasn’t something bad, either. “Oh shit hello crabs!” Castys watched as they scuttled out of the treeline onto the beach, glad to have something fun to watch. One of them was slowly making its way towards him, and Castys wondered if he would be able to convince it to snip his bindings. “Hey there mister crab man, come on down, and please for the love of god untie me.” Yes, yes he was talking to a crab, because why not go full send on the insanity right away? It would be so much more fun, and it’s not like anyone else was here to judge him. “Yeah crab get in my zone-wow you’re kinda big.” He’d thought the crab was closer to him, but nope, it had been farther away but giant. Not like giant giant but not, like, normal crab size. It was almost as big as his torso maybe, but he was never great at estimating the relative sizes of things. 

“You’re large but you’re a gentleman, ain’t ya? I don’t know why, but you just seem like a polite fellow.” The crab stopped not too far from Castys and just looked at him blankly. Or maybe it was making a face at him, but he couldn’t read crab body language. Could anyone read crab body language? Crabs, he would hope. “Could you bring me some tea, good sir? Or just...water. Water that’s not salty. I don’t actually like tea it literally tastes like nothing but you know what I would drink it now because I am thirsty.” There was a moment of silence. “Not like thirsty in the weird way some people are. I have no idea what that’s about. But like, I want water. Or...oh my god, Mr. Crab, bring me a coconut!” Castys closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “Yeah… that would be nice. Food and water and it’s prepackaged and I don’t know how I would eat it because my hands are tied but I’ll figure it out.”

A sudden sharp pinch against his wound jolted Castys out of his daydream. He looked down in horror to see that the crab was holding something in its claws. Something pinkish-red that was dripping blood down onto the sand. The bastard. The crab brought the piece of his flesh to its mouth and just ate it while staring right at Castys. “That,” he blinked in surprise a few times, “was incredibly rude.” The crab stayed still, watching him as it did its weird mouth movements that were maybe chewing. “You are absolutely not a gentleman. I rescind everything. You little garbage boy. Rapscallion. I bet you never get invited to the crab raves.”

And the crab. Had the audacity. To reach out its stupid pincher. And do it again. “Little bitch!” Castys yelled, squirming against the ropes in an attempt to scare the thing off. Shockingly, it did not work, because wounded, dying prey squirmed all the time, and...that’s pretty much what Castys was in this scenario, wasn’t he? He was just stuck sitting here while that stupid crab ripped off little pieces of him with its stupid crab pincher and put them in its stupid crab mouth. If he was lucky, this would make him bleed out and die faster and then he wouldn’t have an open wound anymore, which would be a bonus. Though, it had sand in it, and then if it healed…

A problem for another day.

Not the next day, though, or the one after, because, hooray, he was still tied to a rock, so even though he did die a few hours later, he couldn’t do anything about the Sand In His Insides. He made up a song about it, but singing it loudly did absolutely nothing to scare away the crab, whom he had named Crabstard (Crab Bastard). Crabstard seemed to think Castys was his new best friend, coming back regularly for meals. Castys liked to imagine killing and eating Crabstard as a show of dominance, but that made him wonder...would eating Crabstard be a form of autocannibalism? Because Crabstard had eaten him...

He wasn’t sure what was worse, Crabstard and his stupid giant pinchers, or the mosquitoes. There weren’t a ton of them, but their bites were just awful, littering his arms and legs with swollen, white boils, which were unusual and also very concerning but what the fuck could he do about it. Because of course he couldn’t scratch them, and they itched so much it hurt and he just had to endure it. Just like he had to endure fucking everything. The heat of the sun, the awful tingling in his arms, the soreness of his wrists, Crabstard pinching off bits of his flesh, the maddening pain and itch of all his bug bites, the hunger and thirst, the boredom, and the...the loneliness.

No, he was fine, he was fine with just himself, it was always just him anyway. He wasn’t imagining his crew rowing to shore and untying him and tending to him in his cold, dark cabin, because he couldn’t get his hopes up, because they probably weren’t even coming for him. They were just going to leave him behind like everyone else and fuck he was wasting water like a useless idiot and he couldn’t stop or even wipe them away and he probably deserved this for everything he’d done so what did it matter?

And, great, the next day he started hallucinating a passing ship and a rowboat coming for him. Thank you, dehydrated whore brain! Let’s get our stupid little hopes up! Dang, the people on the boat kind of even looked like some of his crewmates, which was rude of his brain to make this so realistic looking.

It wasn’t until his first mate, Kaveri, was untying him that Castys realized that this was real, that they’d really...really come for him. “I’m so glad we found you, Captain.” She pulled him into a hug as soon as he was free, and he hugged her back as best he could with his sore arms. 

“I’m glad y’all did, too.” He leaned back when she let go and looked down at himself, wincing. “Well, before we get back to the ship, I am going to deliver a much needed death upon mys-“

“Captain, Captain, wait,” the ship’s medic, Sixtus, called as he ran over. He knelt beside Castys, taking his arm and examining the bug bites closely. “I knew it. These bites all over you are...they contain fly larvae. We’re going to need to dig them out before you heal yourself.”

“...what if I’ve died since I’ve gotten bitten. Like, earlier.”

“Well.” Sixtus breathed in sharply. “We will just have to wait for them to, uh, let us know where they are.” He sighed. “For now, let’s get you back to the ship and I’ll get out the ones I can. I don’t have the tools for it with me.”

“Can I kill Crabstard first?”

“Crab...stard?” Kaveri gave him a concerned look, and Sixtus felt his forehead.

“He’s a very impolite giant crab. He is my rival. I wish to vanquish him.” The other two shared a look.

“Do you know where this...this crab is?” Sixtus tried.

Castys held up a finger and opened his mouth, pausing for a second before shutting it and blinking a few times. “I. I do not. He just scuttles out of the trees to commit crimes every now and then. He has no friends.”

“Alright, in that case, no. You’re in no condition to wander around the island looking for a crab.” Sixtus held out his hand. “So, come on.”

“Fiiiine,” Castys groaned, letting the taller man help him to his feet. He was a little unsteady, but he was able to make it to the boat with Kaveri’s help. As they rowed away, he turned back to the island one last time, cupping his hands around his mouth as he yelled, “Fuck you Crabstard I hope you starve and die in a pit and the other crabs eat you!” 

Once they made it back to the ship, Sixtus ushered Castys into his office, instructing him to sit up on the examination table and take his shirt and pants off. Kaveri helped him, opting to stay in case Sixtus needed a hand. He examined Castys thoroughly, using a lightstone to get a good look at the swollen bug bites littering his body as well as the number of small wounds in his side.

“These from the, uh, crab?” Sixtus asked as he gestured to them.

“Yup. Him and his stupid pinchers.”

“Alright, I know you don’t really get infections, but I’m going to clean these out just to be safe.” He paused. “Also it just feels. Really wrong not to. It’ll bother me if I don’t.”

“Do whatever, doctor man.” Castys did his best not to let his pain show as Sixtus dabbed at his wounds with a stingy liquid. It really didn’t hurt that much, but when Kaveri placed her hand on top of his as he gripped the edge of the table, he didn’t wave her off. He’d let it be Fuss Over The Captain Day. For their sake. Because they seem to have been worried about him. 

“Alright, I’m all done with that, so if you could lay down, Captain, I’ll get started with removing those larvae. Kaveri, get him some rum and then hold him down.” She nodded, leaving and returning soon after with a small cup.

“You know, I haven’t had water in days,” Castys mused before winking at her and downing its contents. Kaveri shook her head.

“You literally emptied my waterskin while we were rowing back.”

“Oh dang, I forgot. Nevermind I’m actually not funny and am just stupid.” He scooted a bit and laid down with his hands behind his head. “Get rid of my worms.”

“They’re not-they’re not worms, Captain, they’re insects, since-” Sixtus stopped himself, folding his hands in front of his mouth. “Nevermind.” He cleared his throat. “Arms at your sides, please. Kaveri, if you would.” She nodded, holding down his shoulders as Sixtus turned Castys’s arm, locating the first larva he was going to remove. Castys breathed in sharply as the knife sliced into his arm, doing his best to keep still as Sixtus slid a pair of tweezers into the wound. The rum dulled his senses enough that it didn’t hurt as much as it could, but it certainly wasn’t painless, and he couldn’t help but gasp as Sixtus slowly pulled a small, wriggling grub out of the incision. He dropped it in a metal tray, cleaned the wound, and picked up his knife.

Then the process started all over again.

Castys didn’t bother counting how many times those tweezers probed around inside him, how many wet little plops he heard as another larva dropped into the tray. He focused on staying still, on the prickle of the rough wood table against his bare back, on the feeling of Kaveri’s hands on his shoulders, more comforting than restraining. They reminded him that he wasn’t alone in his suffering, for once. But he wasn’t supposed to need comfort, he was their immortal captain, the one who’d been through everything before and was strong enough to go through it again, the one his crew could always depend on to be strong. And here he was, teeth gritted against the pain, his forehead resting against Kaveri’s arm, fists clenched to mask their shaking, all over a few cuts and some little maggots.

“Alright,” Sixtus wiped his brow with the back of his hand, “I think that’s all of ‘em. That I can see, at least.” He looked down at Castys. “You had seventeen of those things in you, Captain.” He grimaced. “And possibly more, so please let me know if you feel anything, uh, wiggling. But for now, you’re free to...die.”

“Can’t believe I got a new world record for worm friends.” Castys grabbed the small leather pouch that usually hung around his neck from his pile of clothes, pulling it open.

“They’re not worms-”

“Thank you, Sixtus.” With that, Castys stuck his finger in the pouch and touched his death stone. He came back to life feeling infinitely better, but Kaveri and Sixtus still insisted he rest after he cleaned himself up. He grumbled, but he let Kaveri force him into his bed and bring him something to eat. Once he was finished, she collected his plate and stood awkwardly by his bedside.

“Do...do you want me to come back, Castys? Will you be alright?”

“Look, I’m honestly fine, you’re good. I’ve been through a lot worse, and I’m all healed up now so it doesn’t really matter.” 

She pursed her lips. “I suppose, but that doesn’t mean that that didn’t still take a mental toll on you, and…” she sighed. “Just...call me if you need anything, alright?”

“Will do.” She nodded, but as she started to walk away, Castys realized there was something he’d rather not leave unsaid. “Wait, Kaveri?”

“Yes?”

“Th...thank you. For, uh, finding me.”

“Of course, Castys. We’ll always be there for you.” Castys opened his mouth to reply, but he stopped himself and just smiled and nodded, his shoulders only falling once she’d left.

He wished that were true.

Castys Cult: @as-a-matter-of-whump​ @blackrosesandwhump​ @fanmanga1357-blog​​ @thehopelessopus​ @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi​ @hearse-song​ @muddy-swamp-bitch @whumpasaurus101 @yet-another-heathen​​ @galaxywhump​ @starnight-whump​ @his-unspoken-words​ @misspelledwitch

[bunchofstraydogs]

Helloo ! I just discovered your account and I'm in LOVE ! Loved your analysis of Dazai and how he would act in a relationship, and now I'm curious, just what would be that someone who's able to make him so vulnerable ? Excited for what's next !

Hello, love, i hope you're doing well! Thank you so much, you're so sweet 💛💛🥺 I'm sorry this took a few days, I got caught up with irl things and was overwhelmed. I hope this will live up to your expectations! I'll eventually have more material for this so if you like what I've written here, keep your eyes peeled, I have some Dazai x reader scenarios in mind 👀

Ahhh yes, just what would a person have to be to have the infamous Dazai Osamu bend his spine for them...

Now, all of these are my own opinions and in no way do I say they are accurate, because only Asagiri-san can give us such information. But, since you asked me what i think-

I know you've probably read before that in order for Dazai to be interested in someone like that, they basically need to be an enigma. Someone he doesn't understand and would like to unravel. While yes, things and people like that do catch his interest, i don't think a person like that would catch his fancy, if you understand what I'm trying to say.

Let me expand on that.

When someone with personality, experience and intellect that of Dazai's, comes across a riddle, they wish to solve it. The fact that that riddle is a human, makes no difference to them. They will see it as a challenge, a game, and will unravel the enigma for the whole sake of solving it, rather than to actually understand that person. Osamu has come across so many different people - from mind-boggling naivety, to people causing misfortune purely for the sake of evil. From people shielded from the cruel reality with their white picket fence life to those like Nakahara Chuuya. There's Shibusawa, Fyodor, Kyusaku, Mori, Atsushi, Akutagawa and so many more. Very little can startle him now and catch him off guard. Another enigma is just that... another one in the line of many.

I hope you understand now why I think that his ideal s/o wouldn't be someone like that. I'm not saying people that do headcanon this are wrong, but I personally don't agree.

To capture his heart, takes someone that would make him not have to steal glances at them from the corner of his eye, but feel free to shamelessly stare at them.

I think his ideal partner would be someone so unapologetically themself, they stand up to life when it tries to change them. They are someone so in tune with their emotions and their morals, that no matter how much life scars them they will always keep true to their values.

A person who understands the importance of human life, life in general, and wishes to nurture it and persevere it.

They don't have to be perfect - far from it. He's not looking for perfection because he never believed in it to begin with.

They can be shy and anxious, but if the way they live and love, if the way they exist is bold, it is something that would make him do a double take.

They don't have to be on par with his intelligence, but if they are passionate, curious and in touch with themself and their surroundings, he'll want to talk to them.

They can be fearless or they can be fearful, but if they are ready to risk it all to stand for what they believe in and for the people they love, it will cause trembles to his knees.

Dazai would fall in love with someone who is openly themself.

Someone who wears their true colours and says what they mean and mean what they say. Someone genuine and honest. A person he doesn't feel the need to take apart, because usually after doing that he looses interest in them. But if he's smitten from the start and everything he learns about them is an experience and not another veil of mistery, he'll sincerely enjoy spending time with them. They are literally a breath of fresh air from his usual company. Why do you think he likes ADA so much? This is why Ango and Odasaku meant so much to him in a setting like PM.

He would also appreciate an individual that is good at understanding emotions of others.

While Dazai is good at reading emotions, he's not as successful at understanding them, since he himself is stunted. He needs someone that would understand him and be patient with him. Someone that will see through his bullshit and call him out on it, but give him space to collect himself and not use his weak moments against him.

I think he'd also love it if they're expressive. It can be through their actions or reactions or both. Please, i just know that if his love interest is a facially expressive person he'd do weird shit all the time to have them react to it. From seeing them smile genuinely at him after loosing him at the market and finally finding him; to the way their brows furrow in dissatisfaction, how their lips turn downwards with tension and how openly worried, yet patient and careful their eyes are as they assess his being during one of his episodes. He's addicted. He literally gets the high from such sincerity, especially from one as such being directed at him.

It should be emphasised, however, that Osamu doesn't want to be rushed or forced into feeling in ways he doesn't want to.

Basically, don't try to change him. He needs someone to motivate him to make the change himself. Someone he will feel the need to do and be better for, to take care of himself because, dear God, there is someone out there that actually gives a shit about his well being and wants him to return to them safely.

He'll need time and he'll need confirmation. And a lot of it. In every way, shape and form.

Go ahead, pull on his heartstrings and tell him he matters. Smile at him so genuinely because his presence brings happiness. Be bold and kiss his cheeks, his nose, his palms and every finger. Look at him unimpressed when he proposes a new way to kill himself and invite him out for some ice cream or crab. Hold his hand so that they are busy and he can't inspect the sturdiness of that branch or waltz up to the end of the bridge. Take his hand and hold it tight because he's slippery like blue mackerel. "Fool" him and bet him into drinking water, eating vegetables and other ways of self care. Not one act of kindness will go unnoticed. And he'll never doubt the reason for their affection being anything other than what it is - genuine feelings for him. Because there's nothing about them they don't show.

As for everything else, well none of it matters.

Not their shape, skin colour, discolouration, freckles, scars, marks, etcetera. It doesn't matter if they're confident in themself or not as long they're confident in their beliefs. Doesn't matter what their aesthetic is, what background they come from or ethnicity, how cool or lousy their job is.

Dazai will find many things to love about them regardless.

[wide-eyedscottishlass]

Scarlett and the Professor

moodboard by @strangelock221b​

[continued from] 

Following her watery lesson in the bathtub—in which her insatiable lover had proven his endurance matched perfectly with his dedication to their mutual pleasure—the rest of the afternoon passed in a haze of quiet happiness for Scarlett. Once dried and dressed, he had headed back to his study to grade the last of his papers, having instructed her to get herself dressed and promising he would come back to collect her in no longer than twenty minutes. “I think a tour of the manse is in order once I return,” he’d promised, pressing a few lighthearted kisses to the back of her neck as she stood before the bathroom mirror, towel-clad and about to brush out her hair. “And then perhaps we’ll take a little drive to see what other adventures we can get up to.”

And as good as his word, Hennessy had squired her about his home both inside and out, quietly delighting Scarlett with his apparent need to maintain at least some small physical contact with her most of the time. Splaying one hand on the small of her back or draping an arm across her shoulders, and even stealing occasional kisses from her when she least expected it. How heavenly it felt to know by these simple gestures how thoroughly he now considered her to be his own! His surprisingly tender affections proved distracting enough that if asked, Scarlett would not have been rightly able to answer questions about the layout of his home.

Beneath a cloudless, cerulean sky, they strolled through the wild-grown garden that bordered the pool and jacuzzi behind Hennessy’s house. A riot of indigenous plants and flowers grew thick around them; despite her several months on the island, they still struck Scarlett as breathtakingly exotic. Bougainville and anthurium flourished unchecked, along with several species of lily, banana flowers, and hibiscus; the vibrant reds and pinks, golds and oranges, vied for dominance amidst the deep green of the leaves and vines, with splashes of light and dark blues throughout. The center of the garden held an old, marble bench beside a small ornamental pool filled with lotus blossoms. Beyond this private little piece of Eden lay a wide, grassy slope that ended at a hedgerow which ran the length of the property. But for all its tranquil charm, it was clear from his commentary that Hennessy preferred the shingle of white sand beach which she had viewed from his balcony. Scarlett hoped that in time he’d take her there as well.

“Feeling peckish yet?” They were sitting beneath the umbrella of a wrought iron table on the patio near the pool. “I’m famished…how about we grab a bite to eat?”

“I’d like that,” she agreed, game for whatever he had in mind. Hennessy held out his hand to her as she stood up and whisked her along with him to his garage. He continued to play the gentleman, seating her in his sleek, midnight blue convertible and advising her well. “Buckle up, little lamb—I’m feeling the need for speed,” he grinned, slamming shut her door and then taking his place behind the wheel.

Scarlett was shocked to discover that despite being a man who held nearly absolute and steadfast control over every aspect of his life (that she’d observed thus far, anyway), Hennessy drove like a maniac. Though he must’ve known well the curves and dips and swells of the two-lane road from his home and beyond, he took them with an incautious speed and virtual abandon that were quite harrowing. She did her best to keep her eyes set on the road in front of them, making involuntary sounds of distress at his most egregious transgressions, and feeling him sneak peeks her way while chortling at her obvious distress. “Almost there, m’dear,” he laughed as the tires squealed through yet another reckless curve and played havoc with her loose, fishtail braid—so that once they’d reached the little roadside, seafood shack that was their destination, Scarlett had to loose it from it’s binding and run her shaky hands through her hair to set it right.  

Once her nerves and stomach had settled, she discovered she was hungry enough to put that harrowing experience behind her–for the time being–and indulge in the bounty which Hennessy has ordered for them, and then laid out on one of the weathered picnic tables behind the small, brightly shingled building. “The best and freshest catches on the island,” he bragged, “Prepared with all the culinary magic only a native chef could provide!” Scarlett found greater pleasure than she might ever have imagined in watching him indulge his ravenous appetite. They feasted upon cornmeal battered shrimp, a crab and curry stew, conch fritters served with a spicy brown rice, pickled mackerel in a thick coconut milk sauce beside fried plantains. At Hennessy’s insistence, she even tried the Bake and Shark with Citrus Chutney, surprising herself that she actually enjoyed it. He was larger than life in everything he did, and she felt a swell of simple affection for him fill her heart, and unabashed gratitude that she was along for this glorious, albeit unpredictable, ride with him.

Afterwards, he surprised her yet again, offering to drive to her flat so she could grab a bathing suit and another change of clothes—indicating that he expected her to stay with him a second night. Even another nerve-wracking drive back to his estate couldn’t dampen her joy at that.   

          ____________________________________________________

The sun glinted off the ripples and waves lapping at the warm, white sand of Hennessy’s beach as he spread out a thick blanket for them to recline upon. Curious gulls flew low, checking for food scraps that so often accompanied the presence of humans in their domain. Scarlett stood where the water just kissed her toes, breathing deep the salty tang of the Atlantic, a scent that often awoke a quiet longing in her heart for home---though she wouldn’t dream of being anywhere in the world right now but at her lover’s side.

A sudden updraft swept through her hair, and the squawks of protest from the sea gulls caught in the rising air current drew her attention away from the ocean and back behind her. Hennessy had one arm crooked and was drawing swirls in the air, that same determined focus on his face as when he’d worked that mysterious water magic as she bathed. He’s clearing the birds away, was her immediate thought; he’s literally stirring the air to send them away! How in hell is this possible? Suddenly, the ground beneath her feet didn’t feel as solid as it should. 

He flashed her his ever-charming sideways smile, and held out his free arm to her and he lowered the other and the ‘breeze’ died away. “Come sit with me, Scarlett.” Hennessy’s tone of command was undeniable, and her knees went weak with her need to obey. She took his proffered hand and then settled onto the blanket, not allowing the certainty that she wasn’t the first woman to share it with him here, to dull the pleasant anticipation that he would inevitably be taking here soon in whatever way pleased him best. 

Hennessy made their small talk easy for a time, skirting the edges of the questions which he had to know were weighing on her mind, while drawing from her the details of what he certainly must think of as her quaint, little life. He lay on his side, propped up on one elbow while Scarlett sat cross-legged and continued to watch the waves lap at the warm sand. As relaxed as she was feeling, she could also feel him watching her as though everything she told him was of great interest---and as if he was in no rush to pursue his pleasure just yet. 

The blazing orange disk of the sun had sunk lower on the horizon by the time that conversation lapsed, and he finally saw fit to broach the topic that remained foremost in her thoughts. “You’re quite a patient woman, Scarlett. Especially for one so green.” The husk of his voice was as soothing as the rhythm of the waves, and drew her eyes his way. “I’m impressed. You’ve held your tongue all these hours about something I know you must be bursting to ask about.”

Scarlett shrugged and gave a wee smile. “My Mam always taught me that patience was a virtue—but before he lit out into the wider world to make his fortune, my Da taught me a simpler wisdom…”

“Which was?”

“That I should take a lesson from the Sea, whose patience endures forever. And who always gets want she wants, in the end.”

“Hmmm…wise man, your Da,” Hennessy reflected, “Though he’d have done better by you not to father you in absentia.”

“I suppose so,” she sighed, resolving to keep that quiet pain from tainting this precious time with her teacher, “Though it’s all water under the bridge now, isn’t it?”

He smiled at her winningly, “You have an apt way of looking at things, m’dear.” He took to his feet as he told her, “And your patience has earned you the answer to the mystery of the afternoon.” Hennessy held out his hand to help her rise up, guided her forward to stand with her toes tucked just beneath the edge of the water again, and then stood behind her, “But first a little demonstration more.”

The sun had dipped almost completely beneath the waves; the air was warm and soft, rife with the night’s possibilities. Scarlet felt, as much as heard, Hennessy draw a deep breath, and in moments saw the seafoam suddenly part around her feet, wetting the sand in a widening circle that left her skin untouched. The circle soon grew to encompass them both, closing behind him.

Scarlett licked her lips, barely able to speak. “It’s real…it really happened. Part of me kept insisting that I dreamed the whole thing, but…but it’s real…”

Hennessy stepped into her and spoke against he ear, making her shiver with his truth, “Very, very real, my sweet. As real as the Sun at it’s zenith. As real as the pull of the Moon upon the tides.”

Though her mouth had gone dry, Scarlett remained undaunted in her need for the full truth. She turned to face him, clear-eyed and ready for whatever he might reveal. “Then how, my jo…tell me how it’s even possible. Please.”

“Oh my dear,” he tutted, “My sweet, innocent girl. Hennessy’s eyes gleamed softly in the dying light. “There is so very much you have left to learn.”

(to be continued)

tagging: @strangelock221b @ravencatart @doctor-stephenstrange @splunge4me2art @ben-locked @ben-c-group-therapy @letterstosherlock @humanbornarchangel @aeterna-auroral-avenger @frowerssx-world @tsukuyomi011 @emilyinnj4real @losille2000 @macgyvershe (as I have a hunch this is just up your alley!)

[ohshcscenerios]

The Case for Takashi x Haruhi P.2

Welcome to Part Two of The Case for MorixHaru Series! Today we will be exploring Volume 3. If you want to read Part One I will include the link here. This is a multi-part series so expect more posts after this one!

Please Note: 

This post will include manga spoilers. 

This is all in the name of fun. I am by no means insulting or “disproving” other pairings. I am just a person who wants to spread more MorixHaru love into the world.

Feel free to agree or disagree, I’d love to know your thoughts. 

Shall we begin?

Willing Participant 

In Volume 3, Episode 8 the Host Club goes to the beach. This episode is famous for the interaction between Haruhi and Kyoya (for obvious reasons) but staying true to our case we will exclude that from this post. Today we are focusing on Takashi and Haruhi. 

Surprisingly, the live action follows the manga more closely than the anime in this episode. Meaning, the anime excludes a few moments between Takashi and Haruhi. 

When Haruhi is whisked away to the beach she doesn’t show much interest in participating in the fun. She doesn’t join the twins in their game of volleyball or even swims with her guests. Although the beach was technically her idea she doesn’t seem to be enjoying herself. 

That is, until Takashi and Mitsukuni invite her to collect seashells. 

Haruhi’s demeanor changes when Takashi hands her a bucket and Mitsukuni points out the beach filled with yummy seashells and she happily claims a spot on the beach to begin collecting. Just like that, she went from sulking on a rock to playing in the sand.

I find this interesting because Haruhi doesn’t usually accept the host’s invitations to join their fun. Even after this episode the other hosts must resort to kidnapping if they want Haruhi to participate in their fun. However, when Takashi and Mitsukuni invite her to collect seashells she doesn’t put up a fight. She accepts the bucket with a “thank you”. 

Unnoticed Effort  

When the Host Club discovers they can impress Haruhi with different seashells they begin showing her their finds like blue mussels and scallops. What does Takashi try to give her? 

An octopus.

I was surprised by this because normally you wouldn’t find octopus on the beach unless they were either washed up by the tide (remember, it was low tide) or a specific species known as kaurna - an octopus that buries itself in sand. This means Takashi probably went into the water and found an octopus to present as a gift to Haruhi.

Our boy was trying really hard to impress Haruhi!

When the Host Club sets off the find her weakness our silent shy host puts in unnoticed effort to win. Most of Takashi’s involvement is directly correlated with Mitsukuni’s participation but look closer. Takashi puts in extra effort beside helping his cousin.

A little side note; when the twins suggest their “find Haruhi’s weakness” game and Kyoya offers her photos as a prize, notice how Mitsukuni says “we want to join” rather than “I want to join”. Takashi is too shy to admit he wants the photos too.

When Mitsukuni tries to scare Haruhi with tall heights, Takashi tests it further by lifting her even higher. 

Takashi wants to win those pictures.

Note how he picks her up after she says, “if we fell we might die”. I feel he wanted to hit two birds with one stone; testing her potential fear of heights while keeping her safe from falling.

And when Mitsukuni’s idea fails Takashi tests another theory; the fear of sharp things. Have we known Takashi to really involve himself unless Mitsukuni persists? I see Takashi really trying to win those photos of Haruhi. 

Takashi Loves Her

Another difference between the anime and the manga is how Haruh is handled after falling off the cliff. 

It’s worth noting in the manga Haruhi isn’t pushed off the cliff, as seen in the anime, but instead punched in the face and falls off the cliff. That’s why she’s bleeding from the cheek and everyone’s shocked by her appearance. 

I find this interesting because when Tamaki emerges with Haruhi he begins giving orders to the other hosts on how to handle the situation. He tells Kyoya, Kaoru, and Hikaru to dismiss the guests. He tells Mitsukuni to call for a doctor. The only person he doesn’t give orders to is Takashi. 

The anime shows Tamaki setting her down on the beach but in the manga he passes her to... Takashi.

This leads me to believe Takashi voluntarily took Haruhi from Tamaki. But why would he? Because he is worried about her! Takashi wanted to hold her, probably to reassure himself that she was ok. And this may be a stretch but he probably wanted to hold her because he knows she’s safest with him (referring to the jungle scene). I imagine Takashi opening his arms in front of Tamaki, signaling to hand Haruhi over. 

Tamaki chastises her for facing the bullies alone and stubborn Haruhi refuses to apologize for her actions. The manga focuses the fight between Tamaki and Haruhi but look at who also is affected. Takashi looks tired and upset, as if the scare on the cliff drained him emotionally.

Also, I notice that Haruhi seems to lean into Takashi after Tamaki’s outburst. As if she’s subconsciously leaning into him for support.

Now... this may be a really long stretch... but what is rolling down Takashi’s cheek? Is it sweat or is it a tear? I’ll let you decide.

Now, when the Host Club retire to Nekozawa’s mansion, there is a big difference between the anime and the manga that needs to be said. In the manga, Takashi does not retrieve Haruhi for dinner. Instead, she joins them after switching on the circuit breaker in the basement. I know a lot people like to imagine what happened between them in the hallway but the manga truth is... that never happened. However, the dinner scene is still an important moment for Haruhi and Takashi, both respectively and collectively.  

When the hosts are eating together the conversation plays out normally; Tamaki and Haruhi continue to argue until Tamaki storms off to bed, taking Kyoya with him. Mitsukuni and the twins reveal they were upset because they worried about her. 

This is where I get upset with the anime. Absolutely no where in the anime do they show Takashi showing an ounce of emotion during the dinner scene. In the anime he is just eating his crab, minding his own business, and not involved in their conversation whatsoever. 

However, in the manga, Takashi behaves very differently. In the manga he isn’t mindlessly eating crab. He’s involved in the conversation. He’s actively listening. He’s silently telling Haruhi he was also worried with his attentive expression. 

I’m genuinely upset about how the anime snubbed Takashi in this scene. He is just as important as the other hosts and yet his emotions were nearly scrubbed clean in the anime scene. (This is why it’s important to also read the manga).

When she finally apologizes he doesn’t stand behind her eating crab as in the anime. He accepts her apology by patting her head. 

I have a theory; when Takashi pats Haruhi’s head he is silently expressing his affection to her. Think about it, Haruhi is the only one to receive head pats from Takashi (I’m sure Mitsukuni has too but not in the same context). Up to this point in the manga we do not see him patting the other hosts’ heads. I surmise Takashi’s head pats is how he’s trying to flirt with Haruhi. 

Moving on...

When Haruhi begins to feel sick she doesn’t run off into the nearest room as she did in the anime. Instead, someone voluntarily picks her up and rushes her to the nearest restroom. Guess who that person is.

Takashi. 

Notice how he wasn’t ordered by Mitsukuni to help her. In fact, it appears the other hosts were surprised by Takashi’s haste action by how the twins cheered him on. 

At this point, Takashi doesn’t need permission to help Haruhi. He doesn’t need his cousin - or anyone else for that matter - to tell him when to step in. Why? Because I believe he loves her. At this point in the manga I think it’s safe to say Takashi loves Haruhi. 

Persuasion of Love

 Let’s move onto Episode 8; when the Host Club collides with the Zuka Club. Here we see the Host Club feeling threatened in losing Haruhi and they band together to keep her at Ouran Academy. For this episode we are going to zoom our microscope onto Takashi and his reactions/facial expressions. 

We’ve already established he has become protective over her but in this episode we now see another side of Takashi. We see he has also become possessive over her. 

Let’s study his expression when Benio threatens to disband the Host Club. He looks angry and even a little confused. He’s obviously upset alongside everyone else.

Now, let’s compare his previous expression to this expression when Benio threatens to steal away Haruhi. His expression grows a pinch darker. His eyes are wider, his mouth slightly gaped, and a pointed stare at Benio. She is no longer targeting the club as a whole. She’s targeting Haruhi. His Haruhi.

His expressions went from “As If” to “Over My Dead Body”. 

Now, I have heard people say this episode is where they believe Haruhi’s and Takashi’s relationship turns platonic; because when the Host Club dresses in drag Takashi chooses to remain strictly male. The anime makes a side note “Brother Only” when introducing the hosts in their costumes; making it seem Takashi has been friend-zoned or their relationship turned into one between siblings. 

I disagree. In fact, I think his decision to dress as a male further proves his feelings for Haruhi. 

I surmise Takashi didn’t want Haruhi to see him as anything other than a man. He didn’t want to compromise his masculinity in front of Haruhi. Takashi wants Haruhi to see him as a man; a man who could love her and take care of her. 

Now, Takashi doesn’t have a problem being flexible with his masculinity. We see him taking on a more submissive role with Mitsukuni all the time; allowing Mitsukuni to lead in dance, wearing the matching costume to Mitsukuni’s costume, and serving the tea and cakes during hosting hours for Mitsukuni and their guests. 

So why wouldn’t he dress as a “sister” alongside Mitsukuni? Why would he be a “brother only” Takashi?

I think whether he realizes it or not, Takashi’s feelings are growing more serious for Haruhi. His feelings are transitioning from “crush” to “wanting a relationship/courtship”. 

He wants Haruhi to see him in a more serious light because he’s becoming serious about her. 

Is this a stretch? Yes. This whole post is a stretch. This whole series is a stretch. But Takashi deserves Haruhi so we will continue! 

Let’s move onto Episode 12, when the Host Club visits Haruhi at her home. 

This episode is also famous for MorixHaru because of the strawberry exchange - and we’ll get to that - but first I want to point something out. 

We’ve been heavily delving into Takashi’s feelings during this post but here we have a glimpse of Haruhi’s feelings as well. 

When Haruhi serves the tea she gives Takashi the biggest mug. This size of mug is also evident in the anime which coincidentally is when I first noticed it. I thought it was interesting Haruhi gave Takashi the biggest cup. If I had to guess why, I would say it’s because she’s also developing feelings for him. But she’s too oblivious when it comes to herself so she probably doesn’t think twice about it. 

But I’m sure Takashi noticed. In fact, I would go as far as saying receiving the biggest mug is what inspired him to share his strawberries with her. Because now he is picking up on her unintentional hints, therefore getting more comfortable with her.

(I apologize for the poor photo quality. I tried multiple times for a decent photo and this was the best one >.<) 

I find it interesting that after Haruhi chooses a strawberry cake Takashi still asks her if she likes strawberries. Our boy is a true gentleman at heart. Look at him trying to make sure she’s going to enjoy her cake.  

We cannot conclude this post without mentioning how much Haruhi blushes when she thanks him for the strawberries. Look at that blush! It’s completely taken over her cheeks! I also love how Takashi smiles at her happiness. He just loves that he made her happy. If we look closer in the next frame we can also see that he happily watches her enjoy her cake. 

He’s so proud of himself for making her happy and simply watches her eat her cake. It’s so adorable and really shows how much he has fallen for their host maiden. 

Alright, I need to end this ridiculously long post, but stay tuned for further posts in the series! We are far from done! (I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, considering how much time and effort I put into these posts) 

Watch out for Part Three in The Case for Takashi and Haruhi! 

[lovemecharlie]

Meet My Family

Charlie meets the wives. Part of the origin.

“Come with me to Cali. Visit the mansion one time and if you don’t like it, I’ll bring you right back.” It was the third time Erik had asked and every time, a wave of stress would wash over me. If I was a mistress, then let me be a sinner in peace. Hide me in the shadows, don’t parade me through your wives’ domain.

“Wow, you are really pushing this wife thing. What’s wrong with us dating?” Loading the table with our dinner, I set out crab legs, shrimp, cheddar biscuits, and a small salad. To me, dating is preferable. Fall out of love? Just leave. Partner cheat? Walk away. Something doesn't work out for you? Leave. Why anyone would willingly tie themselves to another person with paperwork was beyond me. “Erik, the concept of marriage is archaic. I mean, why would you even marry six people in the first place when you could've just dated them? I don't get it.” I turn and flinch inwardly because he's directly and unexpectedly in my face. Everything is quiet and it's like the world stops as his burning stare eats through me.

“You wanna know why got married, Charlie? Why I did it six times?” The intensity behind his eyes makes me nervous, like I might have actually offended him. “I married six women who I can't and refuse to live without. I've pledged my life and my muthafuckin soul to these women. I am their provider, protector, and biggest supporter. If I die, everything I have will go to them.”

I gulp and he still doesn't blink. “What do you get, Charlie? You don't get shit but this dick and that's when I have the free time to spare. You don’t get my benefits when we’re just dating and trust me, you want them. Being married can increase your wealth 16% in a year. 500% when you’re married to me.”

“It could also shorten my lifespan and increase my already high stress levels as an American black woman. Do you care?”

“You wanna live forever or you want this money?”

“Think about what you just asked me and tell me if that’s a question worth answering.” He knew that was a dumb question.

“You making this more complicated than it has to be. Just meet my family. You my therapist ain't you? They deserve to meet you.”

“Do they wanna meet me?”

“I talk about you all the time. They know you’re coming eventually. Besides, they know I be confiding in you, they just don't know I tell you everything.. so tread slow with that when you get.”

“Confidentially is key with me.” I take my cloth napkin and shake it out dramatically, folding it in my lap. Ugh. I can feel a headache coming. Rubbing my temples, I close my eyes to think and reflect. This entire relationship is a ‘fuck you’ to the Code of Ethics and I'm still talking about confidentially. He's like an addiction and I can’t decide whether or not it's healthy for me. I look up and I can see him staring, the request still burning. His eyes are pleading.

“FINE! Fine, I'll go.”

“That’s all I wanted,” he grins grabbing the crab legs. It's like his energy has shifted into something lighthearted and joyful. I can't even feel bitter or annoyed because he's smiling and that look that he has is something contagious.

◇

He was proud of his jet. It was a beautiful jet! Luxurious, big, clean.. The perfect place for me to join the mile-high club. I cemented my membership three times before the plane landed. The ride cross country was much shorter than it would've been had we flown commercial. After landing, we took a car and rolled up to a gate which led to a mega-property. A mansion. From the parking garage, there was an elevator and the doors opened into a scene rivaling the most beautiful timeshare. “Whoa,” was all I could muster. There was a large living room.

“HENNESSY! ALY'SHA! RYLEY! ANGEL! HOMIE! KIMORA! GET Y'ALL ASSES IN HERE,” he yells, his bracelet picking up the sound like a transmitter. Within minutes, six women appear, stopping short to stare. The tiny light bright looks like she wants to snap my neck. Angele has an expression that reads standoffish in the most aggressive way. The last one looks me up and down like I’m intruding. I could kill Erik. It looks like they're caught off guard. He grabs my hand tugging me forward and then rests his large arm around my waist causing eyebrows to raise.

“This is Charlie,” he says firmly. Thankfully realization strikes and their faces relax. The third one waved a dismissive hand, releasing a small relieved sigh and the small first spoke up.

“Okay, so you're Charlie. We were expecting you. N'Jadaka doesn't shut up about his beloved therapist. No offense.”

“Be nice, Henny,” Erik raises a brow.

“So you're trying to marry into our family,” Angele stares, holding a hand up to Erik to keep him from interjecting. Her diamond ring is blinding as she angles it forward purposely. “What exactly do you know about us, Miss Jade?”

A lot. I'm starting to piece together who is who based on the personalities. They're just as Erik described.

“Erik's said nothing but good things about you all. I hope he's offered me that same kindness.”

“Mmmm. Well, Erik doesn't have the final say over whether you join this house or otherwise,” Kimora says stepping up and snapping her fingers. She circles me before stopping in front and looking back to the others. “She's cute, I guess.”

“Either way, anyone wanting into Daddy's heart or into this family gotta get through us,” Ryley shrugs. Erik bends down to whisper in my ear and I turn nervously to grab his arm before he can walk away.

“Just be yourself,” he smiles squeezing my chin before eyeing everyone in the room. “Have fun!” With a chuckle, he disappears down a hall and I'm left with six women who surround me.

“So, Charlie..” Hennessy smiles, “You like animals? We got tigers if you wanna see them.”

“As long as you don't sick them on me just to get get rid of me? Hell yeah,” I snort following them outside into the yard where there is an enclosure. “I’ve always loved cats of every size. Two of my best friends are cats. One, a black housecat and two, a gentle tiger. We have an understanding.” Their tigers are beautiful and resting like lazy overgrown kittens. There's a snow white one that steals my heart, but it also has claws that could take my life. “..I'm serious y'all.. Just ask if you want me to leave…,” I smile nervously and Aly'sha chuckles.

“That one's mine. Completely harmless.”

“Oh okay,” I breathe. The group starts to chuckle and soon everyone's laughing.

“You're really nervous,” Angele smiles.

“Tryna make a good impression,” I admit.

“Relax. We already like you,” Homie deadpans. It's the first time she's spoken to me.

@poosypoosy @bastioncarterstevens-udaku @hennessystevens-udaku @itsangeludaku @alyshastevens-udaku @itskimorafireudaku @allhailnjadaka @bidibidibombaclaat @blackpinup22 @destinio1 @hold-me-like-a-heart-beat @leahnicole1219 @vikkidc @thehomierobbstark

[arcticnami]

The English Teacher

Fluff, drabble. 

“Are you ready to start off the week y/n?” Jimin’s cheerful smile is too much for seven in the morning.

You give the choir director a small smile, “Yeah test scores weren’t great though so my day is going to start off rough.”

His warm hand squeezes your shoulder as the two of you approach the school door. “I’m sure it’ll be fine, we can go out after work if you want?” Jimin’s eyes twinkle with mischief, probably pondering setting you up again with one of his relatives.

You give him a light shove, “It’s monday, we aren’t going out on a monday,we are nerdy teachers.” A sigh escapes your lips as the two of you head into the school, it’s quiet for now. “I’ll see you at lunch yeah?” Jimin gives you another smile and nods as you two part ways.

The school is decorated with different posters of club activities as well as different artwork the art teacher, Seulgi decides to highlight for the time being. The posters lining your door mainly historical quotes but you also kept different flyers from faculty members that you are quite close with. Jimin’s choir concert flyers are a permanent fixture. As well as Hoseok’s ‘stay fit’ flyer and Taehyung’s theater productions.

You unlock your classroom door with a small struggle, like always the lock was giving you trouble. A quick jiggle of the key allows you to finally unlock the door with a frustrated sigh. The small sticker of a crab on the window brings back the small smile on your face. As a gift to Namjoon, the English teacher across the hall, he insisted on giving you one of the cute sticker sheet you had gifted him. His exact words were, “I can’t not share the cuteness.” The simple thought of your fellow coworker brought an idiotic smile to cover your face.

Your computer turns on as you prepare for the day putting your stuff under your desk. The projector that was refusing to cooperate was still the same from last week but the small sticker was on your mind allowing you not to freak out over the dysfunctioning projector.

“Jimin said you were in a funky mood but you look fine to me.”

With a sharp glare at Jungkook who stood in your doorway you wave your hand at the projector. “Fix please.”

He just rolls his eyes, “So you ARE in a funky mood.”

You give him a sarcastic smile, “I was just a little pessimistic earlier with some poor test grades.”

He nods, “Tough life of being a teacher am i right?” The technology teacher jumps on one of the desks and starts to find the problem with the projector hanging from your ceiling.

“Thanks for helping by the way,” you mumble fiddling with your empty mug glancing at the door, normally Namjoon came by at this time to walk down to the teachers lounge with you to get the coffee Yoongi normally made when he got to school at the butt crack of dawn.

Jungkook steals a quick look at your quiet frame staring at your save the bees mug. “He’s not here, he might be running late. I’ll walk you down to the lounge if you want.” The younger teacher wiggles his eyebrows at your depressed state making you frown.

“Some company would be nice,” you shrug and turn to leave your classroom before Jungkook could start complaining. You knew he was trying to cheer you up but he was going to complain the whole short walk to the lounge. He had always been a loyal friend, meaning he was going to tease you about your crush on the English teacher and cheer you up when needed. He was also going to complain about everything.

“I don’t even like coffee,” he grumbled as he caught up with you. His long legs allowed him to walk ahead of you to open the door to the lounge and close in your face.

“Jerk.” You sent him a glare and Jungkook gave you an award winning smile as he searched the fridge for something.

Yoongi stood at the counter sipping his coffee, black. He picks up the coffee pot and pours you coffee in your outstretched arms. This was how your mornings work, normally Namjoon would walk with you to the lounge to get coffee, he would try starting a conversation with Yoongi who really hated being up so early simply nodding at whatever the English teacher was rambling on about as you give him a sympathetic smile as a way to apologize for your over talkative colleague.

“You guys are weird,” Jungkook states loudly interrupting Yoongi’s silent morning.

“That’s my yogurt you little shit,” Yoongi responds to Jungkook practically chugging the yogurt Jungkook pulled out of the fridge forgoing a spoon.

Jungkook slowly lowers the cup of yogurt and glances between you and Yoongi, “It said Seokjin on it, not Yoongi.”

“He brought it for me,” Yoongi responds taking a long sip of his coffee while staring at Jungkook. “This makes Namjoon’s blabber sound much more appealing,” Yoongi says as he makes his way out of the lounge to get away from the technology teacher.

Jungkook frowns and looks at you purposely ignoring the two teachers as you pour creamer into your coffee cup.

“You ready to head back?” You look at Jungkook pouting as he eats the rest of the yogurt.

He shrugs and tosses the now empty cup into the trash bin and walks you back to your room.

“I’ll see you at lunch,” he says with a pout and heads a few doors down.

You shake your head and finish pulling up your notes on your computer for your students as they walk in for the day.

The morning goes by quick as your class is working on their presentation coming up allowing you to finish grading a few things. The class before the lunch period was filled with quiet chatter as you stare the computer screen in front of you, grade input was finicky at times. The class grows quiet all of a sudden making you frown and look at your students who are looking at you with curiosity. You glance at the clock on your computer screen to see there were still 2 minutes left before the bell rang.

“Class isn’t over yet,” you roll your eyes at yourself, what a teacher thing to say.

A throat was cleared near the doorway causing you to turn your head towards the door.

“Oh.. Hello, what can i do for you Mr. Kim?” your voice squeaked a little as you remember you need to remain professional in front of your students, the last thing they needed to see was your school girl crush over their english teacher.

Namjoon stood in the doorway peering at the stack of papers in his hand.

“I was wondering if you could read these over for historical accuracy,” he mumbles as his brown eyes finally turn to look at you.

“He could just google it ya know.”

Namjoon frowns at your class now after whispers break out. The students were right, he could just google it but he wasn’t like that.

“You can’t believe everything on the internet children,” he scolds.

“I can take a look, do you want to go over this later?” You finally respond as you take the stapled copy from his hands. You flip through the pages quickly as the whispers around you continue. Weird, I think he’s shown this to me before.

Namjoon nods ignoring the students now and lowers his voice, “The lounge would be too loud at lunch, do you want to get dinner tonight?”

Your eyes shoot up to look at Namjoon who was staring at you intently. The bell rings and the students don’t run out of the room as fast as they normally would, some of them even walked past Namjoon slowly in attempt to hear the conversation.

“I would love to, but uh Namjoon?” You take a quick look at the students walking out of the room.Your voice lowers even further, “We’ve spoken about this before, last semester maybe?”

His cheeks turn pink and he clears his throat once more, “Yeah I know, my free period was getting quite boring so I wanted a reason to come talk to you. I’m sorry I missed this morning.”

It was your turn to blush now, “Oh, it’s okay. Jungkook came to fix my projector this morning.”

He nods, “I still want to know if you want to get dinner tonight.”

You smile and stand up grabbing your lunch bag and water bottle, “I’d love too.”

“But you didn’t want to go out with me,” Jimin says appearing out of thin air behind Namjoon with his lunch bag.

[sjohnson24]

Legends of The Moon & Poetry

Enchanted Moon Your heart is like a mirror and I am the seer of love. Words rise up from my lips and I can feel the sun kiss me. I am never alone. Your anger is like a natural disaster. I put the beast to sleep with a song. My halo is a divine flower growing from a seed I nourish with powerful thoughts. Our souls are like vines twisting, nurtured in green gardens of the underworld. Dreams pour from the moon and slip through my hands like memories. Diana Pagan Goddess of the Moonlight Diana is the goddess of the hunt. She transformed into a goddess of the moonlight. She is a great goddess and has been worshipped in many positive ways. She is the queen of Heaven. She is always standing up for women and their rights. She is fabled to have turned herself into a black cat and snuck into Lucifer’s chambers as he was sleeping. She then got pregnant in his bed with their daughter, Aradia who is the goddess of the witches.

Moonlight Can you feel the moonlight? Super moon come closer to me. Whisper secrets of the night into my ears like a flowing sea. Moonflower is growing in time with the song of outer space. You are the paradigm of beauty, Your visions and spells encase me in a magic shell like a glass coffin sleeping forever and waiting for you like Endymion and Selene dreaming dreaming my heart in the moonlight is blooming.

The Goddess of the Moon and Endymion The goddess of the moon has a different name in each culture. Diana is a derivative of a Latin word meaning bright sky. As the Queen of Heaven she rules as Inanna. In Greek mythology she can be compared to Selene. There are legends of love in each culture between her and Endymion. He was a very beautiful mortal. She found him to be irresistible. She wanted to have him forever yet he was a mortal. She begged God to put him into an eternal sleep and he did. He sleeps eternally dreaming.

The Legend of the Vampire In Greek mythology, the legend of the vampire began with Selene and Ambrogio. Ambrogio was a handsome Italian man with a desire to travel. He wanted to visit Greece to have his fortunes told. Recorded in the scriptures of Delphi was this tale. He met Selene at the moon temple and they fell in love. Apollo, the god of the sun was also in love with Selene. He placed a curse on Ambrogio that he could not go out into the sun so that he could not go back and meet Selene at the moon temple. Ambrogio ran into a cave where Hades was dwelling. He told him he would help if he could recover the hunting bow of Artemis. He sold his soul to the devil. After many days he began writing poetry for Selene and begged Artemis for her help. She decided to help him. The lovers were finally able to meet and Ambrogio wrote her a note asking her to meet him at his ship as he was to set sail back to Italy. He was sleeping in a coffin and he told her not to open it until after the sunset because the sun would burn him. She sailed with him and they were in love together. Artemis helped Selene to become immortal by teaching Ambrogio how to drink her blood and turn her into a vampire queen. This was the beginning of vampires in Greek mythology and also the beginning of Selene as the moon goddess.

Temple I am a temple made for a holy spirit, a vase filled with many dreams that pour out like water to form the mist upon my wings.

Space Goddess Shooting stars orbit those crystal souls a gold heart, glowing aura angel goddess cosmic tides rushing heat lava over coal diamond indigo children alien abductions locked minds, strange celestial emotions tragic memory white metal key seductions lost in our outer space spirit misplaced planetary alignment comets crosses faith prisms bows raindrop rebels tears erased terrible emotions dreams without purpose revelations, salutations, sky vibrations spiritual purpose star map magic serpent don’t give up the humanity of our touches hands together clasped forever in prayer Gods design fingers entwine his clutches.

Seraphim Love is my hunter My eyes fill up with the sea

Wings cover my face.

As I talk about a pagan goddess above, let me go back into time, back to 2014, in which I was inspired to write about a man-god, a half god named Hercules after watching the latest movie about Hercules.   I will call this The Legends of Hercules.

The Mythology Hercules is the legendary hero of the era of Greek and Roman mythology. He is a great force who is half mortal and half immortal. In Greek mythology he is worshipped as a God.The story of Hercules starts when Zeus and his mother meet. Her name is Alcmena. She is the daughter of a great warrior. His name is Amphitryon. His father is a king. His kingdom is Tiryns.The great goddess Hera discovered that Zeus had been with Alcmena. Out of jealousy she tried to kill Hercules as an infant- sending two snakes into his crib to kill him. Hercules killed the serpents.

Hercules married a woman named Megara. She was a daughter of a king that Hercules won the right to marry in battle. He ended up killing her and her children in a rage set in by Hera. Hercules is a hero so to him this is devastating. He needed forgiveness so he traveled to meet an oracle in Delphi. He could be forgiven if he performed 12 labors for his kingdom.

Here is the Twelve Labors of Hercules:

Slay the Nemean Lion The Nemean Lion was actually a shape shifting woman that would lure men into the rocks with her human damsel in distress tricks. Upon coming closer she turned into a lion and would eat them. Hercules destroyed her with her own sharp claw.

Slay the nine-headed Lernaean Hydra Hercules cut off the head of the Hydra with a golden sword that Athena had lent to him. Hera sent down a giant crab like monster to try to distract Hercules. Lolaus is his nephew and he fought alongside with him at this point.

Capture the Golden Hind of Artemis. The hind was very hard to capture, but Hercules did this even though it took him traveling through many countries to accomplish this.

Capture the Erymanthian Boar. Hercules has the help of a centaur to complete this task.

Clean the Augean stables in a single day. He reset the directions of two rivers to accomplish this task.

Slay the Stymphalian Birds. These are man eating birds with beaks of bronze and feathers of metal. These birds were sacred to Ares. Athena decided to help Hercules because the birds were destroying crops. She gave him a rattle made by Hephaestus.

Capture the Cretan Bull. Hercules battled this bull with his bare hands. He actually let it go free because his companion wanted to sacrifice it to Hera but Hera would not accept it.

Steal the Mares of Diomedes. Hercules kills the owner of the mares and feeds them the body which acts as a tranquilizer.

Obtain the girdle of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. A beautiful princess wanted a belt given to an Amazon Queen by Ares. He ended up killing the Queen because Hera interceded and made it so the Queen was paranoid instead of kind and she tried to go up against Hercules.

Obtain the cattle of the monster Geryon. Hercules captures each last cattle and has them disguise their tracks by getting them to walk backwards.

Steal the apples of the Hesperides. Hercules captures a shape shifting, Old Man of the Sea to figure out the location of this garden. Hercules agreed to hold up the world for a moment for Atlas while than shaking the fruit free.

Capture and bring back Cerberus. He learned from Eleusis how to enter and exit the underworld alive. Then he attacked it with his bare hands and dragged it up to the Earth.

After the twelve labors Hercules lived the rest of his life much the same way. He had many adventurous and the God’s were still highly interested in his acts.

The Constellation of Hercules

The constellation of Hercules is the fifth brightest constellation in the sky. The constellation is said to represent Hercules standing over the dragon that guards the entrance to the garden where the golden apple was.

Beta Herculis is the brightest star in this constellation. This constellation has fifteen stars with planets orbiting within.

The Two stars Vega and Lyra lay very close by.

Hercules – Starring Dwayne Johnson (Movie Review by Deanna Jaxine Stinson – Movie Critic)

The Hercules Movie was just released. The role of Hercules is played by Dwayne Johnson. It is based on the graphic novel Hercules: The Thracian Wars. Dwayne Johnson doesn’t wear his shirt for most all of the movie. He rarely has armor on. He is good at being intimidating.

In the movie, Hercules has companions that seem familiar to the people that he encounters in the mythologies of his twelve labors. The movie doesn’t explain the twelve labors exactly or the people that came from his past. The characters are all just there and there are no introductions.

The woman warrior in his group is an Amazon Queen so I am assuming they were trying to keep that labor alive yet they don’t explain how she began traveling with him.

His nephew is also by his side much like in the legends.

There is also a very funny oracle that travels with him. He has visions that he thinks his companions don’t take seriously yet they do because he foresees his own death at one point but is saved thanks to his friends that are listening despite their silence.

Hercules starts with the last labor. Hercules is just ready to finish his last task when he changes his mind and a new story is written and that is the movie of Hercules.

I recommend this movie because it stays true to the mythology of Hercules and continues on from that point with a new story. It is funny and intense. The monsters are beautiful to look at on the screen in the flashbacks.

It is a good movie if you know the legends well and even if you don’t. Hercules is a well-known story continued on through modern motion picture.

[indomitablemegnolia]

I looked at the riot of the crowd; yes, I know very few people would consider twelve people around a modest sized beach bonfire a rioting crowd, but I was never like most other people. God, it felt wonderful seeing so many I love happy, laughing. Yes, some; well, many, had fallen away over the long journey through hell to sunshine, but finally, we can see it, we can feel it; home. All that was ever needed was for one thing, one tiny thing to fall into place and the rest, mere details fell like dominoes. I kept pinching myself making sure this wasn’t pure fantasy; every pinch I prayed that if it was fantasy, that this pinch wouldn’t have the audacity to wake me up back in that land of gray and black. Those charcoal hues; god, I still wash daily from my skin, never coming clean. Hope had always waited just at the threshold of the day to come, whispering this one might be happier. So often it was just a dream of possibility; that possibility of happier, that kept us going; especially in those times we were starved; we literally would assess daily looking at eachother wondering which we would eat first. Today, so different from those days not so long ago; there was a lightness to the air. I can smell the salty surf, still taste the buttery lemon sweetness of the fresh caught crab. I could feel the warmth of the bonfire against my side. The air was crisp, smelled clean, deliciously invigorating. The sky, that sky, deep indigo, the darkest blue before true black, sprinkled with twinkling lights, mmm the stars yes, but also strings and strings of lights hung beautifully overhead making an amazing contrast. I have always written; some write in an effort to find themselves, pulling themselves through some façade with a spit finish shine. I always have known who I am, exactly where I was and why I had taken up residences in Dante’s seventh ring of hell; NO, I have never felt the need for a quest of self-discovery. I always write in the hopes of finding you. In writing, though I discovered I am a criminal of the worst type; I am a thief, stealing moments of sunshine; I am a fraud saying damnably that every little thing would be alright, but the worst was the horrible truths. My fingers like knives; my screen a victim that I would wound with each keystroke, I would maim and destroy, every result, every dream murdered, but always a journey well worth it. Though, I have never found you; which might be a good thing as I would have broken and bloodied you, as well. I always found myself just within inches of you, then being torn away amazingly to some other unknown hell. I still love that boy with green eyes and wide shoulders; that thievish smile that could whisk away my girlish mind and heart… alas now I am far from a girl and he, no longer a boy; growing always a horror, but in the ether, I know you became a glorious man. I know I somehow missed my chance; missed him entirely, never finding him in this world, but there is always the next and the one after, and even the one after that. My brother laughs, deep, hearty, beautiful; I smile, looking up out of my own thoughts; yet, I lament that I only have the one brother now. Of those in life that take their leave, I had never imagined that they would be among those that would have cut our mooring, setting us further adrift with a happy smile; waving us a happy farewell. I watch as my family hugs, holding each other. This is all I ever need, these few that I LOVE, to be happy. Plucking on a guitar my father sings one of his nonsensical songs and I remember back to being that girl who thought those songs to always be the very best; Glad, that these were all part of my story, part of my stories. As a great con artist once told me, as he was cleaning me out, that to make it convincing all good lies need at least eighty percent truth, if not more, to make it that much more believable, the con is in the details; those little threads of gold and silver that sew the story together; it really is simple that the human mind sees the plain and simple truth, pulls it in, but we focus on those thready details. Like a ghost, I see some phantom shadow, in the dark just past the firelight boundary; shaking my head clearing the bourbon cob webs, I thought I spied Life, himself; I thought I saw him, wide shoulders lovingly held in a dark warm pea coat, the white of his teeth as he smiled. Dark jeans and shirt with that damn face. I sighed, sinking back into the music, into memory, it would be a delicious little story; my father along with several friends raise their voices, rousing that music to a divinely atonal fit of harmonious laughter. I basked in it and swirled the ice in my glass, letting the firelight play with the colour. I know that Life had told me that he no longer cared for me; that I never really was worth his time; leaving me in a heap to die in a desert; Terminus, like his brother, thought me too much effort to keep, like a badly behaved puppy abandoned but the highway; he didn’t feel the need to step into lifes footprints just yet; so, alas it couldn’t be either of them. Ironically, I was not alive enough for one; yet not enough of a corpse for the other; dammit, it seems everyone else simply is ALIVE or they die, easily, happily. Here I was, stuck in almost a purgatory state, but I suppose I shouldn’t complain, there are worse options… there are always worse options. Watching the waves crash, listening to the rush and fall, the light wind kissing my face and I rested back against the driftwood log, taking a long drink. I had known battle; I have battled bloody for the things I wanted… needed. I have found… most of my wishes; I now knew what it feels like to be as free as the air; I had seen and felt so much; I have tasted every flavour found and found, yes, some that left the palate soured for decades; Of late I have known ease and pleasure and both were so delicious, I have some friends and love my family, but I… I still long to be dearly loved; god don’t get me wrong I am loved, but not passionately; not that tarry to the edge of madness kind of love, love. I stand, shrugging, I down the rest of my drink smiling into the warm hug it wrapped me in. I look down at my bare feet, toes buried in the sand, the cuffs of my Levi’s stopping mid-calf. What an end to the story. I shiver as warm softness at my back delights my senses, I breathe in a familiar scent. I lean my head slightly to the side closing my eyes. I felt his warm breath caress my ear, his frame dwarf my own, the mellow hint of bourbon and possibly tobacco carried on his sigh. It danced across my neck to my ear, caressing my cheek, brushing my lips. “Stories,” His voice low almost a whisper, husky and deep, like rolling thunder, delicious, “all we are made of is stories.” His lips, almost, not quite, but almost, graze the lobe of my ear; god, he didn’t have to touch me, that damn voice made my knees weak. “Good stories, bad stories, sometimes even sad stories, it is all that we are.” My soul simpered almost panting; though, the breath in me had seized, I panted; this was the sound that caused the entire universe to mellow to a low hum. “It has been said that stories are nothing but lies.” I sighed out, breath escaping my lips. “Oh, but those stories that seem the most full of lies hold our deepest hidden truths.” He growled low in my ear, nuzzling my neck. “Lie to me.” he pleaded I laughed and squealed as his sigh seeped into my every synapse, “The truth is I never knew how to describe you to anyone. You were always beautifully yourself and to me… that is perfection.” “Mmm, what a delightful lie, deliciously truthful. I found you, finally. If you had known where I searched, all of the hells I have seen that you had already passed through, always missing you by moments...“ He pulls me tight, the air rushed from my lungs; oh, the dizzying passion made my knees weak. “You and I… we were meant to be the most wonderful collection of unwritten poems and never to be painted masterpieces.” His words intoxicated my mind, I never am sure what is real and what simply happened in my mind. Real or not, he delighted my senses his lips his teeth delighted my neck, teasing, kissing, softly licking. I let out a soft moan falling back; wrapping myself into him; folding myself into his arms; he curled me close lavishing my neck with kisses making my bones dissolve. I sigh, I gasp, I am lost in that world of feeling. The literal rumble of his voice reverberates off of my every cell, “I had always thought your laugh would be my favourite thing about you, but god that moan… once I heard those sighs, that gasp, it is like a siren’s song. I would happily drown.” He sighed turning me in his arms, holding me tight cradling me in the safety of his strong arms. My eyes take him in, he was not Life, not Terminus, he was living breathing, he was real. A human, but still it is that face that always haunts me. “Finally, safely I am home.” I relaxed in his arms “No, sweet there is no such thing as safety; there is no such thing, we can hold each other in the darkness, but that doesn’t make the darkness go away. The nightmares still walk; horror is still there, but when we are here to hold each other we feel not alone which is the best a human could hope for. ‘its fine’ we whisper to each other, ‘I am here,’ ‘I love you,’ we even lie ‘I will never leave.’ So just for a moment, we are not alone and the darkness isn’t so terrible.” I tense and try to push away from him, my moment shattered. “Then why even bother, it is not even worth it, go back to the dark.” “Oh, but my sweet it is always worth having tried; even if we fail, if we fall like a meteor forever burning across the sky it is always worth having tried. Better to have flamed in the darkness to show others the way; to have lived if just for a second; to have flown if only for the 86 seconds from the sky to the ground; it is better to have loved, than have sat alone in the darkness, cursing those who never knew we were there.” “And if we do burn out like that meteor?” “Oh, darling, but if we don’t.” He kissed me sucking every ounce of oxygen from my lungs, he tasted of strong bourbon and mellow tobacco, his lips soft their caress wanting, begging, not demanding, pleading . His hands held my face caressing, touching, playing with my hair He lifted those lush lips and spoke even deeper, so earnest, his eyes locked on mine. “And if we do burn out, I was just born when you kissed me; I will die when you leave, but in those few wonderful moments, we love, I will have lived.” He pulled me into his thick jacket holding me to him, he kissed my lips, my neck, we spent moments so close to the sun even though the moon hung high in the sky. We talked of shoes and ships, of cabbages and kings and sealing wax and why his name tasted of honey on my tongue and why does time move and keep moving; yet, love stands still; we paddled comfortably not gripping or clinging or holding on too tightly; in this field of dreams wondering never where it would all go and whether to or why fors of this world. We never asked was this…or was this not truly love… we just were. The fire crackled and the surf roared and for moments, our hearts beat in synchrony. ~Indomitably. ..whatever

[carsusan0-blog]

A Healthy Hedonist’s Guide to Mexico City

Mexico City has been top of my travel wish list for some time.

It seemingly has everything: walls of crazy colors, vibrant vegetation on (and inside) every block, dirt cheap accommodations and uber rides, a thriving contemporary art scene, and ALL THE TACOS. Needless to say, when I got invited to a wedding in Guadalajara this fall, I made stopping in Mexico City an essential leg of the trip flanking the weekend of festivities.

If you’re visiting Mexico City as a gluten-free goddess like myself, you will have an epic few days of eating your way around the city. Since the cuisine is primarily reliant on corn, there are very few risks of cross-contamination, though if you have a sensitive immune system like me, it’s a high possibility that you will return home with some sort of critter, even if you stick to the fancy restaurants. It’s the price of admission!

Tummy troubles aside, I have no regrets. The street food around the city rivals the best restaurants, and it’s hard to resist sampling some of the region’s typical dishes straight from the “specialists.” Still, we also made it a point to tick off some of the most popular upscale eateries off our list, and those too did not disappoint.

A few things to note: though the city is much safer than it used to be, it’s still best to use uber versus taxis (again, they are insanely cheap) and not walk around alone at night in certain areas. We stayed at a lovely B&B in Condesa for under $100 a night. I’d highly recommend making that neighborhood or Roma your hub. Polanco is fancier, has less of a personality and isn’t as central.

Like Los Angeles, the city is quite spread out, but if you bring walking shoes you can still cover a lot on foot—most sites are about a 30 minute walk from Roma or Condesa (or a $4 uber).

As for the food scene, like most big cities, you can find great versions of any regional dish, but I’d recommend not leaving without trying chilaquiles for breakfast, tacos al pastor (Mexico City’s most famous taco), pozole rosso, and sangrita, a tomato-based drink that’s served alongside the best sipping tequilas to cleanse your palate. I could have drank a jug of it with every meal.

Rarely will you find a flour tortilla, which means less risk that there’s an issue with tortilla chips being thrown into the same fryer, but if you’re celiac, it’s still worth inquiring about cross-contamination and mole preparations, since it’s an everything but the kitchen sink sort of dish. I’d highly recommend, if you’re worried and don’t speak much Spanish, that you check out my friend Jodi’s gluten-free travel card for Mexico City and her travel guide for Mexico.

Read on for some of the best restaurants we ate at in Mexico City, sites and activities that shouldn’t be missed, and some other helpful recommendations I got before our trip, including where to find the best gluten-free and vegan options.

With health and hedonism,

Phoebe

THE BEST UPSCALE AND TRENDY RESTAURANTS IN MEXICO CITY

Pujol (Polanco)

If you’ve sought out restaurant recs from any gringa “foodie,” Enrique Olvera’s world-renowned spot for artistic tacos was probably top of the list. He was featured on Chef’s Table a few seasons back, and like my globe-stalking of this Slovenian star, I knew that I needed to add Mexico City to my travel list just to taste his 1,000 day mole. The restaurant lived up to the hype and may just be one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten. It’s especially enticing for gluten-free folks since you’re able to eat 95 percent of the menu (save for dessert).

Reservations need to me made a month or so out for the Taco Omakase or the Tasting Menu. We did the latter, which I was kind of bummed about because the concept of 10 courses of tacos might be my dream, but it ended up blowing my mind. Chef Olvera’s food is pristine, but unfussy. Surprising, yet comforting. It’s exactly what you didn’t know you wanted to be eating.

Our favorite dishes were the octopus, softshell crab, quail egg papadzul, and all the street snacks. Also, order the tamarind margarita and thank me later.

Contramar (Roma)

This daytime seafood spot, with waiters toting giant clams and crab claws, feels like you stepped off the wrong plane and ended up in Miami. It was described to me as where the Mexi Mad Men go for their power lunches, and I was so into this idea, and the tuna tostadas included in it, that I went not once, but TWICE during my stay.

In addition to the atun, you should also try the crab tostadas, fish al pastor tacos, and if you have enough people, the whole fish with green and red salsa, which comes with a basket of warm tortillas. Everything is incredibly fresh and expertly cooked. They also served one of the best sangritas (little shot of bloody Mary-like mix that’s served alongside sipping tequila) that I tried in Mexico.

Paramo (Roma)

If you’re in Mexico City on a Sunday, make a reservation at this cozy, Mexican speak-easy, which is one of the few places on our hit list that was open that night. It’s a fun, lively crowd – a mix of locals and tourists – and between the exposed brick and twinkle lights strung along the ceiling, feels like somewhere in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The service is a little slow, but luckily the delicious cocktails will keep you entertained. It’s a great spot to take a group since you can order any of the tacos as cazuelas—larger casseroles of the filling that you can share and DIY in your own warm tortillas.

Rosetta (Roma)

I know, I know. You didn’t come all the way to Mexico City for Italian food. But if you’re looking for an escape from the parade of tacos, Rosetta has a charming ambience that’s very much of the city: a candle-lit interior that’s covered in plants, including trees that are taller than most on the exterior sidewalk. They have plenty of vegetarian options, among them a mean mushroom risotto and a delicious beet appetizer with pink mole. Make sure to make reservations in advance, or try going for lunch when it’s easier to walk in.

THE BEST CASUAL RESTAURANTS AND TAQUERIAS FOR LUNCH AND BREAKFAST

Fonda Mayora (Condesa)

We ate at this little breakfast spot in the Condesa / Hipodromo neighborhood on our last morning before leaving for the airport. They had a great chilaquiles and rancheros, along with plenty of other options. If you have a stomach of steel, you can even try the green juice!

Lardo (Condesa)

A sister restaurant to Rosetta, this chic daytime cafe strikes a great balance between Mexican influences and more familiar dishes. For breakfast, the black rice porridge with mango is delicious, as well as the poached eggs in red sauce. They also serve an assortment of teas and homemade nut milks for your coffee. The interior is beautiful and I almost attempted to steal one of the stools and bring it back in my carry on.

Los Creadores Del Taco al Pastor (Condesa)

We mostly ate our tacos on the street in Mexico City, but after missing out on the city’s most famous taco—al pastor—we decided to pop into this taqueria that pretty much serves only that…since they claim the invented it. I’m sure Eater has sussed out the best al pastor (a shawarma-style pork with slices of pineapple) in the city, and that this is not it. But we couldn’t tell! I loved every bite of these juicy little guys, especially with the salsa and pickled vegetables served on the side.

La Clandestina

This mezcal bar was a great place to stop before or after dinner if you want a chill place to have one more sip of smoky libations. It’s in Condesa, right near many of these restaurants. I loved the spicy margarita, and a friend of mine ordered an interesting one with avocado and basil!

OTHER EATERY AND BAR RECOMMENDATIONS

We didn’t make it to even a fraction of the recommendations on our list. Here are some more in the same area that we want to try next time:

San Angel Inn — In the south of the city, which is why we didn’t make it, but incredibly charming for lunch in their courtyard among MXC elite. Very romantic!

Lalo – Another great breakfast spot similar to Lardo.

Masala y Maiz – In a slightly more far flung neighborhood near Casa Barragon. We were told to go for lunch and check out the cool interior and cuisine, which is Indian meets Mexican!

Azul – A spot for healthier Mexican favorites with great veggie enchiladas.

La Buena Tierra – Another veg-centric place for vegetarian options.

Tacos Veganas – A completely vegan taco place in Condesa!

Marrakech Salon – Sweaty silly fun drag bar, Mexican queens singing in Spanish standing on top of the bar in sequin dresses…on my list for next time.

COOL STORES WE VISITED

Goodbye Folk

If you’re into vintage finds or custom shoes, you should definitely stop in this little shop that sources great hipster shirts and sweaters, and also locally-made leather shoes and boots. It’s not too far from Rosetta and Arena Mexico if you need somewhere to stop on your walk to either.

Onora

In the upscale neighborhood of Polanco, this home store is small but packs in a lot of beautiful, artisan finds. If I wasn’t going straight to dinner at Pujol, I would have walked out of there with an entire dinner set and pile of linen napkins.

Lago DF

Also in Polanco, this trendy boutique has lots of local clothing designers if you’re looking for a chic caftan. They also have some vibrantly colored tequila glasses and other home goods.

THINGS TO DO AND SEE IN MEXICO CITY

The Best Markets of Mexico City

One of the most fun things to do is eat your way around some of the various markets. San Juan is the largest, and you can find a few tours during the day or at night through Eat Mexico if you want to really cover a lot of territory. A friend of ours raved about the nighttime taco tour. Mercado Medellin near Roma is a smaller indoor market but much more of a local’s affair. It’s a great place to pick up some dried chiles to take home with you or sample al pastor tacos. Mercado Roma is a more upscale hub of food stalls from restaurants around the city – similar to Chelsea Market in New York. They have an outpost for La Otilia, a gluten-free bakery! I didn’t love their cookies, but it’s a good option if you’re craving a sweet. Mercado de Artesanias is the craft market that is overflowing with finds. Great as a weekend activity if you like to shop and want to find some incredibly affordable wares.

Casa Barragon

This is the home of the most famous architect in Mexico, and definitely worth a visit. Tours book up months in advance, but if you are willing to risk it, I’d recommend just showing up early and hoping that the people there take pity on you, as they did us! The hallmark of his designs is that you can’t tell what kind of colorful treasures reside on the interior. This was one of the highlights of our trip.

Arena Mexico / Luncha Libre

If you’re skeptical of the magic that is Mexican wrestling due to the mediocrity of the movie Nacho Libre, please keep an open mind. This was the most fun thing we did in Mexico City and I am still giggling thinking about it. You will be surrounded by locals drinking, booing, cheering, you know…telling the wrestlers to go F themselves. It’s a rip roaring good time, especially on a Sunday afternoon in between meals. The stadium is small, so you really can’t go wrong with your seat, but I would recommend facing the side of the arena where the players walk out. The Luncha Libre show is on Tuesdays and Weekends. You can buy tickets at the booth right before the show – they don’t really sell out. Just try to avoid the annoying scalpers outside, who can be quite aggressive.

National Museum of Anthropology

We were told that this was a museum not to be missed, but honestly, we were a little lukewarm on it. If you like antiquities, old pots and the like, you will have a great time. It’s vast and very well organized. The building is also very cool. We were probably too hungover to fully appreciate it. It was also a Sunday, when tickets were free, and it was a zoo.

Xochimilco

My biggest regret is not making it to the floating canals on the outskirts of the city. As we learned at the Anthropology museum, Mexico City used to resemble Venice when it was first settled, meaning most of the city was built on the bottom of a lake bed that once housed a complex system of canals and waterways. Xochimilco is what’s left from that period. It’s a fun place to ride around in colorful, very instagrammable “gondolas.”

I was only in Mexico City for a weekend and was mostly interested in eating, so there are many sites that I didn’t get too. Also keep in mind that Mexico City has a great contemporary art scene (most of which Charlie has already done a million times) and many museums worth visiting.

Have you been to Mexico City? Tell me your favorite restaurants and sites! I will add them to the reader rec section and also to my to-do list for next time I go down there.

Source: https://feedmephoebe.com/a-healthy-hedonists-guide-to-mexico-city/

[wavervelvett]

Tales of Femslash 2017

Pairing: Rose/Alisha

Day Three (one day late erp): Storybook 

It’s ten years, seven months, fourteen days since Sorey went to sleep, but hey, who’s counting? Oh right, Lailah, who’s repeated that fact at least twenty billion times already and they haven’t even had lunch yet. And Zaveid is being loud and pervy and Rose and Alisha are being all gross and lovey-dovey and Mikleo is all puffed up with hot air and honestly, Edna could have spent this day under a lot more favorable circumstances. But of course Mikleo has finally finished his grand book about all their adventures and travels with the Shepherd and well, Edna would have to be sort of heartless not to come celebrate with him.

Not to mention she’s sort of been his go-to editor and maybe offered encouragement from time to time. Maybe decided to move a little closer so they could regularly meet up for a light lunch or afternoon snack. Maybe made sure Mikleo is doing a little more than just waiting for Sorey to come back.

Edna’s done a lot of living waiting for someone to just come back. It’s not what she wants for Mikleo. Plus she still gets enjoyment out of the exact shades of pink he turns when she comes up with new nicknames. She has a few stored away for public presentation today.

Okay, so maybe it’s a little nice to have an excuse to bring them all together again. There tend to be so few nowadays. Mikleo even made all the snacks Edna asked him to.

Actually, all the snacks might be enough reason for Edna to turn her teasing to some other target. Also, Mikleo has had the unfortunate trend of responding to her insults these days with a simple ‘yeah, yeah’ which is infuriating and also definite cause to find her fun somewhere else.

Alisha is bright and smiling and still oh-so-easy. She sits on the arm of the chair half-tugged into Rose’s lap, actually laughing at Zaveid’s awful jokes. Edna sidles her way around the room like a crab with ill intent until she’s leaning against the back of the chair, standing on her toes to see over the top. Mikleo spots her as he walks around with a tray of drinks and frowns. She places a finger to her lips. He owes her. She spent a half hour this morning just trying to tame that mess he calls his hair these days.

“And then I said, ‘Well isn’t that just spectacle-ular!’” Lailah finishes her story with clasped hands, already giggling to herself. Rose groans a little and pulls Alisha even closer.

“Your sense of humor has not improved.”

“Oh…” Lailah wilts a little and takes a drink. “I thought it was clever.”

“It was clever,” Alisha assures her. “Rose is just mad I didn’t get her joke about turnips this morning. What was that even? I still don’t get it.”

“That was…” It’s Rose’s turn to go a little red now. “That’s not a public sort of joke. More a private kind.”

Her chance. Edna slides along the side of the chair and makes herself known. “Oh, so Dirty-sha is still naive and innocent after ten years?”

She knows immediately that the name fell flat, judging by the looks being leveled her way over glasses full of tea. Mikleo has set his tray down and is covering his eyes with one hand over in the corner. Oh yeah, he had also maybe mentioned toning it down while company was over, but since when does Edna have to listen to that whelp of a boy?

“Dirty-sha?” Alisha repeats.

Edna sighs and steals Rose’s half-eaten biscuit from her. “The only one I’ve had to practice on is Meebo over there, okay? You know how easy it is to make names out of Meebo? Very easy. Give me an hour or two and the true Edna will return.”

“Oh, come on, you can’t have lost your touch,” Rose argues, and tries to swipe her biscuit back. Edna steps away. “Look how gross Alisha and I are being!” She pulls Alisha off the arm of the chair completely. Alisha falls into Rose’s lap with a giggle. “This has to waken something in your old bitter seraph soul!”

Edna glares at her and pops the biscuit in her mouth. “Old? Old, did you say?”

“Ancient,” Rose replies with glee, and Edna could summon a rock to launch her and her princess through the roof but she feels like Mikleo would get annoyed at that, so instead she just glares.

“I guess you have lost your touch,” Zaveid says in a low voice over near Lailah, and Mikleo interrupts with hands waving frantically before Edna really can launch people through the roof.

“Sandwiches! I have sandwiches!”

Edna sulks against a wall and watches them all as she eats. Rose doesn’t lead itself to any good nicknames, and she’s hesitant to try again with Alisha. No matter how she tries to phrase it, Alisha’s name just does not lend itself to teasing the way Mikleo’s does. Edna plucks at the crust of her sandwich and picks it all apart to leave on the floor. Or maybe she’s losing her touch. Hundreds of years only to lose her wit over a couple of lovey-dovey humans.

She’s too busy shredding her crusts to notice Rose approaching, because Rose is nearly seraph-level stealthy. “So,” Rose says, and leans against the wall besides Edna. Everyone else is wincing along to another one of Lailah’s long puns. “Are Alisha and I that offensive or has Mikleo just toughened up over ten years?”

Edna glances up at her. Rose stands with a carefree demeanor, casual trousers and loose blouse replacing her customary Shepherd’s garb. Edna knows Rose and Lailah have been discussing the idea of Rose’s successor, not necessarily now, but for a future in which Rose wants to be able to spend more time with Alisha, free of the political implications of the Shepherd being too cozy with Hyland royalty. But the responsibility of the Shepherd looks much better on Rose now than it had ten, even five years ago. Alisha has changed as well, a proper knight now, more sure in her purpose than ever before and all excited about her triad of nieces she’s being entrusted care of. She’s gone casual today too, though her spear is still propped in the corner of the room. Between those two and Mikleo’s ridiculous hair, it’s possible to tell that ten years, seven months, and fourteen days have passed. Edna, Zaveid, and Lailah haven’t changed much at all.

And the sad thing is that those ten years had felt like nothing. That’s what tends to happen when you live for a thousand years. Ten years can pass and Edna doesn’t even really realize it and then she looks up and there’s Rose, all grown up and the next time Edna blinks, both Alisha and Rose will be gone.

“Both,” Edna answers, and Rose laughs before leaning against the wall with arms crossed.

“So now the book is done, what will you do next?”

Edna lets her crumbs fall to the floor. “He’s planning a sequel. I guess I have to stick around for that.”

“Twisted your arm, sort of thing?”

“Yeah.” Edna has always found Rose catches on fast. She glances over at Mikleo, talking with Lailah and smiling wider than she’s seen for a while. “That sort of thing.”

Rose hums and settles more comfortably against the wall, though Edna can tell her gaze is locked on Alisha. “So, sequel?”

Edna thumps the heel of one boot against the wall. “More of a human interest story, I think. About us.”

“Isn’t this book about us?”

“Slightly. It tells what we did, at least. Not who we were.” Edna scrunches her nose and looks up at Rose. “It’s a history book, detailing the journey of the Shepherd Sorey. Very...professional.”

“So no bad puns?”

“None.”

“Pervy jokes?”

“Nada.”

“Obscure animal facts?”

“Zilch.”

“Details about our personal lives?”

“Try anything about our personal lives. He wrote it like he wasn’t even there.” She thumps her boot against the wall again and watches Mikleo. “Maybe that was the only way he could write it this time though. So if he’s ready to try again, I should probably be here to help.”

Rose leans down a little, grinning like mad. “Oh, you have gone soft in your old age…”

If Edna had her umbrella, she’d jab Rose with it. Unfortunately, it’s leaning over with Alisha’s spear. “Don’t you dare say that to any of the others.”

Rose laughs a little and goes back to watching Alisha. Edna joins her in silence for a few minutes, listening to the bad puns and pervy jokes.

“Hey,” Rose says after a minute, “When is Mikleo going to try to get this thing published?”

Edna shrugs. “It’ll be a while. Most humans still can’t see seraphim. It’ll take a few generations of humans growing up with the knowledge that we exist for them to begin to see us naturally again, the way Sorey did. Maybe more of them with natural resonance will start to be able to see us the way you did, in a few more years. Heh, I hope the next book describes that little adventure in more detail. But we need humans to see us before they can publish books, I guess, so it’ll take a while.”

“Hmm,” Rose says, and slouches a bit against the wall. “So, what you’re saying is that I most definitely won’t be the Shepherd when the book gets published.”

“Probably not.” They both leave it unsaid that Rose might not even be alive.

“So as Mikleo’s editor, I need you to make sure something makes it into that second book of his, okay?” Rose continues, suddenly sounding very serious. She bends down so they’re nose to nose. “I need you to make sure the entire world knows that the Shepherd Rose was in love with Alisha Diphda. Okay? Consider it my dying wish to you, that everybody in future generations knows that the princess and the Shepherd were a done deal.”

Edna sends her a Look™. “I’m pretty sure most everyone already knows that. No matter how much you’ve tried to hide it. Why the big deal?”

Rose scowls. “You know how many marriage proposals Alisha has turned down?”

“How many?”

“Thirteen.”

“That not too—”

“In the past year.”

“Oh.”

“It was even worse when we were younger,” Rose grumps. “Back then, every single nobleman from anywhere wanted to be married to the princess who travelled with the Shepherd.”

“And how many marriage proposals did the Shepherd Rose receive?” Edna asks and Rose gives her an expression that hints at a certain deadness inside.

“What, the ex-assassin who spends half her time talking to the invisible magic people?”

“Well, obviously that has to be some people’s type, or you wouldn’t be all lovey-dovey with the Hyland princess.”

Rose opens her mouth but pauses and then straightens up.

“Is that the one thing you want the storybooks telling everyone anyway?” Edna continues. “Seems like a waste of a dying wish. Just telling everyone that you love her? That won’t change that she got proposed to thirteen times. It’ll just mean that people seventy years from now will vaguely associate your names together.”

Rose sighs and stares back towards Alisha. “But it hurts,” she whispers after a moment. “It hurts that people don’t know I love her.”

Edna sighs as well, much more out of exasperation. “You humans are so stupid with emotions. Of course it hurts. It hurts to feel something and have to hide it.” She gestures across the room. “Everyone here today is feeling sad, trying to act happy. Ten years, seven months, fourteen days. It’s already too long but we’re smiling and pretending to be okay for the sake of each other. And tonight we’ll go to sleep clutching at our chest and remembering everyone we miss. It’s why we rarely all get together. It brings back too much but it’s easier to pretend that we’re busy and just don’t have the time. It hurts to feel and know you can’t let anyone know.” She stares up at Rose. “So if I had a dying wish to ask one of the most powerful seraphim on the continent, I wouldn’t waste it on some stupid sentence in Meebo’s book.”

“What would you waste it on?”

“I’d waste in on asking for a good editor on my own book I write. All about the Shepherd Rose’s journey, with exclusive bonus content from the Shepherd Rose herself.”

Rose raises her eyebrows but her mouth purses. “I can’t write worth a damn.”

“Which is why your dying wish needs to be for this once-in-a-lifetime chance to get me as your editor. Trust me, if I can make Meebo’s rattlings about ruins sound interesting, I can make anything work.” She glances over to Mikleo once more with a flip of her hair. “Once-in-a-lifetime. Ask me for this any other time and I’ll pretend I don’t know anything about it. Can’t be giving all my spare time away, after all.” She looks back at Rose, nods once, and then steps away from the wall. She wants another sandwich.

And stops. “Also…” Edna turns back to Rose with narrowed eyes, “I never did understand why Alisha could no longer travel with the Shepherd. The war is over. Wouldn’t a book be a lot more interesting with princesses involve? The stories my brother told me always seemed to include them.” She shrugs and spins back around. “Just a thought.”

In the end, it is nine years, six months, and five days since the Shepherd Rose died before her memoirs are published by a university in Rolance. Edna sits on a sunlit wall and dangles her legs as she reads, and is happy to find that this book includes the bad puns, the pervy jokes, and the obvious fact that the Shepherd and the princess were one hundred percent, absolutely and completely grossly lovey-dovey. For historical accuracy and all that.  

[znationfanfiction]

Tension

Another installment of my Z-Nation fanfic! No stealing, please. It actually took me 2 days and a lot of work to do this, so I’d be super sad and have to hunt you down and steal your soul (kidding…maybe).

Warnings: MATURE LANGUAGE, creepy men, and a tiny little bit of sexual stuff (so awkward to write, even for a married person).

—————–

Over the course of the next couple of days, my nerves are stretched tight. Murphy, of course, is the main reason. Not to mention how everyone in the group keeps looking at me as if I’m about to lose myself and start acting like Murphy’s pet. The only exception is 10k, who isn’t on his guard, but is most definitely coping in his own way. If looks could kill, Murphy would be six feet under by now. He also seems more distant than usual from me…I am somehow magically being paired up with other people for watches and raids, now.

He probably told them to separate us. I thought he cared? What happened to the kiss we had? I couldn’t have been the only one that felt the connection…is it because he sees me as a monster now?

I have no idea what his deal is, but it is ripping my insides apart. What doesn’t help is, of course, Murphy’s part in my nerves fraying. He has kept true to his word about making me his little puppet, of course. Mostly.

We stop off the main route for some R&R, at least for the night. 10k immediately jumps out of the truck to set up a fire, and the rest of us slowly get out of the truck to help. Well, everyone else does. They still want me to relax and heal my shoulder a little more before doing anything, so I sit with Murphy on the tailgate.

The camp is set up swiftly and I hop down from the truck to grab my stuff, thinking about heading to the little stream we passed about five minutes ago to wash up. I briefly lift my nearly-empty canteen to my lips when I feel a slight…pull toward the truck.

I glance toward Murphy. “What are you staring at?” He is slightly squinting at me in concentration. I feel another tug, this time an urge to give him the canteen. My eyes narrow.

“Murphy, you ass, I can feel you in my head. You have your own water. Piss off mine, stop being so lazy, and get your own”.

The urge intensifies tenfold into a full-blown need, and my brow starts to sweat from the effort of resisting. My hand shakes and starts to move toward him, handing him my canteen. I fight for control over my body, losing more and more ground with every passing second. With one last-ditch effort at keeping my free will, I yank the water back to my face and drain the rest of the contents, upending it like a frat boy would a cheap beer.

“Eat my ass”, I grumble to him after I finish, my left eye twitching ceaselessly. I toss the container into my pack and throw it over my shoulder.

There are a few grumbles from the group and I turn to see them all staring at me, even 10k. They must have seen the little stand-off between me and Murphy.

“I’m not his puppet. Satisfied yet? Can y'all stop staring at me now?”, I crab at them, throwing my arms up in frustration.

“Well, at least we know it’s still Tally”, Vasquez huffs out.

Addy just smiles and throws an arm around my shoulders. Warren tries to cover up a small smile. 10k just looks more conflicted than I’ve ever seen him.

———————-

After about 10 minutes, it is decided that 10k will go with me to the stream. The rest of the group will take turns after we take watch for each other. He seems hesitant at first, almost unwilling to go with me, and I feel my eye starting to twitch again.

I stomp off ahead of him. I can still hear him behind me and I know that no Zs will touch him while I have anything to say about it. I have nothing to worry about but his safety, now.

I’m about half-dead, anyway. Fuck it.

I reach the edge of the stream and kick my boots off. I pull my shirt over my head and drop it to the small rocks that surround the stream’s bed and prick the bottoms of my bare feet. I hear a gasp behind me and slightly turn to see 10k’s blushing face snap away from me. His eyes are even wide from the side of his face, and there is no mistaking the awkward little smirk on his face as he purses his lips.

Unbothered by him seeing me, I slide my fatigue pants off and wade into the freezing stream. Modesty went out the window when the world ended, at least for me. I still feel heat creep up my neck in spite of the cold water at the idea of him seeing me naked. It isn’t embarrassment I feel at the idea….it’s more of a pleasure. It’s not like my body is bad or anything. I mean, my breasts aren’t exactly huge, but I still have curves in spite of constant malnutrition.

I go to work scrubbing every inch of my body clean with the cheap shampoo/conditioner/body wash combo the group found in a gas station. It isn’t exactly classy, but it works and my body nearly hums with pleasure at getting clean. The water is a shock to my system, but I grit my teeth and force myself to get over it. I take extra care with my shoulder, ensuring I get it sanitized and wash all the….Murphy saliva….out of it. It’s definitely healing more quickly than I expected. It is already scabbed up, showing both sets of teeth perfectly etched into my skin forever.

I dip my dark hair back into the water, rinsing the soap out of it, and let my body go under the clear water completely. I sit there on the bottom of the stream for a moment, enjoying the peace of the silent world under the water, and how the gentle current moves my hair around my face. Finally, I come back up, letting my curls fall around my shoulders and over my breasts, covering them.

Forget zombie blend. I’m a fucking mermaid, bitches.

The thought makes me smile. I look up to 10k’s stiff form. His shoulders are rigid and I think I can still make out a slight blush on his cheeks and the back of his neck. I wade back to him and my backpack and step out of the water.

“10k”.

He stiffens a little more before relaxing again. His head turns just barely to the side to acknowledge me.

“Before all of this…did you ever, ya know, see a girl naked?”

I know that the group always jokes about him being a virgin and all, but you never know. I was a virgin too, but I let a couple people see me naked before. I was only 15 then, but I’m 18 now, and it’s been a while, dammit.

His eyes widen and he shifts from foot to foot awkwardly. “Ah, erm, no?”

“10k, look at me. It’s okay”, I mutter. I reach my hand out and lightly grasp his shoulder, turning him to face my naked form. His eyes immediately shift to the sky, down to the ground, to the side, and pretty much anywhere I’m not. He licks his lips, which is a habit of his that shouldn’t affect me as much as it does.

I touch his hot cheek. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s just me”. His eyes finally move to me, looking me in the eyes before flashing down and taking in my form, lingering on my hips and breasts.

I slide his rifle back around his back and step toward him, bringing his body closer to mine. I take one of his hands and place it on my bare hip, letting his fingers skim my cool skin. I don’t think his face can get any redder, but it definitely does as I guide his other hand up my torso and toward my chest, letting it go as it reaches my ribs.

He hesitates, hand trembling slightly, before inching it up toward my bare chest and finally cupping my small breast in his calloused hand. My eyes flutter closed at the sensation and goosebumps erupt across my skin. I reopen my eyes and grab the back of his neck before pulling him down to my lips.

A low grunt comes from the back of his throat as my fingers lace into the hair peeking out from the bottom of his red bandana, and one hand glides to my back, exploring up and down my naked flesh, the other hand lightly squeezing my chest. We both pant in between kisses, but don’t break away. One of my hands drifts down his chest, where I can feel the quick, hard rhythm of his heart, to his belt buckle, and then slips down into the front of his pants. My fingers brush something hot and smooth and hard and he jumps lightly, bringing my small form closer to his lean body and groaning softly-

The crack of a branch alerts us both to someone’s presence, and I reach around 10k’s waist to the back of his pants, gripping the pistol lodged there. He raises his rifle and I snap around with the pistol in my hands, searching for the intruder. My heart is still pounding from the sexual tension, and now this new adrenaline has it hammering against my ribcage.

Three men step around a tree, grasping weapons of their own and grinning. They all take in my form, and their grins grow even wider. I feel slimy all of a sudden, like I need another bath, and it’s not at all how I felt when 10k was looking at me. All my internal alarms are blaring…these men don’t feel right. There’s something definitely wrong about them, twisted.

The men’s eyes widen when they see the bitemarks on my shoulder, 10k steps in front of me, shielding me with his own body.

He must have seen their looks too.

“Well, what have we here? Those look like bite marks, and you’re definitely not a Z. Your little boyfriend getting a little rough? Or are you something else?”, the man in the front of the trio drawls. He is scrawny, bony, and half his teeth are missing. The other half are rotting. I make him out as the leader.

Gross.

I move to grab my clean tee, gun still pointed at the men.

“Ah ah ah”, Scrawny nearly hollers. I start and straighten back up, leaving the shirt where it is. “Now don’t go doing that. We wanna play too”. Scrawny’s minions chuckle cruelly and my face heats up. They start to advance on us and 10k racks the bolt of his rifle, stopping them.

“Fuck you”, I spit, “go the fuck back to whatever circle of Hell you crawled out of”.

“Aw, honey, don’t be like that. Why don’t you step around and come with us. I can show you what a real man is like”.

“Okay, first off, gag”, I make a retching sound that causes the men to scowl. “I’m just fine here, thanks”.

The man barks out a laugh. “We weren’t asking, honey. There aren’t many bitches around these days, and we aren’t going to pass this opportunity up. Plus, you might be worth something with those bites.”. 10k tenses up even more than he was and a low growl comes from his gritted teeth.

The men advance again and 10k pulls the trigger, hitting the man to the right of the leader between his eyes and dropping him. Before the others could react with their own shots, I step around 10k and shoot the leader in the neck. He grabs his neck and falls to his knees, drowning in his own blood. 10k picks off the last one while I shoot the leader again, in the head this time.

Once we are sure they are all dead, 10k wraps me in his arms, which presses my face deep into his shirt. I inhale his scent–woods and leaves and something sweet. I didn’t realize before during the standoff, but I’m trembling like crazy, my knees nearly knocking together. After some of my shaking subsides, 10k tosses my clothes at me and then hurriedly bathes (after me ordering him to clean up) while I crouch stiffly by our supplies.

I’m such a monster. Another mark to add to my collection. Why couldn’t they have just left us alone?

I am watching so acutely for any signs of another intruder that I nearly take out 10k when he approaches me, fully clothed.

“Whoa, it’s just me”, he raises his hands slightly in a surrender. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and roll my eyes.

He reaches out and runs his thumb over my shirt where my shoulder marks are, his face growing sad. “I’m so sorry this happened to you, Tally. I should have protected you…”

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me? You think this is your fault?”, I gesture to my wounds. “Well, it’s not. I would die protecting you. That’s on me. That’s my decision. You would do the same, and I know it, so don’t feel guilty. I’m still alive for now, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with you distancing yourself from me”.

“Okay. I’m sorry…I just-after what happened to Cassandra…I just hate the idea of having to mercy you too”, he says. He looks away from me, and I step forward, grabbing his face in both my hands.

“I’m not Cassandra…so can I have my watch buddy back? Can we move forward and past this?”, I nod toward my bites.

“I know”, he nods, “And okay. I’ll try. I promise”. He gazes at my face for a long time before pulling me in for a light kiss. “Come on, we have to get back to the group”.

He catches me looking back toward where the bodies of the men are and grabs my hand, squeezing it.

“Its not your fault, Tally…”

“I guess. But three more humans are dead…I killed another human. When will it end?”

He grabs my arm and pulls me close to him again, and in spite of everything, I finally feel safe for the first time in years

[birdshirt1-blog]

A Healthy Hedonist’s Guide to Mexico City

Mexico City has been top of my travel wish list for some time.

It seemingly has everything: walls of crazy colors, vibrant vegetation on (and inside) every block, dirt cheap accommodations and uber rides, a thriving contemporary art scene, and ALL THE TACOS. Needless to say, when I got invited to a wedding in Guadalajara this fall, I made stopping in Mexico City an essential leg of the trip flanking the weekend of festivities.

If you’re visiting Mexico City as a gluten-free goddess like myself, you will have an epic few days of eating your way around the city. Since the cuisine is primarily reliant on corn, there are very few risks of cross-contamination, though if you have a sensitive immune system like me, it’s a high possibility that you will return home with some sort of critter, even if you stick to the fancy restaurants. It’s the price of admission!

Tummy troubles aside, I have no regrets. The street food around the city rivals the best restaurants, and it’s hard to resist sampling some of the region’s typical dishes straight from the “specialists.” Still, we also made it a point to tick off some of the most popular upscale eateries off our list, and those too did not disappoint.

A few things to note: though the city is much safer than it used to be, it’s still best to use uber versus taxis (again, they are insanely cheap) and not walk around alone at night in certain areas. We stayed at a lovely B&B in Condesa for under $100 a night. I’d highly recommend making that neighborhood or Roma your hub. Polanco is fancier, has less of a personality and isn’t as central.

Like Los Angeles, the city is quite spread out, but if you bring walking shoes you can still cover a lot on foot—most sites are about a 30 minute walk from Roma or Condesa (or a $4 uber).

As for the food scene, like most big cities, you can find great versions of any regional dish, but I’d recommend not leaving without trying chilaquiles for breakfast, tacos al pastor (Mexico City’s most famous taco), pozole rosso, and sangrita, a tomato-based drink that’s served alongside the best sipping tequilas to cleanse your palate. I could have drank a jug of it with every meal.

Rarely will you find a flour tortilla, which means less risk that there’s an issue with tortilla chips being thrown into the same fryer, but if you’re celiac, it’s still worth inquiring about cross-contamination and mole preparations, since it’s an everything but the kitchen sink sort of dish. I’d highly recommend, if you’re worried and don’t speak much Spanish, that you check out my friend Jodi’s gluten-free travel card for Mexico City and her travel guide for Mexico.

Read on for some of the best restaurants we ate at in Mexico City, sites and activities that shouldn’t be missed, and some other helpful recommendations I got before our trip, including where to find the best gluten-free and vegan options.

With health and hedonism,

Phoebe

THE BEST UPSCALE AND TRENDY RESTAURANTS IN MEXICO CITY

Pujol (Polanco)

If you’ve sought out restaurant recs from any gringa “foodie,” Enrique Olvera’s world-renowned spot for artistic tacos was probably top of the list. He was featured on Chef’s Table a few seasons back, and like my globe-stalking of this Slovenian star, I knew that I needed to add Mexico City to my travel list just to taste his 1,000 day mole. The restaurant lived up to the hype and may just be one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten. It’s especially enticing for gluten-free folks since you’re able to eat 95 percent of the menu (save for dessert).

Reservations need to me made a month or so out for the Taco Omakase or the Tasting Menu. We did the latter, which I was kind of bummed about because the concept of 10 courses of tacos might be my dream, but it ended up blowing my mind. Chef Olvera’s food is pristine, but unfussy. Surprising, yet comforting. It’s exactly what you didn’t know you wanted to be eating.

Our favorite dishes were the octopus, softshell crab, quail egg papadzul, and all the street snacks. Also, order the tamarind margarita and thank me later.

Contramar (Roma)

This daytime seafood spot, with waiters toting giant clams and crab claws, feels like you stepped off the wrong plane and ended up in Miami. It was described to me as where the Mexi Mad Men go for their power lunches, and I was so into this idea, and the tuna tostadas included in it, that I went not once, but TWICE during my stay.

In addition to the atun, you should also try the crab tostadas, fish al pastor tacos, and if you have enough people, the whole fish with green and red salsa, which comes with a basket of warm tortillas. Everything is incredibly fresh and expertly cooked. They also served one of the best sangritas (little shot of bloody Mary-like mix that’s served alongside sipping tequila) that I tried in Mexico.

Paramo (Roma)

If you’re in Mexico City on a Sunday, make a reservation at this cozy, Mexican speak-easy, which is one of the few places on our hit list that was open that night. It’s a fun, lively crowd – a mix of locals and tourists – and between the exposed brick and twinkle lights strung along the ceiling, feels like somewhere in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The service is a little slow, but luckily the delicious cocktails will keep you entertained. It’s a great spot to take a group since you can order any of the tacos as cazuelas—larger casseroles of the filling that you can share and DIY in your own warm tortillas.

Rosetta (Roma)

I know, I know. You didn’t come all the way to Mexico City for Italian food. But if you’re looking for an escape from the parade of tacos, Rosetta has a charming ambience that’s very much of the city: a candle-lit interior that’s covered in plants, including trees that are taller than most on the exterior sidewalk. They have plenty of vegetarian options, among them a mean mushroom risotto and a delicious beet appetizer with pink mole. Make sure to make reservations in advance, or try going for lunch when it’s easier to walk in.

THE BEST CASUAL RESTAURANTS AND TAQUERIAS FOR LUNCH AND BREAKFAST

Fonda Mayora (Condesa)

We ate at this little breakfast spot in the Condesa / Hipodromo neighborhood on our last morning before leaving for the airport. They had a great chilaquiles and rancheros, along with plenty of other options. If you have a stomach of steel, you can even try the green juice!

Lardo (Condesa)

A sister restaurant to Rosetta, this chic daytime cafe strikes a great balance between Mexican influences and more familiar dishes. For breakfast, the black rice porridge with mango is delicious, as well as the poached eggs in red sauce. They also serve an assortment of teas and homemade nut milks for your coffee. The interior is beautiful and I almost attempted to steal one of the stools and bring it back in my carry on.

Los Creadores Del Taco al Pastor (Condesa)

We mostly ate our tacos on the street in Mexico City, but after missing out on the city’s most famous taco—al pastor—we decided to pop into this taqueria that pretty much serves only that…since they claim the invented it. I’m sure Eater has sussed out the best al pastor (a shawarma-style pork with slices of pineapple) in the city, and that this is not it. But we couldn’t tell! I loved every bite of these juicy little guys, especially with the salsa and pickled vegetables served on the side.

La Clandestina

This mezcal bar was a great place to stop before or after dinner if you want a chill place to have one more sip of smoky libations. It’s in Condesa, right near many of these restaurants. I loved the spicy margarita, and a friend of mine ordered an interesting one with avocado and basil!

OTHER EATERY AND BAR RECOMMENDATIONS

We didn’t make it to even a fraction of the recommendations on our list. Here are some more in the same area that we want to try next time:

San Angel Inn — In the south of the city, which is why we didn’t make it, but incredibly charming for lunch in their courtyard among MXC elite. Very romantic!

Lalo – Another great breakfast spot similar to Lardo.

Masala y Maiz – In a slightly more far flung neighborhood near Casa Barragon. We were told to go for lunch and check out the cool interior and cuisine, which is Indian meets Mexican!

Azul – A spot for healthier Mexican favorites with great veggie enchiladas.

La Buena Tierra – Another veg-centric place for vegetarian options.

Tacos Veganas – A completely vegan taco place in Condesa!

Marrakech Salon – Sweaty silly fun drag bar, Mexican queens singing in Spanish standing on top of the bar in sequin dresses…on my list for next time.

COOL STORES WE VISITED

Goodbye Folk

If you’re into vintage finds or custom shoes, you should definitely stop in this little shop that sources great hipster shirts and sweaters, and also locally-made leather shoes and boots. It’s not too far from Rosetta and Arena Mexico if you need somewhere to stop on your walk to either.

Onora

In the upscale neighborhood of Polanco, this home store is small but packs in a lot of beautiful, artisan finds. If I wasn’t going straight to dinner at Pujol, I would have walked out of there with an entire dinner set and pile of linen napkins.

Lago DF

Also in Polanco, this trendy boutique has lots of local clothing designers if you’re looking for a chic caftan. They also have some vibrantly colored tequila glasses and other home goods.

THINGS TO DO AND SEE IN MEXICO CITY

The Best Markets of Mexico City

One of the most fun things to do is eat your way around some of the various markets. San Juan is the largest, and you can find a few tours during the day or at night through Eat Mexico if you want to really cover a lot of territory. A friend of ours raved about the nighttime taco tour. Mercado Medellin near Roma is a smaller indoor market but much more of a local’s affair. It’s a great place to pick up some dried chiles to take home with you or sample al pastor tacos. Mercado Roma is a more upscale hub of food stalls from restaurants around the city – similar to Chelsea Market in New York. They have an outpost for La Otilia, a gluten-free bakery! I didn’t love their cookies, but it’s a good option if you’re craving a sweet. Mercado de Artesanias is the craft market that is overflowing with finds. Great as a weekend activity if you like to shop and want to find some incredibly affordable wares.

Casa Barragon

This is the home of the most famous architect in Mexico, and definitely worth a visit. Tours book up months in advance, but if you are willing to risk it, I’d recommend just showing up early and hoping that the people there take pity on you, as they did us! The hallmark of his designs is that you can’t tell what kind of colorful treasures reside on the interior. This was one of the highlights of our trip.

Arena Mexico / Luncha Libre

If you’re skeptical of the magic that is Mexican wrestling due to the mediocrity of the movie Nacho Libre, please keep an open mind. This was the most fun thing we did in Mexico City and I am still giggling thinking about it. You will be surrounded by locals drinking, booing, cheering, you know…telling the wrestlers to go F themselves. It’s a rip roaring good time, especially on a Sunday afternoon in between meals. The stadium is small, so you really can’t go wrong with your seat, but I would recommend facing the side of the arena where the players walk out. The Luncha Libre show is on Tuesdays and Weekends. You can buy tickets at the booth right before the show – they don’t really sell out. Just try to avoid the annoying scalpers outside, who can be quite aggressive.

National Museum of Anthropology

We were told that this was a museum not to be missed, but honestly, we were a little lukewarm on it. If you like antiquities, old pots and the like, you will have a great time. It’s vast and very well organized. The building is also very cool. We were probably too hungover to fully appreciate it. It was also a Sunday, when tickets were free, and it was a zoo.

Xochimilco

My biggest regret is not making it to the floating canals on the outskirts of the city. As we learned at the Anthropology museum, Mexico City used to resemble Venice when it was first settled, meaning most of the city was built on the bottom of a lake bed that once housed a complex system of canals and waterways. Xochimilco is what’s left from that period. It’s a fun place to ride around in colorful, very instagrammable “gondolas.”

I was only in Mexico City for a weekend and was mostly interested in eating, so there are many sites that I didn’t get too. Also keep in mind that Mexico City has a great contemporary art scene (most of which Charlie has already done a million times) and many museums worth visiting.

Have you been to Mexico City? Tell me your favorite restaurants and sites! I will add them to the reader rec section and also to my to-do list for next time I go down there.

Source: https://feedmephoebe.com/a-healthy-hedonists-guide-to-mexico-city/

[3one3]

The Sequel - 815

Two More Sleeps

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s (okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

“We want pancakes,” Christina announced on behalf of herself and her son, who occupied her lap at Sunday brunch with Marco’s family, and Stefanie. He refused to sit in the highchair provided for him, or with his dad. He was only interested in sitting on Mommy. Unusually for her, she was fine with that. She didn’t force him to sit where he belonged, or even admonish him for being uncooperative. They scoured the menu together but they were always going to have pancakes. André mentioned pancakes while trying to sell them on the idea of going to brunch, and from that moment on they were set on the pancakes.

“The blueberry ones are to die for,” Zoe claimed. “They do a blueberry and cream cheese spread on top. Sooooo good.” She and Marco took Noah to the New York, New York restaurant for brunch every Sunday when the player was free. It was in a hotel, and both the eatery and the accommodations were billed as “American style”. Christina expected American diner fare. The menu was a bit more sophisticated than that, with trendier, cosmopolitan brunch offerings, and a typical buffet. No American brunch menu could be complete without pancakes though.

“Just pancakes?” André asked, skeptical. Sunday was his last day with her for a month. He didn’t totally want to share her with their friends, but he was still working on his campaign to make her feel at home in her new city and to show her that she could have a social life there outside the barn.

“And a latte, and hashbrowns, and bacon.”

“That’s more like it,” he smiled.

“If my trainer is eating fried starch and bacon, I’m eating it too,” Stefanie chimed in. She closed her menu and set it down on the table. “Buffet for me.”

“Chris, what is a Chesapeake crabcake and do I like it?” The non-injured of the two football players trying to hide from the general public at the corner table intended to embark upon the buffet as well, but was still curious about the a la carte menu.

“It’s like a blob of crab meat, breadcrumbs, and celery held together with egg, mayonnaise, and mustard, and yeah, you’d probably like it. I don’t know where they get Chesapeake Bay crabs from in Germany though,” the always-injured rider explained hesitantly. “Chesapeake Bay is in Maryland.”

“It comes in an eggs Benedict. Should I try?”

“Not if you want my mouth anywhere near yours for the rest of the day.”

“Never mind.”

“Ouch, man,” Marco cringed. “The sting of that whip.”

“He’s not whipped,” his partner argued. “He’s respectful, and smart. If someone wants kisses then he shouldn’t have seafood breath.”

“Thank you,” Christina said with a smile of satisfaction. The potential proximity of her mouth to André’s mattered that day, because Saturday was the day the affection dam finally broke. Holger came over to give her lessons on Rio and Socks, she rode all of the others, and watched him teach Stefanie and Kyle on two horses a piece too. It was a long day at the barn. André was released for international duty immediately following BVB’s win at home on Friday night, so he was off the whole day. He spent some of it watching all the jumping and flatwork outside from the pretty gazebo attached to the jump storage shed between the grass “ring” and the dirt one, with Lukas. The littlest Schü had early dinner while his Papa prepped ingredients to make pan seared filets mignon, a sheet pan of roasted vegetables, and whipped russet and sweet potato “swirl” with garlic and sea salt. Christina was grateful to gimp directly from the front door to a plate of well-cooked, hearty and clean food, which she ate every bite of. And for once that didn’t lead to feeling overfull, because the chef finally learned that her stomach was significantly smaller than his and refrained from overwhelming her plate and tempting her to eat too much just because it was there. As such, the rider suggested a relaxing soak in the Jacuzzi in the round room at the opposite end of the house, without fear of sinking in it like a stone. Neither of them had tried it out yet. It was round and built into the white marble floor, and bigger than the square one they put on their patio in London. Neither of them could figure out why the previous owners of the house put expensive marble in the “spa room” and in the foyer but nowhere else- nowhere more significant. They seemed like the two parts of the house in which the occupants would spend the least amount of time.

Regardless, the Jacuzzi was nice. The jets were just as powerful and the water temperature just as hot. The experience was just as therapeutic as soaking in the one at their old home. They opened one of the many doors to let some fresh air in, and used only the lights on the exterior of the house so that it was dark in the room but not pitch black. Even a bit of moonlight managed to find its way in via the many windows above in the two-story space with the little cone on top. The outside of the round room was indeed round, but the inside wasn’t entirely empty. A corner of the master bedroom stuck out into it, and provided a place for Zoe to install recessed lighting for nights when her clients weren’t looking for the outside-in experience. She put a pair of very plain loungers in there too, and some tropical looking greenery in different sized round, black planters. The attached bathroom included a walk in shower, and was meant to serve the gym across the hall as well as the real pool outside in the yard. It used to have its own old school all-wood sauna but Christina wanted it converted into a closet for pool towels since André had a state of the art steam room upstairs in the master bath.

More importantly than the features of the space, the company was good. Despite all the extra room compared to their previous Jacuzzi, the rider stayed close to her footballer. She was worn out and a bit mentally frazzled from the intensity of her day. With everything else going on, it had become easy to avoid fully realizing the significance of the event for which she was meant to be preparing. Getting down to business with Holger, having someone else’s eye on her, and his opinion, changed the amount of mental effort she put into her riding, and the importance she attached to every little thing. The enormity of the chance to defend her title hit her like a bus. It minimized the significance of all the other hurdles and dramas in her life. It stressed her out, but in a good way. She felt hunger that she never believed was coming, especially since Dirk was ruled out. All of that was tiring, and she sought her Happy Place™ to help wind down, relax, and let go of the day. And Christina was finally ready to look to André to help her do that. He finally earned that privilege back, and boy was he glad he did. His girl wouldn’t leave him alone for a single second in the hot, bubbly water. She wanted every bit of his attention, and there was an awful lot of smooching in his lap. Then there was smooching on the couch. Then smooching in bed, and a whole lot more than smooching.

There was nothing remarkable about sleeping together again for either of them, good or bad, and that was just fine. Regularity meant a return to normal, and confirmed that normal still existed. They wanted normal. Some tremendous emotional high would have just mixed more pressure into their relationship struggles, and confused Christina even more about how she felt, and given André false assurance. Obviously a big low would have disappointed them both equally. So being together again was good, and familiar, and enjoyable, and solidified that some careful work on both of their parts for the previous few days succeeded at least in principle in allowing them to be close and share the sort of connection that had gone missing. That connection verified that what made them want each other was still there, and still the same. For André there was also relief that he could remind his wife of their chemistry before she ran off for her mini holiday with Juan on Tuesday. He knew the Spaniard was trying to talk her into joining him in his home country over the weekend after that too, to celebrate Real Oviedo’s 90-something-year anniversary and special fan day. The matchday was going to be a big party for the club’s huge group of shareholder-supporters, of which Juan and many of his past teammates and friends were a part. He wanted Christina to go to his parents’ with him on Friday night, attend the match, and then fly direct to the US for the World Cup on Sunday morning. Her horses were leaving in the middle of the night on Friday, so he argued that there was no need for her to be home. That wasn’t really true. She had plenty of other horses to ride, and she didn’t want to leave Lukas even earlier than necessary, so it was up in the air. André wanted to do all he could to make her less likely to feel the need to go spend time with her so called new Happy Place™. The near return to the preferred Random Kiss Frequency on Sunday in the lead up to brunch was a sign for him that he was succeeding at that and that her affectionate side didn’t just come out on Saturday because she needed someone to help her de-stress, and he was keen to keep the kisses coming. Seafood breath was out.

“I’m more interested in the sausages and cheeses,” he shrugged.  

“And chocolate croissants?” Christina smiled.

“You say that like you think I’m dying to have one, when in reality you just hope that I am so that you can steal half of it but not feel guilty because you were “just having a bite”.”

She rolled her eyes in dismissal of the accusation and then asked Noah what he was having for breakfast or lunch. Zoe said her nearly three-year-old, as most do, loved the French toast with caramelized bananas and walnuts. Marco said there was so much sugar in the dish that Noah bypassed the typical sugar high and went right to a sugar overdose coma shortly after eating, leading to some chilled out Sunday afternoons on the sofa at their house. He characterized it as “all part of the plan”. Christina wished Lukas had that programming option. He never had sugar comas. He had sugar induced reigns of terror, which was why she was only going to order the blueberry pancakes for herself and just share some with him to go with his scrambled eggs and finger-friendly cold cuts. Once the specialty beverages and the non-buffet food had been ordered, and after said buffet had been picked over in turns to ensure someone was always at the table with the kids, the adults moved on to talking about Dortmund things, and things they could do as double-dates.

Unfortunately, for every “Oh, we should go to blank soon and do blank,” there was the follow up “Yeah, maybe in the future, since we’re unavailable for the next month”. And Christina didn’t really want to go do things with Zoe anyway. She was a fine person to shop and have drinks with during football tournaments, and she was unquestionably good at her job, but working together on the house just showed the rider that the decorator was not Partner In Crime material. Part of the problem was her relationship with Marco, and that type of problem was something she was really familiar with. For much of her life she had friendships with guys that were complicated with the addition of girlfriends, and usually not in a good way. It was hard for her to get along with the girlfriends of her guy friends, especially if she met the guy before the girl. Christina wanted to hang out with Marco, not Zoe. She wanted to go out with André and Marco and their friends and experience those friendships the way she did before there was a Zoe- before she was expected to socialize with the other girls while the guys did their thing, before Marco had another person to pay attention to, and before there was a girlfriend for her to worry about offending with her interactions with the guys. She was sure she’d eventually have similar problems with Mario and Stefanie. Mario was spending some time with his family in Munich while doctors tried to figure out what to do for his heath problems, and it was already decided that he was out for the season.

“Full?” André asked her as a consequence of the long sigh she let out after putting her fork down. Everyone else at the table was talking about music artists whose tours would come through Düsseldorf in the near future. The ex-Chelsea man was already finished eating. It took his wife longer to eat her meal because she had to help Lukas eat his too.

“Not really. I’m just tired,” she admitted. “Out of nowhere.” She was apologetic because they had plans for the rest of the day. Each family had a Range Rover packed with toys and balls to play with at the park, and before they got to those they were supposed to check out the indoor plants at the park’s botanical garden. The sun was out, and it wasn’t so cold. Christina and her family were supposed to finally do something besides play and rest at home, and that was what she’d been asking for when she complained about being bored and suffering from a bit of cabin fever. Maybe I’m having the sugar coma thing, she thought, suddenly feeling fatigued and drained, and not just because she had to socialize with a bunch of people.

“You had a long day yesterday,” André commented with sympathy. That response alone was a sign of major progress. As little as a week earlier, he could have been expected to frown and snap sarcastically at her for claiming to be tired when he wanted to do things with her and their friends, as if he assumed she just didn’t want to be around him and was using it as an excuse. That sympathy and understanding he displayed instead was all the rider was looking for in her quest to figure out if they even “liked” each other anymore. She liked when a boy could look at her and know from her face and know from his familiarity with her daily goings-on that she was authentically worn out and trying her best not to succumb to her body and mind’s efforts to tell her to rest. That mattered to her. She didn’t want to be with anybody who couldn’t figure that out and then respond with compassion instead of taking it as some kind of personal slight.

“It shouldn’t have felt so long though. If I’m tired today it’s because all my other days have been too lazy. Yesterday should have been the standard amount of work and effort really.” Christina wrinkled her nose and absently rubbed Lukas’ head to her left, without even looking at him. He was taking small bites from a skinny sausage. The blueberry pancakes were a big hit with him too, but he was far more interested in the slightly older little boy sitting next to him. They shared their food and their action figures.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, pretty girl. Give some credit for knowing you needed to get your trainer in for a tune-up- for getting the kick up the backside that maybe you needed. That counts.”

“I guess,” she yawned. Should I get another coffee, she considered as she eyed the player’s tea. It might help me stay awake but it would probably also make me not feel very good. Or I could just do a Lulu Schü and tip over on Big Schü and immediately fall asleep. Her heavy eyelids were more worrisome to her than her regrets about her most recent preparation routine. There was disappointment there, in herself, but not on a dramatic level. There was a litany of excuses available to explain why her standards had perhaps lapsed.

“Do you want to go home after this?”

“Nooo, you have the whole day planned and everything. I’m a big girl. I can make it. I just need another latte.”

“My plan for the whole day is to chill with you and Mausi. We can do that at home. Do you want to get in one of your cashmere blankies on the couch and watch us play until we’re tired too and have to get in your blanky?” André kind of wanted her to say yes. He kind of wanted to spend the day with just them.

“We can’t bail.” His girl lowered her voice even more and nodded toward their friends, who had been inviting them for Sunday Funday every weekend in recent memory. Their continued refusal was bordering on rude. Christina also really wanted Lukas and Noah to be pals.

They kept to the plan. Stefanie went to the barn after everyone was finished eating, and the rest went to the botanical garden. The girls and the kids enjoyed that more than the guys. The tables were turned on them after, in the park. Two professional footballers were prepared to play keep away from their Mini Me sons with a half-size ball until the kids gave up in frustration and exhaustion. It was almost cruel to watch. The little ones didn’t have a prayer of ever getting the ball off their dads, and their dads were getting so competitive with each other that Zoe had to remind Marco he was hurt and supposed to be recovering. Zoe also got bored while they played. Conversation between the girls fizzled when they exhausted all available ways to express knowing lamentation about their partners torturing the little boys. Christina couldn’t really think of anything else to talk about, or to pretend to care about, and just watching the game quietly was fine with her. The other girl took out her iPad and got into “work stuff”. That was fine with Christina too. She took her phone out to talk to the boy who was missing from her Sunday Funday.

“2 more sleeps,” she wrote to him, knowing or at least hoping that her message would inspire the same kind of butterfly wing flap that happened to her when she got one like that. Just because things were getting better with André didn’t mean she didn’t still miss Juan. She still felt the same about him. She still craved the peace she experienced with him, and the contentedness. There were less significant things to miss too, like his smile, and his laugh, and the softness of his fingertips. His ex-girlfriend longed for the whole package. Being closer with André was only a distraction from the sensation of missing someone who helped make her feel whole, not a detraction. It was possible once again to want to go home and share a blanky with the German and to also want to study the water in the distance from the comfort of the Spaniard’s beach house bed.